Clint had never been mind controlled before. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected. Was his personality supposed to change? Were his beliefs supposed to suddenly be different? How much wiggle room was there supposed to be for defiance?

As it was, he reflected as he raced away from the SHIELD stronghold with Loki, it was more like he didn't really feel like defying the mind control. He could tell that the mind control was there, slipped around the edges of his thoughts like a noose, but the noose was not uncomfortably tight and there didn't seem to be any real reason to strain at it.

He glanced over at Loki. The man was sitting in the passenger's seat of the car, looking out the window at the scenery. Since they were on the highway now, there wasn't that much to see. But Loki, who came from another planet, had to find it all fascinating.

"Where are we going?" Clint asked. Up until now his only goal had been getting away from the SHIELD headquarters, which were now devastated anyways. But at some point he would have to turn off the highway. He wondered what kind of stronghold Loki kept. Judging by his clothing and that staff (Clint shuddered slightly at the thought of the staff) he liked things fancy.

Loki didn't look away from the window. "Just keep driving for now. Your instincts will tell you where to turn, how to get there."

"Because I'm being mind controlled?" Clint asked, lifting an eyebrow as he looked back at the road. The funny thing was, it seemed to be accurate. Since leaving SHIELD, he had not had the slightest doubt of which direction to go. And yet, he had no idea where he was going. It was confusing.

"Yes, actually," Loki said finally. "The staff has an interesting way of controlling people. It isn't very strict, but while its power is in you it gives you the information you need, tells you what you need to do."

"Fascinating," Clint said briefly. He felt slightly annoyed at Loki going on about the way he was controlling Clint. Of course, if not for the mind control, he wouldn't just be annoyed; he'd be furious.

"Isn't it?"

Clint looked over at Loki to reply and saw that Loki was wearing a vicious grin, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, and eyebrows furrowed deep. He looked less like the elegantly deadly man who had threaded his control into Clint's heart and more like a wolf ready to attack.

Clint looked away again quickly, and Loki made no comment.

They drove (well, Clint drove, and Loki and the other brainwashed agents rode) without a word of conversation for the next hour or so before Clint felt the urge to turn off on an exit. After that, he followed a maze of mostly empty roads to an abandoned warehouse, and he parked in front.

"Here?" he asked Loki.

"You already know the answer," Loki said, climbing out of the car. He stood a bit stiffly. Clint at first thought it was because of the long ride, but then remembered how Loki had staggered earlier, when he first arrived at SHIELD, before the car ride, before the glowing staff.

"I thought you would live somewhere fancier," Clint said. He climbed out of the car himself, stretching his legs and helping Dr. Selvig and the others to get out. The others still hadn't spoken. Perhaps the mind control was affecting them more than him. "A warehouse? Really?"

"They're all over the place, and no one really watches them," Loki said placidly. He didn't seem to mind Clint's questions now. "Usually I would stay in an apartment if I wished to be inconspicuous, but I will need some room for some supplies, and some allies. Including you, of course." He sent Clint a smirk, clearly gloating about the mind control. "And then, I hear they're traditional."

"Yeah, sure," Clint said. "Every supervillain ever uses a warehouse as their hideout." He rolled his eyes. Mind control did not prevent him from thinking Loki was being kind of lame after the buildup.

"Supervillain," Loki mused. "That's a new one."

"No, I just told you; it's cliché."

"I meant that I have never been called a supervillain before," Loki clarified. He fiddled with the staff, probably knowing how uncomfortable it made Clint to have it in his line of sight. "And I've been called many things, my hawk. Hero, failure. Brother, son, friend. Liar, trickster, thief. God…" The staff almost slipped out of his hands and onto the ground, but he caught it as it fell. "Monster."

Clint scoffs, "Guess which one I would call you." He wasn't sure which himself. Loki had not lied to him yet as far as he knew. He was no hero to Clint, but considering how easily he had stolen the Tesseract he was no failure either. Not a brother or a son (what) or a friend. Not a god (even if he had complete control over Clint).

A thief, yes. He had stolen the Tesseract, and he had stolen Clint's heart.

Only in the most literal sense!

Monster? Perhaps.

Loki interrupted Clint's thoughts with a laugh. He threw his head back too. When he smiled with genuine amusement, not just spite, he looked less grim and poisonous. Recovering from his laughter, he said, "You, my hawk, may call me boss."

"All right, boss," Clint said. He was not able to inject as much sarcasm into that word as he would have liked.

He scowled.

Looking more energized now, Loki clapped his hands together. "Into the house, my dear minions. Wanted men like us should not be standing long in the open. In, in!" He herded them like sheep or chickens towards the warehouse and through the doors, closing them with a flourish. "Welcome to our headquarters. This is where our glorious quest of conquering Earth shall begin."

"Boss," Clint interrupted (and the word already felt natural on his tongue) "May I suggest that conquering the world is not the best goal? All the supervillains who have tried so far have failed and been captured. And of course we all want to avoid that."

Loki twirled his staff again, absently. "I'm afraid we don't have a choice, my hawk."

/…/…/

A few days passed. They got settled in, and Clint became more comfortable with the other mind controlled minions. He had already known some of them from SHIELD, but some new ones showed up that were from other, less civic minded organizations that he would usually shoot in the head before talking. Loki, however, trusted them, and they were as mind controlled as he, so there was some sort of bond there.

Loki gave Selvig and some other scientists a job messing around with the Tesseract. He gave many of the other men no orders except to stay in the general area of the warehouse. For some reason, though, he insisted on having "meetings" with Clint.

To be fair, some of them were about The Plan (which was not the most brilliant plan Clint had ever been part of) in which Clint had a rather key role. Still, many of them had little to do with business.

This one? Clint wasn't really sure.

"Tell me about your spider," Loki said. He was sprawled out on the floor next to a couple of boxes of equipment, staff lying innocuously at his side, still somehow managing to look elegant. Clint stood over him at attention, feeling a bit awkward but unable to walk away, to directly disobey Loki's order.

He could still hedge.

"I've already told you about her, boss," he insisted. Told Loki all her weak spots, her secret fears, her way of fighting. More than enough to kill her. In that telling he was sure he had lost his soul and it exasperated him that this man seemed to think it wasn't enough.

"Mmmm…" Loki said, closing his eyes. "Tell me about her again. You are in love with her, right?"

Clint bit his lip. "Well, it's complicated…"

He tried not to let Natasha know about his feelings towards her, the way she attracted him. He knew she felt she owed him because he had helped her to join SHIELD. If he asked for anything from her, she would give it out of obligation. And Clint knew she could act well enough that she could convince even him that it was real.

And yet, he could not help the way he felt about her. For so long she had been the forbidden attraction to him. They would meet occasionally on missions, and know they should kill each other, and for some reason hold back. And then one day she wanted to leave her government and join SHIELD, and Clint was shocked. No matter what he had imagined about Natasha, he had never thought he would be taking her home.

It had been fulfilling a wild dream, bringing her back with him. And now she thought she was in his debt, and he was afraid to show her how he felt about her, how he had felt all this time. He let their relationship fall into easy companionship instead, ignoring how her presence gave him twinges in his stomach.

It was a sensitive situation, honestly. He told all this to Loki as it occurred to him, almost casually, but hating himself at the same time.

"No need to make that face at me, hawk," Loki yawned. His eyes were half closed, but they still sparkled blue with mischief. "You cannot blame me for being curious. You are working for me, after all, and we never had a job interview, did we, now?"

"Didn't we?" Clint said. Sighing, he sat down next to where Loki lay all sprawled out. "You saw how I fought."

"Briefly."

"And you knew I had heart," Clint added. He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, boss. What does that even mean?"

Loki smiled. "It means you have the room in you to care for someone else's needs and desires more than your own. That's what the staff needs, to control you. If you don't have the inclination to serve already, then the staff can do little to induce it." He yawned again. "Most people have some heart in that sense, but you have more than most. I suppose that's why we get along so well."

Clint frowned. "Why? Because you can control me so completely? Because I have enough heart to bow completely to your will?" But that wasn't right. Out of all the men Loki kept enslaved in the warehouse, Clint was probably the most defiant of them all.

Loki sighed and murmured, "No, no, my hawk. It's because we're…"

"Because we're what?" Clint said loudly, when Loki stopped speaking and did not continue.

Loki did not answer. His breathing had become more even now, and his eyes were completely shut instead of maintaining their half closed gaze on Clint.

"Typical. I answer your questions for hours, and the second I ask you a question you fall asleep," Clint muttered.

He wasn't sure if it was because of the mind control or not, but he felt an urge to stay by Loki's side as he slept. Guard him. Well, as an agent, guarding people was second nature to him, no matter how disagreeable the idea of serving this man in any way was to him. (And it wasn't really disagreeable. Loki was good company, once you got past his tricky way of speaking and the atrocities he had committed. Though that might just have been the mind control talking.)

In any case, he positioned himself carefully in front of his boss and kept a sharp eye out for intruders. No one was likely to find out the location of the warehouse, but if they did, Clint had to be prepared. They would almost certainly be targeting Loki and the Tesseract. And those were the two things that Clint knew, with the clarity the staff preserved in him, that he had to protect.

/…/…/

It was only because Clint was so alert at the moment that he heard Loki begin to mutter in his sleep.

Well. Mutter was not really the right word. Rather, the man was whimpering, almost keening. And his face was twisted into a pained expression that Clint had not imagined that face could hold.

A bad dream?

Clint was not aware that he had moved until he found himself shaking Loki awake, but he didn't disapprove of the action. He said loudly, "Loki, wake up. Loki, it's not real. It's just a dream. Wake up!"

Was it the mind control that made him feel pain, seeing Loki like that? Clint didn't care. He shook Loki again, violently, angrily. He didn't like seeing that face in pain. It was so…so pitiful…

Eyes opened slowly. Loki's eyes. For a moment, in the strange light, they almost looked green, before reverting back to their normal glittering blue. But Loki's face was still twisted, still so vulnerable. He snarled at Clint, "Get your hands off me, hawk!"

Clint quickly let go.

Loki took a couple deep breaths, but his body shook. "They're so impatient."

"Who?"

Loki glanced at him, quick, sharp. He let out a harsh laugh. "You are bold, to question your master. Do not think I am a cruel man, because there are masters in this world far more…exacting." He spoke the last word as a hiss, and as he did so he put his hand to his shoulder and gripped it as if trying to staunch a wound.

"Are you hurt, boss?"

"No," Loki said. But his hand on his shoulder clenched.

Clint knew that was his release. Mind control didn't apply now. It didn't matter whether the man (god, monster, trickster, liar, friend) was hurt or not. But still…

Well, he could say it was because the mind control did not take away his curiosity.

"Let me see," he said, moving closer, taking hold of the hand Loki held to his shoulder. "It can't be all right, the way you're favoring it."

Loki jerked away. He let out a hiss of pain, a hiss that somehow turned into a stream of words. "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me…"

Clint reluctantly stepped back. Now that part was sheer mind control. He contented himself with just asking, "What was the dream about?"

"I told you," Loki said. His voice was uneven, one moment hissing, the next snarling, the next seeming perfectly calm. "They're impatient. My hawk, my hawk, I can't satisfy them. I don't think I can do this."

"Who?" Clint said. This was just getting more and more frustrating. Loki never acted like this. "Satisfy who?"

"I need to conquer Earth," Loki groaned. "Open the way for them, and give them the Tesseract. Barton, I don't think I can."

Loki not being able to conquer Earth should have sounded a lot more welcoming than it did. Instead of pressing further, Clint found himself saying, "Of course you can. You're a god, boss, remember? Not one of those cheap supervillains." He bit his lip. He believed it, too. He told himself that as soon as the mind control was gone (and surely he would be rid of it eventually; Loki could not keep him in it forever) those thoughts would be gone too. It was poor comfort.

"Oh, I'm a supervillain too, my hawk," Loki said. He laughed weakly. "Hero, supervillain, failure. Brother, son, friend. Trickster, liar, thief. God. Monster." He put a hand out to the staff, but did not pick it up. "King. Slave."

He looked straight at Clint, and his eyes were glittering blue. The same color they always were. The same color as all the mind controlled men's eyes were, the same color as Selvig's eyes, the same color as Clint's own eyes.

Clint swallowed.

He put a hand out, but could not bring himself to touch Loki. The mind control compelled him to obey, and Loki had been rather clear on that point.

He had to say something.

"Well, boss," he said. And swallowed again. "Slave is a bit harsh, isn't it? Even if you're being…mind controlled…"

Loki said nothing to confirm his guess, but he did not deny it either. He simply continued staring into Clint's eyes. Blue into blue. Like into like.

"It's not like you would call me a slave," Clint continued, trying to ignore the intensity of that stare. "Would you?"

He had somehow gotten the opinion that Loki thought more of him. Ridiculous, of course, but he didn't think that Loki would get along so well with someone he considered a mere slave. Half the time, Loki even treated him as an equal.

Loki's lips twitched. Not really the reaction Clint was looking for, that amusement, but he would take it at this point. "You are not me, dear hawk. And I am not Thanos."

"Thanos?" The name felt strange on Clint's tongue.

Loki stood, still shaky but suddenly authoritative. He gave Clint a piercing glare (piercingly blue) and said, "You are not to question me further, on the subject of Thanos."

Mind control had never felt so restrictive before. Clint nodded all the same. Then he frowned. "Is that why we get along so well? Because we're alike?"

"Both enslaved," Loki agreed. He bent down and picked up the staff, which had to be controlling him as well (which made Clint wonder why he liked it so much). "And I more pitiful than you, my hawk. Feel no shame at your service to me."

"But you don't get along with the others nearly as well," Clint pointed out. With some pride, unfortunately. "They're enslaved too."

Loki smiled acidly. "Did you know that the more receptive you are to the staff, the more you are able to stretch its limits? You and I, we are able to defy our masters' power more than those mortals ever could. But that's because their servitude is crude, basic, forced because they cannot receive it any other way. You and I can think for ourselves, but we are enslaved even more thoroughly than the others." He sighed, smile falling from his face. "And that's because we have more heart. You and I, we left ourselves vulnerable."

Clint frowned. "I am more mind controlled than Selvig?" He had thought himself the most defiant.

"Because the staff cannot keep a hold of Selvig, it does not allow him thoughts outside of his basic necessities and serving me. He cannot even speak to me if I do not ask it," Loki said. "But the staff has a firmer hold on you. Even allowed your own thoughts, you still find yourself inclined to serve me. It has you deeper, so it allows you more ground."

Clint blinked. "That's somewhat disturbing."

"Isn't it?" Loki said. His mouth twisted as if trying to achieve a smile (because Loki nearly always smiled) but not quite succeeding. "As for me, my heart was wrecked when they found me. So open, so longing for purpose. The staff has me at my core, dear hawk. And I can think about nearly anything." He touched his shoulder again, absently. "Thanos need have no fear of me rebelling. None at all."

That was a thought, Loki rebelling. If Loki went against his commands, defended Earth rather than attacking it, Clint knew he could do the same. With them and the Avengers working together, there would be few enemies they could not defeat. "Are you sure you couldn't resist the mind control?"

Loki smiled. (He always smiled.) "Very sure. Don't ask me that again."

Clint's eyes narrowed. "Yes, boss." Loki was stubborn. Surely there was a way that they could go against this Thanos, even with the mind control in place. But now that Loki had shut Clint out, there was no way for them to find one together.

"Tell me about Nicholas Fury again," Loki said, changing the subject as easily as if they hadn't just been discussing anything particularly painful. "I was going to ask you, but I fell asleep." He twitched. "This time, please ensure I do not fall asleep."

Clint still wondered what Loki had dreamed about, but he started talking.

/…/…/

Clint wasn't quite sure what he had expected coming out of mind control to feel like. Was there supposed to be sudden clarity? Was he supposed to start hating Loki, hating himself for following Loki? Was there supposed to be relief, or anger?

He wasn't even sure what he did feel like.

The Plan had gone well, for the flawed plan it was. Of course, The Plan had not included Loki losing Clint like this. He wondered if Loki was distressed at losing his dear hawk.

He realized, with a touch of surprise, that Loki's absence did distress him. And he worried about the man. Clint had escaped the staff, escaped Loki's hold on him. But the staff held Loki as tightly as ever. Loki had not escaped Thanos.

SHIELD wanted him to stay out of this one. They said he was too close. Even Natasha and Nick Fury agreed about that.

Clint knew he couldn't.

Loki was counting on him, he felt. The feeling was familiar, only before he had thought it was the mind control. Now, it was just the sensation of knowing a man needed his help. And to free Loki, they first needed to defeat him.

AN: This story has two things I love-the concept that Loki was mind controlled during the whole Chitauri mess, which has always seemed likely to me, and an exploration of Clint and Loki's relationship. I personally think that Loki would have some respect for Clint-after all, Clint was his second in command.

Reviews are always much appreciated.