Make You Ill, 1/5. NC-17.
Title: Make You Ill
Series: #13 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Yelena, Natasha/Winter Soldier
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. Additional warning for underage sexual situations, drug use (with and without consent), dubcon, noncon, mindfuckery of various flavors (hello, Red Room!) and detailed descriptions of violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Special thanks to phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: Natasha's past is starting to haunt her and Loki refuses to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, the Red Room never did take no for an answer.
One - Evaluating Threats
"There's another Black Widow."
Natasha didn't outwardly react to Sitwell's comment, and she wondered if he was disappointed in that fact. She sat very calmly as he went over an op to infiltrate Hydra and get close to Ophelia Sarkissian while she had been in Asgard. The op had gone south in a bad way, and all of the agents involved were dead. The sum total of intel that they had been able to get from the op consisted of blurred photos, fractured texts, cut off phone calls full of panicked voices and a handful of encrypted files that had been sent to one of the European safe houses. One of the phone calls had consisted of a mangled prayer and the final words "Oh dear God, she's calling herself the Black Widow. But it's not Romanoff, it's some blonde-"
"What do you make of all of this, Agent Romanoff?" Sitwell asked, leaning forward with that earnest yet vapid expression on his face.
"Her name is Yelena Belova," she replied quietly. "She's the only other survivor of the Black Widow program."
He blinked, surprise clear on his features. "So you know her."
"Once." When that terse reply didn't seem to satisfy him, she shrugged. "I turned mercenary after I burned down the Red Room. She'd gone to ground and nothing else happened until recently. I didn't keep track of her."
Natasha hadn't kept track because Yelena clearly hadn't remembered her in the aftermath of the Red Room's destruction. She had snarled and attacked Natasha, and it was only after a fierce knock down, dragged out fight that they had reached a stalemate. I'll kill you if you come after me. I'm the only Black Widow, the true Black Widow. You are nothing, and I will end you if I ever see you again.
"I find that hard to believe," Sitwell began.
"If there's nothing to track, there's no point. I had enough to do on my own at the time. And then once I was brought in to SHIELD, a different agent was assigned to look into her whereabouts," Natasha replied reasonably, though her stomach roiled. Yelena. Why are you using that name now? What happened?
"So you didn't have to."
"I told the agents everything they needed to know during the debriefs."
"Everything they needed to know," Sitwell echoed. "Was that everything there is to know?"
Of course it wasn't, and they both knew it.
"Yes," Natasha lied.
Sitwell stared at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really." He paused, then leaned forward slightly in his chair. His desk was messier than Coulson's was, and the entire office had a lived in look. Natasha had never felt comfortable in this controlled chaos. She vastly preferred the neater serenity of Coulson's offices. "What's the nature of the information you have that they don't?"
"They don't need to know who she slept with on her own time, what little there was of it. I told them about the ops I knew about, the training sessions and the nature of the escape."
If Sitwell heard her irritated edge, he wisely didn't remark on it. "I've gone over the files since her name first popped up several months ago. She's come up out of nowhere."
No, not nowhere. The Red Room. Its participants weren't seen unless they wanted to be seen. So Yelena wanted to be found now. Why?
"In addition," Sitwell continued, "there apparently was a mention of an assassin with her that had impressive marksmanship and a metal arm."
Natasha couldn't breathe for a moment, and she held herself very still. "That's not possible."
"Why do you say that?"
"There are those in the intelligence community that don't believe he exists. Those that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's a ghost. You'll never find him."
"Why?"
"Because he's dead."
"How can you be so sure if there are sightings of him?"
She stared at him with a flat expression. "Because he was in the Red Room when I burned it down. I killed him."
And her entire universe had shattered in that moment. She had lost the Winter Soldier as well as Yelena Belova, and was cast adrift. Of course she had turned into a mercenary. What other skill set did she have? What other options could she have chosen from?
Contemplating her carefully, Sitwell slowly nodded. "You left that out in your debriefs."
"No one asked about the Winter Soldier and he was dead anyway. There didn't seem to be a point at the time, and I've been occupied since then."
His eyes were sharp, still assessing her. "Are you certain he's dead?"
"Absolutely. Whatever game she's playing, that's not the same man."
"Then I suppose we'll need you to find out what kind of game she's playing," Sitwell announced, closing the file folder in front of him. Oh, how Natasha wanted to hit him for that, take that smug expression off of his face. He was a capable agent, but he grated against every last nerve she possessed. She would rather stand before the entire World Council than deal with him on a regular basis, yet here she was.
Natasha nodded sharply. "Immediately, sir."
She left before she could say anything she would regret.
***
"I have a situation," Natasha said without preamble. She was sitting in Steve's suite at his weekly poker game, along with Clint and Steve's friend Sam Wilson from the VA in Brooklyn. Sam had originally worked in Washington, DC, but had transferred out of protest. One administrator was making life difficult for some of the doctors there that refused to toe his lines about patient care, and it was only getting worse over time. As much as Sam had enjoyed his work with the vets there, particularly his support groups, he wasn't going to support that location even tacitly by ignoring the patient care issues. If anything, he documented it all and forwarded it to several congressmen and committees on Capitol Hill before making a run for New York. "Brooklyn's much better," Steve had commented when he heard the story.
Sam had merely snorted. "Of course it is, you're a Brooklyn boy at heart."
"Best borough in the city," Steve had declared with a grin.
Natasha had waited until the second hand before speaking up. "Is it Loki?" Steve asked with a frown. "He did seem pretty bummed about the banishment."
"Bummed is an understatement," Natasha replied with a shrug. He had actually retreated to the Astoria apartment to cry. When Natasha caught him, he had picked a fight with her until she had punched him in the jaw. Loki had gone down like a sack of bricks and hadn't moved for almost an hour before admitting he had no game plan. For someone that had thrived on convoluted plans and threats of inducing chaos, he reacted to loss like a spoiled little boy.
"It has to do with a meeting at SHIELD that I had." Natasha eyed Sam. "Technically, I shouldn't be discussing this with any of you. And especially not you, Sam."
He grinned at her, teeth a bright and happy flash of white against his dark skin. "Hey, this conversation never happened. Just playing Texas Hold 'Em with some buddies."
"Good." She looked over at Clint. "It has to do with Yelena Belova." He gave her an almost anxious look, likely because he knew how hard it was to discuss anything about her past. She had been a victim of the Red Room for so long, nothing more than a tool, and sometimes she still had trouble finding her way around humanity.
For Steve's and Sam's sakes, she glossed over her past: orphaned when very young, she was brought into a training Academy with other girls. They all competed to get into the Elite program and didn't think twice about the acts they had to do. That included killing, maiming, abducting enemies of the state, torture, seduction and undermining the authority of fellow cadets in the Academy. "I passed my exam to get into the Elites when I was nine and a half," Natasha said, folding her cards together and placing them face down on the table. "The Elites was the Red Room. The best of the best, the assassins and spies for Mother Russia."
Sam looked at their solemn faces. "You sure I should be hearing this?"
"It's above their clearance levels," Natasha murmured. "I know we can trust you. And I have a feeling things are going to go very badly very quickly. I'm going to need help on this."
She could almost feel Clint's shock like a tangible thing. She was actually asking for help? It had to be a doozy of a situation.
"Sitwell wants me to catch her, either bring her in or stop her. The problem is that she has the same training as I do. Which means that the recent sightings are because she wants to be seen. She wants me to find her. I can't even think of a reason why."
"Or is it not necessarily what she remembers of you?" Sam offered, not even pretending to focus on his cards anymore. "The news was all about you being Ambassador to Asgard, making a big show of how the two planets were working together." He shot her a playful smile. "Gotta say, those photos of you in Asgardian gear, all the layers and pins and such? You still look mighty fine like that, Natasha."
She laughed, tension broken a bit. "Still, there has to be a reason why now. She went to ground for years and only now is surfacing. It's in a pretty big way, too." Natasha looked at Steve in concern. "She's with Hydra. She's Ophelia Sarkissian's girlfriend. That means she has access to a lot of dangerous resources. For all we know, she could be the one that was feeding Meissen data last year. We never did find the supplier he bought Hydra secrets from."
"Let's say that theory is accurate," Steve began reasonably, also giving up on the game. That left only Clint still holding cards. "She gets in good with Hydra, lives a life of luxury amidst racist assholes and scientists. Then there you are as Ambassador. They also mentioned you working for SHIELD, so that secret was out, too." He shrugged at her sigh. "She could truly be a Hydra agent. In which case, she could try to use the past relationship to get into SHIELD servers and steal secrets for Hydra."
"I'm the last person who would sell secrets that way."
"But if she's that type and thinks you're the same as she is..." Steve said reasonably.
Clint finally put his cards down. "Hydra would have gone through her head with a fine toothed comb," he said softly. "Her brain isn't safe, so we can't even begin to guess what she thinks. For all we know, seeing your face on TV might have been a trigger for her. That could be why it's now, and not ten years ago."
Natasha looked at him grimly, agreeing with his assessment. "So the big question is, what's her endgame? Using the Black Widow moniker is only going to draw me out. So why does she want to see me again so badly?"
"What was it like the last time you saw her?" Sam asked.
Natasha actually grimaced. "Not good. We fought, and she actually wanted to kill me."
"So we have to assume she's a threat," Steve said softly.
"I hate to say this, but..." Clint squirmed a bit in his seat. "Have Loki drop her in a pocket dimension and forget where it is. You'd be safer that way."
"At what cost?"
He looked away from her, lips compressed unhappily and shame etched into the strain around his eyes. He knew she didn't like behaving in monstrous ways anymore. She had done far too much of that since childhood.
"If she's gone around looking for information on you," Steve began, "you need to find whatever information you can about her."
"Even if we find anything, it can't be trusted. I'm fairly sure it would have been planted by her for whatever purpose. She's already put out rumors of working with someone I know is dead, as a matter of fact."
"Seems to me, you're looking it maybe a little too sideways. The spy thing, I figure," Sam said after a moment, drumming his fingers on the table. "Rather than going around her, just go to her. She probably isn't going to expect that."
"That would mean going to Austria," Natasha remarked.
"I've got vacation time coming up," Sam said idly, though he fooled no one. "And I've never been to Austria before."
Natasha smirked. "I can probably find a way to get SHIELD to comp the tickets."
"You are a wonderful human being," Sam told her with a huge grin on his face.
"Not really, but thank you for saying so."
"Now, you see here," Sam replied. She knew what was coming, as they went through iterations of this conversation every few weeks. "If Captain America thinks you're a worthwhile person, you are. Nobody's 100% angel, even him." He shrugged at this point, which was new. "I get it now, why you say stuff like that. But that was from when you were a kid and they fucked with your head. The way I see it, you can't take full responsibility for that. Some, maybe, but you were a kid. We don't hold kids responsible for most stupid stuff they do. Now, when you're a grown ass adult, that's a whole different story."
Natasha snorted and took a pull from her beer. "Good to know."
Sam shot her another brilliant grin. "Gotta keep me around for some reason. Though it absolutely would not hurt my feelings if it was only for my good looks."
Steve threw some chips at Sam's head and Clint just snorted. "Are we going to finish playing poker or what?" Clint asked.
"Yeah, let's play," Steve urged, taking up all the cards to reshuffle and deal. "You're going to need some time to plan out a mode of attack," he told Natasha. "But we're with you on this, however you need us to help. You wouldn't discuss it otherwise."
"It's mostly because I don't trust Yelena." Something like guilt and fear curled in her stomach, a deep and painful ache. "Once upon a time I used to, but I don't know what she's capable of anymore," Natasha admitted.
"And by the same token," Clint reminded her, "she doesn't know what you can do."
Steve looked at Natasha thoughtfully. "Or is it that you need us because you don't know if you can turn on her if you have to?" His expression softened at her sigh and downcast eyes. "Hey, it's understandable. You were friends."
"In the Red Room, it would have been weakness," Natasha replied softly. "And if they decided I was still useful, I would be punished instead of killed."
That put a damper on conversation. "That is seriously fucked up," Sam said finally.
"That's why I don't talk about it."
Clint reached over and grasped her hand tightly. "Whatever happens with Yelena, we'll back you up. We're family, after all," he reminded her.
That got her smiling at him, and poker night resumed.
***
Loki sat in the suite he had been assigned when he first came to Avengers Tower as a female version of himself. His hideaways on Yggdrasil were always an option, but he was feeling bereft and needed to be close to someone, even if they were not particularly fond of him. He didn't often feel charitable toward them either, truth be told.
A thousand years was a very long time. He should probably get used to feeling lonely. All of these mortals would be dead long before the end of his banishment. He would be alone soon enough, spending the rest of his banishment talking to bones.
He was also angry with Natasha, as well as despondent at how little he seemed to matter to her. Was his love so worthless, then? Did he mean nothing? Oh, she said she cared for him, that what happened to him mattered to her. But did it actually matter in a way that could be love, or was it simply a matter of convenience?
No, it couldn't be that. Their liaison had been nothing but inconvenient for the spy.
The suite seemed too constricting, too full of memories of his pain and bitterness. He stalked from it, pacing the halls without knowing how else to get rid of this nervous energy. Natasha was still in the Tower, in Steve's suite at their fairly regular poker game. He hadn't thought much about not being invited, but now it burned. She didn't think much of him, didn't seem to like him at all. Unless they were enacting their deal, then she seemed to care for him.
By the Tree, he was nothing but an obligation. Whatever she felt, there was no context for it outside their deal, was there? But then why save him from Amora? Why offer to bring him to Asgard as Lara? Why, why, why?
Loki was snarling and ready to pounce on something to break it by the time the poker game dispersed. Natasha didn't seem particularly relaxed afterward. In fact, everyone seemed a little tense, even the apparently unflappable Sam. The man hadn't even blinked at seeing Loki in the Tower and being told that he had met her female form earlier. "Yeah. Superhero thing, whatever that might be," Sam had said at the time with a negligent wave, not pressing for any details or the name Loki had used as a woman. He honestly didn't care about the whys and hows of the transition. "You're still coming to help out in the support group, right?" he had asked. Nonplused, Loki had agreed.
Of course, he now regretted it.
"Natasha. I require your time," Loki had said, reaching out for her.
Her drawn expression really should have been a warning signal, but he ignored it. He had been ignored for too long, and her easy way of entering into physical relations with others bothered him more than he ever wanted to admit aloud. She mattered to him, damn her eyes and lying tongue, and he was nothing to her. All his attempts to get her to name their relationship had resulted in nothing.
"I have things to plan," she said with a sigh. She did look tired, and Loki felt a twinge of sympathy for the strain that she must have been under.
"If it's that woman that plagues you, I can simply eliminate her. Say the word, and she will not trouble you again."
If anything, those words made her blanch. "No. I will not allow that."
Monster, a voice whispered in his mind. "It would take hardly a moment…"
"No!" she snapped angrily.
"Why not? The woman will be gone, you have no need to worry after your safety or the safety of others. She plagues you. You can't want her near you, even if you once called her friend and claimed she offered comforts." Loki was utterly incredulous, and didn't care if their argument was drawing a crowd.
"Not now, Loki. I have things to do."
"Or people?" he asked snidely as he caught hold of her arm.
She had grown very still, and Loki willfully ignored the others in the common room, just down the hall. He crowded into her space, rage simmering beneath his skin. He had tried, he really did, he would be true to her, would burn the cosmos if it made her happy. The damned rings and Essine Ruby had been retrieved at great personal cost to keep her safe. Didn't that count for anything? He was trying, he didn't understand what she wanted, but still he was trying to please her. Why didn't that matter to her?
"You need to let me go, Loki. Now," she all but snarled, using her domme voice.
He wanted to obey her. He wanted to ignore her. He wanted to strike her. He wanted to fuck her right there against the wall, her friends be damned.
"Or what?" he insisted, still holding her arm tightly.
"You aren't to interfere with my work," she hissed.
"Your work," he snarled. "And did that include that woman? Did that include Fandral? How many tumbled into your bed for the sake of your work?"
Because he had been a job, too. She had bedded him, tried to entice him to join SHIELD. He had done stupid things on her behalf, which had been for SHIELD's benefit.
"I don't have time for this bullshit," she snapped, yanking her arm away from him.
No. She couldn't leave him, not like everyone else.
"You will not turn your back on me, Natasha," Loki snarled.
"Watch me." She yanked her arm away from him and stalked toward the common room, her entire body language thrumming with anger.
Well, he had never been very good about following people's signals to stay away.
Loki followed her into the common room. "You didn't answer me, Natasha. How many enter your bed as part of your work?" he asked, the dubiousness of her work clear in his derisive tone. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred? How many fell between your thighs before you earned the title of Black Widow?"
At this, she turned and gave him a resounding slap across the face, her terrifying expression just enough to give him pause. "Do not ever speak to me this way again." Before he could react, she punched him right in the solar plexus, then grabbed his head as he gasped for air. She slammed his face into her knee, and everyone could hear the crunch of cartilage in his nose breaking. "If you do, I will gut you and hang you with your own entrails, then light the remains on fire. Do I make myself clear?"
"You may try," he challenged. "I am a god, and you cannot best me."
Without telegraphing what she intended to do ahead of time, Natasha hooked one foot behind his leg and swept it out in a circle. Loki fell onto his back, the breath whooshing out of him in his surprise, and then the heel of her boot came crashing down on his chest. Then she fell onto one knee, which was also aimed at his chest. Something broke, pain shooting through him, and it was all he could do to stop from crying out.
"Do not test me, Loki. You have far more to lose right now than I do."
Oh, her voice was cold and her expression forbidding and heartless. She stalked out of the common room without a backward glance. No one said a word, and finally Tony went over to the wet bar to pour a drink. "Hey, Horns. You look like shit. I think you need a drink."
Loki traced a limrunar over his chest, forcing the broken rib to push back into place. It was a sharp, painful maneuver, actually worse than getting the injury in the first place. "I did not ask what you thought," he replied coldly.
"Suit yourself," he replied with a shrug, taking the scotch for himself. "You know," he began thoughtfully after taking a sip, "you're like an old married couple. Or at least like my parents, before my mother discovered booze and my father disappeared into a lab."
Surprised by Tony's nonchalant attitude about that little glimpse into the Stark household when he was young, Loki could only stare at him. Why was he talking of such things now?
It was clear Loki didn't get his point, so Tony snorted and shook his head. "Horns, you're utterly clueless, aren't you?"
"Explain yourself," Loki snarled, losing patience with him.
Tony smirked. "Well, when a Mommy and a Daddy care about each other very much-"
"You blundering fool," Loki snapped.
"-they get married. But then when it falls apart, they go into screaming tirades. Or they ignore the hell out of each other."
Loki stilled, staring at Tony. Did he just insinuate something about his relationship - or lack thereof - with Natasha?
When that didn't give him the response he was expecting, Tony sighed. "How about I get you the name of a good therapist? Get some couples counseling?"
"What is this travesty of which you speak?" Loki demanded.
"There are a few really top notch therapists in Manhattan. I can get you some names, hook you up. Because really, one of these days, you're going to go all out and fight. I'd rather not have to hire someone to wash blood out of my home. Or wake up one morning and find half of Manhattan gone because you had an epic shit fit because of your dick moves."
Loki glowered at Tony. "You dare-"
"And I know dick moves. I've made plenty of them myself," he continued blithely, taking another sip of his scotch. "The thing of it is, I learn from my mistakes. Or try to." He paused. "I really am not sure if you do, Horns. Because you'd think you would know what Natasha looks like when pissed off by now."
He did. But now that he thought about it, he also knew what else Natasha was feeling, covering up for it with her anger.
Fear.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Smoke and Mirrors
Series: #13 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Yelena, Natasha/Winter Soldier
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. Additional warning for underage sexual situations, drug use (with and without consent), dubcon, noncon, mindfuckery of various flavors (hello, Red Room!) and detailed descriptions of violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Special thanks to phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: Natasha's past is starting to haunt her and Loki refuses to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, the Red Room never did take no for an answer.
One - Evaluating Threats
"There's another Black Widow."
Natasha didn't outwardly react to Sitwell's comment, and she wondered if he was disappointed in that fact. She sat very calmly as he went over an op to infiltrate Hydra and get close to Ophelia Sarkissian while she had been in Asgard. The op had gone south in a bad way, and all of the agents involved were dead. The sum total of intel that they had been able to get from the op consisted of blurred photos, fractured texts, cut off phone calls full of panicked voices and a handful of encrypted files that had been sent to one of the European safe houses. One of the phone calls had consisted of a mangled prayer and the final words "Oh dear God, she's calling herself the Black Widow. But it's not Romanoff, it's some blonde-"
"What do you make of all of this, Agent Romanoff?" Sitwell asked, leaning forward with that earnest yet vapid expression on his face.
"Her name is Yelena Belova," she replied quietly. "She's the only other survivor of the Black Widow program."
He blinked, surprise clear on his features. "So you know her."
"Once." When that terse reply didn't seem to satisfy him, she shrugged. "I turned mercenary after I burned down the Red Room. She'd gone to ground and nothing else happened until recently. I didn't keep track of her."
Natasha hadn't kept track because Yelena clearly hadn't remembered her in the aftermath of the Red Room's destruction. She had snarled and attacked Natasha, and it was only after a fierce knock down, dragged out fight that they had reached a stalemate. I'll kill you if you come after me. I'm the only Black Widow, the true Black Widow. You are nothing, and I will end you if I ever see you again.
"I find that hard to believe," Sitwell began.
"If there's nothing to track, there's no point. I had enough to do on my own at the time. And then once I was brought in to SHIELD, a different agent was assigned to look into her whereabouts," Natasha replied reasonably, though her stomach roiled. Yelena. Why are you using that name now? What happened?
"So you didn't have to."
"I told the agents everything they needed to know during the debriefs."
"Everything they needed to know," Sitwell echoed. "Was that everything there is to know?"
Of course it wasn't, and they both knew it.
"Yes," Natasha lied.
Sitwell stared at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really." He paused, then leaned forward slightly in his chair. His desk was messier than Coulson's was, and the entire office had a lived in look. Natasha had never felt comfortable in this controlled chaos. She vastly preferred the neater serenity of Coulson's offices. "What's the nature of the information you have that they don't?"
"They don't need to know who she slept with on her own time, what little there was of it. I told them about the ops I knew about, the training sessions and the nature of the escape."
If Sitwell heard her irritated edge, he wisely didn't remark on it. "I've gone over the files since her name first popped up several months ago. She's come up out of nowhere."
No, not nowhere. The Red Room. Its participants weren't seen unless they wanted to be seen. So Yelena wanted to be found now. Why?
"In addition," Sitwell continued, "there apparently was a mention of an assassin with her that had impressive marksmanship and a metal arm."
Natasha couldn't breathe for a moment, and she held herself very still. "That's not possible."
"Why do you say that?"
"There are those in the intelligence community that don't believe he exists. Those that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's a ghost. You'll never find him."
"Why?"
"Because he's dead."
"How can you be so sure if there are sightings of him?"
She stared at him with a flat expression. "Because he was in the Red Room when I burned it down. I killed him."
And her entire universe had shattered in that moment. She had lost the Winter Soldier as well as Yelena Belova, and was cast adrift. Of course she had turned into a mercenary. What other skill set did she have? What other options could she have chosen from?
Contemplating her carefully, Sitwell slowly nodded. "You left that out in your debriefs."
"No one asked about the Winter Soldier and he was dead anyway. There didn't seem to be a point at the time, and I've been occupied since then."
His eyes were sharp, still assessing her. "Are you certain he's dead?"
"Absolutely. Whatever game she's playing, that's not the same man."
"Then I suppose we'll need you to find out what kind of game she's playing," Sitwell announced, closing the file folder in front of him. Oh, how Natasha wanted to hit him for that, take that smug expression off of his face. He was a capable agent, but he grated against every last nerve she possessed. She would rather stand before the entire World Council than deal with him on a regular basis, yet here she was.
Natasha nodded sharply. "Immediately, sir."
She left before she could say anything she would regret.
***
"I have a situation," Natasha said without preamble. She was sitting in Steve's suite at his weekly poker game, along with Clint and Steve's friend Sam Wilson from the VA in Brooklyn. Sam had originally worked in Washington, DC, but had transferred out of protest. One administrator was making life difficult for some of the doctors there that refused to toe his lines about patient care, and it was only getting worse over time. As much as Sam had enjoyed his work with the vets there, particularly his support groups, he wasn't going to support that location even tacitly by ignoring the patient care issues. If anything, he documented it all and forwarded it to several congressmen and committees on Capitol Hill before making a run for New York. "Brooklyn's much better," Steve had commented when he heard the story.
Sam had merely snorted. "Of course it is, you're a Brooklyn boy at heart."
"Best borough in the city," Steve had declared with a grin.
Natasha had waited until the second hand before speaking up. "Is it Loki?" Steve asked with a frown. "He did seem pretty bummed about the banishment."
"Bummed is an understatement," Natasha replied with a shrug. He had actually retreated to the Astoria apartment to cry. When Natasha caught him, he had picked a fight with her until she had punched him in the jaw. Loki had gone down like a sack of bricks and hadn't moved for almost an hour before admitting he had no game plan. For someone that had thrived on convoluted plans and threats of inducing chaos, he reacted to loss like a spoiled little boy.
"It has to do with a meeting at SHIELD that I had." Natasha eyed Sam. "Technically, I shouldn't be discussing this with any of you. And especially not you, Sam."
He grinned at her, teeth a bright and happy flash of white against his dark skin. "Hey, this conversation never happened. Just playing Texas Hold 'Em with some buddies."
"Good." She looked over at Clint. "It has to do with Yelena Belova." He gave her an almost anxious look, likely because he knew how hard it was to discuss anything about her past. She had been a victim of the Red Room for so long, nothing more than a tool, and sometimes she still had trouble finding her way around humanity.
For Steve's and Sam's sakes, she glossed over her past: orphaned when very young, she was brought into a training Academy with other girls. They all competed to get into the Elite program and didn't think twice about the acts they had to do. That included killing, maiming, abducting enemies of the state, torture, seduction and undermining the authority of fellow cadets in the Academy. "I passed my exam to get into the Elites when I was nine and a half," Natasha said, folding her cards together and placing them face down on the table. "The Elites was the Red Room. The best of the best, the assassins and spies for Mother Russia."
Sam looked at their solemn faces. "You sure I should be hearing this?"
"It's above their clearance levels," Natasha murmured. "I know we can trust you. And I have a feeling things are going to go very badly very quickly. I'm going to need help on this."
She could almost feel Clint's shock like a tangible thing. She was actually asking for help? It had to be a doozy of a situation.
"Sitwell wants me to catch her, either bring her in or stop her. The problem is that she has the same training as I do. Which means that the recent sightings are because she wants to be seen. She wants me to find her. I can't even think of a reason why."
"Or is it not necessarily what she remembers of you?" Sam offered, not even pretending to focus on his cards anymore. "The news was all about you being Ambassador to Asgard, making a big show of how the two planets were working together." He shot her a playful smile. "Gotta say, those photos of you in Asgardian gear, all the layers and pins and such? You still look mighty fine like that, Natasha."
She laughed, tension broken a bit. "Still, there has to be a reason why now. She went to ground for years and only now is surfacing. It's in a pretty big way, too." Natasha looked at Steve in concern. "She's with Hydra. She's Ophelia Sarkissian's girlfriend. That means she has access to a lot of dangerous resources. For all we know, she could be the one that was feeding Meissen data last year. We never did find the supplier he bought Hydra secrets from."
"Let's say that theory is accurate," Steve began reasonably, also giving up on the game. That left only Clint still holding cards. "She gets in good with Hydra, lives a life of luxury amidst racist assholes and scientists. Then there you are as Ambassador. They also mentioned you working for SHIELD, so that secret was out, too." He shrugged at her sigh. "She could truly be a Hydra agent. In which case, she could try to use the past relationship to get into SHIELD servers and steal secrets for Hydra."
"I'm the last person who would sell secrets that way."
"But if she's that type and thinks you're the same as she is..." Steve said reasonably.
Clint finally put his cards down. "Hydra would have gone through her head with a fine toothed comb," he said softly. "Her brain isn't safe, so we can't even begin to guess what she thinks. For all we know, seeing your face on TV might have been a trigger for her. That could be why it's now, and not ten years ago."
Natasha looked at him grimly, agreeing with his assessment. "So the big question is, what's her endgame? Using the Black Widow moniker is only going to draw me out. So why does she want to see me again so badly?"
"What was it like the last time you saw her?" Sam asked.
Natasha actually grimaced. "Not good. We fought, and she actually wanted to kill me."
"So we have to assume she's a threat," Steve said softly.
"I hate to say this, but..." Clint squirmed a bit in his seat. "Have Loki drop her in a pocket dimension and forget where it is. You'd be safer that way."
"At what cost?"
He looked away from her, lips compressed unhappily and shame etched into the strain around his eyes. He knew she didn't like behaving in monstrous ways anymore. She had done far too much of that since childhood.
"If she's gone around looking for information on you," Steve began, "you need to find whatever information you can about her."
"Even if we find anything, it can't be trusted. I'm fairly sure it would have been planted by her for whatever purpose. She's already put out rumors of working with someone I know is dead, as a matter of fact."
"Seems to me, you're looking it maybe a little too sideways. The spy thing, I figure," Sam said after a moment, drumming his fingers on the table. "Rather than going around her, just go to her. She probably isn't going to expect that."
"That would mean going to Austria," Natasha remarked.
"I've got vacation time coming up," Sam said idly, though he fooled no one. "And I've never been to Austria before."
Natasha smirked. "I can probably find a way to get SHIELD to comp the tickets."
"You are a wonderful human being," Sam told her with a huge grin on his face.
"Not really, but thank you for saying so."
"Now, you see here," Sam replied. She knew what was coming, as they went through iterations of this conversation every few weeks. "If Captain America thinks you're a worthwhile person, you are. Nobody's 100% angel, even him." He shrugged at this point, which was new. "I get it now, why you say stuff like that. But that was from when you were a kid and they fucked with your head. The way I see it, you can't take full responsibility for that. Some, maybe, but you were a kid. We don't hold kids responsible for most stupid stuff they do. Now, when you're a grown ass adult, that's a whole different story."
Natasha snorted and took a pull from her beer. "Good to know."
Sam shot her another brilliant grin. "Gotta keep me around for some reason. Though it absolutely would not hurt my feelings if it was only for my good looks."
Steve threw some chips at Sam's head and Clint just snorted. "Are we going to finish playing poker or what?" Clint asked.
"Yeah, let's play," Steve urged, taking up all the cards to reshuffle and deal. "You're going to need some time to plan out a mode of attack," he told Natasha. "But we're with you on this, however you need us to help. You wouldn't discuss it otherwise."
"It's mostly because I don't trust Yelena." Something like guilt and fear curled in her stomach, a deep and painful ache. "Once upon a time I used to, but I don't know what she's capable of anymore," Natasha admitted.
"And by the same token," Clint reminded her, "she doesn't know what you can do."
Steve looked at Natasha thoughtfully. "Or is it that you need us because you don't know if you can turn on her if you have to?" His expression softened at her sigh and downcast eyes. "Hey, it's understandable. You were friends."
"In the Red Room, it would have been weakness," Natasha replied softly. "And if they decided I was still useful, I would be punished instead of killed."
That put a damper on conversation. "That is seriously fucked up," Sam said finally.
"That's why I don't talk about it."
Clint reached over and grasped her hand tightly. "Whatever happens with Yelena, we'll back you up. We're family, after all," he reminded her.
That got her smiling at him, and poker night resumed.
***
Loki sat in the suite he had been assigned when he first came to Avengers Tower as a female version of himself. His hideaways on Yggdrasil were always an option, but he was feeling bereft and needed to be close to someone, even if they were not particularly fond of him. He didn't often feel charitable toward them either, truth be told.
A thousand years was a very long time. He should probably get used to feeling lonely. All of these mortals would be dead long before the end of his banishment. He would be alone soon enough, spending the rest of his banishment talking to bones.
He was also angry with Natasha, as well as despondent at how little he seemed to matter to her. Was his love so worthless, then? Did he mean nothing? Oh, she said she cared for him, that what happened to him mattered to her. But did it actually matter in a way that could be love, or was it simply a matter of convenience?
No, it couldn't be that. Their liaison had been nothing but inconvenient for the spy.
The suite seemed too constricting, too full of memories of his pain and bitterness. He stalked from it, pacing the halls without knowing how else to get rid of this nervous energy. Natasha was still in the Tower, in Steve's suite at their fairly regular poker game. He hadn't thought much about not being invited, but now it burned. She didn't think much of him, didn't seem to like him at all. Unless they were enacting their deal, then she seemed to care for him.
By the Tree, he was nothing but an obligation. Whatever she felt, there was no context for it outside their deal, was there? But then why save him from Amora? Why offer to bring him to Asgard as Lara? Why, why, why?
Loki was snarling and ready to pounce on something to break it by the time the poker game dispersed. Natasha didn't seem particularly relaxed afterward. In fact, everyone seemed a little tense, even the apparently unflappable Sam. The man hadn't even blinked at seeing Loki in the Tower and being told that he had met her female form earlier. "Yeah. Superhero thing, whatever that might be," Sam had said at the time with a negligent wave, not pressing for any details or the name Loki had used as a woman. He honestly didn't care about the whys and hows of the transition. "You're still coming to help out in the support group, right?" he had asked. Nonplused, Loki had agreed.
Of course, he now regretted it.
"Natasha. I require your time," Loki had said, reaching out for her.
Her drawn expression really should have been a warning signal, but he ignored it. He had been ignored for too long, and her easy way of entering into physical relations with others bothered him more than he ever wanted to admit aloud. She mattered to him, damn her eyes and lying tongue, and he was nothing to her. All his attempts to get her to name their relationship had resulted in nothing.
"I have things to plan," she said with a sigh. She did look tired, and Loki felt a twinge of sympathy for the strain that she must have been under.
"If it's that woman that plagues you, I can simply eliminate her. Say the word, and she will not trouble you again."
If anything, those words made her blanch. "No. I will not allow that."
Monster, a voice whispered in his mind. "It would take hardly a moment…"
"No!" she snapped angrily.
"Why not? The woman will be gone, you have no need to worry after your safety or the safety of others. She plagues you. You can't want her near you, even if you once called her friend and claimed she offered comforts." Loki was utterly incredulous, and didn't care if their argument was drawing a crowd.
"Not now, Loki. I have things to do."
"Or people?" he asked snidely as he caught hold of her arm.
She had grown very still, and Loki willfully ignored the others in the common room, just down the hall. He crowded into her space, rage simmering beneath his skin. He had tried, he really did, he would be true to her, would burn the cosmos if it made her happy. The damned rings and Essine Ruby had been retrieved at great personal cost to keep her safe. Didn't that count for anything? He was trying, he didn't understand what she wanted, but still he was trying to please her. Why didn't that matter to her?
"You need to let me go, Loki. Now," she all but snarled, using her domme voice.
He wanted to obey her. He wanted to ignore her. He wanted to strike her. He wanted to fuck her right there against the wall, her friends be damned.
"Or what?" he insisted, still holding her arm tightly.
"You aren't to interfere with my work," she hissed.
"Your work," he snarled. "And did that include that woman? Did that include Fandral? How many tumbled into your bed for the sake of your work?"
Because he had been a job, too. She had bedded him, tried to entice him to join SHIELD. He had done stupid things on her behalf, which had been for SHIELD's benefit.
"I don't have time for this bullshit," she snapped, yanking her arm away from him.
No. She couldn't leave him, not like everyone else.
"You will not turn your back on me, Natasha," Loki snarled.
"Watch me." She yanked her arm away from him and stalked toward the common room, her entire body language thrumming with anger.
Well, he had never been very good about following people's signals to stay away.
Loki followed her into the common room. "You didn't answer me, Natasha. How many enter your bed as part of your work?" he asked, the dubiousness of her work clear in his derisive tone. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred? How many fell between your thighs before you earned the title of Black Widow?"
At this, she turned and gave him a resounding slap across the face, her terrifying expression just enough to give him pause. "Do not ever speak to me this way again." Before he could react, she punched him right in the solar plexus, then grabbed his head as he gasped for air. She slammed his face into her knee, and everyone could hear the crunch of cartilage in his nose breaking. "If you do, I will gut you and hang you with your own entrails, then light the remains on fire. Do I make myself clear?"
"You may try," he challenged. "I am a god, and you cannot best me."
Without telegraphing what she intended to do ahead of time, Natasha hooked one foot behind his leg and swept it out in a circle. Loki fell onto his back, the breath whooshing out of him in his surprise, and then the heel of her boot came crashing down on his chest. Then she fell onto one knee, which was also aimed at his chest. Something broke, pain shooting through him, and it was all he could do to stop from crying out.
"Do not test me, Loki. You have far more to lose right now than I do."
Oh, her voice was cold and her expression forbidding and heartless. She stalked out of the common room without a backward glance. No one said a word, and finally Tony went over to the wet bar to pour a drink. "Hey, Horns. You look like shit. I think you need a drink."
Loki traced a limrunar over his chest, forcing the broken rib to push back into place. It was a sharp, painful maneuver, actually worse than getting the injury in the first place. "I did not ask what you thought," he replied coldly.
"Suit yourself," he replied with a shrug, taking the scotch for himself. "You know," he began thoughtfully after taking a sip, "you're like an old married couple. Or at least like my parents, before my mother discovered booze and my father disappeared into a lab."
Surprised by Tony's nonchalant attitude about that little glimpse into the Stark household when he was young, Loki could only stare at him. Why was he talking of such things now?
It was clear Loki didn't get his point, so Tony snorted and shook his head. "Horns, you're utterly clueless, aren't you?"
"Explain yourself," Loki snarled, losing patience with him.
Tony smirked. "Well, when a Mommy and a Daddy care about each other very much-"
"You blundering fool," Loki snapped.
"-they get married. But then when it falls apart, they go into screaming tirades. Or they ignore the hell out of each other."
Loki stilled, staring at Tony. Did he just insinuate something about his relationship - or lack thereof - with Natasha?
When that didn't give him the response he was expecting, Tony sighed. "How about I get you the name of a good therapist? Get some couples counseling?"
"What is this travesty of which you speak?" Loki demanded.
"There are a few really top notch therapists in Manhattan. I can get you some names, hook you up. Because really, one of these days, you're going to go all out and fight. I'd rather not have to hire someone to wash blood out of my home. Or wake up one morning and find half of Manhattan gone because you had an epic shit fit because of your dick moves."
Loki glowered at Tony. "You dare-"
"And I know dick moves. I've made plenty of them myself," he continued blithely, taking another sip of his scotch. "The thing of it is, I learn from my mistakes. Or try to." He paused. "I really am not sure if you do, Horns. Because you'd think you would know what Natasha looks like when pissed off by now."
He did. But now that he thought about it, he also knew what else Natasha was feeling, covering up for it with her anger.
Fear.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Smoke and Mirrors