Sorry for the late post, things are a bit crazy right now. The theme song for this chapter is "Yes!" from the Jane Eyre soundtrack by Dario Marianelli. I literally cried the first time I heard it. It is the perfect song for the second part of this chapter...
Chapter 79: The Truth
Thor landed on the hospital roof with less grace than usual, going to one knee to take the brunt of the impact. It took a lot to weary him, but after a battle with dozens of monsters, no sleep in the last few days, a confrontation with his father, and four trips through the Bifrost, he thought it was understandable if he was a little fatigued.
He made the trek through the hospital, grateful that Loki's illusion of normal clothing remained. When he reached Natasha's room however, he found it empty. He stood there, too tired to think, until a nurse found him and took pity.
"Are you looking for someone?" she asked kindly.
"Yes... Miss... The young lady who was in this room recently, has she been sent home?" he asked.
The nurse looked at a chart. "Miss Rushman has been moved to recovery room 402," the nurse smiled. "You must be Lucy's brother. She said you might show up."
"Uh... yes." Thor's head was beginning to spin trying to keep Loki's forms and aliases straight. The nurse gave him detailed directions, which he managed to follow through the rather complicated maze of hallways and departments.
He found the room itself easily enough, though, as Tony Stark stood outside of it, arms crossed, as he looked through the window with an amused smirk. Too tired for conversation, he simply walked to stand next to him and see what he found so funny.
Between the blinds, Thor could see that Loki and Natasha had curled up together in their sleep. Despite his fatigue, he found himself smiling as well. "They look... adorable," he commented.
Tony snorted. "Adorable is the least of the words I could come up with," he muttered suggestively. He startled badly when Thor smacked him upside the head, knocking his pretentious sunglasses off. "Hey-" he unfolded his arms and glared at Thor.
"That is my sister of whom you are speaking," Thor chided him.
Tony raised an eyebrow. "And 'Lady' Natasha?" he bent down to get the sunglasses, looking for cracks.
"And Lady Natasha," Thor repeated seriously. "Is she well?"
He shrugged. "Right as rain, the doctors say. Can't figure it out for the life of them," he chuckled.
"Then perhaps we should give them some privacy," Thor suggested. He opened the door quietly, turned the shades to block prying eyes, and closed the door again.
Tony pouted, and leaned against the wall as he watched Thor walked away.
Natasha awoke slowly, as if she was drifting up from the bottom of a deep lake. Something felt wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She was warm, and could feel a familiar and comforting presence next to her. She wasn't in any pain—
She realized suddenly that wasn't supposed to be the case, and her eyelids fluttered open. She was in a hospital room, and Loki was curled up next to her, fast asleep. She slept, as always, with a little crease between her brows, as if she worried even in slumber. Smiling softly, Natasha traced the line with her finger, until she woke as well.
"Hey," Loki said smiling. "You're awake."
"I'm alive," Natasha pointed out, hardly believing it herself.
Loki laughed a little, relieved. "Yes. How are you feeling?"
Natasha took stock of her often-abused body. "Remarkably fine," she sighed. "I'm so glad... I would have been very angry if I had died without getting to tell you that I love you too." She stated it as if it were the obvious truth, no fanfare, no effusive show of emotion. From a casual standpoint, one might imagine she was joking. Loki knew her well enough to know she was just nervous.
She bit her lip. "You mean... you love Him."
Natasha shifted in the bed so she could face Loki straight on, and touched her cheek. "No, Loki, I love you. All of you."
Loki let out a long, relieved sigh. "Oh good. Because things are a little... different now." Without so much as blinking, she switched forms, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Natasha smiled. "I figured that might be the case." She looked around for her things, and found a plastic bag with a set of fresh clothes in it. At the bottom was the item she searched for. Taking it out, she handed it to Loki.
It was the ruby pendant. He fingered the deep crack, and felt no magic left within. Whatever effect it had on him was gone, and for the first time in ages, since perhaps before he found out his true origins, he felt whole.
"I grabbed it when it fell," she explained. "The doctors had to pry it out of my hands before we went into surgery - I wanted to keep it," she laughed. "I put up quite the fight."
Loki let the ruby drop onto the blankets and grabbed Natasha by the shoulders, suddenly angry. "Don't EVER do that to me again, understand?"
Natasha was shocked for a moment, not sure what he was referring to. Then she saw the fear in his eyes and relaxed, raising an eyebrow. "Ok, I promise to try not to die again," she joked.
"I'm serious, Natasha. If you had... If I couldn't... I don't know what..." Loki choked up, feeling slightly overwhelmed by his emotions. He reverted to anger, which was more comfortable. "Don't ever scare me like that again! I love you so much, I just..." He let go of her shoulders to envelop her in a tight embrace.
Over his shoulder, Natasha dashed at her eyes, feeling tongue tied herself. "I love you too, Loki," she managed to get out, followed by a watery laugh.
"What?" Loki pulled back to see her face.
"It's just... I just thought, if someone had, I don't know, shown us this in a crystal ball back in May, what our reactions would have been," she laughed.
Loki raised his eyebrows, remembering. "I probably would have killed them," he agreed, chuckling.
She shook her head. "You would have had to beat me to it."
He sat back, letting Natasha relax against the bed again. "Gods... has it really only been six months?" he glanced over at the calendar, which read November.
Natasha looked too. "Seems like a lifetime."
He took her hand and squeezed it, and then bent to kiss her knuckles. "It does. And yet..." he paused, a strange feeling of rightness overwhelming him. "At the same time, it feels like this was always going to happen... like..."
"Deja-vu," Natasha finished, nodding. Then she shrugged. "Probably just a side effect of all the magic that has been flying around," she joked.
He smiled quietly, and did not disagree with her. They sat that way a while, hands clasped, thinking. The unspoken question, what now? rose up between them.
She sighed, breaking the silence. "I don't want to think about all the paperwork I'll have waiting for me when I get back to HQ," she moaned.
He chuckled. "Oh you have plenty of time to think about it," he teased. "I think I heard Agent Hill say something about a two-week recovery furlough."
Natasha closed her eyes and let her head flop back on the bed, groaning. "I'm going to kill her," she muttered.
"Please do," Loki said cheerfully. "Then I won't have to face the Inquisition."
Natasha opened one eye to peer at him questioningly.
"Pierce was killed in the fighting. She seems to think it was directly my fault and wants to hold me responsible. Which is ridiculous, considering what he did," he squeezed her hand possessively.
Opening her other eye, Natasha regarded him seriously. "Hey, go easy on her. When you were defeated, she was the one who argued against summarily executing you."
He gave her an incredulous stare, and she nodded. "She and Thor were the only ones who thought it didn't sound like a fabulous idea, at the time."
Loki frowned. "Why? She thinks I'm evil incarnate."
She shrugged. "The reason she gave was the inter-stellar conflict that killing a member of another planet's ruling family would probably cause, but at a guess I would say it went against her principles. She's avidly opposed to capital punishment in any situation."
Loki shook his head. "Now I see why Captain Rogers has fallen for her. I wondered."
"Well, keep that in mind when they debrief you," she suggested.
He smiled mischievously at her, amazed that she had basically just given him the key to manipulate Agent Hill into agreeing with him. She caught the look and returned it. Leaning forward, Natasha whispered in his ear, "We morally ambiguous types have to stick together, right?"
Loki licked his lips. It was not really what she had said, but how she said it that sparked his response, her voice low and suggestive, her body pressed against him just so. He glanced at the window of the room, and finding the shutters closed, he buried a hand in her hair before kissing her hard.
"Certainly," he whispered across her lips.
A/N: There you go. Smooshiness. But not too much. As much as I enjoy reading impassioned confessions of love between Loki and Natasha, I don't think it's really their style. Especially not Natasha.
The bad news is, I really don't know when I'll update next. I have a HUUUGE exam next Monday, and I have way too much material to learn before then. At the very soonest, it will be next Wednesday. I will endeavor to make it no later than the following Saturday. I may also be AWOL from tumblr until Monday.
The good news is most of said studying is in audio form, and I can draw while the computer yaks about life insurance at me. So I'm getting lots of work done for my upcoming Black Widow graphic novel. More details and audience participation on that on tumblr.
And thanks for all the lovely reviews, they have really helped me through this week, which has sucked.
