Chapter 4
When he gets back to the future--or present. It's all getting a bit garbled--Steve is still angry, which should be upsetting, but just means his experiment is a success. If he can keep his changes controlled, he can stop Clint from getting bounced onto a whole new series of actions, unfolding along an again changed timeframe. He has to be careful. Keep a cool head.
Draw a map, maybe, even if it might get undrawn again, the way Natasha might have unpromised to get Clint more carefully examined, depending on how the last day had gone. Depending on what he might have accidentally done slightly differently and how the effects of it might have rippled outward.
This is the mindset he needs to stay in. Both to keep his brain on track, sorting timelines and actions, and to maintain his sanity. If he thinks about letting Clint die, horribly and alone, with anything but clinical distance, he's going to lose it. If he lets himself consider what's going on with Steve as anything but a temporary result, on the same level as a suit that won't quite fly straight. And like a suit that won't fly straight, he has to focus on the problem solving process and the proverbial Mark Two. Or Three. Or maybe it's Four, by now. It depends where he starts counting, really.
First, he has to figure out when he is, and if past experience is anything to go by, it's late on Friday, picking up at the same point where he'd left for the second time, a week and a death ago. After trying to see Clint and being stopped by Natasha.
If he gives himself a day to gather information and rest, Clint will already be in Europe by the time he gets back. If he goes back and doesn't go after Clint, abandoning him again, he'll have more time to work, but changing his actions could change the outcome and set him back to square one or on an even more impossible track, bouncing Clint completely out of reach if he isn't already.
Tony takes a breath. Lets it out slowly, and tries to organize his facts. Going back right away would give him another week of time, but it also won't move anything forward here and he needs Natasha's report.
Needs to make sure Natasha's still working on getting that report and that he doesn't need to set her back on it. The time between his falling asleep roughly a week in the past and waking up now seems gone for good. Traded off, maybe, in exchange for the time he's getting back. Like his fight with Steve, he has no idea what's happened or hasn't and what might or might not have changed. A very time frame specific amnesia.
-----
It takes precious hours for the forensic report to come back, and Tony spends it lying on top of his covers staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, trying to be ready to go the minute he's read the file. He's slept, here and there, and with determination, after recovering Clint's body, but the exhaustion feels settled in his bones, tucked alongside and wrapped around the ache of Clint's three deaths.
He hasn't felt this way in a long time, trapped and lonely and fucking terrified, and even if the team is close by, they're inaccessible. Living a reality that intersects with Tony's but is effectively separate.
He drifts a little, eventually, and wakes to the sound of his door buzzer and a rush of panic. Fumbles for his phone before managing to croak, "JARVIS, what's the time?" then changes that to, "How long was I out for?"
It's longer than he'd meant, but not as long as he'd feared. He feels grimy and rumpled and his clothing probably smells like stale sweat. He hopes it's not Steve at the door, coming to pick a fight or ask questions he doesn't have the energy or answers for.
When it turns out to be Natasha, he's not sure he has the energy for her, either. Or for the folder she presses to his chest in one abrupt, almost aggressive move. Like she wants it out of her hands as soon as possible. She looks rough. Sharp edges looking even sharper than he remembers, the shadows on her face harsh.
"Hey," he says. His voice is a thick croak and he has to cough to clear the sticky feeling from his throat.
"You look like shit," Natasha tells him.
"You too."
Her smile flickers and is gone again. She nods at the folder he's holding awkwardly against his chest with one hand. "I hope that helps you. Just never ask me to do something like that again."
Tony looks down at the folder. Tries not to think about what's in it, and what he's about to look at and read, and what he might have made Natasha look at and read. Probably, he should apologize, and ask if she's okay, but before he can get enough synapses online to do it, Natasha lets her breath out and gives him a look that's almost painfully sympathetic. It would be nice if was just Black Widow manipulation, but Tony's pretty sure that it's genuine. "It might just make things worse, Tony," she says.
He could make a comment about that being a tall order, but instead he says, "Yeah."
"It's not going to bring him back."
He's not sure if she remembers what he'd told her about tesseract charge and what kind of machine he was building. If any of that had even happened, though, obviously, the machine is sitting in his lab, still pointed impractically at his ceiling.
Wonders if he'd talked with Steve over drinks, even though it seems unlikely, considering the aftermath of losing Clint.
"You--" Tony starts, and puts his other hand on the file, holding it to his chest to avoid losing pages, or photos, or whatever might be tucked into it, but maybe coming off like he's clutching at it for security. "Thanks."
Natasha's head tilts. Just slightly, but she's on to him. On to something. The questioning look on her face is two thirds suspicion, and only one third concern. It's nice to see. Kind of steadying.
"What's going on?"
Soundtrack of his life.
"I just--" Tony doesn't lie, "I need to know what happened. Exactly."
"Steve thinks you already know."
"Steve can go jump in a lake," Tony says, mostly because it's expected. Because it's what he might say if he were actually fighting with and offended by Steve. It doesn't suit the situation, though, because Natasha gives him another look. Longer and more unreadable, and then she steps back and nods at the folder again.
Repeats her warning, "That's not going to be anything you want to see."
He'd return her look, but the folder against his chest feels heavy and fragile and dangerous. The only way he can think of to get a lead on Clint, and unravel his death enough to beat it to the punch.
"I bet." He's already seen the damage and he'd point that out, except that he's sure this clinical detail will be worse.
"You can't fix this, Tony,"
She won't remember if he does, Tony thinks, but doesn't say.
-----
Bruce would appreciate jokes about time math. Or might just appreciate the concept of it and the calculation that leads Tony to boosting himself back up into the past, file in hand, to hole up in his lab and play loud music, keeping the others away so he can study the contents of the file and take deep slow breaths, focusing on the text and not the photos.
He needs time to concentrate. To study the file without a clock ticking away, eating up precious minutes he can't recover. This time, he arrives in the early morning, and Clint might already be in Europe, or about to touch down on some SHIELD runway.
If the last round was his control test, this time is just time-buying. He can't think about Clint. This Clint. Just because Tony's replaying the tape, it doesn't mean Clint is suffering multiple deaths, and what's done is done. He has to consider Clint gone until he figures out how to fix it. Play the long game, and--as much as possible--stick to working his way through the previously established script, to prevent anything changing. Keep his eyes on the prize.
So to speak.
Be patient. Keep his cool. Read the file.
He lays it on his table, half bugged and half grateful that Natasha's given him a physical copy and not a dinky little thumb drive or data chip. That he can hold the grim information in his hands, and solemnly flip it open instead of having to click a file icon and have the whole thing open up around him in holographic display, awful and insubstantial at the same time. On paper, at least, it seems contained.
Controllable.
Which is a weird feeling for him to have, considering. He's turning into Steve, a little bit.
The first page is admin. Describing the file, and listing authorization. Tony flicks his eyes away from post mortem and Barton, Clinton F. Flips quickly past to the next page, and then the next. He'll get back to the photos if he needs them. For now, he wants what evidence might have been collected off Clint's body and clothing.
Or what there'd been of it, his gear and Hawkeye vest gone by the time Tony had found him, still and stripped down to underwear and ripped shirt. The black contrasting harshly with his pale, bled out skin.
It's a fucking disgrace that Tony hadn't noticed he'd just been dumped. That there wasn't nearly enough gore for Clint to have been tortured and killed right there, in the basement they'd first found him in. That the place was too empty and sparse to have been used for much, even interrogation and systematic murder.
There's earth, bits of gravel. Blood on everything, but not all of it Clint's. Skin under his nails, and Tony can't quite imagine Clint resorting to tactics as graceless as scratching and clawing, but good for him. Hopefully, he's gouged that off someone's face.
Checking it for DNA is most likely going to go nowhere, but there's also machine grease picked up from Clint's skin, and Tony Stark knows machine grease. Flecks of oxidized steel and wood splinters picked from abrasions on Clint's hands and elbows and one knee.
From his fucking face.
Tony's putting some things together, but they're not useful. Somewhere out there, Clint's heading right into this mess, and there's nothing he can do to keep it from happening yet. Maybe next time. Or the time after, but he's going to get there, definitely, and undo all of it, even Steve's foul mood.
The next page is graphs. A more detailed run-down of the soil samples and general crud. Man-made fibers stuck in Clint's hair--stuck to Clint's hair, clotted with blood and dirt--in blue and gray and yellow. Wildly different from the natural strands collected from abrasions at his wrists--regular brown rope. It's almost shocking that anyone had managed to hold Clint with that. He must have already been injured on capture, or drugged with something that metabolized quickly enough to be gone from his system.
So in a bit over three days, things are going to start going drastically downhill for Clint. In two, he's going to notice his mission's not going too well.
Tony takes a breath. Flips back to the page describing Clint, and glances over the injury list. Looks for gunshot, or head trauma, and tries to think if anything had stood out to him, beyond how ghostly white Steve had looked, but that's the image that keeps coming back. That and the whole-body numbness that had washed over him, blocking detail and critical thought and making him lose all the important pieces in favor of recording the exact tone of Bruce in the back of the transport, saying, "We're taking you home now," as if reassuring Clint, thinking no one was listening.
-----
By the time the script kicks in, Tony's narrowed down his main points of contact with the timeline--where he might possibly effect it--to sniping at Steve on the roof, being gone before Clint's mayday even gets in, and to his failed stake-out and finding Clint too late. Dumped, this time, like the two before, in an underpass, the brick arches of its weathered support structure sheltered by embankments of earth. Like the time in the cellar, Clint's lying half-curled in on himself, one arm flung outwards and his shirt rucked up.
This time, unlike the other times, Tony doesn't go to him, but just keys his comm and says, "I found him, Nat," and "I'm sorry," and then stands and waits for the others to get there.
-----
He feels numb and distant all the way up to the point where he falls asleep and wakes up with a week missing and Clint still gone. He's not sure how much time has passed in total, or if SHIELD's done with their post mission implosion red-tape. At some point, Natasha's going to run out of patience and her ability to put off laying Clint to rest.
If she's not planning that yet, quietly and on her own. Maybe with help from Bruce. All Tony's sure of is that he can't say an official goodbye to Clint and then keep on temporarily killing him. All he needs is four days breathing space. Maybe five. After that, he'll have moved too far into the future anyway, and Clint will just be dead.
He's slept, at least, this time. So there's a point for time management.
He's getting better at letting Clint die on schedule.
The thought doesn't hit him in the gut the way it had the first time. The first forty, fifty times he'd thought it. Everything still feels like a dream. Fuzzy, and unreal. It's kind of nice. But it only lasts until he runs into Steve.
"Hey." It's the only safe bet. He's pretty sure he hasn't undone their argument, but he's also not sure what the exact situation is, now. It looks like it might have gotten worse. Steve's giving him a flat, empty look. Not shocked grief, like before, but emotionless and cold, like Natasha on the job.
Tony tries to think. Wonders if he'd said anything different or incautious while they were gathering up, again. If Steve's reading something into his lack of engagement, since been there done that is pretty much guaranteed to be off his radar.
"What's up?" Tony ventures. It shouldn't be too risky. Should fit right in to the why didn't you talk to me blame and censure from the last time around.
Somehow, Steve still looks startled by the question. Shocked in a way that's a large part offense.
"Unless you're here to explain," he says, and leaves it hanging.
It's not really a prompt. Tony can tell that he doesn't expect a response. He sounds flat and angry and not like himself.
He looks like he's just barely holding it together. Maybe like he'd enjoy socking Tony a good one in the face.
"Explain what?" Tony asks, "You'll have to catch me up, Cap. I'm a bit lost here."
Steve's angry look twists into something wry and bitter. If they've been fighting, Tony's probably said more than his fair share of snippy, smart aleck things. Had probably said a bunch of snippy, disingenuous things too, that this latest comment fits right in with.
Things might be going a bit easier right now, if he had ever been in the general habit of watching his mouth.
"Well how about a clue, then? Even just a little bitty one?"
It doesn't come out right, sounding flip and snide instead of friendly and like he's trying to extend an olive branch, the way he means. It makes Steve flinch, and that's worse than pissing him back off.
"Steve--"
"The only," Steve starts, cutting him off, then swallows and says again, "The only reason I'm still here is because I told Clint--"
"Clint's gone."
He doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean to say it. Doesn't mean to treat that bit of information like a reality in any shape or form, and definitely doesn't want to use it as something to lash out at Steve with. He feels petty and disgusting as soon as the words fall out of his mouth. Thinks immediately of Clint dumped on cold concrete, and on damp Belgian gravel, in a drawer Natasha won't let him open, and blanches. Feels his mouth and throat go dry.
"--I'd keep an eye on you," Steve finishes, then doesn't continue. The silence is awkward, maybe still accusing, on Steve's side. Tony's not sure. Doesn't care.
"Yeah, well. Don't do me any favors."
Steve doesn't answer. Tony gives him a flat smirk and moves to step past him, but as he does, Steve asks, low, and hovering somewhere between hurt and dangerous, "Where did you get them, Tony?"
"Get what?"
For a second he thinks Steve's not going to answer, but then he heaves a sigh, decides to play whatever game it is he thinks Tony's playing, and says, sounding defeated, "The pictures. The file."
The file.
Fuck. The file.
He probably looks horrified and maybe guilty as hell as he turns back to Steve. "What file?" he tries.
"You know what file. The one I found in your lab."
After he'd left to go play gristly rerun. He'd shoved the sheaf of papers out of sight, but not carefully enough, it turns out. That or Steve's more of a snoop than he'd ever let on. Or Tony was acting more off than he'd realized and set off Steve's inner Captain America alarms. He should really try to solicit some undercover emotional control lessons from Natasha or even SHIELD, if he ever gets the chance.
"Why did you have pictures, Tony? How did you have pictures?"
Because Clint hadn't been dead yet. Wouldn't die until days later.
However badly he'd screwed things up before, he's topped himself this time. At least it seems like he hasn't caused reality to collapse around his logical fallacy--if he's even created one--and that's something. That's a silver lining to cling to.
On the other hand, unravelling the space-time continuum and thereby imploding the universe would probably get him out from under Steve's hurt-anxious-angry accusing glare.
"Why," Steve asks, sounding like he's asked it hundred times that Tony doesn't remember blowing off, "Why wouldn't you tell us?"
The urge to come clean spills up his throat, but Tony swallows it back and makes himself say, "It doesn't matter anymore."
It does. He just doesn't have the time to explain it to Steve when every minute he's losing here--now--is also a minute that he's losing two week ago. That Clint is losing.
"Tony." Steve's voice is a low growl. Not as pissed as Tony had thought. There's an undertone to it--a waver--that means that whatever thoughts Steve might be entertaining, they're scaring him shitless.
Probably, he's afraid that Tony'd had a hand in doing Clint in. Probably, he's telling himself the thought is crazy and impossible and Tony would never, and he's fucking right, but there aren't a lot of ways to logically explain the evidence that aren't shady as hell.
Tony sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. Maybe he should have made that move earlier, because Steve relaxes a bit at the gesture. Looks at his feet and then away. Comforted but uncomfortable at the sight of Tony's fractures.
"I didn't kill Clint, Steve," Tony whispers. "And I didn't set him up to be killed. Jesus."
Steve twitches guiltily, but says, "I don't think that."
"You don't want to think that."
The conversation sucks. And it sucks to be having it at all, when it's going to be wiped away again. He's wasting his time on redundancies.
"Tony. Where did the file come from?"
"SHIELD," Tony says, truthfully. He's not sure if Natasha had still requested the examination. Probably, or the papers wouldn't be here. But if Steve had filled in the team, then--trying to entertain the logic hurts. Bruce had probably been right about the dangers of unraveling reality, when he'd warned Tony off three versions of it ago.
-----
Whatever leaving the file behind might have changed, it hasn't happened yet when Tony resets to two weeks ago. He could hide the thing better and at least spare Steve that extra bit of grief, but by the time he climbs into the past, Clint's already in Europe. Has been for at least a couple of hours, and every time before, Tony had played out his rooftop argument with Steve by now and was zipping over the water in pursuit.
He still has over a day until Clint's going to break undercover silence to make his play for Avenger help, and he can be ready at the underpass. See who dumps Clint and get to tracking them. Work backwards, and, next time, get to whoever the bastards are first and then maybe show them, up close and personal, what it looks like to be taken to pieces.
Because Tony has a pretty solid first-hand experience on that, and pretty fucking detailed reference to mine for ideas.
And a long flight during which he can work out the specifics.
It doesn't go that way though, because this time, Clint is thrown under a Belgian overpass, but not that one, and it takes until almost morning to find him.
-----
The only possible variable--other than his own postponed trip across the ocean, which had no point of contact with Clint or SHIELD or Clint's abductors and eventual murderers--is Steve, and what he might have said when he'd taken the distress call.
Tony wants to demand answers out of him the second he appears on site, but why fuck things up more. Instead, he grits his teeth until they get back to New York, then sleeps and drinks away the time between getting back to New York and waking up in future New York and if it's not productive, at least it's also not suspicious and nothing that can contribute to the possible fucked up ideas about him that current Steve might already be developing.
By the time the future--properly the present. That seems important to remember--kicks back in, he's burned down to a grocery list of actions, burnt into his mind by repetition. The muddled time stringing together go to the roof with argue with Steve to find Clint seems indistinct. Just white noise, with those handfuls of events standing out like landmarks or islands. Signposts marking the way his actions are rippling outward through reality.
And through goddamn Steve, because this has to have been the file thing throwing a wrench into his careful plotting. Again. He'd hidden it, but past him must have set Steve's suspicion o'meter to supersleuth already, in those hours him-him had wasted making nice with future Steve, or he wouldn't have gone looking through Tony's things at all.
Which means this future is probably going to be as big a mess as previous ones, on the Captain America Moods front. The Natasha front is a toss-up Tony doesn't want to engage with, really. It's almost easy and a relief, this time, to head back to the lab and his wormhole, detouring only to eat, shower, and go get Clint's hoodie from where he'd left it forgotten in the drier.
It's almost a surprise to find that one small thing exactly where he'd put it. Unchanged and unaffected by everything. When he pulls it on, it's fluffy and static charged and if it no longer smells like booze and sweat, it also no longer smells like Clint.