Relieved, 3/3
Title: Relieved
Series: #17 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky Barnes
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. Alludes to events in prior stories and outright references others. Warnings for Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence, knifeplay, BDSM with aftercare.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups. Summary is from Celldweller's "Switchback."
Special thanks to romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: I made a choice that I regret... A painful picture that I can't forget, now what I see is what I get. It's too late to look back.
Prior chapter:
One - Sliding Back To Oblivion
Two - Offerings
Three - Searching For A Solution
Not having anywhere else to put him, Natasha brought James to her suite. The first order of business was to get him out of what he had been wearing and clean him up. Clint had ushered Bruce and Jane back to their own lab, declaring the show over. "Now you have your boyfriend back," he added to Jane. "Maybe you should talk to him."
"You know, I think I will," she agreed. "I want to know what's going on." Her tone was forceful enough that Bruce and Clint exchanged a sympathetic look on Thor's behalf.
Natasha didn't have much sympathy for Thor at the moment. She looked to Loki, who had followed her. "I need to clean him up," she began, a little uncertainly. "There's nothing here for him to change into."
"And I saw nothing downstairs," he responded coolly.
She almost wanted to wince. Loki loved her, and while he might accept that she didn't love him back, it had to hurt to see her with the man she did love. She was too tired to play games, to try to flatter him or manipulate him. "Is it too much trouble to find him clothes?" she asked, a slump in her shoulders. It wasn't manipulation if it was truth.
Loki looked at her carefully for a moment, then shook his head. "I can assist you in this."
Closing the gap between them, leaving James behind her staring at the art on her walls, Natasha grabbed Loki's hand tightly. "Thank you."
"I'll need his clothing sizes."
James started stripping out of his clothes, and handed them to Loki without any qualms about his nudity. Though not a prude, Loki appeared startled by it. James merely shrugged at him. "These were what was provided by handlers and then Yelena. I chose nothing."
That seemed to soften Loki's harsh expression a bit, and he nodded. "Have you any preferences?"
"No. I need serviceable attire."
Loki's lip curled in a disdainful smile. "We disagree on what serviceable means."
"Able to move," James replied without humor. "Deflect bullets and knife attacks if possible, since they won't give me armor here."
Eyes straying to the juncture of metal to flesh at James' shoulder, Loki nodded absently. "You are still a soldier, first and foremost. What do you fight for now?" he asked baldly.
Natasha let her eyes ping pong back to James, wondering what he would say. Loki's patience likely would only go so far, and she was sure they were trying it now.
"Natalia," James replied promptly. "Department X always protected the Black Widow program, and when it was taken over, the directive was never erased."
"Directive," Loki echoed with a frown.
"We all were subject to memory modification," Natasha said quietly. "The difference is, he was an asset, a weapon of war."
"The crude weapon," James said, without any indication of what he felt about it. "She is the stiletto or garrote. She is grace and elegance. I am no such weapon."
Loki eyed him sharply and intensely enough that Natasha knew there would be a discussion about it later, if not an epic shit fit. She was tired already, just thinking about it.
"She is indeed a blade," Loki said carefully. "I believe recent months have been a crucible, and she is being forged anew. And perhaps, you as well."
Well, well. Loki had certainly changed, not just in his treatment of her, but in others. Natasha wanted to take him by the shoulders and demand to know what his game was, but she suppressed the urge and tried to sink into her training. Observe, assess, calculate, look for weaknesses. But his only weakness was her, as far as she could tell right now. Oh, he had many other weaknesses that she had exploited and turned to her purposes before, but those didn't apply in this instance. Now, the only thing that could bring him to his knees was her.
And she didn't like the idea of using that against him at all.
The silence stretched out uncomfortably, and finally Loki nodded. "I will get you apparel you require. I doubt ordinary Midgardian garb will meet your needs and still look appropriate enough that others will leave you be."
Natasha frowned. "So what are you going to do?"
Loki smiled thinly. "Consider it a surprise as you bathe him." His lip curled, and she could see pain and anger in his eyes. "You need to get better acquainted with him, do you not?"
"Loki..."
"Enough," he hissed. "I do this task for you. Ask for nothing more."
He disappeared through a portal, and Natasha sighed, the slump in her shoulders more pronounced now. She didn't jump when James laid a hand on one of her shoulders. "A lover, then. We took you from him before. Yelena didn't think he meant anything."
"She didn't think any of them meant anything to me," she said tiredly. "Even after I told her they were family, she didn't listen."
James looked at her carefully. "You care for him," he said slowly. "And he loves you."
Natasha looked at him intently. "And I love you."
His expression softened, and his hand moved from her shoulder to her cheek. "Natalia."
"It's all right. He's not happy, but he'll get over it."
"No one that loves you could ever get over you."
She stood on tip toe to brush a light kiss across his lips. "Thank you for saying so. C'mon, let's get you washed up. Didn't they allow you a shower in the past two weeks?"
"They did at first."
"But?"
"When I took down the curtain rod and tried to impale their skulls with it, they didn't allow that anymore." At her sigh, James shrugged. "I was locked in. I didn't appreciate that."
"Will I need to lock you into my suite?"
"No. I'll stay if you ask me to."
Natasha smiled warmly at him. "I thought so. Stay here, I'll work on them. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk around naked if you like."
He actually laughed. "I don't think any visitors would care for that."
"I don't exactly care. If they walk in without my permission, they deserve to get surprised."
James bent his head down and grasped the back of her head to kiss her deeply. "So what are your plans for me, Natalia?"
"Get you cleaned up and comfortable for now. Past that, we shall have to see."
"Oh? You didn't have plans for that clean up?" he asked, a teasing lilt in his voice.
Natasha actually snickered. They could only ever really joke like this when alone before, and some habits died hard. "That's not a plan, James. That's fact."
He had always been one for expediency, so it didn't bother James in the slightest to have only Natasha's floral body wash and pouf to get clean with. She scrubbed him down efficiently, then rinsed him off. The grime and grit had worked its way into his skin, and both of them preferred him to be clean before play began. Touch was also a good way to reorient the both of them in this new circumstance; he was still on high alert, poised to react to danger. She still felt numbed with grief, chills in her skin at the thought of how many times he must have cheated death to be standing in her bathroom.
James slid his hands across her skin, smoothed by spells and Hel's gifts. "I am always amazed by this. There used to be scars."
She smiled and ran her hands down his chest. "Spell work erased them. I still remember where they were, though."
Warm water sluicing down around them, James nodded and traced them out across with his fingers. Knife cuts, bullet grazes, scars where bullets had gone straight through her. She took his hand and traced out other wounds she had gotten, even the L-shaped gouge in her lower abdomen that Loki had given her four years ago.
"Dangerous," he murmured, sliding his fingers down to the cleft between her legs.
"Yes," she agreed, pulling him down for a kiss. There was no need to make small talk, to say something pithy here. He was alive, alive, alive, he was touching her and kissing her and ah, he curled his fingers just right inside of her, thumb at her clit. James knew her body inside and out, just as she knew his, and she hummed in delight as she licked into his mouth. "I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I mourned her..."
Holding her tightly in his arms, James teased a climax out of her. "I remember bits and pieces of things," he admitted, mouth all but fused to hers. "I wouldn't tell them. Didn't know how they'd take it if I did."
"And? What do you remember?"
"Mostly you. Some of what Bucky should know. A lot of the Winter Soldier."
The light in his eyes was dark and pained, tragedy filling him. Natasha took his cock in hand and stroked him as he pumped his fingers into her, trying to bring her off again. She tightened around his fingers, lips drawn back in a sad smile. "He might understand all of it in time," she murmured softly. "If we let him."
"I'm not who he remembers-"
"And he's not who you remember either. I think you've both forgotten that."
Natasha shifted position and pushed at his hand, just shy of her own release. She turned and bent over, grasping the edge of the tub for balance as she lifted herself up on tip toes. Wiggling her rear, she looked over her shoulder and gave him a saucy grin. "But this isn't the time for that, is it, James?" she purred.
James grasped her hips and slid home, making her gasp in pleasure. "No, it isn't," he agreed.
He snapped his hips against her, pumping his solid length into her. It was perfect, the way it always was, and just a whisper of touch against her clit with her fingers was enough to bring her off the rest of the way. She bit her lip to muffle her cries, force of habit, and the slight sound made James growl. He picked up the pace, his grip on her hips punishing, and then he reached forward to grasp her hair with his flesh hand and pull. Natasha groaned, whimpering almost incoherently, telling him how good he felt and right there, how she could feel another orgasm building on top of the first, if he could just hold on a little longer.
A third was a bit beyond James at the moment. He groaned and shifted position, spilling into her hot depths, sliding out of her slick channel when he helped her to her feet. Nipping at the curve of her shoulder, she could feel him smile. "Louder than the old days. Or even the new days, if she wasn't involved. I like it."
There was no need to discuss who she was, and Natasha could feel her gut tighten in pain. She had killed Yelena. Oh, she was out of control and had begged her to, the triggers and personality overlays likely getting the better of her. It was something Yelena had wanted, but Natasha still couldn't shake the feeling that if she had only tried harder, there was something she could have figured out to save her.
She clung to James tightly, hiding her tears in the shower water. He held onto her, enfolding her into his warmth, and didn't say a thing.
Some things didn't need to be discussed between them.
***
Loki returned with a glower on his face and tailored clothing of similar make and weave as the clothing he wore. It was Asgardian fabric, flexible enough and soft enough to resemble cotton blended fabric, yet could withstand most simple stabs. "Your high caliber ballistics could still shred such clothing," he had announced, tossing it at James. He had been sitting on the couch in one of Natasha's towels, as she had declared that his other clothing should be laundered. Or burned, if the industrial strength machines couldn't take out the stench and stains. He had simply sat on her couch, knees wide apart so she could look beneath the towel if she wanted, arms perched on the back of the couch. Loki merely sneered at that position. "Spread eagled for her entertainment or inspection."
"Yes," James agreed, no inflection to her tone.
Natasha had shoved Loki out of the way with her shoulder and took the clothes, throwing them into James' lap. "Go get changed."
Once he was in her bedroom, she turned to Loki. "Thank you. I know this isn't an easy situation for you-"
"No," he said, biting off the words. "It is not."
She blew out a pained breath. "Loki. I'm sorry. I don't-"
"Love me. I know. I have no need to hear you say it again." The pain in his voice was naked and raw, nearly making her wince. He wouldn't accept any sympathy from her.
"I wasn't going to say that," she murmured. "I was going to say, I don't know how to thank you, when I know this is difficult for you."
Loki flushed, an ugly mottled red across his cheeks. "Difficult is an understatement."
"I haven't lied to you."
"No, you have not."
"And I don't want to start now." Natasha grasped his hand, fingers curling to brush across the sensitive skin of the inside of his wrist. "I'm being as honest as I know how to be, and I'm trying not to be cruel. I can't-" She sucked in a deep breath, aware of Loki watching her intently, but her mind couldn't seem to guess at the labyrinthine tunnels that made up his. "I can't hurt you, Loki. And I can't hurt him."
His expression softened a fraction, and he cupped her face in his hand. "And so you hurt yourself instead, is that it?"
"I know it's not an acceptable solution."
"No. I would give you peace if I could. I would give you the space between breaths, the stillness without thought, existence without pain. If I knew how you provide this for me, I would return it in kind," he said quietly, not moving. "It is not magic that would do this for you, not when I haven't the knack of it already."
"There's not a trick to it."
"I do not have your surety."
Natasha nodded, fingers still stroking his wrist. "I know. I was trying to help you, before."
Loki gave her a soft, pained smile. "Your friends would say I've learned those lessons well, I think. I accompany Sam on his work, I have spoken with Steve and Clint without them wanting to kill me. I even managed not to taunt the others in this tower."
"An accomplishment," Natasha said, answering his smile with a pained one of her own.
James stepped out of her bedroom and saw them together. He stayed very still, though both saw him in their peripheral vision. The clothes were rather flattering, fitting his shape without being too tight. It would still have some drape to the fabric, allowing him to hide a knife or two on his person. A gun would be too much, but the Tower wasn't as full of enemies that should require such a thing. The boots were modeled after Loki's Asgardian ones, and there were built in sheaths to hold stilettos with blades no more than three inches long.
"I trust that meets with your approval," Loki said after a moment, stepping back and away from Natasha. He looked at James with a bland expression, though his posture was all tension.
Nodding, James took a step forward. "Yeah, thanks. Moves real well with me." He hiked up the tunic to show the dagger strapped to his torso. "Hides a blade well enough."
"That was the idea," Loki replied, watching as James dropped the shirt.
When he turned on his heel to leave, Natasha gave him a concerned look. "There are probably things we need to talk about," she began quietly.
"No, I don't think there are," Loki returned, though he was ashen pale and there was a tremor in his lips. He left through the front door to her suite, the click of the lock closing sounding final and impossibly loud in the stillness.
Coming to her side, James simply pulled her into a tight embrace. "There is time for all things," he said quietly. "He loves you, he'll come around."
"And if he doesn't, New York might be held hostage."
James looked at the door, contemplating that, then shook his head. "He'll explode. But it won't be like that. He'll be angry, itching for a fight. Out of sorts. Lost." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Once he goes down far enough, then he'll listen if you want to talk."
Natasha nodded, and clutched him tightly. No other words were necessary.
***
Thor was spending time with Jane before he had to return to Asgard. He hadn't mentioned their need for Natasha as Ambassador, making her wonder what was going on. Most Ambassadors stayed on a semipermanent basis in the country they were meant to liaise with. Surely Odin and Frigga weren't that unhappy with her? Or were they making allowances for her and letting Thor and Sif remain on Earth in the Ambassador capacity?
Her head hurt just thinking about it. Everyone seemed too damn opaque for her right now. She was burnt out, functioning but not at her usual level. Joking and playing video games might have helped in the short term, but she was left feeling hollow afterward. Bruce and Jane were pleasant enough company, though she wasn't sure if she connected with them very well. They seemed to like her well enough, had certainly tried to help however they could.
No, the issue was with her. She was the one that had been put back together all wrong after what she had gone through in the past few years.
Past few years? Ha. It was her entire lifetime.
Natasha didn't quite stop short when she saw Steve and Sif in the common room. They were sitting with their backs to do the door, heads bent close together. It looked like a photo album, and Sif noticed her out of the corner of her eye. "Lady Natasha," she said, her warm smile tempered somewhat by recent circumstances.
"Just Natasha here," she murmured.
"Is Bucky okay?" Steve asked, turning as well. It looked like the photo album that Phil Coulson had painstakingly put together, news clippings and sketches from the 40's detailing Steve's time as Captain America and leader of the Howling Commandos.
"He's in my suite. He's fine," she replied, and saw some tension bleed out of his shoulders. "He's not the same man you knew in the forties."
"And I'm not the same man I was back then either," Steve retorted.
"In some of the ways that count, you are." Natasha blew out a breath, tired. She was so fucking tired of the bullshit and posturing and having to be so strong for everyone else's benefit. She wanted to just be for a little while, without having to think. But she couldn't retreat to Clint's rooms and play mindless video games all day, as fun as that sounded just then. "You're still going to stick your neck out for others. You'd still rather get beat up than see others get hurt. You still take on too much on your own."
Steve didn't even bother to deny that. He contemplated her for a moment. "What's the phrase?" he asked, a little too innocently. "The pot calling the kettle black?"
Natasha pursed her lips and considered leaving, but he was right. She found herself walking into the room, almost against her will, and plopped down on the couch beside Sif. To her surprise, the warrior put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"There is no shame in needing additional warriors by your side. Why do you think the Warriors Three tend to fight together?"
"I'm a spy, not a warrior," Natasha replied with a sigh, sinking into Sif's embrace.
"You fought with the rest of us at the Battle of New York. You fought with everyone on Asgard," Steve pointed out. "You can be a warrior, too. Same skills, different scope."
"Warriors know that there must be recovery time," Sif said quietly. "Steve has told me that you have not had any."
"A week here or there."
"Which is appropriate only in a battlefield," Sif declared. "Did you not wonder why there is much drinking and carousing amongst our people?"
"Because you like it?" Natasha offered, being deliberately obtuse.
"Yes," Sif admitted, swatting her arm gently. "But why else do we fight? If we do not remember the point, we are no better than berserkers."
"I was trying to balance the scales, to make up for all the harm I'd done in the past."
"Are you not done?" Sif asked, surprised. "Millions of lives on your world, in our realm, the countless innocents that were not slaughtered for another's pride... Is it not balanced?"
"If they were, I've upset the scales again," Natasha murmured.
"When will you be done? When it is over?" Steve asked quietly.
Never.
"I don't know," Natasha said instead.
Steve closed the photo album and carefully put it down on the coffee table. "I know how sometimes the best we can do isn't good enough. That we're not what we want to be. That having potential isn't the same as being able to do something." He turned and faced her, then took up one of her hands to give it a squeeze. "But we try, Nat. We keep trying. That's all we can really do, isn't it?"
"Is this a pep talk for me? Or for you?"
"Both of us, maybe?" he admitted. "Because I want to be there for Bucky, but I don't know how. And I probably lost your trust with this, but I didn't intend to hurt you. I didn't know that you didn't know. I just wanted to make sure he didn't kill all of us in the tower. SHIELD can't help him, you know that. That was a deliberate omission."
"Not following SHIELD protocols?" Natasha asked, eyebrow lofted, not wanting to touch how much the omission had hurt her.
"They don't always seem on the up and up. Maybe the goals are good, but how they get there... I don't see Peg liking how her agency turned out."
He sounded just as lost and sad as Natasha felt. She found herself squeezing his hand back before she really thought about it. Wasn't that a sad state of affairs for a spy? And if she wasn't a spy any longer, what was she? What was a consultant that didn't take on any jobs for the agency that wanted to hire her on?
"We're gonna make mistakes. We're only human. Asgardian," Steve added playfully, grinning at Sif. Natasha wondered if he had taken her to bed yet. She couldn't imagine him doing it with his worry over James, but she could tell that interest was there on both sides.
"His memory," Natasha began slowly, wriggling out of their grasps. "Our memory... It's been all fragmented. Erased. Changed. Various agencies went in, played with them, took things out, put other things in. I've had more time outside of that, but the drugs and concussions I had when Yelena took me..." She took a breath when she realized her voice warbled and she was dangerously close to crying. "He was on ice. Frozen between missions at different locations. It's why I thought I killed him. He wasn't at the one I burned down. But he's been wiped so many different times, I don't know if he will remember his connection to you, Steve. I don't know if you're hoping for something that can't happen."
"I still have hope," Steve replied stubbornly. "I have to. It's all I got left."
"Don't push him too hard."
"Is he going to come after the rest of us?"
"Not if you don't lock him up."
Sighing, Steve bit his lip and looked away uncertainly, considering. "I don't like it," he admitted. "He's as strong as an Asgardian. What's to stop him from changing his mind?"
"Me."
Natasha was aware that she had told them the same thing about Loki. And hadn't he obeyed the rules she had set down for his stay in the tower? He hadn't pushed the others too hard.
Elbows on her knees, she tiredly rubbed at her face. "If we make house rules for him..."
"You would discipline him, too, then?" Steve asked.
There was only curiosity in his tone, no lascivious teasing as there would be if she was having this conversation with Tony. Thank god, because she felt too rattled and fragile for that. She wasn't feeling very domme at the moment, truth be told, but Steve needed the reassurance. So she nodded, feeling like a liar.
"Hey," Steve murmured, getting her attention. "I'll help however I can, you know that. Not just for Bucky's sake, but for yours. Any of us will, you know. Just ask."
That was the hard part, wasn't it?
***
Loki found her that evening sitting on the floor next to a floor to ceiling plate glass window overlooking Midtown, a large mug of tea in her hands. Natasha was looking out over the city, watching the lights flicker to life as the sun went down. James was in her suite making use of her tablet to try to catch up on things other than weaponry. She had tried to help him earlier, but he had gotten frustrated with her hovering. When she had pointed things out to Steve years ago on the helicarrier and in SHIELD offices, he had simply laughed and gamely tried to look up whatever she suggested, and grinned at her lame puns. She could tell herself it was James' frustration with being penned in, with not having a mission, with knowing that there were many deaths on his head that he couldn't atone for.
She could tell herself that, and she was afraid that it wasn't all it was. He loved her, she knew that and didn't doubt it. But love was very different when you didn't have to be afraid of it. They could love each other, but that didn't mean they could actually live with each other.
If she had the energy to figure this out, she could probably fix it. But she didn't. And so she was taking the coward's way out by hiding. It was kind of a relief to not have to fix everything, to be honest, but this couldn't last for long, not with so many broken souls around her. Though she had been fixing everyone else's broken souls for so long, what did she have left to patch herself up with? How could she fix herself?
He was silent for a long time, then moved to sit gracefully beside her. "You're hiding."
So astute. Dammit.
"Yes," she said when he seemed to expect an answer.
Quiet for a long moment, Loki finally took her mug and stood up gracefully. He extended a hand, clearly expecting her to take it. Frowning, she did, allowing him to lift her to her feet. "What are you doing?" she asked him.
He gave her a shark's grin as he put the mug down on a counter as they passed through the kitchen area on the way to the living areas. Not answering, Natasha was irritated and curious at the same time. What in the world was on his mind?
They bypassed her suite for his, the front room still very empty. "You were right, long ago, when you told me I was not ready for leadership. I could not be a good King if I could not even care for a single person," he began slowly. His lips drew back in a smile that reminded her too much of Yelena in her madness, right before she hit Natasha.
When Natasha flinched, Loki clucked and cradled her face in his hands gently. "You're hiding because everyone relies on you. And you don't feel strong enough for that. You can't shore us up when you're empty, and I am not as good as you are in taking care of things. But I can lean how to, and I do know what you need right now."
"What's that?" she asked, her voice coming out with a slight rasp.
"To not think."
Oh, yes, that sounded quite excellent, actually.
"If it's too much," he said quietly, "you use the safe word. But this isn't our deal. This is still separate. This is still something else. Like when we were in Astoria." He paused, and she took in his concern with surprise. He had changed while she was gone. It suited him.
"Do you agree?" he pressed. The tension in his shoulders relaxed when she nodded. "Good. Then we begin now."
He conjured one of his knives and slit her clothes from her body. When she was about to ask what the hell he was doing, he shook his head sharply. No words, then. She had to respond to his gestures and commands, trusting he would take care of her. The knife was too much like the one he had used to cut into her, once upon a time. Her abdomen tightened in response, especially as he dragged the point of the blade over her body, tracing where her scars used to be, where the L scar had once been.
The ultimate trust exercise.
Memories threatened to flood her, and it was hard to stay in the moment. Loki nudged her feet apart with his, and she tried to respond. Her body was too tight, too tense, and she flinched away from the touch of the blade on some areas of her body.
"You're thinking too much," Loki said, voice stern. No anger, almost as if he expected it. He leaned in close, lips next to her ear. "This needs to stop. I see you need discipline."
Some part of her rebelled against that. She was nothing if not disciplined, and it was such a part of her that it was insulting. Opening her mouth to reply, Natasha was startled when he laughed at the spark of anger in her eyes.
"Yes, discipline is necessary. I see that. You don't feel enough." He waved his hand and created a padded sawhorse, the likes of which belonged more in a BDSM dungeon. "Lie down."
That rebellious part of her wanted to balk, to call her safe word and end the scene. But that would be cheating, would be giving up and playing the coward even more. "Loki, I-" It clicked for a moment why she rebelled too hard. "It's like the Red Room."
His hand caressed her spine gently. "Can you push past it? Can we make new memories to temper the ones you have?"
Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm not sure how much I can even trust my memories."
"Then I propose a separate safe word. Andorra stops everything. I suggest cavern to slow it down, see what we need to change in order to make it tolerable." Loki kept one hand caressing her spine, and the other circled her throat. Her breath stuttered in her chest at the contact, and he licked her ear. "Natasha?"
"Yes. I can remember that."
"Good. Now arrange yourself for me. You still need disciplining."
She pressed her lips together unhappily, then laid her stomach down on the padding of the sawhorse. Her breath hitched when she was lashed to it with magic, unable to move. Loki brought his hand to her spine again, stroking gently. "Loki," she began, voice hoarse.
"You can slow this down if you must," he replied, voice firm somewhere above her. "But you're thinking too much. When you're with me, you're with me. I can't have you thinking of other things." His nails scored lines down her back, and he cupped her ass before giving it a squeeze. "You said love is for children, yes? You've called me a child."
"Not in that context-"
"Hush," he commanded. "What are your safe words?" He waited until she repeated them, and she tried to turn her head. "Additional spanks for that," he commented, sounding almost bored. "Count them out."
Her ass was warm by the third slap, stung by seven, burned by eleven and felt almost impossible to endure when he stopped at fifteen. She didn't know when she started crying, when she had started to only focus of the feel of his hand coming down hard over her body, when the worries about James and grief over Yelena seemed to ease from her. She could barely hear Loki's praise for taking it so well, but she felt his fingers stroking her, then sliding between her legs, then pumping into her. Natasha cried out and jerked her hips, not expecting that, but he brought her to orgasm quickly. She was still sniffling a little when he thrust into her with his cock, filling her completely. His clothes were still on, and the burn in her ass meant that even the fine weave of the Asgardian fabric inflamed her skin. It was counterpoint to the pleasure building inside of her, it was different enough yet familiar enough that she came hard, nearly shrieking.
Natasha was glad to be bound afterward, when Loki stroked her neck and conjured some kind of soothing cream to work into her skin. "We're done," he said unnecessarily. Her entire body was loose, relying on the sawhorse to maintain her weight. It was a surprise when he kissed the nape of her neck, and murmured how good she had been for him.
Like when they had been in the Astoria apartment, that seemed to trigger the floodgates for her tightly bound emotions. She sobbed again, this time not from overstimulation but from simply letting go. She clung to him when he picked her up in his arms, and didn't care when he carried her down the hall to her own suite, when James looked at her anxiously.
"She's all right," Loki promised James, voice infinitely gentle. "She's been wound up too tight lately. She needed to release some of it."
James looked relieved, and sat at the edge of the bed when Loki laid her down carefully. "But naked? What does that have to do with anything?"
Natasha almost wanted to laugh, so her sobs turned into hiccups. "It's... different. It's hard to explain the whole thing."
"This when you're usually so good at them?"
Loki seemed immensely proud of himself at James' pronouncement, but Natasha couldn't bring herself to care about that. She still had a lassitude in her body; logically she knew it was endorphins, but another part of her was thrilled at the thought that she could be taken care of for once, even if it was for a short time. It was so difficult to be in control all the time, to take on the weight she had shouldered without complaint.
He brushed his fingers across her cheek, a gentle caress more for her benefit than to show off for James. It made her smile, and she reached out to grasp both Loki's and James' hands. "I'm okay. Really. Just... Floating. It feels almost like floating. I'll come down, I'm sure I will, and I'll worry then, but for now, I just feel so relieved. Like everything is gone for a little while."
Though he still looked concerned, James nodded. "Can't have anything happen to my best girl," he murmured, squeezing her hand gently.
"I'm good," she murmured, lips still curled in a subtle smile. "Really. For right now, I really am good, James."
"I'll let you stay with her," Loki said quietly to James. He bent down to kiss Natasha's temple gently, then disentangled their fingers. "I have much to do tonight."
"Loki?" Natasha murmured as James shifted to climb into bed behind her. Poised at the doorway, he turned back to look at her with an unreadable expression. "Thank you," she said softly.
His smile was gentle, a bit of strain at the edges. "I'm glad I could help you," he replied, then slipped through the door before she could say anything else.
From there, it was only too easy for Natasha to tumble down into sleep, James at her back and holding her tight.
The End
Series: #17 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky Barnes
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. Alludes to events in prior stories and outright references others. Warnings for Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence, knifeplay, BDSM with aftercare.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups. Summary is from Celldweller's "Switchback."
Special thanks to romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: I made a choice that I regret... A painful picture that I can't forget, now what I see is what I get. It's too late to look back.
Prior chapter:
One - Sliding Back To Oblivion
Two - Offerings
Three - Searching For A Solution
Not having anywhere else to put him, Natasha brought James to her suite. The first order of business was to get him out of what he had been wearing and clean him up. Clint had ushered Bruce and Jane back to their own lab, declaring the show over. "Now you have your boyfriend back," he added to Jane. "Maybe you should talk to him."
"You know, I think I will," she agreed. "I want to know what's going on." Her tone was forceful enough that Bruce and Clint exchanged a sympathetic look on Thor's behalf.
Natasha didn't have much sympathy for Thor at the moment. She looked to Loki, who had followed her. "I need to clean him up," she began, a little uncertainly. "There's nothing here for him to change into."
"And I saw nothing downstairs," he responded coolly.
She almost wanted to wince. Loki loved her, and while he might accept that she didn't love him back, it had to hurt to see her with the man she did love. She was too tired to play games, to try to flatter him or manipulate him. "Is it too much trouble to find him clothes?" she asked, a slump in her shoulders. It wasn't manipulation if it was truth.
Loki looked at her carefully for a moment, then shook his head. "I can assist you in this."
Closing the gap between them, leaving James behind her staring at the art on her walls, Natasha grabbed Loki's hand tightly. "Thank you."
"I'll need his clothing sizes."
James started stripping out of his clothes, and handed them to Loki without any qualms about his nudity. Though not a prude, Loki appeared startled by it. James merely shrugged at him. "These were what was provided by handlers and then Yelena. I chose nothing."
That seemed to soften Loki's harsh expression a bit, and he nodded. "Have you any preferences?"
"No. I need serviceable attire."
Loki's lip curled in a disdainful smile. "We disagree on what serviceable means."
"Able to move," James replied without humor. "Deflect bullets and knife attacks if possible, since they won't give me armor here."
Eyes straying to the juncture of metal to flesh at James' shoulder, Loki nodded absently. "You are still a soldier, first and foremost. What do you fight for now?" he asked baldly.
Natasha let her eyes ping pong back to James, wondering what he would say. Loki's patience likely would only go so far, and she was sure they were trying it now.
"Natalia," James replied promptly. "Department X always protected the Black Widow program, and when it was taken over, the directive was never erased."
"Directive," Loki echoed with a frown.
"We all were subject to memory modification," Natasha said quietly. "The difference is, he was an asset, a weapon of war."
"The crude weapon," James said, without any indication of what he felt about it. "She is the stiletto or garrote. She is grace and elegance. I am no such weapon."
Loki eyed him sharply and intensely enough that Natasha knew there would be a discussion about it later, if not an epic shit fit. She was tired already, just thinking about it.
"She is indeed a blade," Loki said carefully. "I believe recent months have been a crucible, and she is being forged anew. And perhaps, you as well."
Well, well. Loki had certainly changed, not just in his treatment of her, but in others. Natasha wanted to take him by the shoulders and demand to know what his game was, but she suppressed the urge and tried to sink into her training. Observe, assess, calculate, look for weaknesses. But his only weakness was her, as far as she could tell right now. Oh, he had many other weaknesses that she had exploited and turned to her purposes before, but those didn't apply in this instance. Now, the only thing that could bring him to his knees was her.
And she didn't like the idea of using that against him at all.
The silence stretched out uncomfortably, and finally Loki nodded. "I will get you apparel you require. I doubt ordinary Midgardian garb will meet your needs and still look appropriate enough that others will leave you be."
Natasha frowned. "So what are you going to do?"
Loki smiled thinly. "Consider it a surprise as you bathe him." His lip curled, and she could see pain and anger in his eyes. "You need to get better acquainted with him, do you not?"
"Loki..."
"Enough," he hissed. "I do this task for you. Ask for nothing more."
He disappeared through a portal, and Natasha sighed, the slump in her shoulders more pronounced now. She didn't jump when James laid a hand on one of her shoulders. "A lover, then. We took you from him before. Yelena didn't think he meant anything."
"She didn't think any of them meant anything to me," she said tiredly. "Even after I told her they were family, she didn't listen."
James looked at her carefully. "You care for him," he said slowly. "And he loves you."
Natasha looked at him intently. "And I love you."
His expression softened, and his hand moved from her shoulder to her cheek. "Natalia."
"It's all right. He's not happy, but he'll get over it."
"No one that loves you could ever get over you."
She stood on tip toe to brush a light kiss across his lips. "Thank you for saying so. C'mon, let's get you washed up. Didn't they allow you a shower in the past two weeks?"
"They did at first."
"But?"
"When I took down the curtain rod and tried to impale their skulls with it, they didn't allow that anymore." At her sigh, James shrugged. "I was locked in. I didn't appreciate that."
"Will I need to lock you into my suite?"
"No. I'll stay if you ask me to."
Natasha smiled warmly at him. "I thought so. Stay here, I'll work on them. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk around naked if you like."
He actually laughed. "I don't think any visitors would care for that."
"I don't exactly care. If they walk in without my permission, they deserve to get surprised."
James bent his head down and grasped the back of her head to kiss her deeply. "So what are your plans for me, Natalia?"
"Get you cleaned up and comfortable for now. Past that, we shall have to see."
"Oh? You didn't have plans for that clean up?" he asked, a teasing lilt in his voice.
Natasha actually snickered. They could only ever really joke like this when alone before, and some habits died hard. "That's not a plan, James. That's fact."
He had always been one for expediency, so it didn't bother James in the slightest to have only Natasha's floral body wash and pouf to get clean with. She scrubbed him down efficiently, then rinsed him off. The grime and grit had worked its way into his skin, and both of them preferred him to be clean before play began. Touch was also a good way to reorient the both of them in this new circumstance; he was still on high alert, poised to react to danger. She still felt numbed with grief, chills in her skin at the thought of how many times he must have cheated death to be standing in her bathroom.
James slid his hands across her skin, smoothed by spells and Hel's gifts. "I am always amazed by this. There used to be scars."
She smiled and ran her hands down his chest. "Spell work erased them. I still remember where they were, though."
Warm water sluicing down around them, James nodded and traced them out across with his fingers. Knife cuts, bullet grazes, scars where bullets had gone straight through her. She took his hand and traced out other wounds she had gotten, even the L-shaped gouge in her lower abdomen that Loki had given her four years ago.
"Dangerous," he murmured, sliding his fingers down to the cleft between her legs.
"Yes," she agreed, pulling him down for a kiss. There was no need to make small talk, to say something pithy here. He was alive, alive, alive, he was touching her and kissing her and ah, he curled his fingers just right inside of her, thumb at her clit. James knew her body inside and out, just as she knew his, and she hummed in delight as she licked into his mouth. "I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I mourned her..."
Holding her tightly in his arms, James teased a climax out of her. "I remember bits and pieces of things," he admitted, mouth all but fused to hers. "I wouldn't tell them. Didn't know how they'd take it if I did."
"And? What do you remember?"
"Mostly you. Some of what Bucky should know. A lot of the Winter Soldier."
The light in his eyes was dark and pained, tragedy filling him. Natasha took his cock in hand and stroked him as he pumped his fingers into her, trying to bring her off again. She tightened around his fingers, lips drawn back in a sad smile. "He might understand all of it in time," she murmured softly. "If we let him."
"I'm not who he remembers-"
"And he's not who you remember either. I think you've both forgotten that."
Natasha shifted position and pushed at his hand, just shy of her own release. She turned and bent over, grasping the edge of the tub for balance as she lifted herself up on tip toes. Wiggling her rear, she looked over her shoulder and gave him a saucy grin. "But this isn't the time for that, is it, James?" she purred.
James grasped her hips and slid home, making her gasp in pleasure. "No, it isn't," he agreed.
He snapped his hips against her, pumping his solid length into her. It was perfect, the way it always was, and just a whisper of touch against her clit with her fingers was enough to bring her off the rest of the way. She bit her lip to muffle her cries, force of habit, and the slight sound made James growl. He picked up the pace, his grip on her hips punishing, and then he reached forward to grasp her hair with his flesh hand and pull. Natasha groaned, whimpering almost incoherently, telling him how good he felt and right there, how she could feel another orgasm building on top of the first, if he could just hold on a little longer.
A third was a bit beyond James at the moment. He groaned and shifted position, spilling into her hot depths, sliding out of her slick channel when he helped her to her feet. Nipping at the curve of her shoulder, she could feel him smile. "Louder than the old days. Or even the new days, if she wasn't involved. I like it."
There was no need to discuss who she was, and Natasha could feel her gut tighten in pain. She had killed Yelena. Oh, she was out of control and had begged her to, the triggers and personality overlays likely getting the better of her. It was something Yelena had wanted, but Natasha still couldn't shake the feeling that if she had only tried harder, there was something she could have figured out to save her.
She clung to James tightly, hiding her tears in the shower water. He held onto her, enfolding her into his warmth, and didn't say a thing.
Some things didn't need to be discussed between them.
***
Loki returned with a glower on his face and tailored clothing of similar make and weave as the clothing he wore. It was Asgardian fabric, flexible enough and soft enough to resemble cotton blended fabric, yet could withstand most simple stabs. "Your high caliber ballistics could still shred such clothing," he had announced, tossing it at James. He had been sitting on the couch in one of Natasha's towels, as she had declared that his other clothing should be laundered. Or burned, if the industrial strength machines couldn't take out the stench and stains. He had simply sat on her couch, knees wide apart so she could look beneath the towel if she wanted, arms perched on the back of the couch. Loki merely sneered at that position. "Spread eagled for her entertainment or inspection."
"Yes," James agreed, no inflection to her tone.
Natasha had shoved Loki out of the way with her shoulder and took the clothes, throwing them into James' lap. "Go get changed."
Once he was in her bedroom, she turned to Loki. "Thank you. I know this isn't an easy situation for you-"
"No," he said, biting off the words. "It is not."
She blew out a pained breath. "Loki. I'm sorry. I don't-"
"Love me. I know. I have no need to hear you say it again." The pain in his voice was naked and raw, nearly making her wince. He wouldn't accept any sympathy from her.
"I wasn't going to say that," she murmured. "I was going to say, I don't know how to thank you, when I know this is difficult for you."
Loki flushed, an ugly mottled red across his cheeks. "Difficult is an understatement."
"I haven't lied to you."
"No, you have not."
"And I don't want to start now." Natasha grasped his hand, fingers curling to brush across the sensitive skin of the inside of his wrist. "I'm being as honest as I know how to be, and I'm trying not to be cruel. I can't-" She sucked in a deep breath, aware of Loki watching her intently, but her mind couldn't seem to guess at the labyrinthine tunnels that made up his. "I can't hurt you, Loki. And I can't hurt him."
His expression softened a fraction, and he cupped her face in his hand. "And so you hurt yourself instead, is that it?"
"I know it's not an acceptable solution."
"No. I would give you peace if I could. I would give you the space between breaths, the stillness without thought, existence without pain. If I knew how you provide this for me, I would return it in kind," he said quietly, not moving. "It is not magic that would do this for you, not when I haven't the knack of it already."
"There's not a trick to it."
"I do not have your surety."
Natasha nodded, fingers still stroking his wrist. "I know. I was trying to help you, before."
Loki gave her a soft, pained smile. "Your friends would say I've learned those lessons well, I think. I accompany Sam on his work, I have spoken with Steve and Clint without them wanting to kill me. I even managed not to taunt the others in this tower."
"An accomplishment," Natasha said, answering his smile with a pained one of her own.
James stepped out of her bedroom and saw them together. He stayed very still, though both saw him in their peripheral vision. The clothes were rather flattering, fitting his shape without being too tight. It would still have some drape to the fabric, allowing him to hide a knife or two on his person. A gun would be too much, but the Tower wasn't as full of enemies that should require such a thing. The boots were modeled after Loki's Asgardian ones, and there were built in sheaths to hold stilettos with blades no more than three inches long.
"I trust that meets with your approval," Loki said after a moment, stepping back and away from Natasha. He looked at James with a bland expression, though his posture was all tension.
Nodding, James took a step forward. "Yeah, thanks. Moves real well with me." He hiked up the tunic to show the dagger strapped to his torso. "Hides a blade well enough."
"That was the idea," Loki replied, watching as James dropped the shirt.
When he turned on his heel to leave, Natasha gave him a concerned look. "There are probably things we need to talk about," she began quietly.
"No, I don't think there are," Loki returned, though he was ashen pale and there was a tremor in his lips. He left through the front door to her suite, the click of the lock closing sounding final and impossibly loud in the stillness.
Coming to her side, James simply pulled her into a tight embrace. "There is time for all things," he said quietly. "He loves you, he'll come around."
"And if he doesn't, New York might be held hostage."
James looked at the door, contemplating that, then shook his head. "He'll explode. But it won't be like that. He'll be angry, itching for a fight. Out of sorts. Lost." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Once he goes down far enough, then he'll listen if you want to talk."
Natasha nodded, and clutched him tightly. No other words were necessary.
***
Thor was spending time with Jane before he had to return to Asgard. He hadn't mentioned their need for Natasha as Ambassador, making her wonder what was going on. Most Ambassadors stayed on a semipermanent basis in the country they were meant to liaise with. Surely Odin and Frigga weren't that unhappy with her? Or were they making allowances for her and letting Thor and Sif remain on Earth in the Ambassador capacity?
Her head hurt just thinking about it. Everyone seemed too damn opaque for her right now. She was burnt out, functioning but not at her usual level. Joking and playing video games might have helped in the short term, but she was left feeling hollow afterward. Bruce and Jane were pleasant enough company, though she wasn't sure if she connected with them very well. They seemed to like her well enough, had certainly tried to help however they could.
No, the issue was with her. She was the one that had been put back together all wrong after what she had gone through in the past few years.
Past few years? Ha. It was her entire lifetime.
Natasha didn't quite stop short when she saw Steve and Sif in the common room. They were sitting with their backs to do the door, heads bent close together. It looked like a photo album, and Sif noticed her out of the corner of her eye. "Lady Natasha," she said, her warm smile tempered somewhat by recent circumstances.
"Just Natasha here," she murmured.
"Is Bucky okay?" Steve asked, turning as well. It looked like the photo album that Phil Coulson had painstakingly put together, news clippings and sketches from the 40's detailing Steve's time as Captain America and leader of the Howling Commandos.
"He's in my suite. He's fine," she replied, and saw some tension bleed out of his shoulders. "He's not the same man you knew in the forties."
"And I'm not the same man I was back then either," Steve retorted.
"In some of the ways that count, you are." Natasha blew out a breath, tired. She was so fucking tired of the bullshit and posturing and having to be so strong for everyone else's benefit. She wanted to just be for a little while, without having to think. But she couldn't retreat to Clint's rooms and play mindless video games all day, as fun as that sounded just then. "You're still going to stick your neck out for others. You'd still rather get beat up than see others get hurt. You still take on too much on your own."
Steve didn't even bother to deny that. He contemplated her for a moment. "What's the phrase?" he asked, a little too innocently. "The pot calling the kettle black?"
Natasha pursed her lips and considered leaving, but he was right. She found herself walking into the room, almost against her will, and plopped down on the couch beside Sif. To her surprise, the warrior put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"There is no shame in needing additional warriors by your side. Why do you think the Warriors Three tend to fight together?"
"I'm a spy, not a warrior," Natasha replied with a sigh, sinking into Sif's embrace.
"You fought with the rest of us at the Battle of New York. You fought with everyone on Asgard," Steve pointed out. "You can be a warrior, too. Same skills, different scope."
"Warriors know that there must be recovery time," Sif said quietly. "Steve has told me that you have not had any."
"A week here or there."
"Which is appropriate only in a battlefield," Sif declared. "Did you not wonder why there is much drinking and carousing amongst our people?"
"Because you like it?" Natasha offered, being deliberately obtuse.
"Yes," Sif admitted, swatting her arm gently. "But why else do we fight? If we do not remember the point, we are no better than berserkers."
"I was trying to balance the scales, to make up for all the harm I'd done in the past."
"Are you not done?" Sif asked, surprised. "Millions of lives on your world, in our realm, the countless innocents that were not slaughtered for another's pride... Is it not balanced?"
"If they were, I've upset the scales again," Natasha murmured.
"When will you be done? When it is over?" Steve asked quietly.
Never.
"I don't know," Natasha said instead.
Steve closed the photo album and carefully put it down on the coffee table. "I know how sometimes the best we can do isn't good enough. That we're not what we want to be. That having potential isn't the same as being able to do something." He turned and faced her, then took up one of her hands to give it a squeeze. "But we try, Nat. We keep trying. That's all we can really do, isn't it?"
"Is this a pep talk for me? Or for you?"
"Both of us, maybe?" he admitted. "Because I want to be there for Bucky, but I don't know how. And I probably lost your trust with this, but I didn't intend to hurt you. I didn't know that you didn't know. I just wanted to make sure he didn't kill all of us in the tower. SHIELD can't help him, you know that. That was a deliberate omission."
"Not following SHIELD protocols?" Natasha asked, eyebrow lofted, not wanting to touch how much the omission had hurt her.
"They don't always seem on the up and up. Maybe the goals are good, but how they get there... I don't see Peg liking how her agency turned out."
He sounded just as lost and sad as Natasha felt. She found herself squeezing his hand back before she really thought about it. Wasn't that a sad state of affairs for a spy? And if she wasn't a spy any longer, what was she? What was a consultant that didn't take on any jobs for the agency that wanted to hire her on?
"We're gonna make mistakes. We're only human. Asgardian," Steve added playfully, grinning at Sif. Natasha wondered if he had taken her to bed yet. She couldn't imagine him doing it with his worry over James, but she could tell that interest was there on both sides.
"His memory," Natasha began slowly, wriggling out of their grasps. "Our memory... It's been all fragmented. Erased. Changed. Various agencies went in, played with them, took things out, put other things in. I've had more time outside of that, but the drugs and concussions I had when Yelena took me..." She took a breath when she realized her voice warbled and she was dangerously close to crying. "He was on ice. Frozen between missions at different locations. It's why I thought I killed him. He wasn't at the one I burned down. But he's been wiped so many different times, I don't know if he will remember his connection to you, Steve. I don't know if you're hoping for something that can't happen."
"I still have hope," Steve replied stubbornly. "I have to. It's all I got left."
"Don't push him too hard."
"Is he going to come after the rest of us?"
"Not if you don't lock him up."
Sighing, Steve bit his lip and looked away uncertainly, considering. "I don't like it," he admitted. "He's as strong as an Asgardian. What's to stop him from changing his mind?"
"Me."
Natasha was aware that she had told them the same thing about Loki. And hadn't he obeyed the rules she had set down for his stay in the tower? He hadn't pushed the others too hard.
Elbows on her knees, she tiredly rubbed at her face. "If we make house rules for him..."
"You would discipline him, too, then?" Steve asked.
There was only curiosity in his tone, no lascivious teasing as there would be if she was having this conversation with Tony. Thank god, because she felt too rattled and fragile for that. She wasn't feeling very domme at the moment, truth be told, but Steve needed the reassurance. So she nodded, feeling like a liar.
"Hey," Steve murmured, getting her attention. "I'll help however I can, you know that. Not just for Bucky's sake, but for yours. Any of us will, you know. Just ask."
That was the hard part, wasn't it?
***
Loki found her that evening sitting on the floor next to a floor to ceiling plate glass window overlooking Midtown, a large mug of tea in her hands. Natasha was looking out over the city, watching the lights flicker to life as the sun went down. James was in her suite making use of her tablet to try to catch up on things other than weaponry. She had tried to help him earlier, but he had gotten frustrated with her hovering. When she had pointed things out to Steve years ago on the helicarrier and in SHIELD offices, he had simply laughed and gamely tried to look up whatever she suggested, and grinned at her lame puns. She could tell herself it was James' frustration with being penned in, with not having a mission, with knowing that there were many deaths on his head that he couldn't atone for.
She could tell herself that, and she was afraid that it wasn't all it was. He loved her, she knew that and didn't doubt it. But love was very different when you didn't have to be afraid of it. They could love each other, but that didn't mean they could actually live with each other.
If she had the energy to figure this out, she could probably fix it. But she didn't. And so she was taking the coward's way out by hiding. It was kind of a relief to not have to fix everything, to be honest, but this couldn't last for long, not with so many broken souls around her. Though she had been fixing everyone else's broken souls for so long, what did she have left to patch herself up with? How could she fix herself?
He was silent for a long time, then moved to sit gracefully beside her. "You're hiding."
So astute. Dammit.
"Yes," she said when he seemed to expect an answer.
Quiet for a long moment, Loki finally took her mug and stood up gracefully. He extended a hand, clearly expecting her to take it. Frowning, she did, allowing him to lift her to her feet. "What are you doing?" she asked him.
He gave her a shark's grin as he put the mug down on a counter as they passed through the kitchen area on the way to the living areas. Not answering, Natasha was irritated and curious at the same time. What in the world was on his mind?
They bypassed her suite for his, the front room still very empty. "You were right, long ago, when you told me I was not ready for leadership. I could not be a good King if I could not even care for a single person," he began slowly. His lips drew back in a smile that reminded her too much of Yelena in her madness, right before she hit Natasha.
When Natasha flinched, Loki clucked and cradled her face in his hands gently. "You're hiding because everyone relies on you. And you don't feel strong enough for that. You can't shore us up when you're empty, and I am not as good as you are in taking care of things. But I can lean how to, and I do know what you need right now."
"What's that?" she asked, her voice coming out with a slight rasp.
"To not think."
Oh, yes, that sounded quite excellent, actually.
"If it's too much," he said quietly, "you use the safe word. But this isn't our deal. This is still separate. This is still something else. Like when we were in Astoria." He paused, and she took in his concern with surprise. He had changed while she was gone. It suited him.
"Do you agree?" he pressed. The tension in his shoulders relaxed when she nodded. "Good. Then we begin now."
He conjured one of his knives and slit her clothes from her body. When she was about to ask what the hell he was doing, he shook his head sharply. No words, then. She had to respond to his gestures and commands, trusting he would take care of her. The knife was too much like the one he had used to cut into her, once upon a time. Her abdomen tightened in response, especially as he dragged the point of the blade over her body, tracing where her scars used to be, where the L scar had once been.
The ultimate trust exercise.
Memories threatened to flood her, and it was hard to stay in the moment. Loki nudged her feet apart with his, and she tried to respond. Her body was too tight, too tense, and she flinched away from the touch of the blade on some areas of her body.
"You're thinking too much," Loki said, voice stern. No anger, almost as if he expected it. He leaned in close, lips next to her ear. "This needs to stop. I see you need discipline."
Some part of her rebelled against that. She was nothing if not disciplined, and it was such a part of her that it was insulting. Opening her mouth to reply, Natasha was startled when he laughed at the spark of anger in her eyes.
"Yes, discipline is necessary. I see that. You don't feel enough." He waved his hand and created a padded sawhorse, the likes of which belonged more in a BDSM dungeon. "Lie down."
That rebellious part of her wanted to balk, to call her safe word and end the scene. But that would be cheating, would be giving up and playing the coward even more. "Loki, I-" It clicked for a moment why she rebelled too hard. "It's like the Red Room."
His hand caressed her spine gently. "Can you push past it? Can we make new memories to temper the ones you have?"
Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm not sure how much I can even trust my memories."
"Then I propose a separate safe word. Andorra stops everything. I suggest cavern to slow it down, see what we need to change in order to make it tolerable." Loki kept one hand caressing her spine, and the other circled her throat. Her breath stuttered in her chest at the contact, and he licked her ear. "Natasha?"
"Yes. I can remember that."
"Good. Now arrange yourself for me. You still need disciplining."
She pressed her lips together unhappily, then laid her stomach down on the padding of the sawhorse. Her breath hitched when she was lashed to it with magic, unable to move. Loki brought his hand to her spine again, stroking gently. "Loki," she began, voice hoarse.
"You can slow this down if you must," he replied, voice firm somewhere above her. "But you're thinking too much. When you're with me, you're with me. I can't have you thinking of other things." His nails scored lines down her back, and he cupped her ass before giving it a squeeze. "You said love is for children, yes? You've called me a child."
"Not in that context-"
"Hush," he commanded. "What are your safe words?" He waited until she repeated them, and she tried to turn her head. "Additional spanks for that," he commented, sounding almost bored. "Count them out."
Her ass was warm by the third slap, stung by seven, burned by eleven and felt almost impossible to endure when he stopped at fifteen. She didn't know when she started crying, when she had started to only focus of the feel of his hand coming down hard over her body, when the worries about James and grief over Yelena seemed to ease from her. She could barely hear Loki's praise for taking it so well, but she felt his fingers stroking her, then sliding between her legs, then pumping into her. Natasha cried out and jerked her hips, not expecting that, but he brought her to orgasm quickly. She was still sniffling a little when he thrust into her with his cock, filling her completely. His clothes were still on, and the burn in her ass meant that even the fine weave of the Asgardian fabric inflamed her skin. It was counterpoint to the pleasure building inside of her, it was different enough yet familiar enough that she came hard, nearly shrieking.
Natasha was glad to be bound afterward, when Loki stroked her neck and conjured some kind of soothing cream to work into her skin. "We're done," he said unnecessarily. Her entire body was loose, relying on the sawhorse to maintain her weight. It was a surprise when he kissed the nape of her neck, and murmured how good she had been for him.
Like when they had been in the Astoria apartment, that seemed to trigger the floodgates for her tightly bound emotions. She sobbed again, this time not from overstimulation but from simply letting go. She clung to him when he picked her up in his arms, and didn't care when he carried her down the hall to her own suite, when James looked at her anxiously.
"She's all right," Loki promised James, voice infinitely gentle. "She's been wound up too tight lately. She needed to release some of it."
James looked relieved, and sat at the edge of the bed when Loki laid her down carefully. "But naked? What does that have to do with anything?"
Natasha almost wanted to laugh, so her sobs turned into hiccups. "It's... different. It's hard to explain the whole thing."
"This when you're usually so good at them?"
Loki seemed immensely proud of himself at James' pronouncement, but Natasha couldn't bring herself to care about that. She still had a lassitude in her body; logically she knew it was endorphins, but another part of her was thrilled at the thought that she could be taken care of for once, even if it was for a short time. It was so difficult to be in control all the time, to take on the weight she had shouldered without complaint.
He brushed his fingers across her cheek, a gentle caress more for her benefit than to show off for James. It made her smile, and she reached out to grasp both Loki's and James' hands. "I'm okay. Really. Just... Floating. It feels almost like floating. I'll come down, I'm sure I will, and I'll worry then, but for now, I just feel so relieved. Like everything is gone for a little while."
Though he still looked concerned, James nodded. "Can't have anything happen to my best girl," he murmured, squeezing her hand gently.
"I'm good," she murmured, lips still curled in a subtle smile. "Really. For right now, I really am good, James."
"I'll let you stay with her," Loki said quietly to James. He bent down to kiss Natasha's temple gently, then disentangled their fingers. "I have much to do tonight."
"Loki?" Natasha murmured as James shifted to climb into bed behind her. Poised at the doorway, he turned back to look at her with an unreadable expression. "Thank you," she said softly.
His smile was gentle, a bit of strain at the edges. "I'm glad I could help you," he replied, then slipped through the door before she could say anything else.
From there, it was only too easy for Natasha to tumble down into sleep, James at her back and holding her tight.
The End