Warning: This chapter might be a bit rough for some. If torture and angst scenes bother you, consider skipping this chapter, or at least skipping to the end with the Loki portion of the chapter. It had to happen at some point, my dear readers, but you can rest assured that help for Clint is closer than he might imagine. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and let me know if you get the very subtle reference to a certain crime/comedy tv show hidden somewhere in the dialogue…..
And for those who might be getting a little bit impatience over who the heck the Colonel might be or who he is connected with, all that is coming next chapter!
Disclaimers: I have never read a Marvel comic in my life. I have watched only a few of the Marvel movies. Therefore, I apologize if I inadvertently go against canon in some way.
I own no characters except the Colonel.
Constructive criticism appreciated. Please, no offensive language!
Please review!
Enough
The harsh rattle of the key in its lock startled Barton from a misery of tortuous musings. He glanced up, surprised that his ever-keen senses had not detected the approach of someone, and then decided that the toll of revelation over the past day had served to mock those instincts. He shoved himself to his feet.
He had expected to see the Colonel and was surprised instead to see two guards, dressed in the same antiquated style of uniform as their superior. He stood quietly, watching while one undid the lock, stood aside, and motioned his companion in. A ripple of uncertainty ran through Clint's blood.
His arms were grasped tightly, and he was marched from the cell and into the dull interior of the makeshift corridor. It was impossible to remind himself that it was his own cellar, his own cement flooring, his own rust-coated pipes running the ceiling above him. The atmosphere was so real, so subtly crafted that without the eternal sight of that stupid crack in the cement, Clint was suddenly reliving his army days, that one time he had fallen into the hands of the enemy, the heart-pounding terror of being marched along dull, cold passages, into a chamber where a man stood waiting with a heavy, leather cord….
He shook himself free of the rushing onslaught of memories only to realize with a sudden, breathless jolt that they were the actualization of that past nightmare. He was being marched down a dull, cold passage, into a chamber, his wrists were yanked up, shoved, and locked into cold, tight chains. He reacted too late, twisting from one chain, ducking under the arm of one of the guards, almost catching the arm of the other before the latter managed to land a heavy-fisted blow to Barton's stomach, breaking the spell of resistance, even if briefly. But briefly was all that was required, and when Barton lifted his head again, he was locked and secured, standing in the midst of a bare, cold, cell, arms chained at shoulder height, facing two silent, stone-visaged guards.
"So now what?" He bit out. "The Colonel's having you do all his dirty work, is that it?"
There was no reply. The guard at Barton's left, obviously the superior, nodded shortly to his companion. The latter turned stiffly on a heel and removed his dress jacket.
It was a torture session. Barton had known that from the beginning; his inner mind had only been trying to deny it. The signs were all there: the silence, the position he was locked in, the sudden removal of some article of clothing that might hamper movement. Barton knew it all like he knew the make and feel of his own bow. He shut his lips and he felt his heart readjusting to the knowledge of pain. What kind of pain the Colonel was capable of, he did not yet know.
The heavy, blunt rod smashed against the back of his leg, sending excruciating bolts of pain racing through his extremities and into his chest. He drew in a breath interspersed in a gasp that was meant to be longer but was cut short by the next blow, this one to the side of his rib cage. The distinct crack of bone echoed with chilling resonance in the bare room.
Existence fell into a torturous eternity of pain, choked breath, spinning lights that flared before his eyes, the dull ache of his jaw from clenching it so hard, and the random, muttered curse of his tormentors. He was sweating heavily, his wrists were slipping in the manacles, he could feel blood from the stripped skin trickling down his arm and over his bruised sides. He could hardly stand now. His one leg felt broken, right behind the knee where the majority of the blows seemed to be aimed. His other leg was strained and trembling and he felt certain that it was one blow nearer to being fractured. His fists clenched, then fell apart as the next spasm of pain racked his body, then clenched again in sync with his strained lungs gasping for air. The bones on his fingers were scraping painfully against the thick iron cuffs, and the constant trickle of blood from his wrists that flowed in a slow, lazy torrent down his sweated and bruised sides somehow annoyed him more than anything. Another smashing blow from the rod to the back of his leg, and Barton's mind flickered out of reality.
He would rather that it stayed that way. The blissfulness of oblivion during a torture session was something that Clint had felt was always underrated. Perhaps because he had experienced it so rarely. His body was too resilient, too stubborn. The pain that was racking his body now was not enough to force himself into a full acknowledgment of it. If only it would.
The thought had only just left his mind, when a tremor of agony rushed up Clint's spine, along with the vivid echo of cracking bone. The next moment, he heard voices—one voice, actually—the Colonel's. Never had that cold tone of precision sounded so sweet, never had he imagined rejoicing in that tenor or longing for its accompanying presence. To Barton's wild and desperate mind, to the world of pain and torment and tears that he was encased in, he heard the single word, "Enough," and his head slumped forward in relief and gratefulness as his body slipped into darkness and silence.
He awoke. At least, he felt that he was awake. There was a numb distractedness to his mind and his body that seemed to be correlating with the pulsating surges throbbing through his limbs, most noticeably his left arm. His heart was racing dangerously fast. There were voices in the background, murmured voices, somehow soothing in the chaotic midst of the throbbing and the heart racing and the agony still encasing his body. He tried to push against the material at his back and found that he couldn't—his wrists were held in place by some kind of Velcro strap.
The Colonel was there. Barton knew that for a certain. Somehow, the man's voice penetrated the mass of murmurs and sunk low and assuring in his brain. But it wasn't his brain. The thought came to him in one moment and he felt a surge of panic the next. Someone else was there, twisting and grasping and making his lips form incoherent sounds and forcing his will to turn to certain, unsacred aspirations. Loki. It was there again, in all its intensity and in all its horrid familiarness. Loki. His voice, his face, his presence, the way he would place his cold hand on Barton's shoulder. It was all coming back in a rush, more vivid and more intense than it ever had been. And then—in the midst of all that rushing and all that horror and all that hate and rage reverberating from simple man of the bow to dark soul of a demi-god, Barton heard a voice:
"Hold on, Barton. Hold on."
It was Loki's voice. Nothing could ever make him forget that timbre. Not the cold, cunning, menacing timbre that was dripping with command and control and layered with imbued hate, low with buried regret. It was the low, the gentle, the perfectly enunciated that Barton heard now. It was urgent, but not fearful, commanding, yet not controlling, knowing, yet hardly invasive. He sat quietly, allowing the voice to swarm over his seared senses, allowing it to soothe his racing heart, his tormented body, his pounding brain. The sound of the Colonel's precise footsteps shattered the brief interlude of calm, and the Colonel's voice, low, commanding, urgent, and fearful, stepped into the space where Loki's had been.
"He is not quite ready to come back to us."
There was the feeling of a cold, thin stream of liquid into the veins at his neck. The hazy world of shadows and motions faded away almost at once, and Barton slumped forward once more into unconsciousness.
Stark had said several times that Loki had full reign of the tower. But somehow the thought of freely and mindlessly roaming over this giant spire of concrete and glass and marble and pristine white light was intimidating to the divine guest of honor. Especially since Loki was used to the rich, warm colors of Asgard, and most recently, the dark, rather confined spaces of his cell.
Still, that didn't preclude his innate curiosity and desire for adventure, and after partaking of the muffins and fruit parfait cup that was delivered to his room in the still waning hours of morning, Loki decided to wander the halls of Stark Tower a bit and see what he could see. If he wished to be perfectly honest with himself—which was quite rare—he was feeling rather useless. Here he was, sitting in his nice, private room, eating berries and pecan honey granola over yogurt while Captain America and the rest of the group were preparing to rescue the man whose inner thoughts he had once been privy to. It felt—wrong somehow. Not just the fact that he wasn't actively doing anything. For the first time, he felt a slight twinge of guilt for what he had done to Barton.
He finished his breakfast and started down the hall at a quiet, cautious pace. The enormity and strangeness of Stark Tower set him on edge. There was simply no telling when or where the next hall or staircase or person might appear, and he worried that he might not be able to find his way back, and then he would be reduced to "hollering" for Jarvis. Loki paused as he stepped from a short flight of steps and found himself in a semi-rotunda with a curved set of French windows.
Natasha Romanoff was there, seated at a thin-backed chair beside the window, bent over a large sheet of paper lying across the hard marble table. She did not glance up when she spoke.
"There's not many people who can sneak up on me."
Loki swallowed back a grimace at his words of only a few months ago being hurled at him. Had it only been a few months? He started down the steps, his figure slipping into that quiet, elegant being of command and divinity. If she wanted to play this game, who was he to deny her?
"But you've figured I'd come."
She glanced up at last, her stale blue eyes unflattered and rather bored.
"I considered it. I certainly wasn't waiting around for you."
He did not reply but strode across the floor and paused at a decent distance from her. They were still in the verbal sparring ring.
"Then what were you waiting for?"
"I was drawing," she shot back.
"I was not aware that drawing was such a high alert activity."
"You would know."
"Perhaps I would."
She stood suddenly from the chair. "Then perhaps you would like to give it a try," she suggested rather acidly.
He did. With a charming smile tossed over his shoulder, he accepted the offered chair, took up the stub of charcoal with all the elegance of an artist preparing to finish his masterpiece, and bent over the paper. His shoulder-length black hair hid his work from view of the woman standing behind him.
He stood back up a mere five minutes later, brushed off the paper, and handed it to his silent companion.
"No time for forced perspective or shading, I'm afraid," he apologized. "I think it should do, though."
She attempted to hide her wonder as she took the paper, but it was hard. Loki was an artist. Despite his remark, there was certainly a feeling of inner depth to the picture. The location of farmhouse, shed, tree, hill, road, fence, and outer woodlands: all were in perfect place. And he had even included the stop sign at the end of the long road leading to the farmhouse that Natasha regularly missed when she drove the long miles up to see her friend. The latter bent closer to read the fine print near the sign: "Right here, Nat."
She cast a glance of semi-irritation at the demi-god.
"You needn't have rubbed it in."
"Oh, so you could use another traffic citation? I'm sorry, I didn't know—"
"Loki in all seriousness, how did you do this?" Natasha pressed, her tone morphing into true wonder and question as she seated herself opposite her companion. "You have visions you say. Are they this detailed?"
"How else would I have been able to do this?" Loki scoffed, gesturing to the paper.
Natasha didn't answer, and Loki glanced at her, knowing the condemning silence for what it was meant to imply.
"No. He told me everything else, but never anything about a family. I don't know how he managed it, but I knew nothing about a family or wife or homestead until last night's vision."
"Because he knew that you would use it against him," she suggested icily.
Loki shrugged. "Perhaps." He changed the subject rather swiftly. "Captain Rogers said that you would know the most when it came to his contacts and acquaintances."
"I suppose."
"So—this—person. Military of some sort, tall, blonde hair, fine voice."
"I wouldn't know. He wasn't taken by anyone he knew, Loki."
"Yet somehow—"
He paused, and Natasha glanced at him, open curiosity replacing the distant chill that was there before. "Somehow?" She prodded.
"Somehow—he knows him. Or he has gotten to know him. I do not know how to explain it."
"Loki, are you jealous because this—person—whoever he is—is mind-controlling your pet now?"
Loki startled at the brutal accusation, said with just a hint of bitter reminder to it.
"What—no! What are talking about? He hasn't—"
He stopped. He stood there, gazing down at the floor, seeing his form reflected hazily from the marble. Something quickened in his chest, and he felt the blood at the tips of his fingers tingle.
"He is." The words were almost whispered. "He has, or he will. Agent Romanoff, this person, whoever he is—has already or is planning to capture Barton's mind."
If Natasha replied, Loki didn't hear it. One moment, he was standing there, the sudden realization of Barton's predicament dawning upon him in all its true, familiar horror. The next moment, a wave of darkness and pain hit him, and he fell heavily to his knees.
It was a vision, and then it wasn't. It was unlike any of the other visions he had had. It was darkness, total darkness, darkness that he could feel and taste and hear. And then, something else swallowed the darkness, and it was still dark, still paralyzing in its intensity, but it was different. So different, that Loki cried aloud, smothered under a held breath of fear, but still aloud. It was pain.
The pain started in his chest, constricting in regular, pulsating intervals so that it was forcing his heart to throb at an unnatural rate. Then, it began rushing, racing down his legs, pushing out at the ends of his fingertips, straining at his mind, voices and darkness and pain filling his inner vision. He was vaguely aware of a wet sensation running down the back of his neck and he realized that he was sweating. It trickled down over his shoulder and his arms, filtering into his clenched fists. He heard himself gasp again, and then, suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and knew that Natasha was standing behind him.
Through the haze of pain and darkness, he heard her voice, and suddenly he found himself channeling it through his mind to speak to the being on the other side of unseen space: "Hold on, Barton. Hold on."
He was saying her words, but he truly meant them. They were doing unspeakable things to a man whose mind he had once been a part of, and that knowledge made him suddenly defensive in a protective way. When he had first chosen Barton, it had been out of anger. The archer had been among those shooting at him when first he arrived on earth: defying his very presence, his authority, his divinity. He had approached the man, meaning to subjugate him out of sheer revenge, and then he had looked into his eyes and saw at once that there was something deeper. Only when that link had been abruptly shattered by Natasha did he realize how very deep and true their paths ran.
He was calling out to Barton now because he wanted to save his life. Barton was nearly a brother to him, although the latter would never be caught dead breathing such a suggestion. Barton meant more to him than almost anyone—except Thor. Barton was his human other, the way he saw himself expressed in earthly, fragile, undivine form. Barton had suffered what he suffered, and he had lost what he lost, and he was striving for what Loki had nearly given up striving for: a return to home and family and love. Unspeakable pain that could only be expressed through those words: "Hold on, Barton. Hold on."
The room slowly faded back into focus, and Loki found himself seated on a chair. He did not know how he had gotten there. He glanced up to see Natasha gazing down at him and he mentally thanked her that there was no physical semblance of patronizing pity on her face, although he knew that her woman's heart was throbbing with it inside. He pushed himself to his feet, slightly unstable after the rush of darkness and pain.
"Come. We cannot wait until noon. They have his mind already—and it is just a matter of time before they conquer it."
She nodded him forward. "Couldn't have said it better. After you."
"Take the drawings."
"Yours, obviously."
"Is this jealously, Agent Romanoff?" There was a hint of playful satire in his tones.
She snorted, her level of sarcasm far surpassing him. "Jealously is for children. Now get going."
He did, lips turning up in his first true smile in nearly a month.