A/N: So...Sherlock kind of happened. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Not sure when I'll be posting the next one but will try and get some work done on it at the weekend. Hope you enjoy this one in the meantime. :)
The Interloper
by Flaignhan
She finds herself splitting her time fairly evenly between headquarters and home. When she's at home with Loki, she can't wait to get to work, but once she's there, she's counting down the hours until she can leave. She finds it claustrophobic, trapped in Fury's office, or her own office all day, and it's been a long long while since she actually completed any rewarding work. Being as high up as she is in the hierarchy means that she gets all the most dangerous and covert assignments, but anything else, which is most of the field work, is delegated to the lower ranks. It'd almost be worth back tracking - she'd quite happily take the pay cut, just so she can get out and about a little more. Office work is not for her, and she doesn't know how Fury, a man who is so action orientated, can be content with sipping coffee all day long. She supposes that in between his cups of coffee he has a lot of serious decision making to do, and maybe he gets off on that, but from what she can tell, his existence in the organisation is currently as boring as her own.
As for her home life, that's no better. Loki flips between quiet and subdued, (to the point where were it not for the amount of space that he takes up on the sofa, or the hundreds of dollars she's just had to shell out for a new TV, she'd barely notice he were even there) to antagonistic and childish. He is, however, getting used to the way things happen on Earth. His favourite 'box food' is fried chicken, and Natasha would hazard a guess that it's probably because it's the closest to what he would have been served on Asgard - meat, potatoes (or French fries, in this case) and between them they'll often share a salad, just for a little bit of greenery. There's a weird kind of harmony between them, and Natasha wonders if it'll splinter in a fraction of a second one day, whether everything will come to a head, or whether she's best off resigning herself to the fact that she's got a long-term lodger whether she likes it or not. So far, her refusal to kick up a fuss has worked well, resulting in only a rise in blood pressure and a new TV, as well as her food bill doubling. Her favourite take-out joints still sound offensively surprised that she's ordering for more than one person, and at least three of them have enquired after her new guest. She had simply smiled coyly in response and handed over her money, preferring to let them believe what they want to, to save any prying or poking that might result in a difficult situation for her.
On Friday, however, she stays a little later at the office, finishing off an extra video file and making a few lazy notes. She doesn't know what's going to happen at the weekend - two full days with Loki. She might try and get him out of the apartment, either on his own, or with her as a chaperone. She's willing to bet that the more he stays cooped up in the lounge watching trashy TV, the more likely he is to become irritable and volatile. She doesn't know what she could offer up to entertain a god in this city - his only interest in it previously has been to invade, but she's thinking of something maybe a little more chilled out than that.
When she wakes the following morning, it's to an empty bed. She stretches, revelling in the space and comfort and privacy that she's had snatched away from her this week, but when she doesn't hear hide nor hair of Loki elsewhere in the apartment, she sits up, her eyebrows contorting into a frown as she sharpens her hearing, determined to pick out any sign of him. She holds her breath, unwilling to put up with the sound of her lungs, and when she's greeted by silence, she throws the duvet off of her, swings her legs out of bed and pads over to the door.
He's in the lounge, sitting on the floor by the full length window, peering out onto the streets below, the sky a soft, pinkish hue as the sun rises, bringing a new day to the city. She folds her arms over her stomach and heads over to the window to join him, settling herself on the floor in one smooth motion, legs crossed beneath her. She follows his eye line, down to the streets below, where yellow taxis crawl along the street like ants, buses occasionally trundling along, huge black puffs of diesel being kicked out of their exhausts.
"It never stops," he says quietly. "Never ever stops, it just keeps going and going and going."
"The city?"
He nods.
"You'll get used to it," Natasha tells him. "You learn to ignore the sirens eventually. Took me a while too, I was used to quieter places."
"It's maddening," he tells her, tearing his eyes away from the streets. "I don't know how you can cope."
Natasha shrugs, her eyes fixed on his jaw, set firmly into a sulky position, his dark eyebrows drawn together in displeasure. She wonders what happened to him, when he 'died'. Something must have, something that will have ripped the rug out from under his feet. He's not the power-crazed maniac she remembers from the Chitauri invasion, he's not even the jealous,, younger brother of Thor anymore. He seems to be a shell of his former self, or even a shell of someone else. He utters so few words when she's around that it's easy to forget he's even there. She wonders how he'd respond, to her prying, to her showing an interest. Would he be offended? She doubts it. Would he tell her that it's none of her damn business? Possibly. Or would he outright deny that anything was different at all? Most likely.
"What happened to you?" she asks, looking out across the skyline. She knows he won't respond kindly to her prying and staring at the same time. "You're not the same as you were before."
"What does it matter?"
"Curious," Natasha says with a shrug. "You're much more placid than I remember from the helicarrier."
"That was a time of war. I had plans."
"And your plans now?"
"You know my plans," he says with an exasperated sigh. "You know I cannot return to Asgard until - "
"Yeah I get that," Natasha says quickly, cutting him off. "But between now and then? I mean you show up here, knowing that there's not exactly been pleasant history between us and you suddenly wanna be room mates? With all your magic you think you'd be able to survive in the real world on your own."
"I don't want - " he stops abruptly, and Natasha turns to look at him, trying to gauge his expression. No such luck though, because even if his face had betrayed him, by the time she had turned her head, all hints of emotion were well hidden behind a smooth facade. He picks at a loose thread on seam of his jeans, his lips pressed into a thin line as he reconsiders his words. He stays silent for a while and so Natasha tries a different tact.
"Why me? Why choose me? There's seven billion people on this planet, and you choose me."
"You're not perfect," he says immediately, then smirks to himself as Natasha scowls at him. "What I mean to say is, you're not perfect, and I'm not perfect. It's a compliment, really."
"Yeah, definitely sounds like one," Natasha says sarcastically, which only causes his smirk to broaden.
"Thor's perfect," he says, looking down at the cars once more, his breath fogging against the cool glass as he speaks. "And dull. Completely and utterly dull. Which is fine, because it means he can save all the realms at once but he can't save his own family."
"So wouldn't that mean he's not perfect?" Natasha reasons.
Loki shakes his head. "Whatever Thor does is the right thing to do. Believe me, I've had over a thousand years of learning that."
"And you're not bitter at all…"
"No. But the point is, you allowed me to stay, because you're not perfect. Your good Captain would have thrown me into a prison cell faster than I could blink. Or he would have at least tried. But you…your curiosity outweighs your moral obligation, and that was what I was counting on."
"You know," Natasha says slowly, "You're giving me a ton of reasons to report you to Fury right now." She feels a sudden sense of shame for allowing herself to become far too interested in Loki and his plans. In all honesty, even if he is planning something, she'd rather give him the opportunity to let things slip, to allow things to play out, just a little, so she has a half decent idea of what he's up to, as opposed to just locking him up and assuming that things won't continue as planned without his direct input. She hates this tightrope that she's constantly walking, between the belief that he just doesn't have a god damn clue what he ought to be doing with himself, or that he's masterminded a world takeover and is just biding his time in her apartment. Maybe he even wants to implicate her, as revenge for their encounter on the helicarrier.
"That won't be necessary," he says coolly. "All I want is to return home at the appropriate moment. Nothing more."
"I'll believe that when you're gone…" Natasha murmurs. She leans her forehead against the window, forearms resting on her thighs and tries to figure out how she should handle this weekend. She still thinks it would be a good idea to get him out of the apartment for a while, but perhaps in some sort of disguise, just because she can never quite trust that the city's CCTV footage isn't being monitored by SHIELD.
"What do you wanna do today?" she asks him at last, pulling her head away from the window and switching her attention to him. He gives her a sidelong look through narrowed eyes, his brows twitching into a frown of distrust.
"What d'you mean?"
"You've been watching TV all week," Natasha says. "That's not good for you. You should get out into the open air - "
"Feel the sun against my skin?" he asks sarcastically. "Hear the tweeting of the birds?"
Natasha bites back a snappy retort and takes a deep breath. "I mean," she says through gritted teeth, "You shouldn't be cooped up in here all the time. It's not healthy."
"The last time I went outside I was impaled. That isn't healthy." He's rubbing his thumb against his fingertips with one hand, while the other touches instinctively and gently, against a spot on his abdomen. Natasha finds her curiosity building once more, but doesn't give in to it.
"But don't you feel like you're in prison?" she presses, her eyes still lingering on the pale hand rubbing absentmindedly against his t-shirt. "I mean, you lie on that couch day after day - "
"This is a world apart from prison," he says. "Completely different. This is comfortable. This is just right." His eyes are fixed on the building opposite, and Natasha follows his gaze. It takes her a while to see what he's looking at, but eventually she spies the window in the opposite apartment block, a floor or two below her own. The room is dimly lit by the yellow glow of a lamp, but it's still quite easy to make out the dark haired, olive skinned woman inside, standing completely naked in front of her wardrobe, biting her lip as she chooses an outfit for the day.
Natasha reaches out a hand and swats Loki on the knee. He tears his eyes away, his lips breaking into the first smile that she's ever seen on him.
"Lovely view," he says, as though simply referring to the sun rise, and Natasha rolls her eyes. For a moment, she really thought his distractedness had been due to his own too-complex-to-put-into-words thoughts, but really, it had simply been due to a naked woman across the street. How typical.
"Have you been watching her the whole time you've been sitting here?"
Loki laughs. "No," he says, "She only got out of the shower a couple of minutes ago."
Natasha rolls her eyes again and pushes herself up from the floor, heading to the kitchen to make some breakfast. When she returns a few minutes later, a bowl of Rice Krispies in one hand and a bowl of Froot Loops in the other, Loki sighs.
"Are you going to get a chef at some point?" he asks, lifting up a spoonful of his cereal and letting it drop back into the bowl with a small splash.
"Yeah," Natasha says, after swallowing down a mouthful of Froot Loops.
"When?" Loki asks, his eyes brightening with interest.
"When you learn to cook," Natasha says with a smirk, raising another spoonful of cereal to her lips. Loki scowls, and sulkily eats his breakfast, his eyes occasionally darting over to the woman in the apartment opposite, who is now dressed and styling her hair. It seems she's not nearly as interesting now she's clothed however, as Loki doesn't even spare her the briefest of glances when she's applying her make up.
Natasha finishes her breakfast and takes hers and Loki's empty bowls out to the kitchen, dumping them in the dishwasher and closing the door. From the lounge, she can already hear that Loki has switched the TV on, and the irritating drawl of Dr Phil filters into the kitchen.
"Are you sure you wanna stay here and watch this shit all day?" she asks.
"Yes," Loki says, making himself comfortable on the couch. "And it's not shit. She's been sleeping with her step-mother, it's fascinating to see how very primitive your world can be."
"This country has over three hundred million people in it…there's bound to be some…questionables."
Loki smirks, and Natasha decides that trying to get him outside is a futile endeavour, and instead goes to to take shower. She can't stay here with him all day, she knows that. She'll go insane.
"This is a surprise," he says, closing the door behind her.
"Yeah, I was just in the area and…thought I'd drop by," she lies smoothly. Clint shrugs and heads to the fridge, pulling it open and tossing her a beer. She hardly ever comes to Clint's place, and she doesn't know why. It has high ceilings and red bricked walls and the entire length of one wall of the lounge is glass, giving a fantastic view of the city. The sky outside is growing dark and the lights are starting to twinkle into life. In the distance she can see Stark tower light up, its blue glow standing out amongst the yellow and orange of the rest of the city.
"Where you been today?" he asks, cracking open his beer can and heading for the couch. He sits down, and turns to Natasha expectantly, until she slips off her shoes and goes to join him, sitting cross legged on the opposite end of the sofa, beer can in hand as she waits for it to settle.
"Just around," she says, tapping the top of her can then cracking it open carefully before taking a sip. "Went for a walk."
"A walk?" Clint asks sceptically, one eyebrow raised.
"Yeah," Natasha replies with a frown. "A walk."
"All day?"
Natasha shrugs. "I stopped for lunch."
"How're the hands?" he asks. He knows when to drop a subject, and that's part of the reason she came here. Even if he picks up on something being off, he won't push her too far. The others, however, will act entirely upon their concern for her as opposed to their respect for her privacy. Clint knows that if she wants to talk about it, she'll talk about it.
"Okay," she says, looking down at them. All that remains from her run in with the barbed wire are some fine pink scars, the skin a little hard, her movements still stiff, but she's nevertheless well on the way to recovery. "Bruce's gloves really worked their magic."
"Yeah, he's been working on that stuff for a while. Used it on a burn of mine a few weeks back. Pretty impressive."
"Yeah," Natasha says vaguely, taking another sip of her beer. She stares out over the city, trying to work out which of the tall slender buildings in the distance is her apartment block, but they all seem to merge into one. She wonders what Loki's doing, whether he's still vegetating on the couch watching trashy TV or whether he has actually taken her advice and gotten out of the damn apartment for some fresh air. She wonders how much of his cool facade is just a facade. He seems determined to stay inside the four walls of her apartment, and he came to her, rather than finding a place of his own which he could have easily done, she's sure. Something must have happened for him to have actively sought out this familiarity. That's all it is at the end of the day, he knows who she is, and she has an apartment, and he knows that she's so damn bored with her life that she'll relent when it comes to the prospect of putting up a psychopath. And yet, she finds herself chewing her lip, wondering what the hell could have gone so very wrong. Whatever it was has simultaneously tamed him and instilled an uncharacteristic caution in him. If he keeps this up, she knows he'll only get worse, and will point blank refuse to leave the apartment ever. She shudders at the thought, and realises that Clint's watching her closely, his eyes piercing her.
"Bruce said you were kinda…stressed the other night," Clint says slowly, choosing his words carefully. "He was worried about you."
"I'm fine," Natasha says, forcing a small smile. "Really."
"Nat," Clint says with a disbelieving shake of his head. "C'mon, what's up?"
She looks down at her beer can and knows she has to tell him something. Evidently this is something he won't leave alone, not this time, and she has a good mind to have words with Bruce. The last thing she needs right now is him running to Clint and telling him she's been behaving strangely, even if he does have her best interests at heart.
"I'm just kinda fed up," she says at last, slumping her shoulders and tracing the rim of her beer can with her index finger. "Same shit, different day, you know?"
"Yeah," Clint says, nodding in understanding. "But that's just the CCTV stuff, right? You still enjoy the fieldwork, don't you?"
Natasha shrugs. "I don't know. I feel like I'm getting kinda…old."
Clint nearly chokes on his beer. "What?" he splutters. "Old?"
"Not old," Natasha sighs. "But I've been doing this shit nearly all my life and I don't know any different. I think I might like to branch out or something."
"Branch out…" Clint folds his arms, looking at her curiously. "And do what?"
"I don't know," Natasha says exasperatedly, sinking low in her seat, beer can resting on her stomach. "But that's the point, isn't it? How will I know until I've tried?"
"Well I think you'd make a killer pizza delivery chick," Clint says with a smirk. "Or maybe you could do door-to-door sales."
"Maybe I could," she says stiffly, not wanting to rule out even his most stupid of stupid ideas. "Or maybe I could open a book store or - "
"Nat," he says, interrupting her before she can come up with any other change of career plans. "It's not gonna happen. You were built a certain way and you know, as much as SHIELD might be getting you down now, if you try and go out there and live a normal life, you'll be ripping your hair out after two days. You remember what it was like last time you tried to take a vacation."
Natasha doesn't say anything, knowing he's right. She doesn't do downtime, and maybe normality would be like a permanent downtime, after everything she's been through. It might be a novelty for the first few weeks, going to the grocery store, buying real food and cooking it in her kitchen, rather than picking up a menu and dialling a number. She might even get into the kind of trashy TV that Loki loves, or maybe she'd have time to do jigsaw puzzles, or go to evening classes and learn something completely new. Another language, maybe, one so far removed from the ones she already has a good grasp of. Or maybe she could just drive off, because she doesn't have to answer to anybody. She could drive off or she could stay at home and it would be entirely her choice. Maybe, and the thought seems alien and strange to her, but maybe she could settle down.
That is, perhaps, a step too far, because she grimaces at the thought and takes a swig of her beer.
"Everyone feels like this from time to time," Clint says quietly. "I have, I know. It passes, it always does. You'll have a really cool assignment land in your lap and you'll forget all about this shit. Grass is always greener, you know?"
"Yeah," Natasha says, looking down at her beer. "Yeah I guess you're right."
Her head is a little hazy as she travels up in the lift, the bright lights causing her to squint. She glances at her reflection, her eyes slightly glazed, but she looks okay. Not too drunk, at least. When she reaches her floor, the speakers let out an irritating ding as the doors slide open, and Natasha carefully treads down the corridor, aware that her balance is off, just a touch. She shouldn't have started drinking so early, and especially not beer, and even more especially, not with Clint, who always always wants to try and outdrink her, but never quite manages it. He's currently sprawled on the couch in his apartment, drooling on the leather cushion as he snores loudly, his feet dangling over the arm of the couch. He always was a lightweight.
She smirks, and unlocks the door of her apartment, wondering if Loki will still be here. Surely, at some point, he's going to get sick to death of being in the same place and just burst outside, striding around the streets of the city as though he owns them. Maybe his reluctance to head outside is caused in part by the fact that the last time he tried to own these streets, he got his comeuppance. Maybe if it were a different city, he might be more open to exploring.
Whatever the reason, Natasha decides it's not her problem. She hangs up her jacket and bag, toes off her shoes, and heads towards the lounge, where the flicking blue light of the TV tells her that Loki is, most likely, still in the same spot she left him all those hours ago.
Apparently, he has run out of talk shows, because the TV is showing a grainy infomercial, the screen filled with a distorted image of cheap glittering jewellery while a middle aged woman with an eighties style haircut yammers on about cubic zirconias and gold plated chains. Loki's eyes are closed, the light of the TV throwing the sharp angles of his face into harsh relief. He's breathing softly and steadily, and Natasha narrows her eyes at him, sure he is awake and just waiting to scare the living shit out of her. And yet, his breathing suggests that he might actually be asleep. She doesn't know him well enough to know just how good, or just how dedicated a liar he is, but she's been staring at him long enough for him to make his move, and still, nothing.
She steps backwards, edging around the coffee table and reaching out an arm to flick the switch on the TV. Darkness descends instantly, with only the weak glow of light pollution outside the window allowing Natasha to see anything at all. Loki shifts on the sofa, turning onto his side, his knees drawing up close to the rest of his body.
"No," he murmurs.
Natasha nearly jumps out of her skin, and peers at him in the dark, his eyes still closed.
"No let me out, I have to…I have to…" His words trail off, Natasha's heart beating fast in her ribcage. His breathing evens out again, and she straightens up, deciding that it might be best if she went to bed. She knows that kind of murmur, the kind that usually goes unheard in the dark. Despite everything he's done, despite him turning up in her apartment uninvited, she doesn't want to intrude on that murmur. She knows waking him is the worst thing she could do. Apart from the fact that it's healthier if the dream just plays out, if she wakes him, he'll know that she's seen him vulnerable, and she knows, from her own experience, that that kind of exposure only makes a person more determined to be hostile. That's the last thing she needs from him.
She goes into her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her, and changes into her pyjamas before she crawls into bed. She can't help but listen out in the darkness for him, her ears straining to hear a mumble or a groan, but there's nothing until he wakes up with a sharp gasp, his breath ragged. She hears him stumble into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and it is a long time before her door is pushed open and he climbs into bed next to her. He lies stock still, facing the ceiling, while Natasha has her back to him. She pretends to be asleep, but she knows he's not buying it. Most of the time she doesn't even have her eyes closed, and is relying on the fact that he's far more concerned with other things.
He lets out a shaky sigh, which is muffled as soon as he presses his hands to his face, and she can feel him trembling, just a few inches from her.
Something is wrong with him, that much is certain. Maybe it's none of her business, but as long as he's staying in her apartment, she's going to make it her business to find out what it is.