(A/N): HELLO I am back! Didya miss me?
These next few chapters will all take place within a very short time frame, as opposed to each chapter being one single mission like before. After all, this is where we're getting to the good stuff, people.
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or any of the related rights.
...
Mission Five: Smuggling the Smugglers
He'd been in Russia for all of five minutes before he was in serious trouble.
There was always the possibility that there would be a welcoming party, and Fury had told him as much, but Clint had sort of been expecting something along the lines of a single, highly-trained assassin.
What he got instead was a group of thugs, and it was pretty much just a sheer numbers game that got him in trouble. Twenty of them he could have maybe handled, if he had a head start and a little reckless courage. But there were at least three times that many, and it didn't look like they had been expecting Clint, so they were kind of very much angry at him when he landed on the abandoned airstrip they'd been using as their base of operations.
He'd done all the right things, too. Checked the area before he made his approach, waited for a while before getting out of his plane. Even went the unorthodox approach and climbed down through the landing gear, because he wasn't taking any chances out in the middle of nowhere like that with a dangerous assassin as his target.
Only "all the right things" apparently wasn't good enough, and it had taken Clint all of about twenty minutes of getting shot at and punching around for a while before he found himself handcuffed to a radiator grill in the basement.
He could hear snatches of conversation from upstairs, and he wasn't sure if that was comforting or not. It was nice to wake up and not be dead, sure, but that didn't mean he was out of the woods yet.
"Great going, Barton. Real good way to start a mission," he muttered to himself.
Still, it was quiet, and there was no guard, so Clint took the moment to take stock of the situation. He was bruised pretty badly, and he was pretty sure the swelling in his cheek meant something was broken, but besides that, he didn't seem to have been shot anywhere important or stabbed or anything immediately life-threatening, so that was Good News Number One.
Good News Number Two? His quiver was nearby.
Good News Number Three? Clint was a circus brat. A flimsy pair of handcuffs wasn't going to stop him for very long.
His muscles groaned in protest as Clint stretched, arcing his back as he tried to get his legs underneath him so that he was kneeling. It was hard to do with a radiator in the way, but he managed it somehow, and now, his pocket was much closer to his hands.
And, yeah, these were muscles that definitely hadn't been stretched in a while, and he was going to have to remedy that between now and the next mission, because wow, did his entire body scream at him when he tried his next move, pushing his hips higher as he counted on the handcuffs to keep his center of gravity a little higher. Otherwise, this wouldn't have worked, and he'd have fallen over backwards.
At last, his fingers closed around the little remote tucked into the lining of his pocket (the new girl at R&D wasn't half bad, Clint reflected, if she could successfully pull off a hiding job like that, though he missed Beth already). With a grim smile that was marred by the pulling pain in his jaw (yep, probably broken), he flipped the remote and pushed the button.
Immediately, the sound of obnoxiously loud electric guitar filled the hangar above him, and Clint grinned as he heard "Back in Black" playing over his plane's speaker phone.
"Never leave home without the burglar alarm," Clint muttered to himself as he heard muffled exclamations and the sound of pounding feet as his captors rushed to go investigate the noise.
Now, the next part of his plan was a little bit trickier. There was a big radiator between him and his quiver, and he was attached to it, but … he eyed the distance.
His arms screamed out when he started to walk his legs over, bending his back as far as it would go, but—yes, almost…
"Ha!" Clint grinned as he hooked his foot through the strap of his quiver and, with a flick of his ankle, brought his oh-so-important weapons closer.
"Note to self—find a good sparring partner with some gymnastics background," Clint said out loud. He was pretty confident that no one could hear him, what with the radiator making noises like it was going to explode beside him, and he needed something to distract from the fact that his muscles were yelling at him for the abuse he'd just put them through.
He hooked the corner of his boot with his other foot and pulled off first the shoe and then his sock so that his bare toes were exposed to the cold. But it was easier to feel the difference in his arrow tips with bare skin, and he didn't want to accidentally pull out the wrong thing.
He flashed a grin when he found what he was looking for and pulled it, carefully, out of the quiver. He gently coaxed the arrow closer and closer until it was close enough that he could lean down and, stomping on the non-dangerous end, get it pointed up enough so that he could hook his teeth around it.
Ow. Biting hurts.
He worked the arrow carefully over and touched the edge of it to the center of the handcuffs holding him hostage. He took a deep breath, then pushed.
Hiss. Clint winced as he heard the acid in the tip being released, and some of it dripped onto the radiator close to his hands. He didn't really want to find out what this stuff could do to human flesh, so he tried to stay out of its way, but even so, his nose filled with the acrid smoke of the cuffs melting away.
He pulled, and—snap—the cuffs came apart. He was still wearing nice little bracelets, but he could work on that later. For now, he had a quiver, and he had a very cold foot, and he needed to find his bow. Then, he could get back to work.
He pulled on his sock (the really fuzzy kind that definitely wasn't regulation but that he had about a hundred of after the first time Coulson sent him out into the snow—and yes, the junior agents were allowed to borrow them as long as they brought them back clean) and then his boot and shouldered his quiver.
As he made his way up the stairs, he hear the music from his plane finally cut off, and then he heard a lot of angry Russian. He had a basic understanding of the language—enough to ask for directions and for a beer, you know, the essentials—but even his rudimentary ears told him that was definitely some serious swearing.
He looked around for something he could use to take stock of the place without being noticed and grinned when he saw that some of the tile ceiling was falling apart. He could probably get himself up in those rafters if he had a running start…
His feet left the ground at about the same time his brain told him that this was probably a bad idea, and his hands slammed into the not-at-all sturdy tiles that seemed to crumble at his touch. He scrambled for leverage, any kind of leverage, and the edges of his fingers found wood.
With a mighty heave, he managed to pull himself up, and he almost immediately regretted it when he heard scratching and scuffling as furry little things scurried away from the intruder to their territory. Also, there were smells, and he didn't really want to think about them, but they were there, and they were awful, and this was definitely one of his worse ideas.
But he was in the ceiling, so he might as well press forward. He could hear footsteps and whispers underneath him, too, and the last thing he needed was to be discovered when he still didn't know where his bow was.
He pushed a few spider webs out of his way and pretending he couldn't see their occupants—spider should not be that big—scurrying angrily aside. He also pretended he didn't know what some of the stuff he'd put his hands in was. He'd think about that later, when not being cramped inside the ceiling was an option. Because it was very important that he didn't freak out and accidentally kick through the ceiling and alert the thugs below to exactly where he was.
He kept sliding himself forward on his stomach until, at last, he found a place that looked promising. He peered down through some of the cracked tile and thought he could see movement beneath him.
Okay, you stay there and try not to bother me, Clint thought in the general direction of the things with beady eyes that were much too big to be rats. He could see them just in the edges of his vision, like they were sizing him up and trying to decide whether he was food or a predator, and he didn't plan to give them an opportunity to test out the food theory.
He lowered himself carefully through the wooden beams, and they creaked slightly under his weight. He paused, holding his breath, wondering if the people below him had heard the sound, but when there was no shouting or shooting, he figured he was safe.
He flicked another spider—this one thankfully smaller and more manageable—off the corner of the tile as he lifted it just the slightest bit so he could see.
Okay. That's slightly more manageable, he thought. There were only about four of them down there, and they didn't seem to be paying much attention. A couple of them were loading boxes into an industrial machine, and another one had a clipboard. The fourth was smoking.
Clint didn't see his bow, but that shouldn't be a problem. He saw a handgun on the table, where Number Four had set it so he could smoke, and while Clint certainly wasn't at his best without a bow in his hands, he'd made sure he was the best shot he could be with just about anything with any range to it, guns included.
He made a quick sweep of the area once more, taking stock of the positions of each of the men, before he took a deep breath and let go.
He felt his shoulder hit the ceiling first, and he allowed his own momentum to lead him down, twisting as he fell so that he would fall onto the table where the gun was. He heard the two men shouting, and while it was hard to see them in the cloud of dust and wood and probably like five hundred tons of asbestos that he'd brought down with him, he knew where the closest one was.
He felt his hand close around the gun and didn't hesitate as he swung it around, the slight ember glow of a cigarette his guide.
One down.
He spun around, trying not to blink too hard against the dust. He saw the other two men near the boxes—one was headed for the controls of the machinery. Probably meant to hit Clint with it.
He fired three shots: one for the guy who wasn't in the machinery and one for the would-be driver and one for the controls of the machinery.
The guy with the clipboard shouted something in Russian, and that was what gave him away. Clint turned toward the sound, firing as he did, and that was four down.
Clint flipped the gun over in his hand with a grin and then rushed to check out the nearest box. Had to be something important if there were this many bad guys in one place, right?
He grabbed the nearest crowbar and levied the top of the wooden crate nearest him open, peering inside even as he kept his ears open for company. (He had, after all, just been shooting. Someone might have heard, though in a place this size, he was hoping he at least had some time before anyone showed up.)
When he saw what was inside, though, Clint frowned and closed the lid again.
"I bet Fury did this on purpose," he muttered to himself, trying not to clench his jaw because it hurt to do that, but he was annoyed, a jaw clenching was definitely one of those I'm-annoyed things that people did.
The crate was filled with tanks full of gas. And it wasn't the oxygen-for-diving kind of tanks, either.
"I bet he did this on purpose," Clint muttered again as he gripped the crowbar in both hands, looking for an exit. He grabbed a second gun from the clipboard guy and tucked it into his belt. "Bet he found out where these morons would be smuggling this kind of stuff."
As he spoke, he found his way to a door and pulled it open, surveying the hallways before he decided it was safe to proceed. "Oh, Barton, we're sending you on this personal vendetta mission because we here at SHIELD totally believe in you. Also, while you're there, you don't think you could also take out an international smuggling ring, do you?" He scowled, putting on his best angry-Nick-Fury impression.
"Of course, Mister Director, sir. I'd be more than happy to take out some bad guys on my way to find an evil assassin. Thanks so much for telling me about it before you sent me into danger, sir," Clint continued. "Wouldn't it have been stupid if you sent an agent somewhere for a double mission without telling him?"
"Oh, Barton, I would never do that," Clint-as-Fury said. As he continued his grumblings, he heard a few other voices further on down the hallway, and he reached around to his quiver for the third arrow from the left. "Because I'm not a self-serving, egotistical—"
The rest of what Nick Fury was or was not died out in the thundering sound of about ten people exploding out into the hallway, and Clint grinned as they bottlenecked.
"It's a good thing there are no secrets at SHIELD," Clint continued, this time acting as himself-talking-to-Fury again. As he spoke, he flicked the tip of his arrow open, and a strange purpleish gas filled the room. Clint inserted the other half of the arrow tip into his mouth and enjoyed the blast of fresh oxygen that filled his lungs even as over half a dozen thugs hit the ground, unconscious.
When Clint reached the other end of the hallway and closed the door behind him, he spit out the used arrow tip, breathing in the stale indoor air of the hangar instead. He continued his conversation with himself, this time as Fury, even as he heard another group approaching, shouting in Russian some more with words that definitely weren't in the Traveler's Guide to Russian.
"Well, Barton, we understand that you don't like being lied to," he said, deepening his voice and putting a little more of a growl into it to imitate Fury. He saw the first of the smugglers round the corner and raised one of his stolen guns. "After all, half the reason you were so willing to ditch your criminal past was that you were sick of being used and manipulated."
The sound of gunfire echoed through the hangar.
"I'm so glad you see it that way, sir." Clint bent down to check that the man was dead before he moved on. "Lots of other agents just think I sided with you so I didn't have to go to jail."
"What agents? Not me!" Clint grinned. Yeah, this conversation was getting less and less likely by the minute.
Now finished with his one-sided conversation, Clint pressed forward, still keeping an eye out for his bow.
He finally found his way back to where his plane was parked—the long way round, with plenty of wrong turns to boot—a few minutes later, and he couldn't help but grin when he peeked the door open and saw that the rest of the small army of smugglers looked nothing less than agitated.
Clint would even say they looked panicky, but he wasn't one to toot his own horn.
Several of them were holding guns, though—and theirs were bigger and fired faster than Clint's. He would have to do this the sneaky way, then.
He reached carefully into his pocket and pressed the button for Burglar Alarm Number Two.
Three snaps echoed across the hangar, and then: "She keeps Moet et Chandon in her pretty cabinet."
The Russian smugglers swore a whole lot more (Clint was starting to memorize the words so he could look them up later) as a few of them rushed into the plane to investigate the source of the noise. Oh yeah, Clint had definitely remembered to pack plenty of extra music players. They were the perfect distraction, and besides, there was something about having the mood music of "Killer Queen" to light up any showdown.
Clint used the distraction to slide through the door and around the back of the hangar. There were more boxes here than there had been before, and Clint noticed that the back of his plane was standing open. These guys were going to try to use his plane to take their goods out of there!
Stupidest move they could have made, really.
Clint grinned as he made his way across the hangar, his footsteps masked by the music. He ducked into the plane and pulled on the netting nearby, activating one of the doors SHIELD had installed as a security measure. Just a quick little hideaway, nothing but a space where Clint could stand while everyone else rushed past him.
He heard clanking footsteps and lots of shouting, but it sounded like no one had heard him. That was good.
More shouting, lots of swearing. Clint was pretty sure he could pick out a few words here and there. Something about the plane, something about a man—Clint was sure that was him—something about time? Seriously, his travel Russian was not helping him at all. They were speaking it way too fast, so even what he did know was flying over his head.
The little room Clint had squeezed himself into smelled like a new car, so Clint was probably the first to use it. It had that feel—that sort of pristine-yet-oily feeling of a new space. He had dashed into the area, so he'd been breathing pretty heavily, but now, he decided that it would be better if he just breathed through his nose.
He waited until Queen wasn't playing anymore, and then he waited even longer while the bad guys searched the area for their intruder, steadying his breathing, leaning his head against the back wall as he took stock of himself.
He was definitely going to need to see somebody about the jaw. It hurt like crazy, and the last thing he needed was something to slow him down when he was going after his mysterious assassin friend.
Maybe he could use that to his advantage. An injured American was sure to draw a little attention, especially with the entrance Clint was planning on pulling as soon as he was able to retake his plane. It could help him to draw out the assassin without having to go looking too much.
Yeah, he could use that.
For now, though, his jaw hurt.
And Clint was used to being patient. He'd had patience beaten into him, and he could sit so still that birds, insects, and whatever other animal life was in the area, would start to treat him like part of the landscape. He could spend hours never moving, hardly blinking, just cycling his breathing and waiting for a target. So patience wasn't really a problem for him if he had to be patient.
Only he wasn't really all that patient, and it was a learned skill. He'd much rather be doing than waiting, and he'd especially much rather be acting than sitting here thinking about how he was probably going to need some surgery or something to put his jaw back together, because he'd had breaks before, but this one hurt particularly badly.
He forced himself into the stillness until it was familiar and easy, and then he focused on his breathing, listening all the while for signs of activity outside.
It took a long while, but at last, it sounded like the bad guys were getting back to work. Clint could hear them loading boxes near his hiding place, and he allowed a break in his cycled breathing for one sigh of relief. Because sighs of relief always felt good, honestly, and because he was tired of being still.
He risked a quick glance into the cargo section of the plane and saw that, yep, the plane was getting pretty full.
He had to hand it to the bad guys—this was a smart move if they'd been dealing with the typical government agents type. Steal the plane that already has clearance so you're less likely to get tagged. Makes sense. He probably would have pulled something like this back in the day—it was the kind of flashy thing that he would get in trouble for right before he was congratulated for pulling it off.
Only they weren't dealing with the typical government agent. They were dealing with an ex-carnie with a warped sense of humor, and he was about to hijack his plane right back.
He slipped carefully through the cargo area, using the boxes to keep himself out of sight now that there were plenty of them between him and the rest of the plane. It was like one of those stupid obstacle courses the SHIELD trainers set up for the newbies when they first arrived, and he made a mental note to add this to the list of ways that he could give the newbies grief when he got back.
What, you think you're never going to use this in the field? Well, sit down, shut up, and let me tell you about the time I took over an entire plane full of smuggled goods and their smugglers with it.
First, though, Clint had to actually do the thing he was already bragging to people about in his head.
He made his way toward the cockpit, careful not to make any noise, and he actually made it pretty far before he ran into his first obstacle.
The guy was plenty big, but he was slow, and Clint silenced him with a quick blow to his throat so that he couldn't call for backup. He swung his bow like a staff, intending to bring it down on the guy's head, but he ducked at the last second and tucked his head in, barreling straight for Clint.
Clint side-stepped out of the way, but the guy turned with the motion and grabbed the bow with one hand, obviously intending to rip it out of Clint's grasp.
Clint didn't want his bow to get hurt, though, so he let go easy, instead using the momentum of the guy's pull against him as he overbalanced and had to take a few steps back. Clint used that momentary distraction for an uppercut that would have laid a normal guy flat, but this muscle man just fell over and got back up.
"Great," Clint muttered, taking a few steps back to keep his distance so that he could assess the situation. He didn't like close quarters fighting, no matter how many training hours SHIELD forced on him.
But he did have one advantage—he had definitely slowed his opponent down. The big guy took a few staggering steps, and it was obvious that he was a little punch-drunk.
Clint grinned. Hey, his old circus act had already gotten him out of a jam earlier that day—it would just be par for the course if he could pull off another circus move….
He reached up with both arms, grabbing the nearest grab-able object to give him some momentum, before he swung out, putting all of his strength behind the kick as he threw his body into a move that would have made his old circus pals cringe but looked probably passable to anyone who hadn't seen what it was supposed to look like.
He smiled sheepishly as the big guy went crashing down. "First of all," he muttered to himself, "that was awful form, Barton. 3.5 at best."
He heard the sound of muttered curses and running footsteps and grinned even wider. "And second of all," he muttered, louder still, "you pretty much just broadcasted your position to every goon in the area. Way to go."
He swung out into the hallway, grabbing his bow out of the unconscious muscle man's hands as he moved. Almost immediately, he ran into another bad guy, but this one had a glass jaw and wasn't much of a problem.
He broke out into a run, abandoning all pretense at sneakiness. By now, the bad guys had copped to the fact that there was an intruder on board, and, well, that was actually part of the plan, believe it or not.
Yeah, it was an incredibly stupid plan, but it was a plan, and he was sticking to it until something a little less stupid occurred to him. If something occurred to him.
Honestly, he was hoping that an intruder alert would trigger a nice, big response, so plenty of bad guys would all come running into the plane. The more of the smugglers Clint could get in one place, the better.
He pushed his way forward until he came up against two more smugglers. The two of them grinned at him, cracking their knuckles like that was supposed to be scary or something, and Clint just grinned right back—which must have been a pretty awful sight, considering the state of his jaw.
See, Clint knew what they hadn't yet realized—they weren't close enough to force close quarters fighting, and Clint had some great toys to play with in his quiver.
He had the bow strung faster than they could react, and they only made it a couple of steps before the experimental arrows hit them both—thunk, thunk—straight in the chests.
There was a satisfying crackle of electricity, and then both of them crumpled to the ground.
Clint grinned and, once he had waited for as long as he thought was probably safe, retrieved the arrows so he could reload the tips later. "Glad that worked," he said, looking down at the two smugglers at his feet. "They told me it was just a prototype."
He stepped over the two unconscious bodies and into the cockpit, then activated the security override. He was rewarded with the sound of confused shouts as all the exits started to seal themselves over and the cargo area close off as well.
The controls were sealed off, and Clint was safe inside the plane. He'd personally tested half of the security measures on this thing, and if he couldn't find a way in, he was pretty darn sure those goons outside weren't going to come close.
Thud. He heard something heavy banging against the door behind him, and he jumped at the noise, but he settled back into a grin. They weren't going to break through.
He reached for the intercom system and snickered as he turned it on.
"Hello there!" he said as brightly as was possible through his jaw. It was possible he wasn't all that intelligible, but he wasn't sure if these guys knew English anyway, so this was really more for his benefit than anyone else's. "This is your captain speaking." He waited until he was sure that everything was securely locked down before he started his takeoff procedure.
"Thank you for choosing to fly Hawkeye Air," he continued, still chortling. "You will note that, for your safety, all of the doors and windows have about ten layers of some of the strongest steel our R&D team could come up with. So you don't have to worry about falling out in transit, ladies and gentlemen. We here at Hawkeye Air are dedicated to your safety!"
The banging on the door behind him just got louder and more insistent, and Clint couldn't help but laugh. Well, at least he had their attention.
He turned his own attention to the task at hand, readying the plane for takeoff. He grinned at the roar of the engines as the plane started to pick up speed.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
Clint ducked instinctively—he knew that sound. Someone outside the plane was shooting at him.
He kept his head down as he finished the takeoff preparations, and then he gave the plane everything it had. He had to get out of the line of fire. He didn't know what kind of weapons these guys had, and while they hadn't gotten through just yet, he wasn't going to take any chances, not now that he'd pretty much advertised himself as a prime target.
As soon as the plane hit the air, he radioed ahead to one of Coulson's contacts, a Russian government agent that Coulson had assured him would be at least a little friendly (so long as Clint could give him something to make it worth his while to be friendly). Clint figured hand-delivering a bunch of smugglers was a pretty good get-to-know-you gift, though.
…
Clint's contact was a guy named Anton. That was pretty much all he'd tell Clint, too, and that was fine, because Anton had also brought a doctor with him, and Clint was getting really tired of how much it hurt to talk. He liked being able to talk.
Anton surveyed the smugglers as his men took them into custody. "I appreciate what you have done today," he said. "But perhaps it would have been better for you to have informed me of your coming here prior to your arrival."
"Coulson said you'd say that," Clint said, nodding. That was a lie; Coulson hadn't really said anything other than the fact that this was the guy to go to if he ran into trouble with the law … or if he needed law backup, though that was a rare event. But it paid to sound like he knew more than he actually did, and Clint had an excellent poker face.
Anton smiled easily. "How is Phil, by the way?"
"Same old," Clint said, also grinning. "Still chasing fairy tales and being the best agent in the world at the same time."
Anton sighed heavily, looking out at the plane. "I think, perhaps," he said at last, slowly and carefully, "that you did not come here just to give me a delivery of smugglers."
Clint shrugged but didn't say anything else.
Anton raised a single eyebrow but pressed right on. "I think," he said again, "that you are perhaps in pursuit of one of their operatives."
The separation surprised Clint. It didn't sound like the kind of tone reserved for actual enemies, but … maybe rivals? It was hard to tell. He tried to keep his face impassive, but he'd been lying earlier—he really didn't have much of a poker face.
Anton simply laughed at the look on Clint's face and allowed himself a self-satisfied kind of smirk. "Well then, Agent Barton, it was nice knowing you. I'm sorry to have to say goodbye to you after we have only just met. I would have preferred that you kept dropping smugglers at my desk for my credit. There could have been a promotion in it for me."
Clint grinned. "Hey," he said easily, "don't count me out so easily. I'm not as breakable as I look."
This was, of course, probably less convincing when his grin looked more like a grimace because his jaw looked nothing like it was supposed to.
Anton chuckled. "I will have my man patch you down," he said.
"Patch you up?"
"Yes." Anton shrugged again. "It will not make much of a difference for you, but when Coulson asks, I feel that my having exchanged medical services for your smuggling catch might keep us on good terms after your death."
"I'm really feeling the confidence here, Anton," Clint snorted.
Anton looked him over and gave a low chuckle. "They might leave you alive. That mouth of yours…." But he trailed off and shrugged again. "Is there anything else you require before your suicide mission?"
Clint was definitely offended now. There was no call for this kind of insult. But still, he had a favor to ask, so he just laughed. "Yeah, actually, now that you mention it," he said, "I was kind of hoping you'd let it slip to a couple of people that you've got an American agent you're patching up in this area?"
Anton stared at him for a long time before, at last, he sighed, waved his hand, and muttered something about "crazy Americans."
Clint grinned lopsidedly over his shoulder at Anton and allowed the doctor to tug him to a more sterile environment so he could get a good look at Clint's jaw.
"What do you think, Doc? Are my days as a nutcracker over?"