So, I decided to post a little early. If you were one to read my author's notes at the end of the last chapter, you'd remember that I mentioned another story that may become a sequel to this one. I have decided that it could be. It won't really follow this, but it would have mentions to this story and After Loki.
But for now, enjoy this new chapter of Clint is What?
Clint groaned as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Pepper was still standing in the same place, as though she was too afraid to move. Focusing on the rest of his surroundings, Clint began to scan the room. Just as he was almost finished, the lights came back on and nearly blinded him. He let out a soft cry that was muffled by Pepper's louder cry of shock.
"Security protocol initiated," JARVIS sharply intoned before the windows began to get completely covered by large metal plates. The halls were all blocked off by the same things and when Clint looked up, he noticed that every vent in the room had been sealed off in a similar fashion.
"Oh shit," Clint cursed before focusing on Pepper, who was looking a little freaked out.
"Those walls were built to withstand the Hulk," she said as if Clint had been asking about that. Clint mentally groaned. 'Of course Tony would have installed all that. He'd want to lock the Hulk up in one room to minimize damage.' Clint thought before looking around to see if there was any chance of escape. "Tony built the tower to hold whoever needed to be held in one room. All escape paths that he's ever seen you and Natasha take are blocked and the only way to reopen is by someone on the outside telling JARVIS that we're safe."
"So we're stuck here. Nice," Clint sarcastically responded.
"Well, I guess we're gonna be stuck here for a while," Pepper declared before she suddenly just vanished from the spot she had been standing in. Clint stiffened.
"Pepper?" Clint called. Of course there was no response. "Hello?"
Laughter began to echo throughout the entire room. Breathing deeply, Clint realized the laughter sounded eerily familiar. Thankfully it didn't sound like a female voice, but then again. If the voice was male, Clint feared that it may be Loki, yet again. Behind him, a person appeared.
"Clint Barton," the person said. Shocked, Clint jumped into the air and flew to the other side of the room. When he settled and turned to see who had spoken, his worst fear was confirmed. It was Loki.
"Thor said you were still in prison!" Clint declared. Loki laughed again, but this time his voice shifted. Mentally frowning, Clint watched as the Loki before him began to seemingly melt and turn into the sexy figure of Amora. "Amora!"
"Yes, my little hawk friend," Amora taunted. Clint shuffled back on his perch, trying to move further away from the magical woman. "Don't move."
And just like before, Clint felt his body stiffen. Clint gasped lightly as his mind flashed back to when Loki attacked him. His breath was coming in sharp intakes as he stood frozen before the Enchantress. Amora smirked.
"So that does work well with you," she whispered lightly before walking over toward the paused form of the hawk. Only Clint's eyes could track her movements. When she was right in front of Clint, she lightly started to stroke underneath his chin. "Loki told me so much this past week. I have so many new ideas."
"Oh yeah, cause he wasn't very original," Clint declared, slightly surprised that he had control over his words. But when Amora's eyes narrowed into slits, Clint wondered if it would have been better to have his control completely gone. She backed away and snapped her fingers. For a moment nothing happened, and then it hit.
Fire was racing through his body. It followed his veins and spread out from there. Bones began snapping and feeling as if they were breaking apart. Clint snapped his eyes closed in pain as his back arched and he fell from his perch. A loud pop sounded as he thumped to the ground and his right wing extended. A prickling feeling spread across his skin that made it feel as though the fire was growing stronger. Blueish gray eyes opened wide in shock as more bones popped and Clint noted that his feathers were slowly starting to vanish. Groaning, Clint forced his eyes closed once again just in time for it to feel like his heart stopped beating.
It was maybe an hour or two later that Clint felt the beginnings of waking up. Moaning, Clint rolled over onto his side and felt the cold wood of the floor. Slowly, he opened his eyes and noted that he was laying on the floor in the living room and it was completely sealed off still. Sighing, he tried looking around but before he could get to that point, he noticed a pale arm. Shifting his body again, Clint took a few more minutes until he finally caught on to the fact that the arm was attached to him.
"What?" Clint groaned as he focused on the rest of him. He was back in his human form but he surprisingly, not naked. Amora had dressed him in his normal uniform. Still stunned from the sudden and painful transformation back, Clint wasn't fully having a mental click as to what was going on.
"Ah, you're finally awake. It's been over... Two hours, impressive," Amora joked before standing. She was sitting on couch, which faced away from Clint so he wasn't able to see her until she stood. He tensed when he finally noticed her. She smirked. "Aren't you going to thank me?"
"For what? Turning me back? It was your fault that I was a hawk in the first place," Clint growled as his mind began to catch back up to the situation. Amora laughed lightly.
"Yes, I suppose I did. But, maybe you can thank me for dressing you," Amora mocked. Clint snarled, not wanting to thank her for anything. "Are you afraid that I will take after Loki and try to rape you?"
"No. You don't seem like the type to like real men," Clint responded. Amora paused for a moment to try and understand what he was saying. As she got the idea, her face darkened in anger. Her right hand whipped up and green energy sparked from it and slammed hard into Clint's chest, flinging him back into the wall behind him. Grunting in pain, Clint fell to the floor to try and catch his breath. There was a second of utter silence before Clint felt a soft touch on his shoulder, jerking up he quickly noticed that Amora was still on the other side of the couch. Looking to the shoulder, Clint didn't see anything touching him. Frowning, he wondered what was going on.
"You really don't want to add fuel to that particular fire," Amora warned. She was focused on Clint with an angry glare but luckily she didn't seem to care about his distracted glance to his left. Sighing deeply, Amora turned her gaze away from Clint and turned away from the archer. "I really didn't want to hurt you this early."
"But this is all supposed to be revenge for Loki," Clint stated as he shifted to stand once again. Amora nodded. "Loki loved me."
Amora snarled and tossed her hand up again. This time the magic hit Clint and sent him up into the ceiling before crashing back down onto the floor. When he landed this time, Clint heard a female voice gasp in shock. Frowning, Clint looked toward the source of the noise but still saw nothing. 'Wait, didn't Thor mention that Amora could turn people invisible?'
"Loki was torturing you for betraying him!" Amora screamed. Clint scoffed as he focused back on her. Amora's face darkened as she waited to see how Clint would respond. He simply watched her, feeling it was best to not speak again. But in the silence, he felt someone place a hand on his back. He stiffened slightly, this time Amora noticed. "Are you frightened of me?"
"You're an idiot, why should I be afraid of you?" Clint mocked, glad that she had mistaken his posture for fear of her and not trying to figure out what was touching him. Amora laughed as she looked away from him. Clint looked to what he believed to be the source of the pressure on his back. Whispering to he, he tried to get an answer. "Pepper?"
"Clint, what is happening?" Pepper's voice whispered back. Clint's eyes widened as he realized what must have happened. When Pepper vanished, Amora must have simply made her invisible and possibly even mute at first. But now, Amora must have been distracted enough to allow Pepper to speak once again.
"That's Amora," he said as softly as he dared, Amora was almost done looked at something other then him.
"Oh my god, I knew this was going to happen," Pepper muttered. Clint raised an eyebrow in her direction.
"You knew Amora would come back, turn you invisible, change me back to human and then would rather speak to me then torture me?" Clint asked, a little incredulously. Pepper snorted.
"Well, mostly just knew that she'd come here," Pepper admitted as Amora turned to face them. Clint quickly snapped his attention back to her. But she had already seen enough. Her gaze narrowed.
"Who were you talking to?" Amora evilly inquired. Clint gave her an innocent smile.
"My imaginary friend," he quipped. Amora huffed before looking slowly about the room. "What, you believe in magic but not imaginary friends?"
"Magic is real, not something one can believe in. Imaginary friends are figments of the mind. One that would not appear at a time like this," Amora explained. Clint laughed.
"Yeah, well. My imaginary friend loves danger," he joked. Amora nodded as if that explained everything. Slowly she turned away from Clint. Knowing better then to relax, Clint lowered his left hand to his side and began to try and wave Pepper away from him. The hand on his back vanished a moment later but Clint continued to wave until Amora spun back around and shot a wave of magic into his chest and lifted him off the floor. Gasping in shock, Clint watched as Amora snapped her hands to the other side of the room and not a moment after, Clint was flung into the solid steel walls that barricaded the windows.
"My, that would have been much better if you could have flown out the window behind that," Amora mumbled before waving her hand dismissively into the air.
"Security Protocols inactive," JARVIS intoned before the steel walls began lifting back into place. Clint leaned back against the glass as he caught his breath. He was panting in pain but felt a sharp stab in his right side every time he inhaled. It made him wonder if he had a cracked rib or it was just bruised. But as he began to shift, he felt the separate parts of the rib digging into his side. 'Great, broken rib.'
"So unoriginal. Loki already tossed Stark out one of these windows. Oh, by the way, Hulk had slammed Loki about the ground. Try some new ideas," Clint told her as he coughed harshly. Amora growled darkly as she heard the taunts. But she didn't act upon anything. So, Clint figured it was a good idea to push her some more. "Oh, was all the advice that Loki gave you stuff that people have already done? Do you know how many times I've been tortured? Nothing is new."
"Getting turned into a hawk was new," Amora scoffed. Clint laughed.
"That was supposed to be torture? Do you realize how much fun I had flying around? That's been a dream of mine since I was a kid," Clint laughed. Amora grunted.
"Well, then. Maybe I should turn you into a mouse and release you into your regular room," Amora threatened. Clint was a second away from laughing at her pitiful threat until he remembered that the other two hawks were in his room. His face paled as he flash back to Lex's aggressive attack on the feeder mice that Pepper got for him. Amora smiled. "Don't like that idea, do you?"
"Sounds like some sort of Disney movie," Clint remarked, faking a yawn and hiding the wince as his ribs began to hurt again. He paused for a moment. "Oh wait, maybe I'm thinking of something else."
"Fine, how about pain constantly coursing through your body?"
"Talking about electrocuting me? Been there, done that."
"Magic induced pain?"
"Loki tried when I first started trying to disobey him. Didn't work then, won't work now."
"I have an idea," she whispered before waving a hand slowly across Clint's form. Clint frowned when nothing happened. At least for a few minutes nothing happened, then there were several loud cracks just before the pain hit and Clint screamed. His body was in so much pain and when he tried to relax he found his bones shifting unnaturally. She had broken literality every bone in his body.
"STOP IT! PLEASE!" Pepper's voice suddenly rang through the room. Clint groaned as he tried to focus on not moving and causing more damage. Amora dropped her hand and the pain in his body vanished. Reeling from the sudden lack of pain, Clint looked down at his arm before gently shifting it. This time his arm moved in one piece and wasn't painful.
"Oh yes, I forgot about you, little miss," Amora purred as she looked about the room. Clint moaned as he shifted more towards a sitting position and was surprised by the fact that Amora had unknowingly healed his broken rib. He shook his head, trying to forget his current thoughts and focused more on the fact that Amora was looking around for the innocent Pepper. "Where did you go?"
"Leave her alone. She isn't involved in this," Clint growled as he began to move into a standing position. Amora waved her hand toward Clint in a dismissive gesture and Clint felt his throat tighten in response. He couldn't breath, nor could he talk. In a reflexive manor, Clint grabbed at his throat, trying to relax the muscles so he could breath. Beside him, he heard a female voice begin to sob softly. Lightly shaking his head at Pepper, Clint tried to tell her to be silent without Amora seeing. But when the Enchantress focused on him, her eyes narrowed.
"There you are," she whispered before her hand moved up and suddenly Pepper appeared at his side. Her green eyes were wide in fear as she noticed that now she could be seen again. But what was worse, Amora was focused solely on her. Clint shifted to stand in front of Pepper but his lack of breathing made him crouch lower then she felt safe with. "I had plans on leaving you alone. But, now you are interfering."
"Please, I didn't do anything to you," Pepper begged before looking down at the still chocking Clint. He had now dropped back to his knees. Amora followed her gaze and snarled before waving her hand again and Clint took in a deep gasping breath. "I don't even understand why you feel that Clint needs to suffer."
"Because of him, Loki has been thrown in Asgardian jail! DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM THERE?" Amora screamed at Pepper. The woman winced at the loud tone but shook her head. Thor never mentioned how his brother was being treated. "They are torturing him, painfully."
"De... Deserves... It," Clint gasped out as he rubbed his throat as if someone have been holding it tight. Amora hissed at Clint before snapping her hand up, catching Clint in her magic and tossing both him and her hand across the room. Clint quickly flew through the air and slammed into the opposing wall with such force, the plaster cracked. Pepper let out a soft squeak before rushing over to the archer's prone form on the ground.
"Loki was controlled just like he was! He told me that he antagonized the 'Avengers' before the big fight so that he knew they'd be angry enough to fight well," Amora explained in a loathful tone. Pepper looked up at the Enchantress in surprise. That had never been mentioned before. "Oh, your friend Thor never told you that? Never mentioned that his 'brother' had been under the influence of the Chitauri?"
"But if that is true, why is him imprisoned?" Pepper asked, trying to figure out the reasons behind the Asgardian court. Amora snarled and spun away.
"Loki had been sent to the Chitauri when he was already being punished. The All-Father decided that if sending Loki away was not safe, then keeping him contained would be better," Amora answered as Clint began to reawaken. He caught the end of her explanation and frowned.
"Oh yeah. He's so... contained there... that's why he was... able to come and... rape me... after being imprisoned," Clint groaned out, pausing every now and then from pain. Pepper lightly placed a hand on his back as he shifted to stare at the magical woman. Amora smiled.
"Yes, well. Things have changed," she responded but Clint realized that even though Amora knew Loki had raped him, he didn't think she knew when it was that he did. Frowning, he watched as her eyes shifted away from him and seemed to look around as she thought deeply about something. Clint smirked.
"Didn't know... That he came to visit... Me after, did you?" he muttered. Amora snarled before her hand was raised toward the two.
"You are so annoying!" she snapped before a large ball of magic was sent straight toward both Clint and Pepper. Clint didn't even have time to push Pepper out of the way before it slammed into them and the fire spread across his body once again. In the back of his mind, he swore that he heard Pepper's cry of pain just as he blacked out.
It was maybe another thirty minutes after Clint and Pepper were attacked by Amora until the other Avengers were finally able to return to the tower. When they entered the elevator to head up to the living room, JARVIS informed them that his systems had been hacked and hence he had been unable to warn them that Amora had attacked. Hearing that, everyone feared for the worse but when they entered the living room, everything seemed normal.
"Clint?" Natasha cried out into the room as soon as she noticed that the hawk wasn't quickly spotted. Tony was wandering around toward the other side of the room, but his mind was focused on the other person who had been there when Amora attacked.
"Pepper! Peps, where are you?" Tony nearly shouted into the room. Bruce, Steve and Thor silently made their way about the room. The three were unsure which name to call so they looked silently.
"Clint?" Natasha called out again before the entire group heard a soft kree-ing from the corner nearest to the hall they had all just entered from. They all spun to see the large mass of feathers. "Clint, oh my god."
Clint slowly woke to Natasha's voice and tried to shift but the pain he had been feeling as a human had transferred with him. Mentally groaning and moaning, Clint shifted but froze when he noticed what was laying beside him. Having gotten rather used to being in his hawk form now, he understood what his feathers looked like. But the thing beside him was a bundle of whitish gray feathers. Breathing deeper then before in shock, Clint tried to focus as to what it might be.
"Pepper?" he squawked just as Natasha reached him and began to lift him away from the now waking, smaller bird.
"Oh my god! Tony, I think I found Pepper," Natasha said as she stared at the shifting form that had been below her partner. Tony rushed over, looking relieved.
"Is she o... What the fuck?" Tony snapped when he spotted the now shrunken form of his girlfriend. The bird looked up with blurry eyes and seemed slightly unfocused.
"T... Tony?" the little creature asked as it blinked its eyes to try and clear away the blur. Clint rolled his eyes as his mind caught up with him. The little bird that he was staring at was a small cockatiel.
"Of course you'd get turned into a talking bird," Clint groaned. Pepper snapped to attention, her eyes now completely focused as she looked at Clint who was now cuddled into Natasha's arms.
"I'm a bird?" she questioned, sounding much more like Pepper then before. There was a loud thud as Tony dropped down to his knees and seemingly looked as though he had passed out but when he reached for his girlfriend, everyone realized he was just in shock. But Clint was worse.
"You can understand me?"
So, another chapter down. As mentioned before, this story is complete and I'm working on the new one but who knows when I'll finish the new one. But basically, hope you enjoyed this one.
Until next time!