[Monster Hospital — Metric]
He watched them build the containment unit. The supposedly unbreakable glass that allegedly could contain potentially the most powerful being on the planet. They'd be able to watch him. Worse though — because he's never liked the idea of confinement — the captive can see out.
This has to be similar. He struggles inside. He fights to break free. He's heard the stories of what it's like to have your memories messed with. He's listened to the tales of being unmade and reprogrammed to do things you never would otherwise. Those stories chill him to his core.
He knows who he is — the memories are all there — but he can't exert it himself. Every genuine thought is a strained effort. Through the visions and the glories of the Tesseract, he can see what is to come. It's a path laid before him and there is only walking and that walking can only happen forward. He's powerless to stop it.
That isn't the worst part.
The Asgardian — boss, he calls him, sometimes sir — calls him over. He makes fluid motions and beckons with a long, thin, finger. He speaks with a velvet voice and a tone of concern. The part of Clint that is leading him around seeks this mans approval. He yearns to have his respect.
Don't listen, don't answer, shoot him, walk away. "Yes, sir." Anything but that.
"Walk with me, Agent Barton." Loki speaks low, gesturing ahead of them. He does. Unquestioningly, he strides alongside the alien man. Stop, run, don't go, don't talke. Clint drifts along, because despite his own screaming inside his head, his body and the rest of his mind comply — he wants to comply. He wants to be lead and told what to do.
Smiles are funny things. They don't always imply happiness, or even anything exactly pleasant. When Loki smiles at him, it isn't joy. It penetrates through his defenses and makes him shudder inside. Malevolence — but not quite. Mischief — that's it. Mischief. There's a smugness to it that makes his own temper wave flags, but instead Clint gives a smile of his own. "I want to know about this team of yours. Everything you know."
What is there to say? The Initiative was shut down. The Council didn't believe it was a priority. Over the last year their highly trained SHIELD bottoms had been relegated to nanny duty on grownups who didn't always act like grownups. People who possibly shouldn't or couldn't be trusted with the power they wielded — but what kind of a judge was he? Just an orphan from Iowa who was too stupid to run away from the circus.
It didn't stop with people, either. How long had he been babysitting the cube? Long enough to know what it did before anyone else did with all their science and tests. Not bad for a boy from Waverly. Not bad for a carny. Some of the observations happen at his level. A lot of it above. There are things going on that he's sure Tasha doesn't know.
He tells him most of this, swearing and screaming and railing against it in his own mind. He knows he shouldn't. That information is classified under layers and layers of security and protocol. The part of him that fights it loses to the rest of him — the part that Loki has reached his fingers into and scrambled around until even what's right and wrong doesn't matter. There's the arrogant billionaire with more money than sense. There is the scientist who Clint knows is possibly the smartest man alive but all Fury wants him for is his party tricks. There's been projects under heavy guard since that other Asgardian dropped out of the sky — literally. This gains another knowing smile from the boss and try as he might, Clint can't help but feel a bit of pride at pleasing this man — no not a man. He doesn't know what he is.
He knows all the ins and outs of the helicarrier, having traveled every foot of it one way or another. He knows the facility that just blew up like the backs of his own hands. The patrols and shifts of people and more passwords and codes than he should. He knows Coulson and Fury and Hill and …
And Tasha.
This gets another raised eyebrow. Also that smile again. That look that makes him want to risk his own life to wring that neck even though he can't lift a finger to his own defense.
"I did say everything, Agent Barton. Do tell me more."
No. Don't. Stop talking — his brain beats against the glass wall of his common sense.
"Well, boss, it started a long time ago. You see, Sir, I was sent to kill her…