Clint had one foot out the door of SHIELD headquarters when a heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder, stopping him.

"Barton."

At the collected, controlled voice of his boss, Clint turned around, half afraid that he had left a job half-done – something which, to Fury, was as bad as leaking international secrets or manufacturing black market explosives.

Instead, Fury pressed a tan envelope to Clint's chest. It was unlabeled, save for the word "Stark" written in slanting capitals. Clint looked at the other side of it, hoping for more of an explanation, but nothing else stood out to him.

Curious, he glanced up at Fury, who said, "Make sure Stark gets this."

"Sure thing," Clint replied, feeling that absolutely nothing had been cleared up and that he was once again out of the loop.

Fury released his shoulder, and he attempted for the second time to leave the building. This time, however, Fury's voice stopped him again.

"Put that directly into his hands, Barton," he called. "That's an order."

Clint paused in the doorway just long enough to nod over his shoulder at the Director before tucking the envelope into his jacket and stepping out into the city.

Normally, the end of a work day brought with it a sense of freedom – a knowledge that there was the evening ahead, which no boss could control. This time, though, Clint could feel the weight of his job following him home. Rather, riding home inside of his jacket.

It had all been absolutely fine until the very last second.

For once, he had actually clocked out on time, like a normal, unexceptional employee who wasn't constantly called to work overtime just because he was an excellent shot and a shrewd agent. He had finished all of his assignments during his hours, making certain that he wouldn't have to bring any work back to the tower. He had wished the secretary a nice evening, and he had almost been out the door.

Now, five seconds with Fury had just ruined his entire night, and he mentally cursed himself for being so good at his job. If he kept being so invaluable, he would never get a quiet night at home with his friends. Ever. He was convinced.

He maneuvered his way through the after-work crowd disinterestedly; sometimes, he wished he worked a normal job like everyone who passed him on the sidewalk. Other times, he knew he would rather scrape a cheese grater against his forehead for eight hours a day than sit behind a desk like them.

Still, they probably didn't have mysterious envelopes hidden on their person while they walked home.

Clint fully intended to hover over Tony's shoulder when he opened it; after all, it had been Clint who had acted as messenger, therefore granting him a right to see the contents. That, and the fact that he was wickedly curious.

It had started to mist by the time he arrived at the tower, slipping inside the million-dollar doors before the clouds had a chance to open up on him. Sure enough, it was raining in sheets by the time he got off the elevator on the main floor, the windows already streaked with the pelting water. The dark clouds beyond the skyline made for a nice sort of night for sitting around. Not for poking through whatever work-related nonsense was inside that envelope.

He wondered if he could get away with changing into his pajamas before giving the message – or whatever it was – to Tony. As soon as he rounded the corner, though, he realized that there was no chance of that.

In the living room sat Tony, looking like he had been stricken with the plague since Clint had left that morning. Bruce sat at the bar – a rare position for him – casting sidelong glances at Tony as if he was going to dissolve any second. Behind the bar, seeming far too comfortable with the place after only a day of living there, stood Elizabeth, one hand cupping three glasses and the other a bottle of whiskey.

She caught sight of Clint before the others, silently turning around and picking out another glass to set on the counter beside the other three.

"Thanks, but I've had worse days," Clint told her, gesturing for her to put the glass back.

She merely arched an eyebrow, pouring him a drink anyway.

"Believe me," Tony piped, voice sounding unusual and uneasy, "you'll want it. You got something for me?"

In answer, Clint extricated the envelope from his jacket, tapping it lightly with his fingers. "You already know what's in here?" he asked, holding it up inquisitively.

Bruce shoved away from the bar, crossing his arms over his chest as if he was bracing himself for something highly unpleasant. "We've got a pretty good idea," he responded, exhaling sharply through his nose.

Tony held out his hand – the motion almost appearing sacrificial – for the envelope, and Clint obediently gave it over to him, not sure if he should be eager to see the contents anymore. Judging by their faces, he ought to be dreading this.

After a slight hesitation, Tony slid his hand into the envelope, pulling out a thin stack of eight-by-ten glossy photos. He held them carefully so that nobody else could see too much as he flipped through them, lips squeezed hard, several tense sighs hissing out his nose as he analyzed the images. Once he had seen all of them, he reached to the coffee table, picking up a transparent tablet.

"JARVIS," he said, "I need you to run these pictures through facial recognition for me."

"Very good, sir."

While the computer worked, Tony didn't look up. Bruce had pulled a glass of whiskey toward himself, his fingers drumming anxiously against the side, though he didn't seem aware that they did so. Elizabeth shot Clint an unreadable glance, pushing a drink toward him and keeping one for herself. The seconds passed like decades as they waited, none of them daring to make a sound. Clint had questions, but the chill in the air made him hold them for later.

"Facial recognition complete," JARVIS chirped, the abrupt sound making them all jump.

As Tony looked down at his tablet, Clint thought he saw a conglomeration of expressions cross his face in a span of half a second. The fact that he hadn't had time to fully observe them set Clint on edge.

Tony swore under his breath, tossing the tablet onto the sofa beside him and passing a hand over his face.

For a moment, they all stood completely still, rooted to the spot by Tony's reaction alone. Elizabeth was the first to break free, crossing the room to where Tony sat, and lifting the photographs from the cushion beside him.

She rifled through them a bit faster than he had, her brow deeply furrowed, muttering, "This is impossible."

"Obviously it's not," Tony groaned.

She just shook her head in disbelief. "But it must be. There is no way that this could happen."

Bruce raised his glass to his lips, asking, "Is it him?"

"Yeah," Tony admitted, and Bruce downed his drink in one gulp.

"This is impossible," Elizabeth repeated, stunned, as she stared at the pictures.

"Who is it?" Clint interjected, abandoning his own glass to go peer over Elizabeth's shoulder. At the familiar face captured on the film, though, his question was answered. "Oh," he breathed.

Not a thing had changed about that face since the last time he had seen it. This time, it lacked the overtly extravagant Asgardian armor – including the horned helmet – that had so distinguished him from the army of intergalactic robot-things that they had fought. But the face was undoubtedly Loki's.

Loki, standing in the back of a crowd waiting for the bus. Loki, moving with the pedestrians like a salmon with its school. Loki, fitting in so well that it almost took effort to pick him out.

Clint strode back to the bar and emptied his glass in one swallow, an effort to combat the bile that had started to rise in his throat at the face of the man who had enslaved him. He slammed the glass back down – hard – and cursed.

Thor knew Sif too well to be even remotely duped by her cordial smiles and polite nods that had punctuated her time at the dinner table that evening. While he might not have been as perceptive as his brother, he was not fool enough to miss the emptiness in her eyes, the hollowness in her movements, as though all the spirit had been sapped from her.

With such a knowledge, it came as little surprise to him when he glanced down the table between courses and found her to be absent.

Once he too had left the table, he wandered the halls, half looking for Sif, half avoiding her. The former half won out, though, as he stepped out onto a quiet veranda and came upon her strong form, facing away from him, staring out over the rooftops and forests.

He passed through the sheer drapes that separated the outside from in, dancing in limbo like golden flames, and he approached her quietly, though never with as much silky stealth as Loki would have done. She didn't look at him, but he could tell that she knew he was there. After a hushed moment, decorated only by a heady ripple of laughter emanating from the banquet hall, she blinked, murmuring, "Will you be able to get to Midgard?"

For the first time in a long while, Thor cared not how she had come by this information; if she hadn't found out throughout the course of the day, he certainly would have told her of his plans before the next sunset.

"Yes," he replied softly, letting the breeze carry his voice to her ears. "Mother, father, and Heimdall have agreed to assist me in my voyage –"

"Wonderful."

"—on the condition that I travel alone," he finished, carefully observing her profile as her lips tensed and she weakly pushed her chin out in a show of immunity, though he could see the masked hurt at his news.

She nodded once, saying, "Naturally," despite the fact that her tone begged him to let her come along.

He leaned down to catch her eye. "Sif," his voice rumbled gently, "there is not enough power to transport more than one."

"And these mortals know you already, so there is no question as to who among us shall go," she remarked, glancing down at her interlaced hands that rested on the railing, the fingers worrying with themselves pointlessly.

Thor mirrored her posture, bending forward to rest his forearms beside her hands. "He is my brother," he said simply.

"He is my friend," she echoed mechanically.

Something in her tone caught his attention, and he turned to her, watching her eyes grow hard as she surveyed the city. "You defend him fiercely," he muttered, taking his time with the words, choosing them carefully.

She did not reply, but the movement in her fingers stopped, her hands growing too still too fast. "We all care for Loki," she finally stated, a touch too much nonchalance laced through it. "I would sooner die than see either of you come to harm."

"In that case, I will be careful," Thor told her in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion.

"And these mortals – the Avengers – will be able to offer aid?"

Her question was also his; it had been since the trial, sitting densely in the back of his mind as he grasped at straws in an attempt to devise a plan to save his brother. He knew perfectly well that the Avengers had absolutely no cause to even care about Loki's fate, but that was why he had decided to enlist their help in the first place. The hope for their forgiveness cruelly teased him.

So when he said, "I pray that it will be so," he was being entirely honest.

Sif stood in thoughtful stillness for a moment, regarding the rooftops beneath them emotionlessly. "Then so shall I," she said when it suited her to break the silence. After another hesitation, she asked, "What of the trial?"

Thor shrugged. "You left me so speechless that I was unable to formulate anything even half as impressive."

"The goal was not to impress," she responded, giving her head a tiny toss to right a runaway cord of her midnight hair. "In fact, there was no goal at all. Besides, I ask not about any of us who actually merited a chance to speak. I know perfectly well how we all fared." Her eyes flicked up for an instant, shooting him a stony glance, and his earlier observation of her defensiveness came rushing back into his mind.

"I know not what they have deigned appropriate punishment for my brother." He looked out over the vista before them, soaking in the radiance of Asgard at night. The sight acted as a balm to soothe the nauseating wave of fear that had welled at the admission of such ignorance.

Her entire persona seemed to tense at this, and she murmured, "Then I shall pray for him too." There was a slightly strangled air to her voice that bothered Thor; he was loath to see his friends dismayed.

He took a breath, wanting to lay a comforting hand on her, but very aware that she did not wish to be touched at the moment. "I will leave as soon as possible," he told her, "so that I may return just as quickly."

"I will be waiting," she replied, and he knew she didn't mean waiting for his sake.