S.H.I.E.L.D. had me monitoring his movements, and on the day I'd interrogated him in the helicarrier, for the first time, I saw something deeply hidden in his eyes.
As I'd walked away, the look of pure shock on his face opened up his soul, and for a second, as I'd thanked him for cooperating, I could see a lost, little boy trapped in his cerulean, once jade green, eyes. The emotion was gone quickly, and as I passed through the door, I heard him whispered something menacingly.
"You will pay for that," he'd murmured. I'd never admit that I looked forward to it.
The change in his eye color did not go unnoticed by me, though Fury seemed to overlook it. I thought not to mention it. To me, however, it seemed obvious that he was being controlled by some higher power, just as he'd been controlling Clint. For some reason, after I realized this, I could not hate him so thoroughly.
I had noticed his sudden apprehension during the war, the look in his eyes when he realized he would not win. That, followed by the sudden clarity in his, once again green, eyes as the boys and I stood over him. And he'd simply asked for a drink. If I'd not been taught to repress my emotions at the ripe age of seven, I might have laughed.
There really wasn't anything funny about the situation, just the simple irony that he'd been smashed repeatedly into the ground hard enough to create small craters in Tony Stark's cement flooring, and the first thing he'd said to us was "If it's not too much trouble, I'll have that drink." It amused her that even in the face of such a great defeat, he still had his sense of humor.
Perhaps I began believing in gods at that point; I opened my mind to the possibility of higher powers. How could I not? I'd personally met two.
If the Norse Gods existed, who's to say other mythological entities didn't as well?
But I digress.
For weeks after he was sent back to Asgard with Thor, the thought of him plagued my mind. I'd look in the mirror, and see him behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, lips curled into his ever-present smirk as he buried his face in the crook of my neck, his hands roving over my hips to a more sensitive area.
There was nothing I could do to get him out. I had tried everything I could think of.
I continued to recall what he'd said to me in the helicarrier, about the red in my ledger. He'd been right. It was a part of me, and I could not wipe it out. Though he was no more virtuous than I, he had killed 80 people, and more, in two days. Never mind the devastatingly high number of civilians that had been caught in the crossfire in Chitauri's attack of Manhattan. He haunted my mind.
What made things worse was that there was no one I could talk to about any of this, not even Clint. He would hate me for being so… fixated on the God of Mischief. And Clint was the only person I'd ever called a friend.
If I am to be perfectly honest with myself., I suppose there was a part of me that didn't want to get rid of him, for having him mentally with me made me feel less alone. I'd always hated being alone, though my life called for isolation. I could not have my cover blown. I would not be compromised again.
I expected him to return for me; to keep the promise he'd made for revenge. He never did.
Loki never came to collect the debt he felt I owed him.
And presently, years after the Chitauri invasion, I sit in a hotel room in São Paulo, on a mission I'll most likely not return from… I can't help but feel disappointed.
It's too late.