Loki knows at once when Clint has arrived, when the fractious situation he is monitoring through his link to the sceptre turns explosive in a rather literal sense. The mortals – and Thor – pick themselves back up quickly enough, and he is somewhat gratified to see that they are in fact capable of pulling together once an external threat is upon them. The entire craft shudders and lists before righting itself. He concentrates inwards, then out through the seid-bond, gaining a sense of where his soldier is and a little of what he is seeing. So far, everything appears to be going to plan.

Each member of the Avengers has their own little tasks to perform and keep them busy, which means that they will be unable to stop the mercenaries from getting to Loki's cage and letting him out. Though he could escape on his own, it would be difficult, and the easier way is generally better. Besides, he must yet husband his power in preparation for greater things. Greater challenges. He waits, patiently, for his servants to come to him.

It takes some time, but he is does not mind the wait. It is a pity though that he has no bond with them other than that of monetary reward, for it means he cannot track their progress. Even discounting the regular Midgardians who may bar the way, they also have to stop by the research labs to retrieve his sceptre. Still, with the maps Barton was able to provide for them, they ought not get lost, and it was easy enough to guess where SHIELD would take such an intriguing artefact and plan ahead. It seems the nature of this race to be curious, even where t'would be better for their own safety if they were not.

Long minutes pass, but eventually the pair of mercenaries his hawk has sent him arrive. One waits, holding the sceptre carefully in his arms, the other going to the control panel and examining it carefully. Having evidently figured it out, he presses a few buttons in sequence, and the door begins to slide open. Loki is just stepping out when he feels the unmistakable seid-signature of Mjolnir coming towards him. Thor. It must be. And if this isn't the perfect little trap just waiting for someone to set it up.

(Hurt him! Let him feel the pain of rejection and betrayal! Let him experience a fall.)

He takes his sceptre from willing hands and steps into the shadows, calling them around himself, casting a kind of invisibility about him. With a spell so familiar it is like breathing, he calls forth one of his illusions, a copy of himself, that he puts back into the cage, waiting. He dismisses one of his servants, freeing him to continue causing chaos, keeping the other as a possible distraction. Yet he does think he will need him. This is between Thor and himself. Inevitable.

Clint strides through the service corridors, making no effort to be silent or conceal himself. That would be counter to what he's trying to do here. He knows Natasha must be looking for him; his viral arrow allowed him to hack into SHIELD's comm system and he overheard her answering Fury's alert. She is hunting him, and happily, he wants to be caught.

He's halfway down a gangway when he feels the metal grill underneath his feet shudder slightly with the weight of a light impact. Tasha. It's her, it has to be. He whirls round, his arms rising almost instinctively bringing up his bow to block her attack and prepare to return it. He'll have to make this look good, and honestly the brainwashed part of him feels almost somehow resentful of her very presence, of a reminder of a past loyalty, contrary to its Loki-centred world. But he doesn't want to hurt her, not really. She's family.

She blocks him, and he shoves her back, using his bow as a weapon. His previous bow had been more fragile, less useful for this purpose, but part of their training is being able to use nearly any item they come across as a potential weapon. Muscle memory takes over, and Clint barely has to think about what he's doing. It's easier to let the mind controlled part take over. He knows neither part of him intends on winning, but it has less compunctions than he does about possibly hurting the woman he thinks of as his sister.

Natasha's foot snaps up in a hefty kick that takes him across the chin. Clint reels back, his head suddenly feeling strange, the brainwashing wavering, like a file that's been corrupted. It snaps back into place quickly enough though, in time for him to see her pop up from the other side of the gangway and land another blow.

He stumbles back far enough to have space to shoot. The first arrow he fires is dodged easily enough and then they're back in close combat again. He's always known Natasha is quick, has seen it every time they sparred, but it seems now she's fighting even harder, even faster, though she hasn't gone for any of the weapons he knows she keeps on her. She isn't trying to kill him. She's trying to capture him. Contain him. His heart swells with warmth beneath the outer shell of Loki's control.

He gets the drawstring of his bow around Natasha's wrists, using the elasticity to pull her back when she tries to get some room to manoeuvre. Their heads collide painfully, and again the mind-control wavers for a moment. Not long enough for him to take stock, not long enough for him to figure out how he would be feeling about anything once he's free, but enough to put him off balance yet again. He pushes Tasha up against the guiderail, but it only takes her a few blows before she's broken his hold.

Finally, Natasha draws her knife. Clint tries not to feel somehow dismayed. Under other circumstances, it might almost be a compliment, that she thinks he's too dangerous to be taken in without some kind of disabling wound. Yet some part of him wishes... what? That she'd tried harder? That's not fair of him. This can't have been easy for her, not after all she's been through, her history, after all they've been through together.

He pulls out his own knife. He can't afford to seem less than committed. Not yet.

For a moment Clint wants to call out to Loki, shout along the bond he created to make sure he still agrees to this, to make sure he won't just slap the brainwashing right back into his head before he's had a chance to convince the Avengers of anything. But he can't afford to let his concentration lapse. Not with blades out. He could forget himself, or she could.

He attacks.

Thor comes barrelling down the corridor, running into things headlong as is so very typical of him. Loki watches silently from his hiding place, anger thick and black as the void curdling in his stomach. Thor is naive, and Thor believes in the inherent good nature of himself and those around him. He is a fool, and he blinds himself to the truth. Were he not so eager to believe the best of Asgard, he would not have brushed aside Loki's treatment at their hands as mere 'imagined slights'. Were he not so confident in himself he would not have had the arrogance that spurred Loki into proving him unworthy. And now he is fool enough to believe that after everything Loki has been through, after learning his heritage and taking an unwanted throne, after the void, after the agony, he can be anything other than what he is. A shell of ice over fire. Twisted. Broken. Monstrous.

(Punish him. Blind his unseeing eyes. Tear out his too-honest tongue.)

Loki will not lie to himself about this. Nor will he fight what is inevitable. And he will show Thor the truth he does not wish to see, through trickery, through pain, through a fall.

He opens the door of the cell again as his hated once-brother rounds the corner, letting his illusion step out. Thor lets out a loud cry of, "No!" Loki could laugh. Once more too trusting, believing only the evidence of his eyes and naught of his brain. Even now he is too straightforward for ruling, now that he has no shadow behind him to bear the brunt of subtle ways; woman's ways as Asgard calls them, no matter that they are Odin's tools also. Better almost that he remain here in Midgard, a so-called hero, self-named protector. He is not yet worthy of the throne.

Thor barrels up the stairs towards his seid -self and Loki lets it dissipate as he throws himself through it. Thor lands flat on his belly inside the cage, and Loki closes the door behind him. He creates another illusion to watch his once-brother, content to maintain his hidden position. Even now another may yet come upon them, and besides, he can split his mind between such castings as this, allowing him to view his new prisoner from more than one angle.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" his illusion asks.

Thor is as golden and strong as ever, though he wears not his full armour, merely light clothes as for a hunting trip or friendly sparring. Perhaps Loki ought to be insulted – surely with all his powers and the Chitauri at his back he is a more dangerous prey than that. Does Thor forget how Loki once put his skills to use in their quests of old? Again the arrogance of the Aesir. Only strength of arms, strength of the body, matter to them.

(Break him apart. Shatter his bones and make him crawl. Wither his muscles until he has no more strength than an old crone.)

There are many things he could do to Thor now, so neatly trapped in a prison of his own allies' making. But that is to be for later. For now, there will be a fall. Not so agonising as Loki's own, perhaps, but it shall have to suffice.

Thor's gaze roams over the confines of the cage, his anger clear and growing. Loki can see the point where it masters him, where he tightens his grip on Mjolnir and leaps forwards in a mighty blow designed to shatter the thick glass walls. Yet it is insufficient to breech the cell with one strike, and Fury's earlier warning quickly proves to have been entirely serious. The massive clamps holding the prison in place loosen and draw back. Only the slight press of a button will be enough to send it tumbling down towards Midgard's soil many miles below.

Loki laughs through his seid-self. Once again Thor participates in his own destruction. How could he ever have thought himself related to this weak-willed fool? Thor has all the brutish simplicity of the hero of the tale. Loki is the villain, twisted in around himself, out of true. The animal cunning of the wyrm. Subtle and dishonourable.

"The humans think us immortal," his illusion says, walking over to the control panel. "Shall we test that?"

The noise of the lone mercenary collapsing, forgotten until now, catches him off guard. Both Lokis look up. A man is standing there bearing some kind of unwieldy weapon, clad in a simple fitted black suit. He appears unassuming. Unthreatening. Loki is immediately wary.

"Move away please," the man commands. He frames it as a request, but the threat is evident. He seems somehow familiar. Loki concentrates, keeping the shadows wrapped around him as concealment as he inches silently closer to the man's back. A curious mortal. The gun he bears carries round it the wisps of a familiar kind of seidr.

"Do you like this?" the man asks, hefting the weapon. "We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does."

Even more remarkable. To be able to examine the wreck of Odin's construct with their primitive tools and yet build something so close to the original is truly an achievement for this race. While Loki doubts this particular mortal had much to do with the forging of it, he must be both trusted and formidable to have been given charge of such a weapon. Again the feeling of familiarity sweeps through him, like the memory of a memory.

With the press of a button the gun begins to charge, the barrel glowing with the same vicious power, the same seid, as the Destroyer had possessed. "Want to find out?" the Midgardian challenges.

Loki grins behind his back. Silent as a ghost, he is a mere hands-span away. Raising his sceptre, he presses the bladed part of it to the little mortal's throat. His illusion dissipates with a wave of his hand.

"Do not move," he commands. "You are very brave, little spy. What is your name?"

The man remains obstinately silent, utterly still. A thin rivulet of blood runs down his neck. Loki sighs, and reaches around for the tag hanging from the mortal's jacket.

"Agent Philip Coulson," he reads aloud. Ah, no wonder. The familiarity is an echo of his own hawk's memories of his shield-brother and lover. A worthy warrior, one who would undoubtedly have found his way to Valhalla if he had chosen to slay him. But he has made a promise.

"Do not hurt him," Thor bellows from his cage. "Or I swear..."

"You swear what?" Loki says, words burning with vitriol. "You are powerless to make threats, 'God of Thunder'. Yet I have already given my word, to one more worthy than you." He feels his captive tense, and so returns his attention to him.

"You match your lover well," Loki tells him. "And so I think it would be a kindness to reunite you with him. You will serve me as well as you have served your man of Fury." It is a little awkward to slide the sceptre down towards the heart, but the seid-spell has already begun to take hold before the mortal man can think to struggle. He is strong, Loki sees, strong in both mind and body. His will is iron, his heart beating with an Aesir's strength. His mind is cold and organised, layered and precise. His body is fast, well-trained, camouflaged under false normality.

If his archer is a hunting bird, the others of his family are felines, each hiding their power in different ways. Natasha Romanoff is showy, appearing as an ornament to be admired, showing weakness that is no weakness. Philip Coulson blends into his surroundings, a hunter, stalker, appearing out of nothing to strike without mercy.

Loki approves. Perhaps he will claim the final member once this plan has been completed. Once Barton is his again, once the Chitauri are defeated, he can bring the family together once more, as his unstoppable servants. His strong tools. (He dare not think of more than that, the Warriors Three to his Thor, for it is only seid that binds them to him, not true friendship, true loyalty.)

Still, there is much to do before then. And for now, he has Thor's punishment, his own vengeance, to consider.

Letting Coulson free, he returns to the control panel, recalling what Fury had done before. It is not wise to do such things where Loki can see them. A slight manipulation of the touch-screen, and the floor irises open beneath the cage. It is somewhat academically interesting, he supposes, to see how these people control their basic ways of seidr through these intermediaries, rather than direct control of the world's weaving, as is more efficient.

He pauses with his hand over the central red button. He wants Thor to see this. To know. To truly understand that Loki is going to do this, is going to hurt him, purposefully, remorselessly. They must play their roles, each of them, until Loki can rewrite the rules. That is fate. And Thor is too blind to see Loki's hate unless he writes it into his very flesh with the largeness of his gestures.

Whatever Thor sees in his eyes, it must get through to him. He steps back once, then again. Loki smiles. Oh, he does not intend that the fall kill him. He does not think it will. But even if Thor manages to escape before impact and injury, the hurt Loki has just caused him will endure. The first of many.

He presses the button.

When his forehead hits the railing at force, Clint feels the mind-control break, evaporating like smoke amongst the pain. He's reeling, dizzy, not entirely sure what way is even up. He pushes himself backwards, going to his knees. He's beginning to recover, his slightly woozy eyes focussing on Natasha standing above him, her face hard.

"Tasha," he says.

With a well-placed blow from her fist, she knocks him out.

When he wakes up, he's strapped down. His head is a mess, aching, sore, kinda ringing and echo-y. He can't feel a trace of the brainwashing though, and it's honestly amazing to be able to turn his head and look around and it to be 100% his own choice and his own decision. He supposes there's a chance that it's just gone dormant, stuffed down in the back of his sub-conscious somewhere, but it doesn't feel like it.

"Tasha?" he calls out.

"I'm here Clint." She's sitting next to his bed. He can see a couple of bruises starting to bloom where he caught her a few hits, but they're minor. Mostly she looks happy, as much as Tasha ever does. Happy, but also a little sad too, and he doesn't know why.

"Tasha... I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he says.

"I know." She smiles. "How are you feeling?"

"A lot better now that Loki's not in my head," he replies, and it isn't even a lie. But it's not all the truth either. Loki isn't entirely gone. He can still feel the psychic link he set up, nestled in the back of his mind. Quiet, at the moment, but still there. "If I'd known all it took was a good knock to the skull to get rid of the bastard... well not like I coulda done anything about it anyway." He smiles, kind of winces a little. He knows how this ought to go. How he would put up his usual shell, but be all shaken up underneath it. If he'd really had his control taken away for that long.

But he hadn't. He had control, of a kind. Warped, and working within some pretty serious restrictions, but still control. And now he's gotten rid of the weird brainwashing making him feeling all nice and worshipful about Loki, he's a little surprised to find out how much of his thoughts are the same.

Don't get him wrong, he's not about to jump right back on the Loki bandwagon, but he remembers everything he saw, and he knows Loki isn't in his right mind. There's a brokenness about him, something shattered and warped in his mind. Whatever happened to him, whatever the Chitauri did to him, it's made him even more dangerous than he must have been before, but he's not really all that interested in taking out his mental state on Earth. From what Clint can make out he wants to kill all the Chitauri, and then all the Aesir, in that order. Humans don't come into it.

And call him callous, but Clint doesn't really give a shit what happens to a couple of alien races he's never met. For all they know of the universe, extinction and genocide happens every goddamn day. As long as it doesn't involve Earth, he'll limit his concerns to their own solar system, thank you very much.

"Are you sure you're completely free of him?" Natasha asks.

"I know, there could be triggers I'm not aware of." Clint sighs. "I don't know. You... of all the people here, you're the only one who can understand. But I don't know if he left anything behind. If something might... set me off. I'm betting SHIELD medical want to keep me under observation, huh."

"Medical have a bit too much on their hands to be worrying about you right now," Natasha replies. Clint winces again.

"Tasha... how many..."

"Don't. Don't do that to yourself Clint. This is Loki. This is... monsters, and magic, and nothing we were ever trained for."

But it wasn't Loki. Not really. The assault on the Helicarrier might have been his idea but Clint had been the one to modify it, to make it fit his goals better and try and save some lives in the process. If he failed in that... it's on him. Him. No-one else.

"Loki... he get away?" he asks.

"Don't suppose you know where?"

"Yeah, actually, I might," Clint replies. He struggles to sit up a little straighter. "I remember... I remember a lot. Not all of it. But a lot. I know a lot of what he's planning, and I don't think it's everything you guys think it is."

"Probably not," Natasha agrees. "They do call him the God of Lies. But he's not invincible, even there." There's a slight smug tilt to her lips that makes Clint realise she's speaking from experience.

"You... they had you interrogate him?" He doesn't know why he's surprised. He should have seen it coming. But he'd been so focused on keeping them safe, her and Phil both, that he'd stupidly assumed that because he was tangling with her she would be well out of Loki's way. But there'd been plenty of time before he got there.

Tasha nods. Clint shakes his head. She's clearly okay, came out of it in one piece. Too late to worry now. He needs to keep his focus, not let his pounding headache distract him.

"Yeah, so obviously his plan's not going to be obvious," he says. "But I know – or I think I know – where it's all going to go down. He had Selvig take the machine and the Tesseract off by himself so that he couldn't slip and tell you guys where it is. But I was supposed to take him there after we broke him out. It's in Manhattan. I need to talk to Fury. Talk to the team. I need to explain things, we need to get a plan together."

Natasha nods, and begins unstrapping him. "Okay," she says. "Maybe you're in the clear, maybe not, but either way this has to take precedence. Fury is with Rogers and Stark. Banner's missing, but we were only using him to track the gamma signature. Thor..." She hesitates.

"Loki did something to him." It's not exactly a stretch. Loki hates Thor. It's hard for Clint to even fathom how much. He tries not to get caught up in strong emotions. You can't be a sniper and a field-agent while being a hot-head. He thinks Loki might have been the same, before. But whatever happened... he blames Thor for a lot of it.

"Dropped him inside the Hulk's cage," Natasha tells him. "Status unknown. If he's alive, he'll be back."

Clint nods. Makes sense. "Okay," he says. "Take me to our leader."

The bridge of the Helicarrier smells strongly of explosives and burnt things. Mostly plastic, thankfully, but there's a hint of barbequed flesh underneath it. Clint wrinkles up his nose, feeling guilty and ill. He did his best, but there were always going to be casualties. How many and how bad, he doesn't yet know. He'll find out though, one way or another.

The room is mostly empty, minimal crew. Rogers and Stark are both sitting at the SHIELD emblem shaped table, with Nick hovering opposite them like a thundercloud. Agent Hill is standing in the background, one side of her forehead dark with dried blood. Director Fury looks up as they enter.

"Our Sleeping Beauty awakens," he says. Clint can't read his tone, but then that's not unusual. Fury has two modes, pissed-off and inscrutable. This is the latter. "You were supposed to be confined to quarters Agent Barton."

"This is the guy Loki turned into his own little worker zombie?" Stark asks, spinning around in his chair. Clint has never had the 'pleasure' of working with Tony Stark, but from what Phil has told him, he's not really relishing the opportunity.

"Barton has information about Loki's plans," Tasha explains, falling back into her professional mask. "Considering the circumstances..."

"Understood," Fury says. "I hope you can give us something Barton, because we are flying blind here."

"Are we entirely sure we can trust this guy," Stark objects, butting in again. "How do we know he's not feeding us bad intel."

"I trust Agent Romanoff's professional judgement on this matter," Fury says. "Now, Agent Barton, to the matter at hand."

"Shouldn't we wait 'til everyone's here?" Clint asks. "Where's Coulson?"

There's a moment of horrible silence. It drags on for long enough that Clint begins to feel panic starting to claw its way up his throat. But surely nothing really bad can have happened? Loki made him a promise!

"Agent Coulson is missing," Director Fury says at last. "He went to confront Loki in the detention block with the Destroyer weapon prototype. Unfortunately the cameras were down, so we don't know what happened then. However there was no body found, so as of this time we are working under the assumption that Loki pulled the same mojo on him as he did on you."

Loki! Clint can't stop himself from reaching out immediately for the link, shouting mentally. Loki! Tell me! Is Phil with you?

There's a wait that stretches out for far too long, time during which it seems that all Clint can hear is white noise filling his head. If anything has happened to Phil...

Yes, my hawk, do not worry, the reply comes. I have your lover, safe with me. He is fortunate I made you that oath. Clint lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. And is it not right, that your comrades-in-arms should band together to rescue one of their own, one they know even better than you? What is a quest, without a damsel to be saved at the end of it? He sounds amused.

Clint isn't stupid. He knows this is about more than just fulfilling an oath. Loki took Phil because he wants to use him as leverage, as a bargaining chip to make sure Clint comes back to him, just as promised. Under other circumstances he wouldn't blame him – trust is not an easy thing to give for people in Clint's line of work, and he's sure the same is true of the Aesir court. But it's Phil. Phil. He doesn't like to think of him chained and controlled like he was.

"You okay to continue Agent Barton," Fury asks. It's cautious, the way he says it. Nick knows about their relationship, he knows how difficult this must be for Clint to hear. He knows how difficult it must have been for Phil. It's almost ironic, this reversal of their positions.

"Yes," he says, then clears his throat and repeats it less feebly. "Yes sir. I'm alright. So." He gathers himself together, returning his thoughts to what he has to say. "As I told Agent Romanoff, I was aware for a lot of what happened over the past week or so. The first thing I gotta say is the most important. Ground zero for the Chitauri's invasion is going to happen in Manhattan. You've got to get the word out to the police, National Guard, whoever, to try and get as much of that area evacuated as possible."

"Then we should head out immediately," Rogers says, already half-way out of his seat. "I was briefed on the capabilities of modern aircraft; if we take a jet and Stark gets into his suit, we should make it there in time to locate Selvig and stop him from activating the machine."

"Well I was sorta taking that as a given," Clint replies. "But the evacuation has to be top priority. Final decision of the exact location was left in Dr Selvig's hands, so I can't be sure he isn't already in position, hidden somewhere." For a moment he wonders if he should mention the failsafe Loki had Selvig build into the machine, but it'll only raise more questions, and they agreed ahead of time that if they want the coming battle to look appropriately realistic, Loki is going to have to participate. Erik will conveniently 'awaken' in time to tell them.

The issue is that if he tells the Avengers everything now, a variety of things could happen. One; they believe him, agree to let the Chitauri through, but close the portal down too quickly to be believable. Two; similar, but they pull their punches where Loki is concerned, giving the game away to the surveillance in the spear. Three' they think he's still brainwashed, lock him up, and stop the portal from opening, fucking everything up. He's sure there are plenty of other possibilities Loki has considered. The bottom line is that it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, so for now he's going to have to stick to basic information only. If everything goes as it ought, there'll be plenty of time to explain afterwards.

Besides, Loki has assured him that he's been keeping the amount of what he calls his seid – his alien magitech – that he's recovered since coming to Earth a secret from the Chitauri, and that he's not planning on using up much of it during the battle. He won't be in any danger if the Avengers take the revelation of his true motives badly.

So yeah. For a while he was almost considering not mentioning Loki's good intentions, hoping that once he was free of the brainwashing he would be able to stick within SHIELD's protection, find a way not to go back. But now that Loki has Phil... There's no choice.

He tries to tell himself working for Loki wasn't so bad. And that's true, as far as it goes. But it wasn't what he would have necessarily chosen. Yet... Loki is still going to want his revenge on Thor. Without the Tesseract, Thor will be stuck on Earth. There's bound to be some collateral damage. Sticking with Loki, Clint can minimalise that. Maybe he can even find some kind of way to get Loki's mind back on a slightly more even keel, though God knows he's not exactly a qualified shrink.

It won't be so bad. He'll have Phil.

"I'll see to it that civilians are removed from the area," Fury says. "Barton, you're going along. Your knowledge of the enemy might come in handy out there." Unspoken, the knowledge that if he proves to still be compromised, Tasha's not going to be ordered to bring him in alive again. He knows procedure. A threat in the field is to be eliminated.

He nods.

"I guess we're trusting the judgement of a guy who lied to us about building weapons now," Stark says.

Tasha turns to glare at him. "No Stark. You're trusting my judgement." That gets him to shut up. Rogers seems satisfied by it too.

"There's a jet ready for takeoff in the hanger bay," Fury tells them. "Suit up, and head out."

They've received their orders. If their luck holds, Thor will somehow find them en route.

They're ready to beat the Chitauri into a wet smear on the pavement. He hopes.