Father's Will, 1/2. PG-13.
Title: Father's Will
Series: #8 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)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to events in them.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: Healing has to take place now, and not all of it is physical.
One - Heavy Conversation
After a brief period dozing off, Loki curled his fingers around Natasha's hip. Licking his lips almost nervously, he managed a smile when she lifted her head to look at him curiously. "It's our designated time tomorrow."
"I think under the circumstances we can put that off," Natasha informed him. She could barely use her right arm to push herself up to view his face. "Neither of us are in much condition to do much work there."
His smile was frozen in place, and Natasha wasn't sure if she had offended him in some way. To be perfectly honest, at the moment she felt too tired and battered to care if she did. "I have my magic to hold you or keep me steady. I want..." He faltered and tried again. "There's no need for you to hold me down for me to get at the taste of you. It need not be physical..." He stopped, visibly frustrated that he wasn't expressing himself properly. "Tomorrow is our day," he said finally, looking as though he wished he could say something else.
"Yes," Natasha replied. She paused, considering how to phrase things in a way that would sound less condescending. "I think you deserve better than what I can offer at this time."
Loki blinked, not expecting that answer. "Oh. But if it's just words..."
"It's not just words," she murmured, giving up on the effort to sit up. "It's presence, it's focus, it's being there to catch you and then ease you back. I can't do that properly for you now."
He blew out a sighing breath. "Oh. It hadn't seemed complicated for you..."
Natasha snorted and collapsed back against the curve of his body. "As if anything involving you could be easily done." She smiled a little as he laughed, the sound of relief in his tone. Their deal meant so much more to him than she had thought it would. That was still a humbling fact to know, and meant she still had some kind of leverage over him.
"Is it still safe to rest?" Loki asked. She could hear the fear in his voice and feel the tension in his body. When she nodded, he relaxed beneath her.
Once he dropped off to sleep, she allowed herself to sleep as well. Her dreams were tangled skeins of hideous laughter, moving stone walls and rivers of blood that burned like acid. She left Loki to melt away in a pool of it, standing there and watching him scream. "It's delicious, isn't it?" Amora's voice whispered into the darkness above his head. "Look at him burn. They all will, and I'll have my revenge."
"I'm sure this looks worse than it is."
Natasha jerked awake, instantly regretting it when pain flared in her back. She hissed and looked up, seeing Frigga standing beside her bed with a look of concern on her face. Loki was still passed out, deathly pale, black hair matted to his head from blood and sweat. With difficulty, Natasha pushed herself to a seated position and willed herself not to scream from the pain. "No, it's worse than it looks. Whatever the venom was, it's inhibiting healing."
Frowning, Frigga moved around Natasha's bed to inspect her back. She didn't react to the pained sound that the queen made. To be honest, she had no idea how bad it looked, but it felt awful and her right arm was weak. That wouldn't bode well for her future with SHIELD or the Avengers if it refused to heal. "I won't be able to heal this here."
Loki stirred, hands twitching and reaching for Natasha in his sleep. When he didn't find her, his eyes snapped open and there was an expression of pure panic on his face. Nothing more came out of his mouth than a frightened squeaking sound. Natasha had never seen him so afraid, and she wasn't sure how she felt about seeing that side of him.
"Loki," Frigga murmured, reaching around Natasha to touch his knee. He froze, and she knew that it was because of his own self loathing and guilt. Frigga wouldn't know that, and the sharp intake of breath was proof of that. "Thor is away, helping to quiet the storms on other realms. Your friends had called, telling me about grievous injuries you'd suffered yesterday. But I won't be able to heal this here."
Expression shuttered, Loki's eyes slid away from Frigga's. "Of course not."
"I can bring Natasha with me, but I can't bring you."
"Do it, then. Leave me be."
Frigga's hand tightened on his knee. "Son..."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, still not looking at her. "We are not kin."
"You called me Mother," she said softly.
"A mistake."
Natasha could see what he was doing, but pushing Frigga away wasn't going to help him in the long run. Once he was truly backed into a corner, who knew what damage he would be capable of? "Why can't he get healed on Asgard?" she asked, taking some of the attention from him.
"The secret ways have all been sealed, and he has been barred from the gates."
"To walk into Asgard is to bow down to death," Loki said, a snarling tone to his voice.
Rolling her eyes at them, Natasha turned to Frigga. "Why would I need to go to Asgard?"
"This is not something a simple spell or herbal poultice can undo. Our High Healers will be able to use the Soul Forge to evaluate what the damage is, how this is working its way into your flesh and keeping it from repairing itself properly."
She saw Loki's lower lip tremble slightly at the mention of the scanner, but didn't remark on it. Instead, she nodded at Frigga. "Okay, then. Tony probably scanned the molecular structure of the venom that was used. Would that help?"
"I'm not sure. We can return for his knowledge should the healers need it."
Natasha eased herself off the bed and looked back at Loki. The wound seemed to look even more raw and red looking, and she wondered if it was still eating away at his flesh. "Stay here and rest. The others won't do anything to you."
"How can you be so sure?" he asked. He likely would have wanted to ask why they wouldn't be interested in killing him if Frigga wasn't standing beside him.
"They helped me get you free, and they'll follow my lead on this."
He gave her a sharp nod in response to her brisk tone, so Natasha turned to Frigga. "So, is there anywhere special to go to in order to travel to Asgard?"
Frigga gave her a kindly smile and shook her head. Taking Natasha's left arm in hand, she tilted her chin up slightly and pitched her voice to carry. "Heimdall, if you please. We're ready to return now."
Light shimmered all around them, and Natasha had the distinct impression of being squeezed into nothingness then transported up somehow. It made her dizzy, and she vaguely recalled Fitz and Simmons saying that transmuting matter into energy and back again would require massive amounts of power if it didn't simply explode.
She didn't explode.
Natasha staggered a bit when her body resolved itself in a domed room, gilded walls and shimmering portals all around her. A tall figure with dark skin was wearing an ornate and gilded uniform and a horned helm matching the walls. He stood in the center of it all, hands on the pommel of a massive sword, his odd eyes coming to rest squarely on her. He gave her a nod of recognition before turning to face Frigga. "My Queen," he intoned, his voice resonant and full of heavy knowledge.
"Thank you," she said with a gracious smile.
"Hurry," he said, voice soft yet able to carry across the room. "The venom spreads its poison."
Her step faltered, but Natasha continued after Frigga down the rainbow bridge into Asgard. It was beautiful in the way that classic paintings were, golden spires and arches reaching toward a clear sky. It looked like a dream, a world that had finite borders and impossible technology to compensate for it. This was the realm that never aged or died, the realm that Loki had conspired to rule and the realm that Amora wanted to destroy.
Frigga took her to a room with walls so starkly white Natasha thought she would be blinded. The dark robed women gestured toward the table, and she laid down on her stomach to avoid adding any pressure to her back. The machine whirred and created a three dimensional image suspended in the air above her. "There is damage," the head Healer reported. "Muscle, sinew, bone. Older damage here indicates the loss of organs. We can repair it, of course..."
Turning her head, Natasha saw the Healer point to the distinct lack of uterus. "No," she said crisply. "Fix my back, and no more." The Healers were surprised by her blunt tone, and looked to Frigga for confirmation. "Over here," she snapped, gesturing to her own face. "I make my own medical decisions."
The intestines had rearranged themselves to fill the empty space in her pelvic cavity, so the image suspended above her body didn't look too vacant. Of course, her eyes couldn't help but stray to her back. The image reminded her of Tony's toys or the imaging studies in some SHIELD labs. The muscle around the right shoulder blade was the worst affected, but she had shifted around as she tried to pick the lock open, which meant that the damage was spread out across areas of her upper back. In the image, the venom damage was red and angry looking, surrounded by an orangey-yellow color. That color touched the bone and several tendons as well as various muscle groups in her upper back.
"Damage is extensive, as you can see. And there is further degradation. I can't be sure..."
"Am I going to be able to use my arm?" Natasha interrupted.
The Healer flinched. "We can neutralize it, maybe stop the poison. Perhaps then we can weave together new muscle and repair the damage." She looked to be middle aged and matronly, and likely had small children or grandchildren. It was the only reason Natasha could think of as to why she hesitated before saying "It's going to hurt."
She let out a bored sigh and dropped her head back to the table. "Might as well start, then."
Frigga offered her calming draughts or spells, but she wanted to remain clearheaded as the damage was repaired. It had hurt getting this damage, it made sense that the repair would hurt as well. At least this offered up some hope of future functionality. She grit her teeth and grabbed the table with her left hand the wound was probed, cleared and then worked on. Whimpers escaped her from time to time, and she bid the Healer continue each time she offered to stop in response to the pain. "It won't hurt any less ten minutes from now," Natasha replied, nearly snarling. "Just get on with it so I can train my arm back to full strength."
She refused to feel guilty about her surly attitude, and she refused to look Frigga in the eye. What would Loki feel like if he had been here? The damage was on his chest, too close to his heart. This Healer might very well faint in response to potentially severing it.
Natasha lost track of time, but by the time the Healer was done, she was covered in sweat and had odd poultices applied to her back. "There were healing spells, my Queen," the Healer told Frigga. "Excellent work, and they are already starting to respond to removing the traces of the poison that were left. By tomorrow, the body should be function as normal."
The Healer scurried away at Natasha's snarled "You could tell me that."
"Do you enjoy scaring others?" Frigga asked.
"No. I don't enjoy incompetence and simpering for the sake of simpering."
"Interesting. Please come with me. Odin has requested an audience."
Natasha lofted an eyebrow at her. "This should be enlightening."
Frigga's smile didn't seem very genuine. "Perhaps it will be."
Odin sat on an impressive throne in a large throne room. Natasha followed Frigga, but stayed below the dais when Frigga climbed up to stand beside Odin. The one-eyed ruler took Natasha's measure, and she met his gaze head on. There was nothing to hide or be ashamed of as far as she was concerned, and all of magic swirling around her didn't make her feel awkward any longer. She didn't understand it any better now than when Loki first stormed into New York City with the Chitauri, but she knew its feel and some of its limitations. Magic was like anything else: it could be helpful, it could be harmful, it could be a weapon. Unlike stories and movies, there was no such thing as purely light or dark magic, only the intent of the caster.
"I have been informed that there was an arrangement of sorts between you and Loki," he began, and Natasha continued giving him a bland, indifferent look. "And now you both have been harmed by some kind of magic."
"Venom," she replied in crisp, no-nonsense tones. "Designed to cause a maximum amount of pain and damage as torture."
He was very still as he continued to contemplate her. "And who created this venom?"
"Amora the Enchantress," she replied. He had no recognition for the name, but Frigga clearly recognized it. "She had Skrall the Executioner with her." Neither one recognized the name this time. "Her plan was to torture and kill Loki, then move on to the rest of the royal family and burn Asgard to the ground."
Odin blinked his one eye very slowly as he digested Natasha's dry delivery. "And how did you hear about this plan?"
"From Amora herself."
"Where is she?"
"I killed her."
Lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure, Odin looked at her with a grave expression. "You killed an enchantress?"
"She's not used to physical attacks," Natasha replied evenly. "So I broke her hands and tore out her throat with my teeth."
Odin was very still, and Frigga went white as a sheet, her hand gripping Odin's throne very tightly. It probably shocked her sensibilities, but Natasha didn't consider her feelings in this. Her attention was focused on Odin. Tony would no doubt crack some kind of pirate joke or compare him to Fury. Natasha heartily disagreed, if only because she knew and respected Fury. She didn't know Odin at all, though Thor was a comrade, perhaps even a friend.
"I suppose that explains the blood on your clothing," Odin said slowly. "How did you come to be injured with the venom?"
"She had Loki tied to a stone slab with chains made from the heart of a neutron star." Frigga raised a hand to her lips in shock, the knuckles of her other hand gone white as she gripped the throne even harder. "There wasn't a key, so I had to pick the lock."
"For Loki's sake?" Odin queried.
"For all the realms," Natasha replied flatly.
Odin curled his lip, appearing irritated with her. "He cannot come here to reverse the damage."
"You do what you have to do."
He bristled somewhat at that. "Do you believe you know best in this regard?"
Natasha merely raised an eyebrow at him, refusing to rise to his bait. "You rule Asgard. You do what you think is best for your realm."
"For all the realms," Odin corrected.
"I only have to manage his temper."
Odin waited to see if she would say more, but Natasha remained silent. Silence had never bothered her, and it gave her time to think about the nature of this meeting. Heimdall had urged her to hurry, that the poison was doing its work. Did he mean for her human flesh or did he mean that for Loki's sake?
"Manage. His. Temper." Odin paused, but she still remained silent, not cowed by his intense stare in the least. "And how do you do that?"
She returned his stare, her face a completely expressionless mask. There was no way she was going to discuss the details of her deal with Loki. "Depends on the situation." When Odin straightened, his lips compressed in a fine line, Natasha continued in flat tones. "I don't tell you how to do your job. It takes a lot to run a realm, and decisions like that often aren't pretty. I can tell you, sometimes mine aren't either."
He stared at her impassive face and was silent for a moment. He didn't seem to know how to respond to her apparent unflappable nature in front of his position of power. "And what would your suggestion be in this particular case?" he asked finally.
"I understand he's been banished from Asgard."
"You would have me reverse this decree?"
Natasha waved a hand negligently. "Your decree is your decree. You need to make sure Asgard is safe. Amora, at least, is no longer a threat to that safety. But Frigga had taken one look at my back and knew she couldn't treat it with spells on Midgard. Loki's wound is far, far worse, and is positioned right next to his heart. He was meant to suffer. She wanted him to go insane with pain and despair before he died, and it was brutal." Her tone was matter of fact, clinical. Frigga still was pale and clinging to Odin's throne. Odin simply stared at her, unmoving. "If he's not able to come here, the tech needs to come to Midgard to repair the damage. I gather it's continuing to work its way into him. As much as you may not want him here doing further harm, I don't get the feeling you want him dead."
Odin looked at her with a heavy expression. "He is my son," he said softly.
Unimpressed, Natasha remained still. Tony would love to get his hands on Asgardian tech. Then again, he was one of the few on the planet who could probably understand it. Team him up with Bruce and Jane, and they would be nearly unstoppable.
"We will send a Soul Forge and a Healer to operate the device," Odin said finally.
She nodded her thanks and waited to be dismissed. When he continued to stare at her, she lofted an eyebrow slightly, rather the way she would toward Fury. "Was there something else that we had to discuss?"
"You are not what I expected you to be," Odin murmured.
"That's rather the point."
"What do you mean?"
"You couldn't handle Loki here because everything is done in one particular way. Things don't change. Adaptations are slow. I don't have that luxury. But that means he hasn't figured me out yet. He can't consistently manipulate me."
"Consistently," he echoed.
Natasha shrugged, aware that Frigga was watching her intently. "It happens. Just means I have to get better at it."
"Even when you're harmed in the process."
"I thought I understood the risk."
"And now?"
"In some ways, I understand him better than he does himself."
Odin lost some of the tension in his shoulders. "And that is something we've never accomplished here. He can't be contained."
"No, he can't. But he can be managed."
"He is a wild thing. A creature you cannot predict."
"I know."
That seemed to throw him a little. "Yet you continue."
"Someone has to."
"And why is that someone you?" he asked, gaze intent.
Natasha let him see that she wasn't terribly impressed with this line of discussion, which made Odin blink. She supposed people very rarely challenged him; Thor had mentioned he had tried to do just that before he was exiled to New Mexico. He had no authority over her, which likely compounded Odin's dilemma.
"I'm able to set limits that you can't. Is that what you want to hear?" she asked, voice as dry as the desert. "Worse yet, for some of them, he listens."
"Why does he listen to you?"
"Because I'm mortal, you mean?" she asked, eyebrow lofted. If she took a similar tone with Fury, he would have glared at her for a while and then backed down to try a different tactic. Odin, not used to this, bristled.
"What's so special about you?" Odin pressed.
"I'm not you," she replied flatly. "And he knows if I don't like his bullshit, I'll walk away."
"You would leave him? Let him destroy a realm-"
"No. I've already made it clear I'll put him down."
Frigga's breath caught, and she leaned against the throne. Odin fell silent. "You would kill him."
"Without hesitation."
But was that a lie? She had helped him out of Amora's trap, had positioned herself above him to limit some of his pain by taking it on herself. Here she was, toe to toe with Odin himself, discussing Loki as if he was a job she was working on. But she also recalled the relaxation of Loki's tension when she had told him that very same thing. He wanted her limits even as he railed against them. He wanted her to constrain him, give him rules to follow or rebel against, wanted that kind of interaction. Loki was an overgrown child that had never been taken in hand when he went too far.
Odin was assessing her impassive expression and easy stance. She met his stare evenly, uncaring that it could be seen as aggressive. Let him see her as a warrior. Let him see that she meant what she said. He needed to see that the Aesir weren't as well prepared to face this kind of choice as she was. Leaders might have to make difficult decisions, but Odin was also a father that could not bear to see his sons in pain. She didn't have that limitation.
Finally, he turned to Frigga. "Go with the scanner and the Healing team. See that the wound is closed." Odin turned back to Natasha with a heavy expression. "Perhaps he can find peace."
Not likely, but Natasha wasn't so cruel that she would say that out loud. Even she had limits.
***
Tony lit up like a kid in a candy store when the Soul Forge arrived, and Bruce looked on in amusement. Natasha didn't miss the way he longingly touched the device and looked at its readouts, or the intensity of the discussion he had with the Healer. She managed not to smirk as they talked, and left them in one of Tony's labs to move through the Tower. JARVIS had reported that Loki remained in her suite, not moving from where he was on her bed. Clint and Steve had checked in on him, finding him pale and still, murmuring to himself in a language they didn't understand. He hadn't even seemed aware that they were there.
Frigga followed her rather than stay with the Healer and Bruce. Natasha didn't say anything to her as she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and discuss things with Clint and Steve. She could see the queen's discomfited expression but didn't remark on it. Once the men left the kitchen area, Frigga turned to Natasha. "Are you sure you're helping Loki?"
"What exactly are you concerned with?" she asked, sipping her tea.
"That you so casually mentioned killing him. Rather like how you so casually mentioned killing Amora." Frigga's hands were clasped in front of her, knuckles showing her strain. "I understand Amora was a threat. But how it was done..."
"Ripping out her throat, you mean? I didn't even mention cutting out her heart and setting it on fire. I did that, too, just to be sure she was dead."
That was possibly too cruel to say, given how Frigga blanched. "And you have no emotion as you say these things."
"Am I supposed to?"
Frigga looked away, discomfited. "Asgard is... There are traditions. Sif broke with many of them when she trained as a warrior and decided not to learn womanly arts."
Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, unamused. "So defending one's homeland and beliefs isn't womanly?"
Turning back toward Natasha, Frigga gave her a wan smile. "Not in Asgard."
"I'm not from Asgard."
"No. No, you are not. Perhaps that is why you are able to help Loki. Perhaps this is why Jane Foster appealed to Thor. Traditions matter, but they are not the only thing that matters. In Asgard, nothing changes. We keep to our ways, and everything stays the same."
"So no one knows how to deal with someone like Loki."
"No, they don't," Frigga agreed.
"I'm a challenge, you've said that before. No one on Asgard is challenge enough. And they probably wouldn't want to be, even if they were."
"He is a wellspring of pain, regret and rage. We are unfamiliar with such things."
Natasha didn't think that was true, but remained silent. The men of Asgard likely waged war or instituted combat challenges to get over their anger. Loki didn't have that option. After taking another sip of her tea, she looked at Frigga with a frank expression. "I do what has to be done, the things that no one else wants to do. That's all."
"Yet it is still so much," Frigga murmured faintly.
"Because you love him, and so does Odin." She smiled thinly at Frigga's start of surprise. "You can't hurt him, even if that's what he needs. You can't stop him when he's upset, because it might hurt either of you. I understand that. I just do it anyway."
"Because it must be done," Frigga said, her tone more like a question. Natasha nodded and sipped at her tea, not terribly hopeful that Frigga would understand the concept. "I would like to visit with him before returning to Asgard."
She led Frigga to her suite, not expecting Loki to have moved. He hadn't, and she let Frigga have quiet time with Loki in her bedroom. The Queen had a pained expression as she gazed down at his pale, sickly face. Brushing his hair aside, Frigga looked to be on the verge of tears. Natasha felt like a voyeur as she witnessed her pain, and backed away into her sitting room. Just to have something else to do, she took her tablet and logged into her account at SHIELD. Most of the messages could be discarded, and she quickly sent a message to Fury and Sitwell describing the incident in the cave with as little detail as possible. Agents could retrieve the Quinjet if they haven't already, and likely someone would want to look at the cavern.
It occurred to her that the ring and amulet hadn't been found. She could only assume that Amora had taken them from Loki when he was bound and chained, but they hadn't been on her body when Natasha killed her. Loki was in no position to create portals or hiding places, but smaller magicks were still possible. She pursed her lips, thinking of his penchant for invisibility. While she had no interest in returning to the cavern, she didn't want junior agents cataloguing the cavern to come across the objects and be warped by their power. There was no telling if the changes in Loki's personality were permanent, or if there was a way back from that. Cognitive recalibration or personality overlays would guarantee it, but that was Red Room technology and practice. It wasn't the way she liked to operate.
But it would solve so many problems in one fell swoop.
Natasha gripped the tablet so hard, she was surprised that it didn't crack. Loki and Frigga wouldn't care where she was, so she immediately headed for Tony's lab. Bruce and the Healer were deep in conversation about the scanner and how best to use it, while Tony calculated how best to integrate it into the Tower technology. "Tony?" she asked, and waited until he looked up. "Would you be able to jaunt back to that cavern with me?"
"I don't take you as the spelunking type."
"I think the ring and amulet are still there, and I want to get it before SHIELD does."
Tony's eyebrows crawled up toward his hairline. "Not letting Fury in on the toys? I'm surprised at you. I thought you were a good little secret agent."
"Can you imagine a junior agent with that kind of power?"
He grimaced. "Let's not." He looked over at Bruce. "Hey, hold down the fort, will ya? I need to check on something, probably an hour or so."
"We might have the calibrations properly aligned by then," Bruce said without even looking in their direction. "I want to make sure we don't drain out the Tower's energy supply."
"Yeah... Let's not do that, okay? We like JARVIS right where he is."
"Thank you, sir," the AI responded in his usual dry tones.
Once Tony donned his armor, he picked up Natasha and headed straight for the cavern. Staff and visitors still weren't in the area; had it really been only hours before? Natasha's sense of time was off, but it hadn't been too long since they had rescued Loki. All of the false walls and stone golems were gone now, having disappeared when Amora died. She unerringly picked her way across the stones and headed straight for the main cavern in the back. Tony followed her, quietly observing her movements. It was an itch in the back of her spine, but Natasha ignored it. She was focused on the different feel of the cavern, where the sense of magic might be. Some of Amora's spells had remained, layered into the stone and set to permanence.
The scanner didn't quite register Loki's twin swords as magical anymore, and the runes on both swords were faded. Tony did help retrieve the one lodged in the fang, and Natasha winced at the dulled edge of the blade. It was even more noticeable when she hooked the twin swords back together. Perhaps there was a way to repair the damage.
"Maybe you can still find the ring? It likely has an invisibility spell on it."
"I'm looking for something invisible," Tony said, disbelief evident in his voice. He removed the faceplate to his Iron Man armor and looked at her closely. "You're not kidding. I thought you were kidding. I really thought you were kidding."
"Did you really think Loki would allow anyone else to have something he thinks is his?"
Tony thought it over for half a second. "Good point."
While Tony used the scanner to go through the cavern, Natasha tried to feel for magic that felt like Loki's. They both eventually converged on the side of the cavern opposite the dais. Natasha felt along the floor, looking for the ring and amulet. When she found them, she looked up. "Have a compartment to store these? I'm pretty sure wearing these won't be good for our mental states."
A slim compartment slid out of the side of his right leg, and Natasha dropped the ring and amulet into them. The amulet barely fit, and seemed to get wedged into place partway through. "So where to?" he asked as she let go of the amulet. "SHIELD?"
"The Tower," Natasha said with a shake of her head.
"Wait... You're not handing these things over like a good little agent?"
"Right now, you and Bruce have the most experience looking into these kinds of artifacts, and you already have data. Not to mention, you have the before and after resonance data for what it did to Loki. SHIELD doesn't have that."
Tony looked at her for a moment, then helped her to her feet. "You don't trust them, do you?"
"Let's just say that an independent contractor is the best route here. Sometimes outside the system works better for certain problems."
"You just mentioned it was an associate... They know it's Loki, don't they?"
"Just Fury and Sitwell."
Looking thoughtful, Tony nodded. "Probably wouldn't want that getting out."
"There are some things people simply don't need to know."
"What happens when they find out you gave these things to me?"
"We'll see if that happens. I expect you and Bruce to have results first."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He grinned at her and then flipped his faceplate back down. "Ready to go? Bruce and Helga should be about ready to patch the crazy godling back together by the time we get back."
Natasha sighed, finding his silly nicknames irritating, but took it as a good sign. The more serious he got, the worse the situation usually was. The flight back to the Tower was uneventful, and sure enough, Clint and Steve were carrying Loki to the lab on a makeshift stretcher. Frigga hung back, uncertain of what to do. Natasha approached her slowly, not sure if she would welcome her presence.
"He's in such pain," Frigga murmured, looking over at Natasha with a grief-stricken expression.
"I'm sure they'll be able to heal the wound," Natasha said encouragingly.
"There are some wounds that even the Soul Forge cannot find."
"He's got the luxury of time to heal," Natasha said. Frigga slowly shook her head, but Natasha reached out to grasp her arm. "Loki is tougher than he thinks he is."
Frigga looked at her, not sure she heard Natasha correctly. "But he's always declared how much stronger he is..."
Natasha gave Frigga a pointed look. "Would any Asgardian admit to weakness?"
The Queen smiled faintly in acknowledgement. "You may have a point."
"We'll let them work on whatever they need to do. Why don't we go somewhere else, take your mind off of it?" Natasha suggested. She really had no idea what else the Asgardian Queen wanted to do or was interested in, but there had to be something away from the lab.
"I appreciate the offer, but perhaps I should return to Asgard. Odin will want to hear about Loki's condition." She smiled at Natasha's uncertain expression. "He does care, but it would not be safe on Asgard if Loki returned. He could do something foolish, or one of the guard might. Either way, he's safest elsewhere."
Assuming his mind went back to something approaching his normal. If not, it truly might be kinder if Natasha killed him.
Frigga touched Natasha's arm gently. "We do thank you for your efforts. Odin may not seem so, but he is grateful. Since Loki first expressed interest in you, some of the anger has calmed."
That wasn't exactly true, but it was kinder to let them keep that illusion. "We'll see," she said noncommittally. After Frigga returned to Asgard, Natasha headed to the range to blow off a little steam and decompress. She wasn't quite ready to talk to Fury yet. Perhaps about a thousand rounds of ammo dead center into targets, or using her knives would help get rid of her unsettled feeling, as if she was going to displease everyone around her.
She didn't think it would work, but it was still worth a try.
***
***
To chapter Two - Changing Directions
Series: #8 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)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to events in them.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: Healing has to take place now, and not all of it is physical.
One - Heavy Conversation
After a brief period dozing off, Loki curled his fingers around Natasha's hip. Licking his lips almost nervously, he managed a smile when she lifted her head to look at him curiously. "It's our designated time tomorrow."
"I think under the circumstances we can put that off," Natasha informed him. She could barely use her right arm to push herself up to view his face. "Neither of us are in much condition to do much work there."
His smile was frozen in place, and Natasha wasn't sure if she had offended him in some way. To be perfectly honest, at the moment she felt too tired and battered to care if she did. "I have my magic to hold you or keep me steady. I want..." He faltered and tried again. "There's no need for you to hold me down for me to get at the taste of you. It need not be physical..." He stopped, visibly frustrated that he wasn't expressing himself properly. "Tomorrow is our day," he said finally, looking as though he wished he could say something else.
"Yes," Natasha replied. She paused, considering how to phrase things in a way that would sound less condescending. "I think you deserve better than what I can offer at this time."
Loki blinked, not expecting that answer. "Oh. But if it's just words..."
"It's not just words," she murmured, giving up on the effort to sit up. "It's presence, it's focus, it's being there to catch you and then ease you back. I can't do that properly for you now."
He blew out a sighing breath. "Oh. It hadn't seemed complicated for you..."
Natasha snorted and collapsed back against the curve of his body. "As if anything involving you could be easily done." She smiled a little as he laughed, the sound of relief in his tone. Their deal meant so much more to him than she had thought it would. That was still a humbling fact to know, and meant she still had some kind of leverage over him.
"Is it still safe to rest?" Loki asked. She could hear the fear in his voice and feel the tension in his body. When she nodded, he relaxed beneath her.
Once he dropped off to sleep, she allowed herself to sleep as well. Her dreams were tangled skeins of hideous laughter, moving stone walls and rivers of blood that burned like acid. She left Loki to melt away in a pool of it, standing there and watching him scream. "It's delicious, isn't it?" Amora's voice whispered into the darkness above his head. "Look at him burn. They all will, and I'll have my revenge."
"I'm sure this looks worse than it is."
Natasha jerked awake, instantly regretting it when pain flared in her back. She hissed and looked up, seeing Frigga standing beside her bed with a look of concern on her face. Loki was still passed out, deathly pale, black hair matted to his head from blood and sweat. With difficulty, Natasha pushed herself to a seated position and willed herself not to scream from the pain. "No, it's worse than it looks. Whatever the venom was, it's inhibiting healing."
Frowning, Frigga moved around Natasha's bed to inspect her back. She didn't react to the pained sound that the queen made. To be honest, she had no idea how bad it looked, but it felt awful and her right arm was weak. That wouldn't bode well for her future with SHIELD or the Avengers if it refused to heal. "I won't be able to heal this here."
Loki stirred, hands twitching and reaching for Natasha in his sleep. When he didn't find her, his eyes snapped open and there was an expression of pure panic on his face. Nothing more came out of his mouth than a frightened squeaking sound. Natasha had never seen him so afraid, and she wasn't sure how she felt about seeing that side of him.
"Loki," Frigga murmured, reaching around Natasha to touch his knee. He froze, and she knew that it was because of his own self loathing and guilt. Frigga wouldn't know that, and the sharp intake of breath was proof of that. "Thor is away, helping to quiet the storms on other realms. Your friends had called, telling me about grievous injuries you'd suffered yesterday. But I won't be able to heal this here."
Expression shuttered, Loki's eyes slid away from Frigga's. "Of course not."
"I can bring Natasha with me, but I can't bring you."
"Do it, then. Leave me be."
Frigga's hand tightened on his knee. "Son..."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, still not looking at her. "We are not kin."
"You called me Mother," she said softly.
"A mistake."
Natasha could see what he was doing, but pushing Frigga away wasn't going to help him in the long run. Once he was truly backed into a corner, who knew what damage he would be capable of? "Why can't he get healed on Asgard?" she asked, taking some of the attention from him.
"The secret ways have all been sealed, and he has been barred from the gates."
"To walk into Asgard is to bow down to death," Loki said, a snarling tone to his voice.
Rolling her eyes at them, Natasha turned to Frigga. "Why would I need to go to Asgard?"
"This is not something a simple spell or herbal poultice can undo. Our High Healers will be able to use the Soul Forge to evaluate what the damage is, how this is working its way into your flesh and keeping it from repairing itself properly."
She saw Loki's lower lip tremble slightly at the mention of the scanner, but didn't remark on it. Instead, she nodded at Frigga. "Okay, then. Tony probably scanned the molecular structure of the venom that was used. Would that help?"
"I'm not sure. We can return for his knowledge should the healers need it."
Natasha eased herself off the bed and looked back at Loki. The wound seemed to look even more raw and red looking, and she wondered if it was still eating away at his flesh. "Stay here and rest. The others won't do anything to you."
"How can you be so sure?" he asked. He likely would have wanted to ask why they wouldn't be interested in killing him if Frigga wasn't standing beside him.
"They helped me get you free, and they'll follow my lead on this."
He gave her a sharp nod in response to her brisk tone, so Natasha turned to Frigga. "So, is there anywhere special to go to in order to travel to Asgard?"
Frigga gave her a kindly smile and shook her head. Taking Natasha's left arm in hand, she tilted her chin up slightly and pitched her voice to carry. "Heimdall, if you please. We're ready to return now."
Light shimmered all around them, and Natasha had the distinct impression of being squeezed into nothingness then transported up somehow. It made her dizzy, and she vaguely recalled Fitz and Simmons saying that transmuting matter into energy and back again would require massive amounts of power if it didn't simply explode.
She didn't explode.
Natasha staggered a bit when her body resolved itself in a domed room, gilded walls and shimmering portals all around her. A tall figure with dark skin was wearing an ornate and gilded uniform and a horned helm matching the walls. He stood in the center of it all, hands on the pommel of a massive sword, his odd eyes coming to rest squarely on her. He gave her a nod of recognition before turning to face Frigga. "My Queen," he intoned, his voice resonant and full of heavy knowledge.
"Thank you," she said with a gracious smile.
"Hurry," he said, voice soft yet able to carry across the room. "The venom spreads its poison."
Her step faltered, but Natasha continued after Frigga down the rainbow bridge into Asgard. It was beautiful in the way that classic paintings were, golden spires and arches reaching toward a clear sky. It looked like a dream, a world that had finite borders and impossible technology to compensate for it. This was the realm that never aged or died, the realm that Loki had conspired to rule and the realm that Amora wanted to destroy.
Frigga took her to a room with walls so starkly white Natasha thought she would be blinded. The dark robed women gestured toward the table, and she laid down on her stomach to avoid adding any pressure to her back. The machine whirred and created a three dimensional image suspended in the air above her. "There is damage," the head Healer reported. "Muscle, sinew, bone. Older damage here indicates the loss of organs. We can repair it, of course..."
Turning her head, Natasha saw the Healer point to the distinct lack of uterus. "No," she said crisply. "Fix my back, and no more." The Healers were surprised by her blunt tone, and looked to Frigga for confirmation. "Over here," she snapped, gesturing to her own face. "I make my own medical decisions."
The intestines had rearranged themselves to fill the empty space in her pelvic cavity, so the image suspended above her body didn't look too vacant. Of course, her eyes couldn't help but stray to her back. The image reminded her of Tony's toys or the imaging studies in some SHIELD labs. The muscle around the right shoulder blade was the worst affected, but she had shifted around as she tried to pick the lock open, which meant that the damage was spread out across areas of her upper back. In the image, the venom damage was red and angry looking, surrounded by an orangey-yellow color. That color touched the bone and several tendons as well as various muscle groups in her upper back.
"Damage is extensive, as you can see. And there is further degradation. I can't be sure..."
"Am I going to be able to use my arm?" Natasha interrupted.
The Healer flinched. "We can neutralize it, maybe stop the poison. Perhaps then we can weave together new muscle and repair the damage." She looked to be middle aged and matronly, and likely had small children or grandchildren. It was the only reason Natasha could think of as to why she hesitated before saying "It's going to hurt."
She let out a bored sigh and dropped her head back to the table. "Might as well start, then."
Frigga offered her calming draughts or spells, but she wanted to remain clearheaded as the damage was repaired. It had hurt getting this damage, it made sense that the repair would hurt as well. At least this offered up some hope of future functionality. She grit her teeth and grabbed the table with her left hand the wound was probed, cleared and then worked on. Whimpers escaped her from time to time, and she bid the Healer continue each time she offered to stop in response to the pain. "It won't hurt any less ten minutes from now," Natasha replied, nearly snarling. "Just get on with it so I can train my arm back to full strength."
She refused to feel guilty about her surly attitude, and she refused to look Frigga in the eye. What would Loki feel like if he had been here? The damage was on his chest, too close to his heart. This Healer might very well faint in response to potentially severing it.
Natasha lost track of time, but by the time the Healer was done, she was covered in sweat and had odd poultices applied to her back. "There were healing spells, my Queen," the Healer told Frigga. "Excellent work, and they are already starting to respond to removing the traces of the poison that were left. By tomorrow, the body should be function as normal."
The Healer scurried away at Natasha's snarled "You could tell me that."
"Do you enjoy scaring others?" Frigga asked.
"No. I don't enjoy incompetence and simpering for the sake of simpering."
"Interesting. Please come with me. Odin has requested an audience."
Natasha lofted an eyebrow at her. "This should be enlightening."
Frigga's smile didn't seem very genuine. "Perhaps it will be."
Odin sat on an impressive throne in a large throne room. Natasha followed Frigga, but stayed below the dais when Frigga climbed up to stand beside Odin. The one-eyed ruler took Natasha's measure, and she met his gaze head on. There was nothing to hide or be ashamed of as far as she was concerned, and all of magic swirling around her didn't make her feel awkward any longer. She didn't understand it any better now than when Loki first stormed into New York City with the Chitauri, but she knew its feel and some of its limitations. Magic was like anything else: it could be helpful, it could be harmful, it could be a weapon. Unlike stories and movies, there was no such thing as purely light or dark magic, only the intent of the caster.
"I have been informed that there was an arrangement of sorts between you and Loki," he began, and Natasha continued giving him a bland, indifferent look. "And now you both have been harmed by some kind of magic."
"Venom," she replied in crisp, no-nonsense tones. "Designed to cause a maximum amount of pain and damage as torture."
He was very still as he continued to contemplate her. "And who created this venom?"
"Amora the Enchantress," she replied. He had no recognition for the name, but Frigga clearly recognized it. "She had Skrall the Executioner with her." Neither one recognized the name this time. "Her plan was to torture and kill Loki, then move on to the rest of the royal family and burn Asgard to the ground."
Odin blinked his one eye very slowly as he digested Natasha's dry delivery. "And how did you hear about this plan?"
"From Amora herself."
"Where is she?"
"I killed her."
Lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure, Odin looked at her with a grave expression. "You killed an enchantress?"
"She's not used to physical attacks," Natasha replied evenly. "So I broke her hands and tore out her throat with my teeth."
Odin was very still, and Frigga went white as a sheet, her hand gripping Odin's throne very tightly. It probably shocked her sensibilities, but Natasha didn't consider her feelings in this. Her attention was focused on Odin. Tony would no doubt crack some kind of pirate joke or compare him to Fury. Natasha heartily disagreed, if only because she knew and respected Fury. She didn't know Odin at all, though Thor was a comrade, perhaps even a friend.
"I suppose that explains the blood on your clothing," Odin said slowly. "How did you come to be injured with the venom?"
"She had Loki tied to a stone slab with chains made from the heart of a neutron star." Frigga raised a hand to her lips in shock, the knuckles of her other hand gone white as she gripped the throne even harder. "There wasn't a key, so I had to pick the lock."
"For Loki's sake?" Odin queried.
"For all the realms," Natasha replied flatly.
Odin curled his lip, appearing irritated with her. "He cannot come here to reverse the damage."
"You do what you have to do."
He bristled somewhat at that. "Do you believe you know best in this regard?"
Natasha merely raised an eyebrow at him, refusing to rise to his bait. "You rule Asgard. You do what you think is best for your realm."
"For all the realms," Odin corrected.
"I only have to manage his temper."
Odin waited to see if she would say more, but Natasha remained silent. Silence had never bothered her, and it gave her time to think about the nature of this meeting. Heimdall had urged her to hurry, that the poison was doing its work. Did he mean for her human flesh or did he mean that for Loki's sake?
"Manage. His. Temper." Odin paused, but she still remained silent, not cowed by his intense stare in the least. "And how do you do that?"
She returned his stare, her face a completely expressionless mask. There was no way she was going to discuss the details of her deal with Loki. "Depends on the situation." When Odin straightened, his lips compressed in a fine line, Natasha continued in flat tones. "I don't tell you how to do your job. It takes a lot to run a realm, and decisions like that often aren't pretty. I can tell you, sometimes mine aren't either."
He stared at her impassive face and was silent for a moment. He didn't seem to know how to respond to her apparent unflappable nature in front of his position of power. "And what would your suggestion be in this particular case?" he asked finally.
"I understand he's been banished from Asgard."
"You would have me reverse this decree?"
Natasha waved a hand negligently. "Your decree is your decree. You need to make sure Asgard is safe. Amora, at least, is no longer a threat to that safety. But Frigga had taken one look at my back and knew she couldn't treat it with spells on Midgard. Loki's wound is far, far worse, and is positioned right next to his heart. He was meant to suffer. She wanted him to go insane with pain and despair before he died, and it was brutal." Her tone was matter of fact, clinical. Frigga still was pale and clinging to Odin's throne. Odin simply stared at her, unmoving. "If he's not able to come here, the tech needs to come to Midgard to repair the damage. I gather it's continuing to work its way into him. As much as you may not want him here doing further harm, I don't get the feeling you want him dead."
Odin looked at her with a heavy expression. "He is my son," he said softly.
Unimpressed, Natasha remained still. Tony would love to get his hands on Asgardian tech. Then again, he was one of the few on the planet who could probably understand it. Team him up with Bruce and Jane, and they would be nearly unstoppable.
"We will send a Soul Forge and a Healer to operate the device," Odin said finally.
She nodded her thanks and waited to be dismissed. When he continued to stare at her, she lofted an eyebrow slightly, rather the way she would toward Fury. "Was there something else that we had to discuss?"
"You are not what I expected you to be," Odin murmured.
"That's rather the point."
"What do you mean?"
"You couldn't handle Loki here because everything is done in one particular way. Things don't change. Adaptations are slow. I don't have that luxury. But that means he hasn't figured me out yet. He can't consistently manipulate me."
"Consistently," he echoed.
Natasha shrugged, aware that Frigga was watching her intently. "It happens. Just means I have to get better at it."
"Even when you're harmed in the process."
"I thought I understood the risk."
"And now?"
"In some ways, I understand him better than he does himself."
Odin lost some of the tension in his shoulders. "And that is something we've never accomplished here. He can't be contained."
"No, he can't. But he can be managed."
"He is a wild thing. A creature you cannot predict."
"I know."
That seemed to throw him a little. "Yet you continue."
"Someone has to."
"And why is that someone you?" he asked, gaze intent.
Natasha let him see that she wasn't terribly impressed with this line of discussion, which made Odin blink. She supposed people very rarely challenged him; Thor had mentioned he had tried to do just that before he was exiled to New Mexico. He had no authority over her, which likely compounded Odin's dilemma.
"I'm able to set limits that you can't. Is that what you want to hear?" she asked, voice as dry as the desert. "Worse yet, for some of them, he listens."
"Why does he listen to you?"
"Because I'm mortal, you mean?" she asked, eyebrow lofted. If she took a similar tone with Fury, he would have glared at her for a while and then backed down to try a different tactic. Odin, not used to this, bristled.
"What's so special about you?" Odin pressed.
"I'm not you," she replied flatly. "And he knows if I don't like his bullshit, I'll walk away."
"You would leave him? Let him destroy a realm-"
"No. I've already made it clear I'll put him down."
Frigga's breath caught, and she leaned against the throne. Odin fell silent. "You would kill him."
"Without hesitation."
But was that a lie? She had helped him out of Amora's trap, had positioned herself above him to limit some of his pain by taking it on herself. Here she was, toe to toe with Odin himself, discussing Loki as if he was a job she was working on. But she also recalled the relaxation of Loki's tension when she had told him that very same thing. He wanted her limits even as he railed against them. He wanted her to constrain him, give him rules to follow or rebel against, wanted that kind of interaction. Loki was an overgrown child that had never been taken in hand when he went too far.
Odin was assessing her impassive expression and easy stance. She met his stare evenly, uncaring that it could be seen as aggressive. Let him see her as a warrior. Let him see that she meant what she said. He needed to see that the Aesir weren't as well prepared to face this kind of choice as she was. Leaders might have to make difficult decisions, but Odin was also a father that could not bear to see his sons in pain. She didn't have that limitation.
Finally, he turned to Frigga. "Go with the scanner and the Healing team. See that the wound is closed." Odin turned back to Natasha with a heavy expression. "Perhaps he can find peace."
Not likely, but Natasha wasn't so cruel that she would say that out loud. Even she had limits.
***
Tony lit up like a kid in a candy store when the Soul Forge arrived, and Bruce looked on in amusement. Natasha didn't miss the way he longingly touched the device and looked at its readouts, or the intensity of the discussion he had with the Healer. She managed not to smirk as they talked, and left them in one of Tony's labs to move through the Tower. JARVIS had reported that Loki remained in her suite, not moving from where he was on her bed. Clint and Steve had checked in on him, finding him pale and still, murmuring to himself in a language they didn't understand. He hadn't even seemed aware that they were there.
Frigga followed her rather than stay with the Healer and Bruce. Natasha didn't say anything to her as she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and discuss things with Clint and Steve. She could see the queen's discomfited expression but didn't remark on it. Once the men left the kitchen area, Frigga turned to Natasha. "Are you sure you're helping Loki?"
"What exactly are you concerned with?" she asked, sipping her tea.
"That you so casually mentioned killing him. Rather like how you so casually mentioned killing Amora." Frigga's hands were clasped in front of her, knuckles showing her strain. "I understand Amora was a threat. But how it was done..."
"Ripping out her throat, you mean? I didn't even mention cutting out her heart and setting it on fire. I did that, too, just to be sure she was dead."
That was possibly too cruel to say, given how Frigga blanched. "And you have no emotion as you say these things."
"Am I supposed to?"
Frigga looked away, discomfited. "Asgard is... There are traditions. Sif broke with many of them when she trained as a warrior and decided not to learn womanly arts."
Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, unamused. "So defending one's homeland and beliefs isn't womanly?"
Turning back toward Natasha, Frigga gave her a wan smile. "Not in Asgard."
"I'm not from Asgard."
"No. No, you are not. Perhaps that is why you are able to help Loki. Perhaps this is why Jane Foster appealed to Thor. Traditions matter, but they are not the only thing that matters. In Asgard, nothing changes. We keep to our ways, and everything stays the same."
"So no one knows how to deal with someone like Loki."
"No, they don't," Frigga agreed.
"I'm a challenge, you've said that before. No one on Asgard is challenge enough. And they probably wouldn't want to be, even if they were."
"He is a wellspring of pain, regret and rage. We are unfamiliar with such things."
Natasha didn't think that was true, but remained silent. The men of Asgard likely waged war or instituted combat challenges to get over their anger. Loki didn't have that option. After taking another sip of her tea, she looked at Frigga with a frank expression. "I do what has to be done, the things that no one else wants to do. That's all."
"Yet it is still so much," Frigga murmured faintly.
"Because you love him, and so does Odin." She smiled thinly at Frigga's start of surprise. "You can't hurt him, even if that's what he needs. You can't stop him when he's upset, because it might hurt either of you. I understand that. I just do it anyway."
"Because it must be done," Frigga said, her tone more like a question. Natasha nodded and sipped at her tea, not terribly hopeful that Frigga would understand the concept. "I would like to visit with him before returning to Asgard."
She led Frigga to her suite, not expecting Loki to have moved. He hadn't, and she let Frigga have quiet time with Loki in her bedroom. The Queen had a pained expression as she gazed down at his pale, sickly face. Brushing his hair aside, Frigga looked to be on the verge of tears. Natasha felt like a voyeur as she witnessed her pain, and backed away into her sitting room. Just to have something else to do, she took her tablet and logged into her account at SHIELD. Most of the messages could be discarded, and she quickly sent a message to Fury and Sitwell describing the incident in the cave with as little detail as possible. Agents could retrieve the Quinjet if they haven't already, and likely someone would want to look at the cavern.
It occurred to her that the ring and amulet hadn't been found. She could only assume that Amora had taken them from Loki when he was bound and chained, but they hadn't been on her body when Natasha killed her. Loki was in no position to create portals or hiding places, but smaller magicks were still possible. She pursed her lips, thinking of his penchant for invisibility. While she had no interest in returning to the cavern, she didn't want junior agents cataloguing the cavern to come across the objects and be warped by their power. There was no telling if the changes in Loki's personality were permanent, or if there was a way back from that. Cognitive recalibration or personality overlays would guarantee it, but that was Red Room technology and practice. It wasn't the way she liked to operate.
But it would solve so many problems in one fell swoop.
Natasha gripped the tablet so hard, she was surprised that it didn't crack. Loki and Frigga wouldn't care where she was, so she immediately headed for Tony's lab. Bruce and the Healer were deep in conversation about the scanner and how best to use it, while Tony calculated how best to integrate it into the Tower technology. "Tony?" she asked, and waited until he looked up. "Would you be able to jaunt back to that cavern with me?"
"I don't take you as the spelunking type."
"I think the ring and amulet are still there, and I want to get it before SHIELD does."
Tony's eyebrows crawled up toward his hairline. "Not letting Fury in on the toys? I'm surprised at you. I thought you were a good little secret agent."
"Can you imagine a junior agent with that kind of power?"
He grimaced. "Let's not." He looked over at Bruce. "Hey, hold down the fort, will ya? I need to check on something, probably an hour or so."
"We might have the calibrations properly aligned by then," Bruce said without even looking in their direction. "I want to make sure we don't drain out the Tower's energy supply."
"Yeah... Let's not do that, okay? We like JARVIS right where he is."
"Thank you, sir," the AI responded in his usual dry tones.
Once Tony donned his armor, he picked up Natasha and headed straight for the cavern. Staff and visitors still weren't in the area; had it really been only hours before? Natasha's sense of time was off, but it hadn't been too long since they had rescued Loki. All of the false walls and stone golems were gone now, having disappeared when Amora died. She unerringly picked her way across the stones and headed straight for the main cavern in the back. Tony followed her, quietly observing her movements. It was an itch in the back of her spine, but Natasha ignored it. She was focused on the different feel of the cavern, where the sense of magic might be. Some of Amora's spells had remained, layered into the stone and set to permanence.
The scanner didn't quite register Loki's twin swords as magical anymore, and the runes on both swords were faded. Tony did help retrieve the one lodged in the fang, and Natasha winced at the dulled edge of the blade. It was even more noticeable when she hooked the twin swords back together. Perhaps there was a way to repair the damage.
"Maybe you can still find the ring? It likely has an invisibility spell on it."
"I'm looking for something invisible," Tony said, disbelief evident in his voice. He removed the faceplate to his Iron Man armor and looked at her closely. "You're not kidding. I thought you were kidding. I really thought you were kidding."
"Did you really think Loki would allow anyone else to have something he thinks is his?"
Tony thought it over for half a second. "Good point."
While Tony used the scanner to go through the cavern, Natasha tried to feel for magic that felt like Loki's. They both eventually converged on the side of the cavern opposite the dais. Natasha felt along the floor, looking for the ring and amulet. When she found them, she looked up. "Have a compartment to store these? I'm pretty sure wearing these won't be good for our mental states."
A slim compartment slid out of the side of his right leg, and Natasha dropped the ring and amulet into them. The amulet barely fit, and seemed to get wedged into place partway through. "So where to?" he asked as she let go of the amulet. "SHIELD?"
"The Tower," Natasha said with a shake of her head.
"Wait... You're not handing these things over like a good little agent?"
"Right now, you and Bruce have the most experience looking into these kinds of artifacts, and you already have data. Not to mention, you have the before and after resonance data for what it did to Loki. SHIELD doesn't have that."
Tony looked at her for a moment, then helped her to her feet. "You don't trust them, do you?"
"Let's just say that an independent contractor is the best route here. Sometimes outside the system works better for certain problems."
"You just mentioned it was an associate... They know it's Loki, don't they?"
"Just Fury and Sitwell."
Looking thoughtful, Tony nodded. "Probably wouldn't want that getting out."
"There are some things people simply don't need to know."
"What happens when they find out you gave these things to me?"
"We'll see if that happens. I expect you and Bruce to have results first."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He grinned at her and then flipped his faceplate back down. "Ready to go? Bruce and Helga should be about ready to patch the crazy godling back together by the time we get back."
Natasha sighed, finding his silly nicknames irritating, but took it as a good sign. The more serious he got, the worse the situation usually was. The flight back to the Tower was uneventful, and sure enough, Clint and Steve were carrying Loki to the lab on a makeshift stretcher. Frigga hung back, uncertain of what to do. Natasha approached her slowly, not sure if she would welcome her presence.
"He's in such pain," Frigga murmured, looking over at Natasha with a grief-stricken expression.
"I'm sure they'll be able to heal the wound," Natasha said encouragingly.
"There are some wounds that even the Soul Forge cannot find."
"He's got the luxury of time to heal," Natasha said. Frigga slowly shook her head, but Natasha reached out to grasp her arm. "Loki is tougher than he thinks he is."
Frigga looked at her, not sure she heard Natasha correctly. "But he's always declared how much stronger he is..."
Natasha gave Frigga a pointed look. "Would any Asgardian admit to weakness?"
The Queen smiled faintly in acknowledgement. "You may have a point."
"We'll let them work on whatever they need to do. Why don't we go somewhere else, take your mind off of it?" Natasha suggested. She really had no idea what else the Asgardian Queen wanted to do or was interested in, but there had to be something away from the lab.
"I appreciate the offer, but perhaps I should return to Asgard. Odin will want to hear about Loki's condition." She smiled at Natasha's uncertain expression. "He does care, but it would not be safe on Asgard if Loki returned. He could do something foolish, or one of the guard might. Either way, he's safest elsewhere."
Assuming his mind went back to something approaching his normal. If not, it truly might be kinder if Natasha killed him.
Frigga touched Natasha's arm gently. "We do thank you for your efforts. Odin may not seem so, but he is grateful. Since Loki first expressed interest in you, some of the anger has calmed."
That wasn't exactly true, but it was kinder to let them keep that illusion. "We'll see," she said noncommittally. After Frigga returned to Asgard, Natasha headed to the range to blow off a little steam and decompress. She wasn't quite ready to talk to Fury yet. Perhaps about a thousand rounds of ammo dead center into targets, or using her knives would help get rid of her unsettled feeling, as if she was going to displease everyone around her.
She didn't think it would work, but it was still worth a try.
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To chapter Two - Changing Directions