How You Live And Breathe, 2/3. NC-17
Title: How You Live And Breathe
Series: #20 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. References events in prior stories as well as Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Catching the Purple Man doesn't even make a dent in figuring out daily routines. Should it?
Prior chapter:
One - Backtrack
Two - Dealing With Nightmares
Clint, Natasha, James, Bruce and Jane met up with Sam and Steve for dinner downtown. "No Sif or Thor?" Natasha had asked in surprise. She had thought it was going to be a larger group outing than the seven of them.
"They went back to Asgard for a brief stint," Jane explained. "Someone making problems for them that they wanted Sif's help with. Thor went along with, though Sif clearly told him to stay here because he was going to be pretty useless."
"Not in those words, exactly," Steve commented. "Sif was nice about it."
"As nice as you could possibly be saying that menfolk are weak punks," Sam added, snorting in amusement. "I didn't know Thor did embarrassed, but he was."
"Lorelei," Natasha guessed, remembering her conversation with Melinda. At Jane's nod, Natasha allowed herself a smile. "Well, corrupting the minds of men is kind of her schtick."
"Assuming we got minds to corrupt," James joked.
Steve went still for a moment, unsure if he should laugh along with James and Natasha, or if this was a veiled commentary about his time as the Winter Soldier. Sam bumped his shoulder in support, and he relaxed a bit. "I can keep my head around a pretty dame," he said lamely, hoping James didn't notice his freezing.
"Assuming you don't actually like her in the dating sense," James retorted with his old shit eating grin. It reminded Steve so much of his pre-serum days, he couldn't even be sore at James for bringing it up. That was such a Bucky thing to say that he laughed along with everyone else and shook his head.
"How long did they say it was going to be?" Natasha asked Jane.
"They weren't sure," Jane replied, shrugging. "But Heimdall was nice enough to say that he would try his best to make sure our timelines match up. I haven't figured out the physics behind the weird flow in time between our realms. But as long as two of his months isn't two of our years, I think I'll be okay."
Clint frowned. "It's really weird how that works. Is it a dimension-jumping thing, you think? Like if somehow there was space travel between our planets instead of a portal, time would sync up better?"
"The distance is so prohibitively distant that it would take generations to get there," Jane replied. "So I'll take a few months of disconnect rather than generations."
"Makes you wonder if there are beings out there that live longer than they do," James mused aloud. "Or shorter. Or if it's all relative." He frowned suddenly. "I don't think that made sense."
"Sure it did, Buck. Just because Asgardians live for five thousand years or so, it might not be our years. Or because of the strange way time works."
"You think about it because of your relationship with Sif," Bruce guessed.
"It's made me more aware of it," Steve agreed.
James flicked his gaze onto Natasha. "So that's what you mean Loki will eventually be devastated. You mean when you die."
Clint frowned as she nodded. "He already didn't do well while you were away."
"He's not exactly all that stable," Bruce commented. "Better than when he tried to take over New York, but that's probably not saying much."
"Let's change topic," Natasha said abruptly, eyeing the door. "The last time I talked about him with friends in a public place, he simply showed up as if I had called."
"Probably the magic bond mojo," Clint remarked. "He knows if you're in trouble or not. It probably works like a messaging system of a sort."
Natasha snorted. "Magic text messaging? Not what it's cracked up to be at all."
"Well, we know that magic is somewhat related to radiation. At least of the gamma variety," Bruce offered. "I've come up with different ways to scan it in action..." He smiled when Natasha lifted her phone. "Right. Like that tracking app we developed. The different kinds of magic and spells all have different resonances."
Jane perked up. "So maybe it might be a good side project. Why don't you call in Dr. Ross? She's another renowned gamma expert."
Bruce managed to hide his wince. "I know Betty. Um... I've been trying to keep her out of it. The people interested in gamma radiation aren't always scientists."
"Right," Jane scoffed. "Like anyone at this table would allow the military to kidnap her."
James outright glowered and lifted his gloved metal fist. "Just tell me who's got 'er, Bruce, I'll help bring her back. I wouldn't want anyone else going through what I did."
No one edged away, which was gratifying to Steve. He didn't always know how to deal with the random outbursts or tossed off comments. Ignoring them probably wasn't the way to go either, but he didn't know how to approach it. People didn't talk about this sort of things when they were growing up, and shell shock really hadn't been discussed in the army.
Jane and Bruce explained that Betty wasn't kidnapped by the army, though her father was a general and there was no love lost between him and Bruce. She had left military sponsorship to academia, so her work had fewer applications that the military might be interested in. "I e-mail her every once in a while," Bruce admitted. "She won't even take work at Oscorp or any other company that might even do contract work. Tony talked about hiring her on, but we all know he'd be just creating a position just for her."
"You mean like he did for us?" Jane pointed out. She pointed at him with her fork. "Trust me when I tell you, she'd jump ship. Trying to do applications for grants or sponsorships can make you drop IQ points."
This touched off a discussion between public work and private companies, which left most of them unable to comment. Steve was about to suggest something else as a topic of discussion when he noticed Natasha whispering something to James, brows drawn in slightly and her hand on his arm. He couldn't recognize the shape of any words she was saying, so it probably wasn't English or French. There were very few Russian words he could recognize, let alone lip read, so he turned away to give them privacy. He liked the idea of the two of them supporting each other, of having found someone to understand their darker moments. They needed someone that could understand and be there unconditionally; as much as Steve wished he could be that person, he doubted he would ever truly understand what James had gone through. He tried his best, and James had said he appreciated the effort.
Of course, his own nightmares didn't bother him much anymore. Or the flashes of wartime, dead faces and sound of explosions. Or the helplessness that came in his sleep, where he couldn't even lift the shield anymore, and the super soldier serum had faded.
"You know, the Avengers are kinda like a club, I think," Clint was saying in response to something Sam said. "We can play the game of who's least fucked up, but I for one think that's a shitty contest to play."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, frowning.
"We're all traumatized in some way. I think even Jane is, considering you hang out with us so much. Secondhand trauma, just from worrying about us."
"Don't forget, you and your fellow agents stormed into my space in Puente Antiguo and took my research," she reminded him. "Darcy called you all jackbooted thugs."
Natasha didn't even bother to smother her snort of amusement.
"If the boot fits," Clint replied with a grin. He turned to James, leaning in intently. "So. What do you think?"
"Bruce mentioned something-"
"Because he's a reasonable guy. C'mon, I could use a fellow sharpshooter on the team."
James froze in place, though only Natasha and Steve seemed to catch it. No, Sam did, too, because he deliberately knocked over his beer, sending its contents crashing into Clint's lap. The two exchanged glances, and Sam gave Steve a surreptitious nod.
"Back off, Clint," Sam said mildly. He helped dab at the beer, but only ground it in further into the denim. "If he feels like hanging out with the rest of you, he will. Looks like a sausage fest to me. I don't think it's weird he'd rather hang back with Natasha."
"Thanks. I think," James said, frowning slightly.
"She's fine," Sam said, giving Natasha the same kind of playful leer he used to at their old poker games. "Of course she'd want a guy that can keep up with that hotness, and for the sake of your ego I respectfully bowed out of the competition."
That sent off some playful jokes all around the table, preventing the conversation from taking a more serious tone. James didn't seem worse for wear, so Steve could only suppose it was another trigger of some kind. Was he flashing back to the Winter Soldier days or Howling Commandos? Steve would have thought the Commandos days were pretty good, though there had been their fair share of death then, too.
There was no right way or wrong way to do this, was there?
Steve thought of that later, when he nearly walked in on Natasha and James in one of the hallways beyond the common areas. He was cradled in Natasha's arms, struggling to breathe evenly. "...want to, I do, but I don't know how to be good enough for it."
"The same way the rest of us do," Natasha had told him quietly, stroking his back. "We're all flawed, James. Some more than others. Even Steve, you know. He's not some kind of perfect golden god. None of us are perfect, and we do the best we can. You're a good man. You wouldn't worry about honoring the group if you weren't."
He had looked up, anguish on his features, eyes searching hers. "I have to earn it."
Natasha caught his face in her hands, a tender expression on her face. "You do. You will. Every day you get up and keep fighting the memories back, you keep going past them. You're not letting Department X win, James. That makes you worthy."
"It can't be that easy."
"As easy as balancing my ledger is."
They shared some bitter laughter, and then James noticed Steve standing nearby. He blanched and nearly pulled away from Natasha's tiny frame.
"Don't, Buck," Steve murmured with a sigh. "C'mon, let's go ten rounds."
"No, it's not a good idea-"
"I get feeling down or like the nightmares won't end, I take it out on a couple of bags. I tend to break 'em after about fifteen or twenty minutes." Steve paused. "Sometimes it helps get the restless out. It's not like I could really damage my hands, but if I can feel 'em and start to get a little winded, I don't think about nightmares."
James frowned at him. "I don't get it. Why do you have nightmares?"
"You think I really wanted to kill anybody? Beat 'em down or watch my friends die?"
James remained stock still, even when Natasha rubbed at his spine sympathetically. "Steve-"
"We won't know if it'll help until we try, right?" Steve asked. "I don't know any other way to help, but I want to."
He let out a sigh and scrubbed at his jaw. "There are things from the Winter Soldier days that I remember that I wish I didn't. I could head out, find the safe houses, the weapons left in the field. Hunt 'em down, maybe."
"James," Natasha murmured, shaking her head. "Not the way we did it with Yelena."
"But there are dangers I can still prevent. I think maybe that's what I've been looking for."
"Your way to atone," Steve murmured. When James nodded, Steve shrugged. "Want help?"
Startled, James merely looked at him. "It's not your fight."
"Bullshit. You've always been my family and my friend, Buck. Your fight's always been mine, same as when I was a little guy and you jumped in to finish mine."
"If he helps, you know I will. And Sam will. And then you've got Clint who will rush in. Maybe Loki would. Then because of the research opportunity that poses, you loop in Bruce and Jane and Tony." Natasha smirked at James' startled expression. "You're not alone, Жизнь моя, not ever again."
"Way to gang up on a fella," James muttered, shaking his head. But his lips carried the faint edge of a smile. "You all got fancy nicknames for your work. What'll I use?"
"Use the Winter Soldier," Steve told him gravely. "Take back the name, make it yours. Don't let them use it against you. You're a soldier that's been through it all, to the end of the line and back, and I think you can turn it around." He let his lips quirk into a smile. "Captain America used to be just a show and a photo op, remember?"
"This is a little more serious than show tunes," James told him, irritation in his tone. "The Winter Soldier is a ghost. A fairy tale to scare mercenaries with."
Steve shot him a grin. "Well, good. Then nobody will mess with you."
That threw James. He saw the support on Steve's and Natasha's face, and something in his stance eased a bit. Steve hoped James realized that he wasn't trying to force him to do anything he didn't want to do, didn't want him uncomfortable or in pain. But Steve learned to push past and through his, cover it up with smiles and snark. So did the others. It was the only way they knew how to be, how to live with everything in the past.
"I'll think on it," James promised. That was more than good enough for Steve.
***
James had his nightmares, Natasha had hers. Sometimes they woke each other, sometimes not; by unspoken agreement, they didn't wake up the other from a sound sleep. It wasn't as if they discussed their nightmares anyway. What would be the point? Times had changed, and Natasha wanted to move past the trauma of the Red Room. It wasn't as far behind her as she thought it was, and she couldn't tolerate that.
This particular evening, Natasha jerked awake and her heart was in her throat - blood tumbling down, over and over and over, dead eyes staring back at her, nothing good ever happens when I'm looking for it, why did I think this would ever be better, I'm sliding backward and I won't be good for anybody! - but James wasn't sitting on alert or sprawled in the bed beside her. Figuring he went to the gym, she went directly there. It wasn't a complete surprise to see him and Steve going full tilt with boxing gloves. It was a little bit of a surprise that there were kicks as well.
"Since when did you practice capoiera?" Natasha teased Steve.
He merely grinned at her. "After seeing how effective your style is and picking up a few moves in our practice sessions. Got into it more while you were up in Asgard."
The three of them settled into a rough triangle and started to fight in earnest. Natasha didn't much care that they had their hands wrapped and in gloves while hers weren't. The healing spells would kick in and repair the damage to her knuckles, and the pain was sharp enough to ground her and drive away the last shaky remnants of her nightmares. She knew how to move through pain, and the familiarity of it helped draw her forward and out of the past.
Eventually they tired and decided a good hour or more of fighting was more than enough for the early morning hours. Passing through the common area for drinks, Natasha was startled to see Clint playing video games on the big screen TV, headphones on. His hearing had worsened a bit more, but appeared to be at a stable state of loss now. The doctor had suggested hearing aids, but Clint was a bit reluctant to be singled out. Keeping the volume for everything at 175% wasn't a good solution, either, however.
He startled badly when Natasha touched his shoulder to get his attention. "Oh, hey," he said, yanking off the headphones. They had the extra padding around the edges to make a good seal; now broken, she could hear the background music of the game blaring. "I see we have new members to the Avengers Insomnia Club," he snarked, seeing Steve and James in the doorway. "Hey, Barnes, how are you with a game controller? We could totally play Mario Kart."
Natasha wasn't fooled by the false cheer, but didn't want to say anything to him in front of the others. "That game can end friendships," she remarked.
"Nah, that's Monopoly or Uno."
"So, what topics are off limits?" Clint asked loudly as he loaded the video game. At James' and Steve's blank looks, he sighed. "Look, no point ignoring the fact that we're all up at four am and have been for a while. You don't get this far in our careers without getting a little trauma, and nothing good ever happens at four am."
"Oh, I'm sure there's something..." Steve began.
"Name one."
No one could think of anything offhand, and Clint nodded as if to say "I rest my case." He distributed controllers, and there were a few minutes of hilarity as he tried to teach James how to use them. Steve tended to be a button masher when he played with Clint, so they usually did old school fighter games like Tekken, the original Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. James got the hang of it easily, and for a while no one spoke.
"If nothing's off limits," Clint began as they all went into the second lap, "I'll go first. Nightmares fucking suck, and this trauma thing is crap. But pretending like it's not there isn't going to make it go away, either." He flicked his eyes toward Natasha. "You've seen that therapist like three times, right?"
"Four," Natasha replied in a clipped tone of voice. Her grip on the controller wasn't too tight, but her body language clearly told him to shut up.
Clint never did follow her signals if he didn't feel like it, and this was no different. "And let me guess, you're talking about early shit, not the stuff going on right now."
She remained silent, not wanting to answer. Of course he was right, and of course the therapist was too new, didn't know anything about her history, and it was easier to delve deeper into the fragments of memory than to say how her guilt was bound up in memories of Yelena bleeding to death in her arms, of Clint's shocked expression as the bullets ripped into him, of the fall over the side of the building, of thinking that she had killed James all over again.
"Maybe you need to lay off her," James said, hitting the buttons too hard. Good thing Tony had thought to reinforce the controllers. Thor sometimes broke them, and Bruce had sometimes been afraid that letting the Hulk out would mean he randomly broke things he touched.
"Maybe you're laying off too much," Clint returned. "Maybe ignoring it doesn't mean it's going to get better. I've done this for years, I'm not a complete asshole about this. We've danced around topics, we've talked without talking. We pretend it's not there. But you know what? I'm sick of the silence. I know I can't hear as well as I used to, and that was even compromised. But now I lost the nuances. I can't hear the warnings as well as I used to. I can't hear when you're coming, I can't tell by how you step if it's a good day or a bad one. I can't tell by the pitch in people's voices if shit is going down. I can only tell by how you stand, what your facial expressions are, but that's only good if I'm facing you."
"So get the damn aids," Natasha snapped.
"Why? So you can keep dancing around me, too? So you can think I'm broken?"
She was so startled she actually dropped the controller. It didn't matter if she was dropping back to fourth place. Natasha stared at him. "I don't think you're broken. Why the hell would you think that? Why aren't you thinking I'm the one with the issues?"
"Because you fall into the same horrible habits, but you at least used to tell me about the bad shit as it happened. I get it, there's juggling Barnes and Loki and trust me, that is a headache I want no part of. But the other stuff. You used to at least mention that."
Natasha leaned forward and grabbed his arm tightly enough he would have bruises later. "I needed you to think I was the same. That I'm okay."
"Well, that's just stupid. You're not. Nobody here is."
"So we're all a bunch of idiots?" James asked.
"Seems that way," Steve said, tossing the controller aside. "Now what?"
Clint let his character zoom past the finish line. "Now that I've kicked your asses," he said with a grin, "I suggest we get an early breakfast, a pot of coffee each and figure out what we're doing with the rest of the day. Having a whole lot of nothing won't help, I promise you. C'mon, would I ever steer you wrong?" he asked in a teasing lilt.
"Yes," Natasha replied promptly. They both dissolved into laughter, their old easygoing routine back in place. She looped an arm through James' and nodded toward the kitchen. "But not with breakfast. C'mon, James. I'll even make you pancakes."
"I think I like those," he allowed.
"Everyone loves pancakes, Bucky," Steve replied with a grin. "Trust me, you'll remember that one. Syrup's too sweet and the butter's different, some kind of yogurt thing, but it's still really good. We can put strawberries on top."
"No foolin'?" he asked, eyebrow lofted. "I always liked those."
Natasha filed that bit of information away with a smile. They'd never learned things like that about each other before. It would be fun introducing him to new things.
***
Loki was snappish and irritable, anxiety and unnamable awkward emotions writhing beneath his skin. He didn't feel entirely comfortable asking Natasha for what he needed, not since the night of the gala when he had simply been with her and James and was, without the trappings of control and dominance. But whether it was the investigation - no, not likely, that was hardly any effort on his part - or the clawing sense of wrongness at being wanted at Sam's PTSD group therapy meeting but not at any outings the others would go on, he couldn't say. He didn't need their paltry dinners or lunches, but it would have been nice to at least been offered a chance to attend. If he had been considered at all.
She knew something was wrong with him, but he refused to say and sound like a mewling child still on leading strings. Instead, he hurled an insult at Bruce, quietly reading a journal article while drinking herbal tea. Loki couldn't even remember what he said, but Bruce had gone unnaturally still. He had a faint frisson of worry that the Hulk would appear, no matter how good Bruce's control was, and he suddenly regretted not getting a formal series of dates each month for his deal with Natasha. When he'd told her Wednesday wasn't a good day to meet, he never reset it to a different day.
Damn and blast, he truly was an idiot sometimes.
James was at his side and yanking him to his feet with only a flick of Natasha's eyes. Oh, she was good, and his knees knocked together and his mouth watered with want at the sight of her command.
"I'll take care of this, Bruce," Natasha promised, a slight grimace in Loki's direction. "I suppose it was too much to hope that he wouldn't be a nuisance."
"He's not wrong," Bruce tried to say, a quaver in his voice.
Oh, he was going to get it. Loki wanted to preen and strut for Natasha, because his retribution was going to be glorious.
"Of course he's wrong!" Natasha cried immediately. Ever to the defense of her friends, ever quickly to absolve others of blame she regularly took onto herself. Loki did manage to suppress his smile and snort as Natasha unleashed a litany of his faults, first and foremost his preternatural ability to lie without lying.
There was more, but James frog marched him out of the sitting area and into the kitchen, nearly slamming him into the counter. "You don't malign him," James hissed, eyes flashing. Had he also gotten chummy with the Hulk? But no, it wasn't likely. More likely was that Bruce was a neutral friend, calm and unshakable, teaching him how to deal with trauma and how to achieve a zen sense of peace. Or perhaps he took on Natasha's friends as his own, defending them as neatly and surely as she would.
"Oh, but it's what I do," Loki said, unable to hide his smile now.
"Because you're a little shit sometimes," Natasha said, coming into the kitchen. Eyes flashing, she was as regal in her casual clothing as she was in royal Asgardian dress or the fetching green gown she wore at the Natural Museum of History. "I know what this is about," she said after a moment, seeing his slick grin.
"Oh? Do enlighten me?" Loki purred, as if James didn't have his arms pinned at his sides and was holding him immobile.
"Our deal was suspended. And you're in desperate need of a session."
Yes. He wanted to shout it from the rooftop, but he settled for simply grinning madly at her, sharp teeth and glittering eyes, need rolling from him in waves. "Am I?" he managed to ask in a calm tone.
He didn't fool her at all. Of course. Her eyes narrowed. "You go to the apartment now. James and I will follow the long way." So they would take the subway, leaving him to take a portal. How inconvenient and such a delicious torment. Of course he would do it. He would follow her rules, he would do as she asked to get her hands on him.
Taking the long way meant that he was agitatedly stalking through the small Astoria apartment with nothing to do until she arrived to start the session. He laid out several tools he had interest in, reverently stroking the riding crop and flogger as he put them down on top of the dresser. If she wanted to do anything else, he would accept it, but he wanted her to mark him. He could still remember the welts in her skin when he had spanked or struck her, and his mouth watered at the thought that she would do the same to his pale skin. The marks would stand out so beautifully, and it would be something he could keep for a time. James wouldn't submit to that, he knew, though James also would never force Natasha's hand to do such a thing.
Natasha was irritated with him, and immediately had him kneel down in the living room once the apartment wards and alarms were up and in place. Loki grinned at her, sharp teeth and manic edge in place, need gnawing at his insides. He repeated the safe words to her satisfaction, just a touch of insolence in his tone. Natasha grabbed him by his hair, loose and wavy instead of slicked back, yanking him to his feet. He was still hunched over because of the height difference, the sharp tugs in his scalp like little needs pricking his skin. "That disrespect will cost you," she said, her own teeth bared.
She didn't enjoy this, necessarily, but she was his in this moment, no thought of anyone else, no care for the taciturn man at her side. She could take it out of his hide, could do whatever she liked, as long as she was his.
Walking into the bedroom, Natasha was less than pleased by the preparation he'd made. "You don't dictate terms, Loki," she snarled. The sound was glorious, and he couldn't help but laugh at the sound of it. The slap against his face was a delicious sting, and he dimly wondered when he needed this to feel whole again.
"The bottom drawer has heavy chains," she told James. "Chain him down."
A real lick of fear curled around his gut, but this was Natasha. She wouldn't hurt him any more than was necessary, any more than he wanted her to. She was fire and brimstone, divine retribution for the awful things he had done. This was what he deserved, what he wanted, what he begged for, her hands on him, all over him, working him until his mind could simply stop and he was empty of the ugliness inside.
Still caught in her grip, Loki was marched over to the bed, where he was unceremoniously bent over, each wrist chained to the posts at the footboard of the bed. A loop of chain draped over the back of his neck, weighing him down. Shivering at the memory of the cave and Amora and the venom burning into his body, he grit his teeth against it and forced it away. Natasha was not Amora, would never be her. Natasha would not glory in his misery. She did her best by him, was honest with him, had been unflinchingly clear about her expectations with this deal.
It was his own fault he loved her to distraction, not hers.
She had him recite his litany of sins, and yes, yes, yes, he was awful and horrible. The lies and misdirection, half truths and silences, absences when he could have helped in more tangible ways, the clawing sense that he was not good enough, that he was a fraud, that he was a monster in humanoid skin, the awful things he said, the way he goaded her into this instead of simply asking to start again after they said they would. He had fallen back into his old ways, flitting about her, hesitant to intrude on the relationship she had with James, not wanting to see how little he really mattered. And it circled, over and over and over, feeding upon itself, a vile ouroboros that would consume him, would trigger his personal Ragnarok, would devour any sliver of happiness he didn't already destroy.
He cried out when the paddle came down over his bared skin. He hadn't even noticed her cutting the clothes off his body, how she hadn't allowed him the dignity of undressing for this, and his soul sang at that. She owned this, she was exerting her will over his, she would take care of this, she would rein him in, Natasha was in control and would keep him from spiraling away from all that he worked so hard to build for her. Counting out the strokes was a glory, a privilege, just punishment for nearly ruining what she tried to build for him. He wasn't as good as she was, he couldn't do the same for her even when he tried so hard, but he was trying, he simply couldn't make it work, didn't understand how to be.
Throat raw from his cries, he counted out the numbers as they climbed ever higher, James' metal hand on the back of his head to help keep him from thrashing around. But he wasn't fighting back, was he? Loki wanted this, wanted the reminder of her, wanted her hands on him, wanted her to fuck him however she wanted, wanted her to use him, wanted her here, just wanted and wanted and wanted, an incoherent wish he no longer had the words for as the paddle came down over his skin.
And then it stopped, making him howl in frustration. Now he pulled at the chains, but they were heavy, his magic suppressed, and he started screaming in Allspeak.
The lick of the flogger against his sore skin startled him, calmed him. Grounded him. James pulled back on his hair, dragging his eyes from the nonsensical patterns on the coverlet to stare at his very blue eyes. Of course he was beautiful. Why wouldn't Natasha like beautiful things? Why didn't Natasha deserve such things?
"I should make you suck him off," Natasha said crudely when the flogger fell still. "Or have him fuck this red ass of yours."
He shuddered, pulling at his limbs from the chains. Stuck fast, Loki gulped and tried to remember how to speak. "Please," he rasped.
The flogger fell to the floor, and there was a sussurus behind him. James jerked on his hair, blue eyes flashing in warning. "Are you begging, Loki?"
"If I have to," Loki said, voice hoarse from crying out so much. "Anything."
"Anything?" James taunted. The sound of it was ugly, scraping at Loki's insides. "You'd beg me to fuck you? You'd beg me to do that to you?"
Shuddering again, Loki tried to shake his head. But James still had his hair in a tight grip, so it tugged painfully and likely pulled some of his hair out. "Not that. I can't. I'll call it. I'll use it. I've only used it once, I can't. I can't-"
But then there was a soothing and cool balm against the fire in his skin, Natasha's hands kneading it into him. "I know you can't," Natasha said. "You can be many things, but not that, even for me."
Loki sobbed, feeling a spike of disappointment for not being able to please her. "I can't," he sobbed, eyes sliding shut so he didn't have to look at James anymore. "Please, please, Natasha, I can't, I can't do this anymore, I can't-"
"Sh," she said. It was soothing sound, but different than before. Her slim fingers were slicked and sliding into his ass, stretching him, preparing him. She made nonsensical sounds as she worked him open, and it was comforting. But there were different tones there, a sadness that he hadn't heard the first time she pegged him, the other times after the deal was struck in the beginning. So much loss since then, so much hurt, some of it at his hands, and so much he hadn't been able to fix.
The stretch was uncomfortable, her clothing rough against his sensitized skin. But he took it, tolerated the feel of James' hand in his hair and on his shoulder as well as the chains, cried out in pleasure as she pounded into him, as she wrung him dry, dragging every sensation out of him, reduced him to jelly, had him coming in spurts on the coverlet. And still she rode him hard, hips snapping and digging into his ass. Loki made hoarse, unintelligible sounds that were supposed to be words, perhaps begging for release from her ministrations, perhaps for release from all that made him unwanted and unlovable.
Loki nearly sobbed as his body reacted to Natasha's silicone cock still pounding into him. The rhythm was perfect but relentless, not allowing him to catch his breath. The keening noise he heard was himself, struggling to breathe. She was reducing him to nerve endings, sensation only, pure pleasure, and it was exactly what he wanted. James shifted his grip when Loki writhed and tried to pull away from him, but instead of being harsh, the man cradled his head gently, almost as a parent would cradle a crying child.
Oh. He was crying, too, drooling and sobbing into the coverlet, cock jerking and spurting irregularly onto it lower down. Loki couldn't find it in him to feel ashamed.
Natasha wrenched another orgasm from his wrecked body. The pleasure was almost too much for him to bear, blurring the boundary back over into pain. But he deserved this, didn't he? She tortured him so exquisitely, contained and constrained him, gave him boundaries and enforced them, gave him room to move and even lead on occasion.
By the Tree, she was perfect.
He must have said the words aloud, because her slicked palms went down his back as her hips slowed down and he fell back from that overwhelming edge. "Sh," she crooned. "Sh, we've got you, Loki."
She must have nodded or signaled James in some way, because he started to remove the heavy chains and helped lift him up onto the bed. Loki could barely move his limbs. He was loose limbed, wrung out, emptied of everything. He was new, scrubbed clean, completely at their mercy. Yet he loved this feeling, that all was right, that he was floating inside his own body, peace found at last.
Natasha stroked his chest and pressed her lips against his temple. "We've got you. We've got you. James will keep watch. You're safe here."
"I am," he murmured, lips curling into a drugged smile.
There was cool metal at the base of his head, and Loki almost missed it when James withdrew to perch on the edge of the bed away from him. He closed his eyes, content.
"I think we're done here," Natasha murmured.
"No, no, don't go..." Loki moaned, eyes snapping open. "Don't leave."
"I meant the session, Loki," Natasha said firmly, pressing her hand onto his chest. It pushed his body further into the coverlet, and the pressure caused the welts on his ass and thighs to flare into heat again. He sucked in a breath, alert and awake, still content. "You didn't have to push me into it this way," she chided. "You could've just asked me."
"You're so happy without me," Loki heard himself say, not intending to admit it.
She sighed, chin dropping down. Her hair fell into her face, a red curtain obscuring her features from view. He lifted his hand to brush it away, hoping to see her eyes. He thought of how she looked at that gala weeks ago, vivid and alive, secure in her skin, sure of herself. It was such a contrast to how lost she was after Yelena's death, how she was when she thought she had killed James again. Now he was her shadow, starting to slip out of the Winter Soldier shell.
What did she need him for? Why had she ever needed him? What good could he do for her?
He pulled her down for a kiss, desperation still in his lips. "I don't know what I'd do without you. You'll never grieve me. Maybe there would be relief, maybe you'd miss me. But my absence wouldn't grieve you. Sometimes it hurts so much to know that."
Natasha curled her hand around his and brought it to her chest. "I do need you here."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe her so badly.
James stood abruptly. "I'll leave. That'll be easier for you, Loki," he said. "I'm not what you need here, and I'll just be in the way."
Loki wanted to deny that, but all he could say was "Natasha needs you."
Turning to look at Loki with an eerily blank expression, James simply said "But you don't, and this is about you right now."
"But-"
"We all came to terms with this. Or at least, I thought we did," James told him. He looked to Natasha and murmured something in Russian, then left the bedroom.
"Did something happen to make you doubt yourself again?" Natasha asked, shifting to curl up around him.
His perfect peace was shattered. He couldn't even do this right, could he? Wrecked and exhausted physically, but now his mind whirred. "I don't belong anywhere, do I?"
"If you don't belong anywhere," Natasha said quietly, "then you can be anyone and anything."
"One of the tenets of the Red Room?" he guessed. At her quiet nod, Loki grasped her arm almost painfully tight. "But I want to. Belong somewhere. But I don't, and all these overtures mock me, they hurt me. I'm not like the others, I can't stay here and pretend I'm like them. I can't be what everyone wants me to be."
"You stand out too much."
"I-" Loki buried his face in Natasha's lap and let her hold him. It wasn't physical appearance; he had blended in with innocent passersby in New York plenty of times. He could even take the subway without glamour and be unnoticed, just another man taking mass transit. Anonymous and no one important, he could be undetected. If he had the gilt armor and horned helm, others would know him. Then they would fear him. Then they would know who he was, what he had tried to do five years ago, and there would be screams.
Suddenly, his mind slipped sideways. He and the other agencies were going about finding the Purple Man all wrong. It wasn't about who he was now. He was purple, and even in a city like New York, people would notice that. But he stole priceless antiquities and high end materials that would be found in an upscale home in the Upper West Side. He stole money without hurting others until the very end, in such a violent and personal way.
He might not be seen now, but the Purple Man had been someone before. He had been seen, he had been known.
The key to finding him now would be knowing who he was before he was purple.
Loki let out a slow breath. "I'm not good enough," he told her slowly. "I can't shake who I was, who I used to be. Sometimes I don't want to. If I can't be loved, at least I can be feared."
Natasha carded her fingers through his hair gently. It was a soft touch, one they both enjoyed, and Loki leaned into it. "But if you're feared, no one gets close. It's another mask. Another layer to protect your innermost self, something else to keep you separated from others. It's still a lie, and it won't get you what you want."
"Which is?"
"You want to be needed. To be known and appreciated. But when you get it, you don't know what to do with it, so you run. You hide behind the persona of awful brutality or asshole behavior. It's not what you want, but it's what you know you can deal with. It's harder to deal with the unknown. It's terrifying."
"How would you know? You seem to live without fear."
"No," she corrected softly. "I've just learned to use my fear. I'm afraid all the time. I hurt all the time. I pushed it aside and didn't let it take over. I worked because of my fear. In spite of my fear. That's why I fell apart. That's why you needed to help put me back together, to ground me in my body again."
He closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of her fingers on his temples. "In that regard, we are the same, then."
"I see you, Loki. As much as you see me, remember?"
It was terrifying then, it was still terrifying now. It just carried a gratifying edge, too.
"Stop being a dick, Loki. If you let them, other people might see more to you, too."
The thought of that caused his heart to seize in his chest. "They won't like what they see."
"Then move on. There are eleven million people in Manhattan alone. I think you can find a handful that you find tolerable."
"None of them are you."
"There's no one like me in the world," Natasha agreed. "You're not looking to replace me, Loki. You'd be looking for someone else to appreciate you."
"Maybe I don't want them to. Maybe all I want is you."
Natasha sighed but didn't stop stroking his hair. "Someday, I won't be enough."
Loki turned and surged up, pulling her down for a kiss. "That day is not today." Another kiss. "That day will not be tomorrow." Another kiss. "Or the next, or the one after that." A last, lingering kiss, her lower lip caught between his for a moment. "I will never tire of you, of trying to learn you, of keeping your regard." Pain flared sharp in his chest for a moment. "I may not have your true affection, but I would not lose what you do feel for me."
"How would James fit into that?"
"I don't know. But I don't loathe him."
She laughed softly. "It's a start, I suppose."
They would probably still have define the thing between all of them, but at least Loki was content that he hadn't ruined everything with his stupid behavior. She could still take him apart and put him back together. She still felt something, even if it wasn't easily named, even if it was less than what Loki wanted.
For now, he would have to be content.
***
***
To Chapter Three - Compare and Contrast
Series: #20 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. References events in prior stories as well as Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Catching the Purple Man doesn't even make a dent in figuring out daily routines. Should it?
Prior chapter:
One - Backtrack
Two - Dealing With Nightmares
Clint, Natasha, James, Bruce and Jane met up with Sam and Steve for dinner downtown. "No Sif or Thor?" Natasha had asked in surprise. She had thought it was going to be a larger group outing than the seven of them.
"They went back to Asgard for a brief stint," Jane explained. "Someone making problems for them that they wanted Sif's help with. Thor went along with, though Sif clearly told him to stay here because he was going to be pretty useless."
"Not in those words, exactly," Steve commented. "Sif was nice about it."
"As nice as you could possibly be saying that menfolk are weak punks," Sam added, snorting in amusement. "I didn't know Thor did embarrassed, but he was."
"Lorelei," Natasha guessed, remembering her conversation with Melinda. At Jane's nod, Natasha allowed herself a smile. "Well, corrupting the minds of men is kind of her schtick."
"Assuming we got minds to corrupt," James joked.
Steve went still for a moment, unsure if he should laugh along with James and Natasha, or if this was a veiled commentary about his time as the Winter Soldier. Sam bumped his shoulder in support, and he relaxed a bit. "I can keep my head around a pretty dame," he said lamely, hoping James didn't notice his freezing.
"Assuming you don't actually like her in the dating sense," James retorted with his old shit eating grin. It reminded Steve so much of his pre-serum days, he couldn't even be sore at James for bringing it up. That was such a Bucky thing to say that he laughed along with everyone else and shook his head.
"How long did they say it was going to be?" Natasha asked Jane.
"They weren't sure," Jane replied, shrugging. "But Heimdall was nice enough to say that he would try his best to make sure our timelines match up. I haven't figured out the physics behind the weird flow in time between our realms. But as long as two of his months isn't two of our years, I think I'll be okay."
Clint frowned. "It's really weird how that works. Is it a dimension-jumping thing, you think? Like if somehow there was space travel between our planets instead of a portal, time would sync up better?"
"The distance is so prohibitively distant that it would take generations to get there," Jane replied. "So I'll take a few months of disconnect rather than generations."
"Makes you wonder if there are beings out there that live longer than they do," James mused aloud. "Or shorter. Or if it's all relative." He frowned suddenly. "I don't think that made sense."
"Sure it did, Buck. Just because Asgardians live for five thousand years or so, it might not be our years. Or because of the strange way time works."
"You think about it because of your relationship with Sif," Bruce guessed.
"It's made me more aware of it," Steve agreed.
James flicked his gaze onto Natasha. "So that's what you mean Loki will eventually be devastated. You mean when you die."
Clint frowned as she nodded. "He already didn't do well while you were away."
"He's not exactly all that stable," Bruce commented. "Better than when he tried to take over New York, but that's probably not saying much."
"Let's change topic," Natasha said abruptly, eyeing the door. "The last time I talked about him with friends in a public place, he simply showed up as if I had called."
"Probably the magic bond mojo," Clint remarked. "He knows if you're in trouble or not. It probably works like a messaging system of a sort."
Natasha snorted. "Magic text messaging? Not what it's cracked up to be at all."
"Well, we know that magic is somewhat related to radiation. At least of the gamma variety," Bruce offered. "I've come up with different ways to scan it in action..." He smiled when Natasha lifted her phone. "Right. Like that tracking app we developed. The different kinds of magic and spells all have different resonances."
Jane perked up. "So maybe it might be a good side project. Why don't you call in Dr. Ross? She's another renowned gamma expert."
Bruce managed to hide his wince. "I know Betty. Um... I've been trying to keep her out of it. The people interested in gamma radiation aren't always scientists."
"Right," Jane scoffed. "Like anyone at this table would allow the military to kidnap her."
James outright glowered and lifted his gloved metal fist. "Just tell me who's got 'er, Bruce, I'll help bring her back. I wouldn't want anyone else going through what I did."
No one edged away, which was gratifying to Steve. He didn't always know how to deal with the random outbursts or tossed off comments. Ignoring them probably wasn't the way to go either, but he didn't know how to approach it. People didn't talk about this sort of things when they were growing up, and shell shock really hadn't been discussed in the army.
Jane and Bruce explained that Betty wasn't kidnapped by the army, though her father was a general and there was no love lost between him and Bruce. She had left military sponsorship to academia, so her work had fewer applications that the military might be interested in. "I e-mail her every once in a while," Bruce admitted. "She won't even take work at Oscorp or any other company that might even do contract work. Tony talked about hiring her on, but we all know he'd be just creating a position just for her."
"You mean like he did for us?" Jane pointed out. She pointed at him with her fork. "Trust me when I tell you, she'd jump ship. Trying to do applications for grants or sponsorships can make you drop IQ points."
This touched off a discussion between public work and private companies, which left most of them unable to comment. Steve was about to suggest something else as a topic of discussion when he noticed Natasha whispering something to James, brows drawn in slightly and her hand on his arm. He couldn't recognize the shape of any words she was saying, so it probably wasn't English or French. There were very few Russian words he could recognize, let alone lip read, so he turned away to give them privacy. He liked the idea of the two of them supporting each other, of having found someone to understand their darker moments. They needed someone that could understand and be there unconditionally; as much as Steve wished he could be that person, he doubted he would ever truly understand what James had gone through. He tried his best, and James had said he appreciated the effort.
Of course, his own nightmares didn't bother him much anymore. Or the flashes of wartime, dead faces and sound of explosions. Or the helplessness that came in his sleep, where he couldn't even lift the shield anymore, and the super soldier serum had faded.
"You know, the Avengers are kinda like a club, I think," Clint was saying in response to something Sam said. "We can play the game of who's least fucked up, but I for one think that's a shitty contest to play."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, frowning.
"We're all traumatized in some way. I think even Jane is, considering you hang out with us so much. Secondhand trauma, just from worrying about us."
"Don't forget, you and your fellow agents stormed into my space in Puente Antiguo and took my research," she reminded him. "Darcy called you all jackbooted thugs."
Natasha didn't even bother to smother her snort of amusement.
"If the boot fits," Clint replied with a grin. He turned to James, leaning in intently. "So. What do you think?"
"Bruce mentioned something-"
"Because he's a reasonable guy. C'mon, I could use a fellow sharpshooter on the team."
James froze in place, though only Natasha and Steve seemed to catch it. No, Sam did, too, because he deliberately knocked over his beer, sending its contents crashing into Clint's lap. The two exchanged glances, and Sam gave Steve a surreptitious nod.
"Back off, Clint," Sam said mildly. He helped dab at the beer, but only ground it in further into the denim. "If he feels like hanging out with the rest of you, he will. Looks like a sausage fest to me. I don't think it's weird he'd rather hang back with Natasha."
"Thanks. I think," James said, frowning slightly.
"She's fine," Sam said, giving Natasha the same kind of playful leer he used to at their old poker games. "Of course she'd want a guy that can keep up with that hotness, and for the sake of your ego I respectfully bowed out of the competition."
That sent off some playful jokes all around the table, preventing the conversation from taking a more serious tone. James didn't seem worse for wear, so Steve could only suppose it was another trigger of some kind. Was he flashing back to the Winter Soldier days or Howling Commandos? Steve would have thought the Commandos days were pretty good, though there had been their fair share of death then, too.
There was no right way or wrong way to do this, was there?
Steve thought of that later, when he nearly walked in on Natasha and James in one of the hallways beyond the common areas. He was cradled in Natasha's arms, struggling to breathe evenly. "...want to, I do, but I don't know how to be good enough for it."
"The same way the rest of us do," Natasha had told him quietly, stroking his back. "We're all flawed, James. Some more than others. Even Steve, you know. He's not some kind of perfect golden god. None of us are perfect, and we do the best we can. You're a good man. You wouldn't worry about honoring the group if you weren't."
He had looked up, anguish on his features, eyes searching hers. "I have to earn it."
Natasha caught his face in her hands, a tender expression on her face. "You do. You will. Every day you get up and keep fighting the memories back, you keep going past them. You're not letting Department X win, James. That makes you worthy."
"It can't be that easy."
"As easy as balancing my ledger is."
They shared some bitter laughter, and then James noticed Steve standing nearby. He blanched and nearly pulled away from Natasha's tiny frame.
"Don't, Buck," Steve murmured with a sigh. "C'mon, let's go ten rounds."
"No, it's not a good idea-"
"I get feeling down or like the nightmares won't end, I take it out on a couple of bags. I tend to break 'em after about fifteen or twenty minutes." Steve paused. "Sometimes it helps get the restless out. It's not like I could really damage my hands, but if I can feel 'em and start to get a little winded, I don't think about nightmares."
James frowned at him. "I don't get it. Why do you have nightmares?"
"You think I really wanted to kill anybody? Beat 'em down or watch my friends die?"
James remained stock still, even when Natasha rubbed at his spine sympathetically. "Steve-"
"We won't know if it'll help until we try, right?" Steve asked. "I don't know any other way to help, but I want to."
He let out a sigh and scrubbed at his jaw. "There are things from the Winter Soldier days that I remember that I wish I didn't. I could head out, find the safe houses, the weapons left in the field. Hunt 'em down, maybe."
"James," Natasha murmured, shaking her head. "Not the way we did it with Yelena."
"But there are dangers I can still prevent. I think maybe that's what I've been looking for."
"Your way to atone," Steve murmured. When James nodded, Steve shrugged. "Want help?"
Startled, James merely looked at him. "It's not your fight."
"Bullshit. You've always been my family and my friend, Buck. Your fight's always been mine, same as when I was a little guy and you jumped in to finish mine."
"If he helps, you know I will. And Sam will. And then you've got Clint who will rush in. Maybe Loki would. Then because of the research opportunity that poses, you loop in Bruce and Jane and Tony." Natasha smirked at James' startled expression. "You're not alone, Жизнь моя, not ever again."
"Way to gang up on a fella," James muttered, shaking his head. But his lips carried the faint edge of a smile. "You all got fancy nicknames for your work. What'll I use?"
"Use the Winter Soldier," Steve told him gravely. "Take back the name, make it yours. Don't let them use it against you. You're a soldier that's been through it all, to the end of the line and back, and I think you can turn it around." He let his lips quirk into a smile. "Captain America used to be just a show and a photo op, remember?"
"This is a little more serious than show tunes," James told him, irritation in his tone. "The Winter Soldier is a ghost. A fairy tale to scare mercenaries with."
Steve shot him a grin. "Well, good. Then nobody will mess with you."
That threw James. He saw the support on Steve's and Natasha's face, and something in his stance eased a bit. Steve hoped James realized that he wasn't trying to force him to do anything he didn't want to do, didn't want him uncomfortable or in pain. But Steve learned to push past and through his, cover it up with smiles and snark. So did the others. It was the only way they knew how to be, how to live with everything in the past.
"I'll think on it," James promised. That was more than good enough for Steve.
***
James had his nightmares, Natasha had hers. Sometimes they woke each other, sometimes not; by unspoken agreement, they didn't wake up the other from a sound sleep. It wasn't as if they discussed their nightmares anyway. What would be the point? Times had changed, and Natasha wanted to move past the trauma of the Red Room. It wasn't as far behind her as she thought it was, and she couldn't tolerate that.
This particular evening, Natasha jerked awake and her heart was in her throat - blood tumbling down, over and over and over, dead eyes staring back at her, nothing good ever happens when I'm looking for it, why did I think this would ever be better, I'm sliding backward and I won't be good for anybody! - but James wasn't sitting on alert or sprawled in the bed beside her. Figuring he went to the gym, she went directly there. It wasn't a complete surprise to see him and Steve going full tilt with boxing gloves. It was a little bit of a surprise that there were kicks as well.
"Since when did you practice capoiera?" Natasha teased Steve.
He merely grinned at her. "After seeing how effective your style is and picking up a few moves in our practice sessions. Got into it more while you were up in Asgard."
The three of them settled into a rough triangle and started to fight in earnest. Natasha didn't much care that they had their hands wrapped and in gloves while hers weren't. The healing spells would kick in and repair the damage to her knuckles, and the pain was sharp enough to ground her and drive away the last shaky remnants of her nightmares. She knew how to move through pain, and the familiarity of it helped draw her forward and out of the past.
Eventually they tired and decided a good hour or more of fighting was more than enough for the early morning hours. Passing through the common area for drinks, Natasha was startled to see Clint playing video games on the big screen TV, headphones on. His hearing had worsened a bit more, but appeared to be at a stable state of loss now. The doctor had suggested hearing aids, but Clint was a bit reluctant to be singled out. Keeping the volume for everything at 175% wasn't a good solution, either, however.
He startled badly when Natasha touched his shoulder to get his attention. "Oh, hey," he said, yanking off the headphones. They had the extra padding around the edges to make a good seal; now broken, she could hear the background music of the game blaring. "I see we have new members to the Avengers Insomnia Club," he snarked, seeing Steve and James in the doorway. "Hey, Barnes, how are you with a game controller? We could totally play Mario Kart."
Natasha wasn't fooled by the false cheer, but didn't want to say anything to him in front of the others. "That game can end friendships," she remarked.
"Nah, that's Monopoly or Uno."
"So, what topics are off limits?" Clint asked loudly as he loaded the video game. At James' and Steve's blank looks, he sighed. "Look, no point ignoring the fact that we're all up at four am and have been for a while. You don't get this far in our careers without getting a little trauma, and nothing good ever happens at four am."
"Oh, I'm sure there's something..." Steve began.
"Name one."
No one could think of anything offhand, and Clint nodded as if to say "I rest my case." He distributed controllers, and there were a few minutes of hilarity as he tried to teach James how to use them. Steve tended to be a button masher when he played with Clint, so they usually did old school fighter games like Tekken, the original Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. James got the hang of it easily, and for a while no one spoke.
"If nothing's off limits," Clint began as they all went into the second lap, "I'll go first. Nightmares fucking suck, and this trauma thing is crap. But pretending like it's not there isn't going to make it go away, either." He flicked his eyes toward Natasha. "You've seen that therapist like three times, right?"
"Four," Natasha replied in a clipped tone of voice. Her grip on the controller wasn't too tight, but her body language clearly told him to shut up.
Clint never did follow her signals if he didn't feel like it, and this was no different. "And let me guess, you're talking about early shit, not the stuff going on right now."
She remained silent, not wanting to answer. Of course he was right, and of course the therapist was too new, didn't know anything about her history, and it was easier to delve deeper into the fragments of memory than to say how her guilt was bound up in memories of Yelena bleeding to death in her arms, of Clint's shocked expression as the bullets ripped into him, of the fall over the side of the building, of thinking that she had killed James all over again.
"Maybe you need to lay off her," James said, hitting the buttons too hard. Good thing Tony had thought to reinforce the controllers. Thor sometimes broke them, and Bruce had sometimes been afraid that letting the Hulk out would mean he randomly broke things he touched.
"Maybe you're laying off too much," Clint returned. "Maybe ignoring it doesn't mean it's going to get better. I've done this for years, I'm not a complete asshole about this. We've danced around topics, we've talked without talking. We pretend it's not there. But you know what? I'm sick of the silence. I know I can't hear as well as I used to, and that was even compromised. But now I lost the nuances. I can't hear the warnings as well as I used to. I can't hear when you're coming, I can't tell by how you step if it's a good day or a bad one. I can't tell by the pitch in people's voices if shit is going down. I can only tell by how you stand, what your facial expressions are, but that's only good if I'm facing you."
"So get the damn aids," Natasha snapped.
"Why? So you can keep dancing around me, too? So you can think I'm broken?"
She was so startled she actually dropped the controller. It didn't matter if she was dropping back to fourth place. Natasha stared at him. "I don't think you're broken. Why the hell would you think that? Why aren't you thinking I'm the one with the issues?"
"Because you fall into the same horrible habits, but you at least used to tell me about the bad shit as it happened. I get it, there's juggling Barnes and Loki and trust me, that is a headache I want no part of. But the other stuff. You used to at least mention that."
Natasha leaned forward and grabbed his arm tightly enough he would have bruises later. "I needed you to think I was the same. That I'm okay."
"Well, that's just stupid. You're not. Nobody here is."
"So we're all a bunch of idiots?" James asked.
"Seems that way," Steve said, tossing the controller aside. "Now what?"
Clint let his character zoom past the finish line. "Now that I've kicked your asses," he said with a grin, "I suggest we get an early breakfast, a pot of coffee each and figure out what we're doing with the rest of the day. Having a whole lot of nothing won't help, I promise you. C'mon, would I ever steer you wrong?" he asked in a teasing lilt.
"Yes," Natasha replied promptly. They both dissolved into laughter, their old easygoing routine back in place. She looped an arm through James' and nodded toward the kitchen. "But not with breakfast. C'mon, James. I'll even make you pancakes."
"I think I like those," he allowed.
"Everyone loves pancakes, Bucky," Steve replied with a grin. "Trust me, you'll remember that one. Syrup's too sweet and the butter's different, some kind of yogurt thing, but it's still really good. We can put strawberries on top."
"No foolin'?" he asked, eyebrow lofted. "I always liked those."
Natasha filed that bit of information away with a smile. They'd never learned things like that about each other before. It would be fun introducing him to new things.
***
Loki was snappish and irritable, anxiety and unnamable awkward emotions writhing beneath his skin. He didn't feel entirely comfortable asking Natasha for what he needed, not since the night of the gala when he had simply been with her and James and was, without the trappings of control and dominance. But whether it was the investigation - no, not likely, that was hardly any effort on his part - or the clawing sense of wrongness at being wanted at Sam's PTSD group therapy meeting but not at any outings the others would go on, he couldn't say. He didn't need their paltry dinners or lunches, but it would have been nice to at least been offered a chance to attend. If he had been considered at all.
She knew something was wrong with him, but he refused to say and sound like a mewling child still on leading strings. Instead, he hurled an insult at Bruce, quietly reading a journal article while drinking herbal tea. Loki couldn't even remember what he said, but Bruce had gone unnaturally still. He had a faint frisson of worry that the Hulk would appear, no matter how good Bruce's control was, and he suddenly regretted not getting a formal series of dates each month for his deal with Natasha. When he'd told her Wednesday wasn't a good day to meet, he never reset it to a different day.
Damn and blast, he truly was an idiot sometimes.
James was at his side and yanking him to his feet with only a flick of Natasha's eyes. Oh, she was good, and his knees knocked together and his mouth watered with want at the sight of her command.
"I'll take care of this, Bruce," Natasha promised, a slight grimace in Loki's direction. "I suppose it was too much to hope that he wouldn't be a nuisance."
"He's not wrong," Bruce tried to say, a quaver in his voice.
Oh, he was going to get it. Loki wanted to preen and strut for Natasha, because his retribution was going to be glorious.
"Of course he's wrong!" Natasha cried immediately. Ever to the defense of her friends, ever quickly to absolve others of blame she regularly took onto herself. Loki did manage to suppress his smile and snort as Natasha unleashed a litany of his faults, first and foremost his preternatural ability to lie without lying.
There was more, but James frog marched him out of the sitting area and into the kitchen, nearly slamming him into the counter. "You don't malign him," James hissed, eyes flashing. Had he also gotten chummy with the Hulk? But no, it wasn't likely. More likely was that Bruce was a neutral friend, calm and unshakable, teaching him how to deal with trauma and how to achieve a zen sense of peace. Or perhaps he took on Natasha's friends as his own, defending them as neatly and surely as she would.
"Oh, but it's what I do," Loki said, unable to hide his smile now.
"Because you're a little shit sometimes," Natasha said, coming into the kitchen. Eyes flashing, she was as regal in her casual clothing as she was in royal Asgardian dress or the fetching green gown she wore at the Natural Museum of History. "I know what this is about," she said after a moment, seeing his slick grin.
"Oh? Do enlighten me?" Loki purred, as if James didn't have his arms pinned at his sides and was holding him immobile.
"Our deal was suspended. And you're in desperate need of a session."
Yes. He wanted to shout it from the rooftop, but he settled for simply grinning madly at her, sharp teeth and glittering eyes, need rolling from him in waves. "Am I?" he managed to ask in a calm tone.
He didn't fool her at all. Of course. Her eyes narrowed. "You go to the apartment now. James and I will follow the long way." So they would take the subway, leaving him to take a portal. How inconvenient and such a delicious torment. Of course he would do it. He would follow her rules, he would do as she asked to get her hands on him.
Taking the long way meant that he was agitatedly stalking through the small Astoria apartment with nothing to do until she arrived to start the session. He laid out several tools he had interest in, reverently stroking the riding crop and flogger as he put them down on top of the dresser. If she wanted to do anything else, he would accept it, but he wanted her to mark him. He could still remember the welts in her skin when he had spanked or struck her, and his mouth watered at the thought that she would do the same to his pale skin. The marks would stand out so beautifully, and it would be something he could keep for a time. James wouldn't submit to that, he knew, though James also would never force Natasha's hand to do such a thing.
Natasha was irritated with him, and immediately had him kneel down in the living room once the apartment wards and alarms were up and in place. Loki grinned at her, sharp teeth and manic edge in place, need gnawing at his insides. He repeated the safe words to her satisfaction, just a touch of insolence in his tone. Natasha grabbed him by his hair, loose and wavy instead of slicked back, yanking him to his feet. He was still hunched over because of the height difference, the sharp tugs in his scalp like little needs pricking his skin. "That disrespect will cost you," she said, her own teeth bared.
She didn't enjoy this, necessarily, but she was his in this moment, no thought of anyone else, no care for the taciturn man at her side. She could take it out of his hide, could do whatever she liked, as long as she was his.
Walking into the bedroom, Natasha was less than pleased by the preparation he'd made. "You don't dictate terms, Loki," she snarled. The sound was glorious, and he couldn't help but laugh at the sound of it. The slap against his face was a delicious sting, and he dimly wondered when he needed this to feel whole again.
"The bottom drawer has heavy chains," she told James. "Chain him down."
A real lick of fear curled around his gut, but this was Natasha. She wouldn't hurt him any more than was necessary, any more than he wanted her to. She was fire and brimstone, divine retribution for the awful things he had done. This was what he deserved, what he wanted, what he begged for, her hands on him, all over him, working him until his mind could simply stop and he was empty of the ugliness inside.
Still caught in her grip, Loki was marched over to the bed, where he was unceremoniously bent over, each wrist chained to the posts at the footboard of the bed. A loop of chain draped over the back of his neck, weighing him down. Shivering at the memory of the cave and Amora and the venom burning into his body, he grit his teeth against it and forced it away. Natasha was not Amora, would never be her. Natasha would not glory in his misery. She did her best by him, was honest with him, had been unflinchingly clear about her expectations with this deal.
It was his own fault he loved her to distraction, not hers.
She had him recite his litany of sins, and yes, yes, yes, he was awful and horrible. The lies and misdirection, half truths and silences, absences when he could have helped in more tangible ways, the clawing sense that he was not good enough, that he was a fraud, that he was a monster in humanoid skin, the awful things he said, the way he goaded her into this instead of simply asking to start again after they said they would. He had fallen back into his old ways, flitting about her, hesitant to intrude on the relationship she had with James, not wanting to see how little he really mattered. And it circled, over and over and over, feeding upon itself, a vile ouroboros that would consume him, would trigger his personal Ragnarok, would devour any sliver of happiness he didn't already destroy.
He cried out when the paddle came down over his bared skin. He hadn't even noticed her cutting the clothes off his body, how she hadn't allowed him the dignity of undressing for this, and his soul sang at that. She owned this, she was exerting her will over his, she would take care of this, she would rein him in, Natasha was in control and would keep him from spiraling away from all that he worked so hard to build for her. Counting out the strokes was a glory, a privilege, just punishment for nearly ruining what she tried to build for him. He wasn't as good as she was, he couldn't do the same for her even when he tried so hard, but he was trying, he simply couldn't make it work, didn't understand how to be.
Throat raw from his cries, he counted out the numbers as they climbed ever higher, James' metal hand on the back of his head to help keep him from thrashing around. But he wasn't fighting back, was he? Loki wanted this, wanted the reminder of her, wanted her hands on him, wanted her to fuck him however she wanted, wanted her to use him, wanted her here, just wanted and wanted and wanted, an incoherent wish he no longer had the words for as the paddle came down over his skin.
And then it stopped, making him howl in frustration. Now he pulled at the chains, but they were heavy, his magic suppressed, and he started screaming in Allspeak.
The lick of the flogger against his sore skin startled him, calmed him. Grounded him. James pulled back on his hair, dragging his eyes from the nonsensical patterns on the coverlet to stare at his very blue eyes. Of course he was beautiful. Why wouldn't Natasha like beautiful things? Why didn't Natasha deserve such things?
"I should make you suck him off," Natasha said crudely when the flogger fell still. "Or have him fuck this red ass of yours."
He shuddered, pulling at his limbs from the chains. Stuck fast, Loki gulped and tried to remember how to speak. "Please," he rasped.
The flogger fell to the floor, and there was a sussurus behind him. James jerked on his hair, blue eyes flashing in warning. "Are you begging, Loki?"
"If I have to," Loki said, voice hoarse from crying out so much. "Anything."
"Anything?" James taunted. The sound of it was ugly, scraping at Loki's insides. "You'd beg me to fuck you? You'd beg me to do that to you?"
Shuddering again, Loki tried to shake his head. But James still had his hair in a tight grip, so it tugged painfully and likely pulled some of his hair out. "Not that. I can't. I'll call it. I'll use it. I've only used it once, I can't. I can't-"
But then there was a soothing and cool balm against the fire in his skin, Natasha's hands kneading it into him. "I know you can't," Natasha said. "You can be many things, but not that, even for me."
Loki sobbed, feeling a spike of disappointment for not being able to please her. "I can't," he sobbed, eyes sliding shut so he didn't have to look at James anymore. "Please, please, Natasha, I can't, I can't do this anymore, I can't-"
"Sh," she said. It was soothing sound, but different than before. Her slim fingers were slicked and sliding into his ass, stretching him, preparing him. She made nonsensical sounds as she worked him open, and it was comforting. But there were different tones there, a sadness that he hadn't heard the first time she pegged him, the other times after the deal was struck in the beginning. So much loss since then, so much hurt, some of it at his hands, and so much he hadn't been able to fix.
The stretch was uncomfortable, her clothing rough against his sensitized skin. But he took it, tolerated the feel of James' hand in his hair and on his shoulder as well as the chains, cried out in pleasure as she pounded into him, as she wrung him dry, dragging every sensation out of him, reduced him to jelly, had him coming in spurts on the coverlet. And still she rode him hard, hips snapping and digging into his ass. Loki made hoarse, unintelligible sounds that were supposed to be words, perhaps begging for release from her ministrations, perhaps for release from all that made him unwanted and unlovable.
Loki nearly sobbed as his body reacted to Natasha's silicone cock still pounding into him. The rhythm was perfect but relentless, not allowing him to catch his breath. The keening noise he heard was himself, struggling to breathe. She was reducing him to nerve endings, sensation only, pure pleasure, and it was exactly what he wanted. James shifted his grip when Loki writhed and tried to pull away from him, but instead of being harsh, the man cradled his head gently, almost as a parent would cradle a crying child.
Oh. He was crying, too, drooling and sobbing into the coverlet, cock jerking and spurting irregularly onto it lower down. Loki couldn't find it in him to feel ashamed.
Natasha wrenched another orgasm from his wrecked body. The pleasure was almost too much for him to bear, blurring the boundary back over into pain. But he deserved this, didn't he? She tortured him so exquisitely, contained and constrained him, gave him boundaries and enforced them, gave him room to move and even lead on occasion.
By the Tree, she was perfect.
He must have said the words aloud, because her slicked palms went down his back as her hips slowed down and he fell back from that overwhelming edge. "Sh," she crooned. "Sh, we've got you, Loki."
She must have nodded or signaled James in some way, because he started to remove the heavy chains and helped lift him up onto the bed. Loki could barely move his limbs. He was loose limbed, wrung out, emptied of everything. He was new, scrubbed clean, completely at their mercy. Yet he loved this feeling, that all was right, that he was floating inside his own body, peace found at last.
Natasha stroked his chest and pressed her lips against his temple. "We've got you. We've got you. James will keep watch. You're safe here."
"I am," he murmured, lips curling into a drugged smile.
There was cool metal at the base of his head, and Loki almost missed it when James withdrew to perch on the edge of the bed away from him. He closed his eyes, content.
"I think we're done here," Natasha murmured.
"No, no, don't go..." Loki moaned, eyes snapping open. "Don't leave."
"I meant the session, Loki," Natasha said firmly, pressing her hand onto his chest. It pushed his body further into the coverlet, and the pressure caused the welts on his ass and thighs to flare into heat again. He sucked in a breath, alert and awake, still content. "You didn't have to push me into it this way," she chided. "You could've just asked me."
"You're so happy without me," Loki heard himself say, not intending to admit it.
She sighed, chin dropping down. Her hair fell into her face, a red curtain obscuring her features from view. He lifted his hand to brush it away, hoping to see her eyes. He thought of how she looked at that gala weeks ago, vivid and alive, secure in her skin, sure of herself. It was such a contrast to how lost she was after Yelena's death, how she was when she thought she had killed James again. Now he was her shadow, starting to slip out of the Winter Soldier shell.
What did she need him for? Why had she ever needed him? What good could he do for her?
He pulled her down for a kiss, desperation still in his lips. "I don't know what I'd do without you. You'll never grieve me. Maybe there would be relief, maybe you'd miss me. But my absence wouldn't grieve you. Sometimes it hurts so much to know that."
Natasha curled her hand around his and brought it to her chest. "I do need you here."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe her so badly.
James stood abruptly. "I'll leave. That'll be easier for you, Loki," he said. "I'm not what you need here, and I'll just be in the way."
Loki wanted to deny that, but all he could say was "Natasha needs you."
Turning to look at Loki with an eerily blank expression, James simply said "But you don't, and this is about you right now."
"But-"
"We all came to terms with this. Or at least, I thought we did," James told him. He looked to Natasha and murmured something in Russian, then left the bedroom.
"Did something happen to make you doubt yourself again?" Natasha asked, shifting to curl up around him.
His perfect peace was shattered. He couldn't even do this right, could he? Wrecked and exhausted physically, but now his mind whirred. "I don't belong anywhere, do I?"
"If you don't belong anywhere," Natasha said quietly, "then you can be anyone and anything."
"One of the tenets of the Red Room?" he guessed. At her quiet nod, Loki grasped her arm almost painfully tight. "But I want to. Belong somewhere. But I don't, and all these overtures mock me, they hurt me. I'm not like the others, I can't stay here and pretend I'm like them. I can't be what everyone wants me to be."
"You stand out too much."
"I-" Loki buried his face in Natasha's lap and let her hold him. It wasn't physical appearance; he had blended in with innocent passersby in New York plenty of times. He could even take the subway without glamour and be unnoticed, just another man taking mass transit. Anonymous and no one important, he could be undetected. If he had the gilt armor and horned helm, others would know him. Then they would fear him. Then they would know who he was, what he had tried to do five years ago, and there would be screams.
Suddenly, his mind slipped sideways. He and the other agencies were going about finding the Purple Man all wrong. It wasn't about who he was now. He was purple, and even in a city like New York, people would notice that. But he stole priceless antiquities and high end materials that would be found in an upscale home in the Upper West Side. He stole money without hurting others until the very end, in such a violent and personal way.
He might not be seen now, but the Purple Man had been someone before. He had been seen, he had been known.
The key to finding him now would be knowing who he was before he was purple.
Loki let out a slow breath. "I'm not good enough," he told her slowly. "I can't shake who I was, who I used to be. Sometimes I don't want to. If I can't be loved, at least I can be feared."
Natasha carded her fingers through his hair gently. It was a soft touch, one they both enjoyed, and Loki leaned into it. "But if you're feared, no one gets close. It's another mask. Another layer to protect your innermost self, something else to keep you separated from others. It's still a lie, and it won't get you what you want."
"Which is?"
"You want to be needed. To be known and appreciated. But when you get it, you don't know what to do with it, so you run. You hide behind the persona of awful brutality or asshole behavior. It's not what you want, but it's what you know you can deal with. It's harder to deal with the unknown. It's terrifying."
"How would you know? You seem to live without fear."
"No," she corrected softly. "I've just learned to use my fear. I'm afraid all the time. I hurt all the time. I pushed it aside and didn't let it take over. I worked because of my fear. In spite of my fear. That's why I fell apart. That's why you needed to help put me back together, to ground me in my body again."
He closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of her fingers on his temples. "In that regard, we are the same, then."
"I see you, Loki. As much as you see me, remember?"
It was terrifying then, it was still terrifying now. It just carried a gratifying edge, too.
"Stop being a dick, Loki. If you let them, other people might see more to you, too."
The thought of that caused his heart to seize in his chest. "They won't like what they see."
"Then move on. There are eleven million people in Manhattan alone. I think you can find a handful that you find tolerable."
"None of them are you."
"There's no one like me in the world," Natasha agreed. "You're not looking to replace me, Loki. You'd be looking for someone else to appreciate you."
"Maybe I don't want them to. Maybe all I want is you."
Natasha sighed but didn't stop stroking his hair. "Someday, I won't be enough."
Loki turned and surged up, pulling her down for a kiss. "That day is not today." Another kiss. "That day will not be tomorrow." Another kiss. "Or the next, or the one after that." A last, lingering kiss, her lower lip caught between his for a moment. "I will never tire of you, of trying to learn you, of keeping your regard." Pain flared sharp in his chest for a moment. "I may not have your true affection, but I would not lose what you do feel for me."
"How would James fit into that?"
"I don't know. But I don't loathe him."
She laughed softly. "It's a start, I suppose."
They would probably still have define the thing between all of them, but at least Loki was content that he hadn't ruined everything with his stupid behavior. She could still take him apart and put him back together. She still felt something, even if it wasn't easily named, even if it was less than what Loki wanted.
For now, he would have to be content.
***
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To Chapter Three - Compare and Contrast