Chapter 1
In the two years following the battle of New York, Clint Barton has thrown himself into his work as much as possible, not taking so much as a single day off. (Not including the 2 shield mandated days following said battle) but that was neither here nor there, Clint certainly didn’t think about it.
He hated doctors appointments fiercely, which you would think would be enough to keep him from being in such a dangerous line of work, not to mention the fact that he was somewhat careless in comparison to some of the other agents.
That’s not to say that he was a bad fighter, in fact Clint was one of shields very best field agents, yet he always seemed to leave a fight with more cuts and bruises than Nat. Natasha says it’s because of his fighting style, when fighting hand to hand, he throws himself into the fight more fiercely than most, who would stay on the outskirts. But somehow he still manages to leave a mission with small injuries even if it’s not a hand to hand fight. He could be far from his target, on a sharpshooter mission, or simply tailing someone, and still somehow manage to get at least some small cut.
However when he’s doing field work, he always finishes his missions perfectly regardless of injuries, which he does try to keep secret so he can patch it up himself later (but his handlers always seemed to know).
Back when he’d first joined shield, and had had extensive testing done, Coulson had told him he had ADHD, which he didn’t know much about, but apparently it explained his restlessness and trouble focusing on anything other than his current hyper focus, such as his mission.
But Clint didn’t want to think about Phil Coulson, just one of the many things he’d been avoiding thinking about by throwing himself back into work.
For the last month, Clint had been in California, tailing a rich old guy who was believed to be involved with a prominent mafia family back in New York. Shield believed he was in California to meet a dealer for a new illicit substance that had been making the rounds of the New York streets and causing mass OD’s. Whatever was in this stuff was bad. Clint’s pretty sure Shield had gotten their hands on some to test, but that wasn’t what Clint’s mission involved. He wasn’t interested in the science stuff, he was trying to find out who the original manufacturer was, so that shield could shut them down.
Unsurprisingly, it was taking a long time. The guy he was tailing was giving him nothing, and hadn’t met up with anyone important yet, but Clint knew going into this that it would probably be a long game. Despite that, he was getting restless. He didn’t like California, and he didn’t know anyone here. Of course Shield had set him up with comfortable enough accommodation, but the people In California were snobby and pretentious, the kind of people who had always peeved Clint to no end. Plus, though Clint wouldn’t admit it to himself, he was lonely. He missed Natasha badly, but she was all the way in DC, working with Steve on various Shield missions.
He hadn’t seen her, and had only spoken to her twice in the last month. It wasn’t unusual. Though they worked excellently together, they weren’t always paired for missions, both their skill sets weren’t always needed at the same place. But the last two years had been rough for Clint, and when he wasn’t actively working a mission, Natasha was usually the only one who could make him feel anything other than despair.
When shield had tried to give him a new handler, Clint had raged at Fury, insisting he wouldn’t work with one. Nat had been the voice of reason, working with Clint and Fury to come to a compromise, Clint could work without a handler if he had his post mission paperwork adjusted and he was to call shield if he needed any form of backup. Fury had given him the number to a particular department that would always be available to send someone at any given time.
The first and only time Clint had called for backup, Rollins from the strike team had been sent. Clint now avoided calling at all costs. It wasn’t that the strike team were bad at their jobs, they were excellent. But their leader was Brock Rumlow, and they all knew about Brock’s history with Clint, especially Rollins, Brock’s second in command.
Clint knows that Brock wouldn’t be sent if he called for backup, besides being too busy with leading strike, the two haven’t been allowed to work together for years. Clint would have preferred to grit his teeth and deal with Brock’s taunting and teasing, but after a particularly cruel incident, Phil had told Fury.
Clint was glad he didn’t have to see Brock anymore, but tattling made him feel like Brock was winning, because they both knew that Brock could get under Clint’s skin. The few times they’d seen each other around headquarters, Brock had smirked at him in that knowing way of his. Clint hated that he was always the first one to look away, Brock’s smile made triumphant in his knowledge that he still held power over Clint.
But Brock Rumlow was another topic that Clint tried desperately not to think about. The last few days he’d not been controlling his thoughts very well.
Comfortably sat at an edge table on a fancy rooftop bar, with his eyes on his target and a drink in hand so as not to stand out, Clint decided that he was going to call Nat tonight.
***
Natasha Romanov had been working with Steve Rogers for the last few weeks in DC.
Usually, unless she was with Clint, Nat worked alone. But Fury had decided that Nat and Steve both could benefit from a partner for a little while (Nat’s also pretty sure Fury wants his Avengers to do some team bonding, but she keeps that to herself). And since Bruce keeps out of anything that’s not an avengers level threat, Thor is off world, Clint’s on a mission, and Tony was doing, well, whatever it is that Tony does, it was Nat and Steve that were paired together.
This was fine, Nat enjoyed Steve’s company, he was good at what he did and he didn’t take shit from anyone. The down side to her current work arrangement, is that the pair had also been working alongside the Strike team. The team itself was good, they worked together better than most, seeming to know each others next moves before they’d done it. But the team was led by Rumlow, who was, as far as Nat was concerned, the scum of the earth. And his team hero worshipped him, so in Nat’s mind, they were just as bad.
Nat had been struggling the last few weeks to hold her tongue whenever Rumlow opened his mouth. Every time he spoke in his gravelly drawl, she wanted nothing more than to sock him in his perfect front teeth. It made her feel better to find out from Clint that the teeth were fake, too many fights knocking out the originals. But of course Nat couldn’t punch a coworker, she’d definitely be written up for that, Avenger or not. So she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore his subtle taunts.
Just then, she felt her phone buzz, huffing, she pulled it out of her pocket. She’d only just gotten home, what could possibly be needing her attention already? It was a message from Steve, surprising, considering he’d been mad at her the last few days.
Natasha opened the message, and her stomach dropped. She grabbed her keys and ran for the door, heading straight for the hospital.
***
Peter Parker was currently standing in a science lab in the Avengers Tower, talking to Tony Stark.
A mere few months ago, Peter had just been some random kid from Queens. Then, on a school trip to the tower, Peter had been bitten by some mutant spider, which had given him super powers. Crazy, right? Well Tony Stark had found out, and thought he should take him under his wing to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble.
Tony had discovered that Peter was a genius, and decided that he should give him an internship at Stark Industries so that Peter could further develop his skills, and eventually, learn to use his powers further. Things were obviously more complicated than that, but that was the short version that Peter summarised.
And Peter obviously was allowed to use his powers, but there were definitely ground rules to keep him and his identity safe. The last thing they needed was for society to think they would let high schoolers be crime fighting heroes.
As far as Peter knew, Shield didn’t know about his powers, only Tony and a select few others knew. Tony worried that if shield knew, they would want to lock Peter in a lab for extensive testing.
Tony obviously had done some tests on Peter’s powers himself, but shield would likely treat Peter as a threat rather than just a kid.
Right now, Peter and Tony were working together on a few projects that Tony had been assigned by shield. As they worked, Tony asked Peter questions about what they were doing, testing him, to make sure he understood the work. Peter was doing very well as far Tony seemed concerned.
“Geez kid, you know if you keep this up, one day I’ll be working for you.”
“I really doubt that Mr Stark.” Peter replied with a chuckle.
“Alright, you best get going before your Aunt calls looking for you. Same time tomorrow, kid? We’ve got some algorithms that shield wants me to work on.”
“You know it Mr Stark. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Peter replied.
***
Clint woke with a start, a bad taste in his mouth and bad dreams swimming around his mind. It was still dark outside, and his phone told him that it was 4:37 AM. Unsure of what woke him up, but knowing he wouldn’t get back to sleep, Clint sat up.
He picked up his left hearing aid from his bedside table and slipped it in, his right one already sitting snug in place. It was uncomfortable to wear them for so long, but when on mission, Clint never dared take both out, lest he get ambushed in the middle of the night. So when working, each night he alternated which one he took out.
Clint had struggled to fall asleep that night, a bad feeling settling in his stomach. He’d tried to call Nat, but she hadn’t answered. Deciding to wait a little while in case she was busy, Clint had assumed she would call him back.
But the night had worn on, and still nothing. It wasn’t unusual for him or Nat to be unable to access their phones, but usually if they were working, they would let the other know that they were going offline. Clint hadn’t spoken to Natasha in over a week, nor had they texted.
After receiving no call back last night, Clint had sent a simple message to let Nat know that he missed her, and to call when she could. Checking his phone now, there was still no reply.
Clint told himself that it wasn’t that big of a deal, it was the middle of the night, she’d probably had a busy day yesterday and missed his call, she would call in a few hours. But he still just couldn’t shake the weird feeling that something wasn’t right.
Hopefully this mission would be over soon, so he could go back home. Maybe he should finally take a break from work, have a holiday, God knows he’s been stressed. And he’s pretty sure that Fury is going to force him to take a holiday soon, something about burnout ruining his employees. But even as he thinks it, he decides it’s a bad idea. Whenever he gives himself time to think, he thinks of stupid things like Loki, Phil Coulson, Brock Rumlow. And whenever Clint thinks of any of these things, he starts to spiral.
Knowing he’s too anxious to go back to sleep, Clint gets out of bed and decides to shower. When he’s done, he uses his towel to wipe the condensation from the mirror, and then his phone screen. The phone turns on, revealing a message left a few minutes ago.
He has to zoom in to help his eyes make sense of the letters. Despite everyone’s (Natasha’s) insistence, Clint refuses to increase the font size. His eyesight is absolutely as perfect as eyesight can be thank you very much. There’s a reason that he’s Shields best sharpshooter. Letters and numbers are the only thing that ever cause him a problem. And he can see them just fine, they just move around and jumble up.
“It’s called dyslexia.” Phil had said, “It’s not a bad thing, your brain is just different to most people’s.”
Despite all of the diagnoses’ Clint had received in his initial Shield intake, Phil had never made him feel like there was anything wrong with him.
For a long time, he’d been skeptical, after all, he’d listened for years to teachers, foster parents and more, telling him that he was just some stupid kid who would never amount to anything because he couldn’t even read a sentence. But Phil had never treated Clint that way, and years after he’d joined shield, when Phil had told him that his brain was beautiful, Clint felt like he might be able to believe it.
But that was a long time ago.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Clint shook his head, then looked back at his phone. His mission security code was listed before the message, “Barton, we need you back in DC ASAP. Extract from current mission immediately.”
That didn’t sound good. But Clint had received more ominous messages in the past that had turned out to be no big deal. Still, he entered his return security code before typing his reply.
“On my way.”
***
When Nick Fury was announced dead on the hospital table, and then Steve and Natasha found out that Hydra had been growing inside shield for years, she thought the world must’ve gone to hell in a hand basket.
She and Steve didn’t have a moment to breathe until they got to Sam Wilson’s place. They regrouped, and then formed a plan to stop the hellicarriers. With Sam’s help, they had a little bit more confidence.
But while on their way to the helicarriers, they were attacked by Hydra and the Winter Soldier. Nat knew that he was a dangerous opponent, but she still had hope that Steve could fight him off.
Until his mask came off.
Faced with his childhood best friend, who he’d watched fall from a train nearly a century ago, Steve Rogers froze.
And then the Winter Soldier shot him.
Natasha let out a shocked gasp as Steve dropped to the ground like a stone. Her heart told her to run to him, to try something, anything, to help him. But her mind knew that the shot had been an instantly fatal one. Steve was gone before he’d even hit the ground.
Natasha looked up to see that Sam had also seen, he seemed frozen in place, unable to move. But the Winter Soldier had already moved on, starting to make his way over to Nat.
She quickly sprung into motion, making a break for Sam, grabbing his shoulder and giving him a quick shake, before forcing him to follow after her. That was when dozens of Hydra vehicles showed up, surrounding them.
By now, lots of attention had been pulled onto the fight, and when Rollins and Rumlow realised that, they slightly lowered the guns that they had trained on Nat and Sam.
They were handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a Hydra van with two guards. Nat was desperately trying to think of a way out, certain that the end of this car trip would be the end of her and Sam’s lives. But her head was feeling hazy, she couldn’t think straight; the gunshot wound on her shoulder only adding to the pain and terror she felt at the knowledge that Steve was dead.
But then, a blessing in the form of Maria hill attacked the Hydra guard before taking off her own Hydra mask. Her face was grim and carried no good news.
They escaped the van and Hill got them to a small safe house where she had enough medical supplies to help stitch Nat up and bandage a few small wounds on Sam. They all sat in defeated silence for a while, time passing slowly, but fast all at once.
Eventually, Nat broke the silence, realisation hitting her like a truck.
“Hill, do you have a phone? Mine’s broken. We’re gonna need backup.”
“I do. Who do you trust enough to contact?”
“I got a couple of people in mind.”