Chapter Text
Natasha’s halfway through breakfast when the call comes in. Loki’s back and wreaking havoc in Brooklyn. Rogers is outraged, and Thor is nowhere to be seen. Stark thinks it’s hilarious, but then Stark thinks everything is hilarious including that one time he pretended he was dead after a mission and then jumped out of a trapdoor during the debrief and shouted “SURPRISE!” (Rogers had fainted and Natasha had punched Stark in the face.)
She brings her half-finished plate of blini to the briefing. Breakfast is a meal to be enjoyed alone in silence, but it’s also the most important meal of the day, and she’s not going to miss it if she can help it. She gets cranky when she’s hungry, and with Loki back she needs to keep her wits about her.
“Ooh, pancakes!” says Stark brightly, making a grab for them. Natasha brandishes her fork like a weapon and puts on her best don’t-fuck-with-my-blini-or-I’ll-fuck-with-your-organs face. Some things are sacred.
Tony pouts and retreats, though he keeps a covetous eye on her plate. Natasha takes a bite and smiles sweetly at him. Bitter orange jam bursts across her tongue.
“Children,” says the Director. He looks displeased, but Natasha thinks that’s just the way his face looks. “Quiet down.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” says Stark smartly, ripping off the most flamboyant, ridiculous, twirly salute Natasha has ever seen. The salute takes at least thirty seconds to complete, and Stark ends it with a flourish, swinging his hand behind him to poke Rogers lightly in the nose.
Rogers sneezes.
Natasha shares an exasperated look with Clint and takes a seat at the table. Generally Banner’s pretty good at controlling Stark’s wilder excesses, but Banner’s back in India for the week and they’re suffering in his absence. “Sir, what’s the situation?”
“Loki broke out of Fairyland and he’s back for revenge,” says Fury. His customary scowl deepens. “Revenge in the form of turning three blocks of flats into ice cream.”
There is a brief silence.
“Ice cream,” says Rogers.
“You know,” says Stark thoughtfully, “the guy’s starting to grow on me.”
“You think this is funny?” asks Fury, raising his eyebrows. “People are freezing to death as we speak. Get out there, I need you to apprehend that little bastard.”
Natasha’s out of her seat and through the door before Fury even finishes his sentence. Rogers and Stark follow her, bickering light-heartedly. Clint’s tightly wound, fondling one of his arrows.
Since she joined SHIELD Natasha’s been a spy, not a soldier, but the Red Room raised her to be both and there’s no use wasting talent. The Avengers Initiative needs Black Widow. It doesn’t need Tasha, but Tasha’s coming along for the ride whether she likes it or not. The Black Widow is her soul, her mirror half, her little monster hidden within the body that the Red Room made for her.
She gets to the Quinjet within minutes, Clint already at the helm, Stark and Rogers suited up and strapping themselves in. Agent Wu’s voice crackles through the intercom, giving them directions, and Natasha spares a short, painful moment to wish that it was Phil’s voice telling them where to go before she wraps up the thought and buries it deep within her. They don’t have time for sentiment. They’ve got a Norse god to take down.
Clint’s face is hard and cold and she can’t read anything from it. She reaches out and places her hand upon his wrist. He shakes it off.
No time for sentiment.
By the time they get to Brooklyn it looks like the populace is torn between running in crazed, mob-mentality terror and revelling in the frozen goodness lining the streets. Well, melting into the streets. There’s a small child lying in the middle of the road making snow angels.
Rogers barks out orders and Stark flies up over the slowly-collapsing buildings, thermal scanning for anyone trapped inside. Occasionally he darts into a building and emerges carrying shivering, starstruck New Yorkers. Clint clambers up to the top of the nearest non-ice-creamed building and keeps an eye out for Loki. Natasha hovers by the Quinjet, feeling mostly redundant. Until they find their Big Bad for the day there’s nothing much she can do. It’s a galling feeling, and one that she’s not very familiar with. Usually there’s someone she can manipulate, or something that she can punch, at least. Today it’s just ice cream.
Loki being Loki, he doesn’t stay away for long; he can’t resist coming back to gloat about his wild plot. Soon enough he shows up on top of the building neighbouring Clint’s, and he’s not quiet about it. The guy’s more of a drama queen than Stark, and that’s saying something. Thor’s still nowhere to be seen. Natasha has to wonder if Asgard’s even noticed their prisoner’s absence yet.
She uses her Widow’s Line to get up at Loki’s level, and manages to get to him before Clint does. She doesn’t get there before Clint’s arrows, but Loki seems to enjoy deflecting them by turning them into birds or butterflies or little puffs of sparkly dust. Needless to say, Clint’s not impressed.
“Loki,” says Natasha, drawing his attention. He looks her up and down, noting the ice cream smeared over her boots, and smirks. “Long time no see.”
“Natasha Alianovna,” he purrs. “Or is that Ivanovna?”
She cocks her head. “It’s just Black Widow to you. Why the ice cream?”
“It’s frozen and delicious,” he says. She waits for him to continue but it seems like that’s all he’s got. Huh.
“Seems like a poor reason to attract the ire of SHIELD,” she observes.
“SHIELD didn’t have to get involved,” he returns. “This,” – he sweeps an arm out in front of him, to indicate the melting borough – “is hardly a matter of national security.”
“Well, we tend to take it badly when war criminals mess up our major cities,” she demurs. “You didn’t have to come back here. You could have gone to Montreal. Or Moscow. Or Melbourne. You know, something starting with M for mewling quim.” Yeah, she hasn’t forgotten that one.
All credit to Loki, he looks slightly abashed. “But I have no quarrel with Montreal,” he says, bewildered.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Well, we’re ever so sorry for foiling your evil plots for world domination. Except, wait, no, we’re not. Surrender or I’ll beat your ass into the concrete.”
Loki scowls, and doesn’t surrender.
Natasha beats his ass.
Five minutes later she’s got a throbbing gash in her shoulder, courtesy of Loki’s glowstick, her knuckles are bruised, and she’s sitting on top of him, folding his arms behind his back. Loki’s moaning and cursing in turns, and wriggling half-heartedly. His glowstick was knocked off the building in the scuffle, and as far as Natasha can see it’s currently sinking into the sugary mess twelve storeys below them.
It’s at this point that Clint and Rogers finally join the party.
“Hi, Tasha,” says Clint. “Weather’s nice.”
“I, er,” says Rogers, casting a morbidly fascinated eye at Natasha’s knee, which is hovering perilously close to Loki’s groin, “I see you’ve got everything under control. Well done, Widow.” He turns his back to them and speaks into his earpiece. “Iron Man, report...”
“Most of the civilians are out of the way,” says Stark. He sounds out of breath. “No fatalities as of yet. Couple minor cases of frostbite. One guy here might need to get his stomach pumped, he ate most of his furniture.”
Clint pulls a face.
Natasha frowns and looks down at Loki, who has given up on trying to escape and is now drooling placidly into the roof beneath them. Something here doesn’t add up. Last time Loki paid them a visit he destroyed a good chunk of Manhattan, and this time he’s just here for some harmless fun? What happened to the bitter, ruined creature that vowed to see all of Earth burn?
“He’s up to something,” she warns them.
Clint scoffs. “When is he not up to something?”
Rogers gives Loki a sharp look, and then nods. “We won’t bring him back to the Helicarrier this time. There are plenty of secure lockups in the city that’ll do just fine. Iron Man, what’s your status?”
“Done,” says Stark. “Last one’s out. If they keep mucking around in the streets they’re going to get squashed, though. Those buildings are about to topple.”
“Cops can handle that,” says Rogers. “Loki’s our priority now. Time to go.”
Natasha straightens up, allowing Loki to get up from the ground but keeping his hands trapped behind his back. Clint passes her the super special anti-magic cuffs and she fastens them around his wrists. Loki slumps, all the energy seeming to drain out of him.
They get him into the Quinjet and then into a cell without any further drama. Natasha watches him through the mirrored window for a while, trying to read the lines of his body, the minute wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the clasp of his hands. He’s a blank canvas. He’s planning something but she can’t tell what, and this time he’s not going to underestimate her again, not going to be prodded into revealing his scheme.
Loki looks up at her – even though he can’t possibly know that she’s watching – and smiles like a shark. That is, he smiles like a shark would smile, if sharks could smile at all, which they can’t.
Natasha clenches her fists, and leaves.
SHIELD’s fine doctors stitch up her shoulder in about five minutes, and then keep her there for half an hour longer to scold her on the dangers of not seeking medical attention sooner. She waits patiently through the lecture and then goes to get lunch. Clint’s not in the mess hall. He’s been avoiding her lately. She’s been avoiding him too, a little. There’s a conversation they both need to have, but it’s not one that she’s looking forward to instigating.
A sharp, irrational pang of anger thrills through her, and she suppresses it. It’s not Clint’s fault. It’s not Phil’s fault either; it was always a hazard of the job that he’d get his stupidly brave ass killed someday, and she and Clint knew that. Know that. Without him, though, they’re left stumbling in the dark, trying to figure out what they mean to each other without Phil between them.
If Clint wants nothing to do with her, she won’t blame him.
But she might blame herself.
She goes back to her quarters and throws out all the ice cream in her freezer, then curls up with her well-thumbed copy of Anna Karenina and a mug of Earl Grey. The wound in her shoulder pulses uncomfortably. There’s a lump in her throat. Sentiment.
Her concentration’s shot to hell and she can’t bring herself to enjoy the novel. Eventually she puts it down and suits up again. She needs to talk to Clint, and she’d rather be armoured for it, even if he’s always been able to see beneath her armour. Her boots are still covered in ice cream, so she leaves them off.
The corridors of the Helicarrier are deserted and cold. Her bare feet are silent, and she only passes one person in between her quarters and the shooting range: an intern who looks terrified and promptly rushes off. She won’t deny that she enjoys scaring the interns. It’s a perk of the job.
Of course Clint’s in the shooting range. He’s rarely anywhere else when he’s got something on his mind. His back’s to her, and he’s loosing arrow after arrow into shredded targets. Not all of the clusters are in the bullseye, but he doesn’t always aim for the bullseye.
Natasha clears her throat. “I know you hate talking,” she says. Hell, she hates talking too. Sometimes it’s hard to admit to the strange feelings squirming around inside her breast. “But we need to talk. About Phil. About us.”
Clint’s muscles lock up and he stops shooting. Natasha tenses.
His reaction... isn’t exactly what she expects.
He whirls around and looses an arrow at her head. She dodges just in time, and Clint drops his bow with a roar and lunges at her, catching her around the waist and pinning her to the ground. She’s caught off guard. She’s never caught off guard. But then, Clint never mixes up emotions with violence; he’s terrified of turning into his abusive father. Something’s going on here. Maybe this was a part of Loki’s plan. Maybe Clint’s compromised again.
He presses one arm against her throat. She lies still, ready to deploy her Widow’s Sting at a moment’s notice.
“How did you get in here?” he demands. There’s an ugly, feverish light in his eyes, but they’re not frozen over like they had been when he was under Loki’s thrall. “How did you infiltrate SHIELD?”
Windpipe effectively cut off, choking for air, Natasha stares up at Clint’s furious expression and notices one tiny detail out of place. There’s a faint scar on his chin, just below his anchor point. It’s an old scar, well-healed, completely innocuous apart from the fact that it’s a scar he didn’t have this morning.
“Answer me!” he snarls, and Natasha blinks up at him.
Something is very wrong.