Disclaimer: I do now own any of the Marvel characters. The Avengers was written by Joss Whedon, movie transcript taken from the website Scribd. If you know it, I do now own it.
Live Like You Mean It
And I've lost who I am / And I can't understand why my heart is so broken
-Trading Yesterday, "Shattered"
Loki became aware of what both halves of him had gone through during their time apart in a rush as he slowly came to the second time after his mind had cleared.
He saw and felt everything.
The torture.
The movies.
The madness and anger that overtook him and fueled his will to live.
The depression that led to acceptance of who he was.
The true plan Thanos wished to achieve.
The way Jess tended to do laundry at inconvenient times.
The plan to make sure the mad titian did not succeed, yet wound up back in Asgard (the other was desperate in his heart to go back to Asgard, even through all the pain).
The mental pain was suffocating. How had he breathed?
During his time in the other universe, he had healed mentally and dealt with the betrayal of his father, the fact he was adopted, and a Frost Giant. He had healed further during his interactions with the Avengers.
Loki was back to square one now. Somehow, the madness, anger, rage, and self-loathing made all the progress seem pointless and stupid.
He hated Thor.
He hated the All-Father.
He loved Thor.
He loved the All-Father.
He loved his mother. (He had always loved Frigga, no matter what it seemed.)
It was confusing.
He was the Mad One, he was the Good One, he was the Confused-Mad-Sane One.
Or, did that make him the Insane One?
"He's waking up," a voice said above his head.
Blinking, Loki's eyes focused on the group around him. Barton had an arrow pointed at him, Romanov eyed Loki cautiously holding the still glowing staff yet not pointing it at him, Rogers was trying to search his face for something, Stark appeared exhausted, the Hulk looked mad, and Thor wore a relieved expression.
Loki glanced around and noted the crater was now located within a hole of rubble about three feet high. He could see the sky above his head, the roof having finally given up its battle to stand.
There was almost nothing left of Stark's home.
Rogers was the only Avenger within the hole with Loki, everyone else was standing above him. Eyeing Barton, Loki began to attempt to sit up. He got as far as his elbows when the pain stopped him.
Loki turned his attention back to the Avengers around him and gave a weary smile. He met Stark's eyes.
"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now," he said quietly.
The Hulk snorted.
"Oh, crap, he's evil!" Stark shouted, raising his hands up to point them at Loki.
"He is not! Look at his eyes!" Thor roared.
"I am both Lokis you knew. As of now, neither is under the control of Thanos," Loki reported, sitting up further with Roger's aid, hearing his back crack and a few bones shift in ways they ought not be shifting. Rogers looked alarmed at the noise.
"Who?" everyone asked— except Thor.
Thor blanched.
"Oh, didn't I tell you about him? He's the one in charge," Loki said blithely.
Everyone began talking at once. The only person Loki heard was Rogers.
"What happened? Where'd the other one go?" Rogers asked, his eyes darting back and forth as he helped Loki stand.
"SILENCE!" Thor roared. "Thanos is no longer your concern. Brother…"
Loki was still eye locked with Rogers, who failed to have noticed Thor's outburst.
"I put myself back together," Loki said, meeting Roger's blue gaze steadily. "I was ripped apart in the void. The insanity, madness, and anger that had gripped me upon finding out about my true heritage was left behind while everything else was ripped away. I fell into the care of Thanos and he turned him into his weapon."
"So, Reindeer Games was like an evil twin," Stark said, sitting down on a large bit of rubble that looked like a chair. The weariness the man felt was clear in his posture. Loki wondered what had happened to the man that made him look so much more tired than the others.
Thor reached a hand down and pulled Loki out of the hole. Loki bit down on his lip in order to not hiss in pain as Thor set him on the ground.
"Everything else that makes me myself went to the parallel Earth," Loki finished explaining.
Thor pulled Rogers out of the hole. He set the solider next to Loki, while Loki began to look for somewhere to sit. He wasn't sure how long he could remain upright.
"I had to…I had to be whole," Thor produced a flat piece of rubble and set it down for Loki, who gracefully sank onto it. "It was…it had to happen. It was, I guess you could say, meant to be."
"So, you're both of them now?" Rogers inquired.
"The good, the bad and the ugly," Loki said, turning his attention to the others. "You've closed the portal?"
"Yeah," Barton said, eyeing Loki. He still had an arrow pointed at him.
"Jessica?"
"She's been taken to the hospital," Romanov said. "She…she'll be fine."
Loki nodded, relief filling him. "You will want to find the purple leather handbag she brought with her. I'm sure it's around here somewhere."
Loki looked around at the mess that used to be a dwelling.
"Or maybe not," Loki mumbled. He turned back to Rogers, who was standing next to him, and raised his hands, pushing them together at the wrists. "I believe this is the part where you take me into custody."
Only Barton looked as if he was ready to do as Loki requested. The others all appeared confused.
"Why would we—"
"Are you serious?"
"Brother, why—"
"I am not your brother," Loki snapped before he could stop himself.
Thor looked hurt while Loki tried to keep his anger from spiraling out of control. It was a strange sensation— one part of him knew he'd always be Thor's brother, while another part was seriously in a rage at hearing that word fall from Thor's lips.
"Ah, there's the other one," Stark crowed. "There's Rock of Ages."
"How many nicknames do you have for me?" Loki asked.
Stark shrugged.
"We need to hand him over to Fury," Barton flatly said.
"He must go back to Asgard," Thor insisted.
Thor eyed Loki wearily.
"What? He needs to pay for what he's done!" Barton shouted. The arrow pointed at Loki came very close to being set loose.
"He is not well!"
"I'm sitting right here!" Loki shouted. He wound up hacking, as yelling made his chest hurt.
The Hulk didn't like arguing, so he smashed the last standing wall into a pulp.
"I never did like that wall," Stark muttered, looking a combination of amused and outraged.
"He is a prince of Asgard. If the All-Father wishes to punish him, he will be punished on Asgard," Thor commanded.
Barton did not like that in the least. He began to argue with Thor, which led to everyone else talking over one another. Romanov argued there were therapists Loki could see at SHIELD and remain on Earth. Stark started talking about Chinese food for some reason, while the Hulk was too busy smashing up the rubble to give a flying hoot what was happening to Loki. Rogers looked at a loss and kept opening his mouth only to close it quickly. Loki knew there was a part of him that wanted to see Loki punished for the havoc wreaked, yet another part that couldn't ignore the fact he'd spent the past few days working and fighting along the side of Loki.
He were likely as conflicted as Loki was on the topic of himself.
Loki sighed. "Whatever you decide, I'll just wait here."
He leaned back and would have fallen off the piece of rubble he had been seated upon if Rogers had not caught him.
I'm not God / I can't change the stars / And I don't know if there's life on Mars / But I know you're hurt
-McFly, "Bubble Wrap"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am sure."
"I'm serious, dude."
"I am not a dude."
Clint let out a sigh and stared through the glass at Loki. He sat calmly in the Hulk's cage, his wrists bound in some sort of magic stopping shackles.
"Fury wants you."
Loki snorted and leveled Clint a look that made his skin crawl.
It was hard to look at Loki knowing both Evil Loki and Good Loki were in there. But, Clint knew the good one was in there and that the evil one had been mind controlled to do much of what he'd done. At first Clint had wanted Loki punished soundly for what he'd done— the mind control, the damage to the Malibu area, the general chaos of the past week or so…but, there was a broken look about Loki. It appeared within those freaky green eyes when Loki thought no one was looking.
That look made Clint push his own feelings aside and put himself in Loki's shoes.
Whole Loki was broken, defeated and confused. Whole Loki wanted to be forgiven, wanted to prove to the world he wasn't evil, yet was too proud to ask for a chance to remain on Earth and work for it.
It was easy for Clint to work out. He'd been there before.
So, Clint had made a point to visit Loki and try to make sure he knew what he was doing in going back to Asgard.
"What if that mad titian or whatever he is gets you back under his control?" Clint asked. "Does another mind whammy?"
"Agent Barton," Loki started.
"Clint. You call me Clint," Clint insisted, making his eyes hard. "Evil Loki called me Agent Barton. If you're not evil, you'll call me Clint."
The green eyed god stared at Clint in wonder for a long beat, then bent his head in agreement.
"Clint, then," he said softly. He shifted, the chains rattling. "Your concern is touching, but you must not worry. As long as the specter is kept from me, I shall remain in control of my own mind. He cannot reach me without the specter."
Clint shifted on his feet.
"Okay. What if that dude shows up looking for what you and Thor think he's after? The glove thingy?"
Loki pushed his shoulders back and turned his gaze away from Clint. "Asgard will not fall."
Clint sighed.
It was always the answer when Loki was that particular question. Thor had assured Fury the Glove of Doom was well protected and now that Loki was whole and in control of himself, there was no worry.
Granted, Fury worried for a living.
Fury was also furious that Thor was dragging Loki back to Asgard to stand trial.
Actually, everyone was upset about that. Even Clint. A little bit— only because Thor didn't seem to understand insanity plea. It seemed illnesses of the mind weren't very common on Asgard, thus the legal system failed to recognize that sometimes people did things when they weren't in their right minds.
"Aw, come one! He just had a bad day!" Stark had shouted, pounding his hands on the conference table. "Everyone does once in awhile! And everything here wasn't his fault!"
"That bad day ended with a town on Midgard in ruins, the death of a foreign king, and another entire world at the brink of extension," Thor had said steadily, looking as if he was having trouble controlling his temper. "My brother is whole now— both the good and bad reside within. He must stand trial for what he did before he fell from the Rainbow Bridge."
That had silenced everyone for only minutes before they began to argue again.
"He wasn't right in the head before he fell," Banner had reminded the room. "Are you taking into account his state of mind before he was torn apart and taken control of?"
The answer was no, but Thor wasn't going to budge.
"Clint," Loki softly asked, bringing Clint out of his thoughts and back to the present.
"Yeah?"
"Will you look after Jessica for me?"
The green eyes pleaded with him, so Clint nodded, though he was a bit confused.
"Wouldn't Banner or Rogers do that for you?"
"She won't know them. She will know you," Loki explained simply.
Clint frowned. "I don't remember anything from during my mind whammie."
"Hers will be similar to mine. I remember everything I did whilst under it," Loki said, turning away from Clint.
Clint frowned. "So, uh…Jessica's mind control was more like whatever was on Evil Loki?"
The Loki before Clint nodded, turning his attention back to Clint. The green eyes locked on him.
"She will remember you. You will be the only familiar face— well, the only familiar person she will personally know when she awakes," Loki explained, shifting again and making the shackles clink together. "She knows all of you, but only you personally."
Clint nodded. "Okay."
"How is Mr Stark?" Loki asked, changing the subject swiftly.
Jessica was not a topic Loki wanted to dwell upon. Clint sighed and thought about how he ought to answer the question. Stark, while a stanch supporter of keeping Loki on Earth and making sure he stayed reformed and "good," hadn't been to visit the locked up god. Clint was sure everyone else had visited Loki at least once since he'd been locked up.
"He's repairing his house. He found that bag you mentioned. You did something to it right?"
"I did."
"Stark was having kittens," Clint said, shaking his head. "Said it was right out of Harry Potter."
"That was where Jessica got the idea," Loki replied, a small wistful smile on his lips.
"I think he's here. To see you off. He didn't want you to go. None of us do."
Loki leveled Clint a look and Clint swallowed thickly but held his ground. The man sitting in the cage before Clint at this moment hadn't shown one hint of wanting to rule the world, stomp on everyone's freedom, or kill anyone other than maybe Thor. Any mention of Thor, Odin, whoever the hell Sif and the Warriors Three were tended to make Loki go a bit mental.
Clint still needed more words for crazy.
"I am serious. I didn't know the good half, but…I mean, I was pretty much unharmed. Yeah, I'm pissed you took away my freewill, but other than blindly shooting at other SHEILD agents, I didn't do anything all that evil."
Clint had been debriefed about everything he'd done to SHIELD's knowledge. And he had honestly thought it'd be a lot worse than it was.
Loki sighed as Thor thundered up the stairs to the cage.
"Brother, it's time."
Loki's mouth tightened at Thor's use of the term brother (like it always did), but he quickly covered it, nodding instead of shouting and slowly stood up, smoothing the front of his crazy outfit. He was still dressed in the evil one's clothing— which threw everyone off. The only surefire way to tell this Loki wasn't The Ant Squishing One was in the eyes. The green eyes told the whole story. In Control of His Mind and Whole Loki wasn't driven by madness, revenge or rage. He was sad, somewhat angry, and lost. He'd been twisted and used—he was tired as hell.
Clint was sure Loki was anxious to get to Asgard and take a long nap. (Not that was what was likely on the itinerary.)
Clint stood aside as Thor opened the cage and led the shackled Loki out. Loki eyed his brother, seemingly waiting for something. Thor grabbed Loki by the arm and guided him up the stairs.
Loki was still in rough shape thanks to the handcuffs trapping his magic he'd been sporting since Thor had made them appear out of thin air back at Stark's former house. The guy needed magic to heal and had no access to it, so he had to heal the old fashion way. Thus, he moved stiffly (but still regally) and had several still healing cuts on his face— reminders of his meeting with the floor by way of a good old Hulk Smashing.
Thor led the way out of the room the cage was within and to the Quinjet that would fly everyone to New Mexico, where Thor and Loki would use the Tesseract to travel on back home.
Fury might be pissed Thor was running off with the blue cube, but Clint was happy to see that damn thing leave. He hated that cube.
Clint remained silent throughout the entire hour long plane ride to the middle of nowhere New Mexico. Rogers and Loki carried on a quiet conversation (their heads got steadily closer as time wore on till they were almost touching by the time the plane began to land). Banner kept staring at Loki with a frown while talking science with Stark (who was hell bent of getting Banner to move into Stark Tower and have a lab romance with him). Natasha flew the plane while Coulson sat next to her, occasionally frowning when he looked over his shoulder at Loki and Rogers. Thor fiddled with his hammer.
For the entire flight.
"Are you sure about this?" Rogers asked louder than he'd previously been speaking to Loki. "Couldn't you wait till Jessica wakes up?"
Loki seemed to realize how close he and Rogers were and angled his body away. Thor dropped his hammer, making a loud clanging noise that echoed around the plane.
"It is time, Steven," Loki softly said, looking away from Rogers as Natasha turned the engines off.
Loki's face closed off. Rogers sighed and clapped a hand on the god's shoulder and stood up. It was clearly a conversation they'd had many times and Rogers would never win.
"Brother, come," Thor ordered, hooking his hammer to his belt and waiting for his brother to stand.
Loki pressed his lips together and stood. Thor took him by the shoulder and steered him towards the opening hatch. Clint stood next to Rogers.
"I think he ought to wait for her to wake up, too," Clint said softly. "But, Thor wants to go and half of him doesn't understand why he even likes her."
Rogers frowned. "I think both Lokis liked her. Why else would RG give her magic?"
Not bothering to wait for an answer, Rogers strode out of the plane.
"Well, let's go say goodbye to our new friends," Stark said, ambling up from behind.
The rest of the group filed out and gathered around Thor and Loki, who were seriously standing in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't anything for as far as the eye could see other than their jet.
Clint hoped the jet didn't break before they got back to civilization. Mostly because the sun was blasting and would likely kill everyone before they got help. Everyone (save the two gods) was sporting sunglasses and light clothing (except the gods who were both in their insane leather and metal armor).
"Well, bye," Clint said when no one else said anything.
"Yeah, so long and thanks for all the fish," Stark quipped.
Both Thor and Loki gave Stark puzzled looks.
"I do not remember any fish," Thor said, looking to Loki to explain.
Loki shrugged.
"When will you be back?" Rogers asked.
"Hemidall sees all. If you need help, I will come," Thor assured.
"I will come if I am able. Remind Jessica…about Hemidall," Loki said, stiffly standing next to his brother.
Clint made a mental note to read up on this Hemidall dude.
"Let's get this over with," Loki suddenly snapped.
Everyone stared at Loki. He looked tense and unsure, angry and mad.
"Your Evil Loki is showing," Clint taunted.
Loki quickly schooled his features.
"Will you be able to let us know what happened? Back on Asgard?" Banner asked, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pants.
"You will know," Loki assured, meeting Banner's eyes. Banner looked confused, but nodded.
"We'll look after Jessica," Rogers said. "All of us."
"Thank you," Loki quietly said, head lowering a moment before he locked eyes with Clint.
Clint took a deep breath and nodded. Guilt shone in those blasted green eyes and Clint felt extremely sorry for Loki, but more so for the woman lying in a strange hospital on a strange world that was not her own.
The only person she knew was about to go off to another planet with no knowledge if he'd be able to come back.
At least Stark had found her stupid purse that contained her entire life. That was a good thing.
"Let us go," Thor said, holding up the container with the stupid, glowing, crazy-inducing cube.
Loki nodded and took the handle of the contraption Thor offered. Thor took a deep breath and bade the group farewell yet again before twisting the container and activating the Tesseract.
And in a flash of blue light that shot into the sky, the two gods were gone.
"Well, that was fun," Stark said, rubbing his hands together. "Who is up for some Texmex? They sell that here, right? Or should we just find some place that has green chili salsa? Or guacamole? I could go for that."
Stark turned and threw an arm around Banner, steering the man towards the Quinjet.
"So, what do ya say? Food, dancing and moving into Stark Tower?"
Banner sighed deeply.
"What is Texmex?" Rogers asked, looking confused.
"A type of food cuisine," Natasha said. "Stark! STARK! You cannot fly the plane!"
Natasha ran towards the plane where Stark and Banner had vanished. Rogers fell into step with Clint, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants.
"So, are you going to visit Jessica as soon as we're back on the Hellicarrier?"
Clint nodded. "Yeah. Fury wants to move her to a more secure location. Likely headquarters in New York. You live in New York, right?"
Rogers nodded. "Yeah. I know Loki asked you to look after her because you actually spent the most time with her, but I'll help. I want to help."
Clint eyed the towering blond next to him.
"Sure. The more the merrier," Clint said, looking over his shoulder at the empty desert behind him briefly before looking back at Rogers. "Now, what's going on with you and Lokes?"
Clint loved the look of utter confusion he got out of Rogers.
Your ways, my ways / Never, always / The future, the past / The first, the last / Heartbreak, I'm not holding your hand any more
-Glasvegas, "Euphoria, Take My Hand"
Witton didn't wake up for almost two weeks after Loki and Thor had gone back to Asgard. Fury moved her into the same location they'd stored Rogers when he was recovering from his long sleep in the ice. However, unlike Rogers, they did not try to pull a fast one on her and make her think she was waking up in her own world.
Clint was seated by her side as her green eyes fluttered open and she groaned. She turned her head slowly towards him and blinked several times.
"Morning," he greeted easily, closing the magazine he had not actually been reading. "The nurse told me you woke up finally. She said you might not be able to talk yet or something…medical jargon is lost on me."
She blinked and twitched her nose.
"Now you look like a rabbit," Clint offered. "Want anything?"
"Water," she croaked faintly.
Clint got her a glass of water and helped her sit up to drink it.
"I feel like I was hit by a car," she grumbled.
"Well, you weren't hit by a car, but you were in a car accident. You wrapped yourself around a light pole," Clint said. "The nurses filled you in, right?"
"No. I remember that, though," she admitted, proving Loki right about the whole mind control thing. "I thought I wouldn't remember. Do you remember?"
"No, uh, I don't. I've been filled in, though. Loki said yours was a different type of mind control, though he didn't know why."
"Where is Loki?"
Clint took a deep breath, bracing himself. He kind of hated Loki for leaving him with this duty: telling Witton her only friend was off world.
"Asgard."
She frowned. "Both of them?"
"They merged."
Clint relayed the entire saga to her. By the time he was done she looked like someone had shot her puppy.
"So, I'm alone?" she squeaked. Her breaths were too quick and her pulse was rocketing out of control on her neck.
"I'm here. Rogers seems to like you. Mostly because I think he likes Loki, if you get my drift."
Clint wiggled his eyebrows. In the past two weeks Clint had spent a lot of time with Steve Rogers and had found him completely mind baffling in that Rogers was clearly into a guy and failed to realize it. Though, he was a relic from the past when that kind of thing was frowned on, so maybe it was totally understandable he failed to realize he was a little…fixated on Loki. Well, good Loki. No one seemed to like Evil Loki except Thor.
Jessica stared at Clint, blinking and then burst out laughing for a moment till she started wheezing.
"Laughing not good," she muttered, trying to get her breathing under control. She took a few rather deep, calming breaths before shaking her head again. "Oh, god. I can't believe it. Steve likes Lo?"
"I'm pretty sure Loki liked him," Clint said. "Before he went off to Neverland with Thor, Loki made us all promise to look after you. Fury is anxious to figure out how you have magic."
"I don't have magic."
"Uh, yeah, you still do," Clint told her, shifting in his seat till he was resting his elbows on his knees. "Whatever Evil Loki did to you left you with magic."
She looked troubled, her breathing quickening. She raised her hand and stared at it.
"Do you feel it? Thor said it wasn't a lot of magic. He said you felt like his hammer," Clint reported. "Loki didn't say anything. Tragically."
She looked at him with wild eyes. Clint sat back and ran a hand through his hair, feeling he was out of his depth. She was clearly having a mild panic attack.
"I know, he's the magic expert. But he was wearing these mean bracelets that cut him off from magic, so he couldn't tell. He also had no idea what you having magic might mean as he was kinda hung up on the fact you can't give magic to people," Clint explained. "Feel anything? Other than panic?"
She shook her head, lowering her hand to the bed. She took a few more breaths before asking, "Where's that big red button that brings morphine?"
Clint handed her the call button. She hit it. Multiple times.
"So, now what?"
"No clue. I guess you can join SHEILD. Or you can go hang out with Stark and he can study you."
"What?"
Her eyes were wild again.
"He's anxious to learn about magic and the only magical being we know of blasted off the planet," Clint reminded her. "Fury will likely want to keep you on a leash— like Rogers. Though, after you get squared away, I think Rogers wants to go explore the world, seeing he's been asleep for seventy years."
The girl nodded, clenching her hands in the bedsheets.
The nurse appeared and drugged her up. Clint watched as she calmed down and became rather dopey. Within fifteen minutes she was pretty much useless. She fell back asleep and Clint decided he was going to find food.
After he ate, Clint poked his head into the room to find Rogers had shown up. The man was sitting by the window reading what looked like the thickest Harry Potter novel of the series. Clint slipped back into the room.
"You just missed her. She's high on drugs now," Clint reported, sitting back down in the chair he'd been in earlier.
Rogers looked up and nodded. "The nurse told me. I wrestled the purse off Tony."
Stark had found the bag fascinating. He'd been devoting most of his time to trying to apply science to the thing. (It wasn't going well for him.)
Rogers pulled the bag out from beside him and set it on the table next to the sleeping women's head.
"Did you put the stuff back in it?" (Stark had unloaded it. And Jessica's (and Good Loki's) Entire life took up almost the entire floor of Stark's lab.
She had a lot of crap in that tiny bag.
Rogers nodded. "Everything's in there except that white thing. The, uh, cell phone? Pod player? I don't remember what it was exactly, but Tony took that and I think he broke it. It kind of made him mad for some reason."
Clint shrugged, not having any idea what Rogers was taking about.
The two men fell into their usual compatible silence till Witton woke up again. She spotted Rogers right away and blinked several times before gasping loudly.
"Dude, you're better looking in person than on TV!" she breathed as she stared at him with wide eyes. "No wonder Lo likes you!"
Rogers went brick red, while Clint let out a bark of laughter.
Yeah, freedom is mine / And I know how I feel / It's a new dawn, it's a new day / It's a new life for me
-Nina Simone, "Feeling Good"
Witton had panic attacks, as she had some sort of anxiety disorder. She'd had it before she'd traveled to their world and knew what pills she wanted to deal with it. After she started having access to those, her panic attacks lessened.
Clint also figured it helped that Stark, Rogers, Banner and himself were almost always with her and kept her in good spirits by not allowing her to dwell on the fact Loki had left her alone in a strange new world. Not that it was all that strange. It looked almost exactly like her old world and she knew things about them they hadn't told each other.
Out of all four of them, though, she knew Stark best oddly— the one person who did not honestly feel compelled to look after nor had been asked by Loki to look after her. While Stark never seemed bothered (he basked in her attention) when no one was looking, he often looked mystified why she liked him best out of all of them.
It was mystifying. Stark wasn't all that likable. He was more of an acquired taste.
Witton, though, had liked Stark from the get-go and was on a mission to get him into therapy.
"You need to talk about your feelings before they eat you alive," Witton had said. "I love therapy! Everyone should do therapy!"
"You need to do magic," Stark had replied.
Stark didn't talk about his feeling and Witton didn't do any magic.
After two full weeks in SHEILD medical, the doctors deemed Witton fit to leave. Stark swept her off to Stark Tower. Clint wasn't sure if he'd ask her to move in to the tower or simply assumed that was where she was going.
She went without a fuss and was shortly followed by Banner (who claimed he didn't trust Tony with his what Stark thought was his shiny new toy and not another human being).
It'd been about four months since Witton (who kept telling Clint to call her Jess, but he kept calling her Witton for some reason) moved into Stark Tower. Things had calmed down for the most part and she steadily got better. She could even walk again with the aid of a cane and wasn't popping those happy pills as often.
"He's going to go mental," Witton announced while she and Clint were in the penthouse living room on a wonderful fall afternoon.
Witton had said this was the room where Loki had gotten Hulk Smashed in the movie and that always amused Clint. The Penthouse had wound up being the communal living area— oddly enough. Clint was sure Stark had built an actual general living area, but they all hung out in Stark's living room.
"What do you mean?" Clint asked, flipping channels while Witton hobbled around the room in circles behind him.
"Tony has PTSD," Jessica reported. "In Iron Man 3 he kind of deals with it, but there is a lot of exploding involved. At Christmas."
"Uh, okay," Clint said, realizing why her tone was so tight today. "So, you saying we ought to watch him carefully?"
"Yes. Also, he might really like one of my happy pills," she insisted, making a face she turned to head back towards the window. "He has anxiety attacks. I'm familiar with them. I haven't really noticed him having trouble while he's been here, but he's planning on going to California to oversee construction on his house till Christmas."
"You know, that movie might not happen due to how Loki and you changed things up," Clint reminded her, looking up as she fell over sideways on the couch next to him, a look of pain on her face.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Might have over did the whole walking thing today," she admitted. "The reason for a major plot point in Iron Man 3 was something that happened in 1999. Before Lo and myself. That's why I'm still worried. Tony still did the thing that set the movie in motion. And I can't remember the bad guy's name."
"Okay. So, you wanna go to California with him? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
Witton sighed. "I don't know."
She pouted for a minute.
"I'm never driving again," she muttered, collapsing sideways and ramming her hard head into Clint's shoulder.
"Good thing you live in New York, then," Clint quipped, looking down at her.
Jessica tossed him a look and rolled her eyes as Stark burst out of the elevator.
"Good morning my lovelies!" he boomed at the top of the stairs.
"It's one in the afternoon, Stark," Clint reminded the man, watching him bounce down the few stairs and into the living room.
"Like I said, morning," Stark said, flopping down in an arm chair. He noticed the cane on the floor. "So, how's the work to walk again without falling going, Smurfette?"
Jessica had streaked her hair with a bright blue color shortly after moving into the tower. She had made Rogers help her and he had blue hands for a few days, much to the amusement of Stark.
"Fine. I'll be running in the Iron Man triathlon tomorrow," she joked dryly. "So, ask already. You might like the answer today."
Clint's eyes popped out of his head.
Stark righted himself in the chair and rubbed his hands together. An excited expression appeared on his face. "So, when do we start with the magic?"
"What do you say to right now?"
Stark looked like Christmas was early.
"I say, let the games begin."
You've got to be the best / You've got to change the world / And use this chance to be heard / Your time is now
-Muse, "Butterflies and Hurricanes"
A/N: This will not be the VERY end of this series, just the end of this story. I have no clue what I'm doing for the next one other than a scene where Jess grabs Clint and shouts, "I TOLD YOU SO!" while pointing at the TV while the news shows them Tony and his Iron Man suits blowing up the…thing they were on during the FINAL battle of the movie. Other than that I got nada. (Those of you who read the Harry Potter stories will be thrilled to know that now that this is out of my head, I can focus on Book Four!) (People who read TSC, sorry. Still hitting my head up against the wall on that one…)
Anyhoo, thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting and following!