Thirty Minutes Earlier

"For the last time, Director, how involved was my father in your agency!?"

Things weren't supposed to get this adversarial, but Tony's in deep now, and he's sure as hell not going to back down. Fury was already in high dudgeon when he called, and when Tony's sales pitch didn't land very well, he'd drawn on the Stark legacy.

It… hasn't gone well.

"That's a question better answered by your business partner," Fury says with icy annoyance.

"That's a deflection, not an answer."

"Some would say 'enough,' others would say 'not enough.' Keep your ass out of our upcoming affairs, and we'll keep out of yours. That would make a good start."

With that, the man hangs up.

In frustration, Tony throws his phone onto a couch, then throws himself alongside it. He'd at least gotten some of his offer conveyed to the SHIELD director, but it's hard not to feel like the man is judging him based on who Tony was before Afghanistan.

Happy walks in, pointing behind him toward the kitchen. "Hey, you hungry? I'm thinking about having a late lunch."

"It's two forty-five," Tony says, frowning. "I ate lunch at lunch."

"I was just seeing if you're hungry."

"No, because I'm not a hobbit, Gimli," Tony says, laying on the sarcasm.

"Call didn't go well, then?"

"Damnit, Happy!" Tony gets up, suddenly angry.

"You'd feel better if you ate something, I'm just saying," Happy points out, defensive.

"You think I don't know that after three months of getting one meal a day, tops? Maybe you'd feel better if you minded your own business!"

"Youare my business!"

The two of them glare at each other for a long moment, and Tony realizes he crossed a line. He holds both hands up in a surrender gesture, wincing, and Happy lets out a slow breath and nods. It's not an apology, but it's the best Tony has to offer right now.

"Something wrong with the company? More than the stock loss, I mean?" Hogan asks, after a moment.

He rubs a hand over his face, digging his thumbs into his eye sockets to relieve the pressure of a sudden headache. "Miscommunication on stopping production. I'm handling it."

"You shouldn't have to handle it. You're the CEO, if you tell them-"

Tony is hit with a powerful sense of regret for lashing out at his friend. Happy basically spent the last decade and a half taking care of him to the exclusion of practically everything else. He doesn't deserve this.

"Hey, thanks."

The other man's brows crease. "For what?"

"For not blowing up at me just now. For putting up with my shit. For looking after Pepper so she didn't lose her mind trying to keep things together while I was gone," Tony says. More things are bubbling up; maybe if he can get them out, there'll be more space in his head to think about his bigger problems. So much comes up at once that he turns mute, instead. It's probably just as well.

His friend looks down at his feet, but Tony can tell that he's pleased. "It's part of the job," Happy says, then looks up quickly, holding a hand out like he's erasing a misspoken word or phrase. "Not the Pepper part. That wasn't about you. That was… well. Brewing for a while," he says, almost shyly. "Just got easier to get up the courage, when you weren't around." Happy's eyes widen, and he looks horrified. "Not- not that I would-"

Tony makes a T with his hands. "Time out, I get it. Do me a favor, will you, Casanova? I need some peace and quiet. You want to tell her you talked me into giving the two of you the evening off?"

"You promise you'll eat, later?" Happy dangles, but Tony has him, and they both know it. Hogan nods and heads off to gather his things.

Now that he's got this armor, Tony wants to get out there and do something, but he still needs more data. He blows out a frustrated sigh and heads down to the lab to hit 'run' on a program he'd created to snoop on what Obie's doing on his work computer. He's at least been able to use his recent sexual frustration like currency to work on Emory's suit, but all of the other issues hanging over him makes release more important than motivation. He pulls out his phone and dials her number.

Emory sounds so harried when she answers that Tony can't help teasing her a little. "Hey, gorgeous. Why do you sound like you're dying? You're not dying, are you? I have a strict 'no dying' policy."

88888888

Emory rolls onto her back and lets her limbs splay out in relief that it's Tony. For a split second she'd worried that the call would be from Fury saying the mission was on that night. If he did, she could at least swing the 'physically debilitated' part!

"Hey, Tony. No, not dying. Looks like everything is happening early today, though. My withdrawal pain is six hours sooner than normal."

"Are you going to hang up if I make a 'everything comes early today' joke?"

She bursts out laughing. "Tony! No, but-"

"Good. A little birdie told me that you'd have the apartment to yourself this afternoon." He sounds smug, which should not be sexy, but Emory's past caring, at this point.

"Oh really? What are you going to do about it?"

There's a noise on the line as if he'd dropped the device and caught it against his clothing, which makes her grin. "Nice," Tony says. His voice seems to have lost its teasing tone as well. "I'm in. What's the setting here? Lab or bedroom? Should I go upstairs?"

Emory bites her lip. It's really happening. "Well, I can picture your lab, since I've seen the one in-"

"HELL yes. Done," Tony interrupts. "Ironically this one has opaque walls. In Malibu it's all glass out to the stairwell." Emory can't even imagine, but Tony laughs a little, and says, "I can see you hiding your face from here! Don't worry. My house is empty, your apartment is empty. Put your phone on speaker." The note of command in his voice is warm and pleased, and the words travel across her body in an aural caress.

"Done," Emory tells him. "It's a shame I can't risk putting your picture on your contact, as per SHIELD's orders."

"The pictures I'm going to plant in your mind would violate every professional norm that agency has," Tony says, his voice rich with promise. Emory sucks in a breath, and he chuckles. "I heard that. You're on the bed, aren't you? I'm in my desk chair, ready to take my shirt off. Nothing underneath it today."

Tony knows how much she loves his tank tops, so she feels particularly cared for right now. He's also right, everything he's about to do would get a regular office worker fired. Might as well add on. "Are you going to tell me to take my shirt off too, Mr. Stark?" Emory doesn't make the question coy, but she still regrets her phrasing as soon as she says it. She doesn't want to roleplay. "You're going to have to earn your name, make me forget myself and say it," she adds, throwing in a quick fix to her implication of a boss/subordinate scenario.

"Just when I think I have a handle on this, you turn me upside down again," Tony says roughly, sounding surprised and pleased. "Yes. I bet you're wearing another red bra, aren't you? Months ago, years ago you bought them for me. You just didn't know."

Emory sits up and pulls off her shirt, flooded with anticipation that overcomes her natural reticence for activities like this. Tony is including her in his self-centric view of the world, and she's here for it.

"This one has see-through lace," she admits aloud. "It turns satin right before my nipples."

"No air conditioning in there, right? Probably hot as hell, but they're hard, aren't they? Just like I am."

"Classy," Emory teases.

"That's a yes," Tony crows. In a pitched-down voice he 'Mmms' and continues, "You want classy? Too bad. We screwed up housekeeping staff here since I got to NYC so I'm almost out of clean clothes. I've got on tight jeans and novelty silk boxers with Einstein on them, and every time I MOVE I just want to drive down to D.C. and say 'fuck the mission, let the tabloids burn,' just to touch you." He sounds rough and desperate. The words make her burn. She pulls her knees to her chest, the stretch of the fabric putting pressure on her core. "I'm going to unzip, are you wearing pants or a skirt? Please say pants," Tony says.

"Pants. Leggings. I would have thought you'd like a skirt, though."

"No need for easy access if I'm not there. I'm picturing you pushing them down. You'll be all tangled up in those pants, your movement restricted, a begging mess on that bed, your hair spread out everywhere," Tony rumbles. "Fuck, I can see that. Can you see me? I'm about to tear off these damned jeans and pull my cock out. Yeah, I said it," Tony says, a commanding note in his voice. "Don't hang up on me or I'll fly down there."

"Sweet doesn't mean innocent, you know," Emory says quietly. Above her, the ceiling fan has started to spin. She usually uses it as an outlet for her power, instead of spending electricity to make the blades turn. "Anyway, I'm not sure that's going to work as a deterrent with how much I want you here with me. My locked door wouldn't even matter, would it? You'd break in and catch me taking off my pants."

Her heart is pounding, but Emory lifts up so she can tug the leggings down. She almost pulls them off completely but stops, remembering what he'd said about being tangled up. Instead, she lets them flip inside out as she pulls her legs out, the hems still clinging to her feet, twisted up and restrictive. The way the pants hold onto her makes her picture Tony's hands there instead. The heat that's been gathering deep inside spreads out like whiskey in her veins.

"I can't decide if you're wearing red silk panties or granny ones," Tony muses, dragging her mind out of one gutter and into another. "I guess it depends on whether you bought any new ones on SHIELD's dime. I'd love either. There's something so innocent about cotton briefs on a woman."

"Excuse you! What makes you think I didn't already have matching red lacy silk for all of my red bras?" Emory demands.

"Even better," he says, undaunted. "Touch yourself on the outside of those panties and tell me what it feels like," Tony instructs. "They're wet, aren't they, Em? Mmmm." Emory can hear his chair creak, and she imagines him leaning back, fully naked now, soft leather, warm skin, and glowing metal reactor. "Just thinking about that made me stroke myself. I was going to wait, but-" Tony trails off in a ragged groan that drags one from her own throat in response. "That's right. Tell me, beautiful."

She slides her hand down from her stomach to her panties. The front is silk against her skin but lace on the outside. Emory slides her hand lower, letting her fingers dip and press.

"Wet, yes," she says, barely a whisper. She can't say 'I'm,' but this is enough. "Smooth, warm, soft."

"My fist is moving. Take them off?" Tony's voice is equally hushed.

She readily pushes them down, but the damp cloth can only go so far. "Right," Emory mutters.

"Tell me."

God, the rasp of his voice is doing things to her.

"I left the pants tangled up like you said. I probably look debauched," Emory admits.

"If it wouldn't HURT to put that damned suit on right now I'd do it. I'd make you stay on the phone with me the whole flight there. Fuck, Em, I want to show you everything," Tony tells her, his voice vibrant with longing.

"You'll get to," Emory says. She doesn't add the (variously ridiculous, depending on her self-doubt for the day) second part, 'for as long as you'll still want to.'

"Good. For now, close your eyes. Picture me in the room, in my desk chair, one foot up on the bed, facing you. What do you see?"

My god, she thinks to herself. "Your eyes pin me to the bed," she says softly, seeing him there in her mind's eye. "You're the picture of confidence, and no matter what I say or do your hand moves at the same pace on… on yourself."

"I want you so bad right now. You are goodat that," Tony says, sounding shaken. "You're wrong about my concentration, by the way. My rhythm's all over the place. That's a compliment, I'm usually- yeah."

"I remember," she says, thinking about what he'd said about having greater focus when he's aroused. She presses her legs together, picturing him, slowly rocking her hips against the gathers of the blanket underneath her.

"Show me how you like to touch yourself," he tells her.

She's not sure she can do that! "Tony, I-"

"Yesss, there's my name. I can see you, Em. Blushing, wanting. Do you remember my mouth on you? I do." He's barely audible, like he's whispering in her ear. With her eyes closed, she can almost feel his lips right now.

Emory can't help it, she slides her hand down and starts circling her fingers. It's that or conflagrate. "God, your voice," she moans.

"You speak or I speak, sweetheart. Your choice."

"I'll pick you, every time. You know that, right?"

"It's not like I mind. My voice is inevitable, just like the clench of your orgasm under my tongue," he murmurs, the words barely audible sibilants that brush across her nipples on the way to driving her fingers to thrust inside herself.

It's like you're whispering in my ear," she murmurs. "Everything I see and hear and feel is you right now."

"Tell me," he whispers. Right at the end of the words he lets out a small groan and she can completely picture him touching himself, head bent down, his body taut, transfixed by pleasure.

"Just imagining you here has me about to fall apart," she says, and it's true, but she can sense that he wants her to describe what that looks like. "I'm sideways on the bed," she tells him. "My hair's stuck to my neck with sweat," she pants, her hips circling under the movements of her hand. "All I'm wearing is that red bra, with my pants and panties pushed down to tangle at my feet. Tony, it feels like you're holding them down," Emory says in a rush of realization. "God, just imagining that-"

"Ahh, Em -!" The barely-coherent words trail off to a groan and she just knows he's coming. She tries to spread her legs more and dig her heels into the mattress to give herself leverage, but she can't, because of the phantom hands gripping her ankles. It feels real, like he's stubborn and inexorable, forcing her to get herself off on display for him without so much as touching her skin himself. It's generous and selfish and sexy as hell and he's not even in the room.

Emory's orgasm strikes her on an inevitable wave of sensation, aided by a roll of hot air that sweeps from the ceiling down across her body from her legs up, blowing her hair back from her pleasure-arched face.

"Those noises are going to set me off again. Fuck, Emory, I need you. I need you HERE. Not just to touch, for everything, I-" he falls silent, and she shakes through a speechless aftershock.

"I didn't realize I was making any noise," she admits, touched and overwhelmed and, though she's too shy to say it aloud right now, completely in love with him. "And I- yes. Yes to all of it."

He chuckles ruefully. "Shit, that's the first time in forever that I didn't make any attempt to prevent a mess. And I DEFINITELY can't walk. Luckily, I'm a genius with robots!" She can hear him call over for one to bring him a towel.

Tony's amused emphasis on 'definitely' is just as adorable and endearing as his impassioned words a minute earlier. The first time she'd said she loved him, she was angry, and Emory's realizing she's never said it since. The words coalesce out of the joy she feels from hearing him being so thoroughly himself and how empowered she feels about what they've just done.

"Tony, I-"

There's an abrupt, shocking knock on her bedroom door. "Hey, Emory? I'm home early, was thinking of getting groceries before the weekend rush, you got a list?"

"Shit!" Emory yelps, looking down at herself. She grabs at the phone and tries to turn it off speaker mode. The fan above her is rattling. She'd spun it too fast with her power slough, and her nakedness is a huge liability right now, as are the tangled pants.

"Is that Barton? Tell him you need whipped cream," Tony laughs into the phone, sounding louder than he had just the minute before, now that someone else is listening.

"Is Stark in there with you?" Clint asks, still standing right outside.

"Speakerphone, and I'm hanging up on him right now!" Emory calls out to him, successfully swapping the audio back to internal sound. Then, into the phone, she hisses, "Tony, I swear-"

"Go clean up, I'll just be sitting here getting hard again, picturing that. If you do go out, just- take the phone with you, okay? I'll feel better about your safety if you have a way to get help."

Emory wraps herself in her blanket and sits up to detangle her pants. There's no pulling them back on, she'll need new panties at least. It was worth it, though. It takes a full minute and a half and some grunting to get them all the way off.

"Okay those noises were adorable. We need to get you through this fucking mission and out to Malibu," Tony remarks. "Go find my pants, DUM-E. Don't give me that, I know you can do it!" Emory smirks as she stands up and finds the hamper. There's zero chance she'll ever put the phone on speaker with Clint in the house again, but dressing is going to take some creative phone holding. "Em, are you sure you don't want to just chuck SHIELD and let me find this guy for you?"

"You don't even know where he is!" she argues, grateful that Barton hadn't heard that, just in case. "They've got a good plan, Tony. I trust them."

"You shouldn't. I've been seeing some things. Something's wrong, something systemic." Before she can respond to that, he goes on, "Even a general location would be good, so I can mentally prep for missing our new scheduled sex talk every… what? Three days? Two days? It's necessary for mental health. I could get someone to write that on a note, if you need me to. Just let me be there when you hand it to Fury."

"All I know is Sokovia. There might be something on the paperwork Yinsen had at his house, but I have no idea where the paper he wrote his address on went, or the bra I'd been carrying it around in," Emory says.

"Hmm," Tony says, sounding distracted.

"Well, I should-"

"Yeah. It's been a literal pleasure, Emory Autumn," Tony says.

"It was," she admits, face flaming again. "Bye."

88888888

As soon as he hangs up, Tony drapes the towel over his lap so he can track down Emory's personal effects with JARVIS's help. It takes a half hour for them to find out that Emory's clothing is in an evidence locker at the base in California. Rhodey's base.

Rhodey is in NYC right now, but Tony makes the call anyway. He's going to be in the area tomorrow and can stop by, if his friend will pave the way. The problem is whether anyone will talk; if there's a chance Rhodey can arrange for a middle man who can keep their mouth shut, that would be ideal.

Phil Coulson immediately leaps to mind, but he is also in NYC.

"Seriously?" Tony gripes aloud.

"I have it on good authority that prolonged periods of nakedness are uncomfortable. Perhaps you ought to get dressed?" JARVIS says dryly.

"No one asked you."

"Indeed."

Tony stands up and stretches languorously, just for JARVIS's benefit. He walks over and hits DUM-E with his towel for not having obeyed and gotten his pants. Donning the boxers and jeans again, he dials up Coulson's number and prepares to strategically grovel. It won't feel as bad when he's doing it so he has leverage over them if they fuck up.

88888888

The flight to California goes pleasantly enough, but the gaggle of press that greet Tony, Pepper, and Happy at the airport are more than an irritation. There's a real chance that someone will get creative with their words or worse, their wallet. He doesn't want anyone to chase down the reason he showed up at the base and use that to break the story that he and Emory are involved. That's why he'd asked Phil Coulson if he could use one of their agents to act as a go-between, considering their pre-existing tendency toward secrecy. The agent who meets him on-base with her things is clean-cut, professional, and boring, right out of Coulson's mold.

There will be some sort of price enacted eventually, but that's a problem for Future Tony.

Obviously, he has to wait to look through them till he gets back to Malibu, since shots of him parked on-base playing around with a red bra would not go over well with anyone other than Emory. Once he's home, Tony finds the paper with the word 'Gulmira' written on it and instructs JARVIS to pull up a map; there are no satellite images, of course.

Pepper shows up in the lab a few minutes later with hot coffee. "Tony?"

"Yes, Ms. Potts?" He swivels in his chair with an easy grin, to be greeted by narrowed eyes of suspicion.

"What are you up to?"

"Well, let's see," he says, standing to take the mug from her. "We've got the analysis of SHIELD's strange habit of executing missions at the same time as some really nasty political stuff. Then there's the address I just picked up that should lead directly to Emory's mission site." He picks up the tablet device that sends the contents of his screen up as a wider holographic display so he can point at the various things he's mentioning. "Oh, and don't forget the sweep I ran of Stark Industries' files to find out that my business partner has got his hands on technology that could paralyze a man with a few seconds' worth of a specific noise tone. Did I ever tell you about that one?" Tony asks her, pointing at the image of the Sonic Taser on the display.

Mutely, Pepper shakes her head, eyes wide.

"Yeah, we were supposed to have destroyed the prototype, but here we are," Tony says, cheerfully shrugging. "Hey JARVIS? Did we ever get those earplugs?"

"They've arrived at the mansion in New York and await your perusal, sir."

"Excellent. Now, where was I?" Tony sniffs, nodding at each of the things he'd mentioned so far on the holographic readout. "Ah, right," he adds sourly.

Pepper had already been speaking. "You mean there's something else?"

"Besides the fact that Obie never halted production?" Tony says, pointing at the factory output numbers. "Or did you mean the chance he might be organizing an all-out mutiny?"

"I think I need to sit down," Pepper says.

"Oh sure, here." Tony rolls his desk chair over to her, lifting his eyebrows as he sees something pop up on the screen. "Well, that's new. J?"

"Sir, Mr. Stane boarded the jet as soon as it was refueled after your arrival. The flight plan is rather sparse, but he appears to be headed to Afghanistan."

"Obie, Obie, what are you doing?" Tony muses aloud, yanking the chair away from Pepper right as she was about to sit on it. He sits down in a rush and shoves with his feet, rolling swiftly back to the desk so he can tap out some things.

"You're kidding me, right?" Pepper says in a tone that Tony is completely certain she wouldn't have managed without his influence on her life.

"Yeah sorry, duty called. But the shock pulled you out of your thing, right?" he says absently, frowning at the screen. JARVIS is right, the flight manifest is slim, but the more worrisome part is the truck that left their factory earlier that morning whose GPS monitoring tag states it was parked at that same airport for a half hour before being driven back. There's no record of what was put inside the truck, but vehicle inventory has already marked it as empty and parked in its designated spot. "Right, Pep?"

Her silence pulls him away from the computer to see that the room is also empty.

He'll pay for that later, but for now, Tony wants to both get his tests done (with the added benefit that Stane won't be on his ass the whole time. It's not like he can keep his presence on campus quiet) and check up on what could have been in the truck. The idea that Obie might have flown out to Afghanistan with weapons loaded onto their corporate jet in broad daylight is farfetched, but so is the miniaturized arc reactor in his chest. Tony lives on 'farfetched.'

88888888

Nat drops by Clint's apartment that evening with takeout and some dvds. What follows is a running commentary about spy industry plot holes in Mission Impossible, told between judicious pauses that catch Tom Cruise's face in awkward expressions. As they watch the credits, Emory drains her beer, recognizing mid-gulp that it's too much, but unwilling to back down in front of the two agents. Over the past few hours, she'd experienced an odd mix of camaraderie and intimidation, peppered with the ever-present need to keep her own powers in check. Now she's full of Thai food, alcohol, and hints about her companions' exploits.

She's not stupid- all three were probably on purpose.

When Barton gets up to get new drinks, Natasha stretches out her bare foot, poking Emory in the leg.

"So which part is fake? Stark's reckless affection, or the resurgent party animal?"

Emory is buzzed, but Natasha definitely isn't. Clint is a toss-up, but she doubts he's actually imbibed at all, though she's not sure how he could have pulled that off. After thinking about it for a while under the guise of contemplating Nat's question, Emory suddenly bursts out laughing. The image of Clint Barton using full-sized beer bottles tricked out to fake pour the same as a baby doll's illusion milk bottle is just too hilarious for words.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she giggles. "If he enjoys the parties, then the answer is probably both. I didn't really know him before. But I'm pretty sure that Tony wouldn't do something just because it's expected."

"Well that's bullshit," Clint says, hopping over the back of the couch to settle beside Natasha. He licks the thumb he'd held over the open mouth of her beer bottle so it wouldn't spill, and offers Emory the unopened one, nodding at the bottle opener on the coffee table. "Man would have long since told Fury to fuck off if that were true."

Emory sets her bottle down on the coffee table without bothering with the opener. She's impaired enough that even simple machines are a no go. Compared to Tony, she's probably a lightweight. Scratch that- definitely. A lightweight about more than just a She shrugs the thought off and refocuses on Clint.

"That just points back to the first question, then, doesn't it? Meddling would risk my life." Nat has a point, a clear enough one that Emory can see it pretty well through her brain fog: Tony doesn't like being under someone else's control, and yet he's tolerated being under SHIELD's thumb solely for her benefit. The thought tosses her hair in a spiral as a burst of energy swirls up toward the ceiling.

Okay, Emory thinks to herself. Alcohol means I can't control my power. Shocker.

"What does it matter?" she asks aloud. "You won't have to deal with Tony anymore after the mission anyway. Once we get ahold of that serum, aren't I in the wind? Literally?" The pun makes her laugh. To play it off, she grabs her beer and the bottle opener, determined to make it work. Before she looks up, Nat says something in a voice Emory's never heard before. It's a mix of defensive and angry.

"It's an act, right? For the mission? You're not really that naive."

"Natasha," Clint says sharply.

The bottle opener falls out of her suddenly nerveless fingers as Emory stares at the two agents.

"You have magical powers. What are you going to do with them? Be a housewife? Is that what you think he wants?" Natasha asks. She leans forward, her eyes locked to Emory's.

"Cool it," Clint says, emphasizing his words with what looks to be a heavy hand on the other woman's shoulder. Nat goes to turn her head to look at him, but her long red curls are caught under his hand. "What are you trying to do here?" he presses.

Natasha rests a light hand on the hand Barton's got gripping her shoulder. "I like her, Clint. How many missions might have gone south if you'd lied to me right off the bat, hmm?"

He doesn't move his hand, and without warning, Nat twists her body sideways. After a tangle of limbs that Emory's booze-fogged brain can't comprehend, Black Widow ends up sauntering away toward the bathroom, and Hawkeye's laid out flat on the floor in front of his own couch.

"Yeah, you go powder your face, I'll be fine," he grunts into the carpet.

They're fighting over whether to lie to her. Nat's admonition about naivete circles back to hit her harder the second time, knocking away the blinders that had been preventing her from seeing that possible truth: if fictional stories about superpowers usually ended with their subjects studied in government labs or making some sort of an agreement to serve their country, how could she expect anything different? The panic that she's already in too deep starts at her toes and lifts quickly, threatening to overwhelm. Luckily that fear has sheathed her in enough layers of energy to feel comforted by their strength. It's also a powerful motivator.

"Clint," she says, the word barely above a whisper.

"What, it's your turn?" he asks, still face down.

"Kind of," she admits, unsure if he means with words or weapons- not that she has much of either. She'd been counting on her life returning to some kind of normalcy once she was through the crucible of this upcoming mission. The horrible truth about that hope strikes her: the act of being put through a crucible changes the material forever.

Her old life has blown away. Forever.

"You could kill two birds with one stone and stomp on my spine, see if you can get the crick out of it," he suggests, oblivious to her mini crisis.

"Clint!" she groans, annoyed at how lightly he's taking the situation.

He lifts his head to grin at her. "Might be cathartic?"

"Goddamnit," she mutters, and stands up, reaching over to brace herself on the couch arm. "Is there a technique to this?"

"Start at the lower back and gently-"

The last word comes out as a groan, because she'd already stepped, rolling her socked foot onto his back just above the belt none too gently. She'd expected it to be harder to balance, but anxiety creates a good blank slate for caring if she falls or hurts him… much.

"Will I have a choice?" she asks, placing down her second foot heel to toe on the last word. Clint isn't stupid enough to think they're still talking about his back.

"I'll make sure you do."

"And when I say no?" She spins some air around herself to help her balance, jamming down another heel on 'no.'

"I'll appeal to your humanity," Clint says, the words devoid of any of his previous inflection of pain or amusement. It's the most 'deadly serious' she's ever heard a person be. Emory's not sure whether she wants to thrust all of the air she has access to down on top of him in fury- or swirl it around herself so she can run, sobbing, to her room and lock the door.

She hugs her arms to her chest, shaking her head no so many times that her neck starts to ache. Emory feels defeated, but for once, her power doesn't dissipate with the reversal. "I-" she starts, but drops her arms, speechless.

Clint hasn't spelled it out, but not only will SHIELD want her, they'll need her.

What had Nat said to her once? 'I have a very special set of skills.'

She's trapped again, but there's no rescue in sight, because the bars are made up of her own morality.

Beneath her, Clint rolls over. "Emory, stop. You're going to-" He breaks off and launches up from flat on his back, grabbing her foot and pulling her down.

Emory cries out as she feels a horrible pain and pressure in her scalp before it releases and she falls down, landing half on Clint and half on his couch. She reaches up to feel her head, terrified that she'll be missing a chunk of hair and skin, but everything's intact, just very sore.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Shaken up, is all," she breathes, dropping an arm over her eyes.

"Funnily enough that jump I just did fixed my back up real nice," Clint says, pulling free of her legs and resting his arms and head on the couch cushion beside her. "Landing, though. Ow."

"I leave you two for five minutes!" Nat says from across the room.

"Recruitment pitch didn't go well," Clint jokes.

Without thinking, Emory kicks her leg toward him. The blow lands; he didn't flinch away from it. There's something symbolic about that, but she's completely prepared to ignore it for her own sanity.

Still, there's a bonfire of fear that Natasha's words and Clint's reiteration have carved into her heart of hearts. Its fuel is realism, and she doesn't know how to put it out yet. There is one comfort, though. Tony is on her side, and he's a genius with money and has a complete disregard for authority. If, as she suspects, his loyalty is to her, and not to SHIELD, then if SHIELD turns on her, Tony will be on her side, not theirs.