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Brothers in Arms	By : trudyw000 Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 2931 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, the Avengers or Avengers Assemble. I make no money from this work.

Chapter List
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Chapter 2
Tony and Steve picked their way through the devastated lower levels of the helicarrier. They were worried about their friend. Steve had been searching the ship for hours, he'd covered the behemoth from top to bottom with no sign of the missing man.
It wasn't like Clint to walk away and leave a job unfinished but that appeared to be exactly what he had done that morning. No-one begrudged him the time, he'd been working double and triple shifts, only taking a few hours out to sleep when he could no longer stand or if someone, usually the Widow dragged him off and physically forced him to lie down. Of course, as tired as he was, as soon as someone did force him horizontal sleep hit him hard and he was out like a light, at least until the nightmares came and pulled him back from the sandman's embrace.
Steve had heard the nightmares, he thought that all of the team had but no-one was talking about it, least of all Clint himself. He tried to keep watch over all the team, he was a mother-hen, there was no denying it and things had been hard for all of them, but it had to be hardest for the Hawk. Barton had killed people whilst under Loki's influence, good agents that he had worked with in the past, agents whose friends and colleagues he would have to work with again in the future.   Add to that the death of Phil Coulson, his long time handler and friend, and Steve knew that Clint had a lot to deal with. The problem was he didn't seem to be dealing with it.
Steve had tried to keep a special eye on Clint, and he knew that Fury had men assigned to watch him as well. They all knew the influence that Loki had wielded but Fury didn't trust easily and he needed to know that there were no lingering after-effects of the mischief gods meddling. Steve thought that if Clint were to show some outward sign of the turmoil that had to be raging inside him then that might make it easier for Fury to move forward but Clint wasn't that man. From things that Natasha had let slip, intentionally he assumed, that woman never said or did anything that hadn't been calculated six ways from Sunday, he knew that Clint was actually a very private individual. He kept everything bottled up inside whilst showing an open, confident mask to the world.
It had been lunch time when Steve had gone to find Clint, intending to drag the other man to the mess hall and ensure that he ate a decent meal. But when he got to the area where Clint should have been working the foreman had told him that he'd disappeared mid-morning, just after Joe took his swan-dive through the hole in the hull. He'd just assumed that Clint had been called away on Avengers business, it wouldn't have been the first time.
At first Steve had just shrugged it off and left but the more he thought about it the more he was sure that nothing had come up that morning that required urgent input from Clint, he checked around discreetly and wasn't surprised when soon he confirmed his suspicions. No-one had requested Clint's help and no-one knew where he was. With his concern now seriously aroused Steve had started to search in earnest, starting with the highest parts of the ship, Clint wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing, the man had a serious obsession with altitude!
Around five that evening he had run into Tony, out of the suit and heading for his lab for a little down-time. Nonchalantly he'd asked if Tony had seen Clint, but apparently it hadn't been nonchalantly enough and Tony had quickly caught on to his concern and wormed the entire story out of him. It was he who had suggested that if Clint hadn't gone high, then maybe he'd gone low. There were plenty of places to hide in the lower hull, places that the work-crews hadn't even begun to repair yet.
Grabbing a couple of torches they had made their way down into the bowels of the ship and starting at the stern had commenced the search. It had taken them two hours to get this far, Steve estimated they were probably somewhere amid-ships by now. Throughout the search Tony had regaled him with various tales of daring-do.   The story of his gallant rescue of the hapless Joe had occupied the first half-hour, after that the conversation had ranged over many subjects from Tony's adventures in the Iron-man suit to his prowess in the board room to his genius in the lab. In fact come to think of it it hadn't been so much a conversation as a monologue on the brilliance that is Tony Stark, gee that man could talk!
Steve had long ago tuned out the voice of his companion, paying only enough attention to throw in the odd word of agreement or encouragement as required. In fact it had taken him a moment or two to notice that the voice had stopped! Looking up sharply from the pile of debris that was currently blocking his path Steve saw that Tony was staring intently away, down the twisted remains of the corridor they were searching. Following the light from Tony's torch Steve squinted, was that movement he saw?
Yes it was, covered in soot from head to foot, face split with a wide grin, there walking towards them was the very man that Steve had just spent seven hours searching for.
"Hey, what are you guys doing down here?" came the cheerful greeting and in that moment Steve nearly lost it. He was normally a patient man but just now he was tired, hungry and filthy, all that along with the natural relief at seeing his friend apparently fine and unhurt resulted in a sudden backlash of emotion. The angry retort on the tip of his tongue was bitten off short though as Tony beat him to the reply, "just a little reconnaissance, we're hoping to get the repair crews working down here sometime in the next week."
Why was Tony lying? It wasn't like him, he was far more likely to tease someone mercilessly than to tell little white lies to spare their feelings. He's surely love to rib Clint about the time they had spent searching for him whilst he apparently took a quiet stroll though the depths of the ship.
Then he realised why, Clint had reached them now and Steve was shocked at his appearance in the combined light of their torches. From a distance the wide grin had been the only thing he had really seen, white teeth practically glowing in his soot-streaked face, up close the puffy, red-rimmed eyes told a different story. Had Clint been crying?
"OK, well, I'll leave you to it," and Clint tried to squeeze his way past the two men who had moved together as he approached.
"Nah, that's alright, I think we've done enough for today" Tony replied and slinging an arm around Clint's shoulders he headed back the way they had come, taking the other man with him. Steve followed along behind, his thoughts in turmoil as he listened to the easy banter between the two men in front of him.
Steve had spent a lot of time people watching in his youth, that tended to happen when you were too weak, too scrawny and too sickly to be included in the activities that occupied your contemporaries. With all the practice he'd gotten pretty good at reading people over the years, when his temper didn't get in the way that was. Of course it helped that although attitudes had changed in the time he'd been frozen, at heart human beings were still the same creatures they had always been.
Now as he trailed along behind the other two his eyes were on Clint's back and he was listening to their conversation intently. The light, flippant back and forth was totally at odds with the stress and tension that he could see in the broad shoulders before him. As he followed he saw Clint's hands clenching into fists and releasing repeatedly, tension rippled from the man in waves but Tony seemed completely oblivious and simply steered them back up to the occupied levels by the most direct route.
When they reached a lighted corridor once more Clint seemed to try to break away from Tony's arm which was still loosely slung around his shoulders. However apparently the hold wasn't that loose, Tony showed no sign of noticing Clint's desire to break away and he continued undeterred on his own path. It seemed Clint didn't want to make a fuss because he didn't push it and gave up on trying to break away, gave up far too easily in Steve's opinion.
As he followed along behind Steve wasn't paying any attention to where they were going, all the corridors within the gigantic metal vessel looked pretty much the same to him anyway and it wasn't until Tony hit the control to open a door that Steve realised where they were. As the door opened the staggering opulence revealed could mean only one thing, Tony's private quarters. If the sumptuous furnishings, installed at Tony's own very great expense and to Fury's even greater disgust weren't enough then the beautiful strawberry blonde reclining on the couch would have confirmed their location.
"Hi Pepper," Tony called out cheerily as he steered Clint into the room.
"Hello Miss Potts" Steve greeted the woman quietly, flushing slightly as she uncoiled gracefully from her position, gathering up the papers she had been working on.
"Tony, Clint, Steve" she greeted the three men casually, "I can see you're going to be busy this evening, I'll see you tomorrow. And with that she moved towards the door, carefully skirting the three men in the tight space, unwilling to transfer any of the filth that covered them to herself.
"Thanks babe" was Tony's only reply as he manoeuvred Clint further into the room.
Steve merely nodded as Pepper passed by him on her way out but at the door she turned back to him for a moment, "and Steve, it's Pepper, remember?"
Steve ducked his head briefly and when he looked up again she was gone. Miss Potts... Pepper was so different from the women of his own time he was often at a loss as to how to interact with her. She never did anything to make him uncomfortable but society seemed so much more relaxed these days and it was taking time for him to adjust.
"Right Clint, shower's through there, off you go." Tony's tone allowed no option of refusal and a strangely silent Clint simply walked through the indicated door and moments later they heard the sound of water.
Steve fidgeted slightly, not quite sure what Tony had in mind, he was surprised by his disappointment when Tony waved a careless hand at the door back to the corridor, "well, off you go!" He bit down on his hurt at the sudden dismissal. Tony would take care of Clint, Steve wasn't needed.
"I've only got two showers in this place, you'll have to clean up in your own room, unless you want to share?" the last was said with a lascivious wink that would have seriously flustered Steve at any other time. Now however he was simply overwhelmingly grateful that he wasn't being dismissed after all and the words barely registered, the next ones though did register, pulling him attention sharply back to the matter at hand.
"Don't take too long, this has gone on long enough. We've tried your insanely repressed 'Forties man', 'leave him work it out himself' way and it's not working, now we do this my way!"
Steve felt the irritation that Tony aroused in him so easily surging forward now, "Oh, and your way being?"
Tony grabbed up the full bottle of Scotch standing on the sideboard behind him and hefted it above his head, but not too high, the ceilings in this part of the ship were pretty low, almost enough to make one feel somewhat claustrophobic.
"My way!" he reiterated, "now get a move on, I don't know how long he'll be in there and I need to get cleaned up too."
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Brothers in Arms