The door to the motel unit burst open with a dangerously unstable racket, and a steely faced Clint strode into the room as the door slammed against the wall behind him. The doctor squawked in alarm at the sound, a stack of thickly folded papers on his lap spilling onto the floor as he fumbled to find his feet. The image of him standing beside the bed with his glasses skewed and the lamp from the end table tightly held in his hands dimly filtered through Clint's mind as he sped further into the room.
"Barton? Why the— you gave me a heart attack, you moron!"
He stopped abruptly as his eyes roved over Clint's features, his face puckering in a frankly humorous degree of shock. "What the hell happened to you? Where did all those cuts come from? And… God's sake, what happened to your hands?" He was moving forward, professional stoniness overtaking any concern that might have been on a normal human being's face, Clint noted wryly.
The archer ignored him as he strode into the bathroom, twisting the faucet on full and thrusting his hands underneath the spluttering flow of water. He hissed sharply at the instant sting and watched with growing impatience as the sink bowl ran a gruesome shade of rust, reds and browns mixing from the dirt and blood. A glimpse in the mirror showed a series of thin, jagged scrapes running across his face, and he frowned at a thin rivulet of red running across his eyebrow. When he was satisfied he had gotten as much surface grime out of the gashes as he could, he splashed a shockingly cold handful of water across his face before spinning back to glance at the bewildered doctor. He turned his attention rapidly back onto the wall, grabbing the thin washcloths hanging from the towel rack as he did so and wrapping them tightly around his hands. With a blunt jab of his elbow, he moved Holden aside as he darted purposefully to the bed and grabbed his bag, throwing what little things were scattered outside of it back into it's interior. He snapped over his shoulder to the doctor as he snatched his bow and quiver up in their blanket.
"Grab your things, we're leaving. Please tell me you gassed up the car."
Holden started in surprise at that, and he spluttered in confusion as Clint tied off the washcloths to his palms with the help of his teeth.
"What, now? And of course I bloody well gassed the car, what else was I going to do? I mean, aside from grab every map of the area from the station like you so helpfully suggested," he finished bitterly, his hands already scrabbling to gather up the spilled maps and papers.
Clint hefted his bag over his shoulder, his bow held gingerly in the crook of his elbow as he walked past the doctor, who was thankfully already in the process of fumbling for his coat. "Yes, now. They're going to be leaving the city soon. By car. We need to intercept them."
He could feel Holden staring at the back of his head as he fumbled with the door knob. "You learned that from them at a café? They don't seem very careful, going and discussing something like that in public-"
"I didn't hear it at the café, I heard it outside of their window at the hotel." He paused for a moment as he opened the door. "On the tenth floor."
He would be lying if he didn't take a moment of indulgent amusement from the doctor's flabbergasted expression when he turned to usher him through the door. "The windo- th-ten- the ten-fl- the what? You were outside their window on the tenth floor?"
"Look, I will gladly fill you in on my day once we're en route, but for the moment, we need to move." Clint stepped into the hallway, his mind already racing with the barest beginnings of a plan.
Holden stumbled out the door behind Clint as he ushered the agitated doctor out of the room. "Where are we intercepting them? The parking lot?"
Clint felt his lip twitch in exasperation as he shut the door with a slam. "Too many witnesses. I don't want any casualties involved here that we could have avoided. We're going to stop them on the road."
"And how do you propose we do that? We hardly have the equipment for a blockade-"
"We've got more than enough, now would you just move?" Clint said through gritted teeth. He practically propelled the doctor down the stairs and out the front door, ignoring the curious look from the desk manager as he slapped the room key onto the front desk in passing without a word.
They wrenched open the doors to the Civic, the doctor tossing their supplies onto the floor in the back seat and flopping the maps across the dashboard while Clint got to fumbling work on the ignition, his sliced fingers stinging as they skimmed over the wires. Despite the pain, Clint had it wired in record time, and he practically burnt the tires out as he floored the pedal, screeching onto the street. He was already tearing down the main road out of Etford when Holden spoke up again, his accent considerably thicker in it's strain.
"How do you know what they're driving? And how do you plan on stopping them? This is the main road into the city, there'll be other people-"
"Look around you, doc. How many other cars do you see right now?"
It was true, there was only one other car on the long road leading out to what would eventually become Toronto. Clint grit his teeth as he floored the pedal, praying the old engine wouldn't give out on them before they were ready. The doctor was uncharacteristically silent as they sped past the mile markers.
Seven miles out from the city and the car steered down the slight incline Clint had noticed from the defector's hotel room.
Eight miles and they were out of sight from the city.
Nine miles.
Ten miles.
Eleven miles.
At the twelfth post, he spun the wheel suddenly, veering them across the slick road and into the opposite lane, positioning the car to face back towards the city before hitting the brakes and coming to a standstill.
Holden was understandably confused.
"What… what are you doing? Are you planning on running them off the road?"
Clint shook his head as he glanced in the clouded mirrors. The other car was well out of sight by now, and none appeared to be coming in either direction as far as he could tell. "No, there's too much maneuvering room for that. They could just take off before we get to them."
"Then how the hell are you planning on stopping them?"
Clint shot him an incredulous glance, his mouth a grim line.
Something seemed to click in Holden's brain as his head swiveled back and forth, his gaze turning from the bare road to Clint and back again. "You're… what, you're going to play chicken? Please tell me you actually are joking this time!"
Clint spared him another glance out the corner of his eye. "I would've thought you'd pick up on the fact that I don't seem to joke as much as you think I do when it comes to plans. And no, I'm not planning on playing chicken," he continued briskly when he saw the doctor opening his mouth, his eyes wide in impending terror. "We won't get close enough for a collision. I am going to need you to do exactly what I say, though, you got that?"
At the doctor's belated nod, he inhaled deeply, pushing past the pain still throbbing in his core. "Good. Hop in the back seat real fast and cover yourself as best you can with the blanket. And hand me my gun, too. It's in the outer pocket of the bag."
After a second of maneuvering on the doctor's part, Holden was marginally covered on the back seat and Clint's pistol was on the seat next to him. He narrowed his eyes as he focused on the road again, his heart beginning to slow as he mentally prepared himself for the moment that was inevitably coming soon. "Ok, I'm going to need you to stay down, no matter what you hear. Don't move unless I explicitly tell you to, got it?"
The muffled affirmation that came from under the blanket was all Clint had to go off of for now, and he inclined his head slightly as he scanned the horizon. A twinge ran through him as he realized just how fast his heart was hammering suddenly, and he inhaled in slight surprise. Why was he so jumpy? He'd pulled this move millions of times in the past. What was causing his body to react so spastically?
A throb of pain ran through him with a suddenness that left him reeling, and he clutched at the steering wheel a little tighter as he rode it out, a short, ragged gasp the only indication of the impromptu ache.
Oh.
That was why.
There was a muffled shuffling from the back seat then, and Holden's cautious voice followed suit.
"Barton?"
Clint shook himself out of his haze, forcing the pain back into its mental box as he addressed the doctor gruffly. "Fine. 'M fine. Just stay down."
There was a note of grudging incredulity in the doctor's voice when he spoke again. "You know, I don't appreciate being lied to when it's both of our lives at risk if you're not… fully aware-"
"I'm fine, I'm completely aware, just… just give me a second."
The silence lasted all of four.
"Were you?"
Clint focused past breathing through the last of the waves of prickling pain, his tone suitably confused. "Was I what?"
"Aware?"
It took too long for Clint to realize just what it was the doctor was insinuating.
When the penny dropped, it rammed straight through the floor.
Clint let his head drop back against the headrest as a low, humorless huff of a laugh escaped him, and he shook his head in disbelief as he darted his eyes away from the windshield to glance back at his companion.
"Oh, man, you just never quit, do you?"
Holden stared pensively back, the obvious threat of Clint simply bashing his skull in then and there clearly battling to outweigh the man's professional curiosity. He didn't answer as he shifted his gaze away.
Several minutes passed in tense silence as Clint refocused on the empty road, and then-
"You might want to hang on to something, doc, things are about to get dicey."
Clint slammed down on the gas pedal, startling the doctor into giving a shout as he flew back against the seat. The Civic thrummed unhappily as the tires screeched over black ice, and Clint redlined it towards the solitary car making it's way towards them from the city. He narrowed his eyes as he hovered his hand over the gun on the seat next to him, his eyes skipping between the mile markers and the car speeding closer with what he only hoped was the sample.
Four miles between them.
Three miles.
Two miles.
One mile and he could see the outline of a thick necked man driving with a wiry, long haired woman in the passenger seat.
Clint gripped the wheel with both hands and turned harshly to the left, then to the right, then back again, causing the old car to swerve uncontrollably across both icy lanes of the road. Skidding dangerously back into the right lane and almost off of the pavement on two tires, he gave the wheel one last, almighty pull and spun out across the lanes, coming to a screeching stop in the middle of the road barely fifteen feet in front of the traitors' car, effectively blocking the highway. He let loose a loud, inarticulate scream as he did so, and as the car came to a horribly noisy stop on the ice, he slumped over the wheel with his face turned towards the driver side window in the opposite direction of the car he only hoped would stop in time. He had positioned the car as best he could, and if he had landed where he had hoped to, there would be no going around the sedan without some show of force.
He only hoped Lucas didn't decide to just ram them and be done with it.
His hand found the pistol on his seat, and he gripped it as solidly as he could around the makeshift bandage coating his hand. With that, he clenched his eyes shut and began praying to whatever god was out there that the damn dream team would investigate.
An unnerving few seconds passed before he heard the slam of a car door.
The sound of hurried footsteps on the slippery road reached his ears through the open windows, and he heard a muffled "what the devil" through the passenger side window that gave away just who had come running.
It was Lucas.
The thumping of his footfalls on the pavement moved around the car to the drive's side, and the man's throaty voice came through the cracked window. "What the hell was that? You drunk or something?" When he saw Clint, covered in nicks and cuts and thin rivulets of blood running down his face (and for all appearances passed out over the wheel), he reached for the door, wrenching it easily open.
And boy, did it put a damper on his day to see the pistol aimed right at his goods.
Clint's eyes popped open at the sound of strangled surprise from Lucas, and he lifted both the gun and his head simultaneously. "Ah, let's not," he said as Lucas darted a glance to the other car. "Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise would you?" Clint gave a lightning quick glance to the other car, noting the agitated expression on Doctor Petrosyan's face in the passenger seat. Turning his attention back to Lucas, he spoke up.
"Doctor Holden, if you would please go get your sample so we could be done with this mess, it would be much appreciated."
Lucas' eyes bugged at the statement, and the man laughed in utter disbelief. "Holden? Doctor Holden? Who the hell do you think you are? He's dead, pal! We got the whole unit!"
The doctor chose that moment to pop his head out from beneath the blanket in the back, a shit eating grin plastered all over his ecstatic face. "Did they? Well, that's odd, I feel pretty good for a dead man."
Lucas just about lost it.
"Ah, ah, ah," Clint reproached when the man took a step forward, waving the pistol slightly for emphasis. "Stay right there, 'pal'. Doctor Holden, the sample, if you please. And let our friend over there know that she should join the party; she's missing out on the fun."
Holden slipped out the opposite door, and Clint couldn't help the glance he threw out the passenger side window. The scientist's face was slack with shock as she realized who it was walking towards her, and as she started scrabbling for the driver's seat, Holden broke into a sprint, reaching the car before she could so much as unbuckle her seatbelt. The doctor's smug "now really, darling" carried over the distance easily, but the rest of the conversation was lost to the road.
Clint stepped out of the car then, motioning with his gun for Lucas to step around to the trunk. The man glared absolute daggers at him, and Clint stared impassively back as he smothered any and all urges to wince at the sudden shooting pain in his foot. He spoke just as much to distract himself as to mess with the man in front of him.
"What, you got something to say?"
He paused just long enough for the man to open his mouth before he continued.
"Good, keep it that way."
He motioned for the space just beside the trunk as Lucas spat a vehement curse at him. Keeping his gaze trained on the steely deserter, Clint popped the trunk open before stepping back and staring solidly at his hostage. The click of heels and the crunch of ice accompanied by a colorful string of Armenian curses announced the presence of the scientist and Doctor Holden. Holden gave Lucas a wide berth, and his face positively shone in its smugness as he clutched the hideous case holding the precious sample to his chest. Doctor Petrosyan stepped up beside her companion, a scowl on her face as she stared at the pistol in Clint's hand. He rolled his shoulders slightly, the relief of the stunt working threatening to crash on him before he was prepared for it.
"Right," he started, "Doctor Holden, put the sample in the front seat. Then come back and help me with these two."
The doctor nodded sharply before scurrying to offload his case. He returned shortly to see Clint tilting his head towards the trunk. "Grab the tire chains and the bungee cords there. Oh, and the lock packet, we'll be needing those too."
Holden gave Clint a curious look as he rummaged through the trunk and brought out the chains. "Where the hell did these come from?"
Clint grinned ruefully, his eyes never leaving the two in front of him. "Un Fantôme has a way of delivering."
He could see the raised eyebrow the doctor gave him out of the corner of his vision, and he rolled his eyes. "The gas station, genius. Would you hurry it up?"
Lucas spat at his feet suddenly, and Clint regarded him with a quirked brow of his own as the man before him spoke venomously. "Who the absolute hell are you? Did that bastard Fury set you after us before he kicked the bucket?"
An enormous shower of ice fell over Clint just then.
Or at least, that's what it had felt like. He stared blankly at Lucas for a split second as the words slammed into his consciousness. Kicked the bucket? Fury was dead? No, that must have been some kind of half baked lie.
Of all the people who could have gone down with the agency, Clint had never expected Fury to be one of them.
He cooly kept his game face on as he regarded Lucas despite the whirlwind of thoughts in his brain. He turned his lips downward slightly in a mocking frown. "No one "sets" me on anyone. I decide who to wreck all by my self." He gave the man a childish grin as Lucas seethed.
The defector glared at him in full as the scientist shifted beside him, snapping her own pathetic threats as Clint looked on, careful boredom on his face. "I hope you plan on sleeping with one eye open, pig, because after this, nowhere will be safe. Believe me. They will find you."
Clint considered the words thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging. "Eh. Nowhere sounds pretty good to me."
The dumbstruck looks he got in return made him dip his head in utter disbelief. "Nowhere? You said… 'nowhere will be safe'? It's… it's a play on words… it's… you know what, just shut up and stop disrupting the class, alright?"
Lucas eyed Doctor Holden in turn when he reemerged from the trunk, chains and locks in hand. Ignoring Clint, the defector pressed on, snagging Holden's attention as he straightened out. "And what about you, doctor? You don't exactly have a lab to be going back to. Just what do you plan on doing with that virus of yours?"
Holden froze in his tracks before turning to eye the man slowly. Taking this as a cue to continue, Lucas pressed on. "You have nothing now. Nothing. No resources, no lab, no subjects, no funding. Nothing. The agency doesn't even exist anymore!" He barely paused for breath as Holden narrowed his eyes at him. "We can give you what you need. Money. Privacy. Staff. Whatever you need, we can provide it. But the way you're going now, you'll have nothing to work with-"
"Aaaaaalright, that's enough out of you for now." Clint stepped forward, glancing uncertainly to the doctor as Lucas continued to ramble over Clint's words. Holden had remained silent, his eyes carefully glazed and just as void of emotion as ever.
And yet, he appeared to genuinely be considering the offer.
Clint felt a snap of dread run through him as he could feel the situation beginning to spiral out of his control.
"I said, that's enough, Lucas."
Lucas ignored him again, his eyes riveted on Doctor Holden, his final play full of such carefully cloaked desperate barter-ship. "You know I'm right. You have nothing. We can fix that. You demand, we can supply. Doctor Petrosyan could work with you. She's highly capable, I'm sure you've been needing an assistant who's worth a damn-"
Clint did the only logical thing to get things back in his favor.
He pistol whipped Lucas over the head, knocking the man groaning into unconsciousness and landing him in a heap at the scientist's feet.
There was a stunned silence then as Clint glared down at the man before he turned to look between the doctor and the scientist. His eyes settled slowly on Holden, who still had that unnerving spark of uncertainty in his eyes. Clint shrugged lightly as he turned the gun back on Petrosyan.
"Could you imagine living with a voice like that?"
The quip shook some movement back into the doctor, and he shook his head grimly, his mouth a taught, flat line as he stepped forward with the cords.
Clint did the honors of trussing up their traitors while the doctor looked on. He locked the tire chains with a sharp click around their respective arms and torsos, tugging at them to ensure they were tightly secured before making a wide gesture for the trunk.
"Your chariot awaits."
He gave the glare he received from the scientist the best infomercial worthy grin he could before stepping forward and scooping up Lucas with a barely muffled grunt as his hurt shoulder twinged in protest, dumping him unceremoniously into the trunk once he had him secured. The doctor had the scientist follow shortly after, his eyes staring impassively back at her as she spat more increasingly creative curses in his face. Once they were wedged uncomfortably (much to Clint's delight), the archer snatched the bungee cords from the doctor's free hand and wound them tightly around the ankles of both of their hostages. The scientist fairly growled at him as he moved to close the trunk. "Hey now, don't be like that. We're going in the same direction, I figured I'd spare you the hassle of driving." She spat another long string of harsh curses then, and Clint found his eyes drooping slightly.
Honestly, the nerve of prisoners these days.
A sudden skkkrtch broke the vehement cursing, and a hand appeared out of nowhere to slap a short strip of dusty duct tape over the woman's mouth, effectively silencing the bug eyed scientist. Clint blinked in astonishment before looking up to see Holden holding the small roll of grey tape from the gas station. The doctor gave a halfhearted shrug.
"You're lucky I didn't use it on you these last few days."
Clint gave him a look before turning back to the trunk and shutting it with a solid click. Once the two were out of view, he heaved an enormous breath in and let it out with an audible whoosh, planting a hand on the side of the car and leaning heavily into it as a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up in his chest. He reigned it in before it could escape and turned to the doctor, who was standing entirely still from the shock of what had just happened. They had recovered the sample.
Against all odds, they got it back.
Clint really needed that beer Jeff had offered right about now.
He gave the doctor a tired nod as the man shifted from one foot to the next beside him, obviously anxious. "I don't know about you, but I've had just about enough of Canada."
Holden gave the slightest of grins as he nodded fervently and made his way around to the front of the car, heaving open the passenger door and rearranging the sample case to make room for himself. Clint shook his head wryly, refusing to give in to the weight of the relief that wanted to swamp him at getting the sample back. They weren't out of the woods just yet. He needed to follow this through to the bitter end.
He took the liberty of pulling the car the defectors had driven up in off of the road, parking it well out of the way, wedged solidly in a snow drift. He shut the door behind him with a satisfying slam as he made his way back to the Civic. The authorities would find it eventually, but by then, they'd be long gone.
Clint slid easily into the driver's seat, and in seconds they were back on the road, a sense of uneasiness hovering thickly in the cabin despite the sample being clutched to the doctor's torso. Lucas' words reverberated in both their minds, although the consequences couldn't have been any more different.
The agency doesn't even exist anymore!
Clint had been ignoring the thought for as long as he could, but now, in the silent aftermath of completing the mission, he was forced to consider it. Where would they go? They didn't exactly have a base to go back to if everything had been shut down. One of the safe houses? They might be monitored. Or gone, even. There was one person he truly trusted enough to go to in a situation like this.
He'd have to contact Natasha.
It took a long moment for his brain to belatedly tack 'and Steve, and Tony, and Bruce, and Thor' onto that quick decision.
He still wasn't quite used to the whole "rah rah, super teammates" shtick.
Still, he figured New York would be as good a place as any to regroup and share what he had learned with the team. He said as such to the doctor, who simply inclined his head in quiet agreement.
The drive was silent for one mile after the next, and Clint slid his eyes to scrutinize his quiet companion. The doctor's eyes were fixed firmly on the road ahead, and his white knuckled grip on the sample had yet to loosen a single iota. Clint furrowed his brow and turned his focus back to the road.
Several days with the man and he still couldn't understand him.
The only compassion he had seemed to be for his work, and yet the endgame of the work he did appeared to be revolting to him. He clearly had emotions, but he refused to acknowledge their existence. He seemed willing to sacrifice a good deal of great for the greater good on a moment's notice, and yet he still created these tiny substances with unfathomable consequences for humanity.
He was an enigma that Clint had given up on unraveling.
But it wasn't the mannerisms of the man himself that Clint couldn't understand.
It was the questions.
The questions. Clint had yet to go a day since the New York fiasco without thinking back on his mind control from the bastard Loki, but the doctor's constant pestering had brought the whole ordeal under a different light. He saw it as a potential study with no regard to the damage the invasion had on Clint's mind. The questions, always the questions. Did he eat? Did he sleep? Did he feel? Could he hear? Why didn't he fight it? Was he aware?
Was he aware?
Was he aware?
Damn it all, of course he was. And if he could have screamed at the time, his throat would have run raw only minutes into his mind being forcefully yanked from his possession. He remembered every detail in gruesome color, as if Loki had wanted him to carry the weight of what he had done with him for whatever remained of his miserable life.
The give of agents' flesh under his arrows, innocent and not so falling left and right to his skills. The swift, unmerciful twist of a man's neck. The demand for a man's eyeball to be ripped straight from his skull. The precision in his timed explosions, watching as the base, his base plummeted from the sky, killing God knew how many more. His thoughts, no, not his! But they were his, poisonous and vile and plotting and scheming and stop stop stop, make it stop, please make it stop, get it out get it out getitoutstopstopstoppleasestoppleasestoppleasestopstopstopstopstopstop-
"Agent Barton!"
Doctor Holden's sharp call sucked Clint out of his unwitting trance, and he swerved wildly to avoid running the car straight off of the bridge he abruptly realized they were on. He sucked in a shaky breath, and the moment they were off the bridge, he pulled to the side of the road, jamming on the brakes as an involuntary groan left his lips and he planted his forehead firmly on the steering wheel. He could feel the doctor watching him curiously, and the prickling of his cool gaze on the back of his neck snapped something holding him back. After a short pause, he held a hand up to the doctor, stopping what he already knew was coming without so much as moving his head.
"No, damn you. Shut up."
The doctor had the nerve to sound offended. "I didn't say anything."
Clint lifted his head tiredly then, his hands searching for the wires beneath the wheel to re-spark the stalled car. "Yeah, well, you thought about it."
Holden ignored the comment as his eyes remained glued to Clint's face, his gaze giving nothing away as he continued softly. "I don't understand why you're so vehemently against sharing what happened. It seems perfectly logical to release the information so as to vent the experience-"
"Screw logic, this is my sanity we're talking about here! I never want to have to relive what I went though again, you got that? " The comment made the doctor bristle, and he lost the uncharacteristic softness his tone had taken on briefly.
"Just think of what you can give us this way, Barton!" The doctor sounded professionally flustered, causing Clint to laugh bitterly.
"I'm already offering my life for you people, what more do you want?"
He appeared to have caught his companion at a loss there, as the man shut his mouth into a tight line and furrowed his brow, his eyes troubled behind his thin glasses. The silence was awkward and seething with turmulous emotion, and Clint was glad to have a distraction in the form of the car restarting and pulling back into the slow trickle of traffic that had gradually increased the closer they came to Toronto. The quiet only lasted a few short minutes before the doctor cleared his throat noisily.
"If you don't mind me asking, how are you planning on getting back into the states with two people chained up in your trunk?"
Oh.
Oops.
Clint shut his eyes briefly when he was certain he wouldn't run ramrod into the car in front of him and inhaled deeply. He spoke heavily on the exhale. "Any suggestions from the peanut gallery, because believe me, I am all ears-"
He was cut off suddenly by a sharp cry of warning from the doctor, this time directed outside of the car. Clint whipped around in his seat, eyes widening as he saw a large van hurtling towards them from across the lanes on the wrong side of the road.
He spun the wheel abruptly with a tense curse, but as he maneuvered the car out of the way, the van changed it's course and veered right into their path again.
A sharp jolt of shocked understanding ran through him.
It was deliberate.
Clint veered sharply to the right in a last ditch attempt at shaking the van off, but the driver apparently saw the maneuver coming, as he mimicked the movement exactly and floored the gas, the distance between the two cars closing rapidly. Clint's eyes widened as the car swerved one last time, the oncoming van that was speeding towards them suddenly filling the windshield.
It was only in the moment of impact when Clint decided right then and there that he absolutely despised Canada.
