Author's Note: HEEEY! :D Thanks so much for your support. You guys are the literal BEST. 3

Warnings: some violence, description of injury, panic attack.

"Why did he just tilt his head and squint?

It's his 'I've got a clue' face."

-Psych (TV)

Chapter Six:

Tony is sitting next to Steve in the cafeteria, both of them resembling the walking dead. Steve is slumped over the table with his head resting on folded arms, Tony beside him with a cup of coffee clutched between tense fingers. Even from a distance, Clint can see how exhausted they both look. Coming closer just exacerbates that.

As Clint slides into the spot beside Tony on the bench, he settles his own coffee in front of him and tears open one of the four granola bars he took from the vending machine down the hall. Rule one of S.H.I.E.L.D. is to never trust their cooking staff. Maybe he's just a paranoid bugger. Or he just didn't want to drag Loki through the line. The security staff has finally backed off to take seats around them, but far enough that they can actually have a conversation without prying ears. The cafeteria has enough people that it makes Clint feel a little twitchy. He thinks he even sees Hill.

Clint dumps the granola bars into the middle of the table as Natasha and Bruce do the same.

"Do you want one? It's peanut butter flavored, which means it's actually worth eating." Clint offers to the two men beside him. Loki, Bruce, and Natasha settle in on the other side of the table, their backs to the room. Loki's shoulders hunch up a little at the setup. People are staring at all of them, but particularly Loki. Maybe dragging him out here wasn't the best idea.

Tony squints gritty eyes at him. "Have you slept?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Clint asks, exasperated. He wiggles one of the unopened granola bars, taking a large bite of his own. Stale yet sticky, as expected. "Do you want it or no?"

Tony wrinkles his nose. "I'll pass."

Steve's tired hand practically flops across the table as he slides it out from underneath his head, palm open in quiet request. Tony lifts up his coffee to avoid an accidental spill, the weight of which assures Clint that Tony has barely sipped at it. Clint happily distributes the package into Steve's hand and watches with vague amusement as Steve withdraws it into his little cave, like a monster dragging away a bloody corpse.

"Have you eaten food in the last four hours?" Bruce asks Tony, eyebrow raised. He takes a bite of the mint-flavored granola bar that Clint privately grimaces at. He hates mint-flavored things. Far too many missions spent chewing desperately on mint candy to suppress hunger pangs has that effect.

The vending machine didn't have any chocolate, which is probably for the best. Just waterbottles, granola bars, and bags of pretzels that are probably older than Steve. Natasha, Bruce, and Clint poured practically all their spare change into the device figuring it was better than nothing. In total, they have two bags of pretzels and twelve granola bars.

"No." Tony admits after a moment. "But I'm pretty sure all of that would give me food poisoning."

Natasha opens up a bag of pretzels, sniffs it critically, and then takes one and pops it into her mouth. Apparently satisfied it's not immediately deadly, she offers the bag to Loki. The Asgardian takes some awkwardly with his shackled hands without complaint, fingering it for a moment as if trying to rub off toxins.

Clint pokes Tony in the shoulder. "Mint, peanut butter or, uh," Clint squints at the label, then smirks, "Nature Valley crunchy Oats n' Honey granola bars?"

Tony grimaces. "Aren't those the ones that are so hard they'll break your teeth?"

Clint shoves one toward him. "Yep! Maybe the mold has softened it up."

Tony sighs, relenting. He opens the package with stiff fingers before biting down. Sure enough, the loud crunch makes Clint's teeth ache in sympathy. He chews on his much softer granola bar. There's an ensuing silence as all of them desperately cram calories into their bodies. Between the six of them, the pretzels and granola bars are quickly watered down to a single granola bar that they unanimously shove toward Steve.

Clint's stomach is indecisive as to whether or not this impromptu meal has satisfied it. It has helped his headache, so there's that, at least.

"Was there a reason that you wanted us to get together?" Bruce asks Tony once they've collected the wrappings in the middle of the table. The crinkling sound makes Bruce hunch a little, like he wants to crawl inside himself. "Sorry that we didn't come sooner. We, uh, were sleeping."

Tony waves a hand, shrugging. "It's fine." It's clearly not, but okay. "I just want to leave. This place is…I just want to go home."

"I know," Bruce says softly. "Me too."

Home.

Something in Clint's stomach twists painfully. The Tower is home, not just a place that he sleeps in. It's somewhere that he feels safe. Things are better going home because home actually means he can let his guard down. Beyond a few scarce apartments here and there, Clint hasn't ever really had that.

"Do you feel up to that, Cap?" Natasha asks, "We're not leaving you up here by yourself."

Steve is quiet a moment, considering. Clint looks toward him past Tony's face to see the Captain's profile. Head tilted, mouth thin. Beneath the table, his hand is resting on his thigh, fist bunched in the fabric tightly. He keeps blinking. "I'll be fine." Steve decides. "As long as wherever I end up I'm horizontal."

"Do you need to be under medical aid?" Bruce asks. "Taking you home and you getting worse isn't the goal here."

"I know." Steve promises. "But I don't want to be here either."

The confession makes Clint feel wary. There's something different about their normal distrust of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is manageable, versus this big, gnawing hole that the Chituari have left in them. They pulled away what little safety they felt here and turned it into a nightmare. None of them want to be here right now. Even knowing that the Chitauri are within walking distance makes Clint feel a little sick.

Tony sighs through his teeth. "Well that's not happening until Captain Both Legs decides to give us the all-clear. Running off is only going to make this worse long-term, unfortunately. I just want to find Thor and if that means working with them..."

"I know." Steve sighs. He winces, pushing at his forehead, likely to try and ease a headache.

Tony takes a sip of his coffee, then looks at Loki. "On that note, what was it that you didn't want to tell Fury about that conversation? You were hardly being subtle there, Reindeer Games."

The Asgardian has barely spoken a handful of words since sitting down, and only looks up with mild interest when Tony addresses him. His right arm is resting on the table, the gauze clearly visible while Loki rubs circles into his palm with his thumb. "What do I have to hide?" Loki asks mildly, if a little toneless. "I have no desire to protect them."

Clint bites on the edge of his tongue, fist curling around the edge of a wrapper, as he thinks, almost desperately, you're protecting yourself. By not talking about any of this and pretending it didn't happen, you're not helping us. Say something about the Chitauri. Please. He doesn't want to be the one to bring it up.

"They didn't tell you anything about Thor?" Steve asks. "Anything at all?"

Loki digs his thumb into his palm. "Not much. As I told the director, they neither confirmed nor denied my suspicions." Loki is quiet for a long second as if debating whether or not to say anything before he relents, "To answer your question Stark, they told me that 'where you failed, your brother will succeed.' Along with a vague mention of torture. But they didn't even confirm that they had him, so I don't know..." The sorcerer sighs.

Vague mention of torture? Didn't they say something about giving Loki too many sessions with some sort of device? And then how they shouldn't do the same to Thor? That had not clicked in Clint's brain until now, but—

You don't know the Chitauri as I do.

—Well. Ha. Crap.

Torture. Sure. Let's add that to the list of things they didn't know about. It's almost like they lived two entirely separate events.

"They want to make Thor finish what you started?" Natasha asks. "Why? I thought you going after Earth was to spite Thor?"

Clint's eyes jump to the Asgardian. We don't know anything, comfortably lounges at the forefront of his mind. We don't know anything about this at all. Did you guys know the Chitauri tortured him? Loki's jaw tightens. He licks his lips.

Before Loki can answer that, Bruce asks, brow furrowed, "How do the Chitauri even know that Thor is your brother? I was there and I still wasn't sure about familial relationships until after the fact. Were you…talking about Thor with them?"

Loki's jaw sets, his body going rigid. Clint is inappropriately reminded of one of those wind-up toys where you twist up the key at the back until it's impossible to move anymore. Once released, it spins desperately until it blurs to deal with the pressure. Loki is that key, teetering on the edge of release, and Clint gets a distinct impression that it won't be pretty.

Clint doesn't want it to get to that point, but that's probably because he knows where this is going. It feels weird. For the first time, Clint is looking at the deck Loki's holding and knows what the cards are. Maybe not all of them, but enough that he can read the hand. If things were different, Clint might have poked him until the spring broke. Now?

"It's not that hard to put two and two together," Clint finds his mouth is moving, but can't remember deciding to do that, "Especially after Loki got taken back to Asgard. I'm pretty sure that the mothership or whatever is in charge of them now knows about Loki getting arrested and just…plopped that knowledge in their head. If Thor was the objective, they would know about him."

Everyone seems to agree with that because there aren't any arguments, but Clint sees Loki shoot him a puzzled look.

Clint desperately avoids it. Nope. We are not making eye contact. If Clint looks at him, he knows he going to say something he shouldn't. Even if they're relatively far away, the cafeteria is not the place to have this type of conversation, not with all of S.H.I.E.L.D's prying ears and eyes.

Speaking of which, they're still being watched. Tony and Steve picked a table that was tucked toward the corner of the room, but it doesn't seem to help. Everyone is watching them like they're the main attraction to some sort of show.

"But why Earth? What do we have that they want?" Tony asks, shifting faintly.

Clint shrugs. "Crippling worldwide debt?"

Tony snorts into his coffee.

Loki sighs, grabbing one of the wrappers to start picking apart carefully. Honestly, Clint doesn't know if it's a good thing or not that he can tell how uncomfortable Loki is with the conversation. "Midgard has Stjerne Tårer."

"Stjerne...what?" Bruce repeats.

Loki scrapes his thumbnail on the inside of the wrapper, splitting apart vertically. "I'm not sure what you call it in English, but it's a type of metal that fell into your African region. Dwarf metal is very similar. It's coveted in the Nine. Not that it matters—" Loki shakes his head, breathing out sharply. "In truth, if they are having Thor finish what I started…the easiest solution would be to get Asgard involved."

Yeah. That's probably not going to happen. Actually, would the Asgardians unite back together for Thor? Interesting hypothetical and an irony that should be illegal given the fact that they split was because of Loki.

"Why? We stopped you." Natasha points out.

Loki does something close to a grimaced wince. "That's because I wasn't trying." He mutters. He wasn't—there was—Loki was trying. The mind control and opening a portal in the middle of New York wasn't trying? Clint wants to pounce on that, but Loki's faster, desperately scrambling to say something else as if he didn't mean to let that slip, "Stopping me has little to do with stopping Thor. My brother is a force of nature. With the way that I am…" Loki awkwardly lifts up his hands as if to encompass them, "I would hardly be able to assist. Even with my sedir, I'm…I could hardly be considered an equal. The Avengers are formidable, but you have little experience fighting magic."

That was a compliment. Sort of.

"Thor isn't magic. He's like…a lightning rod." Tony protests. "You do magic. He does…" Tony makes an awkward gesture with his hands, trying to think of a word. He doesn't find one.

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Magic. Mjolnir is simply a means for Thor to channel his power. Like a wand. He doesn't need it. To be honest, I would argue that he would be stronger without his hammer. Which…does beg the question of where it is."

That—

Is a really good point.

When Mjolnir decides to sit somewhere, heaven and hell will deteriorate into nothingness around it before it moves. No one has found any evidence of Thor. Not even Mjolnir. Who in this freaking universe could move that hammer if they took Thor? Not the Chitauri. God, please not the Chitauri.

No one has anything to say to that, because there isn't an answer to that question. With Thor is the hope, because at least that means Thor will have something to defend himself with.

"Could Asgard even stop Thor? If worst comes to worst?" Natasha asks seriously.

Loki hesitates, before admitting slowly, "Thor is not like me. Elemental powers are a different subset of magic. If the Chitauri attempt to injure his magical core, he would be a time bomb instead of just broken." Loki rubs a hand across the bottom of his face, agitated, "Our mother and Odin could at least contain him. We—They have means for hindering magic. Drugs and spells. It would be the only way to help or stop him until he recovered."

"You don't think we could stop him?" Natasha's expression is unreadable.

"No." Loki says bluntly. "I don't. Not without killing him."

A shiver of apprehension washes down Clint's spine. He's never really been afraid of Thor before. Thor's a sunshine child. He smiles and laughs with a carefree nature that belies the worries that haunt his face. He's never been something to fear. Clint has a healthy respect for him, yes, but not fear. But Loki, who has known Thor for hundreds of years, is afraid of what he could do.

"Can the scepter even work on Asgardians?" Bruce questions, finally asking the idea they've all been skirting around. Thor attacking them. Because he's mind-controlled. Because of the scepter.

Loki pauses for a moment, hands stilling over the wrapper. "Yes. No mind is immune to it."

Well at least he's not some sort of weak exception. Not that knowing this honestly helps. A swirl of dread sitting in his stomach like concrete. The phantom feeling of cold fingers settling over his mind makes him want to heave.

"So—" Clint starts to ask, but is interrupted as hands clamp down on the end of the table with a loud thunk. A figure looms over them. Clint doesn't quite jump, but he twitches, hand going to the knife in his jacket.

Clint looks up and bites on a swear.

Oh, freaking—

An older white man is standing there with graying blond hair anywhere from forty to sixty. His eyes are slightly wild, a desperate, wilted look about his features. He's not wearing a dress suit, dressed in tactical gear, and obviously armed. Clint recognizes him on the spot. In the entirety of the invasion, Loki only possessed three people: Dr. Selvig, Clint, and Nathan Swenson.

Everyone else that helped, as Clint explained to Loki, "S.H.I.E.L.D. has many enemies." The only three people forced to be there were them.

Swenson and Clint never got close, but Clint saw him a lot during the initial weeks after the invasion when S.H.I.E.L.D. was combing through their brains for after effects they never found. Ironically, maybe all they needed to do was wait two years.

Fantastic. This is cinematic timing that they'd even be in New York at the same time. God himself couldn't have written this.

Swenson is flocked by a couple of other agents, but though they're all scowling into the side of Loki's head like this is some sort of achievement that they're standing there, Swenson is trembling. He looks like he's either going to faint or throw up, his face so gray it's almost chalky. His eyes are rimmed by deep shadows, wide with obvious, severe sleep deprivation. His shaking hands are making the entire table rattle.

"Agent Swenson," Natasha says carefully. She doesn't know what his intentions are either.

All Clint knows is that Swenson put himself close to Loki on purpose, within grabbing distance, and he doesn't like that at all.

Swenson ignores them entirely. "Stop. Please. I haven't in six days."

Clint's brow furrows. What the...? What is he—what?

"Nathan," one of the agents behind Swenson says piercingly. "Don't beg the psycho!"

"I haven't slept in SIX DAYS!" Swenson repeats, louder, harder, more desperate. He looks at Loki, fingers tapping against the rim of the table in a familiar patter of anxiety. "Please."

Loki stares at him, looking more confused than anything. "I beg your pardon?"

"You—" Swenson stares at him, disbelief slowly growing in his features, morphing into anger. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

Clint winces internally. Right. They haven't met yet, have they? Officially? Loki's been back to the Helicarrier exactly once since Thor took him off of Asgard, and that was when Thor begged asylum for his mostly-dead sibling. Loki probably doesn't even remember being here. And although Swenson has asked Clint a few times about Loki, Clint's information has been scarce.

This is not the confrontation that Clint wants to deal with right now. They need to get off the Helicarrier before all of S.H.I.E.L.D. decides to do a murder. Would Fury even try to stop it? Probably not. He'd just tell Hill to bury Loki in the backyard and then pretend they have no idea what happened even though it's on video.

"Nathan." Clint warns. They're gathering a larger audience. Maybe they've always had one, watching and waiting for the moment to strike. Clint remembers seeing Swenson at a different table but not registering who it was.

"Shut up, Barton." Swenson growls without looking at him. He stares at Loki furiously. "You don't get a say in this, traitor. You sided with the murderer."

Traitor?

"What the—" Clint starts to sputter.

"Wait." Tony says, and Clint can hear comprehension building in his voice. "This is Nathan Swenson?" Without waiting for a confirmation, Tony swears heavily, but it's like all of them are frozen, suddenly incapable of de-escalating a situation despite having done so dozens of times before. They're just watching.

The worst part about this is that looking at Loki's face, Clint can see that Loki truly has no idea who Swenson is. He's staring at the agent and seeing a stranger. His life is as meaningless to Loki as some passerby in the street.

People are drawing closer. Listening. Watching.

Clint feels like they're on display.

"My name is Nathan Swenson, and I'm the third person you possessed in your little run-around daddy's tantrum two years ago. You ruined my life and you don't even remember me, boss." Swenson says. He points a finger harshly against his own chest.

There's a very long, tense moment before Loki intones, "Ah." Swenson's hands curl into tight fists. History between them laid out for all to bear, Loki appends, "Yes. Agent Swenson. Forgive me, the last years have not been kind to me. I take it you want to address your grievances."

"His grievances?" one of the agents repeats. "You're joking."

"Well he is plotting with the Chitauri again despite being surrounded by his enemies so can we really expect anything smart to come out of his mouth?" a different agent asks.

Loki's jaw sets. Swenson slams a hand against the table and all of them stare at him as the clang resonates through the room like a judge's gavel. Clint fully expects Swenson to hit Loki. He doesn't. "Shut up, all of you! You're not helping. Stop. Stop all of this now. I don't want any part in this anymore!"

Loki's eyes squint with confusion, but his face remains impassive. "Stop?" Open-ended question. Inviting him to speak. Let Swenson guide the conversation until there's more data. Interrogation tactics.

"I will freaking BEG YOU IF YOU WANT THAT!" Swenson shouts. Clint finds himself half rising for physical intervention. Bracing. Swenson is on the edge of unhinged. "You think this is funny? You think so? It's not. It's not. I—" hopelessness clearly flashes on Swenson's face before he lashes out and snatches Loki's arm, half dragging him upright. Loki's left hip violently smacks into the edge of the table with a rattling snap.

All of them jerk, raising in their seats.

"Swenson." Steve's voice is low. It's not a warning, it's a threat.

Swenson's fingers dig harshly into the gauze like he's sinking his hands into fresh snow. Loki makes a choked, whispered sound in his throat, his bound hands flexing painfully in reaction to the pain. Loki doesn't try to move away, he doesn't scream, he just holds his wrist and blinks heavily as if the instinct to fight has been beaten out him entirely.

Swenson shakes his head, blinking rapidly, then shakes Loki physically. "Stop it, stop it now!"

Clint's breath escapes him sharply. Clint moves off the bench, intending to approach Swenson from the side and force him off, the other agents watching with approval aside.

Loki starts to say something, but Swenson squeezes his arm hard enough that a pool of blood wells against the gauze. "Dritt!" Loki exclaims, trying to violently pull back but only making something worse because he shouts, "I don't know what you're talking about! Stop! Let go!"

"THE DREAMS!" Swenson roars, "STOP GIVING ME THE DREAMS!"

The—

What.

Clint stops moving.

"Swenson! Stand down!" Steve shouts. He's on his feet, full six-foot military captain in his voice. Clint can see that in the corner of his eye, but he can't— "Let him go. Now!"

Swenson makes a wordless sound and Loki shudders in pain. The sorcerer's voice is choked as he says, "What dreams!? What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Liar!" Swenson shouts. "You know what I'm talking about and I can't—make them stop or I swear I'll freaking kill you!" Before any of them can react to that, Swenson pulls Loki forward and throws him to the floor harshly. He lands hard in between the group of agents, barely missing smashing into one entirely. Loki's head snaps up as he twists around to look back at Swenson, who draws a .45 and points it at him shakily. "I can't take this anymore. I'm going freaking crazy! You don't think I'm serious? I'll shoot you. I will shoot!"

Move.

Move.

Clint can't move.

The dreams. Swenson is having the dreams. Is Loki giving them the dreams on purpose? All of them? This can't be happening. Is this even real?

Swenson's gun is held out, suspended in time. His hand is shaking, the safety is off. One wrong move and Loki's going to have a new hole in his body. They have to get the gun out of his hand. They have to—

Is Loki doing it on purpose? Is he driving you crazy just because he can?

Loki wouldn't do that.

He wouldn't.

And yet—

(What do you trust more? Your gut, that says Loki doesn't have anything to do with this or the evidence in front of you?)

"C'mon, you're not going to do anything? Where's the God we're supposed to be worshipping?" One of the agents around Loki gives his back a harsh kick. Clint flinches. Loki's entire body shudders.

"I don't know what dreams—!" the Asgardian tries to say. Someone else slams their foot into Loki's face. The ten feet between them feels like miles. The agents are circling around Loki, forcing them out and from being able to prevent anything.

"Yeah, I just don't believe you though."

Clint feels like he watches the next few moments in third person. This is all happening to someone else. He's just observing.

A female smashes their hand onto Loki's open palm with enough force that she probably bruises fingers. There's a flash of metal, a knife, from someone else. Swenson's gun discharges, the bullet lodging somewhere near Loki's feet. There's a chorus of laughter at the sound of terror that Loki makes. That's my friend. Oh my gosh. Clint, move you idiot. He can't. There's—there's—he's stuck. He's frozen. He's nothing. He's—

There's this—blur. Natasha jumps from the table and violently smashes her entire body into Swenson's back. Both of them go down hard to the floor, Natasha wrestling the gun from Swenson's hands with a harsh tearing motion. She rolls to her feet, then plants herself over Loki, leg on either side of his stomach, Swenson's gun trained into the crowd, eyes cold, expression empty.

She thumbs the chamber, "Your move."

Stand down, Clint silently pleads with all of them. Please. Stop. Don't let this go any further than it has to.

There's a breathless moment of stillness.

Swenson gets to his feet and pulls a knife.

The movement seems to restart Clint's brain from the lagging fog it was scrambling through. Swenson dives toward Natasha. Two things happen at that moment. Tony's foam coffee cup smacks into the back of Swenson's head and Clint kicks off the edge of the bench for leverage before tackling Swenson to the floor. Everyone seems to explode into movement around him.

Clint and Swenson land in a jerking movement of impact and straining muscles.

Swenson fights back viciously, attempting to get off the floor, but Clint doesn't let him. Stopped, but not under control yet, there's a flash of metal as Swenson swings the knife toward Clint's stomach in a wide arc. It gets close enough that it nicks fabric.

Clint pulls away, landing hard on an elbow, then shoves back up and grabs Swenson's wrist. They fight for control of the knife, Swenson violently kneeing him in the stomach. A few more desperate blows and blocks pass between them both before Swenson brings the knife to shove up into Clint's chest. Clint grabs his wrist, pushing back desperately.

If that hits, it's fatal.

Natasha's gun discharges twice.

Crap. He can't look. He can't—

Clint's teeth set. Muscles contract. His body is in a tensed, pliant position. Biting on his tongue, he shoves with his core and sends Swenson toppling back a few feet. Taking the advantage, Clint tumbles up to his knees to get more force for the swing before smashing his fist into Swenson's jaw.

Swenson hits the ground with a thud and doesn't get back up.

Clint, in a half crawling, half-kneeling position, grabs the knife, pushes back, and exhales deeply. His hands are steady.

He turns around, expecting a mess of blood and bullet wounds, and sees a few bloody noses and one guy who probably will need a few rounds of knee surgery, but no bullets. warning shots, then. Loki has been dragged up to his feet and is behind Natasha, slightly hunched over. Bruce and Steve are standing in front of him, completing the shield from as many angles as possible. Bruce and Steve's knuckles are bleeding.

Tony's hand grips at his arm, pulling him back and up to his feet. Clint allows it to happen, breathing hard, looking up at Tony for a moment. The engineer's eyes frantically search him, eyes studying his. Are you okay? is a wordless question and Clint nods breathlessly. I'm fine. I'm okay.

Tony's lips thin tightly. He has a gun and Clint doesn't know from where, but it looks comfortable in his hands.

Agents swarm around Swenson's fallen body and Tony pulls him back further. Clint's feet feel stiff. Adrenaline is pumping through his body, waiting for the next hit.

"Why the heck did you attack him!" one of the agents exclaims, looking up at him in accusation. "You didn't need to hit him!"

"I—" Clint starts.

"Are you joking?" Tony asks, lifting up his gun. "Honestly. Just. What the—"

Swenson groans faintly, consciousness slowly seeping back in. Clint's hands curl into fists. The knife feels heavy in his hands. Tony won't let go of his arm and part of Clint is grateful for that. He wants the contact, almost needs it in a way. A different man stands up, finger pointed in anger. He was part of the security team. A disturbing number of these people were the security team. "Agent Swenson didn't do anything! Just because he disagrees with the Avengers buddying up with a terrorist doesn't mean that you get to punch his lights out."

"He had a knife." Clint says, they've backed up enough that Clint could reach out and touch Steve. The agents have followed, stalking toward them, furious.

"Back up," Natasha snarls, hands tightening around the gun. "I will shoot. Back up."

They don't.

"You're really going to defend that!?" a woman accuses.

"Yes." Bruce growls a deep, throaty growl in his voice. They've gotta be teetering on a dangerous edge to releasing Hulk.

A man laughs loudly. "Do you think anyone would care if that megalomaniac's brains ended up splattered across the floor?" the same agent demands. Thor would. We would. "You're just saying that because you're justifying the actions he made you do. You're under his control, all of you! None of you would care if you weren't! You saw what he did!"

The idea is both so absurd and so terrifying that Clint exhales a nervous wheezy sound.

Tony's fingers tighten on his arm in reassurance.

"I'm sorry, who are you again?" Tony asks. It has got to be one of the most casual ways Clint has ever heard someone ask and why should we care about your opinion? The business savant that is Tony Stark is unparalleled.

The agent opens his mouth to respond—WILCOX his nametag reads is big black letters—but he doesn't get the chance to retaliate Tony's words. "Hey!" Hill's voice, sharp and commanding, smashes into the room like a hard punch. "That's enough! Break it up! I said stand down!"

None of them lower their weapons.

Bruce's arm snaps across Loki's chest, shoving him back further behind the wall of Avengers. Clint's teeth set. He watches with gnawing dread as Hill splits the crowd like she's Moses to the Red Sea. Swenson is being helped to his feet by a few other agents all watching them with smug, flith-eating grins on their faces, but the deputy director barely bats an eye in their direction. Instead, she comes directly up into Clint and Tony's faces, glancing once at the others behind them.

Anger is visibly forced to smooth in her expression. "Agent Barton, give me the knife." She says, voice tight. Trust me. Give me a weapon. This woman has been his superior for years. He has her personal cell in his contacts, and yet at this moment, he hesitates. Who can you trust when you protect the despicable?

Why should they stand down when the others haven't yet?

Hill's face softens. "Clint," she says, quiet.

Teeth set, stomach tight, and nearly every instinct at him screaming not to, Clint hands her Swenson's knife. She doesn't immediately stab him with it. Instead, Hill takes it and slides it onto her belt where it stays out of anyone's reach. He doesn't know if she's going to yell at them. It's not a great feeling. Figures of authority being angry always feels like you're the personal cause for every minor slight in their life.

Hill exhales.

"Romanov." Hill says flatly.

Natasha barely looks at her. "No."

Hill wisely doesn't push the issue. "I saw the whole thing," she says lowly, "get out of here. I'll call to set up a plan for us to start tracking Thor, but you're no use to us if you're beaten to a pulp."

She's discharging them. Oh, thank God. "Understood, Ma'am." Clint says faintly. He feels far away. "Thank you."

Hill nods. She turns to look at the group of agents watching them in mild disbelief. Swenson is being helped to his feet by a few of the people and seems disoriented, but no less angry. In fact, the moment that his balance has settled, he starts to move toward them. Clint braces, but Hill slides into place between them both.

"Swenson! Stand down."

"You don't understand!" Swenson says desperately. "The dreams—!"

"That wasn't a suggestion, agent."

"Why are you defending Loki!?"

"Traitor!"

"Harrison," Hill's voice is calm. "Shut up."

Tony's fingers shift on Clint's arm a moment before the multi-billonaire starts to pull him back. "C'mon." He says lowly, "Let her handle it. Let's go." Clint nods. He forces his body to turn so they can exit the room, Natasha's gun a gunpowder sheild between them and everyone. Despite the eyes staring holes into their backs, no one stops them.

000o000

It's only once they're on a Quinjet twenty minutes later and starting the pre-flight checks to head back to the Tower that Natasha puts the gun down, Bruce stops looking the wrong pigment, and everyone seems to breathe. It's also about this time that Clint realizes that his abdomen is burning with persistent, overwhelming pain. He kept touching it without knowing why earlier. Maybe he didn't get out of the way of the knife as quickly as he thought.

Natasha, always his co-pilot when they're together, frowns at him when she notices he's stopped moving. "What?"

The tense energy in the Quinjet, thousands of things unspoken but needing to be, makes it almost hard to breathe. Clint, thoroughly put out and completely done with today, tomorrow, and anything in-between until mid-next week, angrily shifts to face her then lifts up his shirt. "Am I bleeding?"

Natasha promptly swears loudly in Russian.

They couldn't have timed it better if it was scripted. Clint snorts a laugh, feeling a little faint, and looks down at his abdomen. He is bleeding. Not a gaping-hole-you're-gonna-die kind of bleeding, but more so a you have a two inch gash and it's bleeding kind of bleeding.

Clint laughs again. "This is great." He says loudly. "It must be why they tell you to wear tight shirts, right? So you know when you got the knife poke-poke? Look at that, Tasha, my shirt's not even cut. Amazing."

"What?" Steve asks loudly behind them.

Natasha swears again, scrambling to remove her headset. Clint pokes at the skin above the cut and releases a sharp, wheezed expletive. His partner grabs his wrist, pulling it away. Her fingers are a web of healthy skin against his colorless gray. "Don't touch it, you idiot." She says, squatting down in front of him so she can look at the injury.

"Oops." Clint intones in a deadpan.

Bruce appears over Natasha's shoulder. He, too, swears, which surprises Clint. Bruce doesn't swear that much. He's one of those people that believes there are other, better ways of expressing frustration. Clint personally found that there can be a lot that is expressed with four-letter ones. Bruce pushes both hands through his hair. "Oh my gosh." He says. "Can one of you keep yourself together for five minutes!"

Clint laughs again.

"It's not freaking funny!"

It is. Just a little bit.

"Ignore him," Natasha suggests. Her body is rigid with tension. "He's slept maybe fifteen hours in the last week, is in shock, and in the middle of a panic attack."

Clint's brow furrows. "Why on earth would I be in the middle of a panic attack?"

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him.

Tony grips Bruce's arm. He's not looking at the chemist though, choosing to stare at Clint's bloody abdomen which should make Clint feel subconscious but instead it just feels funny. Tony's expression is dead, even as he addresses Bruce, "Let's, just, uh, sit down. Okay? You don't have to deal with this. Nat's got great first-aid skills and it doesn't look that serious. Just sit down."

"I have to—"

"No, you don't. He's going to be fine. I promise." Tony assures.

When this is all over, they all need to sit down and have a discussion. Bruce has reached and emotional limit days in the making. Clint recognizes this on a deep level. Outwardly he thinks that he's beginning to get a sleep deprivation crash. (Like Swenson? Who's gonna bet he next person who pulls a gun on Loki? You?) He's bleeding and it's funny. He's in pain and it's funny. These things shouldn't be funny and they are.

Loki, no longer handcuffed, hands Natasha a first-aid kit which she opens. As she grabs the needed supplies, Loki takes her abandoned seat across from him and stares at Clint with a pinched expression. His cheek is a little red and one of his fingers looks swollen. His eyes drop to Clint's injury and his fists clench.

He's angry. Or worried. Maybe both. Clint drops his head on the back of the chair, letting out a few lazy laughs at the absurdity of all of this. Them. The Avengers. Pulling guns on S.H.I.E.L.D. staff to defend Loki. Clint basically took a knife for him. Six months ago this wouldn't have even been a possibility, let alone reality. Maybe they are under Loki's control.

"Stop laughing." Natasha says, not looking up at him.

"Kill joy." He complains.

"You're making it worse." She counters.

"It's like a really long paper cut." Clint shrugs, then winces. Ow, okay so maybe it hurts a little more than a paper cut. Natasha pushes at something that sends a shocking jolt through his entire nervous system and Clint bats her hand away with a hiss. Very much not just a paper cut. He lied and he regrets it and God can stop punishing him for breaking a commandment. He gets it.

Natasha flattens out a piece of gauze on his stomach tightly. She's applying pressure and it feels awful.

"Stay still. Ptitsa." All her words are harsh and choppy.

Clint wants to say something in retort to that, but all he can focus on is how the world is spinning and his mouth is dry and he's going to be sick. He's cold. His heart is smacking in his ears and holy freaking crap somebody almost stabbed him. In the Helicarrier. In a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. In a place that's supposed to be safe. Everyone wanted to hurt them. They were going to so they could get to Loki.

Swenson is having the dreams.

His dreams.

Everything is—

It's—

He

Spinning. He can't seem to keep himself upright. There's a scramble of hands. Clint doesn't fall flat on his face, but to say he's smoothly guided off the pilot's seat would be an overstatement. Natasha and Loki both carefully help lean him against a nearby wall.

Natasha is swearing loudly in several languages and blurring expletives together. Natasha grabs his shoulders harshly as if she can physically pull him out of his head fog. Her fingers feel like knives. Sharp and cold and unfamiliar and painful. She's a spider gripping him by her pincers.

"Romanov." Loki says sharply, hand on her wrist. "Let go. You're hurting him."

"He's—He can't—he needs—"

What? Clint wonders dully. What do I need?

"Natasha," Loki's tone is softer. "Get this into the air. I will take care of your beloved."

His partner looks at Loki, hard, before she exhales. She has to work to remove her hands from Clint's shoulders before stiffly getting up to her feet and moving back to the pilot's seat. Clint hears someone else ask Loki a question, but he doesn't know who or what it was. The words are a meaningless blur to him. Loki answers it before he settles in front of him.

Your calm is a facade.

None of us are okay right now. You know that?

Look at that. Steve's leg is bouncing despite how much it hurts him but he can't get it to stop.

"Barton? I swear that we're safe here. We're headed home. What else can happen?" Loki asks softly. Never fate the universe. "We're safe."

"He was—he—" Clint tries to explain but can't. The dreams. He was having the dreams.

"I know." Loki says, even though he doesn't. Loki had no idea what Swenson was talking about, but Clint did. And he shouldn't have. He wishes he didn't. He wishes he was ignorant. "I know. It's nothing that can be helped right now. Just breathe."

Clint incoherently mumbles some more while Loki softly encourages him to breathe, before the Asgardian bites at his lower lip before relenting and saying quietly, "I don't have any socks on right now."

That—socks. He's not wearing any socks. Loki's not—Why isn't he wearing any socks? Doesn't he know how bad that is for his feet? What about blisters and that weird gross sweaty feeling you get from not wearing socks in shoes for long enough?

Clint's brow furrows. "You're not?"

"No." Loki shakes his head, "Your deputy director was herding us out the door. I didn't have time to find any."

"That's dumb."

"It was, yes."

Clint huffs a little, swallowing hard. He exhales, hard, like he's trying to push every negative, bad feeling in his chest out. He can't empty his lungs enough for that, but a few deep breaths help considerably for clearing his head.

It's like crashing into a brick wall face-first when he feels himself settle back into his body.

Everything is heavy.

After riding the wave of anxiety, sleep-deprivation induced euphoria, it's almost physically painful to settle back into a wave of depressive, sharp anxiety.

His stomach hurts. Every breath feels like he's stretching the skin apart and inviting thousands of sharp knife-wielding air molecules to come launch themselves into the cut at full force. He knows that his face scrunches up, can feel it doing so, and all he can do is muster faint annoyance at this fact. Clint has never been very good at being stoic with his emotions around people he trusts.

Loki studies his face, and Clint gives him a tight nod. He's good. Beyond the cut. Stab. Whatever they're going to call it.

Clint fumbles with the first-aid kit for a moment before grabbing a package of gauze, tearing it open, and pushing it against his stomach. Holy—suck it up. Clint squeezes his eyes shut, exhales, forces his brain to adjust to the pain, and then opens his eyes again.

Loki is staring at him. Half upright, hands waiting to help, his gaze is intense. He licks his lips nervously. "I could..fix this. With sedir."

Clint immediately reaches up his free hand to grab at Loki's cold fingers before he can try. "Grumpy-L, if you use one little droplet of magic on me, your arm is going to come shooting off and smack me in the face." He breathes out hard before appending more seriously, "Don't hurt yourself for me. It's okay…I'll barely think about it in a few days. I probably wont even need stitches." He looks at Natasha for confirmation, who frowns, which is pretty much a yes and repeats, "Probably."

"You're in pain." Loki protests.

Clint drops Loki's hand. "And you doing that would make you be in pain, so it's a no-go."

Loki releases a sharp breath and sits back carefully on his heals. He reaches a hand back to grab a chunk of hair, pull, then run his fingers through it anxiously. Huh. It's pretty hard to forget that Thor and Loki are siblings, but Clint has seen Thor do this little ritual more times than he can count. A good chunk of the time when Thor gets emotionally overwhelmed his entire body seems to just shut down and he doesn't move, but if he does it's to do something to his neck. Rub, scratch, pull on his hair, etc. This is Thor's habit, and Loki's doing it without thinking about it.

It makes him wonder in a vague, disgusted way what antics he picked up from Barney that he still does.

A few minutes later, after the bleeding has stopped—no stitches—Loki helps him tape down a gauze pad after applying antibiotic cream. Natasha has the plane in the air, and Clint tries to relax at the familiar sensations of the sky against his back, but it's not helping.

Tony has coaxed Bruce into playing some sort of counting game with an absurd amount of math figures that neither of them seems to be trying very hard at while Steve sits slumped against Tony's other shoulder, eyes closed but not asleep, hands clenched into tight fists. Natasha's entire body is stiff like she's made of wooden beams instead of human skin.

"Barton?" Loki asks quietly. Clint doesn't answer, but shifts his gaze to the Asgardian. "Thank you."

Clint frowns. "For what?"

Loki looks away from him, picking at the palm of his hand. Clint wishes he wouldn't do that. He's picked sores into his palms before. "You didn't have to stop any of them. Or Swenson. Whatever they would have done to me, I deserved. But...thank you."

Clint stares at him. Swenson was going to shoot Loki. It wasn't a little matter of oh, yeah, he'll rough him up a bit. Give him a few bruises. And the agents seemed ready to beat him to death. Part of Clint is tempted to make a joke that he got in the way for Natasha, but he knows that's not true and it would be unfair to tell Loki that. Natasha had a gun. She would have been fine. People would have been dead, though.

Clint tries to play it off as cool, but he can't quite get there. It comes off as edgy and a little desperate. He's a serious actor trying to play off a comedic character. "He was going to kill you. I'm not entirely comfortable with that idea anymore."

Something dark and vicious flicks through Loki's eyes. "He's entitled."

He's—

"Dude. What the—?" Clint starts to say, utterly flabbergasted.

"I hurt a great deal of people in my invasion," Loki says, like a normal person thing to do is casually agree with people wanting to kill you; what sort of Shakespearian dystopian world is this? "Justice must be served."

Justice must be served.

Loki continues, quieter, "I killed thousands. What I did to you…" he shakes his head. "There is no physical pain that could ever atone for that."

Thousands.

What…thousands?

It wasn't thousands. The confirmed body count was seventy-four, with a little over a dozen minor injuries, and millions in property damage. And yeah, about a hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were killed, but you want to know who was the leading cause in that? Clint. And the Tesseract. Where on Earth is he getting his statistics from?

A thought occurs to Clint then that enrages his entire soul, lighting a fire of protective energy in his stomach that practically enwraps Loki. Did Odin tell him it was thousands? While he was sitting up their and torturing his child did he freaking play mind games with him? Because Clint is going to eviscerate Odin, Thor's emotional distress or not if that's the case.

"Who told you that?" Clint blurts.

"What?" Loki asks, confused.

"That it was thousands? Who told you?"

Loki seems a little off-put by his sudden intensity, but says, quietly, as if he's afraid he's going to say the wrong thing and Clint wants to reach out and shake it from him, "Odin did. He…He said that I killed thousands of Midgardians."

An intense surge of furthering anger washes through him, like a physical being crawling inside his stomach. Clint swears, furious. Loki withdraws physically, so Clint forces himself to take a deep breath and relax his fingers, shaking his head. "I'm not angry at you. Your dad is—I'm gonna stab him. You didn't kill thousands in the invasion, Loki. Seventy-four people died. That was it."

A plethora of emotions bleeds through Loki's features, like a wave of the ocean crashing to shore. He inhales harshly, fingers clenching tight. White-knuckled, pale, Loki exhales a sharp, faint "oh." His eyes move rapidly back and forth for a moment, actual tears of freaking relief forming, before a trembling hand runs over his lips and a faint sound escapes him.

Clint remembers then that the reason Odin had Loki's mouth sewn shut, according to Thor, was that he wasn't supposed to speak until he could name every mortal that he killed. Loki said our father didn't think him worthy of his voice until he could.

Which is, on so many levels, messed up.

But Loki doesn't care about the past injury right now. Clint can see that. Loki just cares that more people lived.

There are some moments in life when you can feel your world-view about something shatter entirely. When something so concrete inside of you cracks and crumples, allowing something else to be built in its place. These are rare. More often, it's a subtle change weeks and years in the making.

Clint thinks maybe this is both. What Loki did was freaking messed up on so many levels. This is fact. But Loki can regret what he did and be trying to do better. He's still a person who, Like Clint, made stupid mistakes and got people killed. And he's relieved that people lived and he's crying and Clint cares about this stupid sorcerer.

Clint cares about him.

Maybe it's some messed up form of Stockholm syndrome. Maybe it makes him a worse person. Clint doesn't really care. He's annoyed and grumpy and tired and sleepless, yes. But that doesn't negate the fact that somewhere in the last couple of months, some part of Clint's brain attached itself to Loki and decided to keep him. God help them all.

In a gesture that Clint has seen Thor do a few times before, Clint reaches out and clasps Loki's wrist in comfort, giving it a squeeze.

Loki grips his hand back, fingers just as tight.

Author's Note: Today is my birthday and I was trying so hard to get this out on it and I DID IT! :D

Also I just want to point out that 74 people is the actual MCU body count on the wiki. I didn't make that up.

One of the reasons that a lot of Loki and Avengers fics feel like they're missing something to me is because the Avengers only start caring about Loki after they know he was mind-controlled. I just think that it kinda sucks. Cause it's like "oh, you actually didn't do that thing, now I can care about you." Nah, bro. In this fic, we're friends despite this really terrible thing you did. Anyway. Lol. My two cents, not that you asked. Love you all. :)

Next chapter: May 27th or June 3rd.