His hawk was back. Loki felt eyes on him as he paced the deck and basked in the midmorning sun. Eyes always watched him, but the intensity of the glare was nearly palpable. Loki knew when the others were watching him, and the Widow had a certain intensity to her observation, but this felt like a physical force had driven into the back of his skull. Only Barton could so strongly manifest his hatred. That and the gaze was coming from higher up than any of the others were likely to clamber.

Loki turned his face to the morning warmth and let his eyes slide close. The air had a slight damp chill to it that still lurked in the shadows of the eaves and lifted mistily from beneath the trees. But the sun warmed him. A deep breath stretched his lungs to their fullest and then escaped as a sigh.

How peaceful, he thought, if only someone weren't glaring death at me.

"Going to shoot me in the back?" he asked as he leaned against the railing. Behind him there was a slight shuffling as Barton stepped from his hiding place between a chimney and slanting roofline. A few scrapes and a soft grunt were all that marked the archer's descent along the stone and log exterior of the house.

Loki rolled to the side so that he could face Clint. The archer seemed to be slightly scowling, but Loki had come to realize that was just the archer's neutral expression. Rather unfortunate, really. A strange mixture of irritation and—oddly—mild pleasure coursed through him. Irritation that Clint was ruining his attempts at some peace and quiet, and pleasure because he really had liked Clint best out of all his minions. And not just because the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had a particularly useful skill set. Loki smiled, which he knew would serve as an annoyance.

"Now's the part where you tell me it would be dishonorable to shoot a man in the back." He clucked his tongue, "no…that's far too upstanding for someone in your line of work, isn't it. All that honor and morality rigmarole is really more your Captain's field isn't it? Perhaps it's that you want to see the light leave my eyes."

Barton grunted. "You dead is you dead. I don't really care how you get that way."

"How very practical…and Russian, of you." Loki took in the scrape along Barton's temple and the small bandage across his nose. Apparently his most recent mission hadn't gone according to plan. Or maybe it had—it was always hard to tell with Barton. But that was to be expected of a mere mortal that had a habit of throwing himself into fights more suited for gods and aliens than a man with a glorified stick and some string.

Loki spooled out the silence between them, perfectly happy to wait for whatever Barton would do next. If he'd not currently been very, very human, Loki might even have chanced turning his back on the archer just to see what would happen.

"What's your angle with the kid?" Clint asked.

Loki blinked. That hadn't been where he expected this to go. "Angle?"

Crossing his arms, Clint merely stared him down.

Giving a helpless kind of shrug, Loki raised his eyebrows questioningly. "I'm afraid you really do need to be a bit more specific."

"Let me spell it out for you. You're not a nice guy. That's really not in question after the whole—I am death, conqueror of worlds act you tried to pull. You made it pretty clear that human lives don't even enter into the equation." His scowl deepened as the faces of his dead flashed before him. The muscles in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth. "So, I want to know what kind of twisted plan you've got for the kid."

Now it was Loki's turn to feel his anger rising. His eyes narrowed. "Book is not your concern."

"Since I'm the only one around here who apparently hasn't been drinking the Kool-aid and actually remembers who you are, the kid is every bit my concern." Although a fair bit shorter than Loki, it didn't appear that Clint remembered that as he scowled up at the taller man. "The kid doesn't deserve to be caught up in your machinations. He deserves better."

"Of course he does!" The words surprised Loki almost as much as they surprised Clint. Anger drained from Loki as he sagged in weariness. "Of course he does," he repeated softly. Sadness crept into his tone as he met the archer's suspicion. "But there is too much history between you and I for you to ever believe that I speak the truth, so what is the point."

He turned away and headed toward the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. "My angle is merely that Book comes through knowing me with as little damage as possible." With that he left the sunshine behind and returned to the cool shadows of the house.

Loki turned over his own words. He didn't even know what kind of damage he had done. Book wasn't improving. Magic still swirled through his ravaged heart, but the healing had slowed to a crawl. He slept, but awoke exhausted. Excursions from his bed had all but ceased. Though Banner's machines showed that all was well, Loki knew better. Book's body wasn't taking over from the magic. It wasn't improving. The fading power in his system gave him every breath he took. When the magic ran out…so did Book's façade of life.

And he would still be dead because of you, Loki thought. Unsurprisingly his steps led him to Book's door, as they often did. The soft, rhythmic blips of noise echoed throughout the bed chamber. The repetitive noise seemed to bring the Avengers comfort. It brought no such comfort to him as he leaned against the threshold, arm braced against the doorpost and forehead resting on his forearm. He had grown to hate the thrice-cursed sound of that damned machine. It sounded death. Each blip marked the beat of a heart whose beats were slowly running out.

"I doubt he'd appreciate your hovering," said a voice behind him.

Loki's eyes slid to the side. "How lucky that I do not care." He pushed away from the doorframe as Dr. Banner chuckled.

"I never took you for a mother hen."

"Since I'm apparently already mother to an eight-legged horse, why not to a brood of chickens as well," said Loki dryly as he turned to face the doctor across the doorway. There was a kind of annoyance in being found amusing by Dr. Banner. Disgust, fear, hatred, all these would perhaps have been better than the amusement that Banner greeted him with. In fact, he'd noticed that all of the Avengers weren't acting appropriately toward him—Clint being the obvious exception. They certainly didn't trust him—far from it—and he'd hardly say they had a cordial relationship. It was hard to nail down exactly what it was, but they didn't treat him as "other" anymore, as if he were this impersonal evil or simply another villain to be vanquished. They were beginning to notice things like his likes and dislikes, habits, and tendencies. Perhaps he seemed more real to them now. An individual rather than just a threat to be overcome.

A muffled noise snapped his attention to the bed, but Book was merely shifting in his sleep. For a moment Loki just watched the gentle rise and swell of the blankets over the boy's chest. How odd to think that at any moment it could just stop and all that Book was or ever had been would simply cease to be between one breath and the next.

"You seem to be thinking great thoughts." Banner had that sad little smile again, but it was somehow encouraging at the same time.

He surprised himself a little by answering. "Only that you are such fragile creatures. Brief candles that can burn out between one moment and the next." What was wrong with him. First Clint, and now this. He seemed determined to be mawkishly honest today.

Banner nodded. "Or be snuffed out."

Loki narrowed his eyes at the likely reminder that he had certainly "snuffed out" his fair share of mortal lives. There had been that one in particular that seemed to so galvanize the Avengers. The SHIELD Agent whose name Stark had thrown at him atop the tower. Loki thought he'd looked vaguely familiar when Barton began describing the major players he'd need to anticipate on the Helecarrier. Barton confirmed his suspicions that this Coulson was the same man from the time of Thor's banishment.

Perhaps he wouldn't have needed to die if the Avengers had shown a bit more cohesion at the start. One would have thought the threat of world domination and invasion by an alien race would have been enough on its own for them to get beyond their petty differences. There had been a need for that death.

He had still enjoyed it. But he hadn't even been watching the man die. That wasn't the prize—Thor's anguish was. Giving back pain for pain. He'd killed a man largely just to hurt Thor. At the time he'd relished it and given very little thought to the man in question. What really would one human life matter in the grand scheme of things?

Part of him wanted to laugh at his thoughts as he pointedly turned his back on the small figure in the bed.

Banner had turned contemplative as he interpreted Loki's actions. "I'm starting to think that maybe there is a reason Thor refuses to give up on you."

"Bull-headed stupidity?"

Banner wiped at his glasses and shook his head. "That's likely a large part of the equation. I was thinking more that he saw something worth saving."

That was only more proof of Thor's willful blindness. He idly picked at his left palm. Tightness clenched his jaw as an unpleasant thought crawled its way up his spine. Worth saving. It implied that he was in need of salvation. Or could possibly warrant it.

He crossed the room in seven strides, turned on his heel and crossed back. Five, six, seven, turn. Five, six, seven, turn. The cool wooden boards began to warm with his constant passes. The walls of his cage drew ever tighter and he had the urge to crawl out of his skin. Before Her tender ministrations, he would have done exactly that. The point between his shoulder blades ached with the subtle pull of muscles long accustomed to slipping into other forms as easily and naturally as someone else drew on a set of clothes.

"Might I suggest a larger room for such an activity," said J.A.R.V.I.S. blandly. Clearly he had surmised what Loki was doing from the sound of his steps.

"That is hardly the point of pacing," he snarled, grinding his heel into the ground a bit more forcefully than was necessary as he turned again.

The day's conversations had drug his thoughts to places he would have rather left unexplored. How low he had sunk to let the words of mayflies affect him. The implication that Book was just some part of an agenda, or that he had ill intent toward the boy raised his hackles. A short bark of laughter rang in the silence as he paused in his pacing. And wasn't that exactly true. Hadn't he been nothing but a resource to be used and discarded when his usefulness had run its course?

Five, six, seven, eight, turn. He paused. Eight steps. Shaking his head, he resumed his pacing. Now Thor's silly notions had begun to affect the rest of his jailers. They were deceived by their own soft hearts and his apparent tameness. As if you could ever domestic a creature with a fate such as his. He growled. How he just wanted to tear off his skin! These walls were too confining and he couldn't bear the sounds of life echoing through its chambers. One two three…How dare they look at him with pity! As if he were some child that had lost his way! Seven, eight, nine, turn.

Nine. He halted in midstep, experimentally curling his toes. Careful not to change his stride, he crossed again. Nine.

His eyes narrowed. It had been seven.

He hadn't changed his pace or his gait—and the room certainly hadn't grown any smaller. Hope began to bubble up in his chest even as he tried to tamp down the feeling. The only option was that his stride itself had changed, the length of his legs altering subtly. He had begun to shift shape.

Cautiously, Loki flexed his fingers, imagining them lengthening, narrowing, nails sprouting into talons. The muscles jumped in response, his body smoothly molding into the image he held in his mind. He braced himself for the coming tear of flesh and pain of the needlelike shards of power driven through him. No pain came. He curled and uncurled his transformed hand. He was no longer trapped.

The next instant he was bounding through the house, heading for the freedom of the vast forests. He took the steps to the great room in a graceful leap.

"Taking a field trip?" said Clint as he emerged from around the corner, the ever-present scowl across his face, bow already in his hand.

Loki's eyes flicked around the room, "I begin to find this dwelling cramped."

"Get used to being uncomfortable then."

Loki smiled and spread his hands pityingly, his mood suddenly elevated by his discovery. "You're not going to be able to stop me." He couldn't help but twist the knife deeper. "Time was, you wouldn't have wanted to."

The arrow was nocked to the bow in an instant, Clint's eyes devoid of any sign the taunt had hit its mark. "You know, sometimes I slip. Could be a tragic accident and…and…what are you doing?" A hint of dismayed confusion crept into Clint's voice as Loki began to peel off his outer layers.

Loki grinned to himself as he shed his hoodie and overshirt. In order to save his clothes from ruin he'd need to banish them into a pocket dimension during the transformation, only to be conjured again when he took human form. It was a skill he'd mastered fairly early on as being naked after shapeshifting was never appealing and often humiliating. With his magic reserves so low, however, he didn't trust that he could manage a whole set of clothes, so the essentials it was. Clint didn't need to know that, however. He'd just see their prisoner suddenly beginning to strip in the middle of the great room.

"S-stop that!" ordered Clint. Confusion and a hint of unease trickled into his voice.

"No." Loki wiggled out of his undershirt and threw it casually over the back of the couch. He paced toward Clint in nothing but his blue jeans. He had to time this right or he was going to get an arrow for his trouble. It wouldn't be the first time he'd taken foolish risks to get a rise out of someone. Clint was going to fire, he just needed to judge when. There. The twitch of narrowing in the archer's eye. The arrow slid from his grasp.

It thudded into the far wall, sailing through where Loki's head had been a moment earlier.

He exploded forward, his Aesir form vanishing into the rangy body of a snarling, black wolf. Before Clint could put another arrow to string, the wolf barreled into him, taking advantage of the archer's surprise to knock him to the ground, pinning him with its massive forepaws. Lips pulled back over white fangs. His teeth snapped mere inches from Clint's face. He flinched, but never blinked, seeing the wicked smile come into those wolfish green eyes. With a final canine smirk, Loki pushed off Clint and tore across the room toward the fireplace. In another leap he slid into a smaller, scaled form with sharp claws for climbing and extra limbs for gripping. With a flippant whisk of his tail he disappeared up the chimney and out into the world.

Clint sat on the floor for a minute, blinking a few more times than was necessary. He glanced up as Thor pounded into the room.

"My friend, what is wrong. I heard a shout," he said as he brandished Mjolnir. "What did Loki do?"

It didn't escape Clint that Thor knew the exact source of the disturbance without asking. He shook his head. "He started getting naked. And then he turned into a wolf." His brow furrowed. "He turned into a wolf and then a demon lizard-spider-thing and escaped up the chimney."

Thor's stance relaxed. A smile threatened to break across his broad features. "Did I not mention my brother was a shapeshifter?"

"No, no you did not."

The Asgardian gave a non-committal grunt and strode toward the window, watching his falcon-brother sporting on the gyres. The shape grew dark against the horizon as it sped away.

"He's running," spat Clint as he squinted against the dying sun.

Shaking his blond head slowly, Thor's gaze never left his brother's form and the joyous spirals of his flight. It had been a long time since he'd seen his brother this free. Mjolnir's leather-wrapped handle rasped beneath his tightening grip as he realized just how very long it had been. The shackles of bitterness and unhappiness had been weighing down his smiles and curbing his laughter long before his fall. And Thor hadn't noticed.

"We are going after him, right?"

"He will return."

"Your track record in understanding Loki is spectacularly bad," said Clint with a sideways glance, which Thor avoided.

"His oath binds him. More importantly the boy is still here. That is a greater promise of his cooperation than anything."

They stood side by side in silence, thoughts focused on the winged trouble still sporting in the evening air. A tightness ran across Clint's shoulders as he watched his slaver—play. "Don't think that you'll ever get him back, Thor. Don't even go there, cause he's gone and you'll just wind up betrayed all over again."

"I do not trust him."

"But you want to. Don't think I don't know desperate hope when I see it. Loki'll see it too."

"You seem to say there is no hope."

Clint glanced back toward the kitchen where he knew Natasha was hunting ingredients for one of her Russian concoctions that vaguely reminded him of used gym socks. He folded his arms across his chest. "I've had my fair share of experience with lost causes. He's gone. Don't know what he saw in the void—but it's keeping him on this course."

"He spoke to you of his fall?" Thor tensed and looked at the archer intently.

He shrugged. "We had down time—I think he liked talking to me. Didn't tell me everything, but I got more details than others about him—not just the plan, but how he wound up coming through that portal looking like death warmed over."

Thor's hand laid heavily on Clint's shoulder as he turned the archer to him, earnestness etched across his face. "What do you know?"

The muscles in his neck tightened as Clint dragged a nail along the hilt of the knife on his hip. He sighed and looked up at the much taller man. "Never got the whole story, but I don't think he and the Chitauri were as equal partners as he let on. For the first couple days he was in rough shape—he tried to hide it, but you could tell that he was in pain. I finally convinced him to let me help. Someone had messed him up. That kinda damage certainly didn't come from here."

A strange mixture of hope, rage, and confusion swirled through Thor. "He was tortured."

Clint shrugged. "Roughed up at least." He squinted shrewdly as he guessed the course of Thor's thoughts. "But don't think he wasn't doing this of his own free will. I still don't know what game he was playing, but even if some measure of coercion was involved, he was here to cause chaos—and enjoying every minute of it." Clint's face hardened. "I don't like thinking about—those times—and not just for the obvious reasons. I've got every reason to hate him." A tightness screwed around his mouth. "But here's the thing—when he made me his meat puppet, he didn't just make me an automaton. He did something far worse. He took the best parts of me—my love, loyalty, devotion, sense of duty—wrenched them from those who rightfully deserved them and placed them all on himself."

He turned away and scrubbed a hand through his short hair. The setting sun angled through the tall windows at his back, blotting his shadow across the room. "I admired him, believed in him—believed in what we were doing. It was a revelation. Epiphany. For once in my life there was perfect clarity."

Thor nodded in understanding. "And you were betrayed."

Clint huffed and dropped into one of the chairs, one leg dangling over the arm. "I deal in ambiguities—it's part of the job description. He took that burden." For the first time during the conversation, Clint locked eyes with Thor. "I hate him." He drew his fingers along his bowstring. "Hate myself too. A part of me wants that clarity again. Needs it."

The two lapsed into silence. The faint ring of metal upon metal drifted from the kitchen. Voices pitched in agitation echoed indistinctly down the hall from where Tony and Bruce were working on yet another scanner to detect the use of magic.

Thor crossed his arms over his broad chest. A contemplative look settled across his face. "There was a time when Loki would have been worthy of your respect."

The archer snorted. "You sure about that? Way I hear it, his track record hasn't been that great. He's only been on our radar for a short time and he's managed to nearly take out a whole town, apparently attempted genocide, committed mass murder, planned to take over the world…and didn't you die at some point? Does it count as fratricide if you got better?"

Thor waved away the flippant remark. "Over a thousand years of history together cannot be erased by the actions of a few years—terrible though they may have been."

"And if that history was a lie?"

Thor shook himself. "I must speak with my brother."

A/N: So, Clint actually gets his tangible death glare from me. My best friend's husband once told me that back when the two of them weren't even dating but were interested in one another that he could always tell when I walked into the room because he could feel the death glare smack him upside the back of his head. I…I might be a little overprotective of my friends. But he's actually a great guy and he survived the gauntlet of his wife's crazy friends. I doubt I'll ever have to be hiding his body in the woods somewhere.

I've always had a soft spot for stories with Clint and Loki because of the wealth of potential interactions between them. So much opportunity for character drama!

Next week: Thor and Loki's discussion goes to places so far from what Loki wishes to discuss that talking about Frost Giants is actually a more palatable option. And Loki finally gets an answer to the question of how Thor would react if he saw his true self.