Chapter 2 (Clint):

Natasha looked hot. That was his first intelligent thought (his first one was something like um uh…). She always looked beautiful, but today she was going for eye-catching, because of her assignment to interrogate Georgi Luchkov.

"Hey Nat," he managed. She raised one eyebrow at him, her eyes laughing at his inability to form words. "You look good," he said finally.

"But not like me," she replied. Her red hair curled, makeup on her face, wearing boots with heels, and a shirt with a lower neck. But at the same time, she wore basically the same thing she wore most days: dark skinny jeans and a fitted black top. It was then that he realized he was staring.

"I still see you," he said, which sounded incredibly stupid to his ears. Natasha was silent. He supposed it was true, since even though she looked about 17 and he knew that she was already able to get men to do what she wanted, he thought he could still see the 14-year-old girl if he looked. Or maybe he just knew her too well.

"Clint, stop staring."

"Sorry."

"We need to split up now," Natasha said reluctantly. "I can see the school."

For a moment, Clint had the ridiculous urge to say something sentimental or kiss her cheek, or something along those lines. But he didn't. Which they would all regret later…

"Good luck then."

"You too."

…

Clint sat silently in the back of the Chemistry Honors classroom. He was silent a lot at school, only talking a lot when he was around Natasha. He'd joked once that she drew the words out of him and he drew the emotions out of her, but it was true. Maybe that was just what best friends did, but it was stuff like that that sent Clint's thoughts down unnecessary paths. After all, people already thought they were dating.

"Clint, could you remind us what the chemical formula for glucose is?"

"C6H12O6."

"Exactly. Now…" Clint went back to his thoughts, careful to still keep an eye on Dr. Selvig. He doubted anything would happen in class, but you never knew.

Dr. Selvig was working with S.H.I.E.L.D. on a project involving something called the Tesseract, which was an energy source of almost unlimited power, and had been recovered from the ocean after World War 2 by a man named Howard Stark. Apparently, the Tesseract was once owned by the Norse god, Odin, and could be used as a portal to outer space.

Clint would've just settled for "it's powerful. Protect it."

But he took his job seriously, and went back to the classroom after the school day finished, taking his seat in the back corner while Selvig covered the windows and prepared his work area up front. Clint wasn't quite sure why he didn't just go to a lab outside of the school. But the teenage boy sat there for hours, doing his homework, yes, but also keeping a close eye on both the doctor and all possible entrances and exits. Occasionally, another teacher who had with ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. and was helping with the project would come in.

…

"The Tesseract is misbehaving."

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"No, it's not funny at all. The Tesseract is…behaving."

Clint watched silently as Nick Fury questioned Dr. Selvig, alternating glances between the two of them and the Tesseract (the most eye-catching thing in the room, since it was a glowing blue cube). This was getting worrying, especially considering the conclusion he'd come up with.

"Where's Agent Barton?" Nick Fury asked. Agent.

"The Hawk? Back at his desk." Clint smiled very faintly. Weird how a codename could make you feel accomplished. His was, of course, Hawkeye.

"I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things," Fury told Clint, frowning.

"Well, I see better from a distance." Clint wasn't sure if the look Fury gave him was "whatever" look or the difficult teen look, like "boy, what is wrong with you?"

Fury sighed, as though he had better things to do than deal with teenage archers. "Have you seen anything that could set this thing off?"

"Dr. Selvig's clean –no IMs, no emails, no contact with anyone suspicious. If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't on this end."

"On this end?"

"It's a doorway to the other side of space, right? Don't doors open from both sides?" Clint felt rather proud of this observation, not that he showed it. There was a burst of blue energy, and Clint pulled Fury out of the way as it streaked across the room. Blue light flared, then stopped, and in its place knelt a teenage boy with long black hair holding a spear.

Loki…I'm an idiot, Clint thought. Maybe the brothers Thor and Loki are the brothers Thor and Loki? Hmm.

"Sir, put down the spear," Nick Fury called. A slow smile crossed Loki's face.

Then everything went to hell. Because chaos happens when the god of chaos shows up.

Several guards and other members of S.H.I.E.L.D. armed with weapons (completely against the school rules, but then…his were too) had entered with Nick Fury, but they didn't survive Loki's assault. Suddenly it was just Clint, Nick Fury, and Loki, with a bunch of dead bodies. Clint swallowed nervously. Loki turned to him.

"You have heart," he said softly. The tip of the spear touched Clint's chest.

Suddenly a whole wealth of knowledge lay in vast plains spread before his eyes. The universe itself was open to him. He looked up into Loki's eyes and put away the gun he'd drawn. Everything had changed.