Chapter Text
"and my hands, they are not clean,
maybe they never will be,
but they can still carry you home,
when you are ready to sleep"
-unknown
“You shouldn’t have told him.”
“So I was supposed to let him walk around thinking he killed his fiancée?”
“I didn’t know that he thought he killed Dr. Foster,” Loki snaps, giving Clint a scathing look. “And she’s been here. She was here, he just wasn’t awake for it. She had to take care of Selvig’s funeral arrangements. She’s coming back here tomorrow. Everything would have been fine.”
“Right, but he didn’t know that. So again: I was supposed to let him walk around thinking he killed his fiancée?” Clint asks from the couch. Watching Loki pace back and forth across the length of the room is like watching a pendulum swing back and forth. Relentless. The carpet might as well be Loki’s mortal enemy for all the effort he’s putting into murdering it.
“ No,” Loki says through gritted teeth.
“So you admit that you think we may have handled this poorly?” Clint asks. Loki’s eyes flash, but he doesn’t say anything, which is pretty much a yes.
Thinking about Thor’s face yesterday, pale and wanting, is Jane okay? will haunt Clint for a while. Thor looked so lost. It’s been two weeks since they found him. Weeks of Thor haunting the Tower like the world's most lethargic ghost. He’s barely spoken, hardly eats, and has spent most of his time sleeping.
But Clint had thought--had assumed-- that Thor talked to someone. Asked someone the usual post-coma questionnaire. But he didn’t talk to anyone. Loki said that they shouldn’t bring up the disaster fire that is Odin and Frigga and initially, Clint agreed. The heavy, all-consuming depression that Thor has been wrestling through made it pretty clear that he needed some time to sort things out before they started handing him more horrible things to think about.
But he didn’t realize that Thor didn’t know anything. That he wasn't talking to anyone.
And yeah, Clint didn’t really think before he started explaining, the urge to get it out more an impulse than anything else, but watching Thor’s expression go from apathy to despair to fury was almost a relief. Anger was emotion.
He just…didn’t realize Thor would dump most of his fury onto his brother. Which was stupid, in retrospect. It’s Thor and Loki. They argue. Constantly. Clint remembers thinking, back before this whole mess started, when the two brothers got into another spat about what happened at the Bifrost and who threw who off of it, that it was worse when they weren’t fighting because they weren’t talking . That still holds.
Loki’s shoulders slump and he releases a long breath. He goes back and forth across the common room again before he says, “He should have let me come.”
Clint raises an eyebrow. “Do you actually want to be there?”
“No,” Loki admits, which surprises Clint. He sort of expected to have to pull teeth before Loki would say that. “I don’t want to talk to my parents. Thor shouldn’t either. They’ll take advantage of his vulnerable state and drag him back to Asgard. It will be years before we can be in contact again. Odin isn’t frightened easily, but for this--he is. He's losing the war, that much is obvious. In my experience, Odin has never been unwilling to put Thor on the front lines.”
Can anyone’s father in this team not run for World’s Crappiest Dad?
“And you’re worried that the team won’t stop Thor if he decides to go?” Clint asks, actually sitting up a little at that. The idea of Odin and Frigga sweeping in and taking Thor back to Asgard with them hadn’t really occurred to Clint when he agreed to set up the meeting for Thor, but now his stomach is tight with dread. Most of the team disagreed with this plan. Thor needed to see them. That had kind of trumped everything for Clint. He hadn’t seen Thor look that alive since before he went missing.
“Oh, I know they won’t,” Loki says, digging his thumbnail into his palm. He already looked wrecked when they started talking, but now he looks on the edge of hysterical. “They won’t let Odin and Frigga hurt him here, but what about when they return to Asgard? My father’s relief at Thor’s return will only last for so long. What then?”
Clint slowly sits up. “What exactly are you expecting to happen?” He asks cautiously.
This entire idea is beginning to feel worse and worse.
Loki shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge a memory. “I don’t know. Thor is…unwell. Odin and Frigga will exacerbate that. He doesn’t need that. I know that…Thor needs help. What they’ll give him will be far from that.”
Clint considers him for a moment. The dread is like a physical object now, sitting in his stomach. “You guys had a messed up childhood, you know that?”
Loki lets out a derisive laugh. “To put it mildly. Thor has yet to see that. He insists that they did their best even if it fell short in many areas. We have been arguing about this for months.” Loki sighs. “Thor knows I’m the only person who could talk him out of going back. Me and perhaps Dr. Foster. That’s why he doesn’t want me there.”
“She’s on the other side of the country, so maybe we should just throw personal boundaries out the window and you go down there and convince Thor not to leave,” Clint says. He drops his head into his hands, frustrated. “I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. After everything they did…I don’t know. Thor just really wanted to see them.”
“Thor has a way of getting what he wants,” Loki says mildly. “It was going to happen eventually.”
“Yeah, but…” Clint rubs his hands down his face, breathing out heavily. It didn’t have to be now . Not when Thor is a mess mentally and unable to yell back if it comes to that. Odin tried to hit Loki. More than once. There’s no telling what he’ll do to Thor, and Thor is…fragile.
This was a horrible decision.
He forces himself to look up. “Why haven’t you talked to him?”
Loki freezes mid-step. The hesitation is slight but significant. “What?”
“You haven’t talked to him. Once. Not since Christmas and even then. Why? I know that you’ve been stalking him when he’s asleep. You didn’t move from the hospital room. You sat outside the door for a week with Steve. You check on him all the time. But you aren’t talking to him.”
Loki wrings his hands. He’s quiet. Pacing back and forth. Clint waits. The sorcerer is alarmingly good at latching onto conversation changers, and Clint has learned that if he doesn’t say anything, he’s more likely to get an answer.
Loki stops moving, taking in a breath and sitting on the couch next to Clint. Their knees bump a little, but neither one of them moves away. “I didn’t think he’d want to see me,” Loki admits. He’s not looking at Clint, like the floor is easier to deliver this confession to. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t made the deal with the Chitauri. If I hadn’t planted my memories in your heads for a trial that never happened. This was my fault. I thought Thor blamed me for that.”
Clint rubs a hand along his ear, playing with the edge of his hearing aid as he thinks. “I think you might be selling Thor a little short. You stabbed him during the Battle of New York and he still broke you out of prison.”
Loki shakes his head. “It’s not that. Thor and I have discussed that. I’ve seen the scar. The scepter…it can change memories. Alter your reality. They did that to Thor. He was forced to kill people because of me.”
Clint nods. “And that sucks, but it’s not your fault. Thor knows that. And you know Thor knows that, so don’t tell me a half-truth and answer me honestly.”
Loki fidgets. Clint stares him down harder. Loki relents with a sharp breath, “In the invasion, my captors assured me that I would long for something sweet as pain if I failed. And I do. I do long for it. They broke my brother. I barely recognize him anymore. Every time I see him, it’s all I can think about. I can’t help him. Not like this. I can’t even help myself.”
He had the most gentle soul, Thor said of Loki when Clint had asked what happened a couple of weeks after Thor brought Loki back from Asgard, I don’t know what happened to him, but I suspect it wasn’t pleasant.
The Chitauri break people. Snap and distort them until even their own family members barely recongize them. And they did that to Thor in ten days.
Clint inhales slowly. He doesn’t know what to say. Part of him is tempted to make a joke, but it feels wildly inappropriate. “Loki,” he starts carefully, “I think maybe that--”
And then everything goes to hell.
“Mr. Barton, Mr. Loki--” Jarvis interrupts, his voice sharp, “a threat has entered the premises--”
The air in front of them ripples like a knife is being sliced down the middle of it, and Frigga stumbles through with Odin’s bleeding body, landing in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor. For a long second, Clint and Loki just look at them, then each other, like neither one of them remembers how sight works.
Frigga is crying, her clothing bloodstained and her hands streaked with red. Odin is pliant and still.
Clint swears and looks around for a threat. “What happened? Did someone stab him?” That is definitely a stab wound. It’s big and bleeding profusely. The size of the blade must be inches thick. Not a dagger. Maybe a sword?
“What the heck is going on?” Clint exclaims, on his feet, moving toward the bloody couple. Loki is already there.
“A woman has entered the premises, she is unfamiliar to me. She used magic and then stabbed Odin. Sir and the Avengers are injured, but it’s minor and they’re on their way downstairs. Mr. Odinson is with them.” Jarvis explains.
“Where is the woman?” Clint asks. He moves toward the kitchen.
Loki is kneeling next to Frigga, hands pushing against the stab wound to help apply pressure to the bleeding. He looks sick. Frigga is trying to use magic, but her concentration is shot and she can only keep crying.
“Currently fighting with the Asgardian escort. They’re losing.” Jarvis answers. He doesn’t sound any calmer.
Clint leans down to grab the gun holstered under the table. He can’t remember ever consciously choosing to stash weapons in the Tower, but he and Nat are kind of beyond conscious thought about things like that now.
Loki and Frigga are talking in rapid, hissed Asgardian to each other behind him. Frigga sounds angry. Loki doesn’t. Clint moves back to them, checking the magazine. It’s fully loaded, so he has about nine shots. Not that he’s sure how much good it will do him. Loki generated forcefields against the bullets when S.H.I.E.L.D. agents shot at him in PEGASUS.
“Mr. Barton, the woman has teleported from the landing pad,” Jarvis warns. “She seemed quite intent on making sure Mr. Odin was dead.”
Clint backs up toward the Asgardians. “Lock down the Tower!”
“Sir said that would be useless against a sorcerer,” Jarvis says. Clint swears again. Freaking Tony with his freaking logic. “Other means of defense are proving to be inadequate. Sir has not developed anything that can pierce magical shields yet.”
“You know where she is?” Clint asks, carefully turning to look over the entire room. They’re too exposed. If the woman comes in with long-range weapons, they need some type of defense. A table, or a couch. If they could move Odin…
Loki has traded places with Frigga. Now she’s applying pressure and Loki is just sitting there, looking a little dazed. Frigga is shouting at him. Clint picks up enough to know that she’s repeating “father” and “you” a lot.
“Currently on her way upstairs,” Jarvis says. “I estimate you have one minute before she reaches this room.”
“And where is the rest of the team!?” He adjusts his grip on the gun.
“Three minutes out,” Jarvis says. There’s a moment before, “I’ll tell Sir to be faster.”
“Yeah, you do that!” Clint shouts.
He can hear it now. The Tower’s internal defenses going off and the sounds of destruction down the hall. He breathes in slowly, forcing his heart to calm and the adrenaline rush to slow. He’s done this hundreds of times before. It’s just another fight. Clint knows how to fight.
“Clint,” Loki says behind him, nervous.
“I got this. Focus on him.” Clint snaps, not looking back.
“It’s magic.”
“Yeah. Got that.” Clint promises tightly. “Heard the same thing you did, mon ami.” Plaster explodes down the hall and Clint raises the gun. A woman steps into view, covered in dust. Her dark skin is lined with silver designs, like thin tattoos. It reminds Clint a little of Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars . Her short blonde hair is so pale it might as well be white and her dark purple eyes are almost consuming.
She’s holding a sword.
Because of course she is.
Clint hates his life.
He’s fired off two rounds before she’s even taken two steps into the hall, but they hit some sort of invisible wall. Clint shoves the gun into his waistband and draws his knife, taking a running start toward her. Swords are a horrible decision for close combat, intended for both participants to be fighting several feet apart. If he can just get past the initial defense, his knife will have the advantage.
Probably.
He hates swords.
“Wait, Clint--!” Loki shouts behind him. Clint doesn’t really hear him. He’s already reached the hall and, skirting around the woman’s initial sword swing, he manages to close enough to her that they could kiss. The woman’s breath is cold against his face. Clint grabs her sword arm, wrestling for control as both of them fight. He ends up wrenching her elbow out of socket before she releases the sword with a cry of pain and it clatters loudly against the floor behind them.
Three minutes. He just has to make it three minutes.
He lasts one.
Even with only one arm, the woman is fast. Inhuman fast. Clint spends more time trying not to get beaten half to death than he does making any offensive moves. The knife gets twisted out of his grip and lands somewhere next to the sword.
Eventually, the woman grabs him by the throat and slams him up against the wall. Clint gasps, wrestling against her forearm, trying to kick his legs out widely and hit her. He manages to graze her ribs, but he’s only wearing socks, so it’s not as effective as his steel-toed combat boots would have been.
“Why are you defending him?” the woman asks, disgusted.
Clint can’t answer. He’s too busy trying to force air down his closing throat. Her ears are pointed and big. That’s so weird. It looks like a Lord of the Rings set piece. She’s an elf. Clint is going to be strangled by an elf. This is--oh crap.
The world is starting to go gray and white. Black spots turning into black spot. The woman says something else, but Clint’s hearing is shot.
There’s a ripple in the air and Clint is blasted out of the woman’s grip. He goes skidding across broken plaster and rolls to a stop. The woman lands somewhere in front of him. Clint coughs harshly, dragging in wheezing breaths.
Air is good.
Oh, air is so good.
“Clint?” Loki is suddenly there. Leaning over him. He grabs Clint’s arm and hauls him upright, staring into Clint’s face with an intensity that’s almost painful to look at. Clint blinks rapidly, trying to pull himself together. “Are you alright?”
Clint hears the woman moving and just points silently, unable to talk. His throat feels swollen.
Loki turns and drops Clint’s arm, raising them up in surrender, hands appraised. “Sigyn!” Loki shouts, “Sigyn-- stop!”
He knows her?
The woman, Sigyn, freezes immediately. She had been starting to get up, unfettered, terrifying power gathering around her uninjured hand. Grief collapses her features, making her look decades younger. Her hand falls slowly, the spazzing pressure of her power dissipating makes Clint’s head hurt. Loki and Sigyn stare at each other.
“Loki?” her voice is breathless and small, a gnawing sort of hope inside that reminds Clint of death.
Loki starts to get up, slow and careful, and edges closer. Clint scrabbles to grab at him, to stop him from moving. Sigyn stabbed Odin, and plowed over the Asgardian defenses and their team. Loki won't walk away from that fight unscathed.
“Sigyn,” Loki’s voice is calmer. “Stop.”
“You’re alive ?” Sigyn whispers. She just stares up at him, breathing in short, small breaths. Like she’s trying not to panic or cry. Maybe both. “Odin said…I thought… Loki?”
Loki kneels down next to her, his voice soothing, “I’m alive. I’m alive, I promise. That’s all over now. It's okay. It's okay.”
Sigyn moves. Clint twitches, but instead of stabbing Loki, or any sort of violence, she wraps her arms around him in desperation. Clutching him, like the universe will fall apart if she doesn’t. She begins to sob. The tension bleeds out of Loki’s shoulders and he wraps his arms around her in return.
Neither of them speaks. Sigyn just cries and Loki holds her close.
Clint is still sitting there, trying to take this in, when the Avengers burst through the elevator’s doors, weapons raised, looking prepared to start fighting to the death itself. All four of them freeze at the sight in front of them. Natasha looks at Clint, who shrugs.
Tony flips up his face plate. “Did...did we miss something?”
Sigyn is still crying. Loki, still holding her, looks toward the team and his eyes find Thor’s. Something passes between that gaze, some sort of internal conversation. Thor lowers Mjolnir, looking relieved.
“No. Loki’s go-to battle strategy is apparently the very effective hug.” Clint says, voice raspy. Then, with a groan, “My head hurts. Someone help me off the floor.”
Steve grabs his outstretched hand.
000o000
Odin, pale and moving stiffly, but unfortunately healed enough to be alive, sits across from Sigyn. Frigga sits beside the old king, the entire Asgardian entourage behind them. Loki is standing beside the Alfheim queen-- queen, which just, okay, sure-- with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Clint can tell it’s there for support as much as it is to stop Sigyn from leaping across the table and finishing the job.
Thor stands at the head of the table, on the outskirts of his family.
And Clint, beside Natasha and the rest of the team, is watching all of this like it’s a bomb about to go off. The common room feels tiny.
“Explain yourself,” Odin says at last, his voice heavy. “Perhaps we can come to an arrangement. One that doesn’t include your execution for attempting to murder your king.”
Sigyn scoffs. “You’re not my king.”
“Alfheim is still under the protection of Asgard, is it not?” Odin counters sharply. “Or would you prefer to stand alone with the threats of the cosmos?”
Sigyn lifts her chin, opening her mouth to respond with something probably scathing, but Loki squeezes her shoulder pointedly. Sigyn deflates some. “We have done fine the last year. No thanks to you.”
Odin bristles, resting a hand flat on the table, like it’s all he can do not to shake her with it. “ You attacked Asgard. We did nothing and you dragged the entire Nine into--”
“ You murdered Loki! You didn’t even give him a trial--”
“All of which has an explanation. As you can see, Loki is clearly fine--”
“ Oh!” the dry, humorless sarcasm packed into the syllable borders on hysteria, “ My mistake. You just declined to share that with us--”
“Do you not think that I had my reasons? I have been ruling Asgard for longer than you’ve been alive and I always have a reason for doing everything--”
“ Enough !” Thor exclaims sharply. Both monarchs look up at him, their gazes so severe and furious that it makes Thor withdraw a fraction. Clint edges closer. A civil discussion isn’t on the table. It’s not even in a rickety old trailer being dragged behind them. It’s in another universe. Part of Clint is tempted to just throw diplomacy out the window and let Sigyn and Odin fight it out. Survival of the fittest. He’s pretty sure Sigyn would kill Odin, and he’s okay with that.
Thor takes in a deep breath and rests both his hands on the end of the table. His expression, when Clint catches a glimpse of it, is done. Not resigned, not angry, just done. “Both of you are acting like children. Father, she’s right. You had no right to hide any of this. If you weren't so blinded by your pride, you would be able to see that.”
“Thor,” Frigga rebukes sharply.
“You would dare say such a thing about me, boy ?” Odin snarls, getting up to uneasy feet. He looks like he’s going to fall over. Or pass out. Thor still flinches, his body drawing up to attention. His eyes are filled with dread.
Loki forgoes holding Sigyn back in favor of pratically teleporting to Thor’s side, half a step in front of him, putting himself neatly between Odin and Thor. Clint watches this, feeling nervous. And angry. So freaking angry. What do Loki and Thor expect to happen?
“I have kept these realms safe for centuries. Despite what you and your brother believe, I know what I’m doing. ” Odin snarls. “I did what was best for both of you. For all of us. The Titan nearly decimated us the last time he was in the Nine, without Hel--without the hell we brought him, he would have killed us. You don’t remember that. I do.”
“Torturing me was in the best interests of everyone?” Loki asks, his voice low. “Please, try to justify that to me.”
Odin glowers.
“Torture?” Sigyn repeats, looking between the two of them. “What torture?”
Frigga closes her eyes with resignation.
Odin looks like he’s about reached the end of his rope. He points furiously at Loki. “ He made a deal with Thanos that left all of the Nine in shambles. In exchange for Midgard, Loki was going to return three Infinity Stones to him. The very thing that we’ve spent his entire lifetime trying to keep out of the madman’s hands.”
Sigyn’s face drains of color.
“When Loki failed and was returned to Asgard, a messenger from Thanos arrived and said that they would take Loki from me or Thanos would wage open war on the Nine. I did what I had to. I said that we would punish him so severely Thanos wouldn’t feel the need to take him from us. I knew that if Thanos took him, we would never see him again. So I said I executed him, with the intention of sending Loki into hiding, but Thanos saw through the ruse. Then I had to torture my son so he would stay on Asgard, because I wanted to keep him there . Do you think that I took joy in this? Having to harm my own child?”
Sigyn looks like she might throw up.
Thor though -- Thor laughs. “Like that was the first time? Or even the hundredth? You sit here and tell me about all these sacrifices you’ve had to make as if it actually hurt you, or that it wasn’t something you wouldn’t have done anyway. Thanos didn’t force you to do anything. You chose that.”
Odin growls, opening his mouth to shout, and both Thor and Loki look like they’re bracing themselves for evisceration. Frigga beats him to the punch. “How can you say that? Do you honestly think that any harm done to a child doesn’t hurt the parent? Every day that Loki suffered, we suffered.”
Clint can feel his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.
She’s joking. Oh, g-- really? How is this about her?
“And what about my suffering?” Thor asks. “What about every day that I missed my best friend? What about the grief I felt? I am part of this family, too. And you didn’t tell me anything. I thought that you killed my brother. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me!? I have grieved my brother twice and evidently whatever ‘child suffering’ you feel only applies to Loki.”
Frigga’s eyes narrow. “That’s not true. You weren’t upset. We were going to tell you when the time was right.”
Loki rolls his eyes, muttering, “Gods, you and Father’s obsession with timing.”
“Loki, that’s not fair--”
“I was going to kill myself. The day that Sif and the Warriors told me what was going on. I had it planned. I wrote you a note. I had a method. But yes. I wasn’t upset. Not at all that you had murdered my lifelong companion and it was my fault because I was the one who brought him back to Asgard.”
Frigga and Odin visibly withdraw, sharing a long, unreadable look.
They didn’t know.
Thor has talked about this at length with the team. With Loki. He didn’t say anything to his parents. Which makes sense, doesn’t it? Thor broke Loki out of prison that day. And though there was a brief physical altercation when they tried to stop him and Thor broke Odin’s nose, that was the extent of them talking until now.
But Odin and Frigga look surprised. As if the idea that Thor was suffering to that extent hadn’t even crossed their minds as a possibility. Neither one of them says anything, they just stare, like they’re waiting for the empty space to fill itself up.
Thor looks away in disgust.
“You made a deal with Thanos?” Sigyn’s voice is faint. Clint had kind of forgotten she was there at all. When he looks at her, the woman seems…pale is an understatement. Gray, maybe. Pasty? She looks bad.
“Were you listening? Is that all that you managed to garner from that?” Odin sounds annoyed.
“You made a deal with Thanos?” Sigyn’s voice is sharper. She looks up at Odin’s face, and for the first time since she arrived here, Sigyn isn’t scowling as she does so. Odin inclines his head, still irritated, but Frigga’s head is tilted, her brows furrowed. “I made a deal with Thanos.” Sigyn says.
Thor visibly stiffens.
Loki looks at the Alfheim queen sharply. His face is empty, but Clint doesn’t think he’s breathing. Steve reaches out and rests a hand on the Asgardian’s shoulder as Clint squeezes Thor’s wrist. Both brothers don’t react to the touch. Thor’s skin is cold.
“You what?” Odin snarls. “You stupid child-- what have we instilled into everyone since the Titan’s defeat? How could you be so foolish as to reach out to him?”
“I didn’t. He approached me , after Loki’s death.” Sigyn says, in a tone that suggests she thinks Odin’s an idiot. Her next words are careful, almost as if she’s scared. “He said that he would tell me what happend to Loki and help me get revenge for his unjust death. In return for his assistance, when I overtook Asgard, I was to give him unfettered access to the Nine to search for some family heirlooms he’d lost.”
“The Infinty Stones,” Frigga whispers.
“You took this deal?” Odin sounds disgusted.
“ You took his?” Sigyn counters, that anger seeping back into her voice.
Odin presses a hand to his forehead, the first signs of actual distress that Clint has ever seen from him. He swears darkly in Asgardian, and Clint twitches a little at it. This is, he realizes, the first time that he’s heard Odin swear. For all that Frigga seemed willing to drop every cuss under the sun, Odin hasn’t. That surprises Clint.
“Gods,” Odin mutters, “he was playing us.”
Sigyn deflates.
“Wait, this is the guy whose in charge of the Chitauri, right?” Tony asks, somewhere behind Clint. He’s been uncharastically silent this entire conversation, but he, like Clint, probably doesn’t even know what to say. This is a level of political mess that Clint has no experience with. These are kings and princes arguing about a war and a level of family dysfunction that would need an elite team of therapists to even scratch the surface of.
“Yes,” Loki says, his voice faint. It sounds a little strangled. His words are slow, like he’s trying to find the right one. But there aren’t any. “Thanos used me to start a civil war? He used me to tear apart the Nine without ever having to lift a finger?”
His breathing is starting to pick up. Steve squeezes Loki’s arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“ How? How was this not my fault? People have died, Steve!” Loki exclaims. “People died and it was my fault. If I had never agreed to attack Midgard, then none of this would have happened. I don’t even… I don’t even know why I was helping him. I loved him. I loved him and he destroyed my country and my family and--”
“You were there.” Thor interrupts. He seems far away. The distant absence that Clint remembers of these long weeks is back, settling over Thor’s emotions like a suffocating blanket. Loki is exploding but Thor is imploding, both of them completely unaware of the other.
For a moment, Clint thinks that Thor is talking to Loki , but he’s staring at Sigyn.
“You were there. When the Chitauri captured me. You were there.” Thor’s voice is gaining strength, but there’s no anger, only fear. “You could have helped me. You let them do that to me, you brought me to them--Sigyn, what did you do?”
Sigyn is standing. Clint doesn't remember her getting up. Loki is looking at her now, still breathing heavy, clutching at Steve’s arm like it’s the only thing holding him up. The Alfheim queen doesn’t speak for a long moment, looking between them. The Asgardians, the Avengers. Then her eyes land on Thor and the guilt in them is almost painful to look at.
“Thanos said that we needed to force Odin’s hand. Draw him out of Asgard. You…you were bait. The Chitauri were supposed to rough you up and I would exchange you for Odin’s surrender. You had remained neutral in all of this, but you were still Odin's only child. Thanos…I didn’t know that he…had a secondary agenda.”
For a moment, everything is quiet. Thor sucks in a ragged breath. “A ‘secondary agenda’? I murdered people!” Thor shouts. “I tried to kill Loki. You gave me to them!”
“I didn’t know--” Sigyn tries to defend.
“ I don’t care!” Thor shouts. “ I’m the one who has to live with it, not you! They broke me open and scraped out everything that mattered. And you knew and did nothing. I have always considered you a friend. I trusted you. You knew they would hurt me and you didn’t care .”
Loki’s expression is darkening.
Clint’s hand is knuckle-white against Thor’s wrist. Thor is breathing heavy, and he looks dangerously close to passing out. His weight is leaning on his good leg, skin chalk white. “All of you see me as an extension of Loki. I am a person. Not-not some means you can use to manipulate--you should…why didn’t…oh gods.” Thor starts to fall and Clint grabs him, holding him up. He tries to lower Thor to his knees, but Thor fights that, seeming desperate for any other position in existence. Clint grabs fistfulls of his shirt, Thor’s wild eyes meeting his for a moment.
“You’re okay,” Clint promises, his voice low. “You’re okay. I’ve gotcha. Just take a breath.”
Natasha comes up to them, her hand touching Thor’s shoulder, her other on top of Clint’s. Both of them share a look over his arm. Natasha’s eyes are wild. Clint imagines his are probably the same. He’s not processing anything. Everything is just noise tinged with oh no.
“How--how much did you…how--” Loki doesn’t seem like he can get the words out. “Did you help them take the scepter?”
Sigyn looks away. “Yes.”
“And you-you-- you masked Thor?”
Another hesitation. “Yes.”
“Did--did you know--did you help?” Loki sounds sick. Sigyn swallows thickly. Her nod is barely perceptible. Loki sucks in a breath.
“I did everything for you--I was trying to--” Sigyn doesn’t finish. Loki lurches forward, releasing Steve to punch Sigyn in the face. Violently. Something cracks, and the sound makes Clint wince. The Asgardian escort jerks, hands going to weapons like they fully expect Loki to try and behead her.
Sigyn stumbles back a step, blood leaking from a clearly broken nose. Loki’s fingers are red and one of them is bent out of shape. He doesn’t say anything. Clint doesn’t know if he can. His jaw is clenched so tightly it looks painful. Sigyn composes herself, shifting her hands until her nose snaps again as it shifts back into place.
She looks up, miserable. Thor is rigid beneath Clint’s hands. He’s watching the two of them with wide eyes.
Loki releases a breath, sounding like it takes more effort to force the next breath in than it did to punch her. “The Avengers asked me if you had anything to do with Thor’s capture a few weeks ago. I said no--that there was nothing that could make you hurt one of us.” Loki’s voice is low. Dangerous and broken.
Sigyn winces, but she draws herself up, her face smoothing. Closing. Emotionless and uncaring, like the words have no effect on her when Clint can clearly tell they’ve stung. She wraps her arms around herself in an obvious self-comforting gesture. “I would have done anything to avenge you. To punish Odin. Vengeance consumed me.” Sigyn’s tone is steady, and she casts a side-glance toward Odin.
The Asgardian king is staring at her. He’s angry, but somehow dismissive all at once.
Frigga’s face softens some. “Sigyn,” she says, soft. “You only had to speak with us. Why didn’t you request an audience? We would have told you if you asked.”
Thor makes a soft, mewled sound, like someone just shoved something hard and sharp down his throat. Clint doubts that anyone elsebut Nat hears it.
Clint feels a surge of anger and frustration on behalf of Thor wash through him. Sigyn gets the information about Loki, but Thor, who wept and mourned for his brother doesn’t? Thor had to find out second-hand. His parents wouldn’t tell him anything. Not even after watching their son collapse. But Sigyn could have?
“You just murdered your son. Why would I want to speak with either of you?” Sigyn asks, then releases a long breath. “It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.”
Thor looks like he wants to argue with that. Clint feels tempted to for the prince’s sake.
Loki takes a step back, and Steve finds his arm again. Loki doesn’t even look at the captain.
Sigyn turns to Odin, lifting up her chin. “Much as it sickens me, I would like to extend a truce. I am no puppet. Thanos may pull all he wants, but I have no intention of complying any longer. I intend to ruin him.”
“After what he has done to Loki, and now to Thor, I will happily desecrate him with you.” Odin says. His expression is sharp.
Sigyn hesitates, looking briefly toward the sorcerer. “What did he do to Loki?”
As Frigga starts to explain about the torture, Clint realizes that Sigyn was running around with only half the story. Thanos neatly wrapped this entire mess to his advantage. Based on what Clint has seen of her, there’s no way that Sigyn would have helped him if she knew that Thanos tortured Loki for over a year. That Thanos broke him. The things that Clint has seen…if Sigyn knew any of that, the civil war would have never happened. Thanos wouldn’t have gotten any closer to his goal and--
Oh.
“Oh,” Clint breathes, very soft.
The pieces fall into place. Like Clint has been staring at an optical illusion this entire time and just saw the image hiding inside.
That was the point. Odin is losing the war. They kept trying to drag Thor back to raise morale and have one of their heavy hitters back, but Thor refused to pick a side. Sigyn was advancing on Earth. It was only a matter of time before she came across Loki, and Thanos knew that. He told Sigyn to drag Thor into this, and instead of using him as a bargaining chip, Thanos used Thor to kill everyone who shared the memory tether.
Selvig. Swenson. Clint.
With Loki’s memories destroyed, and Loki having no idea what happened to begin with, Sigyn would never learn that Thanos lied to her. She’d kill Odin and Thanos would have free reign to get the Stones and whatever else his endgame was. Maybe kill Sigyn and take power. Kill more people. Who knows.
But Thanos could only do that if Sigyn never learned what Thanos’ part in this was. Thanos weighed this entire thing on Sigyn’s trust in him, which was a careful, but calculated gamble. But for that to be true, that also means that Thanos knew Loki was on Earth this entire time. And about the memory tether. Clint doesn’t want to know how he figured that out.
Loki may have been freed of the mind control two years ago, but Thanos has been using him this entire time anyway. This entire thing makes Clint’s stomach roll with nausea. Loki was the puppet, and Thor took the brunt of the punishment. All of this -- everything -- was some sort of long handed game to Thanos.
Sigyn looks toward Thor and Loki. Even with her broken, swelling nose, she looks every inch a queen in that moment. Angry. Powerful. She, Frigga, and Odin must have shared some more words, but Clint didn’t pick them up. Sigyn moves toward Loki and clasps his arm. Steve’s hand clenches, looking ready to deck her if needs be.
“I swear to you, I will make this up to you. I will kill Thanos and bring you his head. You deserve nothing less. I am sorry.”
Loki’s face is blank. “Don’t apologize to me .”
Thor has managed to get mostly upright and Sigyn meets his eyes evenly. Thor moves like he wants to take a half-step back, but stops himself. The Alfheim queen nods and reaches out, like she intends to clasp Thor's hand like she did Loki, but Thor flinches hard. Natasha catches Sigyn’s wrist before she can make contact.
The two woman look at each other, all but circling. Dangerous. Sigyn lets go first.
“I am sorry, Thor. That you had to get caught up in the middle of this. I should not…I should never have let this happen. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make this up to you.” Sigyn gets down one knee in front of him, one fist over her heart, bowing her head. “I beg your forgiveness and mercy, my king.”
Behind her, Odin visibly bristles.
Looking at the king, the blood drains from Thor’s face. He grabs Sigyn’s arm and hauls her up. “There’s no need for that. I’m not king of Asgard.”
“Not yet. But you are the rightful king of the NIne, and the only sovereign that I will recognize as such.” Sigyn doesn’t look back. The clear, pointed dismissal speaks volumes. Thor looks up at Odin nervously.
“All is well, Sigyn,” Thor says, but the words have no feeling.
Whatever. That’s fine. Thor can forgive and move on, find all that healing and crap. Clint is his friend, which means he gets to hold a grudge against her forever. He reaches out and clasps Sigyn’s hand. Her skin feels like static electricity against his own. He grits his teeth.
“If you even think about hurting Thor again, I’ll kill you.” He smiles pleasantly. His head tilts a little, as Sigyn’s piercing purple eyes stare into him. He thought it would be intimidating to have her looking at him directly. It’s not. Clint feels calm. Angry, but calm. Clint conders for a moment then adds, “Well, there will probably be a line. They don’t call us the Avengers for nothing.”
Sigyn’s eyes are serious. “Good. He needs looking after.”
Sigyn moves on. Steve grabs her arm, too, and whispers something low to her. He has that half-feral, you touch my team and I kill you look on, which means it was a threat. The Asgardians and Sigyn are clearly preparing to go like this entire thing is resolved now or nothing happened at all. Which is messed up. But fine. Clint doesn't want them here anymore. They need to look after Loki and Thor, and they can't do that the way the brothers need with the Asgardians breathing down their neck.
Odin and Frigga stop in front of Loki and Thor.
“Will you come with us, son?” Frigga asks Thor softly. She cups his cheek and Thor leans into it with longing. “We would look after you. You would be safe with us now, with the war over. Your father and I will explain what happened to your brother to the people…things will be able to return to how they used to be.”
“I am where I want to be, Mother,” Thor whispers.
Frigga looks upset, but she looks briefly toward Loki. And Steve, standing beside him, giving her a warning look. “...Alright. I will see you soon, I hope.” Frigga kisses his forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Thor says. The words sound toneless. “ Sjáumst, ha det, mother.”
Frigga turns to Loki. She doesn’t try to touch him. Her expression is closed. “For all of our struggles, I have never stopped loving you Loki, and I never will. When you are ready to come home, I will be waiting. We need to talk.” She gives him a significant look.
Loki folds his arms across his chest. “Yes, I imagine.” He doesn’t sound happy about that. The next words are forced, “Sjáumst, ha det.”
Frigga sighs. “I love you, Loki.” She says that like it somehow undoes everything. Like it’s the control Z for her actions of the last weeks. Don't worry, she loves Loki, so that fixes all the crap she’s put him through. The magic fix. Clint feels annoyed.
Odin nods toward Thor. “I will see you soon, son.” He says. He looks over at Loki. For a moment, he hesitates, and it’s almost uncanny. Odin seems to say everything with such confidence and authority. He’s not a person that hesitates. “I will return with news of Thanos’ death for you, Loki.”
Loki tilts his head. “If this is meant as an apology, it’s sorely lacking.”
Odin’s teeth grit. “Loki.”
“No,” Loki shakes his head, baring teeth. “You broke me. You have to live with that. I’m not going to say it’s fine now just so you can feel better. Kindly take your apology and shove it up your ass.”
Thor reaches out and squeezes Loki’s shoulder. It’s probably as close to an open agreement that Thor feels comfortable giving. Tony, however, snorts loudly and claps once. “Seconded. Get out of my house, all of you. No one is actively dying anymore and I don’t need you to darken my doorstep anymore. Have a horrible day, all of you. You’ve earned it.”
Odin and Frigga cast the engineer a mutually dark look. They look back at their children once before leaving, but say nothing. Sigyn leaves with the Asgardian escort. The windows rattle as the Bifrost sucks them back to Asgard.
Thor slumps heavily into the nearest chair and buries his head into his hands. Loki takes the seat next to him and rests his hand on Thor’s shoulder. The two of them exchange a few murmured words to low for Clint to make out.
“Alright, well that sucked,” Tony says. “And I for one would like to not think about how much that sucked for a minute. Movie, anyone?”
000o000
Later that day, after binging several Mission Impossible movies--which are horrible to watch with Thor, he complains the entire time about inconsistencies--Loki and Clint are sitting across each other on either end of the coffee table on the floor, surrounded by popcorn kernels and crumbs from the pizzas Tony ordered.
Clint almost thinks is kind of funny that this is where it finally happens, after everything. But he’s also completely okay with it.
He doesn’t remember who started talking first, or who stopped, only that all of them came to the same conclusion that Clint did earlier: Thanos was using Sigyn and decided to take out Loki’s memories to keep using her.
So now they’re sitting here, absolutely exhausted. Clint tries not to fidget while the sorcerer takes in deep breaths, holding Clint’s wrists. Clint is holding him back and feeling as Loki’s skin gradually warms. That must be the spell, because a rush of warmth starts trickling up Clint’s arms to his forehead. It feels like a fever.
Clint closes his eyes and feels momentarily disoriented. Natasha is sitting next to him, not touching, but close enough that he can hear her breathing. Bruce is on his other side, and Tony, Thor, and Bruce clustered around Loki.
Clint can remember doing this before. This feeling.
In a dark, damp underground, with the overhead lights flickering. The scepter sat a few feet from them. Loki rarely touched it unless he had to. At the time, Clint had thought that was strange, but he didn’t ask. Loki had taken his hands, his skin feeling thin. “ You won’t even know that they’re there,” Loki had promised. “It will only be for a few weeks.”
Clint then hadn’t cared. He would have held the memories forever if that would help Loki.
Clint now would do the same. But not for the same reasons. Clint would do it because he wants to help Loki because Loki is his friend. Their connection is genuine, not scraped together from the scepter and forced upon them. And it’s because of that, Clint knows that he doesn’t have to hold the memories anymore. Loki doesn’t want him to suffer any more than Clint wants the same for him.
Clint forces himself to relax and feels a lingering presence in the back of his mind. It feels like a tension headache, but he’s acutely aware that there’s something else there. At first, the sensation is sort of like being poked at, annoying but endurable. Then the headache starts to get worse.
And worse.
And worse.
Loki’s skin feels like it’s burning him where it’s touching him. He can hear something ringing dully and even with his eyes closed, he’s dizzy. He knows that minutes are passing. Loki warned that this could take hours to dismantle. Both of them have to be conscious, or Clint would have asked to be knocked out first.
Time has lost all meaning when he feels something pulls in his mind, like some sort of mental wall just got shoved aside.
And then the memories start flooding. He can only make out blurs and realizes that for as much as his mind had been trying to process the memories that aren’t his, Clint barely saw anything.
…anything to take away this heat, quarter please…please…The hand comes back to caress his face, gentle, inviting, and almost sad. "Why do you continue to fight it, child? This is mercy. You're too shortsighted to see it." A long, weary sigh, "Stop fighting this, let me help you."..."Maybe if its so desperate to talk, we should put it on its face!"...lost one doesn't have a home to return to…It occurs to me that it has been some time since we had one of our talks…
Everything starts moving faster, blurring into vague images and distorted sounds.
Then there’s this--
Snap. Like someone just broke a glow stick and shook it. Clint’s entire body twitches violently, a sharp, pulsing ache pushing up his spine. He can’t breathe for long seconds. His body forgot how. Everything is spinning. He can’t keep himself upright. He grabs harder at Loki’s arms so he won’t fall. The warmth comes back, and the ache eases considerably before it retreats again.
The tension releases suddenly and Clint collapses back, gasping.
Natasha’s hands grab him, keeping him from falling against the floor, and Clint, shaking, grasps at her wrist, trying to find comfort. His body feels like one massive bruise. When he manages to squint his eyes open against the overhead lights, he sees that Loki is laying limp in Thor’s arms on the other side of the coffee table.
Crap.
Clint shoves up, wrestling his way out of Natasha’s grip. He barely manages to move. He keeps falling.
“Hey, Ptitsa , Clint- -” Natasha’s fingers grab for his arm. Clint clasps Loki’s hand. His skin is cold, but it’s always cold, and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but Loki’s skin is so pale it looks gray, and his eyes are moving rapidly behind closed lids. He keeps twitching.
“‘s he ‘kay?” Clint’s words are slurred. He blinks a little. He sounds concussed. His head feels thick with fog. But Clint realizes something--Loki doesn’t hurt. There was always this constant pressure, a constant buzzing headache that he’d grown used to. It’s not there anymore.
The edge of a migraine, the constant headache--
Gone.
It worked.
Holy crap. It worked.
He never felt the memories to begin with, so he can’t feel their absence, but he knows. Ever since Clint and Loki first got within five feet of each other after the Attack, Clint has been in pain. He’s not anymore. Just a vague sort of numb giddiness. There’s no edge of a migraine, no sense of wrong. Just… nothing.
“I’d assume so,” Thor says, and Clint remembers his earlier question. Loki now. He can feel a thready pulse beneath his fingers. Alive. Thor rubs a hand over Loki’s sternum and Clint winces for his sake, but the sorcerer remains unresponsive. “He collapsed when you did. He’s not waking up.” Thor, to his credit, sounds a lot calmer than Clint feels about that prospect.
Steve grips Thor’s shoulder. “What does that mean? Is he okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine.” Thor says with a slight shrug, starting to gather Loki into his arms. “His brain needs time to re-set the memories inside his mind. He’ll wake up tomorrow completely fine. He just needs time to process everything again. For now, the best thing would be to let both of you sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” Clint says and realizes for the first time in months that it’s true.
Thor gathers Loki into his arms, giving Clint a pointed look. “You will be.”
Like a mature adult, Clint sticks out his tongue. Natasha helps him up to his feet. His mind is willing but the flesh is weak. Exhaustion is beginning to hound his body. The walk back to their room is more of a stagger. His partner eases him down onto the bed and climbs in beside him, resting her head on his chest. Clint squints at the clock and realizes it’s past midnight.
Huh.
Natasha grabs his arm in the dark. “Go to sleep, ptitisa ,” she whispers.
Clint wraps his arms around her. Slowly, overwhelming, aching exhaustion overcomes the adrenaline and, as promised, Clint quickly falls asleep. For the first time in months, he doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat, the horror of someone else’s memories running through his mind. He doesn’t wake up with phantom aches where he was hurt and an ache that can never be satiated.
His sleep is deep, his own, and completely dreamless.