6 Shadows

The required dosage is slightly less than the toxic level, requiring blood levels of lithium to be monitored closely during treatment.

Natasha stared up into the shadows, her arms crossed behind her head. Loki's revelation had forced her to picture things she didn't want to see - perhaps he was with the nurse at that very moment. And was he polite when Rebecca arrived to take him to her room, hiding his boredom as he kissed her and suckled her throat, pleasured her and thrust inside? And was he picturing Natasha underneath him as he did it? The mere thought, so forbidden and dangerous, made her shiver as though several bolts of electricity ran the wire frame of her mattress.

Or – and the concept came unbidden – was he playing both of them at the same time? Stringing along two victims with one simple 'confession'?

She turned with a sudden movement and squeezed her eyes shut. Once she got out and won the bet with Loki she would demand peace between their realms and an assurance of complete separation: no more interaction beyond Thor's travels. She was exhausted by the mere thought of dealing with the politics and personalities from Asgard. And when she returned to her small apartment, she would ask Steve to dinner again, beg him for another swingdance lesson. Clint could take her shopping for more weapons. Perhaps she and Pepper could become better friends.

And she would drink vodka, cold and sharp, and plenty of it.

Unseen rain splattered against the walls of the hospital when she woke again. The attendant was by her bed with a tray of breakfast – the usual oatmeal flanked with two oranges and a slice of toast. "Crap weather out," he remarked. "No sun. Easy to sleep in when there's no sun."

Natasha pointed at the extra food. "What's all this?"

"Rebecca R.N. is getting some nice attention. This is a shit job, y'know? Pays practically nothing. We gots to make up for it in other ways. She found her way." The man added a meaningful glance at Natasha's breasts. "Maybe I found mine, know 'mean?"

She stifled a sigh. He would have been goodlooking in another situation – padded with muscle and tall as a linebacker with tanned skin and those luxurious curls. His jutting lower lip and constant frown, however, promised a low I.Q. Picking up one of the oranges, she told herself she could work with that. "What's your name?"

"Carl." His smile was instant, just a shade too ready.

"Well, thank you, Carl."

"I aim to please. Gots to go right now, though. Probably someone took a spill, bled all over the hall. Or maybe there's a cutting case – red-stained mattress." He bent over, grabbed her right breast and squeezed before he exited her room; his whistle followed him into the hall.

"This sucks," Natasha muttered to herself. Yes, she could use him, but it made things messy. Her neat plan, almost ready to go into action, would now have to be expanded and rewritten. Plus, if she were honest with herself, Carl's preoccupation with blood creeped her out.

Her door opened again and Loki burst in with a green tab of industrial soap in his hand. His pale gaze flicked over her, still in bed with the square of toast in her hand. "What was he doing in here?"

Natasha waved the toast at him. "Bringing me my breakfast. Want a bite?"

Loki's nostrils flared as he approached, bit into the toast, and chewed. "He will want something in return."

"I can handle him." Natasha decided to pay Loki back for his little confession from the night before; she deliberately bit into the spot where his teeth left their mark in the bread. Holding his gaze, she licked the crumbs off her lip.

He caught his breath, frowned. "You do not understand." With a whipping motion too fast to follow, he seized her wrist and brought his face close to hers. "I do not want you to handle him."

A host of indignant replies came to mind, but she squashed them; having a god on her side could come in handy. "I don't mean actually handle, you know. I can make him feel as though he's special without …oh, never mind. Trust me, I'll take care of Carl. He's not too bright, which helps, but I'll get what I want in the end without giving up too much."

Loki glowered at her before taking another bite of her toast. "See that you do not. There is something unlikeable about that man – a feeling he would take what he desires without consideration."

"Really!" Natasha couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Imagine that. The nerve!"

She expected more glowering or another burst of bad temper as a response, but he surprised her with his charming smile. "You amuse me, agent, and very few things amuse me these days."

"Oh? Why is that?"

The smile disappeared. "Let us just say enough happened in my realm recently to change my outlook."

Natasha ate the last bite of toast and started to peel an orange. Her fingers worked quickly on the pitted skin, and the smell of citrus filled the dank air. Although the fruit was pale and pithy, she divided it into sections and offered him a piece. "You don't want to talk about that?"

He stared at her as he chewed the small segment of orange. "You said yourself you had no interest in the rise and fall of regimes."

"No, but the emotions and thoughts of a demigod I once fought do interest me. And," she added hastily as his eyes kindled, "especially when that guy becomes the one person I can talk to inside."

"Sleeping with the enemy?" Loki asked. At that her own amusement betrayed her; she felt her lips spread. He bared his white teeth in a renewed smile and felt for her ankle again, under the sheets.

"Get out." Natasha jerked her leg away from his touch. "I want to wash my hair."

Loki brushed his lips over her cheek, and she had to confess the feel of his mouth was pleasant – cool and firm, much nicer than Carl's broad-fingered boob grab. "I only go because I have to talk to the medical doctor man now, but I will return. Keep to yourself in the meantime, and do not touch the serving fellow who was in your room. He looks out of the corners of his eyes too much."

With a final wink he retreated.

"Fuck off," Natasha muttered as the door closed. She was tired of men bursting into her room and telling her what to do.

As for Loki and his sudden attentions, she had no illusions about the situation. He was bored and for the moment she made him laugh; in his mind, she probably represented a dangerous excitement.

Thanks to his self-imposed relationship with Rebecca, Natasha was now forbidden territory. She knew enough about him to sense his desire for danger, to ride the lightning; he wanted to straddle the line between adventure and chaos. For a short time Natasha had become a naughty promise, a hidden thrill in his eyes.

She shook her head and prepared to go and rinse her hair and body with half of the extra orange and the soap Loki had brought. Once she was clean she would fill in the time before her appointment with the 'medical doctor man' by honing her plans and making them foolproof. Since Thor had rescued Maria, the time had come to escape with as much information as Natasha could carry.

When Maria's disappearance was discovered, Rebecca flounced through the dayroom with an extra round of injections. As soon as Natasha felt the stuff hit her hypothalamus Carl arrived to bring her to Dr. Holmes's office.

Fighting the fuzziness in her mind, Natasha lost her balance and banged into the wall. The attendant took the chance to hold her elbow, rub his arm against her chest as he pretended to hold her upright. "Woah!" he said. "You're seriously loopy. Good thing you didn't hit your head hard, 'm'I right? Head wounds bleed really quick, 'm'I right? Happened to my friend Jake when he drank too much beer two weeks ago. Walked straight into a stop sign and ended up on the pavement in a puddle of blood."

"S'th'injections," Natasha slurred. "D'you know whassinem?" She couldn't think clearly, and she desperately tried to gain control over her swirling, disordered conscious.

He shrugged. "Lithium. It's standard for these places. Hits the bloodstream fast though. It's in your blood now."

Behind him, Natasha wrinkled her nose at his smug tone of superior knowledge and his continued talk of blood. She managed to clear her mind enough to ask, "Before you take me in to the office, can I use a bathroom? Please?" If there was a sink there, she could rinse her wrists under cold water; maybe she could scout out the hall a bit more as well.

"Yeah? You can't wait, huh? On your period?"

She stifled a shudder as Carl's tongue appeared in one corner of his mouth but didn't respond. Let him think whatever pervy, gross thing he wanted; she would be on her way by midnight.

He took Natasha to a locked door, opened it with a key in his belt. She stepped in, tried without success to lock it after her, and looked around. There was a vent high up in the wall, which looked promising, and she promised herself she would own Carl's keys before midnight.

Those plans were interrupted when the attendant came in, put one arm around her from behind, and spoke into her ear. "All done?" the man grinned. "Time for paybacks." He unbuckled his belt and undid his pants. "See? I'm hard because the blood rushes there. It's all blood. Want to taste it?" He pressed her head down with one hand.

She could snap his neck, break both arms and run, but it was not the time. Even though it was raining outside, the daylight would make her too visible. And if she refused, Carl might order more injections, which would slow things up; she wasn't sure how much more lithium her system could neutralize.

Natasha let out a frustrated breath and got on her knees. At that moment there was no other option.

Like Loki, she pictured someone else as she did it.

"How long has the hospital been open?"

Dr. Holmes tilted his chair back. "You seem very interested in the history of this place, Natalie."

She pretended to fluff her hair and opened her eyes wide. "But you're doing so much good here. I've never felt so well and fulfilled as I do under your care, doctor."

"I'm glad to hear it. Well, we've only been open a few months, but I like to think we're making our mark in the profession." He stopped and scribbled a few notes on the pad in front of him.

Natasha was able to read it clearly, even though the writing sloped backwards and was upside down. The shadows come alive, he wrote, when they don't think I am watching.

As soon as she was released from the therapy session, Natasha darted back to her room. Between Carl and the doctor she felt she had been held over a table and raped. One was clueless and the other obviously insane.

Natasha got down her plans from her hiding spot, rewrote the first few steps, and added the air vents to her plan of the building. The fuzzy feeling of static playing in the back of her mind had faded, replaced by her usually alert state status. Still, after each series of injections, the comeback time was increasing exponentially. Natasha could see that if she went through a few more days of the 'treatment' her alert hours would disappear and she would end up like Maria – a mindless vegetable.

Everything was in place. Carl's shift ended at ten; at that point she would lure him into her room for another bout of fellatio, take him down, and filch his keys plus his uniform. The timing would coincide with Rebecca's parade through the dayroom, and Loki would be too occupied to interfere with Natasha's course of action.

As soon as she left the top floor she would have to make a few guesses about the lower levels of the hospital, but the air vents could function as a backup escape route. When she escaped to the lower levels of the asylum she would find transport and drive west until she found that safe house, relying on gut instinct and imperceptible signs in the forest to lead her there.

As for Loki, once Rebecca brought him back to the dayroom and they found Natasha was en route to the safe house, he was on his own - and she would hold him to that bet. Everything was in place, double-checked with all contingencies covered.

Natasha decided to take one last look out of the dayroom window and mark the direction she should drive when she was out. The rain would obscure her view through the wired glass, but she could memorize a few close landmarks to ease her way. After stashing the Time magazine with her plans, her crayon, and the extra half orange behind the loose tile in her bathroom, she adjusted her hospital gown. Probably she looked pale from the extra injections; Natasha pinched her cheeks for some color and slipped on her flip-flops.

They were waiting in the hall. Rebecca and Carl stood close together, the nurse's expression self-righteous, the attendant's clueless as usual.

Behind them stood Loki.

He raises his eyebrows when he's furious, Natasha realized suddenly, instead of frowning. She knew she was fucked; probably Loki had found a video feed of her servicing Carl in the washroom and in his anger he tipped off Rebecca.

"Inappropriate interaction between patients and employees is not allowed," Rebecca began.

Natasha couldn't help a hoot of incredulous laughter. "Are you serious right now?"

Loki had the grace to look away. "Perhaps I made a mistake," he began.

It made no difference. The nurse was in bitch mode; Natasha had seen it before. The Black Widow moved her weight to her toes, prepared to launch into action. Her plan would still happen, just earlier and a lot dirtier than she had anticipated; SHIELD would have to clean up after she got herself out with the files intact.

Before she could move, she felt the prick in her neck. "Lots of questions," Dr. Holmes said behind her. "Too many for a patient with manic depression."

Fuck! How the hell had she missed the doctor's arrival? The lithium must have messed with her more seriously than she thought. Natasha tried to whirl and take him down, but the needle slid into her jugular before she could move.

"No!" Loki shouted. "Stop!" His eyes filled with panic and horrified guilt.

Natasha felt another needle at the base of her spine, and the static in her head grew louder. It was impossible to hear what Loki was shouting so fervently and passionately.

She slid down the wall, and the world went sideways.