california 02 // loki's romanoff prelude

fourteen // frisk's prelude

They made it to Santa Barbara completely by hitchhiking after the battered blue Ford gave out somewhere near San Lucas.

The more Natasha thought about it, the more she dreaded when they would arrive. Because Loki didn't leave her side, and when they stood outside La Nocturna at eight, he was beside her.

He was so trusting, and she was here to kill a man.
She didn't want to ruin Loki, but she was too selfish to let him go.

'Loki, go and get us some drinks,' she told him.

He opened his mouth. 'But I-'

'A tequila for me. Don't mix it up.'

'Natasha-'

'Go,' she ordered, waving her hands at him. Waving him away.

Loki tried not to feel injured. She was like a whole different person as soon as stepping into the party - someone detached, collected, cold. Her eyes scanning the crowds and paying little attention to him.

Her job, of course. He hadn't asked. But it was a job. It was important. It was a job. He tried to understand.

Pushing past the many people, he tried not to feel nauseous. There were too many people, in such a small place. The music was booming and hurt his head. There were too many flashing lights. The air smelt like cigarettes and he kept seeing random faces flashing at him through the dark. Men with shadowed jaws and girls with thickly lashed eyes.

An assault on the senses, as Emily Brontë would say. Loki was thinking about his book and how he would much rather wait in the car reading when he bumped into somebody.

'Sorry,' he started to say, when the person turned around.

She was small. Smaller than Natasha. She might have been a brunette, and her eyes could have been any number of colours. It was hard to see in the dim red light.

'I'm sorry,' he told her, 'I just-'

He froze as he suddenly felt her hand on his thigh, and another on his waist, before his wits kicked in and he ran.

He ran from her, and he collided with people - so many people - but he didn't stop at all until he reached the drinks bar.

He poured Natasha a tequila, but his hands were shaking so much that he spilt more of it onto the counter than into her glass.

Natasha stood. She stood and watched the crowds until she spotted him. Frisk. Her target.

He was unmissable, because he came through the door with four bodyguards, each taller than Loki was, and he carried himself like a king. His face was a shadowy landscape of hard-carved features. He was dressed in a black suit, his hair was pale brown and tied at the base of his neck in a tight bun. He looked like a man like any other, but he awoke a chill inside Natasha that she couldn't explain.

Wilson Frisk. The name tasted bitter even in her thoughts.

She watched without moving as he barked an order for a champagne, and when one of his bodyguards marched off to get him one, she took her chance.

She slipped up to him and she didn't touch him - she wasn't going to risk the three bodyguards. He saw her coming. Of course he did.

His eyes flicked down to her body. He made no other movement except scrutinise her figure.

'Hey,' Natasha said, and she tried to make her voice as sensual as possible.

Frisk only tilted his head. He was extremely tall - taller than his bodyguards. She felt dwarfed beside him, even in her heels.
'Why have you got all these boys with you?' Natasha asked, waving a hand at the bodyguards, who watched them without saying anything, moving anything. 'You seem like a strong boy who can take care of himself.'