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Natasha liked to think nothing surprised her anymore, which was mostly true. These days it took something really big to knock her on her ass. Finding out Loki was back wasn't even enough to do it. After all, for someone who engineered his own capture so he could get aboard the helicarrier, it wouldn't be that big a stretch to imagine him escaping from whatever Asgardian prison he'd been sent to. No, what made her jaw hit the floor was seeing him in person again for the first time. Coulson told them all Loki was in rough shape but after seeing how many hits Thor could take without even getting bruised, the picture she had in mind was nothing like what she saw when Thor and Steve rolled the stretcher out of the helicopter. A thin sheet was covering Loki up to his bare chest, which was so pale that the white gauze pads and bandages in various places on his torso were almost invisible against his pasty skin. Both arms were bandaged as well, from elbow to fingers.
What really did her in though was how thin he was. Natasha had sized Loki up when she was interrogating him on the helicarrier, a habit deeply ingrained by her training. In the life of a spy, one had to be able to quickly assess another's physical assets and weaknesses. Compared to Thor, Loki was of a wiry build but as someone who was on the smaller end of the spectrum, she knew size was by no means the all-important factor. Loki was all muscle, lean where Thor was bulky, and more importantly, a few seconds of watching him pace in the cell told her he knew how to carry himself. The body laid out on the stretcher couldn't be any more opposite. Whatever had happened to Loki, it left him looking like he'd run afoul of vampires who fed on muscle mass rather than blood. It wouldn't take the Hulk to knock him out now. A stiff breeze would do the trick.
Since that day, none of the humans on the team spent much time with the Asgardians. Loki's choice, not theirs, at least inasmuch as mindless, irrational fear is a choice. All things being fair though, it wasn't as if the rest of the team were in a hurry to befriend their old enemy. Still, even if they had tried, Loki wasn't having it. It was kind of hard to get close to someone who was terrified of anyone not named 'Thor'. The first and only time Bruce tried to touch him, Loki screamed, dove into Thor's arms, and promptly broke down crying. All Banner had wanted to do was give Thor a hand with changing the dressings on Loki's burns but the resulting meltdown was enough to convince everyone to keep their distance. They all felt bad for Thor, being that he couldn't very well leave Loki on his own and Loki couldn't tolerate the presence of anyone else for more than a few minutes before the fearful whining started up again and there wasn't one of them who didn't find it unsettling. Hearing someone who took such pleasure in needling them with words reduced to whimpering like a puppy was enough to make them all want to steer clear. In three weeks, the only actual word anyone heard him speak was Thor's name. The poor guy was stuck spending all day, every day with only his traumatized brother for company.
What made the whole situation even harder to process for Natasha was the fact that Thor still hadn't told anyone what happened to Loki. Sure, he gave them the broad strokes – that his brother was hit with a spell that almost killed him – but the who, how, and why were still a mystery. She'd done her best to wheedle it out of Coulson but her old handler gave her nothing. Natasha couldn't decide if she was more irritated or impressed by his resistance. A normal person might have let it drop there but normal was an adjective that described exactly none of the Avengers. Stark had equipped Thor and Loki's floor with extra surveillance before their arrival, hooking all of it up with JARVIS so any of them could monitor the video feed at any time. Spy that she was, Natasha took advantage of it.
If seeing what went on behind closed doors was supposed to make it all feel less weird, the plan backfired.
She saw Loki following Thor around like, well, like a tag along baby brother. Maybe that's what he was like as a boy but considering how one of the last times she'd seen the brothers in the same room together Loki had dropped Thor out of the helicarrier, presumably to his death, and hadn't shown a hint of remorse, the sight was bizarre. She had looked into his eyes herself and seen his rage, his delight in how much they feared him, his glee at the chaos he rained down on their world. She saw the security footage of him stabbing Coulson through the heart, then smiling as if to say, "Well, what can you do?". It was hard to imagine any murderous intent in his eyes now as he trailed after Thor from room to room and settled in next to him on the couch to watch a movie, or in the way he put his head on Thor's knee and went to sleep halfway through it.
He did that a lot, she noticed. Slept, that is. Thor had gotten into a routine of watching movies after dinner in the evenings. Natasha didn't check in every night but even so, she was fairly confident Loki hadn't made it through to the end of a single film. From what Clint remembered, Loki hadn't ever stopped for rest during his invasion. These days, he barely made it past seven o'clock in the evening before his lights went out. At first Natasha thought it was just the weakness from whatever the spell had done to him. She was correct for the most part, but there was another factor she hadn't anticipated. Not until the day she found herself awake and bored in the middle of the night after a meeting with a contact.
Turning on the Thor and Loki show on her StarkPad had gotten to be a habit lately. Without thinking, Natasha picked up the tablet and tapped the icon, remembering after the feed filled the screen that it was well past time all good little Asgardian boys and girls were tucked in bed, and the Tower's resident pair were no exception. She was about to close the application when something on the screen caught her eye. Enlarging the angle from Thor's bedroom, she noticed something unusual about his bed. He wasn't alone. Natasha recalled Thor asking Stark for a larger bed a few days after arriving at the Tower but she assumed it was just for himself. Like most guys over six feet, Thor could sprawl with the best of him and Natasha figured he just needed more room than a queen size provided him. It turned out that Thor did need more room, it just wasn't all for him.
Thor was on his back, one arm thrown out to the side but with the rest of his limbs closer to his body. To his right, curled up into a tiny ball that by all rights a man of his height should have been incapable of making, was Loki. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise to see them sharing a bed when Loki had been so clingy during his waking hours but for some reason, it took Natasha's brain a few seconds to understand what she was seeing. She was still staring at the picture when things got a lot more interesting.
The night vision video feed wasn't clear enough for her to see Loki's eyes moving behind his lids but from the sporadic twitching of his muscles he had to be dreaming. The twitches grew into more violent spasms and in the next moment, Loki's mouth opened in a silent scream. Or maybe it wasn't silent but since Natasha hadn't enabled the audio feed from the cameras, she wasn't sure which it was, not until Thor jerked awake. Without showing any of the grogginess or disorientation that usually accompanied being roused like that, he sat up and grabbed Loki before his brother could wriggle away. That itself seemed to add to Loki's distress for a beat but after a moment or two, he stopped trying to escape Thor's hold and sank into it instead. The two of them stayed like that, Loki's back to Thor's chest, his arms trapped under Thor's, until his shoulders started shuddering. Natasha didn't need audio to know he was crying. Thor let go with one hand, his remaining arm long enough to span Loki's thin torso and arms by itself, and started petting his brother on the head, his mouth moving with soothing words she couldn't hear. When Loki finally calmed down enough to attempt going back to sleep, Thor still didn't let go of him. Actually, it may have been the other way around. At some point, Loki had gotten one of his arms free and taken hold of Thor's hand. He hadn't let go, not when he stopped crying or when they lay back down again.
And Natasha was still watching. Why was she still watching? She'd done every kind of surveillance, every kind of of spying in her career, and never once had she caught herself transfixed by her subjects like some kind of amateur. Watching Loki break down was mesmerizing in the same way horror movies are. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't look away, even though seeing him without any of his guards and stripped bare of even his self-control as he huddled in Thor's arms and sobbed chilled her to the core. Not just because it was beyond strange to see the once proud villain reduced to such vulnerability, though that was unnerving. It was more that Natasha had long ago grown accustomed to always being the one in control. She prided herself on being able to manipulate situations and people so perfectly they never knew it was happening, or better yet, they thought they were the ones pulling the strings. Loki was the same way once; the puppet master, the man behind the curtain, the one making everyone dance to his tune. Not anymore. Now he had nothing, no shields of any kind, and not even the ability to pretend he did. He was living Natasha's worst nightmare.
Her stomach churning at the thought, she jabbed her finger at the close icon on her tablet. She must have missed though, because the window showing Thor and Loki shrunk down instead of disappearing. Surrounding it were numerous other thumbnail windows showing various surveillance feeds from the rest of the tower. There wasn't much activity, it being the middle of the night, but one room that should have been empty wasn't.
Natasha tapped on that particular window and the sight of the gym filled the display. Tony had added several gym spaces to the tower as part of the rebuild after the Chitauri attack, including one dedicated for Avengers' use only. That was the one which had her attention now. The state-of-the-art facility had a lone occupant - Clint.
"JARVIS, how long has Clint been in the gym?"
"It's nearing forty-five minutes, Agent Romanov," the AI answered.
She watched him pummelling one of the punching bags without letup for a minute. "Has he been doing anything else besides that?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Does he do this often?"
"Every night for the last ten days."
Ten days. Natasha thought back to what happened ten days ago and came up dry. There hadn't been any call for the Avengers that day, so it wasn't because of something in the field. Then a thought occurred.
"Jarv, when did Steve stop sparring with him?"
"Eleven days ago."
"Right."
With a sigh, Natasha slipped her shoes back on and headed down to the gym. When she walked in, Clint was still going to town on the bag. She said nothing, just standing a little ways behind him waiting for him to finish. Nearly five minutes passed before he even paused, sweat pouring down the back of his neck and creating a dark patch on his grey shirt. Clint reached down to pick up a water bottle near his feet and Natasha took the opening.
"So this is the part where I ask what did that bag ever do to you?"
"Trust me, it's a real bastard," he replied without looking at her.
"Yeah, I bet." She looked him up and down. "You aren't worried about damaging your hands?"
"I know my limits."
"So do I," she countered. "And they don't usually include 2 a.m. workouts."
"Why do you care?" he snapped.
Natasha crossed her arms, a spark of irritation burning her over his snippy tone. She was far too professional to let the annoyance show, however. "I care because you started coming down here when Steve said he wouldn't spar with you anymore."
Clint met her eyes but only for a fleeting second. "And?"
"And don't think he was the only one who noticed you throwing yourself at him like a madman."
"It's not like I could hurt him. He's a super-soldier. He's the super-soldier."
"Yeah, and you aren't. If you ever pushed him too hard or if he forgot himself he could do some serious damage to you, Clint."
He took a long swig from his water bottle before replying. "You think I don't know that?"
"No, I know you know that. What I don't know is why you wanted him to."
The water bottle flew from his hand, hitting the wall behind the punching bag with a crack that echoed through the large space. He didn't wait to see where it landed. Natasha stood watching while he gathered up his towel and bag and made to brush past her. She tried to catch his arm as he passed.
"Clint-"
He shook her off. "Leave it alone, 'Tash."
She was still standing in the same place as he stalked away from her, pushing through the doors with enough force that she heard the hinges groan all the way from where she stood.
"That went well," she said to the empty room before heading to the exit herself.
Later on, after she was back in her own room and laying awake in bed, Natasha just couldn't shake the image of Clint from her mind. He didn't look well. Not surprising if he'd been staying up late every night for a week and a half, but it was more than simple exhaustion. He was tense in a way she had never seen him before. Clint Barton was laid back almost to the point of laziness for most of the time she'd known him. After the Battle of New York and working with the Avengers he'd matured a bit, which was a development Natasha welcomed. Now though, it was like he'd gone off the scale in the other direction. He was like a rubber band stretched so tight it could snap completely at any second and that wasn't healthy for anyone, much less a person who could be called upon to defend the planet at a moment's notice. Even his hands were shaking by the time he'd chucked the water bottle. An archer couldn't have shaky hands. Something had set him on edge.
Okay, not something. Someone.
One didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce why Clint's behaviour had taken a few giant steps away from reasonable of late. The thing was, they couldn't very well turn Thor and Loki out on their asses, not when HYDRA would be chomping at the bit to capture the Asgardians for their own nefarious purposes. That meant one way or another, Clint was going to have to learn to live with them, or at least live with the idea that they would be around. Easy, right?
Natasha heaved a frustrated sigh and rolled over onto her side. Clint was her oldest friend. He was her first real friend, in fact. No one from her past in Russia could lay claim to that title. He was the first person who actually seemed to see her and not just what she could be used for. He gave her a chance that no one in their right mind would have offered, a chance that she sure as hell didn't deserve. Time and time again, he proved he had faith in her, that he was confident letting her live wouldn't be something he'd regret, and over time, she learned to have that same trust in him. Yet despite all of that, she had no idea how to help him now. Oh sure, if it was something that could be solved with a few well placed punches or kicks, or by seducing someone, Natasha was your girl. But ordinary, human emotional problems? 'Ordinary' wasn't in her wheelhouse. Hell, sometimes she wasn't sure 'human' was in her wheelhouse.
One thing she was sure of was Clint needed help before he spun completely out of control. Losing him was not an option. After all, it hadn't been a total lie when she told Loki she owed Barton a debt. He gave her a new life, and she would help him get his back.
The question was how to do it.
~~~|~~~
The next three days Natasha watched Clint and while he didn't quite avoid her, he certainly didn't go out of his way to spend any more time in her company than he had to. On the surface, he seemed like himself, maybe a bit quieter than usual. But now that she was looking for them, she saw the cracks in the exterior. There was a constant strain underlying everything he did, like he was trying too hard to act like everything was fine and not raise the suspicion of his teammates. He put on a good show, since no one other than Steve seemed to have an inkling something was wrong but that wouldn't keep. She knew sooner or later something would give, if for no other reason than constantly smothering any signs of a problem was just too exhausting to keep up forever.
Her thoughts turned out to be somewhat prophetic. On day four, she was watching Clint's target practice through JARVIS' electronic eyes when it happened.
Clint Barton – the famous Hawkeye – missed.
Clint Barton did not miss. He definitely did not miss three times in one session. After the third arrow landed outside the target, he fired off the rest of his arrows with a speed that smacked of desperation. Each one found its intended target but judging by his harsh breathing and stiff, jerky movements, the successful shots did nothing to ease his tension over the ones that weren't so successful.
Natasha had hoped to have a game plan figured out before talking to him again but she was still clueless about how to help him. Now it appeared she had to forge ahead regardless because if Clint was starting to miss in practice, it wouldn't be too long before he missed in the field. If that happened, the best case scenario was that Rogers would bench him. Worst case, Clint or someone else was going to get hurt or killed.
That night saw him back in the gym, pounding on the bag like it said something crude about his mother. There was no form to his throws, no skill, just brute force. This time though, he really did look like he was going to keep striking until he broke his hands, which maybe was his intention. Take himself out of the game before anyone else made the decision for him.
Natasha walked up behind him, doing nothing to muffle her footsteps. "Tell me something, does it feel better being the one doing the hitting or the one getting hit?"
He paused his punches. "Natasha-"
"Steve knew what you were doing the entire time, you know," she cut him off. "He knew you wanted him to hit you. If you ask me, he wasn't all that comfortable with the idea that you were using him to punish yourself. He only let it go on because he thought it might help you work through whatever this is. I think we both know it didn't."
Clint didn't say anything. He glanced at her briefly before looking down and fiddling with the tape on his hands.
"You can't keep doing this. It's not healthy."
"That whole den mother thing really doesn’t work for you," he said, still not looking up. "I don't need anyone checking up on me or telling me what I need to do. I don't need you or Rogers asking me every five minutes if I'm okay. I'm not okay, but I'm dealing with it. Why can't you just let it go?"
"Because that strategy is working so well for you?"
He said nothing in reply, just gave the punching bag another savage hit. For a few seconds the only sound in the room was the creaking of the chain suspending the heavy bag. Natasha looked at him, really looked. He looked almost as terrible as he did just after waking up from Loki's control. She felt for him, she did. It was just that comfort wasn't exactly something she knew how to do, not when it was real. She could play her marks, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear, what they needed to hear to do what she wanted. She couldn't play her friend like that, nor did she want to.
"Because we care about you," she tried again, swapping sarcasm for sincerity. "I care about you. Friends don't let other friends suffer alone. Hell, you taught me that."
"I don't need help," he replied hoarsely.
"Oh, you don't? How many times did you miss today?"
He glared at her, eyes burning with anger and wounded pride. Natasha winced, shaking her head with closed eyes.
"Sorry, that was a low blow." She paused and raked one hand through her hair. "Just tell me the truth about one thing and I'll leave you alone. You weren't this bad after you came out of Loki's control or in the weeks after New York. Why is having him here so much worse? He can't get to you again, not now."
Clint dropped his hands to his sides where they balled into fists. "Because it's not about him."
"Then what-"
"Me!"he shouted.
Natasha, caught of guard, blurted, "What?"
"It's not about him," he told her through gritted teeth. "Not like you're thinking. It's me."
"What about you?"
There was a long pause, with only the sound of Clint's ragged breathing punctuating the silence. When he spoke, he wouldn't meet her eyes. "You remember that day in Central Park? The day after the battle when we were seeing Thor and Loki off."
Natasha nodded, then belatedly added, "Yeah," when she realized he couldn't hear a head bob.
He hesitated again before continuing. "...I was standing there, looking at him all muzzled and chained. He looked so pathetic and I felt so smug seeing him like that." He paused, his eyes going distant. "There was this moment, while Thor was talking to Selvig about the Tesseract and Loki was kind of standing by himself. Our eyes met and I smiled at him. I remember thinking, 'I hope one day you know how it feels. I hope one day someone takes your brain and turns it into their own personal playground'."
He stopped there and Natasha waited for him to continue but nothing came, so she asked, "And?"
Clint's eyes snapped over to hers. "And someone did it. Someone twisted his mind around so bad that it left him with a one word vocabulary and just enough brain power to feed and clothe himself. And I wanted that for him. I wanted it to happen."
"But you didn't do it-"
"I wanted to."
"That's hardly the same," she pointed out. "And it's not as if you knew what you were saying when you had that thought. None of us understand this magic stuff. You came out of his control with no physical damage so you had no way of knowing how bad it could have been or that there was anyone who could even overpower Loki."
"I would have done it," he said, voice low and subdued. "I would have. If I had the power I would have done to him exactly what he did to me. What the hell does that make me? If I'm no better than him then what the hell am I doing here letting people treat me like a goddamn hero?"
Natasha gawked at him before she could gather her thoughts well enough to speak. "Is that what this is about? God Clint, what Loki did to you, I'd be more worried if you hadn't had any thoughts of vengeance. That doesn't make you the same as him."
"It sure as hell doesn't make me a hero."
She couldn't help but shake her head. "Look, I know I'm the last person to be an authority on good and evil. I mean, I couldn't even tell the difference between HYDRA and SHIELD until one of them blew up the other. In my face. But I do know one thing, we're not heroes. We're human, no matter how hard we try not to be. The whole hero thing is a creation of the media. The truth is we're just a group of people who have special skills that work together to fight the battles no one else can."
Clint sighed and gave a half-hearted swat at the bag. "Can't really see Rogers thinking what I did."
"So he's the exception that proves the rule, but you're kidding yourself if you think he's never had some dark thoughts. If he met up with Johann Schmidt in a dark alley somewhere, Steve Rogers, Paragon of Virtue, might not be so upstanding."
"Then what hope is there for someone like me?" he asked, eyes pointed at the floor.
A noise that very much resembled a laugh escaped her mouth, making his eyes fly up to her face. Natasha didn't even try to hide a grin. "How could someone with eyes as good as yours still be so blind? Clint, look at yourself. Look at where you are, what you've been doing since Loki came back here. You think he had any sleepless nights in Asgard because he was so torn up over what he did? I'd put my money on no.
"You ask what makes you different from Loki, this is it. Right here. You're so consumed with guilt over just thinking about doing something bad that you're taking it out on innocent punching bags."
Clint didn't exactly smile but the corners of his mouth twitched, like they were trying to but couldn't quite remember how. Natasha went on.
"That day in Central Park, you were free from Loki for a day. It was still an open wound. Anyone would think what you did in that moment."
"It wasn't just that day," he objected. "It was a lot of days after too."
She smothered the urge to roll her eyes. "It doesn't matter because my original point stands. You didn't know what you were wishing for back then and now that you do, you're sick over it."
"Doesn't help that he seems like a two year-old now," he grumbled.
"Believe me, that's disconcerting for everyone," she agreed. "But don't forget that this Loki isn't the one you wanted to hurt."
"I suppose not," he sighed, and Natasha could see how tired he was. The dark circles under his eyes, how red they were. She knew he'd been coming down here for weeks but not how little sleep he must have been getting in between.
She rested a hand on his arm."The Avengers don't do what we do because we have some inside track on right and wrong. People far better than us make those calls, and for good reason. I mean, can you imagine anyone looking at Tony Stark as a beacon of morality for mankind?"
Finally, finally, she got him to smile.
"The point is, heroes or not, we're all still humans. Flawed, fallible, and really, really dumb at times. But that's the good thing about being part of a team. When one of us falls, there's always somebody to pick you back up." She looked down at his hands. "Or in this case, show you how to properly tape your hands before showing that bag who's boss, because that was one sorry-ass job you did there."
Clint huffed out something that might have been an attempt at a laugh. Holding up his left hand, the one with the hilariously messy job on it, he said, "You try taping yourself with your non-dominant hand and see what it looks like. But then, you're probably ambidextrous, aren't you?"
Natasha winked. "That would be telling, wouldn't it? Can't give away all my secrets."
"Believe me, Nat, nobody wants you to."
She looked down to hide her victorious smile, covering it by pretending to focus on pulling the tape off his hands. The banter was a little weak but it was a miles better than his sullen behaviour of the past three weeks. Finished with the re-taping job, she stepped back.
"Now let the pro show you how it's really done," she said.
They spent another half hour or so in the gym, taking turns with the bag. Eventually, Clint started showing signs of genuine tiredness so after making him take a shower, Natasha put him to bed. When she asked in the morning, he told her he actually slept for the first time in a long while and she knew it was the truth. He was going to be okay. Maybe not soon, but he would be.
...
...
Of course, it would have helped if Loki hadn't chosen that same day to come back to himself.