CHAPTER 14 - Showing Off

"Come on, it's later!" Lila whined at Clint the next day. The archer laughed. They had been planning on returning to the farm after this but it wasn't just the kids who wanted examples of Clint's magic. "Please!"

"Okay, okay," Clint finally relented. Between Cooper, Nate, Lila, Tony, Pietro and even Laura, Clint had been asked what seemed to be a zillion times. Loki smirked, unable to help himself. He had been asked by a few as to what Clint could do. Amazingly, he didn't want to inform anyone as it was Clint's information to tell. It was something he had never cared to wait on with Thor and his friends. "Gonna need to head to the field though."

The knowledge of Clint's about to show what he could do, spread like wildfire. A large group quickly assembled to the field and surprisingly it wasn't just Clint's friends. A lot of the Asgardians had come over to watch as well. It had quickly been spread around that Loki had been teaching Clint offensive magic. Magic that they didn't typically see the Lie-smith do. So they were curious as to what Loki could have actually been able to do, given half the chance. Clint looked the group over and sighed. He hadn't expected to be so popular, especially with the Asgardians.

"Much bigger than Rocket and Quill isn't it," Loki muttered, understanding that Clint was nervous about so many people watching. Clint smirked, dropping into his showtime performance attitude. He hadn't shot for a crowd this large (without killing them) since the circus betrayed him and left him for dead.

"I worked in a circus. Used to large crowds," the archer retorted, turning around to look at the field. There was no way that he'd mention that performing magic in front of even just his family was something he wasn't pleased with. Shooting his arrows, trapeze work, tightrope walking, and some acrobatics was something he was used to. Magic was extremely different and almost seemed a bit more private. But, if he planned on using the magic during fights, he had to be prepared. So, instead he simply turned his smirk to Loki. "Gonna need a target."

Loki laughed, knowing exactly who to place on the other end of the field. With a wave of his hand, an image of a Trogziks, specifically Arath appeared. Clint loudly laughed at the image even as most of the Asgardians trilled at the sight. Trogziks, while not ever fully seen in these parts, were known to the Asgardians. Steve, Tony, Natasha and Bruce all stiffened at the sight before them. Bucky and Sam just traded looks but said nothing. Pietro frowned while looking at the rest of the Barton family who seemed nervous but trusted the people around them to protect them if necessary. Ignoring it all, Clint flicked his wrist and called upon the bow that Loki had gifted him.

"Brother," Thor grumbled at the sight. Clint stilled, curious, while Loki stiffened and glanced back at the thunderer but noted Thor had a small smile on his face. That made the trickster laugh but he didn't respond. Clint glanced over to Loki briefly before muttering the spell and pulling back on the string. A loud gasp echoed through the Asgardians but Clint ignored them.

"Uh, think you're missing something there Legolas," Tony called out. Clint smirked and then the arrow appeared in his grasp and a moment later, he fired. "Holy-"

Steve quickly placed a hand over Tony's mouth before he could finish. Clint ignored it and began to continue rapid firing away at the arrows he made from 'pure air.' About five minutes later, Clint stopped and turned to look at the group. Tony looked to Clint, then looked to the arrows, then looked to Clint.

"Go on down there. They are real," Clint informed. Tony made a face but in a puff of smoke, Pietro had rushed down the field, collected all the arrows and returned. Tony grabbed one from the kid and looked it over.

"It's my design?" the genius spluttered. Clint nodded.

"I can make them however I want, including doing my trick arrows," Clint replied. Tony hummed, distracted over looking the arrows over. With a smirk, Loki nudged Clint, nodding to the arrows. Clint softly chuckled and then whispered the spell to make them disappear. The noise Tony made when the arrows suddenly vanished made a lot of people laugh. "I can also make them disappear so I don't have to collect them when I'm done."

"That is awesome!" Cooper cried. Clint laughed, making the bow vanish again. Bucky and Steve traded a look with a smile. They backed away a step, watching over the area. No reason for anyone to pay specific attention to them as they shared a secret between themselves.

"Ok, how do you do that?" Sam wondered. Clint glanced down to his now empty hand.

"That is not magic," Thor answered for the archer. "The bow that Loki stole-"

"You really expected that it was just the Tesseract I removed from the vaults?" Loki countered. Thor hummed but he didn't sound angry. In fact, he actually seemed rather pleased.

"That bow is called Izril, Eye of Fidelity," Thor continued. "It has sat unused in the vaults for nearly as long as our father ruled over Asgard. Many of our archers tested themselves on it, but the string never moved." Clint looked to Loki in surprise. The trickster had never mentioned this before. Gulping, he turned back to Thor. "Similar to Mjolnir, Izril has a spell on it that says only the greatest archer in the universe would be able to pull back on it's string."

"Seriously?" Clint stuttered, focusing on Loki. "You gave this to me without knowing I'd be able to use it?"

"I knew you would," Loki corrected, staring sharply at Clint. "You wield the bow to protect people. Those who tried to use it before were doing it for personal gain or intent on useless warring. Izril would not allow them to pull back on it's string because they were not worthy. It is much like Mjolnir in the aspect that it chooses it's master based on heart."

"You knew the minute you met me," Clint mumbled. Loki nodded.

"I may have been out of my mind, but that idea stuck with me. Watching you fight with the others, I knew Izril would draw for you," Loki praised.

"Mjolnir doesn't vanish like that when not in use," Tony pointed out.

"Izril does what it's master needs. When Clint does not wield a bow, it sits waiting for use in a pocket dimension that now follows him. To draw the bow out of it, Clint merely needs to think of it coming to his hand," Loki described. "Mjolnir does not do the same thing because it is meant not only as a weapon, but a show of power."

"Have you attempted much else?" Wanda asked in lieu of the current subject.

"Successfully, I can cast a protection spell on myself and others. And... And make my magic not drain the magic others use on me," Clint replied.

"Wait, why that?" Tony wondered, stopping Clint from explaining his lesser known spells.

"Every living creature has magic locked away inside them. Many of those do not have enough magic to even attempt a simple spell. But others, like Strange, Wanda and Clint, have more magic inside them. When I used the Mind Stone on Clint, it awakened a bit of his magic. Not enough to make him a user but enough that it attempted to protect him from others magic that attacked him. Magic like the Infinity Stones," Loki explained. "The more magic used on him, the more he absorbed."

"And someone has unlocked this magic, right?" Bucky softly reminded with a deep frown. Even Steve didn't seem pleased with this information. They seemed far more angered about this information than any of the others. Having done a brief explanation about it before, neither Clint or Loki were surprised that people wanted more information. Clint sighed, giving into the inevitable. Best to get it all out now.

"Yeah... While traveling with the guardians we got into a spot of trouble. Our 'savior' was a 'Celestial' called Ego," Clint started. Tony snorted at the name. "Ego had gone about the universe producing children from various aliens on each planet. One such child was Quill. Ego, while trying to trick Quill into going to his planet, noticed me and tried to convince me to go along. I refused."

"But, we got into a small argument with Rocket and Clint walked off," Loki added. Clint sighed.

"Mantis... She snuck up on me. She has the ability to feel and control emotions in a being. When she captured me, she basically put me to sleep and I was taken to Ego's planet along with Quill. I was kept separate from the others and Ego... Ego, he created these children in an effort to get enough power to basically take over the universe and create it in his own image. I think... I think he may have also wanted my magic to help," Clint guessed, glancing at Loki. Loki shrugged. Neither of them really ever did find out why Ego did what he did.

"So this Ego unlocked your magic?" Wanda summarized. Clint nodded. "How?"

"Uh... He like, dug around and... It felt like he knocked down a wall and suddenly I could feel my magic and it started to try and take his magic. That must have freaked him out cause he ended up not trying to use me to power... Whatever he was doing," Clint answered.

Returning home ended up actually being 'invasion of the Avengers (minus Thor).' Clint had Loki magic up some more rooms, amazingly watching and trying it once or twice himself (with little success). Something that Wanda was happy to also come over and learn, glad that Clint was actually more willing to learn beside her. Loki was even proud that Clint was even more willing in learning something other than offensive magic. Most of what they had worked on with the guardians were offensive and some defensive magic. The others enjoyed the prospect of their own rooms in the Barton household that some of them (Tony and Natasha) asked for certain aspects to be designed in.

Clint and Loki were pleased to find out that even without the duo being there, Pietro had easily taken care of the fields, outside of the out of season foods that Loki tended to magic up. And Laura, Cooper and Lila had gotten rather good at selling everything to make money. Between drinks, pies, scones and other goods, they were pretty popular in town. Actually, the money they made was close to more than what Laura had been making at her job in town. It was helpful and made life simpler, especially now that Clint and Loki had returned and Loki used magic to get things that the family couldn't afford (but find a way to secretly pay back later).

"Concentrate on what you want," Loki coached, watching over his students. Clint scrunched up his face, having gotten more than used to Loki saying that. Wanda, on the other hand, seemed to close in on herself to think even more. They had been having some difficulty getting this spell right. Loki had already had to show what to do nearly twenty times. But, the Lie-smith was surprisingly patient.

"You sure he can do it? Cause, he doesn't seem like he could," Tony mocked after having seen them working for a long while. Normally, Tony wouldn't have had the attention span to deal with all this but he had FRIDAY scanning everything. Clint snorted and focused harder for a moment and then a red plump and fresh steak landed on Tony's head. Steve, who stood beside Tony, laughed hard at the genius's face.

"You really shouldn't push your luck like that," the Captain joked. Clint turned with a faux innocent gaze.

"Oh darn, my concentration must not have been strong enough to get it on the plate," Clint sarcastically stated. Tony huffed, placing his glasses on the banister of the porch, and turned to go back inside to clean himself up. As he went, Laura and Bucky came out. Bucky glanced at Steve curiously. Steve just smiled.

"Uncle Tony made fun of Daddy," Nate happily informed in his three year old voice. Bucky snorted. Yup, Tony deserved what happened.

"You are teaching your kids bad habits," Laura happily mentioned, a large smile on her face. Clint laughed, his concentration on the 'calling' spell dropping.

"What's so bad about pranking Tony?" Clint wondered. Laura shook her head but couldn't hide her smile from growing that much larger.

"You keep learning more magic, Tony might want to start studying you," Natasha pointed out, scooping Nate up into her arms, making the boy squeal in delight. Clint smirked, unfazed. He had already given Tony a limited amount of studying of his magic.

"I'll just send him to the other side of the world," the archer laughed, even though he didn't know that spell. This time Loki laughed, the image of Tony appearing in the Sahara or something. Then there was a wet sounding squelch. Clint glanced to Wanda. On her plate was an extremely huge cut of a steak. "Awesome job, Wanda!"

"Thanks," the witchling replied, blushing fiercely. Loki nodded and focused his gaze on Clint. The archer, sensing it, turned to him.

"That alone won't feed the crowd," the trickster accused. Clint snorted and turned back to concentrating on doing the spell himself. A moment later a smaller size steak appeared.

"Aww, steak, no," Clint whined, looking between his size and Wanda's. Wanda and Loki laughed at that.

"Seriously, that's just a mouthful Barton," Bucky called out. Clint snorted before concentrating a bit harder. Then three larger steaks covered his plate. Clint turned to show it to him.

"This fill you up, garbage can?" the archer wondered. Bucky cackled. Beside him, Steve elbowed the man with a heartened smile.

"Good, now we need like a hundred more," Laura pointed out, moving to take the full plate from Clint. The archer sighed but handed the plate over and grabbed one of the other plates that Loki had smartly collected for Clint and Wanda to practice with.

An hour or so later, Wanda and Clint had 'collected' enough steaks to feed everyone in the house (Loki made sure the places the duo had gained the food from was paid). Pietro was nice enough to collect some potatoes and vegetables to act as sides. And while Laura did most of the cooking, Natasha and Cooper had stayed in the kitchen to help. The food was delicious and everyone said so. Afterwards, Clint vanished to go rest. While using that much magic may have been normal for Wanda, Clint had also needed to keep up the spell that locked his magic from stealing from Wanda.

"He okay?" Steve asked a few minutes after Clint disappeared.

"Unlike Wanda and myself, Clint needs to concentrate on holding the spell that makes his magic not steal from us. It is a constant thing and can be draining as he works with other more complicated spells," Loki described. "He may not have actually needed the rest at this point, but we have both learned to not risk over exerting himself."

"You trained a lot, didn't you?" Bucky questioned. Loki nodded.

"We had only been in space for a few weeks or so when Ego got a hold of Clint. Because of the amount of magic Clint can work with, I needed to get him to learn quickly. Now, he refused to learn the normal simple spells that any magic user works with. He went straight to higher levels of magic. His... Stubbornness had him going at times till he dropped. Many times I had to allow him to take some of my magic," Loki explained. When Bucky tilted his head in even deeper curiosity, Loki smirked. "Our magic replenishes with rest, so it did not fully bother me to help him."

"Ah," Bucky replied. Steve sighed and stood, heading out into the yard, a pained expression on his face. In his absence, conversation continued. After a moment, Bucky moved to follow his friend, his own upset expression reflecting the Captain. Loki frowned at that but didn't follow follow them. They must be talking about something important to want privacy. And indeed, outside Steve and Bucky were having a conversation that would end up changing things around here.

"What are Uncle Steve and Uncle Bucky talking about?" Lila wondered when she got close enough to see them outside. Bucky seemed rather upset but Steve looked determined, if not pained.

"Whatever they are talking about is something we will not ask them about," Laura pressed. "Why don't you go help with dishes?"

"Mom," Lila whined. Laura gave her a stern look and with a roll of her eyes, Lila headed to the kitchen. After that, Laura looked to the super soldiers on her porch before focusing on Loki. Loki sighed.

"I didn't say anything," he informed. Laura smiled.

"I didn't say you did," she chuckled. Loki snorted. "Pietro was looking for help in the fields, if you wanted something to do."

Loki nodded, understanding that she was giving him an excuse to see what they were bothered about. As he headed out and passed Bucky and Steve as he went, Loki couldn't help but overhear what they were saying. Especially considering neither of them stopped talking.

"Stevie, I don't know. What if we are wrong?" Bucky muttered as the trickster passed. Steve sighed as Loki found his interest starting to perk up. But he forced himself to move to the stairs, slipping between them. Neither seemed to care.

"I know, but we have to," Steve argued. Loki paused. That sounded highly interesting. Steve wasn't the type to do something he didn't fully believe in. So, what could he be wanting to do that upset him so much?

"Have to what?" the Lie-smith wondered, unable to help himself. Steve grimaced. "Rogers?"

Slowly, Steve took a small stone out of his pocket. Loki took one glance at it before looking to Steve in surprise. He opened his mouth to question it but then frowned. Carefully thinking, Loki closed his eyes, focusing on a long unused spell. After a moment, he understood. Slowly, he looked up toward where Clint had gone to sleep and then returned his gaze to Bucky and Steve. Both soldiers nodded. Loki sighed.

"Be careful," he replied even though he knew they'd succeed. But, they'd have to be careful with how the others would react. Loki doubted many of them wouldn't take whatever excuses that had to say. And Loki knew, this had to happen, no matter what anyone felt like. Steve exhaled deeply.

"I don't want to," Bucky mumbled. Loki moved and placed a hand on Bucky's shoulder. While the trickster hadn't seen that much detail, Loki knew that Steve and Bucky will become highly close with the archer.

"If it happened already, it has to happen again," the trickster informed. Bucky groaned and looked to Steve. The Captain had a small sad smile on his face. There was nothing either of them could do. It happened. They both knew that. So, as Loki said. It had to happen again.

"You're gonna explain it to the others," the soldier demanded, giving in. Steve nodded, putting the stone away and heading back inside. The first person to speak to had to be Clint's wife. Bucky and Loki watched as Steve pulled Laura aside. A moment later, Laura gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. Steve's face pinched and after a few more words, Laura tearfully nodded. "They're gonna hate us."

"I'll help explain," Loki promised, intent on not destroying the Avengers once again. He needed them ready to work together once again. Being split would not do well at all.

"Who the hell are you?" someone demanded. Clint jackknifed up, looking around in surprise. This wasn't his bedroom anymore. Hell, he wasn't even in a bed. He was laying on an extremely uncomfortable couch. Shocked, the archer turned to who had spoken and paused.

"Bucky?"

And we are done! As I said last week, I was going to be late. But I had a good reason. Yesterday, we had a reservation at the Coral Reef in EPCOT at Walt Disney World. Following that, I accidentally fell into a nap along side Darius. Then we went to Villains after Dark at the Magic Kingdom till like 2 in the morning. IT WAS AN AWESOME EVENT!

Surprisingly enough, Darius has been doing excellent! Was wonderful on the plane flight down. Hardly bothered anyone but hubby and me. Then, even at the hotel he's doing great. Isn't getting as upset easily as other times. Currently, we hadn't tired him out much so he's like being nutso all behind me and bothering hubby and I. Nothing as bad as at home, but still. Hubby and Darius also had a small accident with the ceiling fan. Darius was on top of hubby's shoulders and when he went to get Darius off, they had gotten too close to the fan. It smacked into Darius (unsure where exactly as my back was turned to them at the time) and a blade completely snapped off. Calling Disney's Services for a way to get it fixed was so impressive. They were far more worried about how Darius was doing than the actual damage to the room. In fact, they even did a wellness call this morning. I missed it, but still, the thoughtfulness is outstanding. Today we went to Star Wars land. Didn't actually do anything there. Bought a few toys (Sabacc and a puzzle cube). Hubby and I also tried Blue Milk and Green Milk. Hubby liked the blue, while I liked the green. Got a spiced hot chocolate. It was like 70 degrees so I never finished it, but it was good. Also, the soda is mostly packaged like a small bomb. Awesome! Hoping to get to the park early tomorrow to get tickets for one of the rides. If not, I can at least get something else done.