Chapter 2: After Action Report

Hawkeye slowly exhaled as Fury stared down at Natasha and him. Though he was an unrelenting taskmaster, Fury was not unfair, he preferred to have all the facts before he began blaming someone. Though even a blind man would have been able to see that the one eyed man was anything but pleased at the news of their failure.

"You are telling me that Emiya just allowed himself to be killed, and then an unknown figure just got the drop on the two of you, disappeared with the body while letting you live?" Fury asked for clarification his one eye narrowing in thought.

"It doesn't add up." Clint supplied his own thoughts on the matter, knowing they would mirror those of both Fury and Natasha in this instance. "Not trying to be an arrogant ass here, but I know that Natasha and I are damn good. There are not many people who could get the drop on us in the first place, and for them not to kill us as soon as they get the chance? It just doesn't make sense, if you get the chance you deny your opponent access to his assets."

"Agreed." Natasha said, face set in a mask of cold indifference. "More concerning is the fact that Hawkeye recalls seeing me in the Morgue, I however have no recollection of going there. Which means that whoever ambushed the two of us managed to somehow get us to comply with his or her wishes. Perhaps through the use of drugs." The Black Widow suggested, knowing all too well that there were multiple substances that could cause increased compliance as well as short term memory loss.

"Possibly, the two of you better prepare a blood sample ASAP. I'd rather not take any chances of not finding any traces just because we waited for too long." Fury told them sternly, even though there was a hint of skepticism on his face. "Though the fact that the two of you were subdued so quickly, without a fight, and were released in an simultaneous manner speaks against the use of drugs I'd say. Unless it's something we never encountered before."

Hawkeye snorted in response to that. "No offense, but that's almost a given, considering our line of work."

"I am well aware, Hawkeye." Fury told him in a tone that all but screamed at him to shut up unless he had something important to say. "The fact is that you failed to retrieve the body. The Council, particularly Pierce, isn't happy. Quite frankly I don't have a lot of information but my guess is that Emiya ruined some of their own projects, or at leasts Pierces." Clint could see how Natasha clenched her teeth at the reminder of their failure, not that either one of them needed one. "Essentially they are telling me that unexpected opposition is what we sent you two for, that you are expected to succeed despite it. I tried to tell them that it isn't as easy as that, but they arent listening."

"Well, what else is new." Hawkeye groused and folded his arms across his chest. "So you're telling me that the council is mad cause Emiya wrecked some of their little pet projects and now they don't get to play with his body? Pity he is dead, cause I start to like the guy."

"That's good, because you are going to try and find his body." Fury told him, his eye staring him down, daring him to object. "Thus far our saving grace is that apparently everyone else is just as confused as we are. Whoever took Emiya seems to have outsmarted everyone involved."

"Which is good and bad." Natasha noted cooly from the side. "It means they aren't necessarily hostile, but also that we don't know anything about them and that they are good enough to stay off the radar of everyone."

"Exactly, which is why I want you to find out what you can on site. Gather what you can, and then come back and report to me. In person." Fury ordered as he folded his arms across his chest. "Considering all that's been going on I think it best if we keep this close to our chest. At least for the time being."

"So right back to the Morgue then?" Hawkeye asked with a lazy shrug. "Fine by me, and perhaps our IT guys could get something from the cameras."

"Doubtful." Natasha disagreed with that notion. "Considering the amount of people who were smuggled in and undoubtedly tried to do the same as us. It is very unlikely that the camera footage is useable or even accurate."

"I leave the matter up to you." Fury told them indifferently as he closed the connection without another word. Without the weighend gaze of his boss Hawkeye felt as if it suddenly got easier to breath.

"Well, that went better than expected." Hawkeye remarked dryly and rolled his eyes as Natasha lightly swatted his arm. "We both know that going right back is just asking for trouble."

"Of course, I figured we'd go back to the cafe and see if we can retrace our steps from there." The russian explained simply even as she made her way to the entrance of their small hideout. "You coming?"

"After such an invitation how could I do anything but?" Clint questioned sardonically, masterfully ignoring the glare he received in turn. As Natasha turned her back to him and began to walk out he quickly pressed a few buttons on his personal tablet. Requesting every last bit of information S.H.I.E.L.D. had Emiya.

He couldn't say why, but that smile, it was stuck in his head, and more than ever he felt as if he was missing something when studying Shirou Emiya. Perhaps once he discovered what that something was that image would stop haunting him.

His surprising desire fulfilled he made to follow Natasha without another hint of hesitation. The way her head ever so slightly inclined to the side made him think that she knew that he was up to something but it wasn't worried enough to press him on the matter.

Something which he didn't mind in the slightest as he had no idea what to say if pressed for an answer. He had begun this whole thing because the image of a dying criminal wouldn't leave his mind, and because his gut told him that there was more to it then he realized.

Eyes adjusting to the sunlight that painted the city in a variety of shades of red he followed Widow into the streets. Their populace far too small for a city of such a size, but with the war at an end people had already began returning. Of course such a sparse population also meant that Natasha and he would stand out more to others. Usually something they sought to avoid, but to the locals they were most likely nothing more than yet more representatives of some foreign country, and this also meant that they could question the locals whether or not they had seen them before.

He had little doubt that they would at the very least be able to remember Widow, judging from the amount of stares following her. She stood out, always had for as long as he had known her at least, which left him to observe others in turn. Nobody of immediate interest so far, but he didn't complain as they made their way to the cafe. Which truth be told Hawkeye had to admit was actually a rather nice cafe. Whoever had taken them by surprise had good taste at least.

Natasha immediately began to question the staff, showing them a picture of Clint while he waited outside. He didn't know exactly what she said, or how she did it, but she disappeared into the back, probably to look over the camera footage. He waited in silence for her to return eyes taking in his surroundings. He couldn't help the sliver of paranoia that had taken root in his brain. In his mind it only made sense to let them go if they were still under observation, or could be controlled once more whenever their adversary desired.

Yet no matter where he looked he only saw ordinary people, going about their lives and any interest they showed in him was merely genuine curiosity. Still not about to let his guard down he checked the area till Natasha finally returned roughly a quarter of an hour later. "Looks like we entered the cafe from the main street. Following it westways we'd pass by the Ministry of Justice."

"Alrighty, then I talk to the people there." Hawkeye remarked easily and pulled out his phone. Without so much as giving her a warning he snapped a picture of Widows face. "I am sure they'll remember you if they saw you."

"As long as that isn't the only thing they remember." The russian groused with an eye roll and nodded at him. "Get going."

"Yes, ma'am." He shot back mockingly even as he already moved to follow her command. Thus late afternoon turned into evening as Hawkeye questioned one shopkeeper, passerby or resident after another. Although his efforts were not in vain as he learned a few interesting tidbits. They had come through a few back alleys before opting to follow the main road for one, and the fact that one shopkeeper loudly complained about couple of firefighter trucks nearly running him over, rushing to the Ministry of Justice without their sirens engaged.

Perhaps a somewhat clumsy effort to keep people from noticing. If so they achieved the opposite, people took more notice of things that didn't fall into the norm after all. Though with the casualties of the war he wasn't exactly surprised probably a lot of the more experienced people in this country now lay dead somewhere, which lead to those who were still green to take charge in certain matters.

He made his way back to their rooms, hideout really, and marched right in without so much as knocking and closed the doors behind himself. "Might have found something Nat." He called towards the kitchen as he hung up his jacket.

"What is it?" She asked, her eyes not straying from his tablet as she read through the data of Shirou Emiya. In hindsight he really should have known that she would do something like this. "And why the sudden renewed interest in a dead man?"

"I got a potential fire in the Ministry of Justice, figured we could check it out tonight." Hawkeye told her as he ignored her second question for the moment. "I know it's risky but we might learn something. Our route was partly via backstreets before we switched to the main road, so I guess our ambusher didn't want us to just wander around and get us shot, nice of him or her I guess."

"You think that they tried to cover their tracks with the fire?"

"If you are pressed for time is there a better way to get rid of evidence than burn it all up?" He shot back rhetorically and shrugged. "As for Emiya… I just feel like I am missing something."

"You won't find it in there." Natasha told him flatly and shoved the tablet in his direction. "It's the same info we got before coming here."

"I know… I know. I'll check through it anyways for now. We got a bit of time before our next visit to the Ministry." He muttered already lost in thought as he read through every bit of information the screen would offer him.

"Suit yourself." Natasha replied indifferently and left him to his thoughts.

Unfortunately for him she was right, there was nothing in that data, that would lead him to the solution of the riddle that was Emiya. He needed more information, so he requested it. Data about every place Emiya had been active in, while he had been there, then he requested data about the place after Emiya had left, and eventually before he had showed up at all, and then he even slowly began to try and compare similar hells on this earth with the ones Emiya had visited.

In the end he simply lacked the time to just properly do anything of that so he used his authority as a high ranking agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. to ruin the day of what would probably end being an entire team of analysts. He send them the entire data package and in essence ordered them to analyse the hell out of it. Every little bit of information no matter how outlandish they could draw from it he wanted to know about, he also stressed that he was less interested in the how but rather in the why.

He had just set down the tablet when Natasha returned from her room. "Already done?" She asked with a single raised eyebrow to which he offered a chuckle.

"No way, but I left it to the pros. Hopefully once we are back in the states they'll have something for us." He told her with a sigh, absentmindedly he had already began to arm himself.

"Us?" She questioned softly, her head inclining ever so slightly to the left in a show of curiosity.

"Don't tell me you are not at all curious." Hawkeye dared her with a sly grin, her silence was all the answer he needed. A silence that continued on as the two of them made their way across the rooftops to the Ministry of Justice. It was different route than he had taken to get there, after all becoming a creature of habit was a good way to end up dead in this line of work.

Of course their troubles did not end there, after the disappearance of Emiya's body and the apparent subsequent fire security had been tightened. Not enough that they wouldn't be able to get inside anymore but certainly to make it more interesting, and forcing them to move slower and more carefully.

Considering the late hour there was an surprising amount of personal still active within the building. The execution chamber, as Hawkeye had dubbed the hall, was still brightly lit and men and women were practically scanning every bit surface available and taking in everything as evidence that wasn't bolted down. The fact that they had such a general modus operandi told the two agents that the authorities also had no idea whom exactly they were looking for.

After observing the forensics for a few more minutes and concluding that they wouldn't be able to get any information from here they moved on towards the morgue. The time it took them to reach it was at least thrice as long as before, as security seemed to be getting ever more vigilant the closer they got there.

A glance through the grid of the air duct was telling enough. The fire had been within the morgue, and had apparently burned hot enough to warp the metal of the autopsy tables and the frozen compartmens used to store bodies. A fire this hot would have easily taken care of all potential evidence and then some, whoever did this was not stupid.

However they still needed more information, and given that further down the hallway, where security was tightets of course, was what appeared to be makeshift laboratory where they processed all items and evidence found they had an idea on where to get them.

Of course such tight security meant that they had to be careful, and thus a distance that they could have cleared in a minute under the usual circumstances turned into half an hour of slow crawling, blinding of sensors, jamming of cameras, and pausing every time a guard walked beneath them, which was frustratingly often.

Their efforts however eventually paid of as they managed to reach the laboratory. Forensics were scrambling all of the place, meaning the had no way of physically entering the place. Fortunately they didn't have to, slowly as to avoid any unnecessary noise Natasha pulled out a small hand held computer from one of her belt bags.

They wouldn't set all of this equipment up if they weren't able to send the information somewhere else with it. The idea was simple, get inside the the transmission and everything that was discovered would be sent to their miniature computer, and thus to S.H.I.E.L.D. as well. While neither Black Widow nor Hawkeye were accomplished enough hackers to do something like this the IT guys of S.H.I.E.L.D. had been kind enough to install them a whole pallet of programs specifically designed for such things.

All they had to do now was wait as their computer established a wireless connection. Once it did, they could read through every single discovery made thus far and any other information that would come up in the future. For the moment the two of them focused on the fire. Apparently the forensics were unable to locate a point of origin, as if the entirety of the floor had just simulatiansuly began burning. More worryingly they had been unable to find even microscopic traces of a combustivel agent, and to top things of the fire had burned smokeless with enough heat to warp metal while also resisting the efforts of the firefighters to put it out for more than ten minutes when it according to eye witness reports just suddenly seemed to stop.

Hawkeye was certain that Fury would very much like to have that information. The technology to increase such intense, traceless flames was worryingly enough if just used to burn down a single room or building, but once you scaled up the area of effect it became very worrying indeed.

Aside from that were dozens of DNA samples, miniscule pieces of clothing, and at times fingerprints being examined, most of the time without any hope of finding a match. However, there were a couple of blood samples that drew Hawkeyes attention. Apparently they were being screened for drugs, or any kind of substance out of the ordinary really.

According to the data they all belonged to guards that had been assigned to the building before Emiya got here. And all of the affected showed signs of short term memory loss, some merely had lost a few minutes of, others had woken up in a completely different location with no idea of how they got there, and another one was currently being questioned as his authorization had deleted all camera footage within the building, although he claimed to have no memory of ever doing so.

It certainly seemed like their mysterious assailant hadn't just gotten the drop on them, but rather on everyone involved. Which just made them even more dangerous in Hawkeyes mind. Glancing over at Natasha he was surprised to see that she hadn't read any of the data but rather had pulled out what looked like the components of a miniature antenna which she had already assembled and now was securing on the wall of the air duct.

"Can leave now, will continue to receive data." She signed him and twitched her way backwards. He nodded at her in reply and the two of them began their exhausting way back. Their skills along with perhaps a bit of fortune allowed them to leave the building once more undetected and they silently made their way back towards their hideout. From there they would immediately go to the plane S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided them with and leave.

No use in sticking around after all, Hawkeye had the feeling that the had overstayed their welcome anyway. Collecting what little belongings they brought with them from their rooms they made their way to the airport. Bypassing security once more the two of them made their way to the plane, which had already finished all required checkups and had already gotten the permission to start.

The moment Clint shut the door behind himself the plane accelerated already, just as instructed. Once he trusted himself to keep standing without holding onto something Clint made his way to a nearby seat, tiredly sitting down. He barely managed to check his tablet for any news, which just as he expected had yet to arrive before he allowed his eyes to close and himself to sleep.

He had once read somewhere that sleep played a role in the processing and order of memories as well as other psychological factors, thus he was thankful that his sleep was dreamless. His worries lay heavily enough on his mind in his waking moments after all, so the respite however brief was very much welcome.

He awoke to Natasha softly touching his shoulder, at his questioning glance she shrugged. "We'll arrive at the Triskelion soon. And you got some news, figured you'd want to look them over before explaining to Fury why you spent all that effort on a dead man."

"Thanks." He mumbled and blinked a few times to clear his vision. Hands grasping the tablet that Natasha offered to him. Without so much as a pause he opened the report the analysts had composed for him and began reading.

Admittedly they repeatedly stated that even all this data was not enough to say for certain they could still provide at least some correlation between Emiya's appearances and a decrease in criminal and terror activity. Statistical comparisons filed one page after another, comparing sites before, after and during his presence in them as well as comparing these stages with other hotspots where Emiya never appeared at all.

Although they hasted to add that Emiya might simply have been the catalyst that caused others to hunt him, and by extension others like him down they couldn't deny the possibility that that might have been his intent all along.

The back of his head hit the chairback heavily, contemplating if that truly made any sense. One man with incredible abilities devoting his entire life to save others, by throwing himself into one hell after another without pause no less. If one were to follow this line of thought than Shirou Emiya had somehow prevented the reactor meltdown rather than cause it. Everyone who had studied that incident had claimed that it was nothing short of a miracle that the reactor hadn't exploded, so of course one would wonder how Emiya could have done something like that.

Clint barely noticed when the plane landed on the Helicarrier as he was to engrossed in the report in front of him. For if once he began to view Emiya's actions through such a lense Hawkeye couldn't help but be annoyed at his own blindness. Emiya had apparently build his entire life around doing the impossible, so it would actually make some kind of sense for him to prevent a catastrophe of this magnitude. The report read, he followed Black Widow across the flight deck and through the hallways of the Triskelion.

Mind still deep in thought. Even if one were to accept all these previous assumptions, and assumptions they mostly were. Then he still utterly failed to understand Emiya. Shirou Emiya who had thrown away any chance of a normal life to obsessively save people all around the world, without ever taking credit, ever accepting so much as thanks, or even without seeking to clear his name, had been executed for a crime he didn't commit.

A smile flashed through Clint's mind, that damned smile that wouldn't leave him alone. If all of that rang true, then he couldn't help but wonder just why Emiya would be… content, satisfied even in the moment of his execution. He couldn't help but feel that perhaps it was better for him to never understand such a man.

He felt himself answer Furys question essentially on autopilot, while the majority of his mind still tried to make sense of what he read, trying to find other ways to explain it. There were some but his gut told him that he already had his answer. That Emiya simply had been someone with incredible abilities dead set on making the world a better place, even if he had to kill countless people to do it.

Once the briefing was over, he turned to follow Widow out of the room only to be stopped by Fury. "Hawkeye, a word." He stopped once more and turned to look the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the eye. Fury in turn was mustering him as well. "Mind explaining to me why I got two whole teams of Analysts lying around sleep deprived?"

"I wanted them to check on a few things." He replied carefully, uncertain how to voice his own thoughts on the matter just yet.

"Regarding Emiya." It wasn't a question it was a statement of fact, and knowing his boss Fury had already read through the very same report Hawkeye had.

"Yes, sir." He finally settled on saying.

"Your own conclusion?"

"It… it flies in the face of logic." Hawkeye said after a moment of tense silence. "Assuming that anyone sane would do something like this for the sake of total strangers without ulterior thoughts is crazy."

"However." Fury prompted him arms crossed across his chest as he glowered at Hawkeye.

"However, given what we know it is the explanation that makes the most sense." Clint told him and hesitated before he continued. "Provided there isn't someone else ordering Emiya around."

"Exactly." Fury agreed with him and his expression became even more severe. "My theory, we cannot see the real target behind all those actions, but the fact remains that someone with a lot of influence and power prevented anyone from studying Emiya's body. I think they're the ones behind all this. Only someone with a lot of power could have accomplished something like that. Emiya must have been their agent."

Hawkeye hesitated, the notion made a lot of sense but he couldn't help but feel that Emiya genuinely had wanted to help people and hadn't been involved in such a shadowy plot. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because Fury continued. "Perhaps Emiya had no idea about their real motives and was just an asset they used and manipulated to their heart's content but I can't believe that anyone would do such things on their own free will without some kind of higher goal."

Hawkeye couldn't say that he didn't feel the same way, before he got the chance to agree however Fury fixed him with a quick glance. "That will be all, dismissed."

Hawkeye left, and Fury glanced at one of the holographic screens, his mind already trying to come up with ways to combat this new, unseen fraction should they prove to be a threat.

Author Notes:

Nomad-117: Wow, I'll be honest I never actually planned on making a second chapter for this. Didn't think anyone would even want one, so after I was proven utterly wrong I couldn't help but at least play around with the idea. And suddenly Eureka! Once Inspiration struck I began writing and one thing lead to another.

I don't know if this chapter is what you've been hoping for but it seemed right to write it this way instead of forcing in more characters of Fate just for the sake of it. I hope you enjoyed it at least and answered hopefully some of your questions.

Also I hope you can forgive me my undoubtedly present grammatical and spelling errors. I am dyslexic I am afraid. Still, hopefully it doesn't dampen your enjoyment of this too much.