A/N: Apologies for the heinous delay. This one's been a very long time coming, but in my defence, I did get diagnosed with carpal tunnel, started to learn to make my own clothes, started an original fiction novel, and decide to move back to London in the time since I last posted, so I haven't been idle. I just haven't been writing this. Anyway, excuses out the way, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!
The Interloper
by Flaignhan
"Are you insane?" she hisses.
Loki rolls his eyes.
"Where's Clint?" she demands. "What have you done with him?"
"He's fine," Loki tells her with an exasperated sigh. "He went home an hour ago, so I'm here while he's away."
"And how can you be certain that he won't just come in here and there'll be two of you? Thor's already suspicious."
"I save your life and this is how you react?" he snaps, dropping the fine pin and its plastic casing onto her table and circling around to the chair next to her bed. "Shouting at me? Insinuating I'm an idiot?"
Natasha fixes him with a steely glare, and he glances up to the ceiling, exhaling softly before he sits down. It's strange to see Clint's body lounged in a hospital chair as though it's a throne, one elbow propped up on the wooden armrest, his fingers curled into a loose fist, legs splayed in a lazy right angle. He may well have fooled the healers on Asgard into thinking he's Thor, and maybe he's better at mimicking his brother's mannerisms, but his portrayal of Clint will not be winning any Oscars in the near future.
"He goes home to rest for a few hours, I stop by for a little while, am just as uncommunicative with your colleagues as he is, and nobody questions it."
"What about security protocols?"
"Retina scans?" Loki snorts. "Fingerprint recognition? I think I've got those bases covered…"
"Passwords?" Natasha adds. "How did you even find me? This building has dozens of floors…"
"My projections don't breach your security systems," he tells her, pulling irritably at the collar of his shirt. He is, apparently, unused to Clint's style, even after all this time masquerading as him. "All I had to do was follow Agent Barton's journey, and I learned every little detail. Then, when he left, I could return as him, in the flesh. Simple."
Natasha folds her arms across her chest, her eyebrows drawing into a frown. She doesn't like this, thinks it's far too risky for both of them, but she knows that he probably gets off on that risk, that the only reason he's here is so he can be a little daredevil, dancing on the fringes of being caught redhanded. After all, what's the use in misbehaving if nobody finds out?
"You were going to die in this bed if I didn't intervene," he says at last. "They had no clue what they were doing, so I had to get in here and give you enough medicine to keep you alive but not so much that they thought they'd found a miracle cure elsewhere and kept dosing you with it."
Natasha sighs softly, her muscles relaxing. She can be irritated by his behaviour all she wants, but had he not acted, she wouldn't even be here to be irritated. She'd be in a box in the ground and a fat load of good that would be.
"Thanks," she says quietly. "For everything." She doesn't look at him, instead choosing to focus on her hands, but she can feel his eyes on her, scrutinising her, until at last, after a long silence he looks away.
"It's all right," he says stiffly. "If you'd died I'd have had to have found somewhere else to live."
The comment, which she suspects has at least a minimal grounding in truth, breaks the awkwardness between them. She finds a smile forming on her lips, albeit a small one, and at last she looks across to him. He's staring at the far wall, his cheek resting against his fist. She can't properly comprehend that it is Loki underneath that shell, so familiar she is with Clint's sandy hair and near constant frown. He is shorter and stockier than Loki, whose posture is far more suited to one who is long and lean. He doesn't care, apparently, and soon he gets up and crosses to the window without a word, his hands clasped behind his back as he looks down onto the streets below.
She wonders whether he's actually been back to the apartment since her removal, or whether there are agents keeping tabs on it, as though whatever was in that gas is going to come back and try and finish the job. It's hard to tell when she's not looking at the real him. She can read nothing from his face, other than his grumpiness, but that's hardly new. He had probably been expecting hearty congratulations for his brilliant plan of breaking into SHIELD headquarters, but instead, he is lumbered with her anxiety over their arrangement being uncovered.
"Thor thinks an Asgardian saved me," she says at last. "An Asgardian with magic. He knows someone disguised as him went to the healers the night I fell ill."
"Thor's a buffoon," Loki replies quietly, his eyes still fixed on the traffic, the faint sounds of horns and sirens filtering through the open window. She doesn't bother arguing with him. She knows Thor's not a buffoon. If he were a buffoon he would have accepted Loki's death blindly, would not have thought, even for a moment, that his dear brother might have pulled the wool over the eyes of the entire universe.
"Well it was a stupid idea, dressing up as him," Natasha mutters. "You could have gone as anybody else."
"I got the medicine didn't I?" Loki snaps, turning away from the window at last. "And you can't just choose a person and become them, you have to know every detail of what you're becoming, and I've been looking at that brutish face for hundreds of years. I know it better than any other."
Natasha sighs, but doesn't say anything. Her silence only serves to frustrate him further, because he strides over to the bed, Clint's shorter legs leaving him a little unsteady, as though he'd forgotten his feet would be meeting the floor much sooner than they normally would. He clutches the rail at the end of her bed, leaning heavily against it, his eyebrows drawn together in a glower.
"In case you've forgotten, you were dying. I didn't have time to peruse a catalogue of disguises. I chose the first one that I knew would get me what I needed, no questions asked. I panicked."
"Okay," she says with a shrug. "Fine. I'm just saying you need to be careful if you want to stay hidden."
"Well maybe if you hadn't been so idiotic as to start dying - "
"Oh yeah, totally my choice," she replies, rearranging her blankets with no specific end game. She just wants something to do. She's not allowed to get out of bed, though as soon as Loki's gone she's determined to break that rule. She'll wait until he's clear of the building though, the last thing she needs is people kicking up a fuss when there's an intruder in the room. Loki might like to live life on the edge but after the last few weeks she could do without the stress.
"You should be fine," he says after a moment, his shoulders slumping as he lets go of the argument. "I think they'll probably let you out at the end of the week."
"If they don't I'll break out," she murmurs, scratching the skin around one of the sticky pads affixed to her ribs. There are too many wires for her liking. She can't even move freely in bed, and the cannula inserted in her neck with half a dozen plastic tubes branching off from it is getting heavier by the hour. She asks five times a day if it can be removed, but she has no such luck. The nurses just smile and take even more blood. At the rate they're going, she's surprised she's not been drained dry. She stares at the door, envious of all those who are free to walk through it. What she wouldn't give to just get out of bed, ditch this place, and go to the nearest deli, just for an hour or so, just something.
"Have you been eating?" she asks suddenly, her own cravings for non-hospital standard food forgotten.
"Yes," Loki replies with a small frown.
"Do you owe the pizza guy money?" she asks, trying to figure out just how much of a debt he might have accrued in her absence.
"No," Loki says quietly. "It's fine, don't worry about it."
His reassurances have little effect. "You haven't been stealing, have you?"
"No," he says again, this time more pointedly. "I haven't."
"Then how can you afford - ?"
"You always give me too much money," he says exasperatedly. "So there's been plenty left for me to live on. So stop, it doesn't matter."
She settles a little at his words, and there is a small pang of guilt in her chest. She had, of course, immediately assumed he had been stealing, as opposed to budgeting. The idea of him budgeting is ridiculous, but perhaps she's the ridiculous one, always assuming the worst of him, even after he's saved her life, twice.
"They have free lunches downstairs as well," he says with a shrug, his mouth twitching at the corners briefly. She smiles weakly and he straightens up, his fingers falling away from the bed frame.
"I should go," he says softly. "Barton won't be long."
Natasha nods, and glances up to his blue eyes, so familiar, yet in two completely separate ways that make them feel almost alien to her. She hopes she won't have to put up with many more of Loki's disguises. Her brain is still struggling to function on a basic level, so having Loki's voice emanate from Clint's mouth is fucking her up even more than it might do normally. Loki pauses, before turning towards the door, and he pulls it open, his fingers curling around the long metal handle.
"Come home soon," he says, staring at the ground. The words are so quiet that Natasha swears she's imagined them, but like a long distance missile they hit home after a few seconds, shattering her impression of him once again.
"Why?" she asks, recovering quickly from her shock. "You miss me?"
"The TV doesn't make breakfast," he says, without missing a beat, before he strides off down the corridor, the door of her room swinging slowly shut behind him.
Loki's right about Clint. It's not even an hour until the door opens once more. His tired smile gives him away immediately. He is real, and every little thing about him proves it - the way his squared shoulders sag in relief when he sees her sitting up and watching TV, the way he walks in that stiff, military fashion, the way he sits in the chair beside her bed, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
"Can you ask them to discharge me?" she asks, before he gets a chance to enquire about her health. "Either that or get cable." She flicks through the channels and finds nothing of interest, and eventually her boredom becomes too great and she switches the entire thing off, before tossing the remote onto her table, where it lands with a loud clatter. "Preferably the former," she adds.
"I'll speak to the doctors," he says quietly. "But they're under orders to be extra careful with you, given what happened."
Natasha sighs. "But I'm obviously fine."
"They thought you were obviously fine before," he says, leaning back in his chair. He stretches out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and watches Natasha carefully, as though expecting her to interrupt. "But then you very obviously weren't."
Natasha sighs again, then kicks at her blankets, her legs too hot from spending all day under layers and layers of bedclothes. She needs to get rid of her excess energy somehow, and complaining to Clint seems like the only possible means of doing so at the moment.
"Hey," he says, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a round package, wrapped in white greaseproof paper decorated with intersecting red lines. The smell immediately hits her, her mouth watering in anticipation, and she reaches out a hand to take the burger from him. He pulls it just out of reach, a sly grin on his face, and Natasha fixes him with a cold stare.
"Don't fuck with me, Clint."
He relents, and passes her the burger, which she unwraps with eager fingers, before she takes a huge bite, closing her eyes in satisfaction as she chews.
"You're the best," she murmurs, eyes still closed after she has swallowed her first mouthful. "You're the fucking best."
"Don't tell anyone," he says. "I'm pretty sure a good half dozen of the nurses could kill me in five seconds flat."
Natasha doesn't reply, and instead takes another bite, letting out a soft groan.
"You want some time alone with it?" Clint asks.
"I need at least eight more of these," she says, looking down at her burger, disappointment flooding her when she sees she only has half of it left. "At least eight."
Judging from Clint's snort, she'll be lucky if she gets another before the week is out.
She had never, not for one moment, ever thought she would be glad to be alone with Loki. And yet, after a further week of blood tests, nerve tests, and close observation, she is allowed home on the condition that she calls every four hours to check in with HQ. She has taken Loki's spot on the sofa, her muscles still fatiguing far too easily for her liking, and he seems content enough to have her legs resting in his lap. She's been signed off of work for four weeks, minimum, and maybe this time last year, those twenty-eight days stretching out ahead of her might have seemed like an endless eternity of inevitable boredom. Right now, however, she's glad to be home.
It's strange how, she can so quickly become accustomed to Loki's way of life, although she prefers the laughably bad TV movies as opposed to the near constant screaming and fighting of talk shows. It's so easy to wrap herself up in a blanket and lose herself, the outside world another concern for another time. It's a thought that scares her, but she thinks she's starting to understand Loki's logic.
Although his sarcasm and exasperation hasn't waned, he's better behaved than ever, ensuring she takes her medication at the appropriate times, reminding her to call HQ to check in (lest an army of agents and doctors storm her apartment). He's even been cooking for the both of them, on the days when Natasha's cravings for fast food (which are at an all time high after her bland hospital meals) take a backseat. He's also incredibly good at leaving her the hell alone when she wants some peace and quiet. She is certain that if any of the others were here, they'd be fussing constantly, and though she knows it would be with the very best of intentions, it would increase her stress levels tenfold. Sometimes she will wake from a nap to find a fresh glass of water on the coffee table, which has been pushed closer so her drink is within arm's reach, or sometimes she will wake to find that she has her blanket draped neatly over her, keeping the chill away.
Neither of them ever mention these occurrences, and they slip into an easy, comfortable routine. She receives visitors, of course, several a day during the first week, but she has insisted upon people texting her before they come, to ensure she's awake and dressed. Or rather, so that Loki has plenty of time to assemble a generic disguise and disappear to a bar for a while. She can usually gauge what time he's going to be back depending on the visitor. If Steve or Tony drop by, he knows it's safe to return after an hour or so, fully aware that neither of them have enough to say to her to fill any more time than that. If Bruce comes to see her, he maybe spends two or three hours out, and the same again with Clint, knowing that conversations can often become long and the time easily slips away from them. If Thor and Jane visit however, she won't see him again before midnight, when he'll stroll in, his disguise slipping away from him in a haze of green light, stinking of alcohol.
She feels as though she ought to say something, but knows the subject is sore enough already without her making it worse. The worst thing she could do is make things awkward when they're spending pretty much all day, everyday together. And apart from that, after everything he's done, it'd be a pretty poor way to repay him.
Towards the end of the second week, there is a knock at the apartment door. Natasha stills, and looks across at Loki, who is frozen in his seat. She reaches out to take her phone from the coffee table and presses the home button. The screen lights up, revealing no new text messages. She shrugs at Loki, who narrows his eyes, then carefully manoeuvres her legs off of his lap and stands up. Silently he crosses the apartment and enters the kitchen, and when another knock sounds, he turns around and nods towards the door. Natasha gets to her feet, wrapping her blanket around her shoulders, then pads down the hallway, listening intently for any sign of movement. There's a shuffling of feet, a soft squeak of a sneaker catching on the tiled floor, and then comes the sounds of a heavy sigh.
Not an assassin then.
She opens the door and is greeted by a sight she never thought she'd see again. His brown hair is sticking out at odd angles, as though he's run his hands anxiously through it several times in the past half hour. His stubble looks to be about a day old, and just from looking at it, she is battered with the memory of how it felt grazing against the skin of her neck as he kissed her. She blinks and clears her throat, her defences rapidly building, the chill in her skin bearing no relation to her current state of health.
"You're a god damn superhero," Sean blurts out.
Natasha raises an eyebrow.
"Don't do that," he says, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck as he begins to pace in front of her, his eyes focused on the floor tiles as he speaks. "I've seen it," he says. "On youtube. I saw you jump off of Captain America's shield and onto on of those crazy flying motorbikes."
Natasha sighs, and opens the door wider. This probably isn't a conversation they ought to be having within earshot of the neighbours, and so she gestures for him to come into the apartment. After a moment's hesitation, he steps over the threshold, his hands dug deep in his pockets as he looks around uncertainly.
"Number one," she says firmly, heading back towards the lounge. "Don't tell anybody."
"No, I won't," he says hurriedly. "I swear."
"Number two," she continues, as though he hasn't spoken. "Don't fucking tell anybody." She glances into the kitchen, but Loki is nowhere to be seen. She knows he'll be watching however, and she leads Sean right past the doorway. He can make his own call on this one. Sean's already met him, will probably never forget him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Loki has any inclination to repeat such an event.
"I won't tell anybody," Sean says, sinking down onto the the sofa. "I promise you, I won't."
"Why did you come here?" Natasha asks, folding her arms. She doesn't sit down. The sooner this is over, the better.
"I just had to hear it from you," Sean tells her. "And I get it now, I understand. You know, before I was pissed about the whole cover up thing but…I get it…" His words trail off into nothingness, and he looks up at her, his brown eyes boring into her own.
"Great. Well now you know," she says stiffly, her fingers tangling in the thin tassels at the edge of her blanket and gripping them tightly.
"I'm sorry about…everything," Sean sighs, running his hand through his hair. "I panicked, and I didn't know what to do and - "
"Dinner's going to be ready soon."
Both Natasha and Sean look over towards the kitchen, where Loki is leaning casually against the door jamb, his eyes fixed on Sean.
"You," Sean says, standing up, his shoulders squared, jaw clenched. "You caused it all. I saw the footage from Central Park, I went back and watched it all." He turns to Natasha, then raises his hand, jabbing his index finger towards Loki. "He's a God damn war criminal!"
Loki rolls his eyes and turns back to the kitchen, then starts unloading plates from the cupboard and setting them on the counter top. This only serves to infuriate Sean all the more.
"What the hell are you doing with a war criminal in your apartment?" he demands. "Is he holding you hostage?"
"Oh please," Natasha snaps. "Give me a little more credit than that." From the corner of her eye, she sees Loki smirk, but returns her attention to Sean before he catches on. If he sees Loki's smirk it'll only add fuel to the fire. His voice is getting a little too close to loud for her liking, any more anger, and any more volume, and she'll be forced to shut him up.
"Then what? What the hell is he doing here?"
"Things are a lot more complicated than you'll ever know - "
"People died because of him," Sean argues. "In this city, people died."
"I've killed people," Natasha tells him. "A lot of people."
"You did that for our safety though, for our country."
Natasha frowns. "I'm Russian. Well, I was."
"You're…what?"
This is, apparently, one revelation too far. Whether it's because he has an irrational fear of Russians most likely instilled in him by Hollywood, or because he's been hit with the cold realisation that she is nothing like the superhero he has imagined her to be, she's not quite sure. She is not a saviour in a catsuit. She's a machine, trained for one thing and one thing only. She was also trained to never ask for a reason. If she had reasons then it would mean she could have been reasoned with, and they could never risk that. Not with her.
Loki breaks the silence, clattering about in the kitchen as he starts dishing up their food. The noise is comforting, a normality in this alien situation, a reminder that outside her apartment, the world is still ticking on, just as it should be. Sean continues to stare at her, his mouth ajar, nothing to utter, until at long last, four words slowly form on his lips.
"He's a war criminal."
"You mentioned," Natasha sighs, glancing down at her feet boredly. She doesn't want to have to justify herself to him, she shouldn't have to, and yet here he stands, in the middle of her apartment, demanding answers, all because he saw some stupid pixellated video on youtube. Suddenly he's an expert. Everyone's a god damn expert apparently, except for those who were actually there.
Loki enters the lounge again, carrying two steaming plates of food - lasagne, as far as she can tell from a quick glance. As he passes her, the aroma seeps into her lungs, and she struggles to stay on topic with Sean.
"You swore to me you wouldn't tell anyone," she reminds him.
Sean shakes his head. "This is different. This isn't right. Not after everything he's done, you can't…I mean, are you working with him?"
"She's not working at all," Loki says coldly. "She nearly died for this pathetic country, mere weeks ago. She's still incredibly ill." He abandons dinner, and stalks towards Sean, his eyes fixed on him, his stare harsh and unforgiving. "And here you are demanding answers from her, demanding to know what her party tricks are, all because you want to tell your friends about the one time you nearly hadthe Black Widow."
"That's not why I'm here," Sean argues, his face reddening at Loki's accusations. "That's not it at all. I just - "
"Wanted to satisfy your curiosity?" Loki finishes for him, his voice delicate, almost kind. "Because your curiosity is far more important than her health, than her recovery, than anything of hers."
"No, I didn't realise, I - Natasha I'm sorry - "
"Didn't realise?" Loki growls. "Then you obviously haven't been paying attention. When have you ever seen her cling to a blanket like this?" He waves one large hand towards her own, still gripping tight to the edge of her blanket. She closes her eyes, but she can't block the sounds of the argument out, no matter how hard she tries. "When have you ever seen her with so little colour in her cheeks? When have you ever seen her close her eyes just so she can concentrate on breathing?"
"Don't turn this on me!" Sean spits. "Don't turn this on me when we all know that the real issue here is that you're a murderer, walking free in the same God damn city you tried to invade. That's not right, and the authorities need to know about it!"
Natasha's eyes snap open, and she scans Sean's clothes, searching for the disruption in the flow of the fabric that reveals the location of his phone. Inside jacket pocket looks like a safe bet, though he doesn't reach for it. Perhaps he knows better. Perhaps he still remembers the day they met, the display in the alley. Or perhaps Loki is more intimidating than she gives him credit for. It's him, of whom Sean is more wary, his gaze fixed on Loki, his teeth pulling almost imperceptibly on the inside of his lower lip.
"You would take us on?" Loki asks silkily, his hand finding its way to Natasha's waist, a display solely for Sean. The memory of a leggy blonde flashes through her mind, and she doesn't pull away from Loki, not even a fraction of a millimetre. "The Russian super spy, and the god?"
"You're no god. They'll chain you up, just like last time. But this time, they'll put you somewhere you can't get out." Sean stands his ground, his fists clenched at his sides, but she can detect a hint of uncertainty in his footing, as though he is ready to spring back at any moment to avoid an oncoming attack.
"You'd be wasting your time," Loki sneers. "There is no power on this earth that could hold me captive."
"I've seen youtube footage that begs to differ," Sean snaps back. "Maybe nobody on this planet, but your brother isn't from this planet, is he?"
Natasha can sense Loki's hackles rising, and his hand drops from her waist as he takes one swift step towards Sean, towering over him.
"My brother could not keep me captive in Asgard any more than you pathetic mortals would be able to keep me captive down here," he snarls. "I was in those chains because it was exactly where I wanted to be. It was the only way I would be able to return to my own realm. If I'd wanted your pitiful little planet, I would have had it in a heartbeat."
Natasha frowns, and turns to look at Loki, whose attention is focused solely on Sean. He's never said anything like this to her before, and she can't tell if he's just trying to intimidate Sean, or if he's actually opening up about the whole debacle. She doubts it's the latter, but his words seem a little too raw to be entirely false.
"Then why bother invading at all?" Sean demands. "And if this planet is so pitiful, why come back and stay?"
For the first time, Loki falters, but recovers quickly. "My reasons are no concern of yours."
While they might not be any of Sean's business, Natasha decides that they are most certainly her own, and, her interest piqued, she turns to face Loki.
"But it's a fair question," she says. "Of all the realms you could have gone to, why choose this one?" Her main focus has always been why he specifically chose her apartment, when really, the more interesting thing is his choice of world. She is well aware that humans are like children in the eyes of the rest of the universe, so why come to such an undeveloped planet?
Loki clenches his jaw, and Natasha is certain she's about to be on the receiving end of a string of acidic insults, but after a moment, he looks towards the ceiling, his anger replaced with his normally well hidden anxiety. "It's safe here," he mumbles.
"Safe from what?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. The idea that Loki's scared of something unsettles her. There's not much that upsets him, not really, but for him to seek out safety, to hide in plain sight on Earth, that may be a cause for concern.
He turns away sharply, heading back to the kitchen, and the tips of his fingers touch his cheek gingerly, as though he is succumbing to an unpleasant memory.
"Or do you mean it's safe wherever Thor is?" she calls after him.
He ignores her, opening one of the kitchen cupboards and taking out two tall glasses. He fills them with water, and Natasha knows she won't get another word from him on the subject.
"I'm concerned," Sean says quietly, taking a step closer to her. "This isn't Mork and freaking Mindy, he's a murderer."
"You don't need to be concerned," Natasha replies distractedly, her eyes still on Loki as he pops half a dozen ice cubes out of the ice cube tray and drops them into the drinks. "He's fine, really, he is."
"I'm scared he's going to hurt you," Sean murmurs. It doesn't matter that his words are quiet, from the way they hit her, he may as well have screamed them. She turns her attention back to him, one eyebrow quirked as she surveys him.
"The only person in this apartment who's ever hurt me is you," she says coldly.
Sean's mouth opens and closes dumbly in response to this, and Loki stalks past without a word, setting the glasses down loudly on the dining table.
"He invaded this city," Sean says, his words shaky as he moves past her accusation. "He's dangerous."
"Yeah," Natasha says. "He is. And so am I, so's Iron Man, so's Captain America. We're all dangerous."
"But he's on the other side," Sean argues. "You guys are protecting us, he's - "
"Cooking lasagne," Natasha finishes tiredly. "Somebody call the security council, there's a real likelihood of parmesan today."
"It's an act," Sean says determinedly, unphased by her sarcasm. "It's all an act, and - "
Loki slams his fist down on the dining table, water splashing from the glasses and onto the surface at the disturbance. Sean falls silent, and both he and Natasha turn towards Loki, who marches towards them.
"When the Dark Elves came to your precious planet, where were you? When the realms were aligning and darkness was imminent, what did you do to save the universe?"
"You didn't do anything," Sean sneers. "It was Thor, we all saw it on TV. Thor saved us, not you."
"And Jane," Natasha says through gritted teeth.
"And where would your precious world be now if I hadn't saved Jane Foster's life twice? Under whose rule would you be if I hadn't saved the oaf that is my brother?" At this he yanks up the bottom of his t-shirt, revealing a thick, blackened scar at the base of his sternum, a good five inches in length. It's bumpy, the skin hardened and rigid. "Were it not for my brains, and my sacrifice, you would all have been plunged into darkness."
Natasha tears her eyes away from the scar, but Loki's reflection in the windows catches her attention. In the faint image she can just about make out a similar dark scar on his back, an exit wound. Before she can think on it any more, the hem of his t-shirt is released, and he is undercover once more.
"The universe believes me to be dead," Loki says quietly, taking another step closer to Sean. "And it's going to stay that way, do you understand me?"
Sean is quiet, but he isn't disagreeing, which is surely an improvement. The lack of response doesn't seem to satisfy Loki however, who snaps his fingers. There is a blur of green light from the floor, and Natasha looks down to see one of the laces from Sean's sneakers wriggle its way out of the eyelets, before it transforms into a scarlet coloured snake with black and white markings. It winds its way up Sean's leg and around his torso until it comes to settle around his shoulders, hissing softly.
"This is my friend," Loki says gently. "He's going to stay with you to ensure you keep your mouth closed. One word about my existence, and he'll bite."
Sean looks towards Natasha, apparently expecting some sort of support, for her to reason with Loki, but she simply stands there, her eyes fixed on the snake. After all, there are worse threats in the world, and the snake will be sufficient to keep him quiet, that she is sure of.
"Do you understand?"
Tearing his eyes away from Natasha, Sean nods, his face pale, his shoulders tense, as he tries with all his might to ignore the snake.
"Good," Loki says. "Then I suppose it's probably time for you to leave, isn't it?"
Sean nods again, and the snake settles down, curling around his throat like a thick, shiny necklace.
"Oh and one more thing," Loki says, blocking Sean's path as he takes his first step towards the door. He leans close to him, and his next words are all but a murmur in Sean's ear. "He's cleverer than you. And venomous."
What little colour remains in Sean's face drains away immediately, and he lurches towards the door, his gait uneven and panicked. Loki turns to Natasha, his lips curling into a smirk as they hear the sound of the apartment door open and slam. Silence reigns for a few moments, and then he walks towards his seat at the table and sits down. She joins him without a word, and doesn't mention the fact that the lasagne is now only lukewarm.
Her conscience catches up with her much later, when she's lying on the sofa, wrapped in her blanket, her legs stretched out across Loki's lap while he watches a talk show with the volume turned low enough that she can barely hear it. It's nothing but a faint, tinny racket that's easy enough to block out, but he can, apparently, decipher every word.
"Is the venom fatal?" she asks sleepily, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier until she gives in and allows them to flutter shut.
"What venom?" he asks distractedly.
"The snake's venom," she mumbles, her eyebrows twitching into a frown.
"What snake?"
Her frown deepens. She's too tired for his bullshit. "The snake that you've got wrapped around Sean's neck."
Loki snorts. "Natasha, that's a shoelace."
Part of her wants to hit him, but the other part, the stronger part, wants nothing more than to succumb to sleep, and so she does. She wakes much later, the night pitch black, and it takes her a moment to realise that not for the first time, she has miraculously been transferred to her bed without disturbance.