Author's Note: THE STARS ALIGNED. LOOOOOOK WHO DID IT! I MADE THE UPDATE DATE. SO MUCH SEROTONIN IS BEING GIVEN TO ME RIGHT NOW. :D :D :D

thank you guys, so so so so much for your support, it means the world to me.

Warnings: Torture, PTSD, anxiety attacks.

Disclaimer: No.

****I have not seen Hawkeye yet. I know that they explain his hearing loss as part of that, but I'm writing him as already deaf.

"And I wonder if I will ever find a language

to speak of those things that haunt me most."

-Boa Phi

Chapter Two:

"No—please, no…stop…"

There's a chortling of laughter. He tries to struggle, desperate, anything to make it stop, but the fresh, painful burns across his back leave no room for reprieve. He can't move without being paralyzed by the pain. His body is trying to shut down, begging him to cease this useless effort.

"Maybe if its so desperate to talk, we should put it on its face!"

"Silence the tongue for good!"

"Or perhaps we can just take the tongue from him in the first place!"

Horror washes through him at the suggestion and he snaps his mouth closed, biting harshly on his tongue as if he can trap it in his mouth. They always prefer it when he's quiet. His screaming ruins the game. It's loud and aggressive until his voice breaks. Bothersome.

"It would look pretty here," a different voice snickers and a cold hand touches the side of his face.

He flinches back from it, a desperate sound in his throat.

"It would burn through his cheek," someone else says, annoyed. "My father said no permanent disfiguring."

Did he? Why-why would he care? Why—

"Oh, you ruin all our fun!" A hand claps his back, and he gasps, choking on a desperate sob as his vision whitens. The world feels like it's spinning. His legs give out, and only the hands restraining him keep him from toppling to the floor all together. A fresh well of blood pools down his skin, aggravating other burns.

It's agony.

He has never suffered so much.

He is hauled up again and forced to stand on exhausted legs so as not to aggravate his shoulders. Everything hurts so much. So painfully.

"No, no—" a new figure leans in close to his face, snickering, fetid breath making him gag, "tell you what, lost one. If you don't make a sound, a single little peep, we'll all leave you alone for three days."

Oh, gods, he can't—

Not with what they're suggesting.

Fire hurts.

"I—" he gasps. "I can't—"

"Sure you can," one of the gathered accuses, laughing loudly, "the lost one is always trying to prove itself, isn't it? Not a single little sound. Can't be so difficult."

He can feel them staring. Laughing. Waiting. He makes no agreement but knows that they assume he accepts away. He can't imagine what it would be like to have them leave him alone for so long. Three days. Nothing but the opportunity to rest. To breathe.

He feels the surge of intense, overwhelming heat against his already raw, blistered skin before he even feels the brand press against his back, burning into muscle, bone, anything and everything, and he wont, can't—pain pain pain pain—

He screams—

And—

Clint shoves up, blankets tangling around his body, unable to breathe. His stomach is cramping violently and bile is sitting in his throat. He can smell burning flesh and cooking meat sticking to every side of his nose and he's going to throw up. The sound, the scream—I failed, I failed, I failed—is echoing in his head, repeating on a violent bitter loop as if it intends to make him pay recompense for something.

No, Clint realizes after a moment, hand pressed against his mouth as he breathes in thin wheezes, it's not in his head.

Loki is screaming.

Freaking—

Clint scrambles up, forcing his way out of the blankets and off the bed, his limbs stiff and shaky, aching in places he knows he wasn't hurt yesterday. It doesn't matter. Between his shoulder blades is playing sympathy pain to an injury he's never received. Clint's hands are shaking as he tries to grab the set of knives he keeps on the bedside table, and he has to try twice before his right hand will even hold them steadily.

Oh, man.

Clint is—

This—

Loki. He has—he's. Screaming. Shouting. Something sounds like it's making a valiant attempt to yank his lungs out through his throat. Clint shakes his head, trying to clear it, and moves toward the door quickly. He swallows thickly, trying to force himself not to throw up.

His body feels stiff. Awkward.

He can't do this now. He can't. He doesn't care what is attempting to eviscerate Loki, he's going to stab it in the eye for the sheer inconvenience of this all. His upper back is burning and it's not his pain.

It was a dream.

But it wasn't a dream.

I can feel the burn.

Get it together, Barton, he chides himself.

As he transitions from the carpet of his room to the hardwood of the hallway, Clint hears his feet making soft tapping sounds against the ground. He moves steadily toward Loki's room down the hall, wishing he was wearing socks.

Hill hates all of them because the fact they're on the same floor is her fault. Apparently, it was "better for security purposes" if they could neutralize the threat—Loki or otherwise—without having to go vaulting down the side of a building, run down sets of stairs, or wait for the elevator before they could react. Ergo: everyone sleeps on the same floor.

It makes sense, logically, and he knows this. Clint doesn't have to like it.

Loki's awful, animalistic sound ceases abruptly, and the absence of it doesn't relieve him in the slightest. In his experience, this isn't a good thing. Something worse happened if Loki can't scream anymore.

He can't—he just. He can't do this now.

(Not a single sound. Can't be so difficult.)

Clint unsheathes one of his knives, holding it tightly in his left hand, breath painfully tight in his stomach. His hands are steady, even if the rest of him feels ready to rattle apart. The pain in between his shoulders is fading dully, crawling slowly back to whatever inner sanctum of hell it arrived from.

The hall looks exactly as it did when Clint passed down it last night. There's a set of windows on either side of the elevator at the end, both completely intact and letting the light from the city in faintly, offering basic light to see by. The hardwood is unblemished. Nothing broke in that way, then.

Thor and Loki's door is open and the light is on, spilling into the hall like glowing, angry hands. Claws reaching out to grab him and suck him into whatever drama Clint has landed himself in this time. Clint forces out a tight breath, flattening his back against the side of the hall, trying to listen into the room. His right ear's hearing aid keeps buzzing faintly, making it hard to focus on small sounds. He forgot to charge it before he went to sleep because he didn't take them out before he went to bed.

Loki is crying softly, and Clint can hear Bruce's quiet baritone overlapping, but what he's saying isn't decipherable to him from this far away and the freaking hearing aid won't silence itself.

Oh, man, where is Thor? They need him. If something did come to put Loki out of his misery, then they're going to need the big guy to put him back together. Or at least dust up what remains of him with a big Asgardian broom or something.

Okay. Okay.

Either Loki is dying or he had another flashback, and Clint isn't willing to place a bet on either option.

He takes a deep breath, forcing his muscles to loosen. One, two, three—

Clint throws himself into the room on the offensive, weapon appraised, half expecting to get shot on the spot. He doesn't know, exactly, what he was expecting to see, but something a little more violent was the general consensus. Maybe some big, octopus-thingy sucking Loki's soul out through his mouth. There isn't that. It's just—

Just Loki. Sitting up on the bed, face white, his eyes glossy and far away. He's shaking so badly that he doesn't look like he should be able to stay upright. Bruce is sitting in front of him, gripping Loki's wrists tightly. There's blood on Loki's fingers from where he was scratching at his face. Faint cuts are bleeding along his cheeks. Loki is fighting Bruce for control of his hands, determined to peel off his skin to bone.

Clint swallows thickly, lowering the knife.

Flashback, then. No murder or soul-sucking octopus required.

Clint swears softly under his breath.

"Hey, hey, hey! Loki. Loki!" Bruce's voice is carefully neutral. Clint can still hear the edge of desperation in his tone. The barest edge of a plea. "Loki, look at me. You're safe, okay? You're safe, you're not on Asgard—"

"Nei," Loki gasps in Asgardian, wrestling his wrists frantically. "Nei!"

"Loki—"

"Nei!"

Clint hears the wood of the floorboard behind him creak in the hall, amazingly—God curse his freaking hearing aid, he needs to change out the bloody thing—and turns, body braced, knife at the ready. There isn't a need.

Tony steps into the room, mismatched socks, rumpled hair, and clothing plainly saying that he had taken the rare opportunity to try and get some rest. Clint's lips twist unhappily at the realization. Gripped in both of the engineer's hands is a .45, which he points across the room as he takes in the scene before meeting Clint's eyes. A thousand things pass between their gaze.

Then, slowly, Tony thumbs the safety back on and lowers the weapon, his drained gaze fixing onto Loki. Shadows pass over his expression. Tony's breathing is faintly shallow, an indicator of his matching adrenaline-filled wake-up call. The gun is gripped in a painful, tight grip like he's attempting to strangle it.

Being honest, Clint doesn't think he looks that much better himself. He forces his fingers to relax so they won't cramp.

"—Vær så snill, Far, vær så snill—jeg kan ikke—" Loki begs. Clint's understanding of Asgardian-Norwegian has improved enough that he can make out "Father" and "please", but that's about it. He's a lot more well-versed in swearing.

"Loki, you're safe, I promise," Bruce assures. Then, apparently have picked up about what Clint did, Bruce adds, "I'm not Odin and this isn't Asgard. Do you know where you are?"

"Jeg ber deg, vær så snill—"

"You're safe. I promise. You're safe. This is Earth, you're not on Asgard, you're okay, you—" Bruce tries to placate. The Asgardian isn't hearing him, that much is obvious to Clint. Loki makes an awful wordless sound before he brings his leg up and kicks Bruce in the stomach. It doesn't look like a heavy blow, but it's unexpected, and Bruce releases him on instinct with a strangled gasp.

Freed, Loki scrambles back from Bruce along the bed, flattening his back against the bed frame and pulling his legs up against his stomach. He wraps his arms around his shins, trying to shrink in on himself, staring at them with wide, terrified eyes, breathing rapidly.

Clint finds himself moving before he can really process the action, reaching out to grab Bruce's arm, eyes steady on the Asgardian. Bruce reacts to his touch, allowing himself to be pulled away from the bed without complaint. His other hand is pressed against his stomach, a grimace plastered to his face.

"Are you okay?" Clint asks lowly.

"Yeah. No. I will be." Bruce says, chewing on his lower lip anxiously. Which isn't exactly reassuring on any level. At least he's not outright lying anymore. The chemist's gaze lands on Loki again, watching him carefully. Loki is, in all honesty, decently lucky he didn't release overprotective mama-Hulk, who probably would have promptly pummeled him out of existence for daring to touch Puny Banner.

Clint breathes out heavily through his nose. His throat feels hot.

This is why they need Thor back here. All of them have made an effort to learn how to learn with Loki's flashbacks, but the only people who have had any real success are Thor and Steve. Loki just doesn't seem to respond to the rest of them at all.

Yet another reason Thor was so hesitant to spend a week with Jane and another tally on the list of why it's so weird he never made it there in the first place. Loki hasn't had a flashback like this in over three weeks. But even with that, it still took considerable convincing to get Thor to go anyway.

And look where they got them.

Crap, haha.

Yet another reason for Thor: he speaks Asgardian. At first, Clint thought that simply speaking English would assure Loki where he is, but speaking a different language doesn't seem to help in the slightest.

But honestly, Thor needs to learn how to pick up a phone. Despite trying to track him down yesterday, Tony didn't have any luck before they went to bed. The last place Thor's phone pinged off of was in New York, and that was days ago. Thor probably short-circuited the battery again. An unexpected, sometimes funny side effect. His powers have proven to be a great annoyance to every device within a twenty-foot radius of him.

On the plus side of that, Clint can just stand vaguely near-ish Thor, and his phone's battery will charge itself, so that's kind of nice.

"We sure we can't get Thor on the phone?" Clint mumbles, defeated. Loki is just—staring at them now, waiting. Tense. Braced. He's expecting them to stab him or something. It's about then that Clint remembers that he still has knives in his hands and mentally kicks himself. Great move, Barton. That'll calm him down for sure.

Lips twisting, Clint, making sure Loki can follow every movement—which he does—sets the knives down on Thor's unmade bed and lifts up his hands to show they're empty before backing up beside the other Avengers again.

"If the man was contactable by human means, I would have him on the phone." Tony assures him softly. "Maybe we should send a bird or something." There's a lull of silence, the only sound being Loki's heavy breathing and Bruce's soft groan when he brushes his arm against his stomach.

Clint side-eyes him, but Bruce's face is perfectly composed.

Liar.

Loki hits a lot harder than he looks like he can.

Clint casts his gaze around the room, biting at his lower lip. The two twin beds are on either side of the room, a large dresser between them with a large lamp resting on the top. The table on the other side of the room is covered with the books Loki has borrowed from everyone, with or without their permission. Thor's drawings are a scattered mess across the remaining space of the table. The door to the bathroom is shut.

"What do we do then? Do we just wait it out?" Clint asks at last. The idea doesn't sit right with him. Although he's never had anything this extreme, he does know what it's like to sit in one of these…dissociative episodes? Panic attacks?, unable to tell when you are, and the terror of it. He doesn't want to leave Loki there until he shakes himself out of it—which could be days—or Steve and Natasha drag themselves back to the Tower and they can get Steve to talk him down.

Which, given that Tasha texted to say their flight was delayed because Hill needed to talk to them about something, who knows when they'll be back in the States anyway.

No. They need to deal with this. They need to pull Loki back kicking and screaming back to reality.

"I don't know," Bruce sighs, "I don't think we have another option. I don't want him to hurt himself. Or us."

Tony releases an unhappy breath. Clint looks at him from the corner of his vision and sees that Tony's mouth is tight. He looks about as comfortable with that as Clint feels. "Maybe we can dump a bucket of water on him," Tony suggests.

Clint and Bruce stare at him.

Tony runs a hand through his hair, laughing softly. Hysteria is dangerously close to seeping into his voice.

"Vær så snill," Loki whispers, ducking his head against his knees, his voice hoarse, soft and almost unrecognizable. It's the desperate sound of a man who knows he won't be listened to anymore. "Vær så snill, Far, stopp."

Clint isn't exactly sure on the last sentence, but he's pretty sure it's please, father, stop, with is just. That's awesome. Their family is so messed up.

Tony makes a sound in his throat, then whispers, "I know Thor loves her and all, but just…screw their mom."

Clint snorts.

But honestly? Yeah.

While Asgard's dungeons, and Odin, weren't exactly afraid of sharp objects and generally being sadistic, Frigga was her own brand of torture: Kindness. Clint knows, in her heart and whatever crap she needs to tell herself, that she genuinely believed she was doing the right thing. But Clint's also decently sure that all of this—Loki's dissociative episodes and the depth of his psychosis in the midst of them—can be chalked up to that kindness.

Clint swallows thickly, his mouth dry. Anger twists through his stomach, hot and unrepentant. It's times like these that Clint thinks he'd happily go on a murdering spree up in Asgard and feel little to no remorse about who got in the way. There isn't much Clint doesn't think Loki deserved after everything that happened in the Battle. But none of it was something he wanted to see. And this?

He wanted Loki hurt.

He didn't want him broken.

When Loki first came back, it wasn't even the injuries that were the problem—okay, they were, but still—it was convincing Loki where he was. He didn't believe that Thor had actually sprung him from prison. He had a harder time accepting the idea that their Gatekeeper pretty much waved the finger at the Asgardian government and refuses point blank to admit he knows where Loki is.

Loki didn't think it was real.

Any of it.

Not Thor. Not Earth. Not them.

Clint doesn't know a lot, but according to Thor, who admitted this to Clint one night after Loki had finally passed out after a three-day panic episode the first week, Frigga, unable to physically spring her son from prison without an endless amount of repercussions, thought the best way to help was to cast illusions for Loki so he could pretend he was somewhere else. It, uh, didn't help when everything began to blur together in the younger Asgardian's brain as the situation got worse.

Really though. The thing that annoys Clint the most about that is that she thought she was helping and she got away with thinking that.

She hasn't had to watch Loki's panic episodes where he's convinced he's back in Asgardian Torture Hall because he had a nightmare or a flashback of it and his brain latched onto the idea that the illusion is now over and back into the devil's kingdom you go. Clint really doesn't know what she thought it was going to do beyond hurt. But whatever. It's not like he can ask her. Which is a good thing, because Clint would probably punch her in the face, and that would make Thor upset, and Clint doesn't want to do that.

Clint rubs at the lower half of his face, anxious. He doesn't know what to do in this situation. Five—five—months of this, and he still feels as helpless as day one.

Bruce sighs, "I can try talking to him again…"

"Let's um," Tony rests a hand on Bruce's shoulder, "let's maybe hold off on that. I trust you, but Hulk is a different story." Bruce's shoulders slump and Clint watches as something dark passes over his face. And—yeah, Clint doesn't have the energy to talk about that right now, but makes a mental note to ask him about it later.

Clint sighs. He has very little desire to stand over Loki for the rest of the night and really thinks Loki wouldn't want them to, either. He exhales sharply, annoyed with everything, before glancing at Tony. "Leave me for the birds to pick at. Shoot me from a canon. No burial." He reminds him sardonically.

"Clint—" Tony hisses, reaching out, but Clint is already moving.

He reaches the side of the bed and then licks his lips nervously before he lifts out a hand and taps Loki on the head twice. His hair is weirdly soft. Loki flinches beneath the contact, inhaling raggedly, and looks up at him. Clint tries not to wince beneath the weight of the stare. Loki looks small. Young.

Please let this work.

Clint forces out a thin breath, then says, "Do you want a sandwich?"

There's a long lull as if Loki's struggling to understand him. Clint repeats the question.

"Hva?" Loki breathes, looking utterly bewildered. Clint hears Bruce and Tony make sounds of confusion behind him. His hand bounces anxiously. His hearing aid buzzes.

"I want a sandwich," Clint remarks idly, "A big one." He lifts up his hands slowly to approximate the size. "This big. With pickles, and peppers. And the gross cheese that Tasha likes but should be marked as hazardous and a danger to the state. For some reason, it really appeals right now, though."

"Jeg—" Loki's brow is drawing together. He's blinking rapidly as if he's trying to see through a filter to find the actual image. "I don't—" he says in heavily accented, slurred English, his head tips and his shaking hands come up to his temple, pushing with two fingers as if he's trying to remember how to speak.

Clint waits, his breath baited. It's a long, tentative few minutes as Loki struggles to put everything back together.

This is something that Natasha has done for him a few times. Clint was riddled with anxiety attacks after the Battle, and both of them learned pretty quickly what did and didn't work in regards to helping. Something that they both discovered was weirdly effective was for her to distract him with something completely unrelated. Like a sandwich order.

Clint watches carefully and sees the moment that Loki realizes where he is, because he relaxes. It's subtle enough that Clint doesn't even think that Loki is aware of it at all. The Asgardian's shoulders drop and he releases a breath, his face losing some of the hunted edge. Clint wonders what that must be like, where being in the captivity of strangers is better than that of your own family.

"Loki?" Clint says cautiously after a moment. "Do you know where you are? Do you understand me?"

There's a long, slow exhale. Loki's head raises, and though his face is still tense, his eyes are clearer. When he speaks, his voice is still faintly accented, but it's clear. "Yes." Another breath, "Unfortunately."

Clint makes a face at him. "Funny." He says dryly and jabs him in the arm pointedly.

Loki doesn't react, slowly uncurling from his tensed position. He still looks jittery, ready to abort the mission of pretending to be okay at any second. Clint doesn't comment on it. Loki's lips purse together, his hands tightening in his hair as he softly shakes his head. Frustration is evident in every crease of his features. Not with them, but himself.

And—yeah. Clint does not have the energy to deal with that today. That's definitely Thor's area. Clint doesn't do emotions. Not with him.

He takes a step back. "Do you want a sandwich?"

"How," Loki's voice has dropped, cold and angry. A shield. "Is a sandwich supposed to help?"

"Because sandwiches are delicious." Clint points out without flinching, folding his arms across his chest. "And you need something else to focus on beyond your brain. So, up. We're making sandwiches."

Tony huffs, and Clint can almost hear the eye roll. Which is not his fault. If the man doesn't appreciate peanut butter the way he should, that's his problem.

"Barton—" Loki sighs, exhausted. He digs the palms of his hands into his eyes.

"No. No hiding in the murder cave," Clint shakes his head, "Up, up, up."

Loki's jaw clenches, but he obligingly gets to his unsteady feet. There's a fleeting widening of his eyes as his feet refuse to hold, and he grabs frantically at the closest object for balance, which is Clint. Clint grabs at his arm instinctively to keep Loki from face planting. His entire body is freezing, Loki's forearm feels like he's gripping frozen metal.

Holy crap.

"We should just get you a walker," Clint mutters, helping him stand upright.

"Jeg vi—I. I will layer it with your skin for padding," Loki threatens. He's not serious and they both know it.

And that's pretty much that. Loki's back. Yay.

Clint lets him go, and when he doesn't topple over, he looks back at Bruce and Tony, watching them silently. Clint tries to keep his voice chipper, pretending, because he's really not good for much, but he can pretend.

"So. Sandwiches?"

000o000

It's three thirty-seven in the morning. Clint hasn't slept for more than ten hours collectively in the last six days. His brain is sludge. His hands are shaking, his back is acting up with phantom pains and the object of his nightmares is sitting across from him, nursing a coffee after having refused a sandwich adamantly.

This is great.

How is this his life?

Clint forces a sandwich on Tony and lovingly ignores Bruce's quiet no, so now they're sitting in the kitchen and Clint is eating a disgusting sandwich with far too much honey and trying to pretend that he's okay when he'd rather be doing almost anything else.

He's…he doesn't know. Jittery? Anxious? Bad? Bad. He feels bad.

Thankfully, Tony talks when he's anxious, and so does Clint. They could hold a conversation for days without remembering a word later.

"I'm just saying," Clint says, ripping off an edge of the crust and plopping it in his mouth. "That if you're going to complain about my sandwich making abilities, make a better one."

Tony shakes his head, picking off a piece of his own sandwich. Bruce is absently chewing on his, looking over something on a tablet somebody left in here last night. He does that. You just put food near-ish Bruce and he'll eat it without consciously thinking about it. It's strangely endearing.

Tony makes a face at him. "Do you really want everyone's apartments to smell like something died for the next ten years?"

Clint scoffs at him, "Name one sandwich that you cook."

"Anything with meat."

"No—with the bread." Clint demands. He waits patiently all of about two seconds before Tony says flatly, "Grilled cheese."

Clint swears under his breath, defeated. He chances a glance at Loki. They'd dragged him into the argument earlier, but the Asgardian fell quiet quickly and Clint can see that he's deep in thought. His finger is moving absently along the rim of the coffee mug, his eyes far away.

Which, given the circumstances, could be both good and bad.

Clint releases a soft sigh, stuffing the last of the sandwich into his mouth to delay talking. The overall sensation and taste he gets is dry. Loki's mouth twists before he reaches out and grabs four packets of sugar from the small bowl Pepper set on the counter sometime in the last few months. She's almost religious about her coffee drinking. Black, one sugar, a swirl of cream that only she or Tony seem to get right.

She's supposed to get back from the business meeting in D.C. next week, isn't she? Clint can't remember.

From the corner of his eyes, Clint sees Tony roll his. "You want some coffee to go with that sugar, Lokes?" Tony asks dryly.

Loki looks up at him for a moment, tearing open the packaging and dumping it into the coffee. "No." He says and stirs it with a spoon. He takes a sip and grimaces. Clint doesn't know why he does that to himself. Loki hates sugar. And coffee. Maybe he drinks coffee for the same reason Clint does: you have to keep your body going without sleep somehow.

Which…

"Do," Clint's mouth curls awkwardly around the word. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Loki looks up at him, both hands clasped firmly around the mug, his expression so dead and empty it's almost physically painful to look at. There are times that Clint sort of…not forgets but he can put to the side the fact that Loki is not their friend. He's not his teammate. Sitting on the other side of the counter, dressed in a loose Stark Industries T-shirt with his hair a mess around his face, Loki doesn't look threatening.

But no. Loki doesn't trust them. Clint's pretty sure he barely stands to tolerate them.

There will be no baring of the soul today.

Clint averts his eyes. Loki relaxes around them when he realizes they aren't Asgard, but Clint can relax around him, too, sometimes.

"Odin is a sadistic coward," Loki says after a moment. His voice is even, but there are layers and layers to that Clint doesn't want to even start poking at. "You slept poorly as well. Do you want to talk about that?"

Touché.

I dreamt about you getting your back burned open. In the first person. It was wildly disturbing, but not the first time it happened, so I think that your brain is leaking or you're taunting me and I don't like either option.

Clint frowns, opening his mouth, but Tony beats him to it. "Okay, this isn't therapy. You just drink your coffee. Hopefully consuming enough sugar will help you be less bitter."

"Ha." Loki intones sarcastically, but his lip quirks up a little, betraying him.

Clint rolls his eyes, then sets to work cleaning up the mess he made while putting the sandwiches together. Bruce leans over to ask Loki a question about something, and Clint is struck with how much he wishes that this…he doesn't know exactly what to call it, but this existed in his dreams. Yeah, they're all a mess, but there's something calming about it.

Maybe it's just the fact that there's far less violence.

Less pain.

He's losing his mind.

Clint blows out a breath, starting to wipe up the honey—how does it get everywhere—when his phone starts to vibrate in his pocket. He took it from his room before he joined his teammates and Loki in the kitchen. It's like, three forty a.m., who the heck—?

Tony looks up from his own device, his brow furrowed. He mouths who? Clint pulls out his phone and his stomach sinks a little. He answers Nat to Tony's silent question before answering the phone and stepping out from behind the counter, walking toward the hall for privacy.

"Tasha?" he asks, switching the phone to his left ear and finally submitting by reaching up and turning off his right ear's hearing aid. The lack of persistent buzzing is a relief. He's going to have to charge this pair, or switch them out, which sucks, because this is his RIC and the only other one he has in the Tower is his CICs, which he finds horrendously uncomfortable.

"You know it's like, three in the morning in New York, right? Are you okay?"

"No. Sorry," she sounds frustrated. "Can you talk?" At his affirmative, she releases a long breath. "Cap and I are on the Helicarrier. He's in medical."

Clint swears. "Is he okay? How long have you been there?"

"Since yesterday."

Clint frowns, rubbing a hand over his lower lip. "So when you texted to say Hill needed to talk to you…"

Natasha doesn't miss a beat. "She did. Steve just also needed a patch job. It's bad, but he'll be back on his feet in a few days. He's already insisting that he's fine."

Clint resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah. 'Course he is. Idiot." Natasha laughs at that, and Clint smiles before sobering, "how bad is it?"

"Took a bad hit. His chest is a mess and his leg. He's in a lot of pain. But it's okay, the archaeological team says he should be okay in a few days...I was worried." Natasha confesses quietly. Which is pretty much an indicator that Steve got about half his chest cavity shot out. Clint clenches the hearing aid in his other hand tightly.

"Did you let the others know yet?" Clint asks.

"No. I was going to text them after I called you." Natasha admits. She's quiet for a moment. "This...wasn't why I called though."

Steve got hit bad enough that Natasha was worried and somehow that's the afterthought? Great.

"I'm glad Steve is alive," Clint says after a moment. "What's wrong?"

Natasha is silent.

Clint waits, but she still doesn't talk.

Finally, Clint submits, "Nat? What's wrong?"

The assassin exhales, long, "Sit down."

Well. Somehow, this keeps getting better.

"Nat—" Clint protests, exhausted. She repeats the command, and Clint blows out a breath, sitting down in the hall, pressing his back flat against the wall and—they're touching him, they're touching his back and poking at blisters and oh, gods, he can't—a phantom itch, almost like peeling skin, washes through him and Clint tries not to shudder.

He exhales sharply.

Present. Stay present. Present, present, present.

Pickles, deli meat, ketchup, bread, lots and lots of tomatoes.

"Okay," Clint says tightly after a moment, once he can speak again. This anxiety isn't even his. This is karma. God is laughing at him. "I'm sitting. What is it?"

Natasha is still quiet. She can't figure out how to word this, he realizes. Clint almost wants to laugh. This is ridiculous. Natasha doesn't really care about expressing something gently. She believes that brutal honesty is the only type of honesty. Which he doesn't blame her for. The Red Room was the same.

"Steve and I didn't go to France because there was a terror cell that Fury wanted us to take care of," Natasha says at last. Clint is quiet. The first emotion that he can conjure is hurt, which doesn't feel fair. Natasha is not obligated to tell him everything. But she does, most of the time. Clint thinks she takes relief in being able to be completely honest with someone for the first time in her life. "S.H.I.E.L.D. had Loki's scepter stored there."

"Okay…" Clint says, dread pooling in his stomach. Had. Not has. "Someone…it's not there anymore?"

"No."

Well.

That's.

That's awesome.

Crappity crap crap—

"You—" Clint runs a hand over his mouth. "That's—where is it? Do we—Loki was here, the whole time. I swear."

"I know," Natasha promises. "I know. We don't know who took it. Steve and I got there after. We tracked it for a few days. I think we were getting close because they attacked us." Clint's stomach tightens. Oh, man. Not bullets, not punches, but the scepter is what got Steve? "I'm okay. Steve…took the worst of it for me."

Of which Clint would kiss the man on the lips in gratitude. Natasha is the most important person in his life. And he will thank Steve after he punches him in the face for being such an idiot. Steve doesn't seem to understand this magical concept between shield and human shield.

Clint forces out a shaky breath, his leg beginning to bounce. "Someone stole Loki's scepter and is running around with a mind-controlling, unstable device?"

"Yeah." Natasha says.

"Awesome."

Lots and lots and lots of tomatoes. It'll be a sandwich made of pure tomatoes.

Oh, man. If-if someone is out there with the staff, then that means that everything isn't over. They could come after him because they already know that he's susceptible to the staff and that means that he'll have another eighty-six hours, forty-three missing and blurred with violence and blood. And that means—

It's not over.

Not over not over not over not not not not

"Look," Natasha shifts a little, and he can hear the slightest echoing sound for the first time. She's in a bathroom. "Tony and Bruce already know what's going on. We thought it would be for the best if you didn't. If we could resolve this without anyone having to know..."

"So—" Clint feels an intitial surge of gratitude was through him, mostly overpowered by an overwhelming sense of frustration. "You-you didn't even think to mention this to me? Why the heck didn't you guys drag everyone in? This isn't—this isn't like some old guy stole somebody's favorite chair, this is a freaking mind-controlling device!"

"I know, Clint."

"Who-Who decided I shouldn't know? I would have wanted to know!"

"It was me." Natasha says, softer. Clint forces himself to swallow his anger. He's furious. He's disappointed and hurt, but he trusts Natasha enough to at least hear her out. "You'd have been compromised and demanded to come with us. With how much worse your nightmares have been recently, I didn't think it would be the best idea. You're not okay, Clint."

Clint snorts darkly. Hunting down the next person who's going to run around fingering people's brains? "I'm okay enough for this." Clint says angrily.

"No, you're not." Natasha's voice is somehow gentle instead of an accusation. "I'm sorry for going behind your back. But it was my call, not anyone elses."

Then she waits. Because Natasha is one of the few people in his life that doesn't demand an immediate answer from him. She gives him time to think. She doesn't want jokes or quips, she just wants him to be honest.

Clint shakes his head, rubbing at his brow. He's still frustrated. "I know you were…I know I'm not functioning at my best right now. I need some time to think about this. But at least tell me next time, please."

Clint hasn't said a word of the nightmares to Natasha, but he knows that she's aware of them. Even as much as he hates to admit it to himself, she probably made the best call. With how little sleep he's gotten the last few days, he's running at like an eighth of functioning human juice. If that. He would have exacerbated any problems in the field.

"I'll do my best," Natasha promises, which is as much as a yes that he's going to get. She blows out a soft breath, "Are you okay?"

Clint considers lying for a long few seconds, but his shoulders slump. "No."

"We'll get them, Clint. The scepter isn't exactly inconspicuous. We'll find them, I promise. Steve and I are headed back out once medical clears him." Natasha explains.

Which honestly, just, doesn't help at all. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the scepter, but he wants his team near it even less. Where the heck did S.H.I.E.L.D. have the bloody thing? Stuffed in a box under the stairs with DO NOT TOUCH—wait, this is France, so it'd be what, like NE PAS TOUCHER or something—stamped on the front? You'd think they'd work a little harder to safeguard that.

But no. He hates this. So much.

"This Fury's idea?" Clint asks vaguely, trying to hide his disapproval. He scrapes his fingernail along the inside of the seam of his shirt.

"Hill's." Natasha admits, then sighs, "I need to go. I only had a few minutes. I'll call you later and we can talk about this some more. Try and get some sleep, okay?

"You too," Clint says tiredly.

Natasha is quiet for a second, then she tags on, "Ya tebya khochu."

Clint chews on his bottom lip, "Ya tozhe khochu tebya," he promises. Natasha lingers on the line for a second, and Clint's exhausted, sluggy brain finally catches up with him. "Wait." He says before she's ended the call. His partner makes a questioning sound. "Have you heard from Thor at all?"

"What? No." Natasha sounds confused. "Why?"

That yawning, circling pit of doom and pessimism in his stomach takes another swirl. He shrugs a little, even though she can't see it. How on Earth has no one heard from Thor in almost five days? "We can't get ahold of him," Clint answers vaguely. He doesn't want to add anything to her lengthy worry list at the moment. He'll figure out what's going on. She can focus on...that.

"That's…" Natasha doesn't seem to have a word for it.

Clint rolls the hearing aid between two fingers. "Yeah." He agrees. He sighs. "I don't know. He probably short-circuited his phone again. You should go. We'll figure it out, you focus on finding the scepter. Tell Steve hi for me. And get some sleep, you sound dead on your feet."

"Mm." Natasha hums. "I'll talk with you in a bit. Poka."

"Bye."

Clint hangs up and holds the phone in his hands for long seconds, staring at the opposing wall. The scepter is missing. Steve is in God-knows-what condition. Natasha lied to him. They all lied to him. By omission, but still.

Clint exhales slowly, wishing that this wasn't such a familiar feeling. He's too tired to deal with this. Emotions are exhausting.

Eventually, Clint stands up and ends up trying to go back to sleep on the couch a few hours later. Everyone else seems to have given up on resting all together. Tony is working, Bruce is reading with a pinched, unhappy look, and Loki kept chugging coffee before Clint went to bed like it was some sort of ambrosia and looked like he was on the edge of a very intense caffeine crash.

Clint, like a normal person, just went back to sleep.

The dream is vicious and violent, like normal, but it feels blurry, like his brain is putting in half the effort with a third of the production team. Everything is strangely far away, hazy. Painful, to be certain, but so distant. Even in the dream, he's disassociating. Clint feels sick and numb.

He's not sure how long he's asleep before Bruce shakes him awake, but he guesses it's a few hours. There's a blanket that definitely wasn't there when he went to bed on top of him, and Bruce's pinched expression has gotten worse behind his glasses.

Clint blinks at him blearily, trying to get his brain to focus. "What's wrong? Who died?"

Bruce's lips press together.

"If we're lucky, no one," Maria Hill says behind him. Clint swears in surprise, snapping upright and nearly smacking into Bruce in the process. He looks over the side of the couch to see her standing beside the entrance to the landing bay with a dozen faceless S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, her face carefully neutral. There's a Quinjet on the bay.

Bruce reaches out, resting a hand on Clint's shoulder in reassurance.

"What—what are you doing here?" Clint asks.

"Nice to see that you're taking your responsibilities seriously, Agent Barton," Hill says flatly. Her gaze roves around the room, somehow curious and judgmental all at once. "Get up. All of you need to come with me. We have a nation-wide alert."

Clint gets to his feet, tossing the blanket onto the cushions. His brain is struggling to play catch up, half asleep and missing a hearing aid, his auditory processing is kinda sucky right now. "Does this have to do with the scepter?"

From the corner of his eye, he sees Loki's gaze flick between the two of them, obviously confused. He didn't assume that Loki knew about the problem, but it's nice to have the reassurance he wasn't the only one in the dark.

Hill's expression thins. "The Director suspects so."

"And what would you like me to do, Lady Hill? I'm not allowed to be here without guard." Loki says. His voice sounds normal again, thankfully. He's standing a few feet away next to the counter, his shaking hands carefully hidden in the pockets of his jacket. Tony has risen to his feet as well, frowning.

Clint's first, immediate thought is that well we could shoot you and his second one is why? how on earth is that going to help?

"You're coming with us," Hill says without preamble. "This has to do with you and we'll need your assistance anyway."

Loki's eyebrow raises. "Pray tell."

Hill's eyes narrow, her jaw tight, but it's clear her patience is waning, which is a little strange. "Everything will be explained on the Helicarrier," she looks back at the guards. "Cuff him. We need to get moving."

Loki's eyes narrow, but he lifts his hands up obediently as the guards approach him with restraints. "I fail to see how this relates to me."

"Thor is missing," Hill explains flatly. "And we're pretty sure whoever did it took the scepter, too."

Clint feels his face go numb, but he is very, very aware of his heart smacking against his chest. Not again, not again, not again.

Well.

Crap.

None of them say another word as they follow Hill out to the Quinjet.

Author's Note:

As a little disclaimer: Unlike most of the languages I put in fics (Spanish, French, Russian) I am not super familiar with Norwegian. It's my intention to start learning at least the basics soon, but for right now, if you speak Norwegian and can offer more correct translations, please do so. Thanks. :)

Next Chapter: VERY TENTATVILY I'm going to say March 18th.

Please leave your thoughts. *heart*