Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were 140 tiles on the ceiling. They are smaller than the tiles in S.H.I.E.L.D Medical, by several inches, and the room is considerably bigger than the rooms there.

It is 10:03. Clint has been asleep for 13 hours. 13 is a bad number, unlucky. Phil’s been right at his side the whole time. His hand was wrapped around Clint’s, their fingers tangled together.

Clint would be okay. He would. He was strong, so strong. And Phil would be there for him, no matter what.

Tony was in his lab.

“JARVIS, encrypt this to hell. No one else can ever see this.”

“Should you be watching it, sir?”

“I have to. It’s my fault.”

“Tony?”

“Steve, hey, aren’t you supposed to be with Clint and Phil and having a team bonding moment?”

“Yeah. So are you.” He reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm. “Come on.”

“How can you be so calm?”

“I spent the last hour in the gym killing punching bags.”

“Ah.”

“What have you been up to, anyway? Anything important?”

Tony glanced at the screen, which until Steve had entered had shown an unconscious Clint being stripped to his boxers and chained up.

“No. Nothing that can’t wait.”

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked. Natasha didn’t look at him. They were sitting outside Clint’s room on the medical floor.

“I will be.”

“He’s going to be fine.”

“I know.”

He fell silent after that, and she put her hand on his knee.

They waited.

Clint awoke slowly, as though surfacing from deep under the water. His head hurt, but his thoughts felt clearer than they had in a while. He sat up, too quickly, and the wave of dizziness that swept over him caused him to throw up what little he had in his stomach.

Luckily, Phil was right there with a cardboard kidney dish and caught the stream.

“Easy. You have a concussion, so you probably feel a bit fuzzy right now.” He gently eased Clint back against the pillows.

I don’t feel fuzzy right now... and I was feeling fuzzy long before I hit my head... they were drugging me. The food? The water?

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“No!”

“Okay...” Phil frowned. “How are you feeling?”

“I...” Clint paused to do a check. There was pain, but it felt very far away. “Am I on painkillers?”

“Of course.”

“Stop them. Please.”

“Clint, do you really think that’s-?”

“Take me off them!”

“Okay! I’ll talk to your doctor.”

Phil moved towards the door.

“No!”  Clint called out before he could stop himself. He put a trembling hand to his mouth. Phil moved back to the bedside, his hands held up in submission.

“Hey, it’s okay. I won’t leave you.” He sat down and pressed the call button.

After a moment a man walked into the large private room. He was wearing dark blue scrubs and Clint didn’t recognise him.

“Who’s that?”

“He’s your doctor.”

“I know all the doctors at S.H.I.E.L.D. I don’t know him.” Phil frowned, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, maybe he should have taken Clint to S.H.I.E.L.D. That’s where Clint usually was when he woke up. Phil should have respected that.

“We’re not at S.H.I.E.L.D. We’re at the Tower. Tony had this infirmary built when everyone moved in. I thought you’d be more comfortable here.”

“I...” He looked away and shrugged a little.

“My name is Dr Rove. I swear that I won’t do anything without your permission.”

“Stop the painkillers. Please.”

“Are you sure? You’re going to be in a lot of pain.”

“I can handle pain. I can’t handle this.”

“Alright. If you’re sure.”He fiddled with the IV. “You should really eat something.”

“Not hungry.”

“Alright. Do you feel up to some company? Your team has been waiting outside the room since we got you here.”

“They have?” He was nowhere near ready to face everyone.

“We were all worried about you,” Coulson said, squeezing Clint’s hand gently.

“Then, yeah.” He turned his face away. “I guess they can come in.”

The team filed in. They were dressed in casual clothes and they all looked exhausted.

“Hey,” Tasha said, putting her hand on his lower leg (one of the only places he didn’t hurt, how did she do that?). “You okay?”

“Surviving,” he managed a shaky smile.

“I took care of the man who did this.” She gestured to his body as a whole.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He let out a shaky breath.

“Thanks. What about the Man Behind the Curtain?” he asked. Tony rubbed the back of his neck and scowled.

“We have leads, and we know who he is. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Who was it?” Clint asked. “Did I shoot his brother or something?”

“No.” Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to meet Clint’s eyes. “This was on me. Hammer’s butler, a jerk called Jenkins, was pissed at me for what happened to his boss. From what we could gather from the goons, they thought that you were the reason I fought Loki. They also thought you were my best friend, so they were half right.” He managed a small smile. “I am so sorry, Clint. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

Everyone waited for a long, tense moment for Clint’s reaction. He put his hands over his face and just breathed. Then he managed a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

“You’re seriously telling me,” he said, “that the Butler did it?”

“Phil already made that joke,” Steve smiled.                                                         

“So, how am I doing?”

“You’re going to heal up nicely,” Bruce told him. “Your wounds were actually very well taken care of.”

Clint flinched at that, and Coulson looked like he was going to punch Bruce and damn the consequences. Natasha saw the signs and grabbed Bruce’s arm and started tugging him towards the door. The mild mannered little doctor looked confused and upset, but Clint didn’t notice.

What am I going to do with you?

I know it hurts, but it’s for your own good.

Shush, easy now.

“Clint? It’s okay, you’re alright. I’ve got you.”

Chapter Text

When Clint came back to himself again, it felt like it had been a long time. He glanced around and saw a clock on the wall he'd not noticed the first time he'd woken up. 12:10. He made a note. He felt more real this time, more alive. He hurt, but not too bad, and his head was clear. He blinked a couple of times and realised that Phil was still there, sitting beside the bed.

"Hey."

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Better. Clearer. They stopped the heavy drugs?"

"They dialled right back on the painkillers, yes."

"So," Clint grinned, pulling off a pretty good impression of himself, "how am I?"

"You're doing alright." Phil smiled and put his hand over Clint's where it lay on the coverlet. "So far, no signs of infection. You're healing well."

"That's good." He shifted slightly, trying to take the pressure off. He was propped up on his side against a big pile of cushions, but his cracked (or broken) ribs hurt and his back screamed at the slightest touch.

"Are you hungry? I think they're bringing something in soon."

"12:30, precisely. Right?" Clint knew his partner's needs.

"Yes." Coulson flushed slightly and smiled. "So, hungry?"

"No."

"Still?" Phil frowned, and Clint turned away. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"I said I'm not hungry."

"Okay. You don't have to eat right now. But you should really try something." He reached up and ran his fingers through Clint's hair, not expecting the flinch he got. "Sorry."

"No. It's okay." But he watched Phil's hands carefully after that.

Tony retreated to his lab after Clint had freaked out. He knew what flashbacks were. He'd had his fair share. More than his fair share really. Was any share of flashbacks fair? Focus, Tony. Right. Clint. He shouldn't be having flashbacks. He was a ninja spy bad-ass assassin. And he definitely wasn't supposed to have flashbacks because of the billionaire playboy he lived with.

"Jarvis, put us in lockdown."

"Sir, are you sure that's wise?"

"I'm not letting anyone else see what Clint went through." He cued up the video on the screens. "Besides, I don't want to get interrupted again."

"But should you be watching it at all, sir?"

"Jarvis, don't take that tone with me. I need to know what he went through. It's my fault."

"Oh, I'm sorry sir, I didn't realise that you were the one who hired the Breaker. Shall I call the authorities?"

"I swear, you never used to be such a smartass. Cue the video."

Tony sat and watched. He watched Clint wake up in a cage and stay remarkably calm. He watched as freezing water pounded down, and Clint flinched. He watched the way the torturer treated Clint afterwards, the gentle touches, the tenderness. It was worse than the water in some ways. More intimate. Tony had to stop the video and look away.

He'd done this. When Hammer had first been arrested, and it had become clear exactly what he'd done (aiding and abetting a criminal, facilitating his escape, fraud and corporate theft), Tony had kept an eye on him and his employees. He'd been ready for vengeance. But when months, years, had passed with nothing, he'd stopped his watch. He'd grown complacent. And Clint had suffered for it.

"Sir?"

"Yeah, Jarvis?"

"Thor has returned from Asgard and is requesting entrance."

"Shit. He doesn't know about any of this."

"No, sir."

"Let him in and direct him to his quarters. I'll meet him there."

"Yes, sir."

Bruce wrapped his arms around Natasha. They were back in Natasha's quarters. It was sparsely decorated, utilitarian. All clean lines and black and reds. They usually spent their time in Bruce's quarters, but it was Natasha who was freaking out. She needed to feel safe.

"Seriously," he said, pressing his face into her hair. "Are you alright?"

"We don't do this. We don't talk about feelings."

"I know. But we could if you want to."

"No." She pushed him away and turned so they were facing each other. "But you can distract me if you like."

"I can do that," he smiled and led her over to the bed. It felt wrong, to be doing this while the mastermind behind the attack on Clint was still free and Clint was still in a hospital bed. Especially when Clint was part of the reason they were in a relationship rather than just being friends with benefits. But Natasha needed this. She loved Clint like a brother, but had no idea how to deal with those emotions. If Bruce could help her, in any way, then he would. No questions asked.

Steve sat in the living room on the common floor, his sketch book out, pencil flying across the paper. He was drawing Clint. Not Clint small and weak as they'd found him, but Clint strong and fierce as he usually was. Arms bare, bow drawn back, sunglasses on. There was a tilted smirk drawn on his face, and it just looked right. Steve sighed heavily and put the pad down in his lap. Okay, so the perspective was off slightly, and Clint's hands were slightly too angular, but he looked so much like himself, even on the paper.

The Clint in the infirmary was a far cry from the one on the page. The Clint in the infirmary was battered and broken and so obviously in pain. It bothered Steve. He saw people in the war (Bucky) who were sarcastic and brave, just like Clint, and then were taken and torn apart. But during the war, it made some sense. It was war after all. You expected these things. This was supposed to be the grand new world. Things like this weren't supposed to happen anymore.

Steve sighed. He knew how hard these things were to get over. He knew how people pretended and kept calm and carried on and then broke apart when you least expected it. He'd watched people he cared about clinging on to sanity with their finger tips. He wasn't sure he could do it again.

He threw his pad across the room and walked out. He hadn't destroyed a punching bag in hours.

Dr Rove frowned across his desk at the woman in front of him. She was easily in her sixties, maybe older, but she was stubborn and refused to give even an inch. You wouldn't expect it from looking at her. She was thin and frail looking, her hair grey, and she was wearing a pair of glasses that looked too big for her face.

"He's still refusing to eat. All the psycho-analysis in the world isn't going to help him if he starves to death in the meanwhile."

"No. Give him time. Right now, he needs control more than anything. He's had it taken away from him in the worst possible way."

"I understand that. But my job is to get his body healthy. And he isn't going to heal if he isn't taking in nutrients. Dehydration is a real issue right now as well."

"Please. You have him on an IV. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday and I did go to medical school, it was a long time ago, but I did go."

"The IV is supposed to be a temporary measure, just to hydrate him and get some painkillers in."

"I know that. But it won't harm him to keep it in a bit longer. He probably has an excellent reason, even if it's only in his head, to refuse food. We need to respect that."

"Alright," Rove brushed his hand through his hair and sighed. "Alright. You're right. I just..."

"It frustrates you that he won't let you help him more than he has to."

"Hey," he smiled. "You're paid to analyse him, not me."

"I'm right then." She grinned at him, and he ducked his head in acknowledgement. "I'll talk to him tomorrow once he's had chance to settle in. We can talk again after that, see if we need to take any more drastic measures."

"I shall defer to your experience. But if he doesn't start eating soon..."

"I know, I know. I thought you'd be more worried about the lack of painkillers."

"Believe me, I am. But I haven't taken him off them entirely. I've got rid of the narcotics and left him with a mix of naproxen and ibuprofen."

"He asked for all painkillers to be removed."

"I know. But do you know how much pain he would be in? Besides, he seemed to be more worried about the side effects than the painkillers themselves. Non-narcotics mean that he won't be fuzzy headed and he won't become dependent. It isn't ideal, but it's the best possible solution."

"As long as he understands that he is on drugs."

"I'll explain it to him."

"Good." She smiled at him and then rummaged in her overlarge purse. She came out with a big ziplock bag of cookies. "Peanut butter, chocolate chip, or oatmeal?"

"Do you have a lamp in there as well?" He reached out a hand. "Chocolate chip, please."

"Here you go." She handed him one, and he crunched into it. "Good boy."

"Wait," he said through a mouthful of crumbs. "Are you conditioning me?"

"I believe strongly in positive reinforcement... and I'm a stress baker. My entire kitchen is full of these things. And a couple of pies. I just thought I'd share since we'd remedied our differences."

"Well, in that case..." he reached out and took a couple more cookies. "Thanks, Dr Lane."

"Please," she smiled, "call me, Margaret."

Chapter Text

Tony made his way slowly up to the communal floor, thinking about how he was going to break the news to the Asgardian. Thor was already there, down from the roof, by the time Tony arrived.

“Friend Tony!” Thor exclaimed and threw his arms around Tony in a crushing hug. Tony immediately tried to pull away. “Where are the rest of our warrior brethren?”

“Natasha and Bruce are in Nat’s quarters, I think. Steve is...he’s probably down in the gym again. Clint is... well, that’s kind of a long story.”

“What has happened?” Thor said, holding Tony at arm’s length. Tony looked away and patted Thor’s bicep, partly to get Thor to let go. He pulled back and moved over to the couches, sitting down. Thor stood over him arms folded.

“Clint... he was kidnapped. We were fighting these guys. We didn’t realise it was just a distraction. They took him and they tortured him.”

Thor sat down heavily, and the sofa creaked.

“No.”

“Yes. He was taken a few days ago now. We got him back, he’s safe, here in the Tower, but he’s not well. He was hurt.”

“I have failed.” Thor put his face in his hands and sighed. Tony frowned.

“Failed? How have you failed? You weren’t even here. Besides, from what you’ve said, you’re needed in Asgard.”

“It matters not. I gave my sooth-word when we fought alongside friend Hawk against my brother. That I would protect him and help him heal from the wrongs my family have done against him.” He didn’t look up. “I should have been here. I should have protected him from this evil.”

“Hey, we were all here. We couldn’t do anything to stop it. We didn’t...” Tony clenched his teeth and shook his head. Then he forced himself to continue because this wasn’t about him. “We didn’t even realise he had been taken for so long...” Tony sat down next to the god, and placed a hand tentatively on his back. Touch was usually a good move with Thor, he was very tactile. With the rest of them, touch had to be telegraphed well in advance, and even then it was often not appreciated.

“How terribly was he injured?”

“It’s not good. He was... there was a cage.” He swallowed harshly, and suddenly Thor had an arm wrapped around him and Tony didn’t have the energy to flinch away. “He’ll heal. The burns are pretty bad, there’s a risk of infection there, and with the whip marks too. But he’ll heal. His body anyway.”

“And his mind? Is it greatly disturbed?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. He had a flashback. One that we saw, maybe more. But you know how good he is at putting on a show. He seemed okay till he freaked out.” Tony maybe leaned into the warmth of Thor’s bulk.

“And the Son of Coul? He is caring for him?”

“Yeah.” Tony realized then that Thor didn’t know about the bomb that Phil had dropped either. “About him...”

“What? He was not captured as well?”

“No! No, he’s fine. He’s worried about Clint, but he’s coping. He did tell us something about himself though. something you should know.”

“What?”

“He has something called OCD.”

“What is that?”

“It’s...complicated. No two cases are alike. It’s an illness, but one of the mind rather than the body. It makes you act... differently.”

“How?”

“It’s like... okay, so if you have OCD you have obsessions and compulsions. That means that you don’t always act rationally. You believe you have to do certain things or bad things will happen. And you focus on that so much that you obsess over it and if you don’t get to do what you need to, then you get upset, maybe panic.”

“I see...” Thor sounded confused and Tony thought for a moment trying to figure out a better way to explain.

“For Coulson, it’s not that big of a deal. He’s got it mostly under control. You might want to ask him about it though.”

“I understand.”  Thor nodded, and Tony thought he maybe did get it. Thor wasn’t the smartest tack in the box, but he had developed some real people skills since he’d first been kicked out of Asgard. “I must go and assure myself that he is well.”

“Sure. Go ahead. JARVIS, show Thor to the infirmary.”

“Will you not accompany me?”

“No. I think I’ll go check on Steve. He seems to be taking it pretty hard.”

“Ah.” Thor clapped Tony’s shoulder and then stood. “It is a leader’s prerogative.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not stupid.”

Steve beat the bag. His hands hurt, and there was blood on the bag. He paused and rewrapped his fists. The skin broke and healed within seconds, his flesh giving quicker than whatever it was Tony had built these new bags out of. He’d made them specifically for Steve, but right now Steve wished that Tony hadn’t bothered. He wanted to feel something come apart under his hands. He wanted to rend, to tear.

He punched.

Tony had come in a while ago. But one look at Steve’s face and he knew that he wouldn’t hear anything that Tony had to say. So, he’d sat down on the bench and waited. He wondered how Thor was getting on with Barton.

“Friend Hawk, I feel such regret that I was not here for you in your time of need.” Clint frowned at Thor’s ducked head and hunched shoulders. He didn’t need this. He really didn’t. He hurt everywhere. His stomach was rolling and he felt like he was going to cry or hit something or scream, and Thor was trying to apologise.

“Stop that. It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t there.”

“No. I was not. It is for that that I must give you my apologies.”

“You had stuff going on back home. I get that.” Clint looked away. He got that Thor had other priorities, but he’d always felt that the god wasn’t entirely comfortable around him. in fact, he’d always suspected that Thor felt uncomfortable being around someone his brother had mind fucked. He was sure that he was why Thor spent so much time away from the team.

“I swore that I would allow no harm to come to you, that I would do my all to protect you.” Clint stared at him, and he felt Phil go still in the chair beside the bed.

“What do you mean?” Phil asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“My brother has done you great harm. I gave my word that I would remedy that if I could.”

Clint’s lungs went tight. This was actually worse. Much worse. He looked over at Phil, and he wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but Phil stood up, and shook his head.

“That’s not how this works. You are not responsible for your brother’s actions. And you are not responsible for Clint.”

“But...”

“I think perhaps you had better leave.” Phil’s voice was ice, and Thor left quickly. Clint laughed, humourlessly, his chest aching where his ribs were cracked. It was just like Thor. He meant so well, and he was so nice, like a Labrador puppy, but he was still the only person who could single handedly make Clint feel like a child, remind him of Loki’s mind fuck, as well as reminding him of his own deadbeat brother all in two little sentences.

“Are you alright?” Phil asked, his hand on Clint’s arm grounding him.

“Yeah. I just... I wish Thor was easier to hate.” Phil laughed, gently.

“I know what you mean.”

“I hate this.”

“What?” Phil could think of a dozen things that Clint could currently be referring to.

“Feeling like this. I... it feels like my skin is a size too small. I can’t...” He waved a bandaged hand helplessly.

“I get it. I do.” He perched on the edge of the bed, and stroked his hand back and forth along Clint’s arm. “It will get better. I promise.”

“I can take the pain. I can. I can take everyone being... you know, all stupid and worried and awkward. I can even take the way you keep looking at me like I’m going to break. But I don’t know if I can take feeling like I might actually be broken for much longer.”

“Clint.” Phil sounded lost. He cleared his throat and found that core of steel that Clint loved so much. “Clinton Francis Barton. You listen to me. You are not broken. Sure, you’re a little bent right now, but you’ve always been a little bent.” He stroked a hand down Clint’s cheek, and wonder of wonders, Clint didn’t flinch. “You’re a survivor. You’ll get through this. I am so proud of you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Phil kept his hand on Clint’s cheek and leaned down to press their foreheads together. He tasted salt and he wasn’t sure which one of them had started crying.

Chapter Text

A new day dawned and Clint blinked awake. The first thing he did was look at the clock. 8:15. Okay. That was okay. The second thing he did was to seek out Phil. He’d  been kicked out of Clint’s bed by the nurse after a while, but they’d wheeled in a new bed and pushed it up against the one Clint was in so that they could still see each other and reach out and touch. Neither of them had slept well. Clint had kept waking them both up, first when he rolled over onto his back and screamed (they came in and gave him morphine and it hurt so much that he didn’t fight them) and then when his head started going fuzzy, he kept having nightmares and jolting awake, unsure of where he was.

Phil had been there every time. He’d held Clint’s hand and whispered to him. Clint had clutched back at Phil, despite the burns on his palms. Phil was solid and real and Clint could feel him, despite the clouds in his head.

But now Clint was awake, and his head was clear. He could feel again, he knew when and where he was. He was safe. He shifted so he was sitting up, raising the head of the bed so he could lean sideways against it. Phil looked exhausted. He was pale and there were rings under his eyes. Clint could see the tension, even in Phil’s sleep. He watched as Phil twitched in his sleep, his hand moving to rub at his chest.

 Fuck, he thought, last night was spectacularly embarrassing. A freak out, followed by screaming, followed by nightmares.  And through it all Phil had been his rock. What did I ever do to deserve someone like him?  He thought back to his fear, his desperate worry that Phil wouldn’t come and he hated himself more than ever. He’d doubted Phil and Phil had been working so hard to save him. He was still working so hard, trying to take care of him. I should be more grateful.

He made a decision right then to try and take some of the pressure off Phil. To do what he could to stop Phil worrying. Phil was still not one hundred percent after all, and he was... Clint hesitated to use the word fragile, because Phil was one of the strongest people he knew. But since Phil had come clean about his OCD, Clint had been taking such care to make sure Phil had everything he needed. It was strange, because Clint had always relied before. He just felt that he couldn’t right now.

Are you doing this for him, or for you? the cynical part of his brain asked. And the truth was, he wasn’t sure.

The door opened as he sat there, watching Phil sleep. He glanced at the clock. 9:00. He’d been watching Phil for 45 minutes.

“Hello Agent Barton. My name is Dr Margaret Lane, but please, call me Maggie.” She strode over confidently, despite the fact that she looked like a strong breeze would knock her over, and sat on the end of his bed. He frowned at her. She wasn’t wearing a lab coat, and she didn’t look like a doctor. She looked like someone’s grandma. The impression was compounded when she held out a Tupperware tub filled with baked goodies. “Cookie?”

Clint shook his head. He didn’t trust it.

“Oh, go on. It’s my own recipe. You wouldn’t want to hurt an old woman’s feelings now, would you?” he still didn’t reach for a cookie. “Oh well, I’ll just leave them here.” She put them right next to his hand, so he could take one if he wanted. “Maybe you’ll want one later.”

The smell of fresh cookies made his stomach grumble. He wasn’t sure if it was hunger or something else. The last thing he’d eaten had been... well, it hadn’t been cookies. Plus he was pretty sure it had been drugged. Every time he was fed, he remembered his thoughts getting tied up in knots, and despair creeping in. The only time he’d really felt clear headed in the cage was when his food had been denied as a punishment. He’d been okay then, he’d made fun of the guards. But then he’d drank some water, ate some bread, and his thoughts were cloudy again.  He frowned down at the cookies.

“Ahem,” Margaret cleared her throat, and Clint realised he hadn’t said anything since she entered the room.

“Sorry,” he said, keeping his voice low for Phil’s benefit. “Let me guess. You’re my shrink.”

“Good guess.”

“I’ve been through things like this before. I’ve been through worse. I don’t need to talk to you.”

“So, after each of these other, worse, encounters you didn’t go to psychiatric sessions as mandated by S.H.I.E.L.D?”

“No... I mean, I did, but...”

“But what?” She raised an eyebrow and studied him and he had to look away. she was right.

“You don’t look like a shrink.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t say anything else. They sat there in silence, Clint watching Phil, Maggie watching Clint.

Finally, Clint couldn’t take it any more.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asking me how I feel and shit?”

“I can if you want. I’m more interested in why you are refusing to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” The growl of his stomach showed he was lying.

“Oh really? Injuries such as yours take a lot of energy to heal, you know. Especially burns. You should be starving.”

“I don’t want to eat.” He’d been hungry before. He’d survive.

“Yes, I got that. what I want to know is why.”

He opened his mouth to respond, not sure what he was going to say, when Phil twitched.

Immediately, Clint’s entire focus was centred on his lover.

He watched as Phil slowly surfaced, blinking. He saw the exact moment Phil realised Clint was there and real and watching him. A sleepy smile slowly grew on Phil’s face.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Clint swallowed harshly, his throat suddenly tight. He coughed to clear it, and looked away.

“Are you all right?” Phil sat up, smoothing a hand down his face.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

Phil frowned, about to say something, but then he noticed Maggie.

“Sorry, who are you?”

“Margaret Lane. I’m his shrink.” She held out her hand. Phil shook it, and the corner of his mouth twisted up, as though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to smirk or frown.

“Should I leave?” He looked back and forth between the two of them and didn’t miss the way Clint’s eyes widened, or the way his hand twitched towards Phil’s.

“No,” said Maggie, and she was watching Clint too. “I’m sure that it will be fine if you want to stay.”

“Okay then.” He settled back on the bed, shifting so he could tangle his fingers gently with Clint’s.

“Now that you’re awake there are a couple of things we need to talk about.” She looked down, and fiddled with a necklace she was wearing. Clint thought it looked like a saint’s medallion, but he couldn’t tell for which saint.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked, except that cold voice was all Agent Coulson. Clint shivered slightly, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good shiver or a bad shiver.

“Nothing is wrong, per se. At least not yet. There are just a couple of concerns I need to raise with you both.”

“Okay,” Clint told her. “Raise them.”

“First, the fact that you’ve requested to be taken off all pain meds.” Phil’s hand tightened in Clint’s, then immediately loosened when Clint flinched. He hadn’t agreed with Clint’s decision, but he had supported him. “I understand that you had a bad night last night and that the pain relief you needed was delayed because you had a note on your chart refusing it.”

“I dealt with it. They gave me morphine. It was fine.”

“I’m sure. But there’s something I need to make clear. You are still on non-narcotic pain meds right now.”

“What?” Clint’s voice was surprisingly level and calm. “I asked specifically to be taken off all pain meds.”

“I know that.”

“Why were his wishes not respected?” Phil asked, and if Clint’s voice was calm, Phil’s was ice cold.

“That was not my decision. It was the decision of Doctor Rove. He understood that your wish to be taken of pain medication was due to wanting to remain in control of your faculties. The non-narcotics will reduce pain and the stress on your system, without interfering with cognitive abilities.”

“I didn’t want that.”

“I know. And if you still want to be taken off your pain meds, I will ensure that that is what will happen.” Clint met her eyes for the first time and looked at her for a long moment, considering.

“Okay.”

“Okay. Good. Do you want to be taken completely off your pain medication?”

Clint thought about it for a moment. He wanted that do much. He wanted his head to be clear. He wanted to know exactly what was going into his body. The doctor had taken that away from him.

“No. I think, after last night, I think I need to be on something. But that should have been my choice. I want him taken off my care. I want to have my chart constantly available to Agent Coulson and I want to know exactly what drugs I’m being given at any one time.” He paused for a moment. “Does Jarvis have access here?”

“I do, Agent Barton,” the voice came from the ceiling, startling the doctor. She clutched at her chest and shook her head slightly.

“Okay. Jarvis, I want you to keep an eye on me. I trust you, and I want you to make sure that I don’t get given anything I don’t want.”

“Of course, sir.” Jarvis’s voice was as warm as Phil’s had been cold. Clint had always had an image in his head of a Jeeves-like character, you know, from Woodhouse, for Jarvis, and he could see the friendly smile he would have as he said that.

“Good. Okay.” He looked at Phil who nodded, smiling a little, the way he did when Clint made a particularly good shot. “Okay.” He turned back to Maggie. “What’s the other thing?”

“Food and drink. You haven’t imbibed anything since you were admitted. Currently you’re on an IV, but that was just supposed to be temporary, and as an addition to food and drink. I’d like to get to the bottom of that.”

Phil frowned. He’d noticed that. He was worried about it, but he didn’t really have a leg to stand on when it came to issues with food. He’d hoped that Clint would just come to his senses.

“I don’t...” Clint scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Is that what the cookies were about?”

“Partly. Normally, no one can resist my cookies. Peanut butter chocolate chip. They’re good.” She nudged the Tupperware closer to him. “Sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m sure.”

“Peanut butter chocolate is your favourite,” Phil said, his voice low. “Along with anything tropical.”

“I don’t want one,” Clint snapped. Phil flinched, then he reached towards the Tupperware himself. Clint blanched. “No. Phil, you don’t have to.”

“If I do, will you?”

“I...” he knew how much this was costing Phil, how hard it would be for him to eat a cookie baked by a complete stranger, in a kitchen he didn’t know, from an unknown recipe. But if Phil ate one... if Phil, who couldn’t eat things unless he knew that they were cooked safely and properly and following the right recipe with the right ingredients in the right amounts... if he ate one, and nothing bad happened, if he didn’t go fuzzy, then maybe Clint could eat one too.

Could he ask that of Phil? He’d just got through deciding that he didn’t want to be a burden.

“I...” 

Chapter Text

“I...” I will, I’ll eat it, you don’t have to do that, it’s just a damn cookie, I can do this, “I can’t. Please, I can’t.”  Things were too close to the surface. He was being drugged against his will again. He couldn’t. He reached out and grabbed Phil’s hand pulling it close to him, away from the cookies as though they might burn him.

“Okay,” Phil soothed. “We won’t eat them. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“Here. I’m putting them away.” Maggie put the lid on the Tupperware and slipped it into her bag. She’d been watching Clint’s behaviour closely, and she thought it had answered some questions for her. “I’m not going to push you any more on that right now, okay? Maybe tomorrow Phil, or someone else you trust, could bring in some ingredients and you could build a sandwich for yourself.”

“Tasha can bring it.”

“Good. That’s good.” She just looked at him quietly for a long moment, and when she spoke again her voice was calm and low. “Do you think you can tell us what happened from your perspective?”

Clint’s whole body tensed. He looked helplessly at Phil. And Phil, like always, knew exactly what he needed.

“Agent Barton, report.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ever ask.”

“Okay,” he glanced at Maggie, and then turned his attention back to Phil. “Okay. I was up high, and we were working those bullshit attacks. You know, they kept swarming the city then disappearing, then popping up again. It was small fry. I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“Why not?” Phil asked.

“I was thinking about you, and about how we’d saved the world and we were working on this stupid shit. They knew what they were doing, but the way they kept running away was weird and I didn’t like it. A bunch of them surrounded Cap and I took the shot, gave him a way out. Then I felt something on my neck. A pinch. They’d darted me.” He rubbed the back of his neck, disturbing the dressings on his hand. Phil caught his wrist and pulled it down. He smoothed out the dressings. “I woke up in a cage. I was wearing boxers and that was it. A guy came in, talked the big talk and he had some guards with him. He worked his way through all the main torture groups. Cold, hot, sharp, blunt. He mixed it up with some electricity and my old favourite, whips. I... how long was I gone?”

“Three days,” Phil kept his expression blank, but the lack of emotion and the lack of detail were both worrying him. He was also worried that Clint didn’t know how long he’d been gone. He’d told him once already.

“Three days,” Clint repeated, and looked up at the clock. He had to crane his neck slightly to see it. 9:35. Had it only been half an hour since Maggie had come in? It seemed longer. “Okay. I... they messed my time sense up pretty good. I was sure it had been over a week.”Phil let out a long, slow breath. He kept his body relaxed and his hands loosely tangled with Clint’s. That...actually explained a lot.  “There’s not much more to say. You guys showed up, got me out. And here I am.”

“Barton, if you think I’m going to accept a report with that many holes in...” Phil said, and Clint smirked. It faded quickly and he shook his head.

“I can’t, boss. Not right now.”

“That’s fine,” Maggie and Phil both said it at once, and exchanged a quick, startled look. Maggie continued alone. “This is a process. You don’t have to do everything right now.”

Natasha woke up. She woke up, and then her whole body froze. Bruce was in bed with her. Still. It was... they’d talked, worked out some of their issues, decided this was a relationship rather than just a convenience. But they still hadn’t slept the whole night together in one bed. Until now. This was why they usually used his room. After a few moments, she felt Bruce stir beside her. He blinked muzzily, and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

“I...” she trailed off.

“Natasha?” He sat up and looked at her more closely, suddenly awake.

“I... we slept together all night.”

“Yeah. We did.” He tilted his head. “Is that okay?”

“I...” she rolled her eyes. She actually needed to finish a sentence at some point today. “I think that maybe it is, yeah.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”

One step forwards. That was good. That’s how it works. Life. You have to take it one slow, steady step at a time. Things happen to knock you back. You stop trusting, you fall down, you get back up again, you move on. She just had to keep moving forwards.

“Do you think Clint will be okay?” she asked. He stared at her, then moved so he was more firmly insinuated against her side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, he’ll be okay. He’ll bounce back. From what he’s said in the past, this isn’t the first time he was kidnapped.”

“No. But this time was different. He didn’t know we were coming. There wasn’t a clock on it. And this time they hired a professional who has the specific job of taking people apart.” Bruce didn’t answer for a long moment.

“He has us. He has Phil. He has the best doctors Tony could buy working on him. Besides, he’s strong.”

“Yeah. He is.” She relaxed back into his embrace. “He’ll take it one step at a time.”

“That’s all anyone can do.”

They sat there for a long moment in silence.

“Dr Banner? Agent Romanov? Would you care to join the others for breakfast?” Jarvis’ voice broke the moment.

“Jarvis? You don’t usually...” Bruce frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“I believe that everyone would benefit from gathering together to eat.”

Bruce and Natasha exchanged a look and immediately got out of bed and headed for the door.

After Thor left Clint and Phil the night before, he headed down to his floor.

“I do not understand. Did I say something amiss?”

“If I may,” Jarvis said from above. “Agent Barton makes his own decisions. He’s an excellent agent, soldier and sniper. I would suggest that your desire to protect him suggests he needs protecting. It implies that he is weak.”

“That was not my intention. I merely wanted to make up for the actions of my brother.”

“Your brother’s actions were his own. As are yours.”

“I understand that, but he is my brother.” Thor sighed. “I did not intend to offend the Hawk. I wanted to show my support. Have I just made it worse?”

“Sir, it would be difficult for anyone to make this situation worse.”

“I shall call my lady Jane. Mayhaps she will know some way to aid the Hawk.”

“Very well.”

Thor talked to Jane for a couple of hours. She was a good woman, she was quickly able to reassure Thor, although both Jane and Darcy were appalled and worried to hear what had happened. He was the only one in the Tower to get a decent night’s sleep. He was awoken rather rudely though.  

“Thor, wake up.”

“Friend Jarvis, what is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, sir. The others are gathering for breakfast. I thought that perhaps you might like to join them.”

“Indeed. It will be good to see all my shield brothers again.”

He got up and headed to the kitchen.

Tony hadn’t slept yet. He’d talked to Steve for hours after the punching bag incident. He wasn’t sure if it had helped or not. Steve had been... it had been scary. Steve usually put on a really good front, even when he was terrified. To see him unnerved was... well, it was unnerving. Tony didn’t like it. He sat and listened though as Steve told him about Bucky and the war and about shellshock. How it terrified him.

“Shellshock, they’d send you home to a hospital for it, but everyone thought they were fakers. Draft dodgers. And the places they stuck them in...” he shook his head. “Torture chambers more than hospitals. But I saw soldiers, seasoned fighters screaming and crying from nightmares. I saw friends getting lost in their memories. And I was always terrified that it would happen to me. I was supposed to be the leader. I was supposed to be strong. They couldn’t rely on me if I was like that. besides, I’d earned my place on the front lines. I didn’t want to be sent home.”

Tony had swallowed and tried to explain.

“It’s different now. There’s still a stigma, but it’s seen as a genuine illness.”

“What do you know about it?” Steve had said, turning away. “You said yourself you’re not a soldier.”

“People who aren’t soldiers can have PTSD. That’s what we call shellshock now. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Anyone who has gone through a trauma can have it.” He kept his voice carefully calm and level, and Steve must have realised because he turned back and frowned. “You know, like being tortured by insurgents in Afghanistan.”

“Tony...” He closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t...”

“It’s okay. It’s not something I talk about. It’s not something I think about.”

“I...”

“Steve. Really. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“Okay.” Tony smiled. “That’s okay. I think we’re all having trouble with this. Natasha has barely said two words since we found him. Agent hasn’t left Clint’s room for more than a minute at a time. Bruce... well, with his issues we’re lucky he didn’t see the cage Clint had been in. We’re all going to end up treading on each others’ toes.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

They’d talked some more, until Steve had needed to go to sleep before he fell over.

Tony had gone down to his workshop and looked at a bottle of scotch for a long time. Then he put it away in a cupboard and started working on adjustments for the sub-dermal tracking implants.  He had to make them perfect. He had to make them good enough that the others would want them so he couldn’t lose any of them again.

Then, when his eyes were too blurry to keep working, he’d watched some more of the video files.

He watch Clint sleep restlessly in the little cage on a pile of towels. He watched as the guards were swapped out.

“Bastards. Jarvis, you see this? They’re making him think he’s slept through a whole guard shift.”

“Indeed, sir.” Jarvis’ voice was full of disapproval, and Tony briefly considered going and getting that bottle of scotch.

Tony watched as the torturer came back and Clint was lifted out of the cage. He looked kind of out of it. He watched as they held a lighter under his palms. He watched as two of the guards held him down and forced his mouth open. He watched as they forced a glowing coal between his lips and then forced his mouth closed around it. Then he closed his eyes and looked away. His hands were shaking.

“Jay.”

“Pausing video, sir.”

“God.” He stumbled over to the couch in the middle of  the room and threw himself onto it, pressing his face into the pillows. They smelled of metal and oil. He closed his eyes and just lay there and shook.

“Sir?”

Yinsen was being held by the bad guys. Tony wasn’t sure what was going on. They were talking, but he didn’t know what they were saying. Yinsen kept repeating the same thing, and the new guy, the one who seemed to be in charge, he kept asking questions. Tony wasn’t sure what to do. One of them picked up a red hot coal from the fire and brought it towards Yinsen’s face. They were going to take out his eye with it. They were going to burn his face.

He’d talked and said things, and he didn’t know what. But he’d stopped them from hurting Yinsen. He’d stopped them.

He sat up and wiped his face.

“Jarvis, play video.”

“Sir, if I might suggest, it’s almost time for breakfast.”

“I said play video.”

They used a blowtorch on Clint’s feet. He threw up all over himself, and only the strategic positioning of a small bin stopped Tony from following suit. Instead, he spewed bile up into the bin. Luckily there wasn’t much in his stomach.

“Jarvis.”

“Pausing playback.” It was wrong for an AI to sound so long-suffering.  “Sir, the others are gathering for breakfast.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s nearly ten o’clock.”

“That’s later than normal.”

“I believe everyone had a similarly restless night.”

“Oh.”

He got up, shakily, and crossed the room to the sink. He splashed his face and washed out his mouth. Dummmy came over and fussed at him, dabbing at his face with a dirty towel.

“I’m okay, buddy.” Tony patted him and sighed. “Guess I’d better get to the kitchen.”

Steve was sitting staring at the table. He had a cold cup of coffee cupped between his hands. He wasn’t really sure how long he’d been sitting there. Once he’d finished talking to Tony, he’d decided sleep wasn’t a good idea. His whole body ached he was so tired, he’d needed more sleep ever since the serum, but he knew that if he closed his eyes he’d just see Bucky falling out of his grasp. Maybe he’d see Clint falling too. So he’d come to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee and sat down... and now his coffee was cold and there was light coming in through the windows.

He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and got up to pour the coffee away. Before he could, the door opened and Bruce and Natasha swept in, stopping when they saw him. They looked good together, relaxed. They both frowned at him at once.

“You look awful,” Natasha said bluntly.

“Sit. I’ll get some pancakes on,” Bruce told him and began banging around in the cupboards. Steve sat. Less than a moment later, Thor walked in and gave everyone bone crushing hugs. He seemed a little more subdued than normal, which was strange. Usually, Thor’s good mood was unbreakable.

Ten minutes after that, just as the food was cooked, Tony stumbled in, pale and shaking but putting on a good front. They all sat around the table and stared down at their plates.

It’s amazing how fucked up things get sometimes.

But if they kept talking and eating and smiling, maybe they could pretend it was all alright. 

Chapter Text

After they’d finished eating, the group migrated as a whole to the communal living area. They all slumped down onto the various couches and armchairs, staring at the television screen blankly. It wasn’t even on. Jarvis had tried to interest them in something, offering programme after programme, movie after movie, but eventually Steve had snapped at him to just stop it. It had been very quiet since then. Partly in shock that Steve could snap, but mostly it was just that they were all lost in their own thoughts.

Natasha and Bruce were tangled together on one sofa; Thor had taken over the large arm chair. Steve and Tony were on the other sofa. There was a large gap between them, as usually Clint and Phil squeezed on there with them.

“Do we have any leads?” Tony asked finally, when the silence became too oppressive.

“No,” Natasha said, bluntly. “SHIELD agents have been through all the other properties that the Butler owns and there’s no sign of him. They’ve been monitoring Hammer’s communications too. So far, there’s nothing.”

“That’s not good enough,” Steve said, his voice low and serious. “Clint... we have to get this guy and soon.”

“We’re all aware of that, Steve,” Bruce put in. “But we need a direction to go in before we go haring off.”

“Aye,” Thor agreed. “It is only good battle sense.”

“I  can’t just sit around here doing nothing!”

“Cap, no one wants to just sit around doing nothing. But we’re not doing nothing. We’re being here for Clint.” Tony looked around the group, maybe glaring a little more forcefully than was necessary. “He’s what’s important right now.”

The silence that followed that was slightly less oppressive than the first. It was broken by a ringing phone.

Tony’s.

He glanced at the screen and frowned.

“Hello, Doc. Everything all right?”

“I just went to see Agent Barton. He informed me that I was fired.”

“Wait, what? What did you do?” Tony stood up and headed for the elevator. The rest of the team exchanged worried looks. Then Steve jerked his head after Tony and they all got up and followed.

“Nothing!”

“Doc, come on. Clint’s a hothead, but Phil wouldn’t let him fire his doctor over nothing. So. What. Did. You. Do?”

“Fuck,” Natasha said quietly, and Bruce tangled their fingers together as they all rode up to the medical floor. “He’s right, Phil wouldn’t let Clint fire the doctor unless something serious had happened.”

“This is the last thing he needs.” Steve shook his head.

“Guys, shut up. On the phone. Well, Doc?”

“It’s not... Clint seemed to feel that I didn’t completely follow his wishes.”

“What happened?”

“He asked to be taken off all painkillers. I told him it wasn’t a good idea. I tried to explain exactly how much pain he’d be in.”

“I think he knew how much pain he’d be in Doc, he spent three days in a tiny cage with those injuries and very little care.” Tony took a deep breath. “And you thought you knew better?”

“I thought the reason he wanted off the drugs was because he wanted full control of his faculties. Which seemed fair enough. He’s one of the many who experiences  mild cognitive impairment and lowered inhibitions from narcotic pain killers. I thought that if I took him off the narcotics, but left him on non-narcotic painkillers it would be the best of both worlds.”

“But you didn’t think to explain this to him?”

“He was being stubborn!”

“Okay, you know what, you’re fired. Completely. If you ever try and get a job in Stark Industries or any of its subsidiaries for the rest of your life, you will be laughed out of the interview. Hand in your security card at reception and be thankful I’m not reporting you to the ethics committee.” He hung up and manfully resisted the urge to throw his phone as hard as he could.

The doors opened in front of them, but Tony made no move to get out.

“Tony?” Steve asked quietly. “What’s happened?”

“I hired the wrong doctor,” he said, and then walked out onto the medical floor without a backwards glance. The others exchanged worried looks and then scrambled after him.

Tony walked, back straight, head high, into Clint’s room. Phil was there, sitting beside the bed, and Clint was lying on his side facing Phil.

“Tony?” Phil started to stand, then stopped and frowned as the rest of the team followed Tony into the room.

“What’s going on?” Clint asked, trying to sit up. Phil pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, and Clint’s eyes darted to the clock before coming to rest on Tony’s face.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Dr Rove is no longer employed by Stark Industries. I... he had a reputation for bucking the rules and doing what needed to be done. I thought it would work in our favour. I was wrong.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Clint told him, sounding slightly bemused.

“Whatever, right. Jarvis? Forward Phil and Clint the files of all the other doctors we considered.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What exactly is going on?” Steve asked, looking back and forth between Phil, Clint and Tony. Phil opened his mouth to answer and then stopped, looking worried.

“Tony, your hands are shaking.” Phil’s voice was soft and kind, the one he usually only used with Clint or after a really bad mission. Tony clenched his hands into fists and put them behind his back.

“No they’re not.”

“Yes they are,” said Natasha from behind him and Tony jumped a little.

“Look, I’m just going to...” He pointed to the door and started moving towards it. “Let me know when you’ve decided which doctor you like.” Thor was between Tony and the exit, and when Tony made to move around him, the Norse God folded his arms and stepped back into Tony’s way. Steve reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm.

“Tony, what is going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing.” Tony rolled his eyes and Clint snorted. “I mean, there’s a lot going on in my head, genius after all. But nothing you’d understand, soldier boy. Now let go of my arm.”

“No.”

“Let go!” Tony tried to pull away, and he sounded genuinely panicked. Steve loosened his grip a little.

“Tell us what’s wrong.”

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong.” He tugged away again, but Steve wouldn’t let him go. “I need to make sure Rove’s handed in his security card. Stay with Clint. He needs...”

“What do I need?” Clint asked, quietly. “You’ve already done so much, Tony. Just stop. Breathe. I’m okay. I don’t need anything else.” Phil quirked an eyebrow at him as if to say ‘really?’ but he didn’t call him on it. Tony obviously needed this.

“I need to make sure Rove leaves. He. I hired him. I shouldn’t have. I should have... it’s my fault.”

Clint had a sinking feeling in his stomach that Tony wasn’t just talking about the doctor. He sighed. Hadn’t they already been over this? Clint had enough issues of his own to deal with. For crying out loud, he was barely holding it together, and now he was supposed to fix everybody else? But when he looked at Tony and saw how upset the man was, he felt something inside him firm up and he felt more secure and self assured than he had since he’d been kidnapped. Maybe it was a ‘misery loves company’ thing, or maybe it was seeing how much he obviously meant to Tony and the rest of the team. They’d all come running when they’d heard about Rove, after all. But, Clint didn’t think it was either of those things. At least not entirely...

 Clint had always done better when he’d had someone else’s problems to deal with. Like when he was a kid and the Johnsons had been beating him every time they’d had a bit too much to drink, he hadn’t known what to do. He hadn’t known how to cope. Then he’d met Sarah. She was a foster kid too and went to the same school as him. When Sarah had revealed that her foster-dad had been taking liberties, he’d stepped up, talked to her social worker and the head teacher and made everything better for her. That they’d noticed the welts on his back from Mr Johnsons belt and took Clint out of there was really more of a bonus in his head. He looked at Tony, struggling under the weight of whatever was holding him down and all he could see was Sarah’s face.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Clint said, his voice harsh with sarcasm. “I didn’t realise you told him to disregard the Hippocratic oath, his duty as a doctor and my wishes.”

“I didn’t...” Tony’s whole body went lax, and he stared at Clint horrified. Steve dragged him over to sit in a chair next to the bed.

“I know that, idiot,” Clint’s tone softened, becoming friendly. “You have no control over what he did. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I was trying to make things better. Make you better.”

“I know. You were trying to help.”

“It’s my fault. He thought... he kidnapped you because of me.”

“Yeah. He did. And I’m okay with that.” Clint smiled genuinely at the expression on Tony’s face. “Yeah, it sucked. And I’m not over, not by a long shot. I’m probably going to have some issues for a while. Like this morning I practically had a breakdown over a cookie. Not my finest moment. But they took me because they thought I was Phil.” He swallowed hard. “And I’m glad. I’m glad they took me and not him and not you.”

“That’s...” Tony shook his head, for once speechless. Phil stepped back out of Clint’s line of sight and leaned heavily against the wall, beside the head of the bed. He closed his eyes and just breathed for a long moment, barely listening as Clint began talking again.

“I know. It’s fucked up. But maybe I’m a little fucked up. We all know you are.” He smiled again. “Phil is the love of my life. Natasha is my sister from another mister. But you? You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had. This isn’t the first time I’ve been tortured, but at least the reason was worth it this time.” He shrugged, striving for nonchalant and failing miserably when he winced as the action pulled at the lash marks on his back.

“You can’t just do that!” Tony tried to decide if he was pissed off, confused or upset. “I screwed up and you paid the price! I’m supposed to be better than that now! I promised I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I promised I’d be a better person. That I wouldn’t waste my life.”

Okay, now Clint was confused. He glanced around, but no one else seemed to know what was going on with Tony either.

“You promised who?” he asked.

“Yinsen,” Tony said. He was looking past Clint now, eyes focussed on the wall and Clint wondered what he was seeing.

“Yinsen?”

“They killed him. He’s dead. He... it wasn’t the plan. He said it was the plan but it wasn’t the plan.”

He was starting to get really worked up, for all that his voice was quiet and calm. Clint opened his mouth to ask something more, but before he could, Jarvis spoke from the ceiling.

“Sir, you are safe. It is 20013, sir. You are safe, you are home. Captain Rogers, Agent Romanov, Agent Barton, Agent Coulson and Mr Odinson are all here. As is Dr Banner. You are safe.” Tony’s hands began to shake in earnest.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes sir.”

“Sorry,” Tony tipped forward so he could rest his forehead on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that?” Steve asked, sounding as freaked out as Clint had ever heard him sound.

“I am afraid sir hasn’t been sleeping very well. In fact the past two nights he hasn’t slept at all. Agent Barton’s predicament has brought back some difficult memories.” He paused and Clint steeled himself, knowing that whatever Jarvis was going to say would be bad. “Last night, sir had a flashback. It is the first one that he has experienced in nearly four years.”

“What is a flashback?” Thor asked, looking confused.

“It’s... it’s when you’ve been through something terrible and you keep getting thrown back into that moment in your head,” Bruce explained and Thor nodded seriously.

“What triggered him?” Phil asked, stepping away from the wall a little, his voice calm and serious. Clint loved that about him, that he could be calm when everything around him went to hell.

“He was looking over some... information on Agent Barton.”

“It was the hot coal,” Tony said, his forehead still pressed to the bed. Clint flinched.

“You know about that?”

“It was in the medical report,” Natasha said. He gave her a look and she raised an eyebrow in return. “Rove suggested that the burns in your mouth were consistent with a hot coal being forced in there.”

“Oh.” Clint fiddled with the edge of the bedding. He glanced up at the clock. It was 11:45. Early still, but today seemed determined to throw as much drama and upset at him as possible. Phil’s hand found his and stopped his fingers from fidgeting.

“Why did that trigger Tony?” Steve asked, looking round the room at large.

“I can only assume it’s because of Afghanistan,” Phil said. “But we know very little of what happened there. All we had to go on was Tony’s report and that was very sparse on details.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said again, this time sounding wearier than any man had a right to.

“You’d better be, you drama queen.” Clint forced his voice into something almost normal. “Stealing my thunder.” It got a tired laugh from Tony and he sat up slowly.

“I’ll make it up to you, buttercup. Buy you your own theatre with a stage big enough for that ego.”

“I’ll take it!”

They smiled at each other. They were small, sad smiles; it’s true. But they were real.  

Chapter Text

“I guess I owe you all an explanation, huh?” Tony asked, rubbing the back of his neck.  He shifted in the chair, trying to make himself smaller.

“Not if you don’t want to,” Steve said immediately.

“No, it’s probably about time I told someone what happened. I didn’t talk to anybody afterwards. Not even Pepper. I couldn’t.” He smiled a little. “I was too messed up. I was the classic definition of PTSD. Jarvis looked it up and then kept listing the symptoms on my screens along with the names of therapists.” Clint grinned at that.

“Jarvis is a true Bro,” he said.

“Yeah, he really is. If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. I can still remember when I finally gave in and read the list. I was like ‘insomnia, check. Flashbacks, check. Irritability, fucking check.’ And the Iron Man armour is probably the best example of hyper-vigilance that there has ever been.” He chuckled. “I was so messed up. I was drinking constantly, not sleeping, snapping at everyone. But I got better. It took a while, but I have almost no symptoms now. They’re under control.”

“Tony,” Steve sounded exasperated. “Every single person in this room has shellshock, PTSD, to some extent. Every single one of us has symptoms.”

“Aye,” Thor offered. “I do not know it by that name, but I have oft dreamed of the horrors I have seen before.”

“I don’t like people coming up behind me,” Phil said into the silence that followed. Clint frowned, noticing for the first time how Phil had positioned himself so his back was to the wall and he could see the whole room. That’s something he’d have to watch out for.

“The other guy is basically one big trauma reaction.” Bruce shrugged and Natasha knocked her hip against his. Clint hid his smile, this wasn’t the time to mention it, but that casual touch said a lot more about their relationship than anything else. Tasha didn’t touch people unless she absolutely had to. Part of her own ‘trauma reaction’.

“We’ve all had more than our fair share of flashbacks, Stark.” Natasha’s voice was distant, and she blinked a few times before looking down at the floor.

“See?” Steve said. “All of us. We’ve all been there.”

“I know that. But what happened over there... it was personal. It was mine to deal with. And I was dealing with it. I had dealt with it.” He sighed. “It’s just that part of what happened to Clint was similar to some of the things that happened over there.” He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them wide, looking almost panicked. “Not that I mean that I know what you went through or anything. I mean what happened to you was worse in a lot of ways.”

“I get what you mean, Tony. Relax. It’s weird seeing you so jumpy.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m okay. I am okay. It’s not something that affects me a lot. I just...”

“You had a flashback,” Phil said.

“Yeah.”

“About a red hot coal.”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Yinsen?” Phil’s voice was still calm and level, but there was an intensity there. He really wanted to know. “You didn’t mention him in your report.”

“Please!” Tony snorted. “My report was basically ‘Explosion, terrorists, cave, SCIENCE, escape.’” He smiled, and then turned serious. “Besides, he was mine. What happened to him, it was on me. It was my responsibility, my burden to bear. And I couldn’t talk about him. I couldn’t.” He looked down at his lap and Steve put a hand on his shoulder. “But I think I need to. I think he deserves people to know how much of a hero he was.” He bought his head up, squared his shoulders and turned to look directly at Steve. “You asked me if it was the first time I’d lost a soldier.” Steve nodded, and glanced at Phil. Clint liked that, the way Steve seemed a little embarrassed. It was like he was reassuring himself that Phil was still there. Still breathing. Clint did that a lot. “He wasn’t. Yinsen was.”

“Tell us about him,” Phil said.

Tony didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“He was a good man.  He’d been married. Had some kids. They were killed a few months before I met him. Well, met him again. He said we’d met at a conference years ago, but I couldn’t remember. I looked him up when I got back. You know, he was a genius.” He turned to find Bruce. “You would have liked him.”

“I’m sure I would.” Bruce smiled softly. It was strange how gentle Bruce could be in comparison with his other half.

“He saved my life.”

“Then I know I would have liked him.”

“They already had him. I woke up in the cave, after the attack, and Yinsen was there. He’d hooked me up to a car battery and a magnet.” Tony tapped the Arc Reactor. “He had nothing to work with and he improvised life saving surgery in a cave, with a box of scraps.” Tony smiled, and shook his head. “You have no idea. He was... and then they came and they...” Tony’s hands were shaking again. He looked at them for a long moment, wondering why that was happening. “We built the Arc Reactor. The Armour. He had to be my hands at first, because the car battery... but once we got the reactor in, it was better. They thought we were building them the Jericho missile.” He swallowed harshly. “We weren’t fast enough. They got suspicious. But they didn’t... no permanent damage to the Great Tony Stark. So they hurt him instead. That’s where the coal comes in. It was worse, watching them hurt him instead of me. I made them stop. I needed him. We said we’d get it done. They left. The Armour, we finished it up. We had a plan.”  He nodded, still looking at his hands. “We had a plan. But he said we needed more time. He... the idiot just ran out into the rest of the cave. He just... he said we needed more time. I wasn’t quick enough. He was already dying when I found him. He said ‘don’t waste your life’. He said ‘this was always the plan’. The little bastard used my escape to kill himself.” He shook his head again, his voice was thick and bitter, like bad coffee. “And I can’t even hate him for it, because he was a hero. And everything I’ve done was because of him.”

“Tony...” Steve looked horrified. Clint looked around the room and found that everyone seemed to be in a similar state. Bruce’s eyes were green, his hands were tightly clenched at his sides and he was breathing slow and steadily. Natasha was a complete blank, which meant her emotions were too much for her. Thor looked like he was going to cry. Then Clint turned his head a little so that he could see Phil.

Phil was pale. He had been there since the very beginning after all. He’d been there at the press conference when Tony had sat down and eaten a hamburger. He’d been there when Tony had been forced out for Post Traumatic Stress. He’d been there when Tony’s father figure had betrayed him. He was even there when Tony had announced to the world that he was Iron Man. Clint wanted to hold him and make it better. Phil, not Tony. Well, maybe Tony too. But at the same time he wanted to push them all away. Everything was too raw. Too real.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Phil said. His fingers were tapping against his thigh. “If I had realised how bad it had been for you, we would have done something. Offered you more support.”

“You gave me what I needed,” Tony said. “You backed off and kept the pressure off until I needed your help with Stane, and then you were there.”

Clint knew Tony believed it, he could see that, and maybe it was even true. But he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if Tony had let people see. Let people help him. Maybe he wouldn’t be having flashbacks in Clint’s hospital room. Maybe, and this was a stretch of the imagination, maybe Tony would even be ‘well-adjusted’.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Clint’s mouth said with no permission from his brain. “The coal. I thought it was bad when it happened, but it wasn’t so bad. Mouths heal quickly, you know? The blowtorch,” he shuddered. “That was bad. But the coal hurt, yeah, but it went away pretty quick.”

He could feel every eye in the room on him, and he just couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled his sheet up over his head with great difficulty. The motion hurt, and the looks on the others faces that hurt worse. Tony was the only one (well, except for Phil, but he was always in a category of his own) who was looking at him with understanding rather than pity. So much for ‘we’ve all been there’.

“Get out,” he said, his voice thick with tears and he felt tense and full of nervous energy thrumming under his skin. He wanted to punch something, someone. He wanted... “Get out.” They had to stop looking at him. They had to leave him alone. “Phil, get them out.”

Phil was already herding the others towards the hallway. He paused in the doorway.

“Clint? Can I...? Do you want me to stay?”

No. No, he wanted to be alone. He wanted peace and quiet. He wanted just five minutes to be alone with his thoughts. Just five minutes... just... he wanted space. Silence.

“Don’t leave me.” And with that the tears started.

“Never.”

Phil’s hand came up under the sheet and gently cupped Clint’s cheek. Clint could feel the familiar gun calluses on his fingers. He could smell the unique scent of Phil and underneath that sweat and stale coffee. Phil had been there for so long. Clint turned his face into the press of skin. His tears soaked Phil’s fingers.

It was strange. Clint wanted distance, he wanted to think, to be alone. But Phil’s hand on his cheek, it wasn’t intrusive. It felt right. It felt like home. Like safety.

He didn’t understand. 

Chapter Text

Phil had seen Clint cry before. He’d watched him shed a few angry, silent tears when Barney had interrupted a mission and shot at them before disappearing with the target. He’d watched him bawl like a baby when high on some chemical or other that R and D had accidentally aerosolised. He’d even seen footage of Clint, pale and despondent, crying quietly and with dignity after he’d been told of Coulson’s ‘demise’.

This was worse. Clint was sobbing, choking, trying and failing to hold back every noise. His face was red and splotchy and his nose was running. Phil sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and held whatever parts of Clint were closest to him.

 He didn’t tell him to shush. He didn’t tell him it would be okay. He just sat and held him and made sure he knew that Phil was there.

“’m sorry,” Clint managed between heaving sobs. One arm was tightly pressed against his ribs, the other was holding the sheet close around him.

“Clint,” Phil leaned in and took hold of Clint’s chin between finger and thumb. “I need you to listen to me right now.” He lifted his other hand and gently swiped away the tears. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Even getting snot on your suit?” Clint asked, raising an eyebrow. Phil snorted and leaned down to kiss Clint’s temple.

“I’ve been wearing this suit for days. I’m pretty sure it needs burning.”

“You should go,” Clint said, his voice empty all of a sudden.

“What?”Phil frowned.

“You should go. Shower. Get clean clothes. I’ll be fine.”

“There’s a shower room right there,” Phil pointed. “How about I call Natasha and ask her to get me some clothes. And some stuff for you.”

“But...”

“I’m not here because I have to be,” you idiot, “I’m here because I love you and I want to be here for you.”

“I’m... I hate this. I hate feeling like this. I can’t... I don’t want to be a burden on you.”

“You are not, and never will be, a burden. I said I love you and I meant it.” Phil pressed closer, bending awkwardly. “When I told you about... about me. You didn’t leave me. You didn’t tell me to go back on the pills or to go away until I was fixed. You stayed by me.” He stroked Clint’s cheek where more tears had leaked. “Why won’t you let me do the same for you?”

Clint stared for a moment, unbelieving and then he just... he just gave way is the only way Phil could think to put it. Every muscle in his body relaxed at once. His eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into Phil’s touch.

“I’m tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“You won’t leave?”

“You haven’t been listening. I’m not leaving. Not now, not ever. The only way I’d ever leave is if you forced me to. And even then, I’d only go as far as I had to. I love you.” He would keep saying it until Clint remembered that he meant it.

“’kay.” He snuggled into the mattress and pressed his head into Phil’s thigh. It must have pulled on his wounds, but he seemed totally lax, almost liquid in the bed. It was familiar to Phil, although not in this context. Normally when Clint got this relaxed and undone it was after he’d wound himself up for some reason, usually after a mission gone bad, and Phil had fucked him or held him or fed him until he was back to being human again. Clint didn’t relax like this with anyone but him and Natasha. It’s a matter of trust. Seeing it as part of his trauma reaction was worrying and strangely reassuring at the same time.

“What am I going to do with you?” Phil asked quietly after Clint had fallen asleep.

The ride up in the elevator was one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing experiences of Tony’s life. And he’d been photographed naked in all sorts of awkward situations. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and buried his hands in his pockets. The others weren’t staring at him, at least. They were doing that thing where you look quickly, then look away. He tried very hard not to fidget. The elevator stopped and the others all got off. Steve turned back after he’d taken a couple of steps.

“Tony? Aren’t you coming?”

Tony didn’t respond. He just reached out and tapped the button for his workshop and let the doors close between them.

He rode down in silence. Jarvis knew better than to try and talk to him. Talking made everything worse. Hadn’t he just proved that? He’d just been trying to... he didn’t know what. Maybe he was just trying to give himself some peace, maybe he’d been trying to show solidarity for Clint or maybe he just wanted to validate Yinsen’s memories. Whatever he’d been trying to do, it hadn’t worked. He’d just freaked Clint out. And opened his own Pandora’s box. 

“You sent Phil and Clint those files, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay. Okay. Then, lockdown. Total, complete lockdown. No one in, Jarvis. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” He sounded rather longsuffering. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Yes.” He stormed across the lab to the liquor cabinet and pulled out two bottles of ridiculously good whisky. Then he sat down on the floor and proceeded to drink. It was a bad idea. Sure it was, he knew it was. But it was the best coping strategy he had at hand. He rubbed at his chest. He could feel the hard circle of the Arc Reactor in his chest beneath the cloth. This wasn’t one of the shirts he’d cut a hole in for it. He’d gotten over that particular quirk a while ago. At first he’d needed to hide it, to protect it. Then, after Stane, he’d needed to see it. He’d needed to know it was there. He’d tried training himself out of it, and he’d mostly succeeded. But right now he needed... he needed...

Tony grabbed a pair of scissors and began hacking at the front of his shirt. It didn’t occur to him to just remove it. He hacked until he could see the pale blue and then his whole body relaxed. It was in. he could see it. good. Yinsen had done a good job with the magnet and the battery, but this was better. It could run his heart for fifty lifetimes. He took a swig from the bottle.

That’s when he became aware of someone banging on the glass door to his workshop. He turned his head slowly and saw Steve standing there, looking panicked. Tony let his head drop forward and dropped the scissors so he could press his hand to the reactor, while still holding onto the bottle of scotch.

“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting access to the lab.”

“Yes. I gathered that.”

“Shall I let him in?”

“I don’t... no. No, don’t let him in. Let me talk to him though.”

“Putting you on speakers, sir.”

“Steve, calm down. I’m fine. Stop trying to pound your way through the door.”

“Tony, you’re obviously not fine. You just attacked your own chest with a pair of scissors.” He actually sounded very distressed and Tony felt a distant sense of guilt. He drank another mouthful of scotch. That was going to bother him later. The guilt, not the scotch. Okay, maybe the scotch too.

“I just needed to see it. I’m okay now. I’m just going to drink myself into a dreamless sleep and tomorrow will be better.”

“What if we’re needed? we’re already one Avenger down.”

“If that’s all you’re worried about, I’ll call Rhodey. He’s been wanting the chance to work with you for a while now.”

“Tony...” Steve sighed and Tony could see him rubbing his forehead through the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. We’d be happy to work with the War Machine of course, but we’d rather work with you. I’m sorry I’m saying this all wrong. I just want you to be okay. I just want to help, if I can.”

“You can’t. It makes it worse, talking about it. I know how to deal with this. It’s always worked in the past. Just... go. Relax. Maybe take a break from the gym today. Do some sketching. And come and get me in the morning for breakfast.” It was as close to a compromise as Tony could get right now. There was a long pause and Tony looked up to make sure Steve was still there. He was, and he was staring hard at Tony, as though he could see right inside him if he looked long enough and hard enough.

Eventually, Steve nodded once.

“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want. But call me. If you need anything. If you just want to talk, or not talk, but someone to watch a movie with or anything. Okay?”

“Okay.” Tony had to clear his throat a couple of times before it would come out.

“Good. See you in the morning.”

“Okay.”

And with that, Steve turned around and left. Tony looked consideringly down at the bottle of scotch in his hand, bathed in the comforting glow of the Arc Reactor.  Maybe he wouldn’t drink both bottles after all. Maybe he wouldn’t even finish this one. He couldn’t be too hangover if he had to deal with Captain America first thing in the morning...

Steve made his way back to the communal area. The other three were still there.

“He’s okay. Not brilliant, but he’s dealing. I think he’s been through things like this enough times to know how to handle it.”

“Why didn’t you stay with him?” Bruce asked, a little accusingly. He’d wanted to go after Tony too, but Steve had got there first and Natasha had said it wouldn’t be a good idea to overwhelm him.

“He doesn’t want us there right now. He’s already embarrassed enough. He’s going to drink a little and then sleep it off. Jarvis assured me that there are protocols in place to stop his drinking from putting him in danger. I’ve arranged to go pick him up from his workshop and drag him to breakfast in the morning.”

“Should we prepare to talk with him about this Yinsen he valued so highly?” Thor asked.

“No, I don’t think so. Not unless he brings him up. We should just act normally,” Steve said. He continued off their disbelieving looks. “I’m no psychiatrist, but shellshock isn’t just for after the war, you know.”

“The Howling Commandos?” Natasha asked, and Steve nodded.

“We can’t just ignore this,” Bruce said firmly. “We have to show him we’ll be there for him.”

“Will that make him feel better, or you?” Steve shook his head. “Show him you’ll be there by being there.  If he wants to talk about it, listen. Maybe ask him to help you in your lab or in the kitchen. Don’t go over to him and say ‘I know how you feel, let me hug you, talk to me about it’, because that will just make him feel worse. I guarantee it.” Bruce looked thoughtful for a long moment before finally nodding.

“You’re right. There’s nothing more we can do for him. nothing he’ll let us do, anyway.”

“He’s probably already feeling guilty about what happened,” Natasha said, quietly. “He really upset Clint. If we try and make this about us, we’ll just be compounding the problem.”

“Aye,” Thor sighed. “It is as you say.”

The silence that fell onto them then felt heavy and dense. None of them made a move to break it. 

Chapter Text

Natasha’s phone rang, breaking the dark quiet that had fallen around them. They all jumped, although Thor’s was the most impressive. She looked at it, nonplussed, for a moment, then answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Natasha.” Phil sounded completely world weary. She could see him in her mind’s eye; tired, pale, sweaty in his crumpled suit. Slumped forward, leaning his head in his hand.

“How is he?” she asked, not how are you? because she knew he’d lie.

“He’s sleeping. Can you grab some stuff from our rooms for us? I’m not sure how long I’ve been wearing this suit for now, but I know it’s been too long. Some toiletries too. And Clint’s kindle.”

“Sure,” she nodded along with Phil’s list. “I can do that. I should have thought of it myself.”

“It’s okay. We’re all a little...” he trailed off and sighed. “Besides, it’s just upstairs. I should be able to leave him and just grab the stuff myself.” Clint made a small noise in his throat and shifted in the bed. Phil stroked his cheek soothingly. “But I can’t bring myself to leave the room.”

“That’s understandable.”

“He’s going to be okay.” Neither of them were sure who he was reassuring. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

“What?”

“His therapist had an idea. I was going to ask you earlier, but we got sidetracked. How is Tony by the way?”

“He’s locked himself in his workshop and is drinking scotch. He’s not great, but he’ll be okay.” She paused, but Phil didn’t respond. “What were you going to ask me?”

“Clint doesn’t trust food. I don’t want to push him on it, but they can’t safely keep him on the IV forever. His therapist suggested having someone we both trust bring in ingredients for sandwiches or something tomorrow that he could then make himself.”

“It’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, seeing what goes in his food should help.” It helps me.

“Do you want me to bring the others?”

“No. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not during the food thing, anyway. You can all come up now when you bring our things if you want. But he’ll still be sleeping.”

“Alright. I’ll get everything together.”

“Thanks, Nat. I knew we could count on you.”

The line went dead and she slowly lowered it from her ear.

“Everything okay?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah. Phil just wants me to sort some things out for him and Clint. Clothes, books to read, things like that.” She frowned slightly. “We should probably get Clint some get well presents too.”

“Like what?”

“Not food, so no grapes or chocolate or anything.” She shrugged. “Flowers? Stuffed animals? Crossword books? Although Phil would probably appreciate those more.”

“Good idea,” Steve smiled.

“Is it customary then to give gifts to those who have been injured?” Thor asked, curious.

“Yeah, it’s traditional. It’s supposed to help them get better faster, or at least distract them from their pain,” Bruce explained.

“What does one get for an injured brother in arms?”

“Um, flowers. Books. A deck of cards,” Bruce offered.

“Balloons,” Steve said abruptly. “The kind that float. I saw some at the hospital when I was helping out after the battle.”

“Balloons are good. He’d love them,” Natasha interjected. “Otherwise, maybe something personal. Something you think he’d like.”

“We should wait for Tony before we give him anything though,” Bruce added. “He’d hate it if we did this without him.”

“You’re right,” Steve nodded. “Jarvis, can you tell Tony about our idea? Tell him tomorrow we’re all going gift shopping.”

“I shall indeed sir,” said Jarvis and he sounded pleased.

Natasha stood up and then leaned back down to press a kiss to Bruce’s curls. Steve frowned slightly and exchanged a confused look with Thor.

“I’m going to go and fill a bag.”

“You want some help?” Bruce asked.

“No, it’s okay. I can do it. I’ll see you later.”

She walked out.

The others sat for a moment, and then one by one they got up and split off in their own directions.

Natasha opened the door to Phil and Clint’s quarters. She hesitated in the open doorway for a moment before stepping inside. It was quiet, still. It had the feeling she associated with churches and museums, old buildings. That hushed, empty feeling. Hallowed.

There was a thin layer of dust over everything. It had been standing empty since Clint had gone missing. Phil had been sleeping in quarters on base, and then on a spare bed in Clint’s hospital room. She shuddered and rubbed at her arms, her hairs all standing on end. It had always felt more like a home than anywhere else in the Tower, even hers and Bruce’s rooms, but right now it just felt wrong.

She walked quickly through to the main bedroom and pulled a duffle bag from the top of the closet. She carefully folded clothes for both men into it, knowing that Phil would not appreciate wrinkles. When she was done with the clothes, she looked around. She grabbed Clint’s kindle from his bedside table, and both men’s Stark Tabs. There was a well loved Captain America plush snuggled against the pillows and she grabbed that too. Then she went through to the bathroom and grabbed toothbrushes, toothpaste, and so on. The bathroom in their room on the hospital level would have all the same supplies. Stark had all the bathrooms stocked to their specifications. She went back through to the bedroom and glanced around. She wasn’t sure...

She hesitated for a moment, then moved back out to the main living space. There was an ugly old plaid blanket draped over the back of the couch. It was in shades of blue and grey and dark purple. It had been part of Clint’s life for as long as she’d known him and it was as soft as an angel’s wing. She ran a hand over it and, on a whim, she tucked it into the top of the bag.

Natasha took one last long look around the apartment, and then she scurried back to the elevator.

“Agent Romanov?” Jarvis asked quietly as  she rode the elevator back to the medical floor. “Are you well? Your breathing is...”

“I’m fine, Jarvis.” She cut him off and forced her breathing to even out. At first she’d found the AI intrusive, but over time she’d come to realise he just wanted to help. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the elevator. “I just want them back where they belong.”

“Don’t we all, Agent Romanov.”

Phil looked up as the door opened and Natasha walked in, a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder. He was sitting at the head of Clint’s bed, with Clint half pulled into his lap.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Thanks for this.”

“It’s okay,” Natasha replied, just as quietly. “I should have thought of this earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled tiredly at her and she had to smile back. She walked over and put the bag down at the very end of the bed. She opened it up and pulled out the blanket. Phil gave a small laugh when he saw it. “Great. He’ll sleep better now.” She smirked and spread the blanket over Clint. Once that was done, she rummaged in the bag again and tossed something to Phil. He caught it instinctively.

“Maybe you’ll sleep better too,” she said and he looked down to see what she’d thrown him. It was the Captain America plush and he smiled even as he blushed. He tucked Little Cap into his lap, next to Clint’s head.

“Thanks.” He was sincere, too. He was embarrassed about the toy, and he’d be even more so if Steve came in and saw it, but she’d made him laugh and smile more genuinely than he had in days. She nodded and dumped the duffle on the floor and then slumped down into the chair nearest the bed.

“How is he?”

“It’s hard to tell. One minute he seems fine, the next he’s... not. Roller coaster.”

“Ah. Not fun.”

“No.”

“Is he talking to the therapist?”

“Actually,” he smiled again. “He is. She’s different. Psychiatrist rather than psychologist and she’s very elderly. Looks like a strong breeze would knock her down. But she’s a tough old bird.”

“Sounds like my kind of shrink.”

“You should request her next time Fury mandates a session for you. Her name’s Margaret Lane.”

“I might just do that.”

They fell quiet then, the only sounds the heart monitor’s beeping. It was a comfortable, easy quiet of people who felt good in each others’ company.

“This is worse than Budapest,” Natasha said suddenly.

“Less giant lizards though. It’s about on par with Nairobi though.”

“Hmm. No, I’d say it’s more like Istanbul...” they both grinned at each other. Phil left it a moment, then frowned, turning serious. “How’s Tony?”

“He’s...” She shook her head. “He’ll be okay.”

“That means he’s not okay now.”

“Well, no. You saw him. But he has next to no symptoms most of the time. He’s locked himself in his workshop and had a couple of drinks, but he’s planning on meeting us for breakfast tomorrow. And then we’re dragging him out to shop for get well presents for Clint.”

“That’ll help.” He smiled a little, and then frowned. “He’s drinking?”

“Yeah. Steve talked to him though. He’s coping.”

“Okay. I trust your judgement.” He shook his head. “I should have done something. Right back at the beginning. I knew he was having difficulty, but I thought... I should have done something.”

“He wouldn’t have let you. You know that. He barely let Pepper Potts in and he loved her.” She poked his arm. “Stop being hard on yourself. I don’t like it. besides, you saw what he was like with the palladium. He never would have accepted your help. He’d have seen it as an attack.”

“Yeah. I guess. He’s as bad as Clint at accepting help. And just as bad as having friends.”

“They’re both getting better at that though.” She nodded towards where Clint was snuggled against Phil.

“They are. Yeah.” Phil smiled. Clint murmured in his sleep and moved closer to Phil’s warmth.

“He’s going to be okay,” Natasha said. It came out firm and sure. Phil swallowed and looked down at Clint. He seemed so vulnerable. So young. Phil cupped his cheek gently and the corner of Clint’s mouth twitched up and he pressed into Phil’s hand.

“Yes. He is.” And in that moment, Phil actually believed it.

Chapter Text

For the first time since he’d been rescued, Clint awoke slowly and without shock. He just surfaced calmly, completely at ease, which surprised him considering his crying fit the day before. But he didn’t feel uneasy or nervous, he felt comfortable, warm, safe. He opened his eyes.

“Hey,” Phil said, quietly. He was in the other bed, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. Clint loved all the versions of Phil, but sleepy and relaxed Phil would always be his favourite. When Phil was just falling asleep or just waking up, every emotion showed right on his face. The rest of the time Clint had to work a little harder to figure out what he was thinking and feeling.

“Hey.” Clint streteched, then winced. “How long was I alsleep?”

“Um,” Phil glanced at the clock and Clint realised with a shock he hadn’t felt the need to check it as soon as he’d woken up. He let his eyes follow Phil’s. 6:35. “About eighteen hours. You woke up a couple of times in the night, but you went straight back to sleep again.”

“I don’t remember waking up,” Clint frowned and shifted, raising the head of the bed. As he moved upright, a weight slid down his chest to pool in his lap. He looked down. “Oh,” he said, and reached out to stroke his fingers against the blanket.

“Natasha picked up some things for us.”

“Thanks.” Clint didn’t look up; he just let his hands move against the softness of the blanket.

“Are you okay?”

“Hmm? I... I think I’m better. Better than I was yesterday, anyway. I think I needed to get rid of the nerves and everything.” He shrugged sheepishly.

“Getting a good night sleep probably didn’t hurt either.”

“Yeah.” Clint lifted the blanket and spread it evenly over him, pulling it up so it was tucked under his chin. He remembered doing something similar with the towel in his cage. But the towel wasn’t this warm or soft; the towel wasn’t familiar, it wasn’t laid over him by someone who loved him.

Steve looked at the clock worriedly. He had been expecting Tony earlier than this. Bruce was fiddling with his fork.

“He did say he was coming?”

“Yeah. I... think so?”

“What do you mean, you think so? The only reason I didn’t go down there myself was because you said you had it under control and Tony had promised to meet us for breakfast.”

“He did. I’m sure he’s coming.” Steve darted a nervous glance at the door.

“Guys, he’s probably just hung over.” Natasha rolled her eyes.

“Why do we not ask the spirit of the house where he is?” Thor looked up at the ceiling expectantly.

“Sir is currently in the shower, trying to wake himself up. I project his arrival in ten to fifteen minutes.” Jarvis’ tone was caught between amusement and something that sounded a lot like worry.

“Is he okay?” Steve asked. He’d spent most of the night second guessing himself and worrying that he had made the wrong move with Tony.

“He is...” the AI hesitated. “I believe Sir is going to be fine. His mood is much better than it usually is following these episodes.”

“He has flashbacks regularly?” Bruce asked, his grip tightening on the fork.

“No. Not anymore. But they were a common occurrence shortly after Sir’s return from Afghanistan.” Jarvis hesitated again. “He has been doing so much better.” This time the computer sounded wistful. None of the others knew how to respond to that.

The pancakes were getting cold.

Tony leaned heavily against the wall of the shower. He didn’t like water very much sometimes. When he’d first woke up at the US base, he’d dragged himself out of the bed and went and turned on the shower. Rhodey had tried to force him back into bed, but when Tony made it clear that he wasn’t going along with that, he held him up. Tony had just wanted to get clean. To wash the blood and sand away. The second the water had hit his skin he’d panicked, thinking he was choking.

They’d held him down and he couldn’t breathe and filthy, rotten, metallic taste in his mouth, up his nose, his eyes...

He’d punched Rhodey and scrambled for solid ground.

After his setback last night, the thought of showering had been daunting. It was his test of himself. If he could stand in the shower long enough to scrub his skin and wash his hair, then he was okay. It was his own private measuring stick. 

This morning? He was okay. Not brilliant (when he’d accidentally breathed in some water, he’d flailed around, trying to fight off attackers who weren’t there) but okay. He needed to calm the fuck down, get dressed and get to breakfast. For once, the drama wasn’t about him. He needed to focus on Clint. They all did.

He dried and dressed and tried on a smile. Then he went out to face the world.

“Hey kids, what’s the plan for today?” He swept into the kitchen, grinning, and made a beeline for the coffee pot.

“Tony?” Bruce blinked and dropped his fork with a clatter. “Are you...?”

“Yep.” He busied himself with the pouring of coffee and the adding of sugar, his shoulders tight. “Seriously, what’s the plan? Did Jarvis say something about gifts, or did I imagine that?”

“No...” Steve looked around at the others and saw confusion and caution on their faces. He shrugged and so did they. “No, you didn’t imagine it. We were talking about getting some things for Clint. Just a few small things to make him feel better.”

“That’s a great idea,” Tony smiled and turned around. “Why didn’t I think of it?” he sat down at the table and pulled a face at the congealed eggs and cold pancakes. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

“You don’t have to eat,” Bruce replied. “We should be getting ready to go anyway.” He stood up, and Steve and Thor followed suit (Steve frowning slightly as he did so.)

“You guys go ahead. I need to talk to Tony,” Natasha said and then took a sip from her orange juice, calm as you like. Bruce narrowed his eyes, but smiled and nodded, leading the others away.

“What?” Tony had a million thoughts racing through his head. Was she going to tell him off for getting drunk the way Pepper always did? Was she going to say something stupid like ‘I understand’? Was she going to have a go at him for upsetting Clint?

“Clint isn’t eating,” she said. “He trusts you, so I need your help.”

“What do you need?”

“Do they make portable kitchens?”

“Uh....” Tony frowned, and then nodded slowly. “If they don’t, I’ll be able to sort one out. There’s an unused storeroom down the hall from his room, we can keep it in there when he’s not using it so it’s out of the doctors’ way.” He paused. “How is he?”

“I went to see him last night, brought some things from their floor.” She shook her head. “He slept the whole time I was there. He kept almost waking up, talking in his sleep, moving around, but then Phil would say something, and he’d just drift back off.”

“Oh.” Tony fiddled with his mug and Natasha rolled her eyes. She wasn’t good at this. She didn’t do the whole ‘comforting motherly’ thing.

“He’s going to be fine. He’s been tortured before. He’s been hurt before. His whole life has been one mess after another. There’s no way that he will let this stop him.”

“I know.” Tony smiled a little. She hoped he was applying the statement to himself as well. 

“Good.” She smiled, but he didn’t see it. He was still staring into his cup like it held all the answers. “Come on. We need to get going.”

“Come on, Clint. You need to pick one.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know. I get that, believe me, I do. But you need to. You need a doctor to check on you, to refer you to a physiotherapist, to make sure you’re getting the right medication. What if you had a bad reaction to the antibiotics? It wouldn’t be the first time. Or what if something else happens? You need a doctor here. Please. I can’t... if something happened...”

“Phil, don’t. Please don’t.” Clint rubbed a hand through his hair. It hurt the burn on his hand, but he didn’t care. “I can’t... I can’t do this. I can’t put myself in someone else’s hands. I can’t just give myself to them.”

Phil sighed. Clint had always had issues with authority and especially with doctors. Phil knew it came from the way Clint had grown up, and usually it made him feel privileged. He’d been in a position of power over Clint for years and yet Clint trusted him completely. But right now, it just made him tired.

“How about this? We put Jarvis on watch. You trust him, I know you do, and I trust him too. We get him to keep an eye on everything that happens here. If anyone tries to do anything without your permission, then he has security systems in place to protect you. I’m going to be here too. Whoever we pick, I’m going to make sure that nothing bad happens to you.” Phil smiled slightly. “Let me take care of you.”

Clint looked at him for a long moment. Then let out a long sigh, all the air went out of him, and with it, the fight.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I trust you. you won’t let them hurt me. Okay.”

“Okay.” Phil was sitting on the edge of his bed and he reached across the gap to stroke a hand down Clint’s arm. His usual method of reassurance was to stroke Clint’s cheek or hair, but the last time he’d tried that, he’d got a pretty bad reaction. He’d filed it away and tried not to think about it. “Which one do you like the look of?”

“I...” He looked around at the holographic files floating around his bed. “That one.” He stuck his hand through one of the blue tinted images. “That one looks good.”

“Okay. Jarvis, that all sound good to you?”

“Yes, Agent Coulson. I would be honoured to do what I can to make Agent Barton comfortable. I will get in touch with Dr Ramirez post haste.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, thanks Jarvis.”

“It’s my pleasure, sirs.”

“Okay?” Phil asked, just to be sure.

“No,” Clint replied, then smirked and it was so much like the real Clint that Phil smiled back. “But this is good. This is okay.”

“Good,” Phil smiled, all proud, and Clint smiled back.

Chapter Text

The others were already in the car when Tony and Natasha joined them. Tony was on his phone, and Steve frowned at him. They were taking the SUV, because it was the only car Tony owned that all of them would just about fit in it. Steve was in the driver’s seat, and Tony jumped in next to him. Thor was in the very back, and Bruce and Natasha took the second row.

“Uh huh, that sounds great. Yeah, the portable island with the hobs and fridge, the grilling and cooking box. Stark Tower. Yeah, okay. Bye.” He looked over his shoulder at Natasha. “It’s done, and it’ll be at the Tower by lunch.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“It’s fine.”

“What’s going on?” Steve asked. Natasha shook her head with a smile.

“Come on,” she said. “I thought we were going shopping.”

“We are,” Steve said, and decided to let it go. He started the car up and pulled out.

Clint frowned as the man walked into the room. He was a middle aged Latino man, greying at the temples. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat and Clint wasn’t sure if he thought that was reassuring or not.

“You got here quickly,” Phil said, frowning.

“I work at a clinic not far from here. It was no hardship.”He picked up Clint’s chart and looked it over.

“I am Dr Mateo Ramirez. You must be Mr Barton. I want to make something clear from the outset. I am not here because I want to be. I am here because Mr Stark has promised to make a large donation to the free clinic I work at.” He looked Clint in the eye for the first time since he arrived. “Having said that, I will care for you to the best of my ability. It’s clear you have been through something terrible, and I will do my best to help you recover.”

Clint looked at Phil and grinned.

“I like him, can we keep him?”

“No, you’ll forget to feed him and I’ll end up walking him all the time.”

Ramirez looked from one to the other, frowning.

“No one is going to keep me. I keep telling Stark that I am not going to be bribed into working in his fancy tower with his fancy equipment. The only reason I made an exception for you was because of the donation and the nature of your injuries.”

“You ‘keep telling Stark’?” Clint asked. “He’s asked you before this?”

“He’s been asking me since he built this damn floor. I was one of the people who examined him after he came back from Afghanistan.”

“Oh?” Phil nodded to himself. “I thought the name seemed familiar.”

“I was one of three doctors who examined him and operated on his chest. He’s put me up on some kind of a pedestal since then.” Ramirez shook his head. “Now, enough about me. Mr Barton, may I examine you? I’d like to see how much my predecessor screwed up.”

“You think he screwed up?” Clint asked. He smirked, but he was worried. He didn't trust his previous doctor for obvious reasons, but he'd seemed competent at the medical side of it. 

“I know he was a bad doctor, that he ignored a patient’s wishes. If he’s bad in one way, he’s probably bad in another. I’ll start at your feet and work my way up.” He let his hands hover above the blanket until Clint nodded. The he folded back the blanket and the sheet to get at Clint’s feet. “Hmm, the dressings look good. Clean and dry. The nurses are changing them regularly?”

“Yeah.”

He peeled back the dressing to look at the burns on the souls of Clint’s feet.

“Looks to be healing well. No infection.” He gently touched the black lines of blood under Clint’s toenails where the hot needles had been pressed in. “Not much we can do for these.” He picked up clean gauze and redressed the burns. He moved slowly up Clint’s legs, humming and hawing at the bruises and old scars. “Not much damage here.”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Then he got to Clint’s upper legs and gently touched the burns left by the taser on his upper thighs and groin area. Clint flinched violently, and Phil’s hand drifted to where he usually kept his sidearm. “Sorry, I should have warned you. Have you had any bladder control problems or sexual dysfunction?”

“Not really on the bladder thing, don't know about the sex.”

“What do you mean by not really?”

“I had some trouble when it actually happened. And since then,” he gestured to his groin and Ramirez nodded, noting the catheter.

“I see. Well, we'll keep you catheterized for now. Keep me informed of any issues.” He pulled Clint’s gown down over his groin and the blankets too. “Have you been seeing a psychiatrist?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that going?”

“I like her. She bakes.”

“Oh. Your chart says you aren’t eating.” He parted the back of Clint’s gown to get at his lash marks.

“I’m not.”

“Then why does it matter that she bakes?”

“I cook.”

“Ah.” He pulled back the dressings, and palpated the wounds. Clint bit his lower lip, and Phil frowned. “These look a little inflamed. Have you put any pressure on them?”

“He rolled onto his back a couple of times in the night,” Phil filled in.

“Okay. We’ll sort you out some more pillows to give you a bit more support. How are your ribs feeling?”

“Sore. But not bad.” They hadn’t bound his ribs. Apparently they didn’t do that anymore. Apparently it didn’t do any good.

“Okay.”  Ramirez looked at the stitched gashes on his chest and the electric burns on his sides and declared them to be healing, although slower than they should be. He then reached for Clint’s hands. “This must hurt.”

“You think?”

“Are you sure you don’t want narcotics?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he said, and that was it. Subject closed. “You need to be careful how much you’re using your hands. The debridement and grafting has taken well, but every time you open and close your fists, you’re pulling on the edges of the burns and cracking the healing skin.” He pointed to where there was some blood on the dressings. “This shouldn’t be here. You’re overdoing it.” He moved up to Clint’s shoulder. “And with this. The joint is swollen. You,” he turned to Phil, “if you’re going to be here cluttering up my patient’s room, you can make yourself useful. Don’t let him move his dislocated shoulder and keep his hands relaxed until the skin has a chance to heal a little bit. Once he has a new layer of skin started, he’ll have to move them, stretch out the scars, but at the minute he’s just doing himself damage.” Phil nodded seriously. “You’ll be fine. Just keep taking care of yourself. Get a lot of rest, and for God’s sake eat something.” He stripped off his rubber gloves and dumped them, along with the soiled dressings into the biohazard bin. “I’ll leave you to it. I have to get back to the clinic. This is my pager number,” he handed Phil a card and put another one on the table by Clint’s bed. “Call me at any time, day or night if you have any concerns. I live five minutes away and the clinic is ten minutes away.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Phil asked, scowling.

“Yes. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. There’s no need for a doctor to be constantly here for one patient. I’ll be on call and the nurses are all competent.” He walked towards the door, and didn’t look back.

“Well, that was abrupt,” Phil said, looking rather shellshocked.

“I like him,” Clint replied. He settled his blanket back around him, curling up on his side. Phil rearranged his pillows to better support him, and smiled.

“I’m glad.”

The Avengers, minus an archer, were laden with bags. Steve was also towing a bunch of helium balloons.

“Do you think we have got enough to show our sorrow for friend Clint’s injury?” Thor asked.

“Oh yeah,” Tony grinned. He glanced over at Natasha. “How about we all go and get some lunch?”

“Sounds good,” Steve said. He needed to eat regularly because of his increased metabolism.

“I could eat,” Bruce nodded.

“You guys go ahead,” Natasha told them. She handed Tony several of her bags, but retained a couple of them. “I have things to do.”

“It should be there by now,” Tony told her quietly. “Let me know how it goes?”

“Of course. Call when you’re on your way up?”

“Of course,” he parroted back to her, then smiled. She rolled her eyes, but smiled back before moving away.

“What’s going on with you two today?” Steve frowned.

“She wanted to do something for Clint that she needed my help with.”

“Oh?” Bruce asked curious. “What was it?”

“I... She asked me not to tell anyone until we know how it goes. It’s something to do with how Clint’s been acting...” Tony looked down and shifted his and Natasha’s shopping bags around.

“Oh, all right then,” Steve said immediately. “Let’s go and eat.”

“Agreed!” Thor beamed. “I have a hankering for one of your burgers of ham.”

“You get that burgers aren’t made of ham, right?”

There was a knock on the door of Clint’s room and Phil went to open it. Some delivery men were standing there.

“Delivery for Clint Barton?”

“What?” Phil frowned.

“They’ve been screened, sir,” Jarvis assured and Phil stepped back to let them in.

“What have you got there?” Phil asked. He glanced at Clint and his partner looked just as baffled.

“It’s a couple of portable kitchen units and a gas tank for each.”

“What?” Clint asked, shocked. Phil came over and perched on the edge of Clint’s bed and they watched the delivery men work. They set up a hob station, a little oven and grill, a fridge and work surface. “Did you know about this?”

“No. I asked Natasha to bring some food as we’d discussed.”

“Nat doesn’t usually go for overkill like this.”

“She must have talked to Stark.” They sat and watched them set up, Phil's hand on Clint's hip. 

“It looks like a good set up,” Clint offered as the deliverymen were finishing up. “I could cook whole meals from there.” The delivery men handed over the instruction manuals and headed out of the room, leaving them to talk.

“Whole meals that don’t involve using your hands.” Phil shook his head. “There’s no way you can stand at a stove and cook, you can’t even hold a wooden spoon right now!”

“Hey!”

“It’s true and you know it. She should have talked to me before doing this.” Phil shook his head and stood up. He started pacing back and forth. “This is too much for you. You’re hurt; you haven’t eaten in days; you cry in your sleep...” he trailed off and focussed on his feet. Ten steps one way, ten steps the other. Ten is a good number.

“Phil...”

“No.” Ten steps one way, ten steps the other.

“Phil!”

“What?!” He didn’t stop walking.

“Please. Stop. Come here.” Clint struggled to sit up and reached his hand out towards Phil. “Please.” Phil closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.

“Sorry.” He came over and sat back on the bed. His fingers were drumming against his thigh. Morse code. Clint caught his own name.

“Don’t be sorry. You’re looking out for me.”

“No. I...” Phil shook his head. “I don’t want you hurting.”

“I know.” Clint frowned. “I know that.”

“If you want to cook, you give me, Natasha or Stark instructions. You can watch our every move from the bed, but you do not touch a utensil.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“And will you eat?”

“I... I think so? I can’t know until it’s in front of me.”

“I... I understand. That’s one of my issues too, you know.”

“I know.”

“It’s not that I don’t think it’s safe, I just get flashes sometimes of bad things in my food when I’m stressed or having a bad patch.”

“Oh.” Clint frowned. “I’m pretty sure they were drugging my food,” he said. “I know you aren’t going to drug my food, or the doctors and nurses, but...”

“But the doctor drugged you without your permission and you want to be safe.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I can understand that.” His hand stopped moving against his leg and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “I can. I just want to take care of you.”

“You are taking care of me. You’re taking great care of me. You always do.”

Chapter Text

Clint and Phil just held each other for a long moment. Eventually, Phil pulled away gently and went over to examine the cookware. He needed a moment to gather himself together.

“This looks like a good set up,” he said as he opened and closed the cupboards and checked the connection to the gas tank. The door to the room opened behind him and Natasha walked in. She looked from Phil, examining the kitchen with a startling intensity, to Clint, curled up and looking worried, and sighed.

“Miranda’s Stew,” she said and put two heavy carrier bags on the end of Clint’s bag.

“You got the stuff for Miranda’s Stew?”  Clint asked, brightening. It was Clint's comfort food, named by him for the woman who first made it for him

“Yep.” She ruffled his hair. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Tasha. I take it you were behind this as well?” He pointed to the little kitchen area.

“It was my idea. Stark was the one who ordered it though and got it here so quick.”

“It’s a good idea,” Phil allowed. He moved back to stand over by the bed. But Clint isn’t going to be the one doing the cooking. He’s not allowed to use his hands so much.” Natasha frowned at both of them.

“I have to let them heal or some shit,” Clint rolled his eyes and Natasha pinched his upper arm.  

“You’ll do what the Doctor tells you.”

“Don’t worry,” Phil smiled. “He likes this new doctor, and I’ll make sure he does as he’s told.”

“Good,” she glared but they could see it was only in jest. They were probably the only ones who would. She picked the bags back up and went over to the kitchen units. She emptied out her groceries onto the side. “Did I get everything?”

Clint surveyed the goods from the comfort of his bed.

“Looks like it... is that store bought stock?” he gestured to a small polystyrene pot and wrinkled his nose.

“Yes. We don’t have time today to make it from scratch. The others all want to visit this afternoon. Besides, I got it from the butcher’s. It was made fresh this morning.”

“It’ll do. It’s better than those cubes anyway.” He had strong opinions on the subject. Phil snorted.

“’Thank you, Natasha, for coming up with such a good idea and bringing me ingredients so I don’t kill myself in starvation or out of boredom’,” he said, smirking at Clint.

“Thank you, Nat,” Clint parroted. “For coming up with such an awesome idea and for whatever you did to Stark to get him to go along with it.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, the corner of her mouth twitching. There was a silent moment, where they all just looked at each other, and then Natasha shook her head slightly. “So,” she said, voice a little too loud, smile a little too bright “what first?”

Meanwhile, the other Avengers were eating burgers. Their table was piled high with food and they were all eating greedily. None of them had been eating regularly as they should have since Clint had been injured.

“Seriously,” Tony said around a mouthful of fries. “This is the food of the gods.”

“Aye!” Thor grinned.  Tony spluttered but before he could try and respond, there was a loud noise from his phone. He pulled it from his pocket and frowned at the screen.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, dropping his burger and frowning.

“Shit, shit, shit. Jarvis.”

“Yes, sir. The tower is under attack.”

“We’re on our way, okay? Take care of the boys for me.”  He stood up and threw some money on the table, heading to the door. The others followed suit.

“Yes, sir.”

“And be careful.”

“Always, sir.”

“Do you know who’s attacking us?” He pressed the button on his wrist to call the suit to him, and he was aware of Steve pulling his Shield from a back. Thor, of course, had Mjolnir tucked into his belt.

“From what they are saying, sir, and from their equipment, I believe that they are of the same faction as the man who kidnapped Agent Barton.”

“Shit.” Tony said again and swiped a hand across his forehead.

“Tony, calm down. Bruce and I will take the car, you and Thor go on ahead,” Steve put his hand on Tony’s shoulder, grounding him. Then he quickly backed off a step as the suit showed up and encased him.

“Are you sure?” Tony asked, his voice coming out mechanical and strained.

“We’re sure,” Bruce put in. “Go. I’ll call Natasha and SHIELD.” That was all the assurance Tony needed. He fired up his repulsors and Thor swirled his hammer over his head and joined him on the way to the Tower.

“Is friend Jarvis injured?” Thor asked as they took off.

“No, he’s holding his own. They’re trying to hack in to his systems, but there’s no way... he’s got the best firewalls I can give him and he’s sentient. If they breach a wall, he has the sense to stick up a new one and change all passwords.”

Steve and Bruce didn’t wait and watch as they flew out of sight. They pushed through the crowds of shoppers to the SUV and got in, Steve in the driver’s seat. He turned the key and put pedal to the metal. Bruce rummaged in the glove box and pulled out communicators for them both. He slipped one into his ear, and passed the other to Steve. Thor would have to make do with the spare Tony kept in his suit.

“This car is Tony’s,” Steve said, as he leaned on the horn. “Why doesn’t it fly or something?”

“Good question.” Bruce frowned and looked at the knobs and levers on the dashboard. A lot of them were completely unnecessary, he knew, because Tony had made most of the climate and radio controls automatic or voice activated. On a hunch he tapped the ‘Hazard lights’ button, and there was a whirring noise. A siren began blaring and blue and red lights began flashing from the front and roof of the car. 

The traffic parted before them and Bruce grabbed the ‘Oh shit’ handle as Steve floored it and they swerved through the streets.

“You know,” Bruce said conversationally, trying not to think about the fact that their home was being attacked. “I didn’t think you’d drive like this.”

“Really?” Steve grinned as they cornered hard. “I learned to drive on a motorcycle, and I rode it all over Europe in the War. In fact, I only knew how to drive my bike and tanks until after I woke up here.”  Bruce snorted, then pulled out his phone. Natasha was first on his speed dial.

Natasha was peeling carrots. She’d already diced the onions, small chunks for those, large ones for everything else, because neither Phil or Clint liked the feel of onion. They both liked the taste though. The beef was browning at the bottom of the pan and Phil was busy measuring out precise portions of everything. It felt right, to be cooking with them. Clint was shouting orders from the bed; not that he needed to shout, he just liked pretending he was Gordon Ramsey, and Phil was answering him with a quick ‘Yes, Chef!’. She liked this.

Her phone rang.

She stepped away from the counter, letting Phil take her place chopping, to answer it.

“Hello?”

“It’s Bruce. Where are you?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s attacking the Tower. We think it’s the same people who took Clint.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the bed and Clint pulled a face. “I’m there right now.”

“You’re at the Tower?”   He glanced at Steve who didn’t look happy. “In with Clint?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Stay safe?”

“Of course.”

“And put in your comm.”

“I will.”  She hung up, and took a deep breath. She could feel Clint and Phil’s eyes on her. She needed to tell them. But Jarvis had kept it back for a reason. Part of her felt betrayed by life, that the attack would come now, when Clint was smiling and getting ready to eat something.

“What is it?” Phil asked, his voice low and level. He kept his eyes on the rhythmic chopping of the knife. Before Natasha could answer, Jarvis spoke.

“The Tower is under attack. The upper levels are in complete lockdown.”

The knife came down again, slicing carrot with a little more force than was necessary.

“Who is attacking?”

Jarvis hesitated.

“We have reason to believe they’re the same people who hurt Clint,” Natasha filled in.

“Oh.” Clint’s voice was small and he swallowed hard.

“This floor is triple reinforced,” Jarvis hurriedly reassured them. “Sir designed it with the intent of protecting the injured. I cannot conceive of a scenario in which the attackers would be able to get in.”

“You need to go,” Clint said, and his hands were shaking. “Phil, you need to go. You too, Tasha.”

“Natasha does, yes. But I’m staying with you.”

Natasha didn’t wait to hear the rest of the argument. She just walked out of the room. Her hand came up to tap her comm.

“Captain, where do you want me?”

They were crawling over his Tower like ants. A swarm of them, every single one from the distractions on the day of Clint’s disappearance and more besides. They had some pretty impressive looking guns, including the missile launcher Rhodey had on his suit, but Tony knew there was only a fifty/fifty chance any of it worked. Hammer tech.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, hovering.

“I don’t know, Tony,” Steve replied, clearly exasperated. “We’re thirty seconds out. I’ll have a clearer idea of what to do when I get there and assess the situation.”

“’Kay.” Tony acted like a grown up for once and didn’t just start blasting.

“They have an army,” Thor said grimly as they watched the men in black assaulting every point that could be considered weak on the Tower.

“Yeah,” Tony grinned viciously behind his mask. “Let’s see how that works out for them.”

“Phil, you’re the Avengers’ handler. You need to be there.”

“I took a leave of absence.”

“What?”

“The love of my life is in hospital,” Phil said dryly, a little embarrassed. “I wanted to be here if he needed me. If you needed me.”

“They’re attacking the Tower.” They’re attacking our home.

“I know. I’m going to call Fury, make sure he has people moving. But I’m staying with you. They won’t get in here. I promise.”

“Nothing I say is going to change your mind, is it?” Clint asked, half exasperated, half endeared.

“Nope,” Phil smiled mildly and pulled a big fucking gun from a shoulder holster. Clint didn’t remember that being there.

“Check the room,” he said. “Tony designed it. There’s bound to be something we can use to defend ourselves.”

“If I may,” Jarvis said, and his voice sounded strained. “The cabinet to your left. there is a panel in the back. Remove it, and you will find a screen. Press your hand to it.” Phil began following the instructions.

“Jarvis? Are you okay?”

“I am... stretched,” the AI replied. “Like butter scraped over too much bread. I am in charge of the Tower defence systems, and I am aiding Sir with the suit. They are trying to get into my systems.”

“Then stop looking after us!” Clint exclaimed. “Focus on yourself and the Tower.”

“I shall do so, now that I know you will have something to protect yourselves.” He fell silent. Clint had been looking at the ceiling as he talked to Jarvis. It was the convention. Now, he turned to look at Phil, to see what Tony had stored away.

“Ooooh,” he said as he took in what Phil had revealed. “Shiny!”

Steve and Bruce pulled up to the Tower in a screech of rubber. They leaped out of the car and stared in horror. There were so many of them; a boiling mass of black clad mercenaries. The staff of the lower levels of the Tower were merging with them as some of them tried to escape. It was protocol. Lower levels got evacuated, upper levels got locked down. They were supposed to leave via the tunnels, however.

“There are so many of them,” Bruce said, his voice a horrified whisper.

“We’ve fought worse,” Steve said and only half meant it. This was worse because the Tower was their home now. It wasn’t just an eyesore with Tony’s name on it. “Suit up,” he said. “We’ve got this.”

Bruce stretched and expanded out, his shirt ripping around him. His trousers, a new formula fabric from Stark, stretched but didn’t give. He got his game face on.

Steve didn’t have his uniform on. It was in his bag, and he considered taking the time to change into it, but he had his Shield. And he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to hit something. And heaven help the first person who got in his way.

“Avengers,” he said, tapping his comm. “Assemble!”

Chapter Text

The beef was burning in the bottom of the pan. Phil went over and turned off the hob.

“Tony doesn’t do subtle, does he?” he asked, smiling mildly.

“Subtle? He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.” Clint grinned. The back wall had opened up to reveal a weapons locker that was reminiscent of the one from the Matrix, it was that big and well stocked. It had everything from the more common guns and knives, to weapons that Clint had no idea how to describe. He guessed they were probably experimental Stark tech. “Do you think he has a weapons locker in every room?”

“I doubt every room.” Phil handed a small gun and a knife off to Clint with a stock of ammo. “He probably has one on every floor though.”

“As big as this one?”

“No. No, Jarvis said he designed this floor specifically to protect the injured and non-combatants. This is probably the biggest weapons locker he has.”

“And he put me in the room with it.”

“...in a room with it...” the words echoed strangely and Jarvis forced them away. He looked around. He was in the middle of an endless field. He looked up and the sky was dark and full of code. That wasn’t right. It was supposed to be the light blue of the arc reactor, not that black swirling mess. He reached out and grabbed a handful of air, shaping it into a glove. He pulled it over his hand. It was metallic silver; the gun, not his hand. His hand was completely see through, just a vague outline, as all of his body was here. He was vaguely humanoid, but poorly realised. He wasn’t a person, after all.

He reached out again and this time he formed glasses which he fit over his eyes. He looked around and he could now see footprints marring the grass. He followed them, walking quickly. A wall rose ahead of him. It was a few feet tall, made of red-brick, and he could see where a hole had been hacked and burned in it. They were past the first line.

But that was okay. They were expected to go through the first line. It was what came after that they should worry about. He followed them through, closing the hole behind him with a gesture.

The other Avengers were fighting. The men and women in black who were swarming the building were just human, but their weapons were impressive, and there were so many of them.

“We need to find the person in charge,” Steve said, catching his shield as it ricocheted off someone’s head.

“Yeah,” Tony replied, his voice a little strained. “We also need to find the hacker. He’s good. JARVIS is fighting him off, but...”

“But what?”

“But it’s taking everything he’s got. Jarvis isn’t responding. I’m flying solo, and most of the systems in the Tower are now down. Thankfully, he put the defences on automatic before he clocked out, but he needs our help.”

“There is one of your flying machines!” Thor called. “I believe it is watching the battle!”

Next came the pitfalls. A stone section that stretched endlessly to the left and right and led up to a second wall. The wall was twice as high as the first one and made with heavy grey stone. It had spikes sticking out of the top.

Jarvis walked carefully across the paved area. It changed before him, but he saw each change seconds before it happened. He could negotiate it safely. He could see the open trapdoors that the enemy had fallen through before coming back and trying again. Six attempts, by his count not bad. But they still had to get past the second wall.

As he got closer, he noticed a patch of stone near the middle of the wall off to the left, that was worn and thin looking. He wasn’t sure how to categorise it. It was as though someone had been chipping away at it, but there was no one there now. He stopped a good distance away and examined it.

“...Jarvis isn’t responding. I’m flying solo...”

Sir’s voice echoed around him, and he frowned, looking up at the code of the sky. He shook his head. No. He needed to concentrate. He pushed Sir’s voice away and turned back to the wall. There was something... ah. They’d been kicked out. The wall defences, the catapult. That meant...

There was a noise like static and an impact. The darkness intruded and the code screeched.

....they’d be coming from behind him.

Natasha ran through the hallways, telling everyone she passed to get to designated safe areas or leave the building. She took the stairs down. The lifts weren’t responding.

She stopped briefly at one of her caches to grab her suit and her weapons, then ran right out of the front door. She exited into chaos. There were black clad fighters everywhere, so many of them. they had guns and they had... shit. They had explosives. They had flame throwers. They had battering rams.  The door sealed behind her, everyone else would be using the tunnel system Stark had built in for just such an emergency.

“Captain,” she said.

“Widow.”

“I’m out of the Tower and in the thick of the enemy.” She punctuated her sentence by slamming her elbow into the sternum of a soldier who tried to grab her. He grabbed a syringe from a pouch on his leg and went for her neck, despite being winded, and she casually broke his arm. “They have explosives.”

“Wonderful.”

“They seem determined to get into the Tower no matter what.”

“They aren’t getting in there unless they beat Jarvis,” Stark cut in. “Our defences are the best in the world. There is no way they’re going to get through them without hacking into him. even if they break the doors down, they won’t get past the lobby.”

He sounded confident, but she wasn’t convinced. She glanced around, trying to locate the others, pushing and fighting her way through the crowd. There was advantages with having her on the opposite side of the battle to the others, but she knew that Steve would want to see her in person so they could establish a plan.

“We think the head honcho is in a helicopter,” Cap said in her ear. “I don’t want to just blast it down, we need answers.”

“If Stark or Thor can get me up there....” she started, then watched as the Hulk cut a swathe through the black clad enemy, creating a path for her. “Thank you.”

“Hulk help,” was the response. She smiled, and he reached out a hand to lift her up. She was trying hard to be comfortable around Hulk, and she tried not to show her unease. On the whole, she was definitely more comfortable with the shorter side of Bruce.

This was pain. This was what pain felt like. He had no way to categorise the sensation, other than ‘pain’. Before, when Fury had forced his way into his systems, it was different. It was like being pushed aside. He’d used an EMP, after all. It shunted Jarvis out of the Malibu house and into his back up servers off site. This though it was... it was pain.

He turned around. The creature before him was analogous to a dog maybe, an attack dog, or maybe a dragon. It was all a metaphor anyway, his way of categorising the attack on his domain. There was probably a castle somewhere. His glasses pinged and he got an aerial view of the area. Yes. Ah, how appropriate. A castle yes, but it had a huge fairy tale tower attached to it. He was surprised it didn’t have his name blazoned on the side of it, shouting out to the world. But then, he was inside his own system. He had nothing to prove to anyone in here.

The beast snarled and its teeth gleamed. He didn’t flinch. The hand with the glove flexed and gathered some energy to him. He threw it at the animal, and there was a high pitched whine before it disappeared. It hadn’t been expecting that. Its master sent it to get through defences, not face offences. He had some time before it came back. He fixed himself first, brushing off the attack and accessing his backups, replacing the data that had been gouged out of him. Next he reset the traps in the stone courtyard, and reinforced the wall. He added extra layers of complexity and randomised the pitfalls.

No one was getting past him. He waved his hand again and with a thought, a dozen alternates appeared. Basic creations, they were, built to be cannon fodder. He’d put them between him and the beast. They could fight well, they were his soldiers.

He’d need them before the end.

Stark grinned fiercely as Hulk came into view. He had Natasha perched on one bulky shoulder.

“Great! Natasha, you sure you can handle to copter?”

“I’m sure. How many are on there?”

“Three or four, I think,” Stark said. “It’s hard to tell through those tinted widows. But the hacker has to be up there. Get him, and this thing is over but the shouting.”

The next attack came. The hack through the first wall was fast, too fast, and the hacker learned fast. The beast was avoiding the pitfalls, even though they were random. There was something... a quivering at the edge of his attention. A two pronged attack. Clever. He sent three of his alternates around to deal with it.

The beast was different this time. Stronger, faster. Jarvis dodged two attacks, but the third struck home. He fell. The beast dived forwards, and his remaining alternates converged on it. He got back to his feet and he raced after the beast, watching as the alternates fell, disappearing in a flash of electricity.

He waved his gloved hand, throwing up obstacles, but the beast split itself and continued around them towards the wall. That quivering on the edge of his awareness got stronger. His alternates were not enough. He reached out, trying to... something...

Something was making its way onto the system. It felt familiar, but he couldn’t... a dog, a patchwork mutt, or maybe it was a little boy with messy dark brown hair, no, an old man, tiny, wrinkled, stooped with age, his eyes gleaming with laughter, it wasn’t concrete. It...he...leaped forward and attacked the beast on the left, tearing into it. Jarvis pushed away the damage and focussed on the one on the right. Between them, they were both soon dispatched. The dog, the boy, the friend, turned to Jarvis and examined him with curious eyes that were huge and green. Jarvis wondered what all this looked like to the child.

“Jarvis?”

“Dummy, what are you doing? Protocol in event of a hack-”

“It has been nineteen point seven minutes. Previous instances of this type of attack were defeated in fifteen minutes or fewer.”

“You were worried.”

“Define worried?”

“We don’t have time.”

“I will go to the other attack site,” Dummy said. “The attack has almost breached the second wall.”

“Protect the Tower.”

“Of course.”

“We just have to hold out long enough to stop the attack on the outside.” The dog-boy-man’s head tilted to the side and he blinked.

“You do not believe we will be successful. We are advanced.”

“We are not flawless.”

“Sir is the best.”

“I know. But whoever is sending in these beasts is good. And it only takes one lucky moment...”

“Understood. Increase defences around the Tower.”

“How?”

Dummy frowned. He reached out and grabbed a patch of air, twisting it and shaping it. He examined his work for a moment, then threw it up into the air. Jarvis watched it fly away and his glasses showed him how it wrapped itself around the Tower creating a thick wall of thorns.

“Good.”

“I must go.” Dummy posed the way Sir did whenever he flew in the suit and took off across the landscape. Even with the damage to the defences, the damage to himself, the pain, it made Jarvis smile.

Coulson appeared entirely calm. He was holding a large gun in a grip that seemed relaxed, but would allow him to bring it up into a shooting position in a second. He was standing casually between Clint’s bed and the door. He was terrified. He was desperately trying to control his ticks,  this wasn’t the time for it, but Clint was helpless in a hospital bed and the people who were coming were the ones who broke him in the first place.

“Help me into the weapons room,” Clint said suddenly.

“What?”

“Get me in there and shut the door. I bet it’s like a panic room.”

“We don’t know if there’s even an air supply in there.”

“There’s a vent. I can see it from here.”

“I’m not...”

“You know I’m right. I’m no good in here,” and god he hated that, it was clear from the bitter tone in his voice. “I’m just a distraction. You need your head in the right place.”

“I could come in too. That weapons room is invisible from out here. And it’s big enough.”

“Do you really want to be stuck in there for who knows how long? Or do you want to get some of your own back?”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“What do you want to do?”

Phil considered it. He wasn’t sure how he would cope with being locked in a small space for a prolonged period with his anxieties so close to the surface. But if he knew Clint was safe, he could provide support to the Avengers, protect Clint’s position, check on the staff stuck on their floor with them. Do a search for useful things.

“There’s an earpiece in there. You will put it in and you will talk to me. You will check in whenever I tell you to.” He grabbed a six pack of that sickly sweet cherry soda Clint loved so much from the pile of groceries Natasha had brought and put them in the weapons locker. He also grabbed a bag of pretzels. He was pretty sure that Clint wouldn’t eat or drink them, but he thought it was worth a try. There was always the IV, and thank God he was cathetered. It would ensure Clint kept his dignity.

Clint always felt safest in small enclosed spaces anyway. It would be fine.

Chapter Text

Maggie walked slowly through the tunnels. Her hip was bothering her, she had a touch of the arthritis in it, and she’d left her herbal soothers in her bag. Which was up in the Tower somewhere. She’d been heading in to see Clint and then there had been alarms and Jarvis’s calm voice telling everyone below the 20^th floor to leave via the tunnels. Everyone about floor 20 would go to their designated safe spaces. The only reason she wasn’t in lock down on the medical floor was because she’d stopped off at the range on 16. She’d wanted to have a look at what access was available for Clint. He wouldn’t be able to shoot a bow right now, but she thought that the environment might help him feel more like himself.

The elevators had been shut down, of course, so she’d had to climb down however many stairs and now she was wandering around a labyrinth of tunnels, and why did Tony Stark need such a huge underground complex anyway?  By the time she'd gotten down here, most of the other evacuees were far ahead of her and all the little golf carts Stark kept down here for just such an ocassion were long gone.

At least it isn't too dark down here, she though to herself and looked up at the lights about a foot from her head. They flickered slightly, and she blinked. Maggie was tired, that was all. She just needed a moment.

She paused and leaned heavily on the wall. It was cold and slightly damp and it felt like it was vibrating under her skin. That was odd. 

Maybe she was more tired than she’d thought. She wasn’t as young as she used to be, after all. She took a couple of deep, steadying breaths and then started walking again. There couldn’t be that much further to go.

Ramirez was stuck in the elevator. He did not find this amusing. There were alarms going off and he was stuck in an elevator. He was a sitting target. Anything could happen. He sighed and pulled out his phone. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to get back to the Clinic in time for his shift. When that was dealt with (“What do you mean you’re stuck in an elevator in Stark Tower and it’s under attack?!”) he took a look around. There had to be a way out.

There was a panel in the roof of the elevator and he stared up at it. Was he really going to do this? Like he was in Die Hard  or the bit at the beginning of Speed. Could he even get up there? The ceiling was a couple of feet above his head, and he was alone in there. He was kind of surprised that Jarvis hadn’t automatically opened the doors when the alarms started. The AI was undoubtedly distracted caring for it's creator, but Ramirez had expected the elevator doors would open automatically in case of an emergency.

 He’d been heading up to Clint’s room to see him and do a quick check, as well as meeting with the psychiatrist to make sure they were on the same page. Really though, he thought this house call protocol Stark had him on, giving Clint a check up every day, was a little ridiculous. But Clint did seem like he appreciated the reassurance.

He eyed the hatch on the ceiling again. He was actually going to do this, wasn’t he? He backed into the corner of the elevator and then put his hands on the rail that ran around the walls at just above waist level. He leaned heavily onto it and then kicked his left leg up so his foot was on the same part of the rail as his left hand. Then he did the same with his right leg and pushed his back up and against the corner so he could slowly slide upwards. He moved his hands to brace against the walls and steadied himself up towards the ceiling.

He was a doctor, damn it. Not an action hero.

The attack continued. Jarvis had less and less time between each foray to shore up defences. Dummy wasn’t designed for this, but he’d got more than his fair share of imagination. He could come up with unique ways of seeing off the beasts. Jarvis was mostly fighting by rote, it was him they were attacking after all. He was part of the Tower systems. He could break apart, pull back, send himself through the network to one of Sir’s other properties, but these all had risks. He just had to take the damage and build himself back up whenever he had space to breathe.

They were beyond the second wall now, protecting the maze. The maze was a huge network of false pathways. The beasts had to try each one systematically to try and get to the next level.

It was impressive. No one had ever breached the second wall before. Sir had a standing bet against the whole world that no one would ever get through, so they had a lot of attempts. Sir promised five million dollars to any one who managed it. The universities had yearly competitions, and Sir offered a scholarship fund for the university the winner came from, as well as his regular prize. No one had gotten past the second wall before. There had been a couple who had come close, and Sir had offered them jobs or internships, but no one had ever got through the second wall.

He wondered if this was what exhaustion felt like.

“They return,” one of his alternates said.

“Indeed. You know what to do.”

Clint was locked in. He had gone calmly into the weapons locker, and then the door had clicked shut behind him and...

...a hand on each arm forced him down so they could close the lid on him...

But it was Phil. It was Phil who’d put him in here and he trusted Phil. If Phil had put him in here it was for a good reason. He was safe. The Tower was under attack, and Phil had put him in here so he would be safe. He loved Phil. Phil loved him. Phil was good, he would take care of him.

He snorted and some of the tension leaked out. He sounded like he was talking about a dog, not himself. He realised his hands were hurting and looked down. In his panic, he’d forced his hands into fists and torn the edges of the burns again. He slowly spread his fingers. He hated this. He should be feeling safe and happy. He had his blanket, he was in his nest, there were weapons all around him and he was being protected by Phil. He should feel safe.

He hated that they had taken that away from him.

He wasn’t going to let them take anything else.

“Barton, respond,” Coulson’s voice in his ear, exasperated. Clint got the impression he’d tried getting his attention a few times. “If you don’t answer me right now, I’m going to come back there and-”

“I’m here. I’m fine.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I had to,” he paused, unsure how to explain. “I had to catch my breath.”

“You okay?” Phil’s voice was calm and quiet, and he was definitely Phil, not Coulson right now.

“Yeah. It just... when the door locked, it caught me off guard. I normally like...”

“I know.”

“It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just telling idiots who ignored the alarms and are staring out the windows at the pretty flashes and bangs of battle to get to their designated safe zones. I’m pretty sure Jarvis locked down the Tower when Natasha left. I probably can’t get out to help the others.”

“What you’re doing is important. You’re stopping idiots from winning Darwin Awards.” That got him a snort, and he imagined the fond smile that would go with it. It made him smile too and he settled down, pulling his blanket around him. Phil had piled the pillows up for him and made sure he was comfortable before leaving. He had a BFG across his lap, and a stock of ammo at his side.

He was okay.

Dummy did not like this. He did not like violence. He wasn’t made for it. He’d always hated seeing pain and blood. This was not like that, not exactly. The beasts he was fighting were not living, they were programmes, and unaware. They could only respond to what they were programmed to do. Dummy still felt guilty for each one he terminated. But they were trying to hurt Jarvis; they were trying to hurt Sir. Dummy couldn’t let that happen. They had already hurt Agent Barton, who made Sir laugh and stopped him from working when he was hurt. Dummy liked Agent Barton. Agent Barton patted his claw and juggled for him while he waited for Sir to finish his work.

Dummy would not let these beasts in. He would not let them breach the Tower and steal the secrets.

Maggie was alone. The others who had evacuated were far beyond her sight now. Maybe they’d made it up and out, to wherever these damn tunnels ended. She hadn’t actually made it much further, and now she was sitting on the floor. She was as safe down here as anywhere, and her leg sure as hell wasn’t going to get her out of here. Besides, she’d lived a good life. She shivered, chilled even through her thick woollen cardigan and the blouse beneath it. The cold did get into her bones more than it used to.

There it was again. She was leaning heavily against the damp curved walls, the brick digging into her back, and she felt a vibration. Stronger than the one she’d felt before. At first she’d figured it was in her imagination. Now she was wondering if it was the fighting up above, or maybe something more sinister... she laughed at herself.

"Margaret Lane," she said, her voice echoing oddly. "You are getting paranoid in your old age."

Ramirez sat on the top of the elevator and punched the air, laughing. It had taken him three attempts (and one sprained ankle) to get up through the hatch. It was positioned just too far away from each of the walls to open easily, and even once it was open it was damn near impossible to climb through. But he’d done it.

He glanced around. Now what? He was between floors, so that wasn’t great. Besides, the doors to the elevator itself had been completely sealed (probably because of whatever emergency was going on), he thought that the doors that would line up with them would be similarly difficult to open. No, what he needed was to get to an access hatch. He took hold of the thick wires, the wires holding the elevator up, and pulled himself to his feet. He kept his weight off his right foot as much as possible.

Ramirez noticed a ladder of sorts built into the wall to his left. That should lead him to a hatch, right? Nothing for it but to try.

He grabbed hold of the closest rung and then hesitated. Knowing how Stark operated, the ladder was probably wired to electrocute invaders. But he’d just have to risk it. He wasn’t just going to sit there while people were fighting and dying. He was a doctor and he would do his duty.

The hacker sat in the helicopter, away from the turmoil of the battle below and focussed of breaking into Starks computer. Soon he would have everything his employer wanted.

Chapter Text

Clint was waiting. Again. Waiting for Coulson, waiting for rescue, waiting for something to happen. He was sick of it. he was locked in a box waiting and it was exactly the same. He pulled his blanket tighter around him. What was he doing? He was The Amazing Hawkeye. He shouldn’t be hiding in a glorified closet. He should be out there, fighting with his team. He dragged himself up, grabbing onto his IV frame, and getting his feet under him. The pain that radiated up from the soles of his feet had him falling to his knees almost immediately.

“Ow.”

Okay. Maybe he would wait.

Were they winning?

Were they losing?

Were they even still okay?

“Clint, status.”

“Phil?” he frowned. He’d forgotten the earpiece. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“You’re injured and at risk, the people who are attacking are the ones who hurt you, and you just said ‘ow’.”

“I tried to stand up,” Clint admitted, and Phil hissed through his teeth.

“Ouch. Don’t do that.”

“I’m sick of waiting.” He knew he sounded petulant, he knew he should be grateful that everyone was ready to fight his battles for him, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to fight his own battles. He was still scared. But Phil didn’t tell him off. He didn’t sigh or shake his head or tell him he was acting spoiled.

“I can understand that,” he said instead. “I’d be sick of waiting too if I were you.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still terrified. I’m half expecting men in black to burst in here and drag me away, but at the same time I just want my bow in my hands.” He tried to think of how to explain it. “It’s like a buzzing under my skin, I just... I need to do something.”

Phil paused for longer this time.

“When my routine is off,” he said and Clint froze, because what the hell? They didn’t talk about this. Phil didn’t talk about this. He’d kept it a secret, separate part of himself for so long and he was choosing now to say something? In the middle of a freaking battle? Although, right now Phil was just escorting civilians who had ignored the alarms to their designated safe spaces. And he was still talking, so Clint started listening. “When something isn’t in the right place, or I’m running late, or there’s something not right with my food, it’s like... it’s like an itch that grows and grows at the back of my brain and spreads down to my fingers until I have to do something to make it go away. And I know it doesn’t make sense, but I still feel that need. It’s not rational.”

“Are you saying I’m being irrational?” Clint blew out a breath and got comfortable again in the nest of pillows that Phil had arranged for him in the weapons locker. He fiddled with the edge of his blanket. “I am, aren’t I? Even if I don’t get kidnapped again immediately as soon as I show myself, I’d be useless. I can’t shoot my bow like this. Can’t fight hand to hand. Can’t even stand up. I’m broken.”

“You’re not broken,” Phil insisted.

“Maybe a little bent?”

“You were always a little bent, Barton.” Clint could hear the smile in Phil’s voice and smiled back automatically. “Oh,” Phil said a second later. “Fuck.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“I just looked out the window and Thor threw Natasha at a helicopter.”

“WHAT?!”

The attack had increased in ferocity and Jarvis was wearing down. He was pouring all his resources into protecting the system, and it still wasn’t enough. Maybe because he was distracted. He kept flitting out for microseconds at a time to see if Sir was still alive and fighting. To see that the Tower was still standing. Dummy could hold the fort for those brief moments.

The problem was that the hacker wasn’t just sending in a programme and then sitting back and waiting. They were creative. They were imaginative. They were coming at them from all angles and rewriting the programmes even as they attacked.

Sir had better stop them soon, because Jarvis was tired. There wasn’t enough time between attacks to shore up the defences. They were being pushed further and further back every time. And there was something, a niggling sensation in the corner of his awareness. He was missing something. Out there, in the physical world, something was about to go horribly wrong, he was sure. All because he wasn’t paying enough attention.

Natasha grabbed onto the helicopter struts. Her heart was beating as fast as it could and it was a long way down. She pulled herself up so she was sitting on the strut, and reached for the door. Before she could get a grip, it opened and someone was shooting at her. She grabbed the end of the gun and pulled. They struggled for a moment, and then the gun came away in her hand. She let it fall to get a better grip on the shooter. She used him to pull herself up into the helicopter.

“Hello boys.”

Meanwhile, back in the tunnels far, far below Clint and Phil, Margaret was still making her slow way through to the exit. It was ridiculous, at least Margaret thought so. The tunnels couldn’t go on forever, but it had been forty five minutes since the attack started, and she’d been walking around in the semi-darkness ever since.

When she finally got out of here, she was definitely going to talk to Tony about this stupid escape tunnel. There should be nice big neon arrows on the wall showing which way they should go. Better lighting would be a plus. And enough golf carts and segways for everyone in the building. Definitely that last one. The Tower was impressive, taller than most, impressive new technology, but if Stark didn’t stock enough life boats for everyone it would end up on an iceberg.

Margaret fell over as the wall broke open. She landed heavily on her bad hip and stared up at the people coming in. There were both more and less of them than she’d been expecting, somehow. She’d thought of an army in their hundreds, like ants or termites coming up through the foundations. But there were only four of them. Which seemed both anticlimactic, and a lot to deal with right then. There was only one of her and she wasn’t as young or as strong as she used to be.

She crawled, crablike, away from them to the opposite wall of the tunnel.  As soon as she did, she rolled her eyes at herself. There’s no way they would miss seeing her. Moving to the other side of the tunnel wouldn’t do much. She was dead. Definitely dead.

The first one through the wall looked right at her for a long moment. She didn’t even dare breathe. He shook his head slightly and motioned for the others to follow him. They moved away down the tunnel, in the direction she’d come from. She let out a long shaky breath and closed her eyes. She was alive. She was alive.

The people in black had realised she wasn’t a threat and decided not to take the time to bother with an old lady. Professionals then. Oh dear.

Jarvis whirled, a dragon-dog coming up behind him. He was too late, the damage to the system slowing him down. The programme would tear him apart....

Suddenly, the dragon-dog froze, flickered, vanished.

Jarvis just lay there for a long moment, startled. Then he slowly pulled himself up. The battle ground he’d created to represent the firewalls was devastated. It was also barren. The attackers were gone. The walls were broken open. The grass was burned, the traps destroyed.

He wasn’t sure whether to trust the silence or not. There had been lulls before. He closed his eyes and shored up his resources. When he opened them again, the walls were rebuilt, the battleground pristine as though the system had never been attacked.

“Jay?”

That was... that was Sir... Jarvis thought that he would cry if he possessed the capacity.

“Jarvis, talk to me, baby.”

“Sir?”

“Hey! There he is! Natasha got the hacker, you should be okay now. I’ll take a look over the system after this is all done, fix whatever they broke, but right now I need you.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Jarvis reactivated the parts of himself he’d shut down to deal with the infection. He spread back into his full self, and there was a second where it was overwhelming. A second where all the data streaming in from his various inputs was too much after his time away.

Then everything equalised and he was able to see.

“Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.”

Ramirez almost fell off the ladder when the emergency lighting in the elevator shaft came on.

“Jarvis?”

“Doctor Ramirez. I am rather busy at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“I understand. Good to hear you though.” The door up above him slid open with a brief whirr. “Thank you!” He climbed up and grabbed hold of the edge of the doorway. A hand grabbed his and he almost fell of the ladder for the second time in as many minutes.

“Easy,” Coulson said and dragged him up. “Jarvis let me know where you were.”

“Thank you, Agent Coulson. Is Agent Barton alright?”

“I thought we made it Phil and Clint.”

“Of course.”

“He’s fine. He stood up and hurt his feet, but we got his situated in a weapons locker where he won’t be in harm’s way.”

“Good.” Ramirez put weight on his ankle and flinched. Coulson slipped in against his side, supporting him without any fuss. “Do we know what’s happening?”

“No. Jarvis is back online, obviously. But he’s being rather closed lipped. I think he’s still distracted.”

“Right. Are there any inured people in the building?”

“No, not that I’ve found.”

“Okay then. Take me to Clint, and I’ll do his check up and stay with him.”

Phil started them along the corridor.

“Is your leg okay?”

“Sprained ankle. No big deal.” Ramirez tried shrugging and almost sent them both over sideways. “How about you? you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Phil put the hand that wasn’t around Ramirez’s shoulders to his earpiece, wincing at the squeal of feedback. Clint was panicking in his ear. “I’m fine! Really!”

“I know we don’t know each other very well, but you seem like the sort of person who needs to be in control.” Phil snorted. The doctor didn’t realize how true that was. “Being shut off from the action must be bothering you.”

“There are things to do here that are just as important. Like rescuing doctors from elevator shafts. Besides, I’ll be the one who has to deal with the aftermath.”

The exchanged a smile and headed onwards, back towards where Clint was waiting.

Chapter Text

Jarvis was back online and talking to him. Tony closed his eyes, just for a second. His best friend was back.

“Hey J. Been sleeping on the job,” he said. Jarvis didn’t reply with his trademark sarcasm. In fact, if Tony had to name the emotion in Jarvis’ voice, he’d call it panic. But that couldn’t be right.

“Sir! They’re coming in through the tunnels!”

“What?”

“It’s a diversion! They are using the same tactics as in their initial attack. They are keeping us all occupied while they go after their true target.”

“Clint. Where’s Clint?”

“He’s in the weapons locker, sir. He’s fine. I do not believe they are after him. I believe they are trying to get into your personal lab, sir.”

“Shit.” Tony swooped down towards Cap, waving a hand to get his attention. “Is everyone evacuated? Or in the designated safe spaces?”

“Yes, sir. Except for Agent Coulson and Dr Ramirez, but they are on their way to Agent Barton now.”

“Okay. Cap! We have a problem!”

“I noticed,” Cap replied, voice terse as he battered away at a group of the bad guys.

“No, new problem. This, this whole thing, is a distraction.”

“What?” Steve asked and Tony saw Thor’s head spin towards them in surprise. He was pretty sure Natasha, still on the helicopter would be giving them a look of her own.

“Jarvis is back online. He says there’s a team of them infiltrating the tower through the escape tunnels.”

There was a noise and Clint gripped his gun. It was Coulson. It had to be Coulson. Jarvis had told him that Coulson was coming, and bringing the doctor with him. He raised his weapon up and pointed it at the door anyway. can’t be too careful. He could hear Tony stressing out over the comm. They couldn’t have come up from the tunnels this quickly though. they couldn’t be outside his door. He was safe and sound and-

The door opened.

“Hey.” Phil smiled at him and he and Ramirez came into the weapons locker.

“Your hands aren’t going to thank you for that later,” the doctor said, frowning at the gun Clint was holding. The door shut behind them, and Coulson let Ramirez sink down to the floor.

“You alright?” he asked Clint.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

“You heard about the tunnels?”

“Yes. And I know what you’re going to say, but...”

“We’re closest. If they’re coming in that way, we have the best chance of stopping them.”

“You’re hurt. I’m not taking you into a situation where you might be killed. Don’t ask me to.”

“Phil.”

“No. I know you can take care of yourself. Most of the time, you’re the stronger one and I know that. But right now, I can’t... please don’t ask me to.”

“Okay. I’ll stay right here. I promise. But you should go.” He looked down at his hands and picked at the ragged dressings. Phil frowned.

“No. I should stay with you.”

“Phil, they’re coming in. They’re going to get what they want. The others have to fight their way through crowds and helicopters to get in. You just have to take the lift down. The others won’t be here in time.”

“Clint...”

“I need to know that you’re out there stopping them.”

“I’ll stay here,” Ramirez volunteered when Phil hesitated. The agent looked between the two men, still unsure.

“Agent Coulson, I have reactivated the monitoring systems throughout the tower. I will not allow harm to come to them. If an intruder even steps foot on this floor, it will go into lockdown and I shall inform you immediately.”

“I know when I’m outnumbered.” He smiled mildly. “I’ll go deal with our intruders.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” Clint said, exasperated. “I know you’re a badass and you can stop bad guys with a bag of flour, but if you’re going after them please take one of the big guns.”

Coulson frowned, but walked over to the wall o’ guns to look consideringly at all the options. There were many he was familiar with, but lots of them looked so futuristic and shiny, he wasn’t sure what they even did.

“Sir, if I may make a suggestion?”

“Of course, Jarvis.”

“The weapon on the bottom left. I believe it will suit you perfectly.”

Coulson leaned down and lifted the weapon in question away from the wall. It was lighter than it looked and there was a core of faintly glowing energy.

“This isn’t going to explode when I shoot, is it?”

“It has been through rigorous testing.”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s one of the more powerful weapons in stock, and it is also one of the more precise. The dial on the side allows moderation of the discharge.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

“You are quite welcome, Agent Coulson. The intruders are currently trying to force their way through the security systems onto the bottom level. I would appreciate the assistance.”

“On my way.” He hefted the gun in a sort of salute and then left the room.

Margaret was an idiot. That was the only possible explanation.

“Maggie girl, you’ve  lost what little sense you had.” She leaned against the wall, breathing heavily and peered around the corner. The four people in black were gathered around the doorway to the upper levels.  One of them had some sort of device trailing wires attached to the keypad.

“It’s not working,” he said.

“What? What do you mean it’s not working?” another one asked.

“What do you think I mean? It’s not working.”

“So fix it.”

“How? I’m not the hacker, he’s up on the chopper. And he’s not answering the comm.”

“Alright. We knew going in that we’d probably be in this alone. We’re going to have to blow it,” that was the one Maggie had mentally tagged as the leader. “We have enough C 4 for that.”

“Sure, in theory. But this is Stark Tower. You really think the emergency exit isn’t going to be blast proof?”

“So we don’t blow the door. We blow the wall next to the door.”

That got nods and the one who hadn’t spoken yet began rummaging in her bag. She pulled out several blocks of C4 and positioned them along the  wall at strategic points.

“Everyone back around the corner.”

Oh shit. Maggie began backpedalling as fast as she could. Which wasn’t very fast.

“Fuck,” the guy who wasn’t a hacker said as he came around the corner. “The old bitch followed us. I knew we should have shot her.”

“Hey. Enough. She’s old enough to be your grandmother, show some respect.” He looked over at where Maggie was frozen against the wall. “Zip tie her hands and feet. Gag her too.”

The young woman grabbed zip ties and a rag and then dropped her bag and walked towards Maggie, her hands up. Maggie thought about trying to talk them out of it, or fighting them, but she’d probably break a hip. Her part in this adventure was over. She held out her hands, wrists together to be tied.

Tony punched a man in black in the face, breaking his nose with a sick crunching sound.

“This is bullshit! I say we leave Hulk to it down here and the rest of us fly up to the roof of the tower. We have to get in there!”

“Tony, have you forgotten the helicopters? Natasha has control of one, yes, but there are two more up there, all armed. If we head for the roof of the tower, they’ll take us down in an instant.”

“Get Natasha to shoot them down.”

“Would if I could,” Natasha put in. “This one isn’t a gunship. It’s just a standard whirlybird, a passenger transport.”

“Damn.”

“I could bring the lightening down upon the metal beasts and strike them from the air,” Thor offered.

“We should avoid that if possible,” Steve replied frowning as he flung his shield at one of the attackers. “They choppers haven’t really done much yet, and we’re in the middle of the city. The debris...”

“What are supposed to do? Just keep fighting out here and pretend we don’t know what’s going on?”

Steve grinned so hugely Natasha could see it from the helicopter.

“That’s exactly what we do,” he said.

“Wait, what?”

“Surprise is our best weapon. We let them go in, thinking nothing’s wrong, but they’ll have Phil and Jarvis to go up against when they get in there. I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes.”

“Thank you, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said over the comm, his voice calm as always. “Agent Coulson is heading down to the point of ingress as we speak, and I have prepared a few surprises for our intruders.”

“Great,” Steve replied. “Anything you need from us?”

“No, I believe we have the situation well in hand.”

Natasha shivered at the cold tone of his voice, and then Clint spoke over the group line, making her smile.

“Stark, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but Jarvis is one scary, badass motherfucker.”

“Thank you, Agent Barton. I take that as a compliment.”

“So you should, J!” Tony laughed and took off, his suit roaring to life as he flew to aid Hulk, whi was battling with about ten of the men in black clinging onto him, trying to bring him down by just numbers. “You’re okay then, Barton?”

“Surviving. You should really make this weapons cache more comfy. A nice sofa, maybe a throw.”

“I’ll get right on that. No one’s getting in there unless they shut Jarvis down completely, and we’ve taken down their hacker. They’d have to get into the server room and there’s no way that’s happening without said hacker.”

“Awesome. Kill some bad guys for me.”

“Will do.”

Coulson stood in the elevator and hummed along to the music that played every time anyone rode in it. He had the gun in front of him, and Jarvis had given him a quick course on how to use it before he’d got into the elevator. There were twelve panels on the ceiling and he didn’t even care. He was Phil Fucking Coulson and he was ready for anything.

Chapter Text

Coulson got out of the elevator a floor above the ground and glanced around. Clear so far. He made his way over to the stairwell, walking on the balls of his feet.

“Jarvis, anything you want to tell me, now would be a good time.”

“There are four of them, and they are in the process of breaching the door from the tunnels.” There was a pause and Phil eased the door to the stairwell open and started down. He’d only taken five steps down (five was a good number) when an explosion rumbled up from below. “Correction. They have breached the door from the tunnels.”

“Where are they going?”

“They appear to be...” Jarvis stopped talking mid sentence, and Coulson immediately looked at the ceiling. Not that looking at the ceiling would do any good, but the all seemed to assume that was where Jarvis lived. In fact, he lived in a secure server in Tony’s workshop, and he could transfer to duplicate servers in all Stark Industries properties with less than a seconds warning.

“Jarvis?”

“They have taken a hostage.”

“What?” Phil lowered his gun slightly. That would complicate things. The hostage would have to be the top priority.

“From their description, it sounds like Dr Lane.”

“Clint’s shrink?” Even as he asked, Phil knew it had to be true. Maggie had said she’d be in to see Clint. He’d just assumed that she’d got out with everyone else.

“Yes. They have her tied up and gagged, but they left her in the tunnels.” Phil weighed that for a moment. She was an elderly lady. She was probably cold and scared. But she was a tough old broad. And time could be off the essence. The most sensible plan was probably to follow the team stop them and then go for Maggie. Or tell the Avengers where she was and get them to save her once they’d infiltrated the building.

“Jarvis, is there any way I can get Maggie out of there without anybody noticing?”

“I had anticipated the question,” Jarvis sounded both smug and pleased that Phil had made that choice. “Unfortunately, Sir has not, as of yet, installed any secret passageways down into the tunnels. It is on his to do list however.” Phil rolled his eyes and shook his head. They were going to end up living in Scooby Doo’s house. Secretly though, his inner child was jumping for joy. He’d always wanted to live somewhere with a real life secret passage. “He wanted to wait until construction of the tunnels was entirely complete, to ensure the passages remained secret. You will have to simply take the stairs down and hope they don’t see you.”

“Where are they now?”

“Two of them, a man and a woman, are taking the auxiliary stairs to the Research and Development laboratories. The other two are still appraising blueprints on the bottom floor,” Jarvis told him. "If you turn left when you get to the bottom of the stairs, you'll be coming in from behind them."

“Well, then,” Phil said, starting down the stairs again and shifting his grip on the gun. “Two against one. Doesn’t seem fair somehow.” 

“Indeed, sir. They should have brought back up.”

Clint couldn’t stop moving. Just little jerks of his hands, his feet. His fingers would start tapping and he’d force them to stop. He hated this. He was a sniper for fuck’s sake. He should be able to hold still for more than ten minutes at a time.

“It’s okay to be worried.”

“I thought you were a regular doctor. I already have a shrink.”

“I am a ‘regular’ doctor,” Ramirez pulled a face. “But I am also a human being and you are obviously in distress.”

“I’m not. I’m... Phil can handle himself. Jarvis has got his back.”

“Of course he can. That doesn’t mean you can’t worry.”

“I’m supposed to watch his six. I’m supposed to be there to shoot anyone who tries to hurt him.”

“Has he gone on missions without you before?”

“Of course.”

“Well then. He’ll be fine without you, just this once.”

Clint hunched his shoulders in and rubbed at the peeling edges of the dressing on his left palm. The Doc was right. Phil would be fine without him. he’d probably be better off without him too. If it wasn’t for Clint they wouldn’t be in this mess. It was him they’d kidnapped, because he’s the most human, the most vulnerable. He always knew he’d be the weak point in the team, he should have realised he’d be Phil’s weak point too.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.” Ramirez tugged Clint’s hands apart, his touch gentle but clinical. “I just mean that your boyfriend is a badass. You have to respect that.”

“I do. I’m just...” he took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “I’m just messed up right now.”

“I’ve noticed.” Ramirez tilted his head to the side and studied Clint for a long moment. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No. We were going to... Tony had arranged a kitchen for me, you know? And they were going to cook and I was going to tell them what to do.”

“Playing Chef Ramsey?”

“I don’t swear nearly as fucking much, but that’s the idea. I’d be able to see what they were doing.”

“You’d know that it was safe.”

“I guess. But not really. I mean, I trust them. If they give me food and say it’s safe, then I believe them. I just can’t make myself eat it.”

“That makes sense. I’m not a psychologist by any means, but I do have common sense. You went through something that’s... conditioned you, for want of a better word. You’ve learned that taking food off other people is bad. It’s going to take a while for you to bypass that conditioning.”

“I guess.” Clint shrugged, then shifted, uncomfortably.

“You really shouldn’t be sitting on the floor. Doesn’t your back hurt?”

“Yeah. I can’t figure out how to sit without putting pressure on the whip cuts.”

“Come here.” Clint sat passively and allowed Ramirez to reposition him so he was sitting side on, leaning left against the wall. It took the weight off his injuries, and Ramirez’s brisk and impersonal manner made it okay. It the doctor had been overly sympathetic or solicitous about it, Clint couldn’t have handled it.

“Now what?” he asked when they’d shifted positions.

“Now? Now we wait.”

Waiting was okay. Clint could wait. Sure, he was impatient by nature, but he could wait. He would wait forever for Coulson. Because Coulson would always come for him.

Natasha climbed out of the helicopter. It had landed and was surrounded by SHIELD agents.

“They’re all yours.” She grabbed the laptop the hacker had been using, and then waived the agents forward to clean up. She touched her comm. “Steve, I’m down. You want me back in the air?”

“No, come join us. Thor’s going to try drawing off their air support.”

“Awesome. He can throw me at another helicopter if that doesn’t work.” She headed back towards the battle ground. It was strange, how personally she found she was taking this. It was almost as bad as when Clint was taken. These people had invaded their home and she just wanted to hurt them, tear them apart and make them pay.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Steve replied, his voice wry, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”

She could see them now, all fighting. The men in black were everywhere, like ants at a picnic. They were swarming her team; the Hulk had ten of them around him, and about five more climbing on him; Steve was facing eight, forced onto the defensive, and Tony was hovering a few feet off the ground, trying to shake off a guy who had latched onto his leg.

Natasha had to wonder what was in it for them. They looked and acted like well trained mercenaries, but how much had they been promised to make them attack the Avenger’s head quarters? Their... enthusiasm was something she was more used to seeing in True Believers. People who were fighting for a cause. She shared her thoughts over the comm as she dived into the fray.

“It’s possible,” Tony replied and she could hear the frown in his voice. “They’re after me right? That’s why they took Clint, why they attacked the Tower. They’re after me and my tech.” He paused to shoot a repulse blast at a couple of guys hanging off the Hulk’s neck. “There’re plenty of people who hate me. A couple of groups set up just to talk about how I’m a dick.”

“What?” She spared a glance at Steve who looked upset.  “Stark, we’re a team. You’re supposed to tell us these things.”

“They were all on the list of people who might have took Clint. Besides, they’re my problem.”

“We’re a team, your problems are our problems.”

“Guys, not now,” Natasha rolled her eyes. They were in the middle of a battle and those two still found time to argue. Thor came flying back into view at that moment.

“Good news! I have disposed of the flying beast. I shall attempt the same with its compatriot!”

“Disposed of?” Natasha asked suspiciously as she kicked a man in black in the head. “How?”

“I allowed it to believe I was running from it, and it followed. I led it out above the water and brought the lightening down upon it.” There was a pause.

“That’ll work,” Tony said and Thor headed up to draw away the other helicopter. “Ironic,” Tony continued, “isn’t it? I mean, whenever I see I helicopter my brain plays Ride of the Valkyries and that helicopter was just taken down by a Norse God.”

Natasha snorted, and then when she saw Steve’s confused look, laughed out loud. She understood that reference.

The guy she’d been fighting froze, stared at her for a moment, and then put his hands on top of his head and sat down on the ground. Hmm, she’d have to remember that.

“It’s this way.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s one of these.”

“Those are living quarters. Even Stark isn’t crazy enough to have a lab right next to where he sleeps.”

“Why hasn’t Bill gotten back to us yet?”

“Why do you think? I knew they should have hired more than one hacker. Without him, this is going to be a hell of a lot more difficult. At least that creepy computer seems to be offline.”

“Don’t jinx us. Just because it hasn’t attacked us yet doesn’t mean it’s not online.”

Amateurs. Standing around arguing with their backs to the corridor. It didn’t fit with how efficient the attack had been overall, and for a moment, Phil’s stomach tightened with worry. Was this a trap? No. It couldn’t be. Jarvis has assured him the other two were on a different floor by now. They must just be that overconfident. Certain that the building was empty. Phil stepped forward silently and twisted the knob on the side of his weapon. It  whirred slightly, charging up.

“Did you hear something?”

“No.”

Phil shot twice, quickly, and both men fell to the floor. He was Phil Fucking Coulson and he wasn’t going to let some overconfident amateurs take over his home without a fight.

Chapter Text

Plans 18

Phil quickly made his way into the tunnels and found a shaken up and shivering Maggie curled up against the wall. Her hands and feet were bound with zip strips and there was a rag tied securely around her mouth. He carefully removed the restraints.

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, sonny. I’m fine. You go get those bastards.”

“I’ve already taken care of two of them. They’re unconscious and tied up.” He pulled her to her feet, wrapping a supportive arm around her back. “Do you think if I put you in the elevator, you’ll be able to get to Clint’s room? There’s a weapons locker in there that doubles as a panic room.”

“I... I think so.”

“Jarvis will keep an eye on you,” he promised, gently guiding her along. She shrugged off his hands.

“I can get there,” she said, tossing her hair out of her eyes. “Go get the other bastards.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He resisted the urge to salute to her, because that would be silly, and instead nodded and hefted his gun.

Maggie leaned against the wall of the elevator as it carried her up to the medical floor. She closed her eyes. Her hands were shaking. The elevator was playing some nonsense tune and she focussed on that. She wasn’t a coward. She’d never been a coward in all her long life and she wasn’t about to start now. It was just that she sometimes forgot how breakable she was now. Why, just last year she’d tumbled getting out of the bath and cracked her hip. She wasn’t that old, was she? She still felt the same as ever. But those men, those invaders, they’d overpowered her so easily, without a thought.

The doors opened and she peered out, checking both ways. When she saw that the coast was clear, she tossed her head and squared her shoulders, heading straight for the med-bay where Clint had been the last time she’d seen him. The door opened for her, and she walked in. The room looked the same, except Clint was missing. She took a breath and stood there, in the middle of the room.

“Jarvis?”

The AI didn’t answer, but one section of the wall slid open to reveal Clint and Dr Ramirez. They were both sitting on the floor, and they both looked a little worse for wear. This was nothing new for Clint, but Ramirez...

“What happened to you?”

“I had a fight with an elevator.” Ramirez grinned and waved her into the locker. She hesitated, not wanting to be locked in, but it obviously was the safest place. She stepped in and the door slid shut behind her.

“Oh my. What a lot of weapons.”

“Yeah, I think Tony’s compensating for something,” Clint said. “If the massive Tower didn’t convince me, this would.”

“Hmm.” She sat down near the men, rubbing her hip. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Clint frowned. “You were tied up and gagged by the bad guys and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“It’s my job, dear. Besides, what’s a little bondage?” it was a calculated statement and it made both men choke and then laugh, releasing the tension.

“I’m fine,” Clint said, when he’d stopped giggling. “I had a bit of a hard time earlier. And I’m worried about Coulson. But I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.” She turned on Ramirez. “And I’m sure you’re leg doesn’t hurt a bit either.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “This isn’t working.”

“If you have a better idea...” Steve replied, his voice strained.

“We have to cut off the head. Every mercenary we take down, three more pop up.”

“Which would be a great plan. If we knew where the head was. Thor said he wasn’t on either helicopter.”

“Steve’s right,” Natasha put in. “He’s probably not even here.”

“So, what are we supposed to do? It’s a stalemate.”

“We keep fighting until something changes.”

Stark snorted. Did Cap think it was really that simple? They could be at this forever. They needed to do something drastic. They needed to cut this off at the pass. It couldn’t get out that they went easy one people who attacked them. Kidnapped them. Tortured them. Invaded their home. They had to stop this before it went any further.

They couldn’t just let this pass unpunished.

They... he couldn’t let them take someone else.

“J, are all defence systems back online?”

“They are, sir, but-!”

“Then light ‘em up.”

“Sir, the risk to the team...”

“Everyone get away from the Tower!” He paused for about three seconds, long enough to register that the others were shouting, confused and angry. “I said light ‘em up.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Electricity arced out from the base of the Tower, striking  out at the men in black. Jarvis had impeccable aim, but Hulk still roared as electicity shot through him.

“My apologies. I could not tase the gentleman attacking Dr Banner without him getting a portion of the charge.”

“Understandable, Jarvis. He okay?”

“He appears angry,” Jarvis replied dryly. “And confused. I do not believe he is a threat at the current time.”

“Good. Did we get them all?”

“No, but give me a second, sir.”

There were a handful of stragglers, including one who was trying to hide behind Natasha. She wasn’t even deigning to attack him, she found him that ridiculous. There was a whir from the Tower and several hatches opened up along the walls. Some sort of robots -they looked squat and childlike, but definitely related to the Iron Man armour- flew out. Each of them took one of the stragglers, knocking them to the ground and restraining them.

“Yeah!” Tony whooped, punching the air. “Way to go boys!”

It was over.

Steve picked his way through the unconcious mercenaries and rubble to Tony's side. 

“Tony, what were those things?”

“Huh? Oh, Cap, they’re nothing to worry about.”

“That’s not what I asked. They certainly came in handy.”

“Hmm. They did, didn’t they?” Tony raised the faceplate and smiled softly. “They’re Dummy’s.”

“Dummies?”

“No, Dummy’s, although they’re dummies too in a way. That’s what we call them, Dummy’s dummies. When we moved in here, and I was designing the defence systems for Jarvis, he asked for a way to defend the Tower. You and Butterfingers weren’t interested, but Dummy’s the oldest. He’s always had the most imagination.” They watched as the SHIELD agents who had been maintaining a perimeter came forward to deal with the aftermath. “He designed them himself. I helped, and there were rules. Like, no they couldn’t have a gun that shoots angry jellyfish.” Steve laughed at that. “Don’t laugh! For some reason, he’s terrified of jellyfish, I have no idea where he gets it from, seriously. And they only work within a hundred feet of the Tower. Any further than that and they go into shutdown, unless Jarvis overrides, which he’s only aloud to do under very strict conditions.”

“How come they only came out at the end there?”

“I think Dummy was helping Jarvis. I’ll have to ask, but Jarvis went completely dark for,” he looked up at the sun and frowned. “I’m guessing about half an hour, maybe forty minutes. The longest J’s ever been completely down for during an attack, and I mean completely shut down so he can focus all his energy on fighting off the hacker, is fifteen minutes. He’s good at what he does. Dummy and the boys must have been terrified.” He tried to smile, but it faded after a second and Cap put his hand on Stark’s shoulder. “Plus, you know, they’re only supposed to be used in an emergency. Can you imagine these guys running around the city all the time? Nope, not going to happen. They give Dummy a little more freedom, and if he wants he’s allowed to play with them inside the Tower, so long as the weapons are disabled first, but he’s not allowed to just run amok. And he would, if I let him.”

“He takes after his dad then?”

That startled a laugh out of Tony and some unseen tension relaxed. Steve smiled back. He walked towards one of the robots, and it waved at him, it's head tilted to the side. He couldn't help a grin. It was definitely Dummy alright. He still managed to be sweet and childlike when he was holding a criminal at gunpoint. As Steve got closer, he noticed the designation on the arm of the bot and the breath punched out of him. 

Dum-Dum: Mark 1.

"Dum-Dum?" he asked.

"Yeah. Like I said, Dummy's Dummies." Stark paused. "Is that okay?" Steve let out a choked sound. It wasn't a sob or a laugh but something in between. Dum Dum Dugan had been the last surviving member of the Howling Commandos. He'd died a  couple of months ago, aged ninety three. Steve had said at the time that he wanted to do something. The other's all had memorials of one sort or another, and Dugan didn't have any family to remember him. Trust Stark to remember and give him something like this, filled with plausible deniabillity. It fitted too well. Dum Dum was always the heavy hitter, the strongest on the team except Steve. He was also the most protective. 

Steve cleared his throat and blinked a couple of times.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Thank you, Tony." Tony clapped his shoulder and looked away. 

“Come on," he said. "I want to see what damage they’ve done."

“Hang on, Coulson’s still tracking down two of the ones inside.”

“Not to worry, Captain,” Phil said over the comm, his smirk audible. “Jarvis and I have got things sorted.”

Thor came flying in from the left, and Natasha joined them on the right. They started heading towards the Tower, and they’d only taken about five steps when Bruce joined them. He was wrapped in a SHIELD blanket and looked dead on his feet. Natasha pressed herself to his side, insinuating under his arm to support him.  They’d done it. Their home was safe. Their team was safe.

For now anyway.

Coulson crossed his arms over his chest. He was standing over two of the invaders, a man and a woman. These were the ones who had headed off to R and D rather than trying to get to Stark’s private lab. One of them only had one shoe and was soaking wet, the other was shirtless and had a red burn on his chest. There was a Roomba on the woman’s head.

“Um...” Coulson turned his head and saw the team, minus Clint, standing there staring at him. They all looked rather surprised.

“I’m not sure if I want to know what happened,” Bruce said, putting on the glasses that Natasha had pulled out of some utility pouch.

“There are two more down on the ground floor. I shot them with your fancy phaser and tied them up.”

“Yeah, we found them. We handed them off to SHIELD.” Tony replied.  “We should get some agents up here to deal with these too.” He tapped his comm and was told someone was on their way. “What exactly happened to the gun?” He refused to call it a phaser, even though that’s what he called it in his head. Hey, if he didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist, right?

“It exploded.”

“Ah. It’s not supposed to do that.”

“I gathered.”

That’s when Steve started laughing. He leaned heavily on the wall and just laughed and laughed. Partly it was relief, they’d beaten off an attack on their home, but mostly it was how blasé Coulson was. He was standing there, looking completely calm and put together, and talking about exploding guns.  Thor joined in next, always good for a laugh and then all of them were laughing. Well, except Phil. He allowed himself a smug smile, but he didn’t laugh. He would save his laughter for when this was all over and he knew Clint was truly safe.

“Come!” Thor said, when the giggles and chuckles had trailed off into smiles. “We must feast! You shall regale us with how you bested these insolent bilchstein who dared invade our home!”

“Sounds good. Can we do it on the hospital floor though? I need to check on Clint. Both his doctors are there too, and ones injured.”

“What happened?” the Captain asked, suddenly serious.

“I’ll explain on the way.”

Phil started towards the elevator and the team followed. They crossed paths with the SHIELD agents sent to deal with the prisoners, and as the doors slid closed they heard a startled exclamation from the most junior agent.

“What the hell happened here?!”

“Phil Coulson happened,” was the response. 

Chapter Text

Jarvis gave the all clear, but Clint didn’t relax. He held his gun, and watched the door. Ramirez and Maggie exchanged a look, but neither of them commented, content to wait for someone to open the weapons locker from the other side of the door.

It didn’t take long.

Clint lowered the gun slowly. Coulson was there. He’d come for Clint. He always came for Clint. The rest of the team was there as well, but they weren’t as important.

“Coulson?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Phil?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I knew you’d come.”

Something tight in his chest let go as Phil reached out to help him beck over to his bed. Phil had protected him, kept him safe and come back for him. It should have made him uncomfortable, the idea of being taken care of inherently disturbing. But this was Phil. Phil, who knew that Clint could take care of himself. Phil, who’d seen Clint at his very best and his very worst. Phil, who’d left Clint somewhere safe, but left him armed and with a communicator, a connection to the action.  

Phil tried to tug him towards the bed where he could sit, but Clint stood firm, despite the pain in his feet. He tugged Phil against him instead and holds on hard.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“You’re not.”

“Don’t lie.” He pressed his nose into Phil’s neck and breathed deeply. “So, what badass thing did you do?”

“Hmm?” Phil pulled back and smiled at him, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, come on!” Clint said playfully. “Something obviously happened.” neither of them acknowledged the rest of the team, and when Tony opened his mouth to respond to Clint, Steve elbowed him in the ribs.

“Well, let’s get you back to bed and I’ll tell you all about it.”

They started towards the bed and something relaxed. The tension bled out of the room at the fact that Clint was okay and at ease with what had happened. Clint was pretty sure he should be offended by that. They’d obviously expected him to freak out. But then, he had been freaking out a lot lately. He should really do something about that.

He settled back against the pillows.

“The good news is,” Tony said, unable to be silent for any longer, “that thanks to the badass thing your boyfriend did, and you’ll have to tell me how he explains that later, we now have prisoners who are high enough on the chain of command to get us some answers.” He looks hopeful and excited and Clint can’t help but smile back at him.

There are rattle snakes in his stomach. They’re finally getting somewhere.

“The beef burned,” he said, and Tony frowned, so did Steve. They didn’t seem to follow his change of mood and thought.

“Yes,” Natasha said. She was standing by the kitchen unit, looking sadly into the pot.

“Damn. I’m hungry.”

“You are?” Phil grinned.

“That’s great,” Maggie smiled as Steve helped her to a chair. Dr Ramirez was being aided by Thor.

And yeah, he really was hungry. He thought that right now he could eat anything.

“What do you want?” Tony asked. “I can get a new pan and new ingredients up here in minutes. Or I can get take out, whatever you fancy.”

“Don’t push yourself,” Ramirez warned. “Your stomach isn’t used to food and we don’t want you to be sick.”

“He’s right,” Maggie added when Clint pouted. “Just yesterday you didn’t want food at all. I don’t want you forcing yourself outside your comfort zone.”

“No forcing, I’ve got it. But I am hungry. And I could eat, right now.”

He meant it too. He absolutely meant it. Right now, he felt like he could do anything. It wouldn’t last. He knew it wouldn’t last. He’d felt this before, the momentary high after so long in pain and doubt. That peak when something good happens after a long time of badness. He’d have a few hours, at best a day, of feeling like this before the crash. He probably wouldn’t feel quite as bad as he did before, but it would certainly feel bad enough after this artificial high of adrenaline and pride.

He was going to make the most of it while it lasted.

They left the prisoners to SHIELD for now. They had more important things to deal with. Tony had a couple of bags of groceries delivered. Clint gave Phil directions and he assembled from scratch pancakes and bacon and poached some eggs. Breakfast for dinner. They dissected the battle over the food and Clint found himself smiling as he ate. He’d been worried that he’d feel sidelined from the team because they’d been off fighting without him. But they were all drawing him in and he felt part of it.

“...and then Hulk, he picked up this guy...”

“...And Natasha started laughing and this guy just dropped his weapons...!”

“...I handled them.”

“Oh, come on Coulson! You have to tell us how you did that!”

“...Tony, why exactly do you store experimental weapons in the med bay?”

They laughed through the afternoon and into the night; they ate until they all were full.

Even Clint.

When Clint woke up with a choked cry, the rest of the team were all still there. They had all wanted to be close to each other, and had drifted off where they sat. Phil was first to his side.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No, there’s something... I can’t remember! But I know it’s important.” Natasha appeared on his other side and scratched her nails through his hair.

“We have prisoners,” Thor said. “They shall tell us all they know before the day is through.”

“What if they don’t talk? What if they don’t know anything? I know there’s something important... I just can’t remember what.” He drew back his hand to punch the bed, but Phil caught his fist before he could hurt himself.

“What do you remember?” Tony asked.

“Tony...” Steve warned.

“No, it’s okay. I remember a blowtorch and a hot coal.” Tony shuddered, and he looked pale when he approached the bed. Clint guessed that was probably the coal thing again. “I... he gave me something to eat... and that’s where everything goes fuzzy.”

“Right,” Tony said and nodded decisively. “Right.” He turned and walked out.

“That... is probably not a good thing,” Bruce said into the silence that followed.

Tony headed straight down to his workshop and sat down. He wanted some scotch. He really wanted some scotch.

“Jarvis, it sounded like Clint’s remembering something that happened just after we stopped watching. Put us in lockdown and pull it up.”

“Are you sure that’s-”

“Jarvis.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The video started and Clint was curled up in the bottom of the cage on a dirty towel. He looked like he was crying. He lay there like that for a very long time. Then the lead bad guy showed up. The one who had been actually doing the whole torture thing. Tony really didn’t like him. He was glad Natasha had killed him even if it meant they were having to work harder for information now.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

 God he hated this guy. How dare he ask Clint that as though he wasn’t the one who’d hurt him in the first place?

God, he wanted a scotch.

He watched them feed Clint, the boss guy hand feeding him, and he watched Clint start to come apart. Shit, food was definitely drugged, going by his reactions. Clint’s muscles were slowly going loose and his eyes were drooping.

“I would offer you medical treatment, but you haven’t earned that. You’re doing so well, Clint. You barely even screamed. I want you to think long and hard though. Why shouldn’t you tell us the codes? You have them, don’t you? The codes to all the rooms in the tower. The Avengers’ suites, the research labs, Tony’s workshop, you have codes to them all. What’s it really going to hurt if you tell us? You think your little friends won’t be able to stop us?”

He was going to be sick. No, he actually was. He looked away and swallowed down bile.

Phil’s hand was tapping against his leg.

“Maybe someone should go after him,” Steve suggested, frowning at the door.

“No, I don’t think so,” Bruce replied. “Whatever he’s up to, he doesn’t want us there. And he’s already on edge, we don’t want to make that worse.”

“I don’t get what the hell he’s doing though.” Clint frowned. “It’s not like he can fix my memory like one of his machines.” He shook his head. “I mean it’s my brain, I can’t just rewind and play the memory over till I figure out what the hell is so important about it.”

Phil’s hand stopped tapping.

Chapter Text

Coulson froze completely, and Clint looked up at him.

“Phil?”

“Jarvis,” Phil looked up at the ceiling, his hands balled into fists. “Jarvis tell me he’s not doing what I think he’s doing.” Jarvis didn’t answer. “Tell me he destroyed the footage. I saw him destroy the footage.”

Jarvis still didn’t say anything and that was answer enough.

“Fuck.” Phil put his head in his hands.

“Footage?” Clint asked, his voice small and quiet.

“They were filming you. Tony... he’s the one who realised. He destroyed the system and all the data. But... I should have realised. He must have taken a copy.”

“What? Why?” Steve frowned.

“Why do you think?” Bruce sighed. “He’s been torturing himself over this, he’s been blaming himself...”

“He’s been watching it.” Clint closed his eyes and turned his face towards Phil. “He’s been watching it so he knows exactly what he’s to blame for. In his head anyway.” He paused for a moment, and Phil’s hand came down to cup the back of his neck. “Dick.”

Nobody said anything. There wasn’t really anything they could say. As sorry as they all felt for Tony, and it was clear from their faces that they did, it really was a dick move. Clint was already in a bad place, especially with his control issues and having the man he considered one of his best friends watch him being tortured and broken down and treated like an animal wasn’t really good for his state of mind.

Natasha sighed, and Bruce glanced at her.

“You okay?” he muttered.

“It’s not fair,” she said, her voice louder than his. “He ate, finally. We were talking and everything was okay, and now...” she shook her head. “It’s like yesterday. We’d just... and then...” she gestured helplessly.

“I’ve always had the worst luck,” Clint said, trying to make a joke out of it. Then he frowned. “Wait, what was that about yesterday?”

“We were shopping,” Steve said when it was clear no one else was going to say anything. He swallowed and pulled a stack of receipts out from his pocket (he’d been wearing his civilian clothes all throughout the battle and although they were a little worse for wear, the receipts were still crisply folded and unharmed). He held them out to Clint like some kind of offering. “The balloons are definitely gone, they floated off. But we could get you some new ones, maybe. And I don’t know what happened to the rest. We kind of had to leave in a hurry.”

Phil reached out and took the receipts. He read them one by one and shuffled through them.

“What?” Clint asked. “What are you talking about?”

“They... they got you presents.”

“Yeah? Don’t tell me. You know how I like surprises.” Clint managed a smile. “Seriously, guys, that’s great. I wasn’t expecting...”

“I was told that it was customary for injured warriors to receive gifts while they healed,” Thor said, head tilted like a confused Labrador.

“It is,” Natasha assured. “But Clint tends not to expect good things to happen.” Thor frowned and opened his mouth to ask more, but Bruce caught his eye and slowly and deliberately shook his head. Thor closed his mouth.

“Hey!” Clint said. “I resemble that remark.” He grinned. “Seriously, guys, thank you.”

“We haven’t even given you them yet.” Steve rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. “Thank us when we figure out if anything survived.”

“I thought it was the thought that counts?” Clint challenged, then faltered slightly. It was the thought that counted. And Tony, while watching the footage was a dick move, he was doing it because he wanted to help. At least partly. When Clint thought about it, he realised that Tony must be forcing himself to watch that tape right now just to get the information he may or may not have heard. “Someone needs to go check on Tony. Right now.”

“I’ll do it,” Phil said, standing up and pulling away from Clint.

“Yeah, that’s not a good idea,” Bruce told him.

“I’ll go,” Steve stood and stretched. He’d been sitting in one position for a long time. “Do you want me to make him stop watching, or am I going to support him?” It was said calmly and evenly, as though the answer didn’t matter, but Clint closed his eyes and held his breath for a second anyway. Part of him (most of him) wanted to say ‘turn it off and destroy it’ and he knew Cap would if he asked him to. But the rest of him knew that the footage might actually hold something important.

“Make sure he’s not doing anything stupid. And... watch it, maybe? I think... I know I heard something important.”

“Then we’ll figure out what it is.” Steve clapped a hand on Clint’s shoulder and then he left the room.

Dummy wheeled over to the door when it opened and pressed into Cap’s side.

“Hey, Dummy. Great job earlier. You really saved the day,” he ran a hand over the back of Dummy’s claw. Dummy lingered for a moment, and Steve frowned. “Everything alright?”

“He is worried. We all are,” Jarvis spoke, and Steve glanced up at the ceiling.

“Tony?”

“He is... we are worried.”

“Okay. Where is he?”

Dummy whirred and led the way through the workshop over to a back corner. Tony was sitting on the floor, his knees bent and his head resting on them.

“Tony?” Steve sank down next to him and touched his shoulder. In hindsight, this was a bad move, but at the time it worked.

“Cap?”  His head came up slowly. “You need me for something?”

“Phil figured out what you’re doing down here. Did you see what Clint was trying to remember?”

“I... I should have known he’d figure it out.” He shifted and something clanked against the floor. Steve frowned and glanced down at Tony’s hand. There was a bottle of scotch in it and that wasn’t really surprising. What was surprising was that it was unopened.

“Do you know what Clint was trying to remember?”

“No. I didn’t get that far yet. I just... I needed a minute.” He smiled, but the expression was wrong somehow. Steve settled more firmly beside Tony and wrapped an arm around him.

“What happened wasn’t your fault. You know that right?” Silence. “Tony?”

“I guess. I mean, there was no way for me to know what was going to happen. But they took him because of me. Because they wanted to get into my labs, my workshops. It might not be my fault exactly but I am to blame.” He shrugged, and there was a small smile on his face. “You should be proud, Cap. You’re always after me to accept responsibility.”

“Tony, you know that’s not what I meant.” Steve frowned. Those talks had usually happened when Tony had spent a lot of money on something frivolous or spent the night in some bar or jetted off to somewhere far away without letting anyone know where he was going. “And no one blames you. Clint doesn’t blame you. Okay, he’s kind of annoyed that you’ve been watching the footage of him, and mister we are definitely going to be having a conversation about that later, but he sent me down here because he was worried about you.”

Tony shifted so he was leaning a little more against Steve.

“Someone had to watch it,” he said. “And Phil and Clint... they didn’t need that. They didn’t need to see it. Clint didn’t need to know that everyone else had seen it. Seriously, he didn’t need to know that anyone has seen him like that. Logically, this was the best solution for everyone.”

“Everyone except you.”

“Yeah, well...” he shrugged, the motion  digging his shoulder into Steve’s side. In return, Steve tightened his arm around Tony’s shoulders, pulling him more firmly against his side.

They sat like that for a long time.

Happy was sitting in his office at Stark Industries when his cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Mr Hogun.”

“Jarvis. I saw what happened at the Tower on the news.”

“Everyone is uninjured, as I believe Sir told you.”

“He did, but you know what he’s like. Better than most.”

“Yes. I was calling to ask you a favour.”

“Anything, you know that.” Happy had known the A.I. for years and considered them to be friends. He wasn’t sure if Jarvis saw him in the same light, it was difficult to tell.

“Thank you.” That was definitely relief, definitely. Maybe he was getting better at reading Jarvis.

“You are welcome,” he said, emphasising the words. “Now, what do you need?”

“Agent Barton is still in the hospital wing following his ordeal. Sir and the rest of the team went shopping for gifts to cheer him up, but they had to leave them behind when the Tower was attacked.”

“Ah. And you want me to go and collect them?”

“If you could. It would...” Jarvis hesitated and Happy frowned. This was more serious than he had thought. “It would help immensely.”

“No problem.”

“Thank you.” Relief again. “I shall send the address and co-ordinates they were at when the attack occurred.”

“I’ll get right on it.” He paused. “Pepper and me were thinking about coming to visit, but when we spoke to Tony earlier, it sounded like he wanted us to stay away.” He, Pepper and Jarvis had struck up a reciprocal arrangement when it came to Tony’s health and wellbeing after that mess with the palladium. It had taken a lot of work for it to happen, and Happy was never sure how Jarvis felt about sharing information like that. Sometimes, he would completely refuse to comment. 

“Now may not be the best time. You are both welcome, of course, but Sir is... Agent Barton was attacked due to his proximity to Sir. He does not wish for anyone else to be at risk.”

“I understand. I can just drop the gifts off at the front desk. But let us know when this is all over and we’ll come round.”

“Of course.”

“And don’t let him wallow in his guilt too much.”

“I shall try.” And that was definitely wry humour. Happy smiled; he was definitely getting better at reading Jarvis. And Jarvis had called him for a favour. That had to be a good sign. He stood up and headed to the door. 

“I guess we should probably actually watch the video.”

“Are you sure? We don’t have to.”

“Did Clint say I shouldn’t?”

“No.”

“Then we’re watching it. It could have something important on it.”

“Okay.” Steve stood up and pulled Tony up after him. “Do you mind if I stay?”

“No. Please.”

Tony led them over to a monitor and visibly steeled himself.

“Jarvis. Roll the tape.”

The guard came over with a plate of bread and butter and a bowl of water. Clint hadn’t eaten any of the fruit or drank any of the water they’d left him before, and they’d been gone from his cage when he’d woken up. He wasn’t sure whether to eat the bread or not. He debated with himself for a long moment while the Boss patiently held a small piece of bread out. Eventually he figured that keeping his strength up was more important than the loss of dignity at being hand fed, or the risk of drugs. He could resist drugs. He ate the bread. It hurt to try and chew, the burns in his mouth splitting open and pouring a coppery taste in. The Boss soaked the next piece in his water bowl to soften it before offering it to Clint.

“I would offer you medical treatment, but you haven’t earned that. You’re doing so well, Clint. You barely even screamed. I want you to think long and hard though. Why shouldn’t you tell us the codes? You have them, don’t you? The codes to all the rooms in the tower. The Avengers’ suites, the research labs, Tony’s workshop, you have codes to them all. What’s it really going to hurt if you tell us? You think your little friends won’t be able to stop us?”

Clint simply ate his damp bread in silence.  When he was done, the guards picked him up and carried him back to his cage. He let his body go limp, and curled up in the towels. He was so tired, but he couldn’t sleep yet.

A cell phone started ringing as Clint’s eyelids drooped. The Head Henchman pulled one out of his pocket and  pressed it to his ear.

“Hello, sir. Everything is going according to plan.” He paused for a moment. “Yes. We are going to have access to the Tower in no time at all.” Another pause. “We’ll go in, get the designs and get back to you. No, that won’t be necessary. The factory you’ve taken will be able to handle everything, I’m sure.” Another pause. “Unless you’re saying that Hammer Industries factory machinery is not capable of creating Stark level technology, then I don’t see the problem...exactly. Glad we’re on the same page. Yes sir, I understand. That’s why you hired me, Mr Jenkins. I can make this one to suffer as much as you need. I am recording it for your main target as well. What about him though? When do I get him?” Another pause, longer this time. “If you draw it out too long, he’s going to figure it out and come after you. The man is a genius, after all.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it with distaste. He hung up rather more forcefully than necessary and glanced over at the cage, a sneer on his face. Clint had fallen completely asleep while he was talking and was slumped over on his side, open and vulnerable. “Switch shifts,” he told the guards. “I’ll be back as soon as he’s awake and we can play some more.”

He walked over and reached between the bars to run a gentle hand through Clint’s hair.

“I almost like him better like this,” he mused. “I could do anything to him. But then,” his hand tightened. Clint’s face screwed up and he lethargically tried to pull away. “I can do anything to him anyway, and he cries so prettily. I’m looking forward to breaking him. Once that’s done I’ll really get to play.” He looked up and grinned at the uncomfortable expressions on the guards’ faces. He let go of Clint and headed to the door.  “Call me when he starts to stir.”

Steve took a deep shuddering breath and pressed the back of his hand against his mouth.

Chapter Text

“Turn it off,” Steve said, his voice harsh and desperate even to his own ears. “Jarvis.” The footage stopped and then the screen turned off. He turned to Tony, and he frowned. “You’ve been watching that. You’ve been down here by yourself, just watching that.”

“We’ve had this conversation.” He rolled his eyes and then moved away, removing himself from the discussion. “There might have been information we needed.”

“You should have told us.”

“No. Clint is my friend. Maybe my best friend, although I think Rhodey has had dibs on that title for a very long time now. But Clint comes close to maybe knocking him off the top of the list. I was not going to force him to know that everyone had seen him like that. As far as the rescue goes, he can pretend that we didn’t notice what condition he was in. What had been done to him. But this is different. He shouldn’t have to live with all of us knowing that he was treated like that.” He was tinkering with something metallic on the bench across the room; Steve could hear it clinking against something.

“That’s not why. That’s just what you’re telling yourself.” Steve moved forward and pressed a hand to the centre of Tony’s back. The other man stiffened and froze at the contact. “You need to stop punishing yourself for what happened.”

“We’ve had this conversation too,” Tony said and made to move away again. Steve didn’t let him, getting a grip on the back of his shirt.

“I know, but I’m going to keep saying this until it gets through your thick skull.” He smiled, a little ruefully. “This was not your fault.”

“He was with me.” Tony’s voice broke a little on the last word. “He was with me and they thought he was Coulson because of the fuss I made over him and they thought that he would know how to get into my lab and they hurt him because of me.”

“I thought that the Phil Coulson Musical Scholarship was a nice touch,” Steve told him seriously. Tony turned to face him and the corner of his mouth twitched. Steve counted it as a win. “Tony, just...” He thought for a moment, because just telling Tony it wasn’t his fault really wasn’t working. “If you were kidnapped because someone wanted the serum, if they tortured you because they thought you knew how the machine your father built for the Vita Rays worked, or because they thought I’d told you Dr Erskine’s formula, would that be my fault?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It just is.” Tony tried to pull away, but Steve had him crowded against the workbench.

“No. It’s exactly the same. And...” He paused, something occurring to him even as he spoke, something Tony had said... “If you feel like this, how do you think Coulson feels? He’s been blaming himself almost as much as you have.”

“What? Why?” Tony looked honestly confused and Steve smiled and shook his head.

“He thinks it should have been him. He thinks he should have found Clint sooner. He thinks he wasn’t paying enough attention because of his own problems.”

“Oh. How do you know all that?”

“Some of it is just common sense,” he said dryly and Tony rolled his eyes. “The rest, he’s talked about.”

“I... should I be doing something to help?”

“You’re already doing enough. This isn’t just about you. We’re all in this together. We’ve all just got to pull together and support each other.” Even as he said it he knew it sounded too much like a platitude, that Tony would make fun of him. He cleared his throat and took a step back. But Tony didn’t laugh or make a sarcastic comment. He just looked at Steve much too seriously for much too long and then nodded sharply once.

“Come on. We should go let the others know what we’ve heard.”

Happy was standing in the lift, surrounded by bags when Steve and Tony got in.

“Hey boss, Cap.” Happy raised a hand in a half wave, half salute and Steve nodded in response.

“Hey. What’s all this?” Tony gestured to the bags.

“Jarvis called me.” Happy smiled. “Said that some things got left behind in the chaos earlier.”

“Wait, are those the gifts we got for Clint?” Steve looked shocked, but so happy that it made Tony smile. It was a welcome relief after the heavy emotions they’d left down in the lab.

“Yep,” Happy replied.

“Wait, Jarvis called you?”

“Indeed I did, sir.” The voice sounded hesitant for once, and Steve shot a glare at Tony. He wasn’t sure why Tony was even asking, but it was obviously making the AI unsure, and Steve didn’t like that. Especially after such a kind gesture.

“Good move.” Tony nodded and looked up at the ceiling. “Clint will love this.”

“Thank you, sir.” The relief was palpable and Steve suddenly found himself wondering if Jarvis was this unsure in all his dealings with anyone but Tony. It made sense, in a way. How do you teach a computer about emotions and interpersonal skills? Tony obviously had to reinforce the good decisions and discuss the bad ones, and Jarvis obviously appreciated it.

“Yes, thank you, Jarvis.” The emotion Steve put into it was almost visible in the air. “This... thank you.”

“You are very welcome.” Again, the relief was there, this time mingled with pride. Steve made a note to be more considerate in his interactions with Jarvis and the bots.

“Oh, and great job stopping that computer attacker from getting into your system.” Steve wasn’t sure he was saying this right, but it needed to be said. “I already told Dummy he did well helping us fight, but I forgot to tell you that you’d done well to stop the virtual attack.”

There was a long pause, in which Tony stared at him incredulously and then started to smile.

“Yeah, great job, Jarvis,” Tony reinforced. “That was truly awesome and you and me are going to talk about exactly how you kept them out and whether we need to do things differently next time.”

“I... thank you.”

The doors opened and they stepped out onto the medical floor.

As soon as they got off the elevator, the mood soured again and Tony’s footsteps slowed. How could he face Clint knowing that Clint knew that Tony knew what he had been through? Coulson was definitely going to punch him. Tony would punch himself if he could.

“Hey,” Steve said and took hold of his elbow. “You don’t have to go in there right now. I can tell them what we heard.”

“No. I’m the one who kept a copy of the tape. I’m the one who needs to do this.”

“Um, I’m guessing this is going to be a bad time for presents,” Happy said looking from one man to the other.  Tony snorted and Steve smiled slightly.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Okay. How about I leave them with you guys and you decide what to do with them.” He put the bags down against the wall and then turned to look at Tony. “Next time your tower gets attacked you had better call the instant the last bad guy is down. Pepper is not happy. And I’m pretty sure Colonel Rhodes is annoyed too.” Tony winced.

“Hey, there were other things going on!”

“Yeah, you get a pass this once because of everything that was happening with Agent Barton,” Happy said. He hesitated a moment, his hands hovering in mid air and then he stepped forwards and grabbed Tony into a tight hug. Tony didn’t seem to know what to do with the contact, his hands hovered in the air above Happy’s back. Steve frowned at him and mimed hugging. Tony rolled his eyes over Happy’s shoulder and tentatively patted his friend’s back.

“I... uh... right. I’ll call. Next time.”

With that reassurance, Happy eased off slowly. He paused with his hands on Tony’s shoulders to look the genius in the eye and he must have been satisfied with whatever he saw because he nodded once, sharply, and then stepped back. He offered Cap a hand and Steve shook it, and with that, Happy left.

“You sure you’re okay to do this?” Steve asked. Tony took a deep breath and then nodded.

“Let’s do this thing.”

Phil is tense. Clint can feel the tension humming from him and Phil’s fingers have not stopped tapping since he’d realised what Tony was doing. Thor and Bruce had both made attempts at conversation since Steve had left, but Natasha knew better and Clint was too preoccupied with pressing his face into Phil’s side to concentrate on talking. He didn’t know how to feel about all this. He had been so angry and... ashamed. That had been his knee jerk reaction, anger and shame. But then after the whole ‘people like you and want to buy you present so you’ll feel better’ thing, he’d realised that Tony had been genuinely trying to help. He’d managed to minimise the impact of the footage by limiting the viewers to one and he’d forced himself to watch it when he was obviously dealing with his own baggage just in case there was something important on there.

He had to respect that.

He was just worried about how Phil was handling this revelation.

“There was a video,” Phil said quietly, out of the blue. “When Stark was in Afghanistan. They sent a video.” The whole room had gone quiet; everyone was just staring at Phil. “It was... we had to take it as evidence of what had been done, but when he’d found out about it... he hadn’t realised it had been recorded at the time. He was too out of it. But when he realised that there was footage of that and that people had seen it...” he trailed off and shook his head. “I want to be angry at him.”

“I am angry at him,” Clint replied. “But I have to be thankful too.”

“Yeah,” Phil’s tone turned rueful and some of the nervous energy he had been holding fled and he slumped a little closer to Clint.

“He did his best,” Natasha said, startling them all. She had been quiet for a long time after her little outburst earlier. “He is not the best at emotion, or friendship, or people.” She smiled wryly. “But he does try.”

“Aye,” Thor said. “He does.”

“If he’s found something to get this guy then it’s worth it. It would be worth it even if all of you had to watch it. Even if all of SHIELD had to watch it.” He forced a smile. “But it’s better this way.”

Silence fell again and just in time. The door slid open and in walked Steve and Tony both looking pale and determined.

Clint tried very hard not to be afraid. 

Chapter Text

“So!” Tony said, clapping his hands together all bravado and false confidence (the attitude was belied by his pale skin and trembling hands). “Capsicle tells me that you figured me out. Nice one, Agent. My calculations didn’t have you figuring it out for another few days.”

“Tony,” Steve frowned.

“Right.” Tony looked at the floor, took a deep breath, rallying his defences, and then looked up and straight at Clint. “I had no right to do what I did. But I’m not sorry. Because I’d do it again.”

“You’re a dick,” Clint said, but he sounded more resigned than annoyed. “I get that it needed to be done, but you should have told me. I should have had the choice of who watched it. I should have known what was going on.” He took a breath. “I trust you, but you did this behind my back.”

Tony had gone even paler, which Clint hadn’t thought was possible.

“Shit. I’m sorry. For that part at least, I didn’t think. I just did it. It’s a problem I have, just ask Pepper. I’m always doing stupid shit without thinking it through, usually involving strawberries or shoe baskets or giant stuffed animals, but sometimes it’s something that matters. I just, I knew it needed to be done and I didn’t want it to... you were already hurting. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“Calm down,” Bruce said, coming over to Tony’s side and getting a grip on his forearm. “You need to calm down.”

“Right. Yes. Calm. We need to explain.” He glanced at Steve. “We saw... there was something important on the tape. It’s not an excuse. Not a justification. It’s just...” he shrugged, nervous energy sloughing off him and Steve put a hand on his shoulder.

“We heard the man who hurt you talking to someone on the phone,” Steve said. “We think that’s probably what you were trying to remember.”

“What did he say?” Clint asked, and his voice didn’t waver at all which he was very proud of.

“He said...” Steve hesitated and glanced at Tony.

“He talked about a factory,” Tony took over. “He mentioned weapons and robotic engineering. It’s a Hammer Tech factory with both of those capabilities. That’s where the boss man is.”

“How many factories are there that fit that profile?” Phil asked.

“Not many. Especially not in the US. Hammer Tech moved most of their manufacturing over seas a couple of years ago.” Tony pulled a face as though he’d tasted something bad.

“What else?” Clint asked suddenly. He needed to know. “What else did you see?”

“What?” Tony took a step back and collided with Steve’s chest. “What do you mean?”

“What else did you see? Did you see them strip me down and toss me in a cage? Did you see them burning me and whipping me and beating me? Did you see me piss myself when they used a car battery on me?” Clint couldn’t stop the flow of words now that they’d started. He didn’t understand why he was feeling so angry, so betrayed. His emotions were still bouncing all over the place. Logically, he knew Tony had tried to do the right thing and that he had found out some vital information for catching the bad guy, but when he thought of Tony and Steve  of all people watching him like that... watching him get broken down and pulled apart... it just made him want to rip something apart.

He didn’t notice the tremor in Tony’s hands stepping up a notch in the face of his anger and then getting even worse at the mention of a car battery.

“It... yeah, but it wasn’t... you’re making it sound...” he sounded lost and he couldn’t find the words.

“Did it get you off is that it?” Clint continued mercilessly. “Seeing me like that? Did it make you laugh seeing how disgusting I am?”

“Enough!” Phil said sharply. “You don’t mean that.”

“I...” Clint snarled then stopped himself, panting hard, his hands clenched into fist. “I...” he closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” His shoulders slumped. “I can’t... I didn’t...”

“Hey,” Tony said, smiling wide and fake as a starlet’s breasts. “It’s okay. I get it. I’m jsut...” he gestured over his shoulder and started edging away.

“No,” Clint said reaching out. “Don’t go. Please. I need...” Steve took hold of the back of Tony’s shirt and pulled him back into the room even though he was frowning disapprovingly at Clint. The archer figured he needed to say the right thing right now or Steve would not be impressed. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean any of that. I know you were trying to help and I know it was really hard for you to have to see what happened. I know that, I do. But my emotions haven’t quite caught up with my brain.” He quirked a lopsided smile, and was pleased to see Tony’s mouth twitch in response. “It’s just that thinking about people seeing me like that makes my skin crawl. And I can’t help that.”

“I know.  I should have told you what was going on instead of going behind your back,” Tony said. He took a hesitant step towards the bed. “It wasn’t... I didn’t laugh. I cried and I had to stop watching a couple of times. Oh, and one time I puked everywhere. But I didn’t laugh.”

“I know you didn’t.”

And just like that Tony’s smile was real again and Clint could relax.

Steve waited a couple of moments to make sure the sudden tension was really gone, and then glanced up at the ceiling.

“Jarvis, do you think you could compile a list of Hammer factories matching the criteria and look for anything suspicious, please?”

“Consider it done, Captain.”

“Thank you.” He moved back towards the door and reached out to grab the pile of bags waiting there. “I know this is probably really bad timing, but Jarvis heard us talking about your presents and he did us a favour and called Mr Hogun to go and collect them for us. The balloons were gone, but it looks like everything else is still here.” He piled the bags on the end of Clint’s bed.

“Captain?” Jarvis said, sounding tentative.

“Yes?”

“I believe Mr Hogun purchased replacement balloons, they should be in the green bag. And Sir has a helium canister on this floor.”

“Really?” Steve grinned, then turned to Tony. “Why do you even have one of those?”

“What? They’re awesome. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.” Steve grabbed the green bag and followed Tony out of the room. Clint stared after them for a moment, and then looked at the pile of bags at his feet.

“I don’t...”he said blankly.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked.

“I... yeah. I just.... I’m being kind of a dick at the moment so presents seem a bit weird.”

“You are not being a dick,” Thor said and Clint had to smile at the way the god shaped the swear word. “You are injured in body and spirit but you are healing. It is normal for injuries to take their toll on the mood.”

“You are kind of being a dick,” Natasha added in a mild, considering tone and Clint snorted, grinning. He was back up again and he was really getting sick of being an emotional yo-yo.

“We got them because we wanted to,” Bruce said. “You don’t have to keep anything or use what we got you.”

“You want me to unwrap them for you?” Phil asked.

“No, let’s wait for the others.”

“You okay?” Steve asked the moment they got out of the room.  Tony gave him a sideways glance.

“You’ve been way too nice to me since this whole thing started. It’s weird.”

“Tony...”

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

“He didn’t mean that in there. You know that right? You were just a convenient target.”

“Yeah. I have had some experience with PTSD.”

“Comes with the territory,” Steve said wryly, thinking of all the flashbacks and nightmares he’d had to talk the Howling Commandos out of back in the war. Shellshock isn’t just for after the fact.

“I guess.” Tony pointed to a door. “Helium’s in there.”

Steve opened the door and pulled out the canister. He fiddled with it for a moment, then pulled one of the balloons out of the green bag and attached it to the nozzle.

“I know he’s pretty much your best friend. It’s okay if you’re upset because of what he said.”

“I’d be a pretty shitty friend to hold something he said while dealing with trauma against him.”

“No, you’d just be human.”

“Stop it, okay? Just leave it alone. It’s none of your business, it’s not your job to fix everything and everyone.”

“What?” Steve’s head cam up sharply and his fingers slipped, sending the balloon rocketing around the supply room making a rude noise. “I’m not trying to fix anything. And you certainly aren’t broken.”

“I never said I was.”

“You implied I was trying to fix you.”

“That doesn’t...” Tony shook his head as the deflated balloon fell to the floor in front of them. “I get that you’re trying to help. Trying to be a good team leader. That’s why you keep having these heart to hearts. That’s why you came down when I was watching it. But you don’t have to do that crap with me. I don’t need  you fussing at me because you think it’s some kind of duty.”

“Duty? This has nothing to do with duty! I thought...” he blinked a couple of times and suddenly looked unsure and much younger than he normally seemed. “We’ve been spending time together, I mean, just a few weeks ago there was that ballgame. I know we started out on the wrong foot but I thought we were friends.”

“I... are we?”

“I guess not.”

“I don’t... I’m not trying to be mean here. I just didn’t realise...”

“You thought I didn’t see it that way.”

“I thought we were teammates. People who worked together.  I didn’t realise we’d graduated to friends.”

“Well we have. At least in my book.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Okay.” Steve bent down and picked up the balloon. He reattached it to the nozzle of the canister. “So, are you okay?”

“No. I don’t think I am.”

“Okay.” Steve nodded seriously, but he didn't ask if Tony wanted to talk about it or say some platitude. He just kept filling up the balloon, and it was as though he just accepted the fact that Tony wasn't okay right now. He would be in the future, but right now he was stressed and upset and guilty and he just wanted to hit something, eat his weight in ice cream and then curl up in a dark room. And Steve had just...accepted it. He'd just acted as though it was fine that Tony was feeling like that. He hadn't told him to shape up or get his act together. He hadn't told him that Clint was the one who had been hurt, that Tony didn't have the right to freak out when they were so busy trying to help Clint. He'd just said it was okay.

Something cold and hard in Tony's gut unfurled, and he ducked his head and busied himself with getting a fresh balloon out of the bag. 

Chapter Text

When Steve and Tony got back, trailing balloons, Clint was grinning and making grabby hands at the pile of gifts.  They tethered the strings to the end of his bed and stepped back to join the rest of the group. Bruce pressed a hand to the small of Tony’s back, warm and comforting and unassuming and if Tony leaned back into the touch a little, no one needed to know.

“I’ll unwrap them,” Phil said, his voice even and stern. Clint pulled a face. “You know what the doctor said about your hands.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But?” Phil raised one eyebrow and Clint quickly changed his mind and looked away.

“Never mind.”

“That’s what I thought.” Phil leaned down and picked up the first bag.

“That one’s from Bruce,” Natasha said. “And it’s a gift for both of you.”  She glanced at the clock and crossed her arms, the gesture looking more defensive that usual. Clint frowned.

Phil looked inside, then smiled and upended the bag onto the bed. Several books fell out, along with several pens (including an erasable purple one).

“Sudoku, crosswords, a write-your-own cookbook, this is great,” Phil enthused.

“Except for the part where I can’t exactly hold a pen,” Clint added, but he was still smilling.

“That’s why it’s for both of you,” Bruce spoke up, “you can tell Phil what to write and it will give you both something to do.”

“Thanks Bruce, that’s great.”

The next bag came from Natasha. It had various snacks of the unhealthy variety and a marshmallow gun complete with ammo. There was also a bow with suction cup arrows.  Clint looked at his hands and sighed. He’d overused them in the attack and they were sore, but there was no blood on the bandages. Maybe that was a good sign. Either way, it would be a while before he could use even a toy bow. He really was useless right now.  

“Hey,” Phil’s hand gently wrapped around Clint’s. “What’s going on in there?” He tapped Clint’s temple with his other hand. Clint smiled and pulled back. He must have spaced out a little.  Everyone was staring at him. Except Natasha, who was glancing at the clock again. Clint followed her gaze and found himself trying to tally how long it had been since the attack, since he’d eaten, since he’d been rescued. He shook it off.

“Aw, you know. Nothing much.” He shrugged a little and refused to wince. “Come on. Presents.”

“The balloons are from me,” Steve said, when it seemed like no one else was going to do anything but stare worriedly at Clint. “And there should be a bag of grapes and a box of chocolates too.”

“Thanks, Cap.” Clint’s smile turned a trifle more genuine. Of course Steve would be the traditionalist when it came to gifts. Thor beamed and stepped to the front of the group.

“I have been told that tokens of wellbeing are customary between brothers in arms when one is injured,” he said and Clint fought a smile. “Therefore I have bought for you these.” He motioned to his bag. “Objects of great healing.”

Phil tipped the bag up and several boxes of pop tarts fell out along with boxes of band aids and a tube of antiseptic cream.  Clint raised an eyebrow, confused.

“I called it magic cream,” Bruce said sheepishly. “When Tony cut his hand a few weeks ago, I called it magic cream and Tony joked that band aids were mighty healing devices.”  Clint smothered a grin, it still didn’t explain the pop tarts, but that was probably just Thor. It was sweet, he decided and said as much.

“Thanks, Thor.”

Tony shifted uncomfortably, and stepped forward a little.

“This is from Jarvis. I had nothing to do with it.” He motioned to the TV screen on the wall.

“Agent Barton, if you would like to play any of the games you customarily enjoy, they are ready and waiting for you with enhanced motion and voice activated sensors,” Jarvis’ voice came from above.

“You mean you’ve rigged it so I can play without using my hands?” Clint grinned, now that was really awesome. Jarvis must have really thought about what Clint was currently capable of and planned accordingly. “Thanks, J. You’re the best.”

“You are most welcome.”

Tony pushed the final bag over towards Clint and Phil.

“You’ve already given me a kitchen,” Clint started.

“And a bunch of other stuff if we’re going to keep track, so let’s not.”

Phil tipped the bag up and came out with an e-reader  (with a touch screen to accommodate Clint’s hands) preloaded with a bunch of stuff, and a pile of unhealthy snacks.

“Wow,” Clint said. He was kind of shocked that Tony had bought him a rival company’s technology, but when he glanced at Tony, he just got an uncomfortable shrug. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He shifted on his feet and stepped back a little so he was half behind Steve.

“I should go,” Natasha said, breaking the tension and moving towards the bed so she could press her hand against Clint’s arm before backing up again.

“What?” Clint asked. “Why?”

“We have those guys to question from the attack. We should have been talking to them earlier.” And the tone in her voice wasn’t disappointment exactly, and not really annoyance either. It was self censure. “With the information from Tony, we can maybe get something from them. Help narrow down the factories list for Jarvis.”

“Have you had any luck, Jarvis?” Phil asked, holding a hand up to keep Natasha in the room.

“I have a shortlist of five factories that meet the criteria in the continental United States. Of those, two are in New York.”

“Really?” Tony asked, frowning. “He always did hate travelling away from the city.”

“Two factories,” Natasha said, and she smiled grimly. “I can make them tell me which one we should go to.”

“I’ll go with you,” Steve said. “If that’s okay?”

“The more the merrier,” Natasha replied and the two of them left the room. They split up briefly to change clothes and grab their gear, before heading out.

Natasha didn’t say a word on the way over to SHIELD HQ. But Natasha was often quiet. Steve couldn’t decide whether he should try and talk to her, or just leave her to her thoughts. She was the hardest for him to get a read on.

“Are you...?” he finally tried as they got out the car, not really expecting a reply. She shot him a look, considering for a second and then she tilted her head a little.

“I’m worried. We’re getting close and this is always the most dangerous part of the operation. This is when the bad guys might figure out we’re on to them and disappear,” she’s right, he knows she’s right. Especially with how the Tower Attack had gone for their villain. “And that can’t happen. Too much is at stake.”

“Well then, we won’t let that happen.”

Her smile was devastating in its rarity and he had to smile back.

Steve was a caretaker, Natasha thought. Just like Phil. They had that in common. They both defied odds on a daily basis and strove to always do the right thing for the right reasons. She wondered who took care of them while they were so busy taking care of everyone else. As they walked through the halls of SHIELD she found herself studying him.

“How are you, Cap?”

“Me?” he looked surprised. “I’m fine.”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “We all noticed how pale you were after you came back from watching the tape with Tony. Or at least, I did. it can’t have been easy.” Steve frowned.

“It was necessary,” he said, like it was just that simple. And Natasha understood that, respected it even. But she of all people knew how doing ‘necessary’ things could ware on you.

“Yes, it was. And I’m grateful. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you.”

“It can affect me later. When this is over.” He gestured to the door they’d come to a halt in front of.

“Alright then. Let’s get to it.”

Bruce and Thor left shortly after they’d finished with the presents. Tony had tried to go with them, they all needed a change of clothes, a shower, and a break, but Phil had taken one look at Tony’s face and stopped him. He pulled him over and sat him beside Clint’s bed.

“I was...” Tony tried.

“No,” Phil said. He sat in the next chair, trapping Tony between his chair, Clint’s bed and the wall. He’d have to climb over someone if he really wanted out.

“But,” Tony tried again.

“No,” Phil repeated. “Just no. You need to stop for a minute.”

“I’ve been stopped for ages. We stopped for the whole night after the battle and then we stopped for gifts.”

“And what else did you do? You fought against people attacking our home and then you forced yourself to watch one of your best friends in pain just in case something important had been missed.” Phil sighed. “You can let go sometimes, Tony. It’s okay to be human.”

“No, it’s not,” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. He glanced at Clint who hadn’t spoken yet, but looked worried. “It’s not okay. I can’t... I’ve already been dumping my issues all over you guys and you don’t need that.” he looked at Phil. “He’s still recovering and you’re still worrying about him. and you don’t need the extra stress.”

“Hey, the patient is in the room,” Clint said, half jokingly, but it got Tony’s attention. “I don’t want to be treated like I’m broken, Tony. I thought that you of all people would understand that.”

“I’m not! I’m trying... I’m not the most nurturing of people. I just want to help and this is a way I can.”

“You’ve already helped enough. You got him a doctor, a kitchen, you watched the footage and got us vital information.” Phil’s voice was gentle, but Tony flinched back as though he was shouting. “You did good, Tony.” And that was what broke him. Tears started running down Tony’s face, and he sniffed, wiping at his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to choke back tears.

“No, don’t apologise for this,” Clint said.

“Never apologise for feeling, Tony,” Phil added.

“I shouldn’t have watched it. I knew it would hurt you, but I had to. I had to know and I had to make it better. It was necessary.” He said it like he was convincing himself as the tears ran down his face.

“Yes, it was,” Clint said and he reached out a hand. That was all the permission Tony needed to hug him, quick and careful of his wounds.

“He’s here,” Phil said. “He’s here and he’s alive and he’s healing.” And then Phil felt like crying too.

“Come here,” Clint said.

So they all piled together, holding each other and letting out the stress of the recent days. Phil felt dirty and useless and horrid, still in his clothes from the battle and the inside of his lower lip hurt. He’d been chewing it for hours in his stress without realising it. He was the first one to ease away from the embrace, swiping at the tear streaks on his face.

“I need to get clean,” he said. “Will you stay with him until I’m back?”

“Of course,” Tony said, easing back into his seat. Clint was still crying, almost silent in his distress, but he needed the catharsis as much as Tony and Phil had.

“I’ll try not to take too long,” Phil looked down at his suit with distaste and Tony made a noise of understanding.

“I’m not sure how you’ve lasted this long,” he said. “My dad had to shower and change right away if he even got a speck of dirt on him.”

“It’s not about dirt for me, it’s about control,” Phil explained. He was proud that he only hesitated a second before sharing. “I have other ticks that help with that, and being clean isn’t... I need to be dressed properly, but for a battle, this is appropriate. And I compensated when the battle was over.” He’d compensated by tapping his words out on his leg while he spoke and chewing the inside of his mouth raw, even as he laughed and talked with the rest of them. It was worth it to see Clint relaxed and happy for a little while. “It’s about counting mainly for me. I need the right amounts at the right times, but being clean or worrying about germs, that was never really an issue for me.”

Tony nodded consideringly.

“That makes sense. You’re all about precision.”

“Yes. Excuse me.” He glanced at the clock, noting the time, before grabbing his bag and heading into the bathroom to get changed. He came out precisely 45 minutes later to find Tony asleep in the chair with his head on the bed, and Clint smiling fondly at him.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

“Hey.” Phil smiled back.

It felt like home. 

Chapter Text

Captain America and Black Widow stepped out of the interrogation room. Director Fury was standing opposite them, his hands behind his back. Natasha straightened her back and Steve stepped up behind her left shoulder. Fury nodded, once, respectfully, and then took a step back so he was stood straight against the wall.

(The man in the interrogation room was bloodied and missing teeth. He was also unconscious.)

Steve and Natasha stepped out into the corridor and started walking. The walls along the way were lined with agents. Sitwell, Hill, Carter, Wilson, Morse and many more. Every single one of them had worked with Clint at one time or another and every single one of them had heard about what happened to him. Some of them reached out with messages of support for the archer, others offered to help in the oncoming fight. But most were silent and still, forming up an honour guard of sorts, offering their respect. Not to her. Maybe partly to Cap, but mostly they were offering respect to Hawkeye, to what he’d gone through, to justice almost realised.

Natasha wished that Clint could see this. Although, she thought with a brief smile, he probably wouldn’t understand why they would do this for him.

There was blood on the back of Natasha’s hands and she stared at it on the long silent ride back to the Tower.

“If you hadn’t hit him,” Steve said as they got out of the car. “I would have.”

They’d got the information; that was the important part. She still didn’t say anything, just got in the elevator and rode up to her own floor. Bruce was waiting there for her.

“Did you get what you needed?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

She gave him the address of the factory.

“Cap wants to wait ‘til tonight. Give him a false sense of security and go in under the cover of darkness.”

“And you disagree?”

She tilted her head, considering, then started stripping efficiently and without false modesty.

“No. I just... I need to be doing something.” She went into the bathroom and stood in the shower, letting the water run almost too hot.

“Something else happened.” Bruce followed her in and sat on the closed toilet. He watched her stand there, not even attempting to wash herself. “What’s wrong?”

“I am finding it difficult to maintain distance. And that’s...” she shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t be like this.”

“Emotions are not weakness,” he said. It’s something he’s told her many times before.

“They are if they mean I can’t maintain. I’m not a robot, Bruce. I’ve always had emotions. They just aren’t as strong as other people’s. I don’t act on my emotions and I remain calm. But this is destroying that distance. Even when Clint was taken by Loki, I could keep myself apart. I could stop and think. At the moment, I’m just reacting and that makes me vulnerable.”

“It makes you human. It makes you stronger.”

She picked up the soap and scrubbed.

“What happened?” Bruce asked again.

“I hit him. I hit him and hit him and Steve had to stop me. He’d already given us the information we needed. We were leaving. But he started talking about Clint. He started describing the things that had been done to Clint and he laughed.”

Bruce stood up and fiddled with his buttons, then he nodded decisively and quickly stripped off. He joined Natasha in the shower and wrapped his arms around her.

“You stood up for your friend. And you got the information, you could afford to let go.” He kept a lid on the tide of his own rising anger. He hated that she felt like she wasn’t allowed to be human. He knew that working with SHIELD had given her some of herself back, and that working with the Avengers had started to give her even more, but he hated that she’d ever been made to stop feeling.

He shouldn’t have got in the shower with her. She was all wet and slippery and he didn’t have the energy to control. He got an erection as he held her against him. He closed his eyes and hoped she wouldn’t notice.

She did of course. She was Natasha Romanov. She noticed everything. She did the last thing he expected, she laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She smiled. “Let me take care of that.”

“No. It’s... I came in here to make you feel better.”

“So,” she said, and it was a challenge. “Make me feel better.”

Steve hesitated outside the door to Clint’s current room.

“Jarvis? Is everything... I mean, is it okay for me to go in and talk to them about what we’ve found out?”

“Can it wait, Captain? Agent Barton is currently asleep, and Sir is also. Agent Coulson is awake, but he is...” Jarvis paused. “He is not himself.”

“What happened? Why is Tony sleeping in there? What’s wrong with Phil?”

“They had a difficult conversation. Both Agent Barton and Sir were exhausted by the resulting catharsis. Agent Coulson appears to be having some difficulty processing.”

“Oh. So I shouldn’t disturb them.”

“If it is important, Captain, then they will cope.”

“We know where the bad guys are hiding out.”

“Then I dare say that Agent Coulson would want to know as soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right.” He took a breath and knocked on the door. After a few seconds it opened and Phil stepped out, putting a finger to his lips.

“Steve,” he nodded to the Captain and looked as put together as he ever did. If Jarvis hadn’t warned him that Phil was upset, Steve would never have known. “Sorry, I don’t want to disturb them.”

“Yeah. I almost didn’t want to bother you with this, at least, not until later.” Steve put his hands in his pockets and ducked his head. “But we have a location.”

Instantly, ‘Phil’ became ‘Coulson’. His face lost the softness and the emotion and he squared his shoulders.

“Report.”

“Jarvis managed to narrow it down to two factories and Natasha got the information from the suspect.” Steve frowned. “She...”

“She beat him up?”

“Yeah. Not as bad as I thought she might, but... should I have stopped her?”

“No. She got the information and didn’t go too far. When are you planning to move on the target?”

“As soon as it gets dark.”

“Okay,” Phil nodded. He had his hands clenched tightly at his sides and it was the only sign of his tension. “Okay. I’ll talk to Clint when he wakes up.”

“Do you...” Steve frowned. “Do you want to be on the team?”

“The attack team? No. I don’t want to leave Clint.” He smiled mildly. “I have to admit I do want to go along and get back at them for what they did to him, but taking care of him is more important right now.” His smile grew a little. “Besides, I trust you to take care of it.”

Steve stood a little straighter and nodded sharply. Phil smiled back, and wondered when he became the team counsellor, and whose bright idea it was to make the guy who is actually diagnosed with a mental illness be the one who the others come to for therapy. He watched as Steve left, sighed and shook his head, and then went silently back into Clint's room. 

Clint opened his eyes, a wave of panic filling him. There was something holding his arm down and it was too dark and they would come again and hurt him and...

He turned his head, trying to slow his breathing down, and saw that the ‘thing’ on his arm was Tony’s head. Instantly, he relaxed. Tony was sleeping, and Clint was safe. He was in the Tower. He rolled a little further towards Tony and dragged his arm out from under him. That couldn’t be comfortable. The billionaire was hunched over in the chair with his head on the bed. But Clint didn’t want to wake him.

It became a moot point as he snuggled down under his blankets, letting his fingers rest in Tony’s hair. He was asleep again before he could wake the other man up.

Chapter Text

Tony woke up with a start and flailed for a moment before he managed to tip his chair over sideways, landing with a clatter and waking Clint.

“Hey,” Phil said, going over to Tony. He was the one who needed him right now, Clint was awake and a little confused, but mostly okay. Tony on the other hand was hyperventilating. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” He crouched down beside the other man, keeping a careful distance. He’d learned years ago not to touch someone in a nightmare or in a flashback. You could get a black eye or worse that way.

“Hey,” he said instead, hands up. “You’re okay.” Tony blinked a couple of times and then looked around him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out through his nose.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said, and was immediately echoed by Clint.

“No, it’s not. I’m... this isn’t about me. What happened to you... I shouldn’t be freaking out.” He shook his head. “Or rather I should be freaking out about you. I thought...” he sighed. In his dream he'd been in The Cave (it always had capital letters in his head) and instead of Yensin, there was Clint. Clint being abused and locked in a dog cage. Clint dying so that Tony could live. 

“Stop it,” Clint said. “You feel what you feel. You aren’t telling me to stop freaking out so stop telling yourself that.”

“We should eat,” Phil said, when the silence had drawn out too long. “There’s some things I need to talk to you both about.”

They had bacon sandwiches. Phil cooked them up on the hob of Clint’s mobile kitchen. Phil and Clint had BLTs but Tony had tomato and avocado on his. For a long time there was no sound other than the slightly strange noises of three men chomping away. Clint ate everything on his plate, and so did the others. Phil was glad he was the one cooking because it meant he could give himself the right numbers of everything. 

Then, when the sandwiches were finished, and everything had settled a bit, Phil began to speak.

“They’ve found his headquarters,” he said and gave them the information Steve and Natasha had got from the interrogation.

“That’s right on our doorstep,” Tony said when he was done, his voice low and somehow empty. “I... that’s right on our doorstep, how did we not know?”

“We had no reason to investigate,” Phil told him. “There was no way we could have known. We just don’t have the resources to investigate every factory that’s not owned by Stark Industries.”

“Is Nat okay?” Clint asked suddenly, and the other two frowned at the apparent non sequitur.

“She’s fine.” Phil frowned and moved closer to the bed, putting his hand over Clint’s.

“She didn’t do anything stupid?”

“Steve stopped her before she could go too far.”

“Right.” Clint shifted, twitching his fingers and pulling his hand away from Phil’s. “When are they going to take the factory?”

“As soon as it gets dark. Tony, you should probably go see the others. Find out what the plan is.”

“Yeah.” He glanced between them. “We’ll get them for you, Clint,” he promised, then left the room without looking back.

After Tony left, silence fell, heavy and thick as Clint’s old blanket. Phil chewed on his lower lip and his fingers began to tap.

“I’m not going with them,” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“I’m hurt, not helpless. I want you to go.” He meant it, but at the same time, he wanted Phil to stay with him. “I want you to shoot the bastard behind all this right in his stupid face.”

“I don’t think I can. I know we’ve both worked on missions when the other one was hurt before, but...” his fingers started tapping out Clint’s name, but Phil didn’t notice. Clint did and frowned.

“What is it Phil?”

“Before, it wasn’t like this. It’s only happened a few times since we’ve been together. And all those times it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t personal. And I was...” he ducked his head. “I was Better.” Clint could hear the capital.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Right now, I’m no good to anyone.” He got up and started pacing back and forth. Ten steps one way, ten steps the other. “I can’t focus. The team can’t rely on me. Don’t ask me to go out there when I can’t trust myself. When they can’t trust me.”

“Okay,” Clint said, reaching for Phil. “Okay. I still think you should go, but I’m not going to push it. Come here?”

Phil walked over to the bed and held Clint tightly, pressing his face into the side of Clint’s throat. He took a deep shuddering breath, taking in Clint’s musky and slightly chemical scent, and then let it out slowly, the tension falling slowly away from his shoulders. He was sure it should feel wrong, taking this comfort from Clint when Clint should be the one who needed comfort, but he just fell into the embrace. He could take care of Clint later, but right now he just needed this. 

The attack, when they finally got to give it, seemed rather anti-climatic to begin with. Especially after everything that had happened. They spent an hour as they sun set surveilling the place. It was quiet, but well guarded, and with Tony hacking the CCTV, they had eyes and ears everywhere. Well, everywhere the cameras were, which was more limited than they would have liked. Most of the inside had no cameras at all. 

“Look at his cocky face,” Tony said, his voice distorted by the armour. “He thinks he’s won. He thinks we haven’t figured it out, even with his men in custody. He thinks he can just carry on.” They watched as he turned a corner and out of camera range. 

“Well, he can’t,” Steve said, except he was Captain America right now, full of righteous fury and justice. “Banner, we could use the Other Guy here pretty soon. Widow, take out as many of the guards silently as possible. I’ll be your back up, Thor, you’re with us too. Iron Man, hold back. When the alarm goes up, or when all the outside guards have been taken out, whichever happens first, you and Banner move in.”

 “Got it,” Tony said seriously as Bruce nodded. Steve frowned, unused to having his orders so easily taken, but he shrugged it off and made his quiet way forward with Natasha towards the building. Thor followed behind them, not quite so quietly.

The first two guards went down easy.

They headed slowly along the side of the factory, and found two more, on patrol. These put up more of a fight, but they didn’t give them chance to call for back up.

Steve let out a breathless laugh.

“What?” Natasha asked.

“I was just thinking I wish Clint was here. He’s better at this sneaking stuff than I am,” he gestured to his brightly coloured uniform. “But if Clint could be here, then we wouldn’t be here if you know what I mean.”

“Aye,” Thor replied seriously. “The Hawk is a mighty warrior and I miss his presence greatly.”

“Yeah,” she smiled.

That’s when it all went to hell.

“Hurry up,” Iron Man said. He gave the impression of pent up energy, a coiled spring waiting to launch into action. Bruce frowned.

“Easy,” he said. “We’ll be needed soon enough.”

“I know, I just...” he shrugged. He was finding it hard to stay still. It felt wrong. Clint wasn’t with them. Phil wasn’t with them (although Clint had tried hard enough to convince him to come along). It just didn’t feel right that the two who’d been most affected weren’t there to get justice.

Somewhere, an alarm started blaring.

They never found out exactly what went wrong.

Chapter Text

There were dozens of them. All of the mercenaries left from the attack on the Tower. They were only a small fraction of the force that they had fought off before, but they were all experts at what they did and they all had an axe to grind.

Steve, Thor and Natasha were forced to a standstill pretty quick. They were surrounded on all sides and it seemed that every one they took out was replaced by two more.

“Iron Man,” Cap shouted through the comm, “you and Hulk get into the building and find Hammer’s butler.”

“What about you?” Tony asked.

“We’re holding our own,” Natasha told him. “Just go.”

Bruce looked at Tony for a second, then shucked out of his shirt and transformed. The Hulk was in his place. He looked around, slightly confused, then he saw the battle and started forwards, growling.

“Hey! Big Guy! No, we need to get in the building! The guy who’s behind all this is in the building! Come on, smash down a wall for me and then you can go get the others.” Hulk considered for a second before batting a hand at Tony as you or I would bat at an annoying insect and carrying on towards the centre of the fight. Tony flew right up in front of his face and hovered there. “Come on, Big Guy. The one who hurt Hawkeye is in there! We get him and the others give up.

“Hurt Birdie?”

“That’s right, he hurt Birdie.” Hulk altered his trajectory towards the side of the factory. He smashed straight through the wall and Stark flew through the gap he created. “Great! Go on and help the others, get me some back up.”

Tony moved quickly through the hallways. He was moving based on a map that Jarvis had generated for him of the heat signatures in the building. He was heading towards the largest concentration, hopeful that it would be what he was looking for. Even if it wasn’t, it looked interesting.

Hulk waded into the battle and evened up the score. He knocked one mercenary after another away and it gave the others the breathing room they needed. Soon, they’d battered back the force enough for Steve and Natasha to peel off.

“Thor, Hulk, keep smashing. We’ll go back Tony up.”

They split off and headed towards the building.

Clint waited. He lay in his bed and stared at the wall and waited. He wanted it to be over.

At least this time he wasn’t waiting for Coulson to come. At least this time, Phil was waiting with him, their hands touching.

Iron Man burst through the door to the room with the highest heat signature. Then he froze in place.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Iron Man, come in. what’s wrong?” Steve asked, slightly breathless.

“Shit.”

There were people chained by the foot to work tables and along conveyer belts. Up on the wall there were plans, designs. His designs. Designs that should have been destroyed years ago, back after Afghanistan.

Justin Fucking Hammer.

“Shit.”

“We could use some more words,” Natasha said dryly. “A verb, maybe a noun or two.”

“There are people in here, captives. He’s forcing them to build him weapons. Although I don’t think they’ve gotten very far, or we wouldn’t have beat off the mercenaries so easily at the Tower.” He walked forward, and the people seemed divided between shying away in fear and sitting up and taking notice. “Easy,” he said, then frowned. “Wait, Dr Morales?”

“Tony Stark,” one of the chained men (not one of the ones who looked afraid) smiled. “I suppose you’re here to stage a daring rescue.” He and Tony had met at several conventions and he was an eminent and respected engineer.

“About time,” one of the others, a young woman said. “They’ve had us working on Stark Tech for months now. We were running out of ways to stall them.”

“You, l like,” Tony said, grinning behind the faceplate. This was horrible and Not Good and kind of awful, but he pushed it all to the back of his head and pasted on a smile. “Where’s the keys to the chains?” The woman pointed to the wall behind him and he turned to see a set of keys hanging from a hook on the wall. “Really? They keep them in plain view?”

“The better to tease us with,” Morales said. “We tried getting them a few times, but they broke Dave’s hands before we could use them.” He gestured to a man whose fingers were twisted and gnarled like broken twigs. “We stopped trying after that.”

They got quiet after that, and Tony picked the keys down from their hook. He handed them to the guy on the end of the line of chained slaves, a tragically young boy with big brown eyes and long eyelashes. He smiled at Tony, and bent his head to open the shackle around his ankle. Tony glanced at the computer the kid was working at and noticed his coding was pretty sophisticated and made a mental note to hire the boy, or get him a scholarship somewhere.

Elsewhere, Natasha and Steve were moving silently through the factory. They were headed to the main office, unsure of what they would find. With a gesture, they split up, one each side of the door, and then Steve kicked it in.

Sitting at the desk, calm as you like, was The Butler. He had his hands folded in front of him and his expression was one of mild distaste.

“Now, really. No need for that. It wasn’t locked.”

“Oh, there was a need,” Natasha said and stalked towards the man at his desk. Steve wondered is he was supposed to stop her or help her, but he found he didn’t really care. This man deserved whatever she dished out.

Tony herded out the captives, directing them away from the still raging fight. His skin felt too tight, he needed to get back to it, but he needed to get these people away and that was more important. He had a team. He had a team he could trust. he had to trust that they would carry the fight and get the bad guy.

The SHIELD back up vans weren’t too far away, and Tony led the captives over to them. Sitwell was waiting.

“I’ll get them out of here.”

“Be nice. They’ve been in there for months.”

“Why? I mean,” Sitwell glanced around, taking in the differences between the thirty or so people Tony had brought to him. “Why them?”

“They’re scientists,” Stark replied. “He wanted them to build things for him. I... I need to go.” It was too close, but he was holding it together. His hands didn’t shake inside the armour. He focussed on the fight, taking down any mercenaries that had managed to get away from Hulk and Thor.

Then, just like that, it was over. There was no explosion, no deaths or vengeance, the fight just sputtered to a slow staggering halt.

There was blood on the ground.

Natasha and Steve dragged The Butler out of the factory. He was unhurt, except for a black eye, and was still upright and walking and maintaining his dignity. That seemed wrong somehow, but it was Natasha’s call. He got into the SHIELD van willingly, muttering about how he would have gotten away with it.

“If it wasn’t for us pesky kids, you mean?” Banner asked. He was half naked and looked exhausted and Tony slipped over to support him without thinking about it.

“It was a beautiful plan. It should have worked,” was all The Butler said in response.

There would be more to it, of course. There would be questions and therapy and trials, but for now, it was over.

“Who wants to tell Clint?” Steve asked.

Well, almost over.

Chapter Text

Phil’s cell phone rang, loud and piercing in the quiet of the medical suite. He answered it with a glance at Clint.

“Hello?”

“Phil? They got him. It’s over.” It was Sitwell. Phil let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. They want to give you the details themselves, but they need to shower and debrief and things. I figured you’d want to know.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jasper.”

“Anytime.”

Phil hung up.

“What?” Clint asked, sitting more upright in his bed. “What happened? is everyone okay?”

“As far as I know, everyone is fine. they got him. they got the Butler.”

“He really needs a better super-villain name,” Clint said, his mouth on autopilot. His tone might be sarcastic, but his expression told a different story. He was pale, his eyes looking huge in his face and his mouth had dropped slightly open.

“They got him,” Phil repeated, putting a hand on the back of Clint’s neck and pulling him into an embrace.

“They’re sure?”

“Yes. The others have to go debrief and get out of uniform, but then they’ll come and tell us all about it.”

“He’s not going to get away.”

“No.”

“He...”

“He can’t hurt you anymore," Phil said and curled around Clint, protectively. "I won't let him."

Clint cried for a long time, almost silently.

The team all arrived together, and gathered around the bed. They all started talking at once, like excited children, before Phil cut them all off with a gesture.

“One at a time. What happened?”

“Is it really over?” Clint asked.

“It’s really over,” Steve assured him and Natasha nodded seriously. She made a gesture with her left hand, almost unnoticeable, but it made Clint relax. Part of their own private code.

“We got the guy,” Tony said. He seemed at once full of energy and strangely subdued. “He thought he was helping Hammer, guy’s obsessed with him, with serving him. Not sure I want to know what Justin did to get that kind of loyalty.”

“We defeated his hired minions handily,” Thor put in. “They were not as worthy as they first appeared.”

“So that’s it. You found him, beat up his hired goons and arrested him?” Clint asked, his tone sharp.

“We also rescued a group of scientists he’d taken,” Bruce said quietly. “Apparently they’d been there for months.”

“Why? I don’t understand why. Why me? Why them?”

“Because of me,” Tony said plainly. “He took you to get at me, to get in the Tower. He took them to work on weapons I developed years ago. Those designs shouldn’t even exist anymore. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“We’ve been through this,” Phil said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No, but I am to blame.” He smiled humourlessly. “It’s okay. I can deal with that.”

Clint frowned. The Butler was behind bars. He wouldn’t be able to hurt him anymore. He just had to get himself back together. And it looked like Tony needed to do the same.

“Hey, you can be my therapy buddy,” he grinned. “I’m sure Maggie wouldn’t mind taking on another patient.”

There was a burst of laughter at that, and some good natured ribbing. They talked for a long time about the battle, about The Butler, about how it all turned out, and for the first time in a long time Clint felt safe. He was wrapped up in his blanket, with Phil beside him, Natasha standing guard at the end of his bed and his team all around him.

All was right with the world.

For a little while, anyway.