THINKING OUT LOUD || Avengers

-)Thirty One: A New Captain(-

"Anything from your level?"

"Not an overpriced paperweight out of place. You?"

"Nada."

Clint Barton sighed. Of course- of course- Avengers Tower was empty. It was stupid to think, even for a moment, that they would find a teenage girl in a red beanie sat on the floor with her legs crossed, waiting for them. Steve still had the note, Clint didn't think the thing had left his hand the entire flight from the farm.

Something happened. Meet you at home. If the world ends, I'm sorry.

She could have run away. If that was the case, then she had left Clint's children in town with no supervision and a handful of cash. So why did the alternative frighten him so much more?

The alternative being that HYDRA had found her. Found her and taken her off to some laboratory or prison, where they would pull every piece of information they could gather for her skull and then kill her.

Daniella Atteberry, who had somehow crept out of Stark Tower undetected, all to find and save Iron Man. Daniella Atteberry, who loved Steve Roger's terrible cooking, and whose proudest accomplishment in life was beating Falcon on Mario Kart, who hated lying so much that a magic rock made it impossible, who hid her musical genius, who made diagrams out of string to explain things she didn't understand. Daniella Atteberry, the detective, the double agent, the virtuoso, the insane, the optimistic, the brightest smile in the room. 

Nat and Clint regrouped in a corridor just off the lounge, the drop in mood palpable. Nat's whole posture was taught.

"Still nothing?" Clint asked, hope not even bothering to make an appearance on his face.

She shook her head, "She's not here."

"I still do not understand why we cannot simply ask the overlord of this facility." Thor chipped in over the coms, "FRIDAY, was it?"

"FRIDAY's AI, not an overlord." Tony corrected, "And the Squirt's already made a hatrick out of getting past her. It's not reliable."

Nat was frowning.

Clint stopped the others before they had the chance to get into another argument, "Guys, Nat's just had an idea. She has her idea face on."

"Shut up, Barton." Nat ordered, "Steve, read me that note again."

"Something happened. Meet you at home. If the world ends, I'm sorry."

"She's giving us a message." Nat said, "She's trying to tell us where she is."

Tony made a noise, "Yeah, but she's not here."

Almost as if some of Dan's telepathy had rubbed off on them, Clint caught the idea from Nat.

"Dan said 'home'." Clint elaborated, "She wasn't talking about the Tower."

"What?" Tony sounded doubtful, "England?"

Steve wasn't quite as quick to dismiss the theory, "Why not? It's where she was raised."

"Yeah, and brainwashed and tortured into becoming HYDRA canonfodder."

"Hey," Nat volunteered, "Home's home."

None of them even entertained the idea that Dani was leading them into a trap. She was Dani. A trap was bad. The two ideas were totally incompatible.

It was Steve who finally acknowledged that this was the theory they were going to trust,"Stark, pull back to the lab. See if you can find anything on that list of HYDRA bases that sounds right. The rest of you, go to sleep. We have a long flight, and we're gonna need to spend as much of it survailing as possible."