Chapter 18 (Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect)
Clint half-listened to Fury drone on in the meeting room, resting his chin in his hand and staring at the man's eyepatch. This was a part debrief, part mission-exacerbated meeting; all the Avengers minus Thor were there. Tony had greeted Clint before the meet began, all big smiles and a 'hey Birdbrain'. Clint responded with a flip of his middle finger, telling the billionaire that Pepper's secretary probably thought he was a lunatic and almost didn't let them in. Tony just chortled at him and gave Loki a smack on the back, looking a little unsure of himself right afterwards, but he moved on, greeting the god as well with a new nickname: Balto.
"On a Disney binge, Stark?"
Tony's mouth fell open in offense. "Balto is Spielberg, not freaking Disney- get your facts straight!"
"Looks like a Disney cartoon to me," Clint said flippantly and shrugged.
"Your mother's ass looks like a Disney cartoon."
"Clint almost shot out of his chair, about to get in Tony's face rather violently just as Natasha stepped between them and took her seat next to the archer.
"Have we devolved into 'your momma' insults so early in the day?"
Her presence soothed Clint a little, enough to sit down and not look at Ironman, but he still grumbled about it. "Don't talk about my mom, Stark."
Tony had taken his chair on the other side of Natasha, relaxed and happy. "I think I'm entitled to talk about whatever I want with how you owe me after that big favor I did for you."
"You're such a dick."
"Yeah, people tend to say that."
Clint felt a boot touch his under the table and he looked over at Loki who silently made a face that said exactly what the archer was feeling, and Clint returned with an exasperated roll of his eyes.
Steve and Bruce wandered in together and Tony stood to greet the scientist personally, a smirk on his face that Bruce tried not to smile at. He said hello to Captain America with a nickname rolling off his tongue. Steve responded gruffly but politely and sat beside Loki whom he greeted with a small smile. And Loki responded in kind, but without a smile, more a smirk.
It baffled Clint how comfortable Steve became with the god, actually happy to see him, whereas the other Avengers were nice but kept their distance. Except for Tony, and it seemed like he couldn't help himself but was extremely confused about it. It was weird for Clint when he would get a random text from Steve, asking how Loki was adjusting to Earth living. Clint now just handed the phone over to the god when he got those messages, letting the god and superhuman talk together.
When Fury entered, the tails of his leather coat flying out behind him, they all went silent. Clint was already feeling the Director's eye on him and Loki and it made him want to sink into his chair. Sure enough when he got to the head of the table he was giving Clint a look.
"Feeling better, Agent Barton?"
Clint cleared his throat and sat up in his seat, deciding he wasn't going to let Fury make him feel like this was all his fault.
"I am, sir. Loki is too," he added cheerfully. "Though there are absolutely no tissues, toilet paper, or paper towels left in my house. I even ended up having to hide my socks."
Fury closed his eye like it would prevent the images forming in his head of Loki jerking off, not knowing the god despised masturbating. Loki viciously whacked the archer on the back of his head, a scowl on his lips and Fury even thanked him for the punishment Loki meted out. Clint took the beating with a smile and ignored Natasha's unamused glance. The other Avengers looked confused and disgusted but curious but they didn't ask.
"The situation has escalated, Avengers," Fury said as though the previous moments didn't just happen. "Agent Barton and Loki have come into personal contact with this group of vigilantes that kill for a higher power."
"Did you capture them?" Steve asked, surprised.
"No," Fury denied with a huff. "The captured were Loki and Agent Barton themselves."
Steve looked at Loki with concern. "You were captured?"
"Abducted," Clint clarified for the sake of their dignity.
Tony of course had to put in his two cents, smiling hard. "Kidnapped. How does that happen, by the way- with you being a super spy and you a-" Tony snorted, "Well, a not-god?"
"Dude, my neighbor was getting kidnapped by these assholes. If we hadn't been there, she'd be dead."
Clint didn't feel the need to add that if it actually weren't for Natasha keeping a private watch on his place then they all would have died. He had yet to tell Loki that he let the Widow install cameras in his apartment for their safety, but he thought Loki might figure it out on his own.
Fury continued on as though the commentary from the others in the room were those of children and he ignored them. Most of them acted like children anyway. "There won't be any undercover missions concerning this group- they'll be too wary of an outsider now that we've stepped in on their rituals. But we know what they look like, the leader in particular, and I need a sketch drawn up of that guys mug. We'll put it in the database and run matches and it'll keep the other agents informed." Fury paced two or three steps as he rambled on.
Steve would more than likely volunteer to make the sketch of Prophet, taking details from both Clint and Loki's assessment.
"Some other agents have stumbled on leads and this team- Agent Barton and Loki in particular, will conduct investigations, and stakeouts if need be. From now on: all reconnaissance all the time. If you hear even a flea's fart in the right direction to these guys, we all need to know about it. Start in vigorous religious sects, odd or large quantities of chemical gas movements. Look into patterns on the victims."
Tony stopped the Director with a raised hand to which Fury glowered.
"Why do I feel like a beat cop asking the neighbors if they saw a suspicious turd on the sidewalk? Shouldn't your younger agents have already started working out patterns?"
"You are part of this team, aren't you?" Fury accused rather than asked.
"I'm not teamed up with SHIELD- I'm teamed with the Avengers." Tony got out of his seat without fuss, walking away like he had adjourned the meeting himself. "You call me when you got it figured out and you need me to take him down."
Tony left the room, leaving an awkward silence behind him. Bruce cleared his throat gently and leaned back in his chair.
"I feel slightly the same way," he mumbled apologetically. "I'm a physicist, not a detective. I'll stay, but you can't expect much from me on this stuff."
Fury nodded in agreement with him, understanding Bruce's position. He cut the meeting off there, telling Clint and Loki to get to work before striding out into the main of the headquarters. After another moment of silence Natasha sighed and got up, setting her hand on her hip and nodding at the doctor.
"Wanna see the blood-work from Clint's foray into enemy hands?"
Bruce agreed readily, following her out the door. He would spend the better part of the morning in SHIELD's labs, analyzing the chemical surplus of Clint's blood and explaining it to Natasha, who sat nearby, looking and listening intently but never touching.
Clint and Loki were wrangled by Steve, riding their respective motorcycles to Stark Tower to get the sketch done. Steve had complimented Clint on the paint job of his bike, liking the nature feel of it. If he had any wonders about the two animals painted onto it, he didn't ask. He knew what the bird was, but the wolf- he just didn't ask. Clint credits Loki on the work in any case, and Steve was surprised and impressed, and he informed the god that he was an artist as well. Though he didn't say it with titles. 'I draw sometimes' is what he said.
Clint felt like he was being invited over for dinner by someone who was a friend, but an odd one. One he wasn't too sure of. Steve seemed like the kind of guy who could have a real dark side to him if he was allowed to explore it. Clint expected that was because of how good the guy was. Not morally, no- they'd all done terrible things, but the boy-next-door who treated his girl like a queen. Humble. Kind. Clint was hoping to find out more about the Captain by being in his apartment that Tony had made space for in his tower. When the three arrived on Steve's floor, the Captain was instantly at home, walking through the living room at ease, asking if his guests wanted anything to drink. He apologized from his kitchen that he didn't have a full bar like Tony did, but Clint and Loki weren't going to drink anyway.
While Steve rustled about in the kitchen, Loki prowled the living room strewn with drawings, paper and sketchbooks full of them, boxes of charcoal and a coffee mug stuffed with pencils. Clint wasn't as interested as Loki, preferring to follow Steve and take the bottled sodas out of his hands and bring them to the living room. Steve seemed to take no mind of the god pawing through his mess of papers while he picked out a pencil and found a clean sheet in a sketchbook. Loki pulled out papers from the center of the piles, looking them over with calm, appreciative eyes and then letting them slide out of his fingers to flutter around him onto the floor as he picked out another. The Captain settled into the navy blue couch, some brand new piece of furniture, expensive probably, that had smudges of black and white all over the arms and cushions. Charcoal and chalk.
"So what's this guys name?" Steve started with, pencil at the ready.
"Prophet," Clint sighed and twisted off the cap to his bottle.
Steve scribbled the name at the top of the paper with a frown. "Killing in the name of God..." he huffed and started sketching out a basic head shape.
"Are you a religious man, Captain Rogers?" Loki asked, the collection of papers around his slowly growing.
Steve shrugged, scribbling away. "I don't go to church. I was raised Protestant, but... I don't know."
Loki hummed and continued to sift through the art.
"I don't believe you're a god," Steve said easily, forcing his tone to not be aggressive.
"That's because I'm not, no matter what I might say. I wish I were. Compared to you civilization some years ago we were worshipped as such, but what god do you know gets his power taken from him?"
Steve's scratching pencil stopped and he looked seriously at Loki. "That's very big of you to admit." He sounded almost proud of the god.
"Thank you," Loki said quietly, making a point to not look up at the artist. A particular drawing caught his eye and he held it up to see closer. He had an inkling to its nature, but he had to be sure. He touched his finger to the hawk depicted on it, flying high above the other animal figures gathered together.
"Are these the Avengers?"
Steve glanced over from his ongoing sketch Clint was describing for Prophet's mug shot. "Yeah," he sighed, almost uncomfortably. "Is it too juvenile? I read about this thing called 'anthro'- anthropomorphizing animals with human qualities. I didn't do the human qualities with that one, but it's just us as animals. Spirit animals I guess, I don't know."
"No, not juvenile at all-" Loki denied to assuage his fears. "We are similar in Asgard: choosing an animal to depict ourselves or an animalistic trait. Thor chose wings."
"And you picked horns?"
"Well, it's intimidating, isn't it? I found that I had to build my appearance into something devilish and fear-inspiring to ward off the..." Loki huffed and looked away, out the windows that showcased the city with the sun glinting off the multitude of windows blindingly. Clint listed off features to Steve quietly in the background and the artist drew them out while he lent Loki his ear. The god seemed to be lost in his memories for a moment before pulling himself out and looking at the drawings again.
"Magic of my kind is looked upon as backhanded and cowardly. They prefer physical, hand-to-hand confrontation. The animal I would choose for myself cannot be depicted on a helm in a frightful fashion so I settled for horns. I think they worked well here on Earth."
Steve nodded in understanding and agreement at the same time. "What animal would you have been?"
"The wolf."
Steve nodded again, still sketching, but in his mind he suddenly knew why there was a wolf on Clint's motorcycle. Over the top of his sketchbook he watched Loki turn to look at Clint, who met his gaze and smiled. Loki smiled back, small and demure; strange to see on his lips, before turning back to the drawings. Tony had taught him that in this day and age, you get more answers if you just ask them bluntly.
"Are you two... dating?"
The question made the two freeze, knowing they'd been found out if Steve could pick up on it. Clint and Steve locked eyes, one simply curious and the other stone-faced as to not give anything away.
"I guess I can understand," Steve shrugged, turning back down to his drawing. "You've been living together for a while now- it's hard not to become comfortable with someone when they're constantly nearby."
"Our relationship doesn't disturb you?" Loki asked gently, trying not to sound concerned about the situation. "One of your heroes sharing his bed with the enemy?"
"I said I understand, that doesn't mean I have to like it. But," Steve set his pencil on his lap and looked above Clint's head as he thought, "It's getting hard for me to see you as the enemy anymore. You're not a threat, and you're even helping us catch another bad guy. I like you."
Clint's eyebrows flew up. "The gay thing isn't tripping you out? That's what i thought you were going to have trouble with."
"I knew someone in grade school that all us boys thought was gay. He got beat up a lot, but we were never positive he was. I guess I don't really know what to think of it. It doesn't really have anything to do with me. I know what the bible says about it, but like I said- I don't go to church." With that, Steve shrugged again, picked up his pencil, and continued to draw.
Loki took his explanation as is and moved on, while Clint squinted at the Captain, digesting the information. Loki sighed knowingly and pointedly looked at Steve. "Clint is concerned that you will tell the other, or SHIELD. We would rather anyone else not know."
Steve smiled at the god. "There's nothing to tell."
Loki smiled back and then looked down at more sketches. "I knew I liked you."
Above them, Jarvis' voice sounded, jolting them all as they forgot the AI was always there.
"Forgive my interruption, sirs, but Agent Sitwell is on his way up."
"What- why?" Clint sat up on the couch with his eyebrows furrowed irritably.
"I'm sure I don't know, sir."
Clint grunted and slouched back into the couch, arms folded over his chest. The elevator arrived and the doors whooshed open, and the agent stepped out in his pressed suit and glasses.
"What do you want, Sitwell?" Clint growled.
The agent smiled and walked around the back of the couch to see Clint's angry face. "Good morning, Agent Barton, Captain Rogers." He looked over at Loki across the coffee table and the god didn't deign offer the bald man a glance or a hello. He had no reason to. Steve smiled and nodded at Sitwell, while Clint glowered at him.
"Fury sent me to ask a few questions about the time spent with Prophet and his men," Sitwell explained with a half-smile and a slight cock of his head.
Clint squinted at his fellow agent, but theatrically patted the cushions next to him. "Sure, sonny! Pop a squat and let me tell you all about it."
Sitwell seemed to take o offense with Clint's sarcasm and tilted his head in thanks, smiling still and sitting next to Clint. His selective obliviousness pissed Clint off. The agent's questions were boringly generic ones. The basic questions asked on every mission, with a few thrown in about the vigilantes specifically just to make it seem like Sitwell was invested in the conversation. It was all very tedious for the archer; the very presence of Sitwell and his asinine questions tested Clint's patience. He managed not to smack the man across his head. When the agent finished his line of questioning and took his leave, calm and duty-well-done as he entered the elevator, Clint released a hard sigh of relief, rolling his eyes and dropping his crossed arms finally.
Steve had finished the sketch and he showed it to Loki first, who was impressed and agreed it was Prophet's spitting image. Then he turned the sketchbook towards Clint, who said it looked good, but he was grumpy and disinterested.
"You don't like Sitwell," Steve noted and he pulled the paper out of the book.
"He's a fucking creep," Clint spat. "Not only that- he's suspicious. Did you hear what he said about Fury telling him to ask us questions, Lo?"
The god twisted in his kneeling position to see the archer, never having heard the nickname from Clint's mouth before.
"He called Prophet by name," he said in answer to his own question. "You tell anyone that they call him that?"
"No."
Clint shook his head, knowing already Loki's answer would be the negative. "I haven't either- just Steve."
The god looked down at the coffee table in thought, eyes roving back and forth unseeing. When he glanced up at Clint he looked worried. "Perhaps Imelda mentioned it?"
Clint wasn't convinced, folding his arms again. "Maybe."