Hello, lovelies! FINALLY uploading the sequel. Sorry it took so long. I suck, I know. I hope you love it! Review so I know people are reading! Also because I love reviews. They make me smile.

Disclaimer-I don't own Avengers. It's depressing. But it's true.

Chapter One- Of Injuries and Hulking Candy Stripers.

Did you really think that you could get rid of me that easily?

My name is Clint Barton. I am an employee of SHIELD, an assassin, highly trained, very specialized, not one to be losing their mind. Up until about two weeks ago, I had better self control than anyone I knew. And then a Norse god, which should be strictly fiction, locked in the pages of dusty children's books, came down from wherever Norse gods come from and stole my mind, replacing it with a murderous puppet. And that puppet hangs in the shadows of my mind, taunting me, even though this should all be over. Even when Loki escaped his Asgardian prison and came back to earth, he was captured again, unfortunately by no fault of my own. But it's not over.

And here he is again, refusing to let go of my mind. And I can't even escape, not with these cuffs strapping me to my hospital bed. He smirks at me from the mirror that hangs over the sink, and when he smirks, the thick black stitches that knot his lips together tear a little more of his flesh, and fresh blood stains his mouth grotesquely.

Oh, Clint. Look at you, in worse shape then me. What did she do to you?

It's hard to believe that anyone can be in worse shape than him, given the permanent gag and the cuts and bruises and the bloodstained green that he wears. But when I look at myself, bandaged so much that I look like some abused patchwork doll, I realize that I take top prize in most physically damaged. The short lived battle between SHIELD and Loki and I left me broken, shot too many times by agents, shot too many times by Natasha Romanoff.

She was your friend, Clint. And she did this to you. I tried to stop it, I tried my best to keep you unharmed, but I could not hold her off forever.

I could still see the horror in her eyes even as she squeezed the trigger of the gun aimed at me. And I knew that Loki meant it when he says that he tried to save me. I wouldn't be alive without his magic.

"But that doesn't mean I appreciate your existence," I say out loud. "My life would be a hell of a lot easier without you messing it up."

A hell of a lot more boring. Loki smirks at me.

Then he is gone, and I am alone again, in the darkened room. I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the door is slammed open.

"Clint." Natasha stands in the doorway, her eyes filled with remorse as she looks over the bloody bandages that patch my torso and arms. "Clint, I'm sorry."

"Hi, Nat," I say, trying to smile for her. "How's it going?"

She shakes her head as she comes to sit by me. "Clint, I don't know why they're keeping you in here. Loki's been caught, he's sitting in a prison specially designed for him. I don't know why you're locked up in this room."

"They still don't trust me, Nat. They haven't trusted me since Loki first came down here and possessed my mind. They won't ever trust me again." I let my head fall back on to my pillow. It hurts too much to try to sit up anyway.

"That's not true, Clint."

"Of course it is. You don't even trust me. No one trusts me here. I don't blame them. I don't blame you. I wouldn't trust me, either. I know I'm a killer, and I'm sure that's all I'll ever be, but it was never supposed to go this way. I was never supposed to turn against SHIELD. That wasn't the deal."

"You'll get out of here once they deal with Loki. Once I deal with Loki." Her face is set, resolved as she takes one last look at the damage that she inflicted on me.

I don't say another word before she gets up and leaves.

They don't leave me alone for long. Maybe they think that shoving teammates and supposed friends in my face is an effective way to become trustworthy and consequently useful to them again. It doesn't seem to be a method approved by most psychologists, but Nick Fury has never really held with that crowd.

At least, that's the only reason I can think up that would lead to Dr. Banner standing awkwardly in front of me, fiddling with his shirt cuffs. Until now, I don't think I've even said a word to him.

"Hi," he starts. He's set a tray down, which presumably carries my dinner, and he comes towards me with a silver key and reaches for my cuffed hands. Once I've been unlocked, he steps away and pulls a chair up to sit in.

I pull the tray closer and take the lid off. "Jello. Delicious." The green jello, mashed potatoes, carrots and indistinguishable kind of meat do very little for my lack of an appetite.

Banner stares at me for an uncomfortably long time, expression unreadable. I realize he won't leave until I eat, so I stab the mashed potatoes with unnecessary force and start to eat.

"So is this how it feels to be watched all the time, Dr. Banner?" I don't know what makes me say it, and I hardly recognize the voice forming the words, but I know that I said it of my own free will. No one made me say that.

Banner just blinks at me, not angrily, calmly, but with just enough irritation to border on terrifying. And that's when I realize that he was sent to keep me under control. If I'm going to be unhandcuffed at any point until Loki is gone, it will be in Banner's presence, with the Hulk keeping me in check with the kind of power that no metal restraints contain.

"They explained to me what happened to you, Clint. I'm really sorry that you're the one that ended up like this. Believe me when I say that I understand crappy luck," Banner says kindly. That's the last thing he says to me, and I eat in silence.

He cuffs one hand to the bed before leaving. As he leaves, and nurse comes in and checks my bandages.

"You're looking better," he says. "You're healing abnormally fast. You'll be back to normal really soon." He stabs my arm with a syringe, forcing some clear liquid into my veins. And then he leaves too, turning the lights off and telling me to sleep. I get the feeling that the needle that just pierced my skin doesn't really offer much choice. A frantic, familiar voice calls out to me from inside the room, or inside my head, but I can't reply, my mind is too clouded with drug induced sleep.

Clint. Stay awake.

Clint. They're coming to kill me tonight.

Loki's voice echoes in my mind as I frantically try to loose the cuff on my left wrist. They trusted me, or they trusted the cuffs, enough to leave me overnight with only one set of cuffs pinning me to my bed instead of my usual cuffs-on-both-wrists routine. I don't know why I'm doing this, I don't know why I would want to save him, but I know that I cannot let SHIELD kill him. The IV in my arm tugs as I pull my cuffed arm anxiously, and I pause and look at it. Then the IV is out and the monitors are going ballistic, but I don't have to listen to them for long, because the lock is picked and I am out the door, not before grabbing my bow and my knives that have been kept across my hospital prison, in plain sight to taunt me.

How the hell am I supposed to find him? The SHIELD headquarters are like a maze, and I don't have much time.

Left. Go left, and then down the stairs.

I ignore my throbbing wrist, pretend not to see the blood smearing all over my arm, and I do as he says. I find him in the cavernous basement of SHIELD, in a square glass case like a collector's action figure. He is sitting in the middle on the floor, eyes locked on me as I step out of the shadows. I don't break eye contact as I knock his only two guards unconscious and he smiles at me once we're alone in the room.

I push to button to release him from his prison and he stands up, slowly, painfully. He winces a bit from his injuries, and winces even more from the pain of his stitches.

"Wait," I say. He stops, confused. I pull my knife out and step towards him, into the cell so that I can see better.

He steps back, carefully, but threatened. Clint. What are you doing?

I don't say anything. I bring the knife closer to his mouth and let it slide under one of the stitches before pulling it forward, maybe a bit sharper than necessary, but he deserves it. The coarse black thread slices in half.

And Loki collapses to the ground, his back heaving violently, entire body, which has grown progressively leaner and frailer in his time being punished, shaking on the concrete floor. I kneel beside him, more worried than I should be for his wellbeing, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

NO.

I jerk back.

No more.

And then the sirens go off, and the room goes red and the cell door begins to slowly shut. If we don't move fast, we'll be trapped in there together to be killed.