Archive of Our Own

Natasha stared at Thor’s name on her buzzing phone with a distinct feeling of dread.

“There is,” she said to her screen, “almost no chance this is good news.” And every chance this would be Thor asking for advice she didn’t really know how to give.

She sighed, and answered it. “Hey, Thor.”

Silence. Then an uneven inhale. “Natasha,” he said, and she straightened at the tone in his voice: heavy, exhausted, with a slight edge of despair. “I am...you have my apologies for disturbing you. But I don’t know who else to call.”

Natasha scrolled mentally through a list of possible worst case scenarios and sorted them by likelihood, simultaneously wondering when she’d become the go-to person for giving advice to traumatized gods. And not even the one she’d actually given her phone number. “What happened?” she asked, keeping it simple.

Another few seconds of silence that Natasha waited out. “It is...difficult to explain,” Thor said.

“I can’t do much if you don’t tell me.”

And more silence. Thor was clearly wrestling with how much to tell her, and that made her think that Loki probably wasn’t dead. What she should do was recommend Thor find a good therapist, but there were at least four reasons that wasn’t an option.

Finally Thor said, “what do you know about the,” and then stopped. “The man who held Loki captive,” he said, starting over.

“The Grandmaster,” she said, half by way of clarification, half as reminder that she did know some of this.

“Yes,” Thor said. “There was a...device that he used, to-”

“I know,” Natasha said, cutting him off. “I saw it. Some kind of implant. Right?”

“Yes,” Thor said after a beat. “I thought there must be some kind of limit on distance. Loki said as much, that if he was far enough away from the controller it wouldn’t work - no, he said he thought that was the case-”

Natasha pressed her lips together. Yeah. Like just leaving the thing there hadn’t been statement enough. Had to be a way to twist the knife now and again.

She’d never met this Grandmaster, and never wanted to, but damn if he didn’t make her want to kill him. She’d met men like him before. Not as powerful, maybe, but cut from the same cloth. Natasha could see why Thor had called her.

“You were mistaken,” she said. “Is that it?”

Thor made a ragged noise at the back of his throat. “Yes,” he said. “Mistaken. That’s one way of putting it.” Natasha stayed quiet, waiting, and after a while he said, “he wouldn’t come to me. Didn’t come to me until it’d been two days and he was half dead, and even then it isn’t like there was much I could do-”

“Thor,” Natasha said, “what, exactly, are you asking from me?”

Quiet, again. Then, finally, “would you be willing to come here?”

Natasha let out an explosive breath. She pinched the bridge of her nose. There was no good reason for her to agree. Thor was a friend, but this was outside her wheelhouse, complicated, and sure, she’d given Loki her number but she hadn’t planned to get involved unless he called first, and she’d been pretty sure he wouldn’t.

But Thor was calling, and he was asking for her help.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll come. But I don’t know how you think I’m going to help.”

“I’m not certain, either,” Thor said, and it sounded like it cost him to admit it. “But you seem to know better than me.”

When she cut the connection Natasha just stood still, frowning, trying to parse what Thor had said. It didn’t make a lot of sense, and if she didn’t love walking into what was clearly a volatile situation blind...it’d probably be easier to understand once she was on the ground.

She went to find Steve, who was frowning down at a burnt casserole. “Hey,” she said, “I’m going to Norway.”

Steve stopped frowning at his cooking and turned toward her, brows furrowing. “What? Why?”

“I thought you were done obsessing about Loki’s possibly nefarious intentions,” Sam said from where he was sitting on the couch, legs stretched out. Natasha shrugged.

“Thor asked me for some help.”

Steve’s frown deepened. “You? Not the rest of us?”

Natasha cracked a smile. “No need to sound so surprised.” Steve looked a little hurt, though, and she said, “it’s probably just something that requires a light touch, and - no offense - but Steve, that’s not your strong point, and Thor doesn’t really know you, Sam.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “‘Something,’” he said. “How mysterious of you.” Natasha fixed him with a level stare, and he threw up his hands. “Fine, fine. Don’t say.”

Steve didn’t seem as content to let it go. “Is it dangerous?”

“No,” Natasha said, which was almost certainly true. “It’s not dangerous.”

Steve’s mouth twisted. “And that’s all you’re going to say.”

“That’s all I’m going to say.” She paused, and then added, more gently, “I wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t worry.”

Steve rubbed his forehead. “All right,” he said. “Fine. I’m not the boss of you. Just...keep in touch, all right?”

“Aye aye,” she said, in the way she knew would make him wince, and slipped out.

The Asgardian settlement didn’t seem to have changed much, though it had built up a little, expanded. It looked a little less like a temporary camp and a little more like a village edging toward permanence. This time around she didn’t try to hide herself, and Valkyrie met her as she approached. Her eyes narrowed.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said.

“Thor didn’t tell you I was coming, did he,” Natasha said. That was interesting.

“No. Didn’t mention it.” Valkyrie’s lips twisted toward a scowl. “Then again, he hasn’t been talking to me for the last three days, so…”

Natasha blinked. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. He’s been in a little bit of a mood.” She eyed Natasha. “So he didn’t bite your head off after all?”

“He tried,” Natasha said. Valkyrie’s eyebrows twitched a little.

“Well,” she said. “Good luck.”

Natasha settled back on her heels. “Anything I should know before I walk into this shitstorm?”

Valkyrie gave her that slow, assessing gaze that belied her rough, just-the-muscle performance. “Honestly?” she said. “My advice is, don’t walk into it. The whole thing’s a fucking tangle of wires, and - don’t tell Thor I said this - I think it’s a lost cause.”

“What is,” Natasha said slowly.

Valkyrie shrugged one shoulder, a slight unhappiness slipping into her eyes. “Loki,” she said. “The Grandmaster’s been breaking people for millennia. He knows what he’s doing. I’ve seen a lot of people go through that mill, and none of them came back out of it.”

A horrible little shiver ran down Natasha’s spine. She kept her face blank. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. Valkyrie grimaced.

“You think I’m heartless,” she said, almost accusatory.

“I don’t think you’re heartless,” Natasha said. “I think you’re tired of watching your king - your friend? - suffer, when it looks like it’s pointless.”

Valkyrie glanced away. “Not just him,” she muttered, but under her breath enough that Natasha wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear. She shrugged one shoulder. “You asked what I thought you should know. That’s what I’m telling you. And don’t take it personally if Thor yells at you. He’s doing a lot of that this week.”

This week. Last three days. Didn’t come to me until it’d been two days. Natasha was going to need to put together a timeline, but she was probably going to have to get that from Thor.

“Thanks,” she said. “So where can I find him?”

Valkyrie pointed in some vague direction, and Natasha chose to just walk that way. She didn’t have to go far before she heard Thor’s voice, raised, plainly arguing with someone. Following the voices, she found him with Heimdall and paused to listen.

“Why didn’t you say something,” Thor was saying, simultaneously loudly and like he was trying to control his volume.

“I already told you,” said Heimdall. “I wasn’t looking at your brother. You and I both know that he is a private person. Particularly of late I have avoided paying him too much attention.”

“That is no exc-” Thor cut off, noticing her, and turned. He looked like he hadn’t slept recently, more than a little wild-eyed, a dangerous mix of anger and panic carved on his face. Natasha stayed where she was.

“Thor,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. “Heimdall. Hey.”

Heimdall glanced at Thor. “I see,” he said, after a moment. “I will leave you to it, then.” She might have been mistaken, but Natasha thought he might be hurt. Or at least offended. So Thor hadn’t told him, either.

Wonderful. She hoped she wasn’t making enemies of Thor’s right hand man and woman.

“Natasha,” Thor said, his voice strained. “Thank you for coming.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. Natasha considered calling Thor on not informing Valkyrie or Heimdall about her showing up, and decided now wasn’t the time. “So. Now that I’m here, want to tell me why I’m here?”

Thor hesitated, then said, “come to my house. We should speak in private.”

“Lead on,” she said, and followed him. He let her inside, walked over to a rather wretched looking chair, and sank down into it with a heavy sigh. Natasha took a seat on an equally wretched looking couch.

“So,” she said, when he didn’t speak immediately. Thor ran his fingers through his hair, still shorter than it had ever been since she’d known him, though he was clearly growing it out.

“Three days ago Loki came to me to ask for my help,” Thor said, all in a rush as though he could no longer hold the words in. “After...he’d been using that thing for - hours, two days before.” With the layer of absolute loathing on he Natasha didn’t think she needed to ask who Thor meant.

That didn’t sound good, certainly, but she kept her voice bland when she said, “so what was Loki asking?”

Thor’s mouth twisted. “My assistance with tending his injuries,” he said, “since of course he wouldn’t go to a healer, no, he just hides away until he can scarcely stand-” he cut off again, the expression on his face like he’d tried to eat a whole lemon. It wasn’t anger, though. Not really. Oh, Thor wanted to be angry, but he was just scared.

“How is Loki now,” she said carefully.

“Recovering,” Thor said. “Slowly. It doesn’t help that he won’t let anyone who might actually be able to help see him. At least, he doesn’t want to. He’d do it if I told him to.”

Well. She’d expected a mess.

Natasha wanted to ask more about what this device had done to Loki, exactly - all he’d said was that it caused pain, which didn’t say much - but she didn’t think now was the time to get into details. “Maybe you should, if it’s causing him harm not to.”

Thor gave her a horrified look. “When I have spent these past months convincing him that my word is not a law to be obeyed? Or even that my suggestion isn’t?”

Natasha’s lips twisted. “Fair point.” She shifted, slightly, crossing her legs. “So. What do you want from me?”

Thor stared at her for several long moments, then pressed his head into his hands. “I don’t know,” he said, painfully honest. “I don’t know what more I can do. I have been trying and I thought things were - better, but if he won’t - it is as though there is a near choice between dying and asking me for help!”

Natasha mulled that over. She tapped her foot against the floor.

“It sounds like I’d better talk to Loki,” she said. “Did you let him know you were calling me?”

Thor’s guilty expression answered that question. Natasha raised her eyebrows.

“Does he know you’ve been in touch with me at all?” The guilty expression got guiltier, and Natasha exhaled slowly. “Yeah, see,” she said, “that might be a problem.”

“Why would it be a problem?” Thor asked, though by the look on his face Natasha thought he knew exactly why.

“Because your brother doesn’t trust me,” she said. “And I doubt he’s taking surprises well right now. And if he finds out that you called me up here without saying anything about it...well, he probably won’t get mad at you. Or at least won’t let himself get mad at you. But I doubt he’ll be happy, either.”

Thor’s face fell. “Then…”

Natasha blew out a breath. “It’s too late now,” she said. “The best thing to do is probably just to say I came on my own.”

Thor’s expression flickered like he was thinking about questioning the lie, but thankfully he didn’t. Just nodded, and rubbed his remaining eye.

“I should have thought of that.”

“Probably,” Natasha agreed. “But you’ve had a fair amount on your mind lately.” The look Thor gave her suggested he didn’t find that terribly comforting. Natasha sighed. “Like I said. I’ll see if I can talk to him, and I guess we’ll go from there. Okay?”

Thor nodded slowly, though he didn’t look happy.

“And you might want to think about making up with your friends,” she added. “You’re not doing anyone any good by taking it out on them.”

The scowl came back. “You don’t understand.”

“Maybe not,” Natasha allowed. “It’s just something to consider.”

You’re an idiot, Natasha reminded herself again, standing watching the door to Loki’s house. Already in deeper than you should be. You should go ahead and back out now.

She wasn’t going to, because she was already in deeper than she should have been.

Natasha kept her knock light, figuring Loki would hear it anyway, then stepped back and waited, tapping her foot a little. She had to admit to a little curiosity about what might’ve changed since she’d last seen Loki, and what might not have. He’d maybe been nagging at her a little since Thor’s last panicked call, her business or not.

Spend a few weeks obsessively stalking someone and maybe they didn’t get out of your head that easily.

Natasha was about to knock again when she heard a lock disengage and the door opened on Loki looking down at her. He blinked, just once.

“This is...unexpected,” he said. His voice sounded rough and scratchy, like he had a sore throat, and his eyes looked glassy. His shirt was a plain v-neck rather than the high collars she’d seen him wearing before, probably because of the thick white bandaging taped over a large area around where she knew that disc was embedded.

Loki did, indeed, look like he was recovering from something nasty, though if she didn’t know otherwise she would’ve guessed ‘flu’ first.

“I was in the area,” she said, keeping her voice bland. “Thought I’d drop in.” His eyebrows twitched but he didn’t call her on what they both knew was a lie. “I wondered if you’d lost my number.”

“I haven’t,” he said, slowly, like he was weighing the words and her possible reaction.

“Glad to hear it.” She cocked her head at him. “You look like you got run over by a truck.”

That quick, assessing study, and she caught the flick of his eyes briefly in the direction of where Thor’s house was, then back to her. Taking in everything in a half a second: expression, body language, tone of voice, calculating, making necessary adjustments before reacting. If she didn’t know what it looked like, and didn’t know to watch for it, she might not have noticed. Something behind his glassed eyes shuttered.

“What did Thor tell you?”

Well, it’d been worth a try. Natasha raised her eyebrows. “About what?” He just looked at her, gaze flat, and she shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing much. Just that the Grandmaster apparently hasn’t been leaving you alone.”

The noise Loki made was hideous. A grating sort of cross between a laugh and a sob with a little bit of a scream thrown in. She just managed not to wince. “One could,” he said, almost gasped, “say that. I suppose.” Natasha waited, and he took a slow breath through his nose and said, “you may as well come in,” with a sort of tired resignation.

Not exactly what she’d hoped for, but it could be worse. She took the invitation at face value and stepped inside. It didn’t look much different than it had the last time she’d been here. “Can I get myself some water?” she asked, before he could offer, and if he gave her an odd look he gestured toward the kitchen.

“By all means.”

She tracked down a glass and filled it from the tap, then leaned against the doorframe rather than sitting down and gestured at his neck. “So what happened?”

One of Loki’s hands rose slightly toward the bandaging before he brought it back down. “Even if Thor has not provided you with an explanation, I should think that would be obvious.” She shrugged, and his lips twisted a little. “So, yes, but you want me to explain it in my own words, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

Loki sat down. He tried to make it look casual, but Natasha could see that the little color that had been in his face when he’d answered the door was gone, and he looked shaky. “He activated the disc. I have no idea why.”

“Probably doesn’t have to be a ‘why,’ does there,” Natasha said. Loki’s eyes cut toward her and then away. One of his hands moved to his thigh, fingers curling into muscle.

“Probably not.”

“So that’s why you look like ten miles of bad road?” Loki’s shoulders twitched.

“The...usual usage is painful. But short.” His voice was expressionless. “Prolonged usage is something else. Maddening. And...damaging. At the fourth hour I tried to remove the disc. It went poorly.”

Natasha glanced at the bandaging, picturing what ‘trying to remove’ something embedded in your neck while it was torturing you would look like.

Loki twitched one shoulder up and then down in a jerky shrug. “That’s all, more or less.”

“Don’t you guys heal fast?” she said.

Loki’s eyes moved back to her, still flat and shuttered. “Yes,” he said. Which suggested plenty about what kind of condition Loki must’ve been in five days ago. Natasha had figured ‘half-dead’ for an exaggeration, but maybe not.

“Fuck,” she said. “That thing must be nasty.”

Loki’s smile wasn’t, really. “It is designed to be, yes.”

She tapped her fingers lightly against her leg, considering. Maybe there was a reason Thor hadn’t mentioned it himself - or maybe he had, and already gotten an answer. But it still seemed worth bringing up directly. “You know,” she said slowly, “there are some people on this planet who could, maybe, help you get it off.”

Loki’s entire body tensed and he recoiled back into the couch; for the first time she actually saw fear in his eyes. A bright, sharp flash of terror that caught her off guard. “No,” he said.

Natasha cocked her head to the side. “Why not?”

Loki didn’t stand, but he looked a little like he wanted to run. “Even if I thought anyone on this planet was capable - more so than Valkyrie, who knows how they work and cannot do anything - and not likely to make things much worse, who do you suggest that I ask? Who, exactly, do you think would be trustworthy?”

Tony? That idea had a host of complications; Natasha was pretty sure he didn’t even know Loki was here. Shuri? Different set of complications. Still, they were complications that might be surmountable, and certainly seemed worth dealing with for a chance at freedom.

Loki looked away from her and a small shudder went through him. “Besides,” he said, after a moment, “I do not...I am not particularly interested in having...anyone...that close to me.”

That, Natasha supposed, was another problem entirely. The vulnerability alone, and she wasn’t exactly surprised by the idea that he would be touch averse. Though that presented its own potential problems, psychologically speaking.

“Fair enough,” she said. Loki didn’t relax, though, his sideways glance wary like he thought she might just be preparing to strike from a different angle. “It’s up to you,” she said. Loki blinked slowly and then coughed a laugh, though at least this one sounded a little less horrible than the previous one.

“You and Thor,” he murmured, and turned away from her again. She waited, but he didn’t explain.

Eventually Natasha walked over and sat down. “Is that why Thor’s not talking to Valkyrie?” she asked. “Because she couldn’t…”

Loki exhaled. “So it seems.” He seemed to be thinking about something, now.

“She tried?”

“No,” Loki said. “She declined. After informing Thor in graphic detail of the results of previous attempts she had witnessed.” He paused. “I confess to some uncertainty about what you are doing here, Lady Romanoff. Your previous assessment was, I believe, concerning whether or not I would pose a danger. I can’t imagine you thought that had changed.”

“Again, Natasha will do,” she said. “I’m not an aristocrat. As for why I’m here…” She considered that question, and decided some truth would do. “How’s Thor doing?”

Loki’s expression turned guarded. “Is that meant to be an answer?” She shrugged again, and Loki gave her that quick, considering study before he spoke. “I do not think I should speak for Thor.”

“Not what I meant,” Natasha said, though that was an interesting response. “I meant, how’s he doing when it comes to you.” When Loki’s eyebrows furrowed, she added, “he’s a friend of mine, but I know he’s not always the best with delicate situations.”

One of Loki’s eyebrows quirked very slightly. “Is that what I am?” Natasha just waited again, keeping her gaze level, and the already guarded expression closed off completely. “I think I am even less inclined to answer that question.”

Natasha leaned back. “Because you don’t want me to judge him?”

“Who said there was anything to judge?”

“You,” Natasha said blandly, “when you wouldn’t ask him for help until you were, apparently, half-dead.”

He didn’t like that. It was pretty well hidden, but Natasha caught the renewed tension, the quick flash of anger quickly smothered, the flinch, the glance at her like he was scanning for a trap, or an opening, or both. Then all of it buried, and well. “I already explained this to Thor,” he said.

“Whatever you said, doesn’t seem like he heard.”

One of Loki’s feet tapped a few times against the floor in the smallest betrayal of agitation; otherwise he was holding too still. “He thinks I don’t trust him,” he said. “That is - untrue. I’ve told him so. I didn’t speak to him because it wasn’t something he needed to deal with. I believed I could - deal with it on my own, without troubling him, seeing as he has more than enough on his plate without my bringing him problems that can’t be fixed and will only-” He cut off, a faint flicker of frustration darting across his face before it vanished, buried like everything else. Natasha didn’t know if it was frustration with Thor or with himself; maybe both.

“That’s not how he sees it,” Natasha said quietly.

“No,” Loki said. “It wouldn’t be.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I have apologized. His distress now - there is nothing further I can do to assuage it.”

Natasha pressed her lips together. “Maybe his distress isn’t the point,” she said. His eyes flicked to her, cautious, mistrustful. She spread her hands. “Just a thought. He’s not the one with a sadist yanking his chain.”

Loki twitched. “You don’t think so?” he said, voice suddenly brittle. “I think that is - just as much part of the point as I am.”

Natasha frowned slightly, but Loki didn’t explain further. She supposed she could take his meaning, though. Two-for-one mindfuck special, as it were.

God, she was really starting to hate this Grandmaster.

“He was here, you know,” Loki said abruptly. Natasha focused on him again, surprised. That was news Thor hadn’t mentioned. Thinking about the timing of his last call...that gave a reason for Loki’s getting worse.

“Oh?” she said carefully..

“Mm.” Natasha wondered if he was aware of the way his body language shifted, like he was curling into himself without moving. A defensive reaction that was trying not to be.

“What did he want?” she asked carefully.

Loki made a strange noise in the back of his throat. “To make a point, I think. Or more than one.” One of his hands slipped into the pocket of his pants and he pulled something out, flipping it in her direction; she caught it automatically and looked down. She didn’t recognize what it was, and glanced at Loki with one eyebrow raised at the apparent non-sequitur.

“Should I know what this is?”

“Take a guess,” Loki said. Natasha glanced down at it again and felt her eyebrows climb further.

“If it was the controller for that thing-”

“It isn’t,” Loki said, voice dull. “Obviously. But it is a controller. Just not for this one. A gift he left behind.”

Natasha turned it over in her hand. “Why’d you keep it, if it’s useless?”

His smile was utterly without humor. “Call it sentimentality.”

Not exactly the word I’d use, Natasha thought, but decided against saying. She remembered Valkyrie saying the Grandmaster’s been breaking people for millennia, he knows what he’s doing. She definitely wasn’t wrong, and if Loki wasn’t broken he was definitely more than a little fractured.

Not that that was new. She’d seen that in him as far back as the invasion in 2012. It was more obvious this time, and along different fault lines, but ‘stable’ had never, as far as Natasha could see, been an adjective that applied to Loki.

She tossed the controller back to him and he caught it. “Why tell me this?”

“Why not?”

Maybe it was that simple. Natasha scrutinized him for a few moments, trying to sense if there was something else, but he wasn’t easy to read. Probably never had been, and only gotten harder.

“Because I’d expect you to want to keep some things private,” she said eventually. The corner of Loki’s mouth ticked up very slightly.

“You already know the worst,” he said. “I hardly think anything I tell you now will make much of a difference.”

Or maybe you want to talk to someone and you can’t talk to your brother, and apparently I’m your best option even if you won’t call. Well. She had made the offer. “Guess so,” she said. And after some consideration, “were you seeing if it would kill you?”

Loki tensed again, his eyes cutting sharply back to her face, narrowing. She just waited, keeping her face blank again.

“No,” he said at length, flatly. “Did Thor suggest as much?”

“No,” Natasha said. “This is all me. Considering what you were angling toward last time I was here, I was just wondering.”

“You have me mistaken,” Loki said. “I was not, in fact, angling toward suicide.”

Natasha didn’t look away from him. “Effectively. You had to’ve known execution was a possibility if I sold you out to Earth’s authorities.” Loki’s nostrils flared very slightly, though the rest of his expression remained closed. “If I’m off base, I’m off base,” she said. “Like I said. I was just wondering.”

Loki surveyed her, expressionless, and finally said, “this was...a miscalculation. My death would be extraordinarily inconvenient to Thor. For that reason alone I am disinclined to self-destruction.”

This wasn’t self-destruction? Natasha thought, but she wasn’t about to say that. The phrasing - for that reason alone - struck her. It could mean, of course, ‘among others, but first and foremost.’ Or it could mean exactly what it said.

Especially with that choice of adjective: inconvenient. How very utilitarian.

“Glad to hear it,” she said, somewhat on a whim. Loki blinked at her, surprise breaking through the careful neutrality. Natasha gave him a humorless smile of her own. “Like I said. Thor’s a friend, and I’m pretty sure that’d wreck him.”

Loki flinched, very slightly, like that stung to hear. “I see.”

Natasha considered, then stood up. “Thanks for the talk, and the water,” she said. “I’m going to be hanging around for a few days, I think. Feel better.”

His eyebrows drew very slightly together. “Thank you,” he said, half like a question.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and went out.

Standing on the stairs up to the door, she rolled out her shoulders and took a deep breath.

Then she went to go figure out where she was going to stay.

There wasn’t exactly a lot of space to go around in New Asgard (which was apparently the imaginative name the settlement had been given). She ended up asking Valkyrie if she could stay on her couch. The woman gave her a long, skeptical look.

“You’re staying,” she said.

“Turns out,” Natasha said. “For now.”

“Suit yourself,” Valkyrie said after a long pause. “Sure, you can have my couch. Guess His Majesty didn’t go after you.”

“Not this time,” Natasha said. “We’ll see if he gets around to it later.” The corner of Valkyrie’s lips twitched before she stifled it.

“All right,” she said. “You can have the couch. It’s not very comfortable, though, I’m warning you.”

“I’ve probably slept on worse,” Natasha said. She gathered the light baggage she’d packed and dropped it off, then sat down and said, “so, the Grandmaster was actually here?”

Valkyrie turned sharply from where she was opening a beer (she had not offered one to Natasha). “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “He was. Briefly. Did you know that already or did someone tell you?”

“Loki did,” Natasha said. Valkyrie’s eyebrows rose a little.

“I’m surprised,” she said. “I thought we weren’t talking about that little incident.”

“Who wasn’t?”

“Anyone,” Valkyrie said. “Thor gave us all a pretty stern talking to on that point. He seemed to think it’d be better if we just pretended nothing happened, and I wasn’t going to argue. Maybe he was right.”

“I doubt it,” Natasha murmured. Giving someone space was one thing, but creating a silence bred isolation, and shame. With someone who already had a pretty obvious helping of both...but what did she know. Not much, still, about Loki specifically. “Well, now I know. Anything I should be aware of about specifics, other than the power trip with the broken controller?”

Valkyrie’s eyebrows climbed further. “He told you about that, too? Must be feeling talkative.”

Natasha cocked her head. “Not with you, I take it?”

“Not really. Polite, for sure - too fucking polite. Makes my skin crawl. Every so often he’ll approach me about something business related - administrative stuff. Outside of that, though...but like I told you, we’re not exactly friends.”

“Neither are we,” Natasha said. “Truth is that before you guys landed, my last memories of Loki were fighting him. It was a relief when Thor told us he was dead.” She offered up a crooked smile. “I think sometimes it’s easier with someone who isn’t a friend. No expectations.”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said after a moment. “Maybe.” Another pause and she said, “I don’t think there’s anything else, really, except that I was pretty sure for a while there that His Highness had lost it for good. Though you should, maybe, be a little worried that Gast can just show up here if he feels like it. I don’t think he’d bother with trying to take over this planet, but...you never know, with him.”

That sent a chill down Natasha’s spine and she made a note to find a way to mention that to her team. “Gast?”

“That’s his name,” Valkyrie said. “En Dwi Gast. Most people don’t know it.”

“But you do,” Natasha said. Valkyrie looked like she’d bitten into something sour.

“I was on Sakaar for a long time,” she said. “He liked me. For some reason. So I got...privileges. Liberties.” She glanced at Natasha, her jaw setting. “I’m not proud. And I never liked him.”

Natasha waited. She had a feeling there was more Valkyrie wanted to say - or maybe didn’t want to, but felt like she needed to.

“I just didn’t care,” she said, finally.

“You feel guilty,” Natasha said.

“What?”

“You feel guilty,” Natasha said. “You said you’d seen the Grandmaster break a lot of people, and you didn’t do anything to stop it.” She kept her voice neutral, nonjudgmental. “And now you’re up close and personal with one of those people, and maybe it’s making you think about the ones you didn’t save.”

Valkyrie’s eyes were hard and cold. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.”

“Am I wrong?”

Valkyrie’s jaw clenched and Natasha thought she might get really mad, as opposed to sort of mad, but she just slumped back and took a long swallow from her bottle. “Why are you trying to get in my head?”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m not. Not really. Just thinking out loud.”

“Well,” Valkyrie said, with a steely finality in her voice, “you might keep more of your thinking less loud, and we’ll get along better.”

“Duly noted,” Natasha said mildly, and let the matter drop.

Practically the next time Natasha showed her face in public, less than twelve hours later, Thor pounced.

“Did you talk to him?” he asked urgently.

Natasha considered holding him off until she had more time and a chance to process a little, but decided that would just be cruel. “I did, yeah.”

“And?” Thor said, obviously agitated. Natasha examined him.

“And I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she said. “All I was doing was...assessing. Getting my own perspective. You didn’t tell me about the Grandmaster visiting. Is that when you called me?”

“A little after,” Thor said after a brief pause in which he seemed to be struggling over whether or not to answer her. “It was...things were getting better, but he - ruined that. And then when I thought we were making progress again - this, and now I don’t know if we were at all or if Loki just wanted me to think so.”

Natasha was a little curious about that, too. She estimated the likelihood about 60-40 combination of both.

“I brought up the idea of calling someone in to help get that thing off.”

Thor looked immediately suspicious. And skeptical. “Do you think that would work?”

“No idea,” Natasha said. “But unless you’re going to make him do it it doesn’t matter. He shot down that idea pretty categorically.” She paused, and then said, “he also said it’s not about not trusting you.”

“He says,” Thor said, with audible frustration.

“For what it’s worth,” Natasha said. “I believe that part of it.”

“You do,” Thor said cautiously, and then, “what don’t you believe?”

That this wasn’t an experiment in self-harm at best and passive suicidality at worst. She was going to leave that one alone for now, though; Thor would panic, and right now a panicked Thor was the last thing any of them needed. “He’s very defensive of you.”

Thor’s expression flickered. “What do you mean?”

Natasha shrugged. “What I said. I start in saying anything negative about you, even a little-” Thor frowned, but he didn’t interrupt, “-and he shuts it down.”

“What does this have to do with-”

“I don’t believe he’s not angry,” Natasha said. “With you, I mean. He doesn’t want me to think so. Definitely doesn’t want you to think so. Maybe he doesn’t even realize it’s there, and it’s buried a good thirty feet down. But it’s there.”

Thor looked stricken. And then a moment later almost relieved. “You believe so?”

“You look like you think that’s good news.”

“Isn’t it?” Thor said. He sounded hopeful. “All I have to do is draw it out of him. Provoke-”

“Oh, no,” Natasha said. “That would be a terrible idea.” Thor frowned at her. “Even if you do get an outburst,” she said, “and there’s no guarantee you would - hm.” She cocked her head to the side. “Since you got him back, have you seen anything you’d call temper?”

Thor hesitated. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Once or twice.”

“And what happened?” Thor’s expression darkened and his face fell. “Panic, right?” Natasha said. “Doubling down on staying in line. When you’re trying to...manage someone volatile, the last thing you want is to lose control of yourself. Lose control of yourself and you’ve lost control of the situation. And better get that control back fast or there’s consequences.”

“I’m not-”

“Volatile?” Natasha asked, raising her eyebrows. “Aren’t you?”

Thor looked like she’d punched him in the face. “Do you really think I’m-”

“No,” Natasha said. “Probably not, whatever you were going to end that sentence with. But you do have a temper. And - tell me if I’m off base - a history of losing it.” Thor looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t.

“And was Loki sometimes the one to talk you down? Defuse things?”

Thor’s mouth spasmed. “He provoked me just as often,” he said, with slight defensiveness, but there was the guilt again, too. Natasha spread her hands.

“There you go. So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend trying to get Loki to snap at you.”

“So what do I do?” Thor asked, the anguish and desperation in his voice truly painful.

“I told you,” Natasha said. “There’s no manual for this. It’s...complicated. Takes time. And I’m not - really not - a professional. Honestly-” she let out a short laugh. “Honestly, I’m more often on the other end of this.”

Thor’s eyebrows furrowed. “How do you mean?”

I mean I’ve headfucked more than my fair share of people. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

Thor stared at her for a few moments more, then shook his head and himself and said, “do you think I might...talk to him, at least?”

“Thor,” Natasha said, pained, then paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I can’t tell you what to do. And I don’t want to be the person giving you permission.”

He just looked miserable. Natasha sighed out through her nose.

“I don’t think it would make anything worse,” she said.

Natasha hated, a little, how grateful Thor looked. But there was nothing she could do about that. “Thank you,” he said, with painful sincerity, and almost ran off. Natasha watched him go, then pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

She wanted to call Clint, but that wasn’t really an option. Compartmentalize.

This whole thing was plucking at nerves that didn’t need plucking. But she was committed now; backing out would feel too much like cowardice. And she’d be leaving a friend in the lurch to deal with something he didn’t know how to deal with.

Shit. A friend, and someone who definitely wasn’t that. What he was, right now, was complicated.

Sam would probably say she just wanted a project. Maybe he’d even be right.

What do you actually think you can do, here?

Wasn’t that just the question.

The next afternoon Natasha saw Loki out and about, though he didn’t really look like he should be. She saw him catch sight of her and his eyes slid quickly away, as, a moment later, did he.

Regretting talking to her, maybe. Natasha grimaced inwardly. If that was the case - well, she might as well head out now.

He showed up later, though, while she was sitting on Valkyrie’s porch trying to figure out where to go to get lunch.

“You’re still here,” he said, practically oozing wariness from his pores.

“Yep,” she said. “Do you want to sit down? You still look like shit.”

His smile was a slash across his face. “Flatterer.”

“I try not to be.” She tapped a foot on one of the stairs. “Go on. I won’t tell anyone.”

His eyes narrowed, but after a moment he sat down, regarding her with a sharp gaze. “Why are you still here?” he asked, and if his voice was polite the way he was scanning her was definitely suspicious. Of what, Natasha wasn’t sure, but she considered carefully how best to answer that question.

“Why do you think I’m here?” she asked finally.

“I wouldn’t dare guess.”

It would be interesting, Natasha thought idly, if she could get the chance to see how Loki acted with other people. Thor in particular. “Even if I’m asking?”

“Perhaps especially then.” Loki’s voice remained calm, a little dry, but Natasha could see the slight traces of agitation in the twitch of his fingers. Natasha considered him again.

“Did you ever think about calling me?”

His eyes half closed, eyelashes masking the expression there. “Was I meant to?”

“Answering a question with a question,” Natasha said. “Pretty basic attempt at deflection. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t mean the offer.”

Loki was examining her again. Before he’d been kneecapped by the Grandmaster - maybe even more so before whatever had happened prior to his arrival in 2012 - he must’ve been formidable. When that knack for reading people could have been bent to his own ends, and when he’d had the sanity to use it well.

She wondered if Loki was aware of how perfectly the Grandmaster had weaponized that. Kept him running in circles trying to anticipate and react to an unpredictable and exacting master so there was no room in his head for anything else.

It might make it worse if he was aware.

“I did not doubt you meant it,” Loki said slowly. “Only your purpose.”

“You thought it might be bait.”

“Mm.”

“I doubt you’ll believe me when I tell you it wasn’t,” Natasha said. “But it wasn’t. I didn’t really expect you would call when I did it.”

“Then why bother?”

“Honestly? Not sure,” Natasha said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Less so, now?”

“Actually,” Natasha said, “Thor having my number is what I’m more worried about right now. He doesn’t have a great sense of boundaries, does he?”

Loki stiffened. “One could accuse you of the same,” he said, voice even. Natasha raised her eyebrows.

“One could. We’re not talking about me, though.”

“Why are we talking about Thor?”

“You’re very quick to defend him,” Natasha said idly. “It’s interesting.” His eyes narrowed, fractionally, the tension only growing. “I mean, someone could say it’s his fault, couldn’t they? That you ended up stuck with the Grandmaster.” A slight twitch over the name, though she probably wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely.

“Someone could say that I deserved it.”

“I’d say no one does.” Loki blinked. She’d caught him off guard with that.

“He didn’t know,” he said after a moment.

“And? Is ignorance an excuse?”

She caught a brief spasm of Loki’s jaw. “What is the point of this?” he asked. “Into what are you trying to bait me?”

“I’m not,” she said calmly, even if she was, a little. “I’m just curious. Last time I saw you it seemed like you’d kill Thor as soon as look at him. Now you bristle when I’m a little critical. It’s quite a change.”

“And you make something of it, I take it?”

“Maybe.”

Loki regarded her with obvious caution, scanning her face. “Dare I ask what?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha said. “Do you?”

Another very quick flash of irritation, quickly wiped away. She was going to have to be careful now, not to push too hard. He fell quiet, and after a moment stood.

“I do not believe I have anything further to say.”

“Are you defensive of him because he’s your brother, or because he’s your master?”

Loki went very still. For a moment it looked as though he scarcely breathed. For another moment she felt a hum and wondered if she’d miscalculated and he was about to lash out, and was quite aware that he could almost certainly obliterate her if he tried.

Then he took a breath and said, very clearly, “he can be both.”

Natasha’s eyebrows shot up, but Loki was already two long strides away, and before he completed the third, he vanished.

Well, Natasha thought. Shit.

Calling that a wrinkle was just a little bit of an understatement.

She couldn’t claim to be surprised, exactly. The undercurrent had been there all along, and Thor had certainly named it as such, but she hadn’t really expected Loki to. She hadn’t even expected - in retrospect, rather foolishly - him to be aware of it. That was why she’d asked, after all: hoping to make him confront that contradiction, or at least think about it.

But of course it wasn’t a contradiction. Not in Loki’s head. He can be both.

It felt like she was holding all the components of a bomb in her hands, half assembled. If she moved the right way they would stay just that: components. But if she moved the wrong way…

Not exactly a comfortable place to be.

Natasha went looking for the one member of Thor’s inner circle she hadn’t met yet.

Most of the Asgardians were friendly, though they treated her a little like a curiosity. When she was inclined to snap, Natasha reminded herself that she was probably among maybe fifty humans they’d seen up close in their lives up to this point, all of them within the last year. And they were being friendly. Not asking too many questions about why she was there, either; it seemed to be enough that she was a friend of Thor’s.

“Thank you,” Natasha said to the young woman who pointed her in the right direction, turning away only to turn back. “Actually, one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Thor’s brother,” Natasha said. “Loki.”

She didn’t exactly look wary, but her eyebrows did furrow a little. “Prince Loki?” she said, and Natasha had a vague sense she was being gently corrected. “What about him?”

“What do you think of him?”

Now her helper seemed genuinely puzzled. Eyeing her as though she thought Natasha might be a bit mad, she said, “he’s our prince.” When Natasha just kept looking at her, she shifted slightly and blurted out, “he might be a bit odd but,” and then stopped, visibly regretting having spoken.

Natasha took pity on her and gave her a small smile. “It’s all right,” she said. “I was just curious. Thanks for the directions.” She turned and walked away. A bit odd. That was one way of putting it.

Heimdall’s home - little more than a one-room cabin, by the looks of it - wasn’t far, but he also wasn’t there. Or at least he wasn’t when she showed up; he was about a minute later. Right, Natasha remembered. All-seeing. Magic surveillance. That would freak her out, if she let it.

“Natasha Romanoff,” he said.

“Heimdall,” she said. “Right? We met briefly when you all first landed.”

“I remember. I gathered you are here now at Thor’s invitation?”

“That’s right,” Natasha said. “And I’m guessing he didn’t mention he was inviting me until you saw me here.”

“That’s correct.” He regarded her with keen eyes, brown with a slight sheen of gold. “I do not hold it against you.”

“Glad to hear it,” Natasha said. “I honestly didn’t mean to intrude. Don’t.”

“You are here by invitation,” Heimdall said mildly. Too mildly, Natasha thought. He wasn’t happy about that, clearly.

“Not yours,” Natasha said. “Can I ask if it bothers you because Thor didn’t mention it or if it’s something else?”

Heimdall examined her again, obviously thinking carefully. Finally he said, “a bit of both. The former, I know, has nothing to do with you.”

“The latter?”

“I wonder about your motives.”

Natasha couldn’t help but huff a laugh. “You’re not the only one there,” she said with a crooked smile. Heimdall didn’t seem amused himself, but maybe he was just hard to read. No, definitely hard to read. Here was a man who kept his thoughts to himself.

“You are referring to His Highness,” Heimdall said. Natasha wondered if he usually called Loki that, or if it was for her benefit.

“Loki,” she said, “yes. He’s skeptical, though I get the feeling that’s not unusual for him.”

“No,” Heimdall allowed. “Not unusual. Though I would say in this case perhaps warranted.”

Natasha tapped one foot. “In concept, I’ll grant you that,” she said. “In actuality...it isn’t. I’m not here to cause trouble. Actually,” she added ruefully, “I’m supposed to be here to help, though I’m not sure how much good it’s doing.”

Heimdall’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Help,” he said.

“Mm-hm. Apparently I became Thor’s reference for dealing with trauma. Accidentally.”

A further slight lifting of those eyebrows. “I see.”

Natasha looked him over carefully and then said, “I talked to Valkyrie. She thinks it’s a lost cause.”

“What is?”

Natasha gestured in the general direction of Loki’s cabin. “That,” she said. Those golden tinted eyes narrowed in her direction.

“She has said as much to me. Though not in as many words.”

“To you,” Natasha said. “Not Thor.”

“No,” Heimdall said. “Not Thor. I think she recognizes the wisdom of doing that. Which is to say, the extraordinary unwisdom.”

Natasha cocked her head. “What do you think?”

Heimdall’s closed expression softened, minutely. “I think that this is a business that should have remained between the people it most concerns.”

“Too late for that,” Natasha said glibly, determined not to be deterred. “I’m not making any decisions. I’m just curious.”

“Curiosity can be a dangerous thing.” Heimdall paused, though, his eyes moving away from her, toward the direction she’d pointed. “Valkyrie has not known Thor and Loki so long as I have.”

“Which makes you more optimistic,” Natasha said. “She’d probably say that’s wishful thinking.”

“I am sure she would. Obviously, I disagree.” He made a quiet hm noise, then said, “Thor trusts you. That is plain enough. I do not mean to question him in that.”

“Just me,” Natasha said. “I understand. It’s part of your job to protect him.”

“And Loki,” Heimdall said. “We have had our…differences, in the past. But that is past, now. And while I recognize Valkyrie’s pessimism, and its source...I think she underestimates his resilience.”

Natasha examined him, then said, quieter, “I hope so.” His glance in her direction was faintly surprised, and she smiled unevenly. “One last question. Would you say Loki has any friends here? Outside of you and Valkyrie, I guess.”

Heimdall looked like he was considering whether or not he was going to answer that question. “No,” he said, finally. “I would say not. Though that is, again, not unusual. Loki was never one to make friends easily.”

Natasha nodded. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” she said, and there caught just a flicker of amusement. That was more rewarding than she’d admit to anyone, ever. “All right. Interrogation over. Thanks.”

“You are welcome,” Heimdall said. He didn’t quite smile, but he seemed, maybe, a little more relaxed than he had when she’d first seen him.

Natasha left him there, choosing a direction to walk in at random and thinking. Nothing he’d said told her anything new, really. Though there was a thought turning over in her head; she just had to figure out if there was a good way to bring it up.

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” Thor asked her. Natasha tried not to tense.

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“Loki and I,” Thor said. He seemed happier than he had when she first showed up, so she wasn’t surprised when he said, “things seem to be better. I don’t know what you did, but...thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Natasha said, though she had her doubts. Just like she had her doubts about attending a family dinner. Though it would probably be educational to actually watch Loki interact with Thor. Might not help her figure out a solution - if there was one, and Natasha knew that wasn’t how this worked, really - but at least she might learn something, and knowledge was always power.

“So?” Thor said. “Do you want to come? You would be welcome.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked. Thor frowned.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Natasha almost sighed, and just kept herself from doing so. “It’s just a change in dynamics. You and Loki are one thing. You’re brothers, and you have your own... way of interacting with each other. Add me in there…”

Thor’s expression flickered a little. “I think it would be good.”

For who, Natasha thought, but she half smiled. “Sure, then,” she said. “I appreciate the invite.” Thor relaxed immediately, a smile breaking through.

Natasha went through contingency plans for the evening, going over possible scenarios, but she still couldn’t help but be tense when evening rolled around and she showed up at Thor’s and knocked. The door opened immediately on Thor smiling and wearing an apron, which was a little incongruous but also somehow adorable.

“Natasha,” he said. “Come in, be welcome. Do you want anything to drink? I have some ale, a bottle of wine, water…”

“Water is good,” Natasha said. She wanted a clear head. “Thanks.” It took her a moment to pin down Loki, who was sitting on the ratty looking chair with his feet curled up under him and holding a glass of wine cradled in his hand. His color looked a little better, and he was wearing a black turtleneck, though she could still see the edges of bandaging over it. He didn’t look surprised to see her, which was a relief. She’d been a little worried Thor wouldn’t have told him.

That was probably uncharitable of her.

“Good evening, Loki,” she said. Loki inclined his head slightly.

“And to you,” he said. His voice was calm enough but his body language was tense. Not dangerously so, but still tense, and Natasha could see his eyes flick back and forth from her to Thor, performing that quick assessment, running calculations, settling on a strategy. He unfolded his legs and put his feet on the ground, sitting up a little straighter. “Thor insisted on cooking, so be forewarned.”

“Excuse you,” Thor said, though he looked delighted. To Natasha, he said, “I’ve gotten much better. And I am not trying anything ambitious. Just fish and some roasted vegetables.”

“Sounds great,” Natasha said. “And I guarantee that unless it’s charcoal I’ve eaten worse. Steve’s a shit cook, too.” She paused, then added, “Clint’s great at it, though.”

Thor went briefly still, his eyes cutting toward Loki; Loki’s eyes narrowed a hair, hackles coming up just a little. He was watching her now, rather than Thor. She could almost hear him thinking: why did she say that, what is she driving at, what point is she trying to make.

Probably she shouldn’t have done that. But a slightly vicious part of her had wanted to see how he’d react. Still- “Are you a good cook?” she asked, before he could get too stuck in trying to figure out how to respond to the comment about Clint.

Loki hesitated. Suspicious again, wary, looking for the right answer. He glanced toward Thor and then said, “I couldn’t say. I’ve some experience, though nothing extensive.”

“Better than me,” Thor said, and Loki - twitched, like Thor had poked him. He caught it pretty quick, but not quite quick enough.

“That isn’t saying much,” he said, though. Hm, Natasha thought.

“How about that water?” she said to Thor, and then said to Loki, “so. Back in one piece?”

His mouth did something strange like he was going to laugh and stopped himself. “More or less. Thank you for your concern.” That edge, Natasha thought, was genuine, though he had it back under control with his next words. “What do you make of New Asgard?”

Natasha shrugged. “It seems like you’re all adapting pretty well. I’m impressed.”

“Asgardians are more flexible than you might think,” Loki said. Natasha gave him a bit of a smile.

“I’ve gathered.” Oddly, his eyes cut quickly away from her and toward the kitchen. Thor emerged with a glass of water he held out to her; she took it. “Should I be offering to help?”

“Absolutely not,” Thor said. “You are the guest. Relax, take your ease.”

I’m not very good at either of those things, Natasha thought, but she did her best to at least look as though she was doing both. By the way Loki looked at her, she suspected he wasn’t fooled. He caught himself quickly, though, shutting skepticism and wariness both away and smoothing out his face to something polite but simultaneously open, relaxed.

Fuck, Natasha thought, he was good.

“Staying with Valkyrie hasn’t been a trial?” he said, dry as bone. Natasha raised her eyebrows at him.

“No,” she said. “Actually. We’re getting along fine.” Loosely speaking. Valkyrie hadn’t been speaking to her much. “I was wondering, though - is ‘Valkyrie’ her name or a job description? Traditionally it seems to be the latter, but you treat it like a name.”

A brief quiet, and then Thor said, “it is the only name she has seen fit to give.”

“Fair enough,” Natasha said. She understood a thing or two about chosen names, and wasn’t about to push on this one. She’d pushed Valkyrie hard enough already, and didn’t really want to make her (more of?) an enemy. She focused on Loki instead, leaning back and falling quiet. He didn’t quite fidget, but he was still tense, and watching her as much as she was watching him.

“Do you guys do this often?” she asked. “Family dinners, I mean.”

“Not as often as we might,” Thor said as he moved back into the kitchen. Loki glanced toward him, his expression tightening briefly before he cleared it.

“We are both busy.”

“I can imagine,” Natasha said. “Rebuilding a civilization takes a lot of work, I bet.”

“Indeed,” Loki said. His voice was casual. His eyes were sharp, interrogative. What do you want, they asked. What are you driving toward? She’d put his back up by mentioning Clint. Now he was on guard against her. Even as he was balancing Thor. She remembered Thor saying he wasn’t sure if Loki was actually doing better or if Loki just wanted him to think so, and wanted to wince.

This was going to be an interesting dinner.

Loki swirled his wine glass and took a sip from it, tilting his head infinitesimally to the left. “Any other thoughts about Asgard and its people, on observation?”

Natasha considered him, then said, “one or two. I’m not actually trying to entrap you, you know.”

Loki glanced sharply toward the kitchen. “I’m sure you aren’t,” he said, and then she caught a slight gesture of his left hand before he leaned forward and said, “what do you want?” with a peculiar sort of urgency.

Ah, Natasha thought. He must be masking their conversation from Thor. Was he hearing something else, or just silence? Handy trick, that. “Nothing,” she said. “Thor invited me. Seemed rude to say no.” His eyes narrowed, and she said, “if you’re asking because I brought up Clint...I wanted to see what you’d do.”

Loki’s jaw shifted and he glanced away from her. “I have no idea what you expect me to say.”

“I didn’t know, either. And I don’t expect you to say anything now.” She shrugged one shoulder. “So. Thor can’t hear us, is that it?”

Loki hesitated for a moment, then said, “no, he cannot.” He looked like he was bracing himself for something, but she just made herself nod.

“Must be nice,” she said. “Being able to just...have conversations without him overhearing, if you want to.”

A flicker of alarm appeared at the back of Loki’s eyes, and his fingers tightened on the glass he was holding. The fingers on his other hand twitched again and in the next breath he was relaxing back into the chair as though he’d never moved.

“Thor,” he called, “how is it going?”

“Almost done,” Thor called back. “Give it five more minutes.”

“Wonderful,” Loki said, standing and setting his glass aside. “I’ll set the table.” His eyes lingered on her a moment longer before turning away. Natasha kept her expression carefully neutral.

She felt a little like she was walking through a minefield. Not quite blindfolded, but there were more mines than clear ground. She should be used to that by now, but she’d still stepped on one. Not a good start.

Well. She had the rest of dinner to try to recover ground, and hopefully keep from making everything worse.

When it got worse, it happened very fast.

Loki was on his best behavior, but not in the sense of well-behaved. At least, not exactly. He was definitely toeing a line, but he wasn’t obviously deferring to Thor; he was snarky, dry mockery sliding periodically into and out of his voice. Never at her, only at Thor. It was, Natasha thought, an impeccable performance.

And she was quite sure it was a performance. She caught traces of it, sometimes, in the way he glanced at her when Thor wasn’t looking, in the sharp wariness that was gone as soon as Thor was paying attention again. In the small tells of tension in his wrists and hands.

He wasn’t eating much, either. Masking that well, too, but Natasha was watching for it, so she noticed. Distracted, or maybe just not interested. Either way. She thought about calling attention to it, but decided she didn’t want him to panic.

“Natasha?” Thor said, sounding concerned, and she realized that she’d gone quiet.

“Hm? Sorry, I was thinking. Did you say something?”

“Of course he did,” Loki murmured. “Thor says a lot of things.” Natasha’s ears pricked up slightly at something that twisted under the words there. It seemed Thor heard it too, because he turned toward Loki, a faint frown starting to form. Loki raised his eyebrows at him in an expression of perfect innocence, and Thor blinked, then laughed, though it sounded a little strained.

“Between the two of us,” he said, “you’ve always been the one to talk too much.”

Loki’s expression froze at the same time as Thor seemed to realize what he’d said. He hissed in a breath through his teeth, glanced toward Natasha with an expression of near panic, and said, “I don’t mean-”

The corner of Loki’s lips tilted up, but his eyes had gone dark like the windows of an empty house. “Well, you’re not wrong,” he said, voice perfectly smooth. Dangerously even, in the way that had her tensing instinctively, bracing for an attack that didn’t come. Thor looked stricken.

“Loki,” Thor said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said-”

Loki’s left hand twitched minutely. “It’s fine.”

Thor’s distress only grew, and he looked at her again like he was seeking help. “I can tell that it isn’t,” he said. “I can see that much, brother-”

“Don’t,” Loki said, a brief, tense thrum in his voice. He snatched his hand off the table and visibly reined himself back in, pushing his shoulders down, straightening his back, and saying more calmly, “we have a guest. Let’s not make a scene, shall we?”

“I can go, if you need to talk,” Natasha said. Loki’s eyes shot toward her.

“Why,” he said, sweet venom in his voice, “you don’t want to watch?”

Her first thought, perhaps unwisely, was, oh, there you are.

It was a little like she’d been watching a quiet harbor, knowing there was something big and nasty out there circling below the surface, and knowing that sooner or later it was going to have to come up for air. She’d been waiting for it to happen, and at the same time it still caught her off guard. All she did was blink, but Loki recoiled from her, and from Thor, and then was still, drawn like a bowstring either about to loose or snap.

Thor said, his voice tight and reproachful, “that isn’t fair.”

“Nothing is,” Loki said. He moved in stages: hands placed on the table, shoving himself to his feet, stepping away from the table and Thor’s reaching hand at the same time. His smile was a vicious thing. “I hope this has been fun for you, Lady Romanoff. At least one person should have enjoyed themselves.”

“Loki,” Thor began, but Loki was already out the door and gone, the door closing too quietly behind him.

Thor stared after him with an expression of despair, and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” Natasha said. “It’s really not your fault.”

Thor raised his head just slightly. “Wasn’t it?”

“Proximately, what you said might’ve set him off,” Natasha said. “But he was just waiting for someone to pull the trigger.” He blinked at her, frowning, and she said, “that’s partly my fault. I knocked him off kilter earlier.”

“But things seemed to be…” Thor trailed off. His shoulders slumped. “That’s it, isn’t it? ‘Seemed to be.’”

“That’s not your fault either,” Natasha said gently. Thor gave her a painfully skeptical look, and she said, “really. It’s not. Maybe you could’ve spoken more carefully, but nobody can guard every word that comes out of their mouth.”

Thor’s lips thinned. “Loki does.”

“Not every word,” Natasha said. “As we both just saw.”

Thor stared at his hands. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” he said after several moments. “Only that...only that once again, he is upset with me. Though I am sure by the time I catch up with him he will deny it.” His voice was heavy, and tired, and Natasha leaned back in her chair. “Forgive me,” he said after a couple seconds of silence. “I should not have brought you into this.”

“Give me some credit for being able to make my own choices,” Natasha said mildly. Thor glanced at her.

“Would you be here if I had not asked?”

“I could have said no.” Natasha glanced toward the door, thinking. “Let me talk to him.”

Thor seemed surprised. “Pardon?”

“Let me talk to Loki,” she repeated. “Before you do.”

“Why?” Thor asked cautiously. Natasha considered how best to phrase what she was thinking without putting Thor’s back up.

“Right now,” Natasha said, “I’m one of the only people here who doesn’t have any kind of power over Loki. Excepting random Asgardians, but I don’t figure Loki interacts with them much.” Thor started shaking his head, and she said, “no, listen. You’re obvious. You’re his king, and his older brother, and he owes you his life. Or thinks he does,” she added, before Thor could object. “Heimdall and Valkyrie are both extensions of you in terms of authority. Your seconds-in-command. Not to mention that Heimdall said that he and Loki have had their differences in the past, so I’m guessing they at least historically weren’t friendly, and Valkyrie...I’m betting that’s complicated. Me? I’m a friend of yours, sure, but we’re not close, and I’m not an authority here. I don’t have a hold over him. Oh, sure, maybe I could complain to you, get him in trouble that way, but...I couldn’t do it on my own. I’m...nonthreatening.”

Thor’s expression spasmed again in a way that suggested he heard what she hadn’t said: you’re threatening. It wasn’t what she’d meant, anyway, but she didn’t want to get into that right now. Right now...damage control, which meant keeping Thor from charging off immediately after Loki, and making sure he didn’t go charging off later, either.

“And if he turns his anger on you?” Thor asked, though he sounded almost resigned.

“He won’t,” Natasha said. “At least not in a way I can’t handle.” That had been the point of her initial assessment, after all, and that held. Thor was still hesitating. “Thor,” she said more gently, “trust me.”

Thor took a deep breath and let it out. Then lowered his head back into his hands and nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I will not...I’ll leave it be for now.”

Natasha tapped her fingers against her leg, then stood up and went over to Thor, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder.

“You’re doing the best you can,” she said, because it seemed like someone should tell him that, and she didn’t think anyone else had.

“Would that were good enough,” Thor said, thick with bitterness.

Natasha waited ten minutes before she headed toward Loki’s house. She wasn’t sure he’d be there - some possibility that it would feel too much like confinement - but she had a feeling he’d like being out in the open right now even less. She couldn’t see lights, but she braced herself, took a deep breath, and knocked.

“No, Thor,” she heard through the door, “I don’t want to talk.”

“It’s not Thor,” she said. “If that makes a difference.” Silence.

“You don’t think you’ve seen enough?” Loki said. The venom was gone, though; she couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing.

“I’m not here as a witness, or a voyeur,” Natasha said.

“No?” Loki said after a moment. “That is incidental, is it?” But he opened the door. There was only a little light behind him, most of his face cast in shadow so it was nearly impossible to read. “I looked up your namesake, you know. I was curious. Latrodectus. Small, deadly, hides in dark corners and ambushes its prey. An interesting choice of title.”

Natasha just looked at him, and after a moment he said, “what do you want,” entirely without tone.

“To talk,” she said. She thought she saw Loki twitch, but she might have imagined it.

“Ah,” he said, “you don’t think I talk too much?” She didn’t trust that slight lilt to his voice, almost playful, and didn’t think she was meant to.

“Not to me, anyway.”

Loki fell quiet, looking like he was barely breathing. After several long seconds, he exhaled and stepped back. “Come in, then,” he said, “if you have something to say. But I do not.”

“I don’t think I believe that,” Natasha said, but she took the invitation anyway. Loki flicked on a light before she could ask - she wondered, idly, if he could see in the dark - and the first thing she noticed was that he’d ripped off the bandage, giving her her first good look at the damage that still remained.

There were black lines that fanned out from the disc itself like some of the veins were stained with ink. The flesh immediately surrounding it was the red-purple of fresh scar tissue. She jerked her eyes away before he caught her staring, but he seemed distracted. For all the tonelessness of his voice, he was tense, fidgety; turning away from her, his left hand rose up to his neck and started worrying at it like he was on the verge of trying to pull it off.

“Should you be messing with that?” she asked, as neutrally as she could manage. Loki half moved as to snatch his fingers away, then didn’t.

“Probably not.”

Natasha watched his shoulders. “That was quite a reaction back there.”

“It was, wasn’t it.”

“Sounded like it was meant to be an old joke.”

“I am sure that it was.”

God, she wished she could get a proper bead on where his head was. “Not one you find funny, I guess.”

“Not exactly.” He paced a few steps away from her and then a few more in the other direction. She could almost hear the hum of energy, tightly controlled, contained. “Are you hoping for an apology? You have it. I should not have snapped at you.”

“I’d hardly even count that as ‘snapping,’” Natasha said. “You got a little snippy, sure. But if you think I haven’t heard worse,” she didn’t say from you, “then you’re seriously overestimating the courtesy of most of the people I’ve met.”

Loki glanced at her, gaze opaque, and didn’t respond. Natasha gestured at the chair. “Can I sit?”

“Do as you wish.”

Natasha tapped her fingers on her leg briefly, then moved further in and sat down on the arm of the couch, feet dangling toward the floor.

“You ever thought about leaving?” she asked. Loki’s left hand curled into a fist and then opened again.

“What do you mean.”

“I mean, have you thought about walking away from here,” Natasha said. “Going somewhere else.”

Loki let out an awful stuttering, grating sound. “Where would I go?”

Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know. Anywhere? You’re smart; I figure you could avoid notice if you wanted to. And it seems like being here isn’t going well.”

“I doubt anywhere else would go better. And no, I haven’t considered it.”

“Why not?”

Loki glanced at her sharply. “Do you think I should? Abandon Thor, when he is struggling to rebuild his people?” His, Natasha noticed, and filed that away. “I may not be much use, but another pair of hands is another pair of hands. And even if that were not the case, he wants me here. Unless and until that changes, I will not leave.”

Natasha swung one foot back and forth. “Thor would probably say you should leave if you thought it would help.”

Loki glanced at her, one corner of his mouth twisting slightly upward. “Yes,” he said. “Undoubtedly he would. But that isn’t what he would want.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No,” Loki said with cold certainty. “Perhaps he would tell himself so. Perhaps in some ways it would even be true. But at his core, he would not be pleased.”

“And what about what you want,” Natasha said. Loki was quiet again, then turned his back to her again.

“What I want,” he said, “has, historically, either mattered very little or been bad for me and, ultimately, unsatisfying. It seems both unwise and pointless to take my desires into account.”

Natasha wasn’t surprised by that; she was, a little, by the twist of sympathy under her rib cage. “How’s that working for you?” she asked, but gently.

“Let me ask again,” Loki said, “what do you want? What is your aim, here? What are you trying to do?”

Natasha’s half smile felt bitter. “That bothers you, doesn’t it,” she said. “That you can’t figure it out.” She thought she caught a slight shudder.

“Of course it does. It would bother you, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure,” Natasha said. “But I’m not building my life around what other people want.”

Loki’s hissed inhale sounded almost like a snake.

“Can’t blame you,” Natasha said. “It’d probably be working if Thor didn’t know you so well. Or, well. For a definition of ‘working.’”

“Will you not stop?”

Natasha leaned back. “I can,” she said. “If you ask me to leave, I’ll leave. But do you want to know what I think?”

“I imagine you will tell me anyway.”

“I think it’s a relief,” she said. “Talking to someone who isn’t Thor, or the people who are serving as his adjuncts. Someone who has no reason to expect anything from you. Because I don’t. You’re right: initially, I was making an assessment about whether or not you were a threat. But I made that assessment, and settled that question. Now, I’m not expecting anything. I’m not asking anything. I don’t want anything from you. And you don’t owe me anything. I haven’t done anything you need to repay.”

Loki had turned toward her, and there was something in his eyes, not quite panic, definitely alarm. She gave him an unhappy smile.

“I’m guessing I’m the only person in a while for whom all those things have been true.”

His chest rose and fell rapidly. “I don’t trust you.”

“I didn’t think you did. And I’m not saying you should.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“I don’t even know if I have help to give.”

“I don’t-” he cut off, jaw tightening. There was strain around his eyes, that livewire hum intensifying to an almost unbearable pitch, and Natasha braced for an explosion, though she wasn’t sure what it would look like.

Then it just - vanished, and Loki moved stumblingly over to the unoccupied chair and almost fell into it.

“I cannot give Thor what he wants.”

“So stop trying,” Natasha said. “I think he’d be relieved. Because you’re wrong about what he wants in the first place. Like with you leaving - sure, he’d probably be hurt. And disappointed. But that doesn’t mean he can’t also genuinely want what’s best for you.”

Loki’s head bent forward and he let out a strangled, hideous laugh. “You think I know what’s best for me? I don’t. I am on borrowed time, do you understand? That is the point of this,” he gestured at the disc, “and his coming here. To show that he can always find me, and take me back if he wants to.”

Again that half-unwilling twist of pity. Easiest to control someone when you could get them to think you could reach them anywhere. Worse when that was accurate. She swung her foot a few times, thinking.

“If that happens,” Natasha said, “then you’ve still got a way out. Don’t you?” He blinked once, staring at her. She shrugged, as nonchalant as she could manage. “He shows up to take you back, you can kill yourself. Or ask Valkyrie; I get the feeling she’d understand. Thor would lose you anyway. And you’d cheat the Grandmaster out of getting what he wants.”

Some of the little color there had drained out of Loki’s face. He was looking at her like she’d grown another head. She just looked back at him, waiting.

“Up to that point,” Natasha said, “your life’s yours. You’ve got an exit plan if necessary.”

“Is this you helping?” Loki asked, audibly incredulous.

“Sometimes,” Natasha said, “the best way to deal with fear is planning for the worst. At least then you know you’ve got something in place for it.”

Loki rocked back a little, his eyes narrowing. But he didn’t immediately object.

“I am going to suggest,” she said, “that you consider giving me the inactive controller and letting me take it to a friend of mine. I wouldn’t say where I got it. But she’s smart - really smart - and if she figured out how one end of these things works then that’s a step in the right direction, and you wouldn’t have to get involved. But that’s up to you.”

He kept staring at her, trying to pick her apart with his eyes. Natasha pressed her hands into her legs and stood up.

“Just food for thought,” she said. “I think I’ll stick around for another day or so. And I mean it, about Thor. Someone can want more than one thing, and those things can be contradictory.”

Loki exhaled harshly. “He said he’d be relieved if I stabbed him.”

Natasha’s lips twitched. That might, she thought, be entirely sincere. “Maybe you should try it,” she said. “See what happens.”

He gave her that look again, like she’d lost her mind. She threw him another crooked smile. “Take it easy, Your Highness,” she said, and walked out.

Natasha was reading a (not very good) paperback when Valkyrie strode in and said, “did you tell Loki I’d help him kill himself?”

That was fast, Natasha thought. Aloud she said, “not in so many words. But I might’ve mentioned it.”

“Are you insane? Do you know what Thor would do to me?”

“I suggested it as a last resort,” Natasha said calmly, “in the event that this Grandmaster does what Loki seems sure he’ll do and comes back for him.” Valkyrie stared at her.

“You’re joking,” she said. “You must be joking.”

“No,” Natasha said. “I’m not.” She sat up. “Sometimes a bad option is the best option you have. Or more to the point - having an option at all is better than inevitability.”

“So you volunteer me?”

“You said you thought he was doomed anyway,” Natasha said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of a mercy killing.”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said, “but-” She broke off, several expressions crossing her face in a few seconds. “Thor would murder me.”

“So don’t agree,” Natasha said. “I assume it wasn’t an order?” Valkyrie’s jaw flexed.

“You,” she said, “are one cold bitch.”

Natasha kept herself from flinching. “So I’ve been told.”

Valkyrie’s shoulders slumped. “Fuck,” she said under her breath. “I need a drink.” Natasha didn’t comment, and after a moment Valkyrie grimaced and said, “sorry.”

Natasha shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said, and went into the kitchen. Natasha expected her to come back with a bottle, but she just had a strangely incongruous bag of beef jerky. “I’m not built for this.”

“Built for what,” Natasha said, reopening her paperback.

“Dealing with...shit. Other peoples’ shit.”

“Who is?”

“You, apparently.”

“No,” Natasha said. “Actually, I’m not. I’m not even that good at it. It’s definitely not instinctual. It’s a skill I’ve cultivated, first because I needed to know how to be with people to be good at manipulating them - for my job - and then because I made a fucked up family I wanted to look after. By a lot of measures I’m still bad at it.”

“Is that pointed?”

“Which part of it would be pointed?” Natasha marked her place with a finger. “The part about a fucked up family I want to look after?”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said after a moment. “That. I guess.”

“I was just talking about me.” Natasha locked eyes with Valkyrie. “Look. People who think they’re trapped do stupid things. The Grandmaster built a cage for Loki well enough that he’s still living in it, and as far as Loki’s concerned, there’s just another one that’s waiting down the line. Why bother trying to leave when that’s the case? All I was doing was suggesting that he doesn’t have to walk into it.”

“You don’t think,” Valkyrie said, biting off the ends of her words, “that he might not just decide to skip ahead a bit?”

“No,” Natasha said. “I don’t. You want one good reason why?”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said. “Hit me.”

“Because he didn’t do it the second I left,” Natasha said. “Instead he went to you. Maybe he thought you’d agree. Maybe he knew you’d flip out. Maybe it’s just because of Thor. Maybe it’s that there’s still enough fight left that he’s not ready to surrender yet. Whatever it is, Loki read someone else in on the idea. If he was actually planning on imminent suicide, or if he thought he was likely to make that call - he’d have kept it to himself.”

Valkyrie was staring at her again. “You didn’t know that,” she said.

“I wasn’t sure, no.”

“You gambled.”

“I did.”

Valkyrie shook her head. “That is...a hell of a gamble. What would you have done if you’d been wrong?”

Natasha set down her book and pressed the heels of her hands into her forehead. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Fuck,” Valkyrie said. She sounded almost awed. “Unbelievable.”

Natasha let out a strained laugh. “Like I said. I used to manipulate people for a living. I’m pretty good at guessing what they’ll do.”

“Still.” Valkyrie, still standing, took a bite of beef jerky. “So. What the fuck now?”

“Good question,” Natasha said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s Loki’s move. I suggested he give me the inactive controller-”

Valkyrie’s eyebrows shot up. “He kept it?”

“-so I can bring it to someone who might be able to help, at some point, if Loki’s willing to humor the idea. At least introduce her to one half of the mechanism.”

Valkyrie took another bite of jerky and took her time chewing and swallowing. “You think someone on your planet can deal with that level of technology?”

“She’s a smart cookie,” Natasha said dryly, noting that it wasn’t Loki’s out of hand rejection that it was possible at all. “And like I said. Options are better than inevitability. But that’s Loki’s call. I’m going to head out in a day or so.”

“Back to this fucked up family of yours?”

“Some of them, anyway.”

“Sounds like you need a vacation.”

“Maybe someday.”

Valkyrie exhaled slowly, and then said, “you’re all right.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows and drawled, “I thought I was a cold bitch.”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said. “And you could call me a lot worse. It’s all relative, isn’t it?”

Natasha didn’t think she could argue with that.

She didn’t see Loki before she left. She did see Thor, his brows furrowed as he said, “what did you say?”

“Why?” Natasha asked, not quite warily. Thor shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, and then adjusted. “I don’t know. Or am not certain. But something seems to have...changed.”

“For the better?” Natasha asked.

“That is what I’m not certain about.”

Natasha considered him, thinking through what she could, or should, say. “These things are messy,” she said, finally. “They take time. Some things get better, others get worse. It’s hard, and it’s exhausting, and I know Loki’s not making it easy.”

Thor tensed. “He’s doing his best,” he said defensively. Natasha held up her hands.

“I didn’t say otherwise. Just that - for understandable reasons - he’s not necessarily always helping you or himself. So...be patient.”

Thor looked pained. “That is not precisely my strong suit.”

“I know,” Natasha said. “That’s why I’m telling you. And also telling you that it’s not your fault.” Thor looked like he wanted to object, and she said, “I mean it. And you dragging that around isn’t helping anyone. So stop it.”

Looking down, Thor sighed. But at least he didn’t argue with her out loud.

“For now,” she said, “that’s all.”

“Natasha,” Thor said, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Natasha said, a little awkwardly. “I’ll give your love to everyone. Think about calling them, too. I know Steve’d love to hear from you.” She paused, and added, “and tell Bruce that...if he wants to talk, I have things to say.”

Thor looked vaguely guilty, but he nodded. And then, after a moment, hugged her. It caught her off guard, and she half expected it to hurt, but he was gentle enough. Natasha supposed he’d probably hugged at least one ordinary human before.

“Thank you,” he said again.

“Don’t mention it,” Natasha said. “See you, Thor. Say bye to Loki and your friends from me.”

“I will.”

Before she left New Asgard completely, she bought a burner phone in neighboring Tønsberg, took a picture of the fjord, and sent it to a phone number she hadn’t used in more than two years. Hey Robin Hood, wish you were here, she wrote, and then dropped the phone in the water.

On the ferry to Hirtshals, she tucked her hands in her pockets and felt something hard. She didn’t have to pull it out to see what it was.

Well, she thought. Guess it’s my move now.