Chapter Text
It was less than a week later when Clint had enough. The nightmares were getting worse and worse, and even if his own wellbeing wasn’t a factor, there was the baby to think about (according to JARVIS, the first trimester was more important; Clint had pointed out that he was a guy and maybe it was different, but the AI had insisted).
He needed to get some closure for himself. The last time he’d seen Loki, the god had been freshly beaten up by Hulk, and while that was satisfying, Clint himself hadn’t had a chance to speak to him since then, let out all of the ire and pain and righteous anger pent up inside of him.
If he was gonna be able to sleep at night with that business unfinished, he had to meet him face to face. With this in mind, he managed to travel up to the Helicarrier, where they’d reinforced the Hulk cage. According to Nat’s sources, Fury was on board that day, and he needed his permission to see the god unless he asked JARVIS, who would tell Tony--who would tell Coulson.
Needless to say, he had to do this himself, even if that meant bearing the still suspicious and now disgusted or confused looks from the other agents onboard. Hill took one look at his face and hesitated before letting him into see the director.
Clint wasted no time getting down to business.
“I want to see him. I want to see—see Loki.”
The Director didn’t seem to think this was a good idea, that much was clear. His eyepatch crinkled up in that way that meant he was worried, and if he was letting the archer see such an obvious tell then it probably was a really bad idea (or he was manipulating him again, but either way, Clint was doing this and no one was gonna stop him).
But Clint had to see him. After what he’d done to him, done to Phil, made him do, not to mention to fucking downtown New York City? It wouldn’t be right not to.
“I don’t care what your self-inflated sense of honor and guilt is telling you right now, Agent, but you are not going to meet with Loki. He’s on lockdown until we can convince the World Security Council and Asgard that we can hold him. I don’t want you getting pissed off and giving him some leverage to escape.”
But Clint didn’t give up. Suffice to say, after reminding him about hiding Phil from him and the guilt he felt and the ire of all of the Avengers still directed towards him, he gave in, albeit very reluctantly.
The next day Clint was striding into the containment cell, the only barrier between him and Loki the uber hard glass that made up the outer wall. The god extracted himself from the bed where he’d been sitting with a large, thick book, paging through it idly.
“My precious Hawk...you fare well. Our offspring makes you glow, did you know that?”
“Shut up,” Clint retorted almost casually. He couldn’t let himself get riled up by this monster. Not with this life inside of him now, especially. He could be reckless with himself, for sure; but this child inside of him hadn’t done anything wrong, and he couldn’t take it out on them. “So you know, then.”
“Of course I know. I knew the moment my seed took hold inside of your belly,” the god practically purred, and Clint barely resisted the urge to shiver in disgust. Even hearing his voice felt like oil and dirt being dragged over his skin, filth seeping into his pores only to be sweated out later. Unfortunately, he had to stand it so he could say what he had to say and get some closure before all of this baby business happened. Not just for himself, but for Phil. They both deserved that much.
“And you just decided to keep that information to yourself, huh?” he snapped. “What, were you gonna keep me around as some creepy incubator or something?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word “consort”, not with the implications it brought, and the nightmares he’d had about that very situation.
Unfortunately for him, the god seemed to have caught onto his line of thinking, or noticed the lack of this accusation, because he smirked wider.
“Oh, I would have told you...not that there was any need, with our link, and when you were under my thrall you would have accepted anything I said, did anything for me… Spread your legs for me over and over, even the entire army that you recruited, one after another…”
“Cut the crap, asshat. I’ve heard all that shit before, you know that it doesn’t work on me.” Years of being captured and tortured on missions from men who’d leered at his arms and human traffickers and slavers in the Middle East, he’d heard the worst of what humanity had to offer, and Loki’s words were hardly any different. Of course, none of those humans had had him for nearly as long as Loki, or gotten into his head the same way, but it didn’t matter in the end. He could ignore his taunts about his own promiscuity, his weakness.
But Loki was trying another tactic, and he stiffened as soon as he heard the first words leave his lips.
“How do you know that I did not implant the child to keep control over you? It could be leeching away your free will as we speak…”
Clint didn’t realize he had his hand clamped over his belly protectively until he raised his free hand, curling it into a protective fist; his expression was pinched and blazingly furious.
“Screw that, you dick! This baby is more innocent than anything that comes from you has any right to be! Thor made sure we did all the right tests and shit to make sure, so don’t even try to play any mind games with me.”
He wasn’t Nat, he didn’t know how to turn the man’s words against him on his own. But he knew for certain that his baby--his, not his and Loki’s--was innocent and deserved to grow up without the god’s influence. Now, especially, with all of Stark’s resources in hand, he was confident he could do this without anything from the trickster god. Said god was unrelenting and not even bothering to be subtle anymore, simply digging at him to get a reaction, so fed up was he at being contained in this prison after having failed his mission.
“The second time we were together...you remember it well, don’t you, my Hawk? How you writhed in pleasure beneath me, screamed out my name and begged for more, which I glad gave yo—”
“That’s enough.”
Both Clint and Loki froze at the sound of another voice in the room. The Asgardian, for his part, looked to be a mixture of shocked and angered.
“You! I killed you, drove my spear through your back and felt you depart to Valhalla, how—”
“Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” Phil said calmly, walking further into the room with only the slightest hint of a limp still in his stride to betray that he had ever been stabbed at all. The reconstruction SHIELD had done on him was amazing, Clint had to admit to himself again. But he shoved that thought to the side in favor of indignant anger of his own.
“Dammit Coulson, I had this one on my own, I was promised!”
“Not with Loki. Fury accepted my reasoning and agreed that it’s not a good idea for you to be alone with him.”
“Not a good—”
He growled and turned to glare one last time at the smirking god inside the cage; he looked only slightly shaken now by Coulson’s reappearance, having recovered quickly. “We’re not finished here,” he hissed.
“It appears that we are,” Loki said smoothly, and turned his back on him, returning to his book like nothing had happened. And that was that, apparently. Clint was ushered out of the room, and once they were out, he spun to glare at his (Former? He wasn’t sure anymore) handler.
“What the fuck was that? You know what that looked like, right? You swooping in to save the damsel in distress, like I can’t take care of myself. The last thing I need is that asshole to see me any more vulnerable than I already am!”
“I merely intervened in an unstable situation.”
“No, screw that! You’re not going to do that again! The next time—”
“Barton, it’s not in your best interests that you speak to him again.”
“Fuck that! If you had my best interests in mind you sure as hell wouldn’t have let me think you were dead for a whole three months!”
The barest of flinches was noticeable from the normally unflappable man.
“Clint…” Even the use of his first name wasn’t enough to appease the irate archer.
“No, fuck--fuck you! We are so done, Coulson. I don’t work for SHIELD anymore, anyway. I’ll work with you as the SHIELD liaison for the Avengers because I’m a fucking professional, but that is it. We’re over.”
It was the final straw. He couldn’t deal with this anymore. After New York and this baby and facing his attacker again, the weight gain… He was done, he was so done. He drank in the sight of Phil one last time and turned on his heels, walking away. His chest clenched when he didn’t hear Phil move to follow him; ninja though he was, he’d hear something with how it echoed in here.
He didn’t look back.
TBC