Being Compromised, 2/2.
Title: Being Compromised
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: Hard R
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, beginnings of Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers/Warnings: Slight AU to the Avengers movie, post-Inception. Violence and torture mentioned, but not explicitly described. For the avengerkink meme prompt in round 3: Natasha wasn't able to beat Clint into normalcy. She has to perform inception.
Summary: *points to prompt* Yep. It's as complicated as that sounds.
Prior chapter:
One - Creating The Team
Two - Time To Fly
Clint was still strapped to the bed. The redhead - Natasha, one corner of his mind supplied with a snarl, or Nadia, or Natalie or Natalia or Tasha - had come back a few times, quietly sitting beside him. She hadn't said much, merely looked at him as if expecting him to say something. There was an itch from that corner of his mind, trying to push its way forward. But he had to contain it, because...
He couldn't remember why. But it was important, as he was important, for there was a plan ready. He was vital to its completion, the heart of the entire convoluted plot for Loki to seize control for Thanos. Thanos was...
There was an Other in Loki's mind, twisting him from the inside out. He had seen it when Loki peered into his eyes, though Loki hadn't realized it at the time. The thing that had allowed Loki to see into him was much like the portal that the Tesseract had opened. A doorway could be opened on either side, and as Loki peered inside of him, Clint had seen into Loki as well. The Other was a horrid, grinning thing feasting on pain and terror, only too glad to apply more heat to a Loki stretched out on the rack in front of Thanos. Death was the only thing that mattered, death and destruction as an offering to Thanos.
I can give you an entire realm to devour, Loki had cried, eyes bleeding and sores weeping. The Other had paused, knives upraised, his eyes piercing.
Give it to me, and I may spare you.
Clint could see his own pain staring back at him, the solitude of the circus and the gaping maw where a family should have been. The only comforts he had had for years were his bow and quiver of arrows, his ability to hit the mark every single time. It was a meditation, a prayer, the only solace he could have. He recognized it in others, knew the loneliness as a different kind of pain, a desperation that could lead anyone to do anything just to make it stop.
He had seen it in Natasha's eyes, the way she dropped her empty gun at his feet and stood in front of his nocked arrow. Do it now, she had said, a slight accent to her voice. She had been pretending to be a Frenchwoman at the time. Now, while you have the chance. You won't have another. They won't let it happen.
But he had put his bow aside. There's another way to finish this, he had said, and contacted Coulson.
In the basement room, mind thrown wide open, Clint had felt his entire self turn inside out, and he lost which way was up.
Loki had smiled, a desperate, pained kind of smile. He hadn't realized that Clint had seen more than he should have. "You have heart," he said, and it was then Clint that knew his life had truly begun again.
There was still that nagging part of his mind, the part that refused to stay quiet and follow Loki's plan. Are you kidding? This is wrong, he's wrong, get him out of your head! He doesn't belong there!
Clint breathed deeply, trying to focus on creating a screen in his mind. It was wavering a little, weakened by distance and a loss of purpose. There had been an expectation, though he was losing track of what he wanted to happen.
"You've been compromised," the redhead told him, snapping his focus to her. The calm he'd been trying to create was lost. "There's nothing left for us to do."
He wanted to ask what she had expected, to pit herself against a god, but the words didn't come. He stared at her, trying to figure out who she was supposed to be. Sometimes he knew her for who she was: Natasha Romanoff, the spy that he had brought in against orders. There was trust there, belonging on a level more than physical, which was most important in their line of work. At other times her blank expression and green eyes held no meaning for him. He pulled at the wrist restraints, the urge to reach out for her difficult to resist even if he didn't understand it. "You're going to have to kill me," he told her as she rose from the seat. "Do it now, while you have the chance. You won't have another."
She froze, gaze locked to his. Then, faster than he thought possible, she was gripping his jaw painfully tight. She searched his gaze, but Clint didn't know what she was looking for. He was hollowed from the inside out, a marionette with cut strings. It was uncomfortable, painful; a gaping wound that hadn't been allowed to heal. The blue screen seemed to be breaking down in the face of her green gaze, which was painful. He needed Loki to give the next set of directions in the plan. He didn't have a heart otherwise.
"There's another way to finish this," she told him, eyes bright. "I know there is."
And then she let him go, disappearing from the room.
There was something important there, something he was missing. He had to hold tightly to the blue screens, even as they faded. How else could he be whole again?
Some time after that, but an explosion rocked the helicarrier. It began to list to the side, whatever had stabilized its descent once again broken. Anxious, Clint began to pull at his restraints. They were still looped into place, scraping at the skin painfully. He grit his teeth and tried to pull past the pain, but the leather didn't give.
Natasha laughed, taking her belt from its loops and then reaching for his. "Does this count as misappropriation of SHIELD property?" she teased, reconfiguring the belts to tie his wrists to the headboard. The nanomesh had more give than his leather, but he still couldn't move from his bound position. Natasha straddled his waist, zipper on her catsuit pulled low enough for him to see the hollow between her breasts. He wanted to nestle his head between them, lose himself in whatever she said or did.
"Misappropriate away," Clint laughed, tugging at his bonds. There was no need for safe words with her. They knew each other inside and out, and there wasn't anything more intimate than trust for them. He might want the sex, too, but what they had was more than that. This particular incident was more because he needed release, he needed limits, he needed her to constrain him. The job had gone very wrong very fast, and he needed to know she'd be there if he fell.
"You're mine, Clint," she said in a low growl that went straight to his groin. "I'm going to have to remind you of that. I'm the only one you listen to."
Clint recoiled as if struck, looking around wildly. Something was wrong, and it was more than just the helicarrier that was listing to the side.
He could see flashes of blue light through the small window to the door of his cell. Loki was here, it had to be. Clint wanted to cry out in both relief and dismay. Loki had said that his plans were precisely laid out, had to be followed to the letter. Anything that deviated from the careful control would send the entire thing unravelling.
Coming to rescue Clint wasn't part of the plan.
When the door blasted off its hinges, Loki staggered into the room. His eyes were still sunken but they were wild with anger. Hate seemed to fuel him, and he gripped the scepter tightly, as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. That gaze fell onto Clint, and it took everything in him not to quail. He wasn't worthy of Loki anymore, that much was clear. "I'm sorry," Clint said, tugging ineffectually at the restraints. "I tried to follow the plans, and I almost managed to get back out..."
"Almost isn't good enough," Loki snarled, and Clint flinched. "If there wasn't equipment here that I needed, I wouldn't be here for you." With a wave of the scepter, the restraints dissolved into nothingness. "Get up and get moving!"
"Yessir," Clint said, moving quickly. "Do you need the access codes?" he asked, hoping to make up for his failure.
Loki straightened and fixed him with an imperious glare. "I can simply take what I need, mortal, much like the iridium. You did that correctly. Can you only take simple directions, then?"
"Selvig got everything he needed," Clint snapped, spine straightening to military precision. He chafed, remembering having to wait as Loki did his grandstanding routine, hating to sit still so low to the ground. He had felt too exposed, even underground, and it had thankfully been over quickly. "He's on the move and will build the device you want. Most of the pieces are already assembled, and it'll only take a few hours to get everything started. The portal will open on schedule."
The grin Loki shot him was manic, full of teeth that seemed far too sharp and dangerous. He nodded toward the hallway. "Get the others, then. I still have need of them."
That stung more than Clint would have ever admitted. I have a place, that angry part of his mind told him, pushing against Loki's commands. "Yessir," Clint said instead, giving him a stiff salute before going to the cells.
The helicarrier listed again with another barrage of fire and explosions. He saw Loki stumble and turned to assist him. "Not this way, you fool," Loki hissed, pushing himself upright along the wall. "Do as I say, you worthless mortal!"
Clint did an abrupt about face, expression stony as he moved with clockwork precision. It was all he was good for. He couldn't be the heart, not when he'd fucked up so badly already. He knew how important this was to Loki and what would happen to him if he failed. There would be blades and blood and heat, the slide of claws into soft belly fat. He should have known better.
It didn't take much effort to break open the cells, to see three men and the petite woman inside. He didn't recognize them, but didn't have to. It could have been another branch of Loki's army that he had been gathering. Others who weren't expendable as he seemed to be. Their eyes weren't that same fevered Tesseract blue, but his own weren't anymore either. Proximity should change that.
"He needs you," he told them, no inflection in his voice, no emotion on his face. He needs you but not me. Clint wasn't sure why he resented it so much, why he felt so angry at the thought of being used and tossed aside.
"Where are we going?" the petite woman asked, her expression still blank and somewhat absent looking.
"I don't know," Clint replied. "I don't need to know."
"Our orders?" one asked him.
"The Tesseract will show us where we need to go."
They followed Clint as he moved unerringly through the maze of the helicarrier. It rocked back and forth as if hit by large missiles, or aircraft were crashing into it. Only the woman lost her footing; absently, Clint wondered if she had been support staff prior to being brought into Loki's service. While he had told Selvig there were plenty of people that hated SHIELD, he'd had just enough presence of mind not to bring any of those players with him to the carrier. It was the only way he had been able to fight Loki's control, much like the nonfatal shot to Fury when the Tesseract was stolen, or the lies he'd told about it when questioned. Each act of defiance, no matter how tiny, brought the full weight of the Tesseract's will crashing down over him. Clint was surprised that even thinking about it now didn't tighten the mental restraints.
You belong to me, came Natasha's voice from the back of his mind. It warred with the irresistible hold the Tesseract had on him, cold blue tendrils creeping throughout his entire being.
Approaching the sound of blast damage and cries of pain, Clint saw Loki using the scepter to destroy the helicarrier's bridge, a sickly grin on his face. He certainly seemed to be gleeful about it, showboating his skill. Normally Clint would snark, say he was overcompensating, but the Tesseract's control tightened. No disrespect to Loki was allowed, and it wasn't worth the wicked headache it gave him to fight it.
Loki looked toward Clint with more disdain than usual. "At last, something useful from this excursion."
"Where are we headed?" Clint asked. The bridge was full of shattered glass, bodies thrown around and sparks flying. He couldn't see Fury or Hill, and hoped they were fine. It looked as though Loki had taken his advice to scatter the Avengers before they were formed.
Loki didn't bother to answer, still blasting apart the command center. "Ready the plane for our departure. Think you can do at least that much?" he sneered.
"Yessir," Clint replied woodenly, hate seething beneath the Tesseract's enforced compliance. He turned sharply on his heel, repressing a snarl and transferring his rage to snap at the rescued combatants "With me."
Clint moved to pilot one of the jets after securing the others in the plane. "We await Loki," he told them in flat tones, and they didn't respond. He tried not to resent it.
Finally Loki stumbled toward the plane, a death's head grin on his face. "They'll be fighting the monster for some time," he said, climbing aboard. When Clint didn't take off right away, he snarled "What are you waiting for, you fool? Ragnarok?!"
He couldn't reply that this was what it felt like, that he was already crafting the perfect arrow to add to his arsenal that would harm Loki. So many lost details were coming back to him now, and even proximity to that damn scepter wasn't reinforcing its hold. Perhaps the blasts had depleted its energy. Perhaps Loki was concentrating more on the new recruits than on him. Either way, it almost felt like he could break free.
When the first missile hit the plane, Clint almost took his hands off the yoke to let them freefall toward the Atlantic Ocean. It was a surprise when the Tesseract didn't tighten its hold on him the way he expected it would. When he did yank back on the yoke, it felt stuck in place. He couldn't stop the freefall, and panic started to set in. He couldn't help the "Holy fuck!" that slipped out, just as he couldn't help the "Tasha" that he had said before she had completely knocked him out.
Something wasn't right here. Something wasn't adding up.
Loki came forward, moving unerringly despite the way the air currents wanted to toss the plane to and fro. "Can't you do anything right, you worthless mortal?" he sneered, touching his scepter to the controls. Instead of sparking, everything seemed to even out. The others in the back remained strapped in place, looking straight ahead. There was no support from that quarter at all.
Clint opened his mouth to speak, but there was the shadow of another. Looking for it, he imagined he could see red through the glass.
Natasha. Of course she'd come for me...
The helicarrier's turret spit out bullets, and it was all he could do to avoid them. Natasha had good aim, and she wasn't pulling any punches right now. She thought he was compromised, and he was, which meant that she had to treat him like any other enemy, no matter their personal history. He couldn't expect any less of her, and would do the same if their positions were reversed. But part of him wanted to scream her name, to make her see that he wasn't completely compromised, there had to be a way to bring him back. She had to try harder than this. He had to try harder than this.
But he didn't know how. He'd never been so completely hollowed out, completely remade in someone else's image. How could he even begin again? What damage had he done in Loki's name?
The plane lost altitude and fuel pressure, and it was all Clint could do to make sure that they had a relatively stable crash landing. Loki was thrown and connected badly with the back of the plane. He actually went through it, scepter and all, and Clint half rose out of his chair before he even really knew what he was doing. The others in the back were all standing up as well, and one slim man that Clint didn't recognize asked "What just happened?"
"Stay here," Clint commanded. The man nodded, and Clint saw that his eyes were brown. He wasn't under Loki's control anymore. In fact, the others didn't seem to have their eyes covered over in icy blue. How could they have gotten free?
"Wait. What's happening?" another man asked. He was tall, thickly built, with blond hair and blue eyes. Clint didn't remember seeing him before, but was willing to allow that his rage at Loki may have blinded him. This man looked about in confusion, an odd accent to his voice that Clint couldn't place. "I don't remember how I got here. What the hell?"
Now that he mentioned it, the others in the back of the plane looked around in confusion. "I don't remember," the other man told him, then turned to look at Clint. "Sir?"
Clint fell back into his seat. He could see Natasha's plane above them, and half heard the small woman ask "Is that Spain?"
He didn't register the non sequitur. If they were close to Spain, they were over the Mediterranean, and there were places nearby where he had once hid from enemy agents. Loki couldn't know about them, hadn't seen that deeply into his mind. He couldn't have flown there, even on autopilot, which meant that something else was going on. He looked around, for the first time seeing the dark marks left from where they'd skidded across streets and thrown cars back from the crash zone. People scurried away like ants. He didn't see where Loki had gone.
He'd been left again.
Clint watched Natasha land her plane in the central square of the city. Like everything she did, it was accurate and graceful. "Where are we?" he muttered, unbuckling his restraints and going to check on the others in the back. They didn't seem to be harmed at least, and the woman was already gingerly exiting the plane through the Loki-shaped hole in the back. "It definitely looks like Estepona..."
Natasha left her plane and approached them, gun in hand. "I guess Loki left you," she said, tone flat. "What? Not essential to the plan any longer?"
"No, not especially," came Loki's voice above the square. He was perched on the roof of one of the buildings lining the square. He had the same arrogant stance that he'd had in Stuttgart, scepter perched in hand. "But you were right. I needed a distraction, and now you've served your purpose." The smile he shot Natasha was sharp edged and malicious, triggering a protective instinct deep in Clint's chest. "You're welcome to him, little spider. See if you get anything useful out of him, or if I leave him to carve you open."
Clint found himself reaching for a bow he hadn't realized he was carrying, and snapping it open with a practiced flick of his arm. "No," he said, voice tight and angry. "You don't touch her," he said, reaching for a quiver of specialty arrows that wasn't there.
"What do you want to do?" the agent with dark hair asked Clint. The blond was nowhere to be seen, and Clint could see the petite woman reaching for a gun. There had been more agents, hadn't there? Clint didn't know where they had gone, but there was the press of uncertainty now. He was supposed to stay loyal to Loki, though he couldn't remember why. "I need you to think, sir," the tall man pressed, each syllable enunciated clearly. He handed over a quiver of arrows that Clint grabbed and strapped into place. "I need you to think. What do you want to do?"
Natasha will know what to do, Clint thought, then realized he said the words aloud. The sense of creeping wrongness was even more pronounced, the blue screen in his mind difficult to recreate.
The man didn't seem terribly surprised by that. If anything, he nodded and looked relieved.
Leaving the plane, Clint saw Natasha shooting at Loki with her Glock. Loki was too far away for the widow's bites to be effective, and he knew she would be in danger as soon as her ammunition ran out. She was good, but there was no way she could defeat magic with none of her own.
The arrow flew from his bow before he could consciously think about it, hitting Loki straight in the chest. He spun backward, then fell over the far side of a peaked roof top. Clint was sprinting across the square as fast as he could, the tall man and petite woman falling into step as he ran. By the time Clint got to Natasha's side, the blond was already there. She had her gun in hand and pointed at Clint's face, tension etched into her stance.
"Tasha," Clint gasped. For a split second he felt like himself, like he recognized the place around him and the woman she was. "Help me."
In response, she pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness.
***
They were in Estepona, a coastal city in the Andalusian principality of Spain. There were myriad beaches; myriad influences left over from Celts, Romans, Spaniards, and Moors; and it was relatively far away from the major tourist centers. Clint vaguely remembered being in the area years ago, and the two main centers were near the pub scene, the old quarter, and the ports. He had hidden in the old quarter, because the buildings were easier to scale and he liked the narrow, winding streets.
"I remember this place," Clint murmured when he was conscious. He was cuffed to the wrought iron headboard, and his lips quirked into a smile as he tugged gently. The cuff didn't give. "I remember this, too."
Natasha sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed. "What do you remember?"
He frowned, trying to remember though a blue haze what his thoughts were supposed to be. "Loki," he said finally, frown deepening. "He should be here."
"He's not," Natasha replied curtly. "He left you to my tender mercies, as he called it. He said you were useless to him now. Do you remember that?"
There had been the helicarrier attack, the plane ride, and the crash. Yes, he remembered that, as well as the sickly burn beneath his skin at the wrongness of it all, that he had done everything asked of him. "I do," Clint admitted finally, bitterness thick in his voice. "I remember."
"What else do you remember?" she asked, leaning forward.
Clint could almost imagine what it would feel like, to draw the zipper down and lick her skin as it was exposed, the way her touch would feel, the press of her body against his. He also knew that Loki had intended for him to subvert his own feelings, to flay her skin from her bones if he wasn't good enough. He remembered wanting to please, wanting so desperately to belong, to let the Tesseract fill him up and give him purpose.
Something must have shown in his face, because she was there in an instant, palm sliding against the rough stubble of his jaw. "Tell me." Her voice was a gentle whisper, the soft tone they only used with each other.
"He'll ask me to hurt you," Clint managed to say, tongue thick in his mouth. There was relief in admitting that even as the ghost of the Tesseract's control howled that he was a traitor to Loki. He belonged to Loki, body and soul, and if he was thrown away it was to serve Loki's will. Clint had to obey, had no will of his own.
"Tell me," she urged, cupping his face in her hands. You belong to me, she had said once, doing exactly this. The look on her face was just as intense, just as open. She trusted him more than anyone else in the world. Even Coulson and Fury didn't rank high enough in her esteem, and Clint had always known that.
In tangled, broken sentences, Clint told Natasha about the blue screen that seemed to come down in his mind as soon as he had been touched with the scepter, separating his thoughts from the pull of command and the need to please. He told her of the warring instincts that still were trapped within him, the need to follow orders and let someone else take control. "I've been compromised," he admitted finally, turning away from her. "Might as well drum me out."
"So have I," Natasha told him, voice carefully modulated. She tilted her head when he turned to look back in confusion. "You know what I've done, and what I haven't done. I have red in my ledger. I need to wipe that out."
There were so many things they didn't say with words, or couldn't. It had become like shorthand, a code of situations that they alluded to. That confused anyone listening in, but also meant that their communications could be imprecise. Right now, he wanted Natasha to take him into her arms and rock him, tell him that what she loved him, that he wasn't actually compromised.
"How many did I...?" He couldn't even say the words.
"Don't. Don't do that to yourself," Natasha insisted, sliding her hands down over his shoulders. "That was Loki, not you."
"It's still there," Clint told her. "I feel it, that kind of control just waiting for me."
"But he's done with you. He said you're useless to him now. He doesn't need you. You can do your own work again. Loki doesn't control you."
The words felt right, but there was still the vague sense of discontent. Something wasn't right with this, and it itched beneath his skin. "But..."
"But what?"
"Then why does he need Selvig? The portal is almost done. It only needs a power source similar to the Tesseract in composition to get it started."
Natasha rocked back next to him, a musing expression on her face. That felt right. Clint could hold onto that, let her put the pieces together. This entire situation left him feeling hollow, wrung out to dry. She was still clearly herself, and he could trust in her. He was the assassin that killed selected targets from the background, the one who wasn't really expected to have ideas about what was going on even if he did have them.
She laced her fingers through his, squeezing tightly. "Selvig must not have found a good enough source yet. Reports all state that Selvig is something of a perfectionist, so he wouldn't move unless he had everything set up the way he wants it."
"I've worked with him. He anthropomorphizes the Tesseract. Calls it a 'she,' acts like it has a mind of its own and is intelligent."
Lifting an eyebrow at him, Natasha asked, "Does it?"
Put on the spot, Clint froze. He wanted to fall back under the spell, let someone else take control. But he couldn't. Natasha needed him. He was the one that knew how the Tesseract worked, and he was the one that would be able to help her.
"Yes," he said finally. "It sees into you, shows you what you need. Selvig wanted knowledge, so that's what he got." Clint's lips twisted in a self mocking manner. "It gave me a master, someone to answer to so I don't have to take control."
"You don't have to take control of the situation," Natasha said, pulling their linked hands into her lap. "But your thoughts are your own. Your will is your own. And if you choose to follow someone else's lead, it's still your choice. That's what I want for you."
"Sounds good," Clint rasped, leaning in closer. Their foreheads touched, and it seemed more intimate than a kiss, more of a caress than a hand across bare flesh.
"Do you feel it still there? Still a presence you can't get away from?"
The pull of the Tesseract clearly wanted him to lie to her. "Yes."
"Then we keep going," she murmured, turning her head. Clint looked beyond her and saw that the petite woman was there in the doorway. Behind her were the two taller men from the plane that he had flown, though he didn't know why they would be in Estepona with him. "One more ought to do it," Natasha told them.
"Where to?" the woman asked, looking between them both.
Natasha smiled and let her hand fall from Clint's. "A place where Loki has never been and will never have a hold over you."
"He's been inside my head, Tasha," Clint told her, concerned. "He'll know every safe place I have. There's no escaping his control."
Her smile was predatory, which actually comforted Clint. "Of course there are ways to escape his control. I got the best of him once already, and I plan to do it again."
"Then wherever you think it's safe," Clint returned with a half sigh. "You'll know where to go."
"Yes, I do." Her lip quirked into a smile. "Trust me."
The smile he gave her was a true one. "Always."
***
"I recognize this place," Clint murmured when they left the plane.
"I should hope so," Natasha replied with a smile, confidence in every step. "I remember having a hell of a time here."
Clint snorted. "You and I remember this very differently, you know."
Budapest was one of the largest cities in Europe, and the capital of Hungary. There were many tourist attractions for the average person. Its history made it a wonderful location for various spies or information brokers to meet. The many restaurants, museums and attractions were useful places to hide in plain sight, and Clint and Natasha were both familiar with the technique.
Somehow they were in Újlipótváros, the inner part of District XIII, a residential area with many cafés, shops, restaurants, theaters and the Margaret Bridge. The area closest to the Danube River was the most spacious and elegant, particularly around Szent István Park. Clint looked around the area, frowning a little. "I don't remember... The airport is too far from here to walk."
"We didn't walk," the petite brunette told him. "You probably don't remember the cab ride. You kind of intimidated the driver into not cheating us."
"That sounds like me," Clint murmured with a nod. "So what are we doing here?"
"We're going to destroy Loki's hold on you," Natasha told him in quiet tones.
He looked at the park, the pedestrians and then the five of them. "How are you going to do that? He's not here, Selvig's not here. Loki made sure we didn't know where we were going, and Selvig didn't tell me what he had in mind. He cared more for that damned cube than anything else. He didn't shave, didn't shower, was stuck building that machine around the cube." There was frustration in Clint's tone, as well as self castigation. I should have been better. I should have known. People died because of me. I should have known.
"There's an informant," Natasha told him easily. "You know how it goes."
Yes, he did, though Clint still frowned as he walked after her. He didn't remember changing, but he was in slacks and a collared shirt, pistol hidden under the open suit jacket he was wearing. Natasha was wearing a flowing sleeved green dress, looking utterly lovely. Clint could have sworn that she had been wearing her nanomesh cat suit, but that made no sense in a situation like this. The three people behind him had to be SHIELD agents, though they wore business casual clothing and didn't seem to be carrying weapons. Very obvious backup, if anyone had asked him, but this was Natasha's show, wasn't it? The last time they had been in Budapest, it had been an op gone wrong, and he remembered shooting their way out and nearly dying.
Something wasn't right, and it made him feel almost sick trying to puzzle it out.
"There, do you see?" Natasha murmured after a moment, looping her arm around his. He could feel a knife sheath along her arm, under the sleeve. That was comforting, and he turned his head to look at her. Despite the SHIELD agents behind them, if they were on another op, a relationship was a good cover. Natasha would never touch him too familiarly if it wasn't safe. It wasn't their way, and that eased some of the tension he felt.
Clint relaxed into her touch and looked toward one of the pools up ahead. He recognized the face of the man up ahead as one of the SHIELD agents that Loki had confiscated along with him, Selvig and the Tesseract. "I never learned his role. Loki didn't discuss anything about him."
"Isn't that rather the point?" Natasha asked, pressing closer to him. He could feel the swell of her breast and longed to caress her, to pin her mouth beneath his. It had been far too long. "He's not seen as important, but he hears all the details that you don't think he knows."
Snorting, Clint leaned in close, as if they were lovers whispering to each other on a summer afternoon stroll. "I don't think Loki had a coherent plan. I saw into him as he saw into me. Something out there that tortured him. He offered us up to save himself, and he's still sick. There's something wrong with him, you saw that."
"Perhaps that agent can tell us why."
"The Tesseract is like poison," Clint said, sudden vehemence in his tone startling even him. "It warps you from the inside out, changes everything about you. It unmakes you..." He stopped walking and looked at Natasha. "Do you know how awful...?"
"You know I do," she murmured, squeezing his arm in support. "You know I do."
"I don't know what's left of me, Tasha. What if nothing's left?"
"It didn't leave traps or triggers. I know that," she told him, confident. "Your mind is your own."
"The screen I told you about..."
"Is an excuse, isn't it? The Tesseract's not here, and no one is controlling you now. This is your chance to get back at Loki, undermining what he means to do. Your chance to be Clint Barton again. Anything past that is up to you."
He looked at her calm expression. "As in..."
"If being compromised is worth it or not."
Her voice carried no inflection, but the words stabbed him in the gut. He pulled her close without thinking about it. "Absolutely," he told her.
"Then let's do what we came here to do."
Clint didn't even ask the former agent what his name was, as recognition was enough. He nodded at Clint and Natasha, not even bothering to take in the three agents behind him. "You know what he wants," the agent said, voice strangely inflectionless. "Power and recognition. He doesn't care who he breaks to get it, and he's only too willing to throw you under the bus. Loki doesn't need you. He never really needed you, he just needed someone highly enough placed in SHIELD to get him what he wanted." The agent shrugged. "When his hold broke from me, that left me to be my own man. Now I can do whatever I want."
"Which is?" Clint prompted when Natasha remained strangely silent.
The agent smiled a rictus grin that seemed similar to Natasha's most sinister. The petite brunette behind him was startled, but Clint felt oddly reassured. If this agent could get out from Loki's control without any serious sequelae, then so could he. "Revenge," the agent said, his voice finally conveying inflection. The pleasure in his voice at the thought of revenge on Loki was clear enough for all of them to hear.
"And how do you propose to do that?" Clint asked, sparing a glance at Natasha from the corner of his eye. Part of Margaret Bridge didn't look quite right, as if the famous angle in the bridge was gone and actually flat. He diverted his attention back to the nameless agent when Natasha remained as calm as ever.
"Loki needs a power source for his machine. The Tesseract is such a power source, but his machinery can't tap into it."
Clint nodded. "Right. It's like asking a PC and Mac to talk to each other. So he needs a power source on this planet to fuel the machine in a way to get it work. There are so very few sources on earth that can match the Tesseract." Clint looked at Natasha, whose implacable face stared back at him. "Stark's arc reactor can, though. His pure, clean, shining example for the future that he kept harping about to Fury as the reason why he couldn't be bothered to consult with Selvig. It's a similar enough design."
"He's powering Stark Tower in New York with it," Natasha told him.
"Then that's where we have to go," Clint told her firmly. Odd, that he was able to take charge like this. He could function in a crisis. It was when there was nothing to do that he felt most at odds with himself. But right now, he felt more comfortable, like his thoughts were slotting back into the proper places.
Natasha looked at the three guards behind them. "Time to take us up."
And before Clint could ask what she meant, he woke up.
***
As the Battle of New York raged beneath them, Arthur and Ariadne looked through one of the plate glass windows of the helicarrier. "They're down there somewhere, fighting," Ariadne murmured, fingers pressed to the glass as if she could make them out from their current elevation. She looked toward Arthur, concern in her features. "This looks bad."
"They'll make it," he assured her, stepping closer. "Natasha always does."
"But what if they don't?"
Arthur slid his hand down Ariadne's back in a comforting gesture, and she leaned into it. "They will. This is what they do, after all. Kind of like getting into Barton's head and getting his thoughts where they should be was our job."
Ariadne gave him a soft smile. "They're not afraid of the consequences of being together, not really. Not the way we are." Her smile was a little sad, making Arthur sigh and lean in closer to her. "It's a different situation, I know."
"Not how it counts. I don't want you hurt because of me or what we do."
She turned and put her arms around him. "And if you didn't have to worry about that?"
"Then I'd compromise you in a heartbeat," he replied with a slight smile. He didn't move to kiss her, and resisted her pull. "Ariadne..."
"The world is about to end," she told him quietly. "And if it doesn't, if they win, I'll just have to work on that worry of yours. I've been told I'm stubborn."
Arthur couldn't help but laugh at that. "Whatever gave you that impression?" he teased. He allowed her to pull him into a kiss at that point, missing the sight of Iron Man speeding up into the sky with a nuclear weapon.
He didn't need to see that to know that the invasion would eventually be turned back. That was simply the way of it. He was far more concerned about a potential future with Ariadne, and what compromise might mean in their world.
It was a worry he would leave for another day. For now, it was enough that they had this moment, and they were safe.
The End
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: Hard R
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, beginnings of Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers/Warnings: Slight AU to the Avengers movie, post-Inception. Violence and torture mentioned, but not explicitly described. For the avengerkink meme prompt in round 3: Natasha wasn't able to beat Clint into normalcy. She has to perform inception.
Summary: *points to prompt* Yep. It's as complicated as that sounds.
Prior chapter:
One - Creating The Team
Two - Time To Fly
Clint was still strapped to the bed. The redhead - Natasha, one corner of his mind supplied with a snarl, or Nadia, or Natalie or Natalia or Tasha - had come back a few times, quietly sitting beside him. She hadn't said much, merely looked at him as if expecting him to say something. There was an itch from that corner of his mind, trying to push its way forward. But he had to contain it, because...
He couldn't remember why. But it was important, as he was important, for there was a plan ready. He was vital to its completion, the heart of the entire convoluted plot for Loki to seize control for Thanos. Thanos was...
There was an Other in Loki's mind, twisting him from the inside out. He had seen it when Loki peered into his eyes, though Loki hadn't realized it at the time. The thing that had allowed Loki to see into him was much like the portal that the Tesseract had opened. A doorway could be opened on either side, and as Loki peered inside of him, Clint had seen into Loki as well. The Other was a horrid, grinning thing feasting on pain and terror, only too glad to apply more heat to a Loki stretched out on the rack in front of Thanos. Death was the only thing that mattered, death and destruction as an offering to Thanos.
I can give you an entire realm to devour, Loki had cried, eyes bleeding and sores weeping. The Other had paused, knives upraised, his eyes piercing.
Give it to me, and I may spare you.
Clint could see his own pain staring back at him, the solitude of the circus and the gaping maw where a family should have been. The only comforts he had had for years were his bow and quiver of arrows, his ability to hit the mark every single time. It was a meditation, a prayer, the only solace he could have. He recognized it in others, knew the loneliness as a different kind of pain, a desperation that could lead anyone to do anything just to make it stop.
He had seen it in Natasha's eyes, the way she dropped her empty gun at his feet and stood in front of his nocked arrow. Do it now, she had said, a slight accent to her voice. She had been pretending to be a Frenchwoman at the time. Now, while you have the chance. You won't have another. They won't let it happen.
But he had put his bow aside. There's another way to finish this, he had said, and contacted Coulson.
In the basement room, mind thrown wide open, Clint had felt his entire self turn inside out, and he lost which way was up.
Loki had smiled, a desperate, pained kind of smile. He hadn't realized that Clint had seen more than he should have. "You have heart," he said, and it was then Clint that knew his life had truly begun again.
There was still that nagging part of his mind, the part that refused to stay quiet and follow Loki's plan. Are you kidding? This is wrong, he's wrong, get him out of your head! He doesn't belong there!
Clint breathed deeply, trying to focus on creating a screen in his mind. It was wavering a little, weakened by distance and a loss of purpose. There had been an expectation, though he was losing track of what he wanted to happen.
"You've been compromised," the redhead told him, snapping his focus to her. The calm he'd been trying to create was lost. "There's nothing left for us to do."
He wanted to ask what she had expected, to pit herself against a god, but the words didn't come. He stared at her, trying to figure out who she was supposed to be. Sometimes he knew her for who she was: Natasha Romanoff, the spy that he had brought in against orders. There was trust there, belonging on a level more than physical, which was most important in their line of work. At other times her blank expression and green eyes held no meaning for him. He pulled at the wrist restraints, the urge to reach out for her difficult to resist even if he didn't understand it. "You're going to have to kill me," he told her as she rose from the seat. "Do it now, while you have the chance. You won't have another."
She froze, gaze locked to his. Then, faster than he thought possible, she was gripping his jaw painfully tight. She searched his gaze, but Clint didn't know what she was looking for. He was hollowed from the inside out, a marionette with cut strings. It was uncomfortable, painful; a gaping wound that hadn't been allowed to heal. The blue screen seemed to be breaking down in the face of her green gaze, which was painful. He needed Loki to give the next set of directions in the plan. He didn't have a heart otherwise.
"There's another way to finish this," she told him, eyes bright. "I know there is."
And then she let him go, disappearing from the room.
There was something important there, something he was missing. He had to hold tightly to the blue screens, even as they faded. How else could he be whole again?
Some time after that, but an explosion rocked the helicarrier. It began to list to the side, whatever had stabilized its descent once again broken. Anxious, Clint began to pull at his restraints. They were still looped into place, scraping at the skin painfully. He grit his teeth and tried to pull past the pain, but the leather didn't give.
Natasha laughed, taking her belt from its loops and then reaching for his. "Does this count as misappropriation of SHIELD property?" she teased, reconfiguring the belts to tie his wrists to the headboard. The nanomesh had more give than his leather, but he still couldn't move from his bound position. Natasha straddled his waist, zipper on her catsuit pulled low enough for him to see the hollow between her breasts. He wanted to nestle his head between them, lose himself in whatever she said or did.
"Misappropriate away," Clint laughed, tugging at his bonds. There was no need for safe words with her. They knew each other inside and out, and there wasn't anything more intimate than trust for them. He might want the sex, too, but what they had was more than that. This particular incident was more because he needed release, he needed limits, he needed her to constrain him. The job had gone very wrong very fast, and he needed to know she'd be there if he fell.
"You're mine, Clint," she said in a low growl that went straight to his groin. "I'm going to have to remind you of that. I'm the only one you listen to."
Clint recoiled as if struck, looking around wildly. Something was wrong, and it was more than just the helicarrier that was listing to the side.
He could see flashes of blue light through the small window to the door of his cell. Loki was here, it had to be. Clint wanted to cry out in both relief and dismay. Loki had said that his plans were precisely laid out, had to be followed to the letter. Anything that deviated from the careful control would send the entire thing unravelling.
Coming to rescue Clint wasn't part of the plan.
When the door blasted off its hinges, Loki staggered into the room. His eyes were still sunken but they were wild with anger. Hate seemed to fuel him, and he gripped the scepter tightly, as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. That gaze fell onto Clint, and it took everything in him not to quail. He wasn't worthy of Loki anymore, that much was clear. "I'm sorry," Clint said, tugging ineffectually at the restraints. "I tried to follow the plans, and I almost managed to get back out..."
"Almost isn't good enough," Loki snarled, and Clint flinched. "If there wasn't equipment here that I needed, I wouldn't be here for you." With a wave of the scepter, the restraints dissolved into nothingness. "Get up and get moving!"
"Yessir," Clint said, moving quickly. "Do you need the access codes?" he asked, hoping to make up for his failure.
Loki straightened and fixed him with an imperious glare. "I can simply take what I need, mortal, much like the iridium. You did that correctly. Can you only take simple directions, then?"
"Selvig got everything he needed," Clint snapped, spine straightening to military precision. He chafed, remembering having to wait as Loki did his grandstanding routine, hating to sit still so low to the ground. He had felt too exposed, even underground, and it had thankfully been over quickly. "He's on the move and will build the device you want. Most of the pieces are already assembled, and it'll only take a few hours to get everything started. The portal will open on schedule."
The grin Loki shot him was manic, full of teeth that seemed far too sharp and dangerous. He nodded toward the hallway. "Get the others, then. I still have need of them."
That stung more than Clint would have ever admitted. I have a place, that angry part of his mind told him, pushing against Loki's commands. "Yessir," Clint said instead, giving him a stiff salute before going to the cells.
The helicarrier listed again with another barrage of fire and explosions. He saw Loki stumble and turned to assist him. "Not this way, you fool," Loki hissed, pushing himself upright along the wall. "Do as I say, you worthless mortal!"
Clint did an abrupt about face, expression stony as he moved with clockwork precision. It was all he was good for. He couldn't be the heart, not when he'd fucked up so badly already. He knew how important this was to Loki and what would happen to him if he failed. There would be blades and blood and heat, the slide of claws into soft belly fat. He should have known better.
It didn't take much effort to break open the cells, to see three men and the petite woman inside. He didn't recognize them, but didn't have to. It could have been another branch of Loki's army that he had been gathering. Others who weren't expendable as he seemed to be. Their eyes weren't that same fevered Tesseract blue, but his own weren't anymore either. Proximity should change that.
"He needs you," he told them, no inflection in his voice, no emotion on his face. He needs you but not me. Clint wasn't sure why he resented it so much, why he felt so angry at the thought of being used and tossed aside.
"Where are we going?" the petite woman asked, her expression still blank and somewhat absent looking.
"I don't know," Clint replied. "I don't need to know."
"Our orders?" one asked him.
"The Tesseract will show us where we need to go."
They followed Clint as he moved unerringly through the maze of the helicarrier. It rocked back and forth as if hit by large missiles, or aircraft were crashing into it. Only the woman lost her footing; absently, Clint wondered if she had been support staff prior to being brought into Loki's service. While he had told Selvig there were plenty of people that hated SHIELD, he'd had just enough presence of mind not to bring any of those players with him to the carrier. It was the only way he had been able to fight Loki's control, much like the nonfatal shot to Fury when the Tesseract was stolen, or the lies he'd told about it when questioned. Each act of defiance, no matter how tiny, brought the full weight of the Tesseract's will crashing down over him. Clint was surprised that even thinking about it now didn't tighten the mental restraints.
You belong to me, came Natasha's voice from the back of his mind. It warred with the irresistible hold the Tesseract had on him, cold blue tendrils creeping throughout his entire being.
Approaching the sound of blast damage and cries of pain, Clint saw Loki using the scepter to destroy the helicarrier's bridge, a sickly grin on his face. He certainly seemed to be gleeful about it, showboating his skill. Normally Clint would snark, say he was overcompensating, but the Tesseract's control tightened. No disrespect to Loki was allowed, and it wasn't worth the wicked headache it gave him to fight it.
Loki looked toward Clint with more disdain than usual. "At last, something useful from this excursion."
"Where are we headed?" Clint asked. The bridge was full of shattered glass, bodies thrown around and sparks flying. He couldn't see Fury or Hill, and hoped they were fine. It looked as though Loki had taken his advice to scatter the Avengers before they were formed.
Loki didn't bother to answer, still blasting apart the command center. "Ready the plane for our departure. Think you can do at least that much?" he sneered.
"Yessir," Clint replied woodenly, hate seething beneath the Tesseract's enforced compliance. He turned sharply on his heel, repressing a snarl and transferring his rage to snap at the rescued combatants "With me."
Clint moved to pilot one of the jets after securing the others in the plane. "We await Loki," he told them in flat tones, and they didn't respond. He tried not to resent it.
Finally Loki stumbled toward the plane, a death's head grin on his face. "They'll be fighting the monster for some time," he said, climbing aboard. When Clint didn't take off right away, he snarled "What are you waiting for, you fool? Ragnarok?!"
He couldn't reply that this was what it felt like, that he was already crafting the perfect arrow to add to his arsenal that would harm Loki. So many lost details were coming back to him now, and even proximity to that damn scepter wasn't reinforcing its hold. Perhaps the blasts had depleted its energy. Perhaps Loki was concentrating more on the new recruits than on him. Either way, it almost felt like he could break free.
When the first missile hit the plane, Clint almost took his hands off the yoke to let them freefall toward the Atlantic Ocean. It was a surprise when the Tesseract didn't tighten its hold on him the way he expected it would. When he did yank back on the yoke, it felt stuck in place. He couldn't stop the freefall, and panic started to set in. He couldn't help the "Holy fuck!" that slipped out, just as he couldn't help the "Tasha" that he had said before she had completely knocked him out.
Something wasn't right here. Something wasn't adding up.
Loki came forward, moving unerringly despite the way the air currents wanted to toss the plane to and fro. "Can't you do anything right, you worthless mortal?" he sneered, touching his scepter to the controls. Instead of sparking, everything seemed to even out. The others in the back remained strapped in place, looking straight ahead. There was no support from that quarter at all.
Clint opened his mouth to speak, but there was the shadow of another. Looking for it, he imagined he could see red through the glass.
Natasha. Of course she'd come for me...
The helicarrier's turret spit out bullets, and it was all he could do to avoid them. Natasha had good aim, and she wasn't pulling any punches right now. She thought he was compromised, and he was, which meant that she had to treat him like any other enemy, no matter their personal history. He couldn't expect any less of her, and would do the same if their positions were reversed. But part of him wanted to scream her name, to make her see that he wasn't completely compromised, there had to be a way to bring him back. She had to try harder than this. He had to try harder than this.
But he didn't know how. He'd never been so completely hollowed out, completely remade in someone else's image. How could he even begin again? What damage had he done in Loki's name?
The plane lost altitude and fuel pressure, and it was all Clint could do to make sure that they had a relatively stable crash landing. Loki was thrown and connected badly with the back of the plane. He actually went through it, scepter and all, and Clint half rose out of his chair before he even really knew what he was doing. The others in the back were all standing up as well, and one slim man that Clint didn't recognize asked "What just happened?"
"Stay here," Clint commanded. The man nodded, and Clint saw that his eyes were brown. He wasn't under Loki's control anymore. In fact, the others didn't seem to have their eyes covered over in icy blue. How could they have gotten free?
"Wait. What's happening?" another man asked. He was tall, thickly built, with blond hair and blue eyes. Clint didn't remember seeing him before, but was willing to allow that his rage at Loki may have blinded him. This man looked about in confusion, an odd accent to his voice that Clint couldn't place. "I don't remember how I got here. What the hell?"
Now that he mentioned it, the others in the back of the plane looked around in confusion. "I don't remember," the other man told him, then turned to look at Clint. "Sir?"
Clint fell back into his seat. He could see Natasha's plane above them, and half heard the small woman ask "Is that Spain?"
He didn't register the non sequitur. If they were close to Spain, they were over the Mediterranean, and there were places nearby where he had once hid from enemy agents. Loki couldn't know about them, hadn't seen that deeply into his mind. He couldn't have flown there, even on autopilot, which meant that something else was going on. He looked around, for the first time seeing the dark marks left from where they'd skidded across streets and thrown cars back from the crash zone. People scurried away like ants. He didn't see where Loki had gone.
He'd been left again.
Clint watched Natasha land her plane in the central square of the city. Like everything she did, it was accurate and graceful. "Where are we?" he muttered, unbuckling his restraints and going to check on the others in the back. They didn't seem to be harmed at least, and the woman was already gingerly exiting the plane through the Loki-shaped hole in the back. "It definitely looks like Estepona..."
Natasha left her plane and approached them, gun in hand. "I guess Loki left you," she said, tone flat. "What? Not essential to the plan any longer?"
"No, not especially," came Loki's voice above the square. He was perched on the roof of one of the buildings lining the square. He had the same arrogant stance that he'd had in Stuttgart, scepter perched in hand. "But you were right. I needed a distraction, and now you've served your purpose." The smile he shot Natasha was sharp edged and malicious, triggering a protective instinct deep in Clint's chest. "You're welcome to him, little spider. See if you get anything useful out of him, or if I leave him to carve you open."
Clint found himself reaching for a bow he hadn't realized he was carrying, and snapping it open with a practiced flick of his arm. "No," he said, voice tight and angry. "You don't touch her," he said, reaching for a quiver of specialty arrows that wasn't there.
"What do you want to do?" the agent with dark hair asked Clint. The blond was nowhere to be seen, and Clint could see the petite woman reaching for a gun. There had been more agents, hadn't there? Clint didn't know where they had gone, but there was the press of uncertainty now. He was supposed to stay loyal to Loki, though he couldn't remember why. "I need you to think, sir," the tall man pressed, each syllable enunciated clearly. He handed over a quiver of arrows that Clint grabbed and strapped into place. "I need you to think. What do you want to do?"
Natasha will know what to do, Clint thought, then realized he said the words aloud. The sense of creeping wrongness was even more pronounced, the blue screen in his mind difficult to recreate.
The man didn't seem terribly surprised by that. If anything, he nodded and looked relieved.
Leaving the plane, Clint saw Natasha shooting at Loki with her Glock. Loki was too far away for the widow's bites to be effective, and he knew she would be in danger as soon as her ammunition ran out. She was good, but there was no way she could defeat magic with none of her own.
The arrow flew from his bow before he could consciously think about it, hitting Loki straight in the chest. He spun backward, then fell over the far side of a peaked roof top. Clint was sprinting across the square as fast as he could, the tall man and petite woman falling into step as he ran. By the time Clint got to Natasha's side, the blond was already there. She had her gun in hand and pointed at Clint's face, tension etched into her stance.
"Tasha," Clint gasped. For a split second he felt like himself, like he recognized the place around him and the woman she was. "Help me."
In response, she pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness.
***
They were in Estepona, a coastal city in the Andalusian principality of Spain. There were myriad beaches; myriad influences left over from Celts, Romans, Spaniards, and Moors; and it was relatively far away from the major tourist centers. Clint vaguely remembered being in the area years ago, and the two main centers were near the pub scene, the old quarter, and the ports. He had hidden in the old quarter, because the buildings were easier to scale and he liked the narrow, winding streets.
"I remember this place," Clint murmured when he was conscious. He was cuffed to the wrought iron headboard, and his lips quirked into a smile as he tugged gently. The cuff didn't give. "I remember this, too."
Natasha sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed. "What do you remember?"
He frowned, trying to remember though a blue haze what his thoughts were supposed to be. "Loki," he said finally, frown deepening. "He should be here."
"He's not," Natasha replied curtly. "He left you to my tender mercies, as he called it. He said you were useless to him now. Do you remember that?"
There had been the helicarrier attack, the plane ride, and the crash. Yes, he remembered that, as well as the sickly burn beneath his skin at the wrongness of it all, that he had done everything asked of him. "I do," Clint admitted finally, bitterness thick in his voice. "I remember."
"What else do you remember?" she asked, leaning forward.
Clint could almost imagine what it would feel like, to draw the zipper down and lick her skin as it was exposed, the way her touch would feel, the press of her body against his. He also knew that Loki had intended for him to subvert his own feelings, to flay her skin from her bones if he wasn't good enough. He remembered wanting to please, wanting so desperately to belong, to let the Tesseract fill him up and give him purpose.
Something must have shown in his face, because she was there in an instant, palm sliding against the rough stubble of his jaw. "Tell me." Her voice was a gentle whisper, the soft tone they only used with each other.
"He'll ask me to hurt you," Clint managed to say, tongue thick in his mouth. There was relief in admitting that even as the ghost of the Tesseract's control howled that he was a traitor to Loki. He belonged to Loki, body and soul, and if he was thrown away it was to serve Loki's will. Clint had to obey, had no will of his own.
"Tell me," she urged, cupping his face in her hands. You belong to me, she had said once, doing exactly this. The look on her face was just as intense, just as open. She trusted him more than anyone else in the world. Even Coulson and Fury didn't rank high enough in her esteem, and Clint had always known that.
In tangled, broken sentences, Clint told Natasha about the blue screen that seemed to come down in his mind as soon as he had been touched with the scepter, separating his thoughts from the pull of command and the need to please. He told her of the warring instincts that still were trapped within him, the need to follow orders and let someone else take control. "I've been compromised," he admitted finally, turning away from her. "Might as well drum me out."
"So have I," Natasha told him, voice carefully modulated. She tilted her head when he turned to look back in confusion. "You know what I've done, and what I haven't done. I have red in my ledger. I need to wipe that out."
There were so many things they didn't say with words, or couldn't. It had become like shorthand, a code of situations that they alluded to. That confused anyone listening in, but also meant that their communications could be imprecise. Right now, he wanted Natasha to take him into her arms and rock him, tell him that what she loved him, that he wasn't actually compromised.
"How many did I...?" He couldn't even say the words.
"Don't. Don't do that to yourself," Natasha insisted, sliding her hands down over his shoulders. "That was Loki, not you."
"It's still there," Clint told her. "I feel it, that kind of control just waiting for me."
"But he's done with you. He said you're useless to him now. He doesn't need you. You can do your own work again. Loki doesn't control you."
The words felt right, but there was still the vague sense of discontent. Something wasn't right with this, and it itched beneath his skin. "But..."
"But what?"
"Then why does he need Selvig? The portal is almost done. It only needs a power source similar to the Tesseract in composition to get it started."
Natasha rocked back next to him, a musing expression on her face. That felt right. Clint could hold onto that, let her put the pieces together. This entire situation left him feeling hollow, wrung out to dry. She was still clearly herself, and he could trust in her. He was the assassin that killed selected targets from the background, the one who wasn't really expected to have ideas about what was going on even if he did have them.
She laced her fingers through his, squeezing tightly. "Selvig must not have found a good enough source yet. Reports all state that Selvig is something of a perfectionist, so he wouldn't move unless he had everything set up the way he wants it."
"I've worked with him. He anthropomorphizes the Tesseract. Calls it a 'she,' acts like it has a mind of its own and is intelligent."
Lifting an eyebrow at him, Natasha asked, "Does it?"
Put on the spot, Clint froze. He wanted to fall back under the spell, let someone else take control. But he couldn't. Natasha needed him. He was the one that knew how the Tesseract worked, and he was the one that would be able to help her.
"Yes," he said finally. "It sees into you, shows you what you need. Selvig wanted knowledge, so that's what he got." Clint's lips twisted in a self mocking manner. "It gave me a master, someone to answer to so I don't have to take control."
"You don't have to take control of the situation," Natasha said, pulling their linked hands into her lap. "But your thoughts are your own. Your will is your own. And if you choose to follow someone else's lead, it's still your choice. That's what I want for you."
"Sounds good," Clint rasped, leaning in closer. Their foreheads touched, and it seemed more intimate than a kiss, more of a caress than a hand across bare flesh.
"Do you feel it still there? Still a presence you can't get away from?"
The pull of the Tesseract clearly wanted him to lie to her. "Yes."
"Then we keep going," she murmured, turning her head. Clint looked beyond her and saw that the petite woman was there in the doorway. Behind her were the two taller men from the plane that he had flown, though he didn't know why they would be in Estepona with him. "One more ought to do it," Natasha told them.
"Where to?" the woman asked, looking between them both.
Natasha smiled and let her hand fall from Clint's. "A place where Loki has never been and will never have a hold over you."
"He's been inside my head, Tasha," Clint told her, concerned. "He'll know every safe place I have. There's no escaping his control."
Her smile was predatory, which actually comforted Clint. "Of course there are ways to escape his control. I got the best of him once already, and I plan to do it again."
"Then wherever you think it's safe," Clint returned with a half sigh. "You'll know where to go."
"Yes, I do." Her lip quirked into a smile. "Trust me."
The smile he gave her was a true one. "Always."
***
"I recognize this place," Clint murmured when they left the plane.
"I should hope so," Natasha replied with a smile, confidence in every step. "I remember having a hell of a time here."
Clint snorted. "You and I remember this very differently, you know."
Budapest was one of the largest cities in Europe, and the capital of Hungary. There were many tourist attractions for the average person. Its history made it a wonderful location for various spies or information brokers to meet. The many restaurants, museums and attractions were useful places to hide in plain sight, and Clint and Natasha were both familiar with the technique.
Somehow they were in Újlipótváros, the inner part of District XIII, a residential area with many cafés, shops, restaurants, theaters and the Margaret Bridge. The area closest to the Danube River was the most spacious and elegant, particularly around Szent István Park. Clint looked around the area, frowning a little. "I don't remember... The airport is too far from here to walk."
"We didn't walk," the petite brunette told him. "You probably don't remember the cab ride. You kind of intimidated the driver into not cheating us."
"That sounds like me," Clint murmured with a nod. "So what are we doing here?"
"We're going to destroy Loki's hold on you," Natasha told him in quiet tones.
He looked at the park, the pedestrians and then the five of them. "How are you going to do that? He's not here, Selvig's not here. Loki made sure we didn't know where we were going, and Selvig didn't tell me what he had in mind. He cared more for that damned cube than anything else. He didn't shave, didn't shower, was stuck building that machine around the cube." There was frustration in Clint's tone, as well as self castigation. I should have been better. I should have known. People died because of me. I should have known.
"There's an informant," Natasha told him easily. "You know how it goes."
Yes, he did, though Clint still frowned as he walked after her. He didn't remember changing, but he was in slacks and a collared shirt, pistol hidden under the open suit jacket he was wearing. Natasha was wearing a flowing sleeved green dress, looking utterly lovely. Clint could have sworn that she had been wearing her nanomesh cat suit, but that made no sense in a situation like this. The three people behind him had to be SHIELD agents, though they wore business casual clothing and didn't seem to be carrying weapons. Very obvious backup, if anyone had asked him, but this was Natasha's show, wasn't it? The last time they had been in Budapest, it had been an op gone wrong, and he remembered shooting their way out and nearly dying.
Something wasn't right, and it made him feel almost sick trying to puzzle it out.
"There, do you see?" Natasha murmured after a moment, looping her arm around his. He could feel a knife sheath along her arm, under the sleeve. That was comforting, and he turned his head to look at her. Despite the SHIELD agents behind them, if they were on another op, a relationship was a good cover. Natasha would never touch him too familiarly if it wasn't safe. It wasn't their way, and that eased some of the tension he felt.
Clint relaxed into her touch and looked toward one of the pools up ahead. He recognized the face of the man up ahead as one of the SHIELD agents that Loki had confiscated along with him, Selvig and the Tesseract. "I never learned his role. Loki didn't discuss anything about him."
"Isn't that rather the point?" Natasha asked, pressing closer to him. He could feel the swell of her breast and longed to caress her, to pin her mouth beneath his. It had been far too long. "He's not seen as important, but he hears all the details that you don't think he knows."
Snorting, Clint leaned in close, as if they were lovers whispering to each other on a summer afternoon stroll. "I don't think Loki had a coherent plan. I saw into him as he saw into me. Something out there that tortured him. He offered us up to save himself, and he's still sick. There's something wrong with him, you saw that."
"Perhaps that agent can tell us why."
"The Tesseract is like poison," Clint said, sudden vehemence in his tone startling even him. "It warps you from the inside out, changes everything about you. It unmakes you..." He stopped walking and looked at Natasha. "Do you know how awful...?"
"You know I do," she murmured, squeezing his arm in support. "You know I do."
"I don't know what's left of me, Tasha. What if nothing's left?"
"It didn't leave traps or triggers. I know that," she told him, confident. "Your mind is your own."
"The screen I told you about..."
"Is an excuse, isn't it? The Tesseract's not here, and no one is controlling you now. This is your chance to get back at Loki, undermining what he means to do. Your chance to be Clint Barton again. Anything past that is up to you."
He looked at her calm expression. "As in..."
"If being compromised is worth it or not."
Her voice carried no inflection, but the words stabbed him in the gut. He pulled her close without thinking about it. "Absolutely," he told her.
"Then let's do what we came here to do."
Clint didn't even ask the former agent what his name was, as recognition was enough. He nodded at Clint and Natasha, not even bothering to take in the three agents behind him. "You know what he wants," the agent said, voice strangely inflectionless. "Power and recognition. He doesn't care who he breaks to get it, and he's only too willing to throw you under the bus. Loki doesn't need you. He never really needed you, he just needed someone highly enough placed in SHIELD to get him what he wanted." The agent shrugged. "When his hold broke from me, that left me to be my own man. Now I can do whatever I want."
"Which is?" Clint prompted when Natasha remained strangely silent.
The agent smiled a rictus grin that seemed similar to Natasha's most sinister. The petite brunette behind him was startled, but Clint felt oddly reassured. If this agent could get out from Loki's control without any serious sequelae, then so could he. "Revenge," the agent said, his voice finally conveying inflection. The pleasure in his voice at the thought of revenge on Loki was clear enough for all of them to hear.
"And how do you propose to do that?" Clint asked, sparing a glance at Natasha from the corner of his eye. Part of Margaret Bridge didn't look quite right, as if the famous angle in the bridge was gone and actually flat. He diverted his attention back to the nameless agent when Natasha remained as calm as ever.
"Loki needs a power source for his machine. The Tesseract is such a power source, but his machinery can't tap into it."
Clint nodded. "Right. It's like asking a PC and Mac to talk to each other. So he needs a power source on this planet to fuel the machine in a way to get it work. There are so very few sources on earth that can match the Tesseract." Clint looked at Natasha, whose implacable face stared back at him. "Stark's arc reactor can, though. His pure, clean, shining example for the future that he kept harping about to Fury as the reason why he couldn't be bothered to consult with Selvig. It's a similar enough design."
"He's powering Stark Tower in New York with it," Natasha told him.
"Then that's where we have to go," Clint told her firmly. Odd, that he was able to take charge like this. He could function in a crisis. It was when there was nothing to do that he felt most at odds with himself. But right now, he felt more comfortable, like his thoughts were slotting back into the proper places.
Natasha looked at the three guards behind them. "Time to take us up."
And before Clint could ask what she meant, he woke up.
***
As the Battle of New York raged beneath them, Arthur and Ariadne looked through one of the plate glass windows of the helicarrier. "They're down there somewhere, fighting," Ariadne murmured, fingers pressed to the glass as if she could make them out from their current elevation. She looked toward Arthur, concern in her features. "This looks bad."
"They'll make it," he assured her, stepping closer. "Natasha always does."
"But what if they don't?"
Arthur slid his hand down Ariadne's back in a comforting gesture, and she leaned into it. "They will. This is what they do, after all. Kind of like getting into Barton's head and getting his thoughts where they should be was our job."
Ariadne gave him a soft smile. "They're not afraid of the consequences of being together, not really. Not the way we are." Her smile was a little sad, making Arthur sigh and lean in closer to her. "It's a different situation, I know."
"Not how it counts. I don't want you hurt because of me or what we do."
She turned and put her arms around him. "And if you didn't have to worry about that?"
"Then I'd compromise you in a heartbeat," he replied with a slight smile. He didn't move to kiss her, and resisted her pull. "Ariadne..."
"The world is about to end," she told him quietly. "And if it doesn't, if they win, I'll just have to work on that worry of yours. I've been told I'm stubborn."
Arthur couldn't help but laugh at that. "Whatever gave you that impression?" he teased. He allowed her to pull him into a kiss at that point, missing the sight of Iron Man speeding up into the sky with a nuclear weapon.
He didn't need to see that to know that the invasion would eventually be turned back. That was simply the way of it. He was far more concerned about a potential future with Ariadne, and what compromise might mean in their world.
It was a worry he would leave for another day. For now, it was enough that they had this moment, and they were safe.
The End