All in all, Thor was lucky. They had kept him under almost the entire time. Almost. When he woke up at the tower and was told that he had been taken and kept for almost a week, he had reassured them that he had been unconscious for a much longer period of time after a great battle with some complicatedly named creature. Much like a dream, he recalled moments of wakefulness, some pain, but nothing too far out of the ordinary for where he thought he would be, having surgery at SHIELD.

Tony didn't quite believe the simple acceptance. No one was that well adjusted. But, to be fair, Thor came from a futuristic viking civilization where killing a big hairy beast singlehanded was still the rite of passage into manhood, instead of just filing your own taxes.

Not that Tony was giving Thor much of his attention. He once again looked across his lab to the medical bed where Clint lay, still staring out at nothing.

He hadn't taken no for an answer. How was Clint supposed to get better on the medical floor? Clint hated being in medical, so this was the next obvious choice. Tony would have stuck him on the couch in the corner if he could have, but that was pushing safety a bit too far. And this, what Tony was doing, was sitting at Clint's bedside. He'd tried the sitting and worrying and fretting and freaking out and spiraling into an endless nothingness but Clint needed normal...or, at least, the familiar. Which was Tony working tirelessly in his lab and Clint letting him until he didn't. It always ended with Clint coming in to distract him or tricking him into leaving and having JARVIS lock him out for a few hours.

Maybe if he tired himself out enough Clint would wake up and chew him out. Maybe he'd focus his eyes and try to kill Tony again. At this point, anything was better than the empty shell lying in the bed.

We came for you too.

The horror hadn't lessened. He had taken the tracker so they would save Thor. It was such a Clint thing to do. His sense of self-worth had always been dangerously low. Of course, he had gone back to his torturers in the hopes that the team would track him, to save someone Clint professed to hate.

And then completely check out when he was put back in his cell.

Tony had the footage pulled up, hazed from behind so no one else could see, Clint didn't need to see this if he woke up.

When. When he woke up.

Newspaper articles and pictures had covered one of the walls. All of the team...just living their lives. It hadn't made sense at first glance. Why would they allow Clint to have something to give him hope? But then...he realized it didn't mean hope to Clint, it meant hopeless. They had left him there, they were living their lives normally without him. Smiling and going to parties and movies while he was being tortured.

Tony stared at the trash magazine cover of him and Bruce. Bruce had been getting more flack than usual and Tony had wanted to shut everyone up. So he'd put on a show, gave everyone something to talk about besides how dangerous the Hulk could be. Much to Bruce's embarrassment, it had worked.

It was the most recent one on the wall.

Tony understood what that most likely meant. They didn't need to put up anymore after it. Clint had given up. Months after he had been taken. Months and months. He had held out, believing the team was coming for him, that there was still hope...until then. Until they had made him believe that Tony had moved on. As if Tony could.

And then there were the audio files. JARVIS had saved what he could from the wipe and it made Tony sick to think there had been more. What they had was bad enough. Tony didn't remember the phone call they must have spliced his voice from but JARVIS found it and conference calls on SHIELD secured lines. There were tidbits from every team member, painting a horrible picture of indifference and hatred toward Clint.

Natasha had accessed the files at some point, JARVIS had informed him. Tony was hesitant to let anyone else see them, but Natasha was different. He couldn't hide this from her. He could but he didn't want to. She understood how important Clint was.

So she had seen it all. Pictures, audio...the videos.

Tony turned up the music in the hope of somehow blurring the images that would forever be ingrained in his mind. Clint was missing for over a year. There was not a year's worth of footage. Most of it was gone, lost. The footage they did save could have only been intentionally left for last, the time gaps were too spread out. Some grouped folder Spade had hoped they would find, to torture them more. It was working.

Even seeing short slices of what Clint had gone through was too much. Especially with Spade being painted as the hero. His only scenes showing him helping or comforting Clint. Staged so they wouldn't have damning evidence against him.

Tony had never wanted to kill anyone more in his life.

Despite how Tony made it seem, SHIELD systems were some of the most secure in the world, there was a reason he had needed to be on the helicarrier to plant his device, and with the threat of multiple compromised agents and assets, they had locked it down tight. So, much to his frustration, there was no spying on Natasha's current interrogation.

Sir.

An incoming call sprang to life in the holofield, displaying Natasha's picture.

Speak of the devil.

He opened the line and opened his mouth to...say something normal, snarky, he didn't know but something was going to come out.

Or it would have if Natasha hadn't beat him to it.

"Shut up, Tony."

"I didn't even-"

"Doesn't matter, there's no time."

Tony's attention narrowed.

"Get everything on SHIELD's council members. Now. Emails, photographs, personal servers, every dark secret they've ever had. Crack it all open, absolutely everything. Make bug bots to listen in on their conversations if you have to, but get it done yesterday. I'll fill you in when I can."

Tony's fingers were already flying as the line went dead.

"J."

I believe there is a prototype schematic for such a device. Sending to production and preparing carrier drones.

"Good, good. I'm going to need you multitasking, buddy. Get me current locations on all of them, eyes, ears, whatever we can, you heard Romanoff, bleed their information dry. Daddy's going to be busy getting into SHIELD the hard way."

Something was happening. Something not good if Natasha had to keep it that short.

"And put the rest of the team on a general alert. Pull up Romanoff's tracker and keep an eye on her."

Sir.

"Yeah?"

It seems Agent Romanoff has placed and activated one of your locational access ports. Pulling up the link to SHIELD's mainframe.

Crap. Natasha wasn't just telling him where to go, she was opening the door.

What did they do? Had Romanoff cracked Spade?

It had been less than 48 hours since they had captured him. It was plausible. But siccing Tony on them wasn't standard operating procedure.

No matter.

He glanced at the medical bed again, "I'm going to need a more intense soundtrack, J. Go ahead and throw on some Metallica."

"Tony!"

He startled away from the screens, blinking a few times as his focus shifted.

Natasha was standing by the door, frowning at him. Or frowning because of the loud music.

Or…

Her gaze shifted away from Clint and she motioned for him to come closer.

Now it was Tony's turn to frown, the unease that had faded as he'd lost himself in the search, returning.

Natasha held the door for him. He wanted to protest it being closed but this entrance was all see-through, allowing him to keep an eye on Clint.

"What? What's happening? Your call was vague and ominous. Should I be locking down the Tower?"

Natasha sighed, the frown still in place. "I didn't get anything useful out of Spade," she paused, "before the council transferred him."

Tony took a breath.

Natasha waited.

He took another.

"You want to try that again? But this time with less 'we lost the bad guy'?"

"Tony-"

No way in hell was this happening, "You let him get away?!"

"'Let' implies some say over the matter. And no, killing him before he left was not an option. He had a solid exit strategy. Leverage with hundreds of lives in the balance."

"SHIELD actually gave in to threats?"

She chuckled darkly, "Oh no, it's worse than that. Spade had multiple jobs going at once. One of which is a top-secret mission directly from the Council. He didn't even need to threaten anything before agents showed up with orders for him to be released into their custody. He didn't look worried for even a second that he was in our custody. In fact," she added with a bite, a threatening pleasantness settling over her, "I may get a formal reprimand for breaking his fingers."

Tony stood there, taking it all in. Everything she said. Everything that was implied.

And very intently added it to the kiln.

Natasha watched him. His lack of outward reaction. She probably saw everything he was thinking, each step his mind was taking.

Tony had learned a lot since he had become Iron Man, even in the last few days.

It would be easy to use the fire in an explosion. To lash out and lay blame.

Or he could use it toward a weapon of precision.

"So," he said carefully, each word measured, "we're thinking the Council is behind all of this. They set up…" Tony looked through the glass, to Clint, head still tilted loosely, "everything."

"I don't think every member was involved but," she nodded, "yes."

Alright then.

"We're going to burn them to the ground," he said matter-of-factly.

He wouldn't call what Natasha's face did a smile but it was exactly what he wanted to see.

Please excuse the interruption, Sir, but you may wish to turn your attention to the lab.

"What? Why?" The door was already sliding open as he turned. He had felt the vibrations of the music but was now met with a blast of Black Sabbath's Iron Man. He was about to ask JARVIS if he was trying to be funny when his eyes fell on the bed.

He had only just glanced over there and Clint was still in the same position but Tony locked onto the movement of his eyes slowly blinking, focusing. And now he was staring straight at Tony.