Chapter Text
It wasn't going to top anyone's list of good ideas, but since that tended to happen fairly frequently--them being stuck with really lousy choices--nobody wasted too much time on arguing. All the available intel pointed to the fact that the last five “incidents” involving nuclear components could be linked back to a single man, a former theoretical physicist who’d quietly dropped out sight just as several of his less, er, mainstream views concerning the not-so-theoretical testing of nuclear material in populated areas came to the public’s attention.
“He’s getting more confident,” Fury said. “Everything has been going his way and he’s coming out of his bunker for the first time in years to attend this conference.” That part was fine. The not-so-fine part started when the only person SHIELD could get on the inside on the short notice they had turned out to be Bruce. It made sense: it was a conference on sub-atomic particle physics and Bruce definitely had the credentials, but… Fury was polite about it, telling Bruce he wouldn't like it even if the Other Guy hadn't been a factor, but the fact remained that the Other Guy was always there.
"Sending civilians in always makes his eye twitch," Clint offered in the elevator on the way back down from Fury's office. “And you know, that just gives him a migraine.” He gave a startlingly good impression of Fury scowling and rubbing at his temples. Natasha sighed and elbowed him in the side, but Clint looked fairly unrepentant and Bruce had to admit that it had broken the tension between the three of them. Given that they were the team, with Agent Hill running the show from the command center, Bruce also had to admit that the less tension there was between them, the better.
Plus, it was kind of funny. Bruce didn't tell Natasha that, though.
All three agents were all incredibly professional and had obviously done this more than once, but to Bruce’s surprise, it was Clint doing most of the talking, walking Bruce through the different levels of Tony’s latest-and-greatest comm system (the team generally didn’t bother with fitting Bruce for anything when they were going into a situation as the Other Guy tended to take a dim view of unseen people talking to him) and getting him set with a tracking device (again, the Other Guy wasn’t really good with delicate equipment.) Agent Hill ran through the high-level plan, and Natasha was very straightforward about how she and Bruce were going to present themselves as a couple, but once more, it was Clint who answered most of Bruce’s what-ifs and had fall-back plans for the fall-back plans.
“And if all that fails, I’ll still think of something,” Clint added at the end.
“It’s what he does,” Natasha said. “He sits up in his little nest and thinks of every possible thing that could go wrong.”
“Hey,” Clint said. “I think of a couple of impossible ones, too, and you know damn well more than one of them has happened. Sometimes at the same time.”
“Budapest,” Natasha said to Bruce, her tone dry.
“Do not say that word,” Agent Hill said with a pained look.
“I rest my case,” Clint answered. He turned to Bruce and added, “Don’t worry, Doc; we’ve got you covered. It’s a conference. Nat can carry an arsenal in an evening gown--wait ‘til you see what she can carry under resort casual.”
“I thought this was just information-gathering,” Bruce said as he was herded out the door.
“You know what they say, Doc,” Clint said with a smirk. Bruce counted four knives that he showed Bruce and then tucked away so quickly Bruce doubted he'd actually seen them. “Talk softly and carry a big-- machete.” Clint’s expression turned positively gleeful as he tossed a knife big enough to be termed exactly that to Natasha, who somehow made it disappear before Bruce really even registered that she’d caught it. She smiled demurely and turned to go. “And that is why she is forever my favorite,” Clint said, clutching his heart dramatically.
“Yes,” Agent Hill said to Bruce. “He’s going to be like this the entire mission.”
“But he won’t miss,” Natasha said over her shoulder, and Bruce found that he was more than okay with the trade-off.
* * *
The conference was being held in Geneva; the hotel looked out over the lake and was more of a spa than a venue where one might expect to find a gathering of particle physicists. Most of the scientists there, Bruce discovered, had come more for the scenery than the science. Given the circumstances of his own attendance, Bruce could hardly blame them. Amid the somewhat decadent spa offerings, though, the organizers were offering a day trip to CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. Lunch in the cafeteria optional. Bruce stood in front of the registration table just long enough to telegraph his interest.
“I’d take a pass on it, Doc,” Clint murmured in his ear, the acoustics of Tony’s comm system living up to every claim. Clint sounded like he was right next to Bruce rather than 500 meters away and in a different building, watching Bruce through a high-powered targeting scope. “You know Stark has better contacts, plus he just loves to bring that chef of his along.” Bruce heard what Clint wasn’t saying--they didn’t have any intel on CERN and Clint didn’t like not knowing anything about where the people on his mission might be going--so he politely declined. It was still a disappointment, though; and he marveled a little at how much more a part of the world he’d allowed himself to become in this last year, since Natasha had lured him to a house on the outskirts of the Calcutta. “Buck up, Doc,” Clint added. “Sitwell owes me one--I swear we’ll make it happen. And if I can’t, Tasha can needle Stark into setting up a real VIP trip to make up for missing this go-round. Seriously, it’ll make her week to have something to harass him about.”
“Thank you, Agent Barton,” Hill said. She had a remarkable knack for translating her glare into her voice, Bruce thought. “Could we have a little less chatter?”
Clint was quiet after that. Bruce deliberately didn’t look up and try to pinpoint his location, but he could still feel Clint’s eyes on him. If you’d asked him before this assignment, Bruce would have said it’d make his skin crawl to know he was under constant surveillance. Now that it was happening, though, he wasn’t bothered by it. He thought that had a lot to do with who was doing the watching.
* * *
There was a reception in the Grand Ballroom the first night, to open the conference. Black tie optional. Bruce had snorted at the thought of a dinner jacket; Agent Hill hadn’t pressed the issue, just made sure he was fine with a suit and somehow made one appear in the thirty-six hours they’d had before they had to be in position. In his suite, Bruce dressed quickly, barely paying attention enough to ensure his shirt was buttoned right and his tie was tied. Natasha should have joined him already, and while no one was telling him anything bad had happened, they weren’t telling him everything was okay either.
Dr. Banner. Agent Hill’s voice was level and even, crystal clear over Tony’s beyond-state-of-the-art comm system, but she wasn’t the one who normally talked to Bruce, and he didn’t think hearing from her was a good thing. There’s been a slight complication, but if you’ll proceed to the Grand Ballroom, we should have everything sorted out by the time you get there.
Bruce had been an Avenger long enough to know the phrase ‘slight complication’ could--and generally did--cover a myriad of disasters, but he pushed a hand through his hair and made sure he had his glasses before he left the room. He didn’t necessarily trust Hill to the level he trusted the other two, but he did know the last thing she wanted was an appearance from the Other Guy so it was probably fine to leave the room. He took his time, though; whatever was happening behind the scenes would play out in its own time and he thought it best not to be rushing around and drawing attention to himself. The elevators cooperated, arriving slowly, and stopping on each floor, but even with that additional bit of time-wasting, Bruce still found himself pacing in front of the ballroom doors, wondering if he should stay out in the hall or go in and trust that Natasha would find him inside. He tried to think what he would have done if this were a normal conference rather than a cover for a covert ops mission but he honestly couldn’t remember back to when he’d just been Bruce, so he decided that nobody else would know either.
He traversed the hallway slowly, doing his best impression of an absent-minded professor killing time, smiling at the harried staff and generally trying to give off a nothing-to-see-here vibe. It worked reasonably well, right up until he was the last attendee standing around and people started staring at him. Discreetly, of course, but he could still hear the interest start to mount.
“I’ll just go on in,” Bruce said, ostensibly to the young woman manning the tablet computer and guest list, but in reality to Agent Hill or whoever was listening. Natasha always made communicating both ways seem effortless--Bruce had heard her give an entire sit-rep and make it sound like flirting--but he thought he wasn’t doing too badly. “Dr. Banner.”
“And your plus-one?” The staffer asked politely enough, her stylus hovering over his name, but he could tell she didn’t remotely care, which was a point for him not having attracted any unwarranted attention, at least.
Bruce opened his mouth to tell her he’d apparently been stood up when an unexpected--but familiar--voice called, “Doc!” and he turned to see Clint jogging down the hall, shrugging into a dinner jacket as he moved. “Sorry, I’m late, babe,” he said as he got to where Bruce was standing. He brushed a kiss across Bruce’s cheek and then turned one of his more practiced grins on the gatekeeper. “All my fault,” Bruce heard him say in passable French, not exactly flirting, but certainly employing a brash charm for all that he had one hand low on Bruce’s back. He glanced over at Bruce as they were checked off the list and invited to enter the ballroom, a quick, flickering assessment that Bruce was ridiculously proud to meet with a smirk he’d picked up from Tony. For all that Clint being here was completely outside the mission parameters Bruce had had drilled into him, nothing in Clint's demeanor or bearing set off any alarms in Bruce's head. Whatever was wrong wasn't catastrophic; Bruce trusted Clint enough to be able to say that.
“No harm, no foul,” Bruce said out loud. From the way Clint’s grin became less practiced and more relaxed, Bruce knew he’d gotten the underlying message that Bruce wasn’t freaking out on him. When Bruce added, “I’m sure you’ll have a fascinating explanation,” it became downright wicked and Bruce was only a little surprised to find himself returning it.
* * *
The reception was a standard mix of academic one-upsmanship passing for conversation, alcohol (see: fueling the above point, Bruce thought), and some actual interpersonal interactions. Thankfully enough, no one seemed inclined to pay Bruce and Clint any special attention and they made their way across the ballroom to a relatively quiet corner without any interruptions. Clint snagged two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter, but when Bruce arched an eyebrow at him, he only smiled and murmured, "Cover story, Doc."
"Speaking of," Bruce answered. Clint had set them up in the corner at such an angle that no one could easily see their faces, at least enough that Bruce felt comfortable enough to ask outright.
"Some old friends came by unexpectedly," Clint said, raising the flute of champagne to his mouth. It was smooth and easy, very relaxed for all that Bruce could see that Clint hadn't actually taken a sip. Bruce followed suit--nothing to see in this corner, thanks, nothing but Dr. Banner and his (however unexpected) companion enjoying the reasonably adequate vintage the conference was serving--and one side of Clint's mouth quirked up in one of his barely-there but still very real smiles. "They kinda threw a wrench in Plan A, but nothing serious."
Bruce nodded, taking that to mean Natasha was fine. "I'm assuming you were the closest Plan B?"
Clint shrugged minutely and leaned closer to murmur, "Sorry about the, uh, sudden change in, uh--"
"Dancing partners?" Bruce suggested, as blandly as he could. Clint turned a laugh into a coughing fit.
"You're in luck, Doc," Clint said, when he was breathing again, and Bruce possibly took entirely too much satisfaction in the return of that wicked glint in Clint's eyes. His path and Clint's didn't overlap much, in or out of the field and any and all subtleties were generally bulldozed under the sheer force of personalities that was the Avengers in any one room at the same time, but he'd thought he'd recognized at least a small, kindred appreciation for the absurd in the other man. "I have it on the best of authorities that my dancing is… unmatched."
“You know,” Bruce said, as a man he recognized vaguely as one of the conference organizers caught sight of them and started toward their corner, his intent to engage and be a good host clearly written across his face. “I’ve heard that about you.”
“Aw, c’mon, baby, why you gotta be that way?” Clint cracked back without hesitating for so much as a heartbeat, turning so he could step up to meet the other physicist with Bruce. It took Bruce a second to realize how easily they were acting like the couple they were supposed to be, but then they were in the thick of it socially and he didn’t have time to analyze things further.
* * *
“For the record,” Clint said through gritted teeth, “I do not like this idea.”
“Duly noted,” Agent Hill answered. “I don’t see that we have much choice--”
“We can damn well abort,” Clint snapped. “We should--Nat only barely dodged being recognized by a damn goon has has no business being here, so who the hell knows who else might be running around. And it’s not like we’ve got any more intel as to where the target is is holed up.”
“Clint--” Natasha started, but Bruce knew from the stubborn set to Clint’s jaw that he wasn’t going to buy anything she might say.
“The problem we were sent in to solve still remains, though,” Bruce said quietly. “Right?” He waited until Clint nodded, however reluctantly it might have been, before continuing, “And unless something’s changed since we started all this, I’m still in the best position to make that happen.”
“Doc,” Clint sighed. He sounded tired suddenly. “If this was just Nat and me and the parameters changed like this, we’d be having this conversation, trying to decide if it was worth the risk. This isn’t your deal--we shouldn’t even be considering going on.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Bruce said, and he realized he and Clint were really only talking to each other, that Natasha and Hill were letting them work through it on their own. “I understand this changes things--”
“Do you really?” Clint interrupted. It would have been easy for Bruce to take offense at the almost-condescension of the question, but Clint wasn’t being obnoxious about it. He still sounded tired and stressed. Bruce caught himself thinking that it had been a long time since someone had worried about him.
“No,” Bruce said. “I probably don’t, not the way you do.” Clint looked up at him, surprised and not doing much to hide it. Bruce decided not to examine why Clint allowing him to see behind the professional poker face he normally wore meant more than Bruce expected it to. “I do appreciate your concern, but if you’re leaning to pulling out strictly on my account, then I’d like to point out that we worked pretty well together tonight even if we were off the plan.”
“He’s not wrong,” Natasha said. She met Clint’s glare with a level, even look of her own. “There’s nothing specific about this that says I have to be the one on protection detail.”
“Yeah, except for how if I’m down here, there’s nobody up top to take the long shot.”
“You’re right,” Natasha said, not unkindly for all that her tone was brisk and unsentimental. “But that’s not something we expected to be necessary, so it’s also not a sufficient reason to scuttle to mission.”
“Nat--”
“Being the on-the-ground back-up is within your mission parameters,” Hill said, and she, too, was not unkind, even if she was very definitely taking charge. “Are you taking yourself off-team?” Agents and specialists could do that; Bruce very clearly remembered Clint explaining that part of an operational team hierarchy. They were all expected to know their limits and know when something would exceed them because, as Clint put it, 'playing cowboy just gets people killed.' Of course, Bruce could also read between the lines and infer that the team he’d found himself a part of didn’t do it no matter what, but that was why they were the best.
“Barton?” Hill was neutral, but Bruce thought she was steeling herself for Clint’s reaction.
“Fine,” Clint bit out. “We’ll play it your way, but I’m warning you, I am going to be the most possessive son of a bitch you’ve ever seen.”
“I can work with that,” Bruce said.