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Coulson wonders sometimes if he should have become a dentist like his uncle suggested. While he would have had to have put his hands into other people’s mouths a lot more than he thinks he would have liked, he probably wouldn’t have had this conversation pouring into his right ear. He can’t even get it to stop because he’s pinned under half a small building and most of a garbage truck and his jaw feels like it might have been broken on the last thump-and-roll.
“Hawkeye, standard procedure says we apprehend all non-human entities and return them to S.H.I.E.L.D. for study.” Coulson knows that he ought to be able to identify the agent trying to take over the field op but his head is still ringing and he isn’t sure he should answer.
“It’s not an entity,” he hears Clint say, “It’s a baby. And if you think I’m going to let R&D take apart a baby to see what makes it tick, you’ve got another think coming.”
“He has a point,” he hears Stark chime in and Coulson winces at the pun before he realizes how damned much wincing hurts just now. “It’s small, it’s crying and it definitely smells like it could use a diaper change. It’s just a baby.”
“It just took out a city block!” someone chimes in shrilly.
There is a thin kind of shrieking noise that has gotten louder and Coulson really wishes he could move a hand so that he could claw the headset off and not have that sound drilling through his aching head. The noise begins to waver and it gradually subsides as another sound becomes more apparent, a kind of droning hum that is vaguely familiar.
“Hey, you’re not bad at that,” Stark says and there is a sniffle, then another and then the shrieks of the alien doom-baby have subsided to little huffing sighs that Coulson figures he’s hearing through Hawkeye’s comm unit as Clint rocks the baby against his chest.
“I like kids,” Clint says in a carefully offhand way. “Even green ones.”
“He is kinda… verdant, isn’t he? You think Bruce…?”
“Pointy ears,” Clint reminds him. Then there is a sudden burst of shouting and thumping against someone’s comm set and the baby begins wailing again.
“Back off,” Captain America tells someone as Iron Man’s repulsors fire two or three times. Bitten off shouts and some groans over the headset convince Coulson that the situation is deteriorating badly without him to ride herd on his favorite group of super-powered iconoclasts.
“Everyone stand down,” he grits out. “Someone get me out of this and do NOT do another damned thing until I tell you to.”
“Always good to hear from you, sir,” Hawkeye says smartly over the renewed crying that is blaring through the comms now. “And he said back off!”
“I assume that last wasn’t addressed to me,” Coulson says as he hears concrete and metal being shifted above him.
“No, sir, just another Lab Coat getting fresh,” Clint says a little breathlessly. It sounds like he is now bouncing the child up and down against his shoulder to calm it. Coulson can hardly wait to see the footage from this one.
The wreckage over his head is lifted in one movement and then Thor is looking down with a frown. “Are you injured, Coulson?”
“I don’t think so,” Coulson answers as the rest of the brick wall and engine block are hoisted and dropped to one side. He takes a deep breath and lets it out again gratefully, having just been forcibly reminded that this could become a luxury at any time in his life. Thor reaches down and gently helps Coulson to his feet, allowing him to lean against his broad shoulder until the world stops spinning. When it doesn’t quite, he looks up at Thor and nods toward the knot of superheroes and agents he can see through the slowly settling dust and drifting smoke. Thor smiles, take a slightly firmer grip on Coulson and then leaps.
They land lightly in the middle of two circles; the inner ring is composed of the Avengers facing an outer ring of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and lab coats. The locus of the action is Hawkeye, covered in dirt and holding a slightly larger than usual baby. Who is green with very pointy ears and black eyes that are all pupil. Whose tantrum not ten minutes past had leveled several buildings and tossed around cars and trucks like toys. Whose eyes were now closing as it yawns sleepily and wraps its fingers in the leather of Hawkeye’s jerkin.
There is a sudden welter of voices that subsides into furious whispers when Thor hisses “Shh!” in a way that makes human bones vibrate.
“Sir! Regulations…!” “Forget it!” “Alien life forms could transmit…” “Sir!” “Sir!” “Hand over the baby now, Agent Barton!” “Sir…”
“Shut up,” Coulson suggests through clenched teeth. Everyone shuts up and he almost smiles with relief. “Now, no one is to touch the baby until…”
“Not even me, Agent Coulson?” a new voice interrupts. “Surely you wouldn’t separate a child from her father, would you?”
Loki blinks into existence in front of Hawkeye, a sardonic curl to his lip as he looks at Coulson. The smirk becomes a small real smile as he looks at the baby cuddled close to the human’s chest. “I hope she wasn’t any trouble.”
“Nah, we just hadn’t child-proofed this part of the city yet,” Stark says, flipping his face plate up to watch in shock as Hawkeye carefully passes the sleeping baby into the gloved hands of the god of mischief.
“She is indeed your daughter, my brother?” Thor asks quietly.
“Your niece, Duna,” Loki settles the little girl against his own shoulder where she snuggles down immediately. “She was stolen away by some dwarves with whom I have a disagreement.”
“I thought the dwarves were usually good about not causing collateral damage,” Natasha comments, flicking some pulverized concrete off of her shoulders.
“The Dark Dwarves and their new allies are not nearly so civilized as we of Asgard.”
Everyone then pretends not to hear Stark’s snort of disbelief. Captain America slips his cowl back and asks the god, “Why take her and then dump her here? They have seven other worlds to hide her in.”
“Someone’s been doing his mythology homework,” Banner comments. No one has bothered to comment on the fact that the Hulk had not emerged despite the devastation being created in the middle of the city. They know him well enough now to know that a baby, even an alien doom-baby, as Stark kept calling her, would not call out his alter-ego.
Coulson figures it is time to get back in the conversational fray. “Why would the Dark Dwarves steal your daughter and leave her here?” he asks Loki directly. His battered brain is stuttering along and feels a bit like a cold engine trying to turn over on a winter morning.
Thor says abruptly, “They knew she would be frightened and lash out and people down here would be harmed. Then the humans would take your child. Someone is trying to start a war between you and Midgard.” He watches his brother closely.
“What are they trying to distract you from?” Captain America asks suddenly and Coulson remembers that the man is a tactical officer.
Loki inclines his head and gives them all a half-smile. “Nothing that need concern you.” His attention turns to Clint and his smile becomes far less irritating and a great deal more real. “Thank you for looking after Duna. I shall not forget.” There is a flash of green and the god and his daughter are gone.
“Did that sound vaguely ominous to anyone else?” Stark asks as the tension starts to drain out of the circle. No one answers him as Thor hands the sagging Coulson off to Clint and goes to help the others with the clean up.
Sixth months later and no one even remembers the incident any more. At least not until they are sitting in Clint’s hospital room, watching his chest rise and fall in a respirator’s too-regular rhythm. The half of his face which remains unbandaged is bruised and pale in the indirect lighting of what serves as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intensive care unit.
He hadn’t fallen; he had jumped to make the shot that had saved Agents Romanov and Coulson. Neither Iron Man nor Thor were close enough to make an aerial capture and Hulk had been distracted by too many Hydra ground troops to even be aware of Hawkeye’s maneuver until it was too late. Hawkeye hadn’t even requested a catch, knowing there was no one free to make it. He had simply leaped into space in order to be able to blow up the armored personnel carrier that had his exposed teammates in its sights. The six story fall had been the price he paid.
The team has been sitting beside his bed in shifts for the past two days. They tend to all meet there loosely around meal-times because it gives extra force to their attempts to get Natasha and Coulson to eat. Tonight, they are all passing around cartons of Chinese food and eating directly out of them. Thor and Bruce sit cross-legged on the empty bed; Steve and Coulson sit in the two padded chairs, one on each side of the comatose man. Natasha is curled up on the window sill and tends to stare into the night as she eats from whatever carton Tony puts into her hand.
The medical staff had quickly gotten used to maneuvering around them all as they come and go, adjusting tubing or monitors, doing pointless neurological tests or straightening sheets. No one remarks on the way Coulson’s hand tends to be wrapped around Clint’s unbroken forearm, not even Fury on the one visit he makes.
Loki’s entrance is surprisingly low-key for the trickster god. Thor is the one who notices him first.
“Brother,” he says quietly. “Now is not the time.” The conscious Avengers all look warily at the newcomer but no one moves to confront him.
Loki smirks at him and leans against the wall. “What? I cannot come to break bread with my brother and his boon companions? Why, I have even brought my own food!”
He takes a golden apple from some pocket beneath his dark cloak. The others look at Thor in surprise when a small grim sound is forced from him at the sight of it. A delicious scent wafts through the room, the smell of apple blossoms in the sunlight, of cool streams at evening, of warm cider before a golden fire.
“You dare bring that here to mock us with it?!” Thor’s rage is building quickly and there is a rumbling from outside that bodes no good. “This warrior has fallen in defense of his comrades and deserves better than your spite.”
“What the hell?” Stark asks bluntly even as he moves into a defensive position. “Someone want to explain why we’re about to throw down over a piece of fruit?”
“It’s one of Idun’s apples,” Thor grits out. “They keep us young and forever strong and hale.”
“Ok…”
“And Odin has decreed that no god may give the fruit to a mortal to eat and live.”
Loki holds the apple up and it glows in the subdued light of the hospital wing. Before he can say anything else, a knife cuts through the air to bury itself in the fruit. The god looks up and grins sharply at Natasha whose hand already has another blade waiting to fly. “Thank you, my lady,” he says drily. “I do so hate having to eat the peel, don’t you?”
They watch silently as he begins to cut into the apple. Coulson speaks up suddenly.
“How’s the baby?” he asks, gaze fixing on Loki’s.
Loki smiles widely at him. “She is well. Duna has more vigilant nursemaids now and grows apace.”
His fingers move quickly, slicing deeply into the fruit. The peel is coming off in one long, thick piece as he speaks, never looking away from Coulson’s pale face. If anyone notices that he is cutting through almost to the core, they don’t mention it.
“Her champion seems less well than when last we met,” Loki comments.
Steve’s fists clench and the sound of Thor’s teeth gritting is loud in the quiet room. But their gazes are now all transfixed by the long fingers that hold up the peel in one hand as Loki casts about for somewhere to discard it. As if by chance, he chooses to throw it down on the rolling bedside table that holds the remains of Coulson’s meal. Then he leans back and takes a bite of the core that remains in his hand. His very white teeth grind the fruit to pulp as they stare at him.
The moment holds, then Coulson turns to look at each of them. Thor rises to close the door and stand in front of it so that no one can see in. Bruce shoulders Steve gently out of the way and begins to remove the tape holding the respirator tube in place while Stark begins shutting off or silencing the monitoring equipment.
The grim business of taking the tube out of Clint’s throat distracts them enough that no one notices Coulson tearing off a piece of the thickly-fruited apple peel and putting it into his own mouth. By the time Bruce stands back still holding the tube, Coulson is ready. He pulls a lump of chewed pulp from his mouth and pushes it carefully between Clint’s slack lips.
“How do we make him swallow without choking?’ Steve asks just before Coulson jams two fingers against Clint’s neck as if searching for a tonsil. The sudden pressure causes the throat to spasm and the unconscious man swallows reflexively.
“Now what?” Bruce asks. But when they turn to Loki, he is gone.
“Now someone tells me what the hell you’re all doing in my bedroom,” Clint says.
The general uproar that follows is only to be expected around the Avenger team. But several notable things happen in the midst of the medical team’s visit and the general consternation and highly localized merriment.
Natasha comes over and tells Clint gently, “If you ever do that again, I’ll kill you.”
Coulson cuts off whatever foolish thing the archer might have said in reply by sticking another piece of fruit between his teeth and saying, “Eat your nice apple peel and you can have some crab rangoon for dessert.”
Thor carefully gathers up the rest of the discarded peel, breaks it into three pieces and insists on Stark, Natasha and Coulson eating it, glaring until they do. He then smiles broadly and contentedly as their faces flush and they practically begin to glow with good health.
Fury comes in, glares at the suspiciously angelic expressions on all of their faces, comments briefly on the sudden video failure on this floor, then demands that they all get out of his medical wing and take their lollygagging archer with them. Of course he is expecting a full briefing in the morning.
“Excellent,” Stark declares when the door has closed behind him. “That gives us a little over 12 hours to come up with a really good lie.”
If anyone notices Coulson leaning his forehead against Clint’s and the two of them speaking rapidly and quietly while their hands are tightly intertwined, no one mentions it at all. It is, as Stark says, barely a blip on the radar of weird that is their life.