Friends Close
"Nat, put the gun down."
Natasha didn't waver. "It's not being aimed at you," she said. The gun was carefully pointed down at the body lying towards the back of the cave. "I'll need an explanation."
Steve wasn't sure why he wasn't letting Natasha just kill Loki.
"That's- that's Loki, right there," Steve began, pointing towards the shivering body behind him. "Yesterday he fell out of the sky. I swear, I'm just as confused as you."
"So what?" Natasha kept her finger on the trigger. "You didn't tell any of us- you lied to me about it- you didn't kill him, you just tied him up and left him in a cave? Were you ever going to tell us?"
Steve groaned, lowering his hands. He knew that while Natasha might be angry, that wasn't her expression when she was about to kill anyone. Natasha was too strategetical to kill Loki without having all the information she could.
"I didn't know who to tell," Steve replied honestly.
Natasha nodded and finally dropped the gun, keeping her eyes fixated on Loki. "You're talking about Clint. Right?"
They both shared a look. Loki had screwed Clint up pretty bad. Laura spoke of nightmares and flashbacks, and the whole team had seen his pure rage when he had come out of it. Clint would destroy Loki if he found out.
And Clint... Clint wouldn't get any better either.
"Right."
"This is a delicate situation." Natasha agreed, walking towards Loki. She nudged him with her boot. He tensed. When she came all the way around, and saw his face-
Steve saw her face tighten. The imperceptible widening of her eyes.
Something changed when she saw his face. Her expression was still hard, but she slid the gun into her holster and relaxed.
"Did you do that to him?"
Steve nearly choked. "Me? No- of course not, Nat. Look at him, if he wasn't a god, he wouldn't be alive! I swear, I saw him fall out of the sky like that."
Natasha hummed thoughtfully.
"Okay," she finally breathed out. The assassin took a few steps, invading Steve's personal space, and shoved her forehead next to his.
"Nat?"
"Checking your pupils. Loki's mind control."
"Right."
"Hard to believe he's not mind controlling you, with those pretty blue eyes of yours," Natasha teased lightly, trying to diffuse some of the tension once she realized Steve was clear.
When they were both sure that the other wasn't being coerced, they sat down on the nearby boulder and watched Loki. He certainly didn't seem like a threat.
"Just because he looks like that... it might not be the best plan of action to keep him alive, Rogers." Steve grimaced and nodded.
"I know. God- I know. But we should find out what happened to him. Or who. They're either better or worse, and if they're worse, we've got a bigger problem on our hands."
There was always something else.
"Right," Natasha agreed. "So let's get some answers, shall we?"
She stood up and rolled Loki over onto his back with one boot. Steve didn't miss the slight tightening of her facial muscles as she took in the god's battered face. No matter what Loki had done, there was always a line. Steve hated killing in general, but those who were victims in their own way?
Frankly, it reminded him too much of Bucky.
Loki's eyelids fluttered slightly, although his eyes still rolled around, not quite taking in what he was seeing.
"Dammit," Natasha muttered, raking her gaze over Loki's torso. "If we want answers, we're going to have to clean him up. As in... full package. You didn't happen to bring saline and an IV drip or gauze, did you?"
Steve huffed out a laugh. "No. Must've forgotten that. I've got trail mix."
Natasha didn't smile back. "I'm being serious. I can't believe I'm being serious... but he needs serious medical attention. Concussion, obviously contusions... what the hell?"
"What?" Steve peered at Loki from behind Natasha's shoulder.
She gestured towards his ankle. "He'd been cuffed." Steve looked closer and- yeah. There was a thick, scratched up ring around Loki's ankle, sending obvious signs of previous chains. Steve hadn't noticed it when he had tied Loki's ankles together in the dark.
"Asgardian prison?" Steve guessed.
Natasha ran her hand along the ring, wiping dirt off from it. Carved into the pale skin, there were several lines of etched, scarred symbols. At the shifting movement, the god made a tiny noise of protest, struggling weakly against the ropes. Steve frowned at the scars.
"Some other language?" He suggested. "Probably Asgardian or something." Still, Steve felt bile threaten to come up. The scars were thick and had probably been painful.
Natasha took a deep breath through her nose and leaned back. "Okay. Okay. It's Loki. I see why you wouldn't want to tell Clint, though. I don't necessarily agree with keeping this a secret from him-- but he's getting better, he's recovering, and he's trying to retire... let's just try to sort this out without involving him."
Clint had gone through serious problems after the mind control. All of them were messed up, but Loki had basically raped Clint's mind, and it was no surprise when the nightmares came, or the flashbacks, or the hallucinations. But, like all things, eventually, they had started to go away. Steve had seen Clint relax when he was back with Laura and their kids, he'd seen him happy.
"Right," Steve agreed. "But getting Loki medical help isn't going to be easy, Romanov. I doubt Clint has what we need, and it'll be hard to go on a 'hike' with an IV line. They'll get suspicious."
Natasha gnawed on the inside of her cheek. "No, it won't be easy. That's why we get Stark's help."
"Tony? He's busy. Like, constantly busy. Non-stop, all the time, press conferences, meetings, board discussions, building, repairing-- besides, he's in New York, and there's no way-"
"Listen, Rogers," Natasha said quietly, eyes not moving from Loki's body. "We want answers? We need Loki to talk. We need him to talk? We need him to get a little bit better. I'm not saying we let him take a vacation to Hawaii, I'm saying we get him suited up for interrogation. In order to heal him, we need certain supplies. If we don't want Clint or Laura to find out about this little... problem, we need someone else's help. Last time I checked, Tony was the only option. We call, tell him we need him to drop by."
There it was again.
Steve and Tony had definitely had their share of ups and downs. Slowly, Tony had become more civil and open with Steve, and Steve had realized that his first impression of Tony Stark was beyond wrong. In fact, at this point, Steve would even consider Tony somewhat of a good friend.
So calling Tony in on the pretense of a friendly visit, all while dragging him away from what he was doing to help the Avengers, only to have another request... Steve hated asking for requests from anyone, especially Stark, who had so much on his plate already. Steve had seen him after a press conference.
On the other hand, Loki was lying in front of them. And this was bigger than any of them.
With a frustrated groan, Steve nodded. "Alright."
---
Natasha was not okay with leaving Loki to himself.
It didn't matter if his wrists and ankles were bound, it didn't matter if he was bruised and battered and in a cave, it didn't matter if Loki was showing serious signs of PTSD and internal injuries, or if that mark around his ankle definitely had something to do with it. She honestly didn't care.
Loki had escaped SHIELD maximum security with minimal difficulty. So leaving him unattended in a cave just didn't sit right.
Natasha was also not okay with lying to Clint about the matter. But there was nothing else to be done about it. As far as she was concerned, telling Clint would just complicate things. Although Clint was recovering, he was nowhere near whole again. If Loki was found alive again, that close to his family home, Natasha knew that Clint would lose it. Because she knew how he thought.
Clint would panic, he wouldn't think Laura and his kids were safe; so he'd move the entire placement. He'd march over to Loki and torture him, and then kill him without hesitation.
Honestly, Natasha knew she was too curious for her own good.
Especially in this instance. But the fact that Loki hadn't yet escaped, when he'd every chance to? It was too similar to the Helicarrier accident. Thor was in Asgard. Loki was on Earth. It should've been vice versa, and yet.
The worst part was walking back to the Barton farm afterwards.
"We're back!" Steve called, far too loudly as they walked in. Natasha saw through the façade of calm he was wearing. He wasn't a good liar.
"How's Nathaniel doing?" She asked instead.
Laura swung around to see them enter. "Welcome back, you two. Clint's showering, the kids are drawing in kitchen. How was the hike?"
Inwardly groaning at Steve's very-obvious-fake smile, Natasha took over. "Beautiful. Location is perfect, really... hills like that, I haven't seen in a long time." Laura laughed a little at that, coming forward and leading them towards the dining room for dinner.
"It's a great setup, what we have here," Laura admitted. "Gorgeous views, it's always quiet. Lately it's been a little rainy, but that just means we'll have a lot of snow, which the kids love. I'm sure Nathaniel will, anyway."
When she turned back to shuffle through the cupboards, Natasha and Steve shared a look.
Don't act suspicious. Natasha mouthed.
I'm not! Steve shot back.
Yes, you are. Stop. When Steve just shot her a look in response, Natasha forced a smile of her own. "I'm sure he will, Laura. Steve, we really should go on another hike tomorrow. I'm sure the rain will clear up then."
---
Tony was exhausted. Ultron had been a fucking disaster. Afterwards, he'd done what he did best; cleaned up his own mess, blamed himself, protected the team. This was on him, plain and simple, and he knew it. Didn't matter what Rhodey insisted. Didn't matter how people said that it was a group effort.
Pepper left him, and he didn't blame her. At that point, it had been a matter of time.
So he'd gone at it alone. Clint, Nat, and Rogers had bunked down at the farm. Bruce was still AWOL. Rhodey and Vision were trying to sort out legal complications. Thor hadn't returned. It was just him against the public. No Happy, no Pepper, no Rhodey.
He could deal. He could always deal.
It was actually a relief when he got a call to distract him from the shitstorm the media had been piling up about the Avengers. About Bruce.
"Steve Rogers is calling, boss."
No JARVIS. Tony sighed at the reminder. FRIDAY was another AI, another light of his life- but not JARVIS. JARVIS had been around since he had been a teenager. Just a kid. From the Butler to the AI, indestructible. Luckily, fixing up JARVIS's previous files was working. Slowly, but working. FRIDAY was a temporary-
"Boss?"
"Right. Um- what the hell, answer."
He went into the call and reflexively plastered the same grin across his face, although that was the last thing he felt. "Hey, Capsicle. Miss me already? It's been like, an hour. What'cha been up to?"
"...It's been over two days, Tony."
Shit. Tony felt the circles under his eyes deepen.
"Right. Your point being? C'mon, what's up with the call, Cap?"
"Uh- yeah. Look, you really don't have to, but I was hoping you could come by? Just a little stop by, at the farm. Catch up with me and Natasha, you know? Always good to have you around."
Tony's mind went completely blank.
Me? His brain asked, stupidly.
There had to have been a complete minute of silence before Steve continued.
"Like I said, up to you... just, you know? Tony?"
It was pathetic, the stupid schoolkid hope that bloomed in his chest. Seriously. Tony was already kicking himself in the shins while he answered. "Oh! Yeah, 'course I could stop by. When? Like, couple more weeks? I've got this stupid fuckin' press-"
"Tomorrow morning?"
"What? Tommor-" Tony let out a confused, breathy laugh. "-Tomorrow? It's almost midnight, Rogers. I'm a ways away. I'll get there at six, minimum, if I leave now-- which I can't, because I've got a conference. What's with the hurry?"
But Rogers sounded so goddamn desperate. "Tomorrow. If you can make it by noon, Tony? Please?"
Damn it.
Tony cursed the fact that he had a heart. Cursed the fact that he was the desperate one- desperate to have a semblance of a family- and wasn't about to break the puppy-dog-eyed Captain America's heart.
It's not like he would've slept anyhow.
"Kay, I'll be there. Thank me later."
"Oh- god- thank you. See you then. Oh, and I texted you a list of things? Make sure you bring them when you come."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll check it in a minute. Later, Rogers."
Tony ended the call and leaned back to sit down.
Rogers had caught him mid-nonstalgic road trip. He only had literal minutes before the next meeting, and he was trying to get all the sentimental shit out of the way before-
Before.
He picked up the box of photographs Bruce and he had collected while they'd worked together.
All those vintage photographs taken on the green Polaroid Tony had gotten Bruce as a birthday present. Good memories.
Working in the lab, hanging out, building things, making coffee, drinking tea- whatever.
Just photographs of them.
Tony smiled fondly at the box. Then he remembered that Bruce was in Fiji or some shit, and the smile faded into a determined frown.
"Visit Barton and the rest of them, finish up the New York press conferences, check in with Rhodey," Tony listed off. "And then I'll be on my way."