A/N: Decidedly not proofread, but I'm getting cut open in seven hours and after that I'll be without internetz for a horrifying 36 hours, and I figured that you'd rather have 7000 words now with a few iffy ones here and there, than no words at all. Am I right? I'll see you on the other side, kids.
Turn
by Flaignhan
She reaches the top floor without much incident. There is a tense moment when she passes a woman in blue scrubs, who nods and smiles at her, and Natasha returns the gesture and carries on, her heart thudding against the inside of her ribcage. She walks straight past Yanayev's secretary, despite her jabbering about how she needs to have an appointment and that Mr Yanayev is busy with a guest, and pushes open the door to Yanayev's office.
"What the hell d'you think you're doing?" Yanayev demands, rising from his seat.
Natasha doesn't say a word, but when she pulls her dagger from the back of her head, her hair falling around her shoulders, Yanayev's eyes widen in shock.
"You're the new one, aren't you?"
Natasha looks down at the man in the seat opposite Yanayev's. He's frozen with shock, and she assumes that he's Mr Ivchenko, from the care home.
"You're the one who sold me to this asshole?" she asks.
"There's no exchange of money," Yanayev says, but then he catches himself, halfway to admittance. "You're delusional, that's why you're here."
Natasha ignores him, still focused on Ivchenko. "Are you the person who sends all the patients with no families to this facility?"
Ivchenko doesn't deny it, and that's all the confirmation Natasha needs. She walks calmly around the table, and, while he's distracted by her dagger, she swiftly snaps his neck.
Yanayev lunges for the door, but Natasha is too fast, vaulting over the table, and landing a kick to his throat. He falls back, winded, then drops to his knees, his eyes watering, hand clutching at his throat. Natasha grips him by the hair, and despite her desire to draw this out for him, she knows that it can only be so long before someone smells gas on the lower floors. She slices her dagger across his throat, the skin splitting with ease, blood spraying all over the floorboards. Yanayev shudders for a moment, and then Natasha drops him, before moving over to the gas pipes in the corner and piercing her knife through them. Once she hears a satisfying hiss, she leaves the office, closing the door behind her, and raises an eyebrow at Yanayev's secretary, who still looks shocked and appalled that Natasha dared enter the office without having an appointment.
Natasha smiles inwardly to herself. That girl ain't seen nothing yet.
As she travels down the corridor, Natasha periodically plunges her knife into the gas pipes, then, when she reaches the staircase, descends to the floor below and repeats the exercise. She skips the ground floor, deciding that the gas from the lab will be sufficient enough to deal with the entire floor, and there's no way in hell she'll manage to do such damage without getting caught. The upper floors are mostly empty, but from the little she's seen, she is well aware that the ground floor is the busiest of the lot, with the reception constantly manned, nurses wandering around the place, and escorts hanging around, avoiding work.
She reaches the basement, and the thick, main pipes she finds are like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She sinks her dagger into them, blessing Frigga's magic for making it so easy, then , turning to the electrical cupboard, swipes her ID card in the reader. The light turns red, and Natasha holds up the eyeball, hoping that the retina scan will resolve her issues. A red message flashes up on the reader.
Access Denied.
Natasha feels sick, though that might be something to do with the speed that the gas is filling the small corridor. She swipes her ID card again in one last vain attempt, but she has no luck. The LED flashes red, taunting her. Getting desperate, she slams her shoulder against the door with all her might, but it doesn't shift, not one inch. She looks around for something with a little more heft to it, and, in the corner, by the door, spots a large, red fire extinguisher.
She goes and picks it up, gets a feel for the weight, then takes a run up.
It's not something she'd choose to do again, landing in a heap in a cupboard, but it is effective nonetheless. She takes the lid off of the fusebox and flips all the switches to the off position, but when the lights stay on, Natasha frowns, looking around the cupboard, just in case she's missed something.
Of course, a big building like this would have to have a back up generator, and this has a separate fusebox. Deciding to go the full mile, Natasha plunges her knife into it, and it emits a shower of spark, a crackle of current lighting her blade before they are blanketed in darkness.
She coughs, the gas getting to her now, and so she covers her nose and mouth with the top of her lab coat and feels her way back towards the door. She hears the thundering of footsteps and flattens herself against the wall, before a couple of men sprint past her in the dark. Natasha rushes towards the stairs, knowing she only has moments left before one of them finds a torch and the other finds the fuses flipped. The reception is pitch black, and she barges into several people on her way towards the door.
The mechanism on it is out of power and so she has to prise the glass apart with her fingertips, until there's a large enough gap for her to slip through. She escapes into the cold, can hear the pounding of boots on concrete and has to rely more on her hearing and instinct than she can on her sight. She knows the vague direction of the gates, and breaks into a run, the scent of the guards catching on the wind as she passes them. She continues for another couple of hundred yards, until, eventually, she slams into wall, the impact knocking her back as she hauls in oxygen to try and recover from her sprint and the collision. She feels her way along the wall, her fingers brushing over the cool metal and occasionally finding rounded rivets, until she finds a handle. She pulls, and the gate creaks, but she doesn't care. Everyone else is at the main building, or if they're not, they'll never find her in the darkness.
Natasha squeezes through the opening and heads for the woods, running faster than she ever has in her life. She knows it's only going to be seconds before they flip the fuses, and the spark of the lightbulbs will set everything in motion.
She knows she's reached the outskirts of the woods when she trips over a tree root, falling face first onto the hard ground, grazing the palms of her hands. She scrambles to her feet, horribly aware of the sound of her pulse, thudding in her ears, but then she is deafened. She feels the heat, sudden and intense, and then gone as soon as it arrived, and then is struck in the back of the head by something hard and hot. She keeps running, blinking the pain away, and doesn't look over her shoulder. Her path is dimly lit by an orange glow filtering through the trees and she pushes herself forward, desperate to make it past the main road before any of the emergency services arrive.
Her lungs are burning in her chest and she keeps thinking about the lab, about all those people, locked in cages, and all because they weren't well. All because they didn't have any family to vouch for them. All because they wouldn't be missed. She thinks of Isabella and Anastasia, and tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but she will miss them. She will miss them for the rest of her life.
It's past midnight when she hears the key turn in the lock. Clumsy footsteps stumble into the house and the door closes noisily. When he switches the light on in the lounge, he nearly has a heart attack, gasping and falling back against the doorframe.
"Shit!" he hisses. "What are you doing here?"
"Come in, sit down, and I'll explain as much as I can," Natasha says coolly.
Daniil follows instructions, his gaze wary as he approaches the sofa and takes a seat. He clasps his hands in his lap, and takes a good look at her, his eyes lingering on the dark purple bruise on her cheek, the finger marks and scratches around her neck, her bloodied lab coat, and her shaking, frozen hands.
"I need your help," Natasha says. "If you're willing."
"Anything," Daniil replies quietly. He pulls off his jumper and tosses it to her, the wool still warm from his own body heat, and Natasha pulls it on gratefully, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle, trying to rub some warmth back into herself.
"Thanks," she says softly.
"Irina, what's going on?" Daniil asks. "Have you…escaped?"
"My name's not Irina," Natasha replies, looking at the floor. "And I'm sorry for lying to you, but I'm gonna have to carry on lying, and I'm sorry about that, too."
Daniil looks confused, and there is a slight glaze to his eyes. Her stomach lurches as she thinks of the caged victims of earlier, but then she remembers that Daniil is a patron of the local bar, and not a science experiment, now lying in ashes. She closes her eyes and rests her head in her hands, gripping her hair. She's haunted by the image of Isabella and Anastasia, choking on gas before they were blown to smithereens.
"Who are you?" Daniil asks gently. 'If not Irina?"
Natasha swallows down the stomach acid that has risen in her throat and sighs, pressing her lips together. The less he knows, the better it is for him. She doesn't want him to get mixed up in anything nasty. He can't get a flight out like she can, he can't just assume another identity and run away. He has a life, a proper one, and she won't ruin it by putting him at risk. Well, at least not any more risk than she really has to.
"It doesn't matter. Do you have a car?"
Daniil shakes his head.
"Shit," Natasha whispers. She takes a steadying breath and rubs her face tiredly.
"I have a bike, though!" Daniil says brightly.
"That'll do," Natasha says, standing up. Daniil rises too, grabs his keys, and heads out into the pokey little kitchen. He unlocks the back door, a gust of icy wind sending a chill shuddering down Natasha's spine. She tucks her chin into the collar of Daniil's jumper, trying to find some protection from the cold, and follows him out to the rickety shed in his back yard. Daniil unloops the hook of the padlock from the latch and pulls the door open, snow piling around it as it clears a path. Daniil ducks inside, and Natasha can't see much in the dark, but moments later he returns, accompanied by a near constant squeaking noise, with a rusting, soft tyred bicycle.
"You're kidding me," Natasha says. "You are kidding me."
"What?" Daniil asks. "I said I had a bike."
"I thought you meant a motorbike!" Natasha says exasperatedly. She covers her face with her hands and takes a few deep breaths, trying to pull together a plan b. She had hoped that Daniil would have something. At the very least, she has managed to stay out of sight for a few hours, but she knows that she's going to have to venture further into the city before she can get out again. It's the last thing she wants to do, surround herself with more people. She had hoped that by getting into Daniil's house unnoticed that she was over the last hurdle, that he'd be able to get her out of the city, far enough out so that she can make the call and it not get picked up as suspicious. She's been hearing sirens wailing all evening, and the air is still smokey from the blaze, which she doesn't think has long been put out.
"How far do you need to go?" Daniil asks, taking the bike back into the shed before returning and closing the door behind him. He slips the padlock onto the latch but doesn't bother locking it. Natasha doubts anyone who stole his bike would get very far anyway. He'd probably catch them on foot before they made it to the end of the street.
"A hundred miles or so?" Natasha says. "I just need to get out of Moscow."
"Are the care home looking for you?" Daniil asks quietly, glancing down at his feet as he rubs his forearm absentmindedly. "Do you need to be in hospital?"
"No," Natasha replies. "The care home aren't looking for me. They discharged me."
"Really?" He sounds sceptical, and Natasha sighs.
"Daniil, the less you know, the better, trust me."
"Why should I? I don't even know your name, everything you've told me about yourself is a complete lie!"
Natasha drags him back inside the house and kicks the door shut, and for a moment, Daniil looks scared. At his expression, she softens, knowing how much upset she's already caused him.
"I haven't lied to you entirely," she says. "My parents did die when I was a kid."
"I'm sorry," Daniil says sheepishly. He chews on his lower lip and glances up at her, his brow creased in concern.
"And I was a ballerina…a long time ago…"
"Really?"
She nods. "Yeah…"
"And the boyfriend?" he asks tentatively. "The one in jail?"
It's Natasha's turn to become sheepish now. She takes a seat at the kitchen table and tucks her hair behind her ear.
'My…kind of boyfriend is kind of in jail."
"Did he kind of kill some people?" Daniil asks, eyebrow raised.
"No, he actually did that," Natasha says firmly, nodding her head. Daniil's eyebrows shoot up high in surprise on his forehead and he takes a step back. "Don't worry, he's not gonna come for you or anything. He's not a bad guy."
"He's a murderer," Daniil says obviously, as though this contradicts her previous statement. For most people, she supposes it would. But most people see the world in black and white. Most people see good people and bad people and no one in between, even though most people are in between, they're just far too high and mighty to realise it.
"People change."
"Murdered people don't," Daniil says coldly.
"Well no, they don't," Natasha says softly. "But - "
"You deserve better than a locked up murderer," he says in a rush. "You know that, don't you?"
Natasha sighs and fiddles with the cuff of Daniil's jumper. She's almost starting to feel warm again, thanks to its tight, thick knit. "Actually," she says, looking up at him. "I think we're a pretty good match. We're better people…together."
Daniil shakes his head, his hands resting on his hips, then looks around the kitchen. He lets out a long sigh, then turns to Natasha. "You're going to steal a car, aren't you?"
Natasha nods, and looks up at him, hoping he'll give her a head start before he calls the police. She doesn't know what she expected, really. Daniil, so decent he could give Steve a run for his money, was never going to approve of this. It's only going to be so long before he puts two and two together and realises that the explosion on the horizon can be traced back to her, and that she's running from the emergency services who are swarming the area.
"Well," Daniil says. "With all these police around, you're going to need a lookout."
Natasha blinks. "I'm sorry?"
"Well I'm hardly going to let you go on your own," Daniil says. "Not in that state." He gestures towards her face and bites his lip. After a moment, he breaks into a smile, and Natasha knows that smile. It's the exact same one she wore when, after having read, but not believed ay of the information in Thor's file, she met him for the first time, properly, on the helicarrier - one of complete disbelief with a hint of what the fuck has my life become?
"I don't want you to get in trouble," Natasha says, but she knows it's no use when Daniil waves a dismissive hand at her. He takes a deep breath, as though steeling himself for the inevitable, then disappears into the hallway. Moments later, he returns, zipping up his coat and pulling on a pair of fleecy gloves.
"Are you going to be warm enough like that? Or do you want to borrow a coat?"
"I'll steal a car with a heater," Natasha says. "But thanks."
She stands, and Daniil leads the way to the front door, opening it a little and peering outside before he allows her to slip past him and into the street. It's deserted, bar the guy in the liquor store who cuts a lonely figure, leaning on his counter and flipping through a magazine, his chin propped up on the heel of his palm.
"We need to go further into the city," Natasha says. "Better choice."
Daniil shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat and follows Natasha as she strides quickly along the pavement, head bowed against the bitterly cold wind. They walk in silence, Natasha keeping her eyes peeled for movement. As they draw further into the city, the streets become busier, revellers spilling out onto the streets from bars with late licences. The cars are soon lined up next to the pavements, with no free spots in sight, but it's not until they find a more secluded side street that Natasha picks her vehicle.
It's nothing special, which is good. If the owners make an insurance claim, they'll probably get more than the car's even worth. It's an old Ford, not ancient, but old enough to not have any serious security measures in place. Natasha glances at Daniil, and he stands close to the door, his eyes on the end of the street, and she crouches down behind him, pulling her dagger from her hair.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
"Watch the street!" Natasha hisses. She slides the blade under the edge of the door, and with a little bit of wiggling, and a fair bit of force, she pops the lock. Her heart freezes in her chest as she half expects for the car's alarm to begin wailing when she opens the door. It doesn't, and she breathes a sigh of relief, sliding quickly into the driver's seat and reaching under the steering wheel. It's been years since she's done this, which is how she knows she wouldn't stand a chance with a new car but, this old thing? Shouldn't be too difficult. After much fiddling with the wires and a few furtive glances through the frosty windscreen, the engine roars into life. Daniil circles around the car and pulls open the other door, getting into the passenger seat.
"What are you doing?" Natasha asks.
"Coming with you."
"Why?"
"So I know that you get there safe."
Natasha doesn't have time to argue, and instead she pulls away slowly, trying not to draw attention. The last thing she needs is to get caught with Daniil, for him to get wrapped up in her crimes, but she can't sit around in a stolen car and try and talk him to his senses. She's not going too far anyway, and she's going to need to borrow some money from him to make a call. Providing she gets to the other end, SHIELD can sort out the clean up and erase both of their fingerprints from the car before they abandon it on some deserted road.
They reach the highway fairly quickly, and Natasha estimates that the half tank of fuel should get them a decent distance. Kaluga seems like a decent bet, and so, after forty miles, the heater on full blast, Natasha pulls into a service station.
"Do you have any money I could borrow? I need to make a call."
Daniil pulls his wallet from his pocket and empties all of his change into Natasha's hand.
"Thanks," she says, giving him a small smile. She gets out the car, the cold air hitting her hard after the comfortable stuffiness of the car, and jogs towards the pay phone, her arms wrapped tightly around her. She drops all of the coins into the slot then picks up, dialling the number she knows by heart. It takes a few moments to connect, and then there are three short rings.
"Good afternoon, how can I help?" The voice at the other end of the phone is superficial, sweet, and could belong to any girl in any call centre in America.
"Director Fury. Now."
"Can I take your reference number please?" Her tone doesn't change, still that same forced cheer, but Natasha can tell her fingers are poised over her keyboard, ready to connect.
"Four six five."
"And your status?"
"Two."
There is a quiet bleep as she's placed on hold, and then the phone rings again, and continues ringing, all the while, her time ticking down.
"Natasha."
She has never felt so relieved in her entire life. She rests her forehead against the phone box and has to fight to keep herself from crying out with joy at the sound of a familiar voice.
"Can you send someone to get me?" she asks, tears prickling in her eyes, her voice croaky.
"Where are you?" Fury doesn't waste any time with questions about her health, nor about the success off the mission. He's probably already seen it on the news, probably swore a few times when he saw grainy footage from a Russian news station of fire fighters trying to douse out the flames.
"Headed for Kaluga. Be there in about an hour and a half."
"Good," Fury says. "Good. Keep your head down. Pull into the last service station before the city, and someone will be there."
Natasha nods, one tremulous hand held against her forehead. "Yeah," she says. "Okay."
"You all right?" Fury asks, his voice soft now.
"Been better," she admits. "Definitely been better." She lets out a sigh and tries to still the shaking in her hands. She doesn't know what's come over her. Maybe it's just the sound of Fury's voice, just that little bit of home, or maybe it's because she really has made it over the last hurdle. It feels as though New York is within touching distance, and Asgard and Loki aren't much further on from that. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip, trying to regain some control of her emotions, but it's no use. She feels fragile, volatile, and needs to swallow it all down before she gets back into the car.
"Anything you need - "
"I'll be fine," Natasha says, cutting him off before he can start being too decent. Somehow, generous offers of help always seem to make her feel worse. "Although I'm gonna wanna go to Asgard pretty soon after I get back so…make the debrief quick."
"I figured that'd be the case," Fury replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice. "There's an agent already on his way to you, he'll probably beat you there. Take care, and anything else, you just call, all right?"
"Yeah," Natasha says. "Thanks."
Before Fury can reply, there is a clatter of coins and the line goes dead. Natasha places the phone back on the receiver, then presses her hands flat against her face, taking a couple of deep breaths before she turns and heads back to the car. When she returns, Daniil is leaning forward, fiddling with the radio, searching through the static until, at last, when they're halfway down the slip road, he manages to find a station playing some generic pop.
"Okay?" he asks.
Natasha nods, and he doesn't ask any more questions. She feels like every set of streetlights she passes, every car she overtakes, and every sign they speed past is another mark checked off on her road back to Loki. At one point she's doing far more than the speed limit, the steering wheel shuddering slightly under her grip, and so she eases off. After half an hour, Daniil has fallen asleep and is snoring gently, his breath misting the glass of his window. She reaches out and turns down the radio, until the cheerful tunes start to blend in with the engine noise. After another half an hour, she's engaged autopilot, and has somehow managed to concentrate solely on the road, all thoughts of Loki pushed to the very back of her mind. She can feel herself tiring, but that only makes her increase her pressure on the accelerator, wanting to get the journey (or this leg of it at least) over and done with sooner, rather than later.
The signs for Kaluga don't come soon enough, but when she sees the large arrow pointing towards the services, she pulls off the main highway, into a darkened car park and waits. After a couple of minutes, she sees a man in a familiar style of tailored suit approach, and, upon him reaching the car, Natasha rolls down the window.
"Four six five?" he asks.
"Yeah," Natasha says.
"What's going on?"
Natasha turns to see Daniil, now awake and blinking blearily as he stifles a yawn.
"Can you get him a ride home?" she asks the agent. "This car's kinda…stolen. And also give him something for his troubles? He's been good to me."
The agent nods, then says to Daniil, "Stay in the car. Someone will be along for you soon."
"Irina - "
"Don't worry," she says. "It's perfectly safe, all right? Nothing's gonna happen. And if anybody asks, you came home tonight and went to bed, okay?"
Daniil sighs and looks down at the floor, then runs a hand through his hair. He's tired, and confused, and this, on top of everything else only makes Natasha feel worse.
"But what about you?" he says. "Where are you going?"
Natasha pauses, and a smile spreads slowly across her lips, her heart lifting just a little under the weight of everything she's been through today.
"I'm going home."
Clint's waiting for her in arrivals, and as she nears him, he opens his arms. She throws herself into them, clinging onto him tightly, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to erase everything from the past day from her mind. No matter how hard she tries, it swirls around in her brain, unrelenting.
"Hey," Clint says softly. "Come on, it's okay, you're home."
Natasha doesn't say anything, but simply holds him tighter, glad of the familiarity, the sense of security, and the touch of another human being who doesn't want to kill her.
"Nat?" he asks, uncertain. "Nat?"
She pulls away, knowing that if she doesn't now, then she never will. She takes a deep breath, then asks quietly, "Where's the car?"
"This way," Clint says, glancing her up and down uncertainly, before settling his arm around her shoulders and guiding her towards the exit. Natasha slips into the back seat of the black saloon, and Clint crosses around to the other side while she fastens her seatbelt. The world is so busy here, people everywhere, everything moving fast, colours bright and shiny. Everything feels new, and sleek, and as they pull away, Natasha tries to readjust herself to American life. It doesn't work, however. Her life from yesterday and her life today feel like they're doing battle, wrestling with each other to gain the upper hand, but neither coming out on top.
"You wanna talk about it?" Clint asks gently.
Natasha shakes her head, but Clint reaches forward and pulls down the privacy glass, so the driver has no chance of hearing their conversation.
"If you need to talk about it, talk about it. Fuck the clearance levels, I know what happened last night."
"Do the others?" Natasha asks.
"Probably, if they've watched the news. They can put two and two together and get four sometimes, you know."
Natasha doesn't smile, but instead sighs heavily, resting her head against the glass.
"Nat," Clint says, his tone more serious now. "Whatever you need, just let me know, all right? If you wanna talk about it, maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point, I'm here, okay? I'm always here."
Natasha nods and closes her eyes, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her face in them. She wants to disappear, doesn't want to talk about anything. Talking makes it real, talking means admitting the full extent of what she did, out loud, to another human being. Talking means showing the world what a monster you really are.
"Is there anything you want right now?" Clint asks, resting a comforting hand on her back.
Natasha looks up and rests her chin on her knees, her seatbelt cutting into her neck uncomfortably. "I just wanna go to Asgard."
"Nat, no, you've earned a break, you don't have to go back and babysit that - "
"I want a break in Asgard. I want to stay there for a while…I need…" she trails off, not wanting to say it, not out loud and certainly not to Clint.
"Need what?" he presses. "What, Nat? Whatever it is, we can get it for you."
"I need Loki." The words escape her before she can stop them, and she immediately regrets opening her mouth.
There's an uncomfortable silence, and she can tell Clint is trying to find an answer that isn't simply what the fuck? He opens his mouth several times before he eventually finds the right words, and when they come, they're only slightly toned down from the anticipated question.
"What are you talking about?"
"I need Loki," she says again, resting her forehead against her knees and closing her eyes. "I just do. He's…I'll feel better."
"What's he done to - "
"Nothing," Natasha says sharply, looking up and scowling at him. "He hasn't done anything to me. I've just spent the last month in various fucking asylums, and you're asking what he's done to me?"
Clint holds up his hands defensively and leans back, closer to the window. "Nat - "
"Don't," she says, hiding her face again. "Just don't. I know it's fucked up, all right? But…you don't know him like I do."
"Nat, he's a liar. A manipulator. A murderer."
"And so am I," she replies coolly. "Maybe we're both so fucked up that it makes us perfect for each other. Or a fucking train wreck in the making but I don't care, because right now, I need him."
"So are you two…together? Is that why you've been spending so much time on Asgard?"
Natasha lets her feet fall back to the floor of the car, sighing heavily and slumping back in her seat. "I don't know."
"What d'you mean you don't know?"
Natasha sighs again, and her skin feels prickly with embarrassment. She hates talking about feelings, hates showing them, and worse than that, she hates talking about how much she's grown to care for the guy who tried to kill the pair of them in the summer. Part of her wonders if Clint's considering asking the driver to turn the car around so he can send her straight back to the asylum.
"We didn't talk much before I left…" she mumbles. "We kinda left things…complicated."
Clint scrunches his nose. "You slept with him, didn't you?"
Natasha gives him a withering look, although privately, she's relieved that his response is as mild as that. "I've had a lot of time to think while I've been away…and I'm guessing he probably has too…"
"Look, Nat, I know you've spent a lot of time with him, but this is the guy who tried to take over the world, okay? Just reminding you of that one. I don't care what excuses he comes up with, how many people may or may not have been influencing his decisions, he still did what he did."
"Things snowballed," she says lamely, and Clint lets out a loud, sarcastic bark of laughter.
"You don't say?"
"I don't expect you to understand," she mutters, and Clint's feigned amusement disappears. "But he's not…he's fucked up, just how I was…just how I am."
"You're not fucked up," Clint tells her. "You're not."
"Wanna bet?"
Clint sighs and rests his hands on his knees, skewing his lips from side to side. He glances at her every so often, before returning his gaze to the cars whooshing past them on the freeway.
"Don't tell anyone. Please."
He looks at her, and for a moment, she thinks he's already planned the conversation with Fury, is probably going to head straight to his office as soon as he gets the chance, because he's worried about her, or he's concerned that Loki's been manipulating her, or that they need to talk to Thor, or ban her from going to Asgard altogether and it's for her own good.
"Of course I"m not gonna tell anyone," he says exasperatedly. "But are you sure about this? Really sure?"
"Yeah," Natasha replies. "I am."
When she lands in Asgard, tired, broken, she can't help but feel like she's home. The closer she gets to Loki, the more she finds her hands trembling intermittently, whether due to anticipation, exhaustion, or the rush of emotions she's experienced in the last day and a half, she doesn't know. What she does know is that she needs him, needs him so much that she's not even bitter about admitting that fact to herself. She just wants him to hold her close so she can bury her face in his chest, the sound of his steady heartbeat reminding her that he's there, and he's not going anywhere. She's barely regained her balance when she's wrapped in a bone crushing hug, the zip on her jacket scratching against Thor's thick, heavy chest plate.
"I'm so relieved," Thor breathes. "Heimdall has been keeping me updated. I thought at one point you might never return to us." He releases her and Natasha stumbles back a few paces, Thor reaching out to grab her.
"I'm fine," she says, forcing a smile. "I mean…I will be."
"I am certain of it," Thor says firmly. "I knew you were courageous but, Natasha…"
"Don't," she says, waving a hand to stop him in his tracks. She doesn't want to hear about what a hero she is. She's not a hero, far from it. It's why Fury couldn't send in Steve, or Tony. Heroes don't burn buildings to the ground. Heroes don't take hundreds of innocent lives. No matter how much good she does from now on, no matter how many lives she will potentially save, she will never be able to wipe out the red that is those trapped patients, who were either gassed to death or burned at the heart of the explosion. She will never be able to wipe out the blots that are Isabella and Anastasia.
The misery rises within her, like a great black beast, working its way up from the bottom of her stomach and engulfing her in darkness. She doesn't deserve to be here, doesn't deserve to come home to fine food and wine and comfort and Loki. Not after what she's done, not now that all those people, no matter how damaged, will never get to go home ever again.
If she'd stopped to think about her actions, if she'd paused, just for one moment, to not take the assignment brief quite so literally, she might have been able to save them. No one knows whether they'd have been able to come up with a countering drug, something to return them back to their old selves so they could then be transferred to proper places of care, getting help from people who actually want to make them better. No chance of that now though. Not after Natasha turned on all those gas taps and closed the door on them.
"Natasha."
She looks up at the sound of her name, and realises that there are tears prickling in her eyes. She wipes at them roughly with the back of her hand, not wanting to break, not until she's alone with Loki. He won't judge her for it, she knows, and if she's going to lose her normally vice-like grip on her emotions, she'd much rather do it in the comfort of his arms.
"Your friends were unconscious by the time the explosion happened. They did not suffer." Heimdall fixes her with a knowing stare which seems to pierce her very soul. His gentle voice is soothing, even if his words, although well-intended, do not make the situation any better at all.
"Thanks," she says softly.
Thor places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes gently. The gesture, although simple, somehow grounds her to the fact that she's back, she's right where she longed to be for all those weeks, and Loki is just a walk along the rainbow bridge away. She scratches at her scars absentmindedly, and Thor frowns, looking as though he's about to say something, but then thinks better of it.
"What?"
Thor shakes his head, and when Natasha stops scratching, his frown lessens, his shoulders relaxing slightly.
"Does he know? About all of this?"
Thor shakes his head. "I told him you were alive when I last saw him, but that was - " He falters and takes a deep breath. Natasha's heart grows cold in her chest, and she feels a tremor in her legs.
"Tell me," she breathes. "Tell me."
Thor looks away from her, his eyes overbright, jaw set as he breathes in heavily through his nose, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
Natasha looks at Heimdall, who is concentrating on the floor, leaning against the hilt of his sword. She turns back to Thor, who either isn't planning on telling her what's wrong, or simply can't find the words. "Thor."
"Loki's back in the dungeons," he says quickly.
Natasha takes a moment to process the words, but when they sink in, she feels as though the floor has been ripped from beneath her feet. She shakes her head, bringing a shaking hand up to cover her mouth. Thor steps forward, but Natasha backs away from him, refusing to believe him. Loki can't be back in his cell, he can't be. Not when she needs him so much. He wouldn't do this to her, she knows he wouldn't.
"Natasha - "
"No."
"Natasha, he killed a girl." Thor's voice cracks on the last three words, and tears begin to spill down Natasha's cheeks, hot and unwelcome.
"No."
"He did. I wish it weren't true but - "
"He wouldn't - he can't have."
"Natasha, they found her in his room," Thor says heavily, a single tear trickling down his face. "We…we don't really know what happened. We think he must have lost his mind, we think…"
"You think what?" Natasha demands harshly. "What do you think?"
"We think his time without you affected his mind. We think…"
"You think he went crazy just because I was gone for a couple of weeks? You think he went on a murderous rampage because I wasn't here keeping an eye on him?" She refuses to believe it, any of it, and she will not have it that Loki is crazy. In New York, she would have agreed, but not now, not after everything. Not after that last night that they spent together.
"The girl had red hair, Natasha!" Thor yells over her. "Just like yours."
"So? Tonnes of people have red hair! What's that got to do with me?"
"Natasha," Thor says softly, completely broken now. "She had long red hair. Until he cut it."
Natasha stops, her breath hitching in her throat. "He cut it?"
Thor nods, blinking rapidly, then takes a step forward. "To about…this length." He marks a spot just below her shoulder, right where her own hair ends. "When I arrived, I thought it was you…"
Natasha closes her eyes, pressing the heels of her palms into her eye sockets as she tries and makes sense of the world. This is all far too much to handle, especially after her assignment. All she'd wanted was to come home to him, that's all she'd asked for. But of course, she was right. She doesn't deserve to be happy, and the world is seeing to it that she never will be.