The Cat and the Canary [Loki Series]
"The cat that swallowed the canary" - idiom; to look extremely well-pleased, smug or self-satisfied often because one has secretly achieved something or has gotten away with a great act of mischief.
Part 6: Trial By Fire
Part 7: Burned
Summary: Now that the smoke has cleared and your life lies in ashes around you, you hardly know who you are anymore. While you push away everyone else, Loki is the one person who can push against you. He claims the words that he's wanted for so long - 'You win' - and then he claims you.
Warning: Language (mild swearing). SPICE. Minors do not interact.
Note: I'd like to say that this is a tasteful love scene, nothing graphic, but you can skip it and carry on to the next part if that's not for you.
There was a shaft of light on the furthest wall. It came from the slit in the heavy curtains, even when you’d unfastened them and drawn them closed to shut out the world. Soft crimson, the late afternoon light was a bloody smear on the white drywall. All you could see was red. Even the futon on which you had thrown yourself, despite the mushroom cloud of choking dust that had erupted from its surface, had a mottled, ominous red-brown colour when you knew it should have been a brighter, more relaxing shade.
Fuck, your thoughts repeated on a loop. I really messed up.
You really ought to have put a light on - there was a lamp not too far from where you were hunched, knees pulled into your chest and face smothered in a throw pillow - but you could not force yourself to move. There was another reason that you didn’t want the light. Strong and raw, the stench of vodka was everywhere. Somewhere in that half-dark was an empty bottle that you didn’t want to see. You had no will to venture to the minibar either even though your throat burned with craving.
All you could do is stare at that little rectangle of blood-red light and try to not-think. Thinking was far too dangerous right now. Abandoned near your feet - which were cold and bare - your phone lit up. It was a dismal sight.
Dad 1 min ago
Calls (32)
Messages (89)
Rosemarie Oliveria 2 min ago
Calls (4)
Pepper Potts 5 min ago
Calls (12)
Messages (9)
Mom 7 min ago
Calls (2)
Messages (8)
Happy Hogan 10 min ago
Calls (3)
Natasha 17 min ago
Missed Call
There was only so much space on that screen. By habit, you almost reached out a thumb to flick down but you stopped yourself mid-swipe. You knew that it would be no better: colleagues that still respected you (the few that remained), estranged friends, maybe a few Avengers who were checking up on you. They had all seen the conflagration: the child of Tony Stark was up in flame and the world appeared only too content to watch. Already, the press had brought out tabloid articles and unflattering pictures of you like marshmallows to roast over you to add to the smores of all-out mental breakdown that they would soon create.
Without your attention, your phone screen darkened.
Just like your mood.
You put your head in your hands. Even your fingers smelled sharp and sour of vodka. The alcohol had been a mistake. How many times had you watched your father drink a single-malt scotch, filling up a tumbler of Macallan for the boredom, for the pain or for the simple desire of the tingling alcohol in the blood? Yet the moment that the vodka had slipped into your veins, all you had felt was gravity. Lead in your veins.
Just another difference between you and your father, you supposed numbly. Once you had thought you were so similar. Now the differences were adding up faster than you’d ever thought possible.
“Fuck,” You muttered again, feeling tears that prickled but would not fall.
It was all over for you now. Just as Rose had said, she had never had a client who pushed too far off the edge of credibility. You would be her first utter failure. If your father’s stocks had been going down the drain before, what more could happen after this terrible conference? You would have to step down, you realised. You would have to step down before it got any worse. This inherent company - held in your family now for three generations - would not be run into the ground because of your mistake.
Ignoring the pop-up notifications, you slid open the screen and clicked on the app. Twitter welcomed you with angry chaos, thousands of riotous people attacking your page, raising their words like pitchforks to send you hurling off the cliff of self despair. With a sharp breath, you typed out the message that almost destroyed you.
Attention, angry mob.
I’m giving up my shares in Stark Industries.
The next CEO will be Pepper Potts.
I’m done.
Hope this is what you wanted, New York Times @ nytimes. You’re a bunch of bastards.
The Tweet was barely up a second before the notifications began to roll in. There were memes, reaction videos, re-tweets and worse. It took three minutes for your father to start calling you again, barely any space between calls. Again and again, you watched his name flash up on your phone but you didn’t answer.
“You warned me, Dad,” You muttered as you reached out, “You can’t save me this time. No one can.”
With an extended hit of the power button, the phone turned off for good. No tracking this time. Too numb even for tears, you pressed your fingers over your eyelids and waited for the name ‘Tony Stark’ to not be embossed over the darkness.
An untimed knock on the door disturbed you. At that first knock, you didn’t even glance up: on the door was hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign that would dispel any curious maids or room service attendants, no matter how determined the concierge was. Without a trace of your name, you’d paid in cash and written down ‘Alex Smith’. If anything, the receptionist had been disappointed to see that you weren’t a former quarterback. After that disappointed once-over, you’d been given the key and asked not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever. No one would be able to track you.
When the knock appeared again, you lifted your head from your knees and glared at the wooden surface.
You knew that the inexplicable assailant would need to leave then - no press hound, maid, night manager or confused hotel guest could get past a locked door. The key card had sealed shut, making it impossible for anyone else to enter.
That’s why it was shocking when you heard a voice, barely more than a mutter. The door seemed to shudder, the whole frame at a tilt as if it was being sucked forward or warping. In surprise, you leapt to your feet before the screech of the bending lock hit you. Seconds later, the door swung open and your assailant entered.
The shadow hit the carpet at your feet before your startled mind could take it all in. Like before, the black material of his jacket and trousers was dark. Black like day-old grease. Black like midnight. There was a sheen to his hair as he stepped into that blood-red triangle from the half-shuttered window. That pale, pale skin was tainted by that ominous glow. There were no weapons in his hands, though his body was hard and tense as if walking into battle. Once his eyes met yours, you noticed that there was no blue left in his irises. They were darker now, silvered. Gun-metal grey.
With a flick of his hand, the door shut behind you. What little light offered by the hallway was severed, leaving you in more darkness than before he had arrived.
That was all it took.
“Are you happy now?”
Your eyes were shining. Broken, your voice was a harsh and sharp thing in the narrow confines of that hotel room. You watched the sound of it pierce him like the spray of broken glass from a cracked windshield. Barely a flinch on that callous, angular face as he continued to step toward you. As he approached, his footfall was measured and steady. There was no need for a chase here, for the thrill of the hunt: his prey was weary and would submit. The animal would mewl at death and succumb to claw and fang.
“Are. You. Happy. Now,” Your voice grated your sore throat, “Or would you like me to humiliate myself some more?”
It appeared to you like a vision. Like the dream of an oasis in a sand storm or the call of soft rain in a hurricane, it struck you as ironic, as hilarious, that even in your despair a high laugh broke from your throat. Swaying around you, your green dress billowed as you brought yourself low. Below the god of mischief, you bowed at the knee.
“You promised me, Loki. You promised you’d bring me ruin,” Your breath fractured into a hot and painful thing at the back of your throat, “Looks like I’ve done a decent job of it myself.”
You could see the way that his pupils expanded, drawing in light through his darkened eyes. They were blown and intense. Aware now of a chill in your bones, you didn’t know if it was the aching coldness of the late hour or if it was his presence that was making you tremble. When you tried to cross your arms around your chest, your touch couldn’t warm you.
The only thing that could would be the hand that Loki placed on your throat.
That burned you.
“Go on,” Loki’s voice was smooth and thick. Compelling. As if you had been flirting with him instead, speaking of secret things as lovers do. As if you hadn’t been detailing the wreckage of your life.
“I’m nothing now. No friends. No reputation. My career is over,” There was a sniffle in your voice which was starting to grow into real tears, “I’m a failure. I’m - I’m the laughing stock of the Avengers and the black sheep of Stark Industries. My dad -”
Your voice broke.
“- can’t even look me in the eyes.”
The room had become a swirl in the blur of your tears: the amorphous shape of the futon, a door barely hanging on the hinges, the stark rectangle of an unused California king, a lump of a coat and wrap-around glasses that you had discarded. The dark silhouette of Loki who stood before you completely, his shoes polished and perfect even after the dirty New York journey. Above, you could feel the lash of his eyes cutting into you. Though you would not lift your head to see the satisfaction in that cold, cruel gaze. Not this time.
“You win, Loki,” Your breath caught, “You win. I surrender.”
There were several things that came to your mind as you knelt before him: you imagined the sound of that laugh, clear as crunching glass and melodious as the cry of a carrion bird. There may be harm that he wished to inflict on you: there were places he could kick you, hit you or wound you - and you might just let him. He might have left you there. Unlocked the door, stepped out into the hallway and left you to rot.
The finger curling through your hair was a surprise. As was the way that it traipsed, soft and slow, around the shape of your head as if drawing a diadem in place.
“I know, kjære.”
The unfamiliar word pulled goosebumps from your flesh which only worsened as you felt his presence beside you. With the warmth in his grasp, he pulled you to your feet and put an arm around your waist to steady you. Searching, his eyes trained on yours as he brushed away each tear.
Your breath tremored, “Please, Loki. Please leave me alone.”
A tear curled down your cheek, which Loki followed with a brush of deft fingertips. The edge of your lip was a point of parting as his finger followed the line there. Your eyes had focused on him as he watched your mouth, seeing the slight changes as he moved his thumb over it. There was still no expression there.
“I can’t take it,” You whimpered, “I can’t take your torture anymore.”
“And I you.”
Loki kissed you. The first kiss was short - a moment, a spark, a taste of you that he could keep forever. Though the aftertaste was too much for him and he came back for another. There was no demand in your lips as he let his tongue trace the inner line of your mouth - inviting you, asking you to taste the fruit that had been too long forbidden.
Like Persephone in wintertime, your kiss was cold. With a simple press, it thawed little by little until your kisses melted against his mouth. Loki’s eyes had dilated: flat and black, desire had marred them. From the waist of your dress, the flat line of his palm scraped across your stomach and curled into your back. The bones of his knuckles scarred you.
“Now,” Loki inhaled, drawing you into him, “Come to me, kjære.”
His kisses were everywhere. Like the branding of an iron, they marked the line of your throat, nestled at your jaw and landed, open-mouthed, across your lips when he was too overcome. While you trembled in his arms, you felt him consume you. The breath he pulled, sharp and selfish, to smell your hair. Cool and velvety, the edge of his tongue tasted the salt of your skin. Somewhere, a hand toyed with the zipper on the back of your dress. At your pulse point, his teeth sink in.
Your nails scratched him. Hard and rigid, the plane of his back curled to an unapologetic shoulder. You gasped when the chill of the room hit you but you had no time to consider it until you are laid out flat on your back, spread and naked for the man who claimed he would ruin your life.
With punishing kisses, he crawled up your body. There were bites that he left in sensitive places that will leave bruises to remind you of how he claimed you. They will last for weeks, you think, and you arch into his touch unfathomably.
Why, your thoughts barely pierced you as you arched into his touch. You hate me. Though you can hear that he moaned as he kissed you. I hate you. Though you gripped him as hard as he gripped you, pulling each other together as if no force in the universe could wrench you apart.
“Loki,” You stammered.
Loki gazed at you. There was a look in his eye that you could not name. It may even have been pity as he set his elbows beside your head, reaching a hand down between you to where you needed him most. As he planted a final kiss to your lips, he swallowed all the gasps and little moans that he created in you. A voice in your head even whispered that it could be endearment, except that there was something hungry within that stare. Something feral. Something calculated.
He moved.
The pain was dagger-sharp. It pierced you. There was another cry - then it was crumpled, pained - but it was smothered by Loki’s lips. He murmured curses across your mouth, planted them in a line of soft kisses up your jaw and looked into your eyes before he moved. His hips began to snap - it was a slow rhythm, one that grew. Your breath stuttered. As your signs of discomfort faded, his thrusts deepened.
“Loki,” You moaned, gasping, “Loki!”
His groans were deep and ancient. Norse words that you had heard only from documentaries on the history channel. It feels like enchantment. Yet you felt his desire for you - his desire beat in every pulse of his hips, each kiss that he breathed over your face, in the way that he grunted when your arms wrapped around his neck.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop,” You cried when the warmth was splitting up inside, when something within you threatened to snap and your back arched against him. “Ooh.”
Loki’s hands slammed against the wall. You cried out. When you were boneless and filled, he shouted. There was silence apart from that haggard breathing. His face was blank and his thrusts grew slow, controlled and liquid. He remained within you for a few minutes - your body seemed to wish to grow around him, willing to take his shape - and you whimpered when he was gone. Your tormentor laid down beside you, cupping your cheek. His breath was cold. His final kiss bitter.
There was not even a minute that passed before Loki stood from the bed. There was no need to delve through the hotel room to find mismatched clothing. A snap of his thumb restored his clothes - impeccable, sleek and expensive - but he does not do the same for you. Still breathing heavily, you sat up and reached for him.
“Wait, Loki,” Your voice was almost pleading, “Where are you going?”
The god of mischief stared at you again. It was truly magical to watch the transformation take place: the eyes, blown wide; the hands, trembling; the mouth, soft and sensuous - everything had grown cold. An entirely different man stood before you.
Then he shook his head.
“Kjære,” He said, “What makes you think I’d stay?”
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