Chapter 9: Easy to Wipe Off
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"Colonel Rhodes has arrived," Jarvis announced into the tense silence, and Sitwell paused, straightening from his slouch at the central console, and turned in time to watch the doors to the media room slide open. Rhodes wasn't wearing his armour, but Sitwell knew for a fact that he had been on the other side of the country just a few hours ago, which meant he must have flown back in his suit, and it was ready for deployment. The fact that he was walking around a close-fitting black outfit, much like Tony's own for beneath the armour, added weight to that observation.
"Colonel," Sitwell greeted and stood to meet him.
"Agent Sitwell," Rhodes shook his hand, grip a bit too firm (as usual) and stood back to nod at Natasha and Steve from where they worked at the other side of the large table. "Sit rep?" he asked, and Sitwell didn't bother spouting off some bullshit about this being an internal SHIELD and Avenger issue that the military wasn't cleared for. This was Tony's oldest friend, and Sitwell wasn't dumb enough to try and segregate him from the search and rescue. He also wasn't dumb enough to dismiss a powerful ally, or a good man.
"You might want to grab a coffee," Sitwell gestured to the table on the side of the room, where Bruce and Steve had set up a coffee machine and assortment of food Jarvis had provided. "It's not a short story."
Rhodes did as suggested, in for the long haul, and Sitwell shared a look of approval with Steve.
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Clint was fidgeting. Tony pretended not to watch as Clint worried the flesh beside his thumbnail with his teeth and picked at it with his nails. He stopped every time he caught himself doing it, balling his hand into a fist with his thumbs tucked inside his grip.
Then he would pluck at his clothes; tug at the shimmery, too loose collar of the baggy white shirt, twist the hem of his dark pant leg until it was wrapped tightly around his ankle, which made his bared feet look smaller. It made still covered feet feel colder, because it didn't matter how controlled the temperature of the test tubes masquerading as cages were, metal slabs and floors were cold.
Tony didn't bother asking how Clint was. It was pretty clear how he was, and pretty clear there was nothing they could do about it.
Until Tony could find a way out of this, they were stuck.
He had hope that the team would swoop in and save the day in a timely fashion. He trusted them to be busting their proverbial balls trying to find them, because that's how the Avengers worked, but he was a realist. Being a realist meant never relying on anyone to save you, it was just really nice when they did.
He watched Clint bite at his thumb again, scowl at himself, and then thump his head against the wall.
Tony followed suit, and then winced.
And now his headache was back full force. Great.
The scientists were preparing for something, and it was clear that Clint was not unaware of this as his agitation was becoming more evident by the minute. Tony was at a loss as to what to do, not really one for comforting people of any age, but he had the distinct impression something was going to give soon and it wouldn't be pretty. At a loss for how to calm his young friend he figured the only thing he could really fall back on was a time honed skill: distraction.
Eyeing Clint through the glass, now smudged in places from where they had both pressed against it, he figured he might as well also get some answers to a question that would just not leave him alone.
"How did you know which car to climb into?" Tony shifted to a slightly more comfortable position as he asked. Clint didn't open his eyes, but he shrugged gamely despite the gesture lacking any kind of energy.
"Happy sets the cars up in a specific order every time he comes in. 'Emergency incognito' is closest to the door," he explained. "Then the 'armoured SUV'; the 'I'm important and on official business' car; the 'I'm important, badass, stupidly rich and on official business' car; and the 'sexy touring' car. All the cars you might need at the drop of a hat and not from your private collection." Then he smirked. "They're your bullet proof cars."
"Bullet resistant," Tony corrected distractedly, because there was no such thing as bullet proof, though he'd come pretty close to perfecting it. He'd never noticed the specificity of the set-up before, because Happy always had those cars waiting out front for him. Also, he'd never cared. He thought about it some more…yeah no, he still didn't care. The fact that Clint noticed though, that was interesting. "You were planning your escape for a while then," he mused, careful to keep his tone light. Clint snorted, and it wasn't a happy sound.
"You could say that," he agreed, and Tony was glad the kid had his eyes closed, so he couldn't see Tony's discontent, which was probably leaking out of his pores at this point. "No offence."
"Exactly how am I not supposed to be offended here?"
There was a stretch of uncomfortable silence.
"I chose the sedan 'cause I figured Happy would want fast, plain, and it was the first car in the line," Clint answered the original question finally, and Tony shook his head. "I knew you'd go to Barney because I looked up the address of his prison twice on your computers and figured Jarvis would tell you."
"You're lucky Happy was even around to drive," Tony pointed out somewhat snidely. "He generally runs Pepper's protection detail these days," and therefore Tony would have taken a car from his own collection, or just used his suit.
"Yeah whatever, like he hasn't been based at the tower since we went to the helicarrier. Want to tell me why you're suddenly worried enough about security to station him back at the Tower?" Clint sneered right back, then grimaced, the skin around his eyes crinkling in pain. He hunched over with one hand pressed to his ear.
"What is it?" Tony asked, quiet but urgent. Glass prisons were worse than metal bars, because it was so easy to envision taking the one big step over to reach Clint, to check him over, until you were physically reminded of the separation. Fucking mind games.
Clint shook his head minutely a few times, like he was trying to dislodge water from his ear.
"Clint?" Tony asked again, putting some authority into his tone this time, and was rewarded when Clint took a breath and loosened his posture a little.
"'s nothing," Clint insisted softly, still not opening his eyes. "Just- future ideas of security protocol, potential threat assessment, interior and exterior schematics, how to make a bomb with a pair of binoculars and- all that kind of shit. It just rolled in for a minute. I'm good now, back in the present."
Okayyyy…yeah, this didn't sound particularly good. Or maybe it was good, because it indicated that Clint's adult memories might be returning, and that might mean a return to his adult body? Maybe? Whatever it meant, there wasn't much Tony could do about it from his separate cell anyway, so back to their conversation it was. Joy of joys.
"You ask me why I'd be worried about security when we're where again, exactly?" He didn't bother holding back the sarcasm, because it was a stupid question and Clint was better than that, barely pubescent or not. Clint blinked at him, and then focused on picking at a thread on his knees.
"Shut-up," he muttered, and Tony didn't bother to look away from him, noting the slightly shaking hands and controlled breathing.
"You shut up," Tony muttered back, not exactly maturely, but Clint's lips twitched and he stopped picking at his knee. He still looked so forlorn. Tony couldn't resist, he had to say something because it was just eating at him, and looking at Clint, all quiet and trying to hide how scared he was, it was just too much. Plus, he might not be gassed right now, but Tony was pretty sure whatever was in the atmospheric cocktail they kept hitting him with was still affecting his empathy. Yup, pretty sure that was what it was.
"Look," he started, and tried to seem as sincere as he ever had while saying something he meant. Clint instantly looked cagey, so it might not have been working out as well as he'd hoped. Whatever. "We may have got off on the wrong foot way back when we first met-"
"You attacked me in a parking lot and then took me prisoner," Clint interrupted without hesitation. Tony chose to ignore him. Mostly. The little shit.
"-what with me saving you in a parking lot and then providing a safe place to live," he informed the kid. Clint didn't seem overly moved by his words but Tony liked to think he knew Clint well enough to see through his bullshit facades by now, and he had Clint's full attention. "Thing is, I consider you a friend-"
"You consider the older me a friend. Hawkeye the Avenger, not Hawkeye the teenage tool."
"Oh man-" Tony sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, annoyed. "The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure Older you is carting around just as many insecurities as you, and it's pretty pitiful."
"Shut up," Clint snarled, and this time there was real intent behind the words. Good.
"Make me," Tony mocked. Clint glared. Tony rolled his eyes at him, working him into even more of a temper. Anything had to be better than Clint focusing on their imprisonment and being scared.
"You are such a dick," Clint snapped.
"Woah! There it is!" Tony threw a hand out demonstratively. "Why don't you try saying something original for once, huh?"
"Fuck you!" Clint hissed, "You think I'm weak?" and that was unexpected and off topic. "You think you know anything about me?!" That: not so much off topic.
"What am I supposed to think?" Tony asked, using far more irritation than he felt. "You're sitting over there complaining about how you're 'not my friend' because I don't 'know you?' Cry me a river, kid! I don't have to know you nearly as well as you think I do to consider you a friend, so get over it already!"
"I don't have friends," Clint snarled. "And I sure as hell don't want one that thinks I can't handle myself."
"I'm not the one implying you can't handle yourself here," Tony pointed out, wondering exactly where Clint was going with this. Wondering what dam was trying to break, wondering if this was ultimately going to help, or fuck the kid up even further.
"You better not be." Clint actually bared his teeth at Tony, a hint of savageness present that Tony had only ever glimpsed from a distance and under the most trying circumstances. "Because I can handle this! We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you!" he accused, eyes wide and furious. Tony decided not to take the attack personally. He would try not to, at least.
"Pointing fingers now? How mature. Fine then, if we're playing that game then are you so sure we're here because of me?" Tony argued back, turning back to his patented mocking tone. "Because if I recall correctly, it was you that tricked us into leaving my nice, safe and secure tower for a joy ride to visit your, dare I say 'charming' brother."
"You didn't have to go looking for me!" Clint looked a little wild now, but the savageness was gone. His emotions were all over the place. "You should have just let me go!"
"Like hell I will! Anything could happen to you! Point in fact!" Tony gestured widely around at the lab they were trapped in.
"What the hell do you care? What is so fucking important about me that you think I need your help? That I want it? You think I believe that you just want me to live in your- your-" he floundered a little, cheeks red and eyes darting around, avoiding Tony now. "Your tower in the fucking clouds? For nothing? You think I believed you when you said I could stay if I just "helped out" occasionally? What a pile of shit! Nobody does that, not for free!"
"I do," Tony said, all fight gone from his tone, because winding the kid up wasn't working anymore, and how could someone fight that?
"Yeah, right," Clint sneered, "because you have the money to spare. Newsflash: you won't keep me that long. Sooner or later this idea you have of taking in poor little orphan Clint, living in this future while stuck in the past, it will turn cold. Cold like a dead fucking cat, and then you and the rest of them will want me gone. Unless you can think of a more lucrative investment you can turn me into."
"Fucking hell," Tony muttered under his breath, stumped by how much Clint meant everything he was saying. Horrified at all the things this boy and his cold, hard eyes were implying.
"And I am done being a fucking tool. I am done!" Clint pressed his fingers to his temples, eyes scrunching and losing a bit of focus, but he kept his snarl in place. Kept it in place for whomever he was yelling at now, because Tony recognized that look: he was drifting to his 'other' life. Tony pressed his lips together and kept his silence. He didn't want to interrupt. He wanted to know. What was wrong with him that he wanted to know? "I'm not your charity case," Clint ground out, "or your show pony, and I am not going to keep- keep fighting for your fucking profit! You think I don't know what you're training me to become!? You think I'm stupid because I don't go to school? You think I'm blind?" he hissed, and his glazed blue eyes looked right through Tony. "I see more than you think," he warned through clenched teeth.
"Of that I have no doubt," Tony agreed.
Clint stilled, took a few deep, raging gulps of air, before blinking and shaking his head. His hand slipped away from his temple, he refocused on Tony and this time Tony knew he was back in this presence again.
Clint looked away, pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His shimmering white sleeves had been pushed up past his elbows, the bruises on his wrist and reddened forearms carelessly exposed. When the oppressive silence that followed made it clear he wasn't adding anything more despite the fact that he was still pissed, Tony rolled his own shoulders to try and get rid of some tension. It didn't help.
"When we get out of here the first thing you're doing is redecorating your room," Tony announced, and Clint looked at him with a confused frown. "If you want," he added.
"It's like you don't listen to anything people yell at you," Clint said with a worrying depth of cynicism.
"No, get this; it's like immersion therapy, only instead of making you deal with your fear of abandonment all at once, we're just going to keep involving you in our life until you start to get that you're stuck with us."
"That sounds like Stockholm syndrome," Clint muttered with a disgruntled look.
"Teenagers who don't go to school don't get to reference concepts I refuse to acknowledge," Tony flapped a hand at him, and Clint snorted. "Seriously though," Tony continued, and found it pretty amazing that somehow, after everything that had just been revealed, he had managed to come back to his original point in this conversation. Tony liked making his points. His points were important. "Would you please stop trying to run away," he held up a hand when Clint glared at him, looking ready to launch right back into another tirade. "I'm not saying you have to like living with me, with all of us," he included the absent Avengers. "I'm not even saying that they'll always be around, but what I am saying is that you will never be kicked out of my home. It's yours now too. There will be no throwing you to the curb, and no leaving you behind and no forcing you to be a sideshow attraction or- or whatever they're making you do. You're stuck with me. And all my money. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out a way to survive the horror."
"You believe that now," Clint smiled grimly, "and it's a nice idea, but-"
"But you don't believe me. I get it." Tony refused to snap in frustration. It was like talking to Dum-E: Clint heard him, but just didn't compute. "We'll work on that once we're out of here." Or, you know, he'd tell Steve all about this and let Captain Self-Esteem loose on the kid. The less Tony had to deal with this emotional bullshit the better.
"Whatever," Clint grumbled, and rested his cheek on his knees, showing Tony the back of his head and they lapsed into silence. Tony felt old and sick.
Such was life.
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She was a shadow, moving between the world of light but not lost to darkness; not anymore.
She was silent and sleek and well aware of every move she made, deliberate and unhindered.
Natasha waited until he was alone, waited until he left SHIELD and wandered the streets of Manhattan untethered. She waited until he finished the phone conversation he believed was secure, and intercepted his path.
"Walk with me quietly," she smiled sunnily at him as she linked her arm with Samuels, "or never walk again."
Taking him from the public eye was child's play.
She knew by the tremor he was trying to hide that getting what she wanted from him would be too easy in the end. Perhaps she'd make it more difficult though; she had some issues she'd like to work out before she got Clint and Tony back.
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Being taken to use the toilet in a room just off the lab was a relief. Waiting for them to bring Clint back from the same trip had left Tony damn near fidgeting with tension. There was no chance to make an escape attempt, and Tony learned nothing new of the facility, and when it was done and they were both back in their glass boxes, they remained quiet. It was a long time before Clint shifted and broke their heavy silence.
"You're dust," Clint announced, tentatively like he was taking the words on a test run. Tony sat back on his platform, pressed up against the wall and looked through the glass at Clint. His breath fogged it whenever he leaned too close. He had no idea what the kid was talking about.
"What?" he asked when the teen didn't continue. Clint rolled his forehead slowly on his knees, but didn't look Tony's way.
"It's what my dad used to say to me, before the idiot got himself killed," Clint explained, voice oddly distant. "You're nothing but dust, easy to wipe off." He took a deep shuddering breath while Tony sat there and slowly absorbed what it meant. "Barney said it too," Clint continued after a moment. "He promised he would never, but hedid."
Tony abruptly remembered the cold words the older Barton had thrown out at the prison, about 'what their dad used to say.' He recalled how Clint had paled, and then turned to stone before them all: cold and hard. "My brother-" Clint choked a little on his words, took a steadying breath and then looked disgusted with himself. "Just thought you should know the worth of what you're arguing for."
Tony was building a time machine.
He was building a time machine and going back to when Clint's genetic donor was alive, and he was going to…to…with his hands…and there would be nothing left. Nothing.
Tony had no idea what to say, but that had never stopped him before.
"Clint-" the large door across the lab opened. They both looked at it sharply, but not before he noticed Clint's demeanor shift from scarred to darkly suspicious of the potential threat entering the lab. Blue was front and center, Red was close on his heels with their two henchmen following.
"Get Barton prepped," Blue ordered, but the directive was clearly unnecessary as Red and the guards were already moving straight toward them. Clint pushed to his feet, jumped on to the metal bed and pressed as far from the front of the cage as possible. It was nowhere near far enough, and Tony's entire body went tight with dread.
"Forget Barton," Tony snarled as he pressed right up to the glass, slapping at it in a bid for their attention. "You wanted me and you've got me," he slapped the glass again, "I'm right here!"
"Your selflessness is as useless as it is uncharacteristic," Blue replied, bored, from beside the workstation near the middle of the room. He didn't even look toward them as he examined something Tony couldn't see. "You'll have your turn, please be patient."
"Hurt him and-" Tony started.
"Yes yes, I've heard it before," the man interrupted, untroubled. "If you continue to be disruptive, Mr. Stark, I'm afraid we'll have no choice but to sedate you once more. Please, allow us to work in peace." It was rare that such clear warnings had any effect on him, but Tony…he couldn't miss this, couldn't leave Clint alone for this-
He tried to be quiet as he watched them access Clint's cell. He could see Clint getting ready to attack, attention riveted on the three closing in, fingers twitching fractionally, left shoulder dropping slightly lower. Apparently they could sense it too and weren't in the mood for a fight. The female guard stepped in and with a strike, fast as a snake, she jabbed her charged baton right into Clint's gut.
Clint choked on air and folded over with a distressed whimper. He didn't fall off the metal slab, but he did go alarmingly wobbly. Tony broke his calm as she stepped forward and grabbed Clint's upper arm.
"Get the fuck away from him!" he roared. Her partner took Clint's other side and together they hauled him out of the cell. Tony threw himself at the glass, and it didn't even rattle from the force of his weight. He was so fucking useless here, trapped like a snarling animal. "Don't touch him!"
"This is your final warning, Mr. Stark," Blue advised, his attention on Clint as the teen began to regain his motor skill only a few feet from the cell. It was a fast acting stun, but Tony was willing to bet that fear was the motivating factor in this quick recovery. He bit down viciously on the inside of his cheek as they lifted Clint onto the examination table in the center of the room, slid him into place and strapped him down.
Clint thrashed with more and more energy as the seconds progressed, but it was too late. He was trapped, fists clenching and unclenching spastically as he tugged at the padded restraints. His chest heaving, he turned to look at Tony, eyes wide and nostrils flared. All the bravado he'd been holding on to since they'd woken up here, hell, since Tony had found him hiding under that fucking car, was gone. The only emotion on his face was terror. Pure and real and all encompassing. For a moment he was just a person scared for his life. He was a fucking kid! He was a kid lost and terrified and alone and Tony could do nothing but stand and watch.
Then Clint forced his fear away in favour of snarling and swearing and fighting, ignoring the tears that curled down his cheeks.
Tony would never forget this.
He stood pressed to the glass, fog marring it with each deep breath out, and he watched. He owed Clint this much.
Tony was going to tear these bastards apart.
At the table the two scientists stepped away from Clint. A light burned brightly from above him, so powerful that Tony was forced to look away.
When his vision cleared, Clint was still, and the world went silent.