Loki (fiorvalr) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-08-18 22:22:00 |
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Loki licked his lower lip and looked up, staring into Natasha’s eyes. He remembered staring into them in New York as well. In that high rise apartment she’d managed to procure. How many drinks had they had? He couldn’t remember. He remembered vodka. A banana. He remembered lying with his legs in her lap. Or hers in his. Dancing. Police sirens wailing in the distance. The brightly dotted lights of the city like streaks of color in the dark shimmering beyond the floor to ceiling windows. And then he remembered feeling her breath on his face. Lips inches from each other.
‘I don’t want this to end. Us. You. Me. Whatever this is with us. I don't want to ruin it.’
‘You could never ruin anything with me. You are perfect. But I am not.’
Loki had made many mistakes in his life. But that one—that one had been epic.
“I made a choice that night. A cowardly one. I don’t expect forgiveness for it. It’s a regret I’m willing to live with. Because I am a coward. That’s the great Loki mystery, after all. There isn’t a brave bone in my body. Particularly when it comes to my feelings.” He picked up his fork and stabbed at the salad, but didn’t take a bite. “I’m not asking to go back to that moment or to change my mind. I know that now is not the right time for either of us to say certain things. Not that I think I have to. I think you know. You always know.”
From the first time they met, Natasha had been able to see right through him. Through the lies and the illusions. It was one of the reasons he respected her so much. She saw the truth. But she only called him out on it when he crossed the line.
Loki shook his head and set the fork down. “No, I’m not asking for a second chance. Or to forget what’s happened between then and now. Or for you to change your mind. I only want you to know that it is on my mind. And that I know I made the wrong decision. For all the right reasons, of course.”
He cracked a smile. “Or maybe all the wrong ones.”
Fingers through his hair. Hands on the side of his face. A record player needle scratching along an old jazz album.
‘Leave something to the imagination, Loki. A little mystery.’
Pity he took that playful advice too far.
“I am sorry, though. If I hurt you…” His brows cinched together at the center of his forehead. “I never wanted to do that.”
New York was a complicated thing. It had been one of the better weeks overall. Nothing out of the ordinary happened which had been a relief at that point. She'd used her spy skills to commandeer a penthouse suite that was full to the brim with ridiculously over the top 1980s luxuries — like gold plated everything, including the toilet. Loki had stayed in the spare room, she'd made breakfast. They'd gone to the opera.
Then Natasha had put her heart out on the line, and he hadn't stomped on it, but he had gently said no. He hadn't been ready, and she could understand that. For the rest of that night, before the reset, they danced close, and when it was over, Natasha had returned to what she'd called Friend Mode.
Loki needed a friend, someone who wasn't going to run. He had plenty of people who were after other things from him.
It hadn't been New York that had hurt her. It had been after that. All of those intimate talks seemed to disappear when Mobius appeared. This Mobius had been much more active in the community at large, and had taken a lot of Loki's time. A lot of the time that Natasha used to be able to steal Loki for little things. Jogging. A meal. Watching a movie.
She'd lost Yelena and Clint again, and she'd let her jealousy of Loki's relationship with Mobius get in the way. She'd tried to be happy for him — he seemed so happy that Natasha felt insanely selfish for that jealousy. That was what had really hurt.
"It hurt," she admitted. Her own salad had been shuffled around in the bowl a few times. Eventually, she'd eat some of it. Since the conversation turned, though, she hadn't been able to bring herself to take a bite. "I understood. I still do. Timing. It never seems to be right."
For Loki. For Bruce. For Kovacs.
"And I'd stand firm against you saying anything important right now anyway. Losing someone important needs time to breathe, needs time to… scab up and heal." She wouldn't admit if she knew or not. Even if she did, she wouldn't be anyone's rebound again. "You didn't have anything to apologize for, regardless of what made you make that decision."
“I made it because I was scared,” Loki said. No hesitation. No thought. That was as honest as Loki got. He didn’t always lie outright. Usually his lies were wrapped in various truths. But this? This was only the truth. He didn’t give himself time to come up with a believable excuse. Natasha might have been the only one he did that with—the only one to whom he offered complete and unabashed honesty. Not often. And not for a long while because of his neglect for their friendship. But when he did it was obvious.
He caught her gaze again. He knew he couldn’t go back and fix his stupid, insufferable behavior over the last few months. He couldn’t give her that. But he could give her his complete attention. He could give her his thoughts. And maybe he could give her some of his feelings.
“What would I do without you here? Who could I be myself with? My real self. Not the persona I pretend to be on the network. Not the image I wear around campus. Who will sit on the floor with me when I’m hurting and say nothing because they don’t need to say anything? You’re the only one here who knows me. The only one who sees me.” Loki sighed. “It’s selfish. I know. That’s also why I made the decision I did. Because what I wanted from you … It wasn’t fair. Maybe it still isn’t. But I like the person I am when we’re together.”
He’d been jealous too, but Loki couldn’t place his jealousy. There wasn’t really a person to put it on. Maybe it hadn’t been envy. Maybe it had just been regret or spite towards himself. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he kept putting himself in a position of vulnerability and he kept getting hurt. He kept making poor choices.
And he only had himself to blame.
“I’m not going to say anything now. I’m in a worse position than I was before. If anything, recent events have proven that I’m…” Loki crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “… that I’m not ready for the things I want. That I don’t deserve them.”
This meant a lot to Natasha, and it was clear that she was taking this seriously. As unexpected as the conversation was, she was willing to talk it out because their friendship — the very core and foundation of any relationship — was important to her. It reminded her of the conversation she'd had with Steve when they found out that HYDRA had been inside SHIELD all along. She'd asked him if he would trust her to save his life, and he admitted that he would. If someone like Steve Rogers could believe in her…
Maybe that was a little like Loki felt. (Even if she didn't think she was anywhere near as Good as Steve Rogers.)
"First, I need you to stop saying that you don't deserve the things you want. Friendship, relationships, whatever — it's not about deserve. If it was, neither of us would be alive here. We've both done some pretty shitty things to people, and if the world was fair and just, we'd have been taken out a long time ago." She hated to hear him say he didn't deserve this or that. If he was striving for leadership, yes, that had to be earned, but friendship? Friendship wasn't something that a person only got because they deserved it. "I understand that you're not ready, that you're scared, that you don't want to mess something up. I understand all of that more than you think I do."
She shifted in her chair, propping her elbow on the table — where were her manners? — and tucking her chin on the palm of her hand. "Secondly, it's not like I told you how I was feeling after that either. I sucked it up because I thought you were happy. You seemed happy, and why would I ever want to get in the way of that?"
She paused.
"That is what you deserve."
Arguing with Natasha was impossible. Not because she was always right—although she very often was—but because she commanded most conversations. And she was so steadfast in her own belief of other people. That was something Loki still had trouble accepting. Was she bad? Sure, as far as Midgardians went, she’d made some poor choices. But she was also the heart of the Avengers. And if she believed in Loki, well, then he really ought to have given himself more credit.
But again her words were always so careful. So correct.
You seemed like you were happy.
Seemed. But was he? The answer was complicated. The answer was both yes and no.
“So do you, Natasha. You deserve more than—”
The landscape changed.
“—six unforgettable years of solitary confinement with the God of Mischief.”
They were sitting at a small table at the edge of the Green. The sky was dark. Void dark. Sparkling stars left over from an old illusion glimmered overhead. In the distance were two monoliths, cracked. Destroyed. The gym was missing. As was Armitage Hall. But the Green remained, with the thick expanse of trees Julia had left behind were still there. They’d grown beyond the Green, actually. Most of Butler Hall was covered in climbing vines. It was Derleth. But it was Derleth having experienced the passing of time.
And it was quiet, aside from the scurrying of dodos in the woods.
Loki waved his hand over the center of the table and a candle appeared, alongside two glasses of red wine.
“But, alas! That’s what you got.” He smiled and raised his glass to her. “To surviving another year without resets in the company of the most annoying person in the universe. I mean him by the way.” Loki nodded to a scruffy looking dodo that was missing half its feathers. “Go on, Walter. Get out of here. Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?”
The dodo chirped and then waddled off into the woods.
“Where was I? Oh, yes! To six years without a reset. Without a disappearance notification. Without seeing another soul. Except for yours truly.” An old meow interrupted him. Loki glanced down at the ginger cat which had curled up against his chair leg. He scratched Mischief behind the ears. “And you, too. As if I could forget.”
"You'd cry if Walter ever died. You know you would, and I'd have to mop up your tears over that idiot bird." She was teasing, because that was Natasha Romanoff's love language. It meant she paid attention and tried to get under your skin. It meant she thought you understood her in return. She'd be lost without that bird too. He'd given her immense joy and a whole lot of laughs.
She took up her glass and leaned toward him, dangerously balancing on her chair. For a brief instant, she hovered near his face, her lips daring him to kiss her, and just as quickly, she reached down to give Mischief a few good scratches behind the ears. With a coy smile, she tilted her head so that she could look at his face, her neck exposed enticingly.
"We should have gotten Mischief a playmate when we had the chance."
“I’d cry in the Void so you wouldn’t see me. That’s where I’d bury him too. To remind me of how infuriating he was. Just like the borders of Derleth are infuriating.” The campus hadn’t changed in that sense. It was still isolated. Still a pocket universe with an endless white nothing around it. And no matter how far you walked or how hard you ran, you never made it anywhere.
Loki smiled at her jest though. He understood her. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out her quirks and her teases. Or for him to use her own quips against her. Like a tennis match. Although, at this point they knew each other so well it wasn’t much of a game anymore. It was just normal. Status quo.
Her face was bright behind the flickering candle flame. And for a second he almost did accept her unspoken dare. But she moved away too quickly.
“I think he enjoyed playing with me while I was in cat form. He doesn’t seem much interested in that anymore though. He just wants to sit in laps and steal food off plates.” Loki shook a mocking finger at Mischief. “You’re such a naughty little trickster.”
Loki took a sip and set his glass back down. Then he reached across the table and took Natasha’s hand, wrapping his fingers around her palm. “I should point out that this is the last bottle of wine in the entire campus. After this we’re fucked for drunken good times. Honestly, I’m not sure that we’re going to survive.”
Cue that playful Loki wink.
She leaned back in her chair, the candlelight flickering between them in the Void's darkness. Natasha was content in this moment. There was nothing pressing that needed to be done, and she was with her favorite person in the world(s). The glass of wine was sipped slowly, savoring it just in case it really was the last.
"We'll figure something out, We always do," Natasha replied absently, threading her fingers through his. They'd had lifetimes together, and only the last few of them were alone. Everyone that Derleth had trapped had gone back to their worlds, but not Natasha and Loki. Sometimes she wondered if this was their version of Valhalla, the two of them with an old cat and a bunch of dodos. Even the squirrels were new.
— And then Natasha was sitting across from Loki, with her salad on the table in front of her. Nothing seemed to have changed around them, but —
"What was that?"
Loki blinked. He looked jolted. Like he’d just been knocked on the back of the head with a blunt object. He glanced down at the table, expecting their fingers to be entwined together, but they weren’t. But they had been. He remembered it. He felt it. The noise of someone laughing on the other side of the cafeteria caused him to twist in his chair. He hadn’t heard anyone else speak in—
No. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t real.
This was real.
Wasn’t it?
“Have I finally gone mad?” Sylvie had supposedly removed the darker version of himself from his mind last week, but now he wasn’t so certain. Had the Space King merely tricked them? Was this another one of his elaborate games to gain control?
Loki slowly turned back to the table. Salad. Natasha. No wine. And through the windows he could still see the architecture of Armitage Hall. Had they just shared a subconscious daydream.
No. That was real.
“It felt like a memory.”
"It felt more like it was happening as we were — you saw the same thing?" What appeared to be the end of Derleth, and they were the last ones left. Was this some glimpse of the future? Or was time flipping out in Derleth? Natasha wasn't sure she wanted to deal with more memories from past, present, or other Derleths. Not this week. Not while having this conversation.
Which had now been completely derailed.
(Probably for the best right now.)
"You saw broken monoliths? And a dodo named Walter?" She wasn't about to bring up the rest of it just yet.
Loki stared into his salad. It wasn’t just the memory he was trying to contend with. It was the emotions. The wealth of feelings for a place and a history he’d never experienced before. It was the knowledge that there was a potential end in sight for Derleth and the people in it. That somewhere, either in their imagination or in another reality, they found a way to return everyone home. Everyone who had a home to return to, that is. Or everyone who wanted to leave. Which, in this glimpse, appeared to literally be everyone.
Except for the two of them.
He shook his head and tried to cover his anxiousness with a halfhearted laugh. “Sorry. I’m trying to reconcile with the fear of being confronted with the last bottle of wine in the universe.”
Loki picked up a glass of water, untouched like his salad, and downed it in a single gulp.
Had it been their conversation which had initiated the memory of another Loki? Of another life? Was that the price of truly opening up to Natasha after all of this time? Would he have to risk seeing how things could have been every time he acknowledged making the wrong choice? The thought made him sick to his stomach. Because feeling how happy he’d been—truly happy—was torture. It was the universe once again dangling something he couldn’t have in front of him.
Loki could feel himself quickly retreating inward. Like he had in New York. And he knew he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding that on his face. She would see it. She would see the lines in his expression and the terror in his eyes and know he was backing himself up into a corner where he covered his feelings with quips and taunts. Where he buried his truths so deep even he couldn’t find them.
He pushed his chair out and stood up. “I think I need some air.”
There was a whole story of emotions going on on his face, and it meant one thing: Loki was terrified by what they'd seen. She had to admit that she wasn't far from that either; she was just better at hiding it. Especially when someone else was upset or distressed, it was easy to concentrate on that.
She stood up when he did, a gesture of solidarity and respect. She watched him, wondering if she should say something or just let him go. They were in the middle of Dexter Hall. If she didn't let him go, he could have a meltdown in the middle of the place, and then he'd be angry about that.
Natasha moved beside him and grabbed a hold of his elbow. If he wanted to push her away, or shove her off, he was free to. Until then, she was going to offer support. "Come on. Let's go outside. I'll pick this up in a bit."
It was always someone else. It was always another Loki. A Loki happy on the timeline. A Loki in love. A Loki with a kingdom. A Loki bound in a nighttime of eternity with the people he cared about. A Loki who was respected. A Loki with power. A Loki with prestige. A Loki at the end of Derleth with everything.
It was always another Loki.
Never him.
He was cursed.
Loki wasn’t going to have a meltdown. Loki was already in the middle of a meltdown. A meltdown that had been occurring since the week of the two Derleths. No, maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe it had been earlier than that. Maybe it had been since—
The hand at his elbow broke him out of his thoughts. He looked to Natasha. “How are you always so calm? How are you not screaming?”
"Because I'm worried about you. I want to get you out of here so you can breathe."
And it was true. Having someone else to look after kept whatever emotions she was going through on the backburner where she could examine them after this particular crisis was over. That Natasha had been happy and in love; she could feel that in those memories. If she thought about it too long, she'd wonder how she could ever have achieved such a thing. It just wasn't in the cards for her. She died on Vormir.
"Besides, I don't scream when I'm upset. I sit and contemplate and plot and scheme, and when I break down, it's when no one else is around to see it." Peanut butter sandwiches and tears. Holing herself up in the Avengers Compound, filling her days with dancing, target practice, running, boxing — anything to keep from thinking about the things she couldn't change.
"I'll get you out of here to somewhere you feel safe, and then I'll have my breakdown."
“I can breathe, I just—” Loki took a deep breath, both to make a point and to steady himself. “I want to be myself. Not that I know who that is anymore. I’m tired of being other Lokis. Sick of seeing other versions of myself achieve what I have not been able to achieve. I don’t want to be taunted anymore. I’ve already accepted that the only life I’ll ever have is the one here. In Derleth. Surrounded by people who once hated me. Always having to prove that I’m capable of being different or better. I can handle never getting the chance to return home or to see my real brother or to be reunited with my family in Valhalla. I accept that. But this?”
Loki tapped the center of his own forehead.
“This isn’t fair. Not for me. Not for you. Not for anyone. I don’t want to see a world that could-have-been. I don’t want to feel someone else’s love. Or their fear or anguish. I just want mine. My feelings are enough as they are.” And Loki was tired of feeling like a failure in comparison to the multiverse of himself. Even the Lokis that were worse than him had something that he envied. A quality, a success, a friendship. As much as there was something to hate, there was also always something to admire in the other versions of himself. Even the Space King had his merits.
Not many, of course. But there were a few.
Somewhere he felt safe. Where was that? He hadn’t felt safe since the week of the silent predators.
He slipped his arm away from her grip and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You need to be more selfish, Natasha.”
There was never time — or a time — to be selfish. There was always something going on here: a sentient city keeping Derleth trapped, zombies, a human-battery-making AI, faeries. The list went on. She understood what Loki was getting at, he'd had so much taken from him here. Fandral and Mobius, his mother. His brother was here, but it wasn't the one who knew him. It was a lot, a lot more than their world tossed at them at times.
But it wasn't her fault that he'd put a stop to their budding relationship. It wasn't her fault that he wouldn't just take that leap. She'd been selfish, with Kovacs, and how did that end? The same way Mobius and Loki ended. The same way Fandral and Loki ended.
"You've already said what your problem is: you just need to be yourself. Stop trying to pretend to be something you're not."
Always having to prove that I’m capable of being different or better.
That sentence, in particular, stung. Is that how he really felt about her friendship? That he was constantly out to prove something to her? Her jaw clenched. She wasn't in the mood to go out of her way to protect him anymore. Maybe he needed someone to be blunt.
"And stop being a coward with your feelings. Maybe you'll get somewhere with them, but you'll never know if you aren't honest with yourself."
She turned back to the table to clean up, but it was clear she was done with the conversation by the way she tossed her uneaten salad onto the tray, along with her cup and silverware. It wasn't quite the stalk off and leave him behind that she'd been hoping for, but no one was going to clean this crap up.
That made Loki angry. Instantly angry. In fact, he was surprised by how angry he was when she called him out on the things he’d told her. On the truth he’d been holding in for—how long? Certainly well before New York. It prickled beneath his skin, heat rushing to his head. If they’d been alone he might have yelled at her. He might have slammed his fist on something. But they weren’t. And the only thing he could do was clench his jaw.
The smart thing would have been to let her go. To storm out of Dexter Hall and into the open air. Not fresh air, per se. Derleth air. Maybe walk off into the Void and keep walking until he grew too tired to go on. That would have been the smart thing to do. But, really, how smart was Loki? He was smart, yes. Intellectually intelligent. But his emotional intelligence wasn’t quite at the level of most people. And, besides, he’d just opened up to her about everything. Well, almost everything. The point was Natasha knew how he felt. He didn’t have to say it. He couldn’t say it.
Because it was too soon.
Because he didn’t want her to think it was just because he needed to feel a void.
And now he couldn’t get those images out of his head. Of the fake stars sparkling overhead and the candlelight flickering in front of her face.
Fuck.
He followed after her and caught her by the elbow near the trash can, turning her to face him. Not hard, but forceful. And when he spoke it was in a hushed whisper so people nearby couldn’t eavesdrop.
“I am being honest with myself. What do you think this is? Some cry for help? You think I’m looking for your pity? You wanted me to be honest. That’s what I’m doing. What else do you want from me, Natasha? This isn’t just on me. I know my feelings. But I know it’s not fair to share them.” Someone walked by and Loki waited for them to pass before he continued. “And you’re the same. You’re a coward, too.”
"I'm the coward?" Her eyebrows shot up as she shook her head. Her voice was incredibly low, even by her standards. It meant she crept into his personal space just a little bit more.
There were too many people in this building for her to have this conversation with him. It was already awkward before whatever weird memory jolt happened. Now it was just unbearable. She didn't want anyone involved in her personal life. It was fine if they gossiped about it, but she wasn't about to put on a show. "At least I put myself out there. At least I told you what I wanted. Are you mad that I took you at your word? What was I supposed to do?"
She looked around Dexter Hall and frowned, then pushed the door open. If he wanted to continue the conversation, he could follow her outside. She wasn't willing to keep on where just anyone could walk up to them.
She was fuming though, and it wasn't necessarily from what he'd been saying. He was right; it wasn't fair to any of them. And she knew exactly how she felt, and more importantly how he felt in the weird blip, memory, alternate whatever. Now she was back here: alone and trying not to think about how she fucked things up with Kovacs and Loki.
“Yes! You are a coward,” Loki said as he followed her out of Dexter Hall. There was never a great deal of privacy on campus. Not unless you hid in the basement of the Peaslee Theatre or wandered into the middle of the Green. But it was less confining than the cafeteria and Loki could at least speak without whispering. “And who’s lying to themselves now? You’ve never put yourself out there. The door is always half closed with you. But I get it. I do. I understand.”
Because Loki was the same. Because the danger of completely opening up to another person—the risk of being vulnerable—was that you could get hurt. And not just hurt in the way Fandral had hurt him. But hurt when it was over. When the person was gone. When everything important was still left unsaid.
Like with Mobius.
“Yes, I fucked up in New York. But you turned me down in the vampire world.” Granted, that wasn’t the best example to use because Loki hadn’t been entirely himself. But he wasn’t not himself. He’d been there. He was conscious, albeit taking a backseat. And there hadn’t been much difference between him and that particular Loki. Except that Loki had everything he wanted. And more.
Are you mad that I took you at your word?
Loki stopped chasing after her.
Yes. Why didn’t you convince me that I was good enough for you?
He slowed his pace to a stop and stared off to the Green. He thought back to that memory of someone else’s life. The last two. Alone at the end of it all. It was someone else’s life, right? It hadn’t been a glimpse of the future, had it?
“This is not how I wanted to have this conversation,” he said, half under his breath.
"Okay, first of all, you were not actually you when we were vampires. You remembered a whole different me who was some weird Russian princess. There was no way I was going to sleep with a different version of you. I don't want another version of you!"
She was fired up now, ready to begin pacing or stalking the campus. Ready to find the gym and punch the living shit out of a bag there. Or maybe it was some other kind of pent up energy that had her twisted around. Couldn't they have just had a few more moments in that memory? Maybe they'd find out things weren't really as great as it seemed.
"Secondly, one moment, I was asleep at the reset, the next in a damn broom closet with his tongue down my throat!" It wasn't that Natasha couldn't find the sensuality in it. There'd been a few seconds where she absolutely thought about throwing caution to the wind. She thought about it now, but the last time she tossed everything out of the window, she ended up with a heartbreak the size of a Hulk. "I had no idea what was going on, and he made it perfectly clear that I wasn't his Natasha either."
And then that Loki had run off with the human Mobius and turned him. Another flash of jealousy sprouted in Natasha's mind.
"It didn't have to be like this."
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Loki knew he shouldn’t have. He was reading the network tags and he was hedging. He was hesitating. But it felt so good to talk to Natasha like he used to. He missed their banter. He missed their friendship. He missed not knowing what she was going to say from one moment to the next. Missed wondering if one day the conversation was going to move them in a different direction. He missed knowing for certain that they would spend the resets together.
And he could pretend all he wanted, but he’d been jealous too. Because Loki was smug and stubborn (and rightfully stupid sometimes.) But for all his faults he knew he’d been a better fit than Kovacs.
But Loki also understood hypocrisy. And he recognized that he fell for Mobius the same way she did for Kovacs. It was easy to do that when the other person offered you everything. When they let you see everything. When they showed you their mind and reassured you that their feelings were real. When they said all the right things. Which was not Loki and Natasha. They said the things they needed to say in order to survive. In order to protect themselves.
But Natasha had been stronger than Loki in that respect. And Loki could have done it better. He could have been a better friend about it. He hadn’t been. That was on him. Not on Natasha. Certainly not on Kovacs. Not even on Mobius.
I don’t want another version of you! But Loki? Loki would have been honored to have any version of Natasha. He’d never seen a version of her that wasn’t perfect for the world she came from. And they were always better than the versions of himself.
“I’m sorry I let him—did he really stick his tongue down your throat?” Loki offered a halfhearted smile to lighten the mood. Or at least attempt to. “I thought he might be better at this than I am.”
The only thing that had been wrong about the start of that week was that it hadn't actually been Loki in there. It was some ancient vampire version of him who had a royal Romanoff as his protector and lover. Every one of these worlds they'd been to… It was never really just them. In the 1950s, they'd been high school sweethearts, but he'd married Julia. Vampire Loki had fallen in love with human Mobius. Maybe it was Derleth's way of telling them that they were just not meant to be.
Except for that damn new memory. That didn't seem like some alternate universe; it seemed like the very end of Derleth where everyone else was gone. And it was just them. Did it take everyone else disappearing for them to get over themselves?
"He — wasn't bad at it." She admitted, shrugging a shoulder, allowing herself and the mood to be lightened. "He was a really good kisser." And judging from his body language and the way he'd touched her, he was likely a very good lover.
He just wasn't you.
“You know that doesn’t matter to me, right? Kissing, sex. That’s just a bit of mischief. That’s just a bit of fun. That doesn’t have to mean anything to me.” It could. Loki had experienced a few times with a few people where the physical intimacy touched that edge of something else. Something deeper. Something more meaningful. But for the most part, it didn’t. It was superficial. It was just an act. Another illusion that he was something more than what he was. Or an illusion of the truth. That he was exactly what he purported to be.
Loki placed his hands on his hips. “I don’t need that from someone I care about.”
That was something Mobius could never quite wrap his head around with Loki. And Loki couldn’t blame him for it. Was it an Asgardian thing? Was it just a Loki thing? He didn’t know. But Loki didn’t need affectionate embraces to feel something for another person. He felt plenty for Natasha and the touches between them had always been careful, appropriate, and fleeting. Dances. The occasional embrace. The one time she braided his hair. None of those things were the basis of their friendship. Or their relationship. Or whatever it was they had with each other. It was everything else that Loki was attracted to.
“But of course he was good. He was me. Sort of. We’re all good at that. Because that’s easy. That’s painless. That’s a motion.” And Natasha ought to have known that. Had she been much different when it came to intimacy in the Red Room?
Natasha rolled her eyes. She'd learned how to manipulate people through sex way too young, and she'd been good at it. That was the whole point of the "graduation ceremony." They were absolutely going to be using sex to get what they wanted. It was the fastest and easiest way to manipulate someone. People were idiots when she came to sex.
"You know that Bruce couldn't even have sex without Hulking out back then, right?" She wasn't stupid; there were plenty of ways to be intimate with someone that didn't even involve sex. She'd consider her relationship with Steve Rogers to have been intimate, but it was a different kind of intimacy. It was a deep trust that could only have been achieved through multiple attempts on their lives and being on different sides of a superhero dispute. "Despite being from Midgard, I do know a thing or two about the various ways people can have relationships."
Natasha pressed her thumb and forefinger over the bridge of her nose. Natasha wasn't interested in mischief or fun really, not without something more going for it. She didn't need it, but she knew that she did want that. "You may not need it from someone you care about, but I do. How's that for selfish?"
“I’m a sorcerer, Natasha. Not a mind reader.” Which in and of itself was hard to admit since Loki always made it a point to let others know how easily he could read them. And for the most part he could. After a thousand years you started to pick up on things. You started to figure it out. The acts. The games. The pretenses. People weren’t as complicated as they liked to think they were.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Loki didn’t know. Or he hadn’t tried to know. He hadn’t asked Natasha about her feelings. He hadn’t told her his own. He just assumed they both understood each other. He thought the timing was always wrong.
He was a coward. He could have asked. He could have been more direct. He could have talked with her about it. And he didn’t. And now they were arguing about Bruce Banner’s sex life.
Or lack thereof.
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t have that with Bruce.” Or maybe he was actually apologizing for not letting her have it with him when they had the chance. Loki didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know where this conversation was going or if they were even going to be friends afterward.
He shook his head and held back a sigh. “It’s not selfish. That’s not what I meant. I just wanted you to know that those other people… That doesn’t always mean anything to me.”
The conversation felt like it was nearing its end, or at least, she wanted it to. They talked about everything but the one thing they had been trying to talk about. Derleth had a way of intervening again, so Natasha took it as the coincidence that it was meant to be. She decided to drop the serious portion of this conversation and focus on making it more light-hearted.
"I'm fine without Bruce. Without Kovacs."
Or not.
"I'm not fine without you though," she admitted. "Whoever you have sex with or a relationship with is going to have to deal with the fact that I'm not leaving your life. If that upsets them, then that's on them."
There. It was something. It wasn't the whole thing, of course, but it was something.
Loki watched her carefully when she spoke. He didn’t believe her. Not really. In the same way he didn’t entirely believe himself. There was always something left unsaid in their conversations. Always a line they refused to cross. Beyond that line was the Point of No Return. And they both had good reasons—really good reasons—to fear crossing that line. Because then they could never go back. Then they’d have to admit that this was more than just … this.
“I’m not having anymore relationships,” Loki said after a pause. He wasn’t flippant. He was tired of relationships. Tired of trying to be the kind of person who could be with another person in that way. Which maybe just meant he hadn’t found the right person. But Loki was done looking. He was done trying to force himself to be the person he thought he ought to be. Instead of the person he was.
After all, was it so bad just being Loki?
“I mean … It’s not on my list of priorities. I don’t want to repeat my mistakes. I don’t want to push other people out of my life simply because I let another in close.” He ran his fingers back through his hair, tucking the strands behind his ear. “That’s why I’m trying to find something else. Something that’s just mine. Something that can make me happy without hurting someone else. And then, maybe, if things are right. If I’m ready.”
He shrugged. It was too early to say if teaching was going to be the thing that helped him find himself. But it was a good distraction so far.
But whether anyone would want him by the time he was ready? Well, that was a risk he’d have to accept.
“I don’t want you to leave my life, Natasha. You’re one of the only reasons I get out of bed in the morning. Even when we aren’t talking. Just knowing you’re here. I can’t do this without you.” He paused. “I don’t want to.”