The gentle murmur of the waves below was a much more welcome sound than those of the party's behind Clint's back.

If he was right, the newly built house of Stark was looking forwards to another rebuilding if this went on much longer.

Although so far it was better than Iron Man's last birthday party, at least Tasha said so.

The music became slightly louder as somebody stepped outside, before reducing again.

"Agent of Barton?

"Yes, Thor?"

He had long give up on the quest of making the demigod call him simply Clint.

"What ails you, my friend?"

"Nothing, really," he said. The amber coloured liquid sloshed in his hand slightly. Thor frowned.

"I might be not as good at noticing lies as my brother or Lady Natasha, but even I can tell it was one."

"Oh, great." Clint took a sip from the whiskey. "And what gave me away?"

"Well," Thor looked thoughtful for a second. "Everything. You haven't been yourself lately. So tell me, what troubles your mind?"

"Do you think I'm useful for the group?" Thor made a surprised face, that could even be called funny.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Oh, yes you do," the archer snorted. "You... You are all special in some way. You have your muscles and lightning, Tony his brain and the suit, Natasha her charms we cannot ever gain and let's not even get started at Bruce... But what do I have? Great eyesight?" He laughed bitterly. "That will do me great work when I'm surrounded by aliens once again, but this time without my weapons. Natasha was right. We weren't trained for this, but she has a chance at least."

Thor was silent for a second.

"You know... Many thought Loki was useless as well, when we were young."

Clint frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but Thor waved his hand to stay silent.

"I am aware that you held no love towards my brother. But let me explain, without interruption."

When the archer said nothing, Thor continued.

"From the beginning, my brother was always looked down. He always favoured books to wrestling or swordplay, although he wasn't all that bad, no matter what our teachers said. But when he could, he avoided using pure strength. Even as a child, he had a talent in sorcery and learnt fast. But you see, people thought it to be the weapon of women and cowards. No prince of Asgard had ever developed a fondness towards learning magic before. Not this much, at least. So people often gossiped about their prince's strange habits, making jokes about him. Of course they were never repeated in his presence - sorcerer or not, he was their superior and quite dangerous when angered. Since he had discovered this art deeper than commoners usually do, he could cause serious problems sometimes. That's why your people named him the god,or wizard of mischief or lies."

"So that's why he was..."

"I said without interruption. Many decades later, the King of Asgard has left because of some agreement he had to come to with the king of the elves, taking Asgard's greatest protection with him - himself. You must know how this was a great opportunity for the realm's enemies to attack. And attack, they did. Without the All-father, whom we could not reach because of the enemy's sorcerers blocking the communication, all we could do was to protect ourselves for many days and nights. Loki had disappeared into the library, so everybody once again believed that he was too much of a coward to fight for his home and people. A week later he called for the most seasoned warriors and best tacticians.

"I know their weaknesses," he said, "I can get through them. But I need a distraction."

See, he remembered reading about the race we were attacked by in a book, long forgotten in the depths of Asgard's library. In the end, he with the help of a sorceress managed to break the magics, getting a projection to the All-father who had immediately returned. That's when most, sadly not all, of our people realised that not everything can be solved by muscles. For what does the muscle worth when there is no mind to control it?"

"Nice story. Still, I I don't think that I see what you mean."

Thor smiled.

"Why, friend, you of all people should do so. You are one of us, because you can see everything. There is nothing that clouds your mind to make the world appear in any other way than it is. You see our mistakes and strengths, and have the ability to warn us if we wander off of our way that lies before us."

"Oh," Clint was silent for a minute. "Still... Did you really just try to comfort me by comparing me to your psychotic adopted brother?"

"He wasn't always that bad..."

The archer scoffed.

"Please. And right now I can see that Captain will hang himself if he has to put up with Tony any longer."

I know, I know, Clint isn't like this. But alcohol does "wonders" to a man. (See Iron Man 2. birthday party scene.)

Inspired by an A:TLA episode, where Sokka goes all heartbroken about the others being so special.