A/N: I'm late on updates and I am so sorry about it, I try to stick to a schedule but real life got in the way and having no reference for the origin story of Movie!verse Clint delayed things. Thanks for anyone who read, reviewed, faved or followed, you guys rock.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Willow.
Green is for chlorophyll
by Arasinyah
Chapter 10
It was easier said than done, emptying the mind. Willow and Loki were both thinkers in particular and the act of shaking off all thoughts was unnatural to them. It took some time but eventually they both relaxed, reaching a calm state.
Willow didn't feel the thrall of the mind gem call out to her instantly, far too much at peace for that. She was calm and content and as such it took the gem a while to pull her in but eventually she felt it and ignoring the voice in her head that told her to wake up she let herself be pulled by the gem. IT felt like floating in the ocean with a current that directed her and she drifted about before being deposited in a memory standing on the grounds of an abandoned circus.
Colourful tents rose all around her and even though it was eerily quiet there was an air of dulled festivity to it, the smell of popcorn and cotton candy in the air. But this was the part of a circus that she hadn't explored before, the backstage and there were caravan hitched to cars with the colourful names written on them shifting constantly.
"He is confused." Loki's voice and she turned to find him next to her, his own eyes on the shifting words painted on the carriages.
"What do you mean?"
"He has probably been in many such displays of pageantry. They are blurring in his mind as inconsequential details."
They walked forward toward the main tent that seemed to be the most stable detail in there, unchanging even as the other minutiae flickered almost constantly.
She stopped to stand outside an empty cage that once held an animal and shook her head sadly.
"Animals don't belong in circuses."
"And people don't belong in mind controlling gems, but here we are, now can we get a move on?" He snarked.
"Touchy touchy."
"The longer we stay here the more memories it takes from me and then you'll have to keep on-" He looked around, worried.
"You know none of this would ever happen if people just took the time to face their problems and deal with them instead of suppressing it." She complained as they walked towards the main tent. Abruptly the landscape stopped moving and the leaves fluttering down from the trees stopped. They flew back up and attached themselves to the trees, the music playing in the background reversing itself. "What's going on?"
"The memory resets itself and plays again, on loop. The memory versions of people relive their pains, it is how the Mind Gem controls."
"Oh dear." They broke out into a run and soon reached the main tent.
When they walked into the empty ring they saw a much younger Clint in the main tent sobbing over the body of a man who bore a remarkable likeness to him and had an arrow sticking out his chest.
"It's his brother." Loki said in a heartbreakingly soft voice and she knew he was thinking about how he had stabbed Thor. "He told me when I was controlling him. He killed Trickshot, a masked criminal and found out later that it was his brother Barney. Barney was Trickshot's apprentice and when Trickshot needed to disappear he left Barney to impersonate him and leaked his location to Clint knowing that this would be the result."
"Oh."
"I didn't realise," Loki stumbled over his words. "I didn't expect that he would be this young when he-" He broke off and she sighed.
"The world needs more therapists." She said and walked into the tent and Clint looked up at the sound of her arrival clutching his brother's body even closer as if shielding him from her.
"What do you want?"
"To help."
"I killed my brother." He said.
"I know." She sat down next to him, Loki noted it to be her modus operandi. She would sit down next to a person and wait for them to accept her presence before going any further. It didn't take long, her very presence in this memory had already lightened it up a great deal, Loki had noticed that the sky outside didn't seem as cloudy anymore. "I'm sorry."
"Why? You didn't kill him, I did." He cradled his brother's head closer, chanting in sibilant tones. "I killed him, I killed him-"
"Did you kill him because he's your brother?"
"No! No, but he was," Clint swallowed. "He killed a family, they used to come to the circus a lot and he killed them. I watched him do it and he said." He broke off, shuddering. "He said that they didn't deserve to be happy. Not when we had to fight so hard just to live."
"I'm sorry Clint."
"It's not his fault you know. He got messed up in his head. Our father used to hit him and...and-" He fell apart into sobs.
"Clint it's okay. It's okay to be sad, it's okay to miss him. You can mourn your brother it's okay to do so, but you have to forgive yourself for what you did as well. You won't forget but at least forgive. You did what you had to."
"Did I?"
"He would have hurt others if you did."
"I know but-"
"Was he a good brother?"
He choked out a sobbing laugh."He was the best."
"Remember that then Clint. Bury the bad and remember the good."
Before her eyes the scenery began to shift, both the Bartons turning slowly transparent and then fading until she was surrounded by darkness, Loki right next to her. A fluorescent light flickered into existence somewhere to her right and she turned to look at it but was blinded by its brightness. Willow blinked a couple of times and when she could see again she was in a lab.
Erik Selvig sat in front of her frantically jotting things down in a journal referencing many books and occasionally shifting to the Tesseract to poke and prod at it. The dark gouges under his eyes on his face indicated that he had not slept for days and up on a perch a flickering Hawkeye watched them over.
Selvig muttered abrupt words, the Tesseract featuring prominently in his talks. Most of the words he used went over her head but she recognised the maniacal look in his eye. This was a man in his mad scientist mode, lost to the world.
"Erik." She called out to get his attention.
"Not now I need to learn the Tesseract." He ran a reverent hand over the glowing cube.
She stood there wondering what to do when an idea came to her. She went over to where Loki was leaning against a pillar and grabbing his hand, she pulled him over to Erik's workstation.
"Erik, this man here is Thor's brother, he knows all about the Tesseract."
This got his attention and with some gentle prodding on her behalf Loki took the reins of the conversation. He leaned forward and looked over Erik's notes.
"Ah you see, your calculations are incorrect," He began making corrections to the sheet of paper even as Selvig nearly tore his hair out to stop him. "See?"
Erik went over the corrected notes and stare din disbelief.
"My God! You do know the Tesseract!" He stared at Loki in awe and the God shrugged.
"I've had a few thousand years to work on my calculations."
"Erik you need to relax, this crazy running around isn't doing you any good. You need your REM sleep. "
"But the Tesseract-"
"Is a sentient object and when it wants you to know the answers you will know them." Loki said in a matter of fact way. "You Midgardians have already advanced so much in the last hundred years, you'll get there eventually. Obsessing over it won't help."
"You're right. I'll get there when I should. Sure it'll take some time but most things do, String theory hasn't even been proven yet!" Willow gave him a thumbs up even as Loki turned around to mouth to her 'Really?!'. "This is crazy, I need to calm down." He said to himself and once again the world faded to black.
Tony was and always would be, above everything else, a man of science. This meant that he saw the world in the form of equations, in power fluctuations, in transference of energies. A lifetime of this meant noticing minute details instantly and cataloguing those details was how his mind worked and so when in the first fifteen minutes since Willow and Loki had entered the trance state he noticed the slight change in the Mind Gem immediately.
"Jarvis compare luminosity of the Mind Gem now to its state fifteen minutes ago."
"Luminosity of the Mind Gem is down by 1.2 percent sir." His AI said, startling Thor and Steve who had yet to get used to the idea of the walls talking to them.
"Interesting."
"How did you even notice it, 1.2 percent shouldn't even be obvious to the human eye." Bruce asked, a vein of admiration to his words.
"It looks the same to me." Barton said frowning.
"When you have glowing arc reactor in your chest you become very aware of light. When the arc reactor runs low on juice it glows less."
Everyone stared at the sceptre and it's glowing centre wondering what to make of it.
"This is going to be a long night," Natasha said, "I'll get us some sleeping bags and we'll camp out here, I don't want to leave them alone like this." She walked off, JARVIS directing her to a supplies cabinet a few floors up.
"Why is it taking so long, Loki didn't use it on many people, once he had me and we got in contact with anti-SHIELD establishments he didn't even need to use it." Clint wondered.
"I saw the footage Birdie, that thing was a big bright blue even when he stepped on Earth."
"It is my brother's memories." Thor said gravely with utter conviction in his voice. "There have been many slights done unto him over the years."
"Yeah but it can't be-"
"We are millennia old, friend Rogers, and Loki has not been very popular among the populace. The Aesir do not take well to having their inadequacies made obvious and my brother was always quick to point out their faults."
"He was bullied?" It was less question and more statement and Steve's shark intake of breath made it obvious that it did not sit well with him.
Thor winced. "Aye he was and I have played no small part in the harm caused to him." He stretched out his hand to pat the comatose Loki on his head but stopped just before his fingers could touch his hair and withdrew his fingers.
"Millennia you said. So presumably centuries of-"
"Tony lets not go there right now." Bruce said with a tremor to his usually calm voice and they saw the skin around his neck go slightly green. "I'm sure we'll have time to talk about this later." He breathed in and out a few times and the green finally receded. "Besides I'm more worried about Willow than Loki."
"What do you mean?" Steve sat up a bit straight.
"She's just a kid. Seems to be pretty happy and well adjusted and she's basically going through Loki's and everyone else's nightmares, their lowest times. What if it breaks her like it did him?"
In the nothingness in between minds they felt each other's presence and reached for one another, minds bumping together and thoughts briefly exchanged. For a moment he felt light and at peace while she felt intense worry and fear.
"Is it just me or was that surprisingly easy?" She spoke into the dark, shaking the dark thoughts out.
"Erik's obsession with the Tesseract meant that the mind gem didn't need that intense an emotion to control it. He wanted badly to be a part of these going-ons and this was his way to it."
"There's something else to it isn't there?"
"I needed him to make the portal that would bring me to this world so I might have…guided his mind to the right calculations from the Barren Moon." He said reluctantly.
"Wait you can-ARGH!"
The dark had been interrupted by sudden brightness and she was temporarily blinded. It wasn't the fluorescent light of the lab Selvig was in but a golden one that hurt the eye much more. When her eyes adjusted she was in a golden city.
"Asgard." Loki said reverently, eyes turning misty. "I have…longed to see the Golden City for the past year."
"You know this means it's your turn for therapy right?"
The smile slid off his face. "Of course." He bowed, returning to his home city having restored his princely manners to him. "Shall we?" He led her through a labyrinth of passages and doors.
"Where to?"
"Probably my chambers, it's where I spent most of my childhood and I doubt the Mind Gem got any further than that."
They stopped in front of a set of ornate doors and she dithered while he went to push it open. Instead he went right through the doors and stumbled back out the next minute.
"Since this is, in fact, my memory I have no form here." He said stiffly.
"So you can't-"
"I made an attempt at talking to my younger self, hoping to resolve this on my own. He could not perceive me or even my presence. In there I am the Asgardian equivalent of a seven year old mortal." He said informatively.
She pushed open the door and stepped into young Loki's room and instead of looking around it like she would have liked to, she swept forward to the young god sitting on the edge of his bed nearing tears.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"It's my birthday." He smiled sadly at her confusion. "Everyone forgot."
"Oh." She sat down next to him and the elder Loki looked around the room carefully, his attempts at picking up knick knacks from the table failing as his hand fell through it all and with a frustrated sound he chose to look at his younger self instead.
It was odd for him to see himself in such a vulnerable state. He hadn't been innocent in a long time and he had become desensitised to such small matters as someone forgetting his birthday over his life. It had become routine for him to be forgotten and fade into the background and was one of the many reasons why no one had ever thought that it was he who had led the frost giants into the vault, he would be surprised if anyone ever figured it out. Sif's hatred of him made her the only possible person who might and even then her disdain for his abilities meant that she would think it beyond his power to walk through worlds.
He was jolted out of his thoughts as Willow spoke.
"I'm sorry they forgot your birthday."
The infantile Loki took a shaky breath. "It's okay, 's not your fault."
She leaned in with all the air of telling him a secret and Loki watched his younger self draw closer, always eager to hear a secret."You know in my family, we don't celebrate birthdays at all."She said softly
"Why not?"
"Well some people in my family are so old they don't remember how old they are and then they start crying." She pouted. "At my fifth birthday my Uncle Oscar, well he's my great uncle actually, he began crying very loudly and everyone was so mortified that we decided no more birthday celebrations."
His eyes widened."You think my parents don't remember how old I am? But they remember how old Thor is."
"They have to remember how old Thor is, I don't think Thor remembers himself, he's been hit in the head so many times." She sighed and shook her head exaggeratedly and younger Loki giggled. "Hey Loki?"
"Yes milady?"
She smiled a most beatific smile that made even Asgard seem to glow brighter and he didn't quite think it possible. "Happy birthday."
Almost immediately the scene changed and the two closed their eyes, now aware of how to deal with the shift in memories. When they felt grass under their feet they opened their eyes and found themselves in a forest.
Loki looked at the trees and frowned. "This is no place on Asgard or any that I have ever seen."
"Oh I remember this." She said softly before nudging Loki. "You're up now."
"What?"
"Well this is my memory so you'll have to deal with it, I won't see me. I mean younger me won't see me." She made a face. "This is confusing."
Loki meanwhile panicked. "What am I supposed to do? What is this place anyway? I thought the Mind Gem couldn't control you?"
"It can't, this memory isn't strong enough for it to use against me." She looked around inhaling the smell of apples and began walking, Loki following her. "This is where I came to be."
"You can't possibly remember being born." He scoffed and another though presented itself to him, "Why would it be traumatic?"
"Oh no this is isn't me being born, this is me waking up, existing. I don't have parents, I don't know how I…how I came to be but one day I just was." She looked at her hands and her toes twitched and she saw them as if they were new. "One day I began existing."
"But how did you exist? How did you come into being?"
"I don't know. If I existed before then I don't remember. Maybe I did but I don't think so. I feel too complete as I am now."
"Didn't you ask?"
"Who would I ask? What would I say, how do I even phrase it? Besides my grandmother, well my adoptive grandmother I suppose, she speaks to the trees too, not exactly like me but still and she said the same thing, one day she woke up and just was. She's pretty old but she doesn't know how she exists either." She looked dazed and fiddled with her hands pressing forwards, ducking and walking in the gaps between trees even as he moved the lower hanging branches out of their way so they wouldn't smack him.
"Alright I'll accept that you just," He rolled his eyes, "Came into existence one day but why is this traumatic?"
"It isn't, it's just the scariest memory I have. I mean sure Natasha screwing with my mind hurt but I already dealt with that when I talked to her afterwards, this is one of those things I can't really…fix. I just woke up and amidst all the sensory overload of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, all for the first time, I could also hear the grass under me, the birds and the insects all of them asking me if I was alright. I can appreciate the memory in hindsight but at the moment it was terrifying. It was too much to take in."
"So what do I do?" He was terrified.
"You just go over, give me a hug tell me it's okay and if possible just hold me till all the feeling ease off and I'm not overwhelmed anymore." She looked away from him and her face brightened. "Ah, there I am."
At the foot of a massive tree that he didn't recognise, lay a small shivering child, barely two years old. She wore a pale green slip that seemed to be woven of light, not unlike the magic that Willow had used during the battle with the chitauri to bind them and was curled in on herself.
The older version of her pushed him forward and he stumbled, the leaves crunching under his feet loudly. The child straightened up and ran to him and he was almost knocked over by the force with which she barrelled into him. He looked at the older Willow who had a look of amusement on her face and she gestured for him to pull the child closer. His arms came around her slowly and the shivering slowed down as he rubbed her back gently the way his mother had done for him when he was younger and had a nightmare. The tremors stopped entirely and he looked down to see her asleep in his arms.
Just when he got used to holding her though, the scene flickered and they were lost to the darkness again.
"What's going on now?" Willow asked as they were back in Asgard. They began walking again, this time Loki led her to another place, they climbed a spire of the palace higher and higher.
"I do believe that I have been left behind by Thor and his friends while they're off on a quest. Either that or I've just overheard them saying very clearly that they hate me and only tolerate my presence because Thor asked them to." Loki shrugged. "It could also be the time I was called argr for practising seidr."
"…What?"
"I was called unmanly for practising magic." He clarified.
"Loki I don't mean to sound mean but this is all tame isn't it? For you I mean."
"We are only at, as your Midgardian saying goes, the tip of the iceberg. I am only a hundred years old at this point, not even old enough to join in the courtyard for training let alone quests. Being a bit more on the small side my mother coddled me a lot and I was not allowed to train with arms like most children."
"So the really bad part starts-?"
"Much later. We haven't even reached the time I was poisoned or the time I was left in Muspelheim by Thor and his friends and nearly died or the first time I was imprisoned on the Isle of Silence or-"
"Please tell me this happened recently." She stopped to lean against the wall for a few seconds and he raised an eyebrow.
"Not that recently." They continued their ascent.
"And knowing your idea of time I'm guessing you must have been an adolescent at the time this happened?"
"Pre-adolescent, if I understand Midgardian ideas of adolescence correctly."
"Now I'm just plain depressed."
"I'd suggest you get used to it, it's going to get much worse pretty soon."
"Yeah?"
"Yes, this is about the time I became numb to the taunts that were thrown at me, they had to escalate to greater heights to damage me and so they did." He stopped abruptly ignoring her soft curses. "Ah here we are."
"Where?"
"My hideout. This particular tower is restricted to the Royal Family's use."
The stepped out onto a ledge where a young Loki sat, pensive. He looked to be the same age as the last Loki she had helped and his older counterpart helped her out. "It has been twenty years or so since the last memory."
"In Midgard terms?"
"Half a year?" He offered.
She sighed and took a seat next to young Loki. He didn't even look at her too busy staring at the figures in the courtyard flinging swords and shield about.
"What's wrong?"
And again her existence was simply accepted. Loki thought that the memory versions were vaguely aware of the fact that they were trapped in an unending loop or at least that they weren't wholly real.
"The warriors three, they don't like me very much. At all actually."
"How do you know that?"
"I overheard them talking about it. They said if it wasn't for Thor they'd never talk to me." Young Loki sighed. "Maybe if I was more like Thor."
"Why would you want to be like Thor?"
"He's the perfect Aesir. He's tall and blonde and never afraid and so strong."
"What's wrong with being Loki?"
"Being Loki means being alone."
"This above all, to thine own self be true."
"Even if it means being alone?"
"Loki, do you like yourself?"
"Yes. But no one else does."
"No one else matters, no one else is living your life for you."
"But-"
"No buts, I don't ever want to hear you say you want to be more like Thor. I like Loki just fine."
Again the darkness fell over them but instead of the usual space between memories, this place had a more sinister feel to it. Loki knew what this was, it was not unlike the Void but before he could voice it a childish voice rang out around them, shattering the illusion that they were alone.
"Stop stealing my playmates." A little girl appeared out of nowhere and the suddenness led Willow to clutch Loki's hand before dropping it just as quickly. She was dressed in the oddest way, a little golden dress on her, her skin the bright blue of the Mind Gem and the most vitriolic pout Willow had ever seen. "You can't be here!"
"Why not?" Willow asked.
"Because-" The girl stumbled over her words and the glare she levelled at them lessened. "Because no one ever does."
"Well that doesn't mean I can't be here."
"But you're stealing my playmates!" The girl stomped her foot.
"What playmates?"
"The memories." Loki answered her. "That's the Mind Gem."
"Oh." That changed things. "What's your name?" She asked the girl who let out a sob.
"I don't have a name." She said sadly, sniffing and crossing her small arms over her chest.
"Do you want one?" The girl looked at her with wonder in her eyes. "We can help you pick one if you want."
"I can have a name?!"
"Well I don't see why not." Willow shrugged. "What kind of name would you like?"
For a brief moment the girl's face brightened before it fell again. "Names have to be given."
"You can choose them too. I know someone who changed her name to Charlotte because her real name was a bit…strange and she got teased a lot." The girl remained unconvinced. "I could give you a name."
"You'd do that?!"
"Sure, how about Lucy? You look like a Lucy to me."
"Astrid is a better name." Loki disagreed. Midgardians had strange choice in names. He had wondered them ever since he had fallen to this realm, what kind of name was Clinton Barton?!
Willow disagreed and glared at him. "Elsa."
"Dagny."
"Annoushka."
"Solveig."
"Oh come on, it's like you hate her or something, she is going to be teased if we name her something ridiculous like that!"
"She's all alone; no one is going to tease her." He rolled his eyes.
A sniffle from the girl broke them out of their argument.
"Now look what you did!" Willow accused and swept the girl into a hug. "Oh honey."
"I don't have a name and you're taking all my playmates!" The girl cried.
"I don't think they did a good job of playing with you though, they were so sad."
"But they have to be, Thanos said I have to take their worst from them, it's their punishment."
"Oh forget about Thanos, did you have any fun here with them reliving their worst memories?"
"No." The girl whimpered.
"Then why would you do that?"
"Because Thanos is my only friend."
"What am I then? I'm here, can't I be your friend?"
"But you'll leave! Just like Thanos left and I thought maybe if I kept them all he'd come back." She sobbed.
"Alright, alright then how about this, you can take any memory from me right?"
"Yes."
"Right so, I will leave one of my happy memories here, it's of me at my home with my Grandmother and you can join them, how does that sound?"
"You'd do that?" The girl said eyes wide with hope.
"I'll do that, but you have to let all the others go, you can't keep their worst thoughts okay?"
"You promise?"
"Of course, and I'll even give you a name, how about we name you Erika?"
"That is acceptable." Loki said magnanimously and she raised an eyebrow.
"I was talking to her."
"Erika." The Mind gem, newly christened, said her name out loud and smiled. "I like it."
"Good now you'll let everyone go?"
Erika bit her lip but conceded nonetheless. "Okay."
"Right now, how do I give you my memory?"
"You remember it." Erika said as if Willow was being silly and she smiled.
"Silly me."
The darkness melted away and they were soon standing in under the sun on a grassy stretch of land in the middle of which stood a house. IT had warm beige brick walls and a sloping brown tiled roof. Ivy grew over one side of the house and in the back was a little hothouse. The grassy plains stretched out on all sides of them, dotted by a few trees for a distance before forests resumed and Erika looked around her, excited.
"Is this my new home?"
"If you want it to be."
"I do!"
A slightly older version of the child Loki had soothed popped out from behind a nearby tree.
"Hi!" She said to Erika barely noticing the other two
"Hello."
"I'm Willow."
"I'm Erika."
"I like your name."
"Me too!"
"Do you want to meet my Grammy?"
"Yes please." Young Willow grinned, showing off a missing tooth and grabbed Erika by her hand, pulling her toward the house. "Bye!" Erika yelled out to them but doubled back to run to Loki."You need to see this", She said and suddenly they were on the broken Bifrost and Loki was hanging on to the Gungnir.
"I could have done it Father! I could have done it! For you, for all of us!"
"No, Loki." Odin said and Loki looked at him in shock before letting go of the spear that was the only thing anchoring him to the world.
"Loki, no…NO!" Thor cried out but Loki was falling into the abyss, a single tear running down his face.
"What do you know," The present day Loki said in a conversational tone even as his fist clenched at his side. "He didn't toss me in after all."
"What?" Willow said trying hard to grasp the reality of the fact that Loki had just tried to commit suicide.
"Thanos corrupted that memory, I thought Thor tossed me in. It was one of the many reason I chose to invade Midgard. Revenge on something Thor loves."
"Mate, I don't know if anyone's ever told you this but, Odin's kind of a douchebag."
Loki smiled. "No one's ever told me that before. It's mostly just people saying, 'there is a reason to his actions Loki, you must trust in his wisdom'."
"Douchebag. Total douchebag."
And the ground beneath them lurched suddenly. They awoke seconds later at the table in Stark tower, breathing hard and slowly the world came into focus around them.
"Holy shit, it's stopped glowing completely!" Tony exclaimed.
"Watch your language Stark." Steve admonished.
The two who had travelled through the mind gem shook their heads furiously, panting as if they'd run a marathon. Once they had calmed down however, Loki turned to Willow with a curious expression. "What exactly are you?"
Steve and Bruce got up in anger, certain he had said that offensively but looked on confused as she shrugged. "I told you, I don't know what I am. I know who I am though and that's more than what most people can say."
"How old are you?" Loki pressed on, frowning and he knew he'd finally asked the right question when she froze. She let out a shaky breath and answered him, calm but aware of the questions that would soon follow her answer.
"I turn 137 years old this summer."