Author's Note: With thanks to the incomparable zaataronpita for editing (particularly for Clint voice). This was a fun one to write, and let it serve as a reminder that despite how it may look, I am very, very aware of how not nice Loki is fully capable of being. And is. Gleefully.

When he stepped into the room to face down his personal demon, it took one look at Loki sitting crosslegged on the floor, eyes closed and apparently perfectly relaxed in spite of his still evident battering, for Clint to regret coming at all.

Which of course just made him more determined.

Loki's eyes opened, and they seemed to be staring right through his sunglasses. "Ah," he said. "I was wondering if you would come."

"Yeah," said Clint, voice seeming to grate over his throat. "I did."

One corner of Loki's mouth, framed by a bruise, turned up slightly. "Come to kill me?"

"I considered it."

Loki's head tilted to the side, the motion slightly birdlike. "Do you really want to?" His mouth curved a bit more. "Do you think you could even make yourself hurt me?"

Clint's stomach churned. He should have told Nat he was coming down here. But she would have talked him out of it, and he needed…closure. Something. "I think," he said flatly, "I'd fucking relish every minute of it."

The sinuous way Loki moved, uncrossing his legs and unfolding to rise to his feet, was almost mezmerizing. "You couldn't even begin. I would only have to look you in the eye and you would kneel and beg forgiveness. Beg for me."

It echoed in his head. Kneel. Bow your head and it'll all be all right again, you'll be at peace-

Clint wobbled. He locked his knees and bared his teeth. "Trust me. If Fury gets what he wants, I'm going to be jumping on the chance to wring everything you know out of your fucked up head."

The grin that spread across Loki's face was flat out feral. Vicious and sharp and with a glint in his eye that reminded Clint of sharks. Or creatures that lived deep in the parts of the ocean without any light with too big mouths and too big eyes. "Trust you? Oh, I did. You were the best of them, hawkling. So eager to serve. So quick to anticipate my will. I was so proud of you," and oh, that was worse. Because every word seeped into his skin and settled warm and soothing in his stomach. Making him want, more than anything, to be worthy of more praise.

"I don't want your pride," Clint said, and tried desperately to mean it. "I don't want anything from you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah," Clint said stubbornly. "That's 'so.'"

"Because I say…that's the real reason you're here," Loki went on. "Because you miss me. So very, very much. And I know you so much better than anyone else. Maybe even better than you."

Clint's hands curled into fists and he tried to focus on the bite of his short nails into his palms. "It's pretty rich," Clint said tightly, "I miss you? I don't need to miss you. You're right here, in a cage. Funny, you talking big when you're the one who's got an indentation in the floor with his name on it."

Loki's eyes flashed very briefly, and then the expression was gone, but it was enough to give Clint momentum. He stepped forward. "You know why I'm here? Because I couldn't get enough of seeing you beat. All your a god am I shit and when it comes down to it all that it really takes to take you down is someone hitting you hard enough. You fucked with my brain, sure, you fucked with me. But in the end you lost. And you can sit in there and snipe at me, but it doesn't mean anything. Cause we, a bunch of puny mortals, still beat your ass."

"Gloating is unattractive," Loki said silkily, but Clint could see a glint of something hard in his eyes. He let out a harsh laugh.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure. You know what else is unattractive? Trying to take over a planet because daddy didn't give you enough hugs as a kid." Clint didn't see the movement, just knew that one moment Loki was standing across the cell and the next he was right there, looming too goddamn close. (Not close enough. Run your fingers through my hair again. Tell me I'm good.)

He felt sick.

"Oh. Oh. Are we going to talk about love, then, Clint Barton? Are we going to discuss life stories? You're so pleased with yourself. With your little band. You think that'll be enough? You're good. Are you good enough for them to look after you, so much weaker than they are?"

Shit, Clint thought. Shit, mistake. He held his ground and gritted his teeth though his instincts were screaming at him to back off.

"They won't want to keep you," Loki said, voice leveling, calming to something dreadful, sympathy. "They'll cast you off. You'll be left with the same emptiness you can feel now. The void, gaping and empty, where I used to be. Is that what you want for yourself? You've been whole. And now you are less. You can feel yourself diminished."

"Shut up," Clint said, but it didn't come out as forcefully as he meant it to. He could feel a cold, choking kind of fear welling up in him.

"And even if they do want you. If they do indulge you, as a greater being may indulge a lesser. You will drag through the days," Loki said, voice swelling, and it was like his voice wrapped around Clint's throat like a snake, closing it off. He wanted desperately to deny but couldn't quite- "Becoming ever more hollow, ever more desperate. No woman, no band of misfits will soothe you. You will scream my name in your sleep. You will go to your grave choking on your need." Loki's hand hit the glass, and Clint's eyes jerked up and met Loki's boring into his.

(He remembered looking into those eyes and feeling nothing but the purest adoration. Clean. Clear. Simple.)

"There is no one else who can give you what I did. No one." Loki leaned forward, into the hand with fingers splayed wide against the glass. "And you will spend the rest of your life seeking something to fill that empty space in you."

Clint couldn't stop himself. Couldn't halt the step back in time. Loki laughed, a thin and harsh sound.

"You'll never find it," he said, stepping back, something lilting in his tones. "What do they think it was, mind control? Is that what they call it? You and I, we know better. I didn't control your mind. I didn't need to. I asked you to do nothing that you were not willing – eager – to do. You've had other masters before. But I was the best of them."

"No," said Clint, with sudden certainty though his stomach was churning and he wanted nothing more, thought he wanted nothing more, then to cower back. "No, you weren't. You killed the best handler I ever had. And he was so much better than you."

Loki's teeth flashed. "It won't be his name you scream in the dark. Won't be his saving grace you seek."

"You're a liar," Clint said. "That's all you are, that's all your power is-"

"Oh no," Loki said, almost purred. "Real power is in the times I choose to be truthful. Like now. I wouldn't lie to you about this. Not to you. My eyas."

Clint thought he tasted bile. He swallowed, several times. "Y'know, I hope they kill you, back where you come from," he said fervently. "Or no, actually, I hope they don't. I hope you get to spend forever rotting in a jail cell, caged and impotent, until everyone forgets you even existed."

Loki laughed. Perhaps it was just Clint, but it sounded slightly forced. A jagged edge there that made Clint's skin want to crawl. "Oh, hawkling. If I believed you meant it that might even hurt my feelings."

"Fuck your feelings," Clint said, savagely. "I just want to hurt you. And if I ever see you again, the only thing you'll get from me will be an arrow through your eye socket. If I'm feeling nice."

And suddenly, Loki's expression calmed. His eyes half closed and his mouth quirked at one corner like he was trying to hold in a smile. "You want to hurt me? Oh, no. I don't think so. I can see it, you know. Could see it, when you were mine. The longing way you watched me. Yearning to be just that little bit closer."

Clint felt a little thrill of instinctive fear and kept his eyes on Loki's. Swallowed. "You would have let me have anything I wanted from you," Loki purred, voice sweet. "You would have let me hurt you. You would have let me wring every scream from your bones if you thought it would make me love you more. But I didn't want that from you. I didn't ask so much. Didn't require what you were so willing to give."

His heart was jumping in his chest. He remembered. Remembered feeling something more like adoration than desire.

"Consider that," Loki murmured, "My mercy."

"Clint."

He hadn't heard Natasha approach. (Of course, did he ever?) There she was, though, and Loki's gaze switched from Clint to Natasha, a slow smile spreading across his features. Clint swallowed hard several times.

"Ah. Your spider. She's come to rescue you."

"Tasha," said Clint, tightly.

"Out," she said. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. Clint backed toward the door, not taking his eyes off Loki though his were now narrowed at Natasha. Ignoring the voice that murmured go back. Stay here with him, where you're safe.

You've been whole. And now you are less.

He walked away, and tried to tell himself that every step got easier, not harder.

~.~

Natasha came and found him a half an hour later on the roof. She sat down next to him. "Tomorrow he'll be gone," she said, quietly. "Don't go back. Promise me that. You won't get anything out of it."

"Did you?" He asked, not quite accusation.

"Don't go back, Clint."

He looked away, feeling himself bristle, knowing he didn't have the right to. He still felt – raw. Exposed. Naked. "I won't."

She reached out and touched his shoulder, very lightly, very briefly. Enough. "Tomorrow he'll be gone," she said again, and Clint felt the urge to snarl no, he won't, he won't ever be gone, not from me.

But he just nodded.

Natasha's fingers found his, after a moment, laced with them. Squeezed once and let go. "You're more than this," she said quietly. "You're better than this."

"You know that?"

"You saw it in me," she said, quietly. "I see it in you." Then she was gone, on her quiet, quiet feet. Clint curled into himself and stared unseeing at the horizon. Don't go back.

Yeah, well, he thought. I can't.

Somehow that seemed right.