Natasha knocks on the door to Loki's room, then takes a step back.

There's no answer.

She steps back up and knocks again, then steps back once more.

Again, there's no answer.

She furrows her brows, and, one last time, she steps up to the door and knocks. She doesn't step away this time, turning her head so her ear is next to the wood so she can listen for any sign that he's actually in there somewhere.

She doesn't hear anything.

Not until Loki whips open the door, and she finds herself standing no more than a few inches away from Loki in all of his shirtless, dripping-wet glory. Logically, she knows she should step back to keep a respectable distance between them, but she's so taken aback, she just finds herself staring straight at his six-pack that just happens to be at about eye-level. (Damn him for being so tall, as if he's not hot enough already.)

"What?" he demands as he flings the door open.

Natasha looks up at his face – where she should have been looking all along – just in time to see his irritated expression soften.

"My apologies," he says, and he really does sound a little guilty. "I'd thought you were Thor."

"You always say that," Natasha remarks, a bit teasingly. "What, Thor's the only one who's supposed to check on you?"

Loki furrows his brows. "Well, yes," he says, and he sounds confused that she'd even imply otherwise. "He usually is. Your two visits have been the only exception."

Natasha frowns. She's not surprised, exactly, but it does kind of suck to hear that literally every single person in this building except for his brother is essentially ignoring him.

Loki folds his arms together, not-so-subtly covering his stomach (and abs, much to her disappointment) with his forearms, but leaving his stab wound open to air in a way that's very hard not to notice.

She gestures to it with her head. "That's looking a little better." It's not dripping in blood anymore, at least, though it seems it never did get covered the way Bruce said it should.

"Is it?" Loki asks. "It doesn't feel like it." He offers her an awkward smile to accompany his half-assed attempt at a joke.

"Oh, I believe it," she says. She's had a lot of different wounds in her life, but none nearly as bad as that one. She can't even imagine how it feels to literally have a hole through his body.

Loki glances down the hall, then asks, "Would you like to come in? Standing in the doorway without a shirt is a bit..."

Hot, she finishes in her head. It's hot, is what it is.

But out loud, all she says is, "Yeah, sure."

Loki steps back to let her into his room, and he closes the door behind him. Somehow, this is even more hot. Loki is standing in front of her with no shirt on while they're alone in his room. Take out the stab wound, and it sounds like the start to a porno.

"You know," Natasha says to him, "Thor doesn't mind walking around without a shirt on – as he reminds us incessantly."

Loki huffs at that. "Yes, well, loathe as I am to compliment my brother, he does have a much better physique than I."

Natasha stares pointedly at his abs, which are, rather unfortunately, still hidden behind his arms. "You're shitting me."

Loki furrows his brows. "No?"

"You are built like a god," Natasha tells him. "Literally. You have nothing to be self-conscious about, I promise you."

Loki gives her a weird look. "Thank you?" he says uncertainly. "I appreciate that, but I'm not..." He looks down at himself awkwardly. "If you'd like me to put a shirt on, I will; I only took it off because it was aggravating my wound."

"Yeah, I figured that was the case," Natasha tells him. "Is it just the leather that bugs you? I'm sure we could find you a t-shirt, if you want. It might be easier on you."

Loki ponders that for a moment. "That might help," he agrees. "I'd appreciate that, thank you."

Natasha just looks at him for a few seconds; then, "You know, you're shockingly polite when you're not trying to take over the world."

Loki huffs a laugh. "Yes, well, I was raised a prince," he says. "And, perhaps more importantly, it gave no indication of if or when I was going to trick someone. The element of surprise is the best part of mischief-making, after all."

"Should I be keeping my eyes open for some mischief-making, then?" she asks.

Loki shakes his head. "No, as of right now, my goal is more so to float by without drawing any attention to myself until the scepter is found. Pissing off your friends would certainly not help with that."

"Fair enough," she says. She can see the reasoning behind that. "Then what?"

Loki pauses. "I'm sorry?"

"What're you gonna do once we find the scepter?" she asks. "Are you gonna stay here? Or head back to Asgard? Or a secret third thing?"

Loki frowns as he ponders that, and, after a pause, he says, "Well, I suppose that will depend on my father and my brother." With a small, joking smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, he adds, "I am still a treasonous bastard. I imagine my standing has not changed so much in recent weeks that I can expect to be a free man once this is done."

"You think your dad's gonna send you back to the dungeon?" Natasha asks.

"Well, he would have to repair it first," Loki says.

Natasha raises an eyebrow. That's... interesting.

"But no, I don't think so," Loki says. "I don't know. In all honesty, I'm simply hoping it takes many months to find the scepter, and that Asgard will feel like an entirely different place by the time I return."

Natasha snorts. "It's really that bad?"

"You can't even imagine," Loki replies. "Or maybe you can; if I am choosing to spend my time in this 'Avengers Tower,' you must have an idea how dreadfully painful my other options are."

"You make a good point," Natasha concedes. She will admit, one of her first thoughts when Thor suggested this arrangement was that it was going to be absolutely miserable for Loki. She's pleased to see that she seems to have been wrong: at least in her presence, he doesn't seem all too upset. Now she knows why, apparently: this just sucks less than the alternatives. "Is there any chance you might stick around when this is over? On Earth, I mean?"

Loki huffs a laugh. "I don't think so," he says. "Even if I were allowed, there is very little that is less appealing to me than having my brother peering over my shoulder at all times."

Natasha leans against the wall behind her, crossing her arms over her chest and making herself comfortable. She's beginning to suspect she'll be here for a while, and has absolutely no complaints about that.

"Yeah, what's going on with you and Thor?" she asks.

Loki furrows his brows. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Well, now she's just confused. "You guys seem so... not buddy-buddy." Which might be their normal; it's not like she knew them before their big falling out. "And you sounded like you were gonna murder me when you opened the door and thought I was him."

"Oh." Loki shakes his head, a vague air of exasperation overtaking him. "He has just been very... overbearing."

She nods slowly. That's fair, she supposes. "Is he always like this?"

"Only recently."

"Recently as in after you tried to take over the world, or recently as in after you got stabbed trying to save his life?"

Loki huffs a sarcastic laugh. "Certainly not the first one," he says, and there's a bitter edge to his tone as he speaks. "In all the time I was in prison, I never once saw him. When I tell you this is a new development, I mean it is a new development."

Natasha frowns. That's... shitty. She's almost not sure she believes it. There is no way that Thor "I will defend my brother's honor even while I help SHIELD put an end to his evil schemes" Odinson decided to just ditch Loki in the dungeon for a year and a half. That's just... not him. Right?

Loki sighs. "I'm sorry," he says. "You didn't come here to be burdened with my family drama."

"Hey, I love drama," Natasha tells him – probably a poor attempt at making him feel better, but at least it's the truth. She is nothing if not a fan of listening to the shit going down in other people's lives. More sincerely, she asks, "Did anybody visit you? They didn't just leave you there, did they?"

Loki lets out a long breath. "There was one person, but she's..." He shakes his head solemnly. "She's in Valhalla now."

Natasha furrows her brows. "Valhalla?"

"It's another of the Nine Realms," Loki explains, and he very pointedly avoids meeting her eye as he does. "It's where the souls of Asgardians go when they die in battle."

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

So she's not just gone; she's dead. No wonder he wants to stay out of Asgard. The only person who really cared about him up there is dead, and, given that he's their prince, she's sure everybody in Asgard knows it. She can only imagine how awkward it must be when everybody knows that you're not only disgraced royalty, but disgraced royalty whose girlfriend just died.

Girlfriend, right? She has to assume this is about a girlfriend. It sounds like a girlfriend situation.

With a half-assed smile, Loki adds, "Not the fun, lighthearted drama you'd hoped for, I'm sure."

"No, not really," she admits. "I'm sorry, that's..." She shakes her head helplessly. "That's awful. I didn't realize..."

"I know," he says. "And it's not something I'm all too eager to talk about, so if we could change the subject, I would appreciate that."

"Yeah, no, I get it," Natasha says quickly. "We can talk about something else. Just name a subject."