5 Imagination
Lithium, as well as its isotopes, was one of the three elements synthesized in the Big Bang.
Dinner was a square of gray meat, rubbery potatoes, and a pile of green mush. There was a small carton of apple juice with the food on the tray; Natasha filched the box and hid it in her waistband. She could wash her hair with it in the morning and save her orange.
Meals had actually been worse in various jails where she had gone undercover. The Black Widow chewed her way through the meat, forcing her mind onto pleasant memories to ignore the taste: Clint's smile. The time Steve took her to dinner and taught her how to swingdance at a club afterwards. Pepper's look of admiration at the impeccable job Natalie Rushman did for Stark Industries. Her newest gun, a Glock G19 adapted by Tony to hold more than 15 rounds as well as several drop-in options for her specialized needs. A solitary walk in the snow during a mission in Manchester when she discovered lily-of-the-valley blossoms beside a heated fountain.
Loki returned to the common room by the time she swallowed the last of the meal. The trays were served on folding tables; Rebecca fussed over him and gave him a plate heaped with very different fare from those served to the rest of the patients. Natasha could just see the mound of a white roll and steaming mashed potatoes glazed with butter.
She watched under her eyelashes as the nurse whispered something to him – an apology, perhaps. Then she produced the needle, tested it, and plunged it into his arm; Loki never moved as he received the injection.
Natasha swore under her breath. The last thing she needed was him to have a bad reaction to the lithium as well as all the other shit she had to clean up. Luckily, Loki's current affair would lower the number of doses he was given – or so she hoped.
Rebecca wandered around the room, wielding her hypodermics like weapons. When she reached Natasha's side, the nurse knelt, produced a new needle, and pushed the lithium into the agent's vein. Withdrawing the needle, she whispered, "Leave him alone."
Natasha made her eyes go round, blank, filled with innocence. "I'm sorry?"
"The man over there. Loco. Leave him alone, or you'll get double dosed." Rebecca waved the hypo as punctuation.
"Loco? That's his name?" Natasha smothered a hoot of disbelief. She wanted to warn the nurse whom she was dealing with and advise her to read his file. Most of all she wanted to ask Rebecca if she ever signed a code of ethics since the woman was breaking a few dozen rules, at least.
The nurse stared back at her with wide, brown eyes. There was a moment of uncertain hesitation before she dug in the pocket of her uniform, pulled out another dose, and removed the cap. "You asked for it. Enjoy."
Before she could protest that she hadn't said a word, Natasha felt the cold liquid hit her system. The injection was followed by an almost imperceptible shift in her heart rate, breathing pattern, and what she dreaded most – the fuzzy feeling at the base of her skull.
Normal lithium worked by inhibiting manic surges of dopamine; she knew that. As the interruption cleared and her own bio-engineering took over, Natasha watched Rebecca walk away with a look of triumph. She saw Maria shudder as she was given her evening shot. And she saw Loki's eyes on hers as he mouthed something to her, but what it was she couldn't tell.
Sleep came quickly that night followed by lurid dreams of her past set in a younger century, a different millennium. Natasha wore an old-fashioned dress and a tiny hat perched on her curls; she could feel the slight bite of suspenders on her legs holding up seamed stockings as she walked arm-in-arm with a tall, dark man. He had on a gray suit and a fedora with a wide hatband.
"World's Fair programs!" a boy shouted, holding out a sheaf of pamphlets to them.
"We have to find a hotel first," her companion said. "Let's try this one." He disappeared into the dark maw of a large hotel, and Natasha was dragged inside after him.
"No!"
Her scream woke her. She shot up, one hand clutching in the dark to stop the man from going into the hotel. When she encountered the edge of a sleeve and cool flesh under her fingertips, Natasha gasped and jumped out of bed, twisting into an automatic position of defense.
"It is me, agent," Loki said in a weary tone. "Stand down – no need for attack."
"Jesus." Natasha raked her hair back and fell back against the bed. "I nearly choked you, do you realize? You might want to be careful when you sneak into someone's room. Especially mine."
"Do you really think you could choke me?" His voice was filled with curiosity.
She thrust her legs back under the blankets; it was chilly in the dark room. "Yup. It would take a bit of creativity, but I could do it. And, by the way, I say this as a mere statement of fact - not as a threat. Please don't order an extra injection for me as a result, Loco."
There was an extended, dark silence. Natasha looked at the slice of moonlight coming in through the window; it was long after midnight. At any moment Thor could begin his rescue op, a fact she could exploit or hide from Loki. She had mere moments left to decide how to handle it – the god at her side couldn't have chosen a worse time for a nocturnal visit.
"The name is ridiculous, I agree. And I did not mean for you to have an extra injection," Loki said at last. "I tried to tell you as much when we were in the hideous dayroom. However, I will make certain you cannot tell anyone what you know about the throne of Asgard if you give me reason."
"You'll have Rebecca give me more injections? Turn me into a mindless wreck?" Natasha thought of Maria Hill – the epitome of intelligence and efficiency, now reduced to wetting herself on the duct-taped couch. She hoped with a surge of passion that Thor would be able to remove the agent easily and quickly with little fall-out. The steps she had taken earlier in Hill's room should make certain it would happen.
"Whatever it takes." His hand shot out and caught her throat, squeezing just enough to display his incredible strength. "You slipped a message into that woman's garments. Tell me, what did it say? Three words, written in purple. Were they 'Loki is here'?"
"How did you know about the message?" Natasha wrapped her fingers around his wrist, trying to loosen his grip so she could breathe more easily.
"There is a recording device inside the dayroom to monitor our movements. I assume you were unable to modify that one as you did the one in the Hill woman's chamber. What did it say? Was your message about me? Was it?"
"Don't come back," Natasha wheezed.
He released her neck slightly. "What?"
She coughed and rubbed her collarbone. "It said 'Don't come back.' You've guessed by now I set up a rescue op for Maria since she wouldn't last much longer if I don't get her out. In fact, a SHIELD agent should be arriving any second now." The truth was out. For some reason her instincts advised her it was the right thing to tell him about it.
"You do not want them to return for you – why not?" Loki inched closer to her.
"If SHIELD did return, it would put the rest of us in jeopardy as well as the agent they sent. I imagine those who set up this place as well as the puppets who run it would rather blow us all up instead of being discovered. In any case I'll get out on my own – and win the little bet between us, I might add."
"But we must stop this!" Loki exploded off the bed. "As soon as they find the Hill female is gone, we will receive the resulting wrath of that insane doctor…"
Natasha ignored his exasperation. "I wouldn't go out there if I were you," she said casually. "Your brother is the one engineering the rescue."
Loki emitted a hissing string of curse words, none in a language she recognized; probably he was speaking Old Norse. She couldn't help a triumphant smirk at his shocked response, although she knew he could be right about Hill's absence and the future punishments resulting from it. "I wouldn't worry," she added. "You won't get the worst of it, thanks to your pet nurse. The rest of us will just have to survive the extra injections somehow."
There was a soft sound as he slid his hands over his face, and he sat again on the bed in an exhausted, defeated way. "It is all so boring," he groaned. "She wants me to give her sweet words of love, long hours of pleasure again and again. Whenever I am in the middle of an entertaining line of thought or conversation with you, Agent, she slinks in – I swear it is becoming more often – and demands I follow her for kisses and an endless embrace. It is as though I am involved with a cobra, one that is dull-witted on top of it all."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, cut it out." Natasha was annoyed. "You devised your own torture, now you must put up with it - and let's be honest. You're receiving all sorts of favors and extras as a result. I saw what you had for dinner - actual carbs instead of gray mystery meat. Do you really expect my pity? Besides, she's nice to you, obviously, and pretty on top of it all. You've just got to deal."
"But I do not want to."
"Don't talk about being dull-witted if you're going to act that way." Natasha nudged Loki with her foot under the blankets. "Get everything you need from her and get your ass out of this place. You don't need me to tell you that." His complaints angered her, especially since she had already accomplished so much with nothing more than a magazine staple, one stubby purple crayon, and her own ingenuity. If she had a nurse panting after her for sex, she would already have left the damn hospital with Maria in tow and probably the Adventure Time dude as well.
"No, of course not. However, the situation truly is becoming intolerable," Loki growled.
Natasha folded her arms and cocked her head to one side, examining him where he sat. "I bet I know why you say that. It was probably fun for you at first – a challenge to see if you could get Rebecca to abandon her medical and moral codes while you seduced her. Once you did, it was all too easy and the whole thing became an ongoing chore instead of a diversion."
His hand slid across the sheets and folded over her ankle. "Exactly. Gods – it is as though you are inside my mind."
Natasha jerked her leg away from his touch. "Stop. I'd tell you to get out right now, but you'll need to stay until I hear Maria's door open. Once Thor leaves you've got to get back to your room."
"Very well." Slowly Loki stretched out until he lay next to her, his head pillowed on one hand, leaning on his elbow. By necessity they were pressed together in the tiny bed. "Then the message you wrote was for Thor. Why did you not tell him about my presence?" He whispered the words into her neck.
"I already told you why the very first time we spoke. Once upon a time I was Russian. Governments are replaced by other political regimes - and in the end, all of them are the same. You and your brother can work it out between yourselves in your own world - I have no interest in any of this."
His surprised response was interrupted by a dull pop from across the hall. Natasha moved closer so her cheek touched his and whispered, "Thor."
He nodded and froze, beside her in the shadows. For a long time they stayed thus; she knew he was picturing the scene, just as she was – his brother going into Maria's room, lifting the limp body, returning to the hall, carrying the agent out to an unknown escape route and leaving the strange hospital to a waiting SHIELD escape vehicle. Loki's breath feathered her hair, whistling quietly and rather more rapidly than she had expected on her skin.
Natasha's hands still framed Loki's face. "That was the first gift," she murmured when she was certain they were safe. "Now I only owe you one more."
"Yes, very well," he muttered.
"You'd better go." She sat up and gave him a push.
"Very well," he repeated. Still, he didn't move. "There is only one reason my affair with the nurse is bearable. Do you know what it is?"
The Black Widow felt an extended shiver run through her. Yes, she fancied she did, although she didn't want to say it out loud. If she spoke, that would make it too real.
Instead, she began to speak to head off a confession, babbling nonsense to try and change the subject. "I wouldn't worry about it. Soon you'll be gone, but of course I'll be the first one out of here so I can win our little bet, as I just told you. By the way, how did you know about that safe house anyway? Did you create it when you first came to our planet? Was it an Asgard way station here on Earth? Or did your nurse help you…"
Loki interrupted her flow of words with his firm tone. "When I lie with Rebecca in her room, I imagine I am with you instead."
Softly he rose, glided across the floor, and slipped out of the door.
Natasha was left alone in the dark.