Author's Note: I COMPLETLY FORGOT TO POST THIS ON ON FRIDAY. Sorry. Whoops, haha. Thank you so much for your support.
Warnings: violence, gore.
I have made the obscene decision to do something unforgivable,
for the sake of [my] survival,
-Unknown
Chapter Eight:
Foster and Lewis are a lightly bruised mass, huddling together on their couch and looking ethereal and translucent. Stress, shock, and grief are making their bodies stiff and shaky. Lewis had to put down the cup of water one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents gave her so she would stop spilling it all over the floor. Foster's hands are still, but her face is devoid of life.
Lost, empty, and angry.
So much anger, between the two women.
Somehow, with the accumulation of his life so far, Loki meeting his brother's fiancée for the first time after Thor murdered someone feels bitterly appropriate. Not that he would consider this much of a meeting. He hasn't even said one word to either of them yet, watching both from a distance. He planted himself toward the far corner of the room to be out of sight, close enough to overhear but be forgotten. The last thing both women need is to be reminded of his existence.
Across from them, Director Fury is carefully taking their statement inside a small notebook, writing down crucial details in a tiny, slanted script.
Loki doesn't know why he bothers. The house speaks for itself.
The front of the house is charred and cracked, the door obliterated. The sandstone is streaked with ash, blood-spotted fulgurites springing out of the sand around the driveway. There are signs of a fight from the kitchen to the front door, where Selvig was murdered out in the dirt. His body was already covered when they got here with a thin white sheet, smeared at the top with blood. His skull was bashed in.
They had been in the process of putting him in a large black bag for transport when the Avengers arrived twenty minutes ago.
Loki can, from that, make a general inference of what happened. Thor arrived loudly and with prejudice. He didn't wait to talk with either Foster or Lewis and instead went for Selvig directly. He then dragged the struggling man outside while both women tried to stop him, where he slammed Mjolnir into his skull and Selvig died instantly. The women's injuries are from the initial shock to the house, where it rattled like it was shaking off the foundation. Lewis probably fell against the coffee table and Foster, as she has explained several times, smacked her head against a doorframe. It looks like Thor attempted to beat him, but he didn't.
According to Jane, he kept saying he was sorry and it was for the best, then he left without a word of explanation.
That was four hours ago. He hasn't made a reappearance since.
Steve steps up next to him, lips pressed together. There isn't a hint of exhaustion on his face, buried beneath the adrenaline. A mixture of frustration and loss is making his jaw set. He shakes his head. "I can't make sense of it," he confesses quietly, taking off his helmet. "Nat and I finished our perimeter sweep and from what we can tell, he wasn't out there watching him. He just dropped in, killed Dr. Selvig, and left."
That makes sense given the state of the house. And yet.
Loki frowns. He wasn't allowed outside to search with them, instead left to the supervision of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was vaguely insulting. Truly, what do they expect him to do here? He wants to find his brother as much as they do; more, perhaps. His sedir may be a mess and attempting to kill him on most days, but he can still sense magic.
This place reeks of the Chituari, not Asgard, as Director Fury seems to think.
Clint, who decided to glue himself beside Loki once he realized Loki would be stuck with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, shrugs. "Maybe he just really didn't like the guy."
"And really not liking someone qualifies for killing them now? After days of no contact?" Steve asks wryly.
"Hey, you punched Hilter like fifty times, I don't think you're in the place to be casting judgment here." Clint points out, lightly smacking Steve on the arm. The captain rolls his eyes. Loki, having heard the archer praising Steve for assaulting the long-dead murderer more times than he can count, inwardly sighs with exasperation.
Loki shakes his head. "No. Thor was fond of Selvig. He wouldn't do…this." Loki bites on the inside of his lip. He doesn't even know what to call this. Massacre comes to mind, and yet, that feels too heavy. Massacres are huge and bloody, this was maybe three minutes and with as minimal violence as Thor could make it.
Which confuses him. If Thor truly is under the control of the Chitauri, why would he be concerned about casualties? Or about making the death as painless as possible? These are the actions of his brother, not a controlled, mindless weapon. But it can't be Thor, because Thor wouldn't murder his fiancée's mentor. Not without an actual cause.
And there isn't one that he can find.
It's just mindless violence.
And that's the other caveat. Selvig's skull was crushed with Mjolnir. Loki recognized the markings of the weapon. Thor had his hammer. But why in the gods' name would he have his weapon of choice? Especially when it has such a close relationship with Asgard? Why didn't the Chitauri give him the scepter like they did Loki? If the Chitauri were truly concerned about finishing their lord's original mission, then why aren't they collecting the means for creating another portal to kill everyone?
Thanos wanted to murder half of the population and then…something, after that.
Selvig helped last time, Loki knows that much. What little memories he has of the entire event are a mess at best, but he knows that. Thor isn't recreating the invasion unless he killed Selvig on purpose with the intent to delay it.
Loki pushes fingers against his forehead. "Thor may be trying to sabotage a second invasion. But that doesn't-This place reeks of the Chitauri's teleportation magic. They had to have been together." The two men stare at him with confusion. "What?"
"Why are the Chitauri building a portal if they can teleport back and forth between Earth?" Clint asks.
Oh. Yes. Right. Loki keeps forgetting they didn't receive the same education he did. "They can't teleport through space by themselves. They would explode." He says bluntly. Both their eyes go wide. "Everyone would without some sort of protection, like the Bifrost. It's an issue sedirmasters have been trying to solve for centuries. If you take away the mass of your body and put it on a different planet, the atoms have to adjust to that, typically through sound, normally with few adverse effects. When you land, you're shoving atoms together rapidly inside your body and typically they'll fuse and it-"
"-creates a big bang. Like an atomic bomb." Clint finishes. He winces. "Ouch."
To put it mildly.
"Selvig built a wormhole with the aid of the Tesseract last time," Loki says, his gaze sliding toward the blown-out door. "I don't understand why the Chitauri wouldn't want that again if their intent is to finish what they started."
"Maybe it…wasn't for that," Steve says. He bites his lip in agitation. He looks at Foster, then back at them, his voice lowering. "Two of the most brilliant minds on the planet live here. Thor didn't take either. Even if they wanted to recreate the invasion, they can't, right? We don't have the Tesseract anymore."
Loki flattens his lips.
Asgard does.
All Midgard had was the Scepter, and now that's in the Chitauri's hands, gods-knows-where. It just doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. Why take Thor in the first place? The Chitauri had to know they'd be gambling with fate to incur Asgard's wrath like that. Forcing Loki into the first invasion was different. Loki doesn't matter. Thor is the beloved sunshine of the Nine; people care what happens to him.
"Then what was he doing?" Clint asks, his shoulders slumping. He groans, burying his face inside his hands. "This makes less sense the more you think about it."
"Unfortunately," Loki agrees.
Natasha and Tony come inside the house, quietly discussing something between them. Both their faces are grim. No answers on their end then, either. If there had been, no matter how horrid, they would be relieved.
Loki closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. The beginnings of a severe headache have been doing their best to form since he woke up, and it's finally settling with its hold. He doesn't have time for this. He just wants to find his brother, kill him, and then go home.
Not sleep. Not…after. That. He doesn't know what to make of it. It isn't the first time he's dreamt of what he suspects are memories from Clint, Dr. Selvig, or what he now recognizes as Swenson. The dreams are scarce and spaced far about, but no less unsettling with how vivid they are. He just doesn't know what they mean.
"Hey, J?" Tony asks, snapping Loki out of his thoughts. He looks up at the engineer and sees that he's holding several small yellow-orange bottles, having just spotted them on the counter. Most of them are nearly empty. There's small script stamped on the front in black. "Was Selvig helping with illicit drug trials?"
Foster's brow pinches. "No?"
Tony turns over one of the bottles, frowning. "Ambien CR, halcion, sonata. He must have been chugging these down. Are we sure he didn't just OD? And it, just, exploded his head." Tony winces as soon as the words are out, clearly not having thought about that before he said it.
"It wasn't drugs. He couldn't find a medication that worked," Lewis says sharply. While Foster's grief has dulled her, Lewis' in contrast has made her angry and jagged. She seems like she's constantly teetering between punching someone and sobbing. Foster rests a hand on her arm. It seems to be all she has the energy for.
Bruce frowns, looking over Tony's arm to see the medications. "Those are benzodiazepines. Was he having sleeping issues?"
"Nightmares." Foster confirms quietly. She stares off at the crease between the ceiling and the wall. "They were bad. Started about five months ago. There wasn't anything that helped. He tried everything. All the doctors that he's seeing-that he… saw, didn't have an explanation."
Beside Loki, Clint's breath hitches and he goes stiff. Loki glances at him, brow furrowing. He looks like he might be sick.
"It wasn't the drugs," Lewis says firmly. "Thor was here. We didn't imagine that."
"I'm not saying that you didn't, Darce," Tony says, lifting up his hands in surrender. "Sorry. My mouth moved faster than my brain."
" Yeah." Lewis says, looking away from him, "It does that."
Tony sets the bag back on the countertop quietly. Bruce looks at the engineer with a frown.
"If you'll excuse me, I need to…I just." Foster gets to her feet, blinking rapidly. Her eyes almost look swollen from crying. "Bathroom." She says, gesturing vaguely toward the hall.
"Of course," Fury agrees, closing his small notebook. "Take your time. I'm very sorry for your loss, Dr. Foster."
"Yeah," she whispers. She looks up and briefly catches Loki's eyes. He twitches, braced for her yelling. To be honest, he's not entirely sure if she realized he was here to begin with. Foster's mouth moves, closes, and she looks away. She ducks her head and walks off.
He should say something. Offer comfort in Thor's absence. He doesn't. This woman is important to his brother. His brother sees a life with her. She means something. His tongue feels swollen in his mouth, soaked with guilt and shame.
I started this.
If I hadn't forced Thor into any of this in the first place, then he would never have met her and by extension, Selvig would still be alive. So many people would still be alive or not have had their lives ruined.
Lewis' eyes follow her friend's to meet Loki's and her jaw sets. She looks back down at the glass of water, fresh tears slipping down her face.
The grief in this room is stifling.
"Hey," Clint grabs his arm. Loki flinches, looking at him. There's a fine tremble in his fingers and Clint's face is ashen, his voice low, "can I talk to you about something?" His gaze shifts a fraction toward the people around them. "Alone. Outside?"
Loki hesitates, looking up at the Director. His desire to incur the man's wrath is low, but Clint is clearly desperate. Steve frowns at both of them but says nothing in protest. Taking this to mean that he'll cover for them, Loki nods his head once and allows himself to be led out of the room. The steps are hard beneath them, crunching as they step out onto the gravel driveway.
Loki's eyes slide toward where Selvig's body was. The gray is splashed with blood spatter, a small yellow pyramid beside it with the number four on it. Clint doesn't look at it, focus clearly elsewhere. They pass by the blackened sand from Thor's arrival and Loki sees several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents watching them.
His shoulders tense up despite himself.
None of the agents try to stop them.
Clint takes him some distance from the small house down the empty road before turning around. The farther out they go, the more dread settles in Loki's stomach. This is clearly not a conversation that Clint wants to be overheard, which means that the contents won't be pleasant. He takes in a deep breath to settle his fraying nerves.
"And what is it that you can't tell the others?" Loki asks.
The archer shakes out one of his hands, then rubs it over his mouth, groaning faintly. Loki folds his arms across his chest, trying not to let his own anxiety show.
Clint shakes his head. "Two times is a coincidence, three times is a pattern," he mutters to himself.
"Barton," Loki says sharply.
"Right," Clint lets out an uneasy laugh, then clasps his hands behind his head. "I think there's something wrong with me."
Loki's eyebrows raise. "Aside from the obvious?"
Clint rolls his eyes and punches him in the arm good-naturedly, but, as intended, tension has seeped from his body to be replaced with annoyance. Loki's lip quirks up. "Haha. You're hilarious. Do you even try, or does it come naturally?"
Gods, it's such a relief that the Avengers will often just banter with him instead of taking his declarations as statements of war. Asgard would never.
"Apologies," Loki says insincerely, sobering. "What's wrong?"
Clint is quiet for a long minute as if he has no idea what to say or how to get started. Loki waits, admittedly with growing concern. The archer's eyes keep darting and his mouth will twitch, but when he finally does speak, his words are careful. "Do you remember when Swenson punched you and he told you to stop 'giving him the dreams' or some crap like that?"
I don't know what you're talking about. Stop! Let go! Loki's hand clamps around his left arm, fingers tight. "Yes." He admits, confused.
"And you had no idea what that meant?"
"...yes," he repeats. He shakes his head, "Barton, what does this-?"
"We're having the same dreams," Clint interrupts. Loki's stomach drops. He stares at him. What dreams? "All of us. Me, him, Selvig. At least, I'm assuming. I never really got the chance to talk with the good doctor, but the vivid nightmares and the not sleeping? Yeah, that tracks."
"What?" Loki asks, eyes narrowing.
Clint licks his lips nervously. He won't look at Loki. "Ever since you, uh, came back to Earth, I've been having these dreams. About you. As you." He corrects himself. His jaw clenches.
He...
What?
He's having dreams of Loki.
And Loki is- Oh. He thinks about last night and watching Clint's brother beat him nearly to death. About dreaming of Selvig's lover dying in a car accident while Selvig watches, Swenson as a child, crying as someone with a gun murders his classmates. It's not just him. Tethering. Mental tethering. He created magical ties between them with the Mind Stone. He can't remember how they broke. If they broke.
Loki's voice feels faint as he asks, "this is why you haven't been sleeping?"
Clint hesitates, looking up at him with surprise, and Loki refrains from punching him in the arm in annoyance. It's rather obvious once someone knows him well, and it's not like he's made an effort to hide it, collapsing against furniture at any given moment to "rest his eyes" and then wake up shuddering. The bags beneath his eyes could conceal a corpse.
And...Loki's jaw tightens, thinking back to the nightmare Clint had on the couch a few days before Thor went missing. He'd been murmuring in what Loki first thought was Chitaurian, but later forgot about. If he's been dreaming as Loki then...
"Yeah," Clint agrees, quiet. "It gets better when we're further apart, but it's…not great. I don't know."
Loki licks his lips. "You…" he has so many questions. Thousands. Gods. What have they seen? A thousand years of memories to choose from. His entire life is documented for them to view. The horrible, gut-wrenching violation of all of this strikes him suddenly.
Humiliating.
This is humiliating.
Oh gods.
"You-what…have you seen?" he asks, almost feeling frantic. What haven't they seen, collectively? If it is every night, that's over three hundred days between the three of them. Gods. Gods. "You said this has been happening nightly? I've had some dreams about you and the others, but they're only every couple of months, which I know is normal after a mind tether but-"
"Wait," Clint grabs his arm, his mouth parted, eyes wide and terrified. "You've been dreaming as me?"
Loki's mouth snaps closed. He watches as Clint processes that, rapidly cycling through emotions: anger, fear, embarrassment, and- relief? What on the Nine does he have to be relieved about? This isn't something to be glad about. Their minds are merging together into a broken mass and Clint is relieved? Disgusting. This is-
This isn't Clint's fault.
It's Loki's.
He's the one who decided to follow Thanos. He's the one who decided to help a madman murder thousands. The Chiaturi put the scepter in his hands, but that doesn't mean that Loki had to do anything with it. He chose that. Any fallout from this is his fault. Even if it means that Loki's mind is now scattered between mortals.
And besides.
After Odin, and the Void, Loki's mind has been properly shred to tatters. The horror, intense and powerful as it is, passes, leaving with it only the bitter taste of resignation.
Of course. Why not? Why would he deserve anything less?
"Is this…on purpose?" Clint asks.
Loki rears back from him, snapping his arm back. "What? No. Of course not. Why would-you did think that." Loki can see it on his face. It stings, deep inside, for reasons that he can't determine. He doesn't care. He doesn't care if the Avengers don't trust him. He doesn't Norns' cursed care. His chest feels like it's cramping, twisting up and raw.
"I didn't know what to think!" Clint exclaims, running hands through his hair. "It was just happening and it's not like we were friends half a year ago. Someone could literally have told me you've been murdering small dogs since you were a child and I would have believed it."
What on the Norns are dogs?
Loki's grits his teeth. He shakes his head. "This wasn't intentional. That I can assure you."
Clint jabs him in the arm hard. Loki jerks, pulling away. "No. No. Look at me, you self-deprecating idiot, I did think that. I don't anymore. Especially after all of this," Clint gestures at him, like that encompasses everything he just said, "I know that you-you wouldn't do that to me. Not if you had a choice."
Trust.
That is trust.
Clint trusts him.
Loki's breath shudders out painfully. He forces himself to cling to what little rational thoughts are skirting around and push them forward. He has to focus. He can't succumb to sentiment right now, even as much as he would like to.
Think.
Just think.
This is a problem. Work it.
"How exactly did Romanov sever the connection between you and the scepter?" Loki asks.
Clint's brow furrows. "She slammed my head against a metal pole. I'm kind of lucky she didn't crack my skull open, but she says she was careful." Here, the archer rolls his eyes fondly. "Like you can carefully give someone a concussion. Don't you remember that? I felt myself being pulled away from everything. You didn't?"
Loki bites his lower lip, pushing his thumb into his palm. "No. In truth, Barton, much of my memory is hazy about the entire event. I believe your Hulk has something to do with that."
It's like a dream to him. Slipping, faint, and far away. He doesn't know what is reality or something he fabricated to fill in the gaps. Odin told him he killed thousands and he didn't remember enough to counter that.
"Oh." Clint intones.
Loki sighs, "It matters little."
"No, actually it matters a lot. Did you get that checked out when you-your dad is. Right. So that's definitely a no. Never mind." Clint winces. "Sorry."
Loki decides to ignore that. Natasha slamming Clint's head to that extent should have broken everything. A great deal of mind control spells and curses can be broken by a brain bleed or smack against the skull. It's one of the reasons that it's rare to find that sort of situation in a battle.
"How much have you seen? Of my memories?" Loki asks.
"Does it matter?" Clint asks, pushing his hands into his eye sockets. What little humor he did have seems to have drained from him. "I can't believe this is happening. Everything was supposed to be over when Tasha broke the scepter's connection. Now Selvig's getting it, too, and you. This is insane."
"It's not," Loki says. "Focus. What have you seen? The scepter builds emotional connections between people. Tethers. Typically through worst memories that you subconsciously used to build your identity to build bonds and love. Everything should have broken completely when the tethers snapped after the invasion was over. Depending on how much you've seen from me will determine how bad this is."
Clint stares at him. Genuine confusion is pushed into every edge of his face. "Wait, wait, wait. No. I'm not dreaming of you as a kid, I'm dreaming about you being tortured-"
Screaming. Yelling. The needle. Frigga weeping into his hair. Thor arriving and trying to get him out, Loki choking on blood and tears as he tells him to just cut off his hands. Thor desperately clinging to him, sobbing. Blood. So much blood. Odin talking. Frigga-
"-by the Chitauri." Clint finishes.
Loki's mind blanks. He takes a physical step back. It takes him several long seconds before he makes sense of the words. " What?"
Clint squeezes his eyes shut, tipping his head back. "I know I should have said something sooner, but you were half-dead and there just didn't seem to be a good time. Crap. Sorry. I just. When we were on the Helicarrier and you were talking to the Chitauri, I understood everything they were saying to you."
Na'axik. He heard all of that?
Gods, I am a humiliation to my family. And myself.
Clint's voice is softer, like he's talking to a scared child. "I know that they hurt you. You don't have to keep pretending, okay?"
They hurt him.
The Chitauri-
Loki stares at him for several long moments before he finds himself laughing. It's not bitter or resigned, but actual disbelief at the sheer stupidity of what the archer is saying. "What are you talking about? The Chitauri didn't torture me. They wouldn't dare to touch me." That is ignoring when they beat him before he tumbled through the Tesseract, but Thanos…asked him to endure it. Loki couldn't refuse him. He loved him too much.
He forces the memories away.
"But-" Clint starts to protest.
"Barton, no. I promise you." Loki assures. "My mind is a mess, but I know that much." His memories are blurred together and he knows that he has missing time, but there's little he can do about it. Before Odin gave his sentencing on Asgard, Loki didn't realize that it had been over a year since he fell. He thought it had been a scarce handful of days.
His conclusion has been that the Void did something. That is what makes sense, not…this. Clint's bizarre conspiracy theory.
"No." Clint persists, shaking off the initial doubt, "No. Okay, that doesn't make sense, okay? Because I'm not dreaming of you as a kid, and I'm not dreaming of you in Odin's hands, so it has to be the Chitauri."
Yes. Clearly. That's obviously the conclusion they should leap to once they've crossed the other variables. The Chitauri are a hazy, fearful presence to him. Loki is cautious around them because he's been told stories of what they do to their victims. He's not afraid. He remembers barely being able to walk for days after they hurt him, but it wasn't more than an isolated incident.
It wasn't- they didn't hurt him. Loki would remember that. Loki couldn't...he wouldn't just forget something like that.
" The Chitauri didn't do anything to me! " Loki snaps.
"But I thought-"
"You thought wrong!" Loki exclaims, throwing out his hands. "I chose to do all of this. I chose to attack your realm. I'm not a good person, Barton! Just because you want to see me as one doesn't mean I am."
Even if it doesn't make sense. Loki never wanted a throne but was starving for one. Temporary madness from the Void.
Clint chokes. "You're kidding, right? Have you met me? Do I seem like the type of person to make excuses up to defend you hurting me?"
Loki shakes his head, exhaling a frustrated "Barton."
"I have spent months reliving that torture nearly every single night in my head. So did Selvig and Swenson! Do you think that we're just making this up? You're having the same dreams!" Clint exclaims.
"It's not the same thing!" Loki exclaims.
"How? "
"Because you-you should be dreaming of me as a youth. Not of some-some fictional narrative where the Chitauri hurt me. If this was just because of the scepter, the dreams would be months apart like actual memories. What you're describing sounds more like memory implantation, which doesn't make any sense because I wasn't tortured!" Loki enunciates the last few words harshly.
"I'm not lying to you!" Clint exclaims, exasperated. He throws up his hands. "Will you not even consider the freaking possibility?!"
"There's nothing to consider!"
"You-"
Both of them, completely focused on each other, missed the growing overcast. The snapping harsh crackle of thunder vibrating the air is harder to ignore. It rattles in his chest. Loki's head snaps up, looking at the approaching stormclouds.
Then, slowly, he lowers his gaze to meet Clint's eyes.
"Well, crap," Clint whispers, pulling a knife off a strap at his thigh. He hands it to Loki wordlessly, eyes going back up to the sky. Trust, Loki is reminded of once again with a heavy heart and takes the weapon from him.
000o000
It's several long tense seconds of silence before there's a spazzing pop in the air, pressure bottoming out as Clint's entire body shudders. He hears distant thunder like beating drums, rumbling, lightning growing closer, crackling, snapping together like it's fighting desperately for space.
Clint sees something approaching in the clouds.
Oh man.
Loki shoves them both toward the hard sand. They land in a tangle of limbs, Clint's back smashing hard into the unforgiving sand. He gasps, coughing harshly, and swears. "What the f-" he starts to exclaim.
Above them, beyond Loki's hunched frame wrapped over him, the sun vanishes. His stomach twists. Hope. Dread. He wants it to be Thor, and he desperately hopes it isn't. He starts to shove up, but Loki pushes him back down. "Stay down," he hisses.
"What? No. Thor is out there-"
"That's why."
Clint wriggles underneath his hold, feeling something in the air, but Loki refuses to budge. The Asgardian's head turns toward their left, his eyes wide with fear. For the first time, Clint realizes this must be what it's like on the other end of their battles, watching the Avengers approach.
Thor-living, breathing, actual Thor- glides through the air like he's nothing more than a bolt of lightning himself. When he lands several feet away with a loud thump, the earth around him sizzles. His entire body crackles with the snapping energy, Mjolnir gripped tight in one bloody fist. Clint can't breathe. Eleven days. Eleven freaking days of wondering whether or not he's alive and he's here, close enough to touch.
Thor straightens up, breathing raggedly like he's inhaling with half his ribcage broken.
Jane, Clint realizes, didn't mention his appearance at all.
Thor is there. Somewhere, underneath all the blood at least. Without shoes, dressed in torn and bloody pants with a shirt more scrap than actual clothing, Thor looks cadaverous. His hair is a mess around his face, hanging in dirty, clumpy strands. More than a dozen open wounds with varying degrees of seriousness are leaking blood. His eyes are wild with an unearthly, luminescent blue sheen.
Scepter blue.
Oh, s-
"Loki!" Thor spits the name like a foul word. His voice is hoarse. "Get off of him. You would dare to mock protecting others after what you did?"
Loki doesn't get off of him. Instead, Clint sees him swallow hard. "Thor," he says. His voice is lost. Small. It grows stronger as he speaks, gaining an edge, "Thor, please. You're not yourself, just-let me help-" Loki starts to carefully get up, hands raised to show he's without weapons, like an idiot.
The appearance of Thor suddenly means the disappearance of Loki's brain.
He pointedly jabs his boot hard into Clint's side when Clint makes a motion to get up, too.
Clint smacks his boot.
What does he expect to happen!? Thor to take off his head as soon as he remembers Clint is here? No. You know what? It doesn't matter. Thor is right there. There is no way in heaven or hell that Clint is just going to sit here.
Thor recoils, taking a staggering step back. His next words are a snarl. "No. I don't want your help. Nothing could make me fall so low ever again."
Clint gets up to his feet behind Loki, slowly drawing an arrow from his quiver, threading it carefully along the bowstring. The younger Asgardian's shoulders grow tight. He doesn't lower his hands. Clint doesn't know what he did with the dagger.
"Bror," Loki says, taking a careful step forward, "look at me. You're hurt. Let me help you. Please."
Thor's expression crumples. Lost longing settles in his face, overwhelmed by grief. The emotions bleed away, forced back by anger. His hand curls around Mjolnir. "No. I can't trust you. Not after what you did."
"You can," Loki promises, getting closer. Clint's fingers are growing numb. Relax. Drop your shoulders. You're useless if you're tensed up. Loki gets close enough to touch and carefully reaches up, resting a hand on the side of Thor's neck. The elder shudders. "You can," Loki repeats, "you're not thinking straight. I know you're confused, but I-"
Thor shoves him back harshly, nearly falling forward himself when he puts weight on his left leg. The tibia is clearly broken now that Clint's looking at it. " Don't touch me! Everything you touch dies!"
Loki staggers back. "Bror -"
"YOU'RE NOT MY BROTHER!" Thor roars. Thunder crackles above them and Clint eyes the sky warily. Lightning is still snapping above them, dancing tauntingly. Thor exhales hard, on the tail end of another shudder, "You never were."
Loki makes a wordless, pained sound in his throat. He takes a physical step back.
"You disgust me," Thor spits.
"And why wouldn't I?" Loki whispers brokenly. Clint's heart twists painfully in his chest at that. Loki, no. He wants to grab the sorcerer and shake 's not himself right now. You know that. You know that. He's saying things he doesn't mean. Smack him when this is over.
Thor shakes his head, blinking heavily before snapping Mjolnir up to the sky. Lightning snaps, crackling down to the weapon. Okay, negotiations over. Talking clearly didn't work. Plan B, then. Not that he was aware that plan A was talking, but whatever.
Loki clearly has no intention of getting out of the way, fixated on Thor, so Clint moves first. He tackles Loki to the ground from the side as lightning goes sailing over their heads. Every hair on his body stands up in reaction to it.
Clint inhales sharply, squeezing his eyes shut. For a moment, just a moment, he allows himself the feeling of utter terror.
Then he shoves off of Loki rapidly, restringing the arrow. Thor's gaze slides from his brother to Clint and something dark and resigned passes through his eyes. He draws back his hand and throws his hammer as Clint fires the arrow.
It isn't a long fight.
The thing is, when Loki had said that the Avengers wouldn't really have a chance against Thor, Clint had thought he was exaggerating just a little. He wasn't. Thor is a force of nature, broken and bloody, ready to kill them. In Clint's imagination, he feels like Thor is more fixated on killing Clint than he is Loki, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. He's angry with Loki, not Clint. For whatever he thinks that Loki did. But none of this makes any sense in the first place because Thor is trying to kill them.
But eventually, because he is mortal and not infallible, Clint moves too slow and Loki is too far, and the lightning bolt slams into Clint's body head-on. Every nerve in his body lights up, the burning heat rewriting his understanding of pain, but by the time his brain really registers it, it's already gone.
Burning.
Pain.
Buzzing.
Down
Down
Down
Nothing
Then
Breath
He gasps, inhaling ragged, painful air, his chest tight and tingling. The world is bright and painful. Rain has started falling. Loki is leaning over him, his hands a bloody mess. His expression is terrified. Clint can smell burning flesh and knows that he must be in an ungodly amount of pain, but he can't feel anything. At the sight of Clint's gasping, Loki slumps over Clint's chest with relief, fists curled in Clint's shirt. His shoulders are shaking.
Clint's sluggish brain puts two and two together, drawing up a shaky three and a half.
Lighting strike.
Cardiac arrest is the most common cause of death.
Oh.
There is no time for relief.
Thor is-there, suddenly, like he spontaneously teleported and grabs Loki's shoulder, hauling him off of Clint with a sweeping motion. Faintly, like from miles away, Clint hears Loki yell "Clint!" in panic. He can't move. He can't do anything. His limbs weigh five thousand pounds a piece. He can't feel his legs. His mouth is twitching. His chest is heavy and broken and Thor is trying to kill him.
Thor. His friend. The person that once wandered around Queens with him trying all the different hot dogs. The man that meticulously explained to him how to play an Asgardian sport while boredly looking over a football game both of them were making fun of. Thor, sitting on the other side of the couch from him, listening quietly as Clint explained about the vivid horror of his dreams when they started, his own insomnia keeping them up together.
Thor, towering over him, his expression filled with grief and regret. Clint is pretty sure he's apologizing. He has to be. He's crying.
He kept saying he was sorry.
Thor raises Mjolnir.
I'm going to die.
Loki does something-he can't hear anything beyond faint whispering sounds and pitches, his hearing aids must be shot to hell-because Mjolnir is shot out of Thor's hand with a concussion wave and a second later, Loki is grabbing Thor's arm. The two of them wrestle for a moment before pushing each other out of Clint's line of sight. He shudders, gasping. His nerves are spasming, working too hard and not hard enough. Breathing is painful. His heart is squeezing out of rhythm.
Clint makes a gasping wheezy sound.
Move. Don't just sit there and die.
He looks up, shoving up on weak limbs, feeling the world rotating around him like he's spinning. He catches a glimpse of movement before he watches Loki slice upwards with Clint's dagger, attempting to injure, not maim, and manages to slice Thor's chin. Thor doesn't care. He keeps looking at Clint, trying to get to him and Clint can't make sense of any of this.
Loki cuts along Thor's arm again, but before he can get any further than that, Thor grabs the front of his brother's shirt and throws him forward. Loki goes flying out of Clint's line of sight over his head. He feels more than hears an impact behind him.
Thor stalks toward Clint, his expression empty, and Clint tries to spider-crawl backwards but can't, his hands giving out. His legs are dead weight. He can't-
He can't move. Fight. Escape.
Thor reaches out his hand for Mjlonir somewhere behind him and Clint feels his entire body lighting up with panic. It's going to smash into his head. This is it. He's going to freaking die. He'll be just like Selvig, smashed to death by someone he's supposed to trust and- hope that it all goes horribly wrong and you're sliced open and can't be put back together (you're leaving me, too?) -there's nothing Clint can do to stop it.
He can only watch.
Mjolnir gets closer and closer until Thor jerks to the side as it goes sailing past him-past both of them.
Clint gasps, turning sharply to see where the murder weapon went, and watches with wide eyes as it lands in Loki's outstretched hand.
That-
It-
Clint doesn't know who looks more surprised: Thor or Loki .
For what he guesses are silent moments for everyone, the two brothers just stare at each other. Loki's gaze is fixed on the weapon in surprise, holding it out stiff from his body as if it's physically dangerous to him. He didn't think that would work. Thor is staring at him as though they're strangers.
Thor mouths " how ?"
And then, well, because this is Clint's life, God can't let them get one good win in, so it's at that moment that there's a sensation of…he doesn't know how to describe it. A push, maybe? But not by the wind, almost as if the world around them on a molecular level is shoving out. His insides feel like a pot of soup that got knocked into. Slushing before settling.
Dozens-maybe close to thirty-Chitauri pop into existence around them, like little sharp-teethed demons.
They, unlike Thor, seem completely focused on Loki. Clint cries out as the Chitauri reach for Loki, grabbing at him with claws and delighted laughter at Loki's struggling. Mjonlir gets lost in the fray somewhere. Loki lets out a muffled scream. They're dragging him back somewhere.
They're taking him.
No.
NO.
Clint jerks toward him, a new spike of adrenaline rushing through him. He manages to get up to his knees.
Thor's body rocks, like he wants to take a half-step forward and stops himself.
"Wait," Thor says weakly, his voice faint. Clint flinches.
God curse stupid adrenaline rushes. Clint hates them. Not because of how it feels like he could fight God and win, but because it gives him so much freaking hope. His deafness is something Clint normally accepts as a part of life and moves on, bearing the day-to-day minor frustrations. He's lucky in the sense that hearing aids help a lot in terms of how well he can interact with his environment, but adrenaline makes him feel like he's seven again, before the first accident that started this whole mess.
Or he's nineteen before Barney-
But it never lasts.
It never lasts.
He has to help. God, please let him help. He can't get off the ground.
"Ah-ah!" one of the Chitauri says in a sing-song tone. Its voice is just as distorted and fading in and out as Thor's was. "You remember our deal, Odinson? You still haven't completed your part yet. Is the great Thunderer feeling felled by a little sentiment? What would your family and your realm think?"
That closes off Thor's face, renewing only the anger. He looks briefly at Clint as though Clint can help him. What, Clint wonders with a sick fascination, did the Chitauri tell Thor that Loki did?
"Your mother, your father…" a different Chitauri says, sighing. It traces a finger down Loki's bleeding face. Clint watches helplessly as Loki tries to draw away and can't. Hands are gripping his arms in several places and Clint can see the bone sticking out from where someone broke his femur. That must have been the source of the scream.
"Perhaps…" it turns to look back at Thor. "You would like to avenge them? We are but beasts if we can't take justice for our family."
What?
Oh.
Oh.
Horrible, sickening realization is beginning to settle in.
"Hit him," one of the Chituari says, a thrill of excitement obvious in his tone. "Hit him! Avenge your family, Odinson!"
"No-" Clint moans.
Thor stalks past Clint and though he does hesitate, he doesn't stop. He slams his fist into Loki's stomach. Loki chokes, hunching over the fist as his body refuses to support his weight. Thor withdraws his hand and smashes his hand into Loki's stomach again. He's not holding back. Clint has seen Thor's punches break concrete.
Thor hits him for a third time and Loki's body tries to collapse, but the Chitauri won't let him.
"V-Værrr så snill, b-brooor-" Loki slurrs in Asgardian. It sounds like begging. Blood dribbles out of his lips. "Vær…"
Thor considers him. Clint can't see his face. Loki's head rolls upward to stare at him, exhausted and pain riddled, and his lips part helplessly as he comes to a realization.
"You want me to show you mercy?" Thor repeats. His voice doesn't sound like him. Clint is listening to a stranger, fading in and out as his adrenaline tries to crash. Thor wraps a hand around Loki's throat. "Foreldremorder. Jeg hater deg."
The Chitauri release Loki to struggle, and Loki does, fighting against Thor's hands desperately, clawing fingers into skin. "H-hva?" he gasps. "Jeg gjorde ikke-"
" JEG HATER DEG!" Thor shouts.
"Ikke..." Loki wheezes, "din feil. .."
Loki, apparently in a last-ditch effort, reaches up and clasps Thor's skull. His eyes flare as his palm makes contact with Thor's forehead and Thor's entire body convulses, but he doesn't stop. Whatever spell Loki was trying to use failed.
They're going to die here, aren't they? Clint can't help and Loki can't get out. Thor seems to have no intention of stopping.
"Odinson." One of the Chitauri says in warning. "No killing. Our lord still wants-"
Then, like an avenging angel, Clint hears the whine of a repulser blast before one slams into the back of the Chitauri's head and it goes tumbling forward with a spray of black blood. Cap's shield slices through another before Hulk rumbles onto the scene with a roar of warning.
Iron Man drops Natasha into the scene as it explodes with movement that Clint can only follow blurrily. Hulk physically drags Thor off of Loki, and there's some sort of wrestle before Thor squirms away, summoning Mjolnir. Loki goes down. Clint doesn't see him get up.
Everything is blurring too fast for him to make it out and he's crashing, hard.
The adrenaline is spiraling into its grave and Clint feels like everything is shrinking around him. The world gets quieter even though it should be louder. There are more flashes of bright light but he can't focus on any of it. He can't focus on anything. Everything is shrinking and not by choice, and he has to get up and he can't.
The world rumbles.
Clint crashes into the sand.
He inhales raggedly.
His body is beginning to sting, the growing sensation of pain he hasn't been able to experience finally rearing its ugly head. His brain has apparently decided that his team can take care of this and has officially resigned from duty.
Natasha is suddenly there, cupping his face, her own filled with panic. She's shouting at him, but the words are too murky to make out. He can't focus enough to read her mouth. Her fingers push against his neck, looking for a pulse.
I'm still alive.
Oh, freaking crappity land of all unholy-
I'm still alive.
Clint's emotional wall shatters and he crumbles, surging forward to wrap his arms around his partner, gasping in heaving sobs of helplessness and fear. Natasha clutches at him with equal desperation, rocking them both back and forth. She murmurs you're okay and you're safe into his neck, but doesn't let go.
The world is silent.
Everything is silent.
Natasha holds him anyway and his mind succumbs to a sudden blackness.
000o000
Clint wakes up later in some sort of hospital room, hooked up within an inch of his life to EKGs, an IV with what he assumes must be some sort of painkiller, and, the most unexpected sight: Steve drinking straight out of a vodka bottle. His entire body feels like one big bruise, his chest aching something truly hell-like. He squints carefully against the pulsing light, then looks at Steve.
"Y're drinkin'?" he mumbles.
Steve drinks beer sometimes because he enjoys the taste. Clint doesn't think he's actually seen Steve trying to get drunk, and judging by the mini bar that has become the floor beside Steve's chair, he's making a valiant effort.
Steve doesn't startle. He looks up through red, puffy eyes that are completely clear to stare at him. Tears. Clint's brow draws together slowly. He makes an attempt to sit up but fails.
Steve says something, not facing him. Clint hears the faintest mumbling, a low pitch. Whatever he says, it's in a whisper.
"Hey," Clint mumbles. Where are his hearing aids? Natasha is the only one who knows he prefers sleeping without them. She must have been here. Where is she? Steve looks at him. Clint gestures at himself with a floppy hand, and holy crap what is wrong with his arm? There's some sort of weird spiderwebbing burn smeared with some sort of gel. It goes up his forearm and probably beyond that, not that he can see.
Um.
Nope.
Cannot compute.
Focusing on Steve instead.
"I am deaf, you are not," he reminds tiredly, "say that again?"
Steve looks sheepish and sighs, taking another swig from his bottle. He makes sure to face Clint fully this time as he says "sorry" before going silent again.
He doesn't have the energy for this.
Clint reaches out a shaky hand to poke his arm. "Hey, Ernest Hemingway, why are you drinking your emotions?"
Steve exhales sharply. "Six minutes," he says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back to rest against the wall. "Six God-forsaken minutes."
Clint stares at him. "Six minutes…of what?"
"That's how long it took before we noticed what was happening and got there," Steve says, or something to that effect because Clint misses the first couple of words, his expression bitter. He drinks again from the bottle, then scowls at it.
"Steve, is Thor…?" Clint starts to ask, hopeful.
Steve shakes his head, "He's gone. He retreated with the Chitauri. They showed up on the Helicarrier to break out the other Chitauri a few minutes after that. The casualties are high."
"Oh," Clint whispers.
How long was he asleep? He passed out soon after Natasha started holding him and didn't see the outcome of the battle. Or the aftermath.
Steve looks up a moment before Tony appears in Clint's line of sight. Clint twitches, closing his eyes for a moment to catch his breath. When he opens them again, Tony is giving him a grimaced smile. He rubs a knuckled fist over his sternum. "Sorry," he signs.
Clint shakes his head. It happens. People kind of appear and vanish like magic when he's not paying enough attention. Being on an ungodly amount of drugs? Yeah. That applies.
Tony lifts up a finger for one second before he reaches out and neatly lifts the vodka bottle from Steve's hand. There's a following argument, which Clint can't follow very well both from exhaustion and a lack of a proper angle, but it seems to have to do with Tony telling Steve getting drunk won't help, Steve accusing him of being a hypocrite, and then Tony agreeing to that before setting the bottle down anyway. Steve doesn't reach for it again but buries his head in his hands instead. Tony eyes him with concern for a long moment, before sighing and turning to look at Clint.
"How are you feeling?" Tony signs.
"Bad." Clint mumbles.
Tony smirks tiredly. "Yeah. I'm sure. You took a bad 've got burns all over your body right now, especially your chest, so don't try poking at it, even if it's itchy."
Clint's brow furrows. He lifts up his hand again, looking at the spiderwebbing on his forearm.
Burns. Not like anything he's ever seen.
Tony gently lowers his arm, then fingerspells "Lightenburg" as if Clint knows what that is. Thankfully, Tony explains a moment later, "Lightning strike burns. They should go away in a few days without scarring. And you also have a couple broken ribs."
Clint winces. "CPR?" he guesses.
Tony's mouth twists. " Yeah."
Does Loki even know CPR?
"You scared N-Ro pretty bad," Tony adds after a moment. "All of us actually." Clint's mind blanks out. He stares at Tony with a growing sense of dread. It wasn't passing out. It was cardiac arrest. That's awesome. Natasha is going to kill him. He can't imagine what that must have been like. Man, if he had been on the other end of this, finding Natasha and then her not breathing...he'd never let his partner out of his sight again.
"Oh," Clint whispers. "How long was I asleep?"
Steve snorts, looking up at the clock before turning to Clint. "Five hours."
Five-?
Clint stares at Tony. "Wait. All of this-Thor attacked S.H.I.E.L.D. and I died twice and it hasn't even been a day?"
"Nope," Tony says, popping the 'p'. His brow furrows. "Uh, twice?"
"Pretty sure Loki gave me a CPR equivalent right after the strike," Clint admits. Tony's face tightens at the mention of the sorcerer.
Steve picks up the vodka bottle again. Tony eyes him pointedly, but Steve says angrily something like not like I can get drunk and that shuts up any building protest Tony did have. Clint winces.
Steve takes another heavy swig. "Six minutes," he mutters again.
"We didn't know, Steve," Tony says, rubbing fingers across his forehead.
" We should have !" Steve snaps.
"What?" Clint asks, looking between them. Six minutes. That entire battle was six minutes? A thought then occurs to him. Just because he walked away from this doesn't mean that everyone did. "Wait, guys. Is everyone okay? Where's Loki?"
His teammates share a long look. Something beyond grief passes through it. Shame. Regret, maybe. No. Dreadful anticipation.
"Grumpy-L," Tony signs. He pauses there for a long moment, visibly closing off his own emotions. "Is alive only because of machines. No one thinks he's going to wake up again without some help."
Clint's heart seizes in his chest.
An overwhelming sense of grief, loss, and anger crashes into him.
Loki.
Loki.
Loki-alive, angry, trusting-
Without some help.
"'Without some help', what help?" Clint asks. The two share another look. Clint clenches his fingers around the hospital blankets, smearing some of the gel on his hands against the sheet. "What did you do?"
"Something really stupid," Steve confesses, clenching at the glass. He looks down. Clint exhales sharply. Steve continues to stare at his reflection in the vodka, so Clint looks up at Tony. The growing sense of trepidation is choking him.
"Tony," he whispers, strained.
"We didn't-" Steve answers instead, wiping at his face, swallowing hard.. "We didn't know how-we couldn't." He squeezes his eyes shut, starting to look away before remembering and facing Clint again. "We weren't thinking straight. The others and I. We panicked. We-I don't-I don't know. We can't fix Loki and we don't…we don't have a way to stop Thor."
Tony is silent, eyes closed with regret.
Clint's heart is pounding in his chest. "Steve." He says, breathless.
"We called for Asgard." Steve clenches the bottle between his hands, blinking rapidly, "And we begged Heimdall to tell Odin and Frigga what's going on. We need them. To help Loki and to find Thor. If-If it went…if Heimdall listened, they'll be here soon."
Author's Note: I would like to formally apologize because I KNOW that adrenaline does not always spike up a deaf person's hearing and I am bothered beyond measure, but I completely forgot that getting hit by a lightning bolt would, yknow, uh, short circuit hearing aids and I NEEDED that information to be in there somewhere so I had to make something up in order to keep it. I apologize. Creator's liberty I guess, but remember kids, being deaf is usually a consistent scale and SOMETIMES adrenaline can increase your hearing, but not always.
Next chapter: July 15th or 22nd. (Probably)