Authors Note: This is a short thing I wrote a long time ago that I found again recently. Hope someone enjoys it. -Ember
Brothers by November Murray
Thor's heavy footfalls echoed in the halls as he approached the wide room known as the mess though it was neither messy nor tolerated to be so. At that time of night it would most likely be empty he had learned as humans slept more than Asgardians and more regularly. He was surprised then, to see a lone figure sitting at one of the round tables with a cup and one of the clear screens that many of the humans on the hovering ship used. He looked up as Thor entered but went back to his drink and periodic glances at the screen. Thor got himself a cup and poured out coffee from the pot he thought must always be brewing because he had never seen it empty.
"You look troubled, my friend," Thor came over and Clint Barton leveled him with dark ringed eyes. Thor thought he'd at last found a man more antisocial than his brother.
"I'll be fine once you take your brother off our hands," he replied and glanced at the screen where Thor could now see his brother's cell and the god within sitting dejectedly on the single seat.
"Has he said anything?" Thor asked, looking at his brother.
"Nope, not a word, not a move…" Loki's lack of action seemed to bother Clint more than if the captive had been actively trying to escape. "He's plotting something, I know it!" The archer muttered.
"Even Loki must know when he is beaten," Thor sat down next to the SHEILD agent.
"No," Clint glared at the screen. "I remember what he's like, I've met people like him and they are always plotting something."
"At one time I would question how you could know more about my own brother than I but lately it seems that every day I wake up and realize another way in which Loki has manipulated me in the past. I wonder how blind I was when it came to my brother."
"Yeah," Clint muttered and took a sip, "brothers are like that."
"You have a brother?" Thor asked.
"Funny, Loki asked the same thing," Clint evaded but felt the thunder god's blue eyes piercing him. "Yes, Barney, he… he and I didn't get along."
"Then we are not so different," Thor replied.
"You remind me of him, Barney," Clint added then shifted suddenly and uncomfortably as if surprised and bothered by his own words.
"I would not say that that makes you any more like Loki," Thor said in one of his strange moments of perceptiveness and Clint laughed humorlessly.
"But I am," he said with cynicism thick in his voice and only partially masking his guilt, "that's why it was so easy for him to control me. I'm too much like him." There was silence in the mess hall for a moment as the two men were quite.
"You know," Thor started, "before my father sent me here he said that I should remember Loki as my brother first and my enemy second. It is not his character that makes him our enemy but his actions and your actions have been nothing but true."
"My actions? Which ones specifically? Disobeying direct orders for personal revenge or attacking the Helecarrier and killing my comrades?"
Thor didn't seem bothered by the laden sarcasm and simply shook his head.
"You have a focused mind, one twisted to see only the failures and never the triumphs. You were vital in the fight against the Chitauri, permission given or not, you have taken responsibility for your actions even when they were against your will, and despite the temptation you have not exacted your revenge but agreed to release Loki to Asgardian Justice which I will admit may be far kinder than any he would receive on earth. Those are the actions I would describe as true."
Clint sat very still, processing the unexpected answer.
"I think I will leave you to your thoughts," Thor gave the archer a hard pat on the back, his hand looking oversized on his smaller companion. "You have given me motivation to speak with my brother."
"Don't expect much of a reply," Clint warned as Thor was nearly out of earshot and the God paused. "Loki is confused about his feelings toward you… so he ignores them." Another thing we have in common, Clint added silently. Thor had no reply and left the mess and Clint in silence.
Clint turned off the screen and pushed away his cold coffee. He left the mess only a few minutes later, suddenly exhausted.