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Trickster's Gambit	By : Andartha Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 2529 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers. They belong to Marvel. Like all the other fans, I only get to play with them a bit, in an entirley non-profit kind of way.

Chapter List
- 1-Burned
- 2-Stolen
- 3-Split
- 4-Bound
- 5-Hunted
- 6-Fallen & Cracked
- 7-calmed
- 8-Settled
- 9-Sparked
- 10-Sneaked
- 11-Pranked
- 4
- 5
- 6
He’s watched the surveillance footage of Natascha negotiating with the Lie-Smith more times than he can count.
Between the Silvertongue and the Black Widow, even the subtext has subtext.
He prefers to speak his mind plainly and watching those two play cat and mouse with each other is bad enough to give him a headache.
‘Tascha knows he will follow, but never follow blindly, and as a team, as friends, as the chosen-kin they are, they’re far too close for her to leave him in the dark about stuff that’s that important.
He’s already guessed part of it.
It was her who let the Trickster out.
If Natascha hadn’t, there’d been a good possibility that, if SHIELD had managed to stop Clint and his assault-team, the Trickster would have rotted in his cell and the Chitauri invasion would never have happened.
So many lives lost in Manhattan would never even have been in danger.
They might even have been able to capture Loki’s second-in-command alive…
…but it wouldn’t have meant bringing Hawkeye back.
Wouldn’t have saved Clint from disappearing entirely within the next few days, leaving only the thrall behind.
And so Natascha had made a bargain with the lie-smith….had compromised herself to save Clint…and afterwards, she’d been burning to risk her life on the front lines, something that wasn’t her style at all, just to make sure that her deal with the devil didn’t lead to the loss of too many innocent lives.
And his leger had been as red as hers, no matter how often she told him it wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing he could have done to fight off Loki’s mind-tricks.
There’d been only one option: pulling himself together so they could go and throw in their weight to balance the scales once more.
Together.
Natascha’s talent for subtlety is something that never ceases to amaze him, and, in a quiet moment, where they were certain that no-one was listening in and that their environment was bug-free, they’d gotten themselves a few bottles of Vodka and proceeded to get thoroughly smashed while going over their respective play-by-play moves during the whole fiasco.
Watching the footage from Loki’s imprisonment, she pointed out how her unnecessarily explicit statement, that she would NOT let Loki out, even if the Norse God vowed to spare Clint, had actually been an offer to the contrary.
Clint told ‘Tascha about how he’d briefed Loki on the Black Widow. Had given her secrets away like cheap candy at Halloween, all so he could get high on his God’s appreciative attention just one moment longer.
A sly smile had spread over the bastard’s face when he had learned that there was one of his enemies on board the Helicarrier who, for a human, had an acceptable understanding of the concept of “delicate negotiations” and who had a deep enough connection to the Hawk to be susceptible to blackmail.
t had taken Natascha to translate for him for the most part, but when one knew what to look for, the bargaining had been quick and efficient.
"I knew you'd come and I know you want to bargain"
"I want Barton back."
"He's mine. Why should that change?"
"Because your plans for conquest mean nothing as long as you're stuck here."
"What are you willing to pay?"
"I'll betray my side and let you out."
"Prove that you can actually deliver what you're promising."
It had taken a simple bit of slight of hand to show Loki the remote for the door, palmed in Natascha's hand, all without the hidden cameras picking up on it.
“Drakoff’s daughter” had been an allusion he’d understood without explanation. After all, he’d been the one to tell Loki of it.
Natascha had been on a team that had kidnapped the 5 year old daughter of a Russian scientist. Unfortunately, Drakoff had been unable to get Natascha’s team access to his employer’s research facility at the set time, and Drakoff’s daughter had been killed as punishment.
Not by Natascha herself. But the Black Widow had stood aside and let it happen.
She still kept one the girl’s hair-tie in the drawer of her desk. It was decorated with small felt flowers in pale blue and purple.
Loki referring to the death of Drakoff’s daughter had been his promise to the Black Widow that, if she didn’t unlock the door on time…as in right now....Barton would die, just like the girl had.
And Natascha had unlocked that door, then and there, compromising herself. For her partner’s sake.
When Natascha had told him about that, he'd given her a black look that clearly told her what he thought about what she’d done:
For once, Agent Barton agreed with the God of Lies: Setting Loki free and risking the world in the process had been a damnfool deal to make. Unlike Loki though, he was anything but happy that Natascha had made it.
He'd have been better off dead.
Loki had tested the door’s movement by hitting it and, satisfied with the way it budged just the tiniest fraction of an inch, had given ‘Tascha the key to freeing Clint.
Natascha being Natscha, she'd managed to get a bit extra out of the deal, picking up on Loki's primary goal in coming to the Helicarrier: getting Banner to shift to the Hulk and destroy the Helicarrier from within, killing everybody on it as it went down.
For all that he hates to see Natascha getting her hands dirty by dealing with the God of Lies, he had laughed until his sides hurt at Loki’s completely surprised “WHAT?”, the Asgardian dumbfounded by the fact that he’d been outwitted by a mere human.
And if there’d been tears stinging in Clint’s eyes too while he shook with laughter, Natascha had been kind enough not to mention it, filling up his glass and saluting him instead.
As it turned out, Loki had kept his end of the bargain too, and "splitting Barton's skull" had worked just fine as far as bringing Clint back went.
Loki had really planned that one well.
The Trickster had been told about Natascha long before Stuttgart.
Long before the events that ended Loki up on the Helicarrier.
He’d know his bargaining chip would be Agent Barton.
Or rather the information on how to turn Agent Barton back.
There had been no guarantee that Natascha would be able to put the info to use, and Loki might have well walked away free from the whole thing with his Second by his side.
So…
Hawkeye had been a weapon in Loki’s hand. A valued weapon, a deadly weapon. Loki’s glee when he found out just how dangerous and how effective his newest toy had echoed down the link, clear as a bell.
Loki had known that Hawkeye would turn those skills against his former master if SHIELD got him back.
But if there was a risk that you’d have to return a weapon to an enemy that you still might have to fight, you made sure that that weapon was as flawed as possible. Maybe even boobie-trapped.
How badly would it have undermined Natascha’s morale and efficiency, to sacrifice her loyalty to her new family, only to find that the deal had been rigged and that there was nothing left of the Hawkeye she knew? Nothing but a broken, suicidal shell, a wreck of a man who would never recover from what had been done to him?
Loki could have arranged that. Easy.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, when Natascha had punched Loki’s second-in-command so hard that he lost consciousness, Agent Barton had been close enough, and most importantly, strong enough to take back over.
And it had been thanks to Loki.
Whenever Agent Barton was in danger of coming undone for good, Loki would pull him aside and do something that brought him back full force, for a short while at least.
He remembers lying face-down on that bed, Loki on top of him, holding him down, twisting his arms until it felt like his shoulder-joints would pop whenever he made another pointless effort to break free. Screaming. Shaking with anger, hatred, helplessness….but fully himself.
It stabilized him, even as Loki made sure that the thrall was the one who stayed in the drivers’ seat.
As far as destroying his enemies went, finding the chinks in their armour and mercilessly driving the dagger in….Loki had held back.
He could have broken Agent Barton with little to no effort.
Instead, he had picked on old fears and weaknesses that Clint could DEAL with, if not easily, then certainly effectively….and, most importantly, short term. Had actually HELPED him deal with it.
Why?
Why had Loki seen to it that both the Assassin and the Spy had been ready to fight when the Trickster made his bid, both at full strength and with an axe to grind?
It didn’t make sense.
Not for an invading conqueror, hell-bent on defeating his enemies and setting himself up as the new king.
Not for a narcisstic sociopath who took sadistic pleasure in his opponents emotional turmoil.
No.
No matter how he turns it…it just doesn’t sync.
Once he’s realized that, he begins to look for other evidence.
It’s elusive, but he’s getting better at reading that kind of stuff, a bit, and when he starts looking at things from a different angle, a pattern emerges.
It’s like fractal art, hiding a recurring theme somewhere between what might be lies and what might be truth.
On arrival, Loki had stated that he was “burdened” with glorious purpose. Not “coming with glorious purpose” or “called to a glorious purpose”….but burdened. Which implied someone who had put that “burden” on the Lie-Smith.
Looked like there might be a third party involved.
If the Trickster’s target had not been set by himself…then Loki had been likely to resent that.
Pride was one of the seven deadly sins, and Loki had it aplenty.
Someone so focused on becoming the ruler of something, of anything?
Someone like that would HATE being bossed around by somebody else.
Come to think of it, the Asgardian had been in bad shape when he arrived, pale, covered in sweat, with dark circles under his eyes, and moving slowly, hesitantly when he could, as if in pain.
Coming through the gateway of the Tesseract might have accounted for that. Could have been a bit of rough ride.
Or someone had roughed the Trickster up, trying to make sure that the Lie-Smith was scared enough to stick with the plan.
What if there’d really been someone else yanking Loki’s chain?
When Fury had asked Loki if he planned to step on humanity, the answer hadn’t really been “yes”.
Instead, the Asgardian had launched into a little speech about coming with “tidings of a world made free….free from freedom”.
Clint actually had to look up “tidings” to make sure he got the meaning right.
The dictionary gave “tidings” as “news, information or intelligence about something”.
People had assumed that Loki had been talking about Earth and the future….but that might not have been the case. Could’ve been another world, a different world, one recently conquered.
The bit of being “free from freedom”? Might’ve been just coincidence, but that was an actual quote from an american social writer, Eric Hoffer. Hoffer had said that young Nazis had flocked to Hitler’s mass movement, because they had wanted to escape individual responsibility, had wanted to be “free from freedom”.
Assuming that Loki coming up with that quote hadn’t been just a fluke, then how the hell had a Norse God become familiar with the works of an american social writer?…And why had he compared whoever had conquered that other world, if there was indeed another world, and he wasn’t just seeing stuff that wasn’t there, to the Nazis?
Had the Trickster been trying to warn them of the Chitauri ahead of time?
If so, they had failed to pick up on it. None of them spoke Subtle like that, and ‘Tascha hadn’t been there to translate. They’d all just assumed that, just like the Red Skull before him, Loki had planned to fuel his conquest of earth with local troops.
Had lost them time for preparation, ‘cause they hadn’t learned about the imminent Chitauri invasion until Thor told them about it, much later.
Another thing.
Stark had regaled them with the tale of his verbal sparring with the Norse God more than once. He’d been practically crowing with delight over the fact that the Avengers had kicked Loki’s butt, just as Stark had told the Trickster that they would.
He’d gloated over how bad an idea it had been of Loki to piss each and every one of the Avengers off and what for a stupid, stupid thing it had been for Loki to actually do that on purpose.
Sure, Loki’s love of drama, of baiting his enemies until they snapped was undeniable….but the Trickster didn’t do stupid.
So why the baiting and the angry-making?
Clint’s got an idea or two about that.
Mostly, Hawkeye works as a solo ops, with no more than a handler for back-up. But he’s been part of several teams in his time, teams freshly put together and he knows how team-building goes.
Teams usually go through a forming phase, where the team is called together, a storming phase that can have team-members at each other’s throats, and a bit of norming, where common goals are defined.
It’s only after going through these phases that team-members have the kind of strong bond and unified vision that is necessary to perform at a high level.
There’s a way though to shorten those phases and any kind of military operation makes ample use of that: a common enemy.
And Loki had played the part of common enemy to perfection.
Going by what Thor had told them about his little brother, this didn’t fit Loki’s usual modus operandi.
Guy was a lot better at setting people at each other’s throats with a poisonous word here and an ugly insinuation there.
And for sure, Loki had set them at each other’s throats in just that fashion…but it hadn’t stuck.
In fact, it had ended up clearing the air between them, the stated goal of any storming phase.
According to Thor, there were people in Asgard that hadn’t talked to each other in over four hundred years because of the Trickster’s games.
Kinda hard to believe that Loki’s clever goading had backfired so badly with the Avengers, when it hadn’t with others.
Hell, without Loki pushing them, being a constant thorn in their side, the constant bickering that had blocked them from day one would have probably torn them apart all by itself.
Then there’d been Selvig.
Why had Selvig been able to maintain enough control over himself to build in a safety into the Tesseract-fuelled gate, a safety that would close the gate?
Clint hadn’t been able to do so much as twitch if Loki hadn’t wanted him too, and he certainly hadn’t been able to keep any secrets at all, with Loki sensing it instantly any time he tried to hide anything from the Trickster.
One more.
Shooting at Fury’s helicopter, Loki had missed. Badly.
And he’s seen Loki shoot with that sceptre of his while they were out recruiting together and the guy was a pretty o.k. shot with it.
Certainly not someone who would miss the cabin of a helicopter that was hovering right in front of them, especially since they had been moving towards the target.
Later on, when he and Nat’ had flown their jet right up to Stark Tower, there’d been a mere 46 feet between them and the Asgardians, and yet, when Loki had fired at them, he hadn’t aimed at the cabin, which would have had a good chance of killing them….no, he’d aimed for and hit the left wing, something that brought them down and took them away from the fight…but left them alive to kill another day.
So….if the pattern held true, then the most logical conclusion was this:
Loki had deliberately set the Chitauri invasion up to fail.
He hadn’t planned on winning.
He’d planned on losing.
Why?
Probably to get rid of the Chitauri.
And he’d set up the Avengers to do his dirty work for him.
But what came after?
What was Loki’s next step?
Because there HAD to be a next step.
The resources Loki had gathered with the help of his second-in-command had disappeared without a trace.
It had been dismissed as those who had been recruited into the Norse God’s army deserting their posts when they’d seen their leader fall.
The unbelievably organized way it had happened and the thoroughness with which it had been done, and by all of the 18 cells they’d created, had simply been disregarded as a freakish coincidence.
But there was another explanation now: Loki had ordered his troops to move well in advance.
There’d been enough men mind-controlled by Loki to execute such a move, all the while protecting their new overlords’ interests.
Come to think of it: as far as he knew, none of the other mind-controlled minions, save Selvig, had been accounted for so far.
Not Rosenbaum, the other Agent who’d been compromised when Loki arrived.
Not the hacker who had been Agent Barton’s personal assistant.
None of them.
So…..Loki had ordered them to move to new hiding places where SHIELD couldn’t find them and where they could continue their work.
Why?
Because without doubt, one thing had been for real: Loki’s desire to RULE.
And the God of Lies would need troops when he came back.

For Sinclaire_Threnody

Thank you very, very much for your reviews! They are vastly appreciated ^_^
Concerning chapter 4, you are totally right concerning the rape. Especially for Hawkeye, for whom loyalty is incredibly important and who is already traumatized by the fact that he can't stop himself from going along with Loki's plans, can't stop himself from killing fellow Agents.....experiencing pleasure, and quite a lot of it at that, is the worst kind of nightmare.
What makes it worse is the fact that, unlike with the rest of it, he can't tell himself that it's only the thrall who's into what Loki is doing to him....nope, it's Clint himself too who wants to arch into Loki's touch, who wants Loki to ride him, to claim his body.
It makes Clint feel like the worst kind of traitor and also terrifyingly helpless.
As far as Loki is concerned though, there is a lot more going on as meets the eye at first.
Loki knows EXACTLY what he's doing....and yeah, he does feel bad about it too....BUT if circumstances would require it, he'd be ready to do a LOT worse.
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- 6
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Trickster's Gambit