NOTE - I have already written a few 'first time' pieces for this pairing, and the idea of what would go through Natasha's mind the next day scratched at me like Loki's nails until I had to write this piece.
As she got out of the shower and toweled off in front of the mirror, Natasha discovered the scratches ran down her back. There were bite-shaped bruises on her thighs and another under her left breast. She was also slightly sore, making skirts a better clothing option for a few days.
It all meant she couldn't deny what she had done the night before. There was no way to clean up the incident, send in the SHIELD team to sweep the bodies under the rug and rewrite history. No, there were only two people involved, and one wasn't even human.
As she got dressed, while she made tea and drank it, as she sat and read her email, the one question kept coming back to plague her: why, exactly, had she tumbled into bed with Loki?
Alcohol had been involved, but not enough to make it a drunken, sloppy mistake. They had bumped into each other in the elevator, she asked about the bottle in his hand, and he invited her to come and try it. Three hours later, they were in his bed, making each other scream in several different languages.
The stuff he offered her was strong, but not as strong as the vodka in her freezer. "It was a gift," he told her. "But I do not choose to drink alone."
Natasha discarded the whiskey as an excuse. Was it all his fault? Had he tricked her somehow, used magic to make her forget whom she was drinking with and get her catsuit onto his carpet?
Possibly, but she didn't think so. Their conversation had started as a series of jibes and thinly-veiled insults. He called her 'devoid of emotions.' She called him 'a spoiled brat', hardly a tension-filled flirtation. That exchange led to confessions, first offered as bitter fuel for the argument and finally as consolation. During the exchange she found they were more alike than she thought, both with an engineered past and the willingness to assassinate on the spot if the job demanded it.
It was just that they had such very different jobs.
Natasha finished her tea, shut her laptop, and put the cup in the sink. There was a full-day briefing to attend, and she was pretty certain that Loki would find a way to be there as well. Would he ignore her completely? Or sidle up to her, emit a long series of innuendoes and suggestions? She really hoped not. It would make an already long afternoon impossible.
Loki did neither of those things. As the lights went down and the PowerPoint presentation began, she relaxed and starting to transcribe notes into her phone for review later. It was only when she held up her phone camera to screen-cap an important slide that she realized he had materialized in the seat next to hers at some point.
Instantly a sensation like an electric shock went through her stomach. Natasha kept her head turned away, thoroughly disgusted with herself. What was that, Romanov? Fangirl much?
Even though she didn't look at him, Loki's presence was disturbing. Out of the corner of her vision she saw his lick his lips; other than that he didn't move.
Maybe that was the reason she allowed him to have her the night before. His tongue was always on view – when he laughed at something she said, during an argument when his words became impassioned, or when he was deep in thought. And then there were his hands – long and sensitive – fingers splayed on the table or on her hips. That memory made her breath hitch, and she shifted to cover the tiny sound.
It was too late, of course. Loki already heard it.
Their eyes met, and Natasha's stomach flipped again as she saw the spark in his expression. It wasn't sensual at all: not a glow of 'Aha, agent, now you are mine,' or 'I would have you in bed again this minute.'
No. Loki's changing, expressive face revealed an almost patient expectancy, as though he merely waited for her ultimate rejection. As though he already knew she would tell him once was more than enough and it would never happen again.
That pissed her off. She refused to be so predictable, like a good girl gone wrong who had made a bad mistake and meant to move on with her life. What was she, a prom queen from the 1950's?
In the darkened room, Natasha stretched out one arm until her hand touched Loki's. Deliberately she looped her little finger through his before withdrawing. The kick of flirting undercover with a thorough villain made her skin prickle with desire.
And there it was – the answer to her own question. The thrum as her heartbeat revved up underlined everything she did between his sheets the night before. Loki was thoroughly unpredictable, and her divide between fear and lust when they lay pressed together was almost nonexistent. He could have killed her or kissed her at any second while she rode him, and she never knew which would happen next.
Loki didn't move for a long time after she withdrew her touch. Natasha took more notes, asked a pointed question that made the lecturer (a tech wizard from MIT) stumble on his response, formulated a way to modify his process to her specialized needs. The guy's answer started an extended series of comments from the other agents in the room, and she wished she had sent her query privately so the briefing could end and she could return to her apartment.
As the conversation around the assassin and trickster heated up, a tiny square of paper was pushed under her elbow. One spiky character was written on it: ?
Natasha considered. On one hand, she had a new garter belt and seamed stockings in her drawer she wanted to test-drive. His face when he saw her in the slinky lingerie would probably bring them both straight to the edge; alcohol might not even be needed. However, two evenings in a row would propel them out of the Probable Mistake category into Something Developing Into Something Else.
She turned the scrap over, wrote her one-word RSVP, and tucked it into Loki's fist.
His bright smile cut through the dark when he read it, like a razor to the neck.