Author's Notes: Just a note to say that if you're really concerned about getting updates for my fic in a timely manner, I am (for a variety of reasons) much better at posting on AO3. Sometimes, as with this update, I forget to crosspost for a good, uh, month.

With many thanks to my personal hawkling, zaataronpita. She is about as well-behaved as Clint, but she does beta my fic. Everyone has flaws.

Loki woke up almost nineteen hours later while Clint was playing a stick figure assassin game for no particular reason. It was relatively anticlimactic; one minute he was curled up and fast asleep and the next his eyes were open and he was looking at Clint.

Clint stiffened, and dropped his eyes to the game, focusing on timing his shot just right. The target went down, unnoticed by his surrounding stick figure friends. Clint could feel himself tense, waiting.

"The time," Loki said, eventually. His voice sounded strangely blurry, and when Clint glanced over he yawned widely, which was somehow a bizarre image.

"Nine-thirty," Clint said, blandly. Loki looked slightly blank, so he added, "at night. You've been out the whole day." Loki's expression shifted toward something slightly disconcerted, and Clint glanced back to the screen so he wasn't looking at his face. "I almost rolled you onto the floor just to see if you'd wake up."

"It seems your mortal concoctions are…effective," Loki said, after a few moments, voice admirably clear. Clint could almost be impressed, if it weren't, well, Loki.

"Apparently so," Clint said blandly. Loki frowned minutely, and then rolled to his back and stretched his arms over his head. After a moment, he paused the game. "Feel free to keep them." I don't need them, he almost said, but bit that back. It smelled a little too much like protesting too much.

"Hm," Loki said noncommitally. Clint watched him for a moment longer, then shrugged and unpaused the game, returning to his next mission. He heard a faint rustle from the couch but didn't look up, only tensing slightly as Loki padded over to peer over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Playing a game." He lined up the shot and tapped. One target down, two to go. He could feel Loki watching intently and tried to ignore it.

"This is a game in which you pretend to kill these…facsimiles of people from a distance," Loki said, at length. Clint resisted the urge to tell him to go back to his couch and maybe pretend to sleep a little longer. He'd almost been enjoying the quiet.

"Yeah," he said instead, terse, even though he knew that being so wouldn't deter questions from Loki.

Loki hmmed and watched Clint pick off his remaining two targets and start the next level. "Why?" he asked, eventually. Clint shrugged. He could almost hear Loki frown. "You could do anything with your time and this is what you choose?"

"Maybe when you don't try to conquer cities for fun you can criticize what I do for my entertainment," Clint said, a little snappishly. Loki did not seem deterred.

"It was not for fun, and I merely fail to see how you can possibly find something this inane diverting."

"Oh, sorry," Clint deadpanned. "Should I have mentioned the part where it wasn't even your idea?" Loki hissed, and Clint stretched his legs out and didn't so much as glance around. "Why don't you go take another twenty hour nap? I was just getting used to the quiet."

"No, thank you." Loki's voice had gained a new sharpness, and Clint almost regretted his comment. Almost. "I knew you were wretchedly unimaginative, but just how much-"

"Imaginative enough." Clint paused the game again and twisted around to look at Loki. "Are you done?"

Loki eyed him for a moment, and then backed off, retreating toward the kitchen. Unsurprising, Clint thought. He had to be hungry. Lucky thing he'd gone to the grocery. "You could have turned me out while I was…resting," he said, suddenly, back to Clint. "Or to SHIELD, if you prefer."

Clint blinked, and had the unnerving realization that he hadn't really thought about doing so. He eyed Loki's back. "Yeah," he said eventually, "I could've."

"You did not."

Clint examined him. "Same reason I haven't just knocked you out and dragged you over there. You're holding Tasha hostage. Unless you gave up on that, in which case…"

Loki waved a hand without turning around. "Merely thinking aloud, hawkling," he said, voice sounding slightly absent. "Don't make too much of it."

Clint felt himself twitch. "If you keep calling me that I'm going to put a knife through your shoulder. Non-fatal, trust me, hurts a lot."

Loki glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. "And I told you that if you raise a hand to me I will break your wrist. Must we go down this road again? But very well, as you please."

Clint blinked again. He hadn't expected that. His surprise must have shown on his face, because Loki laughed quietly. "I can be gracious when I wish to be, Barton. And I do want something from you."

The way he said that, like the 'something' might as easily be a cup of sugar as murder, was never not going to bother him. For some reason, it just…yeah. "I'm not going to change my mind," Clint said, flatly.

"Mmm," Loki said, so clearly in disbelief that Clint gritted his teeth. He powered down the StarkPad he'd borrowed from Tony and dropped it on the chair, standing up. "I have been wondering – has the Lady Romanova begun to worry about your changed habits yet?"

Clint felt himself tense. "Not really your business."

"Isn't it? Just think if she should drop by for a visit out of worry that you have, perhaps, begun to relapse. Only to find me here."

"Your problem'd be solved pretty quickly," Clint said flatly. "You could've gone to her in the first place, she'd've been happy to-"

"My problem, perhaps," Loki cut in, "but not yours. What kind of trouble would you be in if she – or the others, or SHIELD – discovered that I have been living with you? What would they think?"

Clint's stomach churned. Nothing good. Even with Loki being human, the fact that he'd kept his presence secret would look bad. Everything would look bad. And if Natasha didn't shoot first – and she might not…

"You let me manage that," he said, harshly. Loki's lips twitched but he turned back to the fridge. Clint opened his mouth to argue further, but his phone started buzzing loudly with the ringtone Tony had set for emergencies. "Sorry," he said, instead, turning on his heel to head for his room to get his gear. "Duty calls."

"Pray try to avoid dying," Loki said, sounding amused. "I still need you, after all."

Not even awake for an hour and already they were back to this. Not that he'd expected anything else. Clint considered shooting an arrow through his knee on the way out.

He did take the fire escape so he didn't have to walk back through the kitchen.

~.~

Clint returned mid-afternoon from a nasty fight that had gone into the sewers. The Viper and a batch of her minions. Everything stank. Clint almost missed dealing with the Wreckers or whatever.

The shower was running and the couch was empty, and Clint stopped for just a moment to appreciate that his resident asshole chose now to get interested in personal hygiene. He banged on the door twice to no response.

"Get your ass out of the shower," Clint said, raising his voice. "I need it."

"As do I," Loki answered, after a moment. He sounded…cheerful. Great.

He should have let the bastard stay sleep deprived.

"I'm covered in fucking sewage, and it's my shower," Clint snapped. "So get out."

"No, thank you," Loki said, too politely. Clint banged on the door again, but this time Loki didn't bother to answer him. He glared at the wood, considering his options, which seemed to be, basically, either to wait or to barge in and haul a naked Loki bodily out of the shower.

Clint retreated to the kitchen. He wasn't sure what he had expected after his midnight pseudo-heart-to-heart with Loki, but it looked like it was a good thing it hadn't been much. Loki was apparently back to his usual self. With gusto.

The shower kept running. Clint lasted ten minutes before he started to fidget. It was almost forty before the shower shut off and the door opened.

Loki appeared in the hallway a moment later, wearing nothing but one of Clint's towels and looking perfectly nonchalant. Clint almost felt his teeth click together. "Nice shower?" he said, through his teeth. At least he'd stopped being able to smell himself a good thirty minutes ago. Loki didn't even glance at him.

"Don't stare, Barton. You'll make me self-conscious," he said lightly, padding over to the couch. "The bath is all yours."

"Forty-five minutes," Clint said, tightly.

"Yes, well," Loki said. "One takes ones pleasures where one can." Clint was not going to look too closely at that statement, no he was not. Loki glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. "Are you going to go? I intended to get dressed. Although if you wanted to watch…" Loki's hands drifted to the towel at his waist.

"Sorry," Clint said savagely, against his urge to bolt. "I'm just not that into – uh, whatever it is you are. Remind me?"

Loki's laugh sounded just a touch forced to Clint. "Is that really the best you can do?"

"I could do a whole lot better," Clint snapped, "if I thought you were worth the effort." He started down the hallway, hackles up. Loki's voice drifted after him.

"Why, hawkling," he said, sounding convincingly amused. "You wound me. And here I thought you cared."

Clint put his head down and sped up. "Try the other one," he said, and closed the door firmly behind him before Loki could respond.

The bastard had used up all the hot water.

Clint took the quickest shower he could manage while still getting the grime off, threw his filthy uniform in the washing machine, and tugged on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt before returning to the kitchen with vague plans of making himself a grilled cheese. Loki was stretched out comfortably on the couch, pen in one hand and newspaper in the other. Fully dressed, to Clint's relief. Clint stopped and looked at him.

"I guess the nap cured you," he said, without inflection. Loki glanced up, eyebrows raised.

"Indeed," he said. "It was most refreshing."

Clint almost missed cadaverous, about to keel over, borderline-insane with sleep deprivation Loki. It was better than this bizarrely jaunty new model. "I'm happy for you," he gritted out, and turned for the kitchen.

"You sound simply delighted," Loki's voice floated after him. "Mm. Three-letters, Barton, used car inits."

"Fuck if I know," Clint snapped, pulling out the loaf of bread, giving it a quick check for mold, and pulling out two slices. "Are you actually trying to do the crossword?"

"I thought you would find it preferable to my occupying myself by dissecting your computer," Loki said mildly, and Clint just stared at the slices of bread for a moment, not sure what to make of that.

"If you touch my computer," he said eventually, "I will peel your skin off in one piece."

"Better!" Loki said, sounding almost delighted. "Your threats are improving. What about – former tennis star Michael, five letters."

Clint grabbed a skillet and put it on the stove, slapped some butter into it, and turned on the burner. "If you want to entertain yourself then entertain yourself without bugging me," he said, still trying to figure out if that was supposed to be a considerate move on Loki's part or if he was being fucked with. This was Loki, so he thought it was probably safe to assume the latter. "I don't know."

He could almost hear the frown in Loki's voice. "I don't remember your being so dreadfully irritable all the time."

Clint felt his shoulder muscles lock tight. "Maybe because most of that time I wasn't me." The butter began to sizzle, and Clint realized belatedly that he'd forgotten to slice any cheese. He stumped over to the refrigerator and jerked the door open, pulled out a block of cheddar. "Or did you forget that?"

"You say that," Loki said mildly, "but it is not, in truth, in the least accurate. You were still very much yourself. I didn't break you, Barton. Just…bent, slightly."

Clint's spine crawled. "Do you expect me to be grateful for that?" His voice sounded ugly and tight in his own ears. He could just see Loki shrug out of the corner of his eye as Clint pulled out a knife.

"It might allow you a sense of perspective to remember that I could have crushed your mind into dust and rebuilt you entirely, if that was what I wished." The casual way he said that made Clint's stomach knot, nausea rising up the back of his throat. Then why didn't you? a crazy part of him wanted to ask, but he didn't want to go near that one.

"I don't think I need a sense of perspective," Clint said, laying out slices of cheese on his bread. "Especially not from the guy who tried to take over the world throwing a temper tantrum about how his daddy didn't love him enough." He glanced over just enough to see Loki tense, and smiled, though it was more of a baring of teeth. "Whoops. Sore subject?"

"It must be sweet," Loki said, the mildness in his voice slightly dangerous, "for you to feel as though finally, finally, you have power. When always you have been so hideously weak."

Bile burned in Clint's stomach. "Is that what it was like for you?" he asked sharply. He realized too late that he was digging his fingers into the bread, and pulled his hands away. "When the Chitauri handed you that staff thing, I bet you cried you were so relieved not to be powerless. But that's the kicker, isn't it? You were still just their meat puppet." Loki rose, his muscles coiled tight.

"Have you ever been anything but?" Loki's smile was cruel and sharp. "From childhood, even. To the streets, to SHIELD, to me, and now your Avengers, all of them amount to one thing – that you crave to be commanded. That everything in you desires to follow, not to lead. To bend to a will stronger than your own." He took a step toward the kitchen, and Clint dropped the half mangled sandwich in the sizzling skillet and turned to face him, keeping all expression off his face.

"As opposed to you. You desperately want to lead but there's no one in the entire damn universe who would choose to follow you." He caught a small tic in Loki's jaw. "You can try to make me feel small and pathetic all you want, but you know why it's not going to work?" He paused, just a moment. "Because all I have to do is look at you to see what small and pathetic really looks like."

Loki's jaw tightened visibly. All trace of amusement had gone from his voice. "And yet even something like myself could take your will from you and mold it to mine. It suggests nothing terribly charitable about your inner strength, does it?"

Clint's jaw locked and it was something dark and ugly that made him say, "and what did it take for them to break you, huh?" Loki's skin went just a shade paler, with rage or fear, Clint couldn't tell. And didn't care. "Did you ever beg them to kill you like you're begging me? How many times have you tried to die, now? It's like someone doesn't think you're even worth that." The moment the words were out, they tasted nasty, but Clint didn't think about calling them back.

Loki almost vibrated with fury. His hands were clenched at his sides, and for a moment Clint thought he would lunge, but he didn't. Just stood there, eyes blazing with hate and lips a thin line. Clint turned back to the stove and flipped his sandwich. It was slightly burnt, but still edible. "If you're going to do something," Clint said, making his voice bored. "Then do it. I'll beat your ass into the floor and then you can crawl off to lick your bruises somewhere quiet. Otherwise, just sit down and go back to your crossword. It's been fun."

A long, tense moment, and then Loki took a step back. "You are," he said, voice flat and bare of inflection, "truly despicable."

"That hurts, coming from you," Clint said blandly. "And also - tennis player, five letters. It's Chang." He slid the finished grilled cheese onto a plate and dropped the skillet in the sink. "Dishes are all yours, Frosty."

~.~

Loki sulked again for the next day and a half, speaking solely in monosyllables and directing baleful glares in Clint's direction at every opportunity. Clint wondered if he really expected it to be effective. At least it was a break of some kind, though.

Unfortunately, as always, he seemed to recuperate quickly, or maybe just to realize that his displeasure was having no impact on Clint's behavior. Whichever it was, Clint was relieved to find that Loki seemed to be trying his hand at terse civility. He wasn't very good at it, and it was plainly a strain, but he seemed to be trying.

"I don't understand how you can tolerate living in filth," Loki said with disgust, looking at the sink. Not trying that hard, though.

It was only half full of dishes, Clint thought sourly, and he'd had a busy couple days. Unlike some people. "You're welcome to clean any time," he said, slinging a bag over his shoulder. "Like now, maybe. I'm going to the library."

Loki perked up, visibly. Clint wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "Is that so?" He sounded decidedly intrigued. Clint grimaced. "I wasn't aware you read."

Clint gritted his teeth not to snap that of course he read, and instead said, "when I'm not defeating mediocre supervillains, yeah, I do."

"I learn something new about you every day, Barton." Loki sounded decidedly amused, but there was a glint in his eye as well that Clint didn't like. He should have just taken off out the door without saying anything. Now he had a feeling he was going to have a tagalong.

"I'm just full of surprises," Clint drawled.

Loki pushed back from the sink and stretched. "I don't suppose you would mind company." His smile was decidedly toothy, and clearly suggested that whether Clint minded or not, he was going to get it. Clint kept himself from wincing.

"I would," he said, voice sour. "Aren't you worried your Chitauri buddies might swoop out of the sky and snatch you off the streets?"

Loki twitched, but only minutely. "In the full light of day, in the very city where they were defeated? I doubt that they would take the risk."

"Just so we're clear that if they do take the risk, I'd be the first to truss you up with a bow around your neck to hand you over," Clint said. Loki's eyebrows rose, the determination in his expression only sharpening.

"Are you quite finished attempting to frighten me, or are you going to go on trying?"

Clint bared his teeth in a feral grin of his own. "It's not trying if it works. I wish I could ask them what they did. I could use some pointers."

Loki's expression cooled visibly. "You would have screaming nightmares worse than I if I told you," he said, something strange in his voice momentarily, though it was gone in the next words. "Do you have errands to run, or not?"

He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. He could probably figure out how to keep Loki from tagging along. Could always just knock him out and lock him in the bathroom until he got back. Clint grimaced. "Cause me any trouble," Clint said. Loki gave him a dazzling smile.

"I would never."

Clint headed out the door, not checking to see if Loki was following. Of course, Loki caught up with him a few steps later, a little bit of spring in his step.

"Excited for walkies?" Clint shot at him, irritably. "I should get you a leash."

"Don't sulk, Barton," Loki said smoothly, apparently unaffected. "It is terribly unattractive, and you really don't need the help." Clint nearly gaped at him, and Loki smirked down his nose. "Yes?"

"Classy," he said shortly. Loki's smile only broadened, and Clint turned his head to fix his eyes forward. "We're going to have to take the subway. If someone tries to pickpocket you, don't do anything drastic. In fact, don't do anything at all. Keep your hands to yourself."

He could almost hear Loki's expression twist with displeasure. "If anyone should try something so foolish-"

"If you try anything, foolish or otherwise," Clint ground out, "next time you sleep you're going to wake up with a problem involving several broken fingers. Clear? Not to mention that random acts of violence tend to get you noticed around here. All it takes is one person looking too closely at your face." He stopped at the top of the stairs leading down into the subway, and turned to look at Loki. His lips were pressed together in a thin line, expression too deliberately blank to be anything other than profoundly pissed off. Clint raised his eyebrows. "Still want to come?"

Loki swept a hand toward the stairs. "Lead on, Barton," he said, simply. Clint supposed he'd made it too much of a challenge for Loki to say anything else.

They descended down into the tunnels. It was early afternoon, so it wasn't too terribly busy, but Clint still drank in the look of vague distaste on Loki's face as they moved along. "I don't understand how any of you tolerate this – squalor," Loki said. Clint shrugged.

"You get used to it." Loki made a faint scoffing sound, and Clint threw him a quick look. "You will, too," he said, ruthlessly. "Now that you're one of the insects."

"I very much doubt that." Clint stepped out onto the platform and Loki followed him, stepping well clear of a slightly suspicious looking stain on the floor. "Do you truly not notice it? The smell alone-"

"Part of the charm," Clint said. "You know, if you thought all of this was so – uh – plebeian or whatever, why bother?"

Loki's lips thinned again and he glanced around at their company on the platform, all of whom were, of course, ignoring them both. "If I had been successful I would hardly be scurrying around underground like a rodent."

"I dunno, you didn't seem too impressed with much of anything, even aboveground." Clint raised his eyebrows. "See, I kind of figured it was kind of a cosmic bitchfit. 'Thor got a planet for his birthday and I didn't so I'm going to break his' sort of thing."

Loki's face tightened, but his voice remained conversational. "If I wanted to 'break' your planet I would have gone about it entirely differently."

"And probably failed that one, too," Clint said, blithely, and grinned at Loki as he made a sharp move in Clint's direction and then stopped, eyes flicking past him to the others on the platform. Clint let his grin widen. "Hey, look. Here comes the train."

The look Loki gave him was full of loathing. He settled back on his heels, though, a tic visible in his jaw. He said nothing further as the train pulled up and unloaded, striding on the minute there was space. Clint followed him, feeling just a little pleased with himself.

Loki didn't talk the rest of the way to the library, his face twitching every time someone so much as brushed against him in the subway car, posture growing ever more tense. He exited in a hurry when Clint did. He felt a momentary rush of panic as he lost Loki in the mass of people, caught him again, and almost had to jog to catch up with him. "What's your problem," Clint said, "well, other than the obvious ones," but Loki ignored him until they got out of the tunnels and emerged onto the street, when he let out a breath, then took several deep ones. Clint eyed him.

"Since when are you claustrophobic?" he asked, eventually, keeping his face expressionless. Loki's head snapped around to stare at him.

"I am not," he said, after a pause just a few moments too long. "I merely don't feel the need to linger in a stinking cave longer than necessary." Clint half opened his mouth, but then closed it, not entirely sure why he didn't take the opportunity.

"Right," he said, letting his tone carry how dubious he was of that explanation. "I bet. This way." He started down the street, and Loki kept pace with him. Clint noticed the way his head turned around, the attempt to survey everything at once somewhere between curious and paranoid. It was only a couple of blocks to the library, and Clint heard Loki's quiet hum as it came into view.

"Well," he said, mildly. "There is a building that manages not to be entirely hideous."

"I'm sure it's flattered," Clint muttered, nearly stalking up the stairs and pulling the doors open. It didn't close quite fast enough to shut on Loki, to his disappointment. "Are you going to follow me around or can you manage without fucking up for ten minutes?" Clint asked, lowering his voice and turning to find that Loki was no longer looking at him but rather through the left pair of doors, the expression on his face…decidedly not one that Clint had seen before, and not one he wanted to think about too much.

"Oh," Loki said, slightly absently. "I think I can manage."

Clint's eyes narrowed. His brain couldn't help but quantify the look on his face: eager, maybe. Anticipatory. It was…weird. Clint considered, for a moment, that it was probably a bad idea to leave him alone, even somewhere as innocuous as a public library. Somehow, though, he didn't think that he was going to cause trouble just now. "You can't go home with any of the books," he said, after a moments' pause. "Not without a library card, which you can't get without ID."

"Mmm," Loki said, not sounding as though he was paying attention. Clint opened his mouth and then shut it. He shrugged, and turned to go to the circulation desk.

He picked up his holds, browsed for a little while, and discovered when he went to check them out that his library card was missing from his wallet. He swore under his breath and turned to stalk back to the research library that had caught Loki's eye.

He found him in the middle of the stacks, browsing through what looked to be the US history section, four or five books already under his arm and looking thoroughly absorbed in the heavy tome he was currently paging through.

"My library card," Clint hissed.

"Oh, yes," Loki said, absently. "I have it."

"When did you-" Clint cut himself off. No point in asking, probably. Probably at some point on the subway. He was almost more irritated that he hadn't noticed. "Yeah. I figured. Give it back."

"I am not finished looking."

"Oh yes," Clint said, "you are." Loki glanced up from his book just long enough to give Clint a look that he could only classify as 'petulant.'

"What harm, exactly, is it going to do to allow me some reading material? I assure you I do not intend to cause any damage to the books."

You'll probably just rack up overdue fines, Clint thought peevishly, but didn't say. "I'm not here to entertain you."

"No," Loki said, his voice flat as his eyes dropped back down to the pages. "You are here to kill me, but seeing as you are not doing that-" God, Clint hated it when he pulled that out. Assassinations were one thing. Apparently assisted suicide was crossing a line.

An old man poked his head around the corner and glared at them both, and Clint gritted his teeth. He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out. Asshole, he thought savagely. He's just a fucking petulant cocksucking spoiled-

On the other hand, if it gives him something to do that's not being an irritating little snot…

"Fine," he snapped. "Fine. But the ones you're holding. That's it. You can come back later if you want more."

Loki's fingers lingered on the book he was holding, but to Clint's amazement, after a moment he closed it, added it to the stack under his arm, and produced the library card between index and middle finger. "Agreed," he said, lifting his chin. "That seems an acceptable bargain. Where do I go to request these for loan?"

~.~

The trip home was…comparatively peaceful. Loki read, which appeared to distract him adequately from his discomfort with the subway. Clint stared at him, eyes narrowed, somewhat alarmed by how…normal Loki looked, dressed in casual clothes, legs crossed and bent forward over a book, expression focused and intent and not on any nefarious plans.

It was…weird, seeing Loki like the way he'd been in the stacks. Almost at ease, focused on something other than his own misery or causing someone else's. He didn't like it. He didn't like that he'd just checked out library books for the bastard who'd fucked with his head. He didn't like anything about any of this.

Either Loki didn't notice him staring or was declining to react to it, though, because he didn't so much as glance at Clint. He closed the book carefully when they reached Clint's stop and stood up. "Shall we?" He murmured, almost polite, and Clint gave him a poisonous look as he stood.

He trooped back to the apartment, preoccupied.

Mrs. Brustein came out of her room, dog under one arm, as Clint was opening his door. She looked from him to Loki and back, expression plainly curious. "Good afternoon," Loki said, smooth and polite. The dog yapped, and squirmed.

"I don't think we've met, Mr…" she said, and Clint shoved the door open.

"He's not staying," Clint said sharply, and tugged Loki inside, closing the door firmly behind them.

"So rude," Loki said mildly. Clint gave him a nasty look.

"I thought you were trying to keep a low profile."

"Does that mean I can't greet your neighbors?" Loki asked, almost sounding convincingly innocent. Clint breathed out through his nose and hitched his bag of books higher on his shoulder, heading back toward his room. "You've probably given her all kinds of inappropriate ideas," Loki called after him.

Clint flipped him off over his shoulder without rising to that bait, and glowered sourly at nothing in particular as he closed the door behind him a little too firmly. This temporary little arrangement, he thought, was starting to get disturbingly domestic.

He'd have to watch out for that. And work out a way to end this that wasn't how Loki wanted it to.

Yeah, he thought bitterly. Maybe if he stared at a wall long enough something would come to him.

Fuck his life. Seriously. Never should have taken the New Mexico assignment, Clint thought. Then I wouldn't be here with a crazy ex-god squatting in my apartment trying to blackmail me into killing him.

A life that didn't involve this whole mess could only be an improvement.