Author's Note: REORDER! So yes. This is the new chapter! YAY! More Clint and Natasha... and Loki goes snooping! Can't he just can't help himself. -Ember

Chapter 10

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Tony jerked awake at the knocking sound. He sat bold upright in the padded chair and looked around disoriented for a moment. He sighed when he saw Emily and Loki on the bed in front of him, the dark blue comforter pulled up around their shoulders. Loki's pale left hand was laid out on the bedspread with the snaking IV cable running beside it. Jarvis's monitor displayed his steady breathing and heartbeat silently. On the other side of the bed Emily was breathing slowly with the cannula resting on her upper lip. In the gloom they looked equally pale and sported matching deep purple circles under their eyes. Tony could almost trick himself that the father and daughter were really related.

The soft knock came again.

Tony jumped up with a curse building for whoever was disturbing the little family. It was hardly to his lips by the time he opened the door, but the man waiting in the hall stunned him into silence.

"Hey." Clint said, eye falling to the floor. He still looked slightly pale from the blood loss and shock, but right now Tony didn't care much about the assassin's wellbeing. He was still boiling with anger.

"What the hell do you want?" Tony growled.

"He awake?"

"No."

"Who is it Tony?" Loki's whisper proved the angry retort wrong.

"No one," Tony muttered and moved to shut the door. Clint's hand shot out and slapped against the wood loudly, wedging the room open.

"I want to talk to him," Clint insisted, raising his voice so Loki could hear.

"Quiet!" Tony hissed. "You'll wake the kid."

"Sorry," Clint did look chastised, but Tony wasn't convinced.

"It's ok, Stark. Let him in."

"What?"

"He won't shoot me."

"How the hell do you know?"

"I know." Loki sounded assured and calm. Tony wavered for a moment, asking himself how much uncertainty Loki allowed with Emily in the room. Then he remembered something Loki had said back in DC; I will never bet with Emily's life. Loki had to be pretty sure about Clint then. Tony hated having to trust the character judgment of the God of Lies. But what choice did he have?

"Ugh!" Tony threw his hands up and stood back for the Agent. "If he wakes the kid I'll flatten his ass on the front lawn!" He told the half dead man lying in bed.

"I won't stop you," Loki replied with a soft chuckled. Clint edged into the room, eyes shifting between the other two men. He analyzed their strangely casual exchange with clear disapproval. For a moment he met Loki's eyes across the gloomy room.

"Would you give us a minute, Tony?" Loki asked.

"What? You want to be alone with this… fine!" Tony gave up arguing. He glared at Clint and threw one last indecipherable look at Loki. "I'll be downstairs. Jarv, call me when they're done or Hawkman forgets who's house he's in, again."

Tony stormed angrily—but silently—out of the room, closing the door behind him. He allowed himself muttered curses all the way down the stairs to the foyer, where he glared at his suit. It stood in stand my mode in the hallway next to the dark spot on the floor. Seeing it made Tony a bit nauseous still so he walked past it quickly. He glowered at Natasha, who was lounging on his living room couch as if she hadn't just invaded his home and shot his… his what? His friend? His lover? His roommate? How was he going to explain to two of the people Loki had hurt most what exactly he was doing with the ex-God of Mischief, would-be King of Earth in his house—much less in his bed. Tony shook off thoughts of semantics, he had bigger issues to worry about, and sat down across from the red head.

"If your BF so much as touches Loki. I will beat him with his own stupid bow until he's purple as his damn suit, that good with you Romanoff?"

"He won't."

"How the fuck would I know? He only shot the guy. This is my house Natasha! This is where we were supposed to be safe! And speaking of which: Jarv! Revoke Hawkman and Red's security privileges for my house—no, scratch that—all my buildings!"

"Clint won't touch Loki so long as the girl lives." Natasha snapped.

"What? He feels guilty now for trying to off a little kid. Isn't that what you two do? You kill people? That's your jobs."

"You know we don't kill children if we can avoid it," Natasha replied with a carefully blank expression.

"Not seeing why this means Loki's safe with you two in the same country!"

"Clint won't do anything to make her suffer."

"Why? He got a soft spot for little girls?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly but other than that she gave no outward signs of any kind.

"God I hate spies," Tony growled and jumped up. He was halfway across the room to the liquor cabinet when he remembered there was nothing in it. He uttered a curse under his breath a did a one eighty, heading toward the kitchen instead. He rummaged around for some kind of lunch. He was halfway through making a turkey sandwich when Natasha broke the silence.

"He had a son."

"What? Who?"

"Clint. He had a son." She got up off the couch and crossed the room slowly, throwing a wary glance toward the stairs as she passed. She settled down at the bar while Tony spread mayo on his bread.

"Hawkman doesn't seem like the father type. He knock-up his high school sweetheart?"

"His wife. Her name was Bobby—Barbara," Natasha said bluntly, her face still carefully impassive. "They were married before I knew him. They met on one of his first missions for SHIELD and afterward she relocated to be closer to him. He would spend his down time with her between missions. SHIELD was different back then, everything was different then."

"Why haven't I heard about this?" Tony asked, slapping the two halves together and immediately losing interested in his food. "You said 'was'. What happened to her?" His hands itched for something else to do. They clenched and unclenched on the counter top as Natasha went on.

"Clint killed her."

"What?" Tony felt blood draining from his face.

"That's the way he sees it. We make a lot of enemies, you know that as well as any of us. They came looking for him and found Booby and her son instead. Clint came back from a mission to find what was left." She could have been reading the phonebook from her tone but her words were like physical blows.

Natasha sat silently, staring Tony down unwaveringly. He just gripped the counter for support and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He tried not to remember his own nightmares of what might have happened to Pepper, or anyone else who got to close to him. Something else Loki had said the first time they met echoed in the back of his mind; the God of Mischief has too many enemies and I have no way of protecting her from them as I am now. Tony felt his blood run cold. That was supposed to be my job, he thought, I was supposed to protect them when Loki couldn't. What if I hadn't been fast enough? The scene flashed before his eyes, walking in the door to find Emily lying in the hallway, suffocating or bleeding and Loki's blank sightless stare looking at him accusingly. Clint had lived that and survived. How? Tony wondered.

"I met him not long after that," Natasha explained, "Clint swore after that he wouldn't get anyone else hurt because of his involvement with SHIELD. You can imagine New York and the events leading up to that were not… pleasant for him. Men died because of him, men with families like he lost. Today a father nearly lost his daughter because of his association with SHIELD. Clint won't hurt Loki so long as the girl lives," her voice took on a hard commanding note, "and you won't ask him anything else about it."

The force of her glare made Tony shiver. He felt light headed and quickly started breathing again.

"I didn't know," he said lamely.

"That's why I told you," she replied in the same neutral, unfeeling tone that she had delivered the message. Tony gulped and pushed the sandwich away across the counter. He really couldn't eat it now. He realized now why Clint looked so sick and pale. It wasn't just the blood loss. It wasn't just that he nearly shot a child. It was that he almost inflicted the same tragedy he suffered on someone else—even if that someone was Loki.

Tony sighed and hung his head. He made a mental note to ease up on Clint and Natasha's security privileges, maybe just put them on notice so they couldn't catch him by surprise again. Clint might even turn out to be an ally in the whole mess. It was clear that Loki's presence wasn't going to stay secret for much longer.

.

Clint was silent for along moment after Tony left the dim room. He looked over the man he'd shot. It was definitely Loki, the same face and eyes that had haunted his nightmares, but this version was undeniably fragile. He was paler and more tired looking than he had been, even during the invasion. He rivaled the little girl lying next to him for sympathy from appearance alone.

"Thank you," Loki's voice was soft and somewhat horse when he spoke, his eyes on the ceiling. He didn't bother, or wasn't able, to sit up. Clint's eyes widened in confusion and shock. He'd never heard the God thank anyone for anything, certainly not for shooting and wounding him.

"For not killing me," he answered Clint's unspoken question.

"I nearly did."

"But you didn't."

"Thank Tony."

"I have more to thank that man for than I could repay in a hundred human lifetimes. The scales can't fall further in that regard." Loki sounded genuine, almost caring when he talked about Tony. It was like their strange banter before. It was so at odds with the Loki that Clint knew it made him uneasy.

"You still talk funny," he muttered instead of asking any one of the burning questions about the former-god and billionaire's relationship.

"Stark says that too. Very old habits." Non malicious humor, maybe even humor at his own expense: Clint was immediately suspicious. He wouldn't put it past Loki to manipulate him even so crudely as that.

Silence fell on the dim room and the waves crashed outside as a dim background melody. Clint looked around the sparse room. He noted the old tattered quilt thrown over an armchair, a stack of stock printouts and financial magazines on the little table and a few hand drawn pictures taped at child's height on the wall by the balcony door.

"I know what you came to say," Loki whispered to the ceiling.

"Yeah, what's that?"

"That we're even. I had you at my mercy and now you have had me at yours. Fair's fair. I know you no longer have any desire to hurt me now that you understand the situation."

"Yeah? How do you know that?" Clint snapped a little too loudly and Emily groaned and rolled over. Loki glared at Clint and held up a finger to his lips. He then reached over to put his hand on the little girl's shoulder until she stilled. Loki adjusted the covers around her gently.

"I know," Loki whispered, "because I know you, as much as you hate to admit that."

"Fine," Clint shrugged. "Then we're done here." Halfway turned to leave Loki stopped him with one word.

"Novosibrisk."

Clint froze in mid step. Repressed memories clawed their way into the front of his mind and he fought them down staunchly.

"Did you ever tell her about what really happened there?" Loki asked, there was no reason to specify who "her" was. There was only one person in the world that Clint would tell about his short and bloody stay in Novosibrisk.

"Shut up!" Clint hissed, panic creeping up on him, "Don't you dare…"

"Why would I? It would gain me nothing." Loki cut off the agent's threat.

"Are you blackmailing me?" Clint hissed.

"No. I'm negotiation." Loki looked back up at the ceiling. "I don't think our debts are settled. I will concede that your attempt on my life, this wound, and what I endured are compensation for what I did to you, but what you did to her, to my daughter, that's another matter."

"What do you want from me?" Clint hissed.

"What you couldn't give yourself in Novosibrisk."

Clint straightened up and his nostrils flared.

"It's really all in your favor, Agent Barton," Loki said so softly it was almost lost in the sounds of the waves. "As soon as she dies there's no reason for you to leave me alive. You get your revenge and our deals are settled. You owe me nothing and gain everything. Maybe you will even find the solace in vengeance that I never did."

Clint knew his hands were shaking and his heart racing. He swallowed thickly twice before he could speak.

"Deal."

He turned quickly to go, fleeing the room and the request that turned his stomach for so many reasons. He was halfway out the door when he heard the murmured reply.

"Thank you."

Then the door shut and Clint was alone in the hallway breathing hard.

Could I do that? He asked himself. Immediately he knew the answer.

Yes. I could.

Would it be right? He asked further. Could he do what Loki asked? He remembered his darkest days in the sunless city, hating SHIELD, hating himself, hating his pointless revenge. He thought about the hard days that followed and the people that pulled him though. Colson, Fury, and Natasha. Who would Loki have? Would they be enough? Pondering it Clint ambled back downstairs.

If he hadn't been distracted he might have noticed the look that Tony gave him or the man's uncharacteristic silence. But Clint was too wrapped up in his own confusion and moral dilemma, fighting panic and unearthed memories that he'd hoped never to revisit. He didn't speak when he got back to Natasha's side and she didn't ask him to. She nodded in understanding silence and got in the driver's seat. Clint was all to happy to put the mansion in the rear view mirror but he felt a strange magnetic draw pulling him back. It was almost an obligation that made up his mind. Natasha reached across the median when she saw that he was calmed down and put her hand over his. Clint forced a small smile for her. That was one of the things he loved about Tasha; sometimes they just didn't need words.

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Loki woke up disoriented and in pain. He gritted his teeth and bore it though like he always had. The alternative was a needle in his hand, and that scared him more than pain. The very thought made him shudder. After many, many years of practice he was very good at ignoring his pain though and started reciting the oldest most complicated transformation spells he could remember. The knowledge was useless to him now, but it kept his mind busy. In Asgard he got a lot of his studies out of the way when he was avoiding pain. When he had a grip on the burning agony in his side he swallowed dryly and looked around him. The water glass by his bed was empty, as was the his room. Emily's side of the bed, where she had spent the past few days with him, was rumpled but cold. A rectangle of sunlight was making its way across the wall from the open balcony door, so it was late afternoon. Loki counted up the hours that had slipped by him. They were starting to bother him. He'd barely been able to keep his eyes open the past few days. He was immensely grateful every time he did force himself into wakefulness Emily's smile was the first thing he saw.

Loki managed to sit up on his elbows this time before the pain made him dizzy, which was an improvement. It wasn't until he threw back the covers that the automated house protested.

"Sir, I can't advise movement in your current state."

"Where are Tony and Emily?" Loki asked the house—Jarvis as it preferred to be called.

"They are out, sir. I believe their intent was to purchase macaroni and cheese for dinner and return before you awoke."

"Thank you, Jarvis."

"Your welcome, sir. But I must suggest you remain in bed."

Loki ignored the computers voice and gingerly eased his weight onto the floor. His legs shook and his side protested but he remained upright; Progress.

He stumbled slowly to the bathroom and fumbled through the cabinet for the over the counter pain pills. Something to—as Tony would say—knock the edge off. He almost wished that there was still a strong drink around the house to dull the stabbing burn; almost.

The bottle wasn't in the bathroom though. Loki went back for his glass, at least going to quench his thirst when he found the little pain pill bottle on his bedside table. A yellow sticky note was flapping on the top in the slight breeze from the open balcony door. Tony's heavy scrawl was on top and Emily's awkward letters on the bottom:

Ignore the instructions. Take four. –T

Be back soon Love, Emily

Loki smiled. He twisted off the top and saw one little pill rattling around it the bottom of the white container. He shook his head, still smiling. Just like Tony, he thought, thinks to set out the bottle but doesn't check the pills. He dry swallowed the one and grabbed his glass.

The hall was a challenge that Loki tackled like anything else: with patience and stubborn bloody minded determination. He stopped once when blackness threatened to swallow him up and the hall wavered in front of his eyes. He practiced the meditative deep breathing his mother had taught him and pressed on.

He made it all the way to Tony's room before the blackness forced him to his knees. His hand flailed out for the wall but found only air. His palm hit the bed and it only barely stopped him from collapsing to the floor completely. Loki lowered himself slowly, trying to help the blood flow back to his brain. The darkness edged away from his vision and his mind cleared a little.

Perhaps I should have just waited like Jarvis said, he thought reluctantly. He found himself staring at the dust under Tony's bed and the single thing between the mattress and the floor. Loki's brow creased in concentration. He peered into the deepening shadows at the little box. He reached out and only just managed to snag it with his long fingers. It rattled slightly as he dragged it back toward him.

Sitting up, pain forgotten, Loki opened the lid of the cardboard box. The first thing his eyes fell on was the photo in it's silver frame. It was almost completely white but a smiling freckled face framed with red blond hair stood out in the middle.

"Pepper," Loki said softly. The picture was of their wedding day judging by the white dress and the confetti flying around the happy couple. Loki marveled at how young Tony looked, even younger than when he had fought in New York. He seemed timeless in the photo, transformed by a joy that Loki had never seen in his friend.

Besides the framed photo there were a few loose ones, scenes of happy times for the couple. In all of them Tony was smiling or laughing—smirking once but even that familiar expression was transformed by the woman's presence—while she was joyful in a reserved way, subtle and yet caring in her looks. There was a necklace box containing a gaudy bejeweled monstrosity that only Tony Stark would buy for a woman of clearly refined taste. An artful desk plaque with the name Virginia Potts CEO engraved across the glass was at the bottom. Wedged between that and the side of the box was a white envelope. Loki lifted it, noting the return address.

Mrs. V. Stark
Penfield Hospice
1788 Gable Dr.
Santa Clarita, CA 91310

The date placed the letter nearly five years ago. Loki went to set it back down in the box, but paused when he heard the soft clink of metal inside the envelope. Carefully he peaked into the ripped top. Gold winked out from inside, one large wide band another narrow and the last weighed down with three large square diamonds. Loki closed the letter. He put the lid on the box and slid it back where he'd found it.

His hands ached to drag it back. He could hardly think about anything other than what that letter might say, what it might reveal about the woman who could love Tony Stark and what had happened to her. He cursed his curiosity. But he remembered Tony's words from what seemed like a long time ago but had only been little more than a week; I would give up all the money in the world for another hour with Yensin… with Roody... my parents… my wife.

Loki sighed. He knew what the letter was. Just another memento of someone gone. Reading it wouldn't help Tony and it wouldn't satisfy Loki as much as his curiosity lied as told him it would. Tony deserved better than his prying. He'd never bothered Loki about what happened after his banishment but waited until the broken God was ready to share those stories. Didn't Tony deserve the same courtesy or more?

Loki stood up slowly cursing himself for having found morals somewhere in his fall from grace. Without them he could quite happily pick apart the whole box without a whiff of guilt. As it was Loki was feeling nauseous with the injustice he'd already done. It was a new and unwelcome sensation.

Downstairs a door opened and the squeaky wheel Emily's oxygen tank had developed echoed in the foyer.

"Do you think Daddy is awake?" Loki heard Emily's soft but excited voice coming up the stairs.

"I don't know. Let's go check. I hope he is or his dinner is going to be cold." Tony replied.

Emily giggle and then coughed. Loki winced at the sound.

"Drink little princess, then we go wake your daddy," Tony said to her sternly. Loki could imagine he was holding out a water bottle to her with a gentle smile but worry like hard chips of ice in his eyes. Maybe the guilt had it's trade offs, Loki admitted to himself and ambled to the door. Besides, Tony would tell him in his own time. Until then Pepper would just be one of the eccentric billionaire's many mysteries.

Author's Note: Yay, people have been leaving reviews. :) Makes me supper happy. I'm glad you're enjoying the story and I hope you stick around for the end. (Hope I get around to writing the end. I don't usually post anything unless I've already finished it so this will be new and exciting.) Leave me a review with your opinions, thoughts, feedback, grammar notes, grocery lists, etc. -Ember