Thank you to all my fantastic reviewers! You got questions? i got answers:) I might not always respond personally to every review, but as this was the first chapter, I feel I should!

I propose from here forward that Clint and Laura will sail under the fanfic "ship" named Claura!

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Avenge Me

Author: Ezra Cross (formerly PeechTao)

Chapter 1

Losing possession of Loki's scepter in the fallout of SHIELD's demise was one reason for housing all of the Avengers under one roof. Another, was Tony Stark's incessant curiosity and desire to "poke the bear". The team, now known worldwide as the Avengers, were a steady mixture of sugar, spice, salt, and C-4 blended by the devil himself in a cauldron over hell-fire. Wherever they went, destruction proceeded them. Bruce Banner liked to point out that the majority of that happened before they arrived on the scene, but facts were facts. The team was a typhoon. But even those got results.

Clint Barton mulled over his thoughts as he rested on one of the communal couches. His left leg was propped up on the center table with a shopping bag full of ice steeped on top of his knee. Thor, dressed down into what he considered normal clothing, stood across from him with his arms folded, a guilty finger scratching beneath his chin and a matching look of unease furrowing his brow.

"In all fairness, I had thought you a HYDRA agent. You were aptly dressed."

Clint's expression, a demur sourness matched only by Grumpy Cat himself, continued to stare the Asgardian down. "I was undercover. I told you I was undercover and not to go in, hammer-swinging, and shatter my knee cap. And what did you do instead of listening to me?"

Thor wrinkled his face. "Yes, about that, I again apologize. I suppose I underestimated your ability to blend in."

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted by that," Clint said, dead pan.

From the Ivory Tower of Stark and Banner's work space, the owner of Avengers' Tower himself jogged down the metal staircase to join the duo. He tapped away absently on his cell phone and added to the conversation, "Oh, don't take the punishment too harshly, flyboy. We all respect your keen ability to wear black ski masks and hide in plain sight." Tony hit his phone icon and slipped the device into his back pocket. He smiled at the equally unpleasant look Barton shot to him instead.

"Ok, now I know to be insulted."

Joking aside, Tony pointed at the mound of ice and asked, "Did you really break it?"

"I didn't break anything," Clint replied, emphasizing himself with a hand over his heart.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Well, did Thor break something on you?"

"No, actually, I think I rolled away from this one intact, more or less. Unlike three weeks ago when you decided to—"

Tony walked swiftly toward the bar shaking one hand through the air as if swatting Clint's words away like pesky gnats. "La, la, la! Can't hear you! I thought we moved beyond my accidentally trying to fricassee your tail feathers? Did we not agree to not bring that up?" He leaned over the bar top and fished for a bottle of aspirin. Coming up with it, he returned and held them out for Clint to take.

Barton accepted the peace offering. "What, can't a guy get some water too?" It was pushing his luck, and he knew it. In all honesty, the knee wasn't any worse than colorfully bruised. He just enjoyed an opportunity to bust Thor's stones over the misstep. The next time it happened, he might not get away without a serious break.

Tony opened his mouth to offer a sassy reply that might match Clint's own, though Thor beat him to the punch. The guilty teammate headed away to fetch a glass when the secure entry just down the hall sounded a chime. Either Natasha had returned from her work out, or Hill heard about Clint's troubles and came up to witness the aftermath for herself. She liked poking fun at him as much as all the others did.

Clint braced himself for whatever woman might arrive. In one case, he could handle Hill's jests. He'd been dished them ever since he'd joined SHIELD and she decided he was worth conversing with every once in a while. She'd handled a lot of his mission debriefs and deployments. At first she thought he was a bit of an . . . well, the correct word for her opinion wasn't exactly fit for a PG audience. After a year, she'd gotten used to his peculiarities and began to see him as more of a comedic relief than a bitter, disgruntled agent.

If Natasha walked through that door a very different conversation was set to be had. Thor, in particular, was not to be spared her venomous intent. She often lectured the others about their cavalier recklessness. After all, Clint refused to wear a suit of armor beside the very-near bullet proof jacket Tony fashion for him. Sure the thing was heavy, it itched, and he sweat like a pig in it but he still wore it (when he couldn't avoid it) and that seemed to make the others a little more confident in his own survival. A bullet resistant coat was no match against Thor swinging his hammer into Clint's knee cap, though.

Thor seemed to watch the hall with the same sort of trepidation. His hand hovered, outstretched, with Clint's water bottle locked in his grip. Clint attempted to take it, though Thor wouldn't release it. Former Agent Hill appeared, and Thor visibly released a sigh. He laughed a little to himself and passed the water bottle over.

"Geez, Thor, a little terrified of something?" Clint asked, enjoying the feeling of holding something over the normally stoic Asgardian.

Thor straightening his dark overcoat a little. "Terrified? A son of Odin? I have never heard such fallacy."

Clint arched and eyebrow. He freed two aspirins from the bottle and popped them in his mouth. The rest he rolled onto the table. "Uh huh. Remind me of that when Nat gets here and you skitter off."

"Asgardians do not "skitter"."

"Oh, I've seen skittering," Hill admitted herself to the conversation. She dropped a file she carried onto the glass table beside Clint's foot. She indicated the ice. "Is it purple yet?"

"Last time I checked, it was blue." He lifted the pile of ice and gauged his own injury by her response. She curled her lip and offered an expression of gruesome interest. Like meeting a man with the world's largest boil, she zeroed in for a closer inspection. Tony sauntered over beside her.

"It kinda looks like Richard Nixon's chin," Tony said, "If it was smacked with a baseball bat."

"Thanks," Clint said, positioning the ice again.

Hill clapped Thor on the shoulder. "Well, you did it."

"A fact I feel I will be reminded of for the coming years." Thor replied. He sunk into the seat across from Clint and stared at the offended leg sadly.

"At the very least," Hill said. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a flash drive, which she added to the pile of forms she'd dropped off. Taking the seat Clint offered to her, she sank down beside the archer and pulled the paperwork onto her lap to go over it. "There have been three more sightings of high-activity HYDRA bases in the past week. None of them are proving to pan out very far, but there is one place in particular a hard contact of mine is zeroing in on. It's here."

Hill turned the paper around and displayed the photograph to Clint. He picked up one copy while Tony leaned down and grabbed another. The billionaire settled into his own chair and hiked one knee over the other as he considered the brick-laden compound.

"So far radiation scans have been clean, but there are occasional spikes of gamma waves we haven't seen since the tesseract left Earth," she went on.

Thor formed a fist and set his chin on it with his elbow perched on his knee. "It is your belief that the scepter has been found? Again? Has this not been the twentieth such false claim we have chased?"

"That's why I'm waiting for some harder data before I suggest moving in. Right now this is all just preliminary work up. But, it is promising."

"Where is this?" Clint asked, handing the photo back.

"Sokovia, Eastern Europe."

"See what pans out," Tony suggested. "I don't think Banner's in the mood to burn the green candlelight for a while. I think he'd like to hang around town and save some cats from trees or damsels in distress or something."

That reminded her. Hill grabbed the thumb drive one of the phone technicians handed to her, and passed it to Clint. She was beginning to explain its significance when Bruce rounded the corner from the lower level Stark assembly line. Life in the Tower was often like that. One conversation would start, a few Avengers might gather around the living room couches, and suddenly everyone would leak out of the wood work. Five or six different conversations would coalesce all at once, with Tony Stark starting first in one with Bruce, then switching his attention to Thor, and hearing a stray word he liked, might add something to a private talk between Barton and Natasha. Herding cats, someone once described it as. Keeping track of any dialogue in that room was nearly impossible.

"What am I not in the mood for?" Bruce asked, splintering the group talk.

Tony shrugged, sitting back in his chair. "Same old rousing games of patty-cake with the HYDRA goons. You know, throwing them through trees. Hitting them with trees. Hitting them with Hawkeye . . ."

Clint lifted his hands in an exasperated way. "Gee, thanks. Remind me of that one."

Bruce chuckled a little. He adjusted the glasses on the brim of his nose and nodded a hello to the others. "Did you break it?" he asked Clint.

"I didn't break anything!" Clint again defended, throwing an accusatory finger towards the thunderer. Thor hung his head, accepting the punishment.

"And I thought I was the one we had to watch out for." Bruce commented. He sneaked a glance beneath Clint's ice pack and winced.

Clint, in the meantime, realized he was holding a thumb drive. He looked over at Maria, allowing the other's to carry on the talk about his mortality without him. "What's this all about?"

Continuing their separate conversation, Maria said, "A lab tech downstairs all but begged me to give it to you. He even agreed to buy me lunch. I said it had to be Giuseppe's and must include a cannoli, and the guy agreed, so I figured it might be legit."

"Thor, I think this means you're springing for the next pizza, doesn't it Tony? Isn't that the rules after someone breaks Barton? You're also on green-power-smoothie detail as I remember." Bruce grinned. Clint had a few stipulations on what he required from the others as payments for their mistakes causing him bodily harm. Thor liked pizza, but had no real money to speak of and he detested the green shakes that Tony designed.

"Legit what?" Clint asked, Hill turning the drive over in his hands as if it might implode. Hill was just as suspicious as him. She'd never bring something up without clearing it for micro explosives.

Thor objected to the statement from Bruce. "I do not feel I must be subjected to your grass-infused drink merely to dispel my debt for an honest mistake."

Tony shot back, "It's weed grass, and Kiwi, and Starbucks offered me a half a million dollar deal to steal the recipe. I just happen to be holding out for more. Don't knock it just because you don't like the color green,"

Hill suddenly abandoned her side-talk to jump into Tony's conversation instead. Herding cats. "You seriously think adding kiwi makes it taste any less like grass?"

Clint tugged her elbow, forcing her attention back. He held up the device again. "Legit what? What did you hand me?"

She shrugged. "It's a phone recording of a woman. She called the Tower trying to get a hold of you specifically, but wouldn't say why. You know you get like two hundred of those per day? Usually it's just some Hero Humper looking for a good time, but this lab tech was fairly insistent for me to get it to you. I guess the transcript shook him up."

Clint looked at the drive for a time, considering what he should do with it while Tony berated Hill over her lack of good taste. In the past, Clint had entertained such calls from women. Some were fascinating to listen to, others downright disturbing. He bounced the thumb drive off his palm and let it skitter onto the table by his leg. Just one more woman in the sea out there hoping to grab him.

"She leave a name?" He asked, but wasn't sure why.

Overhearing part of the conversation, Tony snickered. "Probably left her number. Send her Bruce's way, I do believe it's been too long."

Bruce strode behind him and Vulcan-neck pinched his clavicle. Tony grunted and sank into his seat to avoid the one-handed onslaught.

Hill sorted through a few papers and came up with a transcribed version of the phone call. She glanced down the lines and read, "I think it was Laura? I'd have to double check it. It's here somewhere."

Beside her, Clint exploded. Abused knee forgotten, he scrambled to his feet and snatched the thumb drive off the table. The ice hit the floor in a splash so violent the cubes shook free and scattered across the plexi-glass and hardwood fusion. A broken cry pulled free from his lips when his knee took the weight of his body, but Clint didn't stop long enough for the limb to collapse on him. He shot across the room like a targeting laser and grabbed the hand rail for the stairs to help him get to the science twin's lab faster. He didn't stop, explain, or say anything more. He simply took off as if someone screamed "Air Raid!"

Behind him, the shocked teammates jostled to their feet. The questions came from a dozen places at once as they tried to understand how a simple name had transformed their friend instantly.

"Clint, what happened?!— Who is she?!— Let me help you!- Careful on that! - Thor, grab the door.—Hang on, let me plug it in.—Clint, who is Laura? –"

Clint waved them off of him, determined to clamor his way to the lab on his own steam. Adrenaline shot through him like a drug. He could hardly think straight. His one track mind was one step short of shutting the others out completely as he hobbled across the lab, yanked a lap top out—too hard—Tony was surely cringing over the sound it's casing made as it hit the lab bench, and shoved the rolling stool away. Bruce slipped in beside him and moved various glass implements away. Surely they cost more than one of Clint's arrows. In his current state, Clint might just smash them all, accidentally or not. His fingers clawed at the laptop lock until it finally sprang open and he forced the lid up. He shoved the thumb drive into its port and waited as the screen booted. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck, saturating his shirt collar against him. Nothing but years of intense training kept his hands rock steady.

Behind him, Tony and Hill exchanged a poignant glance. He hiked a thumb toward the door. "Get Cap," He ordered. Any other day she might remark at his authoritative tone, but not today. She rushed off instantly.

Clint's fingers flew against the keys, trying to type in Tony's complicated computer passcode accurately the fourth, fifth, then sixth try. His fist came down on the lab bench in utter frustration before Tony decided he could take it no longer and physically forced the archer aside to claim the computer for himself. Clint was talented with technology, a trait Stark never expected to find in the fellow Avenger who seemed happier to shoot things at a distance and direct the team's movements than play lab mate. In the state Barton was in, though, expecting him to formulate Bruc3L33R()cxsDJ4L1F3 accurately was simply too much to ask.

Clint unwillingly relented. He pushed away from the bench on took a few steps away, panting in his terror. He swiped the sweat from the back of his neck with one hand and moved down the line of complicated equipment. He stopped, bent over at the waist and felt his stomach churning in the back of his throat. His heart was pumping recklessly as the terror slammed through him. He gripped the end of the workbench in both hands. His mouth had gone bone dry.

"Clint?" Bruce tried again, keeping a little distance. "I'm guessing you know this girl?"

"It might not be her," Clint barked, trying to convince Bruce and himself in the same few words. He shook his head, reaching into his pocket to find his cell phone. "Can't be her. She would have called my cell and I don't have a single missed—"

"He—Hello? Hello, is this the Avenger's Tower?"

Clint's heart plummeted like a falling elevator car. The phone slipped out of his hand and hit the workbench. His head lifted to watch the oscillating golden orb that was JARVIS vibrate with the tempo of the woman's voice. His throat felt tight as he attempted to breath.

"I need to speak to Clint Barton. Is he there? Please, tell him it's Laura and he'll understand. I need to speak to him! It's an emergency!"

"Oh my God," He whispered. He moved around the bench and stood only a few inches from the glowing orb. Gingerly, he reached out to the light. Some part of him wondered that if he could feel the warmth of the woman's face beneath his finger tips. She was terrified, he could feel it in his bones and there was nothing he could do to console her.

The three souls around him watched the transition in their friend. This was a Clint Barton they had never before witnessed. He was transfixed, listening to the playback and watching JARVIS's system oscillate before his eyes. They'd never heard Clint speak of the woman in the past, or why she must mean so much to him now.

"You don't understand! I need him, I need Clint. If you can hear me, please. Please, it's Laura! Something's happened. Something terrible! Can't you understand, I need to hear him?!"

"I'm right here!" He said, but suddenly forgot it was a recording. He looked around frantically for his cell phone. Bruce seemed to understand and handed him the device instantly. Clint snatched it up and punched the screen to life with multiple jabbing fingers. The line connected and he held the phone up to his ear, willing the voice on the other side to appear.

"Clint! Clint, please!"

"Answer. Answer, Laura. Pick up. Pick up," Clint chanted. He had to turn away from the golden light. His eyes flashed up to the others but rapidly turned away. There was no way for them to understand the importance of what was happening. He'd never spoken of her, of his life, to them before. If they'd known, perhaps they'd be reacting differently. There was one person who he could rely on and he could just see her sprinting toward the lab beside Steve. The door sprung open for Steve and Natasha. Hill returned behind them to watch the scene play out and see if she might be needed. Clint waved Natasha over at once and she pushed her way through the others.

The woman on the recording suddenly screamed.

Natasha placed her hand on his arm, and two troubled blue horizons met hers. His desperation mounting, Clint rapidly spoke into his phone. "Laura? Laura, it's me, answer the phone. Answer the phone! I need you to pick—Laura? Laura?!" He pulled the phone away and rapidly re-dialed the number. To Natasha he demanded, "Did she call you? Tell me she tried!"

Natasha shook her head.

"Listen to it. Tell me what you think." He motionedfor Tony to replay the recording, which he did.

Watching the scene take place, Steve strode inside a little more. He asked Bruce what exactly was going on, and the doctor leaned in to give up the only information they'd been made privy too. Someone Clint knew called the Tower's main line for help and it sounded serious. The rest Steve could listen to himself as Tony replayed the message. If Clint's reaction had been any different, he might have suggested the local police be called to get on seen ahead of them, but something, he wasn't sure what it might be, brought him to a pause. If someone Clint knew had been involved in a serious situation, enough to make them call him personally, it might be a set up.

Natasha listened to the call with an agent's impartiality and the benefit of having a personal relationship with the woman no one else knew existed. After the recording ended the second time, she felt firm enough in her assessment to state, "That's not her voice."

"I know it's not her voice! It's Stacy's voice, she carpools the kids to school," Clint snapped back as if it was the most basic things in the world. The voice mail on the other end of his phone line clicked on again and he pleaded with the future listener. "Laura? It's me, look, I need you to call me right now. I'm serious about this. Lila, if you have mommy's phone, I need you to give it back. I need to speak to mommy. Laura?" Clint strode away from the others and continued to berate the absentee voicemail he was trapped speaking to. His knees felt weak under the onslaught of his emotions and he collapsed down onto the tiered flooring. There wasn't enough aspirin in the world to make him forget what Thor had accidentally done to his knee, but he would suffer whatever he had to if it meant his family was in danger. The voice message ran out of space and he was forced to hang up. He looked defeatedly at the others.

"Laura would have called my phone, not the Stark line." He told them. "Someone get Fury on the line. He might know something. Maybe he was there. I don't know who else to call."

Maria extracted her own cell phone and cruised down the numbers to find Nick Fury's new mobile line. She attempted to hand it to him but Clint waved her away. He was still trying to get Laura. Natasha snapped her fingers and took the phone from Hill instead. She nodded a little at Clint, hoping to inspire some confidence in him. She pushed the computer in front of Stark a little more.

"See if you can clean that up. I want to hear everything in the background."

"Can I ask why?" He asked, already setting to it.

"No." Natasha paced back and forth with Maria's phone pressed against her face. Fury's line went instantly to voice mail. She offered a Russian curse under her breath and shook her head at Clint.

"You try calling Laura," Clint suggested, handing her his phone. He stood, wincing at his stiff leg. "Tony, replay it again. The beginning. When was this time stamped?" He flipped his wrist and looked at his watch.

"Clint, tell us what's going on," Steve said. Beside him the entire team looked at the archer with mixtures of anticipation and worry. They could feel the keen terror he was attempting, and failing, to keep in check. Obviously he was connected to this woman, whatever her name was, and the fact that she may be in serious danger meant Clint would want to help her. That was a team matter.

"I—I don't know." He said honestly, raising his arms and letting them drop. He looked like a defeated man torn ragged by emotion like a flag left out in a typhoon. "Stacy, she runs the carpool, and Fury did the complete check on her personally when we decided to let the kids into regular school. I mean, Cooper was getting older, and it was too much to ask Laura to just take care of them alone when she still wanted to work from home. All their friends were starting too and . . ."

Clint stopped, realizing nothing he was trying to say made sense to them. He gripped the work bench again. If he'd been Thor, he might have ground the metal into flecks of dust in his hands. After having some time to gather himself, he finally said, "I haven't been totally honest with any of you but that doesn't matter right now. Laura is my wife. I know my wife's voice and that is not it. Stacy doesn't know much of anything about me. I've only met her twice and I never gave her any of my emergency contact numbers. If something happened to my family, my children, and she wanted to get in contact with me, she could only do it through calling Stark Tower. But why Laura didn't call me herself, I . . . I don't know. I just don't know. My wife, my son, my little girl, and my baby are in danger. If something's happened to them, then God-help the people that did it."

He folded his arms over his chest and stared them down like a drill sergeant. "Look, every single one of you owes me something. I've fought and bled for this team. You're all helping me find them, so suit up."

OMG, you go clint:)

Coming up: Tony nearly has a meltdown, Thor becomes an adorable cupcake, and a bullet hole

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