Thaw (13/13)
17 Aug 2013 16:36![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
domarzione67K in five weeks. Not bad?
Thaw
Avengers/Captain America mashup; Clint Barton POV
Genfic; PG-13-ish
Summary: The Winter Soldier was the dog that ate the good guys' homework during the Cold War, a convenient bogeyman to explain failure, and Clint Barton was pretty sure those tall tales died with the fall of the Wall. But reality is stranger than fiction, something Clint really shouldn't be as surprised by as he is at this stage of his career, and now there are ghosts to chase once more.
Notes: Thaw is a sequel to Freezer Burn plotwise and a successor to BOHICA in terms of characterizations. Neither is required reading for this. However, I do recommend reading the post-credit scene to FB to establish the Winter Soldier within the context of this universe, which is compliant with Phase One movies but diverges afterward.
While he had tried not to make a habit of it, over the course of his career, Clint had become something of an expert at confinement. The worst in terms of accommodation had been the long two days he'd spent in a cell the size of a coffin in Chad, the best by far had been Leavenworth, although that had been the worst for many other reasons. His cell here in Castle Doom was closer to the latter than the former in terms of comfort -- space to move around, quite clean actually, a real bed. But it was still a prison cell and Latveria was not a place one wanted to be on the wrong side of the law.
He'd come to on the bed a few hours ago, stripped of his gear but not his clothes, with a headache but no concussion symptoms. He'd had time to take a tour of his cell, which was really just a windowless room and nothing with bars or chains, by the time two guards had shown up with a tray of food. It had been 0830 according to his watch and breakfast had been generous and edible and had come with strong coffee and nothing that would require silverware. The guards didn't speak while they watched him eat and Clint didn't bother asking them anything. The scene was repeated at 1230 and then again at 1930, except that lunch came with a copy of the Times of Latveria and dinner with a guard telling him in a thick accent that he would be seeing Prince Victor shortly. It was, in fact, a restful day during which Clint napped and exercised between his meals and tried to teach himself a little Latverian from the newspaper's language section. He wasn't not worried -- he was fucking terrified -- but he'd long ago learned how to manage that particular terror and make the most of whatever respite could be found. This was just another battlefield in the war and Clint could treat it as such. He wasn't going to be here long, no matter how it played out.
Shortly turned out to be 2200, when the heavy wooden door opened and six soldiers came in. One, in poor English, told him to get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, which he did because there were five rifles pointed at his chest. He was shackled from behind at the wrists and ankles with a connecting chain between them, which was going to make it difficult to walk without tripping over himself, let alone trying to escape. But Leavenworth had taught him how to shuffle in chains, so he managed well enough except on the stairs where he ended up with two of his guard grabbing him under the armpits and half-lifting him. They were professional, his guard, no little pokes or indignities, no trying to trip him when he would not be able to break his fall, no taunts or name-calling or passive-aggressive shit. He did not confuse this with respect or with any dim chance that he was not headed for a very bad time and, quite likely, a very bad ending.
He was not led up to the private apartments, nor out to the throne room. They skirted the public spaces, even though there would be no civilian witnesses at this hour, and went into the administrative wing, then down a flight of stairs that required another semi-lift, then down a hallway that led to a pair of heavy wooden doors with black iron rings for handles. Very medieval and Clint was sure it was intentional.
The doors were thrown open after a knock, but instead of some torch-lit cavern, it was simply a large room with desks and computers in one corner and a wooden throne at the far end bracketed by the Latverian flag and a flag with the Doom family crest. Sitting on the throne was Victor von Doom, not looking like a monarch from the fairy tales, but instead like an administrator annoyed at having to work late. Doom was in his early fifties but looked younger, although the serious expression he wore now didn't help with that. He was wearing slacks and an oxford unbuttoned at the top with his undone tie hanging around his neck and his posture was at ease without being relaxed. Secure, Clint realized. Secure in his power and his authority and his plans.
The phalanx of guards stopped a few feet from the throne and forced Clint to his knees hard, which fucking hurt because the carpet wasn't thick enough to buffet the collision of kneecaps on stone floor. They stepped back and Clint rolled his shoulders and did his best to fiddle with the hobble chain that connected his wrists and ankles so that it wasn't twisted around his right leg.
"Where is the shipment you stole from me?"
Clint blinked because he'd almost forgotten about that in the wake of everything that had come after. "It wasn't really yours, was it?"
Doom frowned at him, as if expecting a better repartee, which was just poor research on his part because Clint was a man of action, not a man of banter. "I paid for it. Quite a lot, actually."
"Take it up with Fury," Clint replied, shrugging. The chains tinkled with the motion. They tinkled again when one of the soldiers kicked him hard in the right kidney, driving him forehead-first into the ground. He took measured breaths between gritted teeth to work through the pain and then forced himself back up into a kneel and held his head up high.
"You are here as Fury's proxy," Doom continued in his calm voice once Clint looked up at him again. "Why did he send you?"
Clint couldn't help but laugh, which earned him another kick to the same kidney and this time, he landed on the side of his face, not quite as able to regain his center. A guard pulled him up by his hair before the worst of the pain passed and yanked his head back so that he was facing Doom. He closed his eyes to try to get his body back under control and the soldier shook his head sharply until he opened his eyes again. They were watering, but he did.
"You've been stockpiling HYDRA weapons," he gritted out. Telling Doom that Fury was currently shitting housebricks because Clint was in Latveria would have been pointless. "What the hell did you think Fury was going to do?"
The kick came to his lower back this time, the soldier letting go of his hair so that he could faceplant on the carpet and then be forced flat by a boot between his shoulder blades. He had to twist awkwardly to free the hobble chain enough to get his feet to the ground so that he wasn't lying there like a pig trussed for a luau.
"This is supposed to make me afraid?" Doom asked, mildly amused. Clint wasn't sure whether or not he would have preferred a villainous cackle. He definitely would have preferred Steve turning up at this point and knocking the boot off his back with a well-timed toss of the shield, but he didn't even know if Steve was at large or in another cell. Doom hadn't mentioned Natasha yet, either.
"I think the owner of the other thing that doesn't belong to you will do a good job of that," Clint said. He couldn't speak very loudly with his lungs being compressed by the boot on his back and his cheek resting on the ground, but he knew Doom heard him. "You can put me on the floor with a boot, but it won't be so easy with a god."
He was yanked up suddenly, pulled to his knees and held by a firm grasp on his right shoulder. Doom leaned forward so that they were a little closer in eye-level.
"Let them come," Doom told him with a calm smile. "The more, the merrier. Latveria shall triumph over all and show the world her true strength and glory."
And that's when Clint realized what the whole plan really was. This was why Doom had been taunting Steve. Where Captain America went, the rest of them followed like marionettes tied up in each other's strings. Doom could take on the Avengers, take on SHIELD, and by proxy the US, the global hyperpower, with the Tesseract. And he would probably win, which would make himself -- and Latveria -- a force to be reckoned with and no longer at risk of economic domination by the EU or military threats from Russia. Clint was here to be the OPFOR in a carefully managed exercise where the 'good guys' were guaranteed a win.
Doom sat back and smiled at Clint like a teacher pleased that his pupil had figured out the lesson on his own. A subtle hand gesture and Clint was dragged to his feet. He moaned involuntarily as his side protested.
"You've been found guilty of espionage, by the way," Doom told him, like it was an afterthought. "Your execution will be scheduled shortly."
And with that, he was escorted back to his cell to pass an uncomfortable night, undisturbed by visitors but plagued by nightmares and physical pain. He didn't dream about an upcoming execution, but instead of past misadventures and a cobalt-blue haze. He pissed blood, which wasn't a surprise, but only once, which was okay. Lying in bed trying to find a comfortable position, he reviewed the interview and considered what had been revealed -- interrogations worked both ways like that. It had been well-played by Doom, who'd all but handed him the master plan because it was harmless for him to know, but had kept the details that would matter -- what Natasha had said or done, whether Steve had been captured, whether there'd been any response from SHIELD -- to himself. SHIELD would come, of that Clint was as sure as Doom. Fury would be fucking pissed, but between the HYDRA weapons, the missing Avengers, and the Tesseract, he would be forced into action. And Doom would be waiting for them.
Clint dozed on and off and had managed to finally drop off when he was woken up by the guards bringing him breakfast at 0830. He ate it wrapped in a sheet because he'd rinsed out his underwear and undershirt before going to bed in the buff -- four days in the same pair of shorts was enough. He checked them after the guards left with his tray and they were still a little damp, so he figured he'd continue his toga party until lunch or his next royal audience, whichever came first. He considered asking for a razor, which would either provide amusement because he couldn't even get a knife with his meals or would let him get rid of the itchy scruff. He didn't mind the beard once it grew in -- he'd had to do it often enough as a Middle East specialist -- but the getting there was its own kind of torture.
He did not get a chance to ask for a razor at lunch because there was no lunch. At 1045 he heard the lock on his door turn and then the door opened. Steve appeared, shield in one hand, Clint's quiver and bow in the other, and a hilarious expression on his face because he probably hadn't expected to find Clint sitting naked in bed wrapped in a sheet like a courtesan.
"You feel like getting dressed and getting out of here?" Steve asked, making it sound like a real question that Clint would have to consider.
"I dunno," Clint replied, scratching at his cheek as he untangled himself from his toga and went over to where he'd left his clothes hanging by the sink. "The food's pretty good, although the view sucks."
Steve frowned when he saw the bruising on Clint's side and back. "How bad?"
"I'm not passing blood anymore," Clint answered after he got his head through his undershirt. "I'll be sore, but I'll be fine."
Steve tossed him the quiver and bow once he stood up from tying his boots and they were off. Clint had been surprised that there'd been no alarms blaring while he'd been getting dressed and no soldiers running for them, but once they got out into the hall, the question answered itself.
Steve had littered the ground with LDF troops; it looked like a mass casualty drill from his Army days.
"You leave anyone for Natasha?" Clint asked as they walked quickly past some of the fallen men. "She's probably going to be in the mood for a melee. You know how she gets when she's been cooped up."
He bent down -- oww -- to pick up a couple of Gorisecs not currently needed by their owners.
"There'll be more," Steve assured darkly, holding up a fist to get Clint to stop behind him. He slipped the shield free and then stepped back to throw it. Clint heard the sound of the shield making contact with flesh and bone and then the sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Steve gestured and they moved again, Steve retrieving the shield off the ground without breaking stride. Clint picked up a couple more Gorisecs so that Natasha couldn't say he'd never given her anything nice.
Natasha was dressed and in good condition when they found her, which was for the best because Steve had been right and there were more LDF soldiers on the way. Not a lot, though, not like the swarm from last night and, thank christ, no more gas grenades. After dealing with them, they followed Steve into a stairwell and then up four flights to ground level, where they had to wait for a tour group to pass by because they had apparently been underneath the public areas of the castle.
"How did you get out?" Clint asked while they waited, Steve watching through the window in the door and Natasha and Clint taking the up and down staircases respectively. "Or were you here the entire time?"
"I got out by accident," Steve admitted. "Just fought my way free of the gas and the soldiers and there was a window."
Which was a ridiculous oversimplification because they'd been underground and Clint had seen the destruction Steve was capable of rendering if motivated, but he let it pass.
"And I got in with a tour group," he went on. "I was the sole Frenchman in a group of Chinese tourists."
Steve spoke fluent idiomatic French, so it was a reasonable choice. And it wasn't really going to matter if they'd taken his picture -- Doom already knew he was around and would not be leaving his teammates to their fates.
"I'm assuming you don't want to tag along with the next tour so we can get out and get home," Natasha offered, not making it a question.
"The Tesseract is in Doom's apartment," Steve replied. "And Doom isn't in town today."
Clint spared a look over. "He kept the appointment in Dubrovnik?"
There'd been an item in the paper the guards had given him yesterday about a Balkans summit, a one-day event that Doom was going to with his foreign minister. "Do you know for sure that he went and it's not just a bluff? His whole grand plan kinda requires him to be here."
Clint explained what he'd figured out -- what Doom had told him. Natasha confirmed it; she'd gotten the same conclusions from her own interview. "Would he even leave the Tesseract behind?"
"I saw the footage of him walking off the plane on the news this morning," Steve answered, gesturing that Clint and Natasha join him on the landing because they could move through the door now. "He's only going to be there until this evening and I don't think he's expecting Fury to react so quickly. We're too close to not take the chance to look."
They went through the doorway, moving quickly and quietly down the stone-floored hallway and past the portraits and tapestries that lined it. They were in one of the arched hallways that ran alongside the throne room, on the opposite side of it from the museum, but you could cross over behind the massive throne room and past the pair of chapels. This hallway was served by a stairwell that led up to the levels with the private royal apartments, although the entrance to it was cordoned off and dire warning were attached to the door, presumably backed up by guards and fortifications on the upper end.
Definitely guarded, but Natasha and Steve took out the three guards without so much as a cry of surprise between them by the time Clint joined them on the landing. The door beyond them was locked, but the prone guards had keys and IDs to swipe and then they were in.
The royal apartments were just that, a mansion on one level with a gazillion bedrooms and galleries and libraries and hallways. There had been a map to look at back when they'd been planning the mission around Steve's dining table, but it had been outdated, before Victor had done his renovations once he'd taken over for his father. How much use it would be now was up for debate because they didn't know what Victor had done to the place.
The apartment would be unoccupied, at least. Victor had a wife and three children, but the family was currently in France; the Baroness Valeria was a native of Lyon and still had family there.
"His study's in the southeast corner," Steve said, pulling out an old fashioned pocket compass because that's how Steve rolled. "That way."
"How do you know where it is?" Natasha asked as she started walking in the direction Steve had indicated. Clint saw what she was doing -- taking point meant that she could dictate the pace and keep Steve from bounding ahead into trouble.
"I asked someone," Steve replied. "Very nicely."
Natasha looked over at Clint and he rolled his eyes because yes, this was the Cap they were going to have to deal with today.
Natasha led them through the kitchen and dining room, then paused. "Where is everyone? The family's gone but there should be a cook, a housekeeper, a maid, somebody."
If this were a trap, getting the civilians out of the way would be wise.
"Maybe they got the morning off?" Clint suggested. "Won't need the cook until Victor gets home and wants a late-night snack and even this place doesn't need dusting every day."
Natasha made a face that said that yeah, it was possible, but she didn't like it.
They proceeded more cautiously past what seemed to be a family room and then a room with a piano and books and couches and a harp before reaching the end of the hallway with two doors, both open. One that looked to be the entry to the master bedroom suite and the other Victor's study, judging by the books on the walls.
Natasha was heading for the study when Steve suddenly grabbed her and threw her against the wall with his right hand while holding up the shield with his left arm. Two bullets ricocheted off of the shield with dull pings and Steve went charging into the study. Clint raced after him, past the still-stunned Natasha, who quickly fell in behind him and then crashed into his back, accidentally ramming his bruised kidney with the Gorisec because he'd stopped so short. But it was all he could do to get out of the way as Steve and the Winter Soldier brawled like Ali-Frazier, grappling and punching their way across the large room.
The Winter Soldier had a reinforced case with a handle in his hand, presumably the Tesseract case, and was using it as a cudgel against Steve, who was using the shield only defensively and not as the true offensive weapon Clint knew it to be. He'd seen Captain America use that shield like a boomerang, like a club, like a crowbar, like a machete, and in one memorable experience, like a trebuchet. But that was the problem, Clint realized -- this wasn't Captain America fighting, this was Steve and Steve Rogers was not going to bludgeon his best friend from childhood into submission. No matter if that best friend from childhood was currently trying to kill him. The metal arm, terrible and fascinating up close, was such a weapon that the Winter Soldier had holstered his gun and was instead just raining blows down, sending sparks off of the shield where it hit and destroying everything else it came into contact with. The heavy wood desk crumpled like particleboard when a fist landed where Steve's head had been a heartbeat earlier.
And all the while, Steve was trying to reason with the Winter Soldier, with Bucky, and the Winter Soldier, who'd taken Yasha Yachmenev as a name because he remembered no other, was not inclined to listen.
"Will you shut the fuck up!" the Winter Soldier barked, each word punctuated by a smash of metal fist on shield.
"Barton, incoming," Natasha growled behind him, pulling at his arm to turn him around because the LDF had finally joined the action, coming down the hallway in attack formations and firing at the open study door. Natasha moved forward, to the doorway, and used it for cover as she fired back. Clint felt behind him for the gas arrow and popped in a tranquilizer cartridge before nocking and waiting, waiting, waiting until there were enough bodies in the hallway to make the shot worthwhile.
"Close the door," Clint ordered Natasha after he fired, not waiting to see the results. He knew he'd done what he'd set out to do. He looked over at Steve and the Winter Soldier, still struggling with the case. "Give it ten seconds."
Anyone who'd not gotten a lungful would be at the door by then, everyone else would be zonked.
"Enough of this shit," he muttered as he watched the two men fight. Steve was pressed up against the built-in bookshelves, the shield protecting his torso as the Winter Soldier tried to push them both through the bookshelf and keep the case out of Steve's hand. Clint raised one of the Gorisecs hanging by its strap over his shoulder and aimed for the Winter Soldier's metal arm by the shoulder -- regardless of his current predicament, Steve would not forgive Clint for a shot that resulted in a serious wound. But Clint was pretty sure the arm was bulletproof and he needed to distract the Winter Soldier so Steve could get free, if not actually gain the upper hand without assistance.
In the heartbeat between when Clint fired and when the bullet should have pinged off of the Winter Soldier's metal deltoid, the man grabbed Steve and turned them both, forcing Steve to raise the shield or be hit himself. With a final shove of Steve toward Clint, the Winter Soldier and his cargo made for the open window and jumped through it.
"Buck!" Steve shouted and ran right after him, not even sparing a backward glance. Or a forward glance, because the window was fifty feet up.
"Jesus Christ," Clint bit off in frustration, running to the window and watching Steve already rolling out of his landing and running after the Winter Soldier. They were in the private gardens, a quieter counterpart to the Versailles-like public ones past the stone castle walls. There was no way out of the garden except to scale the wall or go back into the castle through a single entrance, which Steve seemed to realize because he was moving to block the path to it.
Natasha exhaled loudly in frustration as she surveyed the scene below. "It's too far for me to jump," she said, eyes still on the scene below, where Steve and the Winter Soldier were facing off a few feet apart, Steve blocking the way and the Winter Soldier looking like he was still deciding whether to bull his way past or pull out his gun and blast his way through. "Hopefully, they'll wait."
With that, she started running for the door, reading both Gorisecs in case she had to shoot her way through to the stairs. Clint returned his attention to the window even though he heard shots fired, but only a couple of bursts and they weren't very close. Natasha was probably down the stairs already. Clint nocked a paralytic arrow and followed the Winter Soldier through his sight, but he didn't fire. Steve was holding his own and, if Clint could, he would let Steve do what he needed to do to get this done. Getting the Tesseract was only part of the mission as far as Steve went and Clint was willing to give him as much rope as he could to accomplish that. Including continuing to shoot to disarm.
Because of the acoustics of the castle and the walls, the noises from down below canyoned up pretty clearly and Clint could hear everything. Right now, it was a lot of cursing on the Winter Soldier's part and calm pleading on Steve's part and, thankfully, no shouts of Latverian guards on approach. Clint was pretty sure he'd be left alone where he was; the action was down below and they'd taken care of most of the castle guards and whoever else was up here had presumably followed Natasha downstairs. Reinforcements would need to clear the palace of civilians -- and tourists -- before doing anything. Doom's plan to embarrass the Avengers in defeat needed witnesses, but the world would look much less hostilely upon Latverian forces that had defended their royal palace from invasion if there wasn't a lot of collateral damage and it would be hard to pin the deaths on Captain America.
"...we fought bullies in Brooklyn and Nazis in France and this isn't what we do, Buck. This isn't what you do. Remember who you are."
The Winter Soldier's expression clearly stated just how tired of this bullshit he was and how little any of of what Steve had been saying resonated with him. "What the hell are you going on about? This is exactly what I do. Very well."
And then he ran at Steve, leading with the metal arm and even though Steve got the shield up in time, it still staggered him backward and as he threw his arms out to regain his balance, the Winter Soldier pulled out his pistol and Clint raised the quiver. It would be a difficult shot; the metal arm was facing him, he didn't have a clear angle at any soft flesh, and a head shot would be fatal no matter what kind of arrow tip he had.
"I don't know who you think I am and I don't give a fuck. You are in my way." And with that he raised the pistol and aimed it at Steve.
"James! No!" Natasha shouted, appearing out of Clint's peripheral vision and running toward the men. The Winter Soldier stepped back, out of Steve's range to knock the pistol away without taking a step forward, and then he pointed the gun at Natasha to halt her before returning it to Steve's direction.
Clint had had a shot while the Winter Soldier had been turned toward Natasha, but right now, he was back to nothing. He sheathed the paralytic arrow back in the quiver and pulled out a standard tip; with both Steve and Natasha down there, Clint's ability to respect Steve's wishes should the situation devolve was rapidly diminishing.
And then it didn't just devolve, it disintegrated.
Steve let his shield arm drop, then he went to his knees. He held his head up and looked squarely at the Winter Soldier and waited. "If you really don't know me, if this is truly who you are now, if I am just a roadblock to you, then do it. Do what you need to do."
"Jesus fuck, Steve," Clint sighed and raised the arrow and put his eye to his sight. Because Steve might hope he was talking to James Barnes, but it was the Winter Soldier holding the gun aimed at his forehead. Steve might wish that this would jar Barnes's memories free somehow, but Clint accepted the evidence as it has been presented this afternoon and knew better, knew from the memories he repressed as hard as he could that even if Barnes were rattling around in there somewhere, it wouldn't matter. He loosed an arrow that bounced off of the Winter Soldier's metal hand, but with enough power to force the bullet wide. Because the Winter Soldier had indeed fired.
The tableau below him was frozen for a long moment -- the Winter Soldier couldn't believe he had missed, Steve couldn't believe he had taken the shot, and Natasha was too far away to have an immediate impact except by shouting but she, too, was stunned in place.
Who wasn't stunned in place were fresh reinforcements coming through the royal apartments; the LDF had finally counted the Avengers in the backyard and realized that they were one short. Clint looked out to see if there was something, anything he could aim the grappling arrow at and hope it would stick. The castle walls were too far away, as was the other wing of the palace itself, and nothing else was high enough.
With no other choices other than fighting his way through -- and that would take too long -- he nocked the grappling arrow and leaned out the window, aiming it at another window on the same level, one of the ones from the master bedroom suite. He fired, waited until he could feel some tension on the line, and then jumped just as the first bullets started hitting the bookshelves around him. He was more George of the Jungle than Tarzan as he swung wildly out and then used his wrist guards as a friction guard and slid down the rope. The grapple slipped free halfway and he ended up falling the last fifteen or so feet. He rolled out of it well enough, although his side was hurting badly enough to see stars, and ran toward Natasha, stumbling on the first step because his right leg gave way under the sharp pain in his side.
"I totally meant to do that," he huffed when he joined Natasha, who was running after Steve, who in turn was running after the Winter Soldier, who looked to be making for the castle walls, although Clint couldn't imagine why. He would have to scale the high walls with one hand holding the Tesseract case.
The nearly-getting-his head-blown-off thing apparently had shaken a few scales from Steve's eyes and he flung the shield for the first time against the Winter Soldier, hitting him in the back and sending him ass over teakettle and the Tesseract case flying.
Clint had his bow up because the Winter Soldier came out of his roll with pistols in both hands, but his focus wasn't all on the guns because the blue glow of the exposed Tesseract drew him with an almost physical force. It sickened him, but he couldn't look away. It was like a heroin addict facing a mountain of horse.
"Barton," Natasha hissed and Clint closed his eyes and reopened them to see the Winter Soldier pointing one gun at Steve and the other at Natasha.
"James, please," Natasha begged in English. "There's more going on here than you know. Let me help you. Please."
The Winter Soldier laughed and replied in Russian that their time for helping each other was over and he had already paid her back for services rendered. His tone made it clear exactly what services he was talking about and it was obviously meant to wound. Natasha hid it well, but Clint knew it had struck home and the Winter Soldier knew it, too.
But Natasha recovered quickly. "You can be an idiot on your own time. This is work," she spat back and from the cadence it sounded like she was quoting someone and she might well have been because the Winter Soldier frowned at her. But then, without turning his head, he fired three shots at Steve, who had been edging closer toward where the Tesseract lay.
Steve deflected them with the shield, hiding behind it as he lept, coming down by the case and the blue glow disappeared behind it, but only for a moment because Steve had the fucking thing in his bare hand and he was looking straight at the Winter Soldier.
"Remember who you are."
There was a flash of light like lightning and, for a split second, Clint wondered if Thor had returned to take back what was his. But when his vision cleared, Thor was nowhere around and the Winter Soldier was five feet from where he had been standing, on his knees and breathing hard. Hyperventilating Clint realized, seeing the terror and confusion in the other man's eyes that he recognized all too viscerally himself. And the nausea, too, because the next thing that happened was the Winter Soldier -- Barnes -- on his hands and knees puking.
Steve started to move toward him, Tesseract in his hand, but froze. "Buck?"
There was such hope in his voice, such fear, and Clint could see a million emotions flitting across Steve's face, but he couldn't pay more attention to that now, however much he wanted to. They were now surrounded by LDF troops, none of whom seem inclined to move at the moment, granted, because this was probably even more confusing without context or subtitles. But that wouldn't last.
"Nat?" he called over quietly, but she was as transfixed as they were.
Barnes gasped loudly, a miserable moan of pain that seemed to make Clint's chest vibrate and he realized -- accepted -- how near the end of his own supply of cope he was getting. How near he had probably been for a while. As if last night's blue-tinted dreams hadn't been enough of a warning. He'd spent the entire run up to the mission and then the mission itself worrying about the details, about Steve and Natasha and how they were or weren't dealing and what kinds of stupid shit could come out of that, about whether he would survive his Latverian captivity, about getting everyone home. And he had pointedly not thought about his own history with the Tesseract or how frequent the dreams of being back under Loki's control still were, or about how everything about this mission was building to recreate all of those memories brick by bloodstained brick. Because here he was, feeling the Tesseract pull at him like a magnet and watching someone wake up from a nightmare that still made him sick to his stomach (and it had only been weeks for him compared to Barnes's decades). He had had enough, he decided, and for a moment he deeply resented having to be the only one with the sense and capacity to pay attention to their fucking surroundings.
"Natochka," he hissed louder and there was an edge to his voice, one he hadn't intended to put there but one she heard nonetheless.
She shook herself free. "Shit," she muttered as she looked around. She looked over at Clint, frowning for a moment and Clint wondered what the hell was on his face, and she nodded; she'd play her part in their defense if the soldiers started to close in.
Steve, meanwhile, had crept closer to Barnes, crouching down next to where he had moved away from his sick. But Barnes pushed him away hard with his metal arm and an anguished shout.
Steve lost his balance and the Tesseract, but got back to his feet right away, leaving the Tesseract where it was and keeping his eyes on Barnes.
"Did you know, Natalia?" Barnes asked in a hollow voice, still looking at the ground. "Did you know then?"
She shook her head no, then realized he wouldn't see her. "No. No."
Behind Clint, the soldiers were muttering among themselves, clearly unsure of what they were supposed to be doing because they recognized the Winter Soldier as one of their own, but he wasn't killing the bad guys and so maybe they should. It would have been good if Clint had any useful Latverian, but the odds of getting Natasha to translate now were between slim and none. He turned to face the ring of soldiers, though, hands on the Gorisec because he'd need that more than the arrows at such a numerical disadvantage. He couldn't understand their words, but he could still read their body language clear as day.
"You should have let your friends kill me," Barnes said flatly behind him.
"No!" Steve barked out and Clint looked back over his shoulder. Steve might have been protesting the statement, but he was also yelling at Barnes because Barnes had picked up the Tesseract and was holding it in his metal hand, watching it with fascination. Clint felt sick all over again.
"This thing was the start of it. You know that, Steve?" Barnes asked, looking over at Steve. "For Schmidt, for me..."
"Your start was at St. Vincent's," Steve corrected firmly. "You didn't move to Brooklyn until you were two. I used to say that you were born a Giants fan and you would hit me every time I did until the other kids started hitting me and then you started hitting them instead."
Barnes tried to smile, but it didn't get very far and then it disappeared. "That guy is dead. Schmidt killed him. Karpov killed him. Lukin killed him. I killed him."
"No you didn't."
"I killed a lot of people, Steve. Do you have any idea how many? Do you have any idea of what I've done?" It came out wretched and angry and disgusted and Clint tensed because it had been so full of self-loathing that he was pretty sure that Barnes was about to do something stupid and neither Steve nor Natasha would be able to stop him.
After Natasha had bested him and brought him back, Clint had been kept in a locked room with nothing he could hurt himself at his fingertips -- a suicide watch he hadn't recognized as such at the time, seeing only the precautions necessary in case he had still been Loki's slave. But Barnes wasn't somewhere safe and protected, he was holding the fucking Tesseract in the middle of a battlefield.
"I've seen the files, yeah," Steve replied, taking a small step toward Barnes and then stopping. Edging closer. "But that wasn't you."
Clint had heard that plenty of times, too, and, years later, he still didn't believe it. He understood Barnes's dismissive snort for what it was.
"It--"
"Bullshit," Steve cut him off.
Clint allowed himself to be amused that Barnes seemed as startled by Steve cursing as he was.
"I don't care whose finger was on the trigger when it was pulled," Steve went on. "It wasn't you where it counted. I know you. I will always know you. Even when you don't know yourself. You are a good man who was forced to do terrible things."
Clint knew what Steve was offering here, knew what kind of lifeline Steve's faith, his grace in the face of your sins, could be. He hadn't understood why it had been offered to him after Loki's control had been broken, but he had clung desperately then. And he remembered how relieved he was to realize that it had still been there for him after the thing with Natasha when everyone else had abandoned him or thought he'd betrayed them or worse. He knew how important it was to Natasha to get it back after she'd fled SHIELD in disgrace. It was possibly the most powerful thing about Steve and Clint knew that James Barnes, as addled as he was right now, knew it, too, because because he'd felt it first, before Steve had had any kind of physical power to distract from what came out of his heart.
But that had been a long time ago and all they could do now was hope that Barnes remembered it well enough to pull him back from whatever dumb thing he was about to do.
There were tears running down Barnes's cheeks.
"James," Natasha whispered and Clint looked over at her. There were tears in her eyes, too.
Barnes looked over at her and saw something that made him turn away in pain. In shame.
The soldiers surrounding them were moving and Clint switched his attention back to them. They were organizing into a formation that was less a semi-circular firing squad and more of an effective line against the bad guys. Who in this case were actually the good guys. Clint whistled over at Natasha and gestured with his head once he got her attention, which required a second attempt. She nodded after a long moment and started to move slowly to her left as Clint shifted a little to the right, not enough to draw the soldiers' attention as a concern, but enough to put the two of them in a better position to return fire effectively. His new position let him watch both the drama and the soldiers, since turning his back on the Tesseract didn't actually make its call to him any quieter.
"Have I ever lied to you, Buck?" Steve asked and Clint could hear that Steve recognized the precipice they were standing on.
Another half-smile warped by pain from Barnes, accompanied by a cocked eyebrow of disbelief. "All the time."
Steve rolled his eyes, which got something that might've been a laugh out of Barnes.
"Not about important stuff. This is important. The Winter Soldier wasn't you. It was someone wearing your face and, God, I'm sorry for that. But it wasn't you."
Barnes shook his head. "I still have to look at the face in the mirror, Steve. And I don't think I can."
"Then don't use a mirror," Steve exhorted. "You can shave without one. The razors now are all baby-proofed."
Barnes was looking at Steve like he wanted to laugh for real, like he wanted to believe that it could be that easy, but he couldn't believe that and, right then, Clint knew that Barnes was going to let go of the lifeline of Steve's unwavering faith. He's seen enough men broken by deed or circumstance to be able to recognize the look of someone for whom death was a means to a better end. Or simply a relief. He had been pulled back from that, distracted with a bigger fight until the one in his own heart and mind had resolved itself peacefully. But they couldn't do that for Barnes here. And so Clint was left praying that Barnes didn't take the rest of them with him when the moment came. But it would come.
The Latverians expedited things, probably accidentally in light of what came after. One of them called out something that was directed to the Winter Soldier, not really understanding that that man didn't exist anymore. Except then he did, Barnes's face growing cold and emotionless and Clint stopped looking at it or at the LDF audience because the Tesseract was glowing brighter and the siren's call in Clint's head was growing louder until it became a shout.
"Buck, no!"
But the Tesseract's glow grew brighter still until it whited everything out and then there was an explosion, the blast wave knocking Clint down hard enough to stun. When he shook it off enough to be able to look around, everyone else was down, too, like bowling pins, except for Steve who was standing and looking around frantically. But Clint knew from the lack of buzz at the base of his head that Steve wouldn't find what he was searching for.
Barnes and the Tesseract were gone.
The scene reset with depressing speed and Clint, Natasha, and Steve found themselves back to back to back surrounded by dozens of LDF troops. Clint hoped that they were still supposed to be taken alive to be hung on television because otherwise, they were kinda fucked.
BZAKKK
A blast from the sky startled everyone, including Clint.
"Am I late to the party?" Iron Man asked cheerfully. "Wait, that makes no sense. I can't be late to the party. The party doesn't start until I get here."
Tony was hovering on high and putting on a show, but it was a diversion because he he wasn't alone. A pair of quinjets were descending for unloading behind the ring of LDF troops, who were content to start firing at Iron Man, oblivious to the danger behind them until it was too late.
Steve took advantage of the distraction and threw the shield and Natasha swung into action and Clint pulled out the taser net arrow (contained and subdued at once!) and the battle quickly became comfortable in its familiarity. And in its conclusion.
"Where's Barnes?" Tony asked, landing near Clint once the rout had been thoroughly completed. "And the Tesseract?"
"Gone," Clint replied, looking over to where Steve was standing, rubbing his free hand over his face and looking around. He looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach, metaphorically at least because the real thing wouldn't leave him looking so devastated.
"Right," Tony sighed, following Clint's gaze. "You think he'll let us pay him back?"
Clint didn't know the answer and Tony didn't stick around for one, going over toward Steve, who was putting on his brave Captain America face and Clint wondered how Steve thought that anyone who knew him would buy it.
Corrales was easier to find than Natasha, whom Clint was pretty sure was avoiding him because she was probably as emotionally naked as Steve right now.
"You're not in the brig," Clint greeted him. "You did better than I did."
Corrales wasn't blind to what's going on, either, but gracefully chose to instead focus on the actual matter at hand. "Not guilty by reason of insanity-by-osmosis," he replied with a shrug. "And then I was told that I got you into this mess, so I can damned well get you out."
The escape out of Latveria was a little hairier than the fight in the garden because the Latverian Air Force had had time to arm fully before mobilizing. The quinjets had to fly like bats out of hell until they joined up with the fighter jet escort back to the Helicarrier, which was over the northern tip of Italy.
Steve dozed on the flight -- or he was pretending he was, which was more likely because despite him being up for most of the past week with very little down time, he'd just found and then lost his best friend all over again. They left him be, even Tony, who chose to make Corrales's team his audience. Clint sat next to Natasha, who was not saying anything to anyone, and if she leaned on his shoulder a little, he wasn't going to say a word. He could've maybe used the comfort of contact himself.
When they landed aboard the 'Carrier, Clint told Corrales to get Steve and Natasha out of sight and then marched up to Fury's office so that the man could have someone to shout at without making things worse.
Tony stopped him before he could reach the tower. "You want me to tag along?"
It was a generous offer as far as Tony went and, frankly, Clint could have used the support, but he shook his head no. "Fury yells at me differently than he yells at you. It'll go faster if I'm by myself."
Which was a half-truth because yes, what he'd said was true, but he just didn't want another witness to whatever he might say by accident. Tony didn't know him well enough to see that. Or maybe he did, since he gave Clint a cock-eyed look before nodding and staying put while Clint continued on.
Fury was spoiling for a fight, but Clint thought he was more angry for form's sake than anything else. Clint had too much history with the man to believe that Fury -- or Coulson -- was either surprised or disappointed at what happened, although they'd obviously wished for different results. Tapper, on the other hand, was angry for more than just form because he was the one who had been cut out of the loop and had to deal with the fallout and Clint couldn't entirely blame him. But he was wrung out himself, drained for far more than physical reasons, and he cut short Tapper's tirade with a ferocity that he'd probably have to apologize for later.
He went down to the Avengers team room and showered and shaved and changed, unwilling to go find a bed and rack out because as exhausted as he was, he knew what he'd dream of if he slept. He had no idea where Natasha was and if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. But Steve would be easier to locate, although whether he'd want company was a different story.
He felt a little selfish seeking out Steve to ease his own pain when the man had so much of his own right now, but there he was, sitting in the corner of a weight room with his fletching kit while Steve demolished heavy bag after heavy bag. They didn't talk, didn't acknowledge the other's presence, but Clint relaxed because he knew that while he might not be doing anything for Steve, at least he wasn't making it worse. And he wasn't sure if he had more than that to give right now.
Natasha showed up when Steve was on Bag #4 and set up in a different corner from Clint and started to clean her guns and her spider's bite bracelet. There was no talking, just three pockets of isolated dysfunction coexisting together and the sound of fists hitting the bag.
Tony showed up when Steve was exchanging the corpse of Bag #4 with its successor. He was in his civvies; the latest version of the Iron Man suit made getting in and out of it easy.
"Okay, pity party's over. Rogers, you have five minutes to shower and change," he announced, looking around the room. "Pepper will put up with a lot from you, but not body odor and it's still a long flight home. The rest of you will do as-is."
He waved his arms in exhortation when nobody moved. "Chop-chop, people!"
Clint looked over at Steve, who was still standing there with the heavy bag balanced between his feet. It was going to be his move. Or maybe it wasn't because Natasha finished putting together her bracelet and stood up. Her movement had attracted Steve's attention and she looked at him almost challengingly.
He sighed and put the bag on its hook, but then started unwrapping his hands. "Ten minutes," he said, then started walking toward the door, picking up his towel on the way.
"You, too, Robin Hood," Tony said once Steve had disappeared through the doorway.
"Coming," Clint said, voice a little ragged for having spent so much time shouting. Getting up hurt like a motherfucker; he'd managed to avoid getting sent down to Medical -- he'd need a check-up before he was returned to duty, but he'd be fine by then.
Tony thankfully did not require either entertainment or an audience for the flight back to New York, which was just as well because they all slept. Clint dreamed of storming the Helicarrier, Blue Nightmare #2, and woke himself up with a gasp. But everyone else, Tony included, was still out, so he closed his eyes again. Except then he felt Natasha's right hand on his left, a gentle squeeze, before he passed out again.
Pepper Potts was gracious and solicitous and very firmly determined to make sure none of them were left to their own thoughts too long -- she had had enough experience minding Tony that the rest of them were probably hardly an effort. Steve excused himself and went out on to the farthest part of the expansive balcony, out of sight unless you went to the glass doors to look. Which, of course, Tony did despite Pepper's telling him not to.
"Jarvis," Tony prompted, not budging from the door despite Pepper pulling at his elbow.
"Captain Rogers is speaking to Miss Carter," Jarvis reported.
That seemed to satisfy Tony, who let Pepper drag him back into the living room and was already on to his next topic of conversation. They were still watching the ad hoc presentation of his plans for a flying car -- Clint was arguing that convertibles were better in concept than execution for jet-powered flight -- when Steve returned, eyes bloodshot but body language much more relaxed.
"Is this for Christmas?" he asked, gesturing vaguely at the hologram as he sat down on the couch. "Because you missed my birthday."
Tony gave him a sour look. "I got you a great birthday present."
"You gave me a Roomba."
Steve's utter mystification over its function -- over its existence as a consumer-available product and not just for people like Tony -- had been hilarious to watch. And when the thing had started racing back and forth between rooms in manic fashion, Steve had turned it off and put it in a closet after first offering it to Clint, who hadn't needed it because he had a terrifying Polish lady who showed up every week.
"It's what every bachelor needs!" Tony protested.
"You should give it to Corrales," Natasha suggested. "He's got kids and pets."
Marcel-the-chef then announced dinner, despite the fact that it was five in the afternoon New York time. So they sat down to a meal that Clint realized most of the way through was simply a very gussied-up pot roast and noodles and fresh-baked bread and vegetables that he couldn't resist asking Steve to identify. "And don't tell me they're from the farmer's market."
Which in turn required explaining that context and, from there, things got easier. Not easy. Today -- this week -- would not be easy for a while. If ever.
Tony proposed a toast to James Barnes when the wine and cheese came out, but Steve objected to the "in memory of" part.
"I think he's still alive somewhere," he said quietly but firmly.
Clint looked over at Natasha. He'd known this would come up -- there'd been no body and they all knew what had happened with the Tesseract and the last guy who'd disappeared because of it.
"Like Schmidt? Because--"
"Not like Schmidt," Steve cut Tony off forcefully. "He'd never do that to anyone else, not after what he's been though. I don't know where he is, but..."
But he had to believe that James Barnes hadn't held a magic lamp in his hand and wished himself out of existence as penance for his sins.
"Maybe he is," Pepper said, not a trace of condescension in her voice. "And if he is, then I hope he can find his peace."
Thaw
Avengers/Captain America mashup; Clint Barton POV
Genfic; PG-13-ish
Summary: The Winter Soldier was the dog that ate the good guys' homework during the Cold War, a convenient bogeyman to explain failure, and Clint Barton was pretty sure those tall tales died with the fall of the Wall. But reality is stranger than fiction, something Clint really shouldn't be as surprised by as he is at this stage of his career, and now there are ghosts to chase once more.
Notes: Thaw is a sequel to Freezer Burn plotwise and a successor to BOHICA in terms of characterizations. Neither is required reading for this. However, I do recommend reading the post-credit scene to FB to establish the Winter Soldier within the context of this universe, which is compliant with Phase One movies but diverges afterward.
While he had tried not to make a habit of it, over the course of his career, Clint had become something of an expert at confinement. The worst in terms of accommodation had been the long two days he'd spent in a cell the size of a coffin in Chad, the best by far had been Leavenworth, although that had been the worst for many other reasons. His cell here in Castle Doom was closer to the latter than the former in terms of comfort -- space to move around, quite clean actually, a real bed. But it was still a prison cell and Latveria was not a place one wanted to be on the wrong side of the law.
He'd come to on the bed a few hours ago, stripped of his gear but not his clothes, with a headache but no concussion symptoms. He'd had time to take a tour of his cell, which was really just a windowless room and nothing with bars or chains, by the time two guards had shown up with a tray of food. It had been 0830 according to his watch and breakfast had been generous and edible and had come with strong coffee and nothing that would require silverware. The guards didn't speak while they watched him eat and Clint didn't bother asking them anything. The scene was repeated at 1230 and then again at 1930, except that lunch came with a copy of the Times of Latveria and dinner with a guard telling him in a thick accent that he would be seeing Prince Victor shortly. It was, in fact, a restful day during which Clint napped and exercised between his meals and tried to teach himself a little Latverian from the newspaper's language section. He wasn't not worried -- he was fucking terrified -- but he'd long ago learned how to manage that particular terror and make the most of whatever respite could be found. This was just another battlefield in the war and Clint could treat it as such. He wasn't going to be here long, no matter how it played out.
Shortly turned out to be 2200, when the heavy wooden door opened and six soldiers came in. One, in poor English, told him to get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, which he did because there were five rifles pointed at his chest. He was shackled from behind at the wrists and ankles with a connecting chain between them, which was going to make it difficult to walk without tripping over himself, let alone trying to escape. But Leavenworth had taught him how to shuffle in chains, so he managed well enough except on the stairs where he ended up with two of his guard grabbing him under the armpits and half-lifting him. They were professional, his guard, no little pokes or indignities, no trying to trip him when he would not be able to break his fall, no taunts or name-calling or passive-aggressive shit. He did not confuse this with respect or with any dim chance that he was not headed for a very bad time and, quite likely, a very bad ending.
He was not led up to the private apartments, nor out to the throne room. They skirted the public spaces, even though there would be no civilian witnesses at this hour, and went into the administrative wing, then down a flight of stairs that required another semi-lift, then down a hallway that led to a pair of heavy wooden doors with black iron rings for handles. Very medieval and Clint was sure it was intentional.
The doors were thrown open after a knock, but instead of some torch-lit cavern, it was simply a large room with desks and computers in one corner and a wooden throne at the far end bracketed by the Latverian flag and a flag with the Doom family crest. Sitting on the throne was Victor von Doom, not looking like a monarch from the fairy tales, but instead like an administrator annoyed at having to work late. Doom was in his early fifties but looked younger, although the serious expression he wore now didn't help with that. He was wearing slacks and an oxford unbuttoned at the top with his undone tie hanging around his neck and his posture was at ease without being relaxed. Secure, Clint realized. Secure in his power and his authority and his plans.
The phalanx of guards stopped a few feet from the throne and forced Clint to his knees hard, which fucking hurt because the carpet wasn't thick enough to buffet the collision of kneecaps on stone floor. They stepped back and Clint rolled his shoulders and did his best to fiddle with the hobble chain that connected his wrists and ankles so that it wasn't twisted around his right leg.
"Where is the shipment you stole from me?"
Clint blinked because he'd almost forgotten about that in the wake of everything that had come after. "It wasn't really yours, was it?"
Doom frowned at him, as if expecting a better repartee, which was just poor research on his part because Clint was a man of action, not a man of banter. "I paid for it. Quite a lot, actually."
"Take it up with Fury," Clint replied, shrugging. The chains tinkled with the motion. They tinkled again when one of the soldiers kicked him hard in the right kidney, driving him forehead-first into the ground. He took measured breaths between gritted teeth to work through the pain and then forced himself back up into a kneel and held his head up high.
"You are here as Fury's proxy," Doom continued in his calm voice once Clint looked up at him again. "Why did he send you?"
Clint couldn't help but laugh, which earned him another kick to the same kidney and this time, he landed on the side of his face, not quite as able to regain his center. A guard pulled him up by his hair before the worst of the pain passed and yanked his head back so that he was facing Doom. He closed his eyes to try to get his body back under control and the soldier shook his head sharply until he opened his eyes again. They were watering, but he did.
"You've been stockpiling HYDRA weapons," he gritted out. Telling Doom that Fury was currently shitting housebricks because Clint was in Latveria would have been pointless. "What the hell did you think Fury was going to do?"
The kick came to his lower back this time, the soldier letting go of his hair so that he could faceplant on the carpet and then be forced flat by a boot between his shoulder blades. He had to twist awkwardly to free the hobble chain enough to get his feet to the ground so that he wasn't lying there like a pig trussed for a luau.
"This is supposed to make me afraid?" Doom asked, mildly amused. Clint wasn't sure whether or not he would have preferred a villainous cackle. He definitely would have preferred Steve turning up at this point and knocking the boot off his back with a well-timed toss of the shield, but he didn't even know if Steve was at large or in another cell. Doom hadn't mentioned Natasha yet, either.
"I think the owner of the other thing that doesn't belong to you will do a good job of that," Clint said. He couldn't speak very loudly with his lungs being compressed by the boot on his back and his cheek resting on the ground, but he knew Doom heard him. "You can put me on the floor with a boot, but it won't be so easy with a god."
He was yanked up suddenly, pulled to his knees and held by a firm grasp on his right shoulder. Doom leaned forward so that they were a little closer in eye-level.
"Let them come," Doom told him with a calm smile. "The more, the merrier. Latveria shall triumph over all and show the world her true strength and glory."
And that's when Clint realized what the whole plan really was. This was why Doom had been taunting Steve. Where Captain America went, the rest of them followed like marionettes tied up in each other's strings. Doom could take on the Avengers, take on SHIELD, and by proxy the US, the global hyperpower, with the Tesseract. And he would probably win, which would make himself -- and Latveria -- a force to be reckoned with and no longer at risk of economic domination by the EU or military threats from Russia. Clint was here to be the OPFOR in a carefully managed exercise where the 'good guys' were guaranteed a win.
Doom sat back and smiled at Clint like a teacher pleased that his pupil had figured out the lesson on his own. A subtle hand gesture and Clint was dragged to his feet. He moaned involuntarily as his side protested.
"You've been found guilty of espionage, by the way," Doom told him, like it was an afterthought. "Your execution will be scheduled shortly."
And with that, he was escorted back to his cell to pass an uncomfortable night, undisturbed by visitors but plagued by nightmares and physical pain. He didn't dream about an upcoming execution, but instead of past misadventures and a cobalt-blue haze. He pissed blood, which wasn't a surprise, but only once, which was okay. Lying in bed trying to find a comfortable position, he reviewed the interview and considered what had been revealed -- interrogations worked both ways like that. It had been well-played by Doom, who'd all but handed him the master plan because it was harmless for him to know, but had kept the details that would matter -- what Natasha had said or done, whether Steve had been captured, whether there'd been any response from SHIELD -- to himself. SHIELD would come, of that Clint was as sure as Doom. Fury would be fucking pissed, but between the HYDRA weapons, the missing Avengers, and the Tesseract, he would be forced into action. And Doom would be waiting for them.
Clint dozed on and off and had managed to finally drop off when he was woken up by the guards bringing him breakfast at 0830. He ate it wrapped in a sheet because he'd rinsed out his underwear and undershirt before going to bed in the buff -- four days in the same pair of shorts was enough. He checked them after the guards left with his tray and they were still a little damp, so he figured he'd continue his toga party until lunch or his next royal audience, whichever came first. He considered asking for a razor, which would either provide amusement because he couldn't even get a knife with his meals or would let him get rid of the itchy scruff. He didn't mind the beard once it grew in -- he'd had to do it often enough as a Middle East specialist -- but the getting there was its own kind of torture.
He did not get a chance to ask for a razor at lunch because there was no lunch. At 1045 he heard the lock on his door turn and then the door opened. Steve appeared, shield in one hand, Clint's quiver and bow in the other, and a hilarious expression on his face because he probably hadn't expected to find Clint sitting naked in bed wrapped in a sheet like a courtesan.
"You feel like getting dressed and getting out of here?" Steve asked, making it sound like a real question that Clint would have to consider.
"I dunno," Clint replied, scratching at his cheek as he untangled himself from his toga and went over to where he'd left his clothes hanging by the sink. "The food's pretty good, although the view sucks."
Steve frowned when he saw the bruising on Clint's side and back. "How bad?"
"I'm not passing blood anymore," Clint answered after he got his head through his undershirt. "I'll be sore, but I'll be fine."
Steve tossed him the quiver and bow once he stood up from tying his boots and they were off. Clint had been surprised that there'd been no alarms blaring while he'd been getting dressed and no soldiers running for them, but once they got out into the hall, the question answered itself.
Steve had littered the ground with LDF troops; it looked like a mass casualty drill from his Army days.
"You leave anyone for Natasha?" Clint asked as they walked quickly past some of the fallen men. "She's probably going to be in the mood for a melee. You know how she gets when she's been cooped up."
He bent down -- oww -- to pick up a couple of Gorisecs not currently needed by their owners.
"There'll be more," Steve assured darkly, holding up a fist to get Clint to stop behind him. He slipped the shield free and then stepped back to throw it. Clint heard the sound of the shield making contact with flesh and bone and then the sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Steve gestured and they moved again, Steve retrieving the shield off the ground without breaking stride. Clint picked up a couple more Gorisecs so that Natasha couldn't say he'd never given her anything nice.
Natasha was dressed and in good condition when they found her, which was for the best because Steve had been right and there were more LDF soldiers on the way. Not a lot, though, not like the swarm from last night and, thank christ, no more gas grenades. After dealing with them, they followed Steve into a stairwell and then up four flights to ground level, where they had to wait for a tour group to pass by because they had apparently been underneath the public areas of the castle.
"How did you get out?" Clint asked while they waited, Steve watching through the window in the door and Natasha and Clint taking the up and down staircases respectively. "Or were you here the entire time?"
"I got out by accident," Steve admitted. "Just fought my way free of the gas and the soldiers and there was a window."
Which was a ridiculous oversimplification because they'd been underground and Clint had seen the destruction Steve was capable of rendering if motivated, but he let it pass.
"And I got in with a tour group," he went on. "I was the sole Frenchman in a group of Chinese tourists."
Steve spoke fluent idiomatic French, so it was a reasonable choice. And it wasn't really going to matter if they'd taken his picture -- Doom already knew he was around and would not be leaving his teammates to their fates.
"I'm assuming you don't want to tag along with the next tour so we can get out and get home," Natasha offered, not making it a question.
"The Tesseract is in Doom's apartment," Steve replied. "And Doom isn't in town today."
Clint spared a look over. "He kept the appointment in Dubrovnik?"
There'd been an item in the paper the guards had given him yesterday about a Balkans summit, a one-day event that Doom was going to with his foreign minister. "Do you know for sure that he went and it's not just a bluff? His whole grand plan kinda requires him to be here."
Clint explained what he'd figured out -- what Doom had told him. Natasha confirmed it; she'd gotten the same conclusions from her own interview. "Would he even leave the Tesseract behind?"
"I saw the footage of him walking off the plane on the news this morning," Steve answered, gesturing that Clint and Natasha join him on the landing because they could move through the door now. "He's only going to be there until this evening and I don't think he's expecting Fury to react so quickly. We're too close to not take the chance to look."
They went through the doorway, moving quickly and quietly down the stone-floored hallway and past the portraits and tapestries that lined it. They were in one of the arched hallways that ran alongside the throne room, on the opposite side of it from the museum, but you could cross over behind the massive throne room and past the pair of chapels. This hallway was served by a stairwell that led up to the levels with the private royal apartments, although the entrance to it was cordoned off and dire warning were attached to the door, presumably backed up by guards and fortifications on the upper end.
Definitely guarded, but Natasha and Steve took out the three guards without so much as a cry of surprise between them by the time Clint joined them on the landing. The door beyond them was locked, but the prone guards had keys and IDs to swipe and then they were in.
The royal apartments were just that, a mansion on one level with a gazillion bedrooms and galleries and libraries and hallways. There had been a map to look at back when they'd been planning the mission around Steve's dining table, but it had been outdated, before Victor had done his renovations once he'd taken over for his father. How much use it would be now was up for debate because they didn't know what Victor had done to the place.
The apartment would be unoccupied, at least. Victor had a wife and three children, but the family was currently in France; the Baroness Valeria was a native of Lyon and still had family there.
"His study's in the southeast corner," Steve said, pulling out an old fashioned pocket compass because that's how Steve rolled. "That way."
"How do you know where it is?" Natasha asked as she started walking in the direction Steve had indicated. Clint saw what she was doing -- taking point meant that she could dictate the pace and keep Steve from bounding ahead into trouble.
"I asked someone," Steve replied. "Very nicely."
Natasha looked over at Clint and he rolled his eyes because yes, this was the Cap they were going to have to deal with today.
Natasha led them through the kitchen and dining room, then paused. "Where is everyone? The family's gone but there should be a cook, a housekeeper, a maid, somebody."
If this were a trap, getting the civilians out of the way would be wise.
"Maybe they got the morning off?" Clint suggested. "Won't need the cook until Victor gets home and wants a late-night snack and even this place doesn't need dusting every day."
Natasha made a face that said that yeah, it was possible, but she didn't like it.
They proceeded more cautiously past what seemed to be a family room and then a room with a piano and books and couches and a harp before reaching the end of the hallway with two doors, both open. One that looked to be the entry to the master bedroom suite and the other Victor's study, judging by the books on the walls.
Natasha was heading for the study when Steve suddenly grabbed her and threw her against the wall with his right hand while holding up the shield with his left arm. Two bullets ricocheted off of the shield with dull pings and Steve went charging into the study. Clint raced after him, past the still-stunned Natasha, who quickly fell in behind him and then crashed into his back, accidentally ramming his bruised kidney with the Gorisec because he'd stopped so short. But it was all he could do to get out of the way as Steve and the Winter Soldier brawled like Ali-Frazier, grappling and punching their way across the large room.
The Winter Soldier had a reinforced case with a handle in his hand, presumably the Tesseract case, and was using it as a cudgel against Steve, who was using the shield only defensively and not as the true offensive weapon Clint knew it to be. He'd seen Captain America use that shield like a boomerang, like a club, like a crowbar, like a machete, and in one memorable experience, like a trebuchet. But that was the problem, Clint realized -- this wasn't Captain America fighting, this was Steve and Steve Rogers was not going to bludgeon his best friend from childhood into submission. No matter if that best friend from childhood was currently trying to kill him. The metal arm, terrible and fascinating up close, was such a weapon that the Winter Soldier had holstered his gun and was instead just raining blows down, sending sparks off of the shield where it hit and destroying everything else it came into contact with. The heavy wood desk crumpled like particleboard when a fist landed where Steve's head had been a heartbeat earlier.
And all the while, Steve was trying to reason with the Winter Soldier, with Bucky, and the Winter Soldier, who'd taken Yasha Yachmenev as a name because he remembered no other, was not inclined to listen.
"Will you shut the fuck up!" the Winter Soldier barked, each word punctuated by a smash of metal fist on shield.
"Barton, incoming," Natasha growled behind him, pulling at his arm to turn him around because the LDF had finally joined the action, coming down the hallway in attack formations and firing at the open study door. Natasha moved forward, to the doorway, and used it for cover as she fired back. Clint felt behind him for the gas arrow and popped in a tranquilizer cartridge before nocking and waiting, waiting, waiting until there were enough bodies in the hallway to make the shot worthwhile.
"Close the door," Clint ordered Natasha after he fired, not waiting to see the results. He knew he'd done what he'd set out to do. He looked over at Steve and the Winter Soldier, still struggling with the case. "Give it ten seconds."
Anyone who'd not gotten a lungful would be at the door by then, everyone else would be zonked.
"Enough of this shit," he muttered as he watched the two men fight. Steve was pressed up against the built-in bookshelves, the shield protecting his torso as the Winter Soldier tried to push them both through the bookshelf and keep the case out of Steve's hand. Clint raised one of the Gorisecs hanging by its strap over his shoulder and aimed for the Winter Soldier's metal arm by the shoulder -- regardless of his current predicament, Steve would not forgive Clint for a shot that resulted in a serious wound. But Clint was pretty sure the arm was bulletproof and he needed to distract the Winter Soldier so Steve could get free, if not actually gain the upper hand without assistance.
In the heartbeat between when Clint fired and when the bullet should have pinged off of the Winter Soldier's metal deltoid, the man grabbed Steve and turned them both, forcing Steve to raise the shield or be hit himself. With a final shove of Steve toward Clint, the Winter Soldier and his cargo made for the open window and jumped through it.
"Buck!" Steve shouted and ran right after him, not even sparing a backward glance. Or a forward glance, because the window was fifty feet up.
"Jesus Christ," Clint bit off in frustration, running to the window and watching Steve already rolling out of his landing and running after the Winter Soldier. They were in the private gardens, a quieter counterpart to the Versailles-like public ones past the stone castle walls. There was no way out of the garden except to scale the wall or go back into the castle through a single entrance, which Steve seemed to realize because he was moving to block the path to it.
Natasha exhaled loudly in frustration as she surveyed the scene below. "It's too far for me to jump," she said, eyes still on the scene below, where Steve and the Winter Soldier were facing off a few feet apart, Steve blocking the way and the Winter Soldier looking like he was still deciding whether to bull his way past or pull out his gun and blast his way through. "Hopefully, they'll wait."
With that, she started running for the door, reading both Gorisecs in case she had to shoot her way through to the stairs. Clint returned his attention to the window even though he heard shots fired, but only a couple of bursts and they weren't very close. Natasha was probably down the stairs already. Clint nocked a paralytic arrow and followed the Winter Soldier through his sight, but he didn't fire. Steve was holding his own and, if Clint could, he would let Steve do what he needed to do to get this done. Getting the Tesseract was only part of the mission as far as Steve went and Clint was willing to give him as much rope as he could to accomplish that. Including continuing to shoot to disarm.
Because of the acoustics of the castle and the walls, the noises from down below canyoned up pretty clearly and Clint could hear everything. Right now, it was a lot of cursing on the Winter Soldier's part and calm pleading on Steve's part and, thankfully, no shouts of Latverian guards on approach. Clint was pretty sure he'd be left alone where he was; the action was down below and they'd taken care of most of the castle guards and whoever else was up here had presumably followed Natasha downstairs. Reinforcements would need to clear the palace of civilians -- and tourists -- before doing anything. Doom's plan to embarrass the Avengers in defeat needed witnesses, but the world would look much less hostilely upon Latverian forces that had defended their royal palace from invasion if there wasn't a lot of collateral damage and it would be hard to pin the deaths on Captain America.
"...we fought bullies in Brooklyn and Nazis in France and this isn't what we do, Buck. This isn't what you do. Remember who you are."
The Winter Soldier's expression clearly stated just how tired of this bullshit he was and how little any of of what Steve had been saying resonated with him. "What the hell are you going on about? This is exactly what I do. Very well."
And then he ran at Steve, leading with the metal arm and even though Steve got the shield up in time, it still staggered him backward and as he threw his arms out to regain his balance, the Winter Soldier pulled out his pistol and Clint raised the quiver. It would be a difficult shot; the metal arm was facing him, he didn't have a clear angle at any soft flesh, and a head shot would be fatal no matter what kind of arrow tip he had.
"I don't know who you think I am and I don't give a fuck. You are in my way." And with that he raised the pistol and aimed it at Steve.
"James! No!" Natasha shouted, appearing out of Clint's peripheral vision and running toward the men. The Winter Soldier stepped back, out of Steve's range to knock the pistol away without taking a step forward, and then he pointed the gun at Natasha to halt her before returning it to Steve's direction.
Clint had had a shot while the Winter Soldier had been turned toward Natasha, but right now, he was back to nothing. He sheathed the paralytic arrow back in the quiver and pulled out a standard tip; with both Steve and Natasha down there, Clint's ability to respect Steve's wishes should the situation devolve was rapidly diminishing.
And then it didn't just devolve, it disintegrated.
Steve let his shield arm drop, then he went to his knees. He held his head up and looked squarely at the Winter Soldier and waited. "If you really don't know me, if this is truly who you are now, if I am just a roadblock to you, then do it. Do what you need to do."
"Jesus fuck, Steve," Clint sighed and raised the arrow and put his eye to his sight. Because Steve might hope he was talking to James Barnes, but it was the Winter Soldier holding the gun aimed at his forehead. Steve might wish that this would jar Barnes's memories free somehow, but Clint accepted the evidence as it has been presented this afternoon and knew better, knew from the memories he repressed as hard as he could that even if Barnes were rattling around in there somewhere, it wouldn't matter. He loosed an arrow that bounced off of the Winter Soldier's metal hand, but with enough power to force the bullet wide. Because the Winter Soldier had indeed fired.
The tableau below him was frozen for a long moment -- the Winter Soldier couldn't believe he had missed, Steve couldn't believe he had taken the shot, and Natasha was too far away to have an immediate impact except by shouting but she, too, was stunned in place.
Who wasn't stunned in place were fresh reinforcements coming through the royal apartments; the LDF had finally counted the Avengers in the backyard and realized that they were one short. Clint looked out to see if there was something, anything he could aim the grappling arrow at and hope it would stick. The castle walls were too far away, as was the other wing of the palace itself, and nothing else was high enough.
With no other choices other than fighting his way through -- and that would take too long -- he nocked the grappling arrow and leaned out the window, aiming it at another window on the same level, one of the ones from the master bedroom suite. He fired, waited until he could feel some tension on the line, and then jumped just as the first bullets started hitting the bookshelves around him. He was more George of the Jungle than Tarzan as he swung wildly out and then used his wrist guards as a friction guard and slid down the rope. The grapple slipped free halfway and he ended up falling the last fifteen or so feet. He rolled out of it well enough, although his side was hurting badly enough to see stars, and ran toward Natasha, stumbling on the first step because his right leg gave way under the sharp pain in his side.
"I totally meant to do that," he huffed when he joined Natasha, who was running after Steve, who in turn was running after the Winter Soldier, who looked to be making for the castle walls, although Clint couldn't imagine why. He would have to scale the high walls with one hand holding the Tesseract case.
The nearly-getting-his head-blown-off thing apparently had shaken a few scales from Steve's eyes and he flung the shield for the first time against the Winter Soldier, hitting him in the back and sending him ass over teakettle and the Tesseract case flying.
Clint had his bow up because the Winter Soldier came out of his roll with pistols in both hands, but his focus wasn't all on the guns because the blue glow of the exposed Tesseract drew him with an almost physical force. It sickened him, but he couldn't look away. It was like a heroin addict facing a mountain of horse.
"Barton," Natasha hissed and Clint closed his eyes and reopened them to see the Winter Soldier pointing one gun at Steve and the other at Natasha.
"James, please," Natasha begged in English. "There's more going on here than you know. Let me help you. Please."
The Winter Soldier laughed and replied in Russian that their time for helping each other was over and he had already paid her back for services rendered. His tone made it clear exactly what services he was talking about and it was obviously meant to wound. Natasha hid it well, but Clint knew it had struck home and the Winter Soldier knew it, too.
But Natasha recovered quickly. "You can be an idiot on your own time. This is work," she spat back and from the cadence it sounded like she was quoting someone and she might well have been because the Winter Soldier frowned at her. But then, without turning his head, he fired three shots at Steve, who had been edging closer toward where the Tesseract lay.
Steve deflected them with the shield, hiding behind it as he lept, coming down by the case and the blue glow disappeared behind it, but only for a moment because Steve had the fucking thing in his bare hand and he was looking straight at the Winter Soldier.
"Remember who you are."
There was a flash of light like lightning and, for a split second, Clint wondered if Thor had returned to take back what was his. But when his vision cleared, Thor was nowhere around and the Winter Soldier was five feet from where he had been standing, on his knees and breathing hard. Hyperventilating Clint realized, seeing the terror and confusion in the other man's eyes that he recognized all too viscerally himself. And the nausea, too, because the next thing that happened was the Winter Soldier -- Barnes -- on his hands and knees puking.
Steve started to move toward him, Tesseract in his hand, but froze. "Buck?"
There was such hope in his voice, such fear, and Clint could see a million emotions flitting across Steve's face, but he couldn't pay more attention to that now, however much he wanted to. They were now surrounded by LDF troops, none of whom seem inclined to move at the moment, granted, because this was probably even more confusing without context or subtitles. But that wouldn't last.
"Nat?" he called over quietly, but she was as transfixed as they were.
Barnes gasped loudly, a miserable moan of pain that seemed to make Clint's chest vibrate and he realized -- accepted -- how near the end of his own supply of cope he was getting. How near he had probably been for a while. As if last night's blue-tinted dreams hadn't been enough of a warning. He'd spent the entire run up to the mission and then the mission itself worrying about the details, about Steve and Natasha and how they were or weren't dealing and what kinds of stupid shit could come out of that, about whether he would survive his Latverian captivity, about getting everyone home. And he had pointedly not thought about his own history with the Tesseract or how frequent the dreams of being back under Loki's control still were, or about how everything about this mission was building to recreate all of those memories brick by bloodstained brick. Because here he was, feeling the Tesseract pull at him like a magnet and watching someone wake up from a nightmare that still made him sick to his stomach (and it had only been weeks for him compared to Barnes's decades). He had had enough, he decided, and for a moment he deeply resented having to be the only one with the sense and capacity to pay attention to their fucking surroundings.
"Natochka," he hissed louder and there was an edge to his voice, one he hadn't intended to put there but one she heard nonetheless.
She shook herself free. "Shit," she muttered as she looked around. She looked over at Clint, frowning for a moment and Clint wondered what the hell was on his face, and she nodded; she'd play her part in their defense if the soldiers started to close in.
Steve, meanwhile, had crept closer to Barnes, crouching down next to where he had moved away from his sick. But Barnes pushed him away hard with his metal arm and an anguished shout.
Steve lost his balance and the Tesseract, but got back to his feet right away, leaving the Tesseract where it was and keeping his eyes on Barnes.
"Did you know, Natalia?" Barnes asked in a hollow voice, still looking at the ground. "Did you know then?"
She shook her head no, then realized he wouldn't see her. "No. No."
Behind Clint, the soldiers were muttering among themselves, clearly unsure of what they were supposed to be doing because they recognized the Winter Soldier as one of their own, but he wasn't killing the bad guys and so maybe they should. It would have been good if Clint had any useful Latverian, but the odds of getting Natasha to translate now were between slim and none. He turned to face the ring of soldiers, though, hands on the Gorisec because he'd need that more than the arrows at such a numerical disadvantage. He couldn't understand their words, but he could still read their body language clear as day.
"You should have let your friends kill me," Barnes said flatly behind him.
"No!" Steve barked out and Clint looked back over his shoulder. Steve might have been protesting the statement, but he was also yelling at Barnes because Barnes had picked up the Tesseract and was holding it in his metal hand, watching it with fascination. Clint felt sick all over again.
"This thing was the start of it. You know that, Steve?" Barnes asked, looking over at Steve. "For Schmidt, for me..."
"Your start was at St. Vincent's," Steve corrected firmly. "You didn't move to Brooklyn until you were two. I used to say that you were born a Giants fan and you would hit me every time I did until the other kids started hitting me and then you started hitting them instead."
Barnes tried to smile, but it didn't get very far and then it disappeared. "That guy is dead. Schmidt killed him. Karpov killed him. Lukin killed him. I killed him."
"No you didn't."
"I killed a lot of people, Steve. Do you have any idea how many? Do you have any idea of what I've done?" It came out wretched and angry and disgusted and Clint tensed because it had been so full of self-loathing that he was pretty sure that Barnes was about to do something stupid and neither Steve nor Natasha would be able to stop him.
After Natasha had bested him and brought him back, Clint had been kept in a locked room with nothing he could hurt himself at his fingertips -- a suicide watch he hadn't recognized as such at the time, seeing only the precautions necessary in case he had still been Loki's slave. But Barnes wasn't somewhere safe and protected, he was holding the fucking Tesseract in the middle of a battlefield.
"I've seen the files, yeah," Steve replied, taking a small step toward Barnes and then stopping. Edging closer. "But that wasn't you."
Clint had heard that plenty of times, too, and, years later, he still didn't believe it. He understood Barnes's dismissive snort for what it was.
"It--"
"Bullshit," Steve cut him off.
Clint allowed himself to be amused that Barnes seemed as startled by Steve cursing as he was.
"I don't care whose finger was on the trigger when it was pulled," Steve went on. "It wasn't you where it counted. I know you. I will always know you. Even when you don't know yourself. You are a good man who was forced to do terrible things."
Clint knew what Steve was offering here, knew what kind of lifeline Steve's faith, his grace in the face of your sins, could be. He hadn't understood why it had been offered to him after Loki's control had been broken, but he had clung desperately then. And he remembered how relieved he was to realize that it had still been there for him after the thing with Natasha when everyone else had abandoned him or thought he'd betrayed them or worse. He knew how important it was to Natasha to get it back after she'd fled SHIELD in disgrace. It was possibly the most powerful thing about Steve and Clint knew that James Barnes, as addled as he was right now, knew it, too, because because he'd felt it first, before Steve had had any kind of physical power to distract from what came out of his heart.
But that had been a long time ago and all they could do now was hope that Barnes remembered it well enough to pull him back from whatever dumb thing he was about to do.
There were tears running down Barnes's cheeks.
"James," Natasha whispered and Clint looked over at her. There were tears in her eyes, too.
Barnes looked over at her and saw something that made him turn away in pain. In shame.
The soldiers surrounding them were moving and Clint switched his attention back to them. They were organizing into a formation that was less a semi-circular firing squad and more of an effective line against the bad guys. Who in this case were actually the good guys. Clint whistled over at Natasha and gestured with his head once he got her attention, which required a second attempt. She nodded after a long moment and started to move slowly to her left as Clint shifted a little to the right, not enough to draw the soldiers' attention as a concern, but enough to put the two of them in a better position to return fire effectively. His new position let him watch both the drama and the soldiers, since turning his back on the Tesseract didn't actually make its call to him any quieter.
"Have I ever lied to you, Buck?" Steve asked and Clint could hear that Steve recognized the precipice they were standing on.
Another half-smile warped by pain from Barnes, accompanied by a cocked eyebrow of disbelief. "All the time."
Steve rolled his eyes, which got something that might've been a laugh out of Barnes.
"Not about important stuff. This is important. The Winter Soldier wasn't you. It was someone wearing your face and, God, I'm sorry for that. But it wasn't you."
Barnes shook his head. "I still have to look at the face in the mirror, Steve. And I don't think I can."
"Then don't use a mirror," Steve exhorted. "You can shave without one. The razors now are all baby-proofed."
Barnes was looking at Steve like he wanted to laugh for real, like he wanted to believe that it could be that easy, but he couldn't believe that and, right then, Clint knew that Barnes was going to let go of the lifeline of Steve's unwavering faith. He's seen enough men broken by deed or circumstance to be able to recognize the look of someone for whom death was a means to a better end. Or simply a relief. He had been pulled back from that, distracted with a bigger fight until the one in his own heart and mind had resolved itself peacefully. But they couldn't do that for Barnes here. And so Clint was left praying that Barnes didn't take the rest of them with him when the moment came. But it would come.
The Latverians expedited things, probably accidentally in light of what came after. One of them called out something that was directed to the Winter Soldier, not really understanding that that man didn't exist anymore. Except then he did, Barnes's face growing cold and emotionless and Clint stopped looking at it or at the LDF audience because the Tesseract was glowing brighter and the siren's call in Clint's head was growing louder until it became a shout.
"Buck, no!"
But the Tesseract's glow grew brighter still until it whited everything out and then there was an explosion, the blast wave knocking Clint down hard enough to stun. When he shook it off enough to be able to look around, everyone else was down, too, like bowling pins, except for Steve who was standing and looking around frantically. But Clint knew from the lack of buzz at the base of his head that Steve wouldn't find what he was searching for.
Barnes and the Tesseract were gone.
The scene reset with depressing speed and Clint, Natasha, and Steve found themselves back to back to back surrounded by dozens of LDF troops. Clint hoped that they were still supposed to be taken alive to be hung on television because otherwise, they were kinda fucked.
BZAKKK
A blast from the sky startled everyone, including Clint.
"Am I late to the party?" Iron Man asked cheerfully. "Wait, that makes no sense. I can't be late to the party. The party doesn't start until I get here."
Tony was hovering on high and putting on a show, but it was a diversion because he he wasn't alone. A pair of quinjets were descending for unloading behind the ring of LDF troops, who were content to start firing at Iron Man, oblivious to the danger behind them until it was too late.
Steve took advantage of the distraction and threw the shield and Natasha swung into action and Clint pulled out the taser net arrow (contained and subdued at once!) and the battle quickly became comfortable in its familiarity. And in its conclusion.
"Where's Barnes?" Tony asked, landing near Clint once the rout had been thoroughly completed. "And the Tesseract?"
"Gone," Clint replied, looking over to where Steve was standing, rubbing his free hand over his face and looking around. He looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach, metaphorically at least because the real thing wouldn't leave him looking so devastated.
"Right," Tony sighed, following Clint's gaze. "You think he'll let us pay him back?"
Clint didn't know the answer and Tony didn't stick around for one, going over toward Steve, who was putting on his brave Captain America face and Clint wondered how Steve thought that anyone who knew him would buy it.
Corrales was easier to find than Natasha, whom Clint was pretty sure was avoiding him because she was probably as emotionally naked as Steve right now.
"You're not in the brig," Clint greeted him. "You did better than I did."
Corrales wasn't blind to what's going on, either, but gracefully chose to instead focus on the actual matter at hand. "Not guilty by reason of insanity-by-osmosis," he replied with a shrug. "And then I was told that I got you into this mess, so I can damned well get you out."
The escape out of Latveria was a little hairier than the fight in the garden because the Latverian Air Force had had time to arm fully before mobilizing. The quinjets had to fly like bats out of hell until they joined up with the fighter jet escort back to the Helicarrier, which was over the northern tip of Italy.
Steve dozed on the flight -- or he was pretending he was, which was more likely because despite him being up for most of the past week with very little down time, he'd just found and then lost his best friend all over again. They left him be, even Tony, who chose to make Corrales's team his audience. Clint sat next to Natasha, who was not saying anything to anyone, and if she leaned on his shoulder a little, he wasn't going to say a word. He could've maybe used the comfort of contact himself.
When they landed aboard the 'Carrier, Clint told Corrales to get Steve and Natasha out of sight and then marched up to Fury's office so that the man could have someone to shout at without making things worse.
Tony stopped him before he could reach the tower. "You want me to tag along?"
It was a generous offer as far as Tony went and, frankly, Clint could have used the support, but he shook his head no. "Fury yells at me differently than he yells at you. It'll go faster if I'm by myself."
Which was a half-truth because yes, what he'd said was true, but he just didn't want another witness to whatever he might say by accident. Tony didn't know him well enough to see that. Or maybe he did, since he gave Clint a cock-eyed look before nodding and staying put while Clint continued on.
Fury was spoiling for a fight, but Clint thought he was more angry for form's sake than anything else. Clint had too much history with the man to believe that Fury -- or Coulson -- was either surprised or disappointed at what happened, although they'd obviously wished for different results. Tapper, on the other hand, was angry for more than just form because he was the one who had been cut out of the loop and had to deal with the fallout and Clint couldn't entirely blame him. But he was wrung out himself, drained for far more than physical reasons, and he cut short Tapper's tirade with a ferocity that he'd probably have to apologize for later.
He went down to the Avengers team room and showered and shaved and changed, unwilling to go find a bed and rack out because as exhausted as he was, he knew what he'd dream of if he slept. He had no idea where Natasha was and if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. But Steve would be easier to locate, although whether he'd want company was a different story.
He felt a little selfish seeking out Steve to ease his own pain when the man had so much of his own right now, but there he was, sitting in the corner of a weight room with his fletching kit while Steve demolished heavy bag after heavy bag. They didn't talk, didn't acknowledge the other's presence, but Clint relaxed because he knew that while he might not be doing anything for Steve, at least he wasn't making it worse. And he wasn't sure if he had more than that to give right now.
Natasha showed up when Steve was on Bag #4 and set up in a different corner from Clint and started to clean her guns and her spider's bite bracelet. There was no talking, just three pockets of isolated dysfunction coexisting together and the sound of fists hitting the bag.
Tony showed up when Steve was exchanging the corpse of Bag #4 with its successor. He was in his civvies; the latest version of the Iron Man suit made getting in and out of it easy.
"Okay, pity party's over. Rogers, you have five minutes to shower and change," he announced, looking around the room. "Pepper will put up with a lot from you, but not body odor and it's still a long flight home. The rest of you will do as-is."
He waved his arms in exhortation when nobody moved. "Chop-chop, people!"
Clint looked over at Steve, who was still standing there with the heavy bag balanced between his feet. It was going to be his move. Or maybe it wasn't because Natasha finished putting together her bracelet and stood up. Her movement had attracted Steve's attention and she looked at him almost challengingly.
He sighed and put the bag on its hook, but then started unwrapping his hands. "Ten minutes," he said, then started walking toward the door, picking up his towel on the way.
"You, too, Robin Hood," Tony said once Steve had disappeared through the doorway.
"Coming," Clint said, voice a little ragged for having spent so much time shouting. Getting up hurt like a motherfucker; he'd managed to avoid getting sent down to Medical -- he'd need a check-up before he was returned to duty, but he'd be fine by then.
Tony thankfully did not require either entertainment or an audience for the flight back to New York, which was just as well because they all slept. Clint dreamed of storming the Helicarrier, Blue Nightmare #2, and woke himself up with a gasp. But everyone else, Tony included, was still out, so he closed his eyes again. Except then he felt Natasha's right hand on his left, a gentle squeeze, before he passed out again.
Pepper Potts was gracious and solicitous and very firmly determined to make sure none of them were left to their own thoughts too long -- she had had enough experience minding Tony that the rest of them were probably hardly an effort. Steve excused himself and went out on to the farthest part of the expansive balcony, out of sight unless you went to the glass doors to look. Which, of course, Tony did despite Pepper's telling him not to.
"Jarvis," Tony prompted, not budging from the door despite Pepper pulling at his elbow.
"Captain Rogers is speaking to Miss Carter," Jarvis reported.
That seemed to satisfy Tony, who let Pepper drag him back into the living room and was already on to his next topic of conversation. They were still watching the ad hoc presentation of his plans for a flying car -- Clint was arguing that convertibles were better in concept than execution for jet-powered flight -- when Steve returned, eyes bloodshot but body language much more relaxed.
"Is this for Christmas?" he asked, gesturing vaguely at the hologram as he sat down on the couch. "Because you missed my birthday."
Tony gave him a sour look. "I got you a great birthday present."
"You gave me a Roomba."
Steve's utter mystification over its function -- over its existence as a consumer-available product and not just for people like Tony -- had been hilarious to watch. And when the thing had started racing back and forth between rooms in manic fashion, Steve had turned it off and put it in a closet after first offering it to Clint, who hadn't needed it because he had a terrifying Polish lady who showed up every week.
"It's what every bachelor needs!" Tony protested.
"You should give it to Corrales," Natasha suggested. "He's got kids and pets."
Marcel-the-chef then announced dinner, despite the fact that it was five in the afternoon New York time. So they sat down to a meal that Clint realized most of the way through was simply a very gussied-up pot roast and noodles and fresh-baked bread and vegetables that he couldn't resist asking Steve to identify. "And don't tell me they're from the farmer's market."
Which in turn required explaining that context and, from there, things got easier. Not easy. Today -- this week -- would not be easy for a while. If ever.
Tony proposed a toast to James Barnes when the wine and cheese came out, but Steve objected to the "in memory of" part.
"I think he's still alive somewhere," he said quietly but firmly.
Clint looked over at Natasha. He'd known this would come up -- there'd been no body and they all knew what had happened with the Tesseract and the last guy who'd disappeared because of it.
"Like Schmidt? Because--"
"Not like Schmidt," Steve cut Tony off forcefully. "He'd never do that to anyone else, not after what he's been though. I don't know where he is, but..."
But he had to believe that James Barnes hadn't held a magic lamp in his hand and wished himself out of existence as penance for his sins.
"Maybe he is," Pepper said, not a trace of condescension in her voice. "And if he is, then I hope he can find his peace."
