Hi lovelies! A new chapter for you all! With a special appearance from my favorite Avenger ever! Take a wild guess who it might be when you look at the title. Read. Enjoy. Review. I like reviews. A lot. They make me happy AND they motivate me to write faster. Convenient how that works isn't it?

ANYWAY. On with the story. Which. By the way. I don't own Avengers. Yadayadayada. Enjoy!

Chapter Four-Rogues and Captains

"Where's Tony?"

The voice, loud, authoritative, and yet somehow still friendly, startles Bruce from his work. He turns around quickly, taking his glasses off and shutting down the files that are opened and projected brightly into the living room.

Not that he needs to shut the files down, considering that it's Steve standing in the elevator doorway. He probably didn't even really notice the images, let alone the SHIELD logo emblazoned on each file. His gaze is firmly on Bruce. Steve doesn't seem to realize the time, 4:34 a.m to be exact, if his neatly ironed traditional khakis and button up shirt is any testament to that. At least Bruce has the dignity to look tired, Steve looks as caffeinated and ready to take on the bad guys as he always does.

"Tony? Director Fury sent him out on some kind of mission. He didn't really say what was going on, but you know how Tony understands those half orders that Fury gives out when no one else does," Bruce says vaguely, remembering what Tony had said about Steve reacting negatively to Tony's kill-Barton initiative. Steve wouldn't handle it like Tony was going to handle it, he would go straight to Fury and probably start yelling about honesty and loyalty. Situations like this couldn't have been handled in Steve's straightforward manner, Tony's obtuse, roundabout way of handling of things was ideal for this if they wanted to get out alive and unscathed.

"What kind of mission? Does it have anything to do with SHIELD's databases being broken into and... deleted?" The words are awkward and unfamiliar coming from Steve, but they are very obviously why he is here. Even if he is still learning exactly how important computers, and the information stored on those computers is to SHIELD, Steve knows that what has happened is bad for all of them. And Bruce can tell that despite their mutual disinterest in the other's wellbeing, Steve trusts Tony enough to ask him questions about what exactly happened.

"It sort of has to do with that. I mean. I'm really not sure. I don't really know what he's doing." Which is true. Bruce doesn't know what Tony is planning to do. He knows what he is supposed to be doing but he also knows that Tony won't actually do anything even close to the plan.

Steve narrows his eyes. "Bruce, what are you not telling me?"

Bruce fiddles with the pen in his hand, clicking it nervously, trying to decide what to do. He can lie if he needs to, but he's not as good as Tony and Steve would see through him in a second. And having Steve on their side, at the very least just to help Bruce out, couldn't be a bad thing. If he can force Steve to stay at Stark Tower and resist the inevitable urge to go marching back to SHIELD to force them to shut Tony's mission down, he could be a helpful addition to their little anti-team team. He's not sure how he'll be helpful, given his inability to use cellphones, let alone Tony's convoluted, unnecessarily complicated touchscreen, projected computers. But Bruce is sure Steve will be helpful in some way.

"How much do you know about what happened with Clint?"

"Agent Barton? Very little. His mind was possessed by Loki, but Agent Romanoff... fixed the problem so to speak."

"Right. But there's more to it, and somehow all of that has to do with SHIELD being hacked and Tony's mission." Bruce can see that Steve is not following his line of thought, so he gestures to the couches. "Sit down. I'm going to do my best to explain this, and it's going to take a while."

We haven't made much progress in geographical terms, but this time, we don't need to. We're not running from any immediate threat, and once I destroyed the generic tracking device in the stolen SHIELD car, I know it's not much of a hazard to pull of of the road to plan the next course of action. Glancing at Loki where he sits on the grassy hill overlooking a dwindling, filthy river confirms that he feels better not being confined in the speeding car.

Loki answers my unasked question about what to do next. You said, back before the battle and Stuttgart, that SHIELD has no shortage of enemies.

"But those people that you recruited or forced to work with you-"

Recruited. I did not have to force them.

"Right. You only forced Dr. Selvig and I to be your mindless sidekicks. Well, those people didn't matter to me at the time. I took no notice of them, I have no idea where they came from or who they are, which is I know exactly how you wanted it. But now you're the only person here that might know who they are."

Loki stares out at the water, where the reflection of the sunrise is distorted and muddied, and closes his eyes. I could try to find them. But it will take time, and that is not something that we have a lot of.

"We're being followed?" I ask quickly, hand already reaching for my bow.

You didn't really think they would let me go so easily?

"Being obtuse and cryptic might work on Mars or Asgard or wherever you come from, but you could at least try to be straightforward and answer questions efficiently. It's not just my life on the line now." Maybe teaming up with the god of lying, chaos and trickery isn't my best idea, but it's the only option I have at the moment. Until I get a message on the SHIELD car's radio that the hacker was actually just some kid with too much time on his hands, I'm going to treat this as a high level security breach and a threat to SHIELD and to the country. Even if SHIELD isn't actually on my side right now, I'll still perform my duties as an agent like I'm not potentially being hunted down by my own men.

I don't think you're 'potentially' being hunted down anymore. You are very definitely being searched for. They know that you're gone. They know that you're a threat to them.

It hurts to think that the people that should trust me now consider me a threat, until I remember how many agents I've probably killed. I am a threat, and all things considered, I've officially gone rogue. It hadn't really sunk in until just now, not even when Natasha stood in front of me, telling me that she had to kill me. We'd been in that situation before, roles reversed, and we both made it out alive, so it didn't seem like death was a realistic option. Until now. Now, I realize how severe this situation is. Combining what looked like my abandonment of SHIELD with Loki's escape and SHIELD's databases being hacked ended up with an unfriendly, unforgiving end for myself. But I'm not panicking, even as the reality of the situation sinks in. Panicking will end in rash decisions and punishment, but keeping a level head and having some kind of plan promises a brighter, less life-in-prison or death kind of ending.

I accept the fact that I have gone rogue according to SHIELD, but I'm not going to stop working for them, not when I'm possibly the only one even looking into this situation.

Clint, you realize that when we were gathering people to serve as my soldiers, you were the one doing the recruiting. I know nothing of the people that you found. I kept no record of where you found them from, I did not need to. It wasn't important to me.

"It still isn't important to you," I add.

I can feel how much you care about your realm. But I cannot make myself care about it. This world offers nothing for me. Right now, it is a suitable place to escape from Asgard to, but when it stops being safe, I will find a way to leave.

"So why haven't you left yet?" I ask sharply.

Loki just turns and looks at me, eyes piercing, for once more distracting than his ragged, destroyed lips. His eyes are questioning, seeking clarification for my accusing words.

"Why not just shoot me or knock me out and leave? Clearly you can still take over people's minds, maybe not like before, but you still have the power to take control of a mind and make it do your will and-wait. Wait." My mind is racing, an idea forming, probably badly, and I'm definitely about to make a hasty decision like I just said I wasn't going to do. "You can still control people's minds. You can look through people's eyes and see what they see. Yes?"

Loki nods. Yes. It's hard. Harder than before. Not permanent and if I stop thinking about them I don't control them.

"Right, but the point is that you can. That's what's important right now."

Yes, Clint. I can.

If I can't have a computer or a way to search for Loki's guard of SHIELD's enemies without being tracked by SHIELD themselves, I can have the next best thing to internet access.

"I want you to find Tony Stark, I want you to take his mind and find the people we were with the last time we were forced to work together."

Tony Stark?

He's my best bet. Taking over Fury's mind would not end well for us, Dr. Banner's mind would be far too unstable, as would Natasha's, in her own way, and Captain Rogers wouldn't be any use for the job at hand. And wherever Stark is, no matter where that might be in the world, he will have access to his personalized search engine to find whatever he needs, or in this case whatever I need, in a matter of seconds. And right now, we need haste more than anything else.

"Yes."

Tony has been flying for a few hours now, searching for any signs of Barton. He has watched the sun rise, veering wildly off his rather random course to avoid being blinded by the rays, and backtracked to the SHIELD headquarters more times than he cares to count so that he can track each road that leads away from headquarters, with no luck.

Granted, he's not moving with any sense of urgency and he did make a pitstop for breakfast, but he had assumed that Barton wouldn't be this good at playing hide-and-seek. Tony has grown bored with the dull, grassy landscapes often interrupted by identical suburbs and strips malls and ugly gray roads, and just as he's starting to consider going back to Stark Tower and tracking Barton down the easy but boring way, a voice and a face flash in the back of his mind. A pale face, smirking, taunting him, but a face that Tony feels he defeated nonetheless. A voice that Tony knows has goaded him in the recent past.

Loki.

Loki has made his way into Tony's mind.

And then Tony is plummeting out of the sky, towards those boring suburbs and those ugly gray roads.