Mission Twenty-Two: The Winter Soldier

Clint had been dead-to-the-world asleep in the seconds before the Tower's alarm went off, and then, he woke up in a tangle of arms and legs, his heart racing. He'd never heard the alarm go off before, and he had no context for what he was supposed to do about it.

Thankfully, a few seconds later, his Avengers cell phone went off, and he grabbed it. "What the heck?" he blurted out. He wasn't even sure who was on the other end; he just knew that was his work phone, and he was confused.

"Yeah, hi, not sorry. The Tower needed an early warning system after what happened to SHIELD," Tony said on the other end. "Get moving, Barton. That alarm means someone just breached my outer defenses."

"Got it. Got it," he said. He was going to ask more question—like who they were fighting and why—but Tony had already hung up again. "Thanks, Stark. Real helpful," he grumbled, pulling on one sock and looking around desperately for the other one. He wondered vaguely if it was in Natasha's room. He'd fallen asleep there and had made his way back to his room in the dead of night when she'd stolen the covers and woken him up.

He gave up on finding that sock and just grabbed a new pair from his dresser, pulling those on and then his shoes. He was wearing pajama shorts, but it was warm enough that night that he figured he could get away with just throwing a shirt with his logo on it over the shorts and throwing a quiver over his shoulder. If the alarm meant the perimeter was already breached, then time was of the essence, and he'd already wasted plenty of it looking for socks.

Once he had his bow and his quiver, he rushed out of his room … and had no idea where to go from there.

Thankfully—or not so thankfully, depending—he heard an explosion toward the west entrance and figured that was the way to go. Whoever was attacking had decided not to be subtle that day.

Probably one of Stark's friends, he thought, thinking of the Extremis project that Tony had, for some reason Clint still didn't understand, practically called down on himself—without calling for any backup. That had been spectacular in the literal sense of the word, and Tony was still rebuilding after all that. Just the one suit for use with the Avengers and then one for Pepper so far; the rest of his energy had gone into the Tower defenses.

Natasha seemed pleased to see that. Clint knew she worried about him more than she would admit. Clint was just glad to see Pepper more often—and to see her in a good mood more often. She was easy to get along with.

And it was fun to watch her put Stark in his place.

All the time.

Clint was still smirking to himself as he rounded a corner, though he lost the smirk when, a second later, the wall exploded in front of him, and he wound up flying across the hall, hitting the wall hard enough to knock all the breath out of him. He was lucky he hadn't gotten pinned by any flying debris; as it was, he was already bruised and badly cut in several places.

And then, when he saw the green of the uniforms the guys beyond the blown wall were wearing, he let out a long string of swear words and crouched below the rubble, knowing he needed to get his head to stop ringing before he could be any use in the fight. "You've got to be kidding me."

About a dozen guys wearing dark green came rushing in through the hole that they'd made, all shouting to each other. Now that Hydra was out in the open, now that they'd been exposed, they were a lot more blatant than usual. Sure, plenty of them were still worming their way through the systems of power, trying to establish strongholds that Natasha and Steve had so gleefully wiped out for them, but their foot soldiers openly wore their colors now.

Which meant that they were less afraid of being identified than they had been before. Between Tony's house getting blown, SHIELD falling, and the Avengers only recently becoming a full-time team, the bad guys didn't seem to think they'd face any consequences.

Clint was only too familiar with that way of thinking.

He stayed crouched down as the foot soldiers rushed in. They didn't seem too interested in searching the rubble for survivors, which was lucky for Clint—but it told him that they were looking for something or someone in particular. If he had to guess, they were probably out for blood trying to track down Natasha or Steve or Sam or some combination of all three of them. They'd been giving Hydra headaches since the day they tried to kill Fury, and they weren't shy about taking the credit for it.

In fact, Clint knew for a fact that Natasha had let Coulson give her the credit for a few things his team had done, not only to plant a false trail to cover his team but to keep Hydra's attention on the Avengers so other teams in the slowly-rebuilding trash fire that Coulson was trying to turn into a functioning SHIELD could have their shot at Hydra without getting the full brunt of their might.

So, yeah, Hydra probably had good reason to want to take down the Avengers.

Clint stayed where he was, counting soldiers and holding his breath until the last of them had filed through, before he reached for his phone and called Natasha. "Hey, so, a wall exploded and fifteen guys in Hydra uniforms just came running in looking for something. Anything I should know about? Anything we need to keep out of their hands in particular or are we just having a field day taking these guys down?"

"The target could be any number of things," Natasha replied tersely, and Clint was sure he could hear the sounds of a fight in the background—and then the ting of Steve's shield. "Just take them out. We'll figure out what they want when we have a smaller crowd."

"You got it. Have fun," Clint said, hanging up so he wasn't distracting her anymore.

He snapped his bow out as soon as he'd put his phone away and then poked his head out of the hole, somehow not surprised to see that there were about a dozen huge vehicles parked on their lawn. And from the looks of things, several different parts of the grounds, the tower, and the surrounding area were on fire. So that wasn't great.

And then, he saw someone he had only seen before in pictures. This had to be Bucky—or the Winter Soldier, as Hydra was calling him.

What Steve and Natasha had failed to describe in talking about him, though, was the blank look on his face. Sure, a lot of his face was obscured by the mask that covered his mouth and nose, and he wore black eyeliner to complete the look. All of that was supposed to deter anyone from getting a good look at his features.

But Clint wasn't just anyone. And when he point an arrow at someone, he assessed everything about them.

Seve had said that Bucky was his oldest and best friend. He'd said that the guy would give you the shirt off his back. He'd said that he had taken care of him at a time when he really shouldn't have survived to the age he did with all the health problems he'd had before the serum. He spoke about this guy like he'd hung the moon.

But when Clint locked eyes with the Winter Soldier, he didn't see any of that. All he saw was a drive—especially once the Winter Soldier got moving. He'd seen Clint just as much as Clint had seen him, and he was already loading his weapon.

"Sorry, Steve," Clint muttered under his breath, loosing an arrow. It wasn't a kill shot; he didn't go for the neck or the head. But it didn't matter that he'd seen a weakness in Bucky's armor; that metal arm had fast enough reflexes that Clint's could have gone for a worse shot and still wouldn't have made it. The guy snatched the arrow right out of the air and broke it in half in one fluid motion, his gaze still locked onto Clint.

"Crap," Clint muttered, ducking underneath the suddenly much more feeble cover he'd found before he called Natasha again. "Hi, yes, I found Bucky."

There was a protracted pause on the other end before Natasha said, "Don't hang up. Keep me updated—and stay out of trouble. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, he snapped an arrow; I think I got the message."

"Clint-"

"Yeah, I know." He winced as three gunshots rang out. "I'm not bulletproof, so any help you can send…"

"Sam's on his way," Natasha replied tersely. "Don't. Die."

"Don't worry. I'm not planning to."

He peeked over the edge of the rubble and immediately got shot at, so he ducked back down. "Thing is, I'm kinda pinned down, and while he's dramatically taking his time walking toward me, a rescue would be appreciated."

"We're busy," she said; he could hear the stress in her voice.

"Okay, got it. I'll see you soon," Clint said.

"You better."

Clint nodded, though he was already going through the arrowheads he had on his person, mentally ticking them off the list. If this guy was as strong as Nat and Steve said he was, not much would stop him. And he doubted smoke or gas would do much when he was wearing that mask. A tranquilizer might slow him down, but if he had the metabolism Steve did, it would take a lot more than what Clint had in his quiver to take him down.

His fingers found one more arrowhead, and he paused.

Yeah, the putty arrow Beth had made for him was probably going to help in this situation. And usually, at this point, he would had keyed in the code and shot up a quick thank you into the ether that would eventually, he hoped, come back as good karma for Beth.

Instead, all he could think about was the look on her face. The last look on her face.

He swallowed and started to key in the code, but the hesitation had cost him. By the time he had the arrow ready, the Winter Soldier was way too close, leveling a gun his way with an expression that honestly didn't tell Clint if this was a threat or if he was about to get shot. He was impossible to read, because he wasn't driving.

No wonder Steve wanted to help this guy so badly. Clint had never seen anyone that blank before. It was unsettling.

And then, the gun went off, and Clint swore as the rubble he'd been leaning against shattered, and he spilled out onto the ground, a too-easy target.

He scrambled to grab his bow, but he heard the shot and knew he was dead. He was dead; that was it. He was dead.

Except he wasn't dead. That was good—why wasn't he dead?

He looked up to see Sam, wide-eyed, his mechanical wings folded in front of him, standing in between Clint and the Winter Soldier. "You okay?" he asked without looking back at Clint.

"Oh, sure," Clint said, already nocking his arrow and then wincing when several more shots rang out, clanging against the wings, but Clint knew just by watching Sam back up that the Winter Soldier was getting closer and closer with every shot.

"I need a clear shot," Clint said.

"Absolutely not."

"Just one."

"Absolutely not."

"Would you trust me?"

"To get yourself killed?"

"Sam!"

"Fine!" Sam sounded stressed, and Clint had a feeling he only agreed because the Winter Soldier was getting steadily closer. The rest of the Hydra troops were rushing into the building, ignoring the showdown between the three of them and trusting the Winter Soldier to get the job done. He picked his wings up just a bit on the side, and Clint didn't even worry about lining up his shot too perfect; he only cared about making sure the guy hadn't moved.

Clint let loose the putty arrow, and he heard the shot go off. He knew he'd been hit because he could hear Sam swearing, but it still took him several seconds to process it, especially since Sam grabbed him and immediately took to the sky when it happened.

But, hey, the Winter Soldier was pinned down so they could escape with their lives, and that was good, right?

Yeah, he was going to pass out now.

….

The stress Natasha felt when Clint went quiet was exactly why she had gone for so long trying not to be tied down to anything or anyone. It was distracting, and it was exactly not what she needed in that moment.

"Sam's got him," Steve said, helpfully, a second after he caught his shield after it bounced around several soldiers and came back to him.

"I know," she said and shot several more Hydra soldiers. She narrowed her eyes, a plan forming in the back of her mind. "I need a path."

"Widow—"

"Path, Rogers. Now."

Steve let both of his shoulders drop, sighed, and looked around the corner to assess the situation again. If they were out in the open, this would have been an easier ask, but they'd been invaded in their own home, which meant they were fighting using doorways and the hallway between rooms as cover. Still, Natasha could see him doing some calculations before he turned back to her and nodded. "Where do you need to go?"

"Thor's room. I need the vantage point."

"Okay. I can do that."

She gave him the warmest smile she could muster in the situation. "Thanks."

Almost as if they'd rehearsed it, the two of them went into motion. He threw the shield ahead of her, and she did her best to track it, following the angles of each ricochet. And to Steve's credit, she only had to shoot four soldiers on her way down the hallway, which meant she was able to preserve her momentum once she got to Thor's room and crashed through the window.

As soon as she was outside, she turned and fired the gadget Tony had just finished designing for her. She had something like this before, but the wire itself had some kind of technology in it that absorbed the shock when the grappling drill was solid, so that her body wasn't immediately wrenched or contorted. It smoothed out her ascent, allowing her to easily look for threats—or allies.

She relaxed slightly when she saw Sam flying with Clint. She didn't like that she could tell, even from this distance, that her partner was unconscious and bleeding. But Sam was getting them out of the line of fire, and that was a better position than they'd had before. She'd take what she could get, really.

She wrenched her attention from Sam and Clint and glanced below her. She could see the smoke and chaos at several points around the tower showing where Hydra had forced themselves inside, but she could also see the tower's automatic defenses causing problems for some of the Hydra vehicles, and she could see where the Hulk had emerged—recently, if the amount of rubble and dust in the air was any indication—to deal with the problem as well.

And then, she heard the crackling of thunder overhead. Thor hadn't been in his room, so she knew he was somewhere, but it was still something else to watch lightning come out of nowhere and focus down on a single point on the grounds. Seconds later, Natasha's ears rang with thunder, and she had to blink away spots in her eyes as she watched about twenty soldiers drop, electrocuted in seconds.

She was still getting used to having such powerful allies now that she was an Avenger.

She allowed herself a few seconds to catch her breath after that lightning strike, but she was still searching the ground. Based on Sam's trajectory and where Clint's room was… There. She couldn't help but smile when she saw the mess Clint had left for them. The Winter Soldier might have been a super soldier, but he was still struggling to get himself out of the putty Clint had shot at him. He was already mostly free, but Clint had bought them precious seconds.

"Steve, I see him. Get here now," she called out, unloading her sidearm. She didn't take any head shots. She had good aim. And from what she'd seen, his uniform would take most of the damage. But that didn't mean it felt good, and whatever she could do to slow him down would make him easier for Steve to stop.

Most of what she had was only good at a short range, and she was just cursing her lack of options from that high up when she heard the telltale whine of one of Tony's suits and looked over her shoulder to see him there beside her in the air. His armor was smoking in some places and dented in others, obviously showing the wear and tear of the fight. But she could hear the grin in his voice as he held a hand out to her.

"Want a lift?"

"Took you long enough," she said, taking his hand to let him carry her, knowing his armor would shield her from the soldiers on the ground who definitely hadn't missed the assassin hanging on the side of the building.

"Had to make sure Pepper was okay."

"Fair."

"Speaking of. How's yours doing?"

Natasha couldn't twist to glare at him properly. "Stark…"

"Hey, deny it all you like—"

"I'm not delusional enough to think you haven't put together what's going on. He's fine. Sam has him. This isn't the time."

"Right, right. Compartmentalization."

She shook her head at him. But since his body was between her and the ground, she had to ask him for information. "Is Steve down there yet?"

Tony glanced down. "Yeah."

"Then put me down and go help him."

"You sure?"

"That's his best friend."

There was enough of a pause after that statement that Natasha raised an eyebrow and almost said something about jealousy. But instead, she held her tongue and waited for Tony to put her back in the tower, watching just long enough to see that Steve had backup before she turned and sprinted back into the tower.

Someone had to do the hard work of cleaning out the rest of the Hydra infestation. Steve could handle himself.