To say it was risky was putting it mildly, Loki supposed, but they didn't have many other options when no one else could come up with a plan. They needed to severely weaken the nogitsune, which meant injecting a disabling serum Bruce had come up with into the host's body. Without it slashing its attackers throat open. Natasha at first volunteered to do it, to which the group unanimously shot that idea down.
"It's going to go for you first," Clint reminded her. "And giving Amora or this spirit what they want isn't going to get us anywhere."
Wisely, no one brought up that she needed to rest, Natasha already raging against her Bruce imposed lock-up. "Then let me distract it at least," she bargained.
"No, absolutely not," Steve insisted while Loki paused, his eyes bright with an idea.
"Wait. That could work," he said softly. Nat beamed while the others glowered.
"No way." Clint interjected, protective to a fault.
"If she were safe on the other side while a second moved to jab the copy-."
"Natalia would sense it." Steve said.
"What if Loki poofed his way in? He did the reverse, how hard could it be?" Stark asked, looking hopeful for half a second. He met Loki's gaze. "You could do that, couldn't you?"
"Yes, I can," he said, turning from Stark to Steve and Clint.
"I still don't want Natasha getting involved again," Bruce murmured. "It's too dangerous. Too unstable a plan. Any number of things could go wrong, and what if this nogitsune takes you, Loki?"
"I don't think we have any more options. I'm fairly certain she'll grow stronger the longer she sits in that cell. If Amora does come to her aid then we don't stand a chance against the pair of them. Even less so if she brings Lorelei with her as you said she's done in the past." Loki said, speaking very quickly, gaze burning with frustration. There just wasn't time to bicker, they had to move, and move quickly.
It was with that in mind that Natasha was brought to stand in front of the nogitsune, Loki waiting in the shadows of the room. He didn't dare use his magic, not just yet. They told her that he'd left, gone to hunt Amora down, and if the goddess was listening then she would be distracted and, ideally, leave the creature alone.
Loki doubted she'd come the moment she heard he was away. In all his dealings with Amora he'd never known her to be self sacrificing.
From where he stood he could see Natasha's face as she stared up at the creature, her brow creased and her lips drawn tight into a frown of confusion. They watched one another for the longest time, neither willing to make the first move, neither willing to break down and lose this battle of wills. It would've been admirable if Loki didn't notice the way that Natasha had begun to tremble not two minutes into it. He was nearly certain that the creature was drawing its strength from her form even though they'd grown separate, and if she kept drawing it out it was going to kill her before Loki even had the chance to stick it with the serum they'd managed to piece together.
"You're not looking too good." The nogitsune's words slithered from her mouth, slick with self-satisfaction enough to make Natasha's trembling get worse, despite the way her hands tightened on her arms, white-knuckled to keep herself from showing her weaknesses.
"Says the coward wearing my skin," Natasha said, her voice clear as Loki could've expected. Steadier, in fact, than he'd thought it would be.
"Well, one must make the best out of the worst situations," the clone gave a one-shouldered shrug as she began to pace in her cell. Her gaze never left Natasha's, and Natasha kept it the whole while. "I'd love to get a hand on your new lover's. Think he'll let me?"
"I think you'll be dead before you can get close enough."
"And once I finish draining whatever life is left in you. Will he let me get close enough then? Rage is a fickle thing." The nogitsune pressed her fingers to the glass of her prison, and for half a second Loki was certain they would go through this time. Natasha went stock still, her eyes going wide as she stared at whatever it was the nogitsune was showing her. The trembling got worse, and it made the creature laugh.
"Pathetic creature-I can feel your heart beginning to slow down. You've got seconds, and he's not even here to be with you. You mean so little to him." She tutted, tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth, a mother scolding a misbehaving child before telling them to go to bed without supper. "And you all mean so little in the long run. So much more will come to pass now that I am awake."
"What more?" Natasha asked, and her eyes widened, snapping back up to meet with the nogitsune's. "What do you know?"
"Why does it matter, child?" The creature asked, voice broken with a laugh. "You will be too dead to see it. But come closer, I will say it for your ears and yours alone."
As Natasha moved closer on wobbling feet, Loki hearing Clint's breathing stop for half a second, he took a step forward, then a second when the nogitsune didn't move. Didn't sense him. He'd been right to agree with Natasha that she was the perfect distraction. His fingers clutched the serum all the tighter as he took another couple silent steps forward. Even he couldn't hear what the nogitsune was saying, but Natasha, who'd come close enough to see her reflection in the glass before her, had begun to cry. Loki could smell the salt of her tears before he heard the slow rasp of her breath as she tried to even it out. Her hand came to cover her mouth, and she stared up at her double with horror written on the face he'd grown to care so much for.
"You can't do that," she hissed. This time it was her fist that banged against the wall. "You can't!"
Loki went still as the nogitsune laughed, her head tipping back so that her red hair tumbled over her shoulders. He half expected her to see him. He was pushing it, getting dangerously close now, but the shorter distance he had to travel, the less time he'd spend giving himself away. Just two paces more. Just two more before he dared risk it.
"I think you'll find, Natasha, that I can, and I will."
Any minute she was going to hear him, hear him and turn and this would be all over and they'd have to find some other way to trick her into changing her form-and her gaze was still so fixed on Natasha, did he dare? He took the last two steps, and with one last quick intake of breath he disappeared.
In the half a second it took for him to manifest into the cage the creature had known something was up. She whirled on him just as he moved to bring the needle of the serum into her throat, and he ducked to avoid the blow of her arm against his head. The needle stuck into her thigh instead, and though her elbow crashed down on his temple he managed to press the plunger down. Half of the liquid, bright, radioactive green, disappeared into her veins before she managed to lash out at him with a kick of Natasha's, one that sent him crashing through the glass of the prison they'd kept her in. Clint and Steve jumped into position at that, Clint firing a stunning arrow at the nogitsune, but she ducked to avoid it. Natasha jumped forward, weak though she might've been, and grabbed the serum where it'd fallen. She managed to stick the needle right into the base of the monster's spine, making the red-headed doppelganger shriek as Natasha finished injecting the serum. Just as the nogitsune made to bat her away, a snarl of disbelief twisting her features, she froze. Where the serum had been injected began to turn the same shade of green as the liquid had once been, before the skin went black and began to crack. Those who were on their feet and coming closer, Steve, Clint, Tony, were all blown backwards by a force radiating off of the nogitsune, sent flying backwards and crashing into walls, machinery, and one another. Natasha barely managed to keep her balance, nails digging into the floor, before the creature in front of her turned wholly black and crumbled to dust in front of her.
As Loki got to his feet to contain what he could of the dust, terrifying it would manifest into another creature, that this was all just one more trick, he saw the color begin to blossom back in the apples of Natasha's cheeks.
He'd promised he'd deal with Amora, and he would do just that. Thor had already gone on ahead to track the huntress down with his other friends, who'd been hot on her trail chasing her down through Vanaheim, but there were a couple things Loki wanted to take care of first. They'd somehow managed to get Natasha to rest, and he'd found her alone save a sleeping Bruce in the corner just before he'd left. Her eyes were open and on him the second he stepped through the door, and he allowed his face to relax in a small smile.
"Hey. Feeling better?"
"I want to go with you." She said, not falling for his small talk. He supposed he should've expected it.
He waited until the door shut behind him and he'd moved to take a seat beside her on the bed. "You can't. Not just yet."
"She threatened my friends and everyone else here. I'm going to kill her."
"You already did away with the nogitsune. You'll get there, you just need to rest first." He promised, his expression sympathetic. Whatever it was the creature had said he hadn't asked, hadn't pried, but it'd really done a number on her. Especially if she was letting him see it. Didn't he know, better than most, just how good she could be at hiding it when she wanted to?
"I've rested."
"For hardly half a day."
"You really think I need more?" She asked with an arched brow.
Loki reached over and took her hand in his, brought her nearest hand, the one not connected to a machine ensuring that she got all the vitamins and nutrients she'd missed out while the nogitsune had her, and brought it up to his lips. "How about I bring her back to you for you to dispense justice?" He asked after considering it for a moment. He took her silence as a sign to go on. "We hunt her down and bring her back, and you do what you do best: extract information. Seems to me like you're the best there is, and I would love to see you in action." He shot her a flattering smile. In spite of herself he watched the corners of her lips flutter upwards.
"Stop sweet talking me. I'm still cross you won't let me go."
"Then I'll have to make it up to you, won't I?"
"That's assuming I'll let you," she shot, tugging her hand from his with a challenging smirk.
There was nothing Loki loved more than a challenge.
A/N: And that, dear friends, is where I leave this story. Hope you enjoyed it, thank you so much for sticking with me despite the lapses between updates! Thanks to coolcephalopod on tumblr for prompting this, and again thanks for reading!