16 The Tiny Island
Note: This is the final chapter. I'm so sad - it's been a wonderful prompt that led me to a lot of unexpected places. Thanks so much for reading and commenting along the way.
Just a quick reminder - Her Name in the Darkness is set before Thor, Avengers, and TDW.
Jormungandr was so colossal a sight Natasha couldn't fully take him in. As he undulated into the horizon with very strange cargo on his back – a pair of gods and two very different men - she though he looked as long as a train that could somehow run on the surface of the lake.
"Time to go," Loki muttered. He held his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and blew. From his lips came a long spiral of mist, winding and tangling around him and Natasha until they were buried in soft, white fog. "That will keep them from seeing us as we leave."
Natasha nodded. She took off her high heels, undid the suspenders holding up her stockings, and rolled them off her legs before she walked into the water. The lake was just as cold as she had suspected, but the chill was invigorating. After months of living in one place and being told what to do she was ready to wash off Kronsteig's insanity and the demands of working the baths. With a sigh of relief she struck out in long, luxurious strokes towards the little nub of land she had watched for so long from the castle's windows.
Loki swam steadily next to her, and when he caught her eye he grinned. However, neither of them spoke. It wasn't necessary. The cold water was their dessert after a hard time of debasing drudgery, a treat they could share in silence.
The gnarled root-fingers of the tree on the island stirred the lake to welcome Natasha and Loki with its outstretched hands. She hauled herself out of the water on one of the 'thumbs', climbed onto the shore, and shook back her wet curls. He joined her and pointed to the mossy ground beneath, lined with green so old it had split several of the larger stones and painted the rest with lichen. "Look at how ancient this place is," Loki said.
One boulder was flattened on the top. Natasha sat on it, and he joined her. Slowly their breathing returned to normal, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. Instantly he pulled her close enough to rest his chin. "The end of the quest," he said, "or as near as we could come to it."
"We've done a pretty damn good job," Natasha laughed. "Your brother and Sif back in Asgard, Clint heading to Symkaria with Hundred and a fortune in pearls, and from there he'll take my vid footage to Manhattan."
"Such a useless being. The boy nearly purloined your life at the end, getting caught like that. How silly can one mortal be?"
"Hundred, you mean?" Natasha jerked her head up. "Loki, he has lived his entire life being hated for what he is on a genetic level. He grew up trying to hide what he felt inside – thoughts and wants he could never help having – fearing any day someone would discover his secret. Hundred is a bigger hero than you or I will ever be."
"If you say so, although he seemed to have a knack for appearing at the worst possible times. But I will not deny the boy was pleasant enough." She felt Loki's long fingers in her hair, tidying the strands and combing through the ringlets at her neck. "In any case, my quest will never be finished. Instead of running away any longer, I'll have to go and face the entire Sigyn affair."
"Ah." Natasha felt her mouth spread with triumph. "But that's where you're wrong."
He stood up and turned his back on her. "I spent a long time studying the magic of time and space. There is no method of going back and changing the past."
"As matter of fact, I have a surprise for you." She felt in one pocket of the dress Lucia had given her and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside was a leather notebook and a very familiar pen.
Loki's eyes widened. "Is that – what I think it is?"
She couldn't help crowing with laughter. "Hell yeah! I stole Lucia's memory-suck pen and her little book."
"Natasha…" He bent and pressed his lips to hers, still wet from the lake's waters. "With this I can erase the memory of what I did to Sigyn. No one will remember I stole her virtue."
"Exactly. Of course, it still will have happened, but no one will know about it."
Gleeful mischief sparkled in his eyes. "All of Asgard will forget – oh, you little nymph. You vixen! You're a foxgirl, so sly and cunning. We were made for each other. You will come with me to Asgard, and I will show you the rivers, and the stones – the entire place is magic…" His voice trailed off. "Natasha, what is it?"
Her smile had disappeared. "I think it will erase all memory. I mean everyone will forget what happened."
"Yes, exactly! No one, not even Frigga, will suspect anything ever happened." He peered closer at her and frowned. "Why aren't you happy?"
"Loki, I don't think you and I will remember either. In fact, I've got the feeling this entire episode is going to disappear from our memories. Maybe Clint's as well, so thank goodness he has that video."
He knelt in front of her. "But I remembered you before," he whispered. "When they stole your name, I still knew you were my Natasha."
"It's quite a bit different from erasing an entire event." She sighed, and slowly he pulled her forward so his forehead touched hers.
"Maybe I can give Sigyn gold instead. Buy her a farm, and she can live there with Theoric…" His words died out at the impossibility of such a thing.
Natasha let one long sigh unwind the sadness of what they were about to do. "The glass cage we visited in our dream," she said. "It makes sense now. When we see each other there in the future, we won't even know we were friends once. We'll be bitter enemies."
"Just let me – oh, please, Natasha. Just once." He surged forward, slid his hand up her neck, and cupped her face to kiss her. She felt his breath in her mouth, always so cool and sweet, and her desire flared.
They tumbled onto the moss, and his clever fingers found the zipper at the back of her wet dress. At the same time she undid the buttons of his shirt, felt for his belt, unbuckled it. "You can have all of me," Natasha said. "Just this once."
"All of you," he groaned and added something she couldn't hear. In any case it didn't matter, with his chest under her lips, so flat and muscled, the droplets of water under her tongue. Cold and clear. It was delicious. He was delicious.
Loki tugged the gown, and with the material ripped in half. "It will make a perfect bed," she said with satisfaction, lying back. "If this is it, I really want to make it count."
"But how will you return to this home of yours? Naked?"
She shook her head. "Actually, I've been on this island before to hide a treasure here – my own catsuit. I'm going to retrieve it when we…"
"I would like to see you in this catsuit," Loki interrupted.
"One day, you will."
"By the gods, I will." His teeth found her neck, worked his way down to her breast, suckled a nipple. At the same time those long fingers smoothed her belly, slipped between her thighs, and dipped into her cleft. "Open those perfect legs, my darling love, my heart's own desire."
"Whoa!" At such words of passion, Natasha sat up with astonishment. "Hey, where do you get off saying junk like that to me?"
He laughed, pinned her down again, and eased one finger over her clit. "I refuse to hold back my passions if we won't remember this at all, sweetheart. And I told you to open for me." One tweak to her inner thigh, and she gasped, feeling heat bloom over the chilled, wet flesh.
"Never remember, right? Okay, then, for this one night we can pretend to be in love. You can call me what you want, and I'll be your girl."
"My girl," he repeated, never stopping the delicate strokes over the quivering little button. "Mine."
Natasha felt herself tremble, as though he had accessed the secret combination to her physique. "And you're mine," she said into his mouth, joining tongue to tongue, teeth chinking slightly with the passion of their kiss. "And, oh, that feels so nice."
His fingers slipped inside, and in revenge she sought that hard, muscled shaft… it had bobbed against her hips and belly when they pleasured themselves together in her bed, and now his manhood was all hers. Loki sucked in his breath as she smoothed her fist over the top, spread back the foreskin just the way he liked it. She had seen him do it to himself, after all, again and again in the candlelight. If anyone knew how to make the darkly intense god from Asgard see stars, it was her.
Her little finger explored his slit, the bead of liquid gathering there. It must have made his blood boil, and suddenly he pulled her up to sit astride him, hard cock rubbing at her entrance. "I'll lose myself if you don't climb on soon, darling," he said.
"Ready to become my lover and fuck me?" Natasha asked against his lips. "Are you prepared to be all mine?"
Loki's only response was to growl, slap both hands on her derriere, and push himself into her. At the sensation of that wide head inside, they both shouted. "Now," he demanded.
Natasha relented and sank down onto Loki's throbbing shaft, flinging her head back at the feeling of him within her. At the same time he captured her mouth with his and kissed her deeply. They moaned into each other's mouths, and together they found a rhythm to match that perfect fit, so big and so tight all at once.
He stopped suddenly and pulled her off. "Not yet," Loki demanded. "I want more of you." His words stuttered in his throat, and she knew her skin blushed with her arousal.
Loki rose and pulled her to her feet. One long arm wound around her waist, and he tilted up her chin. "I thought you would be a momentary distraction when I came here," he admitted, "and here I am falling into the abyss of your eyes."
She shuddered. "When you put it like that… Loki, please be careful. I have the feeling some dark thing is coming."
"Some dark thing is coming. Me, inside you." Natasha meant to push him away, to tell him she spoke in all honesty, but already he looped her leg around his waist, backed her to the single tree on the island, pushed her against it. And there was the ecstasy of his prick again, pushing against those slippery folds.
"Take care of yourself," she managed to beg.
His hands smoothed back her hair, framed her face. "And do you worry for me, then?"
Her reply was supposed to be Yes, she worried for him, that some nightmare approached ready to entangle him in its hideous tentacles, but Loki ground against her so desperately, their wet skin slapping together, and the hard length of him slipped back inside. His low voice murmured forbidden words of love into her ear. He told her she was his, that no one kept up with him the way she did, that he wanted her in every possible. On the throne with him. In his bed. In the forests where he used to wander as a boy. On the ground of their little island – for it would always be theirs.
And when she reached that peak he was right there with her, flying in a gasping, soaring flight, clasped together, hard pulsing cock in soft, fluttering quim, as they fell down onto her ruined dress and milked the last drops of spent love from their bodies.
"I'm stealing more time for us, my own heart." Loki pointed to the sky, where the sun still quivered on the brink of the horizon.
"Thought you couldn't do time magic?" Natasha turned in his arms and threw one leg over his hips. They had made love several times, she had pleasured him with her mouth, and he had insisted on returning the favor. Yet his caresses were becoming demanding once more, signaling another bout of desire.
"I can't go back in time. But I can bend it a little to make these hours last longer." With sudden fervor Loki pulled her close and spoke into her neck, "If only I could freeze this moment forever! But already such complex magic is weakening me, and I'll have to let it go soon."
She closed her eyes and nodded, trying to prepare herself to relinquish the tenuous hold on the fragile, lovely little dream they had created in those fleeting moments. "We will see each other again one day, you know. It's just going to have to be enough for us." Slowly Natasha rose, walked away from the long, lean pale figure that was Loki, and picked the leather notebook and pen.
Loki got to his knees and pushed her back onto the ground as the objects went flying from her grasp. "Tell me once more I'm yours, and you are mine, and pretend we will be together forever." He fumbled between her legs, kissed her fiercely, and sighed. "Natasha, please tell me one thing. How can I ever stop fucking you long enough to leave?"
EPILOGUE
Thor was waiting as Loki strode off the Bifrost, longing for a bath and slumber. "Well met, brother!" he hailed, before his eyes slid over Loki's bedraggled appearance. "What has happened to you? By the looks of it, you have been in the sheets with a maiden. And a lusty one at that!" He chuckled as he indicated Loki's neck, tender from several lovebites.
Loki blinked. "She was indeed a beauty…" His words died, and he realized he had no recollection of what had happened to him or how he had even arrived in Asgard. To hide his confusion, he frowned at Thor. "Why are you here, in any case?"
"Heimdall said you were approaching, and I could not wait to tell you the news. Father has set the date for my crowning as the next AllFather, and you are to attend. Sif will be there as well, and the Warriors Three, of course. Is it not wonderful? We are to have mead and ale, and Volstagg has been promised as much venison as he can eat! Shall we lay bets on how many hinds he can fit in his belly?"
Any number of sarcastic, bitter comments sprang to Loki's lips, but the confusion made his head swirl. "I need to sleep," he said, setting his steps towards the soaring, golden palace. It seemed he hadn't been there in ages, but that was impossible – wasn't it?
Thor clapped one arm around his shoulders and laughed as they strode towards the palace. "By the Nine, I wish I could meet this maiden of yours. Probably she is walking bowlegged herself this morning if she managed to settle even your heated nature!"
In Frigga's gardens they passed a lovely woman, blushing as a knight bent over her hand. "Who is that?" Loki asked, twisting to watch them walk off.
With a loud laugh, Thor elbowed him. "Already chasing after your next conquest? But Sigyn is promised to Theoric."
"It isn't that, you idiot. She just seemed familiar." Loki huffed and abandoned Thor to Sif. The shield maiden pounced on them when they entered the massive halls, filled with bubbling excitement over the coming ceremony.
In his bath, Loki sighed and leaned back. It felt as though he had just let something very beautiful slip through his fingers. But what was it? Although he couldn't recall, languor filled his limbs as though he had made love to a beautiful nymph for hours, kissed the softest lips, thrust into the wettest, tightest flesh.
"Take care." The whisper echoed through his mind, fleeting and soft as a cobweb, and for a moment Loki thought he saw a spangle of red in the water. He leaned forward, trying to see who it was and recapture her name in the darkness, but the water swirled and it was gone.
Melancholy surged through him, and he realized the wet on his cheeks came from his own tears, not the water from the bath. But why did he weep? Perhaps it was the impact of Asgard itself, so high-flung with its severe vaults and monumental towers. Entering the palace at Thor's side, he had been struck afresh at how overwhelming the place was.
To cheer himself up, Loki imagined the coming coronation. Thor would receive the crown and Gungnir one day – of course he would. It had always been a foregone conclusion, even before Loki's mischief had made Odin so angry. AllFather Thor would join the somber pantheon within gilded halls that never changed, and Allfather Loki would never exist.
Still, maybe someone could force the old place to wake up a bit?
He had forgotten his mischief. Loki laughed, feeling his usual merry nature reassert itself. He, the forgotten younger son, would have some surprises in store for Odin and the rest of them as their precious Prince Thor ascended to the throne. He would indulge in a bit of fun, that was all.
"Oh, take care…"
Loki shuddered and ignored the urgent whisper, already seduced by the chaos hurtling forward to embrace him.
END