✍🏻 Bonds of Fear (Loki)

3 - Assembly

3 years later

Feer

"Dead."

Natasha stated and rolled off of me, tugging her knife to the side of her boot. I stayed lying on the floor, trying to catch my breath and she extended her hand which I gladly accepted.
Back on my feet, I limped to my things, diving face-first into my towel as soon as I sat down and letting out a muffled growl.

"You are improving, though," she said and sat down next to me, drinking from her gym bottle, "three years ago you were dead in less than a minute."

"What about now?" I asked and glanced at her watch.

She looked at it as well and only gave me a soft smile, "it's better."

"Which means?"

She laughed and got up, packing her things, "better means better."

"Do you think I will ever be as good as you are?" I asked and leaned back against the wall, sweaty and spent whereas she looked as if she only went for a short run.

"If you keep up the intense training," she replied, and when she saw my pouting face she smiled and sat back down, "you always trained only long-range combat, staying in the safety of the distance. Hand-to-hand is a whole different world, it takes time. And as far as I heard from Clint, you might as well be the best student he ever had."

At the mention of Hawkeye, I felt a little glimmer of affection coming off of her but as always, I let it be and didn't question it. It was not my place to pry and I doubted she even knew herself how she felt.
Or maybe she did know it. She was exceptionally good at suppressing her emotions.

"I don't need Hawkey's praise, nor his training," I huffed and crossed my arms, "I know when I am good at something. I want to improve everything that I am not good at."

"Why the rush?" she questioned with a quizzical brow, "you rarely ever go on missions with us. This is not a training camp with an expiry date, you are part of the family now."

It warmed me to hear her say it, moreover that she was sincere and even though I did not consider them to be my family, it was still nice to hear.
A thought crossed my mind and I snickered, imagining that Fury would say something like that, already seeing him choking on those words.

"Care to share?" she questioned my sudden laughter, tilting her head to the side.

Instead of answering, I laughed even louder, giving it a menacing twist, and twirled my finger next to my temple, "just me being crazy again."

She rolled her eyes and got up, finishing packing her things. With a lot of effort and every bone hurting, I got up as well, following her example.

"You are not crazy," she said out of the blue, "they say that only because you were killing mercilessly without SHIELD's stamp of approval. Now if you would do it under their flag, to somebody they deemed uncomfortable, they would not bat an eye."

"Well, I did have that little meltdown last year---"

"And we all agreed we will not talk about it."

She said resolutely and my smile widened, enjoying the wave of protectiveness towards me that coursed through her. It was nowhere near as strong as Tony's or Pepper's who almost considered me as their daughter, but it was there nevertheless.
I wondered if she saw her younger self in me, being able to torture people without any remorse, yet unlike her, I did get a kick out of it.
But I also never tortured anyone who I did not want dead, something that made me sleep at night like a baby.
There was no remorse nor guilt.
Just a warm, fuzzy feeling.