I Prefer the Cold {A Loki Fanfiction}

Chapter Eleven

~Clint's POV~

"You can't expect me to sit here and do nothing. He has her Tasha!"

"Clint, it's been two months since we got you out of there. Who knows what happened to her after SHIELD's attack?"

I gave the woman in front of me a long, sad glare. Her red hair was striking compared to the black suit that was worn tightly over her body. She was Natasha Romanoff, The Black Widow; someone who was once an enemy of SHIELD, and probably still would be if I hadn't recruited her a while back.

I lowered my gaze for a moment, then looked back at Natasha, "We should send in Rogers. Hell, send me in!"

"Send you in where? We haven't ben able to locate where Loki or the Tesseract are," She let out a small sigh. Her tone grew softer, more sympathetic, "Remember what I first told you when you recruited Astrid?"

"Who the hell is that?"

Amusement sparked in Natasha's eyes before fading, "I said: SHIELD isn't a family business."

I knew exactly what she meant. Bringing family into SHIELD was probably the worst thing I've done. Now, I was facing the consequences. My line of work was way too dangerous for Astrid, and, in the end, she got taken away from me. Family was also a weakness. I told Loki too much. He knew Astrid almost as well as I did because he forced those words out of me.

"She's in danger because of me. I need to fix this!" My voice came out a lot more desperate than I wanted to.

Nat seemed to realize that she wasn't going to be able to convince me to take a break from searching for my niece, "The moment we find Loki, I'll put word in to have you on the front lines," There was a long silence before she spoke again, "What was it like?"

I hadn't told anyone about my experience other than Fury. There was a short hesitation before I began to explain, "Having my mind being controlled was like being on a roller coaster of doom. I had no idea where my thoughts would end up taking me. It was like-" My brows furrowed, "-everything that made me Clint Barton was locked away..."

I explained how awful it was awful to be able to see everything that was going on, but have no control over it. Seeing Astrid begging for mercy as I held a gun to her head was horrible! I nearly killed my own niece; if I actually did end her life, I probably wouldn't be able to live with myself. The last thing I remembered while being Not-Clint was the grenade. I'd managed to push Astrid to the side before it went off (not for me, but for Loki). The next thing I knew, I was on the helicarrier with a massive mind-control-hangover.

Natasha listened to me, never interrupting as I described my Loki-Land adventure. When I finished, she crossed her arms, "Did you get anything useful out of that? Do you know where they went?"

"Didn't ask. Didn't need to know."

There was another long silence as Nat looked thoughtfully at the wall. She seemed to take in everything that I said and thinking about it carefully, "You said Smith was there?"

I nodded.

"How did he manage to himself captured? He's one of SHIELD's top field agents."

"Because I told him to," We both reeled around at the Director's voice. Fury was standing in the doorway, "Agent Smith is right where he needs to be."

Natasha stood up, "He helped you locate Loki to get Clint and Astrid," She sounded surprised.

"Can we do it again?" I asked eagerly.

"We've lost connection for the moment."

Well, Agent Smith sounded extremely useful, "Great. We've got an insider who is terrible at keeping contact, and my niece, who is a lower leveled agent," I put my face in my hands, "I can only imagine what they're going through right now..."