The Nikki Wolf Chronicles || Avengers

CHAPTER (18) EIGHTEEN

He's never told anyone why he's quit, but anyone who knows the story could put two and two together. There had been a hostage attack on his last mission. His detail was to go in with other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and get the captured agents back to base.

The plan went incredibly awry when a double agent took a gun and put it to Clint's head. The smell of propane permeated into his senses, fogging his mind. He had quickly knocked the gun out of the man's hand, punched him in the nose, and got all the agents out safely.

When he saw the bullets of the traitor start flying, killing random any ones, Clint had shot his last arrow at the man. It had had an exploding tip, and the blow set the whole building alight.

Clint tries to shake away the screams he hears in his head, as if he's still there. The screams of the regular people, who were trapped in the basement. He hadn't even thought of checking for anyone else, and the sounds of men and women cast an everlasting scar.

No one else had made it out alive, and eight of the agents had suffered from near fatal injuries.

The trauma had made him back out of S.H.I.E.L.D. quickly, trying to put the pain aside. He had become a waiter to force himself to focus on different work. He's never forgotten the incident, especially because of all the families that come in to eat at the restaurant. No, he hasn't forgotten, and he blames himself 100% for what happened to all the victims after he and his team got to the scene.

Being thrown back from the boom at the shiny, marble stone construction doesn't help the matter. Even now, he wishes his own afflictions to be worse, so he can at least understand the physical pain of his body that those eight surviving victims went through, and the emotional pain he brought to all the people who lost someone that day.

Clint feels Natasha's hands cup his face, and she shakes his head a bit. He realizes he'd gotten lost in his thoughts, and he grins up at her. All too soon, another frown splits his features apart. He'd just begun to think of Budapest, and what Natasha doesn't remember.

"How you doin', Barton?" she asks, concern and affection prominent. They cut through his thoughts, and he gives a one shoulder shrug.

"Got all the bad stuff out of my body, I think," he says, pointing to his throat. "And my boo-boos are okay." He manages a laugh. "I wish I had a mother to kiss them better, though, huh?" Chuckling lightly, Natasha half-heartily smiles.

Agent Romanoff sits down next to him on the firm mattress, and they playfully push each other back and forth. After over four years of not seeing each other, the change is drastic and new, but readily accepted.

"How about you, Nat?"

"Never better..." She looks to him to see his eyes trained on her face, scanning over her lips, cheeks, hair, and finally settling on her eyes. She doesn't look away.

"It's so great to see you all, again," he says, and Natasha shivers.

"You know what Tony calls us?" She hadn't meant to bring it up, but there'd been a time where they kept very little away from each other. She isn't about to give that away.

"What's that?" She watches him smirk, and she has to tell herself not to laugh before the punchline's out.

"Blackeye." He lets out a sweet chiming of laughter as he thinks it over.

"People still believe in us?"

"I'm not sure they really ever forgot," she replies quietly. Clint wants to reach out and take Natasha's hand. She looks uptight and a bit nerved, and he hates to see her like this. But, he doesn't. Natasha has always been an independent woman.

"How very fitting. Ironic, and cute. Blackeye..."

"I like it better when you say it," she admits, "Not Tony." He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, the silk red moving away to show her face in all its entirety.

"I like it better when you smile," he whispers.

--- --- ---

Thor is still bummed out from his stupidity earlier, and Bruce tries to explain to him that he was just acting on impulse, that Clint's okay, and that he doesn't need to beat himself up over it. Meanwhile, Tony and Steve wolf down the rest of their meal.

"I don't think I'll ever get over how great this time period's food is," Steve says, finishing off his last bite.

"Just makes you want to dance, doesn't it?" Thor says, thinking of how much he likes Earth's food, too. Steve stiffens up and Tony shoots Thor an accusing look, but he doesn't understand why. Steve gets up, declares he's going to grab some sleep too, and takes off.

After a second, Tony says, "Right before Steve went and took an ice bath, he and his girl had made a date to go dancing. She's dead now, but my pop always told me how strong she held herself with Steve gone. Him and Peggy would've been perfect for each other."

Thor groans. "I just keep messing up."

"As much as I love talking about the past, I think we should focus on what Nikki was able to tell us. About the, ah, 'robots' for lack of better words. Machines," Bruce says. "Have you ever heard anything like it, Tony?"

Tony has seen a lot of futuristic things, both from his own creations, and his father's. Not to mention it's now 2018. He's never even heard a peep about animal droids being so perfectly made that each detail of a live lion shows through. He had seen the saliva fly from the lion's gullet, the smell of its breath, and the muscle definition.

Same goes for the Jenkins-bot, with different relative points.

"I'm not sure what to do with the information," Tony says truthfully, mulling the thought around in his head. Every once in a while, he's struck with something so peculiar, he can't wrap an explanation around it for awhile. This is one of those times.

He never likes to admit this, out loud or to himself. It's hard for him to do, but he knows it's necessary. This time, he can't pull things out of thin air to communicate a message he's made up. He has to find the reason and know it. As for the loud music playing, he thinks that was just a key of distraction. Unless he finds something more out, the bass doesn't connect in any way to anything.

"The bomb that was triggered. Do you think that means there were scents we would've been able to follow, had we gotten in safely?"

"I don't know, Tony... That's my best guess, but that's all it is-- a guess. Not even an educated one. A hunch-guess," Bruce rambles, frustrated with not having anything to grasp but the one metaphorical rock he clings to now, hanging from a cliff.

Thor says, "Or it's all just another trap. A distraction within a distraction-- the first diversion being checking to look for clues in the beginning. Then, the explosives to make us think there's something in there."

"If that's the case, then we have nothing to help us to the next clue."

"We are super heroes, not mystery detectives," Tony cuts in, although he thinks, I guess we're a little bit of both. "We just haven't had the right idea, yet."

"Maybe my brother has nothing to do with this," Thor puts in, hopefully. He's cut down with a, "Fat chance," retort from Tony.

"Loki... Loki put Agent Matt Wolf into that weird transfixture. Like he did with Clint and Erik Selvig. He utilized Matthew's ability to persuade," Tony starts, feeling the ideas boil. Bruce begins to catch on, but Thor still wants to believe that his brother isn't involved-- after all, the last he knows is that Loki is still trapped in the Isle of Silence.

"Matthew convinced others. He could've done something to allow those people to persuade others. And then it all branches off in a never ending tree. All the branches spread out," Bruce continues.

Thor says nothing, defeated, but still believing his brother has had a change of heart while exiled. Tony frowns as well, but says, "That's going to be a lot of people for Black Widow to fix with a blow to the head."