Author's Note: COMPLETLY FORGOT TO POST THIS LAST WEEK. SORRY.
Warnings: Violence, disorientation, aftermath of gore. Parents being crappy?
Norwegian may be inaccurate and I apologize. Translations are provided in the end notes. If you speak Norwegian and can think of a better way to say something, please let me know. i'm tired.
" I couldn't even explain to you,
how good it felt to look up across a room,
and see you standing there. "
- Unknown
Natasha descends on Frigga with fury, slamming her fist into the woman's face. The queen goes down with a tumble of clothing and flailing limbs from the force of the blow, landing in a splash of scattered sand. Natasha doesn't stop there, leaping onto the woman's downed body and beginning to beat her with relentless, forceful punches.
His partner doesn't say a word. She doesn't scream, she doesn't yell, she doesn't accuse. The wretched, heavy silence is broken only by the horrible sound of flesh pounding against itself.
Clint doesn't think that Natasha plans on stopping. He's not sure if Natahsa does either.
It takes several heavy, painful blows before Frigga manages to react, shoving Natasha off of her with an explosion of magic. The Widow goes flying back several dozen feet, spared from a bone-breaking collision with the S.H.I.E.L.D. wall by Loki. Clint doesn't even see the sorcerer move, one moment he's watching Natasha beat his mother with a horrified, panicked look on his face, the next his hands are raised and he's catching Clint's partner with a wall of green.
Natasha barely misses a beat, stumbling to her feet away from Loki's shield, her face enraged. Her knuckles are red and splotched with swelling. She must have broken fingers.
Frigga wobbles up to her feet. There's blood spilling down her face from her nostrils beneath a clearly broken nose. Her skin is split and cracked across her left cheek in several places. Her lip is split. Nothing is swelling yet, but it's red. For the first time since Clint met her, the queen looks more than immaculate. Her gown is spotting blood and her hair is filled with sand.
For a breathless moment, they all just stand there. Waiting.
Natasha takes an intentional step forward, her stance dangerous. She doesn't draw a weapon, but she doesn't need to. Natasha's body is the weapon, it always has been. Clint's stomach drops, but even as he makes to get up, he can't. His legs won't support his body. Bruce scrambles up to his feet and all but throws himself at Natasha, wrapping his arms around her to stop her. "Natasha," he says, urgent, "Natasha, stop."
Natasha struggles against him, but Clint can see that she's holding back, likely out of a desire not to hurt Bruce. "Move," Natasha growls.
"Tash," Bruce insists, fighting harder as Natasha's struggle starts to get more real. "No. You cannot kill the queen of a foreign government." His body language twists into a grimace as Natasha digs her nails into his wrist, applying pressure with the intent to hurt but not harm.
"Try and stop me." Natasha hisses, digging her elbow harshly into Bruce's stomach. Bruce emits a sound of pain but doesn't let her go.
Clint flicks anxious eyes toward Frigga. The woman is watching the exchange, her head slightly tilted. The motion reminds him nausately of Thor. She doesn't seem threatened. She just seems annoyed. Clint thinks of Odin, completely ready to smite him on the spot before he saw the Lichtenberg scars, and a pounding, aching no no no no starts to make rounds inside his skull.
Ha.
Man.
That would just be his luck, wouldn't it? The Avengers live long enough for him to see Frigga kill them all personally. Steve's hand tightens on Clint's shoulder. He thinks about the weight of Natasha's body in his arms, her dead, glassy eyes staring up at him. Queasiness curdles in his stomach. He can't move to stop her. His voice feels like a useless weight in his throat.
"You would kill your comrade's mother then, Lady Romanova?" Frigga's voice is low and a little clogged, but no less impactful. Natasha's eyes slide to Loki and she stops fighting Bruce. Her throat works. She gradually raises her eyes back toward Frigga, her expression blank. The queen takes a deep breath, wiping at the blood on her lip. "I understand that you're upset," she starts, clearly trying to mediate. "But you don't understand the full nuances of the situation. I'm certain that once I explain everything you will agree with me."
Natasha's fingers curl over Bruce's forearm.
Frigga seems to think that this is permission to keep going, "Once Odin and I found the scepter, but realized that Thor wasn't there and that the cloaking spell was indeed as formidable as we feared, I decided—"
"What honestly makes you think that I care?" Natasha's voice is level.
Frigga falters. "You want to find my son."
"Yes." Natasha agrees without hesitation. "We do. But not at the cost of Clint. What you did was inexcusable."
It's probably pretty terrible of Clint, but her protectiveness of him makes something in his stomach settle. Frigga's eyes flare with frustration. "I'm not trying to provide excuses, you wanted an explanation."
"No. You assumed an explanation would help you look like less of a monster. It won't." Natasha's voice drops. "I may not be able to kill you, but I can still hurt you. You're not going to get us to agree to let you hurt Clint so drop it."
Frigga's eyes narrow. She carefully wipes away blood from underneath her nose, regarding Natasha. Then she looks up at Loki. Her son's body language practically snaps audibly with how rapidly it tautens. "Loki," she implores, her face crumpling at the sight of him, "please. We need to find your brother before it's too late. We don't know what's happened to him. The Chitauri are not a force to be ignored. Please, I was making progress."
Frigga stretches out a hand, "Help me . Help Thor. Vær så snill. "
Clint swallows hard. His eyes flick anxiously toward Loki.
If Loki agrees, this is all over.
Oh, gosh. Frigga would be back in his head, and there would be the jumbling mass of nothingness and Barney and Loki killing them. Snapping bone. One by one by one by one and jumping between nothing and reality mashed into atrocity. He can smell the park. Feel the stare of Harold Barton getting out of the car boring into his skull. Hear the snapping of bone crunching explicitly.
Loki doesn't move for a long, agonizing minute. Everyone watches him. Frigga's eyes are earnest. She's so freaking earnest. No one says a word.
Loki raises his head up to meet her stare. Clint's not at the right angle that he can see the sorcerer's face, but Frigga's fills with relief at something she sees there. Dread, harsh and unbearable, knots in his stomach. Clint starts to shuffle away, like any distance he could put between them would matter.
Loki's voice is tired. "Give me the scepter, mother."
There's an immediate, overlapping sound of protesting voices. Clint finds his own is mixing in, but what he's saying is beyond him. It's useless noise, background chatter; pointless. They're extras in a movie. They don't mean anything here. Clint's hands are digging into the sand, but it's swallowing him, devouring past his fingers and pushing against his wrists, warm and brutal. Bitter. It intends to swallow him, and Clint is prepared to let it.
Oh gosh.
No no on no no.
Steve hauls Clint back several feet and Tony takes a half step in front of him, like any of them can stand in the way that is the unstoppable forces of the Asgardians. These are gods. There is nothing they can do. Frigga is going to eradicate him. A hopeless, gnawing feeling eats up his throat. He's going to be sick.
I can't do this. I won't survive.
Frigga hesitates only a fraction before she drops her hand and extends the scepter to him. Loki takes it from her, holding it, testing the weight, and then he turns to look at Clint. There are no words to describe the horror that washes through him. Loki's face is blank. His eyes are empty. In front of him, Frigga's beginning to relax, margin by margin.
It lasts only half a second.
Without a word of warning, Loki throws the scepter toward Clint's feet. It lands with a scattering spray of sand. The edge of the humming, blue stone pushes up against Clint's bare ankle. It's so cold that it burns and he jerks his foot back on instinct. Steve's hand jerks along his back. No one touches the scepter.
"Loki—" Frigga starts, confused, but angry.
"How could you think that I would ever help you now!?" Loki exclaims, turning back toward her.
Clint forces himself to exhale.
Loki wasn't going to help her. (But, a treacherous part of his brain insists, but.)
"Because you are my son! And Thor is your brother!" Frigga shouts, just as infuriated if not more so. "You have no idea what I have done to keep this family together, what I have endured. I'm not going to stop now just because you're being petty about us keeping Thanos away from you and some mortal—"
"Clint's not 'some mortal'!"
Frigga's jaw clenches and she reaches a hand out to the side. The scepter rattles like it wants to shoot across the ground toward her. Loki grabs her arm. A violent, red energy causes his fingers to glow. The fabric of her sleeve makes a weird fizzling sound. "Don't." He warns, voice low. Frigga's eyes crease with pain, a low groan escapes her.
"Stop, you're hurting me."
"The pain is almost worse when you expect those words to mean anything, isn't it?" Loki's tone has dropped to a hissing, angry whisper. Frigga's eyes start to crease with misery before she tumbles to her knees and a voiceless, agonzied sound escapes her. Loki releases her almost immediately. He takes no pleasure in her suffering. If anything, it just seems to make him even wearier.
"Siygn," Frigga gasps, cradling her arm to her chest, looking up at him. "When did she start teaching you torture spells? You know they're kept from the Aesir without explicit permission."
Loki stares at her blankly for long moments. "I learned that one from Odin's torturers. When they used it on me." Frigga's mouth moves wordlessly. There's a heavy weight of silence as Loki's shoulders tense before he slowly, with effort, leans down in front of her. He reaches out a hand and rests it on her face, healing the cuts and bruises Natasha caused. Then he heals the burn mark and drops his hand, just looking at her, his eyes lost.
Frigga stares at him like he's an unknown, wild creature.
"I begged you for kindness," Loki says. The tone is nonchalant. The words aren't. "I plead for a retrial. I begged Odin for execution so many times the words became meaningless to me. And to him. And you stood there, insisting that you were helping and that if I only told you what I needed, you would give it to me. I needed my family. Instead, you cracked my head open. Your mercy broke me more than Odin ever did."
Frigga's face collapses. "Loki," the word is strained and thrumming with tension. "I-I didn't realize…" she trails off, looking away from him, her fists clenching. She doesn't continue the thought, and in all honesty, Clint isn't sure that even she knows what she's trying to say.
Loki looks at her. "Are you? Remorseful?"
Frigga snaps her head up. "I am your mother. It is my sworn duty to protect you. To help you. I was helping. You were so miserable in that cell, son," she reaches out for him and Loki allows her to cup his cheek. She smooths her thumb across his face. "I just wanted to help you remember happier times."
Loki's face is blank again.
Clint grits his teeth.
"Oh, screw you," Tony says loudly. "Good intentions do not negate crappy outcomes. You want to know what would have actually been helpful? I don't know, stopping the torture? Just a thought. Just. I can't deal with you right now."
Frigga looks at Tony, dropping her hand from Loki's face. "This isn't about you, mortal."
"No," Tony agrees, "but it's not about you either. Loki was suffering and it bothered you, so you did something that helped you feel better. Not him. Good job. Pro parenting skills there. Really selfless and everything."
"Stark," Loki says, voice thin.
Tony's mouth closes and he swallows whatever he was going to say.
Loki's eyes raise, looking beyond his mother to something in the distance. Clint follows his line of sight toward the entrance of the base.
There, storming through the sand like they're some sort of cliche power team, is a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Fury at their head. They're armed and obviously so. Clint is filled with overwhelming relief and confusion. What the heck did they think was happening that they felt the need to arrive ready to attack, but thank God they are here at all.
Fury immediately gets into Frigga's face once they're close enough, the woman getting to her feet smoothly once she realizes what's going on. Her expression is filled with barely controlled agitation. The director, Clint notes with something twisting in his chest, purposefully plants himself halfway between the Asgardian queen and her son. Like he's some sort of safeguard between them. Clint doesn't think the gesture is conscious.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?" Weaker men would have crumpled underneath the tone alone as it barrels out of Fury's mouth. Frigga merely bristles.
"What does it look like? I'm trying to find my son? How do none of you understand that? Isn't that what you want!?"
"You kidnapped my agent." Fury's voice is flat.
"He came willingly enough." Frigga protests. "He agreed to the mind read."
What?
When?
Clint stiffens. He doesn't have any memory of that. But then again, his only memory of leaving the building was when Barney attacked, and if that was all in his head then…then what? Clint did give consent for Frigga to go rifling through his head? Why?
He feels like he was dropped into the middle of a class and told he needs to take a test. He doesn't understand anything. Why Frigga is here at all, why the scepter is here, how did he get outside of the building, how long its been since he left in the first place.
Why Frigga has the freaking scepter?!
Wait.
Oh, gosh.
Frigga… Frigga wasn't the one who sent Thor after them, was she? The thought is appalling, but it makes a sick sort of sense, in a way. Frigga has been trying to get their family together, she's trying to ease Loki's suffering by tampering with his head…but if she was the one behind all of this, why would she be so desperate to find Thor? She would know where he was.
Fury snorts darkly, folding his arms across his chest. "B.S. all you want if it makes you feel better. Either get off of my base or we'll arrest you."
"You can't—" Frigga starts to protest.
"We can. We will. Happily." Fury presses the last word. Clint can't see his face, but he can almost see the man's expression, filled with teeth and predatory.
Frigga's mouth sets. She looks toward Loki again, her face anxious. Earnest. So freaking earnest. She waits, clearly for Loki to interfere or speak up for her, but her son doesn't. Loki looks at her, blank and numb and empty. Frigga's hands curl.
" Du forråder broren din, sønn. " Frigga says in Asgardian, toneless. "Ville du se ham død?" Loki does something close to a full-body wince. " Betyr han så lite for deg?"
"I—Mother," Loki protests in English.
Fury puts a hand on his gun.
Frigga looks at the director, her expression murderous, but her focus is clearly elsewhere because she continues to talk to Loki as if nothing happened, " Thor ville gjøre alt for å hjelpe deg, vil du ikke gjøre det samme?"
Loki takes a step back, his face almost gray. He looks like he might be sick.
"Jeg vil bare at familien vår skal være lykkelig igjen. Vær så snill , Loki." Frigga whispers.
"I-I can't," Loki says, in strained English. "I can't help you. I won't. Not like this."
Frigga waits for him to retract that statement.
Loki doesn't.
The Asgardian queen withdraws, straightening up to her full height. She sends a scathing look in Clint and the team's direction, clearly blaming them for this. Frigga takes a step back. " Fine," her words are acidic. "You will regret this. When you continue to be unsuccessful and Thor is brought to us dead, it will be your fault. If my son dies—if either of them die—I will wage war on your planet until it is decimated and not even the dust remembers your race."
The threat—promise—makes Clint's stomach tighten.
Frigga reaches out her hand again, fingers outstretched in the direction of the scepter. It shoots across the ground toward the woman's hand, but Loki catches it in a movement too fast to even resemble human.
The two hold a long stare, both their eyes flaring with something unnatural.
Frigga backs off first.
"You're acting rashly," Loki says in a voice a heck of a lot calmer than Clint would have in this situation. "The scepter is influencing your thoughts. I would be a fool to let you take it again."
Frigga's gaze darkens. She looks at Clint for a brief, scathing second before sneering and lifting up her hand. She vanishes in a swirl of blue light, the very air around her rippling. It's offputting, to say the least.
Clint exhales on the tail-end of a shudder. He clenches his fists in the sand again. Exhales. Loki looks down at the scepter in his hand with unmistakable loathing in his eyes. Clint doesn't think he's ever seen so much hate in the sorcerer's expression. With a sudden, heavy weight of dread inside his chest, Clint wonders what Frigga said to him.
"What the heck is going on?" Clint breathes, then louder, "Will someone tell me what is happening!?"
Steve, beside him still, sighs. Tony rubs his fingers into his eyes like he's trying to restrain himself from violence.
"You're going to have to be a bit more specific," Steve says.
"Okay, uh," Clint pushes up weakly on his trembling arms, gesturing toward the scepter in Loki's hand, trying really, really hard to not think about the last time he saw it there. His brain feels like it's blanking out. "How the hell did Frigga get that?"
Everyone looks at him.
That very bad, no good feeling in his chest only grows.
"Clint," Natasha's voice is careful, resigned almost, but with a hint of yeah, why not that, sure, throw it into all this crap? "When was the last time that we saw Frigga and Odin?"
Clint pauses, knowing with sudden surety that the answer he gives is going to be the wrong one. "...Five days ago? Wednesday. When they healed Loki?"
Loki's eyes close, his fists clenching and he swears under his breath. Tony and Steve share a look over Clint's head. It's Fury who answers, his tone fatalistic. "They were here yesterday, Agent Barton."
Well, fantastic.
000o000
Three days. He doesn't remember three days. Or, as everyone keeps trying to reassure him is better, he remembers a very watered-down version of the last three days. Because somehow that's supposed to be less frightening? Don't worry, you forgot only the important bits for half of a week. Cheers.
After he'd been helped to unsteady feet, puked once, and nearly toppled over several times, he'd finally made it back into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base where things didn't get better. His head felt like someone slammed it against a metal pole, every smell induced his gag reflex, and his feet sometimes didn't seem to remember where the ground was. He'd misstep, or step too far and go tumbling to his knees.
Everything about the world feels off somehow. Like sensation is something from a dream and he finally woke up.
Clint was promptly taken to medical, much to his private protests. He just wanted to crawl into a very small, dark place and hide there. Like how five-year-old him used to when he was scared. Barney used to have to drag him out of some strange places. Tiny, dark places have never quite lost their comfort.
He doesn't know what the heck is going on.
But at least he knows the dark doesn't change.
The doctors treat him for exposure, sunburn, and dehydration. All of it makes Clint think about how hot the storage room was. Or whatever that place was supposed to be, stacked high with boxes of memories but filled with the heat of hell. Maybe it's one and the same, in some sort of twisted irony.
Clint is given an IV, painkillers for his headache, slathered with ungodly cold aloe vera cream on the one sunburn that actually hurts, and handed a water bottle with instructions to drink it slowly over the next hour. In all honesty, it's all relatively minor. He thinks it should be worse, given everything, but he actually feels.. .okay .
Physically, that is. He just needs to get some sleep and drink a keg of water, and he'll be fine. Mentally...
After giving a brief overview of events that he remembers, including the reappearance of Barney, he was checked extensively for head trauma. No signs of a concussion, even from the portable MRI S.H.I.E.L.D. tech produced. Nothing to naturally explain the gaps in his memory.
But that's the thing, isn't it?
This isn't natural.
It's magic.
When the medical staff finally allows visitors after what feels like an eternity, Clint isn't too surprised to see the Avengers and Loki walk in. He feels drained and rattled. And, if he's being completely honest with himself, he's not entirely convinced he's awake. He doesn't know how to tell anymore. He keeps counting his fingers compulsively, but he always has ten. Everything he reads is coherent and makes sense.
He doesn't trust it.
Christmas - 1987 looked perfect, too. He only had ten fingers. He wasn't asleep then either.
"Hey," Natasha says, her voice low. She's cleaned up since the fight, her fingers scrubbed of any blood they had from punching Frigga. They're still a garish red and starting to bruise at the knuckles. She may not have broken fingers from what he can see, but she clearly did damage. Natasha takes the seat next to him, taking his hand in her own. Her fingers are warm. Something in his chest clenches painfully at the contact.
Look at me. Please. Tasha.
Clint pulls his hand away, trying not to be obvious and drawing it onto his lap. At this point in their relationship, it's rare for either of them not to welcome physical contact. Mostly because neither of them thinks much about it anymore. Being in contact with one another is like breathing.
Natasha's expression is as puzzled as it is a fraction hurt.
Clint looks away from her eyes. ( Dead. Staring at nothing. Look at me, please?) The most important person in the world to him and he can't even look at her. He watches, with a twist of guilt, as Natasha slowly folds her arms across her chest.
"You look terrible," Tony says apropos of nothing. "You kinda seem to be into the half-dead look lately." Bruce smacks the engineer's arm pointedly. Tony rubs at his arm, turning to him sharply, " Ow. What?"
The exchange is so normal that it almost hurts. Like they didn't all die a few hours ago.
" Timing," Bruce laments.
Tony rolls his eyes. "Like we don't insult each other as soon as we see each other. I think it's kind of our love language now. Right, Artemis?"
"You're an idiot," Clint assures. His voice is still quiet. He doesn't know how to get it louder than this hoarse sound. He takes a swig of the water, trying to ignore how much his hands are shaking, but it's kind of hard when he keeps spilling water down the front of his shirt and the bed.
Tony gives Bruce a see? look, gesturing at Clint, who gives up on the water bottle.
He'll just die thirsty.
Steve takes a seat on the other side of the bed, Loki lurking behind him. Clint bites on his lower lip compulsively at the sight of the Asgardian before forcing himself to actually look at him. It's not the same. It's really not. This Loki is all soft edges whereas Frigga's version was hard and callous. This Loki, their Loki, is in Steve's jacket for God's sake, whatever the story behind that is. He's not a screaming murderer. He wouldn't hurt them.
Clint knows this.
He does.
But.
Clint counts his fingers again. Ten. The Led Zepplin on Tony's shirt is spelled right.
"What happened?" Steve asks.
Clint releases a sound that might count as a laugh somewhere. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"
Three days.
Steve does something close to a wince, which makes Clint feel worse for having said anything at all. "Yeah. I guess." The captain mutters. He takes in a deep breath, adjusting his position. When he speaks again, his voice is calmer. "Why don't you tell us what you remember and we'll fill in the gaps for you. Unless someone already did?"
"No," Clint says, shaking his head, "not really, at least. The nurses just promised that I'm missing gaps."
And isn't that all levels of messed up that strangers know more about what happened in Clint's life the last couple of days than Clint does?
"What is the last thing you remember?" Natasha questions.
Clint rubs at his forehead, trying not to disturb the IV. His vision feels weird. Five fingers on his right hand.
"I don't know. Everything's a distorted mess," Clint admits, "Loki came to talk to me about the tether and we said we'd fix it that night or something. You got out of the shower. I couldn't sleep so I went outside. When I went back to the base that's when Barney attacked. After that things get…murky."
Clint gnaws on the inside of his cheek. Everyone assures him that the Asgardians showed up yesterday, but Clint has no memory of this. Nothing. Every time he tries to reach for the missing time, it's not like it's just beyond his reach, it's just not there. He might as well be trying to remember someone else's memory at this point.
"We did discuss the memories last night," Loki confirms, when no one else says anything. "But as far as I'm aware, your brother has never stepped foot in this base."
"Barney," Tony repeats, looking at Clint, flabbergasted. "Your… brother?"
Clint raises an eyebrow. "Do you naturally assume everyone is an only child?"
Tony's mouth moves for a moment. "I mean. No. But I swear to God that I thought Thor and Lokes were the only people who had a sibling," Tony admits. He shrugs, casual, "Okay. Yeah. Right. Wait, are you older or younger?"
"Younger," Clint answers, dropping his hand back into his lap. He fiddles with the blanket. It doesn't feel right. He braces himself to drop from this memory into something else for long seconds.
Nothing happens. He stays here.
He's going to stay here. That's the point.
Tony is nodding and he has a strained smile on his face as he says some sort of joke. Clint doesn't really understand what it is that he said, but Natasha raises an unimpressed eyebrow in response to it. You don't have to make this funny, Clint wants to tell him, it's okay. It's not your job to make us feel better.
" Ha." Natasha intones, her voice dry.
Clint decides, rather than try and get any context, to just push forward. "If Barney…if Barney wasn't here, then what happened? Actually?"
Is it worse that the memories lingered after Loki pulled him out of whatever Frigga was doing? Would it be better if there was nothing there to fill the space? At this point, he'd rather have nothing. This is so much worse. He can't trust himself.
"Three days ago, Frigga and Odin showed up here and said they'd found where the scepter was. They didn't specify where, and they didn't want our help when we…argued. All they were here for was to take Loki with them and immediately return to Asgard." Steve explains.
Clint looks at Loki, who is, clearly, still here. "What did you say?"
The sorcerer's lips curve up in a ghost of a smile as he says, "no." It drops a second later, tired, "Odin wouldn't have let me leave if I had gone with them. I suspect I would have ended exactly where I began. Truthfully, I am surprised they didn't force my hand."
Because expecting your parents to kidnap you is totally normal. He does not have the head space to process this.
"...Ah." Clint intones.
"Clearly they found the thing," Natasha says, her voice hard. Clint's not sure what happened to the scepter on the walk back here. The last he saw it, Loki was clutching it with white fingers and a pinched look. "But not Thor. With the…cloaking spell or whatever Frigga said covering the Chitauri."
Loki stops digging his thumb into his palm. "It's a complex cloaking spell, hiding Thor from any type of magical tracking. Since retaining use of my magic, I've attempted to locate him with no success. I would need something much more powerful to help aid me to find him. It's…strange, admittedly."
"What?" Bruce asks. "I would've thought this was normal in magical attacks."
"It is," Loki agrees, "But neither the Chitauri nor Thanos, the man in charge of them, have any sort of magic. I don't know who cast the spell," Loki admits, shaking his head, "perhaps the Chitauri roped in an unlucky third party."
Great.
Cause that's exactly what they need. Someone else in on the murder plot.
"So why did Frigga target Clint?" Bruce asks, "What was she even looking for?"
"Just…information," Clint answers vaguely. He does not want to talk about the scene in the Tower. They will pull that out from his corpse. "She wanted to know what we knew about Thor. I guess she decided to start on ground zero. I'm guessing Odin and Frigga put all their chips in on finding Thor with the scepter."
"I'm surprised it didn't work," Loki admits. "I expected them to find him. I don't know why they didn't."
"Which is comforting," Tony says, scraping a hand through messy hair. "Where the heck is he if he's not with the Chitauri? Did the Chitauri see Asgard coming and bail?"
Loki frowns. "After all the work they went to? Clint isn't dead and Thor was their best bet for accomplishing that. They wouldn't have left Thor unless they had to."
"Maybe it's the third party's fault," Natasha suggests. "They did something and the Chitauri were forced to bail. That would explain why they didn't try to kill Clint again. If they don't have Thor, but the third party does then…"
"Then what?" Clint asks, rubbing at his eyes hard enough that he sees white spots. "They'll send him after me next? Why on earth would anyone else want to remove those memories?"
Clint thinks again about Frigga and the scepter. You really don't seem to understand how this game works. Frigga kept insisting that she wanted to help Loki feel better. Help him be happy. None of the memories are exactly anything Clint would label as even lukewarm. They're terrifying. The type of thing that insanity is borne from. Maybe she wanted to remove the memories, permanently, so Loki wouldn't even have the option of viewing them again.
Odin and Frigga clearly knew about the tether. What was it that Odin yelled at Loki, you don't know what you did to those you possessed? or something like that. Maybe this is some sort of weird, absurd act of motherly love.
But, again, why then would Frigga be so desperate to find Thor?
…Unless she was the third party. And then the Chitauri betrayed her and took Thor. But would Frigga do that to Thor? Force Thor to kill so many people? Honestly, Clint doesn't know. Frigga kind of seems like a parent violently swinging between loving and heartless.
"I don't know," Steve says for everyone, then rubs at his forehead with the edge of his thumb. "Son of a gun this stupid thing keeps getting more and more complicated. I wish it really was just about the civil war solely so we'd know who to blame."
"The universe is rarely so torpid," Loki says.
Unfortunately.
"But if Barney wasn't here…then what actually happened?" Clint asks. He squeezes the cap of the water bottle between his fingers, the pain from the ridges almost comforting. It feels real. He counts his fingers again.
Loki tucks messy hair behind an ear, sighing heavily before he says, "There are ways of casting spells that alter one's perception of reality. With the scepter, she likely removed any memories you had of her returning to make it believable to your mind. I felt your distress along the tether and came looking. As for how you got outside, it's hard to say where your true memories end and the fake ones begin."
Clint squeezes the water bottle tighter. The plastic crinkles beneath his fingers. "Will I get those memories back?"
Loki wavers. "...No. This is different than implantation. It's…like if I handed you a stack of papers. The papers are still there even if I'm no longer holding them. My mother essentially burned them. There is nothing that your brain can restore anymore. The scepter to blame for that. Magic in its natural state is incapable of altering or removing memories, only replaying them. The scepter is different."
Oh.
He expects to feel anger. Or despaired. Or something. Clint doesn't feel anything. Three days. It still doesn't feel real. He keeps waiting for someone to start laughing. In the corner of his eye, he sees Tony pull out his phone and start searching for something.
Natasha's jaw flexes. "I should have hit her harder."
"I think you hit her plenty." Steve counters, sending a pointed look toward Natasha's knuckles. There's a little more snippy arguing that feels forced before Tony exclaims "Ha!" from across the room.
Everyone looks at him.
Tony lifts up his phone in explanation, walking toward the bed. He all but shoves the phone into Clint's face.
"Okay, T-man, personal space," Clint mutters, shoving the engineer's hand back.
"I forgot that I was looking for this earlier. There's security footage from when you leave the building." Tony explains.
"Oh, give it," Clint grabs the phone from Tony, handing the nearly-empty plastic water bottle to Natasha. The rest of the Avengers crowd around the bed like this is some feature film. Steve and Natasha are touching him and it makes his skin crawl. Clint presses play, doing his best to ignore this.
He's expecting to see Barney. He wants to see Barney, chasing him down the hall, dragging him out into the dark. Shooting him. Three days doesn't feel real to him. At least, not until he watches this. Then it sinks in, slowly, oozing across his subconscious.
He watches himself leave the hospital room he and Natasha were staying at. He looks pretty terrible from this angle, frail and fatigued. The Lichtenberg scar is graphic against the back of his neck. Does it still look that terrible? His camera-self makes his way down the hall. Clint remembers this, at least. His past self goes outside, where the camera angle changes to something a little farther away.
He remembers this, too.
Standing outside, basking in the warmth of the sun he hadn't felt in days.
Before Camera-Clint turns around to go back inside, where he was attacked by Barney, the air ripples behind him like it's getting torn open. Frigga steps out from the undulate, looking disheveled with blood streaming from her nose. She looks ancient and horrible; a stretched-out, golden wraith ready to kill. She's pale. Disturbingly pale, almost like she's a streak of sunlight trying to pass as a person.
She has the scepter wrapped in one hand. From what Clint can make out of her expression, there's nothing there but hate.
Frigga stalks toward Camera-Clint, who finally seems to realize something is wrong. He starts to turn, stance rigid, fist raised in defense—he didn't have any weapons, he remembers. Stupid, stupid. Natasha had been with him. He was on a S.H.I.E.L.D. base, so trusting and stupid —Camera-Clint stops when he sees Frigga.
He looks at the scepter, then at her.
Frigga doesn't give him any time to react. She raises the scepter, tipping it against his chest. Camera-Clint goes rigid. Clint can't tell if it's because he's afraid or if Frigga has done something to him. The queen backs him up several steps until Clint's face is out of the frame.
He must have said something because Frigga snarls in return.
"Is there audio to this?" Bruce asks.
"No." Tony answers.
Maybe it's horrible of him, but Clint is deeply, deeply relieved by that.
Frigga's face flashes with emotion. She lifts up her other hand toward the scepter, her fingers spread and flexing. Blue, frothy strings begin to wrap around her fingers like she's drawing in spider silk. When there's enough of it that it's wrapped around her wrist, she reaches forward and slams it into Clint's chest.
Camera-Clint crumples to his knees, grabbing at his head. There's no sound, but Clint can see with relative ease that he's screaming.
Frigga wipes the blood away from under her nose. Then, as if a thought occurred to her, she looks up at the camera. The image blurs before shorting entirely. When it comes back on a few seconds later, Clint and Frigga are gone.
The security feed continues to play for several seconds after that, showing the parking lot. Tony reaches out a hand and pushes pause. Clint drops the tablet onto his lap, his mind spinning.
Three days.
Three days.
"You agreed to that, my butt," Tony mutters under his breath. Clint blinks, then blinks again, and looks at him. His shirt still says Led Zepplin.
" What?"
"Frigga said that you agreed to it." Tony runs a hand over his mouth. "Clearly. I mean, didn't you just see yourself loudly yelling out your consent to it? Victim-blaming, narcissistic sadist." Tony growls the last bit, his hand curling. He looks at Natasha. "You should have hit her harder."
Natasha's answering grin is vicious.
Clint looks back down at the tablet. Three days. "I remember some of that." He admits. His hand bunches inside his hospital gown, careful not to dislodge the IV. "She…I don't remember her attacking me. Any of it."
It's like it happened to a different person. His exhale is sharp. He can't draw in air deeply.
There's really nothing there. Not even from a dream. Clint wonders if this is what Loki feels about the Chitauri, and realizes that missing an entire year is so much worse than a handful of hours. Something curdles in his stomach. Guilt. Anger.
Natasha's hand rests on his arm. She doesn't say anything. Clint doesn't think there's anything she could. What could be said to encapsulate any of this? Clint breathes out. Everything feels a little gray. Three days. Natasha's hair is red, and it keeps sticking out in the corner of his vision. Her face looks colorless in the lighting and pale.
Look at me. Please.
Everyone bled so much.
Bruce tilts his head, then reaches out to grab his other hand. Would they stop freaking touching him!? He remembers what they feel like dead, he can't bare the pain of the weight their living bodies cause against his skin. "Clint? Are you okay? You're pale."
His voice sounds far away.
Clint inhales deeply. His lungs hurt from how much he keeps forgetting. "Um. Yeah. I'm good. It's fine." He promises, giving a weak smile. Everyone is staring at him now, which doesn't help. He takes the water bottle from Natasha and sips from it. The water tastes like grimy, wet sand in his mouth. His hands are shaking so bad that he can't twist on the cap and Natasha has to do it for him.
Can't even put on a water bottle cap, Hawkeye?
"What happened exactly when she was talking with you?" Tony asks, now sounding suspicious.
"Nothing," Clint says, too quickly. He looks away from Natasha's hair, but his gaze instead lands on Bruce, and then he can't stop thinking of what his glasses look like splashed with blood. He looks at the crease between the wall and the ceiling. Natasha's skin burns against his.
Funny. He would have thought that their contact would have been comforting instead of torment.
And yet.
"Nothing," he repeats, again, more subdued. "We just talked. That was it." He doesn't look at Loki. He's not sure if he can.
Steve bites his lower lip. "Did she find anything?" Clint looks at him. Steve's eyes drop. "About Thor? That you remember?"
Clint's mouth works for a moment. He thinks about all the blood. All the death. The spinning, horrid loop. It's hard to think. He wonders with a sudden, nauseous feeling how much Loki saw. He was there, in his head. He saw Harold. He shoved Clint out.
"No. She doesn't know any more than we do. So apparently finding the scepter was meaningless, because we still don't know how to find Thor. We're never going to figure this out." Clint drops his head back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling, miserable.
All of this suffering.
All of this pain.
But for what?
"Not…necessarily." Loki's voice is cautious. Clint doesn't look at him, still staring at the ceiling. He snorts. Right. Clint gets memory surgery or whatever the heck they're calling this, but yeah, it was worthwhile. "I…have an idea. Perhaps a stupid one." Loki admits. Clint rolls his head to look at him and sees that Loki is picking at his palm again.
"Alright, I'll bite," Tony sighs. "What is the stupid plan?"
"My mother, she…made the point that I have thus far been unwilling to go to great lengths to find Thor," Loki says, looking away from them as if ashamed. As if he hasn't spent almost every waking moment since they learned Thor was missing trying to find him. Clint opens his mouth to call B.S. but Loki continues before he can start, "I am ready to approach those lengths. The scepter was created with one of the most powerful forms of mind magic in the universe. I might be able to find Thor's mind with it, and by the nature, where Thor is."
Silence.
Loki breathes out unsteadily. "I know that I have done nothing to earn that level of trust for me to use it again, but I truly think that—"
"No, stop, that's not it." Tony interrupts. "This has nothing to do with trust."
There's a flicker of genuine confusion. "... It doesn't ?"
"No," Tony promises. "I think we're all just a little overwhelmed. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Why not at this point, right?" Tony exhales like he's attempting to empty out his lungs. "What do you need—No, first, why is this at a great cost to you? "
Loki licks his lips anxiously. "I'm uncertain. I'm not as familiar with the scepter as I am the Tesseract. I do know that I would be connecting myself with every mind in the universe. I risk driving myself to madness or exposing my exact location to Thanos. He may be able to trap my mind away from my body. The possibilities are endless."
Steve frowns, "But how likely are they?"
Loki shrugs. "Again, I'm uncertain. I've never done anything like this before. It might not even be possible to find Thor given the cloaking spell. Hopefully, it will be enough to bypass it, but I don't know."
Clint bites the inside of his cheek.
"How comfortable are you with putting yourself at this level of risk?" Bruce asks.
Wait. Are they…are they really going to encourage this? Clint remembers Loki staggering away whenever he would go talk with the guys on the other end of the mind control, scepter connection, whatever they're going to call it. Thanos? The Chitauri? Whoever. And now they're going to encourage Loki to use this to maybe drive himself insane? Are they really that desperate?
Loki hesitates. "Enough? I have to be. And in any case, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes. It's one possibility to try, at least."
There's another silence. "We won't force you, but like you said, it's worth a shot," Bruce says.
Loki exhales, "Yes, well then."
He waves his hands in a circular motion toward his stomach and withdraws the scepter from some sort of invisible cache. Ah. That's what happened to it, then. Clint wonders vaguely if Fury was actually okay with that or if he just didn't notice it.
Strangely, Clint only feels calm seeing it in his hands again. Maybe it's because none of this feels real. Maybe because it feels too real. Loki is in stupid Midgardian clothing, looking like a messy goth emo, but their messy goth emo.
Trust, Clint thinks.
"A map would be appreciated," Loki says, taking a seat on the floor crosslegged. Tony taps his phone and a holographic image of a globe appears off the back. He hands it to Loki, who sets it on the floor in front of him.
"Loki," Natasha says, her tone serious. Loki looks up. "Don't do anything stupid."
Loki's grin is tired, "My dear Lady Romanova, when have I ever?"
"You want that alphabetized or in order of emotional distress?" Natasha answers dryly.
Loki's grin grows into something more genuine before he relaxes his face and closes his eyes. He exhales, long and slow. The power in the room flickers as the scepter glows a bright, painful blue. Clint feels an overwhelming rush of feeling. Nothing distinct or that he can place exact, just a slamming wave of emotion.
At first, it's kind of pleasant before it starts to grow uncomfortable and then aching.
Clint doesn't know how long it's been. Hours, minutes, days? Really, why should anyone trust his ability to tell time anymore?
Loki's hand starts shaking around the scepter. Then his entire body begins to vibrate. Sweat breaks out along his hairline. He starts inhaling in gasps. Blood leaks from his nose, then his ears, then he starts to cry. The tears are a watery red.
"Okay, that's enough," Steve gets up to his feet and moves over to grab Loki's shoulder. Loki's hand grabs his wrist before he can make contact, his fingers trembling so bad he can only hold the contact for a few scarce seconds. His eyes are still closed. How the heck did he even see that?
"Wait," Loki rasps. He tilts his head, gagging. "Almost…"
"Loki, enough. This isn't working. You're hurting yourself," Steve protests. He starts to reach for the scepter. "You need to stop—"
" Wait." Loki persists.
Steve hesitates, clearly torn. He looks up at Tony hopelessly, but the engineer doesn't have any more answers. Clint sees that all of them are braced, ready to interfere but waiting for a go.
Loki mouths something before he reaches out a finger toward the map. The blue hologram flares a low green before the map glitches. It goes from a globe to a city, then to a building. A familiar building. Clint feels his eyes widen.
"Oh, you have got to be messing with me," Clint whispers under his breath.
No way. No freaking way.
Loki drops the scepter to the floor with a loud clatter and opens his eyes. His eyes are almost violent in how intense the blue is. He immediately starts to topple and Steve catches him. Loki breathes in desperately, looking toward the map. He laughs, hoarse and a little mad.
Tony exhales sharply, "How sure are you about this?"
Loki grips at Steve's arm to keep himself upright. He shakes his head several times, squeezing his eyes shut. With a shaking hand, he attempts to wipe away some of the blood from his face but only succeeds in smearing it. "Enough," he says thickly.
"Okay, okay, just breathe," Steve says, his hand hovering over Loki's chest as if he doesn't know where to touch so it won't hurt. Loki manages to sit up of his own volition.
"We need to move. We don't know how long this will last," Loki says.
Steve closes his eyes, exhaling slowly, torn. "Fine. We leave now. Anyone not on the Quinjet in ten minutes gets left behind." He's already starting to get up, helping Loki up on uneasy legs.
The six of them are on the plane in seven.
000o000
The New York S.H.I.E.L.D. field office has a gaping hole in the middle of the roof, smoke rising idly toward the cloud-covered sky in harsh, rippling plumes. The rain is coming down like it's prepping for the flood of Noah, complete with crackling, violent lightning, which is probably the only reason the NYFD isn't there. If there was a fire, there isn't anymore.
When Clint was here a few weeks ago, it looked like it belonged in a museum, but now it's a demolition site. The police are already there, just outside the building and getting completely soaked, but it doesn't look like they've breached it yet.
Natasha lands the Quinjet in the middle of the tiny parking lot. Thunder crackles overhead. Loki looks up toward the sky, his expression something Clint can't read.
Clint doesn't really remember a whole lot of the journey from the parking lot to the building if he's being honest. He really shouldn't be walking. He should be asleep. But. Their presence alone seems to ward off the police, who quickly back up. Clint admits it's probably not a good look when the entire Avengers team shows up to deal with what's supposed to be a run-of-the-mill distress call.
"What happened?" Steve asks the officer in command once they find them.
The man is an older white guy with graying hair, his last name stamped on his jacket as Gregson. "We're not sure. The calls weren't clear. Someone said they saw somebody fall out of the sky," Gregson's tone shows how highly he thinks of this theory, "there have been several lightning strikes on the building or the surrounding area."
They share a look.
Gregson barely refrains from rolling his eyes. "So obviously this means that someone just got their lightning gun out of the workshop. You would not believe how many calls we got about that."
"LIPC," Bruce says, like that means anything to anyone, before appending clearly disappointed, "Laser-induced plasma channel? 2012? Research by the military? Lightning canon? …it's not exactly pocket size yet."
"You need a hobby," Tony says. Bruce rolls his eyes.
There's a loud snap of thunder above them. Clint winces. The rain, if possible, starts to fall harder.
"We'll take it from here," Steve says, ignoring the two. "Thank you for your help, Captain." Gregson nods and backs up and starts yelling at the officers to get back and let the Avengers take the first look.
Clint feels a twist of anticipation roll through him as he turns toward the looming, ugly building. His hand tightens around his bow. There's a moment where none of them breathe, before Steve squares his shoulders and stalks toward the door.
He shoves it open with force, stepping inside. The building is dark. Clint is pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even bother to install emergency lights. They were waiting for the building to rot away. Clint and Natasha both pull out tiny S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued pen lights that have a tiny beam. Tony turns on a light from his armor and Loki casts some sort of witch-light, which is the most helpful.
The door swings in the wind behind them, spraying their backs with rain. It creaks and makes this feel far more horror-movie-esque than Clint really thinks should be legal. It's got the perfect set-up, really. Now all they need is a handful of bad decisions and a murderer. Oh. Wait. They already have those. Okay, someone's going to have to sacrifice and kill everyone.
Clint rolls his eyes at himself, following Steve.
The building is blackened in several areas like there was a fire at some point, but it's been out for some time. The structure probably would have fared better if it had been updated since 1930, but with the failed maintenance, it looks like it went through a violent earthquake. There are bits of the second story on the first floor, walls caved in, beams broken.
Their communication is clipped and to the point as they slowly advance toward the epicenter of the explosion. There are several bodies in the rubble, but no one living. Clint sees one of the few doctors he's seen twice on the floor and looks away with a pang.
The closer they get to the epicenter, the louder the rain gets. It's several long minutes before Clint can see an opening in the building, showing the sky. The room is some sort of garage. Well. It was. There are large crates lining the walls as well as four exploded cement trucks and spills of oil around them, still on fire, which explains where the worst of the damage came from. One of the cars has a dramatic split down the middle as if something hit it.
Clint puts the tiny LED light between his teeth and grabs an arrow pressing it against the string and pulling slightly, prepared for something to leap out at him. Chitauri. Something. The building has been empty so far.
Too empty.
… where are the Chitauri? If this is where Thor is, then the Chitauri are supposed to be here, protecting him so they can keep their murder weapon. He swears to God, that if this is another dead end, he's going to lose—
Oh, f—
Lightning slams into the ground through the massive hole in the ceiling and Clint rips his hearing aids from his ears and squeezes his eyes shut, ducking beneath his hands from what he can. He feels the vibration of the thunder through his entire body. Powerful, burning.
His heart smacks against his chest.
When the thunder has stopped rattling in his ribcage, he blinks several times, but all he can see is the afterimage of white. He forces himself to breathe. It's okay, you're alive. It's fine. Breathe. Tentatively, he slides his hearing aids back in, blinking the worst of the light away. His heart is thumping, screeching at him.
Last time this happened, you weren't so lucky.
What if you weren't this time? You can't always escape unscathed.
Clint counts his fingers. Ten. His bow says Made in the U.S.A proudly. Clint does not think about the feeling of the lightning bolt as it hit him in Wyoming. He does not think about what his skin smelled like when it was burning. He does not think about the sensation of fire in his blood.
The rest of the Avengers, save Loki for some reason, all look rattled. Natasha has a permanent grimace plastered to her face. Bruce looks green, his eyes wide.
Steve breathes out sharply, his voice loud when he asks, "Everyone okay?"
"Yeah," Tony says weakly.
They keep going.
The rain continues to pour on them. The lightning dances above their heads in mockery. They get closer to the split cement truck, and one of the fires. The dark shadows reach for them. Clint waits. For actual claws, for the Chitauri, for something.
Where is everything?
Loki turns his head to look at something and stops.
"Loki?" Steve whispers. Tony swings his light toward whatever caught the Asgardian's attention. Clint squints, the afterimage of the lightning strike still lingering at the edges of his vision. But it doesn't matter. Although much dirtier and somehow smaller Clint still recognizes that body in half a heartbeat.
Thor.
Thor.
The Asgardian is laying in the debris, gray, gritty light slowly streaming down from the hole in the roof. Rain is streaming onto him in waves. He's laying on his back, his limbs a crumpled mess beside him. For all he looked terrible the last time Clint saw him, it's worse now. Thor looks dead. Thor might be dead.
But he's here.
God freaking curse it, it worked.
Loki actually found him.
"Thor," Loki breathes. He doesn't look for any trap, he doesn't even seem to care about the possibility. Loki runs to his older brother, landing beside him on his knees. Clint's not exactly in the place to judge, because he and the others are half a step behind him. The storm pours over them, but Clint couldn't care less about the rain if he tried.
All of them land on their knees beside Loki, whose hands are hovering over Thor's chest as if he's afraid to touch him. Thor's skin looks an alarming shade of white, bruises in varying states of healing on his face and his neck. Open gashes are red, but the blood is being washed into a pool of blood around the prince. His eyes are closed. He's unconscious.
Or.
Clint breathes out hard. He counts his stupid fingers again.
Loki finally manages to set his hand down on Thor's chest, fingers curling around the threadbare cloth that would be hard pressed to pass for a shirt. Natasha reaches out and pushes against Thor's neck for a pulse. Clint doesn't breathe for long seconds. Four, seven.
Please, God, just this one thing…
"There's a pulse," Natasha says, sagging, "He's alive. He's alive. "
Alive. Thor is alive. Tony looks away from Thor sharply as if it's painful to behold him. Bruce lifts a hand to his face to hide his relief, Steve's hand curling on Thor's shoulder.
Loki's eyes close. If Clint had any lingering doubts about how much Loki cares for his brother, that expression, filled with relief beyond words, would have ended them. " Takk gudene," the sorcerer whispers, under his breath. He opens his eyes and shakes Thor's shoulder. "Thor," he says, his voice low. "Thor, can you hear me?"
Thor's body moves listlessly against the movement. His face remains slack.
Steve gets up to his feet, moving a few feet away and pushing a hand to his ear, "Director Fury, this is Captain Rogers." Steve says. The director was about half an hour behind them, solely due to the fact that they forgot to inform him about this until they'd been in the air for twenty minutes.
Loki's hand curls around Thor's and something like a gasping shudder escapes him. No, he's crying, Clint realizes. Gasping, horrible things of pain, relief, and distress. Loki bows forward, his forehead pushing against Thor's sternum.
Lightning flashes above them, like the sky is sharing in the grief.
Clint reaches out and grab's Thor's cold, boney ankle, only realizing after he's done so that all of them are touching Thor in some way. As if none of them can believe this is actually happening. How could they? After this long, after imagining the horrors ceasing, now it's over? Without a fight, without blood split for Thor's return, Thor is just here.
Abandoned in a warehouse, left to die.
Loki's fingers tighten in Thor's shirt, crying harder. Clint reaches out a hand to rest on the younger Asgardian's arm, giving it a squeeze of reassurance. Something glimmering catches his attention in the next lightning strike, and Clint sees Mjolnir resting on the floor several feet away, beyond Thor's reach.
What happened? Clint wonders.
"Fury said that he's twenty minutes out with medical," Steve reports, coming back toward them. Tony nods absently. Clint's not really sure that any of them care about that right now. Just that Thor is here. Alive. Unwell, yeah, but alive and that's all that matters. They can fix the rest of it later. Figure out why Thor is here, why the Chitauri left him, what happened with the scepter, none of it matters right now.
Steve rests a hand on Loki's shoulder, who doesn't look up at him, continuing to grip onto Thor like his very life depends on it. Steve sinks down next to them on the floor, around Thor like a protective shield.
His voice is both relieved and thick as he says, "Let's get him home."
Author's Note:
No idea when the next chapter is going to be. My plan is to take a break from this story until at least December because I want to work on some other projects. Namely my original story. Idk. This all depends if I can fight off the intense depression to actually get my dumb little brain to work. So if you don't see an update for a while, this story isn't abandoned. I just wanted to enter a baby hiatus on a non-cliffhanger for once.
But I did want to thank you guys for your influx of reactions to the last chapter. It was very amusing to see everyone screaming with rage at Frigga. Someone promised they were going to go commit war crimes and I thought about that a lot because it hit my funny bone just right. I am going to make an attempt to respond to the comments this chapter, but know that all of your thoughts have been appreciated and loved. Thanks guys. 3
