Old Friends

Natasha froze. A chill clawed its way up her spine. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A light sweat broke out beneath the collar of her catsuit.

"On Asgard, failing to greet a guest is considered very rude."

"On Midgard, breaking and entering is considered very rude," Natasha answered smoothly, straightening up and turning to face her intruder. Each movement was weighed and measured, her face a delicate, inscrutable mask.

The corners of Loki's mouth curled into a playful smirk. "I have broken no locks," he told her, holding his hands out to either side, palms up, exposing the woven leather armor shielding his torso.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow slightly as Loki drew in his arms once more, folding his hands over one another in front of his waist. Silence reigned for several moments until she offhandedly remarked, "I hope you aren't waiting for me to offer you a drink."

In her mind, she thought, I have been doing this job for far too long. Any lesser spy might have burst into tears by now. It was a miracle she hadn't.

Loki, for his part, seemed quite at his leisure as he carefully strolled further into her apartment, his deep green eyes surveying the room. "That won't be necessary. Your surprise is refreshment enough," he mused, almost to himself until he looked at her again. His eyes rested on hers only briefly, long enough for him to toss her a knowing wink, before they continued their inspection of her living room.

Natasha didn't respond. The wink had set her on edge although she gave no indication.

"Thor has doubtless informed you of my heroic fall at the hands of the Dark Elves," he went on, the amusement in his voice only thinly veiling his contempt, whether for his brother or the Elves nobody could guess. "I assume you wonder how it is I have come to stand before you."

"Not how. Why," Natasha corrected coolly. She held no illusions about what Loki was and was not capable of doing. If she could realistically fake her own death on a number of occasions, it would make little sense for her to be stupid enough to assume a god couldn't do the same.

A low chuckle sounded in Loki's throat as he swallowed the minor slight. Natasha imagined that he had been looking forward to impressing her with his tale. If he took any offense, however, it had yet to show in his voice or his demeanor. "A tale for another time, perhaps," he suggested gently. He clasped his hands behind his back and bent at the waist, examining Natasha's iPod dock with the curiosity of a person who had never seen anything like it before.

Again, Natasha held her tongue. She refrained from looking to her weapons as well. They were too far away to reach for, and any unnecessary move in their direction would call Loki's attention. She was a living weapon, this was true, but her strength and durability were no match for Loki's Asgardian strength and durability. He wasn't as physically powerful as Thor, but he could snap her like a twig if he tried hard enough.

"Tell me, Agent Romanoff," Loki said easily, straightening and turning to face her from his position in the center of the living room, "how fares the Hawk?"

"Better," she answered simply. The corners of Loki's mouth twitched; she knew he correctly inferred that his domination, for lack of a better term, had caused some damage. There was no use pretending otherwise in her opinion, and she saw the question for the attempt to needle that it was.

"I'm glad to hear it," Loki answered, although his expression suggested that he was happier about what she implied rather than stated. He took a few steps around the couch, his pace measured and slow as he began to approach her. "And you, Agent?" he purred.

Natasha smiled politely as she countered, "Why are you so interested?"

"Simple curiosity," he grinned. "What of the rest of your...teammates?"

"What are you doing here, Loki?" Natasha asked, her tone light, almost bored as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Loki stopped about five feet away from her, a brief smile flashing across his angular face before it diminished into an expression of patient amusement. "So cold, Agent. Have I overstayed my welcome already?" he teased.

"I don't recall welcoming you to begin with."

"You will."

The corners of Loki's mouth curled upward, his lips parting, spreading into a gleeful, chaotic smile, and then he vanished in a flash of green light.

Natasha strode down the hall of the ninety-ninth floor of Stark Tower, her eyes already fixed on the other Avengers gathered on the opposite side of the glass wall. Each of them looked agitated. A few moments later she pushed the room's glass doors inward and was immediately overwhelmed by the sound of Tony all but shouting, "—every right to freak out! For Christ's sake—"

He cut himself off when he realized that the rest of the team had been joined by their last member, at which point he turned a look on Natasha that was at once frantic and angry as he loudly demanded, "Did you get a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past last night?"

Natasha's heart seized in her chest. She thought she'd hallucinated the whole thing. It wouldn't have been the first time she had an episode connected with traumas long past. "Yeah. He showed up in my living room, asked how I was doing and disappeared," she explained, paraphrasing as she had little desire to relive the details of that particular event.

"He was in our apartment?" Clint asked, his voice low and heavy with mingled fury and concern.

Natasha nodded. "He visit you, too?"

"Yeah, in Guam," he growled. "Got back as fast as I could, came straight here."

"What the hell does this guy want?" Tony asked nobody in particular as he raised the tumbler in his hand to his lips. The ice cubes knocked around and clinked against the glass, belying just how badly that hand was shaking.

Natasha knew he was still struggling with the after effects of the war. She couldn't imagine how nerve wracking it must have been for him to have his personal space invaded by its instigator.

"Look, everyone," Steve began, holding his palm up in what was evidently supposed to be a calming gesture, "it's no use getting so riled up. Nobody was hurt—"
"Yet," Tony put in, moving to set his drink down and then thinking better of it.

"Yet, you're right," Steve conceded, but he was undeterred. "It's bad news that Loki's alive, but it's good news that we know."

"We don't know why," Natasha put in, striding further into the room and standing beside Clint, her arms crossed over her chest. He glanced up at her from his position on the end of the semi-circular couch; she didn't return the look. "Unless he said something to one of you?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"He's planning something. Aliens, terminators, fuckin' dragons burrowing up from the goddamn mountains," Tony said tensely, taking another drink from his glass and then holding it to his chest like a security blanket.

It was then that Natasha noticed something strange. "Where's Thor?" she asked warily. "Last I checked he was still on Earth."

Tony held his free hand all the way out to the side and shook his head helplessly. "Dunno! Hey, Thor, you still around?" he asked the ceiling sarcastically.

Natasha ignored the slight and pressed on. "We need to find him. He'll have a better idea of what's going on than any of us."

"He probably went back to Asgard. I suppose S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mastered interplanetary communication already?" Bruce asked, speaking for the first time since she'd entered the room. He was composed but also didn't look particularly happy; he had no fond memories of the way Loki used him to achieve his own ends.

"No...but we should let Fury know about this," she stated.

"So he can do what, exactly?" Tony fired back. "Put us on Defcon 1 and start building another giant death ray? Not his best plan from what I remember."

"We need to be prepared—"

"Nothing will prepare us for whatever Darth Crazy's got going on! He damn sure proved that last time!"

"Then what do you suggest we do, Stark? Stand around and argue until Loki shows up with another army?" Steve demanded, turning his irate gaze onto Tony who immediately picked up the challenge.

"Why don't you tell us? Huh, Desert Storm? You got any bright ideas in that pretty blonde head'a yours?"

"Boys," Natasha stated, her tone low and dangerous. Both men turned to look at her, affronted that she was interrupting. "If Loki is back from the dead, this is exactly what he wants. He turned us against each other once. You really gonna let him do it again?" she asked. Steve and Tony looked annoyed with her but neither said anything; Steve crossed his arms over his chest again and shifted his weight onto his other foot whereas Tony simply took another drink. "We need to get ourselves together, then we need to report this, and then we need to find Thor. That's our plan," she told them firmly.

"Tasha?" Clint asked, his voice a low rumble at her elbow.

Natasha forced herself not to flinch at the name. "What?" she asked.

Clint pointed across the room, past the bar Tony and Steve were standing in front of, out at the bright, pale blue sky. Something was coming toward them from the distance, a black spot set against the early afternoon sunshine. Silence fell in the room and Natasha shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she turned to face the window, her gaze unwavering as she watched the object take form.

Just a few moments later, Thor landed on the balcony stretching out past the floor-to-ceiling windows. He wore a grave expression, his blonde brows furrowed and the corners of his usually smiling mouth turned down sharply. He strode forward, approaching the glass door and sweeping it aside.

The team greeted him with cold, stunned silence.

Loki smiled at his brother's shoulder.