Do You Wanna Die?, 3/4. NC-17
Title: Do You Wanna Die?
Series: #22 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, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed, #20 - How You Live And Breathe, #21 - Love)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky, Clint/Darcy
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse. Warning for eventual major character death.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Things started out so well. Unfortunately, it couldn't stay that way when a psychic vampire decided to target Midgard's Runestaff.
Prior chapters:
One - Taste of Magic
Two - Practice
Three - Creativity At Work
Natasha had been very thorough in her last domme session with Loki and James. James had been reluctant to be present, despite his obvious desire for Natasha in tight black leather pants and a lace up corset with silver grommets and buckles. She took long black silk cord and tied him into a position that presented his erect cock for her perusal, both arms behind him and bound to his legs as he knelt in place on the carpet. Rope criss crossed over his chest, knots arranged in intervals to be artful and decorative. Loki had been quite impressed with it, and had expected the same for him. But instead, she had taken a riding crop and tilted his chin up from where he knelt in front of her. "You scared your student," she told him, voice deceptively bland. "Did you think I wouldn't know about that?"
"Since when do you talk to Wanda?" Loki had replied, eyes widening in surprise. "You two have nothing in common!"
The crop smacked his cheek hard, leaving a welt behind. "That was disrespectful," Natasha intoned. "You know better than that."
"What I teach her and how has nothing to do with you!"
Now her foot came up, and Loki flinched. Natasha pressed her booted foot into his shoulder, pressing him down onto the floor. The carpet was meant to be soft against bare skin, so it was still a fairly comfortable position. She smacked his back and ass with the crop ten times, quick and stinging, barely enough to welt his skin.
"We're going to have to focus on respect for you. And you're going to know that there's an audience for all of this," she told him, her domme voice in full effect.
Loki groaned when she removed her boot and stalked to the dresser. The bottom drawer held the heavy black chains, and he shivered when she dropped them onto his body, pinning him to the ground. His breath quickened, anxiety welling up inside of him at the feel of the smooth chains draped across his wrists, the back of his neck, his arms and shoulders. Another length of chain was draped across his calves and ankles. The only comfort he had was that in this position, it would be difficult for her to peg him within an inch of his life, as much as he did enjoy that perverse bit of debauchery.
But the snap of the cap on the lubricant just before the press of something blunt against his ass belied that thought. He swallowed a mewl of protest, knowing it would be that much worse for him if he tried to back out of this without his safe word. This was nothing yet, and the vague anxiety over the chains wasn't enough to make him want to end this.
It was a long glass dildo, smooth and jutting out of his rear like a deranged flagpole. Loki could see it when he turned his head to look, but he didn't understand how this was a punishment. His eyes flicked up toward Natasha's implacable expression, but she gave nothing away, not even when she lifted the riding crop again.
She brought the crop wordlessly down over his back and ass, layers of stripes that lit a fire under his skin and sent his blood singing. He lost count at fifty strokes, and felt himself nearly melting into the floor. Natasha kept count, however high it was, and tossed the crop aside when Loki felt relaxed despite the burn in his back and ass. With his eyes closed, he listened to the sound of her removing her boots, socks and leather pants. More lube, then there was the sensation of her kneeling down, straddling his waist. His eyes flew open and he turned his head to look at her again, wondering if this was over.
Oh. She was coating the dildo, positioning it so that she could slide down its solid length, so that she could make eye contact with James the entire time. Natasha was using him as nothing more than a sex toy, one that would leave him with no pleasure at all.
Ah, how deliciously evil she could be. Of course this would be worse punishment for his casual cruelty when he was meant to be helpful.
It took an agonizing amount of time for her to reach her climax, and she lifted herself off of him without a care for his. She walked over to James and lifted his chin with her fingertips. Loki could make out the sensuous curve of her lips as she smiled warmly at him, and a spike of hot jealously shot through him. "You're done, I can tell," she told James, who did have a glazed look to his eyes. Kneeling beside him, she slowly and methodically undid all the knots in the rope and gently touched the marks they left behind. James shivered at her touch, leaned into her, his own lips sliding into a soft and generous smile. "Милая моя," she murmured.
My sweet. It must have been an in joke, because he chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to her still-clothed shoulder.
"Go get dressed," she told him. As he moved to comply, a lassitude in his limbs, Loki saw his smile as sweet and almost innocent. It certainly would fool anyone unaware of his identity as one of the most successful assassins in the world.
Natasha walked back to Loki, who hadn't moved from his prone position on the floor. He didn't even dare raise his eyes to take in the lean line of her legs, the slickness between her thighs. He remained still when she gracefully swept one leg out and grasped the dildo with her toes and unceremoniously tugged it out. Smothering a choking sound of disappointment, Loki shifted his gaze to the carpet. Soon enough, her toes came into view, and it was a struggle to keep his breathing even. Would she do something else? Would she count this as punishment enough for his sins? Or would he have to keep suffering?
But she removed the chains and put them away before coming back to him, still silent and moving with efficient, spare gestures. She nudged his shoulder with her toes, and he complied with her unspoken wish to roll over onto his back. His cock was only partially erect, and he looked up at her, sure his expression was one of desperation.
"You don't know what I want," she told him, voice even and soft. "You don't know what I'll do next. You know I find you wanting, you know there should be something you can do to get back into my good graces." Loki nodded when she paused.
"Remember this," she said quietly. "This is how Wanda feels as you teach her magic. Don't do more of this than you can help." Then a sharp nod to indicate she was through with him, and she gathered up her clothes to get dressed again.
That had left him feeling almost hollow and unfulfilled, but perhaps that was part of the point of the session. He had been kinder to Wanda in the intervening week, and she had certainly been practicing her copying skills. He switched her back to working on portals, which she seemed relieved by, and at least that was diverting.
In the meantime, he knew exactly how he would get even with Natasha.
Okay, that was possibly not the best way to think of it, but he couldn't help how he felt. That last session had been humiliating and unsatisfying, and lying to Natasha when they processed the scene afterward didn't help matters. She thought she was helping, and lying to her about it would only ruin the deal they had. But he seethed, pushing it down and away, and knew what he wanted to do with her. James wasn't allowed, and Loki suggested visiting somewhere in Brooklyn with Steve or Sam to rekindle old times. While James seemed touched by the thoughtful gesture, Loki knew it for the selfish act it was, and felt terrible. That was something else he could blame Natasha for, because he didn't feel things like that before her.
Once they were alone in the Astoria apartment, Loki established the wards and the opening to the session. Seeing Natasha's open expression and loose body language almost made him quail. She trusted him with this. She didn't use this time to get "even" as he was planning to do. The time was for him, to let him relinquish his tight hold on himself or to teach him some kind of lesson he needed to know.
But he itched to see what would happen. Maybe since his aim was less humiliation now and more inquisitive it wouldn't be so bad that he had nursed a grudge for a week. Natasha didn't know what he was thinking, after all.
So he cast his spells and then there were two separate Natasha Romanoffs in front of him, looking curious and a little dizzy. His mouth ran dry as two sets of green eyes landed on him, her wavy red hair framing her perfect face.
Oh, yes, he didn't want retaliation anymore. He just wanted her. And maybe if he was feeling generous, he could call James in at the end to play with the copy.
Loki gave her a slow, wicked smile. "Two of you to serve me. Two of you to give me pleasure," he said. "We'll see how well you can perform this task."
"What happens if we fail?" one of the two Natashas asked.
"And what constitutes failure?" the other asked.
Not insubordination, he realized after a flare of irritation. She was trying to get the parameters of his request. This was going to happen, and the Norns could strike him down but he wouldn't care one bit. He wanted this, and sauntered to the bedroom. "You are a clever girl. A clever pair of girls. You know what I like. Don't fail me."
Lying on the bed, one sucked his cock while the other played with his balls and massaged his ass. She then moved in to start rimming him, making him groan in appreciation. He grasped the head of the copy sucking on his cock, not sure if it was the original Natasha or her double. Did it matter? They did have the same appearance, same skills, same memories. When the spell ran its course and they collapsed back into the same person, she would have both sets of memories for this particular encounter. Would she enjoy it was much as he did? Was she feeling the same sensations at the same time? He sometimes did when he copied himself and gave each copy a bit of weight from his own spá.
He couldn't stop himself from grasping the hair and holding the head in place as he fucked her mouth, growing more and more desperate. The other copy was sliding the tip of her tongue into his hole, nails lightly scratching a spot behind his balls that made him want to writhe and coil up into a tight ball of pleasure.
Hovering close to orgasm, Loki pulled a thread of magic and sent it into his body so that he wouldn't immediately come and would be able to get hard again. Natasha knew he cheated, since both copies jerked as the magic filled him. He wondered if it stung her, or simply startled her. He reveled in the fell of both mouths on him, both sets of hands. Ultimately, even the magic enhancements couldn't help him stay erect. He came spurting into one Natasha's mouth, grunting and falling back to the bed. She swallowed, and climbed up on top of him to ride him as his cock sprang back to life. The other Natasha pulled back and moved onto the bed to lean over his sprawled torso to lick and suck at one of his flat nipples. After a while, the combination of one Natasha over him and one licking him felt almost too much. He yanked the second Natasha from his torso and brought her up to his mouth kissing her deeply and licking into her mouth. It only occurred to him afterward where her mouth had been, but he couldn't taste anything on her tongue or lips.
"I want to taste you," he growled when he pushed her away from his mouth. This would make him look submissive to them, but he didn't care about the outward appearance anymore. He just wanted her, all of her, all at once.
"Of course," she purred, fingers running over his chest to caress him.
He was probably addicted to the taste and feel of her, but couldn't bring himself to care. Licking into her was calming, as much as that probably sounded ridiculous. Hearing her mewl in pleasure or gasp at a particularly good lick made him feel powerful. Her pleasure was given at his whim, his intent. Some days it was easier to fall under her spell, but today was supposed to be what he wanted her to do. But then, telling her to satisfy his needs was still dominating, right? Right?
Once the Natasha over his mouth came, he pushed her hips up and over, indicating without words that he was done. The Natasha riding his cock had already come at least once, and possibly was gearing up again. She was fingering herself as she rode him, and watching her do that was hot. Loki reached up to fondle her breasts, making her gasp and clench down hard on his cock. He sucked in a breath, then decided he wanted her beneath him, looking up at him and gasping for breath.
It was a slight tangle of limbs to flip her onto her back while keeping his cock inside her. The other Natasha rose from the bed and rifled through the drawers of sex toys, ultimately choosing a double ended dildo that didn't have a harness. She fitted it inside herself easily, then slicked her fingers with lube. Loki grinned down at the Natasha beneath him, feral and needy and not caring if the smile bothered her at all. He wanted this, a fierce and greedy ache clutching at his insides with a familiar ferocity. Natasha was his, all his, and this moment was all about him and what he wanted. She was over him and beneath him and all around him, and catering to his whims, and in that moment he felt he could contain all the power in the known universe.
The Natasha behind him slid her slicked fingers into his hole and pumped them in and out, sliding her fingers over that sensitive spot inside him that made his toes curl. Yes, he wanted to say, but growled instead. The Natasha beneath him scratched his chest and back as her hands roamed over the skin she could reach, and the Natasha behind him moved her fingers to make room for the dildo inside her. When it slid all the way inside him, he nearly howled in pleasure, the sharp burst feeling like electricity lighting him up from the inside out. One Natasha fucked him and he fucked the other one, and there was no need to think at all.
Afterward, he laid on the bed, sprawled out and feeling content. His limbs felt all loose and feather light, almost as if they didn't belong to him anymore. Both of the Natasha copies tenderly cleaned him up and stroked his skin, murmuring soft phrases in Russian that complimented his skill and prowess. Were those lies or embellished truths? Did it matter? He felt like the god he was, as if this was his due as ruler of Midgard.
Eventually, the euphoria would fade, and he would simply be the trickster figure hired on intermittently and kept on a leash to keep from destroying everything in his path. Eventually, he would feel diseased and empty again, desperate to cling to whatever he could in order to feel whole. Eventually, he would doubt the caring that his companions showed him.
But for now, he was content, and that was all that mattered.
***
Wanda pressed her lips together and tried pulling her hands apart, concentration focusing on creating a portal. She was working with a simple one at the moment, moving from her suite to the kitchen. That took a lot less concentration than to try to open a portal to Asgard, and opening one repeatedly might get her or Pietro in trouble. He was thrilled with the training he was getting, at the ability he had in physically fighting and protecting others. She had always known he was talented and important, but it mattered to hear it from others, too. As the little sister by twelve minutes, she was supposed to look up to him.
Hearing Loki talk about spell weaving could be confusing, especially when he started in on the lensing effects of magic. She generally tuned that out and ignored the theory of these particular spells. They were largely the same as all the books and scrolls she had read on Asgard. Why waste her time going over it again? The whole point of being here and working with Loki and Marissa Tourney was to learn practical magic, to put the theory into use. Why bother endlessly talking if there was no purpose to it? She wanted to know how to weave it together, not just hear that she should do it a particular way. Every magic practitioner had their own way of putting together spells, after all.
Wrenching open the portal from one end of the tower to the other, Wanda giggled a little and stepped through it. The portal was still open behind her, revealing her room instead of the kitchen counter. She hopped back and forth across the boundary, one foot in either place, even doing a little victory shimmy and dancing. It was person sized, it was stable, it worked well and hardly took any effort to maintain. Perfect.
In the middle of a hop back and forth across the rooms, Wanda noticed a gust of wind rising in the corner of the kitchen. It seemed to be a swirling oval roughly the same size and shape as her own portal, but across the room from it.
A man stepped out of the hazy wind. He was rather tall, with black hair graying at the temples and dark eyes in a forbidding looking face. His pants were black, and the main part of his shirt was as well. His black boots had a stripe of yellow at the top of them, telling her where they ended, and the fabric belt at his waist was bright blood red, gathered by a golden buckle with the ends trailing down halfway to his knees. The seams at the center of his shirt were also the same bright red. His cloak was bright red edged in the same stripe of golden yellow as the stripe on his boots, with a collar that flared out from the gold eye medallion at his chest up until his ears. It was a rather dramatic getup, and made her wonder if the bright red leotard and tights with red cape her brother had teased her with would be accepted by his ilk.
"You are Wanda Maximoff," the man said, his voice deep and commanding. The presence he gave off was one of scary competence.
"You must be Dr. Stephen Strange," Wanda replied, not yet willing to confirm her identity to this stranger. "Marissa mentioned you." As well as the nasty older woman who had refused to train her and her "created" skills.
The man paused, looking her over in a calculated but not haughty manner. "Marissa doesn't often take pupils," he said. Some of the overtly aggressive posturing softened in his stance.
"The old ladies at their club didn't want me joining in," Wanda replied, not quite able to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
He seemed amused by that. "No, they wouldn't. They didn't approve of my ascension to Sorcerer Supreme, either. But then, it's likely because their opinion hadn't been asked for."
"Yeah, they seemed the type. And Marissa wasn't going to leave me floundering."
"She is wise in the ways of magic. Some of her knowledge is in very old, very esoteric skills, spells lost to the ages."
"Oh." Wanda was nonplused by that. "Um... I taught her how to see the spá," she said, inwardly smug when he didn't seem to understand what that was. "My first formal training was on Asgard with Queen Frigga and her handmaidens."
That definitely threw him. "I see. They wouldn't understand dimensional travel as I know it, then," he said in a musing tone. "That changes things a little."
"What does?"
His expression hardened into a stern warning. It reminded her of Baron von Strucker before the electric shocks had come, but she refused to back down. Sorcerer Supreme or not, if Dr. Strange did anything out of turn, she would rip apart his spá to defend herself.
"Your practice of magic has drawn the attention of other dimensions. Worlds with demons and foul creatures that would want nothing more than to devour you whole. They know of this place, and I've worked so hard to protect it and ward it from such attention."
It took a moment of stunned silence for Wanda to realize why he looked so stern. "You thought I did it deliberately!"
"Your magic is not entirely of this world. Others have sought to open dimensional portals."
Her portal was still behind her, so Wanda flung her arm through it. "That's my room, genius. Or I've built them to talk to my brother on Asgard. I'm a student of these arts. I'm not working with demons or anything foul. Unless you count Loki, but he's just an arrogant bastard."
Dr. Strange's lips twitched in amusement. "I met him once. Didn't seem arrogant at the time, but taking apart the Essine Ruby is hardly easy work."
"The what?"
"A ruby of untold power that had been layered with such complicated spells that it became a prison world ruled by Nightmare, the nephew of the demon Dormammu. And that demon is just one of many that would wish to devour this world and take its energies for its own."
Wanda opened and then shut her mouth. "Take its energies how?"
He crossed his arms as he frowned at her. "Why?"
"They think I'm stupid or distracted or something. But I know Loki was upset by some of his magic practitioner friends dying. Humans, not Asgardians. Not part of that old lady coven in Alphabet City and TriBeCa."
Now his expression was one of concern. "Where?"
"I don't know. I just overheard him talking about the morgue and seeing a few friends there, all energy gone. Even the bacteria that should've been alive was dead. Which is just gross thinking about," she added with a shudder.
Dr. Strange let out a slow breath, the concern in his expression now scaring her. "This is... not good. Very not good. We'll need to get all the covens together, all the major practitioners of this world, then. Very few demons or extradimensional creatures do that kind of absorption."
"Wait... You mean that was a deliberate killing? Not just them committing suicide or having a heart attack or something? They were pretty old..." She trailed off at the dark expression on his face. "You do mean it was deliberate."
"Yes, I do. This happened before, according to the oldest tomes I've been able to study. The entire world of Galatia slowly died, as if suffocated. They could do no more than lie down as the energy was siphoned right out of their bodies. Even animals and plants died."
Wanda shivered and stepped forward enough to shut the portal to her room. Wrapping her arms around herself, she looked at him uncertainly. "So now what?"
"I will have to show you the way I make portals. It avoids the notice of such creatures," he said with finality. He gave her a grim smile at her start of surprise. "I am not heartless. You can still speak with your brother and train. But we cannot have you siphoning off such incredible amounts of power to fuel these simple spells. Your control is rather atrocious. I wonder why Loki and Marissa didn't notice it."
Blinking in surprise, she tightened her hold on herself. "I did smaller spells with them. Working on form or something. I did bigger ones on my own as practice."
"It's drawn the wrong kind of attention." He waved his hand to the side of them, and a new whirling portal opened. "Let's meet with Marissa and contact the downtown covens. From there, we'll plan our approach."
"Loki should know about this..."
"He will. But he's better able to care for himself than the much more fragile practitioners here."
Because they were human and Loki wasn't. Because his magic was different, and possibly less likely to draw in more attention.
Still shivering, Wanda stepped through the portal after Dr. Strange.
***
It was stupid, but Loki found himself invisible and trailing after Natasha and James. He had overheard them making plans together in the den, where she had been reading a book with her feet on his lap and he had been massaging them. James mentioned one of the markets he had gone to with Steve, surprised that they were still able to go largely unnoticed walking around the city if they weren't in an Avengers uniform. Natasha had laughed, an easy sound that she didn't have with Loki. Perhaps that was what triggered the jealousy. She wiggled her toes in James' hands and poked at his crotch playfully, snickering at his reaction. James muttered something under his breath in Russian that Loki hadn't been able to catch, which had made Natasha laugh again. "Oh, fine. Why not go see a movie, then? There was one at the Angelika that I was thinking about going to, if you don't mind art house fare."
"Mostly foreign films, right?" James had replied, shifting closer to her on the couch. At her nod, he plucked the book from her grasp. "Might be fun."
"And theaters are dark."
"So if the moving picture's a bust, I can just swing my arm around like so-" Here he had leaned over and pulled her to sit beside him, his arm around her shoulders. "And there's good old fashioned necking. I hear I'm pretty good at it."
"Oh, have I told you that? I must have been mistaken..." She began in a lofty tone as he began nuzzling and kissing her neck. His other arm moved out of Loki's line of sight, possibly to fondle her as they kissed.
The two did exactly what they said they were going to do. Of course there wouldn't be artifice in the plan, and Loki felt like a heel for suspecting them of hiding their true intent. James put some kind of flesh colored fabric over the metal arm and then a long sleeved shirt despite the warm weather. Tony Stark would have improved the cooling system for the mechanics, but it surprised Loki that there wasn't some way to hide its metal appearance. There was the possibility that James didn't want to hide its presence on a regular basis, but concealing the arm would go a long way in allowing him to pass undetected in crowds.
Maybe as penance, he could work on a charm that made the arm appear like his flesh and blood one. He could even rope Wanda into helping him with it. Concealment charms were rather useful spells to learn, after all.
He really had to stop suspecting Natasha and James of nefarious plans when together. James had no desire to harm anyone in the Tower, and worked hard to contain his nightmares and anxieties throughout the day. He deserved special time with Natasha, and the opportunity to behave as an ordinary man.
***
***
To chapter Four - Devastation
Series: #22 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, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed, #20 - How You Live And Breathe, #21 - Love)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky, Clint/Darcy
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse. Warning for eventual major character death.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Things started out so well. Unfortunately, it couldn't stay that way when a psychic vampire decided to target Midgard's Runestaff.
Prior chapters:
One - Taste of Magic
Two - Practice
Three - Creativity At Work
Natasha had been very thorough in her last domme session with Loki and James. James had been reluctant to be present, despite his obvious desire for Natasha in tight black leather pants and a lace up corset with silver grommets and buckles. She took long black silk cord and tied him into a position that presented his erect cock for her perusal, both arms behind him and bound to his legs as he knelt in place on the carpet. Rope criss crossed over his chest, knots arranged in intervals to be artful and decorative. Loki had been quite impressed with it, and had expected the same for him. But instead, she had taken a riding crop and tilted his chin up from where he knelt in front of her. "You scared your student," she told him, voice deceptively bland. "Did you think I wouldn't know about that?"
"Since when do you talk to Wanda?" Loki had replied, eyes widening in surprise. "You two have nothing in common!"
The crop smacked his cheek hard, leaving a welt behind. "That was disrespectful," Natasha intoned. "You know better than that."
"What I teach her and how has nothing to do with you!"
Now her foot came up, and Loki flinched. Natasha pressed her booted foot into his shoulder, pressing him down onto the floor. The carpet was meant to be soft against bare skin, so it was still a fairly comfortable position. She smacked his back and ass with the crop ten times, quick and stinging, barely enough to welt his skin.
"We're going to have to focus on respect for you. And you're going to know that there's an audience for all of this," she told him, her domme voice in full effect.
Loki groaned when she removed her boot and stalked to the dresser. The bottom drawer held the heavy black chains, and he shivered when she dropped them onto his body, pinning him to the ground. His breath quickened, anxiety welling up inside of him at the feel of the smooth chains draped across his wrists, the back of his neck, his arms and shoulders. Another length of chain was draped across his calves and ankles. The only comfort he had was that in this position, it would be difficult for her to peg him within an inch of his life, as much as he did enjoy that perverse bit of debauchery.
But the snap of the cap on the lubricant just before the press of something blunt against his ass belied that thought. He swallowed a mewl of protest, knowing it would be that much worse for him if he tried to back out of this without his safe word. This was nothing yet, and the vague anxiety over the chains wasn't enough to make him want to end this.
It was a long glass dildo, smooth and jutting out of his rear like a deranged flagpole. Loki could see it when he turned his head to look, but he didn't understand how this was a punishment. His eyes flicked up toward Natasha's implacable expression, but she gave nothing away, not even when she lifted the riding crop again.
She brought the crop wordlessly down over his back and ass, layers of stripes that lit a fire under his skin and sent his blood singing. He lost count at fifty strokes, and felt himself nearly melting into the floor. Natasha kept count, however high it was, and tossed the crop aside when Loki felt relaxed despite the burn in his back and ass. With his eyes closed, he listened to the sound of her removing her boots, socks and leather pants. More lube, then there was the sensation of her kneeling down, straddling his waist. His eyes flew open and he turned his head to look at her again, wondering if this was over.
Oh. She was coating the dildo, positioning it so that she could slide down its solid length, so that she could make eye contact with James the entire time. Natasha was using him as nothing more than a sex toy, one that would leave him with no pleasure at all.
Ah, how deliciously evil she could be. Of course this would be worse punishment for his casual cruelty when he was meant to be helpful.
It took an agonizing amount of time for her to reach her climax, and she lifted herself off of him without a care for his. She walked over to James and lifted his chin with her fingertips. Loki could make out the sensuous curve of her lips as she smiled warmly at him, and a spike of hot jealously shot through him. "You're done, I can tell," she told James, who did have a glazed look to his eyes. Kneeling beside him, she slowly and methodically undid all the knots in the rope and gently touched the marks they left behind. James shivered at her touch, leaned into her, his own lips sliding into a soft and generous smile. "Милая моя," she murmured.
My sweet. It must have been an in joke, because he chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to her still-clothed shoulder.
"Go get dressed," she told him. As he moved to comply, a lassitude in his limbs, Loki saw his smile as sweet and almost innocent. It certainly would fool anyone unaware of his identity as one of the most successful assassins in the world.
Natasha walked back to Loki, who hadn't moved from his prone position on the floor. He didn't even dare raise his eyes to take in the lean line of her legs, the slickness between her thighs. He remained still when she gracefully swept one leg out and grasped the dildo with her toes and unceremoniously tugged it out. Smothering a choking sound of disappointment, Loki shifted his gaze to the carpet. Soon enough, her toes came into view, and it was a struggle to keep his breathing even. Would she do something else? Would she count this as punishment enough for his sins? Or would he have to keep suffering?
But she removed the chains and put them away before coming back to him, still silent and moving with efficient, spare gestures. She nudged his shoulder with her toes, and he complied with her unspoken wish to roll over onto his back. His cock was only partially erect, and he looked up at her, sure his expression was one of desperation.
"You don't know what I want," she told him, voice even and soft. "You don't know what I'll do next. You know I find you wanting, you know there should be something you can do to get back into my good graces." Loki nodded when she paused.
"Remember this," she said quietly. "This is how Wanda feels as you teach her magic. Don't do more of this than you can help." Then a sharp nod to indicate she was through with him, and she gathered up her clothes to get dressed again.
That had left him feeling almost hollow and unfulfilled, but perhaps that was part of the point of the session. He had been kinder to Wanda in the intervening week, and she had certainly been practicing her copying skills. He switched her back to working on portals, which she seemed relieved by, and at least that was diverting.
In the meantime, he knew exactly how he would get even with Natasha.
Okay, that was possibly not the best way to think of it, but he couldn't help how he felt. That last session had been humiliating and unsatisfying, and lying to Natasha when they processed the scene afterward didn't help matters. She thought she was helping, and lying to her about it would only ruin the deal they had. But he seethed, pushing it down and away, and knew what he wanted to do with her. James wasn't allowed, and Loki suggested visiting somewhere in Brooklyn with Steve or Sam to rekindle old times. While James seemed touched by the thoughtful gesture, Loki knew it for the selfish act it was, and felt terrible. That was something else he could blame Natasha for, because he didn't feel things like that before her.
Once they were alone in the Astoria apartment, Loki established the wards and the opening to the session. Seeing Natasha's open expression and loose body language almost made him quail. She trusted him with this. She didn't use this time to get "even" as he was planning to do. The time was for him, to let him relinquish his tight hold on himself or to teach him some kind of lesson he needed to know.
But he itched to see what would happen. Maybe since his aim was less humiliation now and more inquisitive it wouldn't be so bad that he had nursed a grudge for a week. Natasha didn't know what he was thinking, after all.
So he cast his spells and then there were two separate Natasha Romanoffs in front of him, looking curious and a little dizzy. His mouth ran dry as two sets of green eyes landed on him, her wavy red hair framing her perfect face.
Oh, yes, he didn't want retaliation anymore. He just wanted her. And maybe if he was feeling generous, he could call James in at the end to play with the copy.
Loki gave her a slow, wicked smile. "Two of you to serve me. Two of you to give me pleasure," he said. "We'll see how well you can perform this task."
"What happens if we fail?" one of the two Natashas asked.
"And what constitutes failure?" the other asked.
Not insubordination, he realized after a flare of irritation. She was trying to get the parameters of his request. This was going to happen, and the Norns could strike him down but he wouldn't care one bit. He wanted this, and sauntered to the bedroom. "You are a clever girl. A clever pair of girls. You know what I like. Don't fail me."
Lying on the bed, one sucked his cock while the other played with his balls and massaged his ass. She then moved in to start rimming him, making him groan in appreciation. He grasped the head of the copy sucking on his cock, not sure if it was the original Natasha or her double. Did it matter? They did have the same appearance, same skills, same memories. When the spell ran its course and they collapsed back into the same person, she would have both sets of memories for this particular encounter. Would she enjoy it was much as he did? Was she feeling the same sensations at the same time? He sometimes did when he copied himself and gave each copy a bit of weight from his own spá.
He couldn't stop himself from grasping the hair and holding the head in place as he fucked her mouth, growing more and more desperate. The other copy was sliding the tip of her tongue into his hole, nails lightly scratching a spot behind his balls that made him want to writhe and coil up into a tight ball of pleasure.
Hovering close to orgasm, Loki pulled a thread of magic and sent it into his body so that he wouldn't immediately come and would be able to get hard again. Natasha knew he cheated, since both copies jerked as the magic filled him. He wondered if it stung her, or simply startled her. He reveled in the fell of both mouths on him, both sets of hands. Ultimately, even the magic enhancements couldn't help him stay erect. He came spurting into one Natasha's mouth, grunting and falling back to the bed. She swallowed, and climbed up on top of him to ride him as his cock sprang back to life. The other Natasha pulled back and moved onto the bed to lean over his sprawled torso to lick and suck at one of his flat nipples. After a while, the combination of one Natasha over him and one licking him felt almost too much. He yanked the second Natasha from his torso and brought her up to his mouth kissing her deeply and licking into her mouth. It only occurred to him afterward where her mouth had been, but he couldn't taste anything on her tongue or lips.
"I want to taste you," he growled when he pushed her away from his mouth. This would make him look submissive to them, but he didn't care about the outward appearance anymore. He just wanted her, all of her, all at once.
"Of course," she purred, fingers running over his chest to caress him.
He was probably addicted to the taste and feel of her, but couldn't bring himself to care. Licking into her was calming, as much as that probably sounded ridiculous. Hearing her mewl in pleasure or gasp at a particularly good lick made him feel powerful. Her pleasure was given at his whim, his intent. Some days it was easier to fall under her spell, but today was supposed to be what he wanted her to do. But then, telling her to satisfy his needs was still dominating, right? Right?
Once the Natasha over his mouth came, he pushed her hips up and over, indicating without words that he was done. The Natasha riding his cock had already come at least once, and possibly was gearing up again. She was fingering herself as she rode him, and watching her do that was hot. Loki reached up to fondle her breasts, making her gasp and clench down hard on his cock. He sucked in a breath, then decided he wanted her beneath him, looking up at him and gasping for breath.
It was a slight tangle of limbs to flip her onto her back while keeping his cock inside her. The other Natasha rose from the bed and rifled through the drawers of sex toys, ultimately choosing a double ended dildo that didn't have a harness. She fitted it inside herself easily, then slicked her fingers with lube. Loki grinned down at the Natasha beneath him, feral and needy and not caring if the smile bothered her at all. He wanted this, a fierce and greedy ache clutching at his insides with a familiar ferocity. Natasha was his, all his, and this moment was all about him and what he wanted. She was over him and beneath him and all around him, and catering to his whims, and in that moment he felt he could contain all the power in the known universe.
The Natasha behind him slid her slicked fingers into his hole and pumped them in and out, sliding her fingers over that sensitive spot inside him that made his toes curl. Yes, he wanted to say, but growled instead. The Natasha beneath him scratched his chest and back as her hands roamed over the skin she could reach, and the Natasha behind him moved her fingers to make room for the dildo inside her. When it slid all the way inside him, he nearly howled in pleasure, the sharp burst feeling like electricity lighting him up from the inside out. One Natasha fucked him and he fucked the other one, and there was no need to think at all.
Afterward, he laid on the bed, sprawled out and feeling content. His limbs felt all loose and feather light, almost as if they didn't belong to him anymore. Both of the Natasha copies tenderly cleaned him up and stroked his skin, murmuring soft phrases in Russian that complimented his skill and prowess. Were those lies or embellished truths? Did it matter? He felt like the god he was, as if this was his due as ruler of Midgard.
Eventually, the euphoria would fade, and he would simply be the trickster figure hired on intermittently and kept on a leash to keep from destroying everything in his path. Eventually, he would feel diseased and empty again, desperate to cling to whatever he could in order to feel whole. Eventually, he would doubt the caring that his companions showed him.
But for now, he was content, and that was all that mattered.
***
Wanda pressed her lips together and tried pulling her hands apart, concentration focusing on creating a portal. She was working with a simple one at the moment, moving from her suite to the kitchen. That took a lot less concentration than to try to open a portal to Asgard, and opening one repeatedly might get her or Pietro in trouble. He was thrilled with the training he was getting, at the ability he had in physically fighting and protecting others. She had always known he was talented and important, but it mattered to hear it from others, too. As the little sister by twelve minutes, she was supposed to look up to him.
Hearing Loki talk about spell weaving could be confusing, especially when he started in on the lensing effects of magic. She generally tuned that out and ignored the theory of these particular spells. They were largely the same as all the books and scrolls she had read on Asgard. Why waste her time going over it again? The whole point of being here and working with Loki and Marissa Tourney was to learn practical magic, to put the theory into use. Why bother endlessly talking if there was no purpose to it? She wanted to know how to weave it together, not just hear that she should do it a particular way. Every magic practitioner had their own way of putting together spells, after all.
Wrenching open the portal from one end of the tower to the other, Wanda giggled a little and stepped through it. The portal was still open behind her, revealing her room instead of the kitchen counter. She hopped back and forth across the boundary, one foot in either place, even doing a little victory shimmy and dancing. It was person sized, it was stable, it worked well and hardly took any effort to maintain. Perfect.
In the middle of a hop back and forth across the rooms, Wanda noticed a gust of wind rising in the corner of the kitchen. It seemed to be a swirling oval roughly the same size and shape as her own portal, but across the room from it.
A man stepped out of the hazy wind. He was rather tall, with black hair graying at the temples and dark eyes in a forbidding looking face. His pants were black, and the main part of his shirt was as well. His black boots had a stripe of yellow at the top of them, telling her where they ended, and the fabric belt at his waist was bright blood red, gathered by a golden buckle with the ends trailing down halfway to his knees. The seams at the center of his shirt were also the same bright red. His cloak was bright red edged in the same stripe of golden yellow as the stripe on his boots, with a collar that flared out from the gold eye medallion at his chest up until his ears. It was a rather dramatic getup, and made her wonder if the bright red leotard and tights with red cape her brother had teased her with would be accepted by his ilk.
"You are Wanda Maximoff," the man said, his voice deep and commanding. The presence he gave off was one of scary competence.
"You must be Dr. Stephen Strange," Wanda replied, not yet willing to confirm her identity to this stranger. "Marissa mentioned you." As well as the nasty older woman who had refused to train her and her "created" skills.
The man paused, looking her over in a calculated but not haughty manner. "Marissa doesn't often take pupils," he said. Some of the overtly aggressive posturing softened in his stance.
"The old ladies at their club didn't want me joining in," Wanda replied, not quite able to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
He seemed amused by that. "No, they wouldn't. They didn't approve of my ascension to Sorcerer Supreme, either. But then, it's likely because their opinion hadn't been asked for."
"Yeah, they seemed the type. And Marissa wasn't going to leave me floundering."
"She is wise in the ways of magic. Some of her knowledge is in very old, very esoteric skills, spells lost to the ages."
"Oh." Wanda was nonplused by that. "Um... I taught her how to see the spá," she said, inwardly smug when he didn't seem to understand what that was. "My first formal training was on Asgard with Queen Frigga and her handmaidens."
That definitely threw him. "I see. They wouldn't understand dimensional travel as I know it, then," he said in a musing tone. "That changes things a little."
"What does?"
His expression hardened into a stern warning. It reminded her of Baron von Strucker before the electric shocks had come, but she refused to back down. Sorcerer Supreme or not, if Dr. Strange did anything out of turn, she would rip apart his spá to defend herself.
"Your practice of magic has drawn the attention of other dimensions. Worlds with demons and foul creatures that would want nothing more than to devour you whole. They know of this place, and I've worked so hard to protect it and ward it from such attention."
It took a moment of stunned silence for Wanda to realize why he looked so stern. "You thought I did it deliberately!"
"Your magic is not entirely of this world. Others have sought to open dimensional portals."
Her portal was still behind her, so Wanda flung her arm through it. "That's my room, genius. Or I've built them to talk to my brother on Asgard. I'm a student of these arts. I'm not working with demons or anything foul. Unless you count Loki, but he's just an arrogant bastard."
Dr. Strange's lips twitched in amusement. "I met him once. Didn't seem arrogant at the time, but taking apart the Essine Ruby is hardly easy work."
"The what?"
"A ruby of untold power that had been layered with such complicated spells that it became a prison world ruled by Nightmare, the nephew of the demon Dormammu. And that demon is just one of many that would wish to devour this world and take its energies for its own."
Wanda opened and then shut her mouth. "Take its energies how?"
He crossed his arms as he frowned at her. "Why?"
"They think I'm stupid or distracted or something. But I know Loki was upset by some of his magic practitioner friends dying. Humans, not Asgardians. Not part of that old lady coven in Alphabet City and TriBeCa."
Now his expression was one of concern. "Where?"
"I don't know. I just overheard him talking about the morgue and seeing a few friends there, all energy gone. Even the bacteria that should've been alive was dead. Which is just gross thinking about," she added with a shudder.
Dr. Strange let out a slow breath, the concern in his expression now scaring her. "This is... not good. Very not good. We'll need to get all the covens together, all the major practitioners of this world, then. Very few demons or extradimensional creatures do that kind of absorption."
"Wait... You mean that was a deliberate killing? Not just them committing suicide or having a heart attack or something? They were pretty old..." She trailed off at the dark expression on his face. "You do mean it was deliberate."
"Yes, I do. This happened before, according to the oldest tomes I've been able to study. The entire world of Galatia slowly died, as if suffocated. They could do no more than lie down as the energy was siphoned right out of their bodies. Even animals and plants died."
Wanda shivered and stepped forward enough to shut the portal to her room. Wrapping her arms around herself, she looked at him uncertainly. "So now what?"
"I will have to show you the way I make portals. It avoids the notice of such creatures," he said with finality. He gave her a grim smile at her start of surprise. "I am not heartless. You can still speak with your brother and train. But we cannot have you siphoning off such incredible amounts of power to fuel these simple spells. Your control is rather atrocious. I wonder why Loki and Marissa didn't notice it."
Blinking in surprise, she tightened her hold on herself. "I did smaller spells with them. Working on form or something. I did bigger ones on my own as practice."
"It's drawn the wrong kind of attention." He waved his hand to the side of them, and a new whirling portal opened. "Let's meet with Marissa and contact the downtown covens. From there, we'll plan our approach."
"Loki should know about this..."
"He will. But he's better able to care for himself than the much more fragile practitioners here."
Because they were human and Loki wasn't. Because his magic was different, and possibly less likely to draw in more attention.
Still shivering, Wanda stepped through the portal after Dr. Strange.
***
It was stupid, but Loki found himself invisible and trailing after Natasha and James. He had overheard them making plans together in the den, where she had been reading a book with her feet on his lap and he had been massaging them. James mentioned one of the markets he had gone to with Steve, surprised that they were still able to go largely unnoticed walking around the city if they weren't in an Avengers uniform. Natasha had laughed, an easy sound that she didn't have with Loki. Perhaps that was what triggered the jealousy. She wiggled her toes in James' hands and poked at his crotch playfully, snickering at his reaction. James muttered something under his breath in Russian that Loki hadn't been able to catch, which had made Natasha laugh again. "Oh, fine. Why not go see a movie, then? There was one at the Angelika that I was thinking about going to, if you don't mind art house fare."
"Mostly foreign films, right?" James had replied, shifting closer to her on the couch. At her nod, he plucked the book from her grasp. "Might be fun."
"And theaters are dark."
"So if the moving picture's a bust, I can just swing my arm around like so-" Here he had leaned over and pulled her to sit beside him, his arm around her shoulders. "And there's good old fashioned necking. I hear I'm pretty good at it."
"Oh, have I told you that? I must have been mistaken..." She began in a lofty tone as he began nuzzling and kissing her neck. His other arm moved out of Loki's line of sight, possibly to fondle her as they kissed.
The two did exactly what they said they were going to do. Of course there wouldn't be artifice in the plan, and Loki felt like a heel for suspecting them of hiding their true intent. James put some kind of flesh colored fabric over the metal arm and then a long sleeved shirt despite the warm weather. Tony Stark would have improved the cooling system for the mechanics, but it surprised Loki that there wasn't some way to hide its metal appearance. There was the possibility that James didn't want to hide its presence on a regular basis, but concealing the arm would go a long way in allowing him to pass undetected in crowds.
Maybe as penance, he could work on a charm that made the arm appear like his flesh and blood one. He could even rope Wanda into helping him with it. Concealment charms were rather useful spells to learn, after all.
He really had to stop suspecting Natasha and James of nefarious plans when together. James had no desire to harm anyone in the Tower, and worked hard to contain his nightmares and anxieties throughout the day. He deserved special time with Natasha, and the opportunity to behave as an ordinary man.
***
***
To chapter Four - Devastation