"Hey Barney," Tony snickered. Clint froze, gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turned white despite the purple. "There are some kids outside. Shouldn't you be out there singing about friendship with them?"

He was not going to react. He wasn't. Very slowly and calmly, Clint picked up his coffee and headed back in the direction of his room. "No."

"I need you to put a curse on Fury."

"Why?" Loki turned the page of his SmartPak catalog without looking up, trying to remember which nutrients Midgardian grain was low in.

"He's getting on my nerves."

"Isn't he usually?"

"Yes, which is exactly why you should put a curse on him." Tony tugged on the catalog distracting his boyfriend from the all-important matter at hand. "What's this?"

"Horse supplements. Grain here is slightly different from in Asgard." Loki tugged it back. "Do you have something in mind?"

"What about bees?"

"Meh. Impractical. If they're easy to get rid of, they don't achieve anything. If they're hard to get rid of I practically guarantee someone is going to wind up in anaphylactic shock. What are you trying to achieve here?"

Tony all but flopped onto the arm of Loki's chair. "I don't know. Annoy him. Embarrass him. Generally mess with him. Something like that."

"Make him look somehow foolish?" Loki asked, putting down the catalog. He wasn't going to get anything done with Tony in this kind of mood.

"Yes!"

"Okay. Hmm. How about making him talk funny for a day?"

"I like it. Thick foreign accent?"

"Could work."

"No. Better. Valley girl."

Loki grinned. "He's going to be so pissed."

"See you later Barney!" Tony sing-songed as he skipped out the door, a half-amused half-exasperated Loki trailing in his wake and protesting something about not needing to go outside.

Quietly fuming, Clint set down the tupperware that he had been examining of what had been leftover wild rice when he'd put it in the fridge last night but now appeared to be live ants and headed for the gym.

Fuck Stark. Fuck him. Clint pounded the punching bag. That joke wasn't funny. Clint did not want to think about his brother. Or the circus. He didn't want to think about any of it. Barney's scornful face as he walked away had hurt more than the broken bones as he lay there on the ground beneath the high wire.

He couldn't not see it now, couldn't not relive pulling the mask off of the guard that he had just injured and seeing his brother. That haunted him just as much.

Even his memories of their childhood, before everything, when things were happy still haunted him.

A particularly vicious punch sent the bag rebounding, hard, and in his distracted state he didn't react in time and it knocked him down, knocking the wind out of him.

"You alright?" Loki came into view, offering him a hand. "That tactless boyfriend of mine seemed to hit a nerve."

"You're back quick." Clint huffed, but he accepted the hand getting up.

"And you were pretty zoned out. But yes, teleportation makes travel very quick. Do you need me to have a word with Tony?"

"I can handle it." Clint scowled. "It just gets under my skin when he calls me Barney because that was my brother's name and, well, painful memories."

"Ah. I can sympathize."

"Can you?" Clint asked harshly, unwrapping the tape from his hands.

"If you recall, the first thing that anyone said when I introduced myself after coming through the portal was to ask if I was Thor's brother. We have our share of...emotionally charged history."

"You miss him." Clint looked up, surprised.

"Yes. The last time that I saw him before being captured and mindcontrolled, we were carried away with a fight that although it had started with good intentions had become rather childish on both our parts. Even though I question his readiness to rule and even though I am adopted, we were still raised as brothers."

"Does he know you were not acting voluntarily?"

Loki shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe the Chitauri kidnapping me back tipped him off, or maybe he thought it a planned escape."

"He comes to visit sometimes, you know. You'll see him again, eventually. Have you thought about how you'll show him that you're you again?"

Loki half-smiled. "I suppose by doing something that is exactly the sort of thing that I would do. Would you care to come help me install a lightning rod on the roof, Agent Barton?"

On their way past the workshop, Clint stuck his head in. "Tony, I just want you to know that it triggers bad memories when you call me Barney, and if you do it again I will shove an arrow so far up your ass you'll need surgery to get it out."

Tony looked up at him. "Why would I? You're not purple anymore."

I'm really having a hard time with this story, to be honest. Yes, I'm busy with work, but I just don't have a lot of ideas for this one. I mean, I have a list, but I'm having trouble coming up with how to execute the things on it. (Sorry guys.) Please keep making suggestions, though! I want to see this one out. And if you have any ideas for how dancing or fencing could go hilariously wrong for them, I'd love to hear them.

Also, I'm now caught up on the MCU. OMG Winter Soldier. There's a new fic in the poll, which is my current obsession. I might've discovered pinterest, and it might have given me a ton of inspiration for things to be addressed as Bucky regains his memory post-CATWS, so if you want to see that then go vote for it.