Red Room

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"Hey, how are you feeling?"

Ksenia's head whipped over to the voice and cringed at the sudden movement. "Well I was fine," she admitted to Loki with a halfhearted smile. Seeing his face fall, she backtracked and apologized. It wasn't his fault her head hurt. "I'm sorry, I'm just in a bad mood."

Loki understood. Each time she went down into the lab, everyone rushed her with questions that she didn't have the answers to. When they thought she wasn't looking, they would stare at her with sad eyes, pitying her. They had done the same thing to him when they had learned of his close connection to Natasha.

"Hey," she asked randomly when he sat down on her bed, finally finding the courage, "why did you do it?"

Why did I do it? Oh, she meant it... New York. Of course, everyone wants to know. He knew that she had been trying to find the nerve to ask him, she had tried several times before chickening out and changing the subject. Never would he have ever shared his reasoning, but to Ksenia, he didn't mind.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," she said fearfully. She didn't want to anger him when they had grown so close, but she couldn't stop wondering.

Instead of getting angry though, he smiled, telling her that it was okay before guilt crept into his heart once more. He had never told anyone, and it would feel good to get it out. "No one knows how much I have cried over that day," he admitted before sighing. His black hair fell, hiding his eyes for a moment before he composed himself again. "I had finally reached my breaking point. After...after losing you and Natasha all those years ago, a piece of me died. I had felt so much that I started to feel nothing, and I was ready to end all of humanity for taking my happiness from me."

Ksenia understood but was a little confused. "But Natasha was there..."

Loki gave a small laugh. "Had I not created my own world, I would certainly have died in someone else's. It was better that way, a little lonelier...but better. I thought that if she were gone, I would finally be free of all the memories that I was drowning in. Eventually though, Natasha was the one who stuck that scepter into the machine, closing the portal and putting a stop to it all. She kept fighting when it seemed like the world was going to end, and she made me want to do the same. I saw her smile and then..."

Flashing back to that day, the feelings overwhelmed him once again. His broken soul was screaming, and no one could hear him, not even his own brother. He was drowning in the deepest ocean, the weight of his sadness pushing him deeper and deeper, the pressure threatening to crush him. After fighting the pain for so long, he instead relished in it while his mind screamed in agony at the sudden change. His broken soul kept on believing that his misery would lead the soul of him into another soul that he was desperately needing...and it did. He gave up when he saw her triumph. How could he destroy the things that SHE loved in order to make himself feel better? Her smile, though not aimed at him, sent chills down his spine. It was the same smile that he had been granted countless times in their cave. He was in love with a memory that was drowning him. Everything that he had done to her world for her, he realized, he had really done for himself. The one thing he had succeeded in destroying...was himself. So, he gave up. Sure, he had more tricks up his sleeve, but he kept them hidden and allowed himself to submit. Natasha saved the world that day, and she didn't even know it. Being that close to her again made him feel a little more alive, and little less lost.

Ksenia understood because she felt it. His emotions were so strong that she felt everything that he did, and it made her want to rip her own heart out from the way it was hurting. She put her hand on his shoulder and when he snapped out of it, he knew he didn't have to explain any further.