The Familiar Taste of Poison

There was a blue swirling haze covering emptiness. A beautiful woman stood in the center of it all and it was blinding her. Smoky wisps of the toxic color flooded her blue eyes. She stood in a delicate green dress that barely clung onto her svelte body, spinning in circles as she searched though the vast blue. It eventually bled out into unfamiliar constellations and brightly colored nebulae. She felt the coldness begin to crush her while slowly floating lifelessly away from the blue. The pressure on her throat was great, great enough to where choking itself was impossible. Slowly, from the colors of the galaxy, Lacy saw a face form in front of her. Soon it was joined by a body and as she recognized who was in front of her the background began melting slowly away.

Loki’s hand tightened around her white neck. Lacy went limp, suspended in the air by him. Her vision was far past blurry, and she felt her eyes wanting to pop clear out of her skull. He dropped her suddenly, and she fell limp onto a concrete floor. Lacy took a rushed, much needed gasp in as blue surrounded her once again. Still struggling to see, Lacy heard voices, familiar voices. Those voices belonged to familiar SHIELD agents. Nick Fury’s voice stood out above all else, mentioning something about the Tesseract. Finally Lacy was able to put the voices to their bodies and looked to where he stood, holding a briefcase.

She was back in operation PEGASUS where SHIELD kept the Tesseract. And Loki was trying to steal the Tesseract again. This shouldn’t be happening again, Lacy realized. She tried desperately to move but her limbs were mocking her with lifelessness. This wasn’t how things happened, Loki was supposed to steal her, not kill her. And the Tesseract couldn’t be stolen again, so she couldn’t be dead.

This wasn’t real.

Lacy’s blue eyes shot open in a panic. Trying to keep calm and not give away that she was now awake to any potential occupants of the room, Lacy laid still and listened intently to her surroundings. After a few moments, she couldn’t tell if anybody was in the curtained off room with her. Deciding that it may be safe to move, Lacy rolled onto her back and was met with a white hot sting over her flesh. Quickly she sat up to try and alleviate the pain, thinking she had rolled onto something before remembering the shattered glass. Sitting up as fast as she did caused more pain with her stiff joints and sore muscles and a shocked cry escaped her lips.

“Agent?” Lacy heard a voice call out and Agent Barton walked around one of the curtains. Instinctively, she reached for her gun before remembering it was laying across the room, if Loki hadn’t taken it. All she was left with was staring at him, it hurt way too much to try and move so fighting would be futile. Instead of attacking, however, Clint simply stood there, staring back at her while waiting for an answer.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a second. Lacy looked to his hands and noticed that they were calmly placed on his belt. He stood leisurely, but she still had no idea how to react to him. Right know Clint wasn’t hostile towards her in the least. He genuinely looked worried. “Are you alright, Lacy?”

“G-glass…” Lacy began to explain, her voice cracking horribly, “In my back and side.”

“What did you do last night?” he asked plainly.

Lacy didn’t know how to answer him. She didn’t want him to know what happened last night, and didn’t want to risk him becoming hostile. “I fell…” Lacy half-lied as he walked over to where she sat on the bed.

“Uh-huh…” he replied suspiciously, glass crunching underneath his boots. “Grab onto me,” he bent down and Lacy hesitantly wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders, allowing Clint to lift her up from the bed. “There’s bathrooms and some military medical supplies close to here,” he continued, “Are your feet cut?”

“I don’t think so,” Lacy told him, with a hoarse voice. Barton slowly set her down on the concrete floor, so she could stand on her swollen feet. Still, Lacy relied heavily on Clint’s help and clung onto his shoulders. This was when Lacy noticed that she wasn’t wearing half of her uniform, just her white undershirt and black underwear. Even her bra was missing. This didn’t quite embarrass her, but rather put her in quite the predicament if she had an opportunity to escape. It also made her wonder what Loki had done to her, if anything, if he was the one to undress her.

Clint didn’t say a word about Lacy’s lack of clothes, but rather grabbed the blanket off the military-style cot and wrapped her in it. “Come with me.”

There were more people around the place than last night, most likely German soldiers and scientists, but Professor Selvig was still slaving away over the Tesseract. Loki wasn’t hard to miss either, sitting across the way from where Selvig was working, with an almost blank look on his face. As Lacy and Clint exited the curtained off room, she kept her eyes on him until they were past him and Lacy noticed the escalator that Clint had led her down last night. With a burst of adrenaline she could escape, Lacy could bolt up the moving stairs and be gone.

Clint stopped walking almost as suddenly as the thought popped into her head and Lacy’s heart slowed. He didn’t say a word to her, but turned their path around and walked back, stopping front of Loki.

“Taking her to the bathrooms, she fell in some glass last night and isn’t too well off this morning,” Clint spoke to Loki, without him having said a word, like he was answering a question. Lacy was only confused for a brief moment, but didn’t let it change her expression.

“Two nights ago,” Loki corrected him, however he nodded once in approval before looking to Lacy. “I hope you’re not thinking of leaving so soon,” he spoke to Lacy while still seated on the ground, holding onto his scepter. “I trust you’re smarter than that. Don’t make me do something rash.”

Clint kept Lacy supported at his side and led her away from Loki after a moment of silence between her and the god. Lacy didn’t need to respond to Loki to let him know that she understood. She figured he was already in her head. Clint brought Lacy to a bathroom in the abandoned, underground subway, and it was in better shape than she had anticipated. Within was a newer looking military-grade first aid kit. Clint helped Lacy to one of the sinks and left her side to grab it and rummage through the contents.

Lacy took that moment to scan over her tired reflection. She was met with smeared makeup over her sunken eyes and dry lips. Patchy and pale skin clung, hanging, to her face and made the twenty-five year old look more than a decade older. Looking away from her own eyes, Lacy turned on the sink and watched the water pour out of the faucet clear.

While washing her face, Clint returned to Lacy with tweezers and a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. He didn’t say anything to her but instead grabbed some paper towels and drenched them with alcohol. The sting made her toes curl and her jaw clench, otherwise her only reaction was turning off the faucet.

“Clint?” Lacy asked, looking back at him as he worked to get the tiny glass shards out of her skin.

“Yes,” he answered blandly, concentrating on his current task.

Lacy felt a sting in her eyes as she watched him. She wanted so badly to change him back and leave. They needed to get out of this place. “You’re my friend,” she stated instead of questioned.

“I’m your ally.” His expression didn’t change. He wasn’t Clint.

Is Natasha still your friend? Lacy wanted to ask. What about your pregnant wife? Is Laura still your wife? Is Cooper still your son? She looked away from his reflection and down to the sink she was gripping, a single tear filled with all her rage and frustration and hurt rolled down the bridge of her nose. It lingered just a moment on the tip before falling into the sink, its small splatter punctuated by the sound of the bathroom door swinging open.

Without a word, Clint set the tweezers on the sink in front of Lacy and stepped away from her.

“Go,” Loki commanded simply as the bathroom door swung shut behind him.

Clint moved swiftly for the door and was gone in a matter of seconds. Lacy thought of calling for him to come back but it wasn’t really her friend, just an empty shell. An empty shell like she had been before.

“I should have given you a paper cup,” Loki stated once they were alone. Lacy couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny or not, her guard was up too high. For her, Lacy was trapped in a corner, wounded and half naked, with nothing to defend herself but tweezers.

Loki smiled at her when she gave no response, and she hated that she wasn’t able to tell if he was reading her mind or not. “Let me have a look,” he walked over to Lacy and oddly enough she didn’t step away. Not even when he was behind her and running his cold fingers across her cut skin.

“I’m not a healer,” Loki admitted to her, “however I can do better than Barton was. Take off your shirt.”

Lacy, instead of being repulsed or offended, simply looked over her shoulder and saw a fluffy white towel appear in his hands, out of golden sparkling wisps. When he offered it to her, she took it and held it to her breast before pulling off her undershirt by grasping the back of the shirt and pulling it over her head.

Lacy continued watching him through the mirror in front of her, her bare and cut back facing Loki. One of his freezing hands landed gently on her shoulder as he stood behind her, examining the wounds. Using his other hand, Loki moved Lacy’s blonde hair over to her opposite shoulder. Lacy tensed as he touched her, and she felt her guard raising to dangerous levels.

“Need I remind you of breathing?” Lacy felt his breath whisper into her bare neck and goose bumps erupted over her skin. She hurriedly took a deep breath in, realizing that she hadn’t been breathing in the first place. She wasn’t feeling guarded, this was Lacy feeling nervous as a virgin. The goose bumps continued to flood all down her back as his hands continued moving across her skin. Lacy began to tremble before a sudden and shocking pain made her double over onto the sink, her knees giving out.

Loki grabbed onto her, his arm wrapping around her stomach to keep her supported, while the tiny glass shards fell onto the tile floor.

“I got most of the glass for you,” Loki informed Lacy, as she clutched the towel to her chest. With a flick of Loki’s long fingers, the glass shards flew across the floor away from the pair so that they would be no danger to Lacy’s bare feet. The strength had returned to her from the initial shock of pain, but Loki didn’t let go of her.

“Brace yourself,” he warned her as a second, burning pain hit her. Lacy cried out as she felt her back light on fire for a brief moment. This time she was left panting and supported solely by Loki’s arms, like they were lovers.

Lacy quickly shook the thought and pain from her brain and grasped the sink, trying to pull herself away from Loki.

“I’ve finished,” he advised the mortal woman, slowly letting her slip out of his grasp. “You are healed to the best of my ability.”

“Thank you…” Lacy felt compelled to say, through chattering teeth. She suddenly felt the fabric of her towel disappear, but as her stomach dropped, she looked down to see herself wearing a plain, tight tee-shirt and baggy sweat pants.

“The pleasure is all mine darling,” he replied smugly, happy with her reaction and his subtle manipulations. Lacy looked back up to him then, slight shock showing on her features. “Allow me to lead you back to my quarters,” Loki extended his hand, much like a gentleman would, and Lacy had no other option than to accept.