A/N Thanks for all of the reviews guys! You are all awesome and reading your reviews is always the best part of my day.

Well it looks like Tony is getting tired of waiting around like a damsel in distress for SHIELD to show up and save him. But you'll just have to read the chapter to find out what he's going to do about it. :)

Chapter 7

Tony had no way of knowing how long he had been a captive. Falling asleep in a windowless room will kind of mess with a person's sense of time. Tony was also no medical expert but when he woke up again to find that Clint still seemed to have not even moved, Tony began to get worried. He may not be a doctor but he was pretty sure that someone shouldn't be unconscious for that long. However long 'that long' was.

He needed to get them out of there. Clint needed help and Tony didn't have the luxury of waiting around for SHIELD to find them. They both could end up dead if he did that. He just needed to figure out how to get them out of there. Tony pushed himself up to a sitting position with a hiss and looked down at himself to see cuts, bruises, and burns adorning his torso. He somehow managed to block out the pain and pull himself over to Clint, letting out a soft curse as he did so. He reached out and checked Clint's pulse again and turned the archer's head to inspect his wound. Clint let out a soft moan at the movement.

"Clint? Clint," Tony said, shaking Clint lightly, but beyond letting out another groan and turning his head slightly the archer didn't stir any further. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm not doing anything important, just trying to get us out of here. But by all means, you just go ahead and sleep," Tony mumbled with a huff.

In all honesty, though, in a way it was probably a good thing Clint was unconscious. Although the only thing even remotely 'good' about it was that Clint couldn't do something stupid, like grabbing a rifle and running off to face the bad guys alone.

Tony shook himself of the thoughts before they could get too far. He stood and made his way over to the door. There had to be a way out. They had to get out of there. He started to examine the door for any weakness, anything he could exploit. That's when he saw something he hadn't noticed before.

Since the door was bolted from the outside, there was nothing for Tony to pick, but there were hinges on his side of the door, that were just screwed into the wall. Even the smartest people can make mistakes, and Head-honcho had made a vital one when he ignored the hinges. Now if Tony could just manage to unscrew the hinges they could get out.

Before he did that, though, he went back over to Clint and slowly and painfully put his undershirt back on. He couldn't very well escape without a shirt. He could, however, escape with just an undershirt. He wasn't about to put a second shirt on over his battered chest and back. He wasn't going to leave his other shirt behind, though. He might need it later, so he looped the shirt through his belt and slipped his shoes back on. Then he forced down what was left of the bread, to give him a slight energy boost.

After he was finished, he began to search Clint, going through all of the archer's pockets. Tony knew that Clint carried all kinds of tools and weapons hidden on his person. He guessed that their captors had probably searched him and found most of it, but Tony was betting on Clint's sneakiness. Sure enough, one knife and three bullets later, he found a small lock picking set. There may not have been a lock to pick, but with a little help from the knife, Tony could make the tools work to unscrew the hinges from the wall. Tony grabbed the knife and tool kit and returned to the door.

It only took the genius five minutes to have one hinge detached and the second halfway there. Once the last screw was free, Tony eased the door away from the wall just far enough to peak out into the hall and saw a guard with his back to the door. Tony eased the door open and silently stepped out into the hall.

The guard wasn't Tweedledee or Tweedledum. Tony had assumed there were other guards there but that was the first he had seen of them. Without hesitation, Tony pounced on the man pulling Clint's knife as he went. He placed a hand over the guard's mouth and stabbed the knife into the guy's side between his ribs. The knife slid in and out quick and smooth, piercing the heart and killing the man, all within the span of a few seconds. Tony let the man crumple to the ground and wiped the knife off on the guard's uniform before slipping the knife back into his belt and grabbing the guard's assault rifle. He took the man by the shoulders and dragged him out of the hallway and into the cell. Then Tony moved back over to Clint.

"You know if you were going to wake up, now would be a good time," Tony said as he got Clint into a sitting position.

Yet again, there was no response from the archer.

"You're a butt you know that?" Tony huffed as he picked up Clint and slung the archer over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, his back screaming in protest and a grunt escaping him. "Man, you are heavy. Seriously, you're my height and you have like twice as much muscle, which is something I will never admit when you are conscious," he said, more to distract himself from the pain in his back than any other reason.

Taking a deep breath, he moved back into the hall and pulled the door closed before taking off up the hallway in search of an exit.

)()()(

Hassan was making his way toward Tony's and Clint's cell, his guards, also known as the Tweedle Twins, were following him. They reached the door and Tweedledee began to unbolt it. Once the last bolt was lose, he pushed the door but instead of swinging open like it was supposed to it fell inward with a loud clang.

The three men looked in surprise at the downed door, the dead guard, and the otherwise empty cell. It took Hassan all of three seconds to go from surprise to furious. He started yelling in Arabic, ordering his men to find the two escaped captives. His guards hurried to comply, not wanting to get on the wrong side of their boss' temper. They each took a direction up the hall in search of their targets, informing any other guards they saw, of the escape. They would find Tony and Clint or they wouldn't return. Because if they didn't find them then Tweedledee and Tweedledum were as good as dead, and they knew it.

)()()(

Tony moved through the hallways, making pretty good time. That was, until he rounded a turn to see three guards coming toward him. Tony opened fire, not giving then men the chance to attack first. He mowed them down and continued up the hall. For the next several minutes, Tony wound through the maze-like hallways, taking out any guards he met along the way. There were a few close calls as some bullets came far too close to him and Clint but Tony managed to keep them unscathed.

He was moving through yet another hallway when he heard the sound of many footsteps running in their direction. Rather than try to face that many armed people, Tony chose to duck into a nearby room, hoping that no one was inside. Fortunately, the room was empty. The footsteps grew closer and passed by, fading down the hall. Tony relaxed a bit and glanced around the room he was in. It looked like a typical office with a desk and chairs. Tony peeked out into the hall, making sure it was empty. He was just about to leave when something caught his eye. He looked to his left to see a small table sitting against one wall, but it was what was on the table that made a grin spread across his face. Sitting on the table was a certain black quiver that Tony instantly recognized.

Tony knew Clint would never let him hear the end of it if he left his beloved quiver behind, so Tony grabbed it and slung it over his shoulder before leaving the room and continuing his search for an exit.

He was moving past yet another opened doorway, when something caught his eye, causing him to stop in his tracks. He backed up and looked though the doorway to see a room full of weapons. Guns, knives, grenades, IEDs, missiles, and many other weapons that would no doubt be used to hurt innocent people.

Tony felt anger rise up in him. He had to take these guys out. If he didn't, they could just chase them down and recapture them and even if they didn't, there was no way Tony was going to allow them to escape. He had to end this and now. He could just rig the weapons to explode but there was a chance that Head-honcho had booby trapped them. Tony didn't think so but he wasn't willing to risk his and Clint's lives on an 'I don't think so.'

He needed some kind of explosive that he could build quickly, or an explosive he was already familiar with and knew for sure hadn't been tampered with... An idea struck him and Tony pulled the quiver off of his shoulder and was pleased to see it held two exploding arrows. Tony removed the two arrows and maneuvered the quiver back onto his shoulder. He quickly dismantled the arrow tips and rewired the explosives, programming in a delay of ten minutes before the arrows would go off. Once he was finished he set the arrows on the floor beside the other weapons. Then he left the room and resumed his trek up the hall, picking up the pace as his explosives counted down.

A few minutes later, he had made his way to the entrance, taking a few more men out along the way. He burst though the doors into the sun and ran as far and as fast as he could (which admittedly wasn't all that fast between his injuries, fatigue, and Clint's weight), keeping track of the countdown in his head. In actually, it was just adrenalin, self-preservation, and sheer willpower that was keeping him moving and he only vaguely took note of the fact that he had just exited what could only be referred to as a bunker, in the middle of the desert.

He was about three hundred yards away from the bunker and was clear of the rocky outcroppings that surrounded it, when he hit zero in his head. He dove to the ground and threw himself on top of Clint as the ground shook and the air vibrated as the bunker was blown sky high.

Fiery debris rained down around them and Tony had to brush off a few sparks and small pieces of wood off of his bare arms. Just when Tony thought it was safe, one final chunk of burning wood fell from the sky. The reason Tony noticed it, though, was because it landed on Clint's lower legs and set his boots on fire!

Tony leapt forward and yanked Clint's boots off before they could burn him. Tony threw the boots to the side, his hands getting burned in the process but he was relieved to see Clint's legs and feet were unharmed.

Tony looked around him to see nothing but sand and a few rock outcroppings in every direction. It looked like he was going to be doing another desert trek. This time, though, he had the pleasure of carrying a full grown man on his back. Well, what's that saying? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Well, Tony was going to be pretty strong after this, provided of course that he survived.

Tony pulled his spare shirt out of his belt and wrestled Clint into it. He couldn't carry the unconscious man through the hot desert in just a vest. Now Tony had to find help, and soon. He was the only chance Clint had. Unless by some miracle SHIELD somehow saw the explosion, then Tony was Clint's only hope for rescue.

So Tony dragged Clint into a sitting position and slipped the quiver onto the archer's back. Then Tony pulled Clint onto his shoulders again and staggered to his feet with a grunt. His back shot white hot agony and he could feel his wounds reopen but he ignored it as best he could.

"Come on, Feathers. Let's get out of here," Tony mumbled.

Then he began to walk.

Like it? Hate it? Want to strangle me for leaving it hanging? Let me know! :)