![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Chained
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Avengers
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama/Romance
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Warnings: Swearing, pseudo-bestiality, torture
Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: S.H.I.E.L.D is in uproar: Fury and Coulson are AWOL, one of Thor's friends is missing. Odin has discovered the human lives of Loki's monstrous children and returned them to their original prisons. The Avengers aren't happy; neither is Loki, and Hawkeye might just be gunning for Odin's remaining eye.
When Thor returned from Asgard, Tony was the first to see him. He was, after all, the one in charge of the technology that had created the artificial Bifrost Thor was using. He wasn’t surprised that Thor returned to Earth so quickly: they’d insisted on it, and Thor had had enough of a bug up his ass about the whole ‘Coulson is my nephew’ thing to make it a priority. No, what was a surprise was that he wasn’t alone.
Loki was with him. He wasn’t tied up or anything; he stood next to Thor with his spine straight and his shoulders back and an imperious look on his face that was only spoiled by the black stitches holding his mouth closed.
Tony’s initial reaction of what the fuck functioned on so many levels.
He knew that he shouldn’t be all that surprised by Loki’s appearance. The bastard was involved in this. Coulson and Fury and that Darcy chick were his kids after all, so it made sense that he’d want them to be free.
He’d stabbed Coulson and left him to die, but leaving him imprisoned was just too much.
“Barton stayed behind,” he said, tearing his eyes away from Loki to focus on Thor instead. “He…insisted.”
He’d been a wreck for days and there was no way – Avengers or not – that they could have knocked him out and dragged him back out through those narrow tunnels and over the gaping chasms and away from the one person – giant wolf-shaped demi-god – who could make him feel alive again. Barton had survived Loki’s mindfuck, had been coping with Coulson’s not-death, but there was only so much the guy had been able to take.
Tony was secretly impressed it had taken so long.
Loki raised an eyebrow at the comment and glanced at his brother. Thor shifted awkwardly. “It would appear Clint Barton is your son-in-law,” he explained.
The expression on Loki’s face was completely unreadable. Whether or not he was taking the news well was beyond Tony, and frankly he didn’t care. They’d kicked the guy’s ass once over; they could sure as hell do it again if he tried anything.
He was really, really trying not to be too obvious in his resentment, but once they were strapped into the jet and heading back out to the cave entrance he couldn’t stop himself from asking Thor why, exactly, Loki was necessary.
“My father refused to see reason,” Thor replied. “He believed Loki’s children to be monsters. Once, I too believed it, along with the rest of Asgard.”
And damn if that didn’t make him feel a tiny bit sympathetic towards the bastard who’d tried to destroy the planet. Loki was ignoring them, staring out of the window at the fields of snow beneath them. Tony could only see the tiniest sliver of pale jaw through the curtain of his wild hair, but there was a line of tension in his shoulders that couldn’t be ignored.
“We were wrong,” Thor murmured. It was the softest Tony had ever heard him speak. “I wonder now why it took him so long to turn against us.”
Huh.
“He freed them last time, Tony Stark. He does not desire his children imprisoned.”
Thor, Tony reminded himself, had never seen the blood stain from where Coulson had slid down the wall. He hadn’t seen the blood spattered Captain America trading cards or the look on Steve’s face when Fury had dropped them on the table in front of him.
“He stabbed one of them,” he said.
Loki shuddered in his seat.
“My brother never misses his targets,” Thor said. “Fenris is alive because Loki did not mean to kill him.”
Tony was tempted to say that Loki had failed in his invasion; that he’d definitely missed his mark with that one, but he was trying to remain on his best behaviour. He felt…off-balance. They’d all felt that way, ever since they’d first realised that Coulson and Fury were missing. There was something wrong about the world without them in it. It seemed less competent. They needed them back, and if Loki was willing to provide, then Tony was willing to do just about anything to make it so.
He tried not to notice how happy Thor seemed about the idea of his brother working with them.
“So, uh,” he cleared his throat, “jailbreak was the answer?”
He could have sworn he heard Loki laugh softly, muffled by stitched up lips. Judging from the glance Thor shot in his direction, he’d heard it too.
“I could not let this injustice stand, Tony Stark,” Thor said after a moment. “Long did I ignore it. In my youth and folly I took my father at his word that they were foul creatures, and did not question even though they are my kin.” He took a deep breath. He looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t know how. Eventually he settled on, “I was blind.”
Tony released a slow breath. Thor’s family needed therapy. Lots of therapy. He suddenly felt kind of glad that he’d had Howard – he may have been a dick, but there was no way he would have chained his grandkid (not that Tony ever planned on having a kid) up in a cave and nailed its head to the floor no matter what it looked like.
That sympathy for Loki was growing. Tony tried to squash it again, but couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have your children taken away and tortured. He felt sick, and closed his eyes. He reached automatically for a glass of scotch only to remember that he was on a S.H.I.E.L.D aircraft and that they didn’t have any. Damn it all.
He wished this was over with already.
…
As it turned out, there was a bonus to having Loki with them. He knew the cavern where Coulson was being kept, so there was no need for them to crawl through miles of cold, cramped tunnels to reach him. Instead, it turned out that Loki could teleport, which was really damn handy if something of a surprise. It made Tony wonder just how many of his powers he’d kept under wraps, and why – exactly – he hadn’t unleashed the full-force of his power during the invasion.
Something about it just wasn’t sitting right in Tony’s mind.
Just like his breakfast wasn’t sitting right in his stomach, because Jesus that teleportation trick was horrible. It had felt like hooks being shoved under his skin and then yanking him through a cold nothingness filled with whispers and then releasing him into the stinking darkness of Coulson’s prison.
He hadn’t realised, last time, how strong the smell of blood was down here. He’d approached it gradually, so hadn’t really noticed. Now, though, he could taste it. He gagged and retched and staggered over to the cave wall and soon the acrid stench of vomit was added to the mix.
Tony wiped his mouth and straightened up, grimacing as his head swam.
“Please don’t do that again,” he said.
The look Loki gave him told him he was more than welcome to find his own way out.
Coulson growled. It didn’t make Tony feel any better – if anything, the earthquake-loud rumbling made his head feel even worse. Loki just reached out a hand and brushed it gently against his muzzle. There was a flurry of movement, and Tony looked over to see Thor restraining Barton. Barton looked like he’d cheerfully rip Loki’s throat out if he so much as breathed wrong.
They’d managed, while Thor was off kidnapping his brother, to bring lamps down here to provide Barton with a bit of light. They’d brought food and water too, to keep him alive although Barton seemed to think that the only thing he needed to live at the moment was Coulson. Tony couldn’t imagine loving someone that much. It made him wish that they hadn’t bothered with the lamps and were still in the dark. That way he wouldn’t have had to see their faces.
This was so fucked up.
Coulson’s growling had grown softer, though Thor was still holding onto Barton’s arm and holding him back.
“Loki will free him,” Thor said. “He has done it before. You have nothing to fear, Son of Bart.”
Tony silently agreed with him. Loki wouldn’t try anything this time. It was weird to think of him as such a mama bear, but it looked like he was.
“He stabbed him,” Barton argued.
“And he survived,” Thor reminded him. He had tobe getting sick of saying that.
Loki stepped back abruptly. He raised his hands and green smoke began to spiral out from his fingertips. It twisted in the air like snakes, leaving glowing trails of sickly light in its wake as it twisted upwards and wrapped around the sword embedded in Coulson’s head. Coulson didn’t even whimper as the sword began to glow, the green highlighting runes on its blade that Tony hadn’t seen before. He heard Thor curse softly.
“What do they say?” he asked.
“They are a curse,” Thor replied. “Never will his wounds begin to heal while that blade is in place. He shall bleed from it for eternity.”
Barton’s breath hitched. “Bastard,” he hissed.
For once, Thor didn’t correct the slight against his father’s honour. Honestly, it looked like he agreed with it.
The green glow brightened, and Tony felt his skin prickle as if it wanted to crawl right off his body. Loki’s raised hands parted, and the green spread, wrapping around the chains they could see and trailing off into the darkness to find more of them, picking out a cruel map of light. Tony swallowed. Coulson really was huge.
How on earth had Loki given birth to him? Seriously.
And what the fuck had the father looked like?
The prickling sensation increased, and he became aware of a low humming noise growing louder and louder. He crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands into his armpits to keep himself from clawing his own skin off. The green flashed, blinding for a moment, before vanishing and taking the sword and chains with it and leaving spots in Tony’s vision. He was still trying to blink them away when Loki crumpled to his knees, breathing as hard as he could through his nose. He swayed on his knees and used a hand to balance himself until suddenly Thor was there, behind him, holding him upright.
Freed, Coulson shifted. His claws scraped over rock, scratching up sparks and making the worst noise Tony had ever heard. Nails over chalkboard had nothing on this.
Barton was petting him gently. The guy had balls of steel. He was murmuring something that Tony couldn’t hear and didn’t want to hear. He felt superfluous. Down here where Barton and Coulson were trying to get past the whole bestiality thing, and where Thor could support Loki and not be shrugged off. Tony was an extra. A fifth wheel. He was unneeded, and yet he couldn’t help but feel that he had to be there – like he was witnessing something significant but didn’t quite realise it.
Then Thor called out to them, and the feeling was gone. “We are going now,” he said. “While Loki still has the strength to move us all.”
…
There was nothing left in his stomach to throw up when Loki’s little teleportation trick dragged them back to the surface, but neither was there a wall for him to steady himself on so he ended up on his ass in the snow. He felt better when he realised he wasn’t the only one. Loki had gone paler than usual, and collapsed against Thor – who was looking kind of green himself – and Barton had dropped to his knees, clutching his head. Then Coulson decided to try standing for what had to be the first time in weeks, and Tony felt glad he was already sitting down.
The earth shook as he levered himself to his feet. Each paw was taller than a man and wider than two trucks, and his claws dug deep into the permafrost as he steadied himself on legs taller than the fucking Chrysler Building. He stretched and arched and shook himself, blood spraying from his wounded mouth and painting the snow red.
Something primal in Tony’s brain screamed at him to run but his body couldn’t move. Coulson was huge, and terrifying in this form – his true one.
Looking at him, Tony could barely breathe.
Coulson yawned, then, jaws opening wide enough to swallow a four-story building. The smallest of his fangs was longer than Tony’s whole body, and all of them were coated with gore from his injuries.
His mouth closed, and he looked down at them all. Barton had insisted that the agent they all knew was still in there. Tony didn’t know about that, but he did know that Barton was insane. He had to be, to not be shaking in his boots as he stared up at the giant wolf that was his lover. No one in their right mind could not be afraid of Coulson right then.
Tony would bet his arc reactor that the minions at S.H.I.E.L.D were suddenly remembering all the paperwork they’d neglected to do in their bosses’ absences. None of them would dare to be late with it now. Not when they knew there was a risk of being demoted to ‘toothpick’.
“Sorry,” he said, unable to keep the growing hysteria out of his voice, “but I’ve got to ask. Does he take after his father?”
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Avengers
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama/Romance
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Warnings: Swearing, pseudo-bestiality, torture
Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: S.H.I.E.L.D is in uproar: Fury and Coulson are AWOL, one of Thor's friends is missing. Odin has discovered the human lives of Loki's monstrous children and returned them to their original prisons. The Avengers aren't happy; neither is Loki, and Hawkeye might just be gunning for Odin's remaining eye.
When Thor returned from Asgard, Tony was the first to see him. He was, after all, the one in charge of the technology that had created the artificial Bifrost Thor was using. He wasn’t surprised that Thor returned to Earth so quickly: they’d insisted on it, and Thor had had enough of a bug up his ass about the whole ‘Coulson is my nephew’ thing to make it a priority. No, what was a surprise was that he wasn’t alone.
Loki was with him. He wasn’t tied up or anything; he stood next to Thor with his spine straight and his shoulders back and an imperious look on his face that was only spoiled by the black stitches holding his mouth closed.
Tony’s initial reaction of what the fuck functioned on so many levels.
He knew that he shouldn’t be all that surprised by Loki’s appearance. The bastard was involved in this. Coulson and Fury and that Darcy chick were his kids after all, so it made sense that he’d want them to be free.
He’d stabbed Coulson and left him to die, but leaving him imprisoned was just too much.
“Barton stayed behind,” he said, tearing his eyes away from Loki to focus on Thor instead. “He…insisted.”
He’d been a wreck for days and there was no way – Avengers or not – that they could have knocked him out and dragged him back out through those narrow tunnels and over the gaping chasms and away from the one person – giant wolf-shaped demi-god – who could make him feel alive again. Barton had survived Loki’s mindfuck, had been coping with Coulson’s not-death, but there was only so much the guy had been able to take.
Tony was secretly impressed it had taken so long.
Loki raised an eyebrow at the comment and glanced at his brother. Thor shifted awkwardly. “It would appear Clint Barton is your son-in-law,” he explained.
The expression on Loki’s face was completely unreadable. Whether or not he was taking the news well was beyond Tony, and frankly he didn’t care. They’d kicked the guy’s ass once over; they could sure as hell do it again if he tried anything.
He was really, really trying not to be too obvious in his resentment, but once they were strapped into the jet and heading back out to the cave entrance he couldn’t stop himself from asking Thor why, exactly, Loki was necessary.
“My father refused to see reason,” Thor replied. “He believed Loki’s children to be monsters. Once, I too believed it, along with the rest of Asgard.”
And damn if that didn’t make him feel a tiny bit sympathetic towards the bastard who’d tried to destroy the planet. Loki was ignoring them, staring out of the window at the fields of snow beneath them. Tony could only see the tiniest sliver of pale jaw through the curtain of his wild hair, but there was a line of tension in his shoulders that couldn’t be ignored.
“We were wrong,” Thor murmured. It was the softest Tony had ever heard him speak. “I wonder now why it took him so long to turn against us.”
Huh.
“He freed them last time, Tony Stark. He does not desire his children imprisoned.”
Thor, Tony reminded himself, had never seen the blood stain from where Coulson had slid down the wall. He hadn’t seen the blood spattered Captain America trading cards or the look on Steve’s face when Fury had dropped them on the table in front of him.
“He stabbed one of them,” he said.
Loki shuddered in his seat.
“My brother never misses his targets,” Thor said. “Fenris is alive because Loki did not mean to kill him.”
Tony was tempted to say that Loki had failed in his invasion; that he’d definitely missed his mark with that one, but he was trying to remain on his best behaviour. He felt…off-balance. They’d all felt that way, ever since they’d first realised that Coulson and Fury were missing. There was something wrong about the world without them in it. It seemed less competent. They needed them back, and if Loki was willing to provide, then Tony was willing to do just about anything to make it so.
He tried not to notice how happy Thor seemed about the idea of his brother working with them.
“So, uh,” he cleared his throat, “jailbreak was the answer?”
He could have sworn he heard Loki laugh softly, muffled by stitched up lips. Judging from the glance Thor shot in his direction, he’d heard it too.
“I could not let this injustice stand, Tony Stark,” Thor said after a moment. “Long did I ignore it. In my youth and folly I took my father at his word that they were foul creatures, and did not question even though they are my kin.” He took a deep breath. He looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t know how. Eventually he settled on, “I was blind.”
Tony released a slow breath. Thor’s family needed therapy. Lots of therapy. He suddenly felt kind of glad that he’d had Howard – he may have been a dick, but there was no way he would have chained his grandkid (not that Tony ever planned on having a kid) up in a cave and nailed its head to the floor no matter what it looked like.
That sympathy for Loki was growing. Tony tried to squash it again, but couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have your children taken away and tortured. He felt sick, and closed his eyes. He reached automatically for a glass of scotch only to remember that he was on a S.H.I.E.L.D aircraft and that they didn’t have any. Damn it all.
He wished this was over with already.
…
As it turned out, there was a bonus to having Loki with them. He knew the cavern where Coulson was being kept, so there was no need for them to crawl through miles of cold, cramped tunnels to reach him. Instead, it turned out that Loki could teleport, which was really damn handy if something of a surprise. It made Tony wonder just how many of his powers he’d kept under wraps, and why – exactly – he hadn’t unleashed the full-force of his power during the invasion.
Something about it just wasn’t sitting right in Tony’s mind.
Just like his breakfast wasn’t sitting right in his stomach, because Jesus that teleportation trick was horrible. It had felt like hooks being shoved under his skin and then yanking him through a cold nothingness filled with whispers and then releasing him into the stinking darkness of Coulson’s prison.
He hadn’t realised, last time, how strong the smell of blood was down here. He’d approached it gradually, so hadn’t really noticed. Now, though, he could taste it. He gagged and retched and staggered over to the cave wall and soon the acrid stench of vomit was added to the mix.
Tony wiped his mouth and straightened up, grimacing as his head swam.
“Please don’t do that again,” he said.
The look Loki gave him told him he was more than welcome to find his own way out.
Coulson growled. It didn’t make Tony feel any better – if anything, the earthquake-loud rumbling made his head feel even worse. Loki just reached out a hand and brushed it gently against his muzzle. There was a flurry of movement, and Tony looked over to see Thor restraining Barton. Barton looked like he’d cheerfully rip Loki’s throat out if he so much as breathed wrong.
They’d managed, while Thor was off kidnapping his brother, to bring lamps down here to provide Barton with a bit of light. They’d brought food and water too, to keep him alive although Barton seemed to think that the only thing he needed to live at the moment was Coulson. Tony couldn’t imagine loving someone that much. It made him wish that they hadn’t bothered with the lamps and were still in the dark. That way he wouldn’t have had to see their faces.
This was so fucked up.
Coulson’s growling had grown softer, though Thor was still holding onto Barton’s arm and holding him back.
“Loki will free him,” Thor said. “He has done it before. You have nothing to fear, Son of Bart.”
Tony silently agreed with him. Loki wouldn’t try anything this time. It was weird to think of him as such a mama bear, but it looked like he was.
“He stabbed him,” Barton argued.
“And he survived,” Thor reminded him. He had tobe getting sick of saying that.
Loki stepped back abruptly. He raised his hands and green smoke began to spiral out from his fingertips. It twisted in the air like snakes, leaving glowing trails of sickly light in its wake as it twisted upwards and wrapped around the sword embedded in Coulson’s head. Coulson didn’t even whimper as the sword began to glow, the green highlighting runes on its blade that Tony hadn’t seen before. He heard Thor curse softly.
“What do they say?” he asked.
“They are a curse,” Thor replied. “Never will his wounds begin to heal while that blade is in place. He shall bleed from it for eternity.”
Barton’s breath hitched. “Bastard,” he hissed.
For once, Thor didn’t correct the slight against his father’s honour. Honestly, it looked like he agreed with it.
The green glow brightened, and Tony felt his skin prickle as if it wanted to crawl right off his body. Loki’s raised hands parted, and the green spread, wrapping around the chains they could see and trailing off into the darkness to find more of them, picking out a cruel map of light. Tony swallowed. Coulson really was huge.
How on earth had Loki given birth to him? Seriously.
And what the fuck had the father looked like?
The prickling sensation increased, and he became aware of a low humming noise growing louder and louder. He crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands into his armpits to keep himself from clawing his own skin off. The green flashed, blinding for a moment, before vanishing and taking the sword and chains with it and leaving spots in Tony’s vision. He was still trying to blink them away when Loki crumpled to his knees, breathing as hard as he could through his nose. He swayed on his knees and used a hand to balance himself until suddenly Thor was there, behind him, holding him upright.
Freed, Coulson shifted. His claws scraped over rock, scratching up sparks and making the worst noise Tony had ever heard. Nails over chalkboard had nothing on this.
Barton was petting him gently. The guy had balls of steel. He was murmuring something that Tony couldn’t hear and didn’t want to hear. He felt superfluous. Down here where Barton and Coulson were trying to get past the whole bestiality thing, and where Thor could support Loki and not be shrugged off. Tony was an extra. A fifth wheel. He was unneeded, and yet he couldn’t help but feel that he had to be there – like he was witnessing something significant but didn’t quite realise it.
Then Thor called out to them, and the feeling was gone. “We are going now,” he said. “While Loki still has the strength to move us all.”
…
There was nothing left in his stomach to throw up when Loki’s little teleportation trick dragged them back to the surface, but neither was there a wall for him to steady himself on so he ended up on his ass in the snow. He felt better when he realised he wasn’t the only one. Loki had gone paler than usual, and collapsed against Thor – who was looking kind of green himself – and Barton had dropped to his knees, clutching his head. Then Coulson decided to try standing for what had to be the first time in weeks, and Tony felt glad he was already sitting down.
The earth shook as he levered himself to his feet. Each paw was taller than a man and wider than two trucks, and his claws dug deep into the permafrost as he steadied himself on legs taller than the fucking Chrysler Building. He stretched and arched and shook himself, blood spraying from his wounded mouth and painting the snow red.
Something primal in Tony’s brain screamed at him to run but his body couldn’t move. Coulson was huge, and terrifying in this form – his true one.
Looking at him, Tony could barely breathe.
Coulson yawned, then, jaws opening wide enough to swallow a four-story building. The smallest of his fangs was longer than Tony’s whole body, and all of them were coated with gore from his injuries.
His mouth closed, and he looked down at them all. Barton had insisted that the agent they all knew was still in there. Tony didn’t know about that, but he did know that Barton was insane. He had to be, to not be shaking in his boots as he stared up at the giant wolf that was his lover. No one in their right mind could not be afraid of Coulson right then.
Tony would bet his arc reactor that the minions at S.H.I.E.L.D were suddenly remembering all the paperwork they’d neglected to do in their bosses’ absences. None of them would dare to be late with it now. Not when they knew there was a risk of being demoted to ‘toothpick’.
“Sorry,” he said, unable to keep the growing hysteria out of his voice, “but I’ve got to ask. Does he take after his father?”
