Avengers Tower
August 2011
Clint was lost in his archery.
The expression on his face was one Natasha knew well, though she'd seen it rarely. He was so completely concentrated on the mechanics of draw, nock, aim, release, repeat that he didn't even register her presence yet, which said a lot about his peace of mind in this tower, and the trust he felt towards the other Avengers.
It surprised her a bit to see how comfortable he had become.
"Clint," she said, stepping forward.
He paused with his bow half-drawn.
"Natasha," he said quietly, and relaxed the string. The arrow sat unused in its seat on the bow, pointed at the floor. He turned and met her eyes. "It's good to have you back."
"Is it?" she asked. "Seems like you didn't want to see me."
"Huh."
"Are you angry that I betrayed Fury, or jealous of Zima?" she asked coolly.
Clint's fingers tensed around his bow. "In case you didn't notice, I've betrayed Fury too at this point, at least in his eyes," he said through gritted teeth.
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You're not here on his orders?"
"He tried to send me after you," Clint said flatly. "Told us you're on the kill list. So's your Soldier. So I walked."
"I know Fury," Natasha said quietly. "He won't trust the Avengers anymore, not completely. So you tell me, Clint, are you here because you wouldn't chase me down, or because Fury staged a little argument to get an inside line with the Avengers?"
Clint shook his head slowly. "Here I thought you trusted me," he said with a bitter laugh. "At least enough to know I wouldn't do that to the only people I've found a home with in the last ten years aside from you. And for the record, I'm not jealous. I'm pissed that you bolted and left me behind. Partners don't do that, Tasha."
He set his bow down with a thunk and walked out of the training room.
Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and dipped her head. Shit. Goddamn trust issues rearing their heads.
She swallowed a bitter draught of pride and went after him.
"Clint!"
He stopped halfway to the elevators, but didn't turn.
"You going to make me walk all the way?" Natasha asked.
Clint turned to face her, face colder than she'd seen it since he held her at arrow-point in Budapest. "I think you made yourself pretty clear already, Tasha."
She flinched and immediately hated herself for it. Using that nickname was a manipulative jab, a skill he'd learned from her over the years, and of course Clint would know exactly how to strike.
"You know I have… difficulty trusting people," she said. "It's Fury who I'm wary of here, not you. And I would've taken you with me. I know I promised to. SHIELD had tails on me and I had to bolt or lose my window. You were out on an op." She shrugged. "I didn't have a choice."
"Logical," Clint agreed. She studied his face. He was softening, but not enough.
"I'm trying to apologize," she snapped.
He smiled slightly. "You kind of suck at it."
"Tell me something I don't know," Natasha retorted, and couldn't quite deny the relief that whipped through her muscles like cold water. It made her almost giddy. She'd managed not to lose Clint.
"Just… next time, don't go off without backup, okay?" he asked quietly. "You'd come for me, if I were in trouble. And I'd come for you. I did, actually. But you were gone."
Natasha didn't quite know how to say it, but she knew it had to be cleared up. "You know I don't–Zima is–"
Clint snorted. "Natasha, you are my closest friend. But no, I am not romantically drawn to you in the slightest, and even if I was, a blind man could see that you and your Soldier are endgame."
Natasha snickered. "You know, you're probably one of the only men on the planet who would say that."
"You're at least double my age," he protested. "Come on, really ?"
"Natalia?"
They both spun around.
Zima (Bucky?) stood in the open stairwell door, looking massively uncomfortable. Natasha studied him and already saw something she didn't quite recognize in his face, a softness or uncertainty that had never existed before, and she knew it was because of Steve. She knew it was because suddenly, here was a link to Zima's past, a story neither of them had ever been told.
She didn't know how much it would change him, or if his memories would come back.
And Natasha realized that she selfishly hoped his memories never came back. James Buchanan Barnes–she'd heard the stories. He wasn't a man who could love a blood-covered monster like the Black Widow.
She didn't want to lose him.
Clint and Zima sized one another up, and Natasha realized too late that her Soldier had to be feeling her own discomfort upon returning to the Tower, except ten times worse. She wished she could've kept these two sides of her life separate indefinitely, or at least controlled the impact.
Zima opened his mouth to say something.
"Good to have you on the team," Clint said firmly, and clapped Zima once on the shoulder. "Training room's available for both of you," he added, and vanished into the stairwell.
Zima relaxed fractionally and tried to smile at Natasha, though she saw the strain. "He seems… a good man," Zima said.
"He is," Natasha said. "One of the few people who play this game and kept their heart in the process."
Her unspoken words dangled in the hallway between them: unlike us .
In silent agreement, they moved for the training room Clint had just vacated, because that, at least, was something they knew.
Avengers Tower
August 2011
"Hold still," the doctor snapped.
Loki resisted the urge to bare his teeth and tear away. He remembered another place and another time, another invasion of body and mind like this, when Thanos pinned him down and tortured him, bleeding him dry again and again over days to test the limits of Loki's healing, to weaken his seidr until his mind was left bare and unprotected. Every muscle in Loki's body was rock-hard with tension and it took all of his self-control to not jerk away from the needle again.
Dark red-purple blood trickled sluggishly from his veins.
"Has your core body temperature always been so low?" Dr. Banner asked absently, flicking through pages of data. "SHIELD records show Thor ran noticeably hotter than most humans, but you seem to do the opposite."
"There is a wider variation on Asgard than here, I presume," Loki said coldly. "I wouldn't pretend to be an expert in human physiology."
"Mmmm." Banner seemed lost in the computer and the papers in the binder, unconcerned with Loki's hostility. Loki glared at the blood slowly filling a small plastic bag and imagined clenching his fists and smashing the entire lab to bits.
The door slammed open and Jane Foster charged through. She obtained the general attitude and bearing of a battering ram when in pursuit of scientific advancement, much like Thor in battle, her brain entirely focused on her work and turned off from such paltry things as fear and risk. It was amusing.
"These readings are incredible," she said. "You're actually slightly altering the Higgs-Boson fields to manipulate matter. I didn't even know that was possible . Can you teleport? This seems to suggest that quantum tunneling could be controlled on a much larger scale by your abilities, in which case I don't understand how you haven't set off a disruption in Higgs-Boson fields. Bruce, remember that conference, the hypothesis that Higgs-Boson could collapse? Quantum tunneling for instantaneous transport could reverse the Big Bang, collapse the universe in seconds back to nothing. If you can bring things with you when you teleport, then I need to send a sensor with you, gather more data–"
"Jane," Banner interrupted. "Perhaps not at this precise moment? I've only just gotten him still enough to take a sample."
Foster blinked, nodded. "Yeah, I'd love some," she said.
Banner rolled his eyes and went back to monitoring his blood draw.
Loki rubbed his temple with his free hand.
When the plastic bag was full, Banner carefully slid the needle out of Loki's arm and pressed a small amount of white absorbent material against the break in the skin. "Keep pressure there," he advised.
Loki used a spark of seidr to heal the wound.
"Are we done here?" he asked coldly. He saw no point in pretending to be happy about this. They all knew how he'd resisted letting them have his blood. My blood. They had no right–
Loki clenched his teeth. They did have a right. A non-invasive procedure, for scientific purposes, as part of a bargain, taken from someone who had single-handedly killed hundreds of Midgardians… he had to admit that it was a valid point. A small price to pay.
But he would not, could not, allow them to discover the differences between himself and Thor.
"We're done," Banner confirmed.
"How long will it take before the results are returned?" Loki asked indifferently.
Banner shrugged. "I have a lot of other things going on, and it's difficult for our technology to analyze Asgardian tissue, based on what we've done with Thor's… A week or two, maybe more."
"Mmm," Loki said noncommittally. "Dr. Foster, I trust your initial results will be adequate for some study?"
"Yes," she said without looking up from her desk. Her workspace was even more of a disaster than Darcy's. "Yeah, this is… This is great."
"I'll be going, then," Loki said.
Neither of them answered.
He shook his head and strode out of the lab.
Two weeks. He had two weeks to find a way to tamper with the data. He couldn't destroy the sample; they would notice, of course. He would have to alter the data somehow to make it resemble Thor's, after the tests were finished but before Banner had a chance to analyze the results.
It would not be easy, and the stakes were high.
Loki smiled thinly. He certainly appreciated the challenge.