Finding out where the twins were was easy enough. Getting off the Bus without anyone seeing him, not so much. Clint didn't want anyone to come with him or even alert Coulson to what he was doing. At this point, he was pretty much done with everyone on the whole team and he didn't even have personal interaction with half of them. He especially wanted to be far away from Coulson. What the man had said, hurt. Even though Clint had assumed as much, hearing that his reality Coulson was avoiding him, bothered him. Especially hearing it from a man who seemed more pleased that he was alive rather than the fact that their relationship had gone from trusting to non-existence.
Opening his door, Clint could see that Coulson must have warned everyone away from him for the time being. A last bit attempt at the man apologizing cause he realized he took it too far. Clint rolled his eyes. He wouldn't let it work this time. The hallway was silent. Smiling, Clint slipped out of his room and headed for the garage at the back of the Bus. When entering the Bus earlier that day, or was it the day before? Either way, when entering the Bus, Clint noticed a set of cars parked back there. One of them was Lola. Coulson's classic little baby. A classic that Clint knew for a fact had some... Upgrades. Unconsciously, Clint knew he was taking it to get back at Coulson but he could care less at this point.
By the time Clint got near the car, he realized something. Everyone was avoiding him. Either that, or Coulson called another meeting. Well no matter, the archer didn't run into anyone. That was until he was only a room away from the garage. The last room he had to go through was the lab and two people were hard at work analyzing something. Clint couldn't tell what they were working on, not that he really cared. All he knew was that he'd have to slip past them, get in Lola, start her, drop the back and hope that they never see him. Or... Clint confidently walked into the room after stashing his go bag off in an corner. Neither person looked up at him. He stopped and waited for them to notice him. When a few minutes went by, he cleared his throat. Neither looked up. Frowning, he did it again. Still, no response. So, he cleared his throat a third time.
"Really Fitz, get that checked out," the woman hissed, still not looking up from her work. Clint raised an eyebrow. At least he now knew which one was which. Leo huffed.
"I'm healthy as a computer, Jemma," Leo replied, like the woman, not looking up. Clint waited, expecting something to happen but for another minute the duo continued to work away. Then it was like a light bulb clicked. They both stopped working and slowly looked to each other. Clint was far enough back in the room that neither noticed him when they moved. He had a hard time not laughing at their faces.
"If it wasn't you," Jemma started. Leo nodded.
"And it wasn't you," he added. Clint moved to stand behind them but also between them. He leaned forward so they could hear him better. This was the best plan ever, even if it risked Coulson coming down on him, hard.
"It was me," he whispered. In all his life, Clint had never seen two average people move that fast. They were like blurs, rushing to either side of the room even as both of them screamed. Clint chuckled pleased that he actually did this. He didn't regret at all that he didn't just slip by them. "Sorry."
"Jesus... Don't do that!" Leo shouted at Clint. The archer chuckled again.
"What do you want?" Jemma asked, sounding calmer and gentler than Leo. Clint smiled and looked to her.
"Coulson asked for you two," he lied. Leo and Jemma traded looks before nodding and heading off. Why would they question him? It wouldn't be the first time that an agent had been sent for them to speak to the hire-ups. Nor would it likely be the last. Clint was almost surprised at how easy it was to get them out of the lab. Tony and Bruce would have put up a fight. Especially if they were in the middle of something. Hell, Tony would demand that Coulson came to him instead. But Leo and Jemma just left.
"I wonder if it's about the tasers?" Leo guessed. Jemma shook her head.
"I think it's about the data we've been collecting," she theorized. They continued their verbal spar as they left the room. Clint shook his head. Coulson really needed to work on situational awareness. Hell, Coulson also needed to alert his team to Clint's tendency to run. No one even had a chance to come to the garage to stop him. Lola was started and the ramp was down and Clint was flying away before the first person even arrived on the sign. Clint looked back and if his eyesight was normal, he'd never see who was there but he wasn't normal. He could see Agent May standing at the edge of the ramp, holding onto the side of the Bus as she watched the bright red convertible disappear into the night.
Clint drove/flue the whole day and into the next night. A quick glance at the dashboard of Lola, Clint could see that it had been three days since his family was murdered. Frowning, he wondered where the hell all the time had gone. Thinking about it was hard though cause he always had to start with his family being killed. 1:20 pm... That was when the team infiltrated the Farm. Near an hour later, Clint was lying on his living room floor while his family died around him. Sometime after that... Wait, no... Coulson said at around 3:20, they arrived on scene. So he was only unconscious for an hour. Another hour till the meeting with Fury. That was around 4:20. It wasn't until around 9:40 that they boarded the Bus. Was he really on it all night looking up information on his team? After that time gets fuzzy. Clint couldn't honestly say what happened. But somehow he didn't take Lola until noon-ish. Now it was 8 in the morning on the Farm's time. According to where he was, Clint couldn't even begin to guess the time.
"Shit," Clint muttered. He needed to rest soon. Looking about, Clint could tell that he was halfway to Sokovia. Apparently the Bus had actually been heading toward New York and not California like the archer had first thought. That meant he had flown in the wrong direction... Sighing, Clint headed down for a landing on some distance and abandoned road. Then he began driving the car till he reached a town. The sign was in Chinese and while Clint could speak some Chinese, he couldn't read or write it to save his life. Thankfully it was a rather prosperous town in China and that meant there were some hotels that Clint could recognize.
Forty minutes later, Clint had a room for the night, a meal on the way thanks to room service, and internet for the laptop he had stolen from his room on the Bus. Didn't take him long to once again check on the twins. They hadn't moved since the last time he looked for which he was thankful. Considering he was waiting for his meal, Clint couldn't do much other than watch TV or surf the internet. So, Clint surfed the internet a bit more. He wanted to learn a bit more about the members of his team. How did things get so different? What changed in this world?
He started with Bruce. The poor guy had barely graduated before someone claimed Banner had stolen their theory and research. Even if it was true or not, Bruce's career was ruined by even the presumption that he did. Bruce spent the past... God knows how many years trying to get his reputation back but whenever it looked like he was succeeding, something came out. Like, he was a monster to work with, he stole the ideas of his interns to spin as his own, he sexually harassed interns and so on. Bruce was so busy with court cases that the poor guy only published a quarter of the work he had done in Clint's reality. And even then, other scientists had disputed every one of his theories. Didn't matter if the other scientists were wrong or not, Banner didn't have a good enough name for anyone to really believe his work.
While he felt bad for the guy, Bruce may actually be having a better life here. He wasn't a man who could turn into a green 'beast' when his pulse got too high. Instead, he was just fighting for his life in the science culture. Bruce could easily move down a different path if he so chose to. He had options here. So it wouldn't be good to bother him with the alternate reality. Though his help would have been greatly appreciated. Sighing, Clint moved onto Tony.
Tony Stark was much the same in this reality as he was in the other one. A billionaire, philanthropist, and overall player. Clint sighed. From what he could see, Tony did much the same things here that he did in the other reality other than building Iron Man and getting rid of the weapon section of Stark Industries. But... What made Tony get rid of the weapons? Afghanistan. Looking deeper, Clint found that Tony left most of the company in Virginia Pepper Potts's hands. But there was a small (and grower larger by the day) area that Obadiah Stane ran. That was the weapons and military contracts.
"Fuck," Clint cussed remembering that Obadiah was the one who sent Tony to Afghanistan with the Jericho missile. Digging around a bit more, Clint found that Obadiah actually convinced Tony to stay behind. The display went off without a hitch but there was a small notation of a missing shipment on a few boxes. Tony never caught it and Pepper tried to question it but Obadiah buried it. For a minute, Clint wondered if he should do something. But, what could he do?
Tony didn't know him. Obadiah was like a father to Tony. The man's betrayal ran deep in Tony no matter how much the genius tried to hide it. As much as it sucked that Obadiah was a no good snake who was illegally selling Stark Industries weapons to the world's enemies, Tony was almost better off. The only ones who seemed to be hurt by what Obadiah was doing was S.H.I.E.L.D and basically every government agency that shortened their names to letters. Tony wouldn't want to change his life for what seemed to be the worse just to make everyone else's life easier. Well, maybe he would but the genius wouldn't be able to help Clint. Tony would be too busy trying to fix his then scattered life.
Clint was interrupted from his thoughts by a knocking on his door. Closing the internet down, Clint got up and headed to the door even as there was a second set of knocking. He paused. No one had called out yet. Room service normally announced themselves. Slowly he backed away, glancing at the door quickly to make sure that all the locks were done. They were and he was thankful they were when suddenly there was a loud crashing as someone tried to break it open. Clint rushed back into the bedroom and tossed the laptop roughly into his bag before stopping. The laptop. It was the only thing S.H.I.E.L.D could have traced. No... Not S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra.
"Shit," he muttered, removing the laptop and tossing it across the room. It landed with a heavy thunk near the door. Clint mentally cursed his stupidity. The banging outside paused for a moment.
"Someone's in there. Hurry up!" a voice snapped outside the door. Clint shook his head before grabbing the bag and heading to the bathroom. He had scouted this place out earlier and knew that while the living room window had access to the fire escape on the side of the building, the bathroom window was right next to the illuminated sign for the hotel.
Smartly, Clint did a quick scan of the nearby buildings for a lookout for the men trying to enter his room. No one seemed to be in close sight line but that didn't mean there wasn't someone out there watching them. Slowly and carefully, he opened the bathroom window before tossing his bag out. Clint knew that there was nothing that would break or accidentally explode in the bag if it landed roughly, and he also knew there was a collection of bushes just below the sign that could break the bag's fall and conceal it from passer-bys.
Glad that that was over, Clint jumped up onto the sink before wiggling himself out the window. He was halfway out when he heard the door crash open behind him. Clint paused as he thought about what they'd do. They'd search the whole place first then assume he had either gone down or up the fire escape. Smiling, Clint shook his head and slipped out the rest of the way. He had just enough time to close the window from the outside and back away from it before someone came into the room to look around. Without another thought to the men hunting him, Clint slipped down the sign and dropped into the bushes. He heard something crack and prayed it was a branch but when he got up and reached for his bag, he realized something was wrong with his shoulder.
"Shit..." Clint muttered again before switching hands and grabbing the bag. Then he continued on his way to Lola. Hiding his injury from other people was as easy as his escape from... Well, actually from S.H.I.E.L.D. He paused. This was too easy. Hydra was trained, just like S.H.I.E.L.D, that meant Coulson was telling everyone to back off. He sighed. Turning around, the archer spotted her first. Bobbi Morse was trying hard to blend into a crowd of coffee shop people and doing a pretty crappy job at it. In fact, so bad a job that she didn't even notice Clint had spotted her. Lance Hunter, just as obvious and oblivious, wasn't much further away from her. Clint shook his head and walked a bit further to the car. He wasn't shocked to see Melinda May was standing next to Lola but noticeably not touching her. Clint sighed when she looked up at him and nodded a greeting. "I can't do this with you hanging over me."
"We're only protection," Coulson replied, suddenly standing beside Clint. It was the one thing about Coulson that he couldn't stand and missed so dearly. Only Coulson could ever sneak up on the archer. It was actually scary how often Coulson used it to his advantage. Clint scoffed and looked to the older agent as if he had known the man was following him the entire time. Though his comment could have been considered for Coulson or for May.
"When have I ever needed protection?"
"Bangladesh, Baghdad, Iran, Ukraine-" Coulson began listing. Clint snorted and shook his head, fighting the urge to make a scene by punching his handler.
"Those were never protection," Clint argued. Coulson raised an eyebrow and Clint knew he had to elaborate. The archer thought about it before finishing. "Those were... Heated extractions?"
"Sure," Coulson chuckled. Clint shook his head knowing that Coulson wasn't the only one chuckling. May had been on numerous extractions for the archer and clearly understood how 'heated' they got. "I promise. We'll stay in the background."
"Coulson, I can't," Clint muttered out, trying to voice his feelings without saying anything. Coulson frowned, not understanding what was going on with his agent and once best friend. "I can't have you around me."
"Why?" Coulson pressed. Clint shook his head again. Coulson laid a hand on Clint's shoulder. Clint shook it off and stepped away. If the archer looked up, he would have caught the fleeting look of hurt on Coulson's face before it vanished.
"I can't."
"Clint?" Clint turned and started walking away. May stepped forward to chase after him but Coulson held out a hand to stop her. "Clint!"
"No! Just stop!" Clint snapped, spinning back around to face Coulson. Time suddenly seemed to slow as Coulson's face contorted into confusion before horror. His mouth began forming the archer's name even as pain suddenly sliced through Clint's good shoulder. His bag dropped from his useless hand as blood sprayed the sidewalk. Clint blinked, looking at the injury before realizing he was just shot. "Fuck."
Clint woke up some time later on his bed on the Bus. He sighed deeply before realizing he didn't feel any pain from the gunshot wound earlier. Slowly, he lifted himself up and looked at where the wound should have been. There was nothing but smooth skin. Clint frowned.
"Fury hired a woman a few months ago. She had this device-" Coulson started explaining. Clint didn't even flinch at the man's voice even though he hadn't noticed that the older agent was in the room with him.
"Was it Helen Cho?" Clint whispered, surprisingly recognizing the work done on him. Coulson didn't respond and it made Clint look at him to see the incredulous look still on his face. "She... She worked for Tony in my reality. He made her our doctor so that she had great test subjects and the best and the worst of real life situations to put her work to the test."
"I should be surprised, shouldn't I?" Coulson joked, trying to keep his tone light even though he was still surprised with the information Clint suddenly spouted. Clint shook his head and moved to sit up. Coulson jerked forward to pressure him into laying back down as this was one of the first real life tests of Dr. Cho's machine in this reality. But Clint was used to it and just pushed past his handler. He was a little shocked to find barely any resistance from Coulson but wasn't going to comment on it.
"Be whatever you want," Clint hissed, trying to ignore the disappointment and betrayal from the man that technically didn't betray him. Coulson shook his head and stood up. The agent was getting the idea of how unwanted he was. Besides, he had a meeting with Fury over the injury Clint sustained from some S.H.I.E.L.D agents... Or maybe they were Hydra. But how was Clint traced?
"Just so you know. We're landing just outside of Sokovia within the hour," Coulson said even as he walked out of the room, figuring Clint would want to know. Clint groaned and waited until Coulson was fully in the hall before responding.
"Thanks," he mumbled. Coulson nodded but continued to walk away, trying to hide the hurt and disappointment he felt from the archer's rejection. Clint moaned before dropping back down onto his bed. He messed this up. Royally messed it all up. Sighing deeply, Clint sat up and got to his feet. If anything, he should head down to the garage so that he had easy access to leave. Like before, Clint got all the way down to the garage before he ran into anyone. Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons were working on some project in the lab that sat just before the garage. It was like before. Clint shook his head. At least this time he wasn't sneaking around. He walked in, making sure to make some amount of noise. Neither scientist looked up or even seem to have heard him. He smirked. "Someone needs to work on your situational awareness."
Jemma squeaked and jumped, quickly snapping her head up to stare at Clint in surprise. Leo dropped whatever he was working on onto the floor before spinning around to face Clint as well. Seeing that they weren't in any eminent danger, both sighed. Jemma shook her head and looked back down at her work while Leo groaned.
"Don't do that," he moaned even as he looked at the item he dropped. Clint chuckled.
"If you had more situational awareness my appearance and speaking wouldn't have bothered you," Clint commented. Leo looked up at him.
"We aren't soldiers or field agents. We're scientists," Fitz replied. Clint nodded before pointedly looking around. Leo frowned and looked around with him as if the archer was already testing him.
"I'm sorry but this doesn't look like any HQ I know of. I'd say, you two are field agents now," Clint retorted, facing Leo once again. Leo's frown deepened as if he hadn't thought about that before. Jemma stopped her project.
"We are not field agents as long as this counts as a type of HQ. We will not be leaving it," she countered. Clint smirked even as Jemma shook her head. "If you're going to be bothering us, might as well make yourself useful."
"Useful?" Clint asked, surprised. Jemma nodded before leaving her work station to go to a second area. She pulled a few things from it before walking toward Clint with them. Clint raised an eyebrow at her and the items she had grabbed. Some of it he could recognize but there were some things that he could tell must have been made by the duo cause he could not tell what they'd be used for.
"We can do the testing that Coulson has been putting off," she mentioned, knowing full well what Coulson and even Fury thought of the testing the duo wanted to perform. Clint's eyebrow went even higher as Jemma took out a needle and multiple vials. He could tell that she wanted to draw blood but by the amount of vials she had grabbed, he'd be drained dry.
"Testing?" he wondered, paling slightly. He had never been all that great with needles. Jemma smiled before putting some of the items down. Leo then began grabbing a few more things and coming over as well. Clint noted that he had a rather large smile on his face and he wondered if their 'testing' would hurt or not. "What kind of testing?"
"Just a few simple tests," Leo vaguely answered. Jemma snorted, understanding that Leo was using this as revenge against the agent. Clint's eyebrow dropped and he stepped away from the two even as he realized he had allowed them to surround him. "Nothing... Too harmful."
"Fitz! Simmons!" Coulson suddenly barked, appearing in the doorway to the lab. Jemma and Leo jumped in surprise before turning to face him. Clint stiffened to stand at attention, used to that voice commanding him to do something. Coulson didn't even glance in the archer's direction as he entered the lab. He needed to play this section carefully. Coulson knew there was an order to have Clint tested, but he didn't want it done now and certainly didn't want Clint to know about it. "I have spoken with you about this before. We are not testing a fellow agent without direct orders."
"I don't think you'd allow us to even with direct orders, sir," Jemma stated in a joking tone though her words sounded rather threatening and challenging. Coulson raised an eyebrow at her with an angry glare that made her shrink down and step away from the items she had gathered to 'test' Clint out. Seeing as she was stepping away, Coulson looked to Leo, who was still standing near the items. He half wondered if they would say that Fury had given them the orders, even though Fury said they weren't to act upon it until Coulson said it was okay.
"These tests are important, sir," Leo argued though the man did look slightly frightened. Coulson shook his head, trying to make Leo back down. Leo stood up further, almost like he was trying to make himself look larger. Clint nearly laughed but was still stuck at attention from Coulson's first command. "We need to examine him to determine how this event happened."
"No. You're saying you don't trust one of the highest performing agents within S.H.I.E.L.D," Coulson accused, knowing that that would be how Clint would feel once he learns that Fury gave the order and Coulson agreed with it's need. Leo winced and looked like he was going to back down but didn't.
"It's procedure, sir. No matter who the person may be," Leo said. Coulson frowned as Clint glanced over at Leo, finally fighting his desire to listen closely to Coulson.
"Since when is there procedure for alternate realities?" the archer questioned. There hadn't been any strange procedures for things before the events of Manhattan in his reality. Was this reality different enough to have these types of procedures before the events take place?
"Never," Coulson commented, speaking to Clint for the first time. He turned back to Jemma and Leo with a glare. After everything that had happened since his talk with Fury a few days before, Coulson realized that testing Clint may be more of a hindrance then helpful. Something about the way Clint spoke or acted just made Coulson know that they'd never solve this issue. It was all up to Clint. "Now please. Work on something else. I will not allow testing to be done on any agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."
With that said, Coulson walked toward Clint with a nod to the garage. Clint took the hint and began to follow after him. They got into the garage but the door behind them didn't close fully. Leo looked back to Jemma even as she began cleaning up the mess that had gathered.
"Are we even sure he's an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D in the other reality? For all we know he's leading us on a wild goose chase in an effort to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D," Leo growled to her. Clint winced, used to those types of hateful words since Loki took over his mind but not expecting them here since Loki didn't happen. Coulson, while not facing Clint or even near enough to touch the archer, seemed to sense Clint's pain and angst.
"Ignore them," Coulson suggested as they walked toward Lola. Clint looked to the older agent. "Fury tasked them with finding out how much of our reality was affected and if there was anything we could do to fix it. Them seem to have it in their minds that by performing some crazy tests on you, they'd get a better idea of what to look for. I don't believe that to be true and neither will he."
"But, that does sound promising," Clint mentioned, realizing that much of what was going on involved him and the Avengers. Coulson nodded. While it was true that it was promising, neither Fury nor Coulson wanted to treat Clint like he was a common criminal. The archer did have the ability to disappear and then no one would be able to help or stop Clint if needed. By watching over the archer, Coulson was not only protecting him from Hydra but also protecting S.H.I.E.L.D from a possibly worse reality.
"It's getting harder and harder to find excuses as to why they can't," Coulson sighed. Clint huffed, trying to relieve some anxiety. It didn't work. Clint tensed a bit more and glanced back at the duo. Leo and Jemma were already lost in their own little worlds again. Mentally, Clint noted that he probably shouldn't come down by the lab anymore. And he certainly shouldn't draw attention to his presence if they don't notice it. "Anyways. The Maximoffs seem to be expecting us. They're waiting just outside the landing zone."
On time again! Whoot!
Little Clint and Little Darius are doing well. Both have been rather stubborn this week but I've been busy dealing with training our dog so haven't really been fighting them about it. Right now really tired and wanting to get to bed soooo…
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Sammygirl1963 - hee hee, if only brainwash or mind control. But don't wanna spoil too much. Yeah, I don't like Bobbi much in the comics and when I saw her on the TV show Agents of SHIELD I was kinda like ehh… I most likely didn't portray her properly but, don't care. Needed to make Clint feel uncomfortable around the others. And you honestly didn't think I'd let Phil stay dead. I may be trying to follow on the edges of the MCU, but I'm also trying to inject the TV series as well. No matter how much either set suddenly throws me for a loop and I have to fix something, lol. My knee seems to be fine so far. Pain wore off, just a giant bruise and a bump, but I can walk normally. Gonna get it checked again at a later date by my primary care doc. Thank you for the praise but honestly I don't feel like that good of a writer. Maybe average or below average. More below… But glad you enjoy it, that makes me feel great. See you next time!