(AN: Sorry for the delay, folks!)

Morning brought with it a broken heater, eight inches of snow, and two hours spent fumbling with machinery and shovels to solve each accordingly. May had tried to insist that Loki not trouble himself ("Let Peter deal with it, it'll do him some good." "Hey, now!") but the attempts were futile- he was not going to start assessing why, but he was craving work, use. Needing to do something while he waited for another unfortunate evening in Tony Stark's company.

Which was all the more reason to be making May happy: she was going to be livid, speaking conservatively, when he left to meet with the man again. It felt cruel to even think of it, sitting here in her living room sipping hot chocolate and bundled beneath one of her blankets. Selfish. But he had to know, didn't he? There was nothing wrong with that. The doctor was what he was going for anyway, it wasn't as though he were actively seeking out the man who had done him harm (even if he seemed to know so much, Loki's secrets buried beneath his flippant exterior). He only wanted to do away with these headaches.

He swallowed down another dose of the medicine he'd been left with for the same, absently wondering if there was any effect beyond making him hope he was getting better. "Are you supposed to have that stuff with dairy?" Peter wondered, raising an eyebrow as Loki washed the taste of chemicals away with another swig of cocoa. "I thought it made it weaker."

"It might, but I wasn't told not to." Which was permission enough, wasn't it? "And I should hardly delay such a delicious drink even if it did."

"I can always whip up something with soy, if this is going to make you sicker," May offered. Her concern stung, like his impending betrayal of it was already rising up against him. "I wish you had told me about those headaches, young man. We could have been working on them for weeks."

"They seemed perfectly reasonable," Loki defended, drumming his fingers nervously against his mug. "And that doctor said they will be gone before too long, if I take this regularly, so no harm done."

The lie came easily, before he'd even planned it out. He held his breath, shame bubbling up, prepared to apologize profusely as May… smiled in relief and told him he had better be sure to take it, then (though she still had a few choice words in mind for the doctor himself). Well. Loki was certain he had lied now and then since waking, but it had only been through omission hadn't it? He'd never even considered telling her something that wasn't true… But surely Peter had sensed the falsehood.

No. The boy looked equally as pleased with this move, both of them palpably relieved that his pain would, apparently, soon be coming to an end.

Hm.

"He was ordering filled a second prescription for me, actually. I did not want to worry you with stepping out again, but it is supposed to speed things on a little," Loki tested. Neither of them seemed suspicious, and while May was far from pleased she was nowhere near as angry as she would be if he told her he needed to meet with Stark that evening. For her own good. "You did not seem to trust him last evening, which I perfectly understand, but-"

"I only worried because you drove off with Anthony Stark without anybody there to protect you." She frowned, genuine concern crinkling her eyes at the corners. "You are a grown man. You may be in a very unusual situation, but I could hardly stop you from going to pick up your medicine."

"You probably could," Peter countered. "I mean look at him, he's kind of pathetic. No offense."

"What else could that possibly intend but offense?"

"Fact?"

"This from the boy who whined for an hour about having to stand in the snow."

"Play nice, you two," May scolded calmly, almost reflexively. She was smiling again, old wrinkles of laughter grooved into the skin, but the newer lines of worry were there too. "Is this doctor sending your prescription somewhere local? I was going to run a few errands, I'm sure I could pick it up on the way back."

"No, his practice is rather… unorthodox as you know, I was actually to meet him to pick it up tonight." Loki watched, carefully, for any signs of doubt and felt a strange thrill when he realized there were none.

How incredibly simple. It was almost intoxicating, realizing what power he had in those few simple words, how much he could soothe their concerns- and so easily. As natural as speaking the truth had ever been, perhaps even more so; he hadn't had to pick and choose or fret over outcomes, merely speak. He felt a little badly about deceiving them at all of course, but if it worked to their advantage as well as his own then what was the harm?

There was none, not that he could see it. Loki reclined back slowly into his chair and grinned at the realization, pretending it was for one of Peter's tacky jokes.

At precisely eight twenty five Loki stepped through the doors of "ilili"'s, brushing a small pile of snow off his shoulders on his way to avoid melting all over the expensive flooring. Warm spices and soft music eased over him, beckoning in weary travelers from the storm outside, and even if he hardly felt the cold he felt much better after a deep breath of it all.

By some small blessing the crowd for the evening was minimal. Only a weak din filtered in from the dining area, and in the empty lobby there was silence but for the bored tapping of the hostess' foot. "Excuse me?" She seemed almost as annoyed to have a customer as she had been not to- until she'd gotten a good look. Her eyes went wide, recovered quickly, and plump, dark lips spread into a nervous smile.

"I think I know who you're here for. Your party is waiting for you, sir, if you would please follow me?" She invited, already leading him eagerly through the archway.

Loki paid little attention to the anxious attitude; "party", she had said, not "friend", which meant the doctor had likely already arrived as well. He hoped so, he had after all come late intentionally to avoid being alone with Stark, but at least he was familiar. Something about meeting one of the man's acquaintances… it set his heart pounding.

By the time they made it through the room, Loki's breath was coming quick, his hands shaking minutely but persistently, blood so frantic and focused that his fingers were growing cold. Peter is not here to protect you. He should not have been looking to a child to save him, anyway. What -who- ever waited for him beside Stark was his issue to deal with, nothing more. The two men were seated with at least a table between them and any other patrons on all sides, Stark himself gesturing and rambling animatedly from the far end, a tussle of dark, curled hair across from him. An empty chair between them, for Loki to put himself between the man who had already attacked him and the one whose very thought made his blood sing in fear.

It was a dinner, he could surely handle that much, could he not? "I apologize for being so late," Loki greeted as the distance shrank. "I still get a little lost taking the subway alone."

Alerted, both men turned to face him. Loki's eyes were for one only however, and as the stranger turned he held his breath, expecting for reasons he could not place another sudden bolt of pain through his head.

There was none. Brown hair, thin glasses, a buttoned shirt and a simple face, almost extraordinarily average- Loki noted it all before he realized he had felt no more fear. No shock as their eyes met. It was somewhat… anticlimactic, but by far preferable to the expectation. The man gave him a tight smile and turned away before Loki could offer a hand, and Stark leaped to his feet not quite quick enough to cover the uncomfortable silence.

"Next time call a cab. You'll still be late trying to hail one, but at least you can blame someone else. Loki, Dr. Bruce Banner. Bruce, Loki." Loki stared, waiting for the other man to reply, but he remained fixated on his glass of water. "Well, I can see you two are just gonna be the fastest of friends. Take a seat, would you?"

Loki did, cautiously. Bruce wasn't exactly tense, but he was quite obviously avoiding eye contact, going so far as to turn sharply away when Loki reached for a bit of bread. "Tony said you've been having trouble with headaches," he wondered (seemingly of the tablecloth).

"I have." Loki spread unwanted butter across his bread simply for want of something to do with his nervous hands, cleared his throat. "I spoke with one of SHIELD's experts already, but they could tell me next to nothing. I was hoping for a second opinion and…"

"Here we are?" Bruce's tone was cordial, and his body at ease if he would only turn his head. "I feel obligated to warn you, I'm not a neurologist. My doctorate isn't even actually in medicine, though I've been practicing for awhile now. It's incredibly likely I won't be able to tell you anything."

I imagine it would be much easier if you would look at me, wouldn't it? "I know that. The part I care about, anyway. But Tony seemed to think it worth asking."

Using the man's nickname felt foreign on his tongue, but it got Stark's attention anyway. He stopped pretending to be invested in his menu and leaned inward, elbows resting on the table. "Yeah, well, a little extra input can't hurt. And Bruce is an expert in all things weird, which you definitely are, and he likes Mediterranean food. It's a win-win."

"'All things weird', hm? Is that what your doctorate says?"

"Not far off, actually."

Before Loki could ask what it really was (quite eagerly, he was hoping eventually to enroll and such a degree sounded immensely tempting) a waiter slipped over to ask for their drink orders. Bruce took tea, Stark wine, and Loki would have been content with water if the man hadn't been apparently aghast at the thought, and ordered him a beer instead. Beer, he'd never even had beer.

"And are you all ready to order, or would you like another minute?" The waiter wondered, glancing at three closed turned to him, and Bruce spared a quick glance, so Loki hastened to assure them that he knew what he liked, if they had chosen.

"I'll take the kale fattoush," Bruce requested, offering his menu over to Stark, who was nearest the waiter.

Loki followed the precedent, halfway uncertain. "The black iron shrimp, please."

"And I'll have the beef shawarma." The oaf's lips spread into a childish grin at this, apparently delighted at himself for some joke that was beyond Loki. Bruce was involved, whatever it was, though judging by his expression he did not approve. "What? I'm in the mood."

Right, well, whatever that meant. "I'll have those right out," the waiter promised softly, leaning over Stark's shoulder to accept the menus, which to Loki seemed a bit inconvenient. "If you would like anything else, feel free to wave me over."

He departed, leaving Loki to debate a method of politely reintroducing the topic of Bruce's qualifications. "I am very sorry if it is inconvenient for you to have come all the way out here, Doctor. I would have happily met you at your practice, had I known where it is."

"Oh, I don't really have one. In the country, anyway. But don't worry, I actually do know what I'm doing. Headaches aren't the most definite symptom in the world, and sometimes what's causing them won't show up on a machine right away, or unless you're looking for something specific. I figured we'll go over the most likely issues, at least."

Reasonable enough; it was what every doctor he had spoken with so far had done, anyway. "Of course. I'll answer whatever you need."

"Any problems with your vision? Either during the headaches or in general?"

"No, not usually. Well… when they are at their worst things have gone black, before. But only rarely, and that was awhile back. And the pain can make things blur." Was that bad? None of SHIELD's people had asked about his eyes.

"Do you ever get nauseas out of nowhere? A little stomach pain is fine, but I need to know if you've ever vomited, or felt like you might, without any reason."

Another new one. "No."

Bruce wasn't writing anything down, nor consulting any possibilities; it didn't seem entirely professional to look distractedly about and record your patient's responses with nothing but a nod. "This might be a given, but any dizziness, loss of balance? I, ah, got the memory part already."

"If I tire myself."

He nodded, committing this, one would hope, to his own memory. "Now this might have been a little harder for you to have noticed, so we can pick it apart if we need to. Have you had any experience with seizures? You might have blacked out, lost control of your breathing, or experienced involuntary muscle movement." For the first time, Bruce met and kept his gaze; perhaps it was meant to relax, the question for more frightening than the previous, but it did quite the opposite. Loki's heart fumbled and quickened, and he found himself desperately searching his eyes without knowing quite what for. "I can go into a little more detail-"

"No. I- no, that is fine. I've had a bit of all of that, but only when I exhaust myself." Considering he'd had his skull bashed in, Loki thought the responses perfectly reasonable. He hadn't associated any of it with seizure. "Is there something… specific you are looking for?"

"Yes," Bruce admitted, fiddling with his glasses. This was clearly news to Stark, whose eyebrows flew up to his hairline, looking almost offended to have been left out. "Do you want to know what?"

Well, he knew that quickly enough. "No. Not until you are sure." He'd had enough to worry about without possibilities, didn't he? Let the doctor confirm before he started filling his mind with medical nightmares.

"Hey, what if I want to know?" Stark whined; even from their brief history, Loki recognized the tone as joking, and let the question pass. "Call it a referral fee."

"No."

"Ouch."

"Anyway," Bruce continued, turning away from his friend's offense, "I can't be definite until I've reviewed SHIELD's tests or run my own, which could take me some time. Considering their public image is now invested in your health you can probably count on a rush order, though. It pays to be popular."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Loki wondered, glanced toward Stark, and grinned. "I knew you only choked me because you liked me. How sweet."

"I am deeply concerned for your perception of romance."

"Excuse me, sirs, I have your drinks." The waiter. All three of them looked up, as surprised as if they had collectively forgotten that they were in a restaurant at all. Though taken aback, the man recovered composure quickly and set about placing their orders- he had arrived at Bruce's right shoulder, yet went first to Stark, and again Loki had to wonder at the inconvenience of it.

It wasn't until he left them, promising to bring their food as quickly as possible, that Loki spotted the way his gaze lingered, caught his teeth slightly between his lips in a smile that did not much belong in a service setting. And the darkened eyes, steady walk, liquid voice; it would have been impossible not to recognize it, considering how often he did it. "Is our waiter… flirting with you?"

"Yup," the engineer confidently replied, turning eagerly toward his drink. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Of course not. I just presumed you would."

"Hey, you know what they say, there's no such thing as bad flirting. Okay there is, but I thought he was doing okay." Was that genuine interest in Stark's eye? Bruce was rolling his own, so Loki could only assume so.

"I thought you were involved with women?"

"I go both ways; frequently, might I add. I'd be ten times richer if I put a toll on my bedroom door- not a bad idea actually…"

"Oh?" That was an interesting development. It seemed basic logic- liking coffee had not put him off tea, blonds off brunettes, tall girls off short- yet he'd not even entertained the possibility. Suddenly the other half of the room seemed much more interesting. "And is this a common sort of attraction, or are-"

"Guys?" Bruce cleared his throat, raised his hand and gave his fingers a little wave. "I, ah, don't mean to interrupt this sexual awakening, but I still do have work to do with you."

Loki had nearly forgotten why he was here, curse his distraction. Hoping he would be forgiven the slight rudeness (honestly, he could endure just as well if he was not) he leaned back in toward the proper focus of his attention, apologizing with a winning smile. It did not appear to be working, rather the opposite; Bruce had been merely amused before, and now displeased, unsettled. "My apologies, I do tend to… stray, a little."

"More or less than normal, would you think?" That was probably a relevant question, Loki suspected Bruce rarely asked any that were not, but still it threw him off guard.

Quick to get back into things, was he? "I have little comparison. Peter can hardly keep to a topic for more than five minutes, and we are constantly being interrupted at the cafe. Things tend to jump about."

Bruce nodded, hopefully retaining all this, and on they went. His questions became more detailed over time, so that when their food finally came Loki's answers were nearly three minutes long, describing entire days or investigating sensations as eloquently as was within his power while also attempting to juggle Stark's incessant interventions. If they managed to make some progress despite all this he had no idea, as he left them hours later with no more knowledge than before what the purpose of it all had been; except the vague concept of a diagnosis, of course.

Loki was feeling exhausted by the end of it, as though his mouth and brain both were stuffed full of cotton, barely able to drag himself from the restaurant. The food was delicious, of course, though expensive… and he'd been so tired that he'd gone and made an absolute ass of himself when the check came.

"Here, I've got that," Stark, the billionaire megalomaniac, had reached immediately for the bill, delighted to offer, and Loki had stopped him immediately. Normal enough; he had a job, he had money, he would pay for his own food.

"I would rather-"

"No, seriously, King Henry, I can cover it-"

"I don't want you to." And it had been so blunt, so earnest. Loki hadn't been entirely sure what he meant to express in the sentiment, but it hadn't been to cause a flash of offense and an extended, stifling silence across the table.

He groaned at the memory, even reassured by how readily Stark had shaken it off and welcomed him to pay his portion, made jokes about going dutch on their next "date", if he wasn't allowed to be old fashioned. The man had so little tact that Loki was willing to bet he would happily let any other's slip ups pass, but Bruce's eyes had been almost as wide as the rims of his glasses, however quickly he tried to hide it.

God. Loki thumped his head against the doorway with a long groan of embarrassment as he fiddled it open, letting the wood halfway carry him through with its inward push. It was dark in here, Peter and May must both have gone to sleep. Good. He just wanted to feel sorry for himself for a half hour or so and go to bed, he had no energy for conversation.

So, without bothering to flick on a light (he tended to see better without them, anyway) Loki stumbled his way through the quiet apartment in search of his room, praying he would soon at least have an answer to these headaches. He could do so much more if he did not have to worry about fainting every time he worked up a sweat. Get a real job, maybe some schooling, find a place of his own and shower May in the infinite gratitude she deserved for all she had done… Well, he could dream all he liked, but he'd do that better asleep, so let rest come first.

A testament to his exhaustion, Loki was halfway to his bed before he realized someone else was already in it.

Going back to the Tower would have been too much for the Big Guy to handle, after seeing Loki for nearly two hours, so it was quickly settled that they would take their talk to the city. Sure, it wasn't private, and Bruce got a little edgy in crowds, but with two cups of herbal tea (blasphemy, seriously, he was going to die from caffeine withdrawal) and the miraculous inconspicuousness of a dark jacket and some glasses they had a relatively comfortable night ahead of them.

If you could get past the topic of choice, and the fact that there was an alien army floating somewhere above their heads led by a guy that even Thor was wary of. Typical Tuesday.

"I really can't even give you reasonable speculation," Bruce protested, to Tony's fourth whining demand for a conclusion on the evening's interrogation. "Nothing about this or him makes for a normal case. He's not human, or Asgardian, or even typically Jotun, especially not if Odin's put some spell on him to make him mortal. I didn't really train in the heavily modified physiology of frost giants with dwarfism."

"Okay, sure, but we're assuming you can err on the side of human here. So far his tests have all come back as a mostly-normal homosapien, ignoring the fact that he's… not. Simplicity's sake."

"Fair enough. Then he's still recently recovered from an incredible amount of trauma to the skull, and any, ah, irregularities might just be from that." Bruce didn't look like he expected that was the case, though neither of them would do anything as ridiculous as disregard the possibility. "So, really, you should wait until I can get a real test done. You'll just be mad if anything I tell you turns out to be irrelevant."

"Yeah, well, not as mad as I will be if it turns out to not be and we get killed by an alien army because of it." 'Tasha'd gotten the results back from SHIELD, and they were far from promising: rather, they were nonexistent. They hadn't been able to get sights on anything floating around out there, and while they had a wide collection of agents now on the task of detecting alien activity Tony couldn't help feeling it would be too late, by the time there was any, to do anything about it.

What they needed was a defense plan that consisted of a little more than six people running aimlessly around attempting to protect the entire planet, while one of them wasn't even on it eighty percent of the time. Preferably something less prone to bullets and better equipped for immediate action, but that was a project for another time. Right now they needed to make due with what they had.

And if most of that was just speculation, than at least they could gather up more of it. "And you're just never going to shut up about this. Okay, fine. I think the Chitauri might have put something in his head," Bruce, ever-so-clear, concluded.

"Any chance of putting that in a way that doesn't make me want to hand you an aluminum hat and whip out the tape recorder?"

"He is an alien, Tony, it's not some abductee conspiracy theory," he countered, fairly enough. "We know they had some way of communicating with each other while Loki was on Earth, and we've assumed he was just using the staff. But in that case he could have been relaying orders to Clint while they were apart- or, worse, taking over minds without having to tap anyone first. I can't claim to understand magic, so maybe they just had some sort of spell set up and this whole night was wasted, but I doubt it. Whether it's magical or physical I'm guessing they left something in his brain to open up that link."

"Which is also giving off signals that block out that guy's sight- what was his name, Mydol?"

"Heimdall."

"That is much better."

Bruce shot him a quick look of 'Tony-you-need-to-shut-up' (™ Pepper Potts) and continued on, equipped with all the good sense needed to not offer him a further response. "And as you've mentioned already, Odin has made Loki mortal. Not entirely human, but not as durable or as… mystically inclined as before. Something put into his old body may not function properly in this one."

Hence the headaches, if the recent concussion wasn't doing that well enough. But Bruce's questions had been targeted, precise and purposeful; he had a specific diagnosis in mind, and unless he'd become an expert on Chitauri mind magic in the last few weeks then there had to be more to it. "You know medicine isn't my expertise- it could be, give me a few hours- so what is it?"

"It sounds like this… thing could be causing his brain to function improperly. It's sending its own signals so the normal processes are being improperly rewired, and possibly irritating the tissue enough to build up pressure against his skull."

Oh. It put a lot in perspective: loss of memory (sustained), vision troubles, weakness, that fairly blatant display of failed social awareness towards the end there. "So instead of sending messages, the Chitauri are just fucking with his brainwaves? You'd think they'd've realized by now that the call's not getting through. Do aliens not have voicemail? Sounds more convenient than telling his head to stop working right."

"It's a little more than that." Bruce had finished his tea by now; his fingers were drumming continuously against the edge of the cup, giving their walk the backdrop of a hollow echo. A passerby glared at the noise, then began to gape as she recognized Tony. He gave her a quick wave and a wink so she'd at least have something to write home about and turned them down another street, back to blessed privacy. "I was looking for the symptoms of a brain tumor, Tony. If there isn't something in his head functioning like one then he still could actually have one, and either way he'll need an MRI."

Tony didn't need a medical license to know what that could mean; for a human, anyway, which he had made quite clear on his first trip he was not. But Loki was showing nearly the fragility of their kind in everything else, wasn't he? So maybe something like oh, say, brain cancer could kill him. Fuck.

Excuse me, now? Why the hell does it matter? Odin could always just reverse his mojo and shove Loki back in an Asgardian cage- make all their lives easier anyway- and even if he didn't it was Loki, wasn't it? Of course the concepts bothered him, he wasn't and hadn't ever been arguing for the guy's death, but actively wanting him, wanting Loki, to be alive and well was… weird. Fucker wasn't so bad when he didn't have his memory, he'd been almost fun.

"I'll get him the test." Yeah, small steps, that much he could do easily even if he did have a potential alien invasion to worry about. High potential, if they really were trying to contact Loki again. "We should probably get back to the tower, now. Everyone'll be glad to see you, and if Clint hasn't torn the place to pieces you can finally have an actual conversation with him."

"Hey," the man greeted, his teeth flashing white and sharp in reflection of the thin moonlight, "you were out pretty late, there. Don't you have a curfew or something?"

He was stretched out so easily across the bed, head propped up on folded arms against Loki's pillow, one leg bent and the other kicked out to ruffle the comforter, which he so liked to keep neat, into a heap at the edge. One of his books had been shoved off the mattress to fall cover-bent on the ground, center pages folded pitifully in on themselves. Numbly, he bent to lift it, smoothing the creases; they would stain, dark grooves and curves, irreversible marks in the paper. A line down the spine, like a scar. He followed it with one finger, found his hand was shaking, and slowly turned his gaze upward once more.

The man was watching him, his grin so wide it seemed in danger of splitting his face. He was not very large, and he seemed to be unarmed, though there could have been anything hiding in that coat. He'd have to reach for it, give Loki time enough at least to run, or wake Peter with a shout… and, with this small assurance, he found he could not do either right away, no, not while he still had some relative safety and no idea why the man was here.

"Who are you?" He asked, once it became quite clear he would have to say something to break the silence. "And how did you get in here?"

"Window. Picked the lock." A gesture, revealing the thing still half open, snow gathering on the sill. "My name's Clint Barton, but don't feel bad about forgetting. You didn't use it a whole lot."

"We've met." It might have been a question, if not for the shimmer in his eyes. It was predatory, and far too personal, lacking Stark's paranoid happenstance from the cafe. Wary, Loki took a step back, making no move to hide it- he was being watched too closely for that- and Barton allowed it, grinning still. "And why are you here?"

"Because I heard you're memories are acting up, and we can't have that. I'm gonna help clear things up." Barton swung his legs in an arch, from reclining to sitting over the edge of the bed in a second. "We spoke on the phone a bit yesterday, remember? And you made that plan with Stark to go get checked by yet another doctor, which is just a waste of both of your time. He knows what you are, so do the rest of us. But they want to keep secrets; it's sort of our job, usually."

Stark knows. It was so easy to believe, but lying was even easier, and this man had just admitted to being very good at that. "And what, pray tell, do you think I am?"

Get the lie out of him, then distinguish the truth. Barton seemed more than willing, finally rising with the question as though his excitement to respond would not let him sit idle. "Oh, that's easy. You're a monster," he explained. "And a murderer, a terrorist, and would-be-dictator. I usually assume a few of those go together, but people like their labels, you know?"

He was closer now- Loki flinched but couldn't move away, his legs had become impossibly heavy. "Not that I expect you to buy it without proof. I barely could. So here you go, everything about you worth knowing, it's pretty convenient."

A file, slipped from his jacket in a movement so smooth it was almost invisible. Loki didn't notice his own reach until the thing was in his hands, staring down at a crisp stamp and his own name, neatly printed in dark red ink. CLASSIFIED. His touch traced along the cliche, remarkably steady. "What is this?"

"SHIELD's file on you. That logo at the top is ours, and so's the information in there, collected when you decided to take over the world. But you've got to have figured that out by now, seriously," Barton laughed, looking absolutely delighted by Loki's uncertainty. "The denial is strong with this one."

"I am human. And you are a liar." The file remained closed, and with shaking hands he shoved it outward, willing this hateful stranger to take it and be gone. Stark had dismissed this possibility, hadn't he? A mistake, that this man must have heard about, decided for whatever reason to fabricate some evidence for to- to torment him, but why? "Take it."

"Look inside."

"I will not humor your ridiculous taunts."

"Look."

That was not a suggestion any longer. Loki sucked in a breath to call for help, and choked on it as a cold point pressed up against his stomach. Oh, god. "Well?" Barton goaded, impatiently waving his free hand as the other dug in the tip of his knife, snagging fabric.

No, not a knife, there was a smooth pipe of wood disappearing into his grip, feathered at the base. An arrow. This man was absolutely insane, that had to be it. Insane and very likely to kill him if he didn't cooperate, but why wouldn't he be if he did? He could just stab him through and leave him there to bleed out on the rug for Peter to find in the morning.

Fuck, this was ridiculous. Loki saw spots creeping across his vision before he finally allowed himself to breathe, and then it was trembling, tight, he didn't want to die, he didn't- what had he done to this man, why would someone want to do this to him?

"Okay," he gasped, managing not quite to sob. Somehow he felt Barton would enjoy that far too much. "I will look, but not until you have moved."

He half expected the condition to send his guts spilling to the floor, but the invader stepped smoothly away, and the arrow even vanished back into his coat. A sign of good faith, if Loki hadn't seen how quickly it could reappear. It was just a file. Just some words, possibly a shopped picture or two, so why did he fear it almost as much as that point?

Almost. Loki flipped it open quickly, like it might bite if he delayed, and was presented with no more than a photo of himself thoroughly passed out in Anna's bed. Why in hell would someone have printed this? He should've asked her to delete the fucking thing, he was half naked and the state of his hair was simply embarrassing. Blackmail, sure. But proof of murder?

There was a clipped page to the back, his name at the top and three bulky paragraphs describing the facial-recognition techniques that had led them to it, recommending that, "as his identity is all but confirmed, the Initiative should be deployed immediately". Was this all? Barton had, what, typed up on some official paper and stalked his likeness online, barged in here to frighten him? A glance upward that found the man's grin returning, sparkling confidence, suggested there was more.

Whether this man was out of his mind or not Loki did not want to look on. Let someone else toil in the production of Barton's madness, he had not the time nor the mind for it. He was so tired, of so much, could he not simply be let be? Not until he was done, anyway. Flip. Shots of weapons, of Manhattan, all of it in ruins. Flip. Platforms flying through the air, a gold-clad figure riding the only one even nearly in focus, flames bursting and shattering the world around them. Flip.

He was seeing the Battle of New York. There had been footage of it once, Peter claimed, but all found and dealt with, nothing but whispers in their wake. And yet here he was, watching the end of so many lives shot by shot, the impossibility of a hole ripped through the sky constructed before him.

Film could do it well enough. Loki knew this could easily be nothing more than digital production on page, but the mere thought that any might be true was… sobering. The black hole had been confirmed, the aliens even more so; he'd seen the bodies himself, when two had been dug from the rubble, where this SHIELD had not swept them away. These creatures were the mirror image of those, he was certain of it. Loki could never forget those faces, the sickening sight of something so nearly human. Flip.

And there he was. Unrecognizable, at first, wearing golden armor and a look of sadistic pleasure as the city crumbled below him, but that was his face, his eyes. A touched image, someone's form made to match his own? Or such a likeness that even Stark in that clever suit had been unable to distinguish? Not him.

It's alright. Just breathe. In, out. Simple, or at least it should have been. Loki flinched as his face appeared again, distorted into a bloody rage and a flurry of movement, Stark's tower crumbling at his feet. What could Barton possibly hope to gain from this? Why had he made this, brought it to him? Again, there he was, it looked so like him, even with his face covered in metal and blood.

Those cuts… Loki's fingers were cold against his face, pressed to the faded outline of a scar that had once marred his forehead aligned to the millimeter with the fresh wound worn in the photograph. Those had healed, before Stark had caught him, revealed his face to the world.

Barton could have been the one to attack him. Whatever the end, and whatever he intended to do now, Loki prayed that was the case.

God be damned, he couldn't do this anymore. "I don't know what you expect me to do with all this, unless you are looking for critique on a graphic design portfolio. In which case, your editing is commendable, and I wish you luck in your endeavors but if you would please just-"

"Keep. Going."

Oh. Loki nodded, drawing the file slowly back to himself, throat constricted on even the hope of an argument against Barton's outrage. He didn't want to read anymore. The file was beginning to burn in his grasp, a horrible, painful weight, he was going to be sick if he turned another page.

But he did. It slipped from his fingers twice before they were still enough to move it, and quivered into half a blur; not so much of one that it could disguise Barton's face, however. Barton, at the side of that distorted Loki, declared "Compromised" by a lengthy report. Compromised how? His eyes swam at the title, refused to look any further, the words blurring and fleeing his comprehension.

"What is this?" He pleaded, burst from his lips. "I don't know what you want from me, please. Did I anger you somehow? Do something to you? I do not remember any of it, but I am sorry."

They were companions, in these shots. Barton could have been an ally, or the sole culprit, seeking someone either to share his blame or revenge for failing in their plans. Their- no, he'd done nothing. "Look, I get it, you're pathetic, but there's only so long this can go on. That's all on you. And this? Me, running around like your fuckin' lapdog?" He closed the distance once again, forcing the paper up against Loki's chest, twice jabbing his finger against the photographs, leaving his image blotted and crinkled. "That's why we're doing this. Why you don't get the fucking luxury of living in ignorance when I can't go a night without remembering all the friends you made me kill."

"I made you? That is completely ridiculous, I couldn't-" Loki didn't simply stop; he gagged on the shock, a painful nausea roiling up because those words felt too familiar. The slipped out with the easy grace of his morning's tales, more natural than his pleas. Liar, liar. "I am not a killer."

Fear was crawling into his vision, leaving trails of inky black at the rims until his world had narrowed to a fine point- Barton, the file. "Sure you're not." The steady hand reaching forward, bringing forth a new affliction; the frightened accounts of observers, and a lifeless man's punctured eye socket seeping blood onto the marble floor.

"Remember him?" No, he didn't, but he remembered- oh, god, it was like he could feel the blood against his hands, hot and fierce. "No. But we're making progress, huh? Fine, yeah. Now how about him?"

There was more to be seen, but Barton tore it all aside and flipped near to the end before returning the sight to Loki, who was shaking so badly it had begun to hurt. (He was up against the wall now, leaning back for space and air, to try and put himself somewhere, anywhere, else.) There was a great deal of clutter in this section, but the photo was what he was meant to see, and his eyes flew to it immediately, uncooperative.

A man lying under stark light, a cold glimmer on pale skin, still and clinical. He did not know him, he truly didn't, not his face or his name, but he knew his wound. A clean cut through the heart, wide and freshly slit, a quick slide through flesh and bone with just the right amount of resistance to satisfy. Something so simply, so easy, to send gore and lifeblood to the ground, to- and he'd liked it- his stomach was churning but there was pleasure at the core of it oh god he wanted it enjoyed it he'd done it.

Loki felt himself slide to the floor, but was blind and deaf to the file falling from his hands, Barton's boots scraping against the window frame on his way out, to anything but his own unrelenting sobs.