Unforgotten

Chapter 5

I opened my eyes to a semi dark room, but even that made my head hurt. 

"Ow." I moaned, closing my eyes tightly, then opening them carefully to see that I was in my old bedroom at the Tower. 

"You certainly know how to end a party." I looked up from my covers to see my uncle placing two Tylenol on my nightstand with a glass of water.  I pulled the quilt up to my nose. 

"I'm so sorry Uncle Tony." He waved my apology away with a hand and sat down on the edge of my bed. 

"Never mind.  Party died when the beauty queen leaves anyway." He smiled at me, and I smiled back under the quilt.  "Now do I need to question who got you out of that dress?" He nodded toward my dress hanging neatly outside my closet.  My eyes widened, and I glanced down under my quilt to see I was wearing an old tshirt and cotton shorts, the ones I had packed in my overnight bag. 

"Ah . . ." I began, scooting up to a sitting position, and Natasha suddenly came into the room.

"I helped her, Tony, you pig." She said quickly.  "Why don't you get out so I can get her up and back on her feet?"  Tony chuckled at Natasha's demeanor, then rose. 

"Love you, kid. And eventually, we need to talk." I nodded silently, barely meeting his eye, as he left the room.  When the door closed behind him, Natasha whirled around and glared at me.

"Don't ever pull that shit again." She hissed at me.  "Especially because of a guy." I nodded and swung my legs out of the bed, my head immediately throbbing.  I reached for the Tylenol and water.

"I'm sorry," I responded hoarsely.  "That was stupid."  I took another drink, and glanced at the dress.  "You did help me with that, didn't you?" I glanced at her again.   She rolled her eyes and nodded.

"Yeah.  Not that he didn't try."  Natasha perched on the edge of my bed, and I looked at her as I laid back down.

"He was here?" She nodded.

"He insisted on carrying you in, making sure you were in here alright.  Then I made him leave."  I closed my eyes again, groaning.

"God.  This is so messed up." Natasha was quite for a moment.

"You, uh, you guys were pretty close last night." I touched my face, where it had rested against his only hours ago while we danced.  I could still smell him.

"Why would he lie to me?" I whispered, half to myself.

"You'll have to ask him," Natasha answered.  I looked at her, tossing my pajamas into my overnight bag. 

"Oh, I plan to.  When I can function normally," I said, putting a hand on my forehead.  "I shouldn't drink that much.  Where is he anyway?"  Natasha hesitated. 

"At your place." I sat up, immediately regretting it, and glared at her.

"He's where?"  Natasha shrugged in defense.

"That's the one place you were guaranteed not to be, so that's where we sent him."  She said. "I would say don't worry, but Steve and your Aunt Pepper are there with him."

Loki walked across the living room of Paige's apartment for what seemed like the hundredth time since he'd left the Stark Tower.  He stopped and picked up a photo from a table, thinking.  He remembered this photo, the night it was taken.  He'd watched from Asgard, after . . .everything.  His life had changed that day in New York – he'd never forgotten her, bursting into the room.  His hand on the container with the Tesseract, shackled.  He remembered the light, the fire in her eyes as she ran toward him, only to be stopped by Stark.  Even then, Loki remembered, closing his eyes, she had turned to meet his eyes.  She didn't shy away, she had actually turned to him.