Chapter Three

Clint had list of places he would have rather been at that moment, instead of sitting across the table from Tony and Steve. The list included about ninety nine per cent of the globe, preferably anywhere that didn't have pissed off superheroes around.

"When did you find out?" Steve asked quietly, pushing his pasta around his plate. Clint had lost track of which meal that was for the Captain, apparently the serum made him permanently hungry.

"About a week before you did." Now that they had cooled down, Steve was a bit more understanding towards him and Tasha. Juliette was still in the black book because she had known, and it was easy to hate someone who wasn't part of the team.

"So you could have told us," Stark muttered. In the place of Steve's food he had a glass of whiskey. Clint half felt like he was being interrogated by them again.

"We've covered that, Tony," Steve said firmly. "They were under orders." It wasn't them Steve was angry at, it was Fury. He understood orders, Clint realised, so he was saving his energy on hating the man at the top.

"Well I reckon there's more they're not telling us," announced Tony as he stood up. "Are you going to help your teammates with this, Feathers, or be the good little agent?" Clint glared at him but jumped up anyway.

"Just get your head around this, Stark," he half spat. "They lied to me too and I was closer to Phil than you were. I had to spend months thinking I'd killed him, so leave off on the comments, okay?" They stared at him, Steve opening his mouth to make some sort of calming comment. "I'll help you hack them." That was what Tony was asking, to find out about the things Phil and Fury had been vague on. His little outburst had mellowed Stark's expression and hopefully his temper.

"Hack SHIELD? Didn't you already do that?" Steve asked, giving them a completely lost look.

"Try, sneaking into a library, you go for the section you want rather than all of it. Tony hacked the stuff on the tesseract and the weapons, not the bits we need now," Clint explained. Stark had gone up to the huge console in the living room that doubled up as his office when the screens were turned on.

"So, Avengers Initiative," murmured Tony out loud. "Let's go for Greyhound first, that's where Bruce and the girls have gone." They hadn't told Stark that, but Clint conceded that it wasn't hard to guess. "Great." They had been at it half a minute and already the word firewall came up. "What's the password, Feathers?"

"How should I know?" Clint asked, holding his hands up. "Can't you hack it?"

"Whoever did this, in the last two weeks by the way used the equivalent of a stone age axe. It's stupidly simple. One word, personally chosen by whoever set it. It's a number. So, who set it and what's the pass code?" Tony was more talking to himself than to them, walking around as the simple tech beat him.

"Phil," Clint said quietly. "He would have set them, it was so high it would be something simple but secure something only he and those who need to know would work out."

"So we're looking for any link between Coulson, Fury, Hill and Natasha?" Steve looked distinctly unimpressed.

"We'll be locked out after three tries, so we're waiting, Hawkeye." Tony turned around to look at Clint, arms crossed impatiently.

"1-5-9-7," he answered.

"Sure?"

"Yup." Seconds later the firewall vanished and was met with one line. Nice try, but the fish aren't biting. "Damnit. Juliette then, she must have set it."

"Two tries left."

"1-8, no, that's too obvious." Clint scowled, somehow Juliette had predicted he would try and crack it, probably not with Stark but she had expected him to. Or rather, she had told Phil to expect him to.

"3-4-7-4," Steve said suddenly. "Fish. The fish aren't biting." Clint nodded enthusiastically, that hadn't been for him, it had been for anyone close enough to them to guess at the number. They were rewarded by a screen awaiting a level eight security code.

"How many levels are there?" Tony asked as he tapped away frantically.

"No idea, but that's above me so you can't use mine." Tony huffed but carried on typing.

"You guys should have stuck with the Stone Age, it'll take another hour or so but then we're in. Unless you have a separate wall for each file. Damnit, I bet you do. We'll be here all week at this rate."

It was another two hours before Tony called them back; Clint had momentarily wrestled with his conscience about hacking his own organisation then told himself that Steve had cracked the code and Tony was doing the actual hacking, so he was clean.

"There's nothing on Greyhound, except that Natasha went to check up on him and what we got to see in the files. There's some stuff on Bruce in here, what's project Ion?" Tony asked before Clint had even sat down.

"It was the official name for what Ross was doing. I don't know what Bruce thought it was called, since Ross lied to him and his team. It was sanctioned under Ion, and technically we should call Hulk Ion, but Hulk seems better." Clint perched next to Steve on the sofa, watching the screen intently.

"Odd, there's a heading here: Operation Hornet. Then no files. Damn." Tony gave the computer the finger as another firewall came up. "They really don't want people in here. I'd say we've got half an hour until-nope, Fury's onto us."

"What do you think you're doing, Stark?" Phil's voice came through on the line, not even needing them to pick it up. "We gave you the files you needed."

"Yeah, well we thought we'd find out what you were keeping from us Agent Lazarus. What's Hornet?"

"That's none of your business, Stark. Greyhound was part of the initiative, you don't need to come snooping around." Clint almost grinned at the familiar voice. He had missed it; desperately in the time he had thought Phil to be dead.

"You know I'll find out anyway so why not just tell me?"

"That's classified, Stark. It's also none of your concern." They were very firmly shut out of the system. "Don't try that again."

"Death didn't improve your sense of humour," Tony complained. Phil had already hung up, leaving them once again staring at the SHIELD firewall.

"Before you ask, I've never heard of it. Greyhound and Ion, yes. Hornet's new to me," Clint said quickly.

"Fine. We'll just have to find out then." Tony fixed the keyboard with a determined glare and promptly ignored them.

"Coffee?" Steve asked Clint, leaving Tony to it.