Author's Note:

Warnings: blood, gore, implied/referenced abuse, abuse, torture, referenced past suicide attempts, STRONG LANGUAGE. There are several f-bombs dropped in this chapter. I couldn't get the exact emotions across I wanted to without them.

"My mother said to me recently. You remember too much,

Why hold onto all of that? I asked,

Where can I put it down?"

-Anne Carson

Chapter Nine:

Thor is shaking.

The world is crumbling around Clint—coming to an end, really—but he can't stop looking at it as if it's some sort of morbid HD entertainment. The Asgardian is crumpled inside the chair beside his brother's bed, staring forward, gaze listless. Breathing seems to be some grand inconvenience that Thor's forced to endure rather than a necessary element of life judging by how he drags in every exhale with effort. His hands have a fine tremble, but it's not just them. His entire body is just...rattling.

Clint stands several feet away from him, watching; waiting for what, he doesn't know, only that he is. The Asgardian's eyes are dry, but the distress is still obvious. Clint doesn't move, keeping the distance between them. He doesn't want to offer any support, emotional or otherwise. He just wants to stand here and not think about how desperately he wishes that the monitoring devices would indicate death.

Loki's heartbeat continues to rise up and down, rapid and pulsating, just to mock him. The oxygen mask continues to hiss. Loki is alive, and he's going to stay that way while Thor watches over him. And he's pretty sure not even death itself could drag the brothers apart at this point.

With reluctance, Clint drops his gaze down to the bed.

He doesn't look the same. Loki, that is. Thor, too, but his brother more so. Loki didn't look healthy when he arrived on Earth the first time, worn through and brittle with bruises and a stiff spine that suggested something was horribly wrong with it, but somehow, this time is worse.

Loki is thin, more a skeleton than a person, skin dragged against bone and pulled taut in some grotesque imitation of death. There are layers upon layers of gauze over Loki's entire forearms, covering up the horrible scars and stitches keeping his arms attached to his body. Beneath that is purpling and black bruises several inches thick encircling his wrists. There are open wounds almost everywhere in various degrees of healing, bones still bent awkwardly out of place that the doctors distastefully said they'd need to reset so it could heal right. Loki isn't stable enough for them to try yet.

In medicine, a good doctor doesn't care who their patient is. They shouldn't care. No one seemed to remember that, not that Clint can blame them.

Some of the worst scars are white and puckering against Loki's back and they look older than all of this. Burns, Clint had concluded. It didn't really match all the rest of…this. This was the work of blades. That wasn't.

Loki is stable, but recovery will still take several more surgeries, especially if Loki is going to walk again. Or move his fingers, if he ever regains any sort of motor function in his hands at all.

He looks like someone dropped him from a building, scraped off the worst of the asphalt, then shoved him from another ten stories. Bones broken and distorted, skin raw and split.

Thor has his hand resting beside Loki's, not touching, almost as if he's afraid to. The doctors had to pry Loki from Thor's arms several hours ago, but after Thor stopped touching him, he hasn't started again. He's just watched and kept a distance, waiting for things to go wrong again.

And shaking.

Thor himself is bruised, half his fingers broken on his right hand. He accepted the ice pack that Bruce gave him dully and didn't say much more about the injuries. He's worn and obviously tired, his eyes haunted in a way that Clint can't put to words. Thor is covered in Loki's blood, which Clint doesn't think is helping anything. It's dried on his armor, leaving it looking rusty and flaking. It's stuck to his fingernails and knuckles, his face, and clumped in his hair, like it was some sort of paint a child meticulously applied to him.

Thor sucks in a gasping rattle.

Clint watches, silent.

He has nothing to say.

They're alone in the hospital room, the others having left to either get some space or sleep after the last chaotic riddled twenty-four hours. Natasha said she'd be back with coffee in five, but she's been gone for more than twenty. Clint is a little grateful for that. He doesn't think he could make the liquid settle in his stomach without puking it.

Slowly, Clint brings up his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to push back the pain of his migraine.

"I said that I would look out for him," Thor whispers. The words are raw and broken, settling in the space between them like a knife waiting to drop. It's the first thing that Thor has said that hasn't been an answer to a question or plea since this whole mess started.

Clint looks at the Asgardian mildly, part of him silently dreading the ensuing heart-to-heart. He doesn't want to have this. Not about Loki. He can't even process his own thoughts, let alone Thor's. He can't do this right now. Maybe ever. He just wants to lay down—desperately.

But he can't. Because Loki is broken. He's on so many sedatives he should be dead, all so he won't wake up and feel the pain of everything. He woke up, once, while he was in transit to Helicarrier's ICU, and he started screeching. It was the sounds of a dying man facing the rack one more time, dragged out until he's nothing but the embodiment of pain. He kept yelling in Asgardian. Hoarse words, broken noise. The sentences had made Thor pale, then stumble back.

That was before Loki started begging for Thor. Again, it was all in Asgardian, but Thor had taken several steps forward, desperate, before Tony grabbed his arm to stop him. "You can't follow him in there," Tony said. Thor had made a desperate mewling sound, "I have to."

Loki had passed Clint then, on the gurney, and Clint's growing migraine had gotten to the point it was unendurable. He woke up to Natasha watching him with pinched eyes and concern, explaining that Loki was in surgery and he passed out.

She hadn't really let him out of her sight since then. This twenty-minute coffee run is probably the longest they've been apart in hours.

"I did this to him," Thor whispers, blinking rapidly. His voice is still strangled. "I know"—a sharp inhale—"I know you bare no love for my brother, and I do not blame you. He—what he did…what he did to you was unforgivable…but I…I said I would look out for him. I promised."

Raw. Gutteral. Lost.

Clint drags in air between his teeth, forcing himself to pull his gaze away from the corner. His heart, is, unfortunately, refusing to be stone cold and indifferent about all of this. Thor is breaking down into tiny, vivid pieces and Clint can't just stand here and watch it happen anymore. He blinks once, relaxing his fingers, and dropping his hand.

"This isn't your fault," Clint says finally. His voice is mild. It's all he has the mental energy to force forward. He can't bring any push or true belief to the words even though he knows they're true. He needs to weigh them so Thor will understand. Loki brought this upon himself, Clint thinks. He went from genocide to hopping on the marginally less crazy bus of world-conquering, so Clint doesn't really think that this level of bodily destruction is out of the question. A tad unreasonable yeah, but maybe a little deserved.

Thor's hand, careful and tempered, slowly reaches out for Loki's arm. His fingers ghost over the reattachment sight, buried beneath the gauze as if he knows where it is by muscle memory alone. "He told me to do that," Thor says, his voice weak. "He-he begged me. He said it was the only way."

Clint's eyes widen.

Loki…asked for that?

Holy—

"He was terrified," Thor continues, closing his eyes. He withdraws his hand, refusing to touch Loki's pale skin like it will hurt them both if he tries. "He said our father would come back and he didn't know what would happen to me if we were caught. He was the one imprisoned and he was worried about me," Thor's voice is filled with bitterness.

Clint thinks about Loki stabbing Thor on Stark Tower and watching Thor grimace through the patch job that Natasha offered afterward. He was walking fine a few hours later, but Loki knew that it would hurt and he did it anyway.

Thor is probably imagining that concern because it makes him feel better. He can't imagine Barney loving him that much. Clint remains quiet.

"The first words he spoke to me in years was a plea for me to cut off his hands, and I—" Thor's voice cracks, breaking. He lowers his head, inhaling another one of those rattling whistles with reluctance, like it's seeping rot into his lungs. "I said that I would protect him."

"You did," Clint says numbly. His gaze slides toward Loki for a moment, then his arms, fingers twitching against the sheet.

Thor shakes his head, dragging his hands across his face. "I should have waited. Gods, why didn't I wait?"

"You didn't have the time." Clint isn't really sure if this is true, but he imagines it is, given everything he does know about what happened. Thor shakes his head again, breathing in sharply. He blinks again, his eyes filling up. His hands tremble as he scrapes them through his hair, tugging sharply at the ends.

"Loki," he whimpers, shuddering, "Loki I'm so—I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm—I won't—I wont hurt you again. I promise. I promise. I prom—" Thor's voice breaks and a gasping sob escapes him. It seems to surprise him more than anything else because he inhales sharply in response to it, looking at his hands. Clint, who'd been watching this slow descent into the breakdown happen for the last several hours, just presses his lips together.

The dam is broken.

Thor takes another wheezing breath in, then sobs it out before giving up entirely. He buries his head inside his hands like he can hide from himself in there. The blood on his fingers and in his hair makes Clint feel a little sick. Thor looks—

Small.

Somehow, somehow, he looks more broken and rattled into pieces than Loki does. "Det er min skyld," Thor whispers and keeps saying it between his sobs, intermingled with "unnsklyd" like it's some sort of desperate chant he has to reach a quota of repeats before he can stop. Clint watches for a few long minutes, his stomach in his throat, before he slowly forces himself forward.

His feet feel heavy. He looks once at Loki's pale figure, the gruesome red lining around his mouth from where Thor said his mouth was sewn shut, silencing him, before drawing his gaze back to his brother. Thor, now silenced by his grief, is a mirror of that.

Clint forces stiff muscles to move. He takes a seat beside Thor.

"Thor," Clint says. The word is toneless.

Thor doesn't hear him, continuing his mantra and sobbing.

Clint watches him for a moment more, something in his chest loosening as he watches the grief consume Thor. Bitter resentment for Thor dragging Loki back here at all instead of literally anywhere else the universe dislodges some, and Clint reaches out a hand to wrap around Thor's massive shoulders and draw the shaking Asgardian to him.

Thor is stiff at first, in surprise or reluctance, but resignation makes him bow forward and he collapses into the embrace with a muted wail of sorrow. Clint just holds him. There's nothing else he can do.

"Just breathe," Clint whispers, "Just breathe."

Thor couldn't even do that, desperately clinging to Clint as if he was the only anchor in the universe.

He thinks about Coulson after he woke up that first time in S.H.I.E.L.D., when Clint's world was silent, nothing, and swirling into the end with distant, pinging sound his only company. Coulson typing out the words that Barney was in custody and the reason for his injuries and Clint barely being able to squint through it with how bad his vision was from swelling. Barney tried to beat him to death and he wasn't sorry. Clint, like an idiot, had asked.

(Barney insisted that Clint had no right to leave him. He watched the interrogation years later, Natasha at his side, both of them silent as Barney had shouted profanities and screamed about Clint being a traitor and unworthy of being alive. Clint had turned off the tablet, utterly silent, and decided then that he wasn't going to go to Barney's parole hearing. Natasha hadn't said a word.)

Somehow, the world always ends at the hand of a brother.

Clint is just glad that this time, unlike for him, he can hold Thor through it.

Beside them, the heart machine keeps beeping. Loki keeps breathing, alive, while his brother falls to pieces at his side.

000o000

"You know Thor, he um, he didn't really talk at first last time," Clint says quietly. The silence feels like this enormous living thing spreading its hands out to reach as far as possible and crawl its fingers inside every crevice and lurk there. It's suffocating. His hearing aids are giving him a headache and the pain medication isn't helping. His doctor told him to wait before putting his aides in, so they could monitor his hearing, but Clint hadn't had that option, not with his team collapsing into pieces of stupid with half a brain cell making their collective decisions.

He has to be ready. He doesn't have time to heal. He never does.

Gaze fixed up on the ceiling, Clint keeps talking, hands clenched over his knees. "He just stared at you. Kinda creepy with retrospect, but it makes sense, I guess," Clint murmurs. Loki, in front of him, in a new hospital bed but just as beaten and bloody as six months ago, does nothing. This time, it all feels different. Heavier. Last time Clint didn't care whether or not the EKG failed or if the oxygen mask was needed anymore.

Now, he's desperately clinging to every rise of the heart monitor as if it will save his own life.

He wonders if this is what Thor felt.

Thor.

Vivid bruises are beginning to darken around Loki's neck like a ring of purple and black. His forearms are wrapped in more gauze, but starting to get saturated with blood again. His body is utterly still, faint rasping the only sound. His skin is so white that he looks ethereal. Blood loss is the most severe issue here, and they don't have any way of replenishing it.

Loki is bleeding from his arms. He's bleeding internally. He's bleeding everywhere. He's always bleeding.

Clint continues to talk, not because Loki will answer but because he won't. He needs something to fill the silence. He closes his eyes, exhaling slowly. "Your dad said that you were dead—that you were executed after the Battle. Thor didn't know what was happening, I promise. Whatever your parents thought they were going to accomplish by hiding this from him, I don't know." Clint licks his lips, thinking of Thor—with fury and somehow profound emptiness—talking about the night the Asgardian was told what was actually going on, "Apparently your guards got sick of Odin's game and they went and found Thor and they explained what was going on. Then they went and told everyone what was going on. Everyone-everyone. I'm not really sure what happened to them, but they have got to be some of the bravest people who have ever been alive.

"Thor didn't really think you were dead to begin with, mostly cause the execution hadn't been public—which is messed up by the way—but he didn't know what had happened to you, and I think that finding you like that kind of broke something in him. Maybe in all of us," this last part is admission only to himself.

Clint reaches out and clasps Loki's cold, boney hand, in the way that Thor wanted to six months ago but didn't trust himself to. The last time Thor had been holding his brother's hand before that was when he was cutting it off.

Clint can't remember a time that Thor willingly grabbed Loki's arm first the entire time they were together.

"So will you please wake up before Asgard gets here and ruins everything?" Clint whispers, squeezing Loki's hand. It's limp and freezing beneath his own. "I don't know what to do about your parents. I can't imagine facing them and asking them for their help to fix this when they caused it in the first place. You need to help us."

Loki doesn't move.

The oxygen machine hisses and releases, and Loki's chest rises automatically like he's some sort of machine.

Clint feels something wet roll down his face. It's like a distant dream, happening to someone else, far away. "I don't want you to die," Clint confesses. "Please don't die." He grins weakly, forced and tired, "We still haven't finished our argument about bow maintenance."

An ongoing one, of months in the making.

"Please just wake up, Grumpy-L."

Loki doesn't.

The monitor carefully watching Loki's brain activity remains depressingly flat.

Thor killed him in any way that matters. (I won't hurt you again. I promise.)

Clint sucks in a breath between his teeth, setting Loki's hand down. "Jarvis," his voice is still low. This room, these circumstances, demand it. "Is there any way that Loki could wake up on his own? Without Asgard showing up?"

Jarvis is silent for several heartbeats. "No, Mr. Barton," his voice is careful. "Perhaps there will be improvement with time, but right now I am not hopeful."

Clint squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out more tears. "He's dying just to spite us, isn't he?"

"...perhaps, Mr. Barton." Jarvis agrees with reluctance. "Your team was very distraught with this news."

Yeah. That's putting it mildly. You don't reach out to your friend's captors for assistance unless you're seriously messed up in the head when you do it. Clint sighs heavily. His chest is heavy with some unspeakable emotion. A weight too heavy to bear.

"We're so messed up," he mutters. "We're so freaking messed up. Look at us, weeping over a murderer and doing anything to keep him alive. Maybe we are under the scepter's influence."

Somehow, he doesn't really care if that's the case.

"Impossible," Jarvis interjects. "I would have noticed. None of you have any traces of that." There's a long pause before Jarvis appends, softer, "You are not infallible, all of you. You have taken care of Loki for months and I believe that there is no reason to stop now, and you all know that. Loki is…complicated."

"Yeah," Clint agrees, his voice lost. "Complicated is a good word for that."

They don't talk after that. It feels like it's hours before anything happens beyond Loki's chest falling and rising and his entire body remaining depressingly still, but Clint feels distinctly when the base rattles, shaking underneath the pressure of some outside force. The Bifrost.

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

So it did happen then.

What did you do?

What didn't they?

All of them are stuffed away in some S.H.I.E.L.D. base in New Mexico that Jane works at, the medical floor low in supplies and staff, but equipped to handle most emergencies. Just like last time, Fury had been the one to sweep Loki into medical and keep him there. This time, he's told, the EMTs pried Tony doing desperate chest compressions off of Loki instead of Thor.

History always repeats itself, doesn't it?

Natasha comes into the room a minute later. Her gaze lingers on him for a moment and Clint's lips tighten at a realization as he takes in her posture and her face. "It's time," she says, voice low and tense, "they're here."

Yeah, put that together myself.

"Are you sober?" he asks. Natasha scowls, still squinting against the light with a margin of confusion, which is an answer all of itself. Clint presses his teeth together. Maybe if he grinds the bones down to the gums it will alleviate the pressure in his chest. "You shouldn't be out there if you can't walk in a straight line."

"I'm fine," Natasha says, void sharp.

"Yeah," Clint agrees with a touch of sarcasm. "All of you are. I leave you guys alone for five hours and somehow you manage to get Asgard involved in this despite us swearing to Thor that we wouldn't, and then you and Steve have a drinking party. You know Tony had to tell me that you were throwing up in the bathroom when I woke up because I couldn't find you and freaked out?"

Natasha's eyes crease with guilt and she tightens her hands into fists. Regret, it seems, is stronger than sentiment. Since the moment that the Avengers made the decision, all they've been doing is trying to alleviate their guilt about it.

Clint closes his eyes. It's a long minute before he can force the words out. "Sorry. This isn't—this isn't the time for that. You're upset."

"It doesn't matter," Natasha whispers. It does. You didn't deserve that. I'm not angry at you. Clint opens his mouth to tell her as much, but she's already turned around and headed for the door with a sharp, "We need to go."

Clint reluctantly gets up to his feet. His body is weak and tired, but he can manage a careful, ghastly stagger with effort. His limbs are still trying to tremble at awkward intervals and he can't quite feel his left toes yet, but he can move. No one can give him a clear answer on how bad the nerve damage is. That's probably because not enough time has passed to know.

By the time they reach the entrance of the base, Clint is exhausted and ready to call it quits. Natasha stopped to let him catch up so she could help, but their movements all feel disjointed and stiff like they aren't familiar with one another anymore. This, in turn, makes him ache in a way that his body doesn't. He just wants to sit down and talk to her, badly, but he can't.

He looks up and feels a curling apprehension settle in his stomach, churning away for the worst outcome possible.

He's not entirely sure what he expected Thor and Loki's parents to look like, but somehow they're exactly what he expected and nothing like it. They're—old is the first thought that comes to mind. Loki and Thor look like they're in their early twenties, so Clint had sort of expected their parents to be mid-forties. They aren't.

Odin's hair is stark white as if it hasn't known a single dark hair in decades. His face is filled with wrinkles and stress lines, his body worn with time and almost soft in comparison to the bulky, muscle-popping guys around him. Loki looks nothing like him, but Clint can see some of Thor's facial structure in his jaw and nose. The god-king is dressed in thick armor, a staff gripped in one hand.

Thor said he hated it once. Clint had never really gotten a straight answer out of him as to why.

Frigga is an elderly beauty, seeming decades younger than her husband. Maybe mid-fifties, in comparison to like, a hundred and fifty? Her long golden hair is hanging across her shoulders, and though she has bits of armor in her clothing, she seems more prepared for some sort of social tea than a war. Her mouth is pressed into a tight line of unhappiness, rigid tension causing her shoulders to draw together. Neither of them has laugh lines, just pinched ones of stress.

Powerful, is the second thought. Even from feet away, he can feel it rolling off of them in choking waves, like an ocean crashing into shore to grab an unsuspecting wanderer and drag it out to sea. It feels like he's standing in the midst of tear gas. He just wants to puke and weep.

About two dozen guards and other Asgardians are behind the king and queen, and Clint spots the Warriors Four there as well, which just seems about right given all of this. Why not, right?

Fury, who had at some point been told of this stupid plan and been unable to stop it, takes a step forward. "Your Highnesses," he says, the words somewhat awkward as they roll off his tongue. It's almost funny. Fury has addressed royalty before, he's worked side by side with them, and yet, standing here, in front of these gods, he's fumbling to talk. "Thank you for coming. We appreciate your assistance."

Odin snorts at that. His voice is angry, but silent, like he wants to shout everything but can't. Clint realizes just how good Thor is at mimicking it for mocking purposes as Odin says, "Our assistance? You would dare declare something so bold after hiding a wanted fugitive from me for half an Midgardian year?"

Fury visibly fumbles. He grips the edge of his coat with his right hand.

"Odin," Frigga says, tone sharp. She doesn't even look at him. Honestly, from what Clint can tell, she just seems annoyed by this whole affair. The single word draws the old little angry man back, his face tightening. The one-eyed Asgardian sweeps a sharp gaze across all of them, his gaze lingering on Clint for long seconds before he snaps back to Fury.

"Where is Thor? Has that ludicrous child gone and done something else stupid to get himself killed?" he demands. "He needs to come back with us immediately to be under Asgard's protection."

Ah. Right. That Alfheim business. Who are they really for then? Loki or Thor?

"We—" Fury struggles, clearly unsure how much to say—he's possessed by the Chitauri and beat Loki nearly to death, and we have no idea where he is, but he broke the rest of the Chitauri out of prison and killed seventeen people—before appending carefully, "we haven't seen him since Loki was attacked."

"He—" Odin starts, an edge of actual anxiety cracking his exterior, but Frigga cuts him off.

"We can discuss this later. Thor can wait, Loki can't. Where is he? Heimdall said that the injuries were severe," Frigga says in a rush, "we will do what we can to aid him. Just show us."

Fury nods once, then slowly turns to indicate the inside of the base. The hot New Mexico sun is burning down on them like it intends to sizzle them all away before they can make it to the door. "This way," he says tightly.

"Wait," Steve says before anyone can take a step. "I want to make one thing absolutely clear," Steve takes a step forward, eyes pinning on him. Steve doesn't seem to care. Even only looking at his back, Clint can tell that he's furious. Clint watches with a vague feeling in his chest. "If you hurt him—in any capacity, there is nowhere in your hell or mine where you can hide from me. We"—Steve presses this word, so Clint forces himself to look up to give the pretense of a united front—"will never stop trying to find a way to kill you to avenge him. Do you understand?"

Odin's lip curls up a fraction with distaste, but he doesn't say anything. That's probably for the best. Frigga's hands twitch and she nods, taking several steps forward. Steve grabs her shoulder to stop her. The Asgardians around them reach for their weapons, but Steve doesn't even seem to register that as he growls out, "Do you understand?"

Bravery, some would call this. Stupid is what Clint wants to slap on as a label. Sure, let's piss off some of the most powerful people in the universe. Not that he doesn't agree with the sentiment, but still.

"Yes," Frigga snaps, her eyes flashing. "Yes, I understand, Captain Rogers. Are you going to let me see my son, or shall I ask you permission for that, too? I have never done anything to intentionally cause him ill." At this, she slides a scathing look toward her husband, who returns the glare with equal fervor. Yup. Nothing but rainbows and glitter in that marriage. Frigga looks back at Steve, that same resentful anger in her eyes.

Steve hasn't let go of her shoulder, keeping her in place. "You know," he says these words low, like they're a threat. "The fact that you honestly think that is the reason I don't trust you with him."

Okay. Yeah. He's going to get smited.

And yet—

Same.

"Spare us the dramatics, Captain," Odin snarls, the tone making Clint flinch and Natasha do the same beside him. "Do you want our aid or not?"

Steve lets go of Frigga's shoulder with a light shove. He gestures back toward the base, smiling with teeth, "Please," his voice is dry and filled with venom, daring them to do something he doesn't like in his presence, "be my guest."

Frigga's eyes narrow, but she says nothing and walks past him with her head raised. Clint wonders in a vague, distant way if that makes her feel better.

Clint and Natasha share a look.

The walk is one of the most silent, tense things he has ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Words are clipped and minimal, if they're spoken at all. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents practically mold themselves into the walls to avoid the Asgardian escort, watching the entire thing with bugging eyes. Clint can't say he would be doing much different if their positions were reversed.

However bad the presence of the Asgardians was outside the building, it's much worse inside. Clint barely feels like there's room to breathe inside the cramping space.

When they finally reach Loki's hospital room, the Asgardian soldiers take positions lining the hall all at once, eyes up and forward like they're not living creatures anymore. It's disturbing.

Fury releases a sharp, clearly anxiety-riddled breath before shoving open the door and stepping inside. The hospital staff is gone, having already been told to avoid this area for the next couple of hours. From the way that Fury is holding himself, he's clearly waiting for the Asgardians to blow up to some extent.

Honestly, Clint doesn't know what he is. Odin to smite Loki into tiny blistering flesh flakes on the spot? Yeah, probably. That one is high up there on his list of possibilities.

Frigga inhales sharply as she takes in her son, exhaling a shuddering gasp. Her face drains of color and for a silent moment, she's completely still. Odin just sweeps one eye over Loki's prone form without a reaction, seeming completely emotionless.

Frigga comes forward, taking Loki's hand and cupping his face. "Loki," she says, strained. "Oh, lillie venn, hva skjedde?"

Odin's jaw tightens at the question, like he's annoyed rather than worried. Clint, who had never really been willing to give Odin a chance to begin with given all that he does know about the man, decides then that he really doesn't like him. Despite being unable to see her husband's face from this angle, Frigga's back goes rigid and she glances back, face dark.

"Odin," she says with barely contained anger, her fingers tight around Loki's.

"What?"

"You said you would help me, so help me, husband."

Odin releases a heavy breath, ground out through his teeth, and takes the needed steps until he's standing beside Frigga. Steve plants himself at the end of the bed solely to scowl at the both of them, and Clint wonders if maybe he did get a little drunk after all. Clint watches, swallowing hard, as Odin and Frigga begin talking in rapid Asgardian, back and forth with increasing levels of vocal tones.

He doesn't like the two of them being so close to Loki. Just in general, but more so when they can't understand what's being said. He really wishes there was someone who spoke Asgardian or at least Norwegian that could translate, but Asgardians have a tendency to pronounce the vowels weird, so he's not sure how much it would help anyway. Regardless, it would be nice to have someone on their side who could monitor what's being said.

Frigga near-shouts something, Loki's hand still clutched in hers tenderly, and Odin shakes his head with a huff before turning back to their child.

The woman sets Loki's hand down on the bed before carefully spreading her fingers and flexing them out. She pushes her hands forward, like she's pressing against a wall and there's a ripple in the air. Golden light swirls around her fingers before she starts to twist it into complicated figures and ruins. Odin lifts up his right hand to grab one of the ruins and slide it toward himself, almost like it's one of Tony's computer screens. He spreads the figure into a spiderwebbing interlock of pulsating figures, one of which looks like a heart.

Both of them work in tandem until it's almost painful to look at because of how bright it is. At some point, Odin releases his staff, and it just stands up on its own without explanation, which sure, okay. Not the weirdest thing he's seen. He'll allow it.

The ruins and complex shapes keep growing, colors like red and green also joining the fray. Whatever the two of them are doing, Clint can tell that they're practically holding a nuclear bomb over Loki's head and it's a delicate balance to stop this from going horribly wrong.

Long minutes pass.

Finally, after what feels like no time at all and years, Frigga and Odin rotate their interlocking, webbing mess horizontally. As it tips, Clint realizes that they've recreated what looks like the nervous system with tiny, pulsating ruins over every organ. The one for the heart is pulsating in the same rhythm as Loki's heart monitor.

Once it's several feet above Loki's body, Frigga turns her head to look at Steve. "You. Remove this," she gestures with her head toward the medical equipment. "It will interfere with our spell."

Steve hesitates, his mask of anger crumbling. "We can't. It's the only reason he's alive right now. We remove it and he'll die."

"No," Frigga's voice is clipped, "he won't."

Clint pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing out long and slow. Healthy confidence or arrogance?

"Now, Captain," Odin snaps.

Steve's mouth sets and he exhales tightly before he looks over at Bruce helplessly. The two of them carefully move to the other side of the bed and start to remove the various medical equipment. Bruce turns off the heart monitor and pulls the electrodes off Loki's chest. Everything goes, the oxygen mask being the last. When it's gone, Loki's chest falls once and doesn't raise again.

Natasha takes a step forward, but Tony grabs her arm with rigid fingers.

With everything removed, Steve and Bruce take several steps back.

Frigga and Odin do the same, carefully lifting up their hands. The pressure in the room grows heavy and painful until it's almost physically difficult to remain upright. Frigga spreads her arms out once before clapping them together sharply. The flash of light is blinding and Clint squeezes his eyes shut.

He hears a snapping crackling sound, then this…wet slapping? Almost like a soaking blanket being shaken into the wind. Bone snapping. A hoarse, wailing sound. A distortion of swirling sounds, loud humming, then—

Nothing.

Silence.

Choking silence. No one even breathes.

The light fades and Clint, sucking in a gasping breath, snaps his head up. Part of him fully expects to see Loki floating by him in fluttery little skin pieces and is not emotionally prepared to handle that on any level.

Loki's entire body, whole and together, shudders once on the bed as a traveling light crosses through blood vessels, surging up toward his face. Loki jerks forward, eyes snapping open and flaring vivid green once. He gasps sharply, deeply, painfully. His face is unblemished, the bruising on his neck gone.

But he's alive.

Alive.

Clint makes a little sound in his throat. Natasha grabs his arm, squeezing it tight, burying her head against Tony's shoulder as she exhales sharply. Clint has to remind himself to exhale.

He didn't think it would work.

He didn't think that they would help.

Loki's hands rapidly pat himself down as if searching for some sort of injury, his eyes still wide and clearly confused. His right hand grabs his left forearm, over the bandages, and his breathing picks up speed. Recognition seems to spark in his eyes because a moment later, he says, "Thor," then looking up, a more desperate, "Thor!" He starts to move to climb out of the bed on trembling limbs before his head snaps to the side, looking directly at his parents and he just...

Stops.

He doesn't move. His spine stiffens. What little color came back drains away, eyes pinning on Odin. Clint can't even tell if he's breathing.

He watches, with an almost visceral horror in his chest, as life bleeds from Loki's face-hope. He draws in on himself, as if, should he make himself a smaller target, he'll be safer. Clint has rarely seen Loki terrified, but staring at his face and watching him crawl inside himself, there is nothing else this could be.

Loki is scared.

The sight of that fear triggers an old one in Clint's chest. He used to do that with Barney. Trying to shrink into nothingness.

"Loki," Frigga says, her voice relieved and warm. She leans forward and wraps her arms around him, exhaling into his hair. Even if it was meant in comfort, Loki isn't even looking at her, not moving, his eyes fixed on Odin, growing horror rapidly being replaced by emptiness. "I'm so glad that you're alright, lillie venn. What happened? Who did this to you?" Frigga draws back and cups the side of his face, trying to draw his gaze up to hers. It doesn't work.

Loki reaches up a hand to grip her wrist gently and pull her hand down, the most acknowledgment that he's given that she's there at all. "Why…" Loki swallows hard. His voice is small and lost. "I thought I was…"

"Where is Thor?" Odin demands. Loki flinches at his voice, cringing hard, his mouth moving soundlessly for several seconds. Odin repeats the question with more force, "Where is your brother?"

Loki looks down at his wrists, then the bed, his brow furrowing with confusion. One of his hands, in a jerking, awkward movement, comes up to touch his lips, feeling over the smooth skin. Once, twice, a third time. He swallows hard.

My father had his lips sewn shut. Loki said until he could speak the name of every soul he killed during the invasion he wasn't worthy of speaking at all, Clint remembers Thor saying.

A bout of nausea swirls in his stomach as a realization strikes him. Loki doesn't know where he is. When he is. He's trying to find the stitches.

Oh, man.

Odin releases an impatient sound, hand tightening around his staff. "You stupid boy"—another wince, more violent this time—"do you not understand what is at stake here!? Queen Siygn's council has threatened to drag Thor into this Norns-cursed war by force if we can't find him first! Thor could be in danger because of you! Heimdall can't find him, which I assume is your doing, so I will ask you again, where is your brother!?"

Loki shakes his head, visibly drawing back. His eyes are pinned on his father.

"Hey," Tony's voice feels as strong as a whisper in comparison to the booming roar of Odin's. "Hey, time out, maybe we should just—"

"Silence!" Odin shouts.

Tony snaps his mouth shut, taking a step back. Clint finds himself doing the same.

Loki's breathing continues to pick up speed and he claws his fingers through his hair, gripping at the sides of it. "I-I don't know—I don't know where Thor is. I don't know where he is. I don't—pappa, vaer så snill—"

Clint doesn't even see Odin move, but Frigga does. She grabs her husband's wrist before it can connect with Loki's face, Loki ducking beneath his hands and waiting, braced, for the blow that isn't coming. None of them seem remotely surprised this has happened at all, but Clint watches the entire scene with growing horror.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my GOSH.

Frigga holds Odin's wrist for several long seconds before she shoves Odin back, her face growing increasingly incensed. Whatever hold she had on her temper completely snaps.

"Stop it!" Frigga shouts, "Stop it! Loki doesn't know for the gods' sake, Odin!"

"He has to!" Odin bites back, gesturing sharply at Loki. His son cringes at that, too, and Clint can feel this tight pressure crawling in his chest. He can't tell what it is, only that it hurts the longer it goes without release. "Heimdall can't find him and there are none in the Nine that can't be found by his gaze—that type of magic is forbidden! Loki has to be behind this!"

"Have you perhaps considered the fact that Loki isn't the only one who knows how to shroud from our Gatekeeper? Not everyone is going to obey some stupid rule from a thousand years ago!" Frigga snarls. She gestures at her head, all her movements sharp and animated. "Use your fucking head for once! Think, if you're so capable!"

Odin rolls his eyes up, throwing up his hands. "Oh, on the Nine, woman!" he groans. "This again? I told you I had no idea where Loki was when he fell and that hasn't—"

Frigga releases an enraged sound. "Don't lie to me! You knew and you did nothing while our son suffered at that monster's hands for over a year—"

"He's not our son!"

Frigga slaps him. Hard. Odin's eye narrows and a flaring breath escapes from his nostrils, but before he can say or do anything, Frigga keeps shouting. "You don't get to say that! Not after you brought him into our family! Not after all that you did to keep him there!"

Clint releases a staggered breath and snaps his eyes away from the two for the briefest second to look at Loki. Their son's eyes have dimmed, his body braced and tight, like he's just waiting for the storm to blow over with as minimal collateral damage as possible.

Odin exhales hard. His voice, when he speaks, is low and thunderous. "What did you expect me to do? The Titan has legions of armies at his call. There was no way for me to rescue Loki without the death of hundreds in the process. It was one life."

"Loki's life!"

"Do you think I don't know that?"

"Stop," Loki's voice is weak. "Stop, please stop." He reaches out to grab his mother's arm but she slaps him away, focus zeroed in on her husband. Loki drops his hand.

"You fucking coward," Frigga snarls. "You fucking—"

"I did what I could!" Odin shouts. "Loki is the one who got that madman dragged into our lives in the first place and I had to chase him out. You know that Thanos wanted one thing in return for a deal to stay away from the Infinity Stones and—"

"Deciding that torturing our son was an acceptable payment was never something I approved of! Our fucking child, Odin!?" Frigga gestures at Loki. She looks ready to hit something again.

"Loki brought it on himself." Odin snarls, jabbing her in the shoulder. "If he hadn't been so Norns-cursed stupid as to get caught by Thanos in the first place, then I wouldn't have had to do something so horrendous in return. Once Thanos turned his eye away, I intended to stop. None of the torture was real in the first place."

"I know it wasn't, but—"

"'Not real'?" The words, quiet and spoken slowly, are a knife plunged into the conversation. The two Asgardians go utterly still, as if they completely forgot they had an audience in the first place. Both their heads turn toward their son slowly as Loki looks between them, something in his eyes.

Defeat.

Betrayal.

Rage.

"'Not real'?" Loki repeats, again, this time his voice is stronger. Angry. "It wasn't—Right. Of course. Forgive my ignorance, but it didn't feel fake. When you were sewing my lips together and I was being beaten and cut open, it was real to me."

Odin releases an exasperated sound. "Loki," the name, drawn out carefully, is annoyed and pressed in such a way that suggests he thinks Loki is an idiot. "We could have done much worse than that."

What?

Is he serious? That's what he's going to say?

Oh, sorry that hurt, but it could have been worse? My bad?

"Is that supposed to make me feel better!?" Loki's voice is rising.

"Thanos would send someone to look in on you." Frigga's voice is still angry, but there's an edge of defeat. "He wanted to make sure that you were suffering. I tried to help, unlike your father, because I care about what happens to you."

Odin growls. "Frigga."

"Defend yourself then," Frigga snaps. Odin's jaw clenches and he starts to make a sound in his throat, but he's cut off.

Loki shakes his head, lifting up his hands as if he can't process any of this. His voice, when he speaks, is measured. Careful. "The deal that you made—Thanos agreed to stay away from the Nine's Stones as long as I was suffering?"

Thanos.

The name feels familiar to Clint, like it's from some sort of distant memory. A cold, itching sensation crawls up his back. It occurs to me that it has been some time since we had one of our talks. He can't place the voice. Or the memory.

"It was the only way that I could keep you on Asgard," Odin agrees, actually sounding faintly frustrated about the idea for the first time. "Despite my displeasure with it. All of this was so I could protect you."

There's a long silence. Clint's tongue pushes against his teeth. He swallows hard and it seems to echo in his ears. Loki's throat works, like he's trying not to scream.

"I did what I could to help, millie venn," Frigga says softly, her next words are as scathing as her glare at Odin, "but your father was adamant."

"Help," Loki repeats tonelessly.

Clint thinks of Loki screaming in the night and the days of disassociation where he couldn't tell what was real. He thinks of Loki begging them to stop hurting him and pleading with Thor to kill him because he thought Thor was Odin. Because Frigga convinced Loki that any time he wasn't being hurt was when he was away from the prison.

She tried to help.

Help.

"Woman—" Odin starts to warn, turning his piercing stare to her.

"What the fuck is wrong with both of you!?" Loki explodes. Both of them flinch back from the full force of his anger. "How dare you sit there and tell me that none of this was real! I was the one who was being cut into! I was the one who couldn't talk for years because you said I had to pay penance. You got to go home and you were safe and I was under your feet as your scapegoat—as always!"

"Loki," Frigga says sharply, like this is an old argument she doesn't have the energy to revisit.

"No!" Loki shouts. "No! How do you have to ability to grasp an understanding of your actions? How can you see that you don't give a fuck about me? Or Thor! Do you have any idea what you did to him by pretending I was dead?" The two Asgardians share a look, and Clint can tell pretty clearly then that they never bothered to think much about that, "You claim to love me, but you never have! How did it never once occur to you to explain what was going on? If this was supposed to be pretend from the start, we have fucking magic to create something fake."

"It wasn't that easy," Frigga starts to defend, but her face is twitching with something like guilt.

"Thanos getting involved in the Nine again is entirely your fault, you have no right to judge how we handled—" Odin snarls.

"You're blaming me?!" Loki shouts. "Thanos—He—Do you have any idea what happened—?"

"Do you?" There's something nasty in Odin's voice as he says that. Clint's blood rushes cold, remembering their earlier conversation. In truth, Barton, much of my memory is hazy about the entire event. Loki's face drops for a fraction, real fear showing through the mask. Odin latches onto this opening, looking over at Clint with a stare that feels oily, "So you still haven't regained your memories then. Which must mean you still have no understanding of what you did—what you chose—to those you possessed?"

Frigga's eyes slide up now, too, and after several long, studying seconds of Clint, her face pales.

Feeling self-conscious, and rather like something big and red is sitting in the middle of his forehead, Clint doesn't breathe, ducking his head as much as he can. It doesn't help. What did he do? What did he do that Clint can't see it?

"I—" Loki intones weakly.

Odin humphs, voice low, "You parade around as if you are better than all of us. You're not. You still have no margin of understanding of what happened because of your choices regarding the Mad Titan. You accuse us of not thinking of Thor? What about you—?"

The mention of his brother scrapes together the last remnants of Loki's temper. His eyes flare. "You have no right to talk about Thor after what happened—"

Odin grabs the front of Loki's shirt, hauling him forward. "We don't? After you tried to murder my son?! Gods, you disgusting creature! After all that we did for you, after all that you were given you are still so ungrateful—"

Loki shoves back from him, falling back hard against the hospital bed. "Shut up! SHUT UP! You threw me off the bridge! How am I un—?"

"Loki, that's enough," Frigga interjects sharply. "We're just trying to help you, stop trying to blame us."

"I don't want your help! The last time you tried to help me, you fucking tortured me for years! The time before that, you dumped the throne and a war on me and I tried to kill myself!" Loki exhales hard, furious, shaking his head, "Get out. I hate you. I hate both of you. Gods, I hate you so much! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

Odin's hand comes up again, but Frigga doesn't catch the swinging hand. Steve does. The captain holds the old man's wrist in a white-knuckled grip until Odin starts to grimace with pain.

For a moment, there's nothing but Loki's ragged, panting breaths. Then Fury gives Odin's arm a light shove. "Think your son made himself pretty clear." Fury says, gesturing toward the door. Odin turns a furious expression on the director, but Fury doesn't even bat an eye, hand raised steadily. For a few heartbeats, there's a staredown that seems to hold the weight of worlds in it.

Odin drops his gaze first, then yanks his arm from Steve.

Odin and Frigga, both visibly furious, cast one more scathing look on their son and then each other before exiting the room with snapping anger. Fury follows after them, probably to make sure they don't smite anyone in the hallway.

For a long minute after they're gone, all Loki does is breathe in ragged gasps. He sits up slowly.

"Loki?" Bruce asks, tentative.

Loki shakes his head several more times, mouth parting, gripping at the sides of his head. "Thor intended to kill himself," he says, the words clipped and still furious. His gaze slowly raises up to the door where his parents are beyond it. Clint is deathly silent, watching.

It isn't the first time that heard this.

He doesn't think it will be the last.

He hadn't realized that Thor and Loki had talked about it, though. Loki and Thor seemed to bounce between a distance wider than the opposite ends of the universe and a closeness that was beyond conjoined twins before Thor went missing.

"He was fucking going to kill himself because they didn't tell him what was going on," Loki seethes. "The night that he was told where I was, he was WRITING A FUCKING NOTE and they have the audacity to say that none of this was real? What the FUCK!?" Loki grabs the nearest thing available to him—the oxygen mask—and hurls it across the room. It lands with a clatter. The oxygen tank makes a snapping thump as it's tipped on its side.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Loki screams again. "WHAT GIVES THEM THE RIGHT? I would thrown myself into Thanos' hands if I knew this is what their kindness looks like! I hate them! I hate them. I hate—" A gasping, wheezy shudder. Loki blinks rapidly, hands trembling. "It was real. It was. They were hurting me and I felt it. Odin—it was real. It was…I was useful. Again…" his voice grows weaker as the rage leaves him, dissipating into a desperate gasp. Tears begin to fall down his face. "They—"

A sob, desperate and broken. "Oh my gods," he moans, "oh my gods, Odin is going to kill me. What was I thinking? Why do I never think before I speak? Everyone tells me to be quiet and they're right. It was—I was—I—why did I—?"

"Hey," Bruce moves around the bed, grabbing Loki's wrists. Loki twitches. "Hey, look at me. You're okay. I promise. Just try and take a few deep breaths."

"What more do I have to give to be in his good graces again?" the question is desperate. "I can't—I can't—"

"One breath. Can you manage one breath?" Bruce asks, overlapping Loki's increasing rambling. Loki shakes his head, looking at the door with increasing terror.

Clint forces his feet forward, breaking whatever spell of before that kept him in place, and carefully approaches Loki's other side. He rests a hand on his back. The other Avengers draw closer, encircling the Asgardian.

Loki looks up at him, probably just on instinct at the touch, looking painfully young, and his eyes slide up, just a fraction, to look up at Clint's face and he freezes. "Oh my gods," he whispers, dawning comprehension in his eyes.

He lifts up a shaking hand to Clint's head, his fingers hovering just beside Clint's left temple. Which is just—um. Okay, wait a minute—A sharp, wracking pain that lances through his entire head like a blow by a hammer causes Clint to flinch back with a jolt, nearly tumbling into Natasha's lap. She grabs his arm. Loki snaps his back.

"What...what did you—Loki?" Clint asks, breathless, squinting through the dimming pain. He lifts up his hand to his head, but he can't trigger the same pain that Loki did. What did he do? What does this mean?

Do you have any idea what you did to those you possessed?

For a long moment, they just stare at each other, before Loki's voice, laced with horror and a bitter sort of resentment asks, "Oh Norns, what—what did I do to you, Clint?"

Author's Note: Wow, I feel like the more I write this story the further my life falls apart. Truly, this is God's greatest irony. I didn't have a ton of energy to look this chapter over, so I apologize for any blatant mistakes.

Next chapter: July 29th, August 5th. (probably, who knows, at this point? :/)