Natasha and Clint end up in debriefing with Nick Fury himself.
He is somewhat annoyed because they are supposed to report every hour or so when they are on missions and not deep in infiltration or compromised, and they did not report to him for more than a day. For all purposes, they had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now he wants to know where they were and why they didn't report, and saying, "We were transported off the face of the Earth" is not an answer even if it's true.
Neither Natasha nor Clint is sure what to say. They did not talk about this earlier and now Natasha wishes they had. They take as long as possible describing how they were captured by the gang and the bounty was put on their head and they hid out in the hotel. Then they have to stop talking because they are not sure what to say.
Natasha's never had to explain about Loki before. Usually when he helps her in a mission, she'll just leave that part out in the debriefing. This time she can't do that, but she knows Nick Fury won't believe her if she tells the truth. Only, a part of her doesn't want to lie to him. She's trying to erase the red in her ledger, and this is no way to do that.
"Well?" Fury growls. "What happened then?"
Clint takes over.
"Well, then a liar showed up and saved us."
"A liar," Fury repeats skeptically. Clearly he needs more details. Natasha is worried. Some things they can explain but it will be pretty hard to explain why Clint is completely unharmed after they described his torture.
"Well," Clint says with a smirk. "He said he was Loki, the Norse god of mischief and tricksters. I drew the conclusion that yes, he was a liar."
"Sounds more like a lunatic," Fury says flatly. "Continue."
"So then he said he would take us both to safety and knocked us out."
"You allowed yourself to be knocked out by a lunatic stranger while there was a bounty on your heads?" Fury roars. "Were you trying to get yourself murdered?"
Natasha winces and puts in a few words. "Well, we didn't really see it coming. I'm still not sure how he did it."
"Anyways," Clint continues. "We woke up in a safe house. He called it Asgard. We stayed there for a few hours and then he brought us back here. Then he left."
Natasha strongly approves. Clint has a way of stating the truth so that it leaves out all the important details and sounds slightly more believable while not actually lying.
Fury takes a few deep breaths. A few minutes later he says, "So you just let him leave."
"Not really sure how we could have stopped him," Clint says. "Besides, he helped us."
"You're SHIELD agents. You could have thought of something." Apparently Fury doesn't consider the fact that Loki helped them to be relevant. "Also, you said you were tortured. You look fine now. The safe house offered medical care?"
Clint shrugs easily. "I don't know. When I woke up all my injuries were gone." The statement is technically true but comes near lying. Natasha hopes the debriefing won't last too much longer.
It does of course.
Natasha manages to get through it without admitting that she already knew Loki before, and that he is her patron god and his claim to being the Loki of Norse mythology is quite true (though that doesn't rule out his being a lunatic in the slightest). Clint doesn't say anything of the sort either, though he does mention there being a "guy who called himself Thor" and meeting other people in Asgard, and also that Loki had known where to find the SHIELD base. But it's all right. Fury is annoyed about the mysterious stranger, but does not question that they are saying everything they know.
He is annoyed, however, that they did not complete their earlier mission. He says he will send out a new team of agents to complete it whose faces are not known by the gang, and the bounty will be taken care of. Natasha breathes easier after that.
And so Natasha and Clint are dismissed, and Clint starts asking his questions now that no one, not even Loki, is around to interrupt.
Natasha takes it all in stride because she knows he will believe her now and really that is all that was holding her back in the first place.
/…/…/
About two years later, Natasha gets a call from Clint that has her hurrying down to a temporary base in New Mexico, built to protect a hammer that had fallen from the sky and that no one is able to lift from where it has landed.
No one questions why she's there. They're all too busy bustling around, talking about a crazy man who took down ten agents before being taken into custody, a man who was confident he would be able to lift the hammer but in the end had not been able to either.
Natasha is very curious about the entire thing. Probably more so than the other agents, because she isn't just wondering who on Earth the man is. She knows. Clint saw him earlier, when he was attempting to get Mjolnir back, and he says it was Thor. What she is wondering is what Thor is doing here, on Earth, when from what Loki has told her he usually disdains the planet as a home of weaklings.
She doesn't know if she can get an answer here or not, but she has come on the slim chance that somewhere in the confusion Loki will show up. If that happens, she can get at least a partial explanation out of him.
When he does show up, he doesn't walk up. Instead it's business as usual, he appears beside her without warning.
She doesn't startle because she's a good agent, and if she makes a commotion over here the other agents will be alerted and Loki will be taken into custody as well. Although knowing him, he probably wouldn't stay there for long.
"Natasha," he says in a genuinely pleased voice, almost a purr. "I did not think you would be here. Though I did see your hawk floating around."
"What's going on, Loki?" she asks quietly.
"Oh, a lot of things. You need not worry; they don't concern you. I didn't plan on Thor even coming down to this planet-Odin always does something unexpected."
"Loki, that's not an explanation," she hisses.
"Oh fine," he sighs. "You want an explanation, I'll give you an explanation. Thor's been banished but he's probably going to try to get back to Asgard. Odin's sleeping and that leaves me in charge. Thor has lost all superhuman abilities in his banishment and cannot lift Mjolnir. Neither can I. Neither can anyone. I am traumatizing Thor so he will stay on Midgard where he is supposed to be. Does that cover it?"
"No," Natasha says. "You know full well that doesn't cover it. Was this what you were planning?"
"Oh," Loki adds brightly. "And I did forget one detail. Silly me. It turns out I'm not actually Thor's brother. I was adopted the whole time. Didn't see that one coming."
Natasha looks carefully at Loki and notices for the first time that his face is even paler than normal, and his hands are clenched into fists, and trembling. "A lot of people are adopted," she says carefully, not sure what exactly she is trying to do, what she should say. "I'm sure Thor and your parents still see you as family."
Loki says, "Thor never knew anything about it. Poor fool. Treating me like a brother this whole time, not knowing what he was doing."
Natasha does not know what to do. She's never seen her patron look so angry. Not a terrifying, outright kind of angry, but a sort of building fury that's still under control but might break loose any second. "Do you need someone to talk to?" she says hesitantly.
He laughs harshly. "Good girl, Natasha. No, I have to get back to Asgard. I can't be gone for long, since I'm acting as king right now. I had to take the Bifrost to get here, I was in such a hurry, and I'll have to take it to get back. Now I owe Heimdall two favors." He makes a face like that is the worst part of this whole thing.
"Well, good luck acting as king I guess," Natasha says, because she has no way to help him and this is all she can really do.
"Appreciated," Loki says with a bright smile. Then he vanishes, and Natasha sees no more of him that day.
/…/…/
Loki specifically forbids Thor's friends from going to Midgard to help Thor to get back to Asgard. So of course Thor's friends go to Midgard to help thor get back to Asgard, because they have no respect for Loki whatsoever, and neither does Heimdall.
At least with Heimdall it makes sense. The man knows about Loki. He knows that Loki is no Aesir but a beast, a coarse and foul Jotun, and therefore it makes sense that the man ignores his commands and hates him. It makes less sense for Thor's friends. They have oft claimed to be Loki's friends as well. Loki has always known it for a lie, but he thought that since he is king temporarily, they would show at least a little respect for the title if not for him.
But they have no boundaries, not when they are helping Thor. No respect for him or the family that has taken him as their own, and even if he is really a monster, they do not know that and they still hate him. It smarts, and as Loki leads the Destroyer across the bridge to the Bifrost, he is thinking of that more than of any coherent plan.
Heimdall is waiting, solemnly, calmly, as he always is. Loki hisses, "You ignored my orders!"
Heimdall responds, "I did not activate the Bifrost, or send Sif and the warriors three to Midgard. Those were your orders, and I have followed them. Though I have no obligation to follow orders from you."
"I am the king!" Loki screams. It feels so, so good to let loose.
"No," Heimdall says. "You are acting as regent. Odin is king, and I can tell you he would not approve of you sending a Destroyer after his son."
After his son. Loki grits his teeth at the implication that Odin has only one son, and that son is Thor. If Heimdall views Loki as a Jotun, a Jotun he will get. He raises his staff and lets energy blast at Heimdall, energy that transforms into a layer of ice covering all of him except the head.
He smirks and, without saying anything, steps right past the giant. The Destroyer follows.
And then Heimdall speaks again. Only he is shouting. It is the most emotion Loki has ever heard in the gatekeeper's voice.
"Loki patron of Natasha, you owe me a favor!"
He stops walking. "And what do you ask? Don't ask me to unfreeze you. I will do so if I must, but I would only have to freeze you again."
"My request is simple," Heimdall says, once again calm and collected. "You are not to try to kill Thor or his companions, or send the Destroyer after them."
Loki frowns. "That's two things."
"It has to be. Otherwise you'd find a loophole."
Loki spins around and walks back until he and Heimdall are face to face again. "Rather large favor in exchange for one message being relayed," he remarks coldly. "You think one mortal's life is worth my forbearance?"
"I'm gambling on it," Heimdall says calmly. Loki knows he isn't anywhere near calm. There's tension in the air. Heimdall has to be wondering if he'll send the Destroyer or not, and just how much Loki values Natasha's life.
Though, if it comes down to it, he likes Natasha a lot. And Thor? He hates him, but it's not worth breaking his bargain: a favor for a favor. Thor is a mortal now, barely a fly in the grand scheme of things as long as he doesn't make his way back to Asgard.
So he says, "Since you saved my follower I will do this for you. But the ice stays. I will not have Thor disturbing my plans, and I know you would love to let him at me."
Loki actually doubts Thor could do much harm to his plans at this point. His brother is only mortal right now after all, and Loki could overpower him easily. The thought amuses him, and he allows a smirk to form on his face.
Heimdall smiles back, ever so slightly, as much as he can now that the ice is beginning to spread up to his cheeks. "It will take more than ice to stop me from doing my duty as gatekeeper."
Loki lets him talk tough but ignores him. Laufey will be in Odin's room soon, probably in just a few minutes. He needs to be there first, ready to stop him from killing Odin, or this entire plan will have done nothing but injure his goals.
/…/…/
An hour later, Loki is bored.
He is standing inside the Bifrost, ready to start a Jotun genocide. And Thor is lying on the floor at his feet, struggling to get up. Unfortunately (for him) he's a mere mortal at the moment, and Loki is an Aesir (or at least a Jotun with Aesir training). This means that every time he tries to rise to his feet, Loki can simply use his superior strength to shove him across the room or back down, and probably break a few of his bones in the process.
"Brother," Loki sighs. "You really should know better than to challenge me in that form. You have nothing on your side: not strength, not your hammer, and certainly not intellect. How did you even get to Asgard in the first place?"
Thor showed up about twenty minutes ago when Loki was just heading towards the Bifrost to kill hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Jotuns. They have not spoken to each other since then because Thor insists on continuing this senseless and completely one sided fight.
Thor groans, "Heimdall brought me up on the Bifrost."
Loki narrows his eyes. Oh. He had noticed the giant missing outside but had been rather distracted by Thor's feeble attacks. He will have to do something different to incapacitate Heimdall next time. Ice apparently doesn't make the cut.
"What are you plotting, brother?" Thor moans. "What plan-"
"I'm not your brother," Loki hisses. "As for my plan, look around you. What do you see?"
Thor looks around in confusion. Loki waits but knows he won't get it. His brother is such a fool. (And he's not his brother of course, but the habit of calling him as such is hard to break…)
"I see the Bifrost," Thor says confusedly. "Are you planning on running away, Loki? Why? You lied to me but I do not think you have committed any other crimes. And everyone knows you are a liar."
Loki rests his foot gently on Thor's head. It is about the size of a Midgardian soccer ball, unless they have changed the size of those things since the last time he played, which was about fifty years ago so he finds it likely. He viciously imagines giving it a good strong kick, but that would distract Thor's attention and he wants to tell the fool his plan. He might as well, since there is little Thor can do at this point to stop it.
"You are seeing it wrong," Loki says quietly. "True, the Bifrost is a method of transportation. But a warrior like you should realize that it can also be used as a weapon. Leave it focused on a world for longer than a few seconds, and it will tear that world apart." He smiles darkly. "I intend to use that power."
Thor gasps, chokes. "Not-not against Midgard. No!"
Loki feels rather confused. "What? Of course not Midgard! Why would I want to destroy the place where my only followers live? Scratch that, why would I want to destroy that place even if they didn't live there? It's a nice enough realm. It's never done anything to me." The last part is slightly a lie because over hundreds of years, he has gathered several injuries at the hands of clever and hostile Midgardians. But they have still harmed him less than, well, pretty much any other realm actually, including Asgard itself.
"Oh," says Thor. "But what other realm has done you wrong?"
"You always make me out to be selfish," Loki says accusingly. "The realm I want to attack has done all of Asgard wrong. I wish to destroy Jotunheim, for good."
Thor ponders this for a moment.
Loki is somewhat annoyed at the delay and contemplates kicking his brother's head again (not his brother).
"Jotunheim?" Thor finally says. "What do you have against Jotunheim?"
Loki sighs and gives up. "It would appear that any reasonable motives that do not concern you are beyond your comprehension. I will explain the matter thoroughly…when Jotunheim has been destroyed."
"No," Thor gasps. "No Loki, don't destroy it!"
Loki raises an eyebrow. "Why on Earth not?"
"On Earth?" Thor says, confused.
Loki waves a hand. "Never mind that. I'm picking up habits from my followers apparently. But why not destroy Jotunheim? All that's on it is a bunch of monsters. You always thought it was a good idea before." Maybe it is just because Thor never likes Loki's ideas. He's rejected better ideas in the past for stupider reasons.
"Even if they appear to be monsters," Thor spits out. "They are helpless against this power, and many of them are innocent! It would be wrong!"
"Oh, I see," Loki says with some disgust. "You don't think it would be chivalrous. Well, this for your chivalry!" He grinds Thor's head into the ground with his foot, making the man wince. "They plan to make war on us. They've been brooding ever since their last defeat and they'll continue brooding and scheming as long as a single one of them is left alive! We can't afford another war, Thor! If you have objections you shouldn't have tried so hard to start one when we visited Jotunheim!"
"I've changed," Thor coughs, barely able to speak anymore. "I know now…we can't just kill them. They're people. Even if they're not Aesir, they're still people."
"Wrong," Loki hisses. "They're monsters."
He walks towards the Bifrost, raising the staff to activate it. And then a voice comes from behind him.
"You're the one who is wrong."
He doesn't turn around. Doesn't need to. He recognizes the voice. Only until he heard it, he thought that its owner was in the Odinsleep right now, not up and trying to annoy him.
"I'm glad you're awake, Allfather," he says courteously. "I'll be happy to return your staff as soon as I'm done here."
He begins to bring the staff down but a strong hand grabs his wrist and twists him around. He finds himself looking into Odin's deep, stern eyes.
"No, Loki."
The words steal all his drive, and he lets the staff drop.
He pulls away. The Allfather (but not his father) lets go of his wrist to pick up the staff from where it has fallen.
Loki watches him stand up again, looking like the king who he could never be, the king who could never be the father of scum like him.
He braces himself for a lecture, maybe even a banishing. He hasn't killed anyone but that monster Laufey yet, but he came very close, and he knows Odin is always harsher on him than on Thor. He forces himself to stand as straight as the man who is not his father, willing his body not to shake. He may have given up on his plan, his glorious plan, and he may not be Aesir, but he has been raised as a prince and he still has his pride.
The Allfather takes a brief look at him and turns to Thor.
"Brave of you to challenge your brother in your mortal form," he comments, pulling Thor to his feet. "You could have been killed."
Loki swallows a gasp, a retort. He wants to say he would never kill his brother, but remembers that only an hour ago he was willing to do just that. Perhaps Odin is justified.
"Father," Thor says. "I was worried Loki would hurt you. I…I am so glad to see you well."
The golden prince ends up half collapsed in his father's arms, and the Allfather does not look away from his true son's face. It's a touching family reunion. Loki should not be here.
He quietly teleports away. In moments, he is in his room.
The touching scene won't last long, he knows. Soon, they will be at his door, looking for him. Soon, Odin will be talking about a punishment, maybe taking away Loki's magic like he took away Thor's strength. Loki cannot wait for them.
He has never belonged on Asgard anyways. It is almost cheerfully that he packs his potions and a few books in a small (but slightly bigger on the inside) bag. It is almost light heartedly that he sets out walking along the branches of Yggdrasil, heading for Midgard.
/…/…/
Natasha is still worried about that strange meeting with Loki in New Mexico. When she saw him then, he seemed so terrifyingly angry. It is a week since then now, and she cannot help but imagine that he is causing incredible chaos in Asgard. She wonders if Thor is all right. He left the SHIELD base soon after she met with Loki, and she worries that he has gotten into trouble with Loki. He seemed so strong when she met him first in Asgard, but without his strength or hammer she knows Loki could destroy him easily.
So Natasha worries, and that night when she finishes her training she does not stay up any later. She instead goes to her suite early, unsettled enough that she forsakes her usual habit of staying up and playing poker with her fellow agents. They are not as friendly as Clint anyways. And since they do not know about Loki, she cannot confide her worries to them. She will not pretend nothing is wrong and put on a brave face for them when it is possible that Loki is out somewhere destroying worlds and slaughtering thousands in his rage.
Natasha's suite is small but comforting. She sighs, letting her worries flow out with her breath, and sinks down on her bed. Maybe Loki is fine after all. Maybe he actually has no interest in destroying worlds. And either way, he's not even on Earth right now so there's no way his antics could affect her.
"Hello, Natasha."
Natasha freezes where she is sitting on her bed. Loki's voice. Think of the devil and he will appear.
Except he hasn't appeared yet. In fact, he is nowhere to be seen. She says, as calmly as possible, "Loki…? Did you make yourself invisible?"
A laugh echoes throughout the room. "Oh, no. Nothing that complicated, particularly with my magic as drained as it is just now. I travelled here at top speed. That requires a lot of energy."
"Then where are you?" Natasha says, ignoring the rest of what he just said. She will consider it more later. Right now she is freaked out.
"Oh, right here," says Loki. And then he pops his head out from under the bed.
Natasha does not shriek. Really.
"Honestly," Loki says. "You should be used to me appearing by now, Natasha. I am beginning to think you are not worthy of being my follower."
He says the words lightly, but he actually looks very annoyed. Natasha hopes that most of that annoyance is not really pointed at her. Anyways, she can't help but feel annoyed at him too. "I am fine with you appearing out of thin air. You certainly do it enough. But if you ever hide under my bed again, I swear I will gut you, god or not."
Loki's shoulders are just far enough out from under the bed that she can see him shrug apologetically. "I don't make a habit of hiding under beds. I was worried that someone would come in who wasn't you, so I couldn't just sit around in plain sight." He grins. "It would be a bit difficult to explain how an unauthorized person could get so far into SHIELD headquarters. Not to mention why I wanted to be in your room in the first place."
Natasha cocks her head and raises an eyebrow. "Now there is a good question. Why are you here, Loki?"
Loki half closes his eyes. "I would call you fool hardy to assume I had any purpose here at all," he murmurs. "But you are quite correct. Natasha," he says, and his voice is suddenly sharp. "You once said you would betray your country and leave your life behind to follow me. Did you mean it?"
"At the time," Natasha says carefully. "I did."
"Oh," says Loki mockingly. "At the time. I see. Well, how about at this time, Black Widow? Would you follow me now?"
Natasha considers it.
Then she glares down at Loki. "I'm not having this conversation with you still under my bed. Come out."
"Your legs are in the way," Loki says with a grimace.
Natasha moves her legs. Loki sighs in a put-upon manner and wriggles out from under the bed. It is amusing to see the usually so elegant man be so very, very awkward.
Loki doesn't seem to notice or mind the awkwardness at all. He merely stands up, brushes his strangely human looking suit off, and looks down his nose at her. "Well?"
Natasha considers it again.
It was something she has not had much occasion to think about in the past, what she would do if she had to choose between Loki and SHIELD. Loki does not usually stick around long enough for it to be an issue, and he's never asked her to do more than buy him a drink. And that only happened once. Sure, her involvement with Loki has forced her to tell a few lies to hide his existence, but other than that, she's never had to worry about conflicting loyalties because until now they haven't conflicted.
"What exactly would following you entail?" she asks. "What are you plotting? And what would you expect me to do about it?"
Loki smirks and Natasha suspects she's going to regret asking those questions. "I'd expect you to serve me, Natasha. That's not very complicated. As for exact tasks, I don't know yet but I'm sure you'd be useful. And as for my goal…" His smirk deepens into a full-fledged grin. "My follower, I have decided to take over the world."
Natasha wishes she were a bit more surprised.
Still, "Isn't that a bit too cliché? Every other supervillain in the world is trying to do that!"
Loki still hasn't stopped grinning, and his expression is starting to look not just amused but unstable. Still, his voice is calm and reasonable. "Two things. First, I am not a supervillain. I am…" he trails off. "A god. A monster. A lot older and wiser than any of those fools who wear silly costumes and hold up banks. What that has to do with taking over the world, I'll never understand." He stops for a moment, apparently to ponder the stupidity of supervillains before dismissing the matter with a wave of his hand. "And secondly, it is not too cliché. It is just cliché enough."
Natasha personally thinks he is just in denial about both matters. "And why do you even want to take over the world?"
"Because I can," Loki says. "Or maybe I can't. Won't it be fun to find out? And I'm sure it will just drive Thor around the bend!"
"You're doing this to spite your brother?" Natasha says incredulously.
Loki's grin turns into a glare so fast it's unnerving. "I thought I told you," he says with clenched teeth. "I thought I told you before, that Thor Odinson is not my brother."
"Right," says Natasha. She swears a little to herself. It appears that whatever Loki was upset about a week ago still has him more than a little unhinged, and she can't help but worry about her patron's health. "Right."
Her answer does not calm Loki down. He stops glaring at her, though, and starts pacing instead, fixing his scowl on the floor. "You're a presumptuous follower," he mutters. "Always have been."
"Sorry?" Natasha offers. She quirks an eyebrow. Loki doesn't see it because he's still glaring daggers at the floor.
He looks up abruptly. "Question me all you want. But I won't answer. Not until you tell me you'll serve me."
It makes sense. Natasha is not to be trusted after all, and her patron, who taught her about half of the tricks she knows, certainly is aware of that. Any information he gives her now, she could easily give to SHIELD, who would use it against him to stop him from taking over the world.
It makes sense. Yet for some reason it hurts Natasha that Loki does not trust her, after all the years they've known each other, all he's done for her, even if she's done little in return. It hurts her and worries her, and she wonders if in his whole life he has ever been able to trust anyone completely. They say madmen think everyone is crazy, and liars think everyone is lying.
Natasha thinks perhaps she's never wanted anything as much in her life as she wants Loki to trust her. Yet she can't do that without saying she'll serve him, and if she serves him she'll have to go against SHIELD eventually. And maybe there is one thing she wants more. She wants Clint, his trust, his friendship and his love, and to follow Loki would be to betray that. Indeed, she would most likely end up having to fight him, if she follows Loki, for SHIELD would never just sit back and watch someone attempt to take over the world. Yet how can she not follow Loki when he has helped her all her life? He has literally saved her life, multiple times. Yet ultimately, Clint was the one who changed her life and made it worthwhile.
"What about Clint?" she asks Loki, unable to decide.
"I told you I would answer no more questions until you swore to serve me," Loki says. Then he smiles, comfortingly. "I will say this much. I know how you feel for your hawk, and I will certainly take that into account. At the very least, the hawk will not die at my hands or by my will."
"You're very specific," Natasha says with a frown.
"Your hawk is very troublesome."
"Don't I know it." Natasha smiles. "All right. Let's do it, Loki. Let's take over the world."
/…/…/
AN: Ah...I was going to post this chapter a lot sooner. Then my computer crashed and stuff happened...However, I did find a backup on my email of this chapter and a recent review reminded me that I should really update. So here you all go. This may possibly be the last chapter, though-I wrote all this stuff a long time ago.
About this chapter though...Heimdall called his favor in, and a heavy favor it is. And Loki is having the angst as always, and Natasha is confused. So, business as normal. Reviews are always appreciated.