Just a warning: this is the chapter where we start to tread into the M category. From here on out it's going to be a little bit more revved up, not even in particularly a sexual way but you'll see what I mean. Thanks for reading!
They continued the flirtation for the days that they spent together in the future, and as Loki had suggested had taken to sleeping in the same bed. She wasn't sure whether or not the intimacy was working, if she was honest with herself, as the process seemed to be going about the same speed as it had before, with snippets of her memories coming back after each session, leaving her exhausted and slumping bonelessly against him as he sat next to her during dinner, a movie, or even the rare occasion they'd have to just relax in one another's presence. He'd take her to bed, and oftentimes she was too exhausted to do much else than kiss him before promptly passing out. He never pushed her, more than good about that she supposed, and it wasn't until the end of the first week that she'd felt as though they'd made any progress. He'd just laid her back on the same table as before, his hands massaging her temples, drawing runes into her skin as he hummed softly to himself the same tune he'd picked up the last few days. Every so often she could pick up a word, but this time her attention wasn't on the noises coming from his mouth but the way her stomach twisted as her mind turned inward. Turned to the scene now flashing in front of her eyes.
"Faster, Natalia. You must be much quicker than that." The heavyset man standing in front of her said, his brow pulled tight and his hands clenched in front of him as he watched her turn the lock in her hand over and over again. She tasted blood from where he'd struck her before, the sticky red liquid running down the side of her mouth as she pushed a strand of hair away and tried to work the piece of wire into the large lock in front of her, wiggling it as quickly as she could as she tried to hit all the right places to make it undo. It was a basic lock, and she'd thought her pick was far better than it obviously was. She'd told Ivan so, or rather he'd caught her showing the other girls the basics of how to create one and had decided to test her. When she'd spluttered and tried to take it back he'd hit her, and there she was then, in the center of the deep red colored room, her hands shaking so hard it really was a miracle that she didn't drop the thick iron lock in her hand. Her palms were sweating so hard, the stench of iron and fear only intensifying as she clutched the slick metal and tried, again, to undo it, begging to God, to anyone. All she needed was for it to pop open-.
It did, the soft click as sweet as what she imagined an angel's song would be, and with a wide grin she showed Ivan that she'd done it! She'd picked the lock!
For such a large man he moved remarkably fast, and she fell backwards as he clocked her this time, hitting her head hard, the wire and lock falling from her hand before his boot crashed down on her right hand. She shrieked, feeling bone break beneath his weight, and when he twisted she howled again, her back bent double and stars popping in front of her vision.
"I told you that you must be quicker," he snarled, and when she looked up at him he no longer looked like the man she'd seen before, but a monster, bloody mouthed and snarling down at her, eyes black and beady and looking ready to eat her alive as she opened her mouth to scream and scream and-.
Natasha's eyes snapped open as she shouted and gave a start, Loki barely managing to avoid getting hitting by how quickly she moved. Her hand smarted, as though she remembered just what it was like to feel every bone in it being broken, as though the old injuries were coming back now. Wide eyed and trembling she turned to the white-faced god, who looked livid as he stared at her shaking figure.
"Th-that was me," she stumbled over the words. "And Ivan he-he's the one who trained me but there was something wrong-did you see?"
"No, I didn't see it" Loki said quietly, and as his mouth set into a tight line of disapproval she saw one of his hands clench the corner of the table as his imagination likely filled in the gaps. "Is the man . . . well, I suppose you won't know whether he's dead or not. The one who did all this to you."
She shook her head and turned away from him, pulling her knees up to her chin as she buried her head in the gap created, forcing herself to take shuddering, deep breaths. To breathe. She could do that, breathe, couldn't she? There was no Ivan, no black-eyed monster to come get her. Was it possible that he was supernatural? She wished she knew, wished she had some idea whether or not that was all part of the scene or . . . .
She couldn't shake that somehow that part felt different. Wrong. She couldn't explain it but she was near certain that she hadn't been trained by the supernatural, just the incredibly vicious and wicked. So then what the hell was that?
"You didn't recognize the face he took on, did you? The bloodied mouth and dark eyes?" She mumbled to the safety of her lap. Loki murmured again that he hadn't seen anything, and as she relaxed Nat let out a loose, shuddering sigh. Right. Well hopefully it just meant that was part of her memories, then. She'd ask Barton about it later, she supposed, not really wanting to think about it at the moment.
"Do you wish to continue?" Loki asked. "We've made decent headway so far," he assured her with an understanding smile. "But there might be more to find. I think we're on to something." His hand had moved to cover up one of her own, and she turned her hand to squeeze his tightly, gratefully.
"Just give me a few minutes and we'll continue. Promise."
The image wouldn't get out of her head, however, persisting no matter how Loki told her to clear her mind, to try and make it go blank. As if it were really that easy, she couldn't help but snark back, gritting her teeth as it got harder and harder to make it go away. He'd squeeze her shoulder, promise her that she was doing well, but not well enough. She wanted to be doing better, wanted to be able to focus on getting her memories back, but she might as well have been trying to catch these memories in a jar and open them up herself.
"Natasha you're so close," Loki said, voice starting to really get on her nerves as he kept prodding, pushing her to go further and do more. Couldn't he see, or sense or whatever, that she was doing the best she could? Her jaw clenched as she looked up at him.
"I'm trying, Loki. I'm doing all that I can," she said, tone far more biting than she'd intended, but what the hell had he expected? His own gaze flashed with annoyance, and he scowled as he pulled away from her, removing the pale purple stones he'd laid on her temple and collarbone to try and aid in her concentration. She sat up quickly and dropped her head into her hands, squeezing her head as tight as she could get. Why was it so damn difficult to focus?
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice quiet as she brought her head up to look at him. He was carefully putting things back where they belonged, not looking at her while he did it. His shoulders did relax with her words, though, and she stood slowly and moved to take one of his hands in her own. This should've been getting easier, not harder.
"It's not your fault," he promised. "It's just a difficult concept that you were doing so well, and now it's as though your mind has completely shut down. Strange. What did you see?" He asked, curiosity getting the best of him. She didn't blame him, having not been very descriptive aside from the parts that terrified her, and so instead tried to rattle off just what the scene had been, how the man's mouth had suddenly become covered in blood, how he no longer looked like himself but-.
Well, he looked like a monster.
All the while she talked Loki moved his hands over her shoulders, humming softly, as though checking for something. "You've not had any sort of supernatural tampering," he said finally as he pulled away to stand in front of her, his brow pulled tight in concentration and confusion. "So whatever it was must have been part of your imagination."
"So it wasn't real?" She asked, daring herself to feel hopeful even if it was for a short amount of time and almost seemed hollow.
"No. It wasn't. Not that I could sense." Loki assured her with a smile. She wasn't sure what to make of it and so responded with a smile of her own. It was what he wanted to see.
They disbanded from it a little while later, Natasha excusing herself to the bathroom with a muffled apology. Once the lock had clicked behind her and the hot water poured from the shower head, steaming up the room and fogging the mirrors, Natasha crumbled. She braced her hands on either side of the porcelain sin, and even as the room warmed considerably she still felt cold, clammy, still shook as though she was shivering. She hadn't been having issues with her memory before, so why then was this causing problems? It wasn't fair for this to happen, especially so suddenly. Everything else had been going fine, without issue, and then this?
'Pull yourself together, Romanov,' she scowled to herself, and somehow the words felt familiar, as though she'd heard them before a thousand times over. With it came another flash of memory, the pain and shock enough to force her knuckles to whiten where she'd clutched the countertop as well as to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from screaming out. She sat in an empty, dirty alleyway, bleeding heavily from a wound in her left shoulder while she snarled and held a gun up at the man in front of her, his bow drawn, yet lowering, as her eyes narrowed.
"C'mon," the man said, exchanging the arrow pointed at her head for a hand extending to help her up.
Half a minute. Half a minute and neither of them moved, said anything. Barely breathed.
She dropped the gun and took his hand in hers, allowing him to bring her up to his level.
The next scream managed to birth itself from her lips as she saw the same bloodied mouth and cruel black eyes, and his hand gripped her all the tighter, shaking her voice, deep as it snarled her name-.
Clint stared at her, narrowly avoiding the blow that would have broken his nose. He was repeating something as he enveloped her in his arms, keeping her tight to him not only to try and give her some comfort but so that she couldn't lash out again. It made her heart run all the faster, especially when she noticed that there was blood on his shirt. Terrified that she'd scratched him, she looked over to the doorway where the others had congregated, trying to splutter out an apology. They looked terrified and shocked and sympathetic all at the same time, and the apology she tried to make died in her throat when she caught sight of herself in the edge of the still mostly fogged mirror. Bloody tears dripped down her face, filling the creases of her lips before falling onto Clint's shirt, and she stared at herself in horror before the screams started anew.
A/N: Well, hope you enjoyed it! I know it's getting a little more gruesome, but as warned above this is where we're gonna begin to go into the more M territory, and I hope you stick around to see what happens next =] As ever, thanks for reading and for reviewing!