Chapter 7
"Catch me up," Tony says, when he wakes up with his regular week of missing time a big blank in his head. He flops into a chair at their kitchen table, across from Steve, and pours coffee into the biggest mug they have. "What've we got?"
Steve gives him a lopsided, worried look. "What? What's going--"
"I lose a week. Gotta pay the piper, or something. I told you about this." He thinks. Maybe it was a different Steve, or just Steve another time. Or Steve another version of this time. Something like that. "Car in Germany?"
"SHIELD's. Definitely SHIELD's. We have the pick-up point."
The wash of thrilled victory is followed quickly by disappointment. "I won't make it. He was already gone last time. It's too late to intercept." And he's losing juice. Vague, half-formed ideas of plugging the machine into the building reactor, or trying to squeeze magic out of Thor flit through his head, but they're all too risky. He could blow the machine and lose all chance of catching up to Clint.
"If I could do my do-overs over," Tony huffs, and drops his face into his hands. Briefly. Just for a second. And then he straightens back up and scrubs the fingers of both hands through his hair. "Should have, could have, huh?"
Steve smiles. It's small and kind of uncertain. To Steve, Clint is pretty realistically dead, and this whole exercise is just trust and a gamble, and Tony might be winding himself up over lost time and opportunity, but he keeps forgetting that the rest of them have never lost Clint before. Has to work to dredge up the memory of shock and the hyper-awareness of the empty space where Clint should be. The silences where the team's patterns of conversation still expect his interjections.
"You'll get it this time," Steve encourages anyway. He's managing to sound really sure.
"I've tried a bunch of times," Tony admits.
Steve stops. Looks at him very seriously, then asks, "So is any of this new? Are we making any--" he stops. Tony can see him fumbling for words. He has to admit it's pretty imaginative for Steve to be worrying about possibly being stuck in a loop of futility, even though he has no experience or memories of having done this before. "Headway?" he finishes.
"This car thing's a step forward. I should have squeezed Barton about his mission from the start. Had you squeeze him. I was just--" He flops a hand, in a gesture that's meant to be illustrative, but comes off as helpless and maybe a little confused.
"The car," Steve repeats firmly, before Tony can go on. Encouraged to hear he's not rerunning things Tony's already heard. "Was their last known location. It was a team of three, like you thought. Clint reported an agent down to mission command less than a day before he called us."
"Okay. Okay, this is new." Names, locations, unlocking information like a series of keys. It's as thrilling as it is frustrating. "He probably thought he still had things under control. Or that SHIELD did. I should have asked him so many things, fuck. We could have had this. We could have--"
"Natasha got access to the mission files," Steve goes on, talking over him, interrupting before he can work himself into a good solid guilt-slash-anxiety attack. "Everything looks good. Nothing suspicious."
"Inside inside job," Tony repeats, cutting to the chase. It's a way more recent reference for him than for Steve. Steve's last week looks like it's been pretty full, but he nods like he remembers the original comment.
"They cleaned up."
Tony's finger traces the rim of his mug, making restless, absent circles. "You find out what they were after?"
"The mission, officially? Nothing big. Quick in, quick out, like you thought. Security detail, mostly."
"They got Clint for that? Unless it's another piece of tesseract, or Loki's staff--" which wasn't in Europe, or anything that SHIELD would put Clint on, given a choice.
"They got Clint for that," Steve says, "because he was their target."
-----
But Clint can't be the final target, because if that were the case, there'd be no reason to keep him for four days, to wring information out of. Either they're dealing with terrible interrogators, who don't know how to pace things out, or Clint had broken and given them what they'd wanted.
Or they'd run out of time themselves. Gotten desperate and sloppy, or just decided that Clint and whatever they were trying to get out of him wasn't worth the effort of taking along. It's a lot of pieces to sort through, but it's still an improvement on when his plan had been fly faster.
"So the question is," Tony asks Natasha and, pointlessly, Bruce and Thor, "who's handling Clint? Someone put his name on this non-Hawkeye-necessary dinky mission list."
"The team requested a sniper," Natasha says, "It's not that unusual, if he's who happened to be available, and no one complains about being put on cushy jobs."
That makes sense. But also not. It's all a little too convenient, and he knows Natasha must have looked into it, because she's had a week to his few hours to formulate and chase down suspicions.
"So, car," Tony says, and places a lighter on his desk, and then a screwdriver a distance away, shoving paper and junk off the surface and on to the floor to make space as he goes. "Overpass."
"That's all the way in Belgium?" Bruce asks.
"It's not to scale. Use your imagination." There's not really a need for visual aids. Mostly, Tony needs to move and avoid direct eye contact. They all look wrecked, and a blank week later, Tony's still riding that edge that might be a combination of panic and desperation, and he's pretty sure it's making him seem a little manic.
"Somehow, they get to what we think is a shipping container. And probably there's a train along the way."
"So a train yard," Bruce offers. "If they're switching between passenger trains to cargo. Or we're looking for a line with both."
Tony scowls at the two items on his desk. Says, "But someone came and got them to take them there, so we're missing a whole other car." Then he looks up at Natasha, "Please tell me one of you investigated their ride and that you have the results."
"Clean," Natasha reports, with a little shrug. "No sign of resistance."
Tony chews a nail. Considers his lighter and the empty space between it and the screwdriver. He can't think of a scenario where Clint wouldn't realize he was in trouble and not put up a fight, even outnumbered. Not after Tony's warnings.
"They had a man down," Natasha says. "So either SHIELD sent help," she stops to give him a look, in case the sarcasm on that last word isn't obvious, "or whoever was after them caught up and they couldn't risk their injured."
"Stops saying them," Tony snaps, and uses his chewed nail to point at the screwdriver still indicating an underpass in Belgium, "I didn't see a them, did you?"
"We can probably narrow down possible routes," Bruce says, to Natasha, leaving Tony out of the loop while he gets a grip on what feels like rising temper, "But chasing them down will take footwork."
"I don't have time for footwork," Tony reminds them dully, then snorts. "Times." He corrects, "I don't have times." They're giving him concerned looks.
"I'm running out of them,” Tony explains, annoyed that he has to keep explaining.
-----
"We're looking for a car," Tony announces, for JARVIS to pass on, pretty much as soon as he climbs into the past, this time with a boost and good wishes from Thor. "Something SHIELD, and medically equipped. I'm thinking van, ambulance or disguised boxcar. What day is it?"
"It's Tuesday, sir," JARVIS intones, at about the same time that Steve responds over the comms with, "Tony?"
He's kind of curious about whether he'd been with Steve and suddenly disappeared, to emerge in the lab, or if the timeline had adjusted retroactively around his actions as a part of whatever it was that the tesseract was doing to time and space and reality.
"It's Tuesday?" he echoes at Steve, making it a question for no real reason. It's not like he doubts JARVIS's accuracy.
"Well. Tuesday for you still," Steve says, "I think we might be in Wednesday here."
"You found the car?" Tony tries, because this is the first time that his return to the lab is altering non-solo events.
"We found the car."
"No Clint, I assume?"
"No."
Tony hears shuffling, but before he can ask, Steve says, "Natasha's trying to get a rush on the forensics."
"Tell her to wait. It's an inside job. Did we already decide that?" The jumble of repetition is starting to be disorienting. He can't really tell what the order of events is supposed to be, or even what events have already happened, versus are going to happen, versus have happened and been undone. "Did you figure out the team of three thing?"
It sounds like a curse. Maybe a riddle. He's exhausted.
"That it was a three man team? Natasha thought so, too," Steve says. "Tony, they have Clint."
"I know."
"What do you want us to do?"
Tony takes a breath. Swallows and then swallows again. "I want you to forget about him," he says, "For now. We need to figure out what's happening in SHIELD before anyone has a chance to cover their tracks."
There's an argument on the other end of the line. Tony think he hears Bruce's voice, which means the team is all together and he's alone in New York. "Or you can try chasing down every likely car and van between there and whatever Bruce and JARVIS decide are likely train and-or loading yards, but I'd like to point out that those are also just guesses."
There's silence on the other end. Tony's eyes feel hot. His stomach hurts. "I don't think I'm going to get there this time," he says, then clarifies, "To you guys." Before they find Clint, he means. "I need to look into some things."
"They have Clint," Natasha yells, suddenly coming on the line, pushing Steve away, because Tony can hear his voice, protesting, then going muffled by distance from the mic.
"I know," Tony says. "We'll get him back." Just maybe not this time. "See who's connected to his mission there. He was supposed to be playing security guard. I'll send you the details."
"You want us to abandon Clint?"
"No. I want us to come at this from the other end."
First they have to find the other end. Tony's not sure they have the time.
-----
At least he has the head start of future-Natasha's investigations to work backwards from. Or to retread. A tidy internal-workings-of-SHIELD cheat sheet to crib from, and if there's not any more online, available information in this past than there'd been during his other attempts, maybe he can figure out the cover up. Find the shape of the thing by the shape of the empty space it belongs in, like playing a shadow game, or a really fucked up round of charades.
Stroud's still coming up clean. A good agent, with a standard but solid record, and reasonable education. Very average, as far as SHIELD agents go.
The kind of record Natasha or Clint might build for themselves if they were trying to go unnoticed, and now that Tony's in suspicion mode, he can't stop seeing red flags. Might be imagining red flags, which is a thing he should probably be careful of, but he can't reconcile Clint's worked-with-them-before confidence with anything but a long-game plan to get to him, forging and manipulating trust, and there's reasons that sort of thing sets his head pounding. "Everything looks like lies," he tells Steve, via JARVIS, "I'm looking at their cafeteria lunch menu and I don't trust it. How about you guys?"
"I trust our lunch menu," Steve says. Wry and a little sarcastic. Calm. Steve's continued ability to focus is one thing that's great about having him on board. Even if a part of that is coming from his faith that Tony's got a handle on things and a plan in the wings that will result in Clint's safe return.
Steve's probably going to have a rude awakening. No matter how much Captain America spunk and optimism he's trying to bring to the situation, nothing's going to change the fact that it's Wednesday and Clint's going to die sometime on Friday. It's two nights away. Tony wonders how aware Steve is of their time frame and how set certain aspects of it are.
"If we could go to SHIELD with this--" Steve starts, stupidly, musing out loud.
"We can't go to SHIELD with this," Tony says, "SHIELD will have him iced." Or whoever it is operating through SHIELD. There's a lot of things Tony wouldn't put past SHIELD, but executing Clint like this isn't one of them.
Even if only because SHIELD would do it tidily and in a more secure location than a shipping container in a European train yard.
"Bruce is looking into--"
"Bruce? I know we're low on spies right now--" He's being an asshole. Clint is likely busy dying, and Steve doesn't need to be reminded of that. Tony would like to forget it himself. Get wrapped up in chasing down leads and be distracted from the things he's not doing. Very consciously, intentionally not doing. Again.
"Sending Natasha would be too suspicious," Steve says, sounding pleased with himself, "And Thor's not as good at computers, or low key enough. Bruce even has reasons to be here, if anyone catches on to him."
"Point and point." Even if Bruce's research interests and academic contacts aren't the most solid cover they've ever come up with, “What’ve you got?"
"Security cameras. A lot of them were wiped, but we have the second car."
Tony takes a breath. Lets it out. "You're still chasing the car."
"It's a SHIELD medical van."
So definitely an inside job. If any of them were still harboring any doubts.
"Okay," Tony says, and even though there's no reason he should be surprised--even though it's just confirmation of his suspicions--it feels like the air's been knocked out of him. He scrubs at his face. His mustache and beard should be getting scruffy, but they're not too bad. One perk of constantly resetting the worst week ever. "Clint thought--thinks. Well. Thought now, I guess, that he could--" He stops to rub at an eye. "He called in for the medical support. Clint gave them their coordinates. He probably thought they were being rescued."
"From? Do we know who that is yet?"
"That's your job. You're supposed to be figuring that out. I was doing the SHIELD thing. How are you a baseball fan when you don't understand I got it?"
He hears Steve puff against the mic, but can't tell if it's annoyance or a laugh. "It didn't sound like you had it," he says, then follows with, "Tony," like it's a whole thought of its own.
"Steve."
"We'll get him."
They won't. Tony's almost sure that they won't. He's made decisions that will pretty much ensure that they won't. "That van photo's really narrowing down the route possibilities some, huh?" he says. His optimistic tone comes out sounding sharp and snide.
"Some," Steve agrees, not that encouragingly, and signs off.
-----
The leads Natasha had found--will find--for him leads him to personnel files. Clint's mission is under tidy, over the top, classified mission wraps, but getting into pay histories and medical records isn't that hard now that he's got more names.
They all come up as long standing, good, solid, SHIELD employees. As nondescript and reliable as Stroud. The exact sort of dullsville types Tony would put on a small time, low stakes, not-deep-cover security detail. There's nothing outstanding. Not even an infraction among them.
It stinks like clean up and like don't look too closely, there's nothing here.
It stinks like way more trouble and planning and organization than Hawkeye, special stand-up guy that he is, could possibly be worth, and if Steve and Natasha and Bruce have narrowed the second car down to a SHIELD medical van, then whatever they're dealing with has tendrils wide enough to be into medical and transport as well as mission handling and personnel.
He'd guess Clint was into something big and ugly and secret, except that Clint seemed as taken by surprise as the rest of them, and had called in help from the Avengers instead of his extraction team.
As well as from his extraction team.
The extraction team that's likely killing by inches at that very moment.
"Fuck. Fuck. Clint knew something and he didn't say it." Tony blurts, standing up with enough force that his chair nearly tips, then rolls across the floor, the uneven wear of its wheels turning its trajectory into a sloppy curve. "Why did he call us? I mean, I know why he called us. Of course he called us. But--"
JARVIS doesn't interrupt his rant, which Tony's half grateful for, and half resentful of. He needs some comment to respond to. Someone to go back and forth with. Someone to hit, maybe. Or someone to hit him. He could use a round or two in the boxing ring.
"Someone was there," he says, "when I talked to Clint. There was a--a door or something."
"Would you like me to play the recording, sir?"
Tony snorts. "No." Whatever alternate conversation he and Clint might have had, he's fairly certain it won't be different enough to add any clues, and the conversations they'd had are still painfully clear in his mind. "No, but check for voices that aren't me or Barton. Clean up the background."
JARVIS plays him seconds of electronic garble, backwards and forwards, as he scans. Tony doesn't wait for it. "I just want confirmation," he says, stalking across the lab and back, "that Clint's not a complete idiot. He called his extraction team, but he didn't wait for them before calling us."
The garble stops, clearing up into Clint's voice and then the bang of a door. Followed by Clint saying, "I gotta go, Tony," and the sounds of Clint moving, and fainter, the murmur of a voice. Nothing aggressive or loud. Barely noticeable. Just people. Tony had already known there were people, and that Clint hadn't wanted to talk once they'd gotten closer, but hadn't made a break for it either.
"He knew something was up. Call Steve. Or Natasha. Call Natasha." He's not sure what to tell them. Paces the width of the lab again while JARVIS establishes contact. The awareness of Clint's awareness feels like something expanding in his chest, taking up the space his lungs should occupy and making his breaths shallow and fast. He should probably sit down.
"Clint knew his team was compromised," he blurts, the second he hears Natasha's voice. Not even waiting for her to complete a syllable. "Or at least that their support team was. That's why he called us. That's why he didn't believe me--why he didn't say he believed me--when I told him to watch his back against them. They were there. He couldn't talk. They were in a safehouse that could have been bugged."
"Tony?"
"Fuck. They knew that he knew. The first time, he called us back. I talked to him all the way to Europe."
"Tony, what's--"
"I'm telling you what's going on!"
He has to stop to breathe. Taking short, rapid breaths.
"Okay," Natasha says, then, "Are you okay?"
"No. Yes. Shut up and listen."
Natasha shuts up. Tony sits down on the floor and rests his head on his bent knees. Takes a second to not think about Clint dying, and the ways he's likely dying, then takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Get Bruce out of there. If you still have him snooping, get him out."
"Alright."
"Clint changed things. When he left earlier, I mean. Some timing of something. I don't know what, but he caught on to them, and they caught on to him being on to him."
"What the hell are you talking about, Tony?"
"Clint. I'm talking about Clint. When I said he was going to die, he thought I knew--that I was talking about--"
"Tony."
"Clint was counter spying. He could have cut and run, but he was fucking counter spying."
"You're not making any sense," Natasha says, and he wouldn't be, because his story is strewn over multiple optional realities, and half-based on things that may or may not have happened in quite the same way or at all.
"Get Bruce out,“ he repeats, "and keep him out. Clint's not the final target. The Avengers are."
-----
"How are you getting that, exactly?" Bruce wants to know, when they get back in contact, but it's not like it doesn't make sense. After New York, after any number of things that had come after, they're a clear trump card in Nick Fury's sneaky pocket.
"What else could they want from Clint, that wouldn't be easier to get to through SHIELD, if it's infiltrated anyway? If it wasn't Clint, it would have been Natasha. Maybe Steve."
"What the hell do the Avengers know that--?"
"Nothing. We don't know anything," Steve says, a bit distant, his voice tinny. "We have no idea what this is about, or who these people are. It's not us they really want."
"SHIELD," Natasha says.
"Fury."
"SHIELD via Fury. Cutting off the head is step one."
"Cutting off the limbs," Tony corrects, "I don't know if this metaphor is still holding, by the way." Outside his window, the light is changing. Clint has just over a day, and with the time machine running down, Tony's not sure how much re-do he's going to get next time, or how much he has left this time. His blank week might be expanding. It's hard to tell when it's just a period of nothing, like he's been in a dreamless sleep.
"Before anything happens," he tells the others, "And even if this all goes to hell, I'm going to need you guys to remember to do some things."
"The post mortem." It's probably a good thing that Natasha's so stuck on that, in case Tony ever slips and forgets to remind her.
"And look into Clint's mission and team mates and objectives." The repetition is grueling, but nerve wracking. Every time, he's afraid he'll leave something important out. "And I need Bruce to think about ways to extend my tesseract battery pack. Just in case." He doesn't need it yet. It's just to plant the seed as far back as possible, in case it takes time to come up with something. "And I'm going to go see Fury and bring him the very surprising news that someone wants him out of the way."
There's a moment of silence on the comms, and then Natasha says, very low, "So nothing on where they've got Clint?"
"No." He has a fair idea of what they're doing to Clint, though. And an idea of what injuries had been caused when, and what this night's probably going to be like for him. He doesn't say any of it to Natasha. She's seen the report for herself, anyway. "We'll keep working on it."