Clint woke up, sweat plastering his shirt to his skin. He'd had another one of his dreams. He had them every time he tried to rebel, every time his mind made a desperate bid for freedom.
-o-
He always dreamed of friends and family, people he barely recognized. He dreamed of Natasha and Coulson, of all the agents he'd worked with. Clint dreamed of SHIELD and everyone he knew there. Each of those dreams haunted his waking hours, interfering with his work. His master was suspecting something, and it wouldn't be long before he'd punish Clint for everything he saw.
The dreams were all different. Sometimes he'd shoot at the agents, sometimes he'd cut the loved ones to pieces. It never mattered what he did or who he hurt, every time it was painful. Whatever he did to his friends, they'd do to him.
Clint suspected it had something to do with Loki. His master could get into his head, could twist his thoughts. One minute, he'd remember Natasha with love and the next, he'd be plotting to kill her. When Clint was pushing against his mental prison, he thought it was Loki who made them hurt him. Loki was the one who forced him to turn the gun or the knife on people he knew and used to care about. Loki was also the reason they would turn their own weapons on him. Clint Barton had an infinite number of problems, and all of them started with a capital letter L.
-o-
Clint forced himself out of bed. He had to keep going, he had to convince Loki he was under his control. This time he wouldn't surrender to the power of the tesseract. Yes, that had to be what was controlling him. Loki may be a god, but even the gods couldn't harness that kind of complete control over a human's mind. Only the tesseract could do that.
Loki's whole plan revolved around it. Besides, Clint had seen his master's face when he thought no one was looking. It wasn't a face that was completely in control. No, Loki couldn't quite harness the power of the tesseract. There were still complications he'd need to fix. He couldn't go anywhere until he was sure that he had full control of the source of everyone's problems. Until that happened, Clint hoped he was safe. He hoped that, until Loki's plan was completely polished and perfected, his dreams wouldn't come true.
He got dressed quickly; it was something Loki always insisted on, like it would get them to solve his problems faster. He joined the steady stream of people making their way down to their prison. Clint arrived in the workshop with perfect timing. It was exactly 8:30, the time by which Loki preferred him to be working. Moving towards his station, he caught a glimpse of the god heading in the same direction. That meant Loki would be inspecting his work, giving him more of an opportunity to discover Clint was awake.
He swallowed the panic in his throat and arrived at his station, ready to get going. He was Agent Clint Barton, he wasn't afraid of a homicidal maniac. He'd faced down too many to be scared anymore. Hell, even Natasha's profile had been dripping in red when he'd first seen it. If he'd fallen in love with a criminal, why was he ready to throw up just thinking about this one?
Loki watched Clint with a fierce intensity, as if he could sense a breach in his perfect, controlling system. He'd never watch like any normal employer, never over your shoulder. He'd stand behind his victim until he'd decide he'd seen enough. Then he'd move to leer at them or, if they were lucky, move on to another one of his unfortunate slaves.
He didn't watch Clint for very long before he moved to stand in front of him. Loki's face lit up in a devilish grin. Clint desperately hoped it was for some really stupid, trivial reason. Maybe Loki had chosen him for a strange godly mating ritual he needed every so often to survive. Like the Spock guy with the pointy ears from that old Star Trek show. Phil used to talk Clint into watching it but he'd never really gotten into the show. Not enough action. Whether he liked Star Trek or not, Clint would prefer a creepy ritual over Loki realizing he was free and deciding to dunk him in the proverbial tank repeatedly before finally letting him drown in his control again.
Clint felt Loki's hands on his upper arms. The god's fingernails dug into his biceps. He was careful not to tighten the muscles. It would help lessen the sharp pain every time the maniac shifted his grip, but it would also give away his current state of mental freedom.
Clint let himself be dragged roughly towards the exit. A few armed security guards flanked them from afar. Clint remembered at least two. They must have been captured when Loki had attacked SHIELD upon his initial journey to Earth. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the men. He'd known them once. Now they were only a threat he'd take down in a split second if he had to.
Loki led him to the lower levels of his lair. The whole place reminded Clint of the places dragons in the fantasy books his mother would read him when he was little would hide. It was secluded and heavily protected. Clint doubted anyone could get into it unless Loki let them. He'd gotten caught in one of the few places SHIELD wasn't able to save him.
Loki stopped in front of a heavy metal door. The two guards Clint recognized, part of the escorts who'd been following them down there, pulled open the huge door. They made no move to enter, preferring to hang back and let Loki take his charge into the chamber. Once the two men were inside, the guards let the door clang shut.
The air inside was musty and held a strange aroma, like dried blood that had been scrubbed from every inch of its surface. There was a single chair in the centre. Clint's training alerted him to the concealed shelf in the back wall. Loki released his arm.
"Sit," the god invited him, gesturing towards the chair.
Clint knew this was the real challenge. Should he sit and pretend he was under control, only to be subjected to whatever Loki had planned? Or should he refuse and give away his psychological position?
"So many consequences. I can help you," Loki said, taking Clint's arm and yanking him towards the chair.
He sat the SHIELD agent down before securing his arms and legs. His godly strength defeated Clint's own. He couldn't protest. Loki kept his grip until Clint was tied down without an inch of movement.
"I hope you hold up better than the last man to sit in that chair," Loki smirked wickedly.
Clint closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. He knew Loki would torture him before putting him back under the tesseract's spell. He knew the god thought it would teach him a lesson vital to his survival. Loki thought the prospect of torture was what was making Clint brace himself.
In reality, it wasn't the prospect of inevitable torture, or even the submission to the god that was definitely coming that was making Clint feel slightly sick, it was the idea of not recognizing the ones in his dreams again. The idea of doing to them what his subconscious made them do to him.
Clint Barton knew Loki's control was coming. He knew it meant that he'd shoot any of those people at point-blank range without even blinking. It left one of SHIELD's best agents feeling sick and, for the first time, terrified that he'd never be able to escape.
A/N: Thanks for reading! It's been sitting in my head for a little while, but I'd never gotten around to writing it down until now. Leave a review if you liked it and tell me what I could do better (politely, though) if you didn't! Sorry for any mistakes, I don't have a beta but I reread it myself a few times until I couldn't find anything.