I Am an Island

Clint couldn't sleep.  He sat on his bed, knees clenched up to his chest and he held them together with his hands.  He looked at his blotchy red reflection in the door of his dresser.  His lips trembled and his eyes were squinted as the tears streaked down his cheeks.  He hadn't felt an emotional pain like this before and he didn't know what to.

Sure, he had felt the pain of his family pet dying or his rejection of the girl he had his eye on, but this was a new-found grief that gnawed at his bones as he sat alone.  It was the pain of guilt of his hands being the end of so many lives.  The death toll after the battle was higher than he had expected; a whole five hundred.  Most of it was really his fault and it didn't matter what the other said.  He hadn't been fast enough to dodge Loki at the SHIELD base and not witty enough to break over his spell.  He was angry and hurt and he had killed people for no other reason than for the gain of the man he hated.  

Clint wasn't exactly an emotional guy.  He had never cried before a movie or book or anything like that, and heck, he actually didn't remember the last time he did cry, but this was different.  This was a lamentation against hate and anger and apathy, or everything that contradicted love.  Love was pain and the thing that didn't let you let go of death.  It was the cause of suicides and wars and all bad things.  Love was something that Clint hated right now.

Why him?  Why did Clint have to be the one to deal with the families and screaming children and terrified teenagers as they looked down the shaft of his arrow as it was pointed at their faces.  

There were some things that were inexcusable.  And he believed them right at the time.

He thought of Loki and the monster inside of him that had suffocated his logic to only make him a pawn of his will.

It only made him angrier.  

It was the only thing that made him think that he actually wanted to die.  Sure, there was that emo stage that everyone went through right before the cynical stage, but this was different.  This was an emptiness that he felt that made him want to hurl himself over a cliff or maybe just over the edge of Stark Tower just so that he could be told all those nice things at his funeral.

Clint hated that about people.  Sure, it was proper and good to say such things, but at that point, the person really didn't care, did they?  They were in a better place and what you said about them on earth had no effect on their life, anymore, did it?

His heart was tearing apart.  He could feel it.

"I know," came a voice that he knew all too well.  Clint shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to get the voice out.  

"I'm not in your head, Agent Baron.  I am here."  Loki stepped out of the shadows, his face understanding and caring.  Clint looked to his bow and arrows stashed nearby.  

"I should kill you now before you do any more harm."

"You don't blame me for the harm, though.  I can see it.  You're snivelling."

"I have a right to be," he grumbled.  "Leave me alone.  Unless you want to kill me," he sounded almost hopeful.  

"You're too good of a soldier for me to want to kill you, Agent," he said smoothly.  

"That's what I am, isn't it?"

"It is what you've made yourself," he offered simply.  

Clint narrowed his eyes.  "No.  I'm a monster," he said.

"I thought I fit that role."

"You're only doing what you are supposed to.  I am the good-guy.  I'm only supposed to kill you."

"You flatter me," said Loki.  "You feel...?"

"Guilty.  Hateful."

Loki smirked.  "I'm surprised in that from you, Clint.  You did what I commanded and you could not change that."

"I know..."

"Come here."  It was Loki who advanced and wrapped his arms around Clint.  "I'm..."

Clint's tears and snot was wiped all over Loki's clothes.  Clint didn't know why he did this.  He should have killed him or maimed him for making him suffer, but maybe that's what a life of espionage and causing other people to suffer granted him.  Maybe it was meant to be this way.  

Loki's arms were strong and protective.  "I took to you," he said, his hand running over Clint's hair.  "I'm sorry for making you hurt so badly.  I'd never want anyone to..."

"I thought that was your point," said Clint sniffing.

"Oh, well...it was, for a while.  But then I realized that if making other people suffer would bring me strength, I'd turn into both Laufey and Odin at the same time.  I'd turn into two bad people."

Clint nodded.  "Makes sense."

He could hear the god's heartbeat vaguely through the clothes.  He had never expected such a person to have such a heart, but Clint felt comforted.  Loki may have been the only person to understand and Bruce, the other alternative, would have been too taken aback by Clint's state.  

He felt a pressure on his hairline and knew it to be Loki's lips.  They were warm and comforting on him and he felt safe.  Clint's eyes flitted shut and he relaxed into his arms.  

"Thank you, Loki."

The only response was a gentle pat on the back and a low hum that resonated into Clint's slowly healing heart.