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Entry tags:
Avengers - Duplicity
Title: Duplicity
Genre: Crossover - Avengers/Hurt Locker
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,400 words
Spoilers: Very slight for Hurt Locker, more of a character spoiler than anything else.
Synopsis: His face is plastered all over the news, the would-be hero that might not survive the rescue, but his team can't and won't believe it is him.
Author's Notes: Possibly some slight fudging of the timelines, but I just couldn't get the thought of Clint as sniper/spy and having a possible doppelgänger out of my head.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available at AO3.
"Sir, there is something I believe you may need to see." JARVIS's voice was usually so calm and collected, occasionally snarky, but never quite so... hesitant.
It was that hesitance that caught Tony off guard, made him actually set down his tools and look up from his latest project to say, "Hit me with it, J."
A screen formed in front of him, electric blue around the edges as always, the perfect height, depth, and resolution for him as always. The scene played, paused, rewound to the beginning and he knew it would play again if he didn't stop it. He swallowed heavily and forced himself to find his voice. When he could, he managed an extremely stilted, "Get the others."
Every single one of the Avengers knew of Tony's little program, the one he had constantly running in the background, the one that scanned through news reports and headlines and footage for any mention of the team. Most suspected it had been augmented to search not just through tags or names, but with facial recognition software as well - it made sense for a group that preferred masks, both physical and psychological, and for those members who tended to have more than a single identity. Those who believed such things would have been rewarded for their suspicions, had the news agencies not already gotten ahold of the footage, some spry little intern making the connection and sending it upwards, covering their ass with words like "supposed" and "believed" and similar structures that never directly proved anything, but strongly implied it.
His team had gathered within minutes, his request odd to say the least as he rarely called for their presence when he had others he could coerce into doing so and allow himself to continue doing whatever he had been doing in the first place. And so he knew they were already on edge when they came down, found absolutely nothing on fire, and the majority of what he had been working on actually put away. He did a head count to verify they were all there, and then requested, "Play it, J."
The screen came to life again and he resisted the urge to rewatch it, the images already burned into memory. He focused instead on the others, on their reactions, on their tells for whether or not this was just some horrible joke.
"The as of yet unnamed hero is credited with saving the lives of seven people, three of whom were children. That action may well have cost him his own, however, when the ordinance he had deactivated was hit by what appears to be rifle fire and detonated before he himself could escape."
"Is that?" Bruce asked, squinting at the grainy image helpfully paused for them.
Steve didn't bother to look away, gaze focused on the screen before him, eyes tracing every line, every color. "Widow, where was Hawkeye's mission?"
Clint had been called away eight days prior. He hadn't told them where, but he rarely did. It was a mission for SHIELD, which meant his covert sniper skills were at the forefront and his now rather public identity could be pushed aside so he could blend into the woodwork the way he preferred.
Natasha paused, a tell as much as anything. "He didn't say," she replied, which wasn't actually an answer.
"He didn't ask if Barton told you, he asked if you knew," Tony pointed out, impatient and a little shorter in tone than he usually dared with her.
Steve gestured to the image, to the man in fatigues covered in blood, to the man with more of his insides outside of him than was likely recoverable. "Is it possible that this is Clint?" he asked. As if the now enlarged and anguished face didn't answer that question for them. As if this fate wasn't what they each feared every time they left for a mission, team or no.
She nodded, sharp and precise, posture ramrod straight as she hid behind her professional persona.
"Get SHIELD on the line," Steve ordered, but Tony shook his head.
"I've been trying to get through, but they won't take my call," he explained, then clarified, "Correction: they take it, but won't give me any answers or anyone above the guy with a mop and bucket. JARVIS shows the public lines flooded, mostly from stations that made the same connection we did, and I've been told that, short of an actual attack or transdimensional wormhole in Central Park, that we're to stand down and shut up."
As expected, Steve didn't like that answer. He turned on his heel and stormed towards the door. "Where are you going?" Bruce asked, though Tony already suspected the answer.
Sure enough, their erstwhile team leader replied, "To Fury himself. In person. And I dare some random pencil-pusher in a suit to try to stop me."
Bruce adjusted his glasses and asked, "Did you want some help?"
Tony spared a thought for the image of Captain America stomping through SHIELD headquarters, the man known to have pretty much singlehandedly destroyed their top defense carrier at his side, and wondered how much of the place would survive. Not to mention survive Fury himself when he found out they got through. He then pushed that to the side to focus on his own task, namely hacking into every satellite feed he could get his grubby little hands on to sniff out anything and everything anyone knew about what happened and why.
Six hours later, and he still had no definitive answers. Seven, and a rather dejected looking Rogers and Banner returned to the Tower. The most they had was that yes, Barton had been in the area and no, there had been no positive ID as of yet as local security forces had closed ranks and SHIELD was still trying to both sneak and strongarm their way in to verify things for themselves. Natasha was still working her way through a mess of contacts, far too many murmured and harsh languages falling from her lips as she worked.
None of them slept, not really or at least not effectively, and they only ate because the delivery service rang the bell and forced the issue, likely at JARVIS's behest. Tony happened across a snoozing Bruce curled up in a chair in a rather uncomfortable looking position when he went to refuel his caffeine, and startled him awake with the sound of the cup lightly tapping against the marble counter, earning him a rushed, "Anything yet?" that he was forced to shake his head to.
It was a full thirty-six hours later when the never resting voice of his AI announced, "Sir, there is a Quinjet requesting permission to land."
"Let 'em in," he replied. He waved his hand and left his workshop and was not surprised in the least when everyone else damn near instantly appeared around him the moment he reached the lounge.
They waited as one, arms crossed and facing the elevator for their guests' arrival. It had been Sitwell's authorization code, but that could mean anyone from Fury to Hill to some random peon he would be dropping off to tide them over and stall them from whatever else the upper command echelon wanted them to avoid. The doors opened and revealed that it was actually Sitwell for a change and, by his side, was someone who was definitely not a peon.
"Someone want to explain to me why the hell I was pulled off a recon mission when I finally had the target in my sights? National security my ass because, really, New York is still standing and you're all here just sitting here gawking and not even suited up and..."
Clint ground to a halt the moment he saw the others, the expressions on their faces telling their story even if none of them even said a word. No one had even scoffed or commented about the long running joke of his definition of "recon" being a little more interactive than most would consider an accurate description. "Um, guys?" he asked, far more hesitantly and far softer than mere moments before.
It was Natasha who stepped forward first. She cupped his face in her hands, cradled his chin with her palms and ran her thumbs across his sunburned cheekbones. She whispered something Tony couldn't make out that may or may not have been in English, but made Barton's eyes open wide and worried. Those eyes grew even wider when she freed one of her hands to slap him soundly across the face.
"What the hell, Tasha?" Barton sputtered.
She stepped back, arms crossed in front of herself once more, and demanded with an accent she rarely let through, "Explain."
"Explain what?" he asked, clearly dumbfounded. He ran a hand through his sunstreaked yet greasy hair, the other still holding tightly to his bow as he clearly suspected the others may be a threat as well, and insisted, "I have no idea what you are talking about."
It was Sitwell who held a hand up and replied, "Agent Barton was pulled from service approximately eleven, no, twelve hours ago. He required medical services and was unconscious for roughly nine of those hours. I did not have time to fully debrief him as to the situation as Director Fury thought it best to deliver him to you before you started any sort of international incident in your attempt to verify his whereabouts."
Tony glared at him, and knew he was not the only one. Sitwell stood calm and clean in an only slightly rumpled suit, while beside him Barton was streaked with dust and dirt and leaning heavily on his left leg while his right was padded with what was likely bandages and stained with something no one needed to try to identify. Not nearly enough bandages for what they had seen. "Twelve hours. Half a god damn day, and you couldn't call us to tells he was still alive?" he bit out.
"What do you mean, 'alive?'" Clint interrupted, face suddenly pale beneath the burn. His free hand drifted to his leg and he admitted, "I was shot, okay, I admit that. Winged, really, but death was never on the table. Jasper here overmedicated me and I passed out in the middle of my mission report slash bitch session of how I finally had the target and he blew over a week's cover because I was suddenly needed elsewhere. I don't see this mystical, magical need, by the way. I see a lot of wasted fucking work and not a whole hell of a lot else."
"You were needed," Bruce said, barely loud enough to be heard. His lips were pursed, eyes flecked with green, but he remained perfectly still.
Sitwell began again, this time with more than a hint of exasperation to his tone. His expression was pinched and the shadows under his eyes seemed to grow tenfold as he shifted his weight slightly and said, "We pulled you to protect you. Actually, to protect more than you and, if you give me a moment, I'll explain."
He gestured to the couch and pointedly walked by to take a seat. Clint followed, more sedately and with a definite limp, either not noticing or ignoring the way his teammates followed his every move, hands flared out as if ready to catch him, touch him, if needed. His quiver and bow were set against the side, within reach but not an immediate danger, and he didn't even try to hide the sigh of contentment when his weight was finally off of his bad leg.
Sitwell leaned forward, arms braced atop his knees and not waiting for the others to situate themselves before he began, "Agent Barton had been spotted two days ago. He obfuscated the severity of his resulting injury and altered his position accordingly. The man who spotted him reported in to the mark, but they were unable to relocate him."
"You knew where he was when we asked," Steve accused, but Jasper shook his head.
"We suspected, but were unable to confirm as someone decided radio silence was a must." He glared at Barton, but didn't go beyond chastising him as the last time the agent had insisted on such a thing, it had proved vitally necessary to the survival of both him and to the other three team members he had been protecting. Instead, he continued, "We confirmed his position and executed an extraction, but it was decided to keep this action quiet for security reasons."
This time, it was Tony who interrupted, letting his anger get the better of him. "What possible security reasons could you have? His face was plastered on damn near every television screen, you knew we were actively trying to find out what the hell happened, and you chose to keep us in the dark!"
To give him credit, Sitwell barely flinched from the outburst. "The man who spotted Agent Barton likely positively identified him from those same reports. Considering the mistaken identity was helping to keep any possible assassins at bay as much as James' own team and the Avengers' reputation for seeking retribution for any harm to their own, Fury made the call until further security measures could be put in place."
Bruce asked, "James?" at the same time Clint sighed, "Fuck, Billy?"
Sitwell opened his mouth to continue, but was beaten to the punch by Barton's rushed, "Since this is going to take forever and he still won't get to the point, JARVIS, please explain why the hell my team thought I was a goner and what the fuck one Mr. William James got himself into this time." He leaned back against the cushions, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo across his biceps, both pissed and exasperated at the same time, and waited.
There was a pause, a hesitation that only Tony himself likely noticed as JARViS questioned the order. A pause that ended when he subtly nodded to authorize it.
A screen appeared before them with an updated version of the previous news report, the image of the supposedly named William James being carted away on a gurney, white cloth draped over him doing nothing to hide the mass quantities of blood seeping out and leaving a trail more clearly than the wheels in the sand. Beside it, a second screen appeared with the name and rank of one Sergeant First Class William James of some Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit, and his current station in the same Middle Eastern country where Barton himself was believed to have been dispatched to, or at least pretty damn close. It listed his commendations and achievements as well as his disciplinary reports and provided a picture that damn well could have been Barton save for the slight size difference, sun-hardened skin, and close cropped hair.
"And James is?" Bruce prompted while everyone else seemed to still take everything in.
"My cousin," Clint replied. It was immediately followed by, "And don't sing the damned song, Stark." He sighed, eyes not focused on the military record, but the news footage instead. "We barely knew each other growing up and have happened across each other a few times in recent years. He's a smartass adrenaline junky who happens to be damned good at his job. He takes risks and they usually pay off. This time..."
Tony could not resist humming a few bars of the Patty Duke theme song at the admission, which earned him a flip of the bird from Barton. The action showed tiny slices along his forearm though, a bruise blooming across the back of his wrist, facts not missed by any of his teammates.
Natasha slid to her knees at his side and bodily grabbed that arm, fingers tracing the thin red lines, pressing where they crossed vital veins and arteries. "It wasn't you," she said, more to herself than anyone else.
Her hands drifted to the bandaged leg, but he gripped her fingers in his own before she could investigate further. "No, Tasha, it wasn't me," he confirmed. He glanced down at her before he looked at the screens again, and then to the senior agent at his side. "Billy had a kid, a wife that may or may not be ex at this point." It wasn't phrased as a question, but there was a request hidden beneath the words.
"They will be provided for," Sitwell promised. He then amended that to, "He will be provided for as well." Off the questioning look he received, he explained, "The media has an image of him and has tied that image to your name. Even if he makes it out of that hospital in something less than a wheelchair, someone out there is going to think he's you. He's a target, and they will go after him accordingly."
"And SHIELD?" Clint prompted. His tone was short, worry evident in his eyes, but Tony couldn't tell if it was the thought of the guy who thankfully wasn't actually him ending up possibly permanently out of commission, or that he would now be even more at risk solely because of his familial connection.
"Will provide medical treatment and equipment as needed, as well as a job offer to keep him close and guarded," Sitwell confirmed.
Clint shook his head, lips quirked slightly but devoid of humor. "Billy will never settle for a desk job, no matter how he ends up. He can't function in suburbia let alone an office."
"Oddly enough, even SHIELD desk jobs tend to offer enough for your standard adrenaline junky," Jasper deadpanned, reminding Tony why he didn't hate the guy.
Clint scoffed, but the smirk changed slightly. "You try selling that to him."
"Won't have to, you will," Sitwell replied blandly. "Once he is safely back in the States, which should be sometime in the next forty-two to fifty-eight hours, you will publicly walk out of this Tower and go visit him. Of course, no one will know where you are going and no one will know where he has been moved, but it should work to dispel any rumors of your imminent demise as well as cause the media to start another round of questioning just what sort of tech we have at our disposal and then focus on yet another campaign to get us to share. You might want to work on covering that limp though, if you want to help sell the story."
"You have this all worked out, don't you?" Clint sighed. He stretched out his bad leg, Natasha subtly shifting to give him space to do so.
"Well, except for the part where SHIELD had your entire team convinced you blew yourself to hell and gone and refused to tell us a damned thing and then expected absolutely no retribution," Tony cut in. He smiled in Sitwell's direction, all teeth. "That one is going to come back and bite you, in case anyone was wondering."
Sitwell tilted his head to the side, considering. "It was not my call to make," he shrugged. "If it had been, most everything would have gone down the same, but the team would have either been kept in the loop or given enough assurances to both hint at the truth and let you know why you had to stand down."
"We probably wouldn't have stood down, not completely," Steve admitted, and absolutely no one seemed surprised or even tried to deny such a thing. More than a single team member still watched the now silent footage on repeat, eyes drifting to a certain someone on the couch at random intervals.
Tony clapped his hands together, the sound serving both to jolt him out of the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him now that he knew everyone was not quite safe but at least accounted for and call attention to himself at the same time. "So, food, drink, plotting against Fury and whoever shot at your cousin, identical cousin yes indeed - how does that sound to everyone?"
"Work a hot shower and a soft pillow in there and I'm on board," Barton agreed before giving in to a yawn.
Sitwell stayed for the food but left for the planning, citing plausible deniability as a reason. No one mentioned how tired he looked, or how he happened to leave a file about Barton's truncated mission behind. As for the team, they ate, they talked, they plotted and they planned and, if they all happened to crowd just a little too close, or brush up against a recently returned archer just a little more often than usual, well, no one mentioned that either.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Crossover - Avengers/Hurt Locker
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,400 words
Spoilers: Very slight for Hurt Locker, more of a character spoiler than anything else.
Synopsis: His face is plastered all over the news, the would-be hero that might not survive the rescue, but his team can't and won't believe it is him.
Author's Notes: Possibly some slight fudging of the timelines, but I just couldn't get the thought of Clint as sniper/spy and having a possible doppelgänger out of my head.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available at AO3.
"Sir, there is something I believe you may need to see." JARVIS's voice was usually so calm and collected, occasionally snarky, but never quite so... hesitant.
It was that hesitance that caught Tony off guard, made him actually set down his tools and look up from his latest project to say, "Hit me with it, J."
A screen formed in front of him, electric blue around the edges as always, the perfect height, depth, and resolution for him as always. The scene played, paused, rewound to the beginning and he knew it would play again if he didn't stop it. He swallowed heavily and forced himself to find his voice. When he could, he managed an extremely stilted, "Get the others."
Every single one of the Avengers knew of Tony's little program, the one he had constantly running in the background, the one that scanned through news reports and headlines and footage for any mention of the team. Most suspected it had been augmented to search not just through tags or names, but with facial recognition software as well - it made sense for a group that preferred masks, both physical and psychological, and for those members who tended to have more than a single identity. Those who believed such things would have been rewarded for their suspicions, had the news agencies not already gotten ahold of the footage, some spry little intern making the connection and sending it upwards, covering their ass with words like "supposed" and "believed" and similar structures that never directly proved anything, but strongly implied it.
His team had gathered within minutes, his request odd to say the least as he rarely called for their presence when he had others he could coerce into doing so and allow himself to continue doing whatever he had been doing in the first place. And so he knew they were already on edge when they came down, found absolutely nothing on fire, and the majority of what he had been working on actually put away. He did a head count to verify they were all there, and then requested, "Play it, J."
The screen came to life again and he resisted the urge to rewatch it, the images already burned into memory. He focused instead on the others, on their reactions, on their tells for whether or not this was just some horrible joke.
"The as of yet unnamed hero is credited with saving the lives of seven people, three of whom were children. That action may well have cost him his own, however, when the ordinance he had deactivated was hit by what appears to be rifle fire and detonated before he himself could escape."
"Is that?" Bruce asked, squinting at the grainy image helpfully paused for them.
Steve didn't bother to look away, gaze focused on the screen before him, eyes tracing every line, every color. "Widow, where was Hawkeye's mission?"
Clint had been called away eight days prior. He hadn't told them where, but he rarely did. It was a mission for SHIELD, which meant his covert sniper skills were at the forefront and his now rather public identity could be pushed aside so he could blend into the woodwork the way he preferred.
Natasha paused, a tell as much as anything. "He didn't say," she replied, which wasn't actually an answer.
"He didn't ask if Barton told you, he asked if you knew," Tony pointed out, impatient and a little shorter in tone than he usually dared with her.
Steve gestured to the image, to the man in fatigues covered in blood, to the man with more of his insides outside of him than was likely recoverable. "Is it possible that this is Clint?" he asked. As if the now enlarged and anguished face didn't answer that question for them. As if this fate wasn't what they each feared every time they left for a mission, team or no.
She nodded, sharp and precise, posture ramrod straight as she hid behind her professional persona.
"Get SHIELD on the line," Steve ordered, but Tony shook his head.
"I've been trying to get through, but they won't take my call," he explained, then clarified, "Correction: they take it, but won't give me any answers or anyone above the guy with a mop and bucket. JARVIS shows the public lines flooded, mostly from stations that made the same connection we did, and I've been told that, short of an actual attack or transdimensional wormhole in Central Park, that we're to stand down and shut up."
As expected, Steve didn't like that answer. He turned on his heel and stormed towards the door. "Where are you going?" Bruce asked, though Tony already suspected the answer.
Sure enough, their erstwhile team leader replied, "To Fury himself. In person. And I dare some random pencil-pusher in a suit to try to stop me."
Bruce adjusted his glasses and asked, "Did you want some help?"
Tony spared a thought for the image of Captain America stomping through SHIELD headquarters, the man known to have pretty much singlehandedly destroyed their top defense carrier at his side, and wondered how much of the place would survive. Not to mention survive Fury himself when he found out they got through. He then pushed that to the side to focus on his own task, namely hacking into every satellite feed he could get his grubby little hands on to sniff out anything and everything anyone knew about what happened and why.
Six hours later, and he still had no definitive answers. Seven, and a rather dejected looking Rogers and Banner returned to the Tower. The most they had was that yes, Barton had been in the area and no, there had been no positive ID as of yet as local security forces had closed ranks and SHIELD was still trying to both sneak and strongarm their way in to verify things for themselves. Natasha was still working her way through a mess of contacts, far too many murmured and harsh languages falling from her lips as she worked.
None of them slept, not really or at least not effectively, and they only ate because the delivery service rang the bell and forced the issue, likely at JARVIS's behest. Tony happened across a snoozing Bruce curled up in a chair in a rather uncomfortable looking position when he went to refuel his caffeine, and startled him awake with the sound of the cup lightly tapping against the marble counter, earning him a rushed, "Anything yet?" that he was forced to shake his head to.
It was a full thirty-six hours later when the never resting voice of his AI announced, "Sir, there is a Quinjet requesting permission to land."
"Let 'em in," he replied. He waved his hand and left his workshop and was not surprised in the least when everyone else damn near instantly appeared around him the moment he reached the lounge.
They waited as one, arms crossed and facing the elevator for their guests' arrival. It had been Sitwell's authorization code, but that could mean anyone from Fury to Hill to some random peon he would be dropping off to tide them over and stall them from whatever else the upper command echelon wanted them to avoid. The doors opened and revealed that it was actually Sitwell for a change and, by his side, was someone who was definitely not a peon.
"Someone want to explain to me why the hell I was pulled off a recon mission when I finally had the target in my sights? National security my ass because, really, New York is still standing and you're all here just sitting here gawking and not even suited up and..."
Clint ground to a halt the moment he saw the others, the expressions on their faces telling their story even if none of them even said a word. No one had even scoffed or commented about the long running joke of his definition of "recon" being a little more interactive than most would consider an accurate description. "Um, guys?" he asked, far more hesitantly and far softer than mere moments before.
It was Natasha who stepped forward first. She cupped his face in her hands, cradled his chin with her palms and ran her thumbs across his sunburned cheekbones. She whispered something Tony couldn't make out that may or may not have been in English, but made Barton's eyes open wide and worried. Those eyes grew even wider when she freed one of her hands to slap him soundly across the face.
"What the hell, Tasha?" Barton sputtered.
She stepped back, arms crossed in front of herself once more, and demanded with an accent she rarely let through, "Explain."
"Explain what?" he asked, clearly dumbfounded. He ran a hand through his sunstreaked yet greasy hair, the other still holding tightly to his bow as he clearly suspected the others may be a threat as well, and insisted, "I have no idea what you are talking about."
It was Sitwell who held a hand up and replied, "Agent Barton was pulled from service approximately eleven, no, twelve hours ago. He required medical services and was unconscious for roughly nine of those hours. I did not have time to fully debrief him as to the situation as Director Fury thought it best to deliver him to you before you started any sort of international incident in your attempt to verify his whereabouts."
Tony glared at him, and knew he was not the only one. Sitwell stood calm and clean in an only slightly rumpled suit, while beside him Barton was streaked with dust and dirt and leaning heavily on his left leg while his right was padded with what was likely bandages and stained with something no one needed to try to identify. Not nearly enough bandages for what they had seen. "Twelve hours. Half a god damn day, and you couldn't call us to tells he was still alive?" he bit out.
"What do you mean, 'alive?'" Clint interrupted, face suddenly pale beneath the burn. His free hand drifted to his leg and he admitted, "I was shot, okay, I admit that. Winged, really, but death was never on the table. Jasper here overmedicated me and I passed out in the middle of my mission report slash bitch session of how I finally had the target and he blew over a week's cover because I was suddenly needed elsewhere. I don't see this mystical, magical need, by the way. I see a lot of wasted fucking work and not a whole hell of a lot else."
"You were needed," Bruce said, barely loud enough to be heard. His lips were pursed, eyes flecked with green, but he remained perfectly still.
Sitwell began again, this time with more than a hint of exasperation to his tone. His expression was pinched and the shadows under his eyes seemed to grow tenfold as he shifted his weight slightly and said, "We pulled you to protect you. Actually, to protect more than you and, if you give me a moment, I'll explain."
He gestured to the couch and pointedly walked by to take a seat. Clint followed, more sedately and with a definite limp, either not noticing or ignoring the way his teammates followed his every move, hands flared out as if ready to catch him, touch him, if needed. His quiver and bow were set against the side, within reach but not an immediate danger, and he didn't even try to hide the sigh of contentment when his weight was finally off of his bad leg.
Sitwell leaned forward, arms braced atop his knees and not waiting for the others to situate themselves before he began, "Agent Barton had been spotted two days ago. He obfuscated the severity of his resulting injury and altered his position accordingly. The man who spotted him reported in to the mark, but they were unable to relocate him."
"You knew where he was when we asked," Steve accused, but Jasper shook his head.
"We suspected, but were unable to confirm as someone decided radio silence was a must." He glared at Barton, but didn't go beyond chastising him as the last time the agent had insisted on such a thing, it had proved vitally necessary to the survival of both him and to the other three team members he had been protecting. Instead, he continued, "We confirmed his position and executed an extraction, but it was decided to keep this action quiet for security reasons."
This time, it was Tony who interrupted, letting his anger get the better of him. "What possible security reasons could you have? His face was plastered on damn near every television screen, you knew we were actively trying to find out what the hell happened, and you chose to keep us in the dark!"
To give him credit, Sitwell barely flinched from the outburst. "The man who spotted Agent Barton likely positively identified him from those same reports. Considering the mistaken identity was helping to keep any possible assassins at bay as much as James' own team and the Avengers' reputation for seeking retribution for any harm to their own, Fury made the call until further security measures could be put in place."
Bruce asked, "James?" at the same time Clint sighed, "Fuck, Billy?"
Sitwell opened his mouth to continue, but was beaten to the punch by Barton's rushed, "Since this is going to take forever and he still won't get to the point, JARVIS, please explain why the hell my team thought I was a goner and what the fuck one Mr. William James got himself into this time." He leaned back against the cushions, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo across his biceps, both pissed and exasperated at the same time, and waited.
There was a pause, a hesitation that only Tony himself likely noticed as JARViS questioned the order. A pause that ended when he subtly nodded to authorize it.
A screen appeared before them with an updated version of the previous news report, the image of the supposedly named William James being carted away on a gurney, white cloth draped over him doing nothing to hide the mass quantities of blood seeping out and leaving a trail more clearly than the wheels in the sand. Beside it, a second screen appeared with the name and rank of one Sergeant First Class William James of some Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit, and his current station in the same Middle Eastern country where Barton himself was believed to have been dispatched to, or at least pretty damn close. It listed his commendations and achievements as well as his disciplinary reports and provided a picture that damn well could have been Barton save for the slight size difference, sun-hardened skin, and close cropped hair.
"And James is?" Bruce prompted while everyone else seemed to still take everything in.
"My cousin," Clint replied. It was immediately followed by, "And don't sing the damned song, Stark." He sighed, eyes not focused on the military record, but the news footage instead. "We barely knew each other growing up and have happened across each other a few times in recent years. He's a smartass adrenaline junky who happens to be damned good at his job. He takes risks and they usually pay off. This time..."
Tony could not resist humming a few bars of the Patty Duke theme song at the admission, which earned him a flip of the bird from Barton. The action showed tiny slices along his forearm though, a bruise blooming across the back of his wrist, facts not missed by any of his teammates.
Natasha slid to her knees at his side and bodily grabbed that arm, fingers tracing the thin red lines, pressing where they crossed vital veins and arteries. "It wasn't you," she said, more to herself than anyone else.
Her hands drifted to the bandaged leg, but he gripped her fingers in his own before she could investigate further. "No, Tasha, it wasn't me," he confirmed. He glanced down at her before he looked at the screens again, and then to the senior agent at his side. "Billy had a kid, a wife that may or may not be ex at this point." It wasn't phrased as a question, but there was a request hidden beneath the words.
"They will be provided for," Sitwell promised. He then amended that to, "He will be provided for as well." Off the questioning look he received, he explained, "The media has an image of him and has tied that image to your name. Even if he makes it out of that hospital in something less than a wheelchair, someone out there is going to think he's you. He's a target, and they will go after him accordingly."
"And SHIELD?" Clint prompted. His tone was short, worry evident in his eyes, but Tony couldn't tell if it was the thought of the guy who thankfully wasn't actually him ending up possibly permanently out of commission, or that he would now be even more at risk solely because of his familial connection.
"Will provide medical treatment and equipment as needed, as well as a job offer to keep him close and guarded," Sitwell confirmed.
Clint shook his head, lips quirked slightly but devoid of humor. "Billy will never settle for a desk job, no matter how he ends up. He can't function in suburbia let alone an office."
"Oddly enough, even SHIELD desk jobs tend to offer enough for your standard adrenaline junky," Jasper deadpanned, reminding Tony why he didn't hate the guy.
Clint scoffed, but the smirk changed slightly. "You try selling that to him."
"Won't have to, you will," Sitwell replied blandly. "Once he is safely back in the States, which should be sometime in the next forty-two to fifty-eight hours, you will publicly walk out of this Tower and go visit him. Of course, no one will know where you are going and no one will know where he has been moved, but it should work to dispel any rumors of your imminent demise as well as cause the media to start another round of questioning just what sort of tech we have at our disposal and then focus on yet another campaign to get us to share. You might want to work on covering that limp though, if you want to help sell the story."
"You have this all worked out, don't you?" Clint sighed. He stretched out his bad leg, Natasha subtly shifting to give him space to do so.
"Well, except for the part where SHIELD had your entire team convinced you blew yourself to hell and gone and refused to tell us a damned thing and then expected absolutely no retribution," Tony cut in. He smiled in Sitwell's direction, all teeth. "That one is going to come back and bite you, in case anyone was wondering."
Sitwell tilted his head to the side, considering. "It was not my call to make," he shrugged. "If it had been, most everything would have gone down the same, but the team would have either been kept in the loop or given enough assurances to both hint at the truth and let you know why you had to stand down."
"We probably wouldn't have stood down, not completely," Steve admitted, and absolutely no one seemed surprised or even tried to deny such a thing. More than a single team member still watched the now silent footage on repeat, eyes drifting to a certain someone on the couch at random intervals.
Tony clapped his hands together, the sound serving both to jolt him out of the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him now that he knew everyone was not quite safe but at least accounted for and call attention to himself at the same time. "So, food, drink, plotting against Fury and whoever shot at your cousin, identical cousin yes indeed - how does that sound to everyone?"
"Work a hot shower and a soft pillow in there and I'm on board," Barton agreed before giving in to a yawn.
Sitwell stayed for the food but left for the planning, citing plausible deniability as a reason. No one mentioned how tired he looked, or how he happened to leave a file about Barton's truncated mission behind. As for the team, they ate, they talked, they plotted and they planned and, if they all happened to crowd just a little too close, or brush up against a recently returned archer just a little more often than usual, well, no one mentioned that either.
End.
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