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Clint shifted and resisted the urge to sigh. He was supposed to be thinking of nothing, that had been the point of coming to hide in Stark’s tower, but it wasn’t helping. The results of his numerous evaluations were going to be gathered and given to Fury today. Clint checked the time. It had probably just happened. It’d take Fury about two seconds to decide to pull Clint from the Avengers and the field completely.
Clint peeked over the edge of his perch as a storm of cursing drifted up to him. “What are you doing?”
Tony lifted his head to look up at Clint. “Testing. What’s it look like to you?”
Clint cocked his head. Tony was clinging to the smooth wall of the shaft with his toes and was roaming his hands over the surface of the wall. “Looks like you are defying gravity.”
“Hah!” Tony planted his toes higher up and pushed himself up the wall. “I thought about just giving you repulsors, but it’d be too hard to balance yourself and shot arrows at the same time. So, then I got to thinking that you needed to be able to lean out from a wall and shot instead of that grappling hook thing that looked like it really hurt.”
Clint blinked and reached down to haul Tony in as he got in range. “How did you see that? You were busy.”
“Youtube. You wouldn’t believe the amount of video that got taken.” Tony flopped on his back in the bottom of Clint’s nest and panted. He held up a tablet he pulled from under his shirt after a minute. “Here, see what you think.”
Clint frowned as he found a quiver design on the tablet instead of what Tony had been babbling about. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
Tony sat up and took the tablet back. “I have no idea how the hell you manage to climb up and down so much. That sucked.” He tapped a few things and held the tablet back out. “The modifications.”
Clint looked them over and stared. They had to be based off his current quiver. “How’d you...No. Not asking that.” He poked at the screen and the arrow making unit burst into the component parts layout. “A quiver that makes arrows?”
“Well, more or less. It would house a 3-D printer and the raw materials in it, and then the shaft would be hardened as it was extruded...” Tony shook his head and pulled the tablet from Clint’s hand. “Look that isn’t important. It’ll weigh about sixteen pounds until it started using the base material for arrows up enough to start becoming lighter.” He grimaced. “We’re stuck at an arrow every five seconds right now. It doesn’t hardened properly without that time. Maybe two cores side by side...” He started tapping again.
Clint sat back and just watched Tony work. It was better than where his mind kept trying to make him go in his memories. And he wasn’t going to do anything he didn’t want to right now. Not even for his own thoughts. Tony started peeking at him from the corner of his eye and Clint frowned. “Why not just call me to come down?”
“You would have just ignored everyone.” Tony shrugged and held the tablet back out. “What about now?”
Clint looked it over. “Just the arrows? Arrowheads?”
Tony snatched the tablet back. “You’d have to settle for a selection of narrow and broad. I don’t know what you’d call them. Barbed? I think we can do those too. The fancy stuff you’d have to load beforehand.”
“Stark, what are you doing this for? I’m going to be pulled permanently anyway.”
That didn’t even faze the man. Tony flicked something on the tablet screen. “Then you’ll come work for me and we’ll make you a consultant Avenger. I don’t care.”
Clint gaped at him. He pulled the tablet away from Tony and leaned forward. “I killed people! They aren’t going to just write that off in a cost-benefit kind of way.”
Tony folded his arms and raised his chin just a little. “You?” He narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t do anything except get too close to Loki while trying to stop him.”
Clint flinched and pushed himself back against the wall of his nest with his foot. “Who the hell do you think attacked the Helicarrier? Someone else with an explosive arrowhead and a group of killers?”
“Loki.” Tony stared at Clint gaping at him for a moment. “Look, you’ve heard of botnets before, right?”
Snapping his mouth closed with a click of teeth, Clint nodded.
Tony brightened. “Are the infected computers’ owners to blame if the botnet attacks a bank? Did the owner of the infected computer mean to attack the bank?”
“Well, no...”
“No. So, they needed a virus wiper or better defences, but Loki...He had something that is the best encryption cracker ever. He got past your firewalls and spread a virus that turned you into a botnet computer. You were just the owner.” Tony picked at his t-shirt where the glow of the arc reactor showed through. “You didn’t have a say.” He looked up at Clint. “He didn’t give you a chance to even defy him. Don’t give me fucking crap that you did all that.”
Clint blinked as he tried to control his suddenly uneven breathing. “Huh.”
“You need to thank Bruce. He’s the reason I think we can even manage this in under thirty pounds. Also, you need to try these gecko toe shoes and see if you can lean away from a wall in them. I don’t have good enough balance to feel confident I won’t land on my head. My brain gets enough abuse without just handing it chances.” Tony grinned and looked over the side of the nest. He frowned. “Uhm. How do I get down?”
Clint burst into laughter. If it had a slight hysterical edge to it, Tony was too busy bitching about not bringing his suit to comment.
****
Tony sighed as he flopped down next to Bruce on the couch. Steve was asleep with a sketchbook falling from his lap in the armchair across the room. “He’s out?”
Bruce glanced up and pushed his glass further up on his nose. “Looks like it. He’s not been sleeping well if the number of times we run across each other in the kitchen at night is any indication.”
“Huh.” Tony rubbed at his ribs where he’d pissed off things getting up to Clint’s nest. “Fury says Barton isn’t allowed to go to the memorials they are going to start having at the end of the week.”
Bruce frowned and looked back down at the journal he was reading. “Maybe that would be better?”
“How exactly is it better? Barton needs to be able to grieve, doesn’t he? Mental health and all that shit.” Tony pushed his tablet onto Bruce’s scientific journal. “Here. See what he did to the balance. I don’t know that I can fit in fletchings without fucking the weight distribution in the middle of the lifecycle of the quiver.”
Bruce sighed and extracted his journal from under the tablet. He marked his place, sat the journal off to the side, and looked over the quiver’s design. “Everyone else needs to grieve too, Tony.”
With a grunt, Tony got up to make himself a drink. He didn’t bother to ask if Bruce wanted one. Tony looked at Steve as he came back over to sit next to Bruce again. “It amazes me that he can sleep through anything that doesn’t say his name or shoot at him.”
“That’s what soldiers get good at. Or they never sleep.” Bruce frowned. “What are you planning, Tony?”
Tony quit tapping the edge of his arc reactor with his thumb. “Planning? Me? Nothing. I’m good.”
Bruce snorted and modified the weight distribution. “What about this?”
Making grabby hands at the tablet, Tony grinned as he looked over the new modifications. “That might work.” He looked up at Bruce. “What if Barton could be there, but no one else knew?”
“What are you thinking?”
“He really just needs to see it, right? Why not just put him up high, with comms and leave his side on mute. He could text us anything he needed.”
“Huh.” Bruce thought about it. “Someone would notice him eventually.”
“Cloaking panel.” Tony grinned. “I’ll see if I can get Fury to hate my other idea enough to agree to this as the compromise.”
Bruce blinked. “I don’t even want to know what your other idea is.”
Tony stood up as his phone beeped at him. “That reminds me. Gotta work on something. Later.”
****
Watching him go, Bruce missed Steve moving and jumped as Steve took the tablet from him.
“Sorry, Dr. Banner.”
Bruce controlled his breathing and glanced at Steve, who was looking at the quiver design. He knew better than to try to tell Steve not to apologize for startling him. “You seem more at ease with tablets.” He gestured towards Steve’s hands.
“Yes. Pepper showed me you can sketch with them and it’ll save everything in order so you can undo it if you foul up.” Steve smiled. “JARVIS was kind enough to print some of them for me.”
Bruce smiled. “Tony thinks he needs to make everyone’s equipment better.”
Steve tilted the tablet. “Howard used to be eager about everything he made. He just wanted someone to like it. To like him because of it.”
“Don’t tell Tony that.”
With a frown, Steve handed the tablet back. “He doesn’t want to talk to me, so I doubt I’ll get the chance. Even if I didn’t know he hates Howard.”
Bruce nodded towards the armchair. “Is that why you were pretending to sleep?”
Steve sighed. “Thanks for not finking on me. I just didn’t feel like a fight, you know?”
With a small smile, Bruce picked up his journal. “I do know.”
****
Tony took his time with the modifications to the service elevator shaft. He needed to be sure it’d work like he envisioned. The blast doors at the bottom of the shaft had been the bitchy part. With one last check that everything was going to do what he intended, Tony went looking for Barton.
“You liking it up there?” Tony settled onto a bar chair and looked up at Clint.
“You modded these in didn’t you?” Clint swung down from the small corner perch and settled on the counter near Tony.
“Well, I might have decided the more air shafts supporting heavier weight and elevated nests in the tower the more at home you and Romanoff will feel.” Tony shrugged as he reached for a bottle of scotch. “I have a job for you. Well, more like something to remember to do if we ever get attacked by the Army.”
“What?” Clint snagged the bottle from Tony’s hand. “Attacked?”
Tony pulled on the bottle until Clint relinquished it. “I am in the middle of a Congressional level argument about Bruce with an bunch of Army assholes. If I lose, which I won’t, mind you...” Tony poured himself a drink. “In case something happens I need you to get Bruce out.” Tony threw back his drink and smacked his lips as he stood up. “I’ll show you where I installed a Hulk-sized escape route.”
“Why me?” Clint followed because it was easier than arguing with Stark about anything.
Tony flicked a panel open and pushed a sequence of buttons. “I know you’ll go because I asked you to make sure he gets out safely. That he isn’t made to lose his choices.” The wall beside Tony opened up.
Clint blinked several times before leaning out to look down the shaft Tony had revealed. “Shit.”
“Used to be a service elevator. Well, still is, sort of. In an emergency the car will fold into the side of the shaft and leave you guys plenty of room to go down.” Tony looked it over before smacking a button to close it up. “The only floors with access in an emergency are whichever floors you and Bruce are on.”
“Even if the power is out?”
Tony shrugged. “Bio-locks. They have local power so they’ll open once or twice without any power from the main lines. Same goes for the elevator car for folding up.”
Clint looked from the wall, with a picture hanging there sedately, back to Tony who was fidgeting with the panel cover. “I’d be honored to keep him safe for you.”
Tony smiled and it lit everything up like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Excellent. Wait until I tell Bruce about the whole thing.” Tony turned and headed down the hall.
Clint hurried after him. “Wait! You mean you haven’t told him anything?”
****
Bruce leaned out to look down what usually was an elevator shaft. “I don’t know about this, Tony.”
“Sure you do.” Tony poked him in the side. “Practice drills. You understand the need to be prepared. I know Pepper will make the Army Generals cry for their mommies, but in the meantime I’d like to know that this really will work.”
Clint slapped Tony on the shoulder. “Way to be reassuring there, Stark.” He leaned against the wall on the other side of Bruce from Tony. “Think of it as a mini-vacation, Doc.”
Bruce sighed. “That is even worse.” He looked down again. “I don’t see why you think bringing the other guy out just for this is a good idea.”
“Seriously? Testing that the blast doors at the bottom of the shaft will close after the Hulk actually requires him to be there.”
“No. Find some other way.” Bruce shook his head and starting back up.
Tony turned and he looked like someone had kicked him. “Look, five minutes. Okay? I just need to be certain this will work.”
Bruce took his glasses off and stared down at them for several long moments. “You are planning something, Tony.”
“Aren’t I always?” Tony grinned his for-the-media smile and pointed at them both.
Patting Bruce on the arm, Clint motioned towards the elevator shaft. “I’ll follow you.”
Bruce started shaking his head again. “Oh, no. No. Tony, I can’t just...No.” He backed up to the opposite wall and slid down to sit on the floor. “No.”
Tony touched a control and the panel slid shut. “Okay, okay.” He crouched in front of Bruce. “I’m not trying to make you. It can wait for an actual emergency to test it, Bruce.” He stood back up and sighed as he looked to the closed wall panel then down at Bruce. “Sorry.”
****
Clint watched silently as Tony walked away. Then he settled onto the floor across from Bruce. “He is trying to help you.”
Bruce took a deep breathe. “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” He leaned his head back. “Agent Romanoff was nearly killed because she made the other guy mad. You just want to follow him into an enclosed space?”
Clint shrugged. “I told Tony I’d make sure you got out safely. He needs that certainty.” Clint jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the now hidden elevator shaft. “If this is what makes him feel safer than we might as well live with it.”
“Way to be reassuring, Agent Barton.”
“Clint.” He held out his hand. “My name is Clint.”
Bruce stared at Clint’s hand and then up at his face. “Huh.” They shook hands. “Clint.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He stretched his legs out. “If it makes you feel better I think Stark is trying to convince me he trusts me after the whole thing with Loki.”
“Not really feeling better, no.” Bruce rubbed at his temples. “What do you remember about that?”
Clint took a ragged breath. “I was locked in.” He rubbed the callouses on his normal pull hand. “You’ve read about the people who can’t do anything but blink their eyes? They are in there, but stuck?”
Bruce nodded.
“I couldn’t even blink.” He closed his eyes. “I got a bunch of people killed and Stark says it wasn’t my fault because I was the owner of a computer in a botnet.”
“Huh.” Bruce touched the bottom of Clint’s foot with his toe. “Maybe you should listen to him. Tony’s a smart guy sometimes.”
Clint snorted. “Yeah. You should listen to him sometimes too.”
Bruce smiled faintly. “Yeah, sometimes.”
****