Disclaimer: I own nothing owned by someone else.

AN: Hi guys. Thanks for all the reviews and all the follows and favs! I never expected to get so many follows, it's almost at one-hundred! That's incredible! Thanks so much. To a reviewer who said my story was a bit slow, sorry. I'm trying as hard as I can to not make it seem rushed is the thing, I hate reading stories that are too rushed, but I'll try to work on my writing. I'll also check more thoroughly for errors and try to make my writing more realistic. Thanks for the constructive criticism, it was highly appreciated! I hope you all like this next chapter. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Natasha grabbed her holster but looking down she saw that her gun was missing. Alva must have taken it. Her eyes darted about her, hoping to find something— no, anything— that could possibly help them in any way.

Thor rushed passed her and before she knew what was happening he was attempting to wrangle the monster to the ground with his bare hands and it threw him across the ground and he hit the wall with a grimace.

"Thor!" Natasha yelled and she rushed over to his side.

"I'm fine." Thor huffed as he slowly got up on his feet.

She and Thor both turned to face the monster again and it thrashed about as if angered.

"Do you have any plans?" Natasha asked.

"Not really…" Thor said, glancing at her a moment.

"Well… What if…" She stared at the beast "What if one of us distracts it somehow… while one of us runs as fast as we possibly can, grabs the medicine and we call Alva's name and get the hell out of here? Pretty simple, right? I mean, we don't really need to fight it, do we…? " She said, looking at Thor.

"Very simple…" Thor said, thoughtfully "But whilst there is very little complication involved, it will still manage to be a difficult task… We may only have one chance."

Natasha nodded. "Who will do the distracting?" she asked him.

"I will." he said, gritting his teeth.

"What are you gonna do?"

Instead of answering Natasha, Thor walked somewhat stiffly towards the beast, before turning to look at her halfway; though he had fear evident in his eyes, he had a posture that told Natasha he was unyielding and determined and she suddenly recognized that this glint in his eyes was less fear then it was an unbeatable courage that resonated in him so strongly that Natasha felt it too and at that moment she had this undying feeling that they would make it out of this. She clenched her fists almost automatically, standing ready to run.

Thor glared at the creature with all his might as if expecting it to suddenly be afraid of him and yield. It just stared blankly, it wasn't thrashing about anymore or moving at all, just staring at him.

"Will you not fight me, beast? Are you too afraid?" Thor asked the creature, trying to taunt it. Natasha felt she was ready to make the run and she took a deep breath, but the beast looked at Thor as if completely indifferent, its blank gaze like a black hole that had no end. "Are you too imbecilic to understand me?" Thor asked the beast, holding out his hands as if inviting the monstrosity to attack him. The creature suddenly turned its cold glare towards Natasha's, unblinking and Natasha felt herself freeze where she was, the back of her neck tingling as if something was behind her even though she knew there wasn't. That dead stare looked straight into her soul and further. Her throat grew dryer by the second and she didn't dare move from the spot she was in or stop looking into its dead eyes.

Thor wasn't getting any results and Natasha didn't really know what to do but stand there in wait. She hoped Thor would come up with something soon.

He suddenly started to untie his cape and he folded it a little before lifting his arms up as if offering the scarlet cape to the monster.

It looked at the cape a moment, as if in thought and then it gently grabbed the cape out of his hands with its teeth and looked at him, suddenly Natasha could see a shine in its eye that proved she hadn't been looking into dark eternal abysses. The creature slowly stepped away from the doorway, staring at Thor the whole time. Natasha could somehow see something very old and ancient in its eyes, something somehow very wise.

She slowly walked towards Thor, looking at the creature the whole way, still nervous that it might attack.

The potion was right there in front of them, up close it looked like a blue flask, embroidered with odd little designs.

Thor and her both sprinted at that point towards the potion. Thor grabbed it and held it tightly in his hands and then the world around both of them evaporated into a whirlpool and it became whiter and whiter until they felt their feet being lifted and then… everything went black.

..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..

There they were, staring at him; Steve, Bruce and Tony. Clint felt his forehead sweat slightly, he really wasn't up for this.

"Barton." Bruce said, before Steve could say anything, glaring at Clint as though trying to channel superman's laser-eyes. Clint hadn't expected Banner to say his name with such anger and it startled him, he gulped.

"Clint…" Steve paused. Unlike Banner, who looked extremely angry with him at that point, Steve seemed less angry at anyone and more grave and serious and there was sympathy in his eyes as he looked at both of them as though he was going to give them bad news.

But Steve still hadn't said anything else and Clint was beginning to lose his patients. "What? You called me so you could glare holes into my eyes till I'm blind?" Clint asked, looking at all of them. "What'd I even do to piss you off?" he asked, looking at Bruce, "I've helped you." he said, defensively.

"Helped? Helped With what?" Banner practically spat, approaching Clint. "You haven't "helped" with anything, you've made things worse!" he said, with anger.

"What the hell did I ever do to you?" Clint asked. "I didn't come here to hear anyone's judgement. And how did I make things worse exactly?"

Before the archer knew what was happening, Banner slapped him straight in the face and he felt a sharp pain on his cheek. "What the fucking hell?" He growled, touching his cheek a moment.

"You are such a prick, you know that?" Bruce asked, "Always on this high pedestal, like you can never do any wrong, like you think you have superior morals, you don't."

"What are you even talking about?" Clint asked, in frustration. "Are you defending Loki or something?"

"You've been like this long before this Loki incident." Bruce said.

"When did I ever say I had higher morals than any of you?" Clint asked, "Never."

"It doesn't matter if you say it out loud or not, we all know you think you're a saint." Banner said.

"What?" Clint exclaimed, incredulously. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? You're constantly making judgement calls on other people because of what they've done, regardless of the fact you're guilty of all sorts of terrible crimes." Bruce said, his face was growing greener and redder within seconds. "You've constantly managed to make things worse because of it, like right now." Bruce said.

Clint was trying hard not to yell, he did not want to agitate Bruce too much and have the hulk ruin the room around them and kill everyone.

"But I'm seeking redemption for what I've done in the past." Clint said, "Can you say the same for Loki?"

"By the past do you mean early this morning?" Banner asked.

"Also," Tony chimed in, stepping into the conversation. "As far as we know Loki is trying to 'redeem' himself, so…"

"Please," Clint said, turning to Stark, "Whatever Loki said, he's lying, you should be smart enough to know that."

"Sure." Tony said, "Sure! Maybe he is. Sure! You can have a free pass for redemption. You can be a trained puppy, but Loki, yeah, he's going to mark his territory everywhere no matter how hard we try to train him. I think I'm siding with Bruce on this one."

"That's enough." Steve said, they both ignored him.

"Really? You're going to use a stupid dog metaphor to describe redemption? And you're really going to defend Loki, after all he's done to all of us?" Clint retorted.

"I'm not defending him, I just think none of us should be too judgy considering all the crap we've caused ourselves—"

"See?" Bruce said, glaring darts at Clint. "You're completely oblivious. No one here is fully trusting of Loki, but none of us are going to assume he can't change either. You'd think someone like you would understand that even the worse people can change for the better." Bruce said. "And you think you're entitled to harming anyone in the first place? Like you're above the law or something? Just because he did wrong to you doesn't mean you should stoop down to his level, or to an even lower level for that matter. You've put Natasha in danger because of your—"

"Wait? What? How have I put her in danger? Where is she?" Clint asked, confused. Did Thor harm Natasha to get back at Clint? It didn't seem like something Thor would do, but what else could this mean? He supposed anything could happen if they were actually siding with Loki rather than him.

"Natasha went with Thor to get a healing thing for Loki." Tony said.

"If it wasn't for you being the dickhead that you are, she wouldn't be in danger." Bruce said, pointing his finger at Clint. "You just had to have your revenge, didn't you? And you don't care about 'Thor', you don't care that he's Thor's brother. You only care about yourself. You don't care about the consequences to your actions. You don't care about the rest of your teammates."

"None of you are my teammates anymore, but that is not true, I do care." Clint said, "I'm not a selfish asshole. And I had no way of knowing I was putting Natasha in danger!"

"We're supposed to help people." Banner said, "Not shoot them."

"I don't 'help' people anymore, Bruce, I'm retired."

"So it's just a job for you, then?"

"That is not what I mean!"

"It's what you said!"

"STOP IT NOW!" Steve yelled and they all stood silent and there was a pause, "Enough of this petty bickering." Steve continued, glad he had finally gotten their attention "Natasha chose to go with Thor and she can take care of herself, they'll both be fine, there's no room for worrying and blaming things on each other. And no, no one knows where Loki stands, so we need to be cautious, but we also have to give him the benefit of the doubt, that's our only option because we need his help." Steve looked at all of them, Clint's and Bruce's hands were both clenched into fists and Steve didn't want anything violent to happen, he took a deep and anxious breath and exhaled. "This is bigger than all of us, so, while we all hate Loki to a certain degree, we need to trust him."

"What do you mean we need his help?" Clint asked. "What's bigger than us? Did the world start ending while I was gone? And where is Loki, anyway?"

"He's in there." Tony said, pointing at a machine in the back of the room. The inventor stepped over a box to get to the machine and started tampering with it. Clint glared at the machine. He couldn't help it. Now that he knew Loki was just in there that whole time, it made him feel so angry and irritated. Could Loki hear them arguing the whole time?

"Can someone answer my other questions?" Clint asked, glancing at Bruce a moment. The man was still glaring at him, clearly angrier than what would be considered safe, he looked like he was itching to slap him in the face again and Clint backed away a little.

"We need Loki's help finding Odin…" Steve said, "He was captured and without him, Odin, earth's in danger. Loki knows where he is, at least that's what he claims, and we just need Loki to lead us there."

"Why can't he just give directions?" Clint asked.

"Maybe it's too complicated for that or something." Steve said.

Clint snorted, rolling his eyes at all of them. "You're all putting way too much faith in someone who once tried to rule the world, ever wonder if that might just still be his goal? Stark, you can't be this stupid."

"If we just ignored him," Tony started "then we would have no leads on where Odin is and we'd be basically doomed." Tony said, "Honestly I don't like this either but we kind of have no choice but to trust the guy, it's the only plan we've got right now."

Clint sighed, "Maybe so… But we have to be cautious."

"We?" Steve said, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. Was Clint going to join them or something? Before Steve could ask about it, they suddenly heard a loud noise, like a strong storm had spontaneously started outside the window. Clint and Bruce both rushed to the window to see Natasha and Thor outside, the wind around them quickly disappearing. Thor had something in his hands and for some unknown reason his cape was missing.

Thanks so much for reading! Sorry about the unusually long authors note up above. I hope you all enjoyed and until next time,

P.H.