"I'm not sure about this."

Clint glanced back at Bruce as they stepped through the doors of Saint Stones Memorial. It was a dinky little place. The kind of cesspool you only went to because you had no choice. The bill was going to be padded as hell, but hey, at least you'd be alive. Maybe. If Alex's parents had brought her here, they probably lived somewhere close. He was already planning on cross checking the missing persons files on the way back.

But first they had to catch this sonofabitch.

He shook his head, setting a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "You got this, Doc."

Banner looked as uncomfortable as ever in a fresh lab coat with a clipboard under one arm. He was eyeballing the surrounding crowd of patients, nurses, and orderlies with an edge of hesitation that was easy to miss if you didn't know him. The face that was warm and open back at the base was now plastered with a rigidly robotic smile as if he were playing the part of your friendly neighborhood Doctor-Man.

"Okay," Bruce said with a hiss of breath. "Okay."

"You got this."

"I got this."

Clint smiled. "That's right. Now let's go get 'em."

The plan was simple. They were supposed to go in, say they were looking for an escaped suspect who might've gone to local hospitals. Bruce's job was to distract Heinz and the others with some medical jargon while Clint snuck into their records. He'd already hacked into their online database and found no trace of Alex, but a place like this? There was bound to still be paper stuffed into some dark closet.

Once they had proof, S.H.I.E.L.D. would arrest Doctor Eric Heinz, probably tuck away any records of weird blood types he'd already discovered for later. They had enough to do rehabilitating all the so-called dogs. Only a couple had retaken their human forms. A couple of the new… imports. He'd be checking for their information today too and hopefully he'd find it. The idea of there being more than one head on this snake was exhausting.

"Can I help y–oh." The receptionist's eyes popped open the moment she actually looked up and Clint tried not to grit his teeth.

"Uuuh," Bruce glanced over at Clint and then back to the receptionist. "Yes. Actually, we–"

Clint cut in. "We're working on a case."

"Official S.H.I.E.L.D. business." Banner adjusted his glasses and nodded.

The woman went full deer in headlights for two seconds before she finally blinked and stuttered, "Y-yes. Of course. How can I–how can I help?"

"We, uh, we're looking for someone we think might've come to your hospital." Bruce cleared his throat. "I was hoping to speak to some of your doctors."

"And I need to check your records, see if we can find anything."

She looked suddenly nervous and Clint braced himself to be told to fuck off.

"Just.. one sec," she said before disappearing down the hall.

Bruce sucked in a breath and smoothed over the front of his lab coat.

"Easy Doc," Clint said. "We have to look like we belong."

"Easy for you to say," Bruce yell-whispered. "What am I supposed to say to these people?"

Clint shrugged. "I don't know? You're the doctor. Just make something up."

"Yeah and I'm not a spy. This undercover stuff is your thing" Bruce was panicking now.

"Shhhhh," Clint hushed, eyes shifting around. No one seemed to be looking at them, but they couldn't risk tipping Heinz off.

"I can't just make something up on the spot."

"Just do it."

"Like what?"

"I don't know just–"

"Ahem."

The two men straightened, turning around to face the receptionist who now had a guy behind her. If the lab coat and stethoscope were any indication, it was one of the doctors. He was a tall lanky man with dark hair and big bushy eyebrows. Not Heinz, but his face went blank with shock the second he saw them.

"Uhhh," Bruce started.

"Hi," Clint cut in. "I'm Clint and this is–"

A big smile burst onto the doctor's face. "I know who you are." He practically bowled over the receptionist to shake Clint's hand. "Doctor Garfield. At your service."

"Ah… right," Clint said.

Garfield had already moved onto vigorously shaking Bruce's hand.

"We were hoping to talk to you about a… a patient." Bruce looked over at Clint for help.

It turned out he didn't need it. Not yet, at least.

"Of course. Follow me."

The two men shared a look of relief as they followed Garfield out back. If Clint thought the lobby was busy, then the back was pure chaos. A steady sea of people streamed back and forth, nurses rushing around clutching their clipboards and pushing carts. Doctors hung in clusters at different stations while patients whizzed by on beds and wheelchairs with orderlies pushing them along. Nervous families paced in hallways next to rooms. Some turned to watch them go past. Only the ones without empty eyes noticed who they were.

He ducked his head and kept going.

"So who exactly are you looking for?"

Bruce eyeballed Clint with panic. "Uuuuh."

"That's classified," Clint said quickly.

"I'm not really sure how I can help you, then? Garfield frowned.

"I need to see your records," Clint said. "Dr. Banner has a few details to go over with you for your team to look out for. In case our guy shows up."

"Oh, uh, yes," Banner said. "They're about yay tall. Dark hair. Uhhh. Six arms."

Oh good lord. This was painful to watch.

"Maybe it's best you take this out of the hallway," Clint suggested.

Garfield nodded solemnly. "Of course. Linda at the nurse's station can help you access any records you need."

"Thanks."

Clint waved apologetically at the last cry for help from Bruce's eyes as Garfield led him away.

Linda at the nurse's station went as white as a ghost and then immediately beet red when she saw Clint. A few painfully long moments later, he was perched awkwardly on a stool behind the counter staring at a clunky computer monitor. It wasn't any information he hadn't seen already, but he couldn't just barge through her and ask to see the paper records. Rushing it would look suspicious. He had to give this just enough time for him asking to see more to not trigger her alarm bells.

Which meant he was still there an hour later, bored out of his marbles. Bruce was nowhere to be seen or heard, but there wasn't any screaming. That had to be a good sign. Boring, but good.

"I'm not really sure what I'm looking for," Linda said sheepishly.

"Is this it?" Clint asked.

"Hmm?"

"No other records? Nothing paper?"

"Well…"

Clint held his breath. Bingo.

"We just transferred completely over to digital last summer. Kinda behind the times, right?" She gave a nervous laugh.

"Right," he said, chuckling back.

"We still have a lot of the old records on the second floor."

"Show me."

The stack of files she brought him to was unimaginably high. Boxes upon boxes of files. If he'd had no place to start, the search would've taken days. Thankfully, he at least knew the doctor's name. Alex couldn't remember the year. Heck, she couldn't remember how old she was, but it couldn't have been that long ago.

He barely got two steps into the room when the beeper on her hip went off.

"Shit," she hissed. "I gotta go."

"Damn," he said, scratching the back of his head in a way that made it look like he was sad about that. "I think I got this."

She pursed her lips, nodding in a longing kind of way that said she didn't want to leave. But she did. Which meant he was left alone to find all the records he needed.

"Okay." He ran a finger over the box labels as he went. "Haggard… Halen... Healer`?"

What an ironic name for a Doctor.

Ahah! "There you are." Heinz.

His pocket vibrated. It was a text from Bruce.

'Dying here. Did you get it?'

He shot back an 'Almost' and popped open the first Heinz box.

…

"So they weren't all in there?"

Clint shook his head, eyes forward with his hands on the wheel. "He saw Alex and one of the imports."

"Maybe some files were missing?"

"Yeah, maybe."

But Clint didn't think so. There was this nagging little wiggle at the back of his mind, something that said, 'No, you fool. This isn't over.'

Which was something they were going to have to talk about. But there was another thing on his mind. He had the name of Alex's parents. Her alternate reality parents, but her parents. He had their address too. An address he'd taken the liberty of double checking. They still lived there.

Any thoughts of sharing this information flew out of his mind when the jet landed. The walls were covered in deep scratches, blood splattered over the floor.

"What the?" Bruce started.

"Alex?" Clint shouted. Panic spiked inside him when she didn't answer. "Alex!"

They rounded the corner to shredded couch cushions and an explosion of red sticky feathers. Shatters of glass were scattered over the living room floor. There was a head sized hole in the wall in the kitchen.

"Shit."

The hallway was torn to pieces. Deep claw grooves on the walls. Broken craters of carpet in the floor.

They found Alex in the lab–her clothes shredded–panting over a naked body. Male. Dark hair. A black marble tabletop was literally smashed in half beside them. Eyes that still had an edge of green flicked up when he entered and Clint swallowed. Jagged red slashes tore across her face like the marks in the wall. Her arm was bent back at an odd angle and a thick sheet of red flowed down the torn fabric hanging off her back from under her hair. More blood soaked down the leg of torn pants.

"What the fu–?"