8 Safehouse

Lithium deuteride was the fusion fuel of choice in early versions of the hydrogen bomb.

Natasha opened her eyes and squinted against a soft glow from some unknown source in a far corner. A man stood next to an old-fashioned lantern, black hair curling against his neck.

She groaned and felt her stomach rebel as she tried to sit up. Instantly the man came to her side and sat on the side of the bed. "Natasha," he said. "I am so very sorry. I caused all of this to happen – but I did not mean for you to be involved in…"

"I'm going to be sick." She interrupted his long-winded apology.

At that he lifted her off the bed and carried her into a large bathroom. She just had time to appreciate the clean atmosphere and white towels before he leaned her over the toilet and held her hair back while she voided the contents of her stomach into the bowl.

The man cleaned her up, gave her water to drink and, when she croaked "Toothbrush," handed her a new one wrapped in cellophane. He waited as she washed her face, brushed her teeth and gargled before he brought her back to the bed, settled her under thick flannel sheets and slid an extra pillow behind her head.

Natasha knew his name, but the pounding in her head wouldn't let her say it. It felt like an entire hive of bees buzzed under her skin, and she clutched his shirt so she could look into his face and beg for what she wanted. "Injection," she pleaded. "I can't take it. Give me an injection. Now. Make it stop." Her body was deep into withdrawal; she could feel it.

For some reason that made him look sad. He closed his eyes and the line above his upper lip turned white. "I think you will go through some physical pain for a while. I am so sorry, Natasha. Do not worry – I will stay with you every second."

When she vomited again, too weak to move or warn him, he cleaned her up and remade the bed with a flash of sparkling magic. The fever returned, and she shook with heat and chills in turns. He put a cold cloth on her head and covered her with blankets while she screamed for the meds or at the very least something to end her misery; he held her hand and read to her from a book of Russian poetry. At last the sound of his voice reading the words faded, and she thought she slept.

Waking, she felt incredibly weak. Although she resisted he made her drink water and, later, eat a bowl of some delicious-smelling broth with fresh parsley floating on the top. Slowly the buzzing under her skin faded and after a cup of tea she said his name.

"Loki."

He dropped the book he held and hurried to Natasha's side. "I am so sorry," he repeated. "It was all my fault when you were taken to the solitary cell. And the extra injections – it was because of me. All me."

She frowned. Something was wrong with what he said; another sip of tea scalded her mouth, cleared her mind and she figured it out. "You're the god of mischief. You don't apologize to anyone, ever. What's up?"

Loki sat on the bed and regarded the wall in front of him steadily. "You are not the first." His profile was severe, cleanly cut against the dark walls.

That made no sense at all. "Not that first? The first of what? What does that even mean?"

He covered his eyes with one hand. "I betrayed – someone else. Someone important. An outright betrayal of trust to another who did not deserve it, simply because at the time I was angry and allowed my temper to overrule my sense. And I - I seem to have the knack of aligning myself with the wrong people."

"Aligning yourself with the wrong people. Does that mean you were behind the asylum's set up in the first place? For bringing me there? Was it all some sort of sick revenge? Well - was it?"

"No, not at all. I knew nothing about the hospital - I swear this to you on the head of the other I betrayed. And she was very important to me, Natasha. So of anything I say to you, this you can believe."

"But you had me put in solitary - why?"

His hand dropped, but still Loki never looked at her. "It cut me like a dagger to see you with him."

Natasha didn't want to intrude anymore on that line of questioning; in any case, she had the feeling he suffered his own form of detox from the constant injections they both had suffered. If not at that moment, it would happen soon. Plus she felt too weak to figure it all out.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"The safe house. I brought you here in the truck I stole."

She finished the tea and he poured her another cup from a steaming pot. The room was done in wood and glass in the manner of a high-end ski cabin. Loki had dressed her in loose, clean pajamas made of very soft cotton; he wore a white shirt unbuttoned at his throat with the cuffs rolled up over leather breeches. "Will they come after us?"

"Yes, but they will not find us here." Loki held out his hand and a stem of lily-of-the-valley appeared in his palm; he held it to his nose and breathed in the scent before handing the flower to her. "My magic returned as soon as we left that place. I have put up enough protections to make certain we won't be bothered while you fight against the poison in your blood."

Natasha sniffed the perfume of the white blossoms and felt weariness pour over her like warm water. "I want to sleep some more," she said fuzzily. The chills were returning; she felt she had ice inside her bones, as though she would never get warm. When she closed her eyes she pictured the padded room, the cuffs holding her as the automized needles slid into her veins. She saw the metal shroud and the flayed body, and a dreadful shiver shook her.

Gently Loki took the flower from her, put it in a small vase made of green glass, and set it on a table by the bed. "Of course." He stood, but she tugged on the turn of his sleeve to keep him close.

"No, I want you to get in the bed with me. The last thing I want to be is alone right now – I picture too many things in my head. Besides, I can't get warm." She shuddered again, with cold and with something else.

His signature grin lit up his face. "Agent, this is so sudden!"

A flash of her old, forceful self broke through the weakness invading her body. "Give me a break. We're just sleeping, so don't get your hopes up." Natasha shifted over to make room, turned away from his side of the bed in a clear signal nothing more than rest was going to happen in the crisp sheets.

Loki padded around the room. She heard the small movement of his shirt thrown on a chair, boots unlaced and placed neatly to one side. Belt and pants unbuckled, a clink of metal as they hit the floor. The mattress yielding under his weight. His arms, one sliding under her neck and the other around her stomach. The cool feeling of his skin next to hers.

Supremely comforted, Natasha drifted off right away.

"No – no – no – not the stairs to the left." Loki shifted and jerked in his sleep, jolting Natasha out of a black slumber. She sat up, feeling better than she had in days – the sleep and the tea had done the trick.

The god next to her, however, struggled and cried out, lost in some interior torment. "Hey, Loki? Can you hear me?" she asked. Cautiously she put one hand on his arm; she had no idea what he would do if aroused suddenly from what seemed to be a very violent nightmare.

He sat up, eyes wide and staring at nothing. "Don't tell them, you fool!" he shouted.

"It's over," Natasha soothed. "Go back to sleep, Loki. It's over."

His face snapped to confront hers, and he gripped her arms to pull Natasha close so he could speak directly to her. His nose grazed her cheek. "Don't let them go up the stairs to the left," he begged.

Natasha shook her head. "No, I won't. Nothing's getting past me." In her experience when someone was in the middle of a delusion the best thing to do was to play along.

And it seems Loki is not immune to the effects of the super-lithium after all, she mused. Just as she had suspected all along.

She resigned herself to dealing with his own brand of detox; it was only fair after he held her head as she puked up her guts. Who knew what it would entail? Nightmares, certainly, and probably some hallucinations of his own later. Perhaps violence as well. She could handle it – she hoped he just wouldn't get too crazy lying next to her in the bed.

"Are you certain?" A tear trickled down his cheek, and his lips turned downward. She had never seen him so melancholy.

"Hey," she repeated, wiping it away with her thumb. "Loki, it's Natasha. You know me, and when I promise nobody's getting past me I mean it."

Loki clasped her to his chest, cradled her head with long fingers and murmured softly. As her mind cleared she heard what he whispered: that he needed her, that she understood him, of all the beings in the nine realms he could count on her. He said she was his queen. "You will sit on the throne of Asgard beside me," he promised in her ear, "and rule the universe. Now that I have found you, I will not let you go." He nuzzled her neck, making a purring sound in his chest.

"Woah, hang on just a minute." She had to stop those thoughts before he fully awoke and started to believe it all himself. "First of all, I'm not going to Asgard, and second – have you met me, Loki? I'm no queen. I curse like a sailor and enjoy playing with knives far too much…"

Natasha's words were cut off as Loki's lips left her neck and covered her mouth. His cool, slim tongue licked her bottom lip, and as she tried to protest he deepened the kiss.

Breathless, Natasha fell back among the pillows. She was too weak to fight him. He might go into a fit if she stopped him. In a moment he would come to his senses and quit kissing her of his own accord.

Those were the things she told herself.

Loki landed on top of her, his eyes looking into hers, whispering that she was his, he wanted her, he wanted no one else.

The words, so strange and passionate, vibrated against some long-forgotten sinews of her body. She felt her heart race under his hands, her thighs loosen to allow him access when he settled between them, her back arch as he bit her neck.

Then with some flash of his magic their clothes were gone, and there was nothing between her and the god of lies, between the Black Widow and the villain who had tried to take over her planet, and she felt the length of him against her hipbone, his tongue and teeth scratching deliberately over her breasts and belly, rising to claim her mouth again as he positioned himself at her center.

Loki framed her face between his hands and looked down at her with wide eyes. "My queen," he repeated.

"I'm not…" But it was too late. With one slow, twisting thrust he entered her, and the cool rush of it made her cry out, grasp his hair, pull him close with legs wound around his waist. Natasha heard a long string of curses leave her lips, some in Russian, as he slipped inside again and again, withdrawing completely when she came close to her end, both of them shuddering.

Then he entered again, his tongue sliding in and out between her lips in a mirror of what he was doing to her. Natasha's body began to tremble as she neared the final rush; her breath catching against his cheek, his tickling her ear. It was so soon, so delicious she was sure she was about to -

"No. Not yet." Loki lifted her off, sat up, drew her back to kiss her lips, palm her ass and pull her astride him.

"I want it," she demanded shamelessly. It felt incredible, after all that time of horror and degradation in the hospital; besides, he was so good at it – centuries of experience, she thought in confusion as Loki smiled against her teeth and allowed her to settle herself on him, draw him back inside.

The smooth sensation made her fling her head back and cry his name out loud. If there were enemies out there in the dark, they would just have to kill her while she rode it out on Loki's sex. There was no way she could stop.

"Natasha," he groaned. "Oh, my own agent. I want you. I want you."

"I want you," she echoed, finally acknowledging the truth to herself, and they whispered it together, lips and tongues locked while she picked up speed. And when she came, walls seizing around his shaking member, he crashed her back among the pillows to thrust into her like a madman, shouting in final submission.

When his nightmares returned they were already in the tight embrace of slumber. Natasha murmured words of comfort; as Loki woke and realized where he was, he breached her again, turning her to take her from the back so he could stroke her breasts and clit as they fucked. "You are real, are you not? Tell me," he demanded.

"Loki, I'm real. I'm Natasha. I'm here."

"My queen," he repeated before he spurted into her again.

She lost count of the number of times they did it. Each one began with his nightmares, shouts about the staircase, of how he was a fool. Once he cried, "You are!" and held out his hands as though he was talking to someone who was no longer there.

She thought she nearly lost him that time, he seemed so sad and wracked with guilt. When she spoke to him he didn't hear; instead he cried that he said the wrong thing, that he was a fool. "You disappeared from my dungeon room before I could make it right," he shouted to the shadow inside his mind.

There was only one way to bring him back. Natasha took him inside her mouth and sucked until he was hard and rearing again, carrying him back to the present. They were inside the safehouse, she whispered into his ear inside the wood and glass of the little room.

But what saved him in the end was the fact of her own cunt, tightening around his erection as they cantered back to reality, out of the dark horrors and into the sun.

A thread of gray light tickled her vision when they finished, panting next to each other. It was morning. Natasha's legs shook as though she had just run a marathon; in a way, she had. Loki was trembling as well; he had one leg thrown over her hips, arms locked around her neck and waist.

Outside the cabin there was complete silence. "Snow is falling," Loki whispered.

"How can you tell?"

He didn't answer. Instead he held up his arm, pointing at the ceiling. A tiny ball of light emerged and floated to the lantern, lighting it. Natasha felt an answering bubble of delight in her chest; she had never seen anything so beautiful.

"Watch. This will hurt you, but only for a moment." Loki's arm and finger turned blue and, as she gazed into his face, his eyes turned red.

"What are you…" Natasha stopped with a gasp as his finger lowered to her inner thigh and traced something there. The feeling was so cold it burned, and when she looked down, she saw his touch left a mark, a tiny V on its side.

Slowly Loki's skin turned white, his eyes returned to the mischievous green she knew. "Kenaz," he explained. "It is my runic mark." His finger hovered over Natasha's thigh.

"You're not telling me this is permanent?"

"Oh, yes. Now you are mine."