NOTE - Just a reminder this story is not for the faint of heart; it's rated M for smut and also violence. If you have any triggers, feel free to message me and ask first before you read.
In this AU Natasha's alter-ego is named 5.
8. New Rules
"We're all being separated." 13 handled the ropes of the elevator smoothly, but the effort made her words come out in jerks. "Men on one floor, women on another, trans and drags in the attics."
"Why?" They reached the level where the kitchens lay and stopped the ropes; with a shudder the lift opened to let 13 and Natasha out. "Are they afraid we're all fucking each other and taking the goods away from clients?"
"Well, aren't we? I had two dates last night."
Natasha could believe it; 13's smooth café au lait skin and her confident attitude probably won her lots of admirers. "I just want to do my job and get out of here – plenty of time for dates later on."
"Get out of here…!" 13 paused in the act of tying on an apron. "Where are you going to go?"
"Back home." Natasha didn't want to give any more details.
"But this is home."
"Maybe for you, but not for me."
"But there isn't anywhere else. This is – are you planning to cross the lake?" 13 frowned.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the only way out."
13 snorted, dug her hands into a huge bag of flour, and dipped out the start of the morning's bread. "No one crosses the lake. You'll see."
Natasha had a tiny camera hidden in a very intimate area when she first arrived; she stashed it in her bra ready for any suspicious activity. She knew she would find a way out onto the tiny island she coveted, and from there she would make it to the mainland with video of the castle (she now had enough to incriminate the owners several times over) and discover refuge and eventual rescue. That was the hard part, figuring out how to rescue the Spider who wasn't a spider. Whoever it was.
Her senses prickled the back of her neck, and she felt any second something was about to happen – something big. Thus, when the speaker-tube on the wall wheezed and emitted a directive, Natasha wasn't phased. "5, you are expected in bath house X."
13 nearly dropped the eggs in her hands. "Did they say X?"
"Yeah." Natasha washed her hands. "Looks like my date is happening now."
The irony hit her when she arrived at bath house X. Hundred was already there, shaking with fear. Snot ran out of his nose, and he gabbled, "Not me, take her instead, not me, not me today…"
"Enough." Kronsteig wheeled out of the bath house and gestured for them to enter. "Shut your mouth if you don't want this to take all day."
Hundred stopped his line of pleas, but tiny grunts of fright escaped the corners of his mouth. Along with Natasha, he was herded into the bath: tar beach after all, with the drills and wires gleaming and polished on the wall next to a medical table. Kronsteig shot out one retractable arm, seized the boy, and pulled him to a set of restraints on the gurney. "You can watch him," the doctor said in a pleasant tone to Natasha. "It will show what's in store for you."
Natasha looked at the instruments hanging on the hooks. She could use one on the mechanized doctor, disable his body, and get Hundred out before the kid pissed himself. It would set her own plans back by a few weeks; she stifled a curse and stood, waiting calmly for her chance to strike. The mechanized man rolled forward, smacked her across the face, and grinned. "Pay attention. I don't want you to miss any of my best work." His treadles whirred as he wheeled back to the table, picked up a drill, and prepared to dig into Hundred's skin.
Now. Natasha planned to leap to the wall and seize a pair of long scissors hanging from a hook, trying not to imagine what Kronsteig used them for. Just as she was about to move, the doctor pushed a button and a cage descended from the ceiling with a loud clang. It landed over her, locking onto the floor. "Stay, little fly," the man said. "No interruptions from my audience while the artistry happens."
The drill in his hand buzzed again, and a fine spray of blood erupted from Hundred's hand. The boy shrieked, arched up, and his legs pounded against the metal table. "5, is that your name? I'll start with the nipples when it's your turn," Kronsteig said in a conversational tone. His other arm reached for a pair of forceps; Hundred's screams grew louder when he saw the device.
"Leave the kid alone." Natasha grasped two of the bars; they were made of heavy iron and impossible to bend. "Take me instead."
"Take her instead!" Hundred yelped. "You heard her – No! No!"
"But your cries are so exciting." Kronsteig swiveled away from Natasha and pressed another button on the tank that was his body; a metal tentacle emerged from what could be called the pelvis. "Ahhhh. See how you have me in a lather? Open your mouth, boy." The tentacle grew larger, erect - it prised Hundred's jaws open and slid inside between his lips. "Ooh. So nice – employ your tongue more freely, boy. That's it."
Natasha knelt and felt where the cage met the floor. It was set in place by some sort of trigger mechanism and magnets; there was no way she could move it. A descending cage! Seriously, was she in the middle of a comic book or a mashup fanfiction? She shook her head in disbelief both at the situation and her own stupidity.
Kronsteig's head tilted back with enjoyment as Hundred mouthed the tentacle that served, Natasha supposed, as his prick. She waved frantically at the kid, trying to get his attention; if he could free her from the cage she would be able to get them both out of there. But he was too caught up in his own misery; tears of self-pity coursed down his cheeks, and he choked on the metal tentacle in his throat. If something didn't happen soon, he would panic and drown in his own vomit. His plunges grew weaker; any minute he would expire from pure fear.
Natasha had just started to feel for the bolts holding the cage together - maybe she could take the damn thing apart - when the door to Bath house X burst open. Kronsteig ripped his metal tentacle-penis from Hundred's mouth and whirred to see who had interrupted him; several alarms in the room started to blare a hideous rhythm. Loki stood in the doorway, nostrils flaring with rage. His fist slammed on a red lever hidden behind the door, and the alarms instantly ceased. "Enough," he said through gritted teeth, striding into the room.
Smoothly Kronsteig rolled forward to meet him. On the table Hundred sat up, eyes wide with dawning hope, one hand pressed to his throat. Loki ignored Natasha and the boy as he pointed to Kronsteig and made a complicated symbol in the air.
Nothing happened. The doctor emitted a short burst of laughter. "Did you expect to blast me into your realm?" he taunted. "You kept your name, did you not - Loki? But Lucia took something much more important from you."
Natasha heard a gutteral, Norse-sounding curse as Loki reared back and slammed the flat of his hand into Kronsteig's midsection, stopping the Doctor's forward roll. "The yellow button," she called to him.
"What?" His black brows drew together.
"There. It's Kronsteig's shut-off."
One long finger avoided the twitching tentacle and pushed the yellow button. The lights on Kronsteig's torso died out, and the erect tentacle flopped onto the floor. For a short while there was silence.
"Oh my god you totally saved my ass oh my god I owe you so bad right now. I'm so sorry I was a dick to you earlier I can't believe it I couldn't breathe I thought he would cut off my balls…" Hundred couldn't seem to stop the rush of words spewing from his mouth.
Loki ignored him. "The cage," he said. "Where is the button to control it?"
"The green button." Natasha pointed to the metal table. "No, not on Kronsteig's body – under the slab where the kid's sitting."
One tiny click, and the cage rose smoothly towards the ceiling, setting her free. Natasha leapt forward, smacked Hundred across the face to calm the kid's panic, and gestured to Loki. "Kronsteig is incapacitated?"
"Yes."
"The alarm will have alerted someone, so back-up will be here any second. We need to set up a scenario when they come in."
He nodded. "I understand. My suggestion is to gag the boy or he will have a fit of hysterics."
Natasha eyed Hundred - his wet eyes, the trembling lips. "Good call. I'll tie him down – for Chrissake, Hundred, I'm going to do it loosely and let you out as soon as the coast is clear! – and you put that pile of bolts into some kind of compromising position."
"We can say he hired us to watch a sex act." Loki pushed Kronsteig to the place she had been standing; instantly she activated the cage so it descended over the tank-like doctor.
"I love it," she laughed. "And you know what? I'm going to wipe his memory when I boot his ass up before we get out so he'll never know what happened. And leave him in the cage overnight. What an asshole."
The door to bath house X opened again; instantly Loki wrapped his arms around Natasha and started to nuzzle her neck. She slid one hand inside his pants, trying not to act surprised at the warm length of his erection there. "Find something you like?" he murmured into her ear.
Von Bardas looked inside the room. "What is going on in here?"
Natasha looked up as though she had just been interrupted in the middle of a tryst. "Did you want to join us, Lucia?" she asked in an innocent voice.
The cyborg's intelligent eyes took in Kronsteig within the cage, Hundred trussed up on the table, and Loki's hand thumbing Natasha's nipple. "Why did the alarms go off?"
The simplest thing was to feign ignorance. Natasha shrugged and ground her hips against Loki, trying to ignore the little shocks of delight his erection caused. Mm, the boy had certainly grown up.
"It must have been a malfunction in the Spiders' quarters." Lucia sniffed and added, "Make certain you satisfy Dr. Kronsteig – he is a valuable customer."
"Oh, we shall," Loki purred.
Lucia regarded them steadily but seemed to accept their assessment. Slowly the door closed behind her, and Natasha withdrew her hand from Loki's pants. He grinned at her, and she felt his breath course over her face – cool, smelling of pine. The sensation made her blink, made her feel whole for the first time in weeks as though she had regained something lost.
"To be continued later?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"If you're lucky."
"We hardly have time to stop and eat." Natasha felt amusement and exasperation blend in her voice.
"No food since Thursday, and look at this!" Clint gestured to the huge banquet. "Just sitting there, and damn it smells good."
"It smells highly suspicious." She checked her wristlets and guns as she spoke, ready to take on Doombots or whatever surprises Dr. Doom had in store. "C'mon, Clint – I'll buy you burgers and beer as soon as you're done."
"You can't get burgers in Eastern Europe." He spoke absently, already chewing on a buttered roll. "This is the best bread I've ever had! Tasha, you have got to try this." Clint's bow fell on the floor, and he swung one leg over the seat to hunker in front of the feast.
"Enjoy. Meanwhile I'm going to get started on reconnoiter." Natasha left him munching away at the long banquet table loaded with hams, roasts, potatoes misted with butter and parsley, piles of sugared fruit, cakes trembling with whipped cream. The food smelled amazing, but she wanted to get an idea of the layout, snap some quick pictures of the slave trade going on inside, and get the hell out.
She was able to climb up to the main floor; it was deserted, and she stole out past long flags of rich, tattered satin. In the center of the floor stood a statue, so tiny and ancient its face had weathered away. Something about the thing made her stop, brush it with one finger, and wonder who had put it there...
Natasha woke in her sleeping quarters inside the castle, the dream buzzing like bad static in her mind. Something had triggered her memories, and in the dark everything flooded back in a rush of horror and sadness.
It was when the entire op went south. Later she returned to find Clint had somehow morphed into a being like a huge spider; when she tried to drag him from the table he scuttled away and blended in with the other enormous arachnids. How she was going to tell which one was Clint and get him out of the castle and Latveria to a doctor – Natasha shook her head. She had pulled off a lot of impossible stunts in the past, but this one was nearly beyond her powers.
First she needed to see Lucia again. If Natasha could get into the cyborg's good graces, perhaps she could locate files on the beings kept in the cellars and figure out a way to distinguish them. Once she knew which was Clint (and at the same time discover which was the one called Thor) she could at least set up some kind of rescue and get the hell out of the terrifying castle. It wasn't much, but at least she had some sort of plan.
She pulled her spare pillow close and thought of climbing out of her window up to Loki's room. If she did go out onto the ivy and sneak in, he would welcome her with caresses and a long night of sex, as much as she wished. It would be ecstatic, it would be delicious, it would be -
No. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head. Her instincts told her it wasn't time - not yet.