Unexpected

Turquoise Eyes and the Tesseract

I could not breathe. I could not think. They were thoughtless puppets now, but unlike Selvig or Barton, there seemed to be no trace of personality in either Ben or Ed. They just stood there, faces blank as a new sheet of paper.

"As I was saying," Barton started up again as if I had not interrupted, "As punishment for their crimes against you, both Ed, the attacker, and Ben, the accomplice we found guarding the cafeteria doors when we came across last night's episode, have been sentenced to be your assistants as your hands heal and into the unknown future. You are now in command of them, with only Loki's word being higher than yours, as of now." Barton then turned to the two men, his voice slow and threatening, "You two know your commands and restrictions."

The pair of them nodded, their turquoise eyes unblinking.

"And I think the first thing they should do is go clean up the mess in the cafeteria, don't you, Penny?"

I had been numbly listening to this, my mind both racing and holding completely still in the shock of it all and I simply nodded to his prompting. At my nod, both Ed and Ben nodded then gathered up supplies from the cleaning closet and left the kitchen as Clint and I watched. As soon as the kitchen door swung shut I spun around to face Barton, "I didn't want this! Yes, I wanted them punished, but... not like this!"

"Personally, I think it's too generous a punishment for them after what they did to you, but Loki knew that you wouldn't want them to be killed, so he figured this was both an appropriate and a productive punishment for them. Already he'd been trying to find you an assistant as your work load was growing with more allies in our operation, so this worked." Barton said simply, glaring at the door the pair of them had just left through.

Why couldn't he understand? Because he was controlled as well, he couldn't see things the way I did because he saw things through the scepter's Tesseract blue glow. "But... they're-" I struggled to say.

"Penny." He cut me off and placed a hand on my shoulder, I flinched away at first, the physical contact at the site of the crime bringing back flashes of painful memories from the night before, then I looked into his eyes, "You are an amazingly kind-hearted woman. No one else I have ever known would be complaining about their attacker's punishment being too heavy."

"I'm not, it's just-"

"They're under your control now. They've been instructed to not even lay a finger on you and they'll do whatever you say. They're now here to help you, not harm. Now, you need to sit down and rest before you hurt that sprained ankle anymore, let them do the work, and let yourself recuperate. Understand?"

I sighed and nodded my head slowly, glancing at the kitchen door again, "Yes sir, Hawkeye sir."

A smile broke his otherwise serious face, "That's better. I have to get to work now, see you later."

He then left me standing in the kitchen alone. I just stood there for a moment, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down and sort through everything before walking slowly, limpingly over to the kitchen door. Pushing the door open I found all the tables had been pushed to one side of the cafeteria and both Ed and Ben were doing a deep scrub on the floor.

Clearing my throat I called out to them, "Ben, Ed." Their faces turned towards me as they immediately halted their work. I just stared at them, all my feelings jumbling up in my head and chest, "I hate you. I really do. And I try to make it a habit of mine to not hate people, but I hate both of you for what you did to me. I wanted you to be punished. Severely. Maybe... maybe even cruelly. But I just want you to know that I didn't want this for you."