Work Text:
You’d been tracking Loki for years, assigned after he decimated New York and slipped from his brother’s grasp. There were times you’d gotten close, same country, same state, even the same fucking room- but each encounter left both parties bruised, tired as hell, and you empty handed.
Last week Fury had summoned you back to HQ: enforcing an ultimatum. Bring Loki in, or don’t bother coming back. Your withstanding contracts and postponed missions were already reassigned to another agent and as much as you hated the smug bastard Fury had a point you’d invested five bloody years into this job, built up a nice thick dossier tucked away within the CIA all on the premise of national security. If you couldn’t deliver, and lost your position those files would take a one way trip to meet the President and you’d become a target just like the one you were chasing. You had no desire to spend the rest of your life running away from old friends and coworkers that would be tasked with bringing you in- and you knew those ordered favored dead deliveries over spending the money to ensure maximum security.
Its a shame, you thought. You’d been enjoying the chase. Of all the games you played with your targets, these had been your favorites. Loki was the first to play along, to play games of his own always dancing around the ever shifting power dynamics of your professional relationship. He learned how to blend in among normal people quicker than previous targets, especially ones on the run within a foreign nation.
Sometimes he’d draw you into a trap of social constraints, like the night at the opera where you knew he’d be. You had seen him purchasing tickets and bought one of your own, coincidentally sharing a private box. Regardless of professional duty, the social rules within the opera house were rigid and causing a commotion could get you barred for life, something you’d rather not do. Since you were a little girl, you’d loved the melodrama of it all and had decided if you ever lived long enough to retire from domestic espionage, you’d dedicate your life to the arts. It gave you the opportunity to study him within close quarters, and to plant a tracking devise on his coat.
But sometimes the game stopped. Like tonight- in the back of some failing Detroit dive-bar. You’d been sitting st the bar for the greater part of the night and although you hadn’t looked, you knew Loki was lurking nearby at table tucked into the shadows. He observed quietly with an unspoken understanding that engaging now would result in death. Something both of you pretended to ignore as the most likely outcome of the game.
You’d drove this far into the Midwest before needing a break, almost tempted to drive the damn thing and all it’s expensive and important government bullshit off a cliff. You had no desire to die yourself, but thought how delicious it would be if you did and Nick Fury and all his white-collar devils behind the scenes were left trying to cover up such a botched job. They almost deserved Loki’s murderous benders, always threatening to pop up and sidetrack their next plan of court ordered genocide; or the current docket issue- mutant registration. You felt the itch in the back of your mind that you could, if you wanted, drive back to New York hand in your resignation and shoot Fury before he could even call security. You would either be written off as a SHIELD success, or condemned by the same government currently issuing your orders.
You opted to mull all these frustrations over a pint or four of some shitty backwater beer. It was gross as hell, but got the job done. You flagged the bartender down and made some small talk about the area and if he knew of any motels you could crash at. You were on a road trip, you explained. He was friendly enough for a lumberjack transplanted into a concrete corpse of a town, under other circumstances you might’ve let him take you home. But you laughed at the suggestion and played it off as a funny joke. You desperately wanted to join him in the cramped apartment about the bar, where you knew he lived for the last five years and probably would until he died- or the lumbar industry crawled back from extinction. At this point you’d be sorely tempted to join anyone, even the waitress he’d dismissed early looked good to you, dressed in a threadbare T-shirt and jeans worn down with age.
Unfortunately you never got a night off with SHIELD, the only company with no full time benefits or vacation time. But this game, the endless cycle of cat and mouse around the world, occasionally permitted a night off. And god you always needed the extra sleep. You paid off your tab and left making sure to keep your car’s lights off, and drove a mile out to an abandoned apartment building. The game might be on hold- but you knew better than to disclose your true location so publicly, especially when you were trying to sleep. The place hadn’t been empty long and although there was no power, a few of the rooms were clean except for the dust, and you had enough blankets to last the night without freezing or getting sick.
You slept, deeply and without interruption for too long. When you woke you were oppressed with a looming foreboding feeling. You were being hunted, and somewhere outside this building there was a trap. And something about this time, felt final- this would be the end of playing cat and mouse? You wondered how many times the cat could let the mouse win before the novelty wore off and that mouse was once again dinner.
You tracked him down to an unassuming remote motel, somewhere isolated unlike his typical attention seeking m.o. If you died here, no one might ever find you. It had been closed down for years, and had needed an update long before that. The room was small, all it’s furniture broken down except a mattress that had been protected by old sheets since removed.
He was waiting for you, like always, somehow still regal in dirty jeans and a battered shirt buttoned up crooked. Your other thoughts from the previous night peaked out behind your anger and for a second almost made you falter. Loki’s hair was longer than you remembered, it’s dark color contrasting the bright green of his eyes to an obscene shade of emerald. He looked utterly sinful, and for that second it felt like a crime to try and fight him. You wished you’d noticed sooner. In another country, you could’ve pretended SHIELD didn’t exist, you could’ve pretended he was some stranger like the man last night at the bar.
But now, it was too late. The initial fight was brief and painfully intense. You didn’t need a gun to kill, but it felt better to have that distance between yourself and your persona as a SHIELD issued assassin. You almost didn't want to win, but you had to try and for what it's worth not even magic could outdo a skillfully shot bullet. You kept your finger on the trigger, mindlessly repeating the SHIELD orchestrated song and dance about surrender and how "it doesn't have to be this way"- when it did. It always had to be this way, one on the offense the other staring down their own reaper. To his credit, Loki never flinched when he was on the other side of your gun. He usually joked, or distracted you knowing you wouldn't shoot. He was silent, and you cocked the gun: an entire sequence of firsts.
Before you could press down the trigger he knocked the gun from your grasp removing the small distinction between you and SHIELD. Without the gun, you had to recognize yourself as someone willing to raise your own hands against someone so like yourself. You hesitated, fear darting across your mind. The only way out of this wasn't just to fight, but to win. You leaned into your punches and expertly dodged his, grappling until you were backed into a corner both of you resembling starved animals instead of the people who had entered the room.
"If you want me," you panted, "come and get me."
Loki paused, languidly crossing the small space between you to sweep a hand up and under your chin. The cool touch of his fingertips sent a shiver down your body and you felt the tension between you two break: the game was over. "Want you in which way, darling? Don't get me wrong, both involve ropes, but it's an important distinction to make before we proceed."
Your mouth ran dry and for a moment your mind fumbled trying to register the innuendo. Your heart thumped erratically trying to understand- the game was over. There were no winners standing there, just two people who spent the last three years putting off this ending afraid there wouldn’t be a new beginning. Whatever else lay written under this change of peace would remain unspoken. It didn’t matter who felt what- if anything. All that mattered was the shared feeling of having wasted too much time playing the roles written by other people when you were two sides of the same coin. Maybe it didn't need to be another country, you thought, maybe it could be here- now.
“Well pet,” he said pressing against you, his eyes harsh and bright, “answer me— or leave.” You knew he meant it, you could go run off to Mexico or somewhere and pretend none of this, or he existed. But standing there pressed against him, you didn’t want to. You returned his gaze, unafraid letting a smile ghost across you lips. You ran your hands across his chest to rest on his shoulders. You wrapped his shirt's thin fabric in your fists pulling him flush against you before crashing your lips on his. He tasted like the coldest drink you could imagine, refreshing like the air just after dawn, yet felt insidious as if each kiss corrupted more and more of your body. Maybe it would consume you, transform you into one whole person with no master or fear of retribution. There was only one way to find out and you gave your answer with each hungry kiss.