It turns out sleeping pills aren't enough to keep the nightmares under lock and key; they wait to assault his brain until the dead of night. Once again, Clint finds himself gasping, gripping his gun as if it were a lifeline. He supposes that, in a way, it was. His finger is on the trigger, the safety off, and after a few harsh breaths he clicks the safety back on.
His finger remains on the trigger.
He used to keep a blade under his pillow until one night, after a particularly rough mission, Natasha burst into his room as he screamed his throat raw, his hand dripping blood onto the white hotel sheets from clutching the wrong side of the blade. For a moment, he recalls the burn of cold vodka, the sting and tug of ten stitches. He couldn't shoot his bow for a week and a half.
Sitting up, he tries to get his body's trembling to subside. At least this time he isn't drenched in sweat.
His internal clock tells him it's only a few hours until sunrise; the clock on his bedside table tells him it's four thirty in the morning, the numbers a red bold glow, hazy at the edges of his blurring vision.
He prefers the red to the blue, even if they both remind him of blood.
He considers slipping off onto Natasha's floor, burrowing himself in the warmth of her safe bed, the feel of her body beside his a comfort, but decides he's invaded her space enough since the invasion. Besides, he can do better, he can be better; or at least construct the illusion that he is.
He rises from his bed, leaves the confines of his floor, soundlessly saunters to the elevator, and onto the Avengers' floor only to be met with a familiar scene. Tony is, once again, sitting on a barstool chair with a drink in hand, this time intently staring at the brightly lit screen of his tablet instead of staring off into the dark with a glazed look in his eyes.
"You look like shit, Katniss," Tony says, briefly looking up, a mirror of their conversation the previous night.
"Har har, Stark."
Clint can only imagine the sight he must present. He tries to forget the view he caught of himself in the bathroom mirror, dark deep-set circles underneath hollow eyes, his hair standing on end.
The floor is so dark this night that it takes Clint a moment for him to notice Tony is still dressed in the suit he wore for his business meeting/dinner, his tie hanging loosely around his neck.
Rounding the counter he ambles over to the pantry, pulling out a bag of chamomile tea from a small yellow box and the bear shaped container of honey, softly murmuring, "You should buy local honey instead." Setting the honey and teabag upon the counter he begins opening a few cabinets in search of a mug.
"Third one to the left of the stove," Tony helpfully supplies.
Opening the correct cabinet, Clint finds himself holding a purple mug with the words "Archers do it with a straight hard shaft" written around it in white cursive below the image of a black arrow. Clint turns towards Tony, arching an eyebrow, smirking.
"Really, Stark?" He manages to ask while biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the laugh caught in his throat.
Tony looks up at him, his face alight with the glow of his tablet, a smile on his lips, his eyes warm. "I knew you would at least appreciate my mugs, Barton."
Clint can't help chuckling as he sets about making his tea.
"Bruce appreciates your mug, saw him using it this morning, didn't protest when you handed it to him," he points out, placing his mug inside the microwave.
Tony snorts, "Please, I could hand Bruce an unpinned grenade when he's like that and he'd still take it and only frown when he realizes it can't hold his precious caffeinated fuel."
"And you wouldn't?"
"I made weapons for decades, Barton, I know when I'm being handed a grenade; whether drunk, sober, or in an un-caffeinated-zombie-like state, trust me I know," he retorts in a self-deprecating tone.
They both look down for a moment, Tony's words having cracked the joking atmosphere. Everyone knew Tony's past with weapons production was a sore subject. Clint doesn't think telling Tony that he used to use his weapons back when he was doing freelance would help raise the billionaire's spirits, even if he mentioned they were among the finest weapons he'd ever used. The reason the man had been dubbed the Merchant of Death by the media.
"How was dinner?" he asks, leaning his elbows against the counter opposite of Tony, warm mug in hand, feeling the warmth seep into his skin as the steam rises up. Regret surges through him as soon as he asks the question; Tony's smile has turned hard at the edges, his eyes shuttered.
"My board doesn't think I'm focusing on the company enough, is concerned about our stock prices, and want me to put this 'Avengers nonsense' behind me. Want me to let the rest of you handle things, while I lock myself in my lab and think of the next updates for our StarkPhones and StarPads that will surpass anything Apple could manage to produce by years," he runs a hand through his gelled hair, disheveling it in the process. "Pepper agrees with most of it, except for the bit about locking myself down in my lab. Says I do that now enough as it is."
"What are you gonna do?"
At this Tony's eyes light up with the mischief of a fifteen-year-old prankster. "Why, I'm going to give them the phenomenal software updates I did a month ago and then, maybe, depending on how much they kiss up to me, I may slip in the new hardware I designed two weeks ago. I'm gonna hold off telling them about the new energy stabilizer I'm designing until I can get a working prototype, though."
"Why don't you just release these things for the board as you create them? Or at least let them know you're planning them? Wouldn't it get them off your back about the stock prices and the bullshit about not being dedicated to your company?"
Tony shrugs, swiping at his tablet screen and typing. "It's a type of business strategy. First, giving them a good amount of new, awesome tech that you've seemingly pulled out of your ass, keeps everyone around you guessing as to what you're gonna pull out next. While it doesn't generally keep stock prices stable across the board, it does provide us with a good range. Second, if I did that then they would expect more from me because it would give the impression that I was always designing something for the company and then they would never cease asking me about the 'next big thing,' and I would have no choice but to blow my brains out. Third—and most important reason—it's one of the few ways I can get away with fucking with my board members without potential fallout, like a lawsuit. Really helps that there's only one of me; they wouldn't put up with this much shit otherwise, certainly not from anyone else."
"Sound business strategy," he says. "You planning on sleeping any time soon? You've been awake, for what, two days now?" Clint suddenly asks, making note of the shadows underneath the billionaire's eyes; they look darker, deeper set.
Clint's aware Stark is a notorious insomniac. He's not by far the worse case he's seen, but most insomniacs don't have destructive weaponry available to them with just the simple press of a button or a mass intellect along with a lab imposed with the most horrific safety laws in place. He knows that when engulfed in a project, the man will forego sleep for days. Knows that when there is no project to work on, the man will still not sleep, but rather tinker in his workshop until coming up with a new technological advancement. The genius will do anything to keep his sleep deprived addled mind occupied. He wants to ask more, but doesn't; he understands what it's like to fight off sleep for the sake of your sanity.
"Uh huh, something like that. JARVIS?" Tony asks raising his head from his tablet.
"Sir hasn't slept for more than thirty minutes in the last fifty-four hours."
Clint shakes his head and sips his tea.
"As long we're on the subject of sleep, I take it the pills didn't help. I can get you a stronger dose if you want," Tony says, his tone hesitant and soft, as if Clint were a cornered wounded animal who will lash out at him if Tony doesn't tread carefully.
His throat closes up as a wave of terror rises up and he almost chokes on his tea. His neutral expression must be slipping, allowing the swarm of emotion he is feeling to seep through, because Tony quickly backtracks and changes the subject.
"You ever see Game of Thrones?" The genius asks, as if he hadn't just been prodding at Clint's mental state a minute ago, gaging his stability.
"Uh, no," Clint replies as he turns away to wash out the now empty mug and place it in the dishwasher all the while struggling to rein in his emotions and keep a straight face. He clenches his hands into fists in an effort to control their trembling.
"What!" The billionaire shrieks as if personally affronted, it's not like anyone else is there to hear them. "And here I thought you were cultured."
Tony proceeds to hop off the barstool he was occupying, heads directly to the pantry, all but throws the door open, grabs a couple of bags of what Clint can see is popcorn, and dutifully throws them into the spacious microwave.
"Barton," he says pointing a finger at Clint, "sit your ass on that couch or so help me god I will restrict your range access."
More amused than anything, Clint does as he's told, stretching himself across the long expanse of the couch, grabbing the shabby red quilt someone (probably Tony) left behind, and all but cocooning himself with it. He's fiddling with a hole in one of the patches of the quilt when Tony comes back, plops a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of the couch, and returns with two mugs of coffee. Tony must have fished his out of the dishwasher and washed it in order to reuse it. Taking a small sip, Clint can taste the subtle burn of whiskey going down his throat. He knew there was a reason he approved of Tony. He may have told the man he didn't drink, but this night he could use a drink, and if Tony is anything, it's perceptive of others' drinking needs. Minutely, he begins to relax.
Tony sits himself, cross-legged, at the end of the couch, tablet set astride on his lap. The tip of Clint's toes just brush the pant clad thighs of the other man, a few points of warmth; Tony doesn't seem to mind the small physical contact.
"Cue it up JARVIS, Ygritte here needs to catch up on great television. Please tell me you've at least heard of it."
At Clint's blank expression he runs a hand through his hair, a pained look on his face.
"Seriously, has SHIELD been keeping you under a rock?"
"I'm usually not in the states long; few weeks out of the year at most. This is the longest I've been continuously stateside; besides the time I spent in New Mexico when the shit with Thor went down and I wound up babysitting Dr. Selvig and the tesseract," Clint says with a small shrug, thinking of all the time spent up on his perch silently observing the eccentric scientist as he examined the blue glowing cube and studied the monitors before him, jotting down notes every once in a while; the way he would sarcastically ask if he was staying in his nest for the night and then offer him coffee once midnight struck.
Clint doesn't miss it.
"Jesus Christ, did you not have access to a TV, Barton? Seriously? Or how about a bookstore delivery? You should sue SHIELD on grounds of negligence, my god, how have you survived this long?"
"With a lot of arrows and a lot of bullets and a lot of blood on my hands. Now, are we watching this or not?"
He feels defensive. SHIELD may be a shady intelligence organization and Fury may be a hard man with secrets as vast and complex as the universe, spinning a web of lies more elaborate than any spider's, but well, it was better than what he had before.
Heeding his tone, Tony puts both hands up in apparent defeat. "Play it, Jay."
The first ten minutes are filled with an eerie sense of dread and absolute confusion. When the group on screen returns to the site of the dead ritualistically placed bodies and they are gone, Clint glances over at Tony only to find a mischievous expression on his face.
"What the hell are you having me watch?" he alarmingly asks once the opening credits begin.
Tony doesn't reply, merely smirks at him and continues to work on his tablet, occasionally sipping his alcohol saturated coffee and grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl on Clint's lap.
When the elevator opens an hour later, both men turn to look over the couch to find Steve stepping out dressed in running shorts and a black tank top; considering his clean state the captain has yet to go out for his morning run.
"Morning, Cap," Tony calls out to Steve as the man heads towards the fridge only to slightly falter, turn his head, and stare at the archer and engineer on the couch.
"Uh, could you be a dear, grow some antlers, and pass us the bottle of whiskey on the counter?" Tony asks, breaking the nearing awkward silence.
For a moment, Steve just stands fixed to the spot, seemingly confused by Tony's words, and then, with a slight nod of comprehension, he is heading over to the kitchen, and grabbing the whiskey bottle Tony left on the steel countertop.
As Steve approaches, Tony quickly glances over at Clint, only for his eyes to land on the bottle warily, before Clint makes the connection and everything clicks. He snatches the bottle Steve means to hand to Tony and before he even thinks to utter any sort of apology, Tony speaks up.
"You should really read my file, Cap. I don't like being handed things." Clint uncaps the bottle, reaches over, and pours more whiskey into Tony's mug; he catches the grateful look Tony inconspicuously sends his way. "You should forgo your morning workout and join us instead, this can be step one into getting you familiarized with the twenty-first century. I take it Fury didn't do much on that front."
"Didn't get the chance to," Steve calmly replies, opening the fridge and taking out ingredients to make a sandwich. "Invasion happened a couple of months after I woke up."
"Well, take a seat Cap, we'll catch you up," Tony says gesturing towards the unoccupied armchair to his right.
Clint keeps his expression neutral, gaze on the paused face of Eddard Stark, suppressing his surprise. He'd heard, via Natasha, about the words exchanged on the Helicarrier mere moments before he had launched his attack and the residual tension that seems to permeate any type of interaction between them since. He's unsure what he finds more startling, the fact Tony extended the invitation or the fact Rogers sits, a smile tugging at his lips, his eyes alight, his sandwich on a plate on his lap, as Tony speedily gives him the run down of the first episode.
The archer notices Tony zoning out around six am, watches as the soft glow of his tablet dims until the screen darkens, the only light that of the TV and the arc reactor.
"Have you read any of our files? Besides the standard SHIELD ones? I mean, have you read our character files?" Clint silently asks Steve, glancing over at Tony to make sure his sleep remained undisturbed. It's early enough in the morning where he doesn't feel like he should be sleeping, where he can focus more on the day and less on the night. It's a small comfort.
"No," Steve hesitantly replies, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, "it, uh, seemed like an invasion of privacy."
"First chance you get, read our files. There are things none of us are comfortable discussing, Steve, but these are things you should know if you hope to have a chance in hell of leading this ragtag team Fury scrounged up together," he replies, giving Steve a meaningful look, wordlessly imploring him to understand the fact he can't treat them like that, expecting them all to have a group heart-to-heart post battle. He needs Steve to understand how fucked up they all are and how to make it all work.
Steve nods curtly. Assuring himself the genius remained asleep, Clint continues.
"I was under the impression you two didn't get along, that you hated each other actually."
At this Steve looks over at him, his eyes searching, seemingly assessing him for a moment before he speaks.
"Hard to hate a man that houses you without asking for anything in return. Besides, I was wrong."
There is a hollow look in Steve's eyes Clint has grown to intimately know. Unfortunately, before Clint can ask the soldier what he was wrong about, an alarm blares throughout the tower.
"JARVIS?" Tony croaks, having suddenly awoken to the strident sound.
"Director Fury is on the line with an urgent message, sir."
"Ugh, tell him consultation hours are from nine to five," the genius replies, rubbing his stiff neck, gingerly moving it from side to side.
"Tony," chides Steve, his tone authoritative, his Captain America mask having fallen into place.
"Don't get your panties in a wad, Rogers."
Tony waves a hand dismissively, a signal JARVIS interprets as allowance to push the call through.
Clint sits up straighter when a holographic screen appears suspended in the middle of the living room showing Fury sitting at his desk, back at SHIELD HQ in New York. They'd relocated to a building in the city in order to deal with the Chitauri cleanup and containment. The man bears his usual hard expression, but Clint has known him long enough to identify the tired lines of his face, the tense set of his shoulders.
"This better be important Fury, the sun isn't even out yet and –"
"There is already a car en route to pick up your team, Captain," Fury reports, cutting Tony off mid tirade, addressing Steve instead, who simply nods and rises from his seat, the good soldier he is.
"Hang on, if you think—" Tony fiercely begins, indignation coloring his tone, only to be cut off by Fury once more.
"We've been hacked, Stark. I need you all to report in to discuss the inevitable clusterfuck that'll result from this."
Tony looks like he wants to say more, but instead he merely nods, the call promptly cutting off.
"JARVIS alert the rest of the team, tell them we're meeting in the lobby in twenty."
"Yes, sir."
"Scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think we'll be because of this?" Tony asks Clint, twisting in his seat to face him.
"Budapest," Clint promptly replies, disentangling himself from the quilt, smoothly rising from the couch.
He misses the questioning look Tony sends his way.
The amount of information SHIELD holds is vast; its importance beyond measure. Tony may be able to bypass it's firewalls every other day with apparent ease, but Clint designed those firewalls, knows the great skill needed to bypass them, knows the inevitable clusterfuck will come from a major player. As he showers and dresses, he ponders what the target of this cyber attack was. Was it mission related? Were ops compromised, agents in danger? Or worse, were they after information regarding the Chitauri, the lethal weapons he was aware Fury held in his possession?
He meets the rest of the team at the tower lobby five minutes later, joins them in waiting for the transport Fury sent. Tony looks more awake than he has all night or rather morning, considering the time. He's pacing a few steps from the rest of the group, his ever-present tablet in hand. Bruce stands by Tony, looking haggard, quietly murmuring when the other scientist gets close, tipping the tablet screen for Bruce to see. Both Steve and Thor are quietly waiting by the door.
Deciding to let the genius and the others be, he heads over to stand by Natasha, who is casually leaning against a wall, covertly watching the others, the most alert of them all. She rakes her eyes over his body as he approaches, her expression minutely softening.
"You still aren't sleeping," she quietly notes, green eyes meeting his own.
"No," he admits. If she were anyone else, he would have scoffed; either ignored the observation or bitingly informed them to mind their own business. The nature of their partnership is such that they don't lie to each other. The trust linking them too hard won. That doesn't stop him from changing the subject of their conversation.
"What do you think?" he asks. There's no need for him to elaborate. They know each other intimately; he could have just as easily asked the question with a simple look.
"Budapest," is her laconic reply.
He chuckles at that and at the arched eyebrow he receives in lieu of a response, he explains, "That's what I told Tony."
"You know now he's going to hack SHIELD and read that mission report, right?" She asks, amusement swimming in her eyes.
He grins, leans his back against the wall, beside her, and says, "Good. All the better to prepare himself with."
An hour later the Avengers find themselves inside an incredibly spacious warehouse on the fringes of the city; a clear remnant of the Industrial Age that had swept the country up all those years ago, ushering in a wave of smog, laying the foundation for a sleepless generation.
"God, this is prodigiously banal. Seriously, did Fury just bring us to a warehouse in the outskirts of the city? I feel like I'm in a sleazy crime novel," Tony pontificates as they make their way inside, led by a nondescript SHIELD agent dressed in standard agency black.
Miraculously, the car trip to their new location had been relatively quiet, with Tony spending the entirety of it working on his tablet, the rest simply silent as they stared out tinted car windows to watch the sun slowly rise over the broken city, illuminating the remaining piles of rubble yet to be cleared away. New York eerily resembled a post-war zone; the effect was surreal.
All throughout the hour-long ride, Clint saw the destruction, saw the leveled streets, the ruined buildings, and could not help taking responsibility for it all. Sure, he may not have been the direct cause of it, may not have been the one who actually caused the destruction, may not have been the one to hand over the keys to the gates, but he had inevitably provided the foundation for it, had set up the necessary stepping stones for the devastation to take place, had smashed the gate open.
Halfway through the ride he felt something hit him in the chest and land on his lap. Looking down, he realized it was a StarkPhone, a message on the brightly lit screen that read: "This is the first prototype of the new model. I figure if it passes whatever test of approval you have then it's good enough to go into production. FYI JARVIS has direct access. Go crazy. -TS." He dutifully spent the rest of the trip doing just that, figuring out every feature of the new device, making note of the changes in code he'd make, grateful for the distraction.
Snapping himself away from the memory, he focuses on the direction they are going, casting covert glances here and there, checking his surroundings; it's a habit he can't seem to shake no matter where he goes, but has decidedly saved his life numerous times.
He's only been inside SHIELD facilities a handful of times since the invasion occurred. He still doesn't meet the eyes of the other agents, doesn't know what he'd do if someone approached him and accused him of killing his lover/friend/brother/sister/colleague, except lay there and take it. An action he's sure would earn him nothing but anger and exasperation from his partner; Natasha doesn't understand she can't defend him from this.
Still, he doesn't meet their eyes and they don't meet his. He likes to think it's a silent understanding.
They are led to a room at the top floor of the warehouse, what must once have been the manager's office. Now, it is all but gutted, containing a round glass conference table with surrounding chairs, a single flat screen against the east wall. Fury is already there, standing at the head of the table, slightly off to the side of the screen, Deputy Director Maria Hill on his left.
The Avengers file in, take their respective seats, and turn their eyes towards Fury – all but Tony, who is already rifling through the matching file that has been left in each of their respective seats. Clint sits left of Natasha, burrowing himself in his hoodie; struggles not to focus on Coulson's conspicuous absence.
Fury looks each and every one of them over, before proceeding to brief them on the situation.
"Okay people, at 0300 hours we had a cyber security breach. Our guys managed to contain the attack, limiting the intruder's file access, but we don't know what good that did because we are sadly and completely unawares as to what they were after to begin with, though we can hazard to make a few educated guesses," Fury declares, glaring at each one of them in turn with his one good eye, hands dutifully clasped behind his back. His stance is tense in a way that causes both Clint and Natasha to sit up straighter.
"How?" Tony asks, his eyes fixing Fury to the spot. "You're SHIELD, and someone just went in and hacked you? Tell me, how does that happen, Nick?"
Clint is aware of the mirth Tony is trying to hide, he can see it, clear as day, in the slight twitch of the billionaire's grim set mouth; he's sure Fury can see it too. The glare Fury sends his way is enough to make a lesser individual cower, certainly most—if not all—of the agents under his command, but Tony's glare never wavers.
"After we assessed the damage done to our systems after the attack on the Helicarrier," Fury sternly continues, decidedly choosing to overlook Tony's outburst, "we realized our firewalls weren't as secure as before. We've had the guys over in our security department patching up the holes in our system, holes that apparently keep fucking popping up in different lines of code as a result of the virus delivered to the system."
At the mention of this, Clint bends his head down, blankly staring at the tabletop. He was already responsible for the Helicarrier attack; his ledger already steadily dripped red. What was a little more?
"And you want me to take care of it," Tony sighs; the truth of the statement irrelevant, as he pulls out his StarkPad and begins working.
"Exactly what information has been compromised, sir?" Steve calmly asks, from the end of the table, directly facing Fury.
"The file in front of each of you is the report compiled by our techs," Fury answers, motioning to the aforementioned folders, which Steve hastily pulls open and begins to read.
The archer's attention is brought back to the matter at hand when he feels a kick that leaves the shin of his right leg throbbing. Glaring from underneath lowered lashes at Natasha he straightens up, pulls the file to him, and begins skimming. At first glance, the information in the report seems inconsequential: numerous passwords and passcodes listed to various entrances relating to scattered SHIELD facilities, superficial data on the Avengers one could acquire from watching national news, and schematics Clint knew to be a decoy by the apparent lack of a significant portion of air ducts and misplaced corridors. He's about to comment on this when Fury once more speaks up.
"The information they were able to obtain appears to be inconsequential at best, all passcodes and passwords were effectively changed as soon as we noticed the attack taking place. There are, however, a few ops that have been blown and while they were of importance, they also seem to be random targets. Still, we aren't taking chances and have extraction teams already on the way for the agents' whose cover have been blown."
Clint sees Steve giving the Director an expectant look, urging him to continue and deliver the bad news. Steve, Clint notes, is adept at reading between the lines, of hearing what remains unsaid.
Fury takes a breath, and rubs a hand over his weary face. It's in this moment that Clint takes note of the newly added age lines that mar the Director's face, the bag that hangs from his tired bleary eye. Fury, more than any of them, had to deal with the technical aftermath of the invasion, had to reestablish parts of his agency, had agents and friends to bury, had to assuage political figures. Clint can't imagine that last one had gone remotely well, considering all the reports of politicians worldwide growing increasingly worried about the possibility of another alien invasion. This is the most human he has ever seen the other man appear. Fury was a pillar of steady strength and clear headedness within SHIELD and to see him tired, haggard, and honest to god weary was enough to make Clint and the rest of them fill with unease. Beside the man Hill appears much the same. For a moment, the ground beneath his feet feels unsteady.
"Whoever it was found one of the holes and took advantage of it. What we know about the Chitauri, they know. The only thing stopping them from breaking down our doors and stealing our weapons is the fortunate fact they have no clue where they're currently being stored. Let's keep it that way."
While Fury may have been looking exhausted and weary mere minutes ago, the edge of defiance was back now. Clint could see it in the tense set of his jaw, the way it jutted out in clear opposition, the hard set to his mouth, the gleam in his eye.
"'Our' weapons?" Tony asks, a white-knuckle grip on his tablet. "You mean the Chitauri weapons, the ones you've been hoarding all along after Bruce and I fucking told you to destroy them? The ones you're apparently trying to somehow replicate? You mean those weapons, Nick?"
At Tony's short, yet ardent speech, Bruce sits up in his chair, pulls off his glasses and begins the process of cleaning them against his cotton t-shirt. For all the act appears to be calming and soothing, Clint saw the shine of green in the scientist's eyes before he closed them to take a breath.
"Those weapons constitute weapons of mass destruction," he states, perching his glasses once more atop his nose. Steve grows increasingly tense at this. "You can't recreate them, it's not feasible. First off, those weapons are biologically attached to the Chitauri and recreating them means either recreating their specific biology or modifying the biological aspects of those weapons to fit our own biology. Neither option is simple; attempting either one would take years, decades, it would involve learning the genome of an entire species of which we only have dead specimens of and then manipulating it. Secondly, Tony and I thought you might resort to this and we've actually discussed it." His eyes never waver from Fury's own as he continues, "We won't let you."
"The hell you won't, Banner! Have you looked around? The world is in desperate need of these weapons!" Fury bellows.
"You mean like they were in desperate need of the HYDRA weapons?" Steve asks hotly, all but thrumming with anger.
"The world has changed, Captain. Our enemies have grown in number since your time. When it comes down to it, we are highly outnumbered and hilariously outgunned," the Director replies, pointedly looking at Steve. "We just got invaded people! An alien species descended upon the earth with the sole purpose of destroying it!"
"We know, we got the memo, we were fucking there! And we took care of it!" Tony yells.
"If you all think this won't happen again you're more ignorant than I took you for. And if you think we actually fucking won, well then, I pity you. All this," he makes a hand gesture seemingly encompassing everything around them, "is just the beginning. You're a smart man Stark; you know this. What did you do when you were still making weapons and the terrorists managed to come up with something bigger and better, huh? You scurried down to your workshop and invented a more destructive weapon and handed it to the military gift-wrapped with a bow."
"Yeah, and there's a reason I stopped making weapons," Tony states in an eerily calm, steady voice.
"Because it was the fault of your own land mine that resulted in that embedded in your chest?" Fury rhetorically asks, pointing at the arc reactor hidden beneath Tony's jacket and shirt.
Clint stills, eyes quickly scanning Tony who has been momentarily stunned into silence. He hadn't been aware it had been one of Tony's own weapons that had aided in his kidnapping. Steve, Bruce, and Thor are staring at Tony with various expressions on their faces, ranging from pity, to horror, to an unexpected quiet understanding from Thor. Natasha is the only one not looking at the genius and Clint took that to mean she had somehow known, of course, she knew Tony better than they did as a result of her undercover position at SI last year. All the same, Clint could see the anger in her eyes at the Director's words.
"You want to know what I learned in my three month stay in Afghanistan? I learned that weapons only serve to exacerbate the problem, Nick. All holding a big stick does is get you a harsher beating," he says, shaking his head, all the while grabbing both the file and his tablet as he rises from his seat and walks out the door.
The rest of them take a moment to glance at each other before they promptly rise and follow Tony out of the makeshift conference room. Clint supposes it's their first true act as a team, since having been thrown together during the Chitauri Battle.
"Your Man of Iron is correct, Director," Thor solemnly says, pausing on the threshold in front of Clint, his gazed firmly fixed on Fury. "I suggest you heed his counsel," he continues leaving an incensed Fury behind.
"Sir, perhaps we should—"
Clint hears Hill begin to speak as he swiftly walks out the door, her voice becoming a distant whisper the further he gets from the gradually closing door.
Charles Bernard "Barney" Barton, aka "Trickshot," pauses the image on the tape, sits up on the rickety motel bed to polish off the rest his beer, and lets a widespread grin split his face. He takes a moment, presses rewind, watches the trajectory of the shot in slow motion, tracks its origin, and there. High on a rooftop, a familiar blurred figure stands with a bow and arrow, shooting, watching the chaos below. It isn't the fact every arrow perfectly hits its intended mark that causes the flash of recognition to burn in his eyes. No, it's the form. In that moment, watching the way the figure angles his arm, the way he extends the other to pull the shoot, the way he holds his feet slightly apart, the way he seemingly shoots without looking, he knows.
That's Clint, all sleek moves and shit form. After years of searching he finally has a location: New York City. Who would have thought his younger country boy, circus-performing brother, would move into the big city?
Pausing to wipe the blood that has slowly streamed down his chin due to reopening his split lip, Trickshot grabs the phone off the bedside table and hits redial, his veins thrumming with electricity.
"I told you I could help you regain what you have lost," answers a steady, male voice with a thick Middle Eastern accent.
"I'll go, I'll take the job, but I'm not returning until I take care of a few things. Understood?" Trickshot says, getting up to grab his black duffel off the floor, heading to the small motel closet, and grabbing his sparse clothing.
"Of course, we have already planned for your side venture," the disembodied voice says, his rough words carrying through the static creeping up between the tenuous connection.
"How much?" he asks, because he is a steadfast believer in never doing anything for free; a lesson ingrained in him by his father.
"Three million. Five if it's done quickly, with minimal collateral damage and no trace that leads back to us. Those weapons are your number one priority."
He nods before he can catch himself, yanking off a shirt from its hanger, and stuffing it in his duffle, creased and unfolded. "This is going to take time, months, maybe half a year, maybe more. I can't say for sure; they may be disorganized in the wake of that invasion, but their type sleep with one eye open. Slipping in won't be simple, or smooth. I'll send you a list of what I'll need. You sticking with this number?"
"Yes. I will require monthly reports, of course. I have sent you an address; there you will find cash, a card for expenses, a fake passport and accompanying identification papers should you need them. There are also instructions on how to leave the country you are currently in."
Trickshot doesn't ask how he knows so much about him. There are times he still finds it odd, how these people contact him with a job, via phone or through one of the many emails he regularly checks. How they know more about him than he does about them. "Trickshot" is a name that is exchanged via a soft whisper and only among a specific crowd. He stopped questioning all these things years ago; the answers are irrelevant.
"Sounds like we have a deal. I'll make contact to confirm recovery."
He hangs up the phone and turns back towards the TV, facing the paused figure standing at the edge of a New York City rooftop. Reaching for the remote, he un-pauses the image, and sits on the edge of the bed, watching as the figure plunges from the rooftop edge, shoots an arrow, and swings through a thick glass window. Without giving it thought, Charles' hand rises to rub at the puckered circular scar on his chest, only several inches above his heart.
He can't wait to reunite with his little brother, and return the favor.
"I swear Fury has a god complex that rivals Christof's," Tony says irritatingly as they make their way outside the SHIELD warehouse, leaving their SHIELD escort behind with a hard glare that discourages the poor agent from following them.
Seeing Steve scrunch up his face in confusion, Clint helpfully supplies, "Controlling asshole from The Truman Show; it's a movie," to which Steve just nods. Tony just grins over his shoulder at him as they near the warehouse doors.
The sun is bright in the clear, cloudless sky as they emerge and Clint mentally bemoans the fact he hadn't thought to bring sunglasses, until Natasha walks up next to him and silently slips him his favorite pair. In return, he slips her the keys he stole from their SHIELD escort. These two gestures completely sum up the relationship between them, he thinks.
With Nat behind the wheel of the car, Clint sits in the passenger seat beside her, while Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Thor are in the back seats of the SUV. Clint will forever remember the image of Thor inside a car; even inside a SHIELD issued SUV, the Asgardian had to occupy the last row of seats by himself, while Bruce sat in between Tony and Steve.
"You forgot about the virus, didn't you?" Natasha asks, glancing over at him before turning her eyes back onto the road. Like him, she is wearing dark sunglasses, but while he may not be able to see her eyes, he can see her thoughts through the set of her mouth. Her lips are thinned together; the barely perceptible lines around her mouth are set and hard. He can feel the stillness that settles over the others as she voices her question. In the rearview mirror, he can see Tony has stopped fiddling with his tablet and is staring directly at him. For a second, their gazes meet in the mirror. Clint doesn't know what to think when Tony drops his first.
Letting his head fall back on his seat, he allows the fatigue he is feeling to seep into his tone when he says, "I don't even remember making that virus, Tasha; not its specific code anyway. And Fury never asked me to handle it after everything settled down. Figured it must not have been that serious."
Natasha looks over at him once more, the lines around her mouth creased in concern.
"You know," Tony chimes in, his voice carrying over the soft music playing from the radio, "it'll be easier to get SHIELD's security back up and running if you help me out. I get you don't remember the specific code, but you made it and only you know how you think, so uh yeah, there's that. Plus, you designed most of SHIELD's firewalls and this is really a two person job, because I am swamped with SI work and I need to tell Fury that I can't—won't—keep coming to his rescue, to fix whatever mess his IT agents have done. Not for free, anyway."
"Good, Clint will help you," replies Natasha, her eyes never wavering from the road and the accompanying morning New York traffic as she makes a sharp shift into another lane. "After we all have breakfast; it's Clint's day to cook."
Clint silently bemoans ever having left his bed.
"Wow."
"What?" Clint asks leaning over to look at the screen Tony is working on beside him.
"Your code is sophisticated," Tony says, and there's a note of respect in his tone. "Shit, Legolas, you should quit this spy gig you got going on and come work for me. Pretty sure SI has far better benefit packages than SHIELD, plus you get paid vacations and I've read part of your file, I know you haven't gone on a vacation in god knows how long."
They've been down at the workshop for hours, pouring through data logs, mapping out the holes in the security system the hackers must have undoubtedly used to bypass the SHIELD firewalls. They were also struggling to figure out the coding of Clint's virus and how to break its perpetually repeating cycle of renewal. Clint had to admit, the virus looked like his best work yet.
Fingers rapidly flowing over the keyboard in front of him, eyes sorting through lines and lines of code, Clint snorts, "Unfortunately for you, my contract with SHIELD is non-renewable." Not that Clint has thought about leaving, because in all reality his job was essentially a set part of his identity; he couldn't imagine doing anything else, he'd probably find it too banal or plebeian.
"Wait, what? 'Non-renewable,'" Tony says, the half murmured words curling curiously around his tongue as if they were utterly foreign to him. "What the hell does that even mean?"
Clint merely shrugs, a move meant to relieve the tension in his muscles. "Can't leave SHIELD. Or well, technically I can, but then…You know what? Maybe you should widen your search parameters."
At this, Tony stops working and swivels his chair, facing Clint. He has an eyebrow raised in question that only serves to exacerbate Clint when he turns to look at him; it almost mirrors Natasha's own. "You sure about that, Barton? Because I'm getting some major 'back off' vibes from you, if you don't want to tell me something, then fine. You don't have to tell me a damn thing about yourself. I may hack SHIELD every other day and treat firewalls like gateways whose flimsy locks are just calling out to be picked, but I do have some concept of privacy, even if I do sometimes think it doesn't apply to others."
"Tony, you have an AI wired throughout this entire tower who records everything that happens," Clint calmly responds. He's intentionally messing with Tony; he honestly hadn't expected Tony to back off so quickly, or to even stop to consider what Clint really wants. He's gotten too used to SHIELD invading his privacy lately, especially since Loki. He honestly believed Tony had already hacked into SHIELD, looked up what happened in Budapest, and gave in to the urge to read the rest of his personal file.
"What! Okay, now I am offended! Do you honestly think I sit around in my workshop spying on you all? Oh, god, no, don't answer that. Honestly, if anyone should be worried about getting spied on it's me and everyone else, considering you and Natasha are the resident spies," Tony babbles, but by the mischievous glint in his eyes Clint knows the engineer knows he wasn't being serious. The archer is silently grateful Tony has gone and rolled with the obvious change of subject.
Smirking, Clint says, "Don't forget assassins, too."
"Oh god, I made a terrible mistake, didn't I? Letting you all live here, under one roof," Tony replies with a groan, letting his head tip back against his headrest, eyes looking at the ceiling.
Clint can't help but laugh a little, causing Tony to smirk amicably in return.
"I did look up what happened in Budapest," Tony says after a few minutes of them working in silence.
"Figured you would, wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise," Clint replies, eyes never drifting from his screen.
Tony merely nods, "So you and Natasha…"
"She's my partner," Clint laconically replies, intentionally avoiding Tony's searching eyes.
"You almost died trying to get her. Your mission was to kill her, but instead you brought her in and you became partners. SHIELD's most successful partnership at that; your mission record is practically spotless. Why?" Tony asks quietly, yet firmly.
"It was the right call," and now Clint stops working, he knows where this conversation is going. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned Budapest. It was a mission turned FUBAR at best.
"Oh, I don't doubt that. For all that she's scary as hell, she's valuable, I get that. What I don't get is why you went through all the trouble of hiding what you were trying to do from SHIELD. They could have done something. Instead, you and Natasha got pretty banged up. Some broken bones, week in med bay, suspended training and missions for you for a month. You had to be evac'd out of there. You left behind a war zone. All for someone you just met, not to mention all you knew about her was that she was an assassin, a damn good one."
"What happened to you understanding the concept of privacy?" Clint curiously asks. He knows he's going to end up answering Tony's questions, someday. But he also wants to know if Tony will back down, wants to know where the lines are in this, what, friendship?
"Hey, you mentioned Budapest. You knew I'd look it up and I bet you also knew I would have asked about it whenever I got the chance. So, that leads me to two conclusions, either you seriously need to read up on the Tony Stark Operating Manual—a copy I'm pretty sure you can get from Pepper—or some subconscious, psychological part of you wanted me to ask about it. Who the fuck knows. The point is you mentioned it, now you have to spill."
Clint steadily huffs out a breath. Tony has a point. He can see himself subconsciously reaching out to someone who is, in a sense, outside of his problem, someone with an unbiased view of who he is. Tony doesn't know him, for all that he has read about him. He's made damn sure that all of who he is isn't contained in some cybernetic file someone could just hack into. Unfortunately, Clint doesn't know what to make of the fact his subconscious seems to have picked Tony of all people to open up to.
"Not many people know this, but I've known Natasha a long time, Tony; longer than I've known any one at SHIELD," he settles for saying; he's not going to give away more than he has to. Tony is getting to close, asking about a part of his life only Natasha truly knows.
"So you and Romanov have a history? That goes beyond your partnership at SHIELD?"
Clint nods. "Yeah, and I…well, I owed her. And that's all you're getting from me, Tony."
"Why is your file so empty?" Tony suddenly asks, genuine curiosity lighting his eyes.
"My file isn't empty," Clint says, shaking his head.
"Yeah, in a sense it is," Tony says, eyes looking the archer over. "Everyone else's, well except Natasha's, but I can understand Natasha's. Anyways, everyone else's file is an open book. Practically everything about them is in there: Cap, the serum, the speculations around his relationship with Barnes; Bruce and his accident, his relationship with Betty; hell, even Thor has a file that has more personal information about him than yours does on you and he's from another fucking planet!"
"And what about your file, huh?" Clint shoots back, annoyed.
"What about my file?" Tony asks, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. Trying to convey casualness, all the while being defensive. "Natasha wrote my file, didn't she?" he says, smirking.
"Yeah, she did, but the file in the SHIELD servers is redacted to hell and back; don't think SHIELD doesn't know you go in there and alter it every now and then. Fuck, even what Natasha got on you wasn't all that accurate, considering the fact that, not only were you dying of palladium poisoning and acting erratic as hell, but you're you! You're practically a professional bullshitter, Stark! You want to know so much about everyone else, but you don't want anyone to really know anything about you!" Clint screams, enraged. He isn't entirely certain where all the anger is coming from, except that it's there, that it's been there; wrapped up with all the hurt, all the guilt, and all the fear. Someone took him, stole him from himself; used his body and his mind for their own personal gain and the thought of locking himself away as tightly and securely as he possibly can is the only thing keeping him sane.
Clint doesn't remember rising from his seat, but all of a sudden he is looking down at Tony who's still sitting, arms crossed in front of him defensively; Tony opens his mouth only to close it, eyes wide. For a brief moment, Clint sees a flicker of what he thinks is a mixture of hurt and guilt in the engineer's eyes. And for that brief moment, he feels a wave of guilt that threatens to consume him. Gripping the back of his own chair until his knuckles ache, Clint takes a deep breath, strives to regain his composure.
"Clint—" Tony says, his tone pacifying.
"Don't, Tony," Clint says, eyes closed; suddenly feeling tired and weighed down, he sinks back into his chair. "Just don't."
"No, I think you need to hear this, because I understand, okay? Trust me, I get it," he says, brown eyes brimming with a fragile open honesty. It's a look he doubts many have seen on the man. "Why do you think I hack into SHIELD and delete part of my file, or add misinformation to it every once in a while? But this is clearly eating at you, Legolas. You haven't had a good night's rest in weeks. You should talk to someone; doesn't SHIELD have a nice department of shrinks trained to deal with all the bizarre crap that's part of your line of work? I mean, I'm sure a shit ton of people needed a shrink when Thor unceremoniously dropped down from the universe and I bet a few more had a fucking religious crisis, too."
Clint doesn't tell Tony he hasn't sleep well in years, or that he refuses to go to a SHIELD psychiatrist for fear he killed someone he or she knew. He just says, "It's not that simple, Tony," abruptly turns around and strides out of the workshop, his steps heavy.
Clint finds Natasha laying on the bed of her apartment, in silk black sheets, propped up against several pillows, a book in her lap, a few strands of hair hanging about her face that have escaped the thin elastic band enclosing her small red fiery bun.
"I'm taking off," he states, leaning against the wall. He doesn't pause, doesn't hesitate. For a moment, he feels like his old self again, assured in a way he hasn't felt since the Battle of New York, since Natasha told him about Coulson after forcefully "recalibrating" him, her tone hushed and soft in a way that had instantly caused a cacophony of alarm bells to go off in his mind.
Natasha frowns, a slight downturn of her lips, and sets her book aside atop the bedside table. He watches as she straightens against the soft pillows, as her eyes narrow, and he steels himself for the questions he will have to answer; after all this is Natasha, they've decided long ago to answer to each other.
"What happened?" she asks, steel in eyes.
Clint pushes forward, takes a few steps toward her bed, and sits at the edge meeting her hard eyes. "I need some time away, Nat."
"Clint—" she says leaning towards him, the steel in her eyes easing until they become soft.
"I feel like I'm drowning here," he responds, deflating, the assurance he felt minutes ago seeping away through his pores. He feels riddled with holes.
"You know what would happen if you keep running now," her hand reaches out to hold his own, their pale hands a stark contrast to the black sheets; he's thankful she didn't choose red, doesn't think he could've handled the image of their hands immersed in red.
Refocusing on the words she's just uttered, he knows she's right, he does know. He would keep running; keep moving from suffocating place to suffocating place in a desperate attempt to outrun SHIELD and leave his memories of blue behind, drowning all the while.
"Fuck…yeah, I do," he murmurs as he runs a hand over his haggard face. "You sound like him," he can't help muttering, can't help comparing.
"Someone has to," she proclaims, a smirk lining her lips. "Now get in."
She throws the sheets back.
Laying next to her, listening to the sound of her breathing while she continues to read, he pulls the slim StarkPhone from his pocket, scrolls through the contacts already programmed in and sends one text: I don't want a SHIELD shrink.
The reply chimes in an hour later, pulling him back from the haze of semi consciousness: Okay.