Intertwine

22 - Stay Safe Firehands

ROARA

I sat at the table, Loki across from me, his feet resting on another chair reading a book. My stuff was all packed and ready to go.

"You're not coming with me, are you." It was a statement, not a question.

He looked up from his book, his finger resting on the page to keep his place. "No." He replied.

"Okay."

"Oh don't tell me you're upset about that, you've spent this entire time threatening to behead me." His book vanished from his hands and he took his feet off the chair, swivelling in his seat to look at me properly.

"No, I still hate you." I grumbled.

He mocked hurt. "I thought it was a strong dislike?"

"Do you want me to list the reasons? Starting with leaving me for 400 years and not telling me I was immortal, and then finishing with not telling me I could literally spontaneously combust?"

"I'm pretty sure you just exhausted the list."

"Whatever."

He sighed. "You'll be coming back. This is just temporary."

"Right."

"I meant to say, back there, you..."

I lowered my chin and raised my eyebrows. "I?"

He groaned. "You... You fought in a way that even I didn't know you could. You should be proud. You've mastered your abilities."

"I don't feel like I've mastered them. Nowhere near. I have a long way to go. It took you hundreds of years to do what you can do today, and even you are getting stronger all the time."

He leant forwards, his voice low. "Are you saying I need improvement?"

I laughed at his expression, "Oh my god, you really are so up yourself! Pull your head out of your backside! We all improve all the time. Maybe your personality has no growth, but just today I saw you use your magic in ways you couldn't four hundred years ago. Your teleportation is sleeker, the detail in your projections is more accurate, your telekinesis is stronger. You've always been good, but you get better at things without even realising it. Everyone does Loki. You're not special."

His face went from arrogant to stone cold in the blink of an eye, his jaw set, his lips in a straight line.

"What?" I asked. He stayed silent and unmoving. I screwed up a post-it note from the file in front of me and threw it at him. Instead of bouncing off him and back onto the table, it just went right through. "Ah." I said. "So you're not even here for the last hour before I'm leaving? Okay, I get it."

He shrugged, and his projection vanished. I slammed a fist into the table with a groan. "Shit." I muttered, seeing the small dent I'd made. I kept forgetting I could do that. "I really fucking hate that guy."

"Excuse me?" I whipped around. Alina was stood in the doorway with the new girl Wanda, Natasha, and the guy Nat had referred to as Barton. I'd seen him on the news back when Loki had invaded New York.

"Loki's being... Loki." I explained.

"Did you expect anything else?" Barton said sitting beside me, as Nat and Alina went to make coffee and Wanda sat across from us.

"No." I replied bitterly. "I'm Roara Woodson by the way." I held out a hand.

"Yes, I believe we met earlier today. Clint Barton." He shook my hand.

"You're Hawkeye right?"

"That's me."

"Can I see your bow sometime?" I asked.