Clint hoped someday he would look back on this time in his life and laugh. And not the bitter, hysterical kind, either, cause he was pretty sure he was already halfway to that one. He was counting five days, though, and he hadn't killed either himself or his new houseguest yet. He'd decided to call that an accomplishment and not a sign of his impending mental breakdown.

He wasn't sleeping well, though, and the third time in a row he woke up sweating with hazy memories of Loki's voice in his ear he gave up on sleeping and went out to the living room, half hoping for the chance to wake Loki up. As always, though, he was already awake.

"Do you ever sleep?" Clint asked bluntly. Loki didn't so much as glance at him.

"Occasionally. More than you do, perhaps." Loki held up a bowl. "Cashew?"

"Those are mine," Clint said. "And I'm not taking anything you offer me."

"Suit yourself." Loki sounded faintly amused, and Clint hated him more than ever. For a moment he seriously considered telling Loki yes, fine, you win, do you want an arrow through the eye or should I just cut your throat? That was the headache talking, though. He'd never been a morning person.

Clint paced over to the kitchen and started making coffee. "I thought I said not to take anything out of my cabinets."

"Because I am of course going to follow your instructions." Loki snorted, softly. "I don't think you were fool enough to expect a mild threat to be much of a deterrent to me."

"So I need to work on a more serious threat? Cause I can get pretty creative, if you want."

"Be my guest." Loki didn't sound terribly impressed, and Clint grimaced to himself. Being around Loki was turning him into a B-movie sci-fi villain, and he didn't like it. "But if you're expecting me to be impressed…"

"Oh, yeah," Clint said flatly. "Cause impressing you is my first goal."

Loki's mouth turned up slightly at the corners, and Clint knew he'd said the wrong thing before Loki spoke a word. "It was, once."

"If you didn't notice," Clint said, hearing his voice harden, "not so much anymore." He glanced over at the kitchen and paced over to fill a glass of water.

"I noticed." Loki still just sounded faintly amused. "Do you miss it?"

"No," Clint said without hesitation. Loki laughed, quietly.

"You answered too quickly, Barton. Try for more nonchalance in your denials and they might be more convincing." Loki stretched lazily. "As it stands…"

"You can stop trying to fuck with my head," Clint said, brutally flat. "I know you can't do anything to me anymore."

"Can't I?" Loki's voice lilted, strangely, and Clint caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned around quickly and found Loki moving toward him, motions fluid and graceful as Clint remembered, and for a moment he twitched with the urge to drop his eyes. "Even as I am…there's still a great deal I can do with you."

Clint made himself snort even as his instincts urged him to back off and stop prodding the volatile ex-god with psychotic tendencies. "That so?"

"Magic or not, I know you, Clint Barton. Better than anyone." Loki's voice was almost a croon, and Clint felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "You are so very pleased with yourself. I can strip that away from you." Clint's neck itched. His hands itched for a bow, a knife, something, and he kept himself from shifting into a defensive position even as Loki drew within arm's reach. He felt his breathing quicken and forced it to slow.

"How do you plan to do that? Seems to me you can't even get me to kill you like you want me to," Clint said, his jaw set, wishing he had his sunglasses on so he didn't have to meet those too-green eyes. "Seems to me-"

"You didn't beat me, hawkling."

Clint fell still. That name crawled down his spine with its easy, familiar affection and it made him want to vomit almost as much as the words. He shoved his panic ruthlessly down and didn't let himself budge. "Maybe I didn't. The Avengers did," Clint said harshly. "We won." Loki's eyes glittered.

"Tell me, hawkling, how victorious do you feel?"

"We beat you," he said. "That's what counts, isn't it? Where I'm sitting you seem pretty finished." He caught a faint flare of anger in Loki's eyes and even if it was gone fast, it was something. "I mean," Clint pushed, "It's kind of pathetic. How completely you lost. You've got nothing. Really nothing."

"Whereas you are the picture of fortune and health." Loki's voice had a new edge in it, his right hand flexing at his side. "Hiding away from your so-called friends. Tossing and turning the night through in restless sleep. Constantly searching yourself, constantly unsure that it is truly you, that your mind is entirely your own…do you think the others wonder? Whisper behind your back, asking if you've changed…"

"Shut up," Clint snapped. "Nat broke your little – trick."

Loki leaned back on his heels and smiled slightly. "Ah."

Don't ask. Don't say anything. Walk away. "What."

"I hadn't realized you thought as much. I suppose it would be comforting, to think that she might be your rescuer and liberator."

Clint could feel himself bristle at the same time as the skin on the back of his neck tried to crawl. "What are you saying," he asked, almost unwillingly.

"I let you go," Loki said easily. "You had served your purpose well enough." Clint felt cold, and Loki leaned forward again. "As I said. You didn't beat me. Hawkling."

"That's a lie," Clint said, but he heard the edge in his own voice.

"Is it? Indeed." Loki half closed his eyes. "It didn't seem – well – too easy?"

His stomach knotted. It had, hadn't he thought the same thing, over and over, examined himself for the smallest trace, the smallest remnant, almost waiting…"I don't believe you."

Loki smiled his shark's grin. "And yet. And yet I can almost smell the doubt on you."

"It doesn't matter," Clint said. "Whether it was you or Nat – I'm still out. You're still out. And you still lost. Unless you're going to try to convince me that you meant to do that?" Loki laughed again, the sound sickeningly affectionate, and Clint thought if he'd been holding a knife he wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to ram it through his vocal cords.

"No…but I thought you should know. I kept you as long as I needed you, and when you were no longer useful…" Loki spread his hands, and Clint felt a chill crawl down his spine and hated the part of him that wanted to whine that he could have been useful forever, that it was Loki who had cast him aside.

"Shouldn't have done that, I guess," Clint said, without emotion. One of Loki's hands rose in his peripheral vision, and Clint jerked back. Loki smirked narrowly and let his hand fall.

"Perhaps not," he said, just as calmly. "Though I doubt you would have turned the tide, little a creature as you are. Nonetheless…I would have laughed to see your spider struggle to fight against you."

"She wouldn't," Clint said, with certainty. "And if you think she would, you're still underestimating her." He turned his back, deliberately, though it was a struggle to do so. "Are you done?"

Loki's eyes flickered with something, but then he took a step back, arrogant smile back in place. "Do you dream of me? Is that why you sleep so poorly?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Clint said shortly. "I'm a light sleeper." Clint leaned back against the kitchen counter with deliberate nonchalance. "And I take naps."

"Not during the day, I hope." Loki was giving him a strange look, but after a moment seemed to decide against whatever he was considering and retreated back to his couch. "I'm curious, Barton. Have you considered the long term viability of this arrangement?"

"Have you?" Clint asked. Loki laughed again, though there was something a little off about it.

"Once or twice. The difference, however, is that I do not have a life which you are disrupting." Loki smiled thinly. "You do. What are you going to do when your spider wishes to visit you? Or other friends of yours?"

"Lock you in a closet, probably," Clint said, only half insincere. Loki gave him a sharp look, and Clint threw him a dazzling smile. "Just for a couple hours, don't worry. Maybe I'll even give you a bottle of water too. Unless I forget."

Loki's jaw clenched for a moment, and then relaxed. "The only one you're going to make miserable is yourself," he said. Clint raised his eyebrows.

"Really? Cause you seem pretty miserable to me. And that's actually making me less miserable, so I don't know. Maybe it evens out." For a moment he thought Loki would lash out at him, as he hadn't in a few days, but then the moment passed and Loki glanced away from him, his body held tense and stiff. Clint tapped his foot against the floor. "If this is so important to you, why don't you just, you know, off yourself? I'm pretty sure no one would have a problem with that."

Loki's shoulders twitched visibly, and Clint felt a stab of something uncomfortable under his ribs. He pushed it away hastily, not liking the way it felt almost like guilt. "I daresay that is none of your business."

"I daresay," Clint mimicked, "that it is. Since I'm the one you tried to use for your suicide play in the first place, and I'm the one who has to put up with you until you decide to find someone else." He stared at Loki's shoulders, the way they crept up another notch. "Is it a spite thing? I mean, are you hoping if you get yourself killed maybe everyone will feel bad about how they didn't kneel to you right away? Or do you just not have the guts-"

"Silence." Loki's voice vibrated. Clint laughed, gratingly.

"What," he said, "Did I hit a nerve? I'm just saying, if you're too much of a coward to end your own pathetic life then maybe-"

"I cannot." Loki's voice cracked like a whip, the tone of it taking Clint off guard. He started, and then quickly tried to cover it.

"What's that supposed to-"

Loki jerked to his feet and Clint shifted unconsciously into a defensive position at the sharp suddenness of it. "It means I cannot. It is part of my – punishment." The sudden, rank hatred in Loki's voice took Clint aback, and for a moment struck him speechless. "Loki Laufeyson is to be rendered mortal." His tone was unmistakably mimicking someone else, and the hair on Clint's neck stood up at the strangeness of a voice very different from Loki's, sonorous and grave, from Loki's lips. "He will live out a mortal's years on the mortals' realm. In order that this sentence not be cut short, he will be unable to find death at his own hand." Loki made a sound in the back of his throat like a cough. "So it is not a lack of, as you so charmingly put it – guts – but a lack of I have always been very good at finding loopholes."

Clint's stomach squirmed strangely. He could see Loki almost vibrating from where he was still leaning against the counter, and the first word that popped into his head was pathetic, but it was touched with something unnervingly close to pity, and he choked on that. Didn't want it.

"Every living thing always has one choice left to it," Loki said, after a long moment of silence. His voice was almost quiet, strangely. "To live or to die. I have not even been left that."

The pity evaporated. "You wouldn't have left me that choice," Clint said without inflection. "When you took over my head. You wouldn't have let me choose."

Loki turned, his mouth set in a line. "That is not-"

"The same? Why not?" Clint asked. "Because it's me? Because I'm human? Cause hey, look, now you are too. How about that."

Loki's lips peeled back from his teeth. "You're an insolent brat." Clint shrugged.

"Heard that one before. You know, if I believed in karma, this would look a lot like karma. And actually – you're still coming out ahead. You can always leave." He saw Loki twitch again, and leaned forward. "Unless you're scared, of course. What is it you're scared of out there, huh?"

"I'll rip you apart," Loki said, with deadly promise. Clint stretched.

"Go ahead and try. I bet those stitches are still stinging, huh?" He turned his back in a deliberate show of carelessness, even if hair prickled on the back of his neck. "You know, I'm feeling loads better now. Think I might go back to sleep for a couple hours."

"Don't ignore me," Loki hissed. Clint threw a smirk over his shoulder.

"Good talk, Loki," he said easily. "G'night. Sleep tight." He wished he could record the sound of Loki's teeth grinding. It'd make a nice thing to listen to while he was trying to sleep.

~.~

He dragged himself home from another skirmish – this time dealing with some new group of weirdos calling themselves the Sinister Six – and found Loki reading a John LeCarre thriller on his couch.

"Is that what you do all day?" he asked bitingly. "Read airport novels?"

"It's not as though you have a great deal of literature to choose from." Loki raised his eyes from the book, and then raised his eyebrows. "Don't you look a mess."

"You should take up baking," Clint snapped. "Make me cookies, or something. Clean up around here. If you're going to play housewife-"

Loki closed the book. He looked thin, Clint noticed. A little pale, maybe. Hard to tell, with the shade of dead that was his usual skintone. "If the word 'housewife' crosses your lips again with reference to me, I will choose to attempt to divine the workings of your coffee machine next time you are out, and enterprise that will unfortunately end with your device in pieces on the floor."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a passive aggressive little bitch?" He rolled his shoulders, trying to work out the ache in his left.

"Perhaps not in those exact terms recently, no." Loki leaned back on the couch and picked up his book again. Clint felt surly and antagonistic, and the more he looked at Loki the worse it got.

"Seriously," he said, after a moment. "Do you just sit here, all day? Doing nothing?"

"Sometimes I contemplate the mysteries of the universe," Loki said placidly, his voice flat and droll. Clint felt a flash of irritation.

"Must be a comedown," he said. "From having entire worlds at your fingertips, going wherever you please, whenever you please…" he saw Loki tense, minutely, and felt a flash of satisfaction.

"I am touched by your concern," he said, without emotion, and then glanced up again, one eyebrow arched. "Can you wash before subjecting me to your feeble attempts at verbal sparring? You smell appalling."

"What, did I hit a nerve?" Clint pressed. "Sorry about that. People tell me I lack sensitivity." Loki looked down at the book in his hands and slowly set it aside and turned his gaze, equally slowly, to meet Clint's. It was perfectly expressionless, enough to make his skin crawl.

"Are you done?"

"Done with what?"

"Attempting to expurgate your own feelings of worthlessness by using me as a proxy." Loki's mouth tipped up at one corner. "That is what you're doing, isn't it? At a guess…I expect the fighting went poorly for you today. You found yourself more hindrance than help. And now you are thinking, perhaps – did they take me on out of pity?" Loki's gaze was perfectly dispassionate. "The answer is probably yes."

Clint's heart fluttered, and he hated the way he thought frantically he knows, how does he know, he's still in my head. He twisted his expression into a sneer. "I'm pretty sure I just like watching you squirm."

"Mm." Loki sounded distinctly amused, and Clint's skin prickled. "You are right, though. I am bored."

Clint waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, he said, "Are you expecting me to do something about that?"

Loki shifted to sprawl across most of the couch, his gaze still flat and reptilian. "When I get bored, hawkling, I tend to get…restless."

"You telling me that I need to take you for walkies or you'll tear up my apartment like a dog with separation anxiety?" He watched Loki stiffen before he added, "nah. I don't think so. Thanks for letting me know, though, I'll just have to start locking you in the closet."

Loki's stare went still flatter, if that was possible. "If you think I will tolerate-"

"I don't think you'll tolerate anything," Clint said placidly. "I just don't think it matters whether you do or not."

Loki's teeth flashed. "I could kill you in your sleep."

"So I should just leave you there at all times, then, is what you're telling me." Even as he said it, though, Clint felt ugly, and his stomach twisted uneasily. He pushed that down too. Loki's jaw locked and Clint saw rage flash through his eyes before it was wiped hurriedly away.

"I'm telling you," Loki said, his voice tight, "that I am going out. Tonight."

Clint stared at him, incredulous. "You're joking," he blurted out, before he thought better of it. Loki looked very faintly annoyed.

"No," Loki said. "I am not." He rolled his shoulders back. "I have spent long enough cowering within your walls. I am not going to make it an eternity."

Narrowing his eyes, Clint said, "I thought that was kind of the point. Cowering within my walls, I mean, cause something's got you too scared to try your luck on your own."

Loki gave him a thoroughly disdainful look. "Living on my own is hardly the same thing as spending a few hours outside. I judged it prudent to wait a time."

"Nothing to do with the fact that I accused you of being a coward," Clint said. Loki's eyes, if possible, went even colder and flatter.

"You overestimate the degree to which I care about your petty insults," Loki said, voice just faintly acidic. "I am restless. At the very least, a chance to stretch my legs and get out of this hovel would be welcome."

Thoroughly thrown, Clint stared a little more, not quite sure how to react to this sudden announcement. On the one hand, he could always just lock the door after Loki took off and not let him back in, but he somehow doubted that would work. He half wondered if Loki had brought this up just to see what he would do. "What about the whole thing where when you're inevitably recognized-"

"You think I will be?" Loki snorted. "I doubt it. As I am now…" His mouth twisted, slightly, but his eyes remained hard, set. Clint felt the muscle in his jaw twitching. It didn't feel safe, letting Loki out…there. Who the hell knew what would happen? Even without his powers – maybe especially without his powers – Loki was a loose cannon. Loki, who was watching him, Clint realized, eyebrows slightly raised. "Rejoice," he said, after a moment's pause. "You have some time to yourself. I should think you'd be pleased."

"I'd be more pleased if you went and died in a landfill," Clint said, flatly.

"I'm sure you would." Loki unfolded from the couch, and stretched. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some preparations to see to."

If Loki went out there and civilians died, that was on Clint's head. Loki was still a trained fighter, if not a superhuman one, and if he got in a brawl that could get ugly fast. He didn't give two fucks if Loki got his nose – or neck – broken, but if some dumb kid did for trying to pickpocket the wrong person…

He could just knock Loki out and start locking the doors. Clint had a feeling that wouldn't work either, and would probably just make the situation worse.

Shit.

"You're not going alone," he said, harshly.

Loki's head turned slowly, his eyebrows arched. "Beg pardon?"

"You heard me," Clint ground out, unwilling to repeat the words. "I'm not going to be responsible for you wandering around without a babysitter. If you're going out on the town, it's going to be with supervision."

Loki's eyebrows climbed impossibly higher. "I always knew you were a masochist," Loki murmured, after a moment's silence. "But it seems I underestimated how much. Concerned about my well being, Barton?"

"Not yours," Clint snapped, "just everyone else. And if you start causing trouble-"

"You will inflict painful violence upon my person," Loki drawled. "Yes, yes. You are getting repetitive, were you aware? You might want to come up with a new repertoire."

"When the old one's still good?" Clint said, without inflection, and Loki laughed as he turned and sauntered off. Clint wondered why he hadn't carried through on the threat of tying the bastard up and locking him in a closet, but he was starting to think that he really ought to get around to it.

~.~

Clint had no idea where Loki had found the clothes he was wearing, and perhaps more than the fact of their existence the fact itself of Loki wearing black skinny jeans and a black vest over something only a couple notches above a t-shirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail that, of course, worked on him. Strolling down the sidewalk with his hands tucked in his pockets, Loki was getting second looks, and not the 'run from the megalomaniacal crazy' kind. The world wasn't fair.

"So," Clint ground out, after they'd been walking for ten minutes, "what exactly is it you were itching to do?"

"If you are bored, Barton," Loki said, smooth as anything, "you are welcome to go back to your den and sulk about the fact that you have brought this on yourself."

"Brought this on mys-" Clint cut off and imagined putting a knife right between Loki's shoulder-blades. Better than an arrow. That way he could actually feel the bastard twitch. Ten seconds, and this could be over. "Right. Because this fucked situation is my fault."

"You know perfectly well how to get out of it," Loki said, pleasantly, and Clint wondered when it was going to stop making his skin crawl how casually he threw that out there. He didn't say anything, and a moment later Loki added, "I had no particular aims. Did you have some notion?"

"Are you asking me what I want to do?" Clint asked. Loki seemed faintly amused. In general, Clint noted, in a better mood than he had at any other point. Maybe this 'outside' thing hadn't been a terrible idea. If it was going to make Loki more tolerable company…

If anything could.

"More curiosity – what do you do with yourself when you are not pretending to be useful?"

Clint gritted his teeth and kept himself from saying I am useful. "None of your business is what I do with myself." Loki's mouth tipped up at the corners, and Clint's temper itched again. "I need a drink," he muttered, not intending it to be audible.

"Somehow I am not surprised," Loki murmured, "Though if you get yourself excessively drunk I shall hold your head underwater until you recover."

Clint shot him a look. "I am not going into a bar with you."

"So I am simply going to wander into one alone?" Loki said, with entirely unconvincing innocence, and damn. Clint reminded himself firmly that his reasons for not killing the bastard in the first place still held good, and killing him just because he was an annoying little shit would probably compromise his integrity, or something.

"I'll just stand here and laugh when you inevitably get the stuffing kicked out of you," Clint said flatly. Loki's eyebrows lifted, and then he turned, hands still in pockets, and nodded across the street.

"That one looks likely, doesn't it?" he said, and Clint looked to find the diviest looking bar he'd seen in New York, racous noise emanating from within. "Yes," Loki said, after a pause, "I think that'll do quite nicely," and started across the street.

Clint's hand snapped out to grab his arm before he thought better of it with a sharp, "Wait." Loki's head turned slowly to regard him like he was considering an insect, and Clint fought his way through the urge to let go to tighten his hand instead. "Not there." He didn't want to make it easy, but even as he said it he knew he'd made the wrong call in saying anything.

"Well," Loki said, a grin blooming on his face of pure, wicked glee. "Now I can hardly go anywhere else, can I? Come, Barton. Or are you going to knock me over the head and drag me away in public? Of course, there's always the option of leaving me to my own devices…"

Just go, Clint told himself. Get out now, go home, what are you going to do anyway, watch a fucking movie and savor the time when you don't have to deal with this fucking asshole. That would be admitting a defeat of a different kind, though. There was just no way to win, Clint decided, and gritted his teeth and started across the street, letting go of Loki's arm with a little shove. Loki caught up with him in two strides, though, his mouth twitching with obvious amusement. Clint didn't say anything.

Loki waltzed right in the front door – past the enormous bouncer – without so much as a blink. With a smile that was so charming that Clint was almost distracted, to boot. Almost. The inside was just as divey as the outside, the crowd just as loud and drunk, and the entire place stank like cheap beer and sweat. Even for Clint it was low.

Loki strolled up to the bar and ordered a cocktail that he had to explain to the somewhat befuddled looking bartender, perching himself on one of the stools with perfect nonchalance as heads turned to eye him warily. Clint took a moment to scope out exits, out of habit, set his shoulders, and followed his problem.

"Just a beer," he said to the bartender. "Whatever's on tap, um…IPA?"

"He's with me," Loki said, with a slender smile, and the bartender looked from Loki to Clint and back again as Clint kept his face stony.

"Right," the man said, after a moment, and then moved off. Clint turned his head to look coldly at Loki, who seemed to be absorbed in one of the TVs. He considered bringing it up, and gave up on the idea, though he had a nasty feeling if Loki got bored he would just pick a fight, and with a crowd like this, it wouldn't be hard.

The bartender brought their drinks back and plunked them down. Loki scrutinized his glass, wrinkled his nose, and then allowed a grudging, "acceptable," and took a sip. The bartender stood there, waiting, and after a moment Loki glanced at him again. "—oh! I thought it was clear. My…friend is paying for me." The smile Loki gave Clint was sickeningly sweet, and Clint gritted his teeth.

Refusing to pay would start a scene, probably, and attract more attention to them.

He was going to leave Loki in the bathtub with water in it for this. For a few days. He'd survive. Probably.

Clint paid for both drinks, trying to keep his simmering temper just that – simmering.

That lasted up until some guy bumped into his elbow as he was taking a sip and Clint's beer sloshed all over his shirt. "Watch it, clumsy bastard!" he snapped, before looking over. The guy was maybe a head taller than Clint, probably twice his weight, and the sleeve tattoos of bloody thorns on his arms would have been bad enough without the fucking Confederate flag on his left bicep.

"Problem?" Tattoos growled, and Clint tensed. He could probably take the guy, if it weren't crowded. If he had weapons. If he was lucky. He didn't really want to get his nose punched in tonight, though. Tasha would be pissed.

"No," he started to say, at the same time that Loki said, "I believe he expressed a certain concern for your coordination."

Tattoos' eyes snapped to Loki, and Clint swore internally. "I wasn't asking you."

"No," Loki said pleasantly, before Clint could flip him the bird and figure out a way to drag Loki out before things got worse. "But personally, I think he was being generous. Of course, I don't have much tolerance with oafish thugs with a brain smaller than their fist."

Well, Tattoos wasn't looking at him anymore. On the other hand, he stepped around Clint to stare at Loki's back, nostrils flaring and hands clenched into fists. "Do you want to repeat that?" Clint was trying to rapidly consider his options, and not coming up with a whole lot of them that didn't end ugly.

"Would you like me to? I certainly can, if you didn't follow the first time." Loki turned his head and glanced at Clint, eyebrows raised. "I hope you are not a regular here, darling," he murmured, almost a drawl. "The clientele is appallingly plebeian." Ah, great. Clint almost heard Tattoos inflate with rage.

"That right? Why don't you and your fairy boyfriend suck my dick!" Tattoos said, and Clint didn't quite duck out of the way fast enough to miss the shove that knocked him off his stool and onto the floor. He was on his feet again in a moment, but so was Loki, holding his drink in one hand, still smiling. Clint's blood went a little cold, though, at the sudden cold in Loki's eyes.

"I don't think I like your tone," Loki said, still pleasantly mild. "And besides…I very much doubt you could satisfy me." Loki took a delicate sip of his drink in the perfect silence that followed, and then cast Tattoos a patronizing smile.

Oh, Clint thought bleakly, suddenly frozen. Shit. Clint, you dumbass, should never have…just leave, the bastard can get the shit kicked out of him perfectly fine without you and it'll be good riddance-

Tattoos' eyes bugged. "You," he sputtered and then swung a punch for Loki's face.

He moved fast. Damn, he moved fast, slid out of the way of the punch and Clint didn't catch the move but it ended with Tattoos up against the bar with his arm twisted up behind his back. Loki's expression was…bored, and Clint glanced toward the door. There were too many people between him and it. "Is this how you charm the women in your life?" he asked. "If so, you must pass on my sincere apologies." Tattoos groaned and squirmed, and Loki released his arm and stepped back. "If you don't mind-"

Clint saw the move and began to intercept it on instinct as Tattoos rolled over and lunged. Loki was faster. He caught the man's shoulder and the elbow of the arm going for his throat. Clint realized what was going to happen a moment before it did, and then Loki made a sharp motion with his body and Clint wouldn't sworn he felt the snap of bone in his teeth.

Tattoos went down howling as Clint jerked to his feet, heart kicking into overdrive. Loki's expression hadn't shifted, still the same disdainful, slightly bored look, and the entire bar had frozen and was staring at him.

"Door," Clint hissed, and Loki smoothed his shirt. He inclined his head slightly to the gawking bartender, and turned to stride gracefully toward the door, people just kind of slipping out of the way as he went. Clint trailed after him, trying to keep his head down, tense and on edge, but then they were out in fresh air. Clint let them keep walking for a couple blocks before he turned on Loki.

"What the hell was that?"

Loki looked faintly startled. "Beg pardon?"

"Beg – you just broke a guy's arm," Clint hissed. Loki's eyebrows rose, and Clint wanted to hit him in the face. And then realized there was no reason not to, and hauled back and just punched him full in the face.

Loki's head snapped back and he stumbled back, his expression completely astonished, and Clint felt a surge of satisfaction that didn't quite overwhelm his anger. Loki stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, and then his expression flashed to fury and he took a step forward. "How dare-"

"You could have gotten out of that without hurting anyone," Clint snapped. "And you definitely didn't need to break any bones. You went in there looking for a fight, and you dragged me with you. And if you do again I'll let the police drag you out, and how long do you think it would take SHIELD to find you from there, huh?"

Loki stared at him, his expression spasming. "On Asgard," he said, after a moment, and there was a note of genuine uncertainty in his voice, "to say nothing would make a target, and not to defend myself with adequate force…"

Clint felt his shoulders lock tight. "Yeah, well, there's no magical healing here, remember?" He gave Loki's abdomen a pointed look. "So your adequate force just put some guy in a cast for six months because he was dumb and drunk. And in case you forgot, you're not on Asgard any more, and you're not going to be again. So get used to it, and get used to playing by the fucking rules, or it's not going to matter what I do cause you'll fuck yourself over just fine. On second thought, maybe just keep doing whatever the hell you want. It'll save me the trouble." Clint turned on his heel and started stalking back down the street, vibrating with tension.

"Where are you going?" Loki asked, his voice sharp.

"Home," Clint snapped, without looking back. "If you keep talking to me, the next punch is going for your nose."

He waited three blocks before looking back, still breathing hard. Loki wasn't behind him. Good riddance, Clint thought savagely, and shoved his hands in his pockets, glaring down at the sidewalk. Maybe if the world was merciful, he'd go find someone else to fulfill his death wish.