Avengers Noir Chapter 21

By Cadet Deming

Rated T for violence, death, and adult content. I don't own the rights to the Avengers, Marvel and Disney do, so please don't sue. Natasha/Loki. Thank you so much to the people who have read and reviewed

Epilogue

I finished buttoning up my wedding dress. It was ivory, since it wasn't considered appropriate for a second time bride to wear white. That color was supposed to symbolize a first time bride's "purity." I certainly didn't feel pure, and doubted I ever would again.

Underneath my slip, I wore padding to make me look slightly pregnant. The dress was cut in the Empire style so it would look like I was trying to hide a growing stomach. I wondered if I was the first woman in history to pretend to be pregnant, while pretending to try to hide expecting a baby.

To avoid suspicion over marrying me so quickly, Loki had the idea to make it seem like we were expecting, and then to fake a miscarriage. Loki's secrets had secrets.

Hela asked, "Where are the flowers I'm supposed to carry? And please don't lie to me."

Hela was decked out in a green flower girl dress. She had a custom-made veil to cover the deformed left side of her face. After she was released from the hospital, Loki had lavished her with a wardrobe to cover her scarred half.

"Your father was supposed to pick up our flowers. And please don't be rude."

"How was I being rude? You and daddy say 'Don't lie to me' to each other all of the time."

Ah, the innocent blunt truthfulness of children.

I said, "It's rude for a child to say that to an adult."

"Do I have to call you mommy now?"

It was a touchy issue for me.

"Do you feel bad calling me mommy?"

"I miss my real mommy. I wish I had died with everyone else in the fire. If I was with the dead, no one could ever leave me again."

I kneeled down to her level. "Sweetie please, be glad you're alive. You have your whole future ahead of you. I'm not trying to replace your mommy. Sigyn and I are different women. Very, very different women. I can't be like her, but I'll be the best stepmother to you I can be. "

"But when you and daddy have the new baby, you'll be his or her real mother, but not mine."

"I promise I won't treat you differently, birth mother or stepmother."

Hela hugged me. I turned so she wouldn't feel the padding at my waist. She held her scarred side against my skin, but for her sake I didn't flinch.

"Thank you Natasha. I'll call you stepmommy now."

"You're welcome."

"Grandma Frigga still doesn't like you."

Of course she didn't. I knew her for what she truly was. I resisted the urge to tell Hela her Grandma Frigga is a murdering bitch.

I said, "Unfortunately, a lot of women don't get along with their mother-in-laws. But we can just try to be civil."

"Civil is what adults mean by not saying true things."

I looked into her eyes, so much like her father's. Would she grow up to be just like him, and lie about everything? Was it even my place to do or say anything about it? By marrying him, I was condoning him. I couldn't pretend to myself that I was any better than he was.

I said, "Civil is trying to treat other people like we want to be treated. If we're mean to people, they could get mad and try to get back at us."

I heard a knock on the door and Loki called out, "Darling, are you decent? The photographer is here for our pre-ceremony pictures."

I responded and Loki came in carrying my bouquet and Hela's basket of flower petals. He was elegance incarnate in his tailored waist-coat and vest. He beamed at me. I would have said he looked radiant, if his smile wasn't so damn smug.

Hela ran to him and hugged him. He kissed her on the cheek, squeezed her gently and handed her the basket.

Loki said, "How are my favorite girls in the whole wide world? You both look beautiful."

I had to give him credit. He was stepping up and becoming a better father.

I said, "If it's bad luck for a bride and groom to see each other the morning of the wedding, why do they photograph us together before the ceremony?"

He said, "To capture the wedding party at our freshest. Hela dear, could you run along and find your uncle Thor?"

Hela stared at us for a moment and left. Loki locked the door. He handed me my bouquet. It was filled with lilies. They just had to be lilies.

He said, "This is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. You could at least smile."

"It's my second marriage. I guess that makes it a tie for best day ever. Don't worry. I'll go into my perky mode in front of the guests."

I turned away from him and applied blush in a mirror.

He frowned. "Getting cold feet?"

I stayed silent.

Loki came up behind me and hugged my shoulders. He whispered, "What are you afraid of? I promise, this won't be a marriage like my parents. My legal parents. And it won't be like with Sigyn. You're almost my intellectual equal and there's passion between us. Real passion."

He put his hand under my chin and tilted me to kiss him. I responded physically, but doubts still clouded my mind. I pondered a life together built on mutual emotional blackmail, head games, and deceit.

I whispered back to him. "We'll have passion. But we'll never have trust."

"Trust is overrated. You lie as much as I do, if not more. I'm just more honest about it to myself. Besides, by virtue of the fact that we know we can't trust each other, we can trust each other not to trust each other, therefore we trust each other."

I frowned. "You really have a knack for twisting things into insane giant logic."

"It's a gift. Let's go pretend we're a happy, normal couple."

He led me to a room with the rest of the wedding party.

Frigga was trying to fasten a green silk bow tie around Thor's huge neck. I had heard of brides picking the most unflattering dresses possible to make their bridesmaids look bad, but Loki had managed to find the most hideous groomsman tuxedo for his brother.

Thor said, "You're strangling me, mother. It won't fit."

The photographer adjusted the umbrellas that reflected light in formal pictures. They looked like spider-webs.

The photographer turned around and called out, "Now that the bride and groom are here it's showtime! Places everyone. I just need a word with the groom first."

There was something familiar about him. He moved quickly, like a spider.

Loki said, "I know you. You're a pizza delivery boy."

The photographer frowned. "I'm not a pizza delivery boy, I'm a Chinese Food delivery man. Big difference. I'm Peter Parker, a photographer for the Daily Bugle. We met the night that gangster Laufey got killed."

Thor and Frigga turned to look at him.

Loki said, "I asked the Bugle to send me their best."

Peter said, "I am their best photographer. And you submitted your request for someone to take wedding pictures with very short notice."

Peter's eyes swung to my belly.

Loki sneered. "I wouldn't have picked you, but as I have no choice in the matter, get on with it. Just make us look good, or there will be a lawsuit."

Peter cocked his head to the side and stared at us.

He said, "I'll do my best, but I can only work with what I'm given."

Loki said, "Is that your attempt to be funny or witty or insult my fiancée?"

Peter said, "I was talking about my equipment."

I doubted that.

I muttered to Loki, "Could you please try to be civil to him? Any pictures he takes could last forever."

Loki shrugged and posed next to me.

Thor said, "I still can't get my tie on."

Hela said, "Daddy said the only reason he asked Uncle Thor to be the Best Man was because…"

I clamped my hand over Hela's mouth.

Peter said, "Everybody smile."

I faked a grin beneath the exposure of the flashing bulb and braced myself for life as the newest Odinson.

A few weeks later

I held the wedding picture in my hand. Everyone looked so pristine in it, even me.

Loki creaked open the front door. I checked my watch. It was 10:37 PM.

I whispered, "Hela is asleep. You're late."

Loki sighed, "I had to work late at the office."

"Again?"

"I had to cover for Thor."

When I was a private investigator covering cheating husband cases, "working late" was the classic flimsy excuse. I felt a twinge of paranoia.

I deadpanned,"Do you expect me to believe that?"

He didn't give me one of his smug smiles. He didn't start crying, or go on a rage-filled rant.

He simply said with ice in his voice, "You knew who I was when you married me. I'd ask you to bring me dinner, but you still haven't bothered to learn to cook. Bring me a drink please."

He had a point. I couldn't marry a scoundrel and expect him to turn into Prince Charming.

I wanted to scream on the inside, but kept my voice neutral. "You knew I wasn't the domestic type when you picked me. Why expect that to change?"

Loki rubbed his forehead. "Because my money pays for everything. If I ask you to change, you obey. Now bring me my bloody drink."

I seethed and went in to the kitchen. I prepared him a scotch on the rocks. I poured a vodka shot for myself.

I questioned why I put up with this, why I put up with him. It was from my guilt. My guilt over everything I had helped cover up in exchange for selling out to be a society wife. My guilt led to self-punishment.

I returned with drinks in hand. Loki took the scotch from me. His fingers felt as cold as the drink.

He smelled it suspiciously. "You didn't put anything in this did you? Because you know the terms of my will. If I die, you get nothing."

"I wouldn't dream of it. And if I die, a letter gets sent to the Daily Bugle confessing all of your family secrets."

He sneered. "You wouldn't dare."

"I'd be dead. I'd dare anything."

We stared at each other.

Loki started laughing, not full of mirth, but cruelty.

"Barton was right," he said. "You and I truly do deserve each other."

The doorbell rang. I answered it. Captain Steve Rogers and Clint stood before me, along with a bald black man with an eye patch.

He said, "I'm Nick Fury. We have a warrant for your husband's arrest."

Loki said, "Arrest for what? I was cleared. I was cleared, dammit!"

Clint smiled. He held up an envelope full of pictures. I saw he had a wedding ring on his finger.

He said. "We got new evidence in. Someone sent in some photographs of Loki breaking into Laufey's house the night he was murdered."

Loki said, "But, that's impossible. Who?"

Fury said, "He signed them "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman." Real good pictures too, professional quality. I ain't crazy about some vigilante getting involved in police business, but a windfall is a windfall."

I thought back. Professional quality pictures…someone who ran into Loki the night he killed Laufey…someone who tried to talk to Loki about it the day of our wedding but Loki blew him off…Peter Parker.

Loki said, "This is insane. Do you know who my family is? Rogers is best friends with my brother Thor. Thor would never stand for this."

Rogers said, "I did speak with Thor. He reported his gun missing on the day in question. It was the same caliber as the gun used to shoot Laufey, the day you got into a physical fight with him in the hospital. It would have given you a good opportunity to steal it from him to frame him. I guess you changed your mind after Gargan attacked you and gave you an easier target to blame."

Loki screamed, "I have witnesses! I'm innocent. Natasha tell them! Natasha, please!"

I stared at the monster I married. I looked at the three men of the law. They weren't looking back at me with any confidence.

I wasn't feeling confident, or triumphant, or happy. I was just sick of all the lies in my life.

I said, "Take him away. I'll tell you everything I know."

The End

Author's Notes:

Thank you again to all who read and reviewed.

I debated how to end this, whether it should be happy or sad or bittersweet, or if Loki would end up getting away with it. I had an interesting time writing Loki as the gender-flipped version of a femme fatale who the PI knows is dangerous to get involved with, but gets seduced anyhow. I also struggled with how "evil" to make this version of Loki, and how vulnerable to make Natasha without making her seem weak or lose audience sympathy.