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Spidershadow5: yep, we're pretty much screwed. Captain Marvel will come up soon - but not right away, she's been... busy - and yeah. it's a shitshow. but all will be revealed in time.

When Clint left Stark's hospital room, he immediately made a beeline for the west wing - specifically, the coffee machine in his suite kitchen. He'd drained the dregs of the refill he'd gotten from Shuri's lab, and exhaustion was catching up with him. Last night's all-nighter was a shit idea. He sauntered down the hall and through an outside door, softly whistling "Africa" by Toto - okay, bad joke, but he was tired and really couldn't resist. Once he got some caffeine in him, and maybe after he took a nap, he'd feel better.

Clint shuffled into his kitchen and started the coffee machine. Stifling a yawn, he pried off the lid of his stolen coffee cup and rinsed it out with water, careful not to get the bandage on his hand wet. Clouds of steam billowed from the cup, smelling vaguely of vodka and black pepper.

"Stop looking so smug," Clint muttered into the cup.

BOTH THE ORDER AND THE PRECONDITION ARE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

A puff of steam went directly into his face, and he grimaced. "I'll dump you in the garbage disposal, mark my words."

At the bottom of the coffee cup, the Mind Stone pulsed, with sunny yellow light.

Loki had a scepter to hold it. Vision had… himself. All Clint had was a stolen vibranium coffee mug.

If that sentence wasn't representative of his entire life so far, he didn't know what was.

FOCUS, CLINT.

"Suck my entire asshole."

THAT IS PHYSI-

"Physically impossible, I get it. Fuck off, I'm busy."

ALSO PHYSICALLY -

"Fuck off."

Clint took a long drink and slammed the coffee cup down. The Mind Stone let out a vicious snarl as his fingers pulled away. The moment his skin left the metal, the world was suddenly muffled, his senses dulled. The constant stream of data pouring through his mind stopped. Clint slumped back in his chair and took in the world, as it was meant to be. It was empty. Dull, cold.

Steam rose from the coffee spout, in highly disgruntled swirls.

Slowly, Clint rolled up his right sleeve. He laced his fingers together on the desk, and let the bare skin of his arm touch the coffee cup.

The world slammed into him.

He could hear the hum of the noiseless central air system, now as loud as a bumblebee right by his ear. One corner of his desk was 3.7 degrees lower than the rest. Lucky was sleeping under the bed; his snores were like a semi-trailer barrelling past. The window had a faint layer of grime on it - judging from wind patterns in the area and local weather, the window had been cleaned approximately two days ago, by a window-cleaning bot that left nearly invisible streaks on the window -

The coffee sat like motor oil on his tongue.

TOO MUCH? the Stone whispered, soft and mocking, and the scent of vibranium - like spearmint and dust - seared his nostrils.

Clint's nails dug into the palms of his hands. He could see every line, every freckle, every scar, in sharp microscopic detail. "No," he whispered. "Yes. A bit. Dial it back." The hyperfocused world ebbed away slightly, until all he felt was a mental sharpness just above a caffeinated buzz.

The metal cup warmed briefly against his arm. Clint scowled and looked out the window again, past the streaks, out over the hazy jungle and the white-bright sky. His mind whirled.

...Of course, it only whirled for about five minutes before he started to get bored. Clint sighed and put his head on the desk. He had a headache. The Mind Stone was riding his brain like a stuntman on a dirtbike, helping him come up with a plan for dealing with the Ring - and damn it, he was tired. He felt swept along by it, like some idiot in an inflatable tube tied to the back of a speedboat.

This must have been what was like to be Tony Stark. Though he felt like he was cheating, like all he was doing was listening to someone whisper in his ear, and he parroted what they said. An evil adviser. Wormtongue to Theoden.

THAT COMPARISON IS INACCURATE AND INSULTING.

"Don't care," he said sourly.

He sighed and leaned back into his chair. The Stone was wearing on him. Every time he heard its voice - soft, sibilant, genderless and formless - his skin crawled. He had never really gotten over Loki. The presence in the back of his mind, clinging to him, was coldly indifferent and aloof - nothing like Loki's then-unhinged madness, but it still gave him chills.

It was a small price to pay. He was sick of being useless, when the world was falling apart. A bow and arrow wouldn't be able to destroy Thanos.

He was sick of it. He couldn't give this up. Not now.

Clint dragged a hand over his face, propped his chin on it, and pulled out his phone. He needed a distraction.

It looked like Shuri had dropped a bomb on the United Nations. He whistled faintly between his teeth and scrolled through the headlines. In the pictures, Shuri looked like a harried, haggard mess, jetlagged and groggy - though still regal, with a deadly set to her jaw that made her look like she was about to punch someone in the face. Okoye and another member of the Dora Milaje flanked her, which probably helped, but still.

He scanned the headlines again and cringed.

QUEEN OF WAKANDA STUNS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

WHAT ARE THE INFINITY STONES?

"I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW"; CAN WAKANDA HELP THE WORLD RECOVER FROM THE DUSTING?

QUEEN SHURI FLIPS OFF SECRETARY OF STATE? #ICONIC

Wait, what.

Clint clicked on the Buzzfeed article and snickered. Someone had snapped a picture with Shuri and Ross at opposite ends of the shot; Ross was glaring at her, and she was glaring at Ross, and the other representatives between them looked really uncomfortable. And, yep - Shuri's middle finger was carefully arranged on her Starbucks cup, pointed directly in Ross's direction.

Man, Ross looked pissed. The CIA agent with him - also unfortunately named Ross - was clearly stifling giggles. Amazing. Clint would've loved to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. Most UN meetings were boring as hell, but this kind of drama? Hilarious.

Though Shuri had spilled everything about the Infinity Stones to the entire fucking world. Clint didn't need the Mind Stone to tell him that it was a bad idea. People might start connecting the dots. Wakanda had known this before the whole rest of the world did; it was only a short jump from there to assume that Wakanda had them.

Shuri had better know what she was doing. Clint reached for the coffee mug.

His fingers touched it just as a sonic boom rippled across the sky. Clint looked out the window and saw a jet - Queen Shuri's, probably - streak past, as if reading the headlines about her had summoned it.

TALK TO HER.

Clint's gaze snapped to the coffee cup. "What? Why?"

A web of light spiraled through his mind: points, data, procedures, ideas. SHE IS THE QUEEN OF WAKANDA, the Stone whispered. YOU WILL BE LISTENED TO IF SHE APPROVES OF YOUR PLAN.

Clint hummed thoughtfully. He drummed his fingers on the table. That did make sense; they were on her turf, and having her in his corner would be worth it. The idea of… you know, taking the initiative and making this plan of his serious was kind of uncomfortable to him. With the Avengers, he'd never been the mastermind of anything. The strategist was always Phil or Natasha, then Steve or Stark or even Thor that one time in Colombia. Granted, Clint was best at thinking on his feet - salvaging plans when they went apeshit - but he sucked at coming up with original ones. He was just a dude with a bow and arrow.

NOT ANYMORE.

"Thanks, buddy," he said, sipping from the mug. The Mind Stone was hot enough that it kept his coffee warm for him. It was a weird use for it, but it worked. And the Stone kept its complaining to a minimum, thanks to Clint's threats to throw it in the garbage disposal and/or into the Mariana Trench. It was a weird symbiotic relationship. Was it a symbiotic relationship? He was getting, but what was he giving?

GO ON, BEFORE SHE LEAVES.

Clint huffed and scooted his chair back. The legs caught on the carpet, and he pitched backwards, hitting the floor with a thud.

SMOOTH.

"Thanks."

He was waiting for her at the landing pad. Lucky had to stay in his room. The poor dog was pushing nine years old, and wasn't up for following him up and down stairs and down long hallways anymore. It was good to have his loyal dog with him, though. A reminder of home. A best friend. It helped.

Up close, Shuri looked even more like a walking corpse, and the Dora Milaje with her didn't look much better. "Your Highness," he said, bowing his head.

"Hello," she said heavily. She tilted her head towards the doors, and he followed her through. Okoye gave him a narrow-eyed glare; he nodded politely, making sure to keep his free hand in plain sight. The other one held onto his coffee cup with a white-knuckled grip, the bandage pinching at his skin.

"Mr. Barton, if you have anything to say to me, I'm afraid it'll have to wait," Shuri said.

"Oh." He bit back his disappointment. Honestly, he hadn't expected to be listened to; Shuri looked like death warmed over. Up close, it was hard to believe that she was only seventeen. "It's about the Ring," he said anyway, when the coffee cup warmed uncomfortably under his fingers. "I came up with some ideas about how we can deal with it, I can tell you about them later."

To his surprise, Shuri said, "That sounds great, actually. Here -" She turned around and tapped a few buttons on her phone. Clint blinked as the phone in his pocket buzzed. "Type it up and send it to me," she said. "I'd still like to hear what you have."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "You're sure? I mean - you don't have to, I was just curious if you wanted to know -"

She waved a hand and gave him a tired smile. "Clint," she said. "I know you worked with SHIELD. You're still alive after all that. Your plans must be worth something. You seem like a smart guy." Clint brushed imaginary dirt off his shoulders, and she snickered. "You just look like you know what you're doing, you know?"

"I'm just doing my best," Clint dismissed.

"Aren't we all."

They reached an intersection and went different ways. Shuri faced him to wave goodbye; Clint walked backwards and gave her a jaunty salute. He promptly tripped on the hem of his pants, and nearly pitched headfirst into the wall. Shuri snorted with laughter, and Okoye rolled her eyes.

As Clint left the intersection behind, he sipped thoughtfully from his coffee. So that was a no-go. Almost. At least she was willing to listen, which was a start. He hated doing this - chasing after her approval like some kind of teenager - but he didn't want to feel completely useless. And after they'd all left Stark's hospital room, he hadn't had a chance to talk with Nat or Steve or anybody about what to do. He was a little short on options.

The Mind Stone gave him an impatient shove. "Fine, fine," he muttered, and cleared his throat. He closed his eyes and let the Stone seep in.

Since he'd grabbed it on the plane, it had developed a habit of hijacking half his brain, while the other half - the real half - of Clint just came along for the ride and tried not to panic. The idiot-on-an-inner-tube analogy really applied here; it was that nonstop panic when you saw the boat take a sharp turn, and you knew the inertia would ripple down the line and launch you out of the tube into the water.

Yeah. The Mind Stone was cool, but he was panicking.

Last time he'd come in contact with it, Ultron was using it in South Korea - and before that, it'd been used on him to bind him to Loki's will. Though, now, the power was in his hands. He swirled the coffee cup and heard the stone clanking inside. Literally, in his hands.

The vibranium coffee mug had been a hunch - all his own, which he was inordinately proud of. Vision had had the stone in his head for the longest time, and he was made mostly of vibranium, so it was a reasonable assumption. The Mind Stone did burn through the insulation, but Clint had rinsed out the molten slag so he just had a vibranium shell for the stone. And the Stone kept the coffee warm, too.

God, what kind of life was he living now?

This felt like a villain origin story. Clinton Francis Barton, also known as Hawkeye, committing crimes with his Coffee Cup of Doom and his sidekick/overlord the Mind Stone. How did that work, anyway? Could he shoot energy beams out of the spout, like Vision? Does he clock someone over the head with it to control their mind? It was like he'd been beaten almost to death in an alley with a baseball bat, and then the baseball bat was given to him, and now he's got a bloody baseball bat that could kill people with and now he just needs to resist the urge to do so, especially since the baseball bat has basically glued itself to his hand and is convincing him that he can't put it down or else someone will steal it and fuck shit up.

Okay, not the best analogy.

But yeah. There was a line. Clint just needed to figure out where it was, and how not to cross it.

WATCH THE DOOR.

Clint flinched violently, realizing that the door to his suite was literally inches away from his nose. He opened his mouth to speak, but caught himself. Thanks for the warning, he thought. There was no telling who in this hallway would be listening.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Clint reached for the doorknob, and paused. The door was made from dead varnished acacia. Now the Mind Stone's power surged through the rest of him, not latching on in the way Loki's power did, but simply… there. He remembered, in detail too sharp to be an ordinary memory, a time before Ultron where he crammed an old Iron Man helmet onto his head. He was drunk. Thor had dared him. The moment he put it on, the HUD started throwing information at him like the Hash-slinging Slasher. It was a nightmare. It was just like this. It was intoxicating, it was beautiful, it was terrifying.

Clint went in and locked the door behind him. At the foot of the bed, Lucky lifted his head and let out a friendly boof. "Hey, there," Clint said, reaching down to scratch Lucky's ears. He threw himself onto the bed and grabbed the tablet. The stone whispered something about spies and records and foreign technology, but he set the Travel Mug of Doom on the nightstand. The HUD was off, the helmet tossed away. The silence pressed on his ears.

He opened up a blank document and typed what he remembered, word for word. Without the mug in his hand, he shouldn't have been able to remember everything that he and the Stone had talked about. Odd.

At least it kept his mind busy. At least it cut down on the thought of his wife and children, dust in the wind.

Lucky whined faintly and shuffled around. A few moments later, he began to snore.

He woke to a gentle buzzing and the stench of black pepper.

Clint's eyes cracked open and saw carpet. He muttered something incoherent and let his eyes close again, rolling onto his bed. Somehow he'd gotten onto the floor. He was on the wrong side of 40, and it was doing bad things to his back. "Godfucking fuck," he grumbled.

On the floor. He hated everything.

It took a few tries for him to sit up. When he did, he looked across the rumpled sheets at the window. The sun was… wrong. It was supposed to be brighter, if it was still around noon. "What fucking time is it," he muttered, running a hand over his face. He propped his chin on the edge of the mattress and glared at the dim window. Was it morning? He'd just wanted to take a nap, after he regurgitated his plan in numbered-list form into an email and sent it to Shuri.

Hell, he must have fallen asleep. If it was morning the next day… damn, that meant he'd slept for more than twelve hours. He hasn't slept like that since his early SHIELD days, when after missions he'd crash for a day or more. Phil would keep SHIELD off his back while he crashed for hours on whatever comfy surface he could find. Sometimes it was the foldout bed in Phil's office, if he was getting desperate.

God, he missed him.

The tablet on his bed buzzed. Clint hauled himself off the floor and onto the bed, picking up the tablet. "Shit," he hissed. There were seven or eight unread messages - from Shuri, it looked like. It was 9:23; he'd slept for nearly an entire day.

-I read it. It's pretty solid. Mind if we go over this tomorrow morning?

- Mr. Barton, it's tomorrow morning. You up?

-ay yo Barton, wake up

-fine, i'll just show it to everyone then

-We're in the council room - same as last time

- n

-we started without you. Enjoy your beauty sleep :D

The message he'd just gotten read, you didn't edit it, did you. tony's shitting himself trying to keep from laughing. get down here before he tears his stitches. Clint groaned and hauled himself out of bed.

It took him two tries to get out of his room. He first ran smack into the door - even having slept eighteen hours, he felt like shit - opened it, ran back in to get his coffee cup and fill it, and tripped on the hem of his pants on the way out. He shuffled down the hall, holding his pants up with his free hand. Clint didn't quite realize, until he hit the main hub of the palace and got a scandalized look from a passing Wakandan, that he was shirtless and wearing some loose Wakandan pants that he didn't remember putting on the night before.

YOU SHOULD GO BACK AND PUT ON A SHIRT, the Mind Stone suggested.

Clint let out a jaw-cracking yawn and gingerly sipped his hot coffee. You, he thought at the presence in his mind. Garbage disposal. A romance for the ages.

THERE IS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT THE PEOPLE ASSEMBLED WILL NOT TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY WITHOUT A SHIRT.

There's a high probability that I have abs of steel - oh, wait, I do. I do situps. I fucking farmed for two years. Come on, give me some credit.

The council room's doors loomed before him; the two Dora Milaje flanking them gave him unimpressed looks that nearly froze him in his tracks. "Sorry I'm late," he panted, skidding to a halt. He was in socks and almost crashed into the door. Apparently he'd taken off his shoes, too. It was like the morning after a wild night of drinking.

The women did not respond, merely pushing open the door. He winced apologetically at them and strolled in. He met the incredulous, amused, and/or unimpressed looks of just about everybody important. Hoo, boy. He really wished he'd put on a shirt.

Clint suddenly felt a twinge at the back of his neck, and the world warped.

People moved in slow motion, now, a faint haze outlining their features; information zipped through his mind at the speed of light as he scanned people. Briefly, he wondered if this was how Pietro Maximoff lived his life after HYDRA got to him - in slow motion, able to see everything in the blink of an eye.

Man, it was a tense room. Steve was bracketed by a murderous-looking Kraglin and Nebula; Rhodey sat across from him, and Natasha had taken the end of the table opposite Shuri. Thor and Bruce sat together, Thor closest to Shuri, and Tony Stark sat in a wheelchair between Bruce and Nebula. The Stone catalogued every one of Stark's injuries; Clint winced. Wong sat at Shuri's left, across from Thor; he looked like hell warmed over, but he was munching his way through a package of pecan shortbread cookies.

Rocket and Okoye were nowhere to be seen. Clint scanned the slow-motion room again and sighed. There were no other aliens here except for Kraglin and Nebula. That meant the Guardians were dead. Okoye was probably off making sure the guy didn't kill himself or something. Poor guy. Holy shit.

"Is this everyone?" he said out loud. He self-consciously scratched his chin.

Steve nodded sharply. "Yeah," he said softly, his voice croaky with disuse.

Clint retreated into the Mind Stone. This time he looked at the unseen gaps, the raw torn edges in the air between people. No Wanda. No T'Challa. No Vision. No Bucky. No Sam. No wonder Steve looked like hell.

No Sam. It physically hurt Clint to think that. God, no Sam.

"There's our mastermind," Shuri drawled, trying not to smile and failing. Clint saluted her with his coffee cup and took the empty seat between Rhodes and Nat. Rhodes looked him over, huffed with amusement, and looked away. Nat jokingly threw her jacket at him.

"No, please, God, don't put that on," Stark ordered, from the other side of the table. The billionaire flashed him a slightly-subdued grin. "You got it, you flaunt it. I see you've been keeping busy."

His voice was light, but Clint detected a faint edge beneath it. Typical Stark. But before Clint could rise to the bait, all he could see was shaking hands and wide, vulnerable eyes, a heart monitor beeping far too fast. He settled for a grin and looked down at his mug.

It was then that he noticed the slim packets sitting in front of everyone. Rhodes slid one to him, and he saw his own words at the top: "Super Awesome Strategery for Unfucking the Ring." Strategery. Damn. He really should have copyedited this before he sent it to Shuri. He didn't think that she'd actually take him seriously. That felt good. Really good. The remnants of shock on the faces around him, though, kind of dulled the edge. Come on. He wasn't a complete idiot. Maybe the Mind Stone was right, he should have doubled back to get a shirt.

"So, Clint."

Clint glanced down the table at the Queen.

"Would you mind going over this with us?" she asked. "We have already skimmed it, but it would be great to hear it from you." Shuri looked down at the packet. "Without the… seven extra contingencies per step, in case something went wrong," she added slowly. Clint grinned.

"Went a little overboard with the army of the dead, there, pal," Rhodes muttered. Clint rolled his eyes.

He picked up his packet and glanced around the table. Everyone was angled towards him, waiting for him to speak. Man, that felt good. "So," he said, drawing out the word. "We got Stark, Nebula and Kraglin in on the loop, right?"

"All looped in," Stark confirmed. "Still think it's a load of horseshit, though, but I'll take what I can get."

He was still giving Clint a weird look. Clint wasn't going to challenge it. Half of him wanted to give as good as he got, but the logical half - augmented by the Stone - told him that the likelihood of actually winning an argument with Stark without it devolving into another Civil War was really low. He's holding the cup. The cup was talking.

Jesus fuck, his life was weird.

Clint flicked through his packet, wincing at all the profanity and spelling errors. Suddenly being a genius just gave him more knowledge, not a better vehicle for it. "Sorry about…" He waved his hand vaguely. "All this. It's not a polished product, okay, I wasn't writing my thesis."

"Yeah, how long had you been up when you wrote this?" Bruce asked. A smile played around his lips. Next to Bruce, Thor yawned; one of his eyes was pointing straight to the side. Clint gave him a look and gestured towards his eye; Thor grimaced, popped the eye out with his thumb, and put it in a water glass.

Everyone groaned. "Watch yourself, Mad-Eye," Rhodes called down the table. Thor shrugged helplessly, and swirled the cup like a wine glass. Shuri cleared her throat and gave Clint a pointed look.

"Okay, okay," Clint said, "enough chit-chat." The table looked at him again. "So - here's the paraphrased version. Without the contingency plans. Let's ignore those, even I don't know what went into them. This is what would work, with no interference - no ring being stolen, or Wakanda going up in flames, or Thanos divebombing the Earth again.

"One: get everyone up to speed on Lord of the Rings. And we mean everyone. Space aliens?" He looked at Kraglin and Nebula. "Yep. Sentient raccoon? ...Wherever he is. Absolutely. Even the ones who aren't full-blooded nerds -" He glanced at Bruce, and Bruce gave him a judgmental glare that would work a lot better if he had glasses. "- need a refresher. That means movie night."

That was a nostalgia trip. They didn't have nearly enough of those back in the day; they could never schedule one, especially once Steve and Natasha moved to DC… and Thor went back to Asgard… and Clint was with his family… yeah. They kinda bailed on that. Only had one or two while they were all at the Tower together, and even then it was kind of awkward. They'd had to start believing they could be a team. That didn't really come until just before Ultron, and then it all went to hell after Sokovia.

"Movie night?" Steve repeated, and not happily. "Clint - we can't sit around watching movies when we have to do something. We can't just hide and -"

"Steve, with all due respect," Clint said, "fuck that." Steve recoiled slightly. "We have a weapon on our hands that could destroy Thanos a thousand times over. We need to understand it. I care about this as much as you do, but we gotta take every break we can get. Let me finish before you get all up in arms, okay?"

Stark whistled softly. Steve's mouth tightened, but he fell silent; Clint felt bad for a moment, but the moment quickly faded. "Right. So. First we watch the movies, and then read the books. Or Sparknotes it. The movies are pretty damn accurate, but we'll still have to go over the books, 'cause they're as close to Odin's word that we're going to get."

"You could just ask me," Thor offered. "I remember everything my father told me about the Ring."

"That's step two," Clint said. Thor inclined his head. "Once everyone can recite the plot of Lord of the Rings in their sleep, we start branching out. Thor, you write down everything your father told you. Nebula, Kraglin, any space tales you might've heard - even the bullshit ones - write 'em down. It was a galaxy-wide conspiracy. Everybody's got a hand in this pie."

"I can help," Kraglin said, leaning back in his chair. He tapped the point of his red arrow on the table; with each click, Steve blinked a bit harder than was necessary. "Warp gets boring sometimes, and the crew brought on stories to keep themselves busy. I probably got something stored on the drives somewhere."

"Do us a favor and let us borrow them, okay?" Clint said. Kraglin nodded once.

"Great. So then," he continued, "we compare notes. Pull out everything that's similar between stories. That happens a lot - you get adaptations of fairy tales and shit that completely change the tone of the story, but you'll always have - you know, a poison apple and seven dwarves, or a pumpkin carriage. If we find the things that are similar, that might hint at the truth."

"You see that in propaganda, sometimes," Natasha added. "The best lies are the ones based in truth. It's possible that Odin laid out the key points of whatever happened, filled the space between them with mush, and let the universe have the resulting mess. Only the consistent stuff survived - and the consistent stuff is what matters."

Clint gave her a friendly nudge with his elbow. "Thanks," he muttered.

"Of course."

There was a flurry of shuffling papers, as everyone turned the page to Clint's next point. "So, then we go to the books," Wong said. "Finally. I hope I didn't dredge those out of the Mirror Dimension for nothing."

"You can store shit there?" Stark asked skepticaly.

"You know what that is?" Wong asked, in the same tone.

"Of course I do, I saw it in action - I just thought -"

"Tony, not now," Steve said wearily. Stark huffed a sigh and turned pointedly away from Steve. Kraglin's arrow hit the table with enough force to dent the table and rattle Thor's eyeball in the glass; Steve's spine immediately straightened.

"That is mahogany," Bruce snapped. Rhodes snorted.

"Very funny. Yes, we'll run a translation program on the Ancient One's ungodly chicken scratch," Clint said. "She had the Ring for a long-ass time. It's possible that she knew a lot about the Ring - maybe even more than the rest of the galaxy, maybe even more than Odin." Thor nodded slowly, which surprised Clint. It had been three years, but last he checked, Thor had been singing Odin's praises and defending the honor of his family, et cetera. Something must've changed when Asgard was blown up. "Hell, she might have been old enough to see the original war."

"She couldn't have been."

Clint raised his eyebrows at Thor. "Why not?"

Thor propped his arms on the table and said, "That war happened when my father was younger than I am now -"

"Which is?"

"Fifteen hundred years."

"Looking good," Stark commented.

"Thanks," Thor said, completely seriously. Bruce patted his shoulder - or, since Thor towered over him, even when they sat, his bicep. "My father lived nearly five thousand years before he passed. Like, three days ago. The Ancient One, if she was of Midgardian blood, would not have lived even a fifth of that." Wong muttered something that made Thor and Bruce stare, but Clint couldn't pick it up. Even the enhanced senses of the Mind Stone left him hanging.

"Okay, then that's out," Clint said. "We'll still look at the texts. Maybe her chicken scratch is notes, correcting Tolkien's work to what really happened. Maybe it's a code. Nobody knows, but we'll figure it out. Wong -"

The sorcerer looked up from his cookies.

"You probably knew her better than anyone here," Clint said. "If you've got anything to decipher codes, or any keys that she might have left lying around, then that'd be great. Shuri, if your program to analyze the text and find a pattern is working, then we should get on it."

"It's… a work in progress," Shuri said, grimacing. She tapped the packet in front of her. "I incorporated your ideas into the rough draft of my program."

"You did?"

She waved a hand. "Don't sound so surprised," she said. "I'd been thinking the same thing. I already have a dictionary for every language on Earth with an alphabet; we might need a supplement of alien languages -"

"Gotcha," said Kraglin. "I got an almost complete collection of galactic languages on my ship."

Shuri sent a finger gun his way. "Great, we'll talk later," she said. Kraglin, surprisingly, didn't look fazed by the gesture. "Bruce and Rocket noticed the letter fragments in our first meeting; we'll take that and run with it. For example -"

She grabbed one of the beads on her bracelets, and a hologram flickered to life above her palm. "Here's a letter I found on the first page of The Hobbit."

Clint craned his neck to look. It looked like a jumbled mess - but then Shuri's finger glided over the letter, separating it into quadrants. It was all clear. It was four fragments of individual letters that didn't look related at all.

"We have four different languages here," Nakia said. She hadn't spoken a single word for the entire meeting; everyone listened to her now. Her voice was soft and hoarse, her eyes still a bit red. The Wakandans had taken the loss of their king particularly hard. "There's what could be the English letter 'k,', something in… the Elvish dialect Sindarin, a Tamil letter -"

"And a Xandarian one," Kraglin interrupted. "Bottom left." Inexplicably, Clint and Bruce looked at each other; they'd both heard the similarity between Sindarin and Xandarian. Was that a coincidence?

"Yeah, that," Nakia said. "Other letters I've seen are different, with many alphabets and different combinations - but it's the same quadrant system." She glanced at Wong. "We don't know for sure," she said to him, "but if you can find a key somewhere to determine what to do, that would help a lot."

"It's likely that she kept it in her head," Wong said grimly. "She's been dead for over a year."

"We'll figure something out," Clint said, giving Shuri a pointed look. "The quadrant thing is important. We'll brainstorm this later, with..." He looked around; only Bruce, Thor, Kraglin, Shuri and Tony looked remotely interested, but that was okay. Too many people, and it would turn into a shitshow. "...with whoever's interested."

"Ooh, pick me, pick me," Stark said, in a monotone.

Steve took a deep breath. "Tony, this is serious -"

"Steve, shut up," Rhodes hissed.

Clint winced. "Gonna have to agree with the Colonel on this one, Steve, sorry," he said. "We've all got our coping mechanisms." If it was possible, Steve looked even guiltier than before. Clint felt bad for him. The man was just trying to do his best, but he was breaking. He was held together by duct tape, chewing gum and prayers. Man, Steve was on his last legs.

"I resemble that remark," said Stark.

"Good, it's working."

Clint flipped to the last page of the packet. "Right, so once we've got all sides of the story," he went on, "we figure out what to do with the damn thing. Because propaganda? Bullshit. Eyewitness accounts? ...Sometimes bullshit. If Lord of the Rings is just space propaganda, there's a high chance that the Ring's actually safe to use, and -"

"That would be a disaster," Thor said firmly. His stern words were undercut by him fishing around in Bruce's water glass for his eye. Bruce was very carefully not looking at him. "An absolute disaster. Ten out of ten would not recommend. It would burn you to ash."

"That's just what daddie-o told you," Stark pointed out. "He had an agenda. Take it from me, dads with agendas are usually full of shit." From the corner of his eye, Clint saw Steve frown. "How do you know that that's even true?"

"Because the Ancient One tried it on once."

Silence. Everyone turned to stare at Wong, who was solemnly finishing the last of his cookies. "She had scars," he said. He ran his hand along the inside of his left arm. "She hid them under spells, but I knew she had them. I was told to never let anyone wear the Ring, because it nearly tore her apart - even with all her magic."

"She could never fix them?" Rhodes asked.

Wong shook his head. "In all her hundreds of years, she'd never been able to make the scars go away. And she was the most powerful sorcerer that he had ever known." He grimaced, and reached for some iced tea in a plastic water bottle. "Except for Stephen Strange." He sat back in his chair, looking suddenly morose.

The silence following Wong's words could be cut with a knife. "So," Clint said slowly, "I think that about covers what I thought would be good. Any questions?"

Across from him, Steve cleared his throat. "Why," he asked, "do we have to watch the movies and stuff?"

"Is this because you've never seen them?" Nat said, voice teasing.

There were groans from nearly every Earth native at the table. "Blasphemy," Shuri groaned, putting her head on the table. Nakia elbowed her gently.

"No, I've never seen them," Steve said wearily. He looked at Clint again, slightly exasperated. "Why bother with that, if we can just look at the Ancient One's notes?"

The coffee cup warmed beneath his fingers, and Clint felt a slight nudge at the back of his mind. He ignored it - the Stone wanted to take a piece out of Steve for some reason, but he couldn't do that. Not while Steve still had blood crusted in his beard and ash under his fingernails.

He settled for leaning forward and saying, "Bro. Seriously."

"I don't get why." Steve ran a grimy hand over his face and added, "I'm sorry, if I can't catch up to where you are - I'm just tired."

"I get it," Clint said simply. "I know. So here's why: the Ancient One's the expert on the Ring - the who, if you will." He ticked off one of his fingers. "But the story... That gives us the what, why, how and where."

He counted off the rest. "What to do - destroy or use," he said. "Classic Council of Elrond stuff. Why we need to destroy or use it. How to use it without dying - or how to destroy it. And where, if it needs to be destroyed. Mount Doom was a thing. We need to know if we need to find our own special Mount Doom to chuck this thing into."

"So everything's important," said Stark. Clint nodded. "Even the films."

"Yes," Nakia said. "There are lots of things hidden in even the most innocent of stories, if you know where to look. If you peel back the layers. The -"

She paused, and blinked. "Are you okay?" she said lowly, looking at Shuri.

Shuri had an uncomfortable look on her face, as if she was trying not to laugh. "Something you'd like to share with the class, Queen Shuri?" Clint said.

She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Ogres have layers," she whispered through her fingers.

Clint cackled and pounded his fist, the glasses shaking. Stark groaned and slowly lowered his head to the table. "Oh, my God," Bruce muttered, covering his face.

"Oy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Shuri said, wiping her eyes. There was something sad in her smile, and Clint had to look away. "Not the time. I apologize."

"We all need a laugh," Stark said into the table. "Thanks for that."

Shuri asked Wong a question, but Clint didn't hear it; he was staring at Stark, feeling vaguely uneasy. Last he saw him was on the news, after some kind of Stark Industries product launch; he'd been all proper and polished, the quintessential billionaire. (Look at him, using big words.)

Now... he was a shell. Something was wrong. Clint had seen that hollow look in his own eyes every time he looked in the damn mirror. He needed to know.

Stark suddenly met his eyes.

The fog vanished from them, revealing something sharp and inquisitive. Clint blinked, taken aback by the sudden attention. He settled for a subtle jerk of his head towards the door. The billionaire nodded and backed his chair - some sleek and snazzy electric number - away from the table. "I don't know about you all," he said to the room, "but I'm calling it a day. Really feeling it in the ol' stab wound. Hey - Your Highness, if you've got a private theater here or something, we can get movie night set up…"

Movie night. God. A weight sank into Clint's chest, and he looked down, tears pricking his eyes. Natasha gave him a soft pat on the shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?" she said softly.

"I'll live," Clint said. "I'll… I'll live."

"You're sure."

"I'm sure."

Stark revved the wheels of his wheelchair a bit. Clint didn't even know that was possible. "See you in a bit, Nat," he said, standing up and taking his coffee mug. Natasha gave him a faint smile, but her eyes were slightly questioning. He grimaced apologetically and slunk away. Stark was just passing through the doors, one hand on the joystick of the wheelchair. Clint wove around Rhodes, who was cracking a joke about invalids. He'd make a joke, too, but…

BAD IDEA, said the Mind Stone. Its speech was growing shorter, less formal. More human. Clint should have appreciated it, but it was easier to get mad at something that sounded like a machine. REMEMBER?

"You gotta watch your back with this guy. There's a chance he's gonna break it."

He saw the flicker of the Raft's lights, the bars on his cell. Stark in an immaculate suit. The faint twitch of his face as he turned away - something Clint hadn't seen then, but the Mind Stone called it forth in crystal clear detail. God, he was an asshole. He was surprised the man hadn't decked him for that the moment it came out of his mouth.

Stark broke free of the traffic jam near the door and sped off down the hall. Clint followed close behind. They wended and wove through the halls of Birnin Zana, so long that Clint wondered if he actually knew where they were going. If they had a destination at all. "So," he said conversationally, when they turned a last corner. They were in what looked like a little-used maintenance hallway, with few doors and little signs of human life. He heard soft whirs and clanks within the walls, and wondered what lay behind them.

"So," said Stark. He swiveled his wheelchair to face him. "What do you want?" he said. He sounded as tired as he looked. At this angle, Clint could clearly see the grey in his hair, every speck of dirt and grime that the doctors hadn't scrubbed away.

"I just want to know what I missed," Clint said quietly. "What happened, how you've been."

Stark's face went hard. "You're a bit late for that," he said harshly. "Two years late, if I remember correctly. I already told everyone what went down on Titan this morning. If you'd gotten yourself out of bed soon enough, you would've heard about it."

He grabbed the joystick so hard it creaked, and turned to leave. "Don't waste my time," he snarled.

Clint took a deep breath and moved in front of Stark's wheelchair. The man glared up at him, teeth half bared, and said, "Get out of my way, Barton."

Clint slowly shook his head. He bent down and placed the coffee cup on the ground.

NO!

Yes, he thought firmly, in the tone of a parent arguing with an obstinate child. This has to be me. Not you. His fingers left the metal. The walls were just walls, his hands just hands. Stark was just Stark, angry and greying and bruised and dead behind his eyes.

"You got that look, you know," he said softly, waving his hand in front of his face. Stark froze. "Where you've seen your whole world crumble to dust before your eyes."

Stark said nothing.

"I -" Clint swallowed. "I'm here because my wife and kids are dead," he blurted out. Stark jerked away. "I fell asleep on fucking family movie night. We were watching Inside Out. They were there when I closed my eyes, and they were little piles of ash on the sofas when I opened them."

He swallowed. "Stark, I - look, you know what?" he said sharply, seeing how the other man just continued to stare at him, his mouth drawn. "I get it if you don't want to talk. I'm just saying. I - we have something in common. One thing. Can we let whatever this is go, just for once?"

Stark blinked. Slowly, he let his head drop. He looked defeated. He looked dead on his feet. Wheels. "Okay," the man said softly.

Clint felt his stomach jolt. Tony Stark never... He never bent, never blew over. Hearing his voice falter like that was as bad as seeing him collapse to his knees and sob. "Man, you look like hell," he said. "I - is there - what happened? "

"I lost," said Stark. "I - I got stabbed by the purple nutsack himself. And when he snapped his fingers, I lost him."

"Who?" Clint prompted softly, when Stark fell silent again.

He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for a plunge into icy water. "Peter Parker. Just a teenager from Queens. You - you guys fought him in Berlin. He was Spider-Man."

"He was, huh," Clint said grimly. He'd suspected as much, during that fight that felt like an eternity ago. Sounded like fucking Alvin the Chipmunk. "Right, should've known."

Stark gave him a sharp look, but there was no real heat behind it. "He went with me to Titan," he continued. "We - me, him, Stephen Strange, and Rocket's buddies the Guardians - we went there, and - and we lost." He gripped the arms of his wheelchair, and his knuckles bled white. "Thanos won. Snapped his fingers, et cetera. And, uh. Peter died."

He fell silent. "He was a son to you," Clint guessed softly. The other man flinched, hunched further into himself. At this angle, Clint could clearly see his greying roots. "How did that happen?"

"I honestly have no idea," Stark said, propping his head on his hand. Something fond flickered across his face, but it quickly vanished - stifled. "Before Berlin, he was swingin' around Queens in his goddamn pajamas, fighting crime. I gave him a real suit. He got in way over his head, and I bailed him out, and… well, we kinda got closer from there, after..."

His voice tapered off in a hiss - almost the beginning of a word, but he stopped before anything came out.

"Sounds like you got a pretty good idea of how it happened," Clint said, smirking.

"Yeah, yeah."

"How old was he?" Clint instantly regretted asking, when he saw the pain flash across Stark's face. "No, never mind, you don't have to -"

"Seventeen," the man said, almost to himself. "He'd just turned fifteen, before Berlin. It's been two years. God."

"I'm sorry," Clint said, and he hated how hollow and meaningless his words sounded.

Stark's eyes flashed towards him, but not in a hateful way - sharp, calculating, yes, but… understanding. "I am too," he said.

And somehow, Clint knew he meant it.

Stark reached forward and patted Clint on the elbow - the highest part of him he could reach in the chair. "So, good talk," he said. He swallowed, and - as if it was physically painful - added, "Clint."

Clint raised his eyebrows. There was so much packed into that name - and a look in the man's eyes that took any sarcastic comments right from Clint's throat and stomped on them. God, Stark was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of arguing - hell, if Clint stretched the similarity between them enough, then he could say that Stark was tired of living. Clint knew that he sure was.

"Yeah," was all he said. "Tony."

The man's face softened, and he squeezed Clint's elbow. "Man, I'm sorry," he said. "For - everything, really."

"It's fine," Clint said. "I'll only hold it to you for the things you really did."

He meant it as a joke, but it made Tony's faint smile falter. "More like what I didn't do," he muttered.

"Hey, no," Clint said, putting a hand on Tony's shoulder. "Tony, you did a hell of a lot more than I ever did. Take a nap sometime, holy shit."

"You first, old man," Tony said, grinning.

"You're older."

They grinned at each other. Something had changed in the air between them. Clint looked at the man and felt a strange sense of kinship. Took six years, but they got there. It was morbid beyond all belief, bonding over their dead families - but it brought them together. He couldn't find it in himself to hate Tony anymore. Just couldn't. Not while he was broken, and greying, and sitting huddled in a wheelchair, when he'd just lost his kid. That's what it boiled down to, and that's what Clint felt, and - he couldn't.

"I'm sorry, too," Clint added belatedly. "I said some shit."

Tony's eyes flashed, but not dangerously. "So did I," he said, one corner of his mouth quirking. "You know… this might be the drugs talking, Wakanda has some amazing stuff squirreled away, but... I managed to see your side, by the end."

Before Clint could respond, Tony patted his elbow one more time and moved his wheelchair backwards. "You had points," he added. "We - we listened. We changed things in the Accords. Being with Peter really… changed a lot."

He paused. "If the Accords are still standing after this, which I bet they won't be," he said awkwardly, "you can still come back. I'll lobby to get you back home. You deserve it, at this point."

Clint stood there, flabbergasted. "Guh," he said intelligently.

Tony smirked. "And, you know, it'll be great to call you Legolas again."

"Oh, shut up," Clint said.

Tony gave him a jaunty salute and steered his wheelchair down the hall.

Clint watched him go, something like a smile on his lips. The moment Tony disappeared around the corner, he took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. He ran his hand over his face, and the bandage caught on his stubble. That interaction had scared the pants off of him - after all, the last time he and Tony had been face to face, Clint was in a cell.

But they were both different then. Tony was different then. In this hallway, he wasn't the cocky billionaire, or the smooth, unruffled asshole they'd fought against with the Accords. He was just a man, now; greying, tired and bruised. He'd had the arc reactor put in again, Clint realized. That was odd - especially after the stink Tony raised getting it out, after that incident with the Mandarin.

A puff of steam escaped the coffee cup, and Clint sighed heavily. "Now what," he muttered, nudging the cup with his sock-covered toe.

The cup rattled, as if the stone was bouncing around inside. "Okay, calm your jets," he said. He bent down and picked up the cup.

The Mind Stone slammed into his mind so hard that his body reacted, and he slumped against the wall again. It dove through him, plunged, tore into his mind. Clint's chest heaved, and his fingers scrabbled for purchase on the sleek wall. "Fuck, fuck, too much," he gasped. He slid down the wall to the floor, his hands shaking.

YOU DID NOT SEE.

"I saw plenty, what in the ass are you talking about -!"

And the Stone showed him.

The world slowed, fading to a golden haze. Clint's own body seemed to move in slow motion; his heartbeats slowed and rang in his head like gongs, ponderous and far apart.

WORK WITH ME HERE.

"We kinda got closer from there, after ssss…."

HISSING S SOUND.

HE WAS GOING TO SAY SOMETHING STARTING WITH S.

Spider-Man?

HE SAID IT BEFORE WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS.

...He was uncomfortable.

...HE WAS.

Something he didn't want to talk with me about. Something personal, or related to me, or both.

FEW QUALIFIERS FOR THAT.

S, S, S…

STEVE ROGERS.

Fuck. That makes sense. Might've been Steve, then.

After what happened, everyone on Tony's side had a right to hate our guts.

NO. COLONEL RHODES. ON TONY'S SIDE, BUT DID NOT SHOW HOSTILITY.

hospital room, looking at steve, "Steve, don't" - familiarity, kindness, weary indifference

not hatred

Okay, then maybe not something related to the Accords.

NOT DIVISION ON THOSE LINES.

Something starting with an S, awkward to talk about, involving Tony and possibly Steve Rogers - though Steve himself and the Accords were not the subjects.

AFTER.

What?

AFTER IS AN INDICATOR OF TIME. POSSIBLE "S" MAY REFER TO AN EVENT.

An event?

AN EVENT.

Shit.

WHAT?

Siberia.

Clint sat up straight. In the slow-motion world of the Stone, it felt like moving through Jell-O.

WHAT WAS SIBERIA.

You're the one in my brain, go through it and find out.

look, i'll tell you… but you have to go alone, and as a friend

SAM TOLD TONY TO GO TO SIBERIA.

Yeah - to kill the last of the Winter Soldiers...

Something cold swept over Clint, then. He'd just remembered: a long-forgotten memory, from before he went back and turned himself in for house arrest - a little over two years ago. He stood in a darkened hallway outside Bucky's cryo chamber, hiding in the shadows. Steve was talking to Nat around the corner, saying the same words over and over…

"He was my friend… Nat, he was my friend

And he never came back with his shield.

And Bucky's arm had been blown off.

And seeing Steve's face made Tony go white, sent the heart monitor into a frenzy, and now they couldn't even look at each other...

"Shit," Clint breathed. He let his head fall backwards, and it knocked against the metal wall. "Shit."

SECONDED.

Steve had never told him exactly what went down in Siberia; but he'd told Nat, and Nat had never told him, which meant it must have been bad and deeply, deeply personal. Clint stood up. He had to ask her about that. They couldn't have something like that hidden away. Secrets had clearly fucked them all up in the past. Secrets fucked everyone up.

Clint took a step down the hall and immediately tripped over the hem of his too-large pants. He made an undignified noise of shock; the hand holding his cup flew out and struck the wall, hard enough to send the lid flying. Coffee sprayed everywhere and poured on the floor. He slipped on it, and the Mind Stone flew up and out…

There was a flash of blonde hair at the end of the hall.

Clint caught his balance and quickly captured the Mind Stone in the cup. Biting back curses, he sheared the spilled hot coffee off his bare chest, scrambled to grab the coffee mug's lid, and slammed it on.

"Clint, what the hell?"

He froze and turned around. Natasha stood at the end of the hallway, staring right at him. He knew that she'd seen everything. Everything.

Shit, he and the Mind Stone thought.

Author's Notes: (decided to include these again)

Oh, Clint. What a disaster. What an amazing human being. I'm of the humble opinion that Jeremy Renner was actually great casting - come on, when he broke his arms on the set of Tag, he ended up getting locked in a bathroom stall with his pants down and couldn't get out/pull his pants up because his arms were busted. That's such a Clint thing. Look it up, it happened. I do think, however, that MCU Clint gets so much flack because the writers slacked off. He's got such a rich past in the comics, and the Matt Fraction comics run really made him a real character. There was a lot wasted. It's a shame.

Anyway. Sorry if this chapter was garbage, or if things are going too fast. I just wanted to get back into Clint's headspace, and it was the perfect time to get the plot back in gear.

Coming up: Phase One of the plan begins, Thor sulks, and Steve and Tony finally have a long-needed chat over popcorn. Favorites, reviews, and constructive criticism appreciated. Thanks!