Avengers - Heilsa
Title: Heilsa
Genre: Het, Clint/Natasha
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,300
Spoilers: Avengers (movie), Comics (Black Widow: The Name of the Rose)
Warnings: Miscarriage(s), Angst
Synopsis: Heilsa: health and family. She was given one only to be denied the other.
Author's Notes: Written for the "forced to rely on enemy/rival" square for
hc_bingo. Alludes to a plot point in the comic series of "The Name of the Rose" regarding an unwanted side effect of the serum given to Natasha/Natalia. Also alludes to a bit of Norse mythology.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also on AO3.
There was blood again. It wasn't as though she was truly surprised, really. She knew when she took the hit that the damage was far more than a dull ache to be ignored.
She stepped into the steaming hot shower and watched red turn to pink turn to faint swirls down the drain. The water pelted against her face, down her neck and across her back, dirt and grime now swirling with the last remnants of red. It washed away the evidence, but not the dull ache or hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She should have known by now not to get her hopes up. Countless years, decades really, of this happening time and time again. A poet would have rambled on about love and loss and the beat of a heart symbolizing the rhythm of hope. She was no poet; she was far too practical for that.
Instead, she listened to the bathroom door sliding near soundlessly open, the steady footfalls become turn to an arrhythmic rush, the curtain scrape open to reveal a panicked lover. She stood straight and proud and ignored the agony in her belly even as she ignored the cool air that washed over her skin.
"Natasha?" Clint asked. "There was blood - I didn't even know you were hit..." His eyes traced her face, down her dripping body, paused when he found the streaks of red that she had not yet scrubbed clean from her thighs.
She glared at the damning denim still puddled on the bathroom floor. "I lost it," she told him, and silently cursed the way her voice stumbled over the final word. "I thought this time might be the one, was even going to tell you over dinner at Sal's tomorrow night. Should have known better, huh?"
And the fool reached in over the edge of the tub, t-shirt soaked in seconds as he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close when she wanted to push away. "Oh, Tasha," he breathed, sound blending with the still pounding water. "I am so sorry."
She did not want his pity, and he should have known better than to offer it. She tilted her head back, could not remember when she had bowed it, when she had curved her neck towards him instead. "It's for the best," she told both him and herself, the words hollow and rote. "Could you imagine us as parents anyway? The kid would never have had a chance."
"Yeah, I can imagine," he replied, his voice both hopeful and hurt at the same time. He gripped her harder, the water now making an utter mess of the floor that they would have to deal with later, and she remembered that, even though he had just learned of the chance, he had learned of the loss at the same time.
She stroked her fingers through his muddy and sodden hair, pressed her lips against the strands, and held on.
A month brought them to an early morning debriefing around the kitchen table at the tower. Tony carefully placed a plate containing a chocolate-frosted confection in front of her, and then dropped a box of donuts in the center of the table for the others to go after in a free-for-all fashion.
"Why am I suddenly special?" she asked, though she was smart enough to pull the plate out of range of the melee going on across the way.
"Four weeks ago, you nearly bit my head off because we were out of your favorite tea," Tony explained as he poured a cup of the same into delicate china and placed that beside the pastry. "I am smart enough to do the math and figure out that this is roughly the time of the month that I try really hard not to piss you off."
Her throat grew painfully dry and she blinked at the phantom ache that washed over her. He didn't know and that was for the best, she knew this. She also knew that it took every ounce of training she had to not toss the scalding liquid at him and storm away. It would leave far too many questions, and she was not ready to divulge the answers.
A yelp of surprise pulled her from her thoughts and made her double check that the tea still sat before her and not across Tony's latest designer suit. She looked up to find Stark rubbing at his shoulder, fabric dented and mussed, while Clint hovered menacing at his side, knuckles tinged white from the fist he still clenched tight. "Don't go there," was all Clint managed to say. He pushed a chair between Natasha's and Tony's and sat down heavily, his plate piled with donuts clanking heavily against the table.
"Natasha, call off your dog," Tony whined, shaking out his arm and making a face.
"Why?" she asked mildly. Clint reached for her hand beneath the brightly checkered cloth, and she squeezed once to reassure him that she was fine, that his theatrics were unnecessary, embarrassing even.
Steve cleared his throat to begin the meeting, and Natasha noticed that Bruce had taken the opportunity to fill his plate with what were normally Tony's favorites. Thor simply crossed his massive arms and glared, the effect only slightly dampened by the fact his beard had more than a single wayward sprinkle.
Natasha choked down the sawdust of her breakfast and sipped her tasteless tea, and listened to her latest set of orders.
That mission had gone off with barely a hitch. Tony got a new dent in his armor that he needed to hammer out and Bruce needed yet another new dress shirt but, all in all, no one was seriously injured and everyone returned with the same number of limbs that they left with, so they counted it as a win.
It was the mission nearly six months later where everything changed.
They had chased AIM's latest and greatest idiots halfway around the globe and had ended up in a frozen near-wasteland near the Arctic Circle. The lab was buried deep beneath the earth in an intricate system of caves and, in the center of it all, lay half a dozen machines all focused on brightly glowing ball of swirling blue-green light.
The walls were carved with ancient runes that she would have to get Thor to translate when he worked his way down to their level and she had an overwhelming feeling that the place was old, cared for, and sacred in its own right.
So of course AIM had decided to build their latest weapon of mass destruction there.
"What do we do?" she asked as she took out yet another man in a bright yellow jumpsuit.
"If they want it, chances are we don't," Tony told her. "Shut it down." He could barely maneuver in the caves, and looked uneasy with the little that he did manage, but even he seemed hesitant to use his repulsors anywhere they might scar the rocky walls.
She flipped her man and Clint finished wrestling with one of his own, and together they started towards what looked to be the main control panel. Another swarm of scientists and what she liked to think of as henchmen came their way, which she took to mean that Stark was on the right track.
Clint shot down anyone that got too close, and she reached for the large red obviously ominous lever. She pulled it to a chorus of screams of "No!" and "You don't know what you are doing!" A concussive blast knocked her back against the same runes she admired earlier, and the screams turned to a fearful, "He's free!" instead.
She blinked the dirt and debris from her eyes, and cursed as she realized that whatever had knocked her back had knocked out her weapons systems at the same time. One gauntlet sputtered and sparked, while the other seemed locked down, the poisons it held safely trapped and inert.
Her mind took a moment to assess that the blue and green must have been a containment field of some sort, and then she was distracted by a far more pressing need. An agonizingly familiar pain washed over her to mingle with her new aches and bruises, and she clutched at her belly as though she could hold it in through sheer force of will.
She curled in on herself instinctively though her mind screamed at her to move, to fight, to take down the AIM agents and make a stand against whatever they had just unleashed. She watched as the light coalesced into a shape, into the form of a man, into the form of an all too familiar enemy.
Loki strode forth, armor shaping around him with every stride, a snarl upon his face as he took out yellow-suited agent after yellow-suited agent, and she swore she heard him growl, "You have no right to be here, of all places!"
The agents went down in the most horrific of ways, the machines melting and collapsing in on themselves as Loki sought his wrath. He whipped around to her, hand raised in rage as she reached for the still unconscious Barton. She could not reach for any of her own hidden weapons without giving them away, but she knew where Clint secreted a knife or three and risked going for those under the guise of helping a fallen friend. "You?" Loki breathed as he slowly lowered his hand.
"Hey, Sir Stag-a-lot, back off," Tony called from his place on the floor at the far side of the cave. His repulsor flickered and fired, but it was obvious he was not up to full strength, and not just by the way the light from his reactor appeared to dim.
Loki hit the wall and let forth a blast of something Natasha could not identify, but Tony skidded across the floor and slumped against the opening, well and truly out. Distraction taken care of, the alien god stood slowly and returned his attentions to the task at hand, namely where Natasha was trying to rouse Clint.
"You freed me," Loki said, near accusingly.
"Yeah, well, didn't know it was you at the time," Natasha admitted. He was on to her game, so she figured she might as well go for the obvious and most effective instead. She shifted to reach the holster on Clint's thigh, and bit her lip at the arc of agony that surged through her stomach.
Loki cocked his head to the side, considering. "You are with child?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Not anymore," she told him, feeling the truth to her words but knowing he would at least not be able to use that against her. She raised Clint's gun to have it easily knocked away though she didn't even see her enemy move. The blade she had grabbed at the same time slid neatly up her sleeve, the steel cold against her skin.
"Ah," Loki said, as though he had puzzled out some vast secret of the universe. "The very thing that keeps you alive, that gives you the strength to join the battle, costs you."
Natasha bit her lip both against another surge of pain and against saying something that would get both her and Clint dead sooner rather than later. Steve and Thor were still on their way; there was still a chance this could end in survival. Stalling for time and hoping she was not making a drastic mistake, she engaged, "And what would you know of such things?"
Loki scoffed. "I have been a parent, many times over. I have been both father and mother in my time," he told her. The scoff turned to a sneer as he added, "Haven't you read those tales, those supposed 'myths' as you people call them? One would think you would wish to know your enemy far better than that, Agent Romanov."
He paced, apparently satisfied that she would not run away or make a move against him, at least for the time being. He likely knew her injuries better than she did herself as Thor had pulled the same trick on her more than once.
For now, he seemed content to talk, which meant she was content to look for an opening to make her move. "My children are buried, near every one of them in some sense. My dear 'father' was not so kind to those he deemed monsters," he explained. He pressed his hand against the elaborate carving in the stone and it glowed softly beneath his touch. "I came to pay my respects to them and paid the cost by being trapped for my troubles."
"Yeah, well I'm sure SHIELD would love to know how they figured out how to do that," Natasha said under her breath.
She knew he could still hear her, so she was not surprised when he turned to face her again any more than she was that another AIM agent melted to uselessness behind him. "I owe you a debt, Agent Romanov," he told her, and she rather did not like the tone of his voice.
"I don't supposed leaving us in peace would suffice?" she asked. She shifted her arm to move the knife into position.
He smiled, just the barest quirk of his lips and then it was gone. "I shall do that as well, for a while," he said. He crouched beside her and reached out with his hand. "For my children that were erased from your eddas," he whispered.
Natasha jerked back instinctively from the scalding cold that washed over her, weapon near forgotten as she could not move to maneuver it anyway. It was only for a moment though, and then she was bathed in warmth, centered where the most intense of pains faded away into nothingness. "What did you do?" she demanded. She reached for her blade but it disappeared from her sleeve, only to rematerialize several feet out reach.
"Repaid a debt and nothing more," he replied derisively. A wave of his hand and Clint began to stir beside her, another and Tony's reactor steadied and returned to its normal hue. He stood and walked towards the entrance to the cave, runes hidden in the floor lighting to illuminate his path. "One of you shall have my protection for one year's time, and the other for one of your miserably short lifetimes," he announced over his shoulder when he paused, the sounds of her approaching teammates echoing against the stone. It was a promise of a sort, hidden in a riddle as always.
"You know my choice," she told him, not even certain what she was saying.
"Sadly, yes, I do," he agreed.
Thor appeared in the doorway and took one look at the runes, and the destruction, and at his brother. "You did not make a battleground of their graves?" he accused, worry coloring his tones.
"I did not," Loki replied, tinged with obvious hurt that his brother would suggest such a thing. "I sought only solace and respite with my own, and was rewarded with treachery. Your pathetic friends freed me and have been rewarded with the miserable life they so desire."
Thor looked confused for the briefest of moments before he slowly nodded, perhaps in acceptance if not understanding.
A newly awakened Tony called out, "I want it known that I want nothing that your brother has to offer." He struggled to sit up, heavy armor weighing him down.
"Which is precisely why you have received it," Loki told him with a feral smile.
He began to dissolve into a burst of golden light when Thor intoned, "I will honor them."
"And that is why they will live," Loki replied before fading away to nothingness.
Natasha staggered to her feet and gingerly pulled Clint to his. "What happened?" he asked. He swiped at his forehead and smeared blood and debris across it. He leaned against her nearly as much as she did him, not that either one of them would admit it openly.
"I think we won," she told him with a shrug. Her shoulders ached at the movement, which meant Loki had not healed her, not completely. Whatever he had done was with specific intent. She suspected what that intent was, but knew she would not know for certain for quite some time, which rather pissed her off. "Either that, or reached a stalemate," she amended, and swore she heard Loki's laughter echo through her mind.
"Awesome," Clint said. He sounded about as enthusiastic as she felt, which was to say not a lot. He looked around the area at the smoldering ruins of what was once some truly impressive technology and asked, "Is anything salvageable?"
"We will not disturb this place any more than has already occurred," Thor replied. He stood before the wall of runes, Mjollnir gripped tightly in one hand. It was a request and a threat all in one.
Tony got to his feet with the help of a hovering Steve and flipped down his visor for a preliminary scan. After a moment he declared, "There's nothing of use here." He pushed the mask back up and eyed Natasha in a way that made her question just how much the suit's sensors picked up while Tony himself was down for the count. "Nothing tech-wise at least." His lips twitched into a smile and she fought the urge to roll her eyes. Steve would take it as camaraderie; she knew to expect Stark's attempt at a subtle interrogation later.
"We did what we came to do, stopped AIM's latest attempt at a weapon, and made certain they won't be back for a long time, if at all," Steve summarized. "SHIELD will want a once through of the facility, but I think we're good to go." There was nothing left in the would-be room save for molten metal, scattered bodies, and the runes on the walls.
The team shuffled out the door, Steve in the lead and Thor insuring no one living was left behind. Natasha was not at all surprised when, as her foot barely touched the first metal rung of the long climb to the surface, there was an odd rumble and a cloud of near choking dust. A peek around the corner revealed the entrance to where they had just been well and truly sealed by rock and metal that still flickered in time to the faint glow of Mjollnir.
"It is timely we had left before the cave gave way," Thor said a little less than inconspicuously.
"Timely indeed," Natasha agreed knowingly. While the others continued the climb, she hung back just a little and whispered, "Tell me their names?"
"I will sing you their tales over many mugs of mead," he promised. He paused and cocked his head slightly to the side, and this time it was he who gave her a knowing glance. "Or perhaps a large glass of milk and the tiny fresh baked goods with the chips of chocolate?"
"It's a deal," she agreed.
Exactly one year to the day, Loki was spotted in Joensuu, Finland. The resulting chaos resulted in Steve getting a concussion, Bruce breaking an arm, Clint dislocating his shoulder, and Tony needing new armor. Natasha nursed her sprained ankle as she nursed her baby son and was thankful that Loki had kept his word, possibly in the most blatant way possible.
Her son was safe, at least from one of the many terrors the universe had to offer.
Thor leaned against the doorway with two very large mugs brimming with mead while she adjusted the now drowsy child in her arms. He settled himself on the chair across from her, handed her one of the mugs, and began, "Young Phillip James, I sing to you tonight of Nari and Vali and those whom your tales would hide their true names."
Natasha hefted her mug and tapped it against his own with a heartfelt, "Heilsa!" She smiled as she sipped at the brew and awaited that night's tale. Uncle Thor alway did have the best bedtime stories.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
This entry was originally posted at http://cat-77.dreamwidth.org/408001.html. Current comments
Genre: Het, Clint/Natasha
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,300
Spoilers: Avengers (movie), Comics (Black Widow: The Name of the Rose)
Warnings: Miscarriage(s), Angst
Synopsis: Heilsa: health and family. She was given one only to be denied the other.
Author's Notes: Written for the "forced to rely on enemy/rival" square for
hc_bingo. Alludes to a plot point in the comic series of "The Name of the Rose" regarding an unwanted side effect of the serum given to Natasha/Natalia. Also alludes to a bit of Norse mythology.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also on AO3.
There was blood again. It wasn't as though she was truly surprised, really. She knew when she took the hit that the damage was far more than a dull ache to be ignored.
She stepped into the steaming hot shower and watched red turn to pink turn to faint swirls down the drain. The water pelted against her face, down her neck and across her back, dirt and grime now swirling with the last remnants of red. It washed away the evidence, but not the dull ache or hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She should have known by now not to get her hopes up. Countless years, decades really, of this happening time and time again. A poet would have rambled on about love and loss and the beat of a heart symbolizing the rhythm of hope. She was no poet; she was far too practical for that.
Instead, she listened to the bathroom door sliding near soundlessly open, the steady footfalls become turn to an arrhythmic rush, the curtain scrape open to reveal a panicked lover. She stood straight and proud and ignored the agony in her belly even as she ignored the cool air that washed over her skin.
"Natasha?" Clint asked. "There was blood - I didn't even know you were hit..." His eyes traced her face, down her dripping body, paused when he found the streaks of red that she had not yet scrubbed clean from her thighs.
She glared at the damning denim still puddled on the bathroom floor. "I lost it," she told him, and silently cursed the way her voice stumbled over the final word. "I thought this time might be the one, was even going to tell you over dinner at Sal's tomorrow night. Should have known better, huh?"
And the fool reached in over the edge of the tub, t-shirt soaked in seconds as he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close when she wanted to push away. "Oh, Tasha," he breathed, sound blending with the still pounding water. "I am so sorry."
She did not want his pity, and he should have known better than to offer it. She tilted her head back, could not remember when she had bowed it, when she had curved her neck towards him instead. "It's for the best," she told both him and herself, the words hollow and rote. "Could you imagine us as parents anyway? The kid would never have had a chance."
"Yeah, I can imagine," he replied, his voice both hopeful and hurt at the same time. He gripped her harder, the water now making an utter mess of the floor that they would have to deal with later, and she remembered that, even though he had just learned of the chance, he had learned of the loss at the same time.
She stroked her fingers through his muddy and sodden hair, pressed her lips against the strands, and held on.
A month brought them to an early morning debriefing around the kitchen table at the tower. Tony carefully placed a plate containing a chocolate-frosted confection in front of her, and then dropped a box of donuts in the center of the table for the others to go after in a free-for-all fashion.
"Why am I suddenly special?" she asked, though she was smart enough to pull the plate out of range of the melee going on across the way.
"Four weeks ago, you nearly bit my head off because we were out of your favorite tea," Tony explained as he poured a cup of the same into delicate china and placed that beside the pastry. "I am smart enough to do the math and figure out that this is roughly the time of the month that I try really hard not to piss you off."
Her throat grew painfully dry and she blinked at the phantom ache that washed over her. He didn't know and that was for the best, she knew this. She also knew that it took every ounce of training she had to not toss the scalding liquid at him and storm away. It would leave far too many questions, and she was not ready to divulge the answers.
A yelp of surprise pulled her from her thoughts and made her double check that the tea still sat before her and not across Tony's latest designer suit. She looked up to find Stark rubbing at his shoulder, fabric dented and mussed, while Clint hovered menacing at his side, knuckles tinged white from the fist he still clenched tight. "Don't go there," was all Clint managed to say. He pushed a chair between Natasha's and Tony's and sat down heavily, his plate piled with donuts clanking heavily against the table.
"Natasha, call off your dog," Tony whined, shaking out his arm and making a face.
"Why?" she asked mildly. Clint reached for her hand beneath the brightly checkered cloth, and she squeezed once to reassure him that she was fine, that his theatrics were unnecessary, embarrassing even.
Steve cleared his throat to begin the meeting, and Natasha noticed that Bruce had taken the opportunity to fill his plate with what were normally Tony's favorites. Thor simply crossed his massive arms and glared, the effect only slightly dampened by the fact his beard had more than a single wayward sprinkle.
Natasha choked down the sawdust of her breakfast and sipped her tasteless tea, and listened to her latest set of orders.
That mission had gone off with barely a hitch. Tony got a new dent in his armor that he needed to hammer out and Bruce needed yet another new dress shirt but, all in all, no one was seriously injured and everyone returned with the same number of limbs that they left with, so they counted it as a win.
It was the mission nearly six months later where everything changed.
They had chased AIM's latest and greatest idiots halfway around the globe and had ended up in a frozen near-wasteland near the Arctic Circle. The lab was buried deep beneath the earth in an intricate system of caves and, in the center of it all, lay half a dozen machines all focused on brightly glowing ball of swirling blue-green light.
The walls were carved with ancient runes that she would have to get Thor to translate when he worked his way down to their level and she had an overwhelming feeling that the place was old, cared for, and sacred in its own right.
So of course AIM had decided to build their latest weapon of mass destruction there.
"What do we do?" she asked as she took out yet another man in a bright yellow jumpsuit.
"If they want it, chances are we don't," Tony told her. "Shut it down." He could barely maneuver in the caves, and looked uneasy with the little that he did manage, but even he seemed hesitant to use his repulsors anywhere they might scar the rocky walls.
She flipped her man and Clint finished wrestling with one of his own, and together they started towards what looked to be the main control panel. Another swarm of scientists and what she liked to think of as henchmen came their way, which she took to mean that Stark was on the right track.
Clint shot down anyone that got too close, and she reached for the large red obviously ominous lever. She pulled it to a chorus of screams of "No!" and "You don't know what you are doing!" A concussive blast knocked her back against the same runes she admired earlier, and the screams turned to a fearful, "He's free!" instead.
She blinked the dirt and debris from her eyes, and cursed as she realized that whatever had knocked her back had knocked out her weapons systems at the same time. One gauntlet sputtered and sparked, while the other seemed locked down, the poisons it held safely trapped and inert.
Her mind took a moment to assess that the blue and green must have been a containment field of some sort, and then she was distracted by a far more pressing need. An agonizingly familiar pain washed over her to mingle with her new aches and bruises, and she clutched at her belly as though she could hold it in through sheer force of will.
She curled in on herself instinctively though her mind screamed at her to move, to fight, to take down the AIM agents and make a stand against whatever they had just unleashed. She watched as the light coalesced into a shape, into the form of a man, into the form of an all too familiar enemy.
Loki strode forth, armor shaping around him with every stride, a snarl upon his face as he took out yellow-suited agent after yellow-suited agent, and she swore she heard him growl, "You have no right to be here, of all places!"
The agents went down in the most horrific of ways, the machines melting and collapsing in on themselves as Loki sought his wrath. He whipped around to her, hand raised in rage as she reached for the still unconscious Barton. She could not reach for any of her own hidden weapons without giving them away, but she knew where Clint secreted a knife or three and risked going for those under the guise of helping a fallen friend. "You?" Loki breathed as he slowly lowered his hand.
"Hey, Sir Stag-a-lot, back off," Tony called from his place on the floor at the far side of the cave. His repulsor flickered and fired, but it was obvious he was not up to full strength, and not just by the way the light from his reactor appeared to dim.
Loki hit the wall and let forth a blast of something Natasha could not identify, but Tony skidded across the floor and slumped against the opening, well and truly out. Distraction taken care of, the alien god stood slowly and returned his attentions to the task at hand, namely where Natasha was trying to rouse Clint.
"You freed me," Loki said, near accusingly.
"Yeah, well, didn't know it was you at the time," Natasha admitted. He was on to her game, so she figured she might as well go for the obvious and most effective instead. She shifted to reach the holster on Clint's thigh, and bit her lip at the arc of agony that surged through her stomach.
Loki cocked his head to the side, considering. "You are with child?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Not anymore," she told him, feeling the truth to her words but knowing he would at least not be able to use that against her. She raised Clint's gun to have it easily knocked away though she didn't even see her enemy move. The blade she had grabbed at the same time slid neatly up her sleeve, the steel cold against her skin.
"Ah," Loki said, as though he had puzzled out some vast secret of the universe. "The very thing that keeps you alive, that gives you the strength to join the battle, costs you."
Natasha bit her lip both against another surge of pain and against saying something that would get both her and Clint dead sooner rather than later. Steve and Thor were still on their way; there was still a chance this could end in survival. Stalling for time and hoping she was not making a drastic mistake, she engaged, "And what would you know of such things?"
Loki scoffed. "I have been a parent, many times over. I have been both father and mother in my time," he told her. The scoff turned to a sneer as he added, "Haven't you read those tales, those supposed 'myths' as you people call them? One would think you would wish to know your enemy far better than that, Agent Romanov."
He paced, apparently satisfied that she would not run away or make a move against him, at least for the time being. He likely knew her injuries better than she did herself as Thor had pulled the same trick on her more than once.
For now, he seemed content to talk, which meant she was content to look for an opening to make her move. "My children are buried, near every one of them in some sense. My dear 'father' was not so kind to those he deemed monsters," he explained. He pressed his hand against the elaborate carving in the stone and it glowed softly beneath his touch. "I came to pay my respects to them and paid the cost by being trapped for my troubles."
"Yeah, well I'm sure SHIELD would love to know how they figured out how to do that," Natasha said under her breath.
She knew he could still hear her, so she was not surprised when he turned to face her again any more than she was that another AIM agent melted to uselessness behind him. "I owe you a debt, Agent Romanov," he told her, and she rather did not like the tone of his voice.
"I don't supposed leaving us in peace would suffice?" she asked. She shifted her arm to move the knife into position.
He smiled, just the barest quirk of his lips and then it was gone. "I shall do that as well, for a while," he said. He crouched beside her and reached out with his hand. "For my children that were erased from your eddas," he whispered.
Natasha jerked back instinctively from the scalding cold that washed over her, weapon near forgotten as she could not move to maneuver it anyway. It was only for a moment though, and then she was bathed in warmth, centered where the most intense of pains faded away into nothingness. "What did you do?" she demanded. She reached for her blade but it disappeared from her sleeve, only to rematerialize several feet out reach.
"Repaid a debt and nothing more," he replied derisively. A wave of his hand and Clint began to stir beside her, another and Tony's reactor steadied and returned to its normal hue. He stood and walked towards the entrance to the cave, runes hidden in the floor lighting to illuminate his path. "One of you shall have my protection for one year's time, and the other for one of your miserably short lifetimes," he announced over his shoulder when he paused, the sounds of her approaching teammates echoing against the stone. It was a promise of a sort, hidden in a riddle as always.
"You know my choice," she told him, not even certain what she was saying.
"Sadly, yes, I do," he agreed.
Thor appeared in the doorway and took one look at the runes, and the destruction, and at his brother. "You did not make a battleground of their graves?" he accused, worry coloring his tones.
"I did not," Loki replied, tinged with obvious hurt that his brother would suggest such a thing. "I sought only solace and respite with my own, and was rewarded with treachery. Your pathetic friends freed me and have been rewarded with the miserable life they so desire."
Thor looked confused for the briefest of moments before he slowly nodded, perhaps in acceptance if not understanding.
A newly awakened Tony called out, "I want it known that I want nothing that your brother has to offer." He struggled to sit up, heavy armor weighing him down.
"Which is precisely why you have received it," Loki told him with a feral smile.
He began to dissolve into a burst of golden light when Thor intoned, "I will honor them."
"And that is why they will live," Loki replied before fading away to nothingness.
Natasha staggered to her feet and gingerly pulled Clint to his. "What happened?" he asked. He swiped at his forehead and smeared blood and debris across it. He leaned against her nearly as much as she did him, not that either one of them would admit it openly.
"I think we won," she told him with a shrug. Her shoulders ached at the movement, which meant Loki had not healed her, not completely. Whatever he had done was with specific intent. She suspected what that intent was, but knew she would not know for certain for quite some time, which rather pissed her off. "Either that, or reached a stalemate," she amended, and swore she heard Loki's laughter echo through her mind.
"Awesome," Clint said. He sounded about as enthusiastic as she felt, which was to say not a lot. He looked around the area at the smoldering ruins of what was once some truly impressive technology and asked, "Is anything salvageable?"
"We will not disturb this place any more than has already occurred," Thor replied. He stood before the wall of runes, Mjollnir gripped tightly in one hand. It was a request and a threat all in one.
Tony got to his feet with the help of a hovering Steve and flipped down his visor for a preliminary scan. After a moment he declared, "There's nothing of use here." He pushed the mask back up and eyed Natasha in a way that made her question just how much the suit's sensors picked up while Tony himself was down for the count. "Nothing tech-wise at least." His lips twitched into a smile and she fought the urge to roll her eyes. Steve would take it as camaraderie; she knew to expect Stark's attempt at a subtle interrogation later.
"We did what we came to do, stopped AIM's latest attempt at a weapon, and made certain they won't be back for a long time, if at all," Steve summarized. "SHIELD will want a once through of the facility, but I think we're good to go." There was nothing left in the would-be room save for molten metal, scattered bodies, and the runes on the walls.
The team shuffled out the door, Steve in the lead and Thor insuring no one living was left behind. Natasha was not at all surprised when, as her foot barely touched the first metal rung of the long climb to the surface, there was an odd rumble and a cloud of near choking dust. A peek around the corner revealed the entrance to where they had just been well and truly sealed by rock and metal that still flickered in time to the faint glow of Mjollnir.
"It is timely we had left before the cave gave way," Thor said a little less than inconspicuously.
"Timely indeed," Natasha agreed knowingly. While the others continued the climb, she hung back just a little and whispered, "Tell me their names?"
"I will sing you their tales over many mugs of mead," he promised. He paused and cocked his head slightly to the side, and this time it was he who gave her a knowing glance. "Or perhaps a large glass of milk and the tiny fresh baked goods with the chips of chocolate?"
"It's a deal," she agreed.
Exactly one year to the day, Loki was spotted in Joensuu, Finland. The resulting chaos resulted in Steve getting a concussion, Bruce breaking an arm, Clint dislocating his shoulder, and Tony needing new armor. Natasha nursed her sprained ankle as she nursed her baby son and was thankful that Loki had kept his word, possibly in the most blatant way possible.
Her son was safe, at least from one of the many terrors the universe had to offer.
Thor leaned against the doorway with two very large mugs brimming with mead while she adjusted the now drowsy child in her arms. He settled himself on the chair across from her, handed her one of the mugs, and began, "Young Phillip James, I sing to you tonight of Nari and Vali and those whom your tales would hide their true names."
Natasha hefted her mug and tapped it against his own with a heartfelt, "Heilsa!" She smiled as she sipped at the brew and awaited that night's tale. Uncle Thor alway did have the best bedtime stories.
End.
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