4. Chapter 4

Coulson had been pretty patient through the preliminaries, standing around looking blah in his suit during all the formal introductions and ceremonies. There was a permanent pinch around his eyes that betrayed his stress, but anyone who wasn't used to causing that pinch to appear wouldn't notice it.

Tony noticed it, a lot.

There wasn't much for them to do, though, until King Odin decided to move things past the formalities. Coulson lurked around the edges of the team as they went through a dozen "nice to meet you, here have a whole alien boar-like-lizard for dinner" ceremonies. Tony and Steve were constantly on alert, prepared to deal with the fallout when (not if) Coulson finally broke and started shooting people.

What no one was prepared for, though, was to for the opening round of negotiations to be held in Barton's mausoleum.

"Oh. Oh SHIT." Tony stalled inside the door so fast that Steve walked straight into his back, sending them both to the ground. Behind them, Natasha actually gasped out loud as she got a view of the room, due to Steve and Tony kicking at each other on the floor as they tried to stand up. Odin and Thor turned to look at them in confusion.

"No!" Natasha shouted as she spun, throwing both hands out to slam into Coulson's chest. The impact sent him flying backwards right into Bruce, who, despite being laid pretty spectacularly every night (according to the court gossip, which Tony followed religiously because the Queen of Asgard fucking a berserker was the least perverted item on the menu) was not quite relaxed enough to serve as a floor mat for Coulson to land on without getting pissed off.

"What the hell?" Bruce yelled, his voice growly and his skin tinted green. He picked up Coulson like a naughty puppy and threw him back at Natasha, who ducked.

Having just found their feet again, Steve and Tony went down like bowling pins as Coulson slammed into them with his own shout of surprise. The three of them rolled forward into the impact, each trained enough not to get broken, but it still put them halfway into the room at Odin's feet.

And at the bottom of the steps leading up to where Clint Barton's body was laid out in state, pale and cold in death.

"God damn it," Steve snarled, which was more blasphemy than he usually put into a month.

Coulson stood up slowly, his eyes on Barton's corpse, which was dressed in ridiculous Asgardian armor meant to look like bird feathers made out of precious metals, layered in scales down his arms and legs. The breast plate was incrusted with jewels, mostly amber and topaz and diamonds, if Tony was any judge. The copper-colored helmet was heavily worked with feather designs and it curved out over Clint's bloodless face into a sharp, lethal looking beak. The body rested in a shallow nest of elegantly braided vines and branches, decorated with elaborate feather work. It was a breathtakingly beautiful arrangement, fit for a king, and Tony actually felt guilty about taking a picture of it for his own funeral plans.

"King Odin, I demand to know how Barton, The Hawkeye of Midgard, was killed." Steve spoke slowly and precisely, and Tony had to hand it to him, he could take on the Asgardians mano-a-mano when it came to intimidation techniques.

Odin nodded at the request as if it were perfectly reasonable. "There was no pain. It was not the death of a warrior in battle, but it could not be so, or his soul would have been sent to Valhalla."

"What. Happened." Steve asked through gritted teeth. Tony cast a look at where Coulson was standing, blanched white and furious, staring at Barton's body.

Thor stepped forward. "His soul was stripped from his body as he crossed between realms. Heimdall has himself informed me that this was done by Hel, as a favor to him. We are fortunate that one so well versed in such magic did this."

Incredulously, Thor actually did look relieved by that.

Tony shook his head. "So we need this Hel guy to put Clint, uh, The Glorious Hawkeye, back where he belongs? What's his number? He local? Let's get started."

"Hel is my niece. Like her father, she is something of trickster. I would not trust her to do as you request." Thor suddenly looked very tired.

Coulson's head turned slowly and carefully towards the Asgardians. Tony braced for impact.

"Are you telling me that Loki's daughter killed my husband?"

Tony leaned over to Steve and whispered. "Shit just got real."