"I suppose things may have started at my brother's coronation," Loki huffed, seriously thinking about it. Clint sighed deeply even as Thor raised an eyebrow. The thunderer hadn't expected the events of last year would contribute to the change in the future. What made that event so special? He wasn't the only one confused. Phil, Hill, Fury and Natasha seemed just as confused. Bucky, having known what happened after speaking with both Thor and Clint, honestly wasn't surprised.
"New Mexico. You sent the Destroyer. Most of us know that," Fury snapped. Loki snorted, entirely unsurprised. Outside of everyone, only Steve, Tony and Pepper seemed confused. Tony and Pepper knew that something had happened in New Mexico a year ago but they hadn't been able to seriously look into it before it was covered up. And as it never pertained to anything Tony was fully interested in, he never thought to follow through checking it out.
"But, it is the after Thor returned to Asgard that you are unaware of. To put it simply, we fought and destroyed the Bifrost," Loki informed. Phil, Fury and Hill raised their eyebrows. If the Bifrost was broken, how did Thor return?
"It has since been fixed," Thor grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. Loki rolled his eyes but nodded. They didn't technically need to know that bit. It was more important as to what happened during the destruction.
"During the fight and destruction, I... I fell from the Bifrost in into the Void," Loki informed. There were a few raised eyebrows. Including Clint's and Bucky's. While Clint knew the basics of what happened to Loki, he hadn't really heard the terminology. "The Void would likely be what you consider normal space. But that is not as important as the fact that during this fall, I ended in the clutches of a very powerful alien named Thanos."
"The Mad Titan," Thor whispered as if it made a difference that the other knew of Thanos's nickname. Loki ignored him. They'd get back to that in time.
"Thanos has been going throughout the universe and killing half the population of a planet in the belief that he is saving everyone by cutting down the need for the amount of resources to survive," Clint added before Loki could. He figured it couldn't hurt to mention a bit more about Thanos now. Thor raised an eyebrow, glancing over to Clint before back to Loki. How could Odin have allowed Thanos to gain such power? Why had he done nothing?
"Brother-" Loki raised a hand up, cutting the thunderer off. Thor made a small face that was mostly a half pout, half disappointed face.
"Before you continue, we need to move on. There is much to discuss." Thor nodded, mentally noting that he'd go back to this subject at a later point. Seeing that Thor was going to drop it, Loki focused on the rest of the room. "I was held captive by Thanos for a year. During this year he tortured and did all he could to destroy my mind. The Scepter that you collected from me while at the..."
"Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility, or Pegasus base," Clint offered. Loki nodded. He had never really known the name of the place. Nor had he needed too considering the building had always been destroyed soon after the trickster arrived. Clint suddenly turned thoughtful before looking at Fury. "Which, while I'm thinking about that. What happened to that and the Tesseract?"
"They had been going to be transported to the Fridge," Fury answered but frowned when Clint and Bucky winced. But before they could explain, Fury continued. He wasn't all that stupid. The fact that Clint's capture had indicated Hydra in S.H.I.E.L.D's ranks made the Director realize that certain things would not be safe. "I have since sent them to secret location that only a few are aware of."
"Providence?" Clint questioned, unable to help himself. Fury's eye narrowed on the archer. Clint winced. "Sorry. Sorry. But, yeah. They're safe there."
"If I may continue," Loki huffed, though it was clear that he wasn't upset with the interruption. It was nice to know where the stones where. Fury and Clint nodded, Clint mostly as if he had been reprimanded and Fury as if it was a problem in letting Loki continue. "The Scepter is an Infinity Stone."
"I'm sorry. You mentioned that before," Steve muttered, shaking his head. There was too much getting piled on at once and too many questions. Loki pursed his lips at the interruption once again. "What is that?"
"They are six stones that are basically the fabric of the universe. Space, Mind, Time, Reality, Power and Soul," Bucky stated before Loki or Clint could speak up. "As of this moment, three of the stones are on Earth."
"Is that why you came?" Fury demanded, glaring at Loki. The trickster sighed deeply.
"During Thanos's time with me, he made me weak enough to be affected by the Mind Stone inside the Scepter," Loki said. Fury raised an eyebrow.
"And how do we know you aren't now?" Tony countered. Thor stepped forward, ready to defend his brother but Loki simply waved a hand at him. While Loki appreciated Thor trying to defend him, getting into a fight over this would not do well. Besides, it was a valid question and one that Loki was actually rather pleased to have asked. If the group had just blindly trusted them all, Loki wasn't sure he'd trust them back. Clint and Bucky seemed to be of the same opinion though Clint did look slightly bothered by the implication.
"His eyes would be electric blue," Clint stated before anything could seriously happen. "Think I might have a video on my phone."
"You keep a video of you being under control on your phone?" Bucky asked, looking to him. Clint shrugged. It had helped with his therapy for the longest time. Seeing the eye change was a way to remind himself that he was not in control during all those moments. But, he had long since deleted the video until Loki came and told them about going back. There had been no way Clint wasn't going to go back without proof. Video was pretty good proof. In response to Clint's words, Phil snatched the bag that held the collection of items that had been taken from Clint. It had been sitting on the ground between himself and Hill. Clint all but jumped forward to get the items, laying them out on the back of the couch. The first bag he opened was of course the phone and he mentally made note to grab the kimoyo beads soon.
"Do you even know if that has battery?" Natasha wondered. Clint glanced up at her before turning and focusing back on the phone. "You are bad at charging things."
"Stark tech," Bucky and Clint replied. Tony perked up, moving closer but before he could, Bucky headed over, taking his own phone out of his pocket. He placed it down on the counter and slid it over to the genius.
"We never tested it getting frozen, but here's mine," he told the genius. Tony looked at it before looking back up to Bucky. Those who knew Tony just stared at Bucky, surprised. Bucky looked at them all before frowning. What had he done that was so special? It had been so common place before that he never thought about it anymore. "What?"
"I believe they are surprised you know about Stark's inability to take whatever is handed to him," Loki pointed out. Bucky rolled his eyes even as Clint let out a victorious cry, dragging everyone's attention away from Bucky and Tony. Slowly, the Sergeant headed back over to Steve side. The Captain was rather tense but being with both Bucky and Clint seemed to help him keep slightly calm. At least he knew the two of them well enough. Well enough to believe a lot of this outlandish story.
"JARVIS, could you-" Clint started but stopped when the television turned on. Apparently even with it being future tech, JARVIS could link into it. Just a credit to Tony's ingenuity. Clint smiled. Tony made a surprised hum, finally grabbing Bucky's phone and looking it over. He hadn't expected future tech to be so easily link-able. But then again, it was him. "Thanks."
"You are welcome, Agent Barton. I believe the file you are speaking of is this one," JARVIS intoned before the image of the video appeared on the screen. Clint nodded before looking away. He didn't need to see it again. The image wasn't of him directly so they needed to play a bit of it. It was actually the image of the now destroyed base. Fury glowered at it as the thing played. Everything was pretty much as Fury remembered it happening until Loki actually arrived. This time, everyone could see that the trickster looked abused, tired and overall unhealthy. There was a clear conversation going on before the S.H.I.E.L.D agents began shooting. The Loki in the video quickly attacked back with the energy from the Scepter.
The room filled with tension as they watched Loki decimate all the agents in the room until going right to Clint. He touched the Scepter to the archer's chest and suddenly the image zoomed in thanks to JARVIS. It showed Clint's eyes going quickly black before clearing to a bright electric blue. The same color of Loki's eyes in the video. Then the video cut out. Clint sighed deeply. He was glad JARVIS cut it then. If the AI had let it continue, everyone would have seen him shoot Fury and he wasn't sure how well that would go over.
"What was that?" Tony cried having had Pepper smack him in order to pay attention to the video. And he was glad that she did. He had never expected anything like what he just saw. Natasha, Fury, Hill and Phil made sure to quickly scan the eyes of Bucky, Clint and Loki. Thor gave a light growl, not enjoying the fact that Loki had not been under his own power. Even if it was the trickster's past. Seeing that Clint was tense, Bucky stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. Clint reached up and grabbed it, glad for the grounding.
"He used the Mind stone on me and took over my mind. The actions that I did from that point on were as if he was my leader. I was completely devoted to him and his mission," Clint told them, slowly looking up to focus on nearly everyone. Steve shifted to stand at Clint's other side, noting the same distress that Bucky had. Phil and Natasha both shifted. They wanted to comfort the archer as well, but they needed more answers before they could believe this wasn't a trick of some kind. Especially knowing that Loki could do magic. "I got out of it when Nat gave me cognitive recalibration." There were a bunch of dull and confused looks. "She hit me really hard in the head."
"Okay, so what happened after that mess?" Hill demanded to know, waving her hand to the video in order to get them all back on track. Loki looked to Clint, wondering if the archer would explain the rest of this. Clint took a deep breath, his mind falling into the memories for a moment. Bucky squeezed his shoulder slightly, drawing him back. Nodding, Clint answered.
"I brought Loki, the Tesseract, Dr. Selvig and a few others to a unused base that would safely keep us hidden. Here Selvig was able to finish building the harness device for the Tesseract. But, to truly get enough energy to harness it, they needed to come here. To the Tower."
"Wait, what?" Tony hissed, dropping Bucky's phone as he had gone back to fiddling with it. Pepper frowned deeply, not liking that news either. "What do you mean you came to the tower?"
"Technically, Loki was held captive on the Helicarrier and I was about to attack it when Selvig came here. The Arc Reactor gave the device enough energy to open a hole to the other side of space."
"That doesn't sound good," Steve whispered. Clint and Bucky nodded.
"An alien race working with Thanos called the Chitauri came through and attacked New York. But..." Clint trailed off.
"The Avengers were able to stop them," Bucky finished. Fury raised an eyebrow. He and Phil had been working on marking the people he wanted for the group. And with these people being from the future, he could see many of his choices were correct ones. "Steve Rogers," Bucky started, pointing to his friend and then to Tony. "Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Thor, Clint Barton and Bruce Banner."
"Banner?" Phil repeated, surprised. Fury and him had discussed the idea of including Banner and Hulk, but in the end rejected the idea as Hulk was too much of a wild card. There was no good way of knowing if they could contain him to fighting the proper enemies. Bucky nodded as Clint let out a shaking sigh and looking up to everyone. "But-"
"He's in Calcutta and he likely won't come for a while. The main reason he was here was because you guys needed his knowledge of gamma radiation to track the Tesseract," Clint explained. Everyone focused on him. It was clear they were wondering why he never thought to ask for Banner before. "I don't want to scare him off just yet."
"So, you're saying things are going to get worse?" Natasha asked. Clint frowned, unsure how to answer. He shrugged, dislodging Bucky's supporting hand.
"Honestly, I have no idea if the people we face after this will still come to existence or if they needed this event to be a push in that direction," Clint muttered, glancing to Loki.
"Many still come," Loki admitted, thinking of the few experiences he could fully remember.
"Wait, why would you know but he wouldn't?" Tony questioned, point to Loki and then to Clint.
"Uh..." Clint eloquently replied.
"That is jumping far to far ahead and I suggest we wait before we get to that part," Loki pointed out. "There are other things we should discuss."
"Okay, keep going then," Tony huffed, waving a hand in an annoying way that made it seem like they were wasting his time. Clint rolled his eyes as Pepper gave him a soft chastising huff. Tony ignored her, focusing on the phone once again. Not that it wasn't any different then normal. The only ones seriously phased by this reaction was Steve and Thor. Everyone else knew of Tony's idiosyncrasy.
"After we defeated the Chitauri," Clint continued, pointedly skipping over Loki's name. If he looked, he would have noticed a small twitch in Loki's facade that showed he was grateful. "Thor took Loki to Asgard for judgement and we kinda... Tony, you invited all of us to live here. In the tower."
"I did what now?" Tony called, looking up in surprise.
"He did what now?" Pepper called at the same time.
"He did that willingly?" Fury inquired a moment later. Clint nodded.
"I must have gotten hit on the head too many times," Tony defended himself, looking away.
"Actually, you had become friends with them," Bucky muttered. There was a long pause after that as people looked to Tony. The genius was giving Clint and Bucky a confused and surprised look before he glanced to the file that Hill had brought with her. It was the same file that held the photos from Clint's phone of Tony hanging around with Clint and Bucky. Kind of hard to fight that amount of proof. Just like the photos his father had of Clint from the war.
"Okay. So that explains how Loki is involved with all this. But where does the Winter Soldier fit?" Natasha wondered, waving a hand toward Bucky. Bucky winced. He really wished that she would cool it with that. It wasn't the name that bothered him. More the way she said it. Clint glanced to him quickly before looking to Natasha, his eyes narrowed a bit in anger. Bucky really didn't need her ire right now. She raised an eyebrow in surprise at the archer's reaction.
"That would have happened two years from now. Fury," Clint started, knowing they were technically skipping a lot of stories. Most didn't seem likely to effect what was to come, but who knew. In fact, Loki didn't seem all to pleased with the interruption but said nothing. If there was anything else, apparently it wasn't all that important to Thanos. "You began to notice things were wrong and started an investigation into S.H.I.E.L.D. In doing so, you became a threat to Hydra. So, they used a brainwashed Winter Soldier to go after you."
"Brainwashed?" Natasha echoed, surprised. Phil, Hill and Fury glanced to Natasha before focusing on Bucky and Clint.
"Think of seventy years of memory wipes," Bucky suggested, crossing his arms over his chest. He never really felt comfortable talking about all of this but he knew it was important. Steve stepped up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. There was no way he'd let his friend suffer. Clint, having his own issues with all the idea of a memory wipe, wasn't able to help. "You went through it, what. Twice?"
Natasha fought to hold the chill that ran up her spine when she remembered the Chair. Bucky was right. She hadn't gone through that many memory wipes. It was a bit more then two, but she wasn't fully certain as to how many times. Either that or she had simply seen the Chair more than twice. Either way, she knew what Bucky was talking about.
"Memory wipes?" Tony wondered. Clint grabbed his discarded phone once again and started looking through. Everything was easier with proof rather than words.
"Don't tell me you have the schematics of the damn thing," Bucky snarled. Clint looked up. Everyone was giving him an odd look. Many of which looked disproving of the idea. Sighing, he turned to Bucky. It wasn't that he wanted to have the schematics. It was more proof that he wanted and maybe a way for Tony to build the reverse of the machine in case Hydra used it on anyone.
"Loki fucking tells us we're going back into the past and you seriously didn't think to download a whole bunch of shit that you don't understand?" Clint countered. Bucky paused for a moment before tilting his head in acknowledgement. While it sucked that Clint had the schematics, he understood the need for it. A throat was cleared which drew Bucky's and Clint's attention to Fury. "Oh, sorry. Nat and Steve released all S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra files onto the internet to show the world Hydra existed."
"WHAT!" numerous voices cried at once. Clint winced before rubbing the back of his ears. It had been a long time since the hearing aids had bothered him in such a way. Then again, he also hadn't been electrocuted as much as he been recently. It was amazing they had lasted this long so far, Stark/FitzSimmons tech or not.
"Are you okay?" Pepper asked, drawing attention to the archer's movements. Clint looked to her surprised. He had honestly forgotten she was still here. Bucky shifted forward, a bit worried now as well. Steve frowned. Loki focused all his attention on the archer, curious as to what had bothered him.
"Yeah, sorry. I'm deaf now," Clint explained, waving briefly at his ears before looking about the room. Only Thor, Pepper, Fury and Hill seemed bothered by this news. Everyone else either knew before or had heard the news from Steve.
"How do you think we found you?" Bucky mumbled. Clint raised an eyebrow before glancing toward Tony and humming a bit in surprise and then turned back to the phone. He'd focus on that bit later.
"There, JARVIS," Clint called. Again the TV turned on and showed the files of the Winter Soldier. One image in particular being Bucky strapped to the Chair. Natasha couldn't stop her slight wince at the sight. Even Clint made a face at it. Bucky didn't even look. Clint then bit his lip and looked to Bucky. It took the Sergeant a minute before understanding what Clint was going to have an issue with. He sighed. This was the Sergeant's story to tell. Not Loki or Clint.
Darius is doing well. Still a pain in the butt pretty often but better. I've been giving in a bit more in ignoring things I need to be doing to deal with him. Mostly due to checking over all my stories to see how much I have written and realizing that the series is nearly nine months ahead. Tee hee. Working on a few other stories as well (including the Trapped in S.H.I.E.L.D story) but seeing as no one really knows about them, I can take as long as I need/want. I really need to focus though on the important stories, like my originals... *sigh*