CHAPTER 12 - We'll Be Out Here Forever
"Are you certain it was like before?" Loki basically whined, looking over Clint, still left in 'stasis.' Quill sighed.
"It took us nearly a week to get back to Xandar. But, coming here to get you again, it only took a day, like it would normally take. It was also easy to arrive at Molea. Yes, it was like before," Quill summarized. Loki winced. He really had hoped that Clint could have returned home. It was unfair that the archer was stuck out here. Maybe... Maybe he should just risk using the Tesseract. He had wanted to protect Clint, but was making him live in space equal to a possible reaction to the magic of the Infinity Stone? "Look, you said you'd wake him if we couldn't do anything."
"I..." Loki started but trailed off. With a deep, deep sigh, Loki headed over to Clint and undid his spell. There was only a split second before Clint reacted and all he did was sock Loki with a very hard punch to the face. Loki stumbled back, shocked. Quill moved a step forward, ready to stop them from fighting. Between both of the magic and their fighting skills, the man doubted the Milano would pull through unscathed.
"You ever fucking do that again, I won't be liable for what happens after," the archer snarled, his eyes dark and dangerous. Loki winced, terrified about what he had done to the archer. The other guardian froze. He had never expected Clint to look so dangerous and frightening. "That spell doesn't fucking put one to sleep. It just froze my body. I could hear everything."
"I... I apologize. I had never been able to use that spell on a person. Mostly I practiced on animals," Loki admitted, stunned that he had not only betrayed Clint's trust like this but also put Clint in such a hard position. Clint shook his head and walked off, not walking to talk to the trickster anymore. It was moments like this that Clint seriously hated magic. Even if the purpose of the spell had been to get him home, it wasn't right.
"Wow, you really fucked that up," Quill muttered. Loki nodded.
"Yes. I did," Loki whispered and headed off to his bunk. He didn't want to speak to anyone. Quill frowned and headed out to see Clint standing at the cockpit, staring out at the stars. Slowly, he approached the archer.
"Clint?" Quill wondered. Clint sighed.
"I'll forgive him. He had good intentions," Clint said to the unanswered question. Quill moved to stand beside the archer.
"Any idea who would refuse you going back?" Quill asked, changing the subject.
"I don't think I made... Maybe the Chitauri," Clint mumbled, looking over to the guardian. Quill grimaced.
"Seriously?"
"Loki... When he came to Earth to steal the Tesseract, he had an army. An army of Chitauri. My friends and I beat them and... And sent a nuke to their face," Clint explained running a hand over his face, head and then down to the back of his neck. Quill frowned and considering Thor having questioned the weapon after the battle, the archer figured Quill had no idea what he meant. "A gigantic bomb."
"Ah."
"But, I'd think they'd be more mad at Loki then me. He promised them an easy fight and we gave them one hell of a fight. We did nearly lose, but we pulled it out in the end," Clint added. Quill nodded, not willing to admit that the Chitauri could have been destroyed from the start by blowing up their ship.
"You sound like a strong team," the guardian pointed out. Clint snorted.
"That was our first fight as a team," the archer chuckled. Quill laughed.
"Yeah, when we got the Orb, that was kinda our first fight as well. We... We met in prison and kinda escaped together. Then... We just never really split up," Quill replied. Clint smirked.
"Sounds about right. Seems like everyone kinda meets in a bad spot," Clint continued. Quill nodded before frowning.
"Hey, you mentioned Loki being different from when you first met him. What do you mean?" the guardian wondered. Clint sighed.
"Loki... Loki had been tortured for nearly a year. Thanos... Thanos had the Mind Stone in the Scepter. He used it on Loki and sent him to collect the Tesseract and open a portal to Earth so they had easy access to Asgard. When Loki came through to Earth, he... He used the Mind Stone on me. I... I became a shell of myself that only wanted to please him. But, I noticed things. He never rested, he couldn't fully think straight and often times he'd enter this trance state. Whenever he got out of it, he looked worse," Clint explained.
"How did you get free?"
"Natasha. She... She bashed my head really hard," Clint answered. Quill winced. "Yeah. Well, after that, we fought the Chitauri. When that battle finished, we found Loki in Tony's tower. His... His eyes had changed color, much like mine had. I didn't realize that until Thor had already brought Loki to Asgard for punishment."
"And, how did he get free?"
"Honestly... I never really got the full story. Thor just kinda came back, said he likely wouldn't leave us and mentioned Loki was dead."
"But-"
"Yeah... Well, he is a trickster and the 'god of mischief and chaos.'" Clint responded. Quill huffed a laugh. "I'm guessing illusion magic or something. Again, I don't have much of the story after that. Just know that around a couple years ago, Thor sent out a distress call to Earth asking for shelter. We granted it and built a nice little village for the survivors. When they arrived... Well, that's when I encountered the Soul Stone."
"Oh?" Quill questioned, shifting now cause he figured this was going to be a long story. Clint huffed.
"Unbeknownst to Thor and Loki, their father had had a girl before either of them. She... She was like a war hungry monster that demanded Asgard. She's one of the reasons Asgard was destroyed. Well, when she died and headed to 'Hel' she somehow sent something to me... Made it that when Thor and Loki came within my presence, I'd... I think I was supposed to actually die as she didn't originally have the Soul Stone..."
"Jeez," Quill sighed out in surprise, eyes wide. This poor guy couldn't catch a break. Clint nodded.
"Anyways... I... Come to find out it was just that my soul had been removed from my body. Hela, Loki's sister, she was in control of the stone. To distract me, she kept throwing me in my memories but twisting them, changing it so I'd suffer. When it didn't work, she took Loki's soul and we started living through his memories," Clint described. He then huffed a laugh. "Her comeuppance was far shorter and easier than it should have been but we got her."
"And coming across the Space Stone?" Quill asked. Clint snorted.
"It was in the river bed by my house," the archer lightly laughed out. "We... We were out searching for rocks. Coop... He found this rock that he wanted to show me. But when Loki saw it, he told Cooper to freeze. By the time Loki and I had gotten close enough to try and take it from him, he... He somehow activated it and Loki and I were... Weren't on Earth."
"You guys made it to nearly the other side of the galaxy," Quill mentioned. Clint sighed, hanging his head.
"Kinda just my luck," Clint chuckled. Quill sighed, moving so he was leaning on one of the seats and staring at Clint.
"How much have you gone through?" Quill inquired. Clint exhaled what could have been considered a laugh.
"Too much."
"So, what's next?" Clint asked later that day during what could be considered 'dinner.' Everyone had gathered and Loki was pleased to see that Clint allowed the trickster to be near him. But he wasn't going to press his luck by bothering the archer over what happened between them. Clint would come to him about it rather than Loki bringing it up himself.
"I say, if we can't get you schmucks home, we just go back to collecting bounties," Rocket suggested. "We already found that if we go to places that can't get these losers home, we don't get slowed down."
"And if a bounty leads you closer to a planet near Earth? Or Knowhere?" Clint countered. Rocket shrugged. Clint sighed and turned to look at Loki. Neither one of them wanted to mention that Loki had the Tesseract but that was really looking like the only choice.
"Clint does have a point. We need to do something. Figure out what is holding us back when we try," Quill added. "We aren't ditching them on some random planet and go about our lives."
"Who says we can't?" Rocket muttered. Quill gave the raccoon a quelling look.
"Quill, I'm sorry, but we have to be realistic about all of this. What if we can't find out who is delaying us? What if it stays like this?" Gamora wondered. She looked to Clint and Loki with a sympathetic gaze. "I'm not saying it's something we should do now, but it has to be put out there."
"I agree. We don't want to hinder your lives any more than we already have," Loki agreed. Clint huffed. "It is very strange that we are being held back without having the slightest clue who would be involved."
"Clint mentioned the Chitauri?" Quill guessed. While he knew how to defeat them (thanks to Yondu's gossip), he never had encountered them to see how smart they were. Loki sighed as Gamora's gaze hardened.
"No. They don't have the ability to do anything like this. My bet is still placed on Thanos, but I am unsure why Clint would be delayed without me," Loki answered.
"I haven't pissed off any other alien... Or... I don't think I have," Clint stated but paused, trying hard to think. "I... No one really mentioned what they were or anything and most times we just thought they could be science experiments gone wrong. Any of those could have been an alien and we just didn't know."
"But you said the others were stronger than you," Rocket pointed out. Clint nodded.
"Doesn't mean they won't go after me. I mean, look at yourselves. Out of all of you, who would you say is the 'least' threatening?" Clint questioned. Everyone turned to Quill.
"Hey," Quill whined.
"Okay, now, the rest of you. Would you go and save him?" Clint tried. The group said nothing which made Quill whine out another 'hey.' "Be honest." Slowly the group nodded their heads, which had Quill coo out an 'ah, guys.' "Okay, now with Quill captured by your worst enemy, you would be willing to go into the den of the beast to get him. If a group finds out your 'weakness' they will exploit it. So, if my friends and I pissed off any alien species, they'd likely jump at the chance to keep me away."
"But if your friends don't know?" Gamora wondered.
"Then... This is all a waste of their time and energy," Clint replied with a shrug.
"Your attitude is very odd," Mantis mumbled, her head tilted to the side. Clint's eyes flicked to her but didn't linger. While Clint wasn't obvious about his continued discomfort, he was slowly becoming civil with her. Even if fifty percent of the time he just didn't speak to her. Thankfully Mantis seemed to be respectful of his ire.
"He's a very odd human," Loki replied. Clint turned to give the Lie-smith a faux angry glare.
"Alright, well, for now we get some bounties?" Rocket asked. Everyone agreed.
Loki and Clint had now been traveling around the galaxy with the guardians for nearly half a year. The slowing of the Milano was mostly centered around planets close to the Nine Realms area or if they made their destination Earth. They couldn't even get in range for Loki to send out a signal for help. But through this whole time, they never got any closer to figure out what was going on. Then suddenly, they were even able to return to Knowhere, which surprised everyone when they did it in normal time, but there they learned Cosmo's way to help send Clint and Loki home had been destroyed. They figured that must have been why they could return to Knowhere.
Taking bounties from all around was actually very interesting for Clint. Through the whole time, Loki kept teaching him different spells that would help in battle. Ironically, there were times that Clint actually asked to learn something that had nothing to do with battle. Loki was careful of course. He didn't want to rush Clint and certainly didn't want to push the archer away now that he had gotten so close to being good with the idea of using magic. Rocket on the other hand had made it his personal mission to make Clint as uncomfortable as possible with his spell work. That was until Loki had a 'practice' illusion chase the raccoon all over the Milano. Quill had also taken a rather keen interest in watching Clint practice. But he was wise enough to not upset either magic user.
"That's good," Loki praised when he felt the protection spell falling over him. Clint huffed an exhausted breath. This was a highly complicated spell and not really one that would be taught to a user as inept as Clint, but Loki figured sticking with 'battle' spells would work best for Clint's mindset, unless the archer asked for different. One thing they had also worked on was Clint shutting off his magic from draining the spell work used on him. That had to happen faster than planned after one incident where Clint almost accidentally drained Loki to the point of death. Other spells they hadn't been focused on enough for Clint to try and do them on his own.
"I need two... To keep it?" Clint gasped. Loki frowned. Clint already was focusing on the magic block and now the first protection spell. To add a second protection spell was likely something the archer wasn't ready for.
"To keep it on without concentration, yes. But that is far more complicated than I think you are ready for. You would need to concentrate on the first casting while also concentrating on the second," Loki informed. Clint growled and shifted. Loki frowned. "Do not attempt it. You already have two spells activated right now."
"I... I know," Clint hissed before his concentration broke. The backlash from the spell breaking actually had the duo stumble back, something that never happened when Loki had his spell break. "Jesus."
"This is something else we need to work on. Protection spells can have a larger backlash than any of the spells we worked on previously. If I had not casted my own on the area, we likely could have destroyed the ship," Loki mentioned. Clint sighed, falling to a knee. "We need to stop for the day."
"Yeah... Yeah," Clint huffed out. Loki had gotten pretty adamant lately that Clint learn as close to his limit as possible without Loki 'recharging' him. Now, they skirted that line often just to see how well Clint could hold a spell. Letting out a deep sigh, Clint centered himself and got back up to his feet. That was when there was a crash that jerked the ship.
"By the Norns?" Loki wondered as he looked toward the main part of the ship. Clint stumbled a moment. After trading a look, together they headed to the front of the ship only to have the air get sucked out for a moment. There was a hole in the ship. But it filled only a few seconds later with a golden shield.
"Who the hell are you?" Quill's voice cried. Clint traded a look with Loki and they headed in further. Standing there behind the cockpit was a woman in a skin tight outfit that reminded Clint a bit of Steve's outfit.
"My name is Carol Danvers," the woman introduced as if she hadn't just broken into their ship. Quill frowned. Considering Quill didn't seem to recognize her, Clint and Loki knew that Carol Danvers wasn't well known. "I was contacted by the King of Asgard to find a Clint Barton and Loki Odinson."
"Uh... What?" Quill replied, unsure what to focus on first and certainly wasn't going to spill the beans that the duo were on the ship. Clint and Loki stayed hidden in the hallway, watching. It was never good when some strange and apparently powerful person knew one's name. While it was interesting to hear that Thor had called for help, how did he get in contact with this woman?
"I have been-"
"Yeah, got that part. But, who are you?" Quill repeated. Carol sighed.
"I am Carol Danvers," she reintroduced.
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Quill countered.
"I am also known by the name Captain Marvel," Carol informed. Quill made a face as if thinking, then focused on her.
"Yeah, no. Still not helpful," Quill told her. Carol sighed once again as if speaking to a child. Not that many of the others wouldn't agree with her choice. Quill wasn't all that good at understand things.
"I've been told that they would not believe me, so I have been given a message. 'Keep up Old man,'" Carol quoted. Clint stiffened, glancing at Loki. That was a message from Pietro. It had to be. While Loki had never been involved it any of that, Clint had described what happened to the real Pietro once Loki learned that they were staying with an alternate Pietro. Once or twice Pietro had called him that around the farm but when Clint began to get a bit upset with the words, the speedster stopped.
"We supposed to understand that?" Quill called. Carol rolled her eyes.
"The message isn't for you. It's for them," she retorted. Gamora finally appeared from another hall, looking at Carol with an uneasy attitude. Rocket followed behind her.
"And what makes you think they are here?" Gamora wondered. Carol made a noise that sounded like a sigh holding back a growl of agitation.
"I have a special connection to the Tesseract, which should be in the hands of Loki. It's through that connection that I have followed to here," Carol informed. Loki frowned. There was no way that Carol would have been able to sense the stone. The Tesseract was in a pocket dim... He had taken it out! Even though they had travel consistently and it had been months ago, the energy would still have been soaked into the ship. How could he have been so foolish?
"Okay, what if-" Quill started but stopped when Loki stepped forward. Carol quickly turned to stare at him even as Clint came out next. The woman sighed in relief.
"I'm here to bring you both back to Earth," Carol told the duo.
"We've kinda tried. Something slows us down when we get close," Clint mentioned.
"That would be the Kree," she explained. Loki frowned deeply. It made sense that the Kree would have been able to stop them. They were the only ones who had the technology to figure out the intended destination on a certain place or area. But why would the Kree want to block the two of them?
"The Kree? Why do they care?" Gamora asked.
"Earth had helped the Skrulls in the mid 90s and it angered the Kree. So now, they are trying to ban all from entering the area," Carol described. Everyone kinda paused at that.
"Are you kidding?" Rocket basically shouted. "We've been forced to avoid Earth based on a flargin grudge?"
"I apologize. I have been trying to deal with all of them, but there are other duties I must preform," Carol stated, her voice sounding strained as if holding back rage. Loki sighed, looking to Clint. It was odd that the Kree knew of Cosmo's way back after they had already visited Knowhere... So, why did it work then? Was a Kree ship actually watching them more consistently than other ships?
"So, how do you expect to help us arrive?" Loki questioned, changing the subject just a bit. Carol focused on him.
"There is a tracker on this ship," Carol answered. "I've already taken it off-"
"What?" Quill choked out. Carol ignored him. "Tracker?"
"The tracker is used to track the plotted course. Any course that would lead you to Earth would make the tracker activate and mess with the ships systems to have it seem to be on track while actually being slowed down."
"So, with the tracker gone, it should be fine, correct?" Loki wondered. Carol held a hand up and wiggled it.
"At the moment, the tracker's program is still in the ship, so one would need to manually take control," Carol described.
"Do you know the way to get there?" Gamora mocked, thinking that this whole thing was a load of crap. And she wasn't the only one. Clint, Loki, and Rocket couldn't really believe her. Carol just smiled at them and nodded. Hope flooded Clint's body.
"You really think you can get us back?" Clint inquired, his voice leaning toward hopeful even though he tried to tamper it. Carol nodded.
"Yes. I can get you back," Carol replied. Clint looked to Quill.
"Will you be okay with us borrowing the Milano for one last attempt?" the archer asked. Quill frowned and one could see he was confused as to why Clint was asking him that.
"Uh... Well, we did promise to try and get you home. If this idea has a shot, lets do it," Quill decided. Carol nodded and shifted to get to the cockpit past Quill. The guardian went to put up a bit of a fight but Carol didn't even seem to notice or care. She quickly settled herself into one of the control seats and began checking the system over as she oriented herself on the ships mechanics. A moment or so later, the Milano turned and started off on whatever path Carol was blindly taking to Earth.
"How long is this gonna take?" Rocket wondered, moving closer to look over the woman's shoulder.
"If all goes well, judging by how long it took me to get here. Only two days," Carol answered.
"We aren't that close to Earth," Gamora muttered before pulling up the charts in surprise. Carol glanced back.
"You're right near what Earth calls Gliese 163 c. Out here it's called Thodara," Carol said.
"That's still at least a month away from Terra," Gamora argued. Carol smiled.
"Not the way I came," she retorted.
Oh my goodness, getting to the end here. To be more specific, only TWO more chapters left. Wow...
Darius has backtracked on his potty record. Most of this week he hadn't even mentioned he had to go and he also sat in it long enough for it to dry on his skin before we notice/he mentions it. UGH! Told him tomorrow I'm not gonna put him in a diaper. He can wander around in pants (PJs). Gonna be a lot of cleaning for me afterwards. But if it gets it beaten into his head, it will be worth it. Just need to do more laundry for a while. And pack some extra shorts for our upcoming vacation. Which is in like 12 days! If you can't tell, I can hardly wait, lol. Baby Jason is giving his parents some issues because he is giving them a hard time on eating solid foods. Actually, I should phrase that a bit better. If it is baby food like cereal bars, banana wheels, puffs, yogurt drops and the like. But give him a French fry from our plates and he'll munch on that. Otherwise, he's doing good. Just being a normal baby.
