I apologize. I know nothing about Liar's dice. Veterans, please don't laugh at what I wrote. I know it's horrible but I just have no idea how to play it. You'd think I would change the game since I have complete control over this story, but alas, I actually don't know how to play many games in the first place.

Also, thanks to Ordis, I can't stop referring to the Chitauri warrior from the previous chapter as 'Gard.' Thanks for that, Ordis. It is now my headcanon.

I dunno if you guys know this, but I usually am writing several chapters ahead of what I've updated, and I've got to say, this is already turning out to be probably the story with the most chapters I've ever written, not counting the awful and crappy parody from six years ago. I also noticed that the playlist I listen to while writing has drastically changed over the course of this story, which is rather interesting considering the music choice and the general mood of the future. This ought to be fun...

And also, oh wow! Over a hundred follows by chapter 4! I'm so happy and touched that so many people are interested enough in the story to want to continue reading it. Thank you so much for reading! Please enjoy the next chapter~

Natasha stood stock still in front of the door with half the mind to tell Fury to forget it, she does what she wants and this was not anything remotely close to what she wanted.

It wasn't like she wasn't used to pretending. God knows how many assholes she had to flirt with or bastards she had to put up with in order to get the information she needed or the kill she was assigned. And true, many of said bastards and assholes were no more innocent than the one currently locked up in the room before her, but this was a case beyond her training.

For one thing, she never had to approach his room with a chess box in her hand because it was the closest she was going to get to making a mute open up. But that half of the mind was overwhelmed by her sense of duty. Fury had taken her aside, demanding she wheedle information out of Loki in any way possible.

"There's no way the Chitauri are going to just let their prisoner play hooky and not try to get him back," said Fury. "And I doubt the Chitauri are going to play nice if they find out we're housing him."

"What do you want to do, release him back into the Norwegian wilderness?" said Natasha. "I'm sure Thor would like that a lot. He'd really understand."

"This whole planet still owes Thor a debt," said Fury. "And if this is the way we can pay him back, then fine. But I'm putting my foot down if that means bringing a damn war titan or whatever the hell Thor was talking about to Earth to screw shit up."

Considering Fury's extreme ire, she doubted it was the best time to bring up the fact that the last time she and Loki had a conversation, she double-played him completely and that Loki was probably going to be less than willing to talk to her about anything, especially considering the fact that he was allegedly mute.

He was the God of Lies, perhaps, but even tricksters knew a thing or two about broken trust.

She took in a deep breath, the chess box feeling heavy in her hands. Trust was one thing. Respect may possibly be another. From the stories Bruce told the rest of the team about Loki's reactions to the medics and treatment, she doubted there was an ounce of sanity left in him. She wasn't sure if that made the job any easier for her.

She rested her hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath. This was for SHIELD, she reminded herself. No—this was for the world. If they had to face another wave of Chitauri soldiers again, who was to say that they would be successful this time?

"That is my bargain, you mewling quim."

She swallowed hard. She could only be thankful that he was no longer speaking.

Natasha finally turned the handle and pushed open the door. The room was understandably silent with only the dull beeping of the machinery Loki was hooked onto. Loki himself was prone on the bed; the top half of the bed was raised slightly to an incline so that he didn't lie flat. He looked wasted away, his lean and sturdy muscle famished into skin and bone and his sunken eyes bathed in shadows on his emaciated face. His short black hair fell across his pillow like a torn funeral shroud.

Said eyes latched onto Natasha immediately after she stepped into the room. He frowned slightly for a half a second before recognition froze his gaze. His lips thinned into something that was either a smirk or a grimace.

"Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red."

Natasha clenched her teeth, closing the door behind her. Even in his silence and absolutely ravaged state he was formidable. There was green fire in his eyes and determined potential sculpted his bones.

Of course, Natasha thought bitterly. Not all lies have to be spoken.

She edged closer to his bedside before slowly settling herself on the stool. His gaze never left her, his eyes large with skepticism and his long fingers twitching to close into a fist. Had he any strength left, after constantly upsetting his wounds and the many dosages of sedatives, she was certain he would be preparing to pounce.

"Remember me?" she said.

He gave a sharp exhale as if he found humor in her words. He glanced over her shoulder towards the door for a brief moment.

"No one else is coming in. Just me," said Natasha. "What, were you expecting Thor?"

Loki narrowed his eyes and bit the corner of his lip. Natasha let herself smile, basking in the slight victory.

"Thor took Bruce really seriously when Bruce said he being around you would only hurt you even more," said Natasha. "If it weren't for that, he'd have never left your side."

Loki shook his head as if to say, Idiotic oaf.

"Or were you thinking that Clint would come?" said Natasha. "You remember Clint? Clint Barton?"

Loki raised his eyebrows.

"The one that you said you'd make kill me intimately, slowly, in every way I fear."

Loki raised his eyes as if to tell her he knew completely well who she meant, thank you very much.

"I have to hand it to him, I'm surprised he didn't try to kill you yet," said Natasha. It was odd how easy it was to tell the truth to Loki, even if it was for a bigger purpose. Natasha was no extrovert; even her truths hid behind a film, filtering only what she deemed safe to tell and scraping all the dark, raw honesty from the screen to hoard for another day. But with Loki, they flowed freely. "What you did to him—what you made him do—was deplorable."

Loki inclined his head slightly on his pillow, scrutinizing her. She shrugged.

"But I'm not here to kill you. I'm not an assassin like that. Of course, you already know that, don't you? Considering Barton had told you everything."

She opened the cardboard chess box and pulled out the smooth wooden board. Balancing it neatly on the small nightstand, she carefully positioned each piece in its proper place, a neat little line of soldiers in their careful squares. The kindest war the world would ever see.

"But I thought we'd have a trade, because I know even Clint doesn't know everything for him to tell you."

Loki raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Considering you're going to be here a while as our people treat you—"

That must have set something off in his mood because she definitely noticed a flare of annoyance in his eyes. He lifted his wrist up to her eye level, forcing the sight of his handcuffed wrist into her view, as if to remind her that even in his current state all of SHIELD would be decimated to ashes if his magic wasn't inhibited and if his tongue wasn't silenced. She couldn't help but agree.

"—and the fact you apparently love knowing trivia about SHIELD agents if you were so curious enough to ask Clint," said Natasha, "I'll make you a bargain. And since I'm the one talking, I'll be setting the rules."

The look on Loki's face clearly said that once he straightened out this mess, she would probably be magicked into a snowman to melt on a Caribbean beach and die slowly, intimately, or something just as creative.

"Ever played chess?" she said. "It's a game of strategy."

He nodded, his eyes studying her carefully.

"You win, I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know. I win, you'll do something for me."

Loki's jaw twitched and he brushed a loose strand of hair from his eyes. Natasha leaned forward, widening her eyes to pull on a façade of innocence.

"Though, to make things a little more fair, go a little easy, won't you? Never played with the god of mischief or anything, you know."

Loki made a face that surely said, I am not falling for that.

Natasha smirked. He learned fast, at least.

"White or black?" she said.

Loki waved a hand to her as if to say, Ladies first.

Natasha reached for the black pawn and pushed it two paces up. She never took his eyes off of him.

Amazing, she thought. Amazing how the very man that threatened her and Clint's death, that led to the destruction of New York City, that sent tremors of fear down her spine, was reduced to this thin, weakened creature stuck playing chess with her.

He wrapped white fingers around an equally white pawn and edged it forward one square. He didn't have the strength to lift his head, so Natasha moved the board into a place where he could reach. He pursed his lips in annoyance.

Really, getting on his bad side was too easy.

"I used to hate chess when I was a little girl," said Natasha. She hesitated at first; no, this story wasn't part of the plan. But there was something about the god of lies that demanded honesty, as if he had been immersed in too many lies and craved the truth. "In the Red Room, they taught us chess at an incredibly young age. To learn tactics and deception. I thought it was dull."

Their pieces danced around each other, but they both knew this was no ballroom. Cinderella who sought to kill, the twelve sisters who fought for their lives.

"I had one friend there, a couple years older than me. Maybe she was seven at the time. She loved chess, could never understand why I hated it so much. I don't remember her name anymore."

It was a lie, and she knew that he realized it immediately. His gaze flickered toward her for a short moment before returning to the board.

"So she told me to look at playing chess as telling a story. Two warring kingdoms with a beautifully magical queen and a wise king, surrounded by their royal and loyal subjects. It's an obvious allegory, considering the pieces, but when people play the game they're always looking for strategy, for the way to win. They never stop and listen to the story."

He counteracted her attempt of a distraction and devoured her precariously placed knight. She hid a scowl and shifted her bishop into safety.

"When she told me that, I got carried away immediately. I started dreaming about this new kingdom I played for. I gave all the pieces names and stories as if they were real people. I remember naming the queen Tatyana. She was a sorceress and the most beautiful woman in the world, with red hair."

His pawn knocked away one of hers, edging its way into kingship. Natasha smiled and used her rook to knock it from its victory. Immediately the rook was destroyed by a hidden dagger, a traitorous pawn.

"I spent hours and hours daydreaming about this little kingdom. I named it Stranachudes—sort of means 'wonderland.' I wasn't a creative child yet back then. I felt like I could truly live in it, disappear from the Red Room and be a part of it."

His queen edged closer to her side of the board. She squinted, debating whether to knock out the threat or to pursue his king. In the end, she shifted her knight closer to his king. He watched her, his eyes glinting with something unreadable.

"It made me like chess a lot in the short run," said Natasha. "My friend and the mistress were happy, at least. I would play and learn all the tricks and practice all the time so my kingdom would keep winning. At the rate I was going, I could have been the champion. Not that there were winners in the Red Room."

His king retreated to safety beyond her reach. She rested her chin on interlocked fingers. She nearly forgot about her story as she scrutinized the game, searching for a weak spot, a plan B. With deliberation she barricaded her king in a wall of protective rooks. One of them was knocked out of the game. Check.

"But the plan sort of backfired," said Natasha. "I got too emotionally attached to my characters. I couldn't bear let any of them get killed, not even a single pawn. Not for the sake of the king. I lost more and more games, and the mistresses kept punishing me for failing so much. Even though I thought I was protecting them. My fantasies—my imaginary friends."

Loki glanced up at her. She shrugged carelessly as she nudged one of her pieces into alleged safety. Without much hesitation, the piece was immediately swept off the board and Loki's queen took the square. Check.

"I finally confided to the mistress why I couldn't play chess properly. That I had grown to love those imaginary pieces, that I couldn't bear to lose them. She punished me—hard. And then she burned my pieces. She found out my friend was the one who encouraged it, and she went without dinner for a week. She stopped talking to me after that."

She leaned back after making her move. Loki hesitated, his slim fingers lingering over his pieces, before nudging a piece forward. Check.

"That's what the Red Room teaches you, really," said Natasha. "You can't make friends with anyone. You can't know too much about anyone, and no one can know too much about you. No emotional ties, no attachments, none of it. If it disrupts your work, if someday you have to turn against them, it will only hinder you. And they can't afford that. Expenditure is easier than sacrifice."

She moved her unthreatening bishop alongside his king. He lifted his hand, about to make a move, before pausing. He blinked, his eyebrows slowly furrowing into a frown.

"Checkmate," she said.

He lifted his eyes to her, the expression on his face amusedly unreadable. She scooped the fallen pieces off from the side of his bed and placed them on the table, humorously dwelling in his shock of her success. He went for her distraction, hook, line, and sinker. Sometimes she had forgotten how her deception could be used for amusement instead of a kill.

But when she looked back up to Loki, she hesitated. Loki had, with much effort, pushed himself up into a proper sitting position. He rolled the loose sleeves up his arms and brandished his pale wrists as if waiting for her to rap his skin with a sharp ruler. Frowning, she looked up into his eyes only to see them silent and defeated, as if resigning to his fate and not just his failure.

"What are you doing?" she said.

There was no sarcasm, no lift of an eyebrow, no condescending smirk. His face was purely blank, almost protectively so, and he lifted his arms a little higher. She let herself glance down at them. They were heavily bandaged, and where skin was visible there were thick and ugly scars running down his arm. She felt her stomach sour at the realization.

"I was going to ask you questions like you would have asked me should you have won," said Natasha. "That's all."

Loki's lips parted, almost in confusion, before setting his wrists down to the blanket. He eased his way back onto the bed, suppressing a wince as pain shot through him. Natasha couldn't help but feel a flurry of indignation; did he truly expect her and SHIELD to be so barbarous towards him?

"On second thought," she said, "I'll save it for another day. You just remember your end of the deal, or I expose to everyone that a weak, mewling quim beat you in chess."

She pooled everything back into the box, the pieces clattering loudly to fill the silence. She was just about to rise from her seat and leave when she felt a hand brush her shoulder. She stiffened and spun around; Loki withdrew his hand immediately.

"What is it?" she said.

Loki parted his lips as if he was about to speak, and for a moment Natasha felt a rush of excitement and accomplishment, that she would be the one to get the stubborn bastard to talk. But only choked breath came from his throat and he closed his mouth in defeat. Instead, he shook his head, keeping his eyes transfixed on her.

"What, you don't want me to expose the mewling quim thing?" she said.

He waved a hand to dismiss her words. He pointed to her.

"Mewling quim?" she said, taking a stab in the dark.

He bowed his head, eyes still fixed on her.

Natasha's eyebrows shot higher and higher up her forehead.

Was he apologizing for name-calling?

She sure as hell wasn't going to ask.

"Well," she said. She rose from her seat, box returned in her hand. He watched her go to the door, his eyebrows knit with slight confusion. She turned back to face him and found herself almost smiling.

"Thank you for your cooperation," she said.

"Let's play a game, Asgardian."

Loki closed his eyes, trying to weed out their voices from his head. He couldn't stop his limbs from shaking, both from the cold and the intense strain of the agony they had just endured. He groggily pushed himself off the ground and onto his feet, even though every inch of him screamed in protest at his attempt to still appear strong.

"Don't you want to play?" said the Chitauri.

He bit down on the tip of his tongue. He would not fall for it this time. No—he shan't speak this time.

"We'll make a deal with you, how about?"

A deal. He felt the corner of his lip twitch upward. He never had the best of luck with deals. When he made a deal he ended up with a sewn mouth. Hell, the last deal he made was the reason why he was with the Chitauri in the first place.

"You win our game of yours, we let you free for a week. No pursuit, no punishment, no more of our…playtime."

He dug his nails into his palm, waiting.

"You lose," it said, and it leered with pleasure, "and you must do something for us."

He felt the blood drain from his face and he nearly swayed had he not planted his feet firmly on the ground. Agreements with the Chitauri were dangerous—foolish, even—but the promise of a week—a week!—of freedom, of painless, fearless freedom, was so sweet and so unimaginable that he craved it. Needed it. He nodded and the Chitauri yelped with amusement.

"It agrees! The Frost Giant whelp agrees."

They dragged him to a makeshift table of stone and shove him at the head of the table. One other warrior sat across him, two cups in its hands. He handed one to Loki.

"It's a Midgardian game of sorts," said the Chitauri. "Liar's Dice."

Loki rattled the cup. Five dice jangled within.

"You know how to play, don't you, Asgardian?"

Loki nodded. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. He was so, so cold.

"Then we begin."

They shook the dice in their cups before slamming it down onto the table. Loki glanced to his left and right, making sure the other watching Chitauri were not positioned around him to give him away. He lifted his cup so only he could see within. Four threes, a six, and a five.

"Our guest of honor first," said the Chitauri, its grin broadening.

Loki cleared his throat, then cleared it again. When he opened his mouth, his voice was so weak and thin even the stars hummed louder.

"Six threes," said Loki.

The Chitauri narrowed its beady eyes. "Four fives."

Ah. So the Chitauri didn't trust him. Fair enough.

"Three sixes."

"Seven fives."

"Liar."

The cups lifted. Loki lifted an eyebrow at the Chitauri, who gritted its teeth.

"Round one," it said before scooping the dice back into the cup. Loki did the same, rattling it to shuffle the pieces before placing it upside down on the table again.

"Three twos."

"Five twos."

"Three fours."

"Five fives."

"Liar."

Loki relented and lifted his cup. The Chitauri grinned at the lack of fives on the table. Loki gritted his teeth.

"Five games."

The dice splattered on the table like broken bones underneath their cups.

"Four sixes," said the Chitauri.

"Liar," said Loki.

The Chitauri scoffed before they both lifted their cups. No sixes lied on the table. Loki discreetly let out a sigh of relief. Everything in him itched like a disease. He hated this feeling of nervousness, the kind he couldn't will away, that ballooned in his chest until his innards soured.

"Round four," said the Chitauri.

Four sixes, one five.

"Three fives," said Loki.

"Four fives," said the Chitauri.

"Three sixes."

"Eight sixes."

"Liar."

The cups lifted. The Chitauri jeered and laughed and Loki bit down hard on the side of his tongue. One more game. He still had a chance. One more game and he could have a week of freedom. He was the God of Lies—who was better to play this game than him?

"Round five."

The sound of the dice was sickening—they slapped on the stone like broken teeth and shattered skulls. Loki knew the sound too well. He wondered what exactly the dice were made of.

"Two threes," said Loki.

"Four threes," said the Chitauri.

"Three fours."

"Six fours."

"Five sixes."

The Chitauri smirked. "Liar."

The cups lifted. The Chitauri whooped and screamed with mirth at the results. Loki breathed in and out steadily, taking in his defeat. He tried to hide how tightly he was gripping his knees.

"You are always nothing but lies, Frost Giant," said the Chitauri. "Nothing about you is true. You are made of falsehood—you are unreal—all would be better off if you did not exist."

Loki felt the others closing in on him. His heart raced and he wildly thought of running away before they could catch him, diving into the black void, praying for death before they could reach him.

"Have your way with him, boys," said the Chitauri.

Before Loki could react, the surrounding warriors lunged toward him. In less than a second he went from a prisoner to an animal. An animal to be tied with a lariat, to be hung upside down like a butcher's prize, humiliated and tortured. They tore open his stomach and let his insides flow. They called him names so gruesome he vomited just listening to them. When he screamed they shredded his tongue until he gurgled in his own blood.

In the aftermath, he couldn't move for a week.