Reviews sure have slowed down on this story. But the following hasn't. Glad people are wanting to know when I update but I have no idea if you guys are reading or not! I hope everyone is enjoying how this is turning out. Please let me know!
Anyways, here is the next chapter. Hope to update more soon for the holiday! ^_^
"How could we not have heard this?" Tony whispered in despair. Natasha slowly crept into the room. She couldn't believe it. After just finding out, he was gone. Steve entered after her and placed a hand on her shoulder. When she looked to face him, she saw the sympathy and it infuriated her. No one was supposed to give Black Widow sympathy. Black Widow didn't feel emotion. Black Widow didn't feel loss. Black Widow can't get compromised. Too bad she already was.
"This is your fault," Natasha spit at the captian, in an effort to hide her feelings. Too bad this did the complete opposite of what she wanted. Steve flinched but didn't deny that it was his fault. Natasha jerked her shoulder away from his hand. Her eyes glaring daggers into the leader of the Avengers. "If you just let me follow him."
"I'm sorry, Natasha. I had no idea," Steve tried explaining. Natasha scoffed, making Tony flinch. She sounded so evil. Deciding it was best to not get involved, Tony pulled up a holographic tablet and started searching for something. Bruce, on the other hand, slipped into the room. He used this as a chance to look around, but he still paid attention to the conversation.
"That's right. You had no idea. But I did, and you stopped me. And now Clint may be dying. Do you really think a 'sorry' could fix this?" Natasha snapped before swiftly turning and walking deeper into the room. Steve looked crest-fallen. As evilly as she stated it, Natasha was right. He screwed up real bad. Bruce focused on Steve for a moment before facing Natasha.
"Clint is depending on us. Do you really want to lay blame or find him?" Bruce questioned. Natasha sighed and looked about the room. Steve frowned but also focused on searching for clues. Tony was busy outside in the hall trying to pull up video feeds of what happened. After a minute of searching, Steve looked back up at Natasha.
"I am truely sorry for what happened. I mistook your words, and now may have gotten Clint in serious danger," Steve apologized. Natasha groaned and kicked a large chunk of wood across the room. Bruce and Steve winced as it crashed into the one none broken lamp and shattered it. Natasha then faced Steve.
"No. I should have realized that you would have mistook the words. Hell, I mistook them when Hill told them to me," Natasha mentioned. Steve smiled as he went back to searching. He was glad that Natasha had kind of forgiven him.
"Hill told you?" Bruce asked. Natasha nodded but didn't add anything else to it before looking about the room. Bruce frowned but said nothing as he walked about the room. That was when it hit him. Something was off. The whole room was trashed, but something was missing. Not having really been in this room before, it took his longer than normal to notice. "Is it just me, or is there a lack of blood?"
"What do you mean?" Steve inquired as he looked to the scientist. Bruce eyed the captian for a second before pointing around.
"Ton of broken glass. White bed sheets. Couple of broken arrow shafts and heads. It's like a war zone. But in all this there is no blood from victim or assailant," Bruce pointed out. Natasha and Steve focused on that idea for a moment. He had a point. Clint would have put up a huge fight and had to have landed at least one blow. Or his attacker had to injure him to get him to leave. "This whole thing looks staged."
"Because it is. Clint never made it into the room," Tony called from outside. Bruce, Steve and Natasha quickly moved to join the billionaire. Not waiting for one of them to question him, Tony lifted the holographic tablet before him. "Was looking at the feeds. Clint hits the inbetween of these cameras when something grabs him. You see this blurry hand, then Clint vanishes."
"Magic?" Steve mentioned. Tony frowned. Bruce shook his head no. Natasha sighed deeply. "I mean, it could be Loki again."
"No. Thor would have told us by now," Natasha claimed. Tony scoffed.
"Yeah. Like the big guy really came to us first before taking Loki out of a moving jet," Tony mocked. Natasha gritted her teeth. Steve groaned and moved a few steps away. Bruce let out a deep breath. "Thor only came to us after the fact. And even then tried to take over the whole operation!"
"Sounds familiar," Steve softly remarked. Tony just about heard it and spun on the super soldier. But before he could speak, Steve held up his hand. "You heard me. Besides, we should really stop fighting. Barton is in life threatening danger."
"We were fighting about if Loki took him," Tony growled, pissed that he wasn't able to take a good verbal jab at the captain. "I still say no."
"You never said no," Steve said. Tony rolled his eyes. "Sides, we shouldn't rule him out until Thor comes and tells us for certain that Loki was not involved."
"I believe we should start with Fury," Bruce suddenly commented. Tony, Steve and Natasha focused on him. They all mostly seemed confused by his suggestion. Bruce frowned and reached for his glasses. Taking them off, he began cleaning the lenses with his shirt. "Well, the Council would have to get their men from him, and he would be ordering men to go after Clint. So, it's only right that we follow our biggest lead. The director of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Clint woke to the major of all headaches. Almost felt like someone was doing construction with a jackhammer to his skull. And the worst part, it wasn't just his head that was bothering him. Everything was sore in some way or another. It did focus mainly on his upper body, but still, it all hurt. Groaning, he forced his left hand to come up and press against his aching head. When that simple motion left him feeling drained, Clint knew he'd been drugged. Now he just needed to read the symptoms better to figure out what drug. Assessing his predicament some more, the archer noted he never faced a drug with this many symptoms. It had to be new.
"Great, untested drug?" Clint moaned as he removed his hand. Slowly, he decided it was a great idea to open his greyish blue eyes. Too bad he was horribly wrong. For once, Clint was imprisoned in a very brightly lit white room. And the sight burned his poor eyes, which had been used to the back of his lids. With a pained groan, Clint snapped his eyes closed and turned away. He really didn't want to try that again.
"Ah, so you're awake," called a voice as a door creaked open and then close. Clint cracked his eyes open, slower than before to get used to the light, and glanced in the general direction of the voice. There, in the bright fluorescent light, stood a tall thin man with short cropped black hair and deep emerald green eyes. He smiled at the archer when he noticed Clint staring at him. Clint frowned. The man seemed familiar somehow. But Clint couldn't place how. "That's good. We were worried that the drug would keep you down and out longer. Now that you are awake, we would like to ask you some questions."
"We?" Clint growled as his eyes got used to the lights and his eyes opened more. The man smirked at Clint. Almost like the archer should know the answer to the question but because he didn't, it was amusing. Clint just waited. There were too many people that could be after him. He already knew of the Council, Fury, and about a hundred different mobs from around the world. So a name was really needed.
"Your name is Clinton Francis Barton, correct?" the man questioned instead. Clint rolled his eyes. Only the Council ever used his full name. Fury only called him Clint Francis Barton. So that narrowed it down really fast. Clint sighed deeply.
"Didn't we already play this game? I thought you decided to terminate me?" Clint countered. The man laughed.
"Oh, you'll die. After we get some answers," he said. Clint frowned. "You work under the alias of Hawkeye, correct?"
"Die? Your gonna kill me? For what?" Clint inquired. Then it hit him. The Council was going to kill him for what happened to him when he was under control of Loki. Clint's eyes widened in shock. The man didn't respond. He watched as Clint came to his own realization. "You can't blame me for what Loki made me do! I had no control!"
"You are trained to fight mind control. You did nothing to stop him. Hell, it looked like you practically handed yourself to him. It's your fault he got there. Your fault he got Selvig. Your fault he got the Tesseract. Your fault Fury got shot. Your fault the base got destroyed and all those people died. Your fault the Helicarrier got attacked! Your fault Manhattan happened!"
Hee hee. Am I mean or what?
Enjoy it? Hate it? Tell me what you like, please! Heck, tell me what you want to see and not see! Just please tell me something! Reviews help spur me on just as much as follows. But following can only be done once while reviewing can be done multiple times. Well, done for now. Next update should be up in at least the next few days or so... (I hope.)