![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: A Wolf in Mortal Clothing
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Thor
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Warnings: Swearing, pseudo-bestiality, references to torture
Disclaimer: I do not own Thor and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Agent Phil Coulson is not all that he seems. He is much, much more than a government agent and he has every reason to fear the opening of the Bifrost.
AN: This is officially the longest oneshot I've ever written in the history of ever. It was written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
semiseverus on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
norsekink in response to an amazing prompt.
Part One, Part Three
Prepare 4 jailbreak. Erics comin 4 him gonna pretend hes janes ex bf.
He has limited time, then. Oh, of course, he could hold Thor indefinitely – arrest Selvig for trying to break him out, even. There are laws that S.H.I.E.L.D can bypass and rewrite as they wish in the name of global security. He’s not sure how Jormungandr got the Council to agree to it, but he knows that he did regardless and there will one day be a time when they’ll need to do it.
This is not that time.
He leans against his desk, bows his head and breathes slowly. In. Out. In. Out. He tenses every muscle in his body as if to fight, and then relaxes them slowly, one by one, starting at the toes and moving up until he is no longer frowning and he feels slightly lightheaded from the endorphins. When this is over, there will be yoga. And ice-cream with Clint. Mostly the ice-cream, and fuck Jormungandr with his stress-eating comments and the puppy jokes. It’s not his fault he inherited Mother’s appetite.
He texts back. How long?
Hour tops. We bin lookin at myths and stuff btw. Janes convinced bt erics not. Pic of u in book sux lol.
The attached photograph makes him snort. Even though he’s chained up in it with a sword in his mouth, it’s done in such a poor, cartoonish style that it’s almost funny. Almost. It’s funnier that Hela has no sense of tact or decency.
Thanks. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Kk. Dnt forget my ipod!
…
“You made my men, some of the most highly trained professionals in the world, look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops. That’s hurtful.”
He stands before his uncle, perfect in his disguise as a human government agent. He knows what he is going to say; how he is going to say it. There are things in his prepared speech that almost make him want to laugh – he is a son of Loki, he can’t be entirely humourless all the time. He has Jormungandr for that.
“In my experience, it takes someone who has received similar training to do what you did to them. Why don’t you tell me where you received your training?” He knows exactly where. “Pakistan? Chechnya? Afghanistan?”
Asgard. Vanaheim. Alfheim. Svartalfheim. Muspelheim. Nidavellir. Midgard. Only Niflheim and Jotunheim – as far as he knows – have been spared his uncle’s hunt for trophies and glorious battle. Actually, now that he thinks about it, an attack on Jotunheim would explain Thor’s exile to Midgard. Almost. He would like to think that the All-Father has a reason for doing such things, but he knows that he does not always need one.
“No,” he continues, not letting Thor speak. “You strike me more as the soldier of fortune type. Where was it? South Africa? Certain groups would pay very well for a good mercenary like you.”
Thor is glaring at him for the insult – the implication that any Asgardian warrior would allow themselves to become a mere soldier-for-hire – but it has no effect. He’s above that now; he finds only amusement in receiving such a cold stare.
“Who are you?”
As if he could ever forget.
“One way or another, we’ll find out what we need to know. We’re good at that.” His pager bleeps at him. He unhooks it from his belt, glances down at it. Jormungandr, of course. That means he can’t ignore it – even if he could have, in this case sibling loyalty takes precedence over everything. “Don’t go anywhere.” Do not think I am above torturing you as you did me.
…
In his office, he hits speed dial and waits for his brother to pick up. It doesn’t take long – just one ring for the second time in two days. Jormungandr must be coming perilously close to ignoring the rest of his work if he’s hanging on for a phone call like this. He smiles slightly. He loves making Jormungandr twitchy.
“Well?”
“He’s in exile.” There’s no need for pleasantries between them.
“You’re sure?”
“I let him try to take Mjolnir,” he admits, and ignores the hissed expletive on the other end. “He couldn’t lift it. I’ll be letting him go soon – he has a human friend on the way – but Hela will keep an eye on him.”
“Hela? You know she inherited Mother’s mischief.”
He does know. What he doesn’t know is where Jormungandr got the stick up his ass from. He almost says as much, but holds back. It’s not worth it for the amount of trouble Jormungandr could get him mixed up with if he wanted to. Not that he wouldn’t survive it, but…
“He doesn’t recognise you?”
“No.”
The only things this form has in common with his true form are the scars left from the sword. They’re smaller, in this body, and faint, but they’re still visible if you look closely enough – particularly the one that runs over the bridge of his nose. Clint has remarked on them a couple of times – asked if he’d been tortured, which was close enough to the truth that he hadn’t been able to deny it – but Thor isn’t looking closely enough to notice them. Even if he did, a mild-mannered and slightly stuffy secret agent wouldn’t connect in his mind to his feral, lupine nephew.
“Keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
The reminder is completely redundant. He’s not an idiot, no matter what Jormungandr thinks about mammalian attention spans.
He hangs up and goes to slip his phone back in his pocket. As he does, it beeps with an incoming message.
Chillax, puppy, hav a biskit. Hell b bk in Asgard b4 u no it.
He smiles faintly. His sister knows him too well. He just hopes that she’s right. This case is giving him a headache.
…
He re-enters the interrogation room just in time to hear Thor speak for the first time since he’d entered their custody.
“Goodbye.”
Just a single word, but it brings back so many memories of the time before he was reviled by all who knew of him. Back when he’d just been a pup, and his uncle had petted his ears and fed him scraps as he sat in his mother’s lap. That deep, pleasant voice had told him stories, once, not as good as Mother’s but ones that appealed to his younger self; tales of his mother’s adventures and his brother Sleipnir’s bravery.
He takes a deep breath and catches whiff of a scent so familiar that it makes his heart ache. The scent of snow and leather and milk and powerful, unconditional love.
Mother.
The scent is faint and fading fast. He breathes in again, deeply, trying to carve it deeper into his brain and his heart. He doesn’t expect to ever set eyes on his mother again, none of them do, but that doesn’t mean he has to stop loving him in return.
“Goodbye?” he says. “I just got back.”
Thor stares at him. He’s been crying. Whether his tears are over anything genuine or one of Mother’s tricks, he can’t be sure. Most likely Thor can’t either. Mother is talented that way.
He’s interrupted by Sitwell before he can say anything. “Sir? He’s got a visitor.”
Selvig has arrived, and his time with Thor is over. He doesn’t look back when he leaves. He has no reason to. Not as a human interrogator; not as his kin.
…
He stares down at Selvig from the top of the steps leading into the research building. They’re both flanked by armed guards, but their presence is unnecessary. Selvig won’t attack him. He looks tired and stressed, as though he’s had a truly awful day. All things considered, he probably has. He’s sympathetic, really he is, he would just be more-so if Selvig hadn’t taken a bolstering shot of whisky before coming. He can smell it on his breath. It’s a habit that reminds him of Stark and, therefore, one that he finds slightly irritating.
“His name is Donald Blake?” That’s the best they can come up with?
“Doctor Donald Blake.”
As if Thor could become a doctor. He is an Asgardian warrior and has an Asgardian warrior’s intelligence. Not to say that he’s stupid, exactly. Rather, he places intelligence somewhat further down the scale of importance than finding ‘monsters’ and killing them. Why Mother hasn’t yet gone crazy or abandoned them all is beyond him.
“You have dangerous co-workers Doctor Selvig.”
The problem is: Selvig probably doesn’t believe him. Or, at least, has no idea how honest he is being. The problem with being a government agent, he thinks, is that no one ever believes you capable of telling the truth. It’s remarkably similar to being the son of the God of Lies.
“He was distraught when he found out you had taken all of our research. That was years of his life, gone.”
One of the computers beeps. They’re running a search on Blake now. He glances over at the monitor, briefly. They haven’t found anything yet. He returns his attention to Selvig, who is still talking; still trying to convince him that Thor is not dangerous. It’s almost hilarious. He knows – and Jormungandr knows – better than anyone else just how dangerous Thor can be.
“You can understand how a man can go off like that. A big, faceless organisation like yours coming in with their jack-booted thugs and –“ Selvig falters under the look Phil gives him and shrugs, widening his eyes in an attempt to look innocent. “That’s how he put it.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he managed to tear through our security,” he says. Even though he knows exactly how, it’s the sort of thing that he’s expected to say. He has a wider audience than just Selvig; he has to give some show of resistance.
“Steroids! He’s a bit of a fitness nut!”
It takes ever inch of his control to maintain his poker face. Inside he’s cackling like a maniac. Steroids! He knows, now, that he’ll be saving this security footage forever. Every time he needs a pick-me-up, something to cheer him up after a day filled with spectacular idiocy from the junior agents, he will be able to re-watch this: the moment he was told his uncle is on steroids.
He’ll forward a copy to Jormungandr as well. Maybe a good laugh will help dislodge that stick of his.
“Sir?”
Just as expected, their computer search has thrown up a fake ID warning. While it is impressive that they’ve managed to cobble together a fake ID in less than a day, it’s not a very convincing one. It’s telling him that – oh. Wow.
“It says here that he’s an MD.”
“He is! …Or he was. He switched careers and, um, became a physicist. A brilliant physicist. He’s a wonderful man. He’s a man in pain!”
Selvig’s excuses are thin as paper, but he allows him into the base to retrieve Thor from the interrogation room. The junior agents at the computers look almost offended as he steps aside and lets them walk out of the door together. His lips twitch. He has an idea to settle their minds.
“Doctor Selvig!” he calls out. “Just keep him away from the bars!”
“I will!”
He sees Thor swipe Foster’s notebook from a table as they pass it. When he speaks, his voice is soft, but he catches the words anyway, even over the rain. He truly loves his hearing sometimes.
“Where are we going?” Thor asks.
“To get a drink.”
He smiles. They’re so predictable. “Follow them,” he says.
…
He tells himself, as he slips into bed, that he won’t let nightmares bother him again. Clint is already there, fresh from a hot shower. The scent of his shampoo and shower gel and warm, clean skin are enticing.
He presses close, pushes his nose into the crook of Clint’s neck and slips his arm around his trim waist. Clint’s hand lifts to tangle in his hair. He makes a soft noise of contentment. He’s already half asleep.
On the nightstand, his phone beeps. He stiffens and pulls away automatically, and Clint lets him go, though he sighs faintly in disappointment. He can feel Clint watching him as he checks his messages.
Council want Foster to keep working on her theory. She’ll need her equipment back.
The fear that had released him comes rushing back, curling around his heart and crushing the air from his lungs. He must have made a noise – a whine; a whimper – because Clint sits up and touches a hand to his shoulder. He finds himself being pulled close.
“What’s wrong?”
He can’t explain. He can’t. But he can’t think of a lie, either. All he can think of is how badly this could go wrong, and that the Council is putting the whole world at risk for nothing. Because he knows that when Odin finds them, when he comes, that he will not be able to go down without a fight. He didn’t last time, for all the good it did. Jormungandr will do the same. They’re both so much bigger now; the fallout will be catastrophic.
They’re trying to fight the destiny that was prophesised for them; the one that made their family (except Mother) turn on them with such violence. They want to defend Midgard, their adopted home, not destroy it in the fires of Ragnarok. But if they are attacked; if they are forced to defend themselves, he fears what they will be capable of doing. The collateral damage alone…
But he can’t break down. Can’t let it get to him. What will happen will happen and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He wishes being human wasn’t so hard.
“Council,” he says. “Orders I wasn’t expecting. Nothing to worry about.”
Clint doesn’t believe him, he can see it in his eyes, but he also knows better than to question. His clearance level isn’t high enough for the Council and its ominous bullshit. He simply knows that they – not Stark and his ego, not the Middle East, not the Ten Rings, nor the ongoing search for Captain America – cause the majority of S.H.I.E.L.D’s headaches.
“Right,” he says. “You’ll need your sleep to deal with it, then. Come to bed.”
He obeys.
…
He’s learning magic, in his dream. His mother is smiling down at him with warmth and love. Magic circles his hands, weaving images in the air above their heads as he speaks. He can’t hear the words, but he knows what was said. It’s the lesson where his mother first mentioned shapeshifting. He knows it all already so he just basks in his mother’s presence, tries to bat a butterfly made of smoke out of the air with his paw.
His mother laughs. Then he starts to scream. Fenris scrabbles to his feet but he’s forgotten how to stand on four legs and he slips on the tiles. They break apart under his claws, twisting into chains and snaring his legs, pulling him down and down and he howls for his mother.
But his mother is bound as well, held back by Thor’s strong arms. He sees the hatred in his uncle’s eyes, watches as he pulls Mother away. Then there’s blinding pain in his jaws and he can’t howl anymore. Can’t lift his head. Can’t move. Can’t breathe.
He sits up sharply in bed, gasping for air. He’s shaking and sweating and his heart is pounding. He reaches for Clint, and curls into his side once more.
Previous Next
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Thor
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Warnings: Swearing, pseudo-bestiality, references to torture
Disclaimer: I do not own Thor and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Agent Phil Coulson is not all that he seems. He is much, much more than a government agent and he has every reason to fear the opening of the Bifrost.
AN: This is officially the longest oneshot I've ever written in the history of ever. It was written for
semiseverus on norsekink in response to an amazing prompt.Part One, Part Three
Prepare 4 jailbreak. Erics comin 4 him gonna pretend hes janes ex bf.
He has limited time, then. Oh, of course, he could hold Thor indefinitely – arrest Selvig for trying to break him out, even. There are laws that S.H.I.E.L.D can bypass and rewrite as they wish in the name of global security. He’s not sure how Jormungandr got the Council to agree to it, but he knows that he did regardless and there will one day be a time when they’ll need to do it.
This is not that time.
He leans against his desk, bows his head and breathes slowly. In. Out. In. Out. He tenses every muscle in his body as if to fight, and then relaxes them slowly, one by one, starting at the toes and moving up until he is no longer frowning and he feels slightly lightheaded from the endorphins. When this is over, there will be yoga. And ice-cream with Clint. Mostly the ice-cream, and fuck Jormungandr with his stress-eating comments and the puppy jokes. It’s not his fault he inherited Mother’s appetite.
He texts back. How long?
Hour tops. We bin lookin at myths and stuff btw. Janes convinced bt erics not. Pic of u in book sux lol.
The attached photograph makes him snort. Even though he’s chained up in it with a sword in his mouth, it’s done in such a poor, cartoonish style that it’s almost funny. Almost. It’s funnier that Hela has no sense of tact or decency.
Thanks. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Kk. Dnt forget my ipod!
…
“You made my men, some of the most highly trained professionals in the world, look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops. That’s hurtful.”
He stands before his uncle, perfect in his disguise as a human government agent. He knows what he is going to say; how he is going to say it. There are things in his prepared speech that almost make him want to laugh – he is a son of Loki, he can’t be entirely humourless all the time. He has Jormungandr for that.
“In my experience, it takes someone who has received similar training to do what you did to them. Why don’t you tell me where you received your training?” He knows exactly where. “Pakistan? Chechnya? Afghanistan?”
Asgard. Vanaheim. Alfheim. Svartalfheim. Muspelheim. Nidavellir. Midgard. Only Niflheim and Jotunheim – as far as he knows – have been spared his uncle’s hunt for trophies and glorious battle. Actually, now that he thinks about it, an attack on Jotunheim would explain Thor’s exile to Midgard. Almost. He would like to think that the All-Father has a reason for doing such things, but he knows that he does not always need one.
“No,” he continues, not letting Thor speak. “You strike me more as the soldier of fortune type. Where was it? South Africa? Certain groups would pay very well for a good mercenary like you.”
Thor is glaring at him for the insult – the implication that any Asgardian warrior would allow themselves to become a mere soldier-for-hire – but it has no effect. He’s above that now; he finds only amusement in receiving such a cold stare.
“Who are you?”
As if he could ever forget.
“One way or another, we’ll find out what we need to know. We’re good at that.” His pager bleeps at him. He unhooks it from his belt, glances down at it. Jormungandr, of course. That means he can’t ignore it – even if he could have, in this case sibling loyalty takes precedence over everything. “Don’t go anywhere.” Do not think I am above torturing you as you did me.
…
In his office, he hits speed dial and waits for his brother to pick up. It doesn’t take long – just one ring for the second time in two days. Jormungandr must be coming perilously close to ignoring the rest of his work if he’s hanging on for a phone call like this. He smiles slightly. He loves making Jormungandr twitchy.
“Well?”
“He’s in exile.” There’s no need for pleasantries between them.
“You’re sure?”
“I let him try to take Mjolnir,” he admits, and ignores the hissed expletive on the other end. “He couldn’t lift it. I’ll be letting him go soon – he has a human friend on the way – but Hela will keep an eye on him.”
“Hela? You know she inherited Mother’s mischief.”
He does know. What he doesn’t know is where Jormungandr got the stick up his ass from. He almost says as much, but holds back. It’s not worth it for the amount of trouble Jormungandr could get him mixed up with if he wanted to. Not that he wouldn’t survive it, but…
“He doesn’t recognise you?”
“No.”
The only things this form has in common with his true form are the scars left from the sword. They’re smaller, in this body, and faint, but they’re still visible if you look closely enough – particularly the one that runs over the bridge of his nose. Clint has remarked on them a couple of times – asked if he’d been tortured, which was close enough to the truth that he hadn’t been able to deny it – but Thor isn’t looking closely enough to notice them. Even if he did, a mild-mannered and slightly stuffy secret agent wouldn’t connect in his mind to his feral, lupine nephew.
“Keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
The reminder is completely redundant. He’s not an idiot, no matter what Jormungandr thinks about mammalian attention spans.
He hangs up and goes to slip his phone back in his pocket. As he does, it beeps with an incoming message.
Chillax, puppy, hav a biskit. Hell b bk in Asgard b4 u no it.
He smiles faintly. His sister knows him too well. He just hopes that she’s right. This case is giving him a headache.
…
He re-enters the interrogation room just in time to hear Thor speak for the first time since he’d entered their custody.
“Goodbye.”
Just a single word, but it brings back so many memories of the time before he was reviled by all who knew of him. Back when he’d just been a pup, and his uncle had petted his ears and fed him scraps as he sat in his mother’s lap. That deep, pleasant voice had told him stories, once, not as good as Mother’s but ones that appealed to his younger self; tales of his mother’s adventures and his brother Sleipnir’s bravery.
He takes a deep breath and catches whiff of a scent so familiar that it makes his heart ache. The scent of snow and leather and milk and powerful, unconditional love.
Mother.
The scent is faint and fading fast. He breathes in again, deeply, trying to carve it deeper into his brain and his heart. He doesn’t expect to ever set eyes on his mother again, none of them do, but that doesn’t mean he has to stop loving him in return.
“Goodbye?” he says. “I just got back.”
Thor stares at him. He’s been crying. Whether his tears are over anything genuine or one of Mother’s tricks, he can’t be sure. Most likely Thor can’t either. Mother is talented that way.
He’s interrupted by Sitwell before he can say anything. “Sir? He’s got a visitor.”
Selvig has arrived, and his time with Thor is over. He doesn’t look back when he leaves. He has no reason to. Not as a human interrogator; not as his kin.
…
He stares down at Selvig from the top of the steps leading into the research building. They’re both flanked by armed guards, but their presence is unnecessary. Selvig won’t attack him. He looks tired and stressed, as though he’s had a truly awful day. All things considered, he probably has. He’s sympathetic, really he is, he would just be more-so if Selvig hadn’t taken a bolstering shot of whisky before coming. He can smell it on his breath. It’s a habit that reminds him of Stark and, therefore, one that he finds slightly irritating.
“His name is Donald Blake?” That’s the best they can come up with?
“Doctor Donald Blake.”
As if Thor could become a doctor. He is an Asgardian warrior and has an Asgardian warrior’s intelligence. Not to say that he’s stupid, exactly. Rather, he places intelligence somewhat further down the scale of importance than finding ‘monsters’ and killing them. Why Mother hasn’t yet gone crazy or abandoned them all is beyond him.
“You have dangerous co-workers Doctor Selvig.”
The problem is: Selvig probably doesn’t believe him. Or, at least, has no idea how honest he is being. The problem with being a government agent, he thinks, is that no one ever believes you capable of telling the truth. It’s remarkably similar to being the son of the God of Lies.
“He was distraught when he found out you had taken all of our research. That was years of his life, gone.”
One of the computers beeps. They’re running a search on Blake now. He glances over at the monitor, briefly. They haven’t found anything yet. He returns his attention to Selvig, who is still talking; still trying to convince him that Thor is not dangerous. It’s almost hilarious. He knows – and Jormungandr knows – better than anyone else just how dangerous Thor can be.
“You can understand how a man can go off like that. A big, faceless organisation like yours coming in with their jack-booted thugs and –“ Selvig falters under the look Phil gives him and shrugs, widening his eyes in an attempt to look innocent. “That’s how he put it.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he managed to tear through our security,” he says. Even though he knows exactly how, it’s the sort of thing that he’s expected to say. He has a wider audience than just Selvig; he has to give some show of resistance.
“Steroids! He’s a bit of a fitness nut!”
It takes ever inch of his control to maintain his poker face. Inside he’s cackling like a maniac. Steroids! He knows, now, that he’ll be saving this security footage forever. Every time he needs a pick-me-up, something to cheer him up after a day filled with spectacular idiocy from the junior agents, he will be able to re-watch this: the moment he was told his uncle is on steroids.
He’ll forward a copy to Jormungandr as well. Maybe a good laugh will help dislodge that stick of his.
“Sir?”
Just as expected, their computer search has thrown up a fake ID warning. While it is impressive that they’ve managed to cobble together a fake ID in less than a day, it’s not a very convincing one. It’s telling him that – oh. Wow.
“It says here that he’s an MD.”
“He is! …Or he was. He switched careers and, um, became a physicist. A brilliant physicist. He’s a wonderful man. He’s a man in pain!”
Selvig’s excuses are thin as paper, but he allows him into the base to retrieve Thor from the interrogation room. The junior agents at the computers look almost offended as he steps aside and lets them walk out of the door together. His lips twitch. He has an idea to settle their minds.
“Doctor Selvig!” he calls out. “Just keep him away from the bars!”
“I will!”
He sees Thor swipe Foster’s notebook from a table as they pass it. When he speaks, his voice is soft, but he catches the words anyway, even over the rain. He truly loves his hearing sometimes.
“Where are we going?” Thor asks.
“To get a drink.”
He smiles. They’re so predictable. “Follow them,” he says.
…
He tells himself, as he slips into bed, that he won’t let nightmares bother him again. Clint is already there, fresh from a hot shower. The scent of his shampoo and shower gel and warm, clean skin are enticing.
He presses close, pushes his nose into the crook of Clint’s neck and slips his arm around his trim waist. Clint’s hand lifts to tangle in his hair. He makes a soft noise of contentment. He’s already half asleep.
On the nightstand, his phone beeps. He stiffens and pulls away automatically, and Clint lets him go, though he sighs faintly in disappointment. He can feel Clint watching him as he checks his messages.
Council want Foster to keep working on her theory. She’ll need her equipment back.
The fear that had released him comes rushing back, curling around his heart and crushing the air from his lungs. He must have made a noise – a whine; a whimper – because Clint sits up and touches a hand to his shoulder. He finds himself being pulled close.
“What’s wrong?”
He can’t explain. He can’t. But he can’t think of a lie, either. All he can think of is how badly this could go wrong, and that the Council is putting the whole world at risk for nothing. Because he knows that when Odin finds them, when he comes, that he will not be able to go down without a fight. He didn’t last time, for all the good it did. Jormungandr will do the same. They’re both so much bigger now; the fallout will be catastrophic.
They’re trying to fight the destiny that was prophesised for them; the one that made their family (except Mother) turn on them with such violence. They want to defend Midgard, their adopted home, not destroy it in the fires of Ragnarok. But if they are attacked; if they are forced to defend themselves, he fears what they will be capable of doing. The collateral damage alone…
But he can’t break down. Can’t let it get to him. What will happen will happen and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He wishes being human wasn’t so hard.
“Council,” he says. “Orders I wasn’t expecting. Nothing to worry about.”
Clint doesn’t believe him, he can see it in his eyes, but he also knows better than to question. His clearance level isn’t high enough for the Council and its ominous bullshit. He simply knows that they – not Stark and his ego, not the Middle East, not the Ten Rings, nor the ongoing search for Captain America – cause the majority of S.H.I.E.L.D’s headaches.
“Right,” he says. “You’ll need your sleep to deal with it, then. Come to bed.”
He obeys.
…
He’s learning magic, in his dream. His mother is smiling down at him with warmth and love. Magic circles his hands, weaving images in the air above their heads as he speaks. He can’t hear the words, but he knows what was said. It’s the lesson where his mother first mentioned shapeshifting. He knows it all already so he just basks in his mother’s presence, tries to bat a butterfly made of smoke out of the air with his paw.
His mother laughs. Then he starts to scream. Fenris scrabbles to his feet but he’s forgotten how to stand on four legs and he slips on the tiles. They break apart under his claws, twisting into chains and snaring his legs, pulling him down and down and he howls for his mother.
But his mother is bound as well, held back by Thor’s strong arms. He sees the hatred in his uncle’s eyes, watches as he pulls Mother away. Then there’s blinding pain in his jaws and he can’t howl anymore. Can’t lift his head. Can’t move. Can’t breathe.
He sits up sharply in bed, gasping for air. He’s shaking and sweating and his heart is pounding. He reaches for Clint, and curls into his side once more.
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