XXI. Our Darkest Hour
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
~ John 15:13
With the portal closed and the last remaining Chitauri defeated, Steve slumps against a toppled vehicle, wiping the sweat from his brow. "What's the situation with Loki? 'S he got it under control?"
Thor nods. "My brother requested to finish Thanos alone."
Natasha's body understands before her head does; her stomach lurches with undefinable dread.
Steve gives voice to her concern. "And you let him?"
Thor gives him a confused look. "Why would I do otherwise? This is his battle to fight. He deserves the honor of conquering the fiend who stole so much from him."
Natasha gasps in fright, instantly covering her mouth to smother the childlike sound. It all makes horrifying sense now. Loki hadn't proposed because he was worried for her safety; he was smart enough to know that the Chitauri would pose no real difficulty.
Loki had said goodbye. He was still set on sacrificing himself.
Her heart aches in her ribcage, and hot tears sting her eyes. "That stupid bastard!" She kicks a dent into the door of another destroyed car.
Steve looks over at her, understanding the reason for her outburst, while everyone else seems confused.
"I do not understand," Thor says. "Why does Loki's victory cause you such distress?"
"How could you leave him alone?" she accuses. She doesn't realize her hands are trembling until her fingers tangle in her hair. Her entire world seems to be shaking as her heart pounds erratically in her chest. She tries to breathe, but it feels as if her lungs are punctured.
Clint is the one to catch her as she falls backwards. He lets her sit, her arms wrapped around her middle as he rubs soothing circles over her back. Natasha struggles to calm herself down, but it's impossible to breathe when her mind reiterates the reason she's panicking in the first place: Loki is dying. Loki could already be dead, and she can't even stand up to save him.
"I think ol' Goth Boy can take care of himself," Tony says, trying to be helpful. He isn't.
Steve shoots him a glare before looking at Natasha with gentle eyes. "Do you want us to go find him?"
She finds that she can shake her head in reply. "It-it has to be me. He won't listen to you." Slowly, she relaxes, her chest expanding with deep, calm breaths. Her heartbeat slows to a healthy gallop. The ability to think clearly resurfaces, and Natasha stands up without Clint's help. "I'm going after him."
Loki surveys the empty battlefield, save for Mjolnir on the ground. Before he can move his hand to wrap around the hilt, a searing jolt of pain hits him like an electric shock. He grips the hammer for balance and finds that it tilts beneath his grasp. No more is Mjolnir immoveable stone for Loki.
He smiles weakly. Worthy at last.
Natasha's voice breaks him from his reverie, and his smile widens. This must be Valhalla, but why is the pain still reverberating through his body? Loki struggles to stand, to look unaffected when he greets the angel. His hands are pressed against his wound lest his insides spill out.
Natasha rushes to him, concern in her eyes when she notices the red ribbons seeping between the cracks of his fingers. "Oh no, you're bleeding..."
He staggers toward her. "It's not serious, just a-" His words are cut off with a gurgle, and then he coughs out a thick splotch of blood. Crimson streams spill from his mouth. His head feels dizzy and heavy. "Oh dear..." He slumps, his body limp as he falls against her. Natasha catches him in her arms, and they kneel on the ground as her hand shoots out to put pressure on his wound.
"Loki, no, look at me. You're gonna be okay." She begs him, panic in her voice. "We're gonna fix you up. You'll be fine." His eyes close. "Just-just-Look at me, look at me! Don't close your eyes, okay? C'mon, just stay awake for me, Loki, please."
The taste of blood burns on his tongue. A small geyser spurts through his fingers. Pain slashes through him, and he struggles to concentrate on the angel's voice while the dark water pulls him down.
"We're gonna fix you up, and you'll be good as new, and then we can get married, right?" Through the cottony haze, he sees his favorite sight in all the Nine Realms: her smile. The heavy water drags him under. Loki slumps against her shoulder.
Spurting.
Throbbing.
Searing pain.
Agony.
Red.
Cold.
"Loki? Loki? Oh no. No, no, no, no. Come on, come on, please."
Warm arms wrap around him.
Sob.
Hot.
Peace.
Whole.
Angel.
Black...
#
When Natasha arrives back at Stark Tower with Clint, Thor, and Steve, she follows the blood trail into one of Tony's many workshops. This one has a makeshift operating table, and Tony and Bruce work frantically over Loki, their hands and clothes smeared with blood. Tony's still wearing the Mark VII with the helmet piece down. Loki's skin is even more ghostly white beneath the bright lights, and there's a deep reddish-purple discoloration near the gash in his side. She can see the faint heaving of his chest. He's still alive.
"It's internal!" Bruce shouts to Tony. "You have to find the bleed!" Loki's body arches off of the table as he chokes out another gush of blood. Bruce cuts holes into a catheter and pierces Loki's chest with a scalpel, sliding one end of the tube into the incision. Crimson flows through the tubing, splattering onto the floor while Bruce sutures the tube to the skin to hold it in place.
"What am I looking for, Bruce?" Tony asks. "C'mon, you're the doctor."
"Find what's bleeding."
"Uh, that doesn't help!" He shines a light into the wound. "Okay, wait, I think I see it."
"Can you seal it shut?"
Tony's eyes go wide. "Oh, c'mon, you've gotta be kidding! Without anesthesia-"
"There's no time!" His hands work over Loki's chest, keeping the dull thuds of his heart beating. "Do it now!"
Tony takes a small instrument and slides it into the wound. Loki shrieks in agony when the hot probe sears the leaking blood vessels shut, and his body thrashes against the sharp pain.
Natasha doesn't realize Clint's holding her up until she loses her footing from pushing forward, trying to run to Loki. The smell of blood-Loki's blood-burns the back of her throat.
"It's not stopping," Tony says, panic in his voice. "And it's coming too fast!"
"Using the Gauntlet must have ruptured something." Bruce sort of shoves Tony out of the way. "Keep him breathing," he says, his gloved hands searching for the bleed. Loki's heart thumps once more, then falls silent.
Tony presses on his chest and forces air into his lungs while Bruce tries to find the rupture. But there's just too much blood coming too quickly. Natasha can't see, her eyes wet and blurry, but she knows it's too late. She doesn't want these awful memories in her head-the screaming, the bleeding, watching the man she loves die a slow, painful death. It doesn't feel real.
She blinks away the clouds and sees Tony working over him, trying to breathe life back into Loki's broken body. But his dead heart does not beat again.
Inexorable fear grips her. Nausea curls in her stomach, and her mind can't process anything beyond the limp body of the focus of her world. A new life, an entire future she'd chosen. Gone.
Bruce walks out of the room, slowly and sadly, and Natasha's world drops out from beneath her. "I'm sorry. We tried all we could, but he bled out too quickly." Something reaches into her chest and squeezes her heart.
Numb.
Cold.
Just like him.
She slides to the floor, barely registering Clint's warm embrace around her shoulders as she tries to breathe, but it rusts in her lungs. She chokes on a sob. Her breath comes in ragged, shallow gasps. Each gulp of air draws in the scent of his blood.
"It's okay, Nat, it's okay," Clint murmurs in her ear, and she wants to scream that, no, it isn't okay until she realizes what he means.
Glass-shattering pain rises up in her chest. A sob leaves her throat in a choked whimper.
This is the first time they've seen the Black Widow cry.
#
"Nat, I'm taking you to your room now."
"Okay."
Miss Romanoff, do you have any concept of how lovely you are?
Anyone with eyes could speak of your beauty, but you have blessed me with knowledge of your soul, which is far more beautiful.
#
Bathroom.
Shower.
Sponge.
Scrub.
Rinse.
#
"Dinner's ready, if you're hungry."
As your girlfriend, I'm telling you to come to dinner.
"No thank you."
#
Muffled voices.
Murmurs.
"...will not allow you to discard my brother's body..."
"...take him back to Asgard?"
Tell me about Asgard.
Well, it's quite beautiful. I'm sure you'd enjoy it. Some call it the Golden Realm.
We could marry here or in Asgard. The choice is yours.
"There may be a way to bring back what was lost."
"Then do it! Nat's wasting away in there!"
"I know not what to bargain with that would be of equal value with a life."
"You're the fucking king! Can't you..."
Odin lied to me my entire life and taunted me with the false promise of the throne, knowing full well it would only be Thor who succeeded him.
Loki...
#
Knock.
Door.
Open.
"Lady Natasha, I cannot express how sorry I am that my mistakes led to your loss."
"The date."
"Pardon?"
"The day you asked me to spy on Jane, when Loki and I had our first date...you said you owed me a favor."
"That I did."
"If there's anything you can do that might bring him back..."
"Aye, I shall endeavor to return my brother to us all."
Door.
Shut.
#
Phone.
Buzz.
Message.
Is it...?
No.
Miss Romanoff, would you do me the extraordinary honor of marrying me?
Yes.
#
That night, when the haze prohibits her sleep, and the blanket of stars is heavy and thick in the sky, Natasha takes a walk to Loki's room. The familiar, vanilla-cinnamon scent of him lingers inside, and it makes her gag as if it's putrid and vile. She shuts the door behind her, punishing herself with his aroma, and stands there for a minute or two, breathing in his memory. Nausea grips her tightly and doesn't let go. It's maddening how the scent of him brings back once-pleasant memories that now slice through her with a jagged edge, how a mere aroma can twist her throat into knots.
She stumbles over to the closet and opens the door. The smell burns in her nose like fire, racing down her throat and into her lungs. She holds her breath, sifting through his shirts and sweaters, each piece of clothing an inescapable memory. Her shaky hands reach out for the black leather jacket he'd been so fond of. It too is drenched in his scent, and agony rips through her when she draws breath again.
This is torture, she knows. She shouldn't be doing this, but he is gone and she misses him, and this is all the heaven she's allowed now.
She slips the jacket on, arm by arm, and the smell of him blooms in a sweet, deadly cloud around her. But the bed is what sends her world crashing down, because on the sheets is the scent of him and her entangled, the smell of early-morning memories and late-night rendezvous. She cries weakly into the blankets, knowing that he'll never flash that crooked smile again or bless her with his laughter. She will not wake up to find him lying in bed beside her, his hair mussed and messy. He will not be there to eat her cooking or pretend he doesn't hear her singing. He will not be there to say "I do" or see their children smile.
Instead, he lies lifeless on a cold metal table in a dark laboratory.
Natasha stands on shaky legs and leaves the room, sealing off its undefiled state. She finds Loki in the place where life left him, his motionless body covered with a white sheet. She refuses to lift the sheet, to remember him lifeless and ashen. She swallows something hard and painful in her throat and sits in an empty chair beside the table.
She wonders what to say, if her words might somehow reach him, wherever he is. She feels a pang of guilt when she thinks that Loki probably lived his entire life without hearing the words "I love you" from the people he needed it from the most. Especially her. Natasha never thought that she needed to say it; she felt it was the subtext of every word out of her mouth, every time she gave him a piece of herself that no one else had. But now she's sorry she never said it, sorry that she let him die before he knew how much he means to her.
Her voice is low, raw with pain, when she finally speaks. "You always said you were a monster. I know that's not true. You were the man who gave his life protecting his family, protecting the world. You're a hero. It's a shame you never saw that."
She sits at his side for some time, grasping for more words but finding none. No eloquent speeches will deliver him to her. No heartfelt sentiment can reanimate a corpse. She whispers "I love you" to his ghost before she leaves the room, the hole in her chest aching and throbbing.
Natasha roams the tower, finding the piano. She wonders if she still remembers the song she'd played for him what seems like eons ago. She finds that she does. She isn't sure if the melody is helpful or harmful right now. Perhaps a mix of both.
When she returns to her room in an attempt to sleep, the ache in her chest swells and crescendos. Unbearable memories of Loki lifeless and broken beneath her hands. Hearing him scream in agony. The scent of his blood seeping between her fingers. Watching his spirit slip away. Being powerless to stop it.
Natasha stays enclosed in the blankets and does not sleep.