Chapter 29: Running Errands

September 29

In the Capitol

When the squad Clint was with burst into Maria Hill's apartment, it almost seemed like she'd been expecting them, since she didn't react much beyond looking annoyed — she was in the middle of making tea.

"Is this the best that Norman has? A brainwashed ex-Tahiti tribute and … whoever these guys are?" she said as she poured her cup full. "Color me not impressed."

A few of the soldiers had the brains to look insulted, though Clint's expression didn't change. "You're under arrest," he told her in an almost bored tone.

Hill had put some honey into her tea and was stirring it, barely looking up at him. "On what charges?" She glanced up at him almost lazily as she lifted the cup to her lips.

"Election tampering and kidnapping."

"Are you sure he's not mixing up me with him?" she asked conversationally, though she still didn't look like she was worried about any of them in the least.

Clint simply took out his bow in response, watching her. "If you don't come without a fight, I'm authorized to put you on the ground."

"That sounds a little beyond a reasonable response," she replied, still unperturbed.

Clint just shrugged at that and raised the bow, which was fitted with a tranquilizing arrow, giving the order to take her in at the same time he released it and following the arrow with a rush, knowing she wouldn't go down that easily.

Of course, she fought back — starting with throwing her cup of hot tea at Clint as she deflected the tranq into one of her attackers. She landed a side kick on the 'officer' coming up on her left. Her moves were almost textbook out of SHIELD — and it was clear that the force they'd sent weren't prepared for her.

The only one that had been trained by SHIELD was Clint, who got to her in a rush and deflected her first hit before the two of them really got into it — trading blows in a pattern that, if Clint had been really aware of it, he would have said was a lot like sparring with Natasha, though Hill's style was a lot more straightforward and slightly easier to anticipate.

When she threw a punch that he'd seen coming a split second before it happened, he turned and grabbed her arm instead and with the other hand grabbed his second tranq before plunging that one into her arm. He frowned for just a moment when it went in, but when she slowed and then sank down in front of him, he took a slight step back and shouldered his bow, moving out with the men who were already restraining Hill — even unconscious — and headed back to the center of the Capitol to report in.

District Seven

In the meantime, Maria Hill — the real Maria Hill — had seen the entire thing go down through the cameras of the Life Model Decoy she'd had since beginning the whole campaign. Fury might have been gone, but he still had some good tips.

Her private transport was stashed outside of the district center, and it was still a few hours before dawn when she made her way up to the house on the hill under cover of darkness. It was overcast, which helped her hide from any passing satellites, and she knew that she'd be able to find some back up if she could just get into the house.

But she wasn't about to go knocking on anyone's front door at four in the morning. So instead, she made her way around the building, frowning to herself the further she walked until the found the back entrance that would allow her into the kitchen. To her surprise, the door was unlocked — but the kitchen was not empty.

"Do you need a map to get around this place?" Hill said in a tone of disbelief.

Both Kate and Skye jumped slightly, both of them holding bowls of ice cream and wrapped up in their conversation until that point. "What are you doing here?" Skye blurted out.

Hill gave her a look that clearly communicated how long of a night she'd had before she wearily made her way over to get a bowl of ice cream of her own and then took a seat across from the two of them. "Avoiding arrest, apparently." She frowned and looked between them as she took a huge spoonful of ice cream. "Why are you awake?"

Skye gestured at her obvious stomach. "Someone isn't sleeping."

"And I get nauseous if I don't eat," Kate added.

"Well that's ... " She took a breath and turned to Skye. "I have a video feed for you to hack into if you're interested. Hawkeye tried to arrest me tonight while I was making tea."

Kate straightened up at that, looking wide-eyed. "You've seen Clint?" she asked in a nearly desperate whisper.

Skye got up and pushed her ice cream away as she got a tablet from across the kitchen. "What's the feed?" she asked as she stood next to Hill and the former AD started going through the layers on layers of security.

"It's off my LMD," Hill said before she took another bite of ice cream. "Fury's idea — and a good one, too."

Kate was watching over Skye's shoulder as the feed started up of what 'Hill' was seeing. She was in some kind of transport, sitting across from Clint and a few uniformed thugs, though Kate was frowning on seeing her fellow Hawk so… quiet and still.

"If you hit the blue button in the corner, it will record the geographic location as well," Hill said around a spoonful of chocolate. "When the feed goes dead, it will transfer the last 8 hours of video." She tipped her chin up at the two of them. "One of Fury's failsafes."

Kate was half holding her breath as she watched. "What happened?" she asked. "I mean, I know it wasn't you, but ... what happened?"

"My best guess would be that Osborn had him brainwashed," Hill said, unconcerned. "Fortunately, the methods available to him are pretty cut and dried. We've seen it before."

"Fortunately," Kate repeated grumpily, still not pleased in general.

"He'll be back to himself in no time once we get him back," Hill replied.

"He better be," Kate grumbled with her arms crossed over her chest. "I'm getting real tired of people screwing with my boys."

"Well, get used to it," Hill said. "He's got warrants out for all of them."

"Of course he does," Skye grumbled. "Wouldn't want anyone to feel left out."

"Well, I'm sure it's not going to look good with the press — all of the people that opposed him publicly being on a most wanted list," Hill pointed out. "He's already shooting himself in the foot. I know for a fact they have exactly zero proof on any of the charges for the victors and the rest of the kids."

"Yeah, just because he's unpopular doesn't mean a thing if he's screwing with my best friend," Kate pointed out. "I really need him out of there, like, yesterday."

"Well, it's early enough," Hill said, looking out the window. "We can start brainstorming as soon as we get Coulson here."

Kate looked toward Skye, who quickly nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. Calling up the DC."

"I don't suppose that there's an open room I could take up a little space in?" Hill said, finally turning to Kate again.

"Yeah, there's a few bedrooms that haven't been claimed — and I'm sure Logan can find you a place to make an office, too," Kate said.

September 30

Howlett Manor

The next morning, after Logan came down to get coffee, Hill was down in the kitchen, still fuming over the events of the night before and going over her video feed — which now was just showing the inside of a cell.

When she smelled the coffee, though, she paused what she was doing to steal Logan's and take it back to her seat. "Perfect, thanks."

Logan stared after her for a moment before letting out a sigh and going to get a fresh cup. "Good mornin' and you're welcome." He stopped at the coffee pot and looked up at her. "This isn't gonna be a recurring thing is it?"

"Learn to share, Logan," she said with a smirk over the top of the mug.

"I thought I had," Logan countered before he took the seat right next to her and started to lean her way. "What's the plan, Maria Christina?"

"Well, we have a geographical location for where Norman Osborn would stash one former assistant director. The question we're waiting to have answered is whether or not that's where he also stashed former Tahiti operatives or if I rate a special area." She smirked. "Either way, it's good to know he cares."

"So how do we know for sure? Need someone to cause a ruckus?"

"No, we don't want Clint deployed; we want him contained," Hill said. "If he's there, you know they will still be running 'sessions' to keep him conditioned. One week may be enough to send him to arrest me, but if they want to keep using him…" She shrugged. "We watch for whoever Osborn is using, and we watch for Clint, and if Osborn deploys him in the meantime, we try to tag him and see if he heads in the direction of my beacon before it dies out."

"That's a lot of 'if's," Logan said as he picked up his mug.

"Well if I had something more solid, I would tell you. All my intel has for you is the fact that Clint dropped 'Maria Hill' in a cell and then left. For all I know, he went to a completely different base — and we don't want to tip our hand on this source of intel if we don't have to."

"You know where I am," Logan said, leaning back in his chair. "And you know that the last thing I'll do is let them catch me."

"Though I'd like to see them try," Hill agreed with a little smile.

Logan nodded his head in agreement and got to his feet, sure to take Hill's cup with him to refill as some of the others filtered into the dining room.

Natasha was the one to flip on the news as she came downstairs — at this point listening for even the remote possibility that Norman might mention something that would give them a leg to stand on with where to find Clint, since she didn't know about Hill yet. But when she did see the former assistant director, she raised both eyebrows high, and the two women fell almost immediately into hushed conversation as Hill caught her up on the events of the previous night.

Logan returned a short while later and set Hill's coffee down before taking his seat again, frowning for a moment at the broadcast. It started out with just the usual morning news update, with one of the anchors announcing a breaking news update in the investigation into the election and the arrest of Maria Hill, who apparently was being accused of orchestrating the entire 'false' election tampering in order to 'steal' the election from Osborn, going so far as to get the kids involved and kidnap them, convincing them it was Osborn's doing ... or so the report went.

"Buncha windbag trash," Logan muttered, turning to the feed on the tablet instead. "Watchin' the cell wall's more riveting than that tripe."

Hill had to smirk at the sentiment and nod her agreement, though they let the newscast play on, not paying it much heed until Peter and Gwen arrived at about the same time the anchor introduced the 'expert' to speak on the arrest — and Clint came on wearing a new suit and tie to explain how the arrest had gone.

"After the president invited us to be part of the investigation, I thought I'd take him up on it," Clint said, nodding politely along to the anchor's questions. "I thought it was a bluff, but as it turns out, the whole thing was a setup. When I found out, of course I wanted to be part of the team to arrest the woman who kidnapped my friends. I wasn't going to let her get away with it."

"Doesn't even sound like himself," Logan muttered, thinking to himself that whoever had worked Clint over had done a half-assed job at best. Not that he was sorry to hear it. Half-assed should be easier to fix than the full-on disaster he'd come back from.

"Or look like himself," Kate pointed out softly from the doorway where she and Kurt had paused on seeing what was going on. When a few of the others looked her way, she shrugged. "Have you ever seen him tie a tie?"

"The girl makes a fine point," Logan agreed. "His hair's too neat too."

"And he hasn't made a single joke," Peter said. "Not even a small one. I mean, you can't have a Hawkeye that serious for that long and not know something's up."

Logan nodded. "So, aside from screwin' up his image—"

"It's good PR," Hill said with a small glare. "Clint and Tony were the biggest rallying cry on the accusations, and he doesn't have Tony, so… he's got one of the loudest voices in the room singing his praises. It's a public backtrack and apology."

At that, Natasha fell into a similar glare and glanced over at Logan. "So," she said, "when can we leave?"

"Let Jubes pull out a suit and I can be ready before you know it," Logan agreed. "Play distraction while you put a sack over his head?"

"Who's the sack for? Cuz I know Nat's going to have something a little different in mind for Clint," Skye teased Logan in an undertone.

"Well if she thinks that's how to get him back to his right mind, I'll take it so I don't gotta witness it."

"There's a joke to be made somewhere about true love's kiss, but it's too early to make it," Skye chuckled.

"And I was decidedly not thinkin' fairy tales," Logan muttered back with a smirk.

Skye laughed at that and leaned over to steal a kiss. "I think it went over my head. You'll have to show me sometime."

"One of us'll need to be rescued first …"

She chuckled. "Says you. We can skip to the reunion part."

"Where's the fun in that? Miss out on all the action ..."

Hill leaned forward, rubbing her temples. "Is it like this all the time?" she asked no one in particular.

"My house, my rules. Deal with it, princess."

"Then we're agreed," Natasha broke in before Hill could say anything. "As soon as we have a location on Clint, we run for it."

Logan nodded once and lifted his mug slightly her way, going back to Hill's tablet and settling in so Skye could lean on him a little easier. But before Natasha could get up to head off to get ready for their self-appointed mission, the other half of Osborn's surprise went live:

His new police force announced the warrants that were now active on what amounted to all the victors that had spoken out publicly against Osborn — as well as the Tahiti kids that had done the same.

….of course, we'd also like to talk with the rest of the children that had been put through the so-called 'Tahiti' process. It's entirely possible that indoctrination to SHIELD was a mandatory part of their process. We would like to evaluate all of them...

Osborn's voice continued to drone on — as if he was still on the election trail — as a marked silence fell over the dining room.

"Yeah, okay, nevermind. You are not going anywhere near that nutbag," Skye said, poking Logan in the chest.

….Furthermore, since several of the districts have chosen to become their own sovereign nations, Marvel's airspace will be officially closed to any foreign craft without official permission. It's not that these outsiders won't be allowed to travel, but they will need to identify themselves and the people on board before crossing our borders….

"We'll tell them we're delivering flowers. Condolences for his lost presidency," Peter quipped.

"Except, of course, for the part where you're not supposed to be there," Hill said dryly. "And seeing as they have lists of all the residents of this district? It's a fairly rotten way to keep people where he thinks they belong."

"And a crummy way to try to keep us out when he's just put my best friend on display," Kate grumped.

"Gotta be a way around it," Logan said. "Like … maybe push Stark to finish that stealth tech he was braggin' about."

"And blatantly break Osborn's laws," Skye said more than asked as she shook her head. "That is just asking to be shot down."

"So we don't fly," Natasha said. "There are other ways, and I'm sure Osborn doesn't know the paths I know."

"She'd walk barefoot the whole way there if she had to," Kate muttered to Kurt, who didn't say anything, since he had very little room to judge. He'd been saying more or less the same thing just a little while ago about wanting another Hawkeye back.

"Pretty sure the two of us can steal something a little quicker than barefoot," Logan insisted. "Just a matter of what's available."

"No horseback for the shining knights?" Wade asked, entirely seriously.

"I was thinking something with a little more iron," Logan admitted. "But probably be too obvious with a whole motorcycle gang."

"I think Tony's pretty close with that stealth tech," Kamala offered helpfully. "He's on five mugs of coffee that have been left untouched… which usually means he's coming to a point."

"Is that the point where you have to forcibly throw him outside and hose him off?" Skye teased. "Because that is certainly a point that I don't like to walk in on. Ever."

"We leave that to Pepper," Kamala said. "She usually gets notes from the rest of us lab rats."

"That they can't breathe," Skye said in a low tone.

"More or less," Kate chuckled just as low.

"The point," Hill said, reasserting her control of the conversation as best she could. "Is that no one is going anywhere right now without a good plan to get in — and a solid extraction plan."

"So just grabbing my idiot partner and shooting everything between here and there isn't an option?" Natasha asked with one eyebrow raised.

"That sounds like a perfectly acceptable plan to me," Logan said with a nod.

"See?" Natasha gestured Logan's way.

Hill gave them both her most dry expression. "No. You'll need a little bit more than that."

"I can slice 'em up too," Logan said. "Is that enough?"

Hill raised one eyebrow even higher than before. "I'm sure between the two of you, you can come up with something better," she pointed out. "And in the meantime, we'll keep an eye out for visual confirmation of where Barton even is."

Logan and Natasha shared a look and both started signing back and forth, nodding or shaking their heads as one idea after another was tossed or kept. All the way up until Hill reached over and covered Logan's hands with hers. "Stop. It," she said as seriously as she was able.

Logan let out a little noise and pulled his hands away to sign behind Hill's back. "I don't listen to you for that," he told her. "That's May's voice … and you are no Agent May."

Hill shot him a little glare for that one before she shook her head. "Whenever you're ready to stop behaving like children," she said as she stood up, "I'm going to be in my office. I'll take any plans you've got. No idea is too stupid… considering."

"You mean except for the part where we tell you," Logan pointed out. "You're gonna want plausible deniability, should-be-Madame President."

"I'm currently in jail for kidnapping and election tampering," she pointed out. "Technically, I can't hear any of this right now."

"Unless they figure out your robot isn't really you," Skye replied.

"By that time, optimistically, it won't matter anyway," Hill said, waving her hand as she headed for the door.

"Can I just go kill Osborn on the evening news and say that I was under Hydra control?" Logan asked lazily.

"No," Hill said, not even looking his way as she left, though she was smirking at the sentiment.

"Morning news?"

"No," she called over her shoulder.

With Hill gone, Natasha reached over a put a hand on Logan's arm with a fire in her eyes. "Come on," she said, tipping her head toward the door. "We will find him ourselves."

"Let me find a location first," Skye offered. "She's been running net programs to scan for him. I'll bet I can narrow it down while Tony works on stealth."

"Work fast," Natasha told her.

"On it," Skye replied, standing up and heading off to her room where her fastest processors were.