Hawkeye's Revenge

And since that last chapter was so tiny here is a bigger one for you to thank you for reading.

Steve pressed his lips together hard as he fought not to question his superior officer in public as Coulson led the team to Fury's office. The look of absolute rage on Fury's face as they entered his office surprised him enough that he was able to swallow his protests as they waited for Fury to finish his phone call. The man snarled as he slammed his phone down on his desk and Steve blinked as he heard the distinct sound of plastic cracking.

Coulson lifted a questioning eyebrow at the Director who shook his head in the negative before leaning back in his chair and exchanging a silent conversation with Coulson. Tony completely uncaring of the tension filling the room limped to the nearest chair and collapsed into it with a pained groan.

Steve winced in sympathy. While the Ironman suit had taken most of the impact of the fall Tony was still littered with bruises and they had managed to twist Tony's ankle as they had been trying to get the suit off of him. Medical had wanted to keep both him and Natasha but both had refused to be left behind. Natasha had allowed the medical staff to suture her hand but had refused all other treatment while Tony had growled at every doctor in the place until they had left him alone after getting him in a brace for his ankle.

"Stark what are you even doing here? Get back to medical," Fury growled as he opened his laptop with jerky movements and began bringing up documents.

"I don't need medical. What I needed was a quinjet twenty minutes ago so we could go after the wacko parading around as Robin Hood. The same asshole who just handed us our asses on a silver platter," Stark snarled back then added "Hell I would have taken an old army helicopter instead of just letting that bastard get away."

"Stark," Fury warned the vein at his temple throbbing visibly as Fury ground his teeth in anger.

"Sir, with all due respect, I don't understand why you didn't issue us an aircraft. We could have brought Hawkeye in," Steve said trying to calm the situation despite his own frustration that the man had gotten away.

Coulson exchanged a look with Fury who gestured with his hand that Coulson was to field the question as he turned back to typing furiously on his computer. Steve hid a wince as the man jabbed the keyboard hard enough to break a less rugged laptop.

"I am afraid Captain, Mr. Stark that we couldn't have issued you a plane because SHIELD's New York branch does not have any in service at the moment," Coulson told them grimly.

"I don't understand," Steve admitted in confusion. He knew the New York branch had hangers full of aircraft.

"Captain, do you think we didn't try to put eyes in the sky when we realized we were under attack. We weren't able to get a single aircraft into the air because they have all been compromised. The best airsupport I could give you at the moment is some sticks and paper so you could make a kite," Fury told them as he slammed his fist onto his desk in frustration.

"How....," Steve started shocked as he looked between Fury and Coulson.

Fury ignored him in favor of abusing his laptop but Coulson sighed tiredly as he explained "Most of the planes showed signs of having had their electronic systems scrambled, some actually had damage to the engines, and some we haven't even begun to understand the damages done to them. The damages are not the real problem at the moment," Fury shot his best agent a quelling look at those words but Coulson ignored it easily as he went on to explain "The problem is that without airsupport we are in a very vulnerable position. It was why we couldn't explain to you the problem over the comms. We can't have this situation known until we can get some air crafts up from the surrounding headquarters."

"But how the hell did he get to all of them," Stark asked clearly puzzled. "You lot have hangers everywhere not to mention those new planes you are working on under building A. He shouldn't have been able to get to all of them."

"How do you know about those new planes," Fury asked looking ready to throw Tony under building A and throw away the key but Tony either didn't see the look or didn't care because he waved his hand lazily through the air "With the sad level of incription on those files you can't have been very worried about keeping them a secret."

Steve moved a bit so that he could grab the Director if he made a move to launch himself across his desk at the insane billionaire but instead of attacking the other man the Director smirked.

"Well, Stark since you are so interested in this problem I think I will allow you to help fix the sabotaged planes," the Director practically purred at Stark's shocked face.

"You can't afford to have me working on your planes," Stark said but Fury's smile merely widened.

"You're probably right but I think you will be volunteering your time or I will send Ms. Potts video of last Thursday when you decided to take the suit out to Mt. Rainier. I can't imagine that she will be very pleased with you for......"

"Alright. Alright I will do it," Tony growled as he levered himself up to his feet and hobbled to the door.

"Stark, while I commend your patriotic zeal we still have a debrief to do," Fury hummed a hint of sadistic pleasure in his tone at having made Tony get up in the first place.

"Congrats. You may actually be a bigger asshole than Robin Hood," Tony shot back as he limped back over to his vacated chair, glaring all the while at anyone who even seemed ready to claim his seat. Steve felt a bit bad for him as he sat stiffly once more and wondered if he should have tried harder to get Tony to stay in medical.

Steve, also, had to admit a certain amount of curiosity about what Tony could have been doing that he would not want Pepper to know about. With most people he might have thought he was cheating but Tony had so little shame about sex that he probably would have just asked Pepper to join him and his potentional lover for a threesome.

"He was riding the Ironman suit like a surfboard as Jarvis flew it," Coulson told him as he looked to him for clarification.

"Wow," Bucky said and Steve agreed. Pepper would kill Tony if she found out that he was doing stuff like that with the suits.

"Hey, don't tell him," Tony exclaimed pointing at Steve "He can't lie worth a damn and he is always talking with Pepper. She will know within the week now."

"I can keep a secret," Steve said offended. He didn't understand why everyone in the future thought he never lied. He did, it wasn't like he was a saint or something.

"Yeah right," Tony muttered as he fiddled with his phone. Hitting a final button he flicked his finger at Fury and settled back in his seat with a not entirely faked sigh of relief. "There is all the video that the suit had from the moment I took off to the moment Bucky Bear dragged be to medical."

"Good," Fury told him distracted as he brought the footage up on a projected screen.

"I so can lie," Steve hissed at Tony a bit petulantly as they dragged up seats to go over the footage.

"No, you really can't," Bucky said matter-of-factly from beside him.

Steve sent his best friend a betrayed look which had him shrugging guiltily, Steve was secretly glad that he hadn't shrunk away from him as he had during the first few months of his recovery at any sign of negative emotion.

"Sorry, pal, but you can't lie for shit. You always look guilty," Bucky explained with a slight teasing light in his eyes.

"But...," Steve started but was interrupted by Natasha "Steve, you are a horrible lier. Learn to accept it. You have a lot of other skills."

Steve looked at her surprised at her betrayal then looked to Coulson expecting him at least to be on his side.

Coulson simply held up a warding hand as he said "You can't lie. Sorry, Steve."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, he had lied plenty of times, but Fury cut him off impatiently "Captain, we are never going to send you on any undercover missions because a) you have one of the most recognizable faces in the world and b) you can't lie for shit. Now shut up all of you and pay attention. We need to figure out how this bastard got the drop on us and why he even bothered."

Steve snapped his mouth shut quickly as the comment brought him back to the problem at hand, with new purpose he turned his attention to the projection.

They watched as Ironman did a fly over of the compound before flying further out over the woods and spotting Hawkeye in a small clearing. The archer stared up at the camera coldly and seemed to be waiting for Tony. The whole scene felt off but Steve was hard pressed to figure out why until he looked at the scene as a whole.

"Can you pause the video," Steve asked and at once Fury tapped the screen of his laptop stopping the image at a still of Hawkeye's grim eyes starring at them.

"Back up the footage till Tony is just coming over the trees, please," Steve requested as he stood to study the footage from a different angle.

As the footage scrolled backwards he noted the way that Hawkeye stepped out of the trees just as Tony would have come within his sight line.

"Stop the footage there," Steve murmured quietly as he studied the scene.

"What are your thoughts, Captain," Coulson asked him quietly as he shifted around the room to view the footage at different angles.

"I'm not completely sure yet," Steve murmured in answer to Coulson's question then turned to ask Natasha "Could you point to the first place you encountered Hawkeye?"

Cooly she tapped a point in the forest off to the right of the clearing adding "I am not completely sure if that is the correct location but it is within twenty yards of the location."

"And where did you see the helicopter take off from," he asked as he visually measured the distance from Natasha's first encounter with Hawkeye to the clearing where the fight had occurred.

"It took off from a clearing right behind these trees," Natasha told him pointing to a cluster of trees that was located to the far right of the clearing.

At her words Steve straightened up now sure of his suspicions.

"What do you see, Cap," Fury asked as Steve backed away once more to look at the image as a whole.

Steve ran his eyes over the image once more to be sure then finally said "Hawkeye lured Ironman in."

"Explain," Fury ordered as he sat up slightly in his seat to look the image over again.

"This is where Hawkeye pinned Natasha down," Steve said pointing to the woods at bottom right of the clearing "and this is where the helicopter Hawkeye used to escape was," he continued moving his hand to the take off point which was well to the right of the clearing where they had confronted Hawkeye.

Turning back to face the room Steve continued "There was no need for Hawkeye to deter into that meadow except to draw Tony's attention. It also explains why Hawkeye didn't knock Natasha out or kill her. If we had lost radio contact with her we would have checked at her last known coordinates which would have allowed us to regroup."

"Possibly Captain but he could have easily lost his way in the woods," Coulson said as his sharp eyes scanned the image. Steve could tell the man already believed him and was just playing devil's advocate in order to get his thoughts on the situation.

"Maybe but I don't think so. He planned this too well. He had already taken out all our air support and just as Ironman comes within his sight line he stepped out from cover to confront the last person on our team who could follow him in the air?"

"It is likely that the first arrow that hit Tony was meant as a test to see if they would work against the suit but once Hawkeye saw there affect," Steve mused aloud as the picture of the enemies plan came together in his mind.

"The first arrow wasn't a test, it was an opening attack," Tony's flippant voice cut him off and Steve looked over to the man who had been flipping through his phone while they were discussing the attack. Steve had been half convinced he wasn't paying them the slightest bit of attention but he should have known better. Tony Stark might not show it but the one thing he truly cared about were his friends and Hawkeye had proven a threat to his friends so he was taking anything to do with him seriously.

Steve noted the tense set of Tony's shoulders, the slight purse of his lips, and the way the lines around his eyes had deepened with tension and realized with a shock that Tony was almost enraged about something which made no sense. Tony had been upset when they came into the room but more with frustration than anything else but now he was furious.

"What are you talking about Stark," Fury growled sending the man a hard look which softened somewhat as he took in the tension around their resident genius.

"The suit, the one I had with me today was built with a back up relay system. A back up relay, I might add, that I very brilliantly shielded in the left breast of the suit," Tony exclaimed as he looked up at them with a fluriosh of his hand and a smile that was a touch too feral "The relay system was very well shielded, as I said, very cleverly shielded but it did have one flaw. Had to run the wiring for the arm somewhere. Well I directed most of the wire away from the back up relay but there was a bundle of wires that I couldn't run around the relay. The relay was shielded but if those wires received too much of a shock it still would have downed the relay. So I, cleverly might I mention, made it so that that particular set of wires was very well shielded too. In fact they were so well shielded that there was only one point in their whole length that they could have been hit without hitting other wires that would have tripped a fail safe which would have shut down the wires running near the relay thereby saving the relay."

"Stark," Fury barked cutting the genius off mid-rant "We get that the wires were important but we don't understand why you think the first arrow was deliberate rather than a test strike."

Tony looked around at them and took in their clueless expressions, well Bruce looked like he understood if his closed eyes and slumped posture were any indication, before rolling his eyes and throwing up his hands. Abruptly, he stood up from his chair and limped around the room as though suddenly unable to contain himself.

"You...you saw the schematics. You explain," Tony growled pointing an imperious finger at Bruce. Bruce rubbed a hand over his face tiredly before looking up at the room at large.

"Tony had every fail safe imaginable built into that backup relay, however, there was a tiny, very tiny," Bruce added placatingly at Tony's outraged look "flaw in the fail safes. A set of wires had to be run near the backup relay. If those wires were hit my enough electrical current then they could have fried the backup relay so Tony insulated them as best he could and placed a fail safe around those wires so that if a set of wires running around the first set of wires was hit then all the wires in the suits arm would have shut down making the suit arm useless but saving the backup relay. However, there was a very small area of vulnerability in the elbow of the suit where the bundle of wires could not be insulated by the protective wires due to mobility issues. The unprotected area was about the size of a dime and any charge would have had to be set off directly in the bundle of wires to have any affect, well unless it was an absolutely massive surge which would have probably destroyed the suit anyway."

Banner blushed as he realized that he was going off target and coughed to hide his embarrassment.

"What I was trying to say was that the arrow had to have hit the bundle of wires directly in that one spot and that the main part of the EMP would have had to have been directly within the bundle of wires to have caused the backup relay to short out," Bruce finished explaining.

"In order words," Tony snarked as he paced back and forth from Fury's desk to the door "if that shot was an accident then it was a one in a million, no one in a billion. Which means one thing."

Tony turned to them sweeping a glare over Natasha, Coulson, and Fury in particular.

"Someone who I trusted stole the plans for that suit and either told someone who told someone or kept them on a computer with crap encoding," Tony finished that last part with a particularly venomous glare at Fury.

"Stark, we don't have any of your suit plans. Believe it or not but since you joined the team I have kept my people largely out of your business," Fury calmly informed the furious billionaire as he leaned back in his chair to observe the room at large.

"Then who in the hell else could it be. That relay was too well hidden and the wiring a design that I came up with myself," Tony shouted, flinging his arms in the air in frustration then wincing as his bruised ribs protested.

Steve winced in sympathy at the obvious pain the other man was experiencing.

"What about the suit you gave to your friend. Rhodes. Could the army have taken it apart," Bucky asked quietly his hair covering his face as though he were trying to hide from his own boldness at speaking in front of this many people.

Tony turned as though to snap at him but Steve saw him visibly rein in his temper as he realized it was Bucky that was asking. To his immense surprise, Tony had actually shown surprising empathy with Bucky even after learning that he had been responsible for the man's parents' deaths while he was the Winter Soldier.

"Not possible. Rodney's suit is an older model and while I have updated it frequently its backup relay was in a total different area than the relay in this suit. Hell the main relays are in different areas in those two suits," Tony said in a softer voice that did little to hide his confusion and exasperation with the whole issue.

"Stark, who had access to your schematics," Coulson asked reasonably.

Tony breathed out a sigh of frustration as he continued to pace but finally he snapped out "Bruce has unlimited access, JARVIS obviously, Pepper can access any of the files through Jarvis. None of them would have spilled my secrets and JARVIS hasn't been hacked."

Bruce looked up at Tony at this declartion of trust seeming touched that someone trusted him with their secrets without question.

"Who has access to the lab and was there while you were working on the suit design," Coulson asked and met Tony's eyes squarely as he turned to glare at him.

"Fine," Tony huffed before listing quickly "Fem fetale over there and Capiscle. Bucky has permission to visit but....well the lab isn't the best place for him at the moment." Tony finished his statement ackwardly as he shot a guilty glance at Bucky. The one and only time that Tony had tried to show Bucky his lab had ended with Bucky hospitalized because he had broken through the plate glass around the lab in his panic to get away from all the whirring machines.

Bucky ducked his head at the reminder and ackward silence reined for a second before Natasha flicked a wad of paper at Tony which struck the man right between the eyes. Steve shot her a small grateful grin which she returned minutely.

"You know you're going to put my eye out by accident one day and feel horribly guilty about it," Tony told her with a pout.

"It wouldn't be by accident and I wouldn't feel guilty about it," Natasha rejoined as she went back to studying the image still on the wall.

"That is actually far more frightening than it should be. Why am I now afraid of paper balls," Tony mused as he went over to poke Bruce in the arm.

"I would say it was because your sense of self-preservation had kicked in but that obviously isn't the case," Bruce told him as he stared down, unimpressed, at the digit still poking him in the arm.

"Hey, we are science bros, you are not supposed to agree with her," Tony groused before flopping onto the arm of Bruce's chair then immediately yelping as it jarred his injuries.

"I just state it like it is and will you please stop flopping around. You are going to cause one of your broken ribs to shift and puncture your lung at this rate," Bruce told him sternly.

Tony merely waved a dismissive hand in his direction before focusing back to Coulson.

"I get where you are going with this Agent Agent but come on. Capiscle isn't about to sell out my secrets, Bucky doesn't want anything to do with my lab, and you said Natasha hadn't been ordered to spy on me so that leaves her out," Tony groused.

"What about Colonel Rhodes? Would he have had access to your lab," Coulson asked calmly.

"Rodney wouldn't betray me," Tony defended hotly.

"JARVIS has footage from your lab. Ask him who was in the lab with you any time the plans for your new armor were on display. That would narrow down the list of suspects," Coulson suggested easily causing Tony to scowl but he reluctantly put JARVIS on speaker and requested the information.

"Sir, according to my files only two people were ever in the lab with you during times when plans for that particular armor were displayed. The first was Captain Rogers, though only the modifications undertaken to the boot stabilizers were on display while he was in the lab and the second was Colonel Rhodes," JARVIS informed them and somehow Steve could tell that JARVIS regretted giving Tony that piece of news.

"What parts were on display when Rodney was in the lab," Tony asked in a pained but hopeful voice as if he wanted badly to be told their suspicions were wrong.

"A complete schematic of the suit was on display, along with several images showing detailed design ideas for the propulsion system and new rocket launchers," JARVIS told them his crisp british accent falling into the room like a bomb.

"Right," Tony said nodding before swallowing thickly.

"JARVIS, any chance you were hacked," Tony asked flatly.

"I am afraid all my scans have indicated that my security protocals are intact, sir."

"Right," Tony said again as he stared at the carpet blinking furiously.

"Tony," Bruce started sympathetically but stopped at a loss for words.

"It is fine. I get it. He is army. Swore to protect and serve and all that. I get it," Tony rushed out as he pushed himself up to resume his frantic pacing.

"Stark," Coulson said as the man passed him for his second circuit of the room. Tony ignored him but Coulson stepped in front of him for his third circuit of the room and boxed him in so he couldn't go around him.

"What," Tony snarled clearly hurt at the preceived betrayal.

"Have you considered that Colonel Rhodes may not have betrayed you intentionally."

"Yes, because everyone unintentionally memorizes very complex suit schematics and tells them to their superiors who place them on servers that have crap firewalls," Tony snarled as he tried to go around the man again and head for the door.

Natasha snorted softly drawing Tony's ire.

"Wise up Stark. I have planted bugs and cameras on multiple targets without any of them being the wiser. You don't think something similar could have happened to Rodney," Natasha asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Rodney doesn't wear jewelry or glasses or anything else that could hold a camera and I would have noticed if he had started," Tony snarked but Steve could tell he was listening and hoping to be proven wrong.

"Actually he does," Bucky said softly from beside him drawing everyone's attention which had him stiffening minutely.

"What do you mean, Sergenant," Coulson asked softly, clearly trying to put Bucky at ease.

"His bars. The bars and stars he wore on his uniform and now the Colonel insignia. He often comes to see Tony fresh from active duty so he still has his uniform on and he did just move up in rank so he would have been given a new insignia," Bucky told them quietly while glancing up occasionally to see if his input was still welcome. Steve lightly touched his arm and grinned proudly at him when he lifted his head a bit to meet his eyes. A small twitch of the lips was his answer and suddenly he felt much better about today, since his friend had given him two almost smiles in the span of three hours.

"That...," Tony started then paused as his brain finally caught up with his mouth. "Damn. That could work, especially if the camera was set to passively record and store the images within the device. JARVIS checks for incoming video equipment but something like that would register like a phone's camera. We don't shut down phone camera unless they are in active use....."

Tony trailed off as his fingers flew over the screen of his phone.

"Stark," Fury said exasperated that the genius had gone off on a seeming mental tangent.

"What," Tony asked distractedly.

Fury glared back at the other man who was not even paying him the slightest bit of attention then asked in a long suffering voice "What are you doing?"

"Seeing how many projects might have been compromised by this," Tony told them briefly his eyes never leaving the screen of his phone.

"Let us know once you have the list of projects," Fury ordered and choose to ignore as Tony simply waved a limp hand at him as he scrolled down something on his phone.

"Coulson, contact our agents in Nevada and have Colonel Rhodes picked up and brought to New York. Get him loaned out to SHIELD or whatever you have to but I want him with his uniform. We need to find out how far this information has spread," Fury ordered and Coulson didn't even bother to nod as he was already on the phone ironing out the details needed to basically kidnap an army Colonel without it resulting in two government agencies going to war.

"Got it," Tony muttered sitting back in his chair and looking at his phone's screen with a grim expression.

"What damage are we looking at," Fury demanded his eyes fixed on Stark.

"You're not going to like it," Tony told Fury then cut his eyes to Bruce who straightened in surprise "Neither are you."

"The molecular work we were doing," Bruce asked his face paling then taking on a slight hint of green at Tony's grim nod. Abruptly the doctor stood from his chair and within three strides was out of the room. They waited but beside the sound of a door slamming at the end of the hall, around where the stairwell would be, they didn't hear the sounds of destruction that the Hulk could create.

"He is doing much better with the anger issues," Tony mused adding "I feel like hulking out about this."

"What molecular research were you working on, Tony," Coulson asked as he hung up his phone.

Tony waved a hand in the air carelessly "A way to molecularly block the Hulk transformation. Didn't pan out but the delivery mechanism allowed small amounts of liquid to be encapsulated with a complex nanotube structure. The structure was metabolized too slowly to be used for the Hulk but we thought it might be good for cancer drug delivery. Those applications failed also but we did find that it was incredibly good at delivering poisons. Obviously, once we realized that we stopped research on the compound but if someone got ahold of that research they could hurt or kill a lot of people."

"Wonderful," Fury sighed.

"It gets better," Tony drawled looking at the Director of SHIELD "Rodney was also in the room with his uniform on when I was doing the redesign for the just installed propulsion system on the helicarrier, when I was working on the designs for the new quinjet, and several times while I was designing armor and weapons for the team."

"Coulson," Fury bit out as soon as Tony had mentioned the engines for the helicarrier but Coulson was already pulling out his phone.

"Hill, this is Coulson. You have to set the helicarrier down in the nearest large body of water you can find. We have reason to believe that the designs for the engines may have been comprimised," Coulson explained then listened for a second before handing the phone wordlessly to Fury.

"Fury: authorization Gamma, Epsilon, Echo, Alpha, Charlie, Two, Nine, Zeta," Fury spoke calmly over the phone then wordlessly handed the phone back to Coulson after listening for a second.

Coulson ended the call then raised a brow at the Director who was slowly drumming his fingers against his desk as he likely contemplated a dozen plans and scenarios.

"They are landing off the Pacific Coast and will be making their way to the San Andilios base to allow the base mechanics to fix anything Stark tells them that needs fixing," Fury said grimly as he continued to drum his fingers on the desk.

"You know it isn't quite that easy, right. It took me about a week to put together those engines. They are works of art. Not even I can just pop out a better design over night," Tony complained.

"Stark," Fury warned but Tony ignored him as he said "You just don't understand how much I have to put into these designs."

"What I understand Stark is because you allowed those plans to be leaked I now have a major security threat," Fury snarled clearly at the end of his rope. Tony for his part looked like someone had punched him in the gut.

Steve's head came up at that blatantly unfair statement just in time to see the hurt and guilt flash through Tony's eyes before he was pulling his flippant and uncaring front around himself once more. Without thought Steve stepped between the two men.

"Director, that is unfair," Steve stated simply his voice and expression conveying his contempt for the blatant display of manipulation. Fury knew damn well that the best way to control Tony was to use a combination of guilt and prods to the man's weak self-esteem but Steve wasn't about to let the bullying occur while he was present. Fury turned his thunderous look onto him but Steve merely met his gaze squarely as he continued "Tony has always taken every precaution when it comes to his research. How could he have foreseen this when SHIELD, with all its experience at espionage, didn't anticipate a situation like this."

"Captain, this is not your problem," Fury told him coldly.

"Tony is a member of my team and my friend and with all due respect, sir, both those facts make this my business," Steve told the man calmly as he met him stare for stare.

"Captain Rogers, does have a point," Coulson said quietly causing Fury's anger to be directed at him. Coulson merely raised an eyebrow and for a minute the two men seemed to be having a silent conversation that none of the others understood.

"Fine," Fury finally said. "Stark, you're off the hook. Now all of you out. Coulson you are in charge of finding out what set Hawkeye off and either bringing the man in or stopping him permenantly. You are authorized to use any SHIELD resources that you might reasonably need and make sure to take the Avangers with you. I want them out of my sight. Dismissed."

"Sir," Coulson nodded in understanding then gestured for the rest to proceed him out of the room.

In the hall Tony turned to him a surprised and touched look in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it then finally said quietly "Thanks. You really think of us as friends?"

"Of course, Tony. You are a good person and I am glad to have you as a friend," Steve told him firmly.

Tony stared in surprise then a dark, bitter look came over his face as he flipped his sunglasses over his face.

"You really are too idealistic, Cap. I am not a good man at all," the wary twist of Tony's lips convinced Steve that he was repeating something he had heard and thought often.

Steve drew himself up with indignation on Tony's behalf and caught the other man by the arm as he turned to walk toward the elevator banks "Tony, you opened your home to us and despite the front you put up it is obvious you care deeply about each and every member of this team. If that doesn't make you a good man, a man worthy of our trust and friendship then I don't know what would."

Tony froze in front of him but Steve could see his eyes flicking to each of the others in the hall.

Natasha folded her arms across her chest and smirked at the billionaire "Do you think I would let anyone but a friend get away with oogling me while a crazy archer threatens to kill us?"

Steve blushed at her words but was glad to see Tony's lips curve up slightly. Bucky mearly nodded his head silently when Tony's eyes fell on him.

Coulson continued to type on his phone as he said "Stark, you make more paperwork for me than all my other agents put together but despite that I enjoy your company."

"Also, if you make me have to fill out a medical form where I have to explain how you lost your body hair to a crazied, intelligent electric razor you invented again I will personally kill you, slowly," Coulson added blandly as he tapped on his phone once more before putting it back in his pocket.

"It wasn't like I tried to do that," Tony whined but the tension around his shoulders had easied and he was grinning as they moved to the elevators.

"So what do we do now," Tony asked cheerily.

"We collect Bruce before we head to Italy to see why we have a pissed off archer launching attacks on SHIELD and during the plane trip we will have the debrief we missed," Coulson told him as they allowed the elevator to take them down to the lower levels.

One note: Natasha may seem a bit more closed off than typically portrayed and that is because she never had Clint to show her how to relax and have fun. Coulson tried but at heart he is a no nonsense kind of guy so it just wasn't the same as Clint's fun loving attitude. She is still a caring and loving person with those she care about as shown by her interactions with the team but she sometimes has a hard time relating and knowing how to act (not react) in certain social situations.

I just wanted to mention that because in the next chapter we see a bit more about her.