i wish i could do all the individual thank yous this week, but I've been running around so much on my pathology rotation, i just cant seem to do it! Big apologies! Rest assured, one year from today I will walk at graduation then have all the time I want to write:) As for today, though? ICU emergency shift.

Avenge Me

Chapter 8

"How's your knee going to handle all this?" Tony asked. He glanced to his left where Clint perched on the edge of a control panel. The archer's face was dark with concern, consumed with his inner thoughts. The last few days, he'd been a permanent fixture in the lab, along with practically everyone else. Now that they had a substantial lead to go off of, and certain that Cooper Barton was continuing to send intermittent transmissions their way, Clint had receded back into that dark depth again.

"My knee's fine." Clint whispered after a time. Subconsciously he bent forward and rubbed the joint with his hand. Tony didn't miss the wince he attempted to smother.

"Just take it easy in there. All of us are coming, and Banner's already called a code green. I think Thor might be the biggest loose cannon in here right now."

Clint's head lifted. He wasn't sure if he liked the idea of the hammer-wielder going medieval on Hydra while Barton's very mortal family was around.

Tony didn't miss the implication. "Don't worry about him. You think, after smacking you in the leg, he's ever going to forgive himself? No. What I'm saying is, we've got your back in this. Stick together, be smart, it's like any other base we've hit."

That assessment, Clint could accept. He sighed a little, his shoulders drooping as he tried to find some semblance of inner peace. He was usually tense on missions. More so as an Avenger than a SHIELD agent. To be fair, he did a lot of crazier things with this team than SHIELD ever asked of him, so the apprehension came with the territory. This time, in particular, hit him harder than the others.

"What am I going to do when I get them back?" he wondered to himself.

"I imagine a great deal of warm, snuggly feels will commence, at which time - "

"Not that," Clint interrupted. He knew exactly what he was going to do when his wife and son were back in his arms again. He hoped none of the Avengers were around at the time. Clint was prepared to do some very unmanly things, crying, blubbering, and collapsing against his wife's belly for one. "After this. Hydra knows where they live, where I live. I don't have a home anymore. I raised my kids in that house. They love their school. Everyone they've ever known lives there. Lila's missed almost a week of school, Cooper too. I'm not letting them go back right away. Can they even go back at all? What if Hydra comes after my children?"

Tony glanced back over his shoulder again to see the anguish Clint struggled over. It was just one more thing Stark had never considered in his own life. Clint had a family. He had more than himself to think about. School, homework, Laura's career, babysitters, in-laws; these were aspects of Clint's life that he privately juggled without any input from the others.

Now that all of his secrets were flapping in the wind, Tony continued to struggle with putting himself in Barton's shoes. Before, the guy was easy to interpret; SHIELD agent, sarcastic, attitude of a class-A hard case, with a goofy side that often caught the others by surprise. He could play dumb when he wanted, but Tony slowly realized it was only to avoid doing things Clint didn't want to do. This side of him, this father hell bent on moving all of planet Earth to save his family, didn't line up with any of those previous assessments.

"We'll figure something out. I'll help. Arm the place, set up defense perimeter, stealth monitoring, erase chart data, hard data, whatever you want. Just say the word. I understand if you want to stay. If not, I can help set up another location. Don't worry about that for now, I'll handle it." Tony was looking back at the monitors, helping guide him to the hidden Moldova base Hill's field agents identified four weeks ago. He could still see the reflection of Clint's face on the forward glass alter from one of internal turmoil to a refreshing calm.

"Thank you," he said sincerely.

"Don't mention it. Actually, do. Do mention it, so I don't forget."

"Can't imagine what you're going to do when that girl grows up, Clint." Steve said, drawing his attention.

Clint looked over with a curiously. The others had left him alone for the most part. Natasha continued to run interference for him, filling in details where they wanted. When the team got into the plane and Clint decided to hover by Tony, they let him be. Stark, despite his limited bedside manner, had suffered alone when Pepper was taken from him. He might not have a wife and kids, but he was willing to let Barton plop down beside him for advice. Typically Stark hated a backseat flier.

Bruce picked up on the connotation and humor Steve tried to put in and said, "Can you just imagine it? Lila's first boyfriend comes over to the house to meet her dad, and the Hawk's standing there with an acid-tipped arrow." He laughed a little at the thought.

A wave of horror crossed Clint's face. "Well, thanks, guys, no I actually hadn't thought of that. Ever. But now, I can't stop it. I think I might need a trap door. With crocodiles or diseased lions or something."

"You could always get her a cat."

Thor gave the doctor a strange expression. "What would the addition of a small mammal do?"

"Bruce, I am not turning my child into a crazy cat lady to prevent any future males from entering my property," Clint said firmly, but they could see the consideration in his eyes.

:(:):(:):

A harsh, frigid wind blew down the slope of pine trees, spraying his exposed face with a mist of flakes. The tiny spears struck his skin like pellets from a gun, driving him to duck beneath the concrete parapet for cover. His finger-tabbed hand reached down and tugged up on the zipper of his bullet-resistant coat. While the leather and Kevlar might have made mobility an issue, at least it was warm.

They were situated in the northern tip of the European country. Moldova contained more than its fair share of battlements and ramparts. Great brick and cement structures dotted its landscapes. Castles and strongholds, some used by the Allied Nations, most by the Nazis, it was no great surprise that a faction of Hydra remained in one of these snake nests to this day.

The journey took them to the north western tip of the country, close to the Ukrainian border. A great monument stood in the center of a small Soroca town in the canyon far below them. The brick laden castle seemed like a reasonable target initially, but all scans pointed to a separate location, deep in the Moldovan wood, past a battlefield full of graves.

The stones were slick to traverse, a fresh sheen of ice laid down even as the Avengers slogged through the snow drifts to get around the concrete bunker. The stones were weathered, old, and half had tumbled on top of their grave occupants in the near seventy years since their placement. Steve had gone silent as he led the way. He'd been to these battlefields before, only not since World War II.

When they reached the hillside leading up to the bunker, the Avengers spread out. Clint was on stealth detail, something he excelled at. Tony lit up the sky with his presence, and Thor swooped in to take out the Hydra forces on top of the bunker. Steve paved the way to the heart of the structure, and Natasha kept close to the Hulk, without getting herself too close. Five overwhelming forces to slam head-on into everything Hydra had to shell at them. Clint, in the meantime, slipped right up to them unnoticed.

The ice and snow blasted him from left to right as Thor made another pass overhead. A garrison of Hydra men flooded the top of the old stronghold. They weren't armed with any of the latest tech, giving the Avengers one more advantage over them. While bullets might irritate Steve and Thor, eventually they'd get over it and continue smashing. The Hulk? He'd just get madder.

Clint ducked down as the fire power breezed by him after the large Asgardian. There was a doorway, reinforced with steel braces, directly across from him. He yanked an arrow, and while Thor summoned a little lightning and lit up the nest above Clint, the archer let the tip fly. He hunkered down in the snow as the entry exploded inward. A hail of wood and metal shrapnel powdered the area. He clambered to his feet, ignored the protest of his knee brace, and stole into the central building.

The fort was laid out in a classic five tower system. Four lookout stations braced the four corners of a fifteen foot mortar wall. There were two gates to reach the inner court where the final tower jutted up fifty feet into the air. The central building was stacked onto a three story square base, with unchartered catacombs arranged in a labyrinth beneath all five structures. The forces they dealt with above, were no measure to the termite mound waiting for them below. It was easy to get cornered down there. Tony wanted to draw as many of the Hydra men out as he could before they barricaded themselves in.

"Found a labyrinth entrance, south east corner. Blocked it off." Steve's radio signal cackled in Clint's ear. The quality was shoddy at best.

"Cap, I'm picking up interference. I think they might try and blast us with an EMP," Stark replied.

Clint jogged across the open ground of the inner courtyard and squeezed beneath the belly of an army truck only a few meters from the center building's entrance. He pulled out two arrows, and fired them one after another into the front and rear left tires. At least the truck wouldn't be rolling away with him under it.

"If that happens, stick close to the courtyard and Thor will give you a jumpstart."

"Hawkeye, converge on the north labyrinth entrance. I'm coming up from the east. I'll meet you there," Natasha said.

Clint knew it was a bluff. She had a few of his exploding arrows in a waist holster, and while he spied his way into the inner base, she was providing counter cover for him. More likely than not, Hydra had tapped into the call signals.

"Roger, north," he replied.

Poking his head out from beneath the truck's running board, he tried to get a bead on Stark. He would be the first breach, hitting the building in the third story while Clint started low. They'd clear the center block, scan the tower, and if they came up empty, planned to head into the labyrinth with Steve and Natasha breaching from the outside entrances. Thor and Hulk would continue to run ground interference top side.

"Go on 'go'," Stark announced.

Clint watched as the streak of gold and red blasted across the open courtyard and focused his firepower on an upper window. Within seconds, the bricks exploded around him and he was inside. That was Clint's sign. He scrambled out from beneath the truck and pulled an exploding tip. The front door fell instantly, and before the smoke even cleared, he fought his way inside.

There was a tangle of fallen bodies clustered around the entry. Clint worked his way through them, ignoring the screams of wounded men, and took a quick turn down a side hall. He rushed forward, grabbed an arrow and buried it into the first man in a line of three. The next, he hit head-on with the top of his bow, and the third, he grabbed by the wrist. The third's handgun went off, landing a skull shot into the Hydra agent in front of him, before Clint forced the gun to turn. The last agent crumbled, felled by a bullet from his own gun. Clint moved on wordlessly.

"Eyes up, eyes up! We've got two jets in the wood, uncloaked, and trying to get out. Who's on it?" Steve's voiced was more muffled than before.

"I have them!" Thor replied.

"Watch the contents, might be our packages," Steve said before Clint had a chance to. Satisfied the outside of the base was being managed, Clint continued to make his way inward.

The base was made up of narrow halls and drafty eaves. Little remodel for the modern times was attempted here, similar to another base they'd raided only four or five weeks before hand. Hydra seemed extensive on first introduction to modern society, but the longer the Avengers ferreted them out, the more they realized the truth of their power.

Deception, a spectacle of strength, where really they had none. Their strength lay in the mystery of what they were and their intentions. Once the Avengers realized that and began to cut the heads off the snake, the entire organization started to crumble.

This base might have seemed impressive on paper with its battlements, remote location, and labyrinth of death, but it was no more than an outpost manned by trained operatives left to their own devices. Best of all, the men were scared. A year of intense work had done that to them. Stories of the Avengers taking out a base, getting closer and closer to dismantling the organization all together. Men who knew of, or lost, friends under the Avenger's strikes, all served to undermine the famous Hydra loyalty.

When Clint turned a corner and found himself in a large, former banquet hall, he could see just how far the Avengers had gone into scaring the Hydra organization straight. The hall had been retrofitted as the main operations center. Communications consoles lined the walls with pop tables filling the center floor. Stacks of equipment, boxes of armaments, and even a few new weapons protected the vital heart of the base he'd stumbled into. Faces of Hydra scientists, foot soldiers, and decision makers all turned as one in his direction, and he saw the reality wash across those faces.

Fear.

An Avenger has arrived here in their den. It was like waking in the night to find an intruder standing over one's bedside.

The room fell into a silent horror at the sight of him, and Clint was glad for every moment of it. He wanted them to be afraid, terrified. They'd taken something of his, and this was him getting it all back. Tearing an arrow out of his quiver, he braced it against his string and pulled the fletches against his face.

"Don't take my stuff," he growled at them, letting the first arrow fly.

Hahahaha crazy cat lila. I love Tony's offering. And seriously, this is about to get intense. Pumping up the detail, we be raiding a Hydra base people!

Coming up: where clint shows how hardcore he is(part 2), a discovery is made, and tragedy jeopardizes it all

Please keep reviewing!