I am so grateful for my most lovely beta, ladygris (who has some fantastic Avengers ficts you should certainly check out), and you, my lovely readers. The feedback has been so warming. I hope everyone is having a spectacular holiday season, and look for the final chapter in the next few days!
-XXX-
He wakes up in the barn, beside the cows that he and Natalia had not so long ago teased. Covered in mud and blood. His head is pounding. The voices of Demyan and Fedor, along with some other men of the village, echo around the yard.
He waits.
Then he follows.
For a month he searches. Back to the trains, he crosses the country, trailing them to Moscow. He has a few connections in the information business that he squeezes for leads. And then, in the city –
He loses the trail. It goes pitifully cold – to be expected, they had almost two days ahead of him, and a city full of allies – and Clint is forced to face his options.
SHIELD had given up the search for him. It wasn't unheard of for offline agents to "return from the dead." He could return. There would be few questions. Unlike Natalia's handlers, Clint's people trusted him. So, in the dingy little St. Petersburg's bar, listening to a fading vocalist murmur to an off-key piano, Clint Barton makes the decision to leave Russia for the SHIELD base in Paris – closer than Cardiff (barely) and a little more relaxed. Paris people would listen to him. He doubts that the Welsh would give him time to explain.
-XXX-
He's welcomed back – though the term "welcomed" is used loosely – to the organization. They've missed their Hawk. Coulson takes over handling him immediately, dropping all other agents on his roster to bring Hawk up-to-date and starting on recuperating.
"You've missed a lot," says Phil, fiddling with one of his pencils, straightening the paper strewn across his desk. Clint eyes the glass, laser-cut paperweight in the corner, the one next to the framed Captain America playbill –"From the New York show," Phil had proclaimed proudly when Clint noticed the new item on the desk – and he listens to Phil describe the last several months at SHIELD. The new policies. New recruits. The ins-and-outs.
He listens with a dull ear. All he can think is how the faded red of the Captain's background matches her lips and how the cut crystal facets of the paperweight caught the coolness of her gaze. He's not quite hearing. But that's fine.
When Phil stops, leaning back in his chair, then pushing the receptionist call button for Marilyn, Clint straightens.
"Coffee, please," he instructs the young woman. She bobs her head, then ducks from the room, leaving with only a passing glance at the Hawk.
"Thirsty, Coulson?" Barton asks.
"No." The handler's brows rise. "But you are. You're not exactly alert today, Clint. You haven't been since you returned." He leans forward. " You were out there a long time…in the middle of nowhere. Russia is a big place, Clint, but I thought we still might've found you. And somehow we didn't. Something happen out there? Something you want to tell me about?"
Marilyn returns bearing a plain white mug. She places it before Clint, using a coaster, then retreats to her desk outside, shutting the door softly behind her. Clint accepts the cup, curling his fingers around it.
Phil waits.
After he swallows a bitter mouthful, Barton meets his handler's eyes.
"No," he says tonelessly. "Nothing I can think of."
-XXX-
This is not the end! We've got one more chapter left, hang in there with me!