Chapter 4
Clint was sitting in the canteen on the helicarrier. He was back on the roster, finally, but everyone looked at him like he was one wrong word from falling apart. He’d heard that had happened to Selvig, that he just fell apart. Clint was better than that though. He was stronger than that. Loki wasn’t even the worst thing to happen to him.
So when some junior agent came running in and shouted:“Thor’s in England! There’s some kind of invasion, I bet it’s Loki again!” Clint didn’t panic. He didn’t run away. He just carefully set his mug down and stood up, his chair scraping loudly in the sudden silence. He could feel all their eyes on him, watching, looking for cracks. So he wouldn’t show them. He put a smirk on his face and made some joke he couldn’t remember later. Maybe something about adoption, but he wasn’t sure.
He walked through the corridors to his room, and the other agents parted before him. That’s happened a lot since Loki, people getting out of his way.
He made it in and shut the door before the shakes hit him and he sank down to the floor, his head falling back against the wall. If Thor was back, that meant trouble. Trouble usually meant Loki where Thor was involved.
And Clint couldn’t... he couldn’t...
If Loki was back...
If Loki was...
If Loki....
He lost track of things for a little while, curled in on himself on the floor, and came out of it tearstained and with bloody knuckles. He’d beaten up the wall.
Which was a shame because the wall hadn’t done anything wrong.
Loki had taken the almost everything from Clint. He took Clint’s freedom, he took Clint’s illusions, and he took Clint’s Coulson. The only thing Clint had left was... well...
He grabbed his phone and hit the speed dial.
“Come on, come on, pick up.... Nat? Hey. Yeah. How soon can we get to England?”