Story Timeline – 3rd week of September 2013; two days after the events of Crime and Punishment Pt 1

Authors Notes

With Ainsley still in intensive care and showing no sign of improvement the team tries to get on with the task in hand while dealing with their own emotions.

Bruce entertains his own private doubts about the doctor's influence while behind the veils of sleep and unconsciousness strange events are stirring.

Thor confronts his own altered circumstances and makes a pact with Clint.

Some violence and torture references.

He was sitting outside on a bench in the parking lot when they arrived. Natasha motioned to Bruce to head on in and she came over to sit beside him, looking pointedly at the cigarette in his hand

"I thought you'd given up?"

Clint took a final draw and ground the stub out on the edge of the bench, throwing it into the nearby bin.

"Twice today already, maybe third time's the trick. You've seen him?"

She'd been at the Detention Centre again this morning, her second session with Abel. She'd talked with him about his mother, the sort of music and movies he liked, growing up on the road; all the time adding more details to the picture of Barney Barton's movements, contacts and motivations. That was the easy part; as Black Widow she extracted secrets from some of the best trained men in the world over a champagne breakfast without them guessing. The hard one was convincing Abel that his father wasn't some coke-sniffing petty hood who made his money by sexually servicing rich New Yorkers.

Just saying 'Hey, your dad's Hawkeye. He helped save the world.' wasn't one of the available options. Until they knew exactly if, or how far, Abel was involved in his uncle's activities and what they were going to do with him any mention of the Avengers or Clint's connection to them was prohibited. Unlike Stark, Natasha knew exactly how far Fury was willing to bend the rules and here there was no room for flexibility.

Apart from that, years of early conditioning couldn't be undone so simply. Some Jesuit educator, Ainsley would be probably able to tell her which one if he were capable of speaking, had said 'Give me a child until the age of 7 and I will give you the man'. Barney Barton had the boy until the age of 17, fortunately the evidence showed that he was an incompetent and inconsistent brainwasher.

The trick was to plant enough doubts to allow him to come to his own conclusions about the years of lies and half-truths he'd been brought up on. Too much too soon and the shutters would come down. The boy had no formal education but he wasn't stupid and was naturally suspicious. If she could turn his suspicions in the right direction the work would be more than half done.

"He's being treated well. He's healthy, if a bit underfed, and he likes pirate stories. He's watching Black Sails on NetFlix just now."

Convincing Clint to see the scared, confused, child behind the teenager who put Ainsley into Intensive Care was going to be the difficult part. She could anticipate the next question; it was already in his eyes.

"No immediate evidence of physical or sexual abuse. Whatever else Barney may have been doing, he probably wasn't beating or raping him."

Clint lit up another cigarette, ignoring her look of disapproval

"That's something I suppose. He tell you anything about Tina?"

"She died two years ago, Influenza. I'm so sorry."

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers

"Yeah, me too."

Gotta concentrate on Doc, he's still with us. Can do my own grieving later.

She ran her hand through his hair, it was starting to get thick again.

"You've not slept in two days; you have to get some rest" She wrinkled her nose "and a shower. Thor's not closed his eyes in over a week, it's not going to help Ainsley get better if the two of you exhaust yourselves. Bruce and I'll take this watch."

She took the cigarette out of his hand

"Third time lucky. Go get yourself and Thor something to eat then put your heads down for a few hours. We'll call you if there's any change"

###

They called it the Great Hall. Really, it was a shabbily grand family room; fifteen generations of Wyndhams and Kerrs watching them from the walls. It had seemed like the biggest room in the world to them as children. Mummy would sit curled up on the green leather couch, feet tucked under her, drinking tea and reading the papers after Sunday Mass. He and Izzie did their jigsaw puzzles on the faded Chinese rug in front of the fireplace. Izzie would always let him do the edges first before they both began to fill in the middle, even as a child she seemed to instinctively understand his need to bring order out of chaos.

Pip and Daddy would be throwing a rugby ball around on the lawn, waiting for Mrs McGrory to tell them lunch was ready.

He was an adult now. The room felt smaller but every detail was the same, even the half-chewed pencil that Grandpa Francis used for his crosswords.

Granny Sophie was sitting on the couch. She'd always been his favourite Granny. When she came to visit, he would sit on her lap and she'd tell him the dark old fairy stories she'd heard as a child in Bavaria. He liked them a lot better than the silly ones with all the happy endings they told at school. He'd especially liked the stories about the man with the skull for a head and the brave knight who'd defeated him. After one that had been scarier than most she'd whispered in his ear

"Never fear the monsters, Little-bug; they should fear us."

She looked like she did in her wedding photograph, blonde hair stylishly waved and wearing the pink diamond brooch that had been given to her grandmother by an Austrian prince. It still sat in the family's safety-deposit box at their bank in London. She patted the couch beside her;

"Come sit with me, Little-bug. There is much you need to know and time is not on our side."

###

Bruce had a wonderful voice, why had she never realised that before?

The scientist read aloud from Walton's "The Compleat Angler". The choice had surprised her, she'd never figured Ainsley would be interested in fishing, but listening to Bruce softly reading the elegant 17th Century prose and verse she began to grasp the hidden layers of the text and realised why it was one of the doctor's favourites. Beneath the discourse on the art and spirit of angling was a subtle message of encouragement, originally directed to the English Royalists weathering the years of Cromwell's puritan Commonwealth; counselling hope and calm endurance in the face of darkness and despair.

She put her hand on Ainsley's hoping that he could sense her presence in some way. His condition wasn't getting any worse but his vital signs weren't strong enough for them to think about beginning to reduce the deep sedation. Too soon and his system would not have had the time to recover properly, too late and there was a risk of coma.

None of them wanted to be in the Penthouse just now. Ainsley's stuff was still lying around the living room where he'd left it to go out. He'd been working on his book and his laptop was open on the coffee table surrounded by notebooks, with the Tardis mug that Clint had bought him sitting beside it. There was a 'to-do' list on the kitchen worktop with half the items crossed out. It looked like he'd been planning to cook something special for their homecoming.

Tony refused to allow any of it to be touched. Ainsley could get very snippy if anyone disturbed his things while he was working and the billionaire wanted it left just the way it was for when he came home. She knew the way Tony's mind worked, how difficult it was for him to deal with any sort of loss. He wasn't used to it and tidying up Ainsley's stuff would be an admission they might have lost the doctor for good. He'd only visited once, briefly, but was keeping in touch. She'd expected that; Tony was phobic about hospitals at the best of times and preferred to immerse himself in activity, following up on some of the leads she had gleaned from Abel.

They hadn't been able to pin the leak down to the New York Field Office yet, although Tony clearly hoped it had come from there. There was bad blood between him and some of the New York agents, he was itching for an excuse to go up against them. She had a different suspicion though, that she'd only shared with Fury until there was more to go on. There was one person who definitely knew the intimate details of Clint's life and his connection with Ainsley. The Director had assured her the field team would be keeping a very close watch on Dr Osario.

"How're you doing, Nat?"

Bruce had stopped reading and taken off his glasses, they hadn't spoken properly since before the mission. Everything had gone so frantic so quickly that none of them had got the chance to depressurise and regain a bit of equilibrium.

She got up and poured them each a glass of water.

"We're making faster progress than I imagined. Abel doesn't seem to be aware of his uncle's 'private business' but he's a smart kid and notices a lot more than he realises. Steve and Fury are talking about what the long-term options are."

Handing him his water, she couldn't help but smile at the expression on his face.

"I know what you mean, Bruce. I've cried all the tears I have, now I'm concentrating on solving the problem. If Ainsley lives, Tony's going to throw the biggest party in history. If he dies, we're all going to feel very bad for a very long time. At least when Phil died we had a clear enemy to face, Barney is just one small piece of something else…"

She sat down beside him and took his hand.

"Ainsley said he felt that something dark and terrible was happening. I'm starting to feel it too."

Bruce knew Nat to dislike speculation without facts, she wasn't one to give way to fanciful notions. If she was starting to share one of Ainsley's intuitions there must be a solid reason for it somewhere.

"Something rotten in the state of SHIELD?"

She nodded

"Fury's nervous, and it takes a lot to put him on edge. There's nothing any of us can put our fingers on but some things just don't seem to be adding up."

Bruce was fiddling with his glasses, a sure sign of his own anxiety.

"I'm going to read a bit more. I don't know if it's doing Ainsley any good but it's making me feel a whole lot better."

He'd never spent that much time with the doctor. He never spent a lot of time with any of them, preferring the stable, controlled environment of the Research & Development Labs but with Ainsley it was different. The doctor was skilled at getting into people's minds and Bruce already had someone in his that he didn't want. Two was a crowd in this case, three very unwelcome.

If he was honest with himself, he thought Ainsley could be more than a bit manipulative; a man who liked to get his own way and was very good at getting it without being obvious. Standing on the edge of the group he could see how he carefully upheld Steve's authority, verbally sparred with Stark while becoming Pepper's close friend and had Thor and Clint eating out of his hand. As for Nat, if Ainsley's tastes were different he might well have cause to be jealous. He seemed able to identify what each of them would respond to most favourably and adapt himself accordingly.

It didn't appear to be deliberate, just the way Ainsley was; in fact, the doctor's presence had bound the team together in a way he never would have believed possible. Perhaps that was Fury's intention and maybe he was letting paranoia get the better of him, but Bruce had to ask himself whether the team answered to Fury now or if it was the prone figure on the bed who really called the shots. If so, that could backfire on them at some point. In the wrong circumstances, Dr Kerr might be a very dangerous man.

He reopened Walton's classic and continued to read, forcing his attention back to the words on the page.

###

They had taken one of the guest rooms at the hospital to be close to each other and to Ainsley. Thor lay on his back staring up at the ceiling as Clint showered. He sniffed speculatively at his armpit, he should have one as well. If things were different, he would have joined Clint in the shower so they could enjoy each other at the same time but neither man desired that sort of physical contact while their lover lay between life and death two floors below. He could feel the fatigue heavy in his limbs and head. It had been a week and a half since he had slept and his body screamed for rest.

The injuries he had sustained during his battle with the Hulk were worse than he admitted. He had been picked up like a child's doll and hurled against a tree, feeling bones cracking as he fell. It had been almost a year since he had eaten of the Golden Apples of Idunn and their effects were no longer with him. He was not as diminished as he had been when Odin stripped him of his powers. It would still take much to weaken or injure him but less than it would once have had.

The gate of Bifrost had not been opened to him since he returned to be with Jane. Odin AllFather's moods had become dark since the death of Frigga and he had been cut deep by his son's rejection of his birthright, despite his words at the time. He was not an exile as such, but Midgardians had a saying which described his situation; 'don't call us, we'll call you'."

He would have to sleep, there was no option, but he feared the dream would come. There would be no gentle hands to soothe him as his eyes closed or tender voice to banish his terrors when he woke. Clint was there, but that could never be the same. He looked at the inscription on the pendant around his neck, the one Ainsley had given him that happy night which felt so long ago

Always Worthy

They called him 'God of Thunder'. They did not know that had been another Thor, the one who carried the name before him and first wielded the might of Mjolnir. He had been but a babe in arms when the Jotuns were defeated and the power of Asgard withdrew to its own realm, had never set foot on Midgard before the Allfather banished him here. Since the Battle of New York, cults had been set up in his name and Tony's offices received many electronic messages requesting he 'bless them with His Divine Presence' or often 'with His Divine Seed'. He responded to none of them, it would not be worthy. These people claimed to 'believe' in him but there was only one who had faith in him.

Clint came in from the shower, still towelling himself off. Thor felt a great sadness in his heart as he watched his friend. The archer looked beaten down, despondent. The son who should be by his side had been stolen from him, his mind warped by a brother who hated him. The maiden who was his first love had died in loneliness and poverty and the man he now loved lay nearby, almost slain by the hand of his own child. No man was born to bear so many griefs in so little space of time.

He got up and put his arms around Clint, holding him silently before kissing him on the forehead.

"I stand with you, Hawkeye the Avenger. We will be strong together for the ones we love."

Clint laid his head on the warrior's shoulder; the guy had the shakes. Hell, they both did. Tasha was right, if they didn't get some rest right now they'd be in a seriously bad way.

"I'm with you as well, Big Blond, but if we don't sleep now we'll be no good to anyone." he patted Thor's face "Go hit the shower, you smell like old cat food."

He chose the couch, he could sleep pretty much anywhere and it was big and comfy. Thor could have the bed. It was supposed to be a double but looked like it would be pretty cramped for the pair of them.

Hawkeye slept with one ear open, that had been the joke. The assassin's training had conditioned him to be sensitive to potential sources of danger especially when he was vulnerable in his sleep. The joke had stopped being funny when a mistimed concussion grenade destroyed his hearing. He didn't like sleeping with his hearing aids in. When Tony had redesigned them, he'd improved the fit, but keeping them in for extended periods of time still irritated his ears. He'd had them in for over 72 hours now and there'd been a bit of blood on the towel after he dried off.

He'd been tempted to take them out before he went to sleep but the hospital wasn't a secure environment. Doc couldn't be moved to a SHIELD facility yet and he didn't want to be caught napping.

The sound freaked him out; halfway between a whine and a snarl, like a wounded predator that still had some fight left. He was awake and upright immediately, knife in hand, trying to locate the source of the noise. It was coming from the figure on the bed

Awww Thor, no….

He turned on the light, hoping that would wake him, but the Asgardian was locked deep in his nightmare; his fingers clenching into the fabric of the mattress, still making that gut-wrenching noise. Waking him in this state could be dangerous. The time Ainsley tried, the doctor only avoided taking a punch that could have shattered his ribcage because Thor had been facing the other way. Clint didn't want to chance his luck. They'd just have to see this through...

…They had changed the restraints since the last time. Reinforced steel, padded so he could not try to open his veins on the metal. His whole body went into spasms as jolt after jolt of electricity fired through him. The cold faced man in the black suit adjusted the voltage on the device, giving it a couple of test shots so his prisoner could see the blue spark jumping between the prongs. He had once been Master of the lightning now his captors had turned its power against him.

"Let's see if this can help you come up with something that makes sense" the man with the scar on his face looked at him with a hard, humourless smile "Any ideas where you want it next?"

There was still blood in his mouth from where they had wrenched out two of his teeth. He mustered the strength to hawk a clot of blood and spittle into his torturer's face. The man wiped it off and threw it on the floor with an exclamation of disgust.

"Okay Blondie" he growled "I'm going to enjoy this; you definitely won't…"

He tried to twist his head away as the sparking came closer to his face. The front of the scar-faced man's skull exploded in a spray of blood and brains. The cold-faced man turned, reaching for his weapon as a second shot took him square in the face. He heard a soft, cultured, voice he did not recognise but which was still familiar

"Right, where do they keep their bloody keys?"

The small sandy-haired man was garbed differently from his torturers and he did not know him although he thought he should. Had he been in the town with Eric Selvig and the others or was this some new form of torment?

The man unlocked his restraints

"We have a truck waiting outside, your friends have arrived. We're going to get you out of here."

His legs buckled beneath him as the bonds were released. Though short and slight the man somehow had the strength to hold him up, wiping the blood from his mouth. It was a surprise to Thor, but strangely welcome, when he kissed him like a lover. There was a fierce determination in the smoky grey eyes.

"I will never let them hurt you like this again!"

The whimpering snarls were fading along with the kicking and struggling. Clint sat on the edge of the couch watching until Thor's breathing returned to normal and he slipped into a deep dreamless sleep. Once sure Big Blond was fine he laid himself back down to grab a couple more hours.

###

"Did you see that?"

There was a note of urgency in her voice that woke Bruce from the light doze he'd slipped into

"Whuu…?"

"His hand just twitched, twice."

The scientist looked over, there was no sign of movement now. It could have been an involuntary muscle spasm, those weren't uncommon.

"I'll get the doctor to check him out, just in case."