A/n: MY DUDES. I am finally surfacing after the most intense semester of school ever - short version: I don't know how I am alive (I won't take up space here; pm me if you want details) - and am finally touching the fics which I have been physically unable to touch since August. :/ My hope is to spend the holidays catching up on 3 1/2 months of sleep, and get a few new chapters up for y'all, before I have to disappear again for semester 2. But HI. I'M ALIVE. And here's a new chapter - I'm so sorry you guys had to wait so long, but thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience and especially to the ones who reached out with encouraging messages and comments (here and/or on AO3). Thank you, you mean everything to me. \o/

[ CLINT ]

"To enter the past is like poking a baseball bat into a spiderweb: it can't be done subtly or delicately." — Robert Silverberg, Needle In A Timestack

"Son, are you an actual goddamn idiot?"

So this was Colonel Chester Phillips. Clint kind of liked him, despite the tongue-lashing he was getting. There was something about the look in his eyes and the worn lines of his face that made Clint want to trust him—and needle him. He looked as gruff and practical in person as he did in his file.

"Okay," Clint sighed. "This looks bad…"

"You decided to pick a fight with that woman, surrounded by a posse of men—"

"I didn't pick a fight."

"Then you come back for more and you tick off a guy twice your height and weight—"

"Hey, I'm not that small."

"Spouting some goddamn nonsense amount time-travel and Captain Steve Rogers."

Clint sighed. "It's not nonsense." He thought it prudent not to mention he'd heard his name in the air spoken by no one earlier—he was already coming off crazy enough as it was.

"Son, are you going to contradict every word I say?"

Clint bit back a sarcastic reply, which would get him nowhere, and opted to—for once—keep his mouth shut.

Phillips eyed him.

The silence stretched for several minutes as the pair sized each other up. Clint shifted in his seat. His wrists itched where the handcuffs encircled them behind his back. He'd withstood plenty of interrogations before, so this was nothing new for him.

Well, excepting the whole "displaced in time" thing.

"Is it narcotics, son?" Phillips watched him shrewdly.

Clint sighed through his nose. "Do I look high to you? No, it's not drugs."

"Maybe not, but frankly, I can't drum up another explanation for why you're sticking to such a goddamn crackpot story," said Phillips. "You seem like a decent fella who is completely off his nut. I'm just tryin' to suss out why. Does your family have a history of mental illness?"

"No."

"Did you escape from a mental institution?"

"No."

"Got yourself a day pass?"

"No." Clint bit out and heaved another sigh.

This was going nowhere fast. He needed to figure out how to get these people to trust him and more importantly, to help him. What if roles were reversed? What if someone was trying to convince him they were from the future? What would it take for him to believe them? He could maybe think of something to say to Peggy about Steve, but she was out of sight—he had to try to work with Phillips for the time being.

"Look, you work for S.H.I.E.L.D. now—or the S.S.R. or whatever—and you've seen some serious shit, right?"

"Watch your language, son," Phillips warned.

"Sorry. But I mean, Red Skull—that was insane. You've personally witnessed some pretty out there stuff, so why is it so impossible to believe what I'm telling you right now?"

Phillips inclined his head. "Because, crazy though the things I've seen may be, I've encountered nothing that would allow my sense of logic to be so turned around for me to start believing in goddamn time travel. Serums, fine. But time travel? That is absolute science-fiction mumbo-jumbo."

"Science fiction just means you haven't experienced that technology yet," Clint retorted. He didn't think adding that he'd personally fought aliens would help his case for not being crazy.

The Colonel stood with a sigh, shoving his chair back. "Son, I'm gonna fix myself a coffee. You sit here and think about telling me what's really going on. You're exhausting me."

"Aw, come on …" Clint protested, but the older man ignored him, crossing the floor and exiting the interrogation room. Clint dropped his head to the tabletop, groaning.

He thought about old S.H.I.E.L.D. files he'd read. Were there some missions he could talk about? Ones that had happened by this point in history that were classified? Surely that would at least get them to stop dismissing him as a patient from a mental ward.

Or maybe missions that hadn't happened yet? Maybe he could give them some sort of tip, prove he had some sort of foreknowledge of events…

With a growl of frustration, he lifted his head and glared at the one-way glass. "Hey, I am telling the truth, here! I don't know what you need to hear, but just take a second to consider that I—"

The reflection on the glass changed, no longer showing him and the otherwise empty interrogation room, but instead Bruce, his forehead creased with worry. The archer and the physicist simultaneously exclaimed each other's name in surprise.

"Holy crap, how—?" Clint began, then realized it'd been Bruce's voice earlier coming from nowhere. Then realized he didn't care how any of this was happening—he was just thrilled that it was at all.

"Bruce, you gotta get me out of here."

[ PEGGY ]

"Well, I think he's nuts," said Phillips with a hefty sigh. He closed the door behind him and stood at Peggy's elbow. "You?"

Peggy gave a noncommittal one-shoulder shrug. "My jury's out."

She didn't want to add that she'd had an inexplicable feeling to trust him. It made no sense to her and would make even less sense to the Colonel. Regardless, she was determined to ignore the feeling in favor of something concrete.

She turned her attention back to Barton on the other side of the one-way glass. He had his face pressed to the table.

"He certainly sounds bonkers," she said. "But he also seems to honestly believe what he's saying."

Phillips grunted. "Most wackjobs do. Look at Hydra."

Peggy hummed in agreement. "What do we do with him, then? Lock him up, let him out to roam?"

"Hey," Barton shouted at them, though he couldn't see them. "I am telling the truth, here! I don't know what you need to hear, but just take a second to consider that I—" He broke off, looking shocked.

Peggy raised her eyebrow. It was a peculiar reaction, but more peculiar was what happened next.

"Bruce! Holy crap, how—?" said Barton, then he took in a sharp, hasty breath. "Bruce, you gotta get me out of here."

Phillips and Peggy exchanged confused glances.

Bruce who? Peggy wondered. Maybe he was out of his mind after all.

"Well, I figured we didn't have time for pleasantries," said Barton. He added with a wince, "So, I kind of got arrested?" There was a short pause and Barton replied to some unknown question, "Uh, like five hours?"

It was like eavesdropping on a phone conversation where they could only hear one side. The longer it went on, the more Peggy rather suspected hearing the other side wouldn't have helped it make much more sense.

"Bruce, what the hell happened?" Barton continued. "Where are you? Or should I say when?"

"Who the hell is he talking to?" Phillips mumbled, narrowing his eyes at their captive.

"I'm in the '40s—September '46 to be exact," stated Barton. "Wait, again? You lost me before?"

The next pause was a much longer one. Peggy leaned closer to the glass, studying Barton's expression. He listened carefully to a voice only he could hear and he watched something on the glass that only he could see. He frowned a little and then his shoulders sagged in defeat.

"You mean make sure I don't accidentally change the course of history or anything?" His tone was resigned. Another break in the conversation, then Barton sighed. "Are you giving this speech to all the kids, or just me?"

Could he just be an exceptional actor? Peggy didn't think so—there was something about him that was, as she'd said to Phillips, quite genuine. It was puzzling. More so, it was troubling—suppose he was telling the truth? That he was from the future, and knew Steve, and required help returning to his very own time? She was afraid to wrap her head around the implications of it all. Afraid to hope it could be true.

"Yeah, so, about that. Um, I sort of...lost my quiver? Well, I left it behind." He grimaced. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn't—no, I got it. Have you gotten a hold of anyone else? Bruce? Hey—Bruce?" Barton raised his voice. "I think you're losing me—hey! If you get Steve, tell him I'm with Peggy! Bruce?" He broke off and swore repeatedly under his breath. Barton moaned and pressed his face back down to the table.

Phillips crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. "Now what in the hell are we supposed to make of that?"

"Sir, what if…" Peggy felt rather daft herself even thinking about suggesting what she was about to suggest, but she took a breath and did it anyways. "What if he's not, in fact, crazy or lying?" Her pulse spiked at the mere possibility. A traveler from the future? One who knew Steve?

Phillips frowned. "It's bullshit—what he's trying to tell us is nonsense. I don't buy it. I can't."

"So are most of the cases we deal with on a day to day basis," she tactfully reminded him. "This is the entire purpose behind our founding S.H.I.E.L.D.—to take on the bizarre things that even the S.S.R. doesn't go after. We live in an impossible world."

She glanced at Barton, his face still pressed against the table.

"Perhaps it's not so impossible to imagine that…what Agent Barton described, in fact, truly happened. Just consider what happened with Schmidt and the Tesseract—that's only the tip of our unique little iceberg."

Phillips's features softened, and a note of sorrow and sympathy crept into his eyes. She wanted to turn away—she hated that look and was damn tired of seeing it—but forced herself to hold his gaze and to stomach the inevitable Steve-related words she knew were coming.

"I understand you want to hold on to any little thread of hope here, Carter," he said. His sad tone grated against her skin. "But he's gone. And he's not…" He sighed. "He's gone. No matter what Howard may tell you—believing this nutjob won't bring him back, either."

Phillips was a friend as well as a colleague and her former superior, and he had lost Steve same as she had. While Howard steadfastly refused to believe Steve was gone forever and had continued the search, Phillips had grieved and accepted the loss and moved on—he had lost a lot of soldiers before and since, no matter how much he cared about them.

For all the respect he normally had for her, whenever the subject of Captain Rogers came up, Phillips still had the tendency to treat Peggy like she was made of glass. As if she might shatter if someone mentioned him a certain way.

As if she had never lost those she cared about before.

She had loved Steve, yes. Losing him had broken her heart, yes. But that had been over a year ago, and she could handle talking about it. Whether it was with Phillips, who believed Steve was gone forever, or with Howard, who believed he was still out there to be saved. She frankly was quite undecided on the matter and had a foot in both camps.

"And this loon, whoever he is," Phillips continued somberly. "Probably knows about you from the reels about Captain Rogers. Knows you're connected. Latched on to it, and now he's using it."

Peggy planted her hand on her hip, trying not to get frustrated with the Colonel's logic. "To what end, though? Merely to be aggravating? Infiltration? To spy on this newly formed and completely secret branch of the S.S.R. that will be S.H.I.E.L.D.? How could he possibly know about it?"

Before Phillips formed an adequate reply, Peggy ploughed on.

"If that is his goal and he is a spy, don't you think he would have gone about it in a much more clever way?" She glanced over her shoulder at Barton. "Getting into a minor altercation in public and claiming to be a refugee from the future hardly seems like a brilliant strategy."

"You brought him here, didn't you?" countered Phillips.

Her heart sank a little. Daft as it was, if being brought here was his plan, it'd worked like a charm. Peggy pressed her lips together and considered their captive. Maybe she really was pinning impossible hopes on him.

"What do you suggest, then?" she said at last.

Phillips waved his hand at the glass. "Show's over. Let him loose."

"Suppose he's dangerous?" said Peggy. "Shouldn't we at least assess whether or not his...delusions are a threat, if he intends anyone any harm, or…"

"I think the only one his delusions are a danger to...is you," he told her, not unkindly.

Peggy faced the interrogation room again as Barton let out another pitiful moan. If he really is from the future, why isn't Steve here too? She had half a mind to ask him, but the longer she stood there, the more Phillips's logic got to her. There was no point debating semantics with an insane person.

"Very well." Peggy nodded curtly. She tore her eyes away from their prisoner. "I'll have someone drop him off where we found him."

"It's for the best, Carter."

She turned her back on him to go give Barton the news. Surely it was for the best, but Peggy couldn't shake the feeling that Phillips was wrong.

[ CLINT ]

Clint ground his teeth together to hold back the flood of curses he wanted to lose at the S.S.R. driving away. Why the hell hadn't he used his damn brain and said something useful to Peggy in the beginning?

He veered around a group of cackling drunks tumbling out of a bar. They ignored him, lost in their merriment. The chilly night air sent a wave of goosebumps over his arms and he wished he had a coat.

It'd taken a bit to get his bearings after Dugan had dropped him off. Everything looked different at night—and in 1946—that he'd walked a number of blocks, brooding and angry with himself, before he realized he'd lost track of what direction he'd headed. He paid attention to street signs after that and made his way to Central Park. There, he could lie low for the rest of the night until he figured out how to go back to where he landed and get his quiver.

Clint hopped off the curb and cut across the street, dodging a speeding taxi. Maybe I can still find Howard. That was probably definitely messing with history, but Howard could talk science to Bruce and surely be helpful in getting Clint back home. The less time he had to spend in the past trying not to crush a butterfly and cause the apocalypse or something, the better.

Tomorrow, he decided, he'd start researching. Steal some period-appropriate clothes and maybe a wallet or two. He'd get his quiver from the shack, per Bruce's don't leave future stuff lying around or else lecture. Then, if he could track Howard down, maybe he'd be able to convince him of his truthfulness.

And he'd have to be way more careful than he'd been with Peggy, damn it.

The park was closed but Clint didn't hesitate, just kept walking. Wasn't his first time being there after hours and he doubted it'd be his last. He found a secluded spot, shielded from the network of pathways and Clint hunkered down under a leafy green bush to sleep.

Clint exhaled long and slow, tucking his arms around himself. Wherever you guys are, I hope things are going better for you.