Poor Clint is so confused. Enjoy xo

***

Clint moved to the doorway and stood with Natasha while Tony and Steve dragged Loki out of the room by his forearms. Loki was stumbling back with them, eyes glued to Clint. The intensity of them made Clint shift his eyes to the floor. Natasha caught the moment and asked, "What did he say to you?" Clint only shook his head, not ready to say anything out loud, not with Loki right there. Natasha squeezed his wrist. "Whatever it was, you can't believe him. He's the god of lies."

"Mischief."

"What?"

Clint flicked his eyes back up to Loki, who was on his knees then. "He's the god of mischief, not lies."

"Same thing," Natasha decided and crossed her arms as she leaned on the destroyed doorframe. 

Clint wasn't so sure. "Yeah."

Tony threw a punch, one with a little blaster behind it, and Clint heard the crunch of bone when it connected with Loki's cheek. Steve pushed a hand out towards Tony- a warning to chill out. The sound of the hit made Clint stand up straighter and pay attention. Loki's head twisted with the blow, but then his eyes were back on Clint in a second. "Please, look away."

The words weren't loud, but they pierced Clint in the chest as if Loki had screamed them. It was as if a physical hand rested on top of Clint's head, and he lowered it respectfully. 

"Don't speak to him," Tony barked. "You look right here, right at me." When Loki didn't take his eyes off Clint, Tony grabbed him by the chin and forced Loki's face up to peer at the man looming over him. "You never get to touch him again, you understand me? Never again." Tony accentuated the statement with a forceful flick of Loki's head out of his grip. 

Clint could see Natasha looking from him to Loki with questioning eyes. He didn't realize he was worrying his lip between his teeth until she asked, "How did Loki get into your room?" 

Clint shrugged, focusing on his best friend instead of the whoosh of air leaving Loki's lungs when Tony kicked him onto his back. They started asking things of him, mostly the same things Clint had already asked. He bodily turned to face Natasha and mirrored her stance against the door frame. "I don't know. I woke up and he was behind me..." Clint words fell away remembering the moment of sheer terror at waking up to the vaguely familiar scent of the man that had taken his mind from him, then hearing his voice.

Darling.

Clint shook away the recollection and pushed on. "I pulled an arrow on him, but I couldn't just shoot him unarmed and obviously confused. I'm a killer, not a murderer."

"It's Loki. He's a murderer." Clint faced the famed murderer again, keeping his face perfectly stoic as he took in Loki's bloody nose. It felt feral, what they were doing. He wouldn't treat anyone like that; it wasn't because it was Loki, he told himself. 

He waved an arm out towards the god that was laying there loosely on the carpet in Clint's wide hallway while Tony yanked his head off the floor by his short hair. "You want me to be like him?" he threw at Natasha.

She took the words in and nodded, understanding, then turned to look at the scene before her, eyes flicking from Tony to Loki and back to Clint. "He has an arrow in his shoulder."

"Very astute."

"Don't bullshit me, Clint," she requested, no spite in her voice. "You shot him. How?"

Clint shrugged again, feeling helpless. "I don't know. I aimed for his head, but he knocked it off balance and it went in his shoulder instead. I didn't even know my arrows could pierce him." Another crack sounded through the hallway when Tony stomped down on Loki's hurt shoulder.

"Okay!" Clint shouted before he knew what he was doing. Everyone froze and looked at him. He squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward. "He's not going to fight you." Clint connected with Loki's gaze and found that he knew it to be true. Loki was bleeding from the mouth, nose, and shoulder. He was breathing heavily and with a wheezing that assured at least a cracked rib. Loki didn't smile, but he tried. Clint barreled on. "He needs medical attention. Something's obviously wrong with him."

"You can say that again," Tony quipped. "This bastard killed thousands!"

"Tony," Bruce whispered and placed a hand on Tony's arm. "It won't make you feel better."

Steve's eyes ran over Loki's beaten body. "He probably doesn't any internal bleeding, but if you keep going, he will. If we know he's alive, Thor will come looking for him sooner or later."

Tony ignored them but didn't pull away from Bruce. "You're not even supposed to be alive! Thor told us you died." He did tug his arm away then, but only to cross them over his chest. "And doing some self-sacrificing bullshit, too."

Loki placed a hand on his stomach, trying to keep his labored breathing even. "Well, that doesn't sound like me."

"Exactly." He tilted his head towards Bruce like Loki was making his point. "God of lies."

"Mischief," both Clint and Loki corrected at the same time. Their eyes went to each other, surprised, and Loki did smile then while Clint grimaced. 

"Can you get him out of here? I don't need more blood to clean up," Clint requested, disgusted. 

Bruce was the one to reach down and lift Loki from the floor, far more gently than Tony would have while Steve got under the other arm and they carried Loki towards Clint's elevator door. Loki twisted around to look back at Clint like he needed to see him even then. 

Clint couldn't look away. Loki was bloodied and haggard, but somehow just as beautiful as the first moment he'd ever seen him. Like Loki could hear his thoughts, he smiled at Clint with all the sweetness unafforded to a murderous god. Clint huffed and pushed off the frame to go assess the damage to his hall rug while the others departed. Blood had spread from Loki's shoulder wound, but other than that it was small splatters from his face. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. can you get someone up here first thing in the morning to clean this? And while you're at it, I'll need a new door."

"Certainly, Mr. Barton." 

"Clint, F.R.I.D.A.Y. I've told you."

"Of course, Mr. Barton."

That made both Clint and Natasha chuckle as only two assassins could in the wake of blood-stained carpets. He walked down the hallway and into the living room, listening for Natasha's following footsteps. Sometimes he could hear them, most times he couldn't. That night, they were loud and clear and Clint took if for the soothing gesture that it was.

He flopped down onto his couch and waited for Natasha to do the same. She did and then swung her legs up to rest them on Clint's lap. The archer immediately took to rubbing small circles across her naked shin with his thumb while he held her ankle.

"He didn't," Natasha hesitated, "mess with your head or anything, right?"

Clint shook his head quickly, sure of that at least. "No, I feel fine. Like myself, at least." His head rolled back until it landed softly on the back of the couch. "As for the rest, I have no idea what's going on."

"He didn't even try to fight Tony. I thought for a second Stark was actually going to kill him."

"You didn't make a move to stop him," Clint noted. They both let that observation sink in between them for a long few minutes. "I did." That observation felt heavier, headier and took even longer to sink in. 

"Why?" Natasha finally asked just when Clint was about to go somewhere dark in his head.

"I don't know," Clint answered automatically which earned a heel pressed into his thigh. "Okay, I don't-" He raked a hand through his bedhead and huffed. "He didn't fight me either."

"In your room?" Natasha wondered. "When we came in he had you pinned under him." Clint closed his eyes against the feeling of Loki straddling his hips, mouth against his ear. He did his best to keep from flinching but was off his game that night and Natasha knew him well. "He did something to you."

It wasn't a question and it wasn't a judgment. 

"No," Clint breathed. "I don't know."

"Talk to me, Clint. If I don't debrief you, someone else will."

With a frustrated sound, Clint lifted his head and let it all come falling out. "He called me darling. His hair is shorter. He smells different and he refused to fight back." Clint pounded a fist against his palm. "I'm telling you, that is not the Loki we know."

Natasha didn't respond immediately, not that Clint had expected her to. She folded her arms across her stomach and wiggled her toes in an unspoken request that Clint rub her feet. He obliged, happy to have something to do with his hands. 

"Darling?" she questioned.

"Yeah," Clint confirmed, unable to look at her.

"Did he call you anything else?"

Clint ran back over the names Loki had murmured at him, pleaded him with. My hawk. Little bird. That one rubbed him in all the wrong ways. "Not really," he lied. She knew he was lying, but she let him anyway.

"Did he say any else to you? Why he was here? What he wanted?"

Instead of his reflexive I don't know, he went back to think through his encounter with Loki. "He said I wasn't his Clint."

"As long as he knows," Natasha scoffed.

Clint let one edge of his mouth tilt up but said, "That's basically what I said, but I don't think that's what he meant." Natasha hummed an affirmation to continue, so he did. "He said," and Clint slowed down to get the wording exactly right, "I look like him, but I'm not."

"Like who?"

"I don't know," Clint answered honestly that time. "But I have a feeling it's...me? Maybe, I don't know. I shoot arrows, I'm not a scientist."

Natasha ignored his rant and went back to what he said. "You think he could mean you, but you don't think Loki was talking about you? Do I have that right?"

"I think," Clint urged, frustration lacing his words, "he meant a different Clint."

"There is no other Clint, Clint. You're Clint." She was being facetious and Clint pinched the thin skin on top of her foot as punishment. "Okay," she giggled, calming. "But really that doesn't make any sense."

"Is it the weirdest thing we've dealt with? He said that he hoped to be home by the end of the day."

"Asgard?"

"I don't think so. It seemed like he wasn't sure how to get to wherever 'home' was."

Natasha tilted her head in consideration and allowed, "What are we saying? That's not Loki?"

"Not our Loki..."

"And you're not his Clint?" Clint winced at the phrasing but nodded. Natasha propped an elbow on the back of the couch and then placed her head against her hand. "How is that more believable than the theory that Loki is lying?"

It instantly didn't sit right in Clint's chest. Loki wasn't lying, he could feel it. "He's not. I just know it."

Natasha's tone was flippant. "Oh, you just know-"

"Natasha," Clint snapped. "I just know."

"Okay," she allowed and they dropped it. She settled more comfortably into the couch and tucked her hands behind her head. "You won't be able to see him; you know that, right?"

Clint hadn't really thought of it until right then. "I wouldn't want to."

"Uh huh," she answered, not even half convinced and Clint pointedly ignored her.

***

I think we can all agree I have about as much idea what's going on as Clint does. Maybe in the next chapter Loki can clear some things up. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Mwah! Xoxo, Jess