Stark and Barton had spent their time reviewing the files that Romanoff had given them; those, combined with the stories and cases that Clint provided, gave them a shot at a decent argument. Even after Tony was forced back to his accommodations, leaving his friend in that hell hole alone, he continued to go over the files.
His escort to the proceedings arrived at too early an hour in Tony's opinion. Based on the description Barton had given him, he surmised that it was Agent Mason in the flesh. Stark could feel that nervous twitch which caused him to punch people in the nose coming on.
"What, no continental breakfast to start the day off?" quipped Iron Man.
Mason smiled. "If you want breakfast, I'm sure we can oblige. You're not going to get the traitorous rat off anyways, so the time you take out for breakfast isn't going to do any harm to your case."
Shooting to his feet, Stark came up short as he saw Mason's hand move reflexively to his gun; the two stared each other down for a moment. Tony was much more comfortable performing heroic feats in his suit; but he never wanted to pound someone's face in with his bare hands more than that moment.
"If you'll follow me, we can begin this sideshow."
Keeping it together, Tony grabbed his phone with the files he was going to present and followed the agent to the meeting room; it was similar to the one that Fury had aboard the helicarrier. Not wanting to do anything in person, the council had five screens set up at the front of the room. A table was placed to one side and two chairs were behind it. One chair was bolted to the floor and had several metal hoops welded to the arms and legs for shackles to be secured to.
There was a large guard stationed at the door he had just entered through and another one at the door on the other side of the room. Barton was dragged through the other door and secured to the chair. Tony rolled his eyes; they weren't taking any chances with the Avengers. The prisoner's escorts took up position at the back of the room and Mason stood in front of the screens as they flickered to life.
"Council members, Director Fury and the rest of the Avengers initiative which I'm sure are just off screen from you Director, Mr. Stark and former Agent Barton are present."
"Still pretty sure he's an agent," objected Stark.
"Thank you Agent Mason. If we can proceed Mr. Stark," said council member two.
Mason smiled at his slight victory, as Stark moved to stand in front of the screens. Barton's gaze followed Mason as he moved to the back of the room; he had a feeling that Mason was going to be an obstacle for them.
"Once again I'd like to suggest that we put an end to this waste of time and declare Barton innocent, then we can all go out to the local Chilli's and get some ribs or something. Who's with me?"
"Mr. Stark if you can't be serious about this we can move straight to sentencing," cautioned the third council member.
"Alright can I present case number one of four thousand sixty-eight of Barton being a hero. I believe its case file number 136948-25Q in the files I'm sending you now." Tony punched a button on his phone and began sending his information along the SHIELD signal he'd high-jacked.
The hours passed as Tony cited example after example of the good work Clint had done during his time at SHIELD, and the council countered with another example of insubordination and order defiance; though the council was starting to sound like a broken record with their examples, while Tony still had many more tunes to sing for them.
The sheer volume of successful missions took hours to rattle off; and even the cases where Barton had a questionable interpretation of his orders and mission parameters, usually ended in a success one way or another. Everyone present knew the archer's record spoke for itself, but if there was a point to nitpick the council was all over it; apparently orders were orders no matter how stupid or useless they were. There was also an under lying tone of 'you're only as good as your last mission', and those were the ones that Stark knew would strike up the greatest debate.
A recess was declared and everyone took a break from the proceedings; the council's screens went blank as well as Fury's.
"It's not going well," muttered Clint. He had probably spoken more in the last few hours than he had all year. He'd certainly spent more energy defending himself and his actions than he had when he had been disciplined for them the first time.
"It's hard to tell, they don't really give you anything do they?" Tony was finding it hard to read the council members; they were as impassive as Coulson had been. The world could be ending and you wouldn't be able to detect any change in them. "Seriously Barton, you're so straight laced, when did you find time to be this rebellious," asked Stark waving his hand over the list of counter points that had been uttered.
Clint shrugged his shoulders, "I'm no Captain America."
An evil smile spread across Tony's face; they were definitely going to have to start bonding when all this was done. There was unquestionably a kindred spirit in there, underneath the cool SHIELD operative, that Stark could definitely sway to the dark side.
Sitting in silence they both pondered what was going to come next. So far they had just gone over Clint's records. There was nothing overly incriminating there; the real issues would come up when they started discussing Manhattan and beyond.
With the break over and the proceedings back under way, Tony learned that the council wasn't going to pull any punches. The more they continued, the more Clint's shoulders slumped and the angrier Stark got.
"The real matter here is that Barton has demonstrated twice now that he is a direct threat to this organization and the operatives working for it. He is directly responsible for eighty-four deaths and that's not counting collateral damage during his partnership with Loki. That alone should have had him terminated," hissed the first council member.
"I may have killed all of those agents, but you were prepared to level a city," snapped Clint.
"We're not the ones on trial here, Barton."
"Maybe you should be," countered Stark.
"When we give orders that put agents lives on the line, it's for the good of the world; they die heroes. The men and women that died under Barton's hand did so because he was too weak to break the puppet strings."
Stark slammed his fist down on the table, earning a slight flinch from Barton who was slowly becoming more focused on his own internal debate regarding his guilt. "For the last time it wasn't a 'partnership'! According to the reports from the scene, even the one by Fury; Agent Barton was defending the base against Loki until the blue glowing stick of destiny was brought into the equation. Given the choice he would have put an arrow in Loki's heart over working for the lunatic."
"You seem to have a lot of excuses for Barton. 'Oh it was drugs; oh it was mind control,' both of which I do believe we train our agents to withstand. Do you agree?" questioned the fourth council member.
The archer replied, "We weren't trained for anything thing like this."
"Yes or no Barton; were you or were you not trained to resist drugs and mind control?" reaffirmed the second shadowy figure.
"Yes."
"And clearly you failed at resisting on both occasions?"
"Yes, but..."
"Yes or no!"
"Yes."
"Further investigation has proven that there is no conclusive evidence that if Loki should escape his prison on Asguard and return to Earth that you wouldn't be subject to him again. Do you agree?"
"Based on what your report says, I guess, but..." a stern glare from the people on the screens stop Clint and had him rephrase. "Yes." He was digging his own grave and pulling Tony down with him. He wasn't given any room to qualify his responses, and he knew they were doing it on purpose. The quest for right and answers flew out the window at the start of the proceedings.
"This is ridiculous; not unlike your inability to do this in person. If you're going to condemn someone without giving them a chance to defend themselves, then you could at least have the guts to do it in person," snapped Stark.
Unable to keep the anger out of her voice, council member one retorted, "we are giving him a chance to defend himself but, as you can see, there isn't any way to justify his actions."
"Bullshit! The guy had no choice; and when your little serum caused him to go temporarily crazy, his course of action was to let us kill him so he wouldn't hurt anyone. Does that sound like something a threat would do?" demanded Iron Man.
"Barton failed to stop Loki, failed to stop himself from killing his fellow agents, civilians and almost destroying the helicarrier. He failed to perform at the bank, and he failed to keep the situation at Stark Tower from escalating to the level it did. Barton is a failure, and doesn't deserve to be a part of this organization. The only thing he actually did succeed at was getting Loki everything he needed to open the portal and almost destroying the helicarrier!"
"Proving he has a very valuable skill set; who else could have accomplished so much so fast. That's definitely someone to have on your side."
"He even confessed to treason before these proceedings were scheduled," countered the second council member.
"He did that to protect us, his teammates. That's what he does when he's not putting arrows through bad guys for you."
Clint listened to the whole world arguing about him. He wanted to win this to keep Tony safe; but they were right, he'd failed. He had failed in all the ways the council highlighted and he was currently failing to protect Tony. How many times would he have to hear it; each time the words rolled off of their lips a sharp pain flared in the archer.
"We've heard enough. The council will deliberate and come back with the verdict," informed the fourth member.
"It's not nearly enough because you haven't been listening to what we've said," countered the billionaire.
The archer's head snapped up. They couldn't be done yet; he needed them to let Tony go. "Wait! I can't argue with your opinion of me and those things..."
"Clint, don't cater to them," warned Tony.
Barton continued without hesitation, "I did them, the circumstances are debatable but at the end of the day it was my hand that released the arrows that killed those agents. We both knew how this was going to play out today and I probably deserve whatever you decide; but the Avengers are heroes, they saved the world and they'll do it again. But if you do this to Stark and the rest of them, you'll be destroying the best thing that was ever conceived by this organization. On behalf of all the innocent people on this planet I ask that you don't take that away."
"We'll take that under advisement Agent Barton," said the third council member before the screens went black and they started to deliberate.
"That was really heartfelt Clint," said Stark, pretending to wipe away a fake tear.
"Shut up Tony. You have to get out of here."
"Seriously, that gave me goosebumps. I'd find you innocent after that, but I thought you were innocent to start with. Don't worry, they're not locking me up," assured Stark though looking around the room at the various guards he was starting to second guess the backup plan.