Avengers Initiative.
Target. Zero. Six.
Barton, Clint; S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent.
Alias: Hawkeye
Mission: unknown
Status: unknown
To be completely honest with himself right now wouldn't have been the best idea. If he were to evaluate the situation emotionally, he would have spiraled into uncontrolled panic, feeding off of the nervous energy like a metabolic positive feedback reaction.
And so he didn't. Even as he licked the salt off his upper lips. Even as he refused to acknowledge his spasming fists, protecting clammy palms. Even as he controlled his breathing and heart rate.
Even as his safety nets were well and truly missing.
Luckily (or maybe not so much luck but training) logic won out over the budding adrenaline.
After escaping the missile that took out half the lab and the ship's fourth engine as well as triggering Dr. Banner's transformation, Fury had him contained into a corner of the control room of the ship, the detainment levels too dangerous to enter. After all, Loki was still down there and if this invasion was orchestrated to rescue him, they did not want to be caught in the crossfire. Fervor built rapidly as agents milled to and fro, Fury and his cohorts at work to regain dominance over the battle. Multitudes of screens were flashing, streaming data and diagrams; complex algorithms were computed to maximize their utilities - three engines to keep the ship afloat in the air, it said, or death was awaiting in a terrible blaze of glory.
In this chaotic din, he could hear Fury barking out strict orders as his second-in-command jumped from surveillance camera to surveillance camera. Armed soldiers flooded the ship hallways, being met by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents halfway. Clusters of heat signatures were also detected by the service door and ventilation system but it seemed one of theirs had a means of evading detection for the heat signatures often disappeared for a few minutes before reappearing in a different part of the ship. Through all of this, he had silently listened in on his own earpiece, flinching at the gunshots and carnage as the hostiles invaded the ship.
Beside him stood his guard but even he looked distracted, eyes constantly roving to the only entrance of the control room.
A thin voice reported, catching his attention, "Sir, Team Seven-Beta down-"
"-Then get Team Nine-Gamma to meet them!" Fury growled lowly, "I'll be damned if I let a little surprise allow them to win on our turf."
Pictured in another screen was Captain America, standing guard over a control box as the high velocity winds rushed around him. The agent in charge of that surveillance station was typing frantically, cursing softly, as unbeknownst to the hero, the enemies were rapidly swarming towards him. Iron Man was nowhere to be seen but through listening the one-sided conversation Fury had with the man, Dick knew that he was trying to restart the fourth engine.
"Captain America about to engage."
Agent Hill, on the heels of that announcement, reported gravely, "The Hulk has destroyed section twenty-four. Both Hulk and Thor smashed through section twenty-five and twenty-six. Sending emergency Team Five-Nu to contain the fires."
"They're making their way to the lower hanger bay." Fury zoomed into the structural diagram of the ship and commanded, "All personnel evacuate imme-"
Hyperawareness. Instinct made him turn towards the entrance just as his jumpy guard cursed, simultaneously pulling him down, and Agent Hill yelled out a warning.
Grenade.
The explosion rocked the room, several screens cracking from the sheer force. As the dust gradually cleared, Dick could see Fury position himself at the entrance, disabling the two hostiles efficiently.
"Where did they come from?!" Swearing, his guard crouched over him protectively, gun trained at the hostiles that were openly firing at the agents.
"Scrambler." Robin, ears ringing terribly, grunted on his hands and knees as he analyzed the situation unfolding. "They must have an insider whose helping them hide their tracks."
He suppressed the flinches as the guard fired a few gunshots at the enemies sheltering in the hallway, blood flecking the floor when the bullets met their targets; his 'jailer' spoke candidly, "You know, you better not be the mole, kid."
"Yeah, I don't think so," he muttered without rancor. He was distracted when his keen eyes spotted movement in the forgotten ventilation system above them. Quickly taking a palm-sized twisted metal piece from the ground, he threw it sharply, knowing that muscle memory made his aim true.
Before his weapon of choice could reach the target though, said target let loose two projectiles in rapid succession. One arrow pierced the screens above their heads, detonating with a resounding explosion, flinging them painfully into the base of the walkway. The other arrow destroyed his metal piece into shards, the dangerous shrapnel flying and biting into the flesh of allies. Checking on his concussed guard, thankfully still alive, Robin turned his attention towards the man hiding in the shadows, trying his best to ignore the ache of his bruised ribs.
The Director had already swiveled on his heels, bullets whistling as he fired at the vent. "Barton," hissed Fury.
"Clint Barton, huh? Almost all of his information is blacked out..." Robin typed in codes to try and reverse the security measures but it required further clearance that he did not have time to hack into. "Maybe Stark's bug...There."
The Industrialist's code gave him access to the next clearance level of information but even then, it only revealed two words: excellent marksmanship.
"Clint Barton...But he's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent...Part of the Avengers Initiative." Robin tensed, evaluating. "A traitor?"
Watching the grate, he saw Hawkeye appear once Fury paused, bow strung with another trick arrow.
A split second was all he had.
Calculating the angle of the bow and the cant of his arms and superimposing that with his experiences with Green Arrow, Red Arrow and Artemis, he intercepted the speedy arrow by throwing a fist-sized piece of rubble in its path.
Sharpshooter eyes turned to him when the arrow clattered uselessly onto the floor. Barely a millisecond later, Hawkeye strung and released another arrow, forcing him to use his training to duck out of the way.
"Damnit." Fury shot at his 'ex-agent' again, drawing attention to himself as he clearly aimed to disarm, but Hawkeye managed to slip away into the protective confines of the vent. Speaking into the comms., the Director growled, "I want Teams Two-Nu and Three-Beta to fall back to the control room. We have an ambush on our hands. Team Two-Gamma, take the ventilation system."
No sooner did he command his troops did a canister fall through the vent that Hawkeye was just positioned in. It hissed, compressed air releasing the S.H.I.E.L.D. 'standard issue' nerve gas.
Immediately recognizing the canister, Fury immediately took steps away. "Move out. Don't breathe it in. Temporary paralysis."
Robin, taking the caution to heart, finally accessed his hidden belt for his 'standard issue' gas mask and wore it securely; if it could filter out what the Scarecrow and Joker can concoct, then he felt he was relatively safe. Already, he could see agents falling, tumbling out of their monitor seats as the nerve gas froze their muscles.
Fury stayed low to the ground, edging closer to the exit with Hill and a handful of other agents. Through the smoke of the gas, Robin could faintly see Hawkeye's outline in the vent before an arrow pierced through the fog, striking true. The projectile was now attached to one of the many computer consoles and a very familiar whirring of an electronic activating was heard by all.
"Excellent marksmanship title, well deserved," murmured Robin, watching the grate cautiously for any further movements.
One of the agents at the doorway exclaimed, "The computers monitoring engine one are powering down."
Robin could hear Fury bark out, "Someone access the secondary system now. We need to bring the main system back online."
Turning his attention to the blackening screens, Robin's eyes widened. "Not good." He nearly jumped onto his feet but stopped, not because of his protesting ribs, but because of the danger that lurked in the airways. Steeling himself, not for the first time glad for his smaller stature, he crept to the nearest console, back to the wall and eyes trained on where Hawkeye was stationed.
And that was when they lost altitude.
Scrambling to find purchase on one of the consoles, he managed to grab onto a chair arm before his world tilted forty-five degrees. "...Making an uncontrolled descent now. Real great." Reaching out, he pressed a few buttons on the foreign console in front of him and found it unresponsive.
To the side, he could hear Fury bellowing into his comm. - likely at Stark to hurry and re-power engine four.
Looking at the screens three meters away, he could see the consoles monitoring engines two and three scrolling bright red warnings. Maybe if he redirected the power from engines two and three into engine one by giving commands through the system ...And Fury already gave him a hint that an online secondary system existed...So if he were to bypass the security that exists between the two mainframes and use his system as a link...Turning on the secondary system remotely...
"Sir, Barton was seen entering the detainment level-"
"Loki..."
Relaxing his shoulders at the news even as Fury ordered someone to intervene Barton's descent, he fiddled with the expensive-looking watch on his left wrist and removed the cable at the back of the timepiece.
Time to do some not so legal hacking.
He had to at least try.
"Well I'll be damned."
Iron Man, in the middle of pushing the turbine of engine four, growled, "What now Fury?"
Hearing the smirk even across the wavelengths, the Director provoked him. "You've got competition."
"...You know what. That can wait." Accelerating exponentially, he called out, "Captain, pull the lever."
He could hear gunfire. "-A bit busy-"
"There's no time for busy-"
The lever was activated at the last possible moment and Iron Man, after plummeting a few feet, immediately flew off to aid his comrade-in-arms.
"Close one," commented the Director right above the anomaly's shoulder, eye glittering above a mask as he read the data on the screens.
All four engines online.
"Yeah." Grayson turned on his heels, his own gas mask and the backlight of the screens hiding the expression on his young face. However, Fury did not miss the way his hands were immediately shoved into his pockets. "Nearly had a scrap robot on our hands."
"I had faith in Captain America."
He hummed noncommittally, shrugging, "He's your Hero."
The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. gazed at him for a moment longer before making a motion for him to follow. As they left the computers, other masked agents swarmed the area, medical personnel included; one of the agents activated the filtering system in the room and adjacent hallways to funnel out the diluted chemical in the air. Moving past the wounded and dying, Fury noted how the boy seemed skittish, shying away from the blood and suffering, shoulders hunched.
He marched the boy in front of him to ensure he did not disappear again as they traveled down the hallway and into the infrequently used conference room.
Nodding towards his second-in-command, he said, "You've met Agent Hill."
Now that they were out of the immediate battle zone, the boy seemed wilted. "Yeah. It's nice to see you again."
The woman remained stoic, eying Grayson neutrally, and stated, "Likewise." The medic attending to Hill stayed silent.
"Stay with her." He knew his voice brooked no arguments and the boy seemed to finally understand the situation for he agreed readily enough.
"I will."
As he stalked out the door to the detainment levels, he sent another medical personnel into the room. "Treat the boy. Upper body injury. Likely the ribs."
"Yes sir."
Avengers Initiative.
Target. Zero. Five.
Romanoff, Natasha; S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent.
Alias: Black Widow
Mission: unknown
Status: unknown
Less than an hour later, Robin knew he was in the middle of interrogation again, no matter how they sugarcoated it. He was sitting at a table, meeting with two mourning agents and what was left of the Avengers Initiative in the secondary control room.
It was silent until-
"The situation is bleak. Loki is lost to us. We have no idea where the Tesseract is. Banner or Thor. And Agent Phil Coulson..."
Romanoff, tense as a drawstring, was leaning against a wall, an image of cold aloofness; if he knew her better, he would have caught the false veneer that hid the regret. In the seats next to his were Rogers and Stark, both worse for wear and solemn, a mood he didn't deny sharing with them. Being exposed to crimefighting never took away the edge of empathy when someone was in pain or dying; if he ever became numb, he would honestly be scared of himself. The use of excessive force during this military battle...He was resolute in not thinking about it.
Compartmentalize. He had to focus on his goal.
...But he could not not think about it. His eyes drifted towards Agent Romanoff...
"Another agent..." Typing in the commands he used to enter Barton's scarce profile, Robin accessed the next level of information and paused at the skill set.
Assassination.
What kind of government recruited assassins? Or made weapons out of a cosmic entity 'for the greater good of mankind'?
Assassins, agents for greed, caused strife. Weapons caused war.
Agent Romanoff pushed away from the wall and approached the table in slow, measured steps. "Barton is unconscious, strapped down in the medical bay. When he regains consciousness-"
"We've questioned agents similar to Barton's situation. They don't remember the details in the aftermath," dismissed Fury.
He hated this situation - this negativity. When the Heroes did not utter a responding word, Robin bit down viciously, "What now? Are you going to just give up?"
Fury gave him a look. "No. Never. I can admit that the plans from the council were to create weapons from the Tesseract to protect ourselves from a situation like this but I had another plan - one that may seem like an old fool's dream. A plan that can counteract this problem."
The Director seemed to wait on him to answer, and so he did, if only to see where this led to. "The Avengers Initiative. Putting Heroes together so that they become more, become great."
"Tell me something, Mr. Grayson. Agent Coulson believed in heroes as do you but there was still a tangible difference between your beliefs." Fury stated softly, "You mentioned the Justice League earlier today."
"...A difference huh?" He gathered his thoughts. "I guess it might be because...I've experienced it. When the situation is so bleak that all you have left in the world is to believe in the Heroes." Robin chose his next words carefully. "The Avengers Initiative can be done. The Heroes...need conviction. Teamwork. They need to believe that coming together is the right thing to do for the greater good. To fight the battles that others cannot. That is the Justice League in my world." There was pride behind the crafted sentences.
"And you want to join the Avengers Initiative because-"
"-Because no one here seems to know how to go about this Hero-business. And I-" Robin was about to say more but Black Widow chose that moment to interrupt.
She stated the motive that she immediately spotted when she first met him, "You want to go home by using the Tesseract. To retrieve the Tesseract, you plan to join the Initiative."
Robin nodded in affirmation.
Rogers turned his head, lips pressed into a thin line. "But how can you hope to fight the hard battles?"
Suppressing the memories of the fight today (blood, pain, suffering, death), the Boy Wonder said, "The battles might be hard but I - you - won't be alone if we're on a team. That's the difference maker."
"You're just a civilian," remarked Agent Hill.
"I can help." A stubborn plea, perhaps. "Let me join your cause-"
-He felt the hard hit to the back of his neck, unable to react in time, and the last thing he saw was Captain Rogers' outraged expression before he blacked out.