Chapter 30
Thor stretched a hand to reach Loki. His silhouette was painted golden against the blue sky and even back then Loki noticed how he looked up at his brother from his place in the shadow, and he wanted to cry. He´d fallen into the pit since early morning, and despite his yelling, no one had come. His magic wasn´t strong enough to be of help yet, and he was too small to reach the edge on his own. But Thor found him. Thor always found him.
Loki was running on instinct, and everything was a blur. He landed punches right and left, and it wasn´t long before he got hold of a Chitauri sword. After that, everything was easier. Messier.
They had spent weeks tracking the bilgesnipe, but only after they´d found it did they realize they had no chance against it. Loki´s spells and knives and Thor´s blows bounced right off its hide, and even when Thor summoned a thunderbolt it slipped over it harmlessly. The beast pawed them around like a kitten playing with its catch.
They hid beneath a rocky step and wordlessly agreed that they had to escape. But they were tired and weak, and they had told no one about their idiotic quest.
They were on their own.
He hacked off limbs and knifed chests, this time maiming rather than killing on purpose.
When the bilgesnipe ripped the rock off, they dared another look at each other. Perhaps their last.
In the end, Thor managed to hold it still for enough time for Loki to land a spell on its open eye. Odin had nearly killed them himself when they got back, but he let them hang the bilgesnipe skin on the royal family chambers and Loki caught him looking proudly at it from time to time.
He didn´t know how many remained. He didn´t know how many he´d killed. He´d felt the bite of a thirst in his gut and it was nowhere near quenched.
Thor.
The word was a fire in his chest that translated into wordless, enraged yells. He was vaguely aware of the others shooting and kicking around him. Banner was nowhere to be seen. He´d probably stayed in the chamber, fighting the beast down. It wasn´t of importance. They didn´t need him.
This time, even being two men down, the situation was drastically different. For each alien they downed, the rest slowed down, for their connection made the injuries of a few the burden of many. They grew slower by the moment and their beastly eyes widened in fear when they caught sight of him.
He sensed an attack coming forward, aimed at his face, and crouched to thrust a punch. It went through the alien´s ribcage. The blood splashed on his face, warm and steely, and prompted a bark of laughter off him.
They´d come here to get him, but they´d made the most elemental of mistakes; If anyone was ever going to kill Thor, it had to be him.
--
Tony looked at his side just in time to see the manic, bloody-faced laughter.
He lost it.
His thoughts were strangely clear, as if everything else was moving way slower than him. He caught the red flash of Natasha´s hair, and moved towards her. The woman had little need of his help, breaking necks and spines as easily as twigs, but he went anyway, because the Chitauri seemed to be focusing on her and she should lend him some of her toys. The thought made him smile.
Perhaps we´ve all lost it.
A roar echoed from within the cave, along with a crack, and his grin grew wider.
We´ve all definitively lost it:
It didn´t take long for Hulk to break into the scene, smashing enemies with a makeshift club consisting of a headless Chitauri corpse. Huh.
"Tony!" He looked back at Steve´s yell, and the man pointed to the green giant as if Tony had somehow missed him. "Get him to calm down before he brings the place down on us!" He ordered.
Tony gave him a two finger salute before turning the propellers on and moving to Hulk´s side.
"Hey buddy." he started, and the suit´s visor opened so that his face was visible. "Nice of you to join, but we need Brucie right now." He said with an ease he didn´t feel at all.
Hulk spared him a wary glance, and his eyes drifted sideways for a second to catch a glimpse of Loki, who had lost his sword and was back to breaking things. Toy clapped, and the metallic noise brought back Hulk´s attention.
"It´s temporary." He explained. They SO didn´t need a Hulk vs Loki right now. "Bruce, please?"
Hulk shook his head, frowning. "HULK NO WANT."
And Tony wanted to break down right then because he really wasn´t in the mood to engage in conversation with the Hulk.
"Please buddy... We´re almost done with the fighting." And it was right, he noticed. All around him the Chitauri stumbled over each other in their haste to get away from the maddened Loki, and those that didn´t manage to slip away into a tunnel were trapped against Natasha and Steve. "You see? We´re..."
He stopped on his tracks, noticing something strange in the giant´s posture. He held himself hunched, with the arm that held the hitting-corpse well before him and the other one closer to his chest. Almost as if... "... What have you got there, Jolly Green?"
Hulk looked down at his loosely balled fist and then back at Tony.
"FRIEND." He bellowed. Tony cringed.
"Yeah, buddy... That´s Thor. Put him down."
"NO LOUD FRIEND. LITTLE FRIEND." There was a hint of pride in Hulk´s voice then, as if he´d accomplished something, and it was just then that Tony knew who he was talking about.
"C... Can I see him, Hulkie?" He didn´t mean to stutter, but he wasn´t ready for a second well-known corpse in such a short amount of time and so he tried to focus on the tiny speck of hope at the back of his head. Instead of complying, Hulk threw the Chitauri corpse against the ground. Hard.
"THING HURT LITTLE FRIEND. HULK SMASH THING."
Shit.
"We found Clint." He said into his communicator, not trusting him to say anything else, and landed next to the headless corpse.
Natasha was there first, and Steve stopped just behind her. She made no sound at all, and he shot a meaningful stare at Tony, but the latter looked away. He had no answer.
Loki walked to his other side, bloodied and panting.
Hulk´s glance swept over them all, as if counting them, and stopped on Loki, sizing him up warily.
"YOU NO LOUD FRIEND."
Tony fought the urge to cringe for a second time, but Loki´s expression passed from enraged to blank to laughter so fast that he found himself arching an eyebrow in confusion.
"I´m sorry." He answered, but it was forgotten when Hulk apparently accepted his presence and opened his fisted hand.
Clint was a bruised mess, but even after only four days in the burrow that was something to be expected. He also breathed, and after four whole days in the burrow, that was a miracle.
Steve stepped forward and gently dragged him off the green hand and over the ground. Tony looked up at the giant again.
"Well done, bud. We´re good now, we need Bruce, ok?"
Hulk grunted, but it was ok because it was the pissed off grunt that revealed how annoying he found the need of changing back and forth on command. By the time Bruce had shrank back to his original size and ripped a strip off his pants to use it as a belt, Natasha had already taken in Clint´s vital signs.
"His pulse and breathing are normal. I don´t see anything broken." She announced when he edged closer.
"The Chitauri beat him across the head when I found them." Bruce muttered, kneeling at his side. "He´s just knocked off." He looked at Tony. "Call in a medical team."
"You heard the man, Jarvis." He was just about to turn back to Loki, when Clint stirred on the ground. He fell to his knees in sync with Natasha and Steve, and leaned over the fallen man.
Bruce nodded at Natasha, and she reached to touch Clint´s shoulder. "Clint?"
He stirred further, and his eyes bolted open for a second,, before he took a deep, calming breath and closed them again.
"Nat?"
He lifted a hand and Natasha took it, sending a glare around as if daring them to comment on it. But no one did. He was alive and nothing else really mattered.
"I can´t believe you´re here, guys." He muttered, his voice hoarse and cracked. Tony frowned then, because surely Clint had been through worse.
"Well we couldn´t exactly leave you here, could we? I´m pretty fond of my head." He said, and lint´s mouth twitched a hint of a smile and he returned it fully. The shock of finding Clint alive had pushed everything else to a blurry side of his head, to deal with later with a bottle in his hand.
"Thor, man, I hope your brother survived this because I´m going to kick his ass." Clint muttered, wiping his free hand across his brow. "... Thor?" He asked a second later, when no answer came.
Loki stepped forward, and when Tony looked up at him, he looked more like a corpse than any of his recent kills.
"He´s not here, Barton."
Clint´s head snapped around. In the wrong direction. Curious.
"Well, where is he?"
Loki blinked once, slowly.
"Gone."
This time Clint took a second to frown and tighten his lips into a thin, stressed line.
"Did you kill him?" Again, Tony fully expected the god to crack at that, but he just let his face mold into a saddened smile.
"I did."
Tony climbed to his feet at that, but Loki edged away and Clint´s face turned again, this time in the right direction. His eyes were still unfocused, his brow still furrowed, and Steve placed his hand over his free shoulder to prevent him from rising.
"He didn´t. It was an accident." Their leader explained, short and to the point. "An accident."
"I didn´t take you for a liar, dear captain." Loki´s voice had reverted to the piercing, aggressive tone he used to taunt his brother into a fight, but Steve didn´t take the bait. Tony barely noticed, as he´d plastered on a frown of his own and fixed his gaze on Clint after noticing what was so unsettling in his glance.
"How many of us are there, birdie?" He asked, casually. Clint´s brow furrowed again, but his eyes remained unfocused.
"Five?"
"You´re not seeing double, then. Good." He knelt again and by then both Steve and Natasha were leaning closer as well, suspicious. He waved a hand in front of Clint´s face, feeling for all in the world like he´d had a bowl of nails for breakfast that morning. Nothing.
He looked sideways at Natasha, who had paled ghostly in a matter of seconds, and then to Steve, whose face was a careful mask betrayed by his frightened eyes.
"Look at Steve, birdie. Bruce wants to get a better look at that bruise you´ve got there." He asked once again.
Clint swallowed thickly, sighed and, after a second, closed his eyes again. Everyone braced for the hit.
"I can´t."
--
Loki wanted to scream. He would have, had his rage not ran out at the time of the battle. He looked down at the pathetic, broken mortal who had cost him Thor. He shot a look around wishing he´d known which one of the Chitauri had done the job so he could repay the favor... But he´d never know, and instead he let himself get lost into the abyss of Barton´s useless eyes, now staring blindly ahead in his direction. He sighed. Barton´s sight was as good as they came, and then some more.
Now he was... Empty.
His lips menaced to curl into a smile once more. Empty. Like him, now that Thor wasn´t there.
You and I could´ve have such a particular friendship his words came back to him. The blind marksman and the powerless sorcerer. A particular duo indeed.
Just as he got to that conclusion, a small but strong hand clamped around his wrist and pulled. He was just beginning to recoil when he noticed who it was and let himself be dragged instead. He hadn´t had it good last time he´d gotten up against her.
Romanoff´s lips were a thin line, and her chest heaved up and down as she tried controlling her breathing. Even as she held his wrist, her hand trembled and sweated. She let his hand fall free once they reached Barton´s proximity, and gave him a meaningful look. Of course.
He knelt at Barton´s side. Now, how to break it down to them...
--
"What are you waiting for?!" Natasha all but screamed at Loki. The god shook his head slowly, tiredly.
"I can´t."
"What do you mean?!" The assassin jammed the barrel of her gun on the god´s temple, but he didn´t seem to care.
"I can´t." He lifted his hand in the air and watched it with unfocused eyes. "There´s nothing left." He turned t Clint, but his eyes had glazed over, and he was looking way past them. "It died with him."
Oh god... That explained the way he´d been fighting . But why hadn´t he reached for the...
"Wait." Tony muttered, palming the suit for one of the hidden compartments. "What about this? Is there anything left in here?"
Loki looked up, and there it was: His old, cracked crystal sphere with its ugly galaxy inside. He reached for it with trembling fingers, and cradled it as one would a newborn baby. His eyes drifted to the broken entrance of the tunnel behind them, and then back to Clint´s unmoving form, and the sad smile came back.
"You have something to work with now. Move!" Natasha demanded again.
"I would waste it. Trying to bring him back." His words were a shaking echo of his voice, and Natasha stopped in her tracks, her mind wheeling between the two options. But he was not talking to any of them. "I would." He looked up and his smile widened grotesquely. "But you don´t care, do you? ... You´re deaf to my words. As you were before."
"... You can´t do it, can you?" Tony broke the silence that settled after his words, and his throat constricted when Loki shook his head.
"Not with this..." And he croaked out a breathless laugh, before he turned back to Clint. "Looks like it´s your lucky day, Barton."
"Justo do it already." Steve took his mask off and ran a hand through his hair. "We still have to go and chase the rest of the Chitauri."
Loki shook his head, but placed his hand over Clint´s eyes. At his side, Natasha´s grip on her gun tightened as his did the same around the crystal sphere.
--
Clint felt the pressure over his face, smelt the blood on Loki´s hands, and heard the cock of a gun along with the cracking noise he knew so well.
Even back in his controlled state he´d gotten used to the feeling of magic, but this was different. The warmth went in like two piercing needles through his eyeballs, and the blossoming pressure building behind them caused him to suck in a deep breath and bite into his bottom lip to restrain himself from screaming.
"This is no injury. It was made with magic." Loki´s voice came as if through water, distorted and muffled. "Let me in before I run out of power."
"Let you what?" Steve asked, but they paid no mind. They were on their own.
Clint huffed hard once, and, after a loudly thought `Fuck you´, stretched a hand for Natasha´s. If Loki was about to go parasite in his mind again, then this was the least he could do for himself.
Loki poured into his mind, and he fought his instinct to offer resistance, the feeling akin to freezing water seeping through his clothes, skin and bones. The god´s presence was huge, absolute, and strangely careful as it raked through his brain.
The numbness in his mind receded slowly, and it took a while before he noticed the hand on his forehead was gone as well and Natasha´s grip on his hand had become crushing.
"Is it done?" He asked cautiously.
"It is."
He breathed deeply once, twice, to steady himself, and parted his eyelids.
Light flooded into his eyes and made them water, turning his teammates´ faces into a blurry mess. He iped them on the hem of his shirt, and looked again.
Natasha, Steve, Tony, Bruce... But not Thor.
He sighed.
"Thanks." He muttered in the vague direction of Loki´s legs, but got no answer. Not like he cared anyways.
--
Steve helped Clint to his feet, and the weight on his chest eased a bit when their eyes met. All their sacrifice had not been in vain.
He passed him his spare gun. "Let´s go."
Clint nodded. Natasha went to her feet at one of his sides, and Bruce framed the other.. Just in case, their stances said.
"What about..." Steve shook his head to cut Tony´s question.
"Once we clear the ground the medical team can come and pick him up safely." Was all he said. Tony pursed his lips, sending a glance towards the entrance of the tunnel, and finally nodded.
"Fine... Come on, Loks." He muttered. However, Steve turned along with him when no answer came, and they both found Loki standing in his spot, unmoving and staring at them. Steve cleared his throat.
"Loki?"
The other´s lips parted just enough to speak.
"It would seem like I am not in dire need of your protection anymore. Besides, all obligation you could have felt should be gone by now. It´s fine."
"What?" Steve turned to Tony and shook his head. "Please tell me he´s kidding, I can´t deal with this right now." He whispered. He´d lost a teammate. He was in deep shit with S.H.I.E.L.D. ... He wasn´t in the right mind to reassure anyone, least of all Loki.
Tony patted his shoulder, and walked towards the waiting man.
"We´re all tired, sweetcheeks. Let´s just go home." And he offered a hand for Loki to take.
The god stared down at it for a long moment, in the deepest of silences.
And then, just as Tony´s stance had stiffened and his hand was starting its way down, he lifted a hand of his own. Tony relaxed in a second, and Steve could practically see the smile he´d be grinning.
"See? Let´s... Loks?" He cut himself. Loki´s hand had stopped dead on its way to his, and his eyes had glazed over. "Loki?"
Slowly, like he´d just woken up, his eyes focused again and drifted to Tony´s. Then he spoke.
"It´s back."
Even without seeing it, Steve could guess Tony´s frown from the tone of his voice.
"Back? What..."
But he had no time to finish.
Loki muttered one last word (late), and before any of them could process what was happening, the chamber lit up with an explosion of blinding white light. It flew past them and into the tunnels, and from far away came the agonizing screams of the remaining Chitauri. Steve blinked a couple of times and fought to focus his gaze as the light dimmed down.
When it was gone, all that remained was Tony, standing alone at the center of the chamber with a half raised hand.