It would've been impossible for Loki to have gone without hearing the raucous that went on above, the whole ceiling having shook with the fight and destruction Loki could only assume had wrecked the fine halls of Asgard, though he truthfully had little care for it. Good, let Odin and Thor suffer, he only wished he could bring their golden palace to down around them himself. Let them experience fear and worry as Loki had when he'd fallen from Asgard, with nothing to protect them from the harsh realities around.

Let them all suffer, all except-.

He paused where he was reading, eyes having skimmed over the same sentence three times in a row before he blinked very quickly. He was used to being watched, the guards near him more often than not staring to ensure that he wasn't making problems. But this? This was intentional. Familiar, but impossible. He looked up from his book and smirked, green eyes bright and feeling more alive and more interested than he had in quite some time, excitement thrumming in his veins. 'Oh.'

"Agent Romanov," he stood quickly, moving his book to the side. How curious that he was there, dressed in a deep purple and black gown that fitted her well. Better than that, he hated to say, but at least it was true. Had Thor intended to mock him through bringing the one person, a Midgardian nonetheless, who beat him to Asgard to see him like this? Well fine then, he could play. "How's Barton? Does he miss me and beg you to bring me back?"

Oh he loved the way she tensed up whenever he brought the name of her partner up, loved how her face blanked and her eyes went sharp as the dagger he'd very much love to use to slit her clothing, or her throat. Perhaps in that order.

"I didn't come here to mince words you with you, Loki," she said, and he loved the way her plump lips formed his name. Would love them even more as they wrapped around his cock when he forced her to her knees. He felt his heart stutter for the briefest of seconds. Where the hell had that come from? Certainly he found her attractive, alluring, but he'd assumed it was because of how he'd seen inside of Barton's mind, how they'd shared consciousness for the briefest of times. He'd been forced to see her, vulnerable, terrifying, wild, just as Barton had when he'd first given her the chance to redeem herself, and from there had only ever seen her grow. He'd watched her strip for Barton after a long mission, the two tending to one another's wounds before falling into bed together, the act nothing more than getting a base need out of their system, just as he and Amora had done as youths. Seen her take a bullet for the archer before embedding three more in the attacker's head, then pressing on. Watched as she seduced men, women, whoever was in her way, and all the while the archer watched on with respect and an affection stronger than that of a sibling, one bathed in blood rather than forged in it, as he kept her and her target in his sight at all time.

It was impossible not to find her somewhat desirable and interesting after that, after hearing about her past and her hopes for the future as Barton rattled them all off, from their previous missions to what the ones in the Red Room had done to her as a child, secrets she'd spilled for Barton alone, and now Loki.

He found he rather liked knowing all of her secrets, and would've liked to make a few more with her. "Have you come to gloat, then, to see the great shame I have brought those who call themselves my family-?"

"I come with news," she murmured, stepping closer. Unafraid. Even as his face twisted, contorted with rage at the thought that Thor had sent her of all people to parley with him, she didn't back down. When he brought his fist to the wall, just as he had when there was glass in between them what felt like centuries ago, she stared at him right in the eyes.

Pity. It all but bled from them.

"What do you want?" He demanded.

"Your mother was killed in the attack from the Dark Elves," she said.

Loki's world halted, his face remaining stoic as his hand dropped to his side. What? Impossible. Surely this stupid, idiotic mortal couldn't be right. Not about Frigga.

No.

"I'm so, so sorry Loki. I know how much you meant to her and she . . . she asked me to look after you. To make sure you're alright." Natasha said, and this time it was she who raised her hand to the wall, spread her fingers across it even as the magic caressed her fingertips. There was something different about, stronger, more vibrant, but he couldn't focus on it. Frigga was dead. Dead. And his last words to her-. His last sentiment-.

He pulled away from the woman with a deep smirk that reached his eyes that poured malice as though it were wine. At his sides his hands balled into fists. "So she sends the whore to bring me comfort? Tell me, Natasha," he said, feeling out her name as though it belonged to him. It might as well have. "Will you lay yourself down at my feet and offer yourself to me, all the while telling yourself that you are simply working for the greater good? Simply following orders again? Or are you so used to debasing yourself that fucking a god is but a step up from your usual prey?" He demanded, cutting into her and watching her minute wince at his foul language. But it only made him more angry. The last time she'd looked horrified, terrified at what he's said it had been an act. Was this, too, nothing more than a deception? He bit back a snarl as he glowered at her.

"Leave me alone."

Her blue eyes caught his, and for half a second he saw her sorrow, raw as though it had been cut straight out of her heart and presented to him. It floored him, that she was showing genuine emotion, yet she dipped her head and gathered her skirts around her to step slowly out of the room. No gloating, no games. Just Loki, alone in his cell, without a mother or a companion to look forward to.

"Then am I not your mother?"

"You're not."

He turned his back to the hallway separating the prisoners cages and the furniture of his room flew backwards and hit the walls, activating the magic so that it sparked and flickered around him. It mattered little, and his jaw set into a hard grimace as he screamed, and screamed, and screamed, the noise echoing through the dungeon so that he hoped Natasha, wherever she might be staying, would hear it. Anguish, grief, regret. It came flooding out of him, a burst dam after a torrential rain, and consumed him, the pieces of furniture shattering around him as they collided with the walls, one another, even with Loki from time to time, but he was too distracted by the ache in his heart to feel anything else. How could he hope to feel ever again when the only one who ever loved him was gone?

The realization hit him in the gut and sent him to his knees, or perhaps that was the chair that had collided with him, though it was grief that made him tremble as he pushed his back against the wall, pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his head in it. He was a wreck, bleeding from having stepped on part of the destroyed furniture as his magic continued to destroy, consuming his anger and despair and leaving him empty, so empty that not even his shouts and pleas and demands to change what he'd said could ever fill him up.

He doubted he'd ever be whole again.

He didn't once move from that spot. As time went on, an illusion went up that he was still sitting on his bed, reading, as though nothing had happened, as if the one sun in his life hadn't been blotted out.

As if Malekith, the dark elf who'd done this according to the chatter of the guards, hadn't taken the one good thing in his life away from him.

A/N: Forever crying, because no matter how well I could write this scene it would never compare to how amazing Hiddles would be at acting it out.

Thanks for reading either way! As for all the hubbub about Jane and Thor-it'll all get explained, I promise.