The song for this chapter is "Insatiable" by Darren Hayes. Took me forever to find the right song.

This chapter earns the M rating, but it's kind of important. Use your best judgment.


Chapter 56: Mirror, Mirror

Natasha and Loki walked slowly down the path, near enough to touch, their fingers loosely entwined. She had never been uncomfortable being physical with men where others might see, but somehow this small, innocent gesture made her unaccountably nervous. It wasn't the sort of thing she ever imagined herself doing, and she doubted Loki did either. But as they had walked, content in their reconciliation, their hands had brushed together and somehow stayed that way. Perhaps it was the genuine affection behind it that made it so novel to her. It was nice, she decided.

She was so distracted by her musings on hand-holding, her brain still slightly fuzzy from the softly passionate encounter at the island's peak, that she was genuinely surprised when Darcy and Clint burst out of one of the cabins far ahead of them and ran, giggling, to another. They didn't see her or Loki, or at least gave no sign that they saw them, but all the same Natasha jerked her hand back from Loki's automatically.

Loki looked from the disappearing couple, to Natasha's hand, to her expression, his first acknowledgement that anything had happened. She looked away, unaccountably regretting her action, but unwilling to show it. Slowly, cautiously, Loki slid his warm, elegant fingers back into hers, and this time she did not pull away, although she didn't look at him or change her forward momentum in any way. When she did finally glance at him, she spied the smallest tilt to the corner of his lips, as if he were pleased but also did not wish to show it.

She was oddly relieved when they reached their cabin. Natasha had yet to sort out precisely how she felt about Loki now—for somehow, over the last few days, something between them had changed drastically—and she really didn't want to handle anyone else's reaction right now either. With a sigh, she walked right into the bedroom, thinking that since she was so relaxed, she might as well go straight to bed. She was on vacation, after all, she could sleep if she wanted to.

As she entered the room, though, something triggered her instincts so that she thought someone else was in the room, just for a moment. She hit the light switch, but was confronted with nothing more threatening than her own reflection. She laughed, surprised. While the others had disappeared, the large mirror with a decorative frame remained hanging at the head of the bed.

Loki came to investigate her startled laugh. He poked his head in the door and looked at the mirror, less surprised. "The rest were illusions, but She actually crafted that one," he explained as he stepped into the room.

"Why?" Natasha asked. She understood enough about Loki's magic to know that crafting took far more energy than illusions, not that She had much else to do with her magic at the moment.

His lips twitched with a repressed smile. "I believe she intended it as a sort of apology or peace offering... to me." He caught her gaze in the reflection, and a ghost of his old devious smile appeared. "I approve." He walked to stand beside the head of the bed, trailing his finger along the ornate scrollwork of the frame.

"You'll have to write her a thank you note," Natasha half-teased.

Loki made a sound of absent agreement, obviously preoccupied. When his eyes met hers again in the mirror, she spied a fire burning in their emerald depths. He turned, regarding the real Natasha instead of her reflection, and swallowed. "Natasha, I... would like to play a game with you, if you consent."

His hesitation, the seriousness of his tone, and his use of the word 'consent' made it immediately clear what sort of game he meant. She had expected this, at some point, hadn't she just joked about it with Tony and Darcy the other day? Still, she could not suppress the fight-or-flight response the idea immediately produced in her. Loki waited, watching her patiently, and she saw that if she did not accept, he would not push her. She also saw that it had taken courage for him to ask, and her refusal would wound him, much as when she pulled her hand away when she saw Darcy and Clint. But she would not accept just to spare his feelings.

Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she asked: "How much will it hurt?"

Loki laughed as though releasing a held breath. He shook his head and came to stand before her, brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers. "This game is not about pain. It will not hurt at all. At least," he looked away towards the mirror, slyly amused, "not unless you break the rules. Judging by your work last night, I think you will like it."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Alright. You've piqued my curiosity at least," she agreed.

He chuckled darkly and tilted her chin up to kiss her gratefully. "Don't you know what they say about curiosity?" he murmured against her lips.

She shivered, and wondered why he was now trying to talk her out of it. "Well, the good news is I'm not a cat. What am I supposed to do?" she managed to make her voice sound far more confident than she felt.

He pulled back, grinning. "So eager! I like it." He rubbed his hands together, sizing up the mirror. "Take off all of your clothes and kneel on the bed in front of the mirror," he instructed without looking at her.

Natasha sensed in the casual tone of his voice that this was not a new game for him, and absently wondered who else he had played it with, and how her performance would measure up against them. Never before had she felt the slightest twinge of jealousy for any man, but now, in this, she wanted more than ever to do well. It reminded her, with a sickening lurch, of her desire to please her instructors at the Red Room as a child.

When she hesitated too long, he gave her a look that said "Well?" She had consented, and his attitude had shifted from conciliatory to demanding accordingly.

She realized it wouldn't work if he tried to be patient and accommodating anyway. She took a breath, and with the same surge of bravery that she used to throw herself into gunfire, she began to strip. She used no art, made no show of it, simply removing her clothes as quickly and efficiently as possible. That done, she eased on to the bed and knelt facing the mirror.

"Closer," he instructed, and with an impersonal, light touch on her shoulder, indicated that she should move towards the mirror. Once she was an arm's length away from it, he stopped her with another light touch. She recalled the same instructing touches from her long-ago dance master, and forced herself to remember that he was dead, finding comfort in the memory of specifically how she had killed him.

"Now up, like this," he moved her so she was not sitting on her heels, struggling to keep his voice impersonal. Already she trembled, and nearly flinched away from his touch. He felt a moment's guilt, he knew what horrors had made her so responsive to him, but he could not help but enjoy it. "Now, put your hands on the glass in front of you," he instructed.

Natasha stretched out her fingers and pressed them against the cool surface. "Like this?" she asked, and was ashamed to hear her voice waver.

"Yes, very good," he said kindly, and ran his hand down her back softly. Her eyes fluttered closed with a sigh, and he felt his stomach tighten in response. She was already better than he had imagined. "Now don't move. Your fingerprints will tell me if you've moved while I'm gone," he warned. And then he walked away.

Natasha watched his reflection, allowing only her eyes to move, for as long as she could before he disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Then she stared at her hands, waiting. This was the game? She was momentarily relieved, but then began to feel irritated. This was stupid.

After what seemed like an eternity (but had actually only been about five minutes) Loki returned, wearing only his slacks. He took one look at her expression and grinned. "Patience, darling." He stopped where she could not see him, and could only hear the zip and rustle as he let the last of his clothing drop to the floor. The next she saw of him was his lithe, naked body gracefully moving on to the bed behind her, almost as if he were mounting a very large horse.

He ghosted his fingertips over her hips, and then looked her reflection in the eye. "Remember now," he cautioned with a playful smile. "Don't move your hands."

Natasha realized, irritated, that she hadn't needed to remain stock-still. But her irritation was quickly soothed as Loki's talented hands began to move over her body. She watched as his eyes followed their meandering path, saw the intensity in them, felt the heat of his palms and heard his breath quicken. Damn, but he likes to watch, she thought with a smirk, remembering his failed attempt at voyeurism, and his words when she finally let him in:

I like to watch you, Natasha. I want to watch you watching me fuck you.

If this was what he had in mind, she didn't blame him. Gaining confidence, she began to test the boundaries of her freedom, squirming against him and moaning as his hands found her most sensitive spots. But this only served to excite him more, and she felt the hard length of him pressed against her. Her curiosity, still the main motivating force behind her participation in this game, had not been slaked.

She stared again at her hands, trying to think through the haze of passion that Loki was eliciting in her as he began to lick and nibble at the crook of her shoulder and the back of her neck. His hands were hot on her skin, one filled with her breast and the other preoccupied rather lower. He had specified that she could not move her hands, that he would know from the smears on the glass if she did. But he had not said what he would do if she broke this one rule, beyond implying that it would hurt.

She didn't want to get hurt, but even more than that, she didn't want to spoil Loki's game. He did seem to be enjoying it, as soft moans began to accompany they subtle thrusts of his hips against her. Suddenly she recalled his words the one and only time they had discussed his predilections to any extent:

The best submissive are the ones who fight back. It makes the dominant angry, you see, and goads them to new heights...

So, she managed to reason, perhaps breaking the rules wasn't really... breaking the rules. Loki had slipped a finger inside of her, and it was getting harder to think. She had to decide now whether she would push this button. Should she risk upsetting him, or remain obedient? Curiosity, or caution?

Oh fuck this, she thought as his other hand joined the first. I am a spy. When have I ever prized caution over curiosity? She was passion-drunk, and it gave her just enough courage to move one thumb half an inch, the sweat from her skin smearing the mirror as it went.

Loki glanced up, immediately aware of her transgression. His expression was almost frightening, a flicker of dark glee she had seen in full force on the security tapes from Stuttgart as the well-dressed crowds began to flee in terror. He continued to move his fingers inside her with one hand so bewitchingly that she hardly noticed the absence of the other.

That is, until the loud smack and the sting of the skin on her left thigh and adjoining cheek told her where it had gone. She flinched badly, but mostly out of surprise. He hadn't hit her hard, only enough to leave a trace of red that she could see curving around her hip where his fingers had landed. Her eyes, wide, met his in the mirror, and he seemed to stare into her as he whispered against her ear, "See what happens when you break the rules?"

His hot breath fanned against her neck, and she shuddered at the sensation and his words, which somehow promised a whole world of kinky interludes. All at once, she understood that she had a remarkable degree of control over the situation. Loki was not asking her to do something impossible, or even difficult. In fact it was completely arbitrary, so the only way he would spank her again, was if she intentionally flaunted those rules, if she literally asked for it.

It was a hell of a rush.

Natasha pressed her hips against him urgently. "Loki, please," she begged.

He just grinned and moved against her, sliding his body against hers sinuously. "You want this?" he asked, and she felt him twitch against him.

"Yes. Please," she added, doing her best to play along.

He chuckled. "You must promise not to move again," he said patronizingly.

She nodded, but he only raised an eyebrow. "I promise," she said, and gasped as he entered her almost before she had finished speaking.

But after the first thrust, he moved slowly, achingly so, sliding almost all the way out and the pausing for a beat before pressing in again, inch by inch, stopping once more when he was fully sheathed. She groaned in frustration, making Loki smirk.

"You like this?" he teased.

She glared at his reflection. "No."

He shrugged. "Too bad."

Natasha tried to move against him herself, but once more he held her hips in place, although not so firmly as to bruise this time. Almost without thinking, she took her hand away from the mirror completely and tried to pry herself loose.

In a flash, Loki had grabbed the offending hand, slammed it back against the mirror, and then started thrusting into her so hard her body was soon pressed against the glass as well. His other hand wound in her hair, turning her head and tilting it back. "This," he emphasized with a thrust, "this is what you want?" he demanded.

"Yes," she breathed, and when he tugged on her hair she said it louder, until she was shouting it each time he pressed into her, seeming to go deeper every time. Natasha was caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, the cool mirror raising goose bumps on her stomach and hardening her already taut nipples, and Loki's hot body pressing her in place.

It was not long before she reached her climax, but Loki did not stop, pushing her higher, harder, until she thought she or the mirror would shatter. At last he froze, pressed so tightly against her she could not draw breath into her lungs, and then he relaxed, collapsing against her and gasping for air as much as she did.

He let go of her hair, and put his hand over hers, the one which had not moved, even at the end. "Thank you," he breathed, pulling away, "for your cooperation."

It took a moment for his quip to penetrate the fog and fireworks that composed her brain at that moment. When it did, she laughed, not a cynical chuckle or a half-suppressed snort, but a real laugh. Loki smiled at the sound, and pulled her into his arms and down onto the bed.

Natasha felt as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. She realized, at that moment, that she and Loki were going to be all right after all.


A/N: Man, I have been wanting to write this since I first mentioned the mirrors way back in chapter 36 lol. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did... and the other stuff I have in store for the future.

I'm getting to the end of the school year, and I'm crazy busy with a wedding in the family, but I'm doing my best to keep the buffer up so I can post on time every week. It's a little tricky now because I can't write some of these chapters at work, you know? Your reviews go a long way towards helping. It makes me so happy to think that people out there enjoy my silly little story. Well, not so little anymore I suppose!

Next Wednesday, things take a hard left in Chapter 57: The Darkness Within.