Along Came A Spider | Assistance Rendered

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Clint gets to Snow Valley, and finds two people he can actually trust with the intel he's currently carrying.


Sunday morning traffic in New York was a pain in the ass, especially when you were in a hurry. Clint felt like the cabbie hit every single red light — every single detour for construction — between Steve and Andre's apartment and the business district.

He'd spent the stop-and-go ride in the taxi on the borrowed tablet, accessing the private server he and Natasha used to store various things that might come in handy later. That server also housed a unique GPS locating program. It was a one-time use sort of thing. Now that he'd accessed it, the tracker on Natasha would ping this particular site until he deactivated it. Then, her tracker — and his own - would be useless. They'd have to use completely new signals for it to function again.

Pulling up in front of Snow Valley, since it was the closest place he thought he might actually be able to the help he needed, Clint turned off the tablet, paid the driver, and slid out of the cab. He could have gone directly back to the mansion, but experience had taught him to expect at least one person to be in this building. That one person would probably be able to help him coordinate this operation into something a little neater than what he could arrange on his own. Then he'd call Clarice for transport to the mansion.

The front door was open, at least. "Wanda," Clint said, slightly out of breath as he caught sight of her. He saw movement off to the side, and felt a wave of relief hit — Felicia. Okay. He could trust them. Normally, he'd have asked Jennie for an assist, especially after Copenhagen, but she was still recovering from her injuries. Which meant — there he was, standing in the lobby of a fancy office building, looking a little bit desperate.

Wanda blinked and slowly lowered the coffee cup from her mouth at Clint's entrance. She'd been in town to actually enjoy being in the city but had managed to convince herself to go in and work on a few cultist leads. It was only going to be an hour, or two at the most, especially since she had been hoping that Felicia's presence meant that she wouldn't look up and it would be Monday morning.

"Clint?" she responded, frowning at him. He looked disheveled and concerned which wasn't the greatest combination. "What's wrong?"

What could he tell them?

Taking a moment to pull all the bits and pieces of this that he knew into his brain in some semblance of order, Clint said, "I need your help." His eyes moved from Wanda to Felicia as he caught the blonde's attention and held it. "You guys — you have to have a file on me. You know I worked for SWORD and, before that, I worked for SHIELD. My best friend still does. I got an SOS from her. She's been on a mission in Bucharest. I can tell you where she is to within a couple yards and part of what she was doing, but I need to get her out fast. I don't have the resources to do it on my own." He looked back at Wanda.

Felicia wandered closer with her coffee wrapped in both hands, neutral casual as she listened to his halting, panicked speech. She tilted her head, looking over at Wanda and back to Clint, taking a sip of her coffee with a raised eyebrow. "What are you looking for? I don't actually own a private plane and they make us fly coach here."

Clint shook his head. "I'm going to ask Clarice to 'port me over. Plane would take too long. I need people who can handle themselves and might not mind shooting asshole, corporate goons. But if that's a moral thing for you or something, don't worry. I can shoot everyone myself. Probably. I'm sure as shit gonna try." He glanced between the women again again before continuing, "Mostly, I need people I know I can trust not to try and kill me while my back's turned." His lips tightened briefly but he finished, "I don't know what any of you actually do here besides a blanket assumption of 'shady.' I do know I'm gonna need somebody who's tech savvy, so I was hoping to snag Doug for this, too."

Realizing she was going to need it, Wanda took another sip of her coffee. Clint, Felicia, Doug - in person or on comms - and herself. Bare bones but doable on such short notice. "Well, those cultist leads were probably a dead end, anyway," she said, draining her mug with a grimace. "Count me in. I have relatively little in the way of gear but I'll need to slip into some spare clothes that are a little more appropriate for a rescue."

And grab more coffee.

Felicia mirrored Wanda, nose still stuck in her coffee as she contemplated, looking between the two of them. There was another beat as Clint waited, more patiently than she probably deserved; Felicia took a breath, opening her mouth, then closed it. She tried again. "I'm going to be straight up and say I've never done an I trust you rescue or. Any rescue. Or anything nice for anyone ever when it came to the skills I may or may not have but."

She grinned, revealing a sharp grin behind her red mouth. "I really like being called shady. So. Sure."

Clint nodded. "Thank you," he said as he reached for his phone. "Most of my gear's at the mansion. I'll call Clarice. Do either of you need anything from here or elsewhere? Or can you get everything there so we can get to Bucharest in the next hour or two?"

"I need just a few moments to alert the others that Felicia and I will be off on a mission," Wanda replied. "Clint, you can dictate what you do and do not want us to share, but I do need to let them know something. Beyond that I have a few items in my rooms at the mansion but, in general, I travel light. Fi, do you need to grab anything from the offices while I send off that e-mail?"

"Um." Felicia debated, quicker this time; the whole honesty thing was hard. "No, I have a basics bag ready to go at the mansion. Someone mentioned to me the invasion and or kidnapping curse when I arrived. As long as we don't need anything fancy, I don't need to stop anywhere else."

Catching Felicia's eye, Clint said, "Don't think we'll need anything fancy. I'm thinking this is basically gonna be a smash and grab. Only with more explosions at the end and a lot more killing before the explosions."

Clint considered what to tell these. His general impression of 'spies' was pretty well founded — God knew they were secretive enough for it. And he didn't doubt that they did have a file on him. He didn't know how complete it was, but it probably gave them a fairly accurate impression of his skill set and work history. Ish. He had no idea how compromised Natasha was, though, and he didn't want to blow anything for her that wasn't absolutely necessary.

Finally, he said, "I received an SOS from a personal friend. You two — three, if Doug comes with — are assisting me with her extraction. She was undercover in a subsidiary for Kronas Corp in Romania, if that sends up any red flags for you guys. She is not, however, being held on Kronas Corp property. While I'd like to go in immediately, guns blazing, I don't think that's a good idea. So a day or two of intel gathering to figure out what the hell's actually going on. Then the rescue. That's all I can give you right now."

"That is more than enough for me to work with," Wanda said, wandering over to the coffee maker that lived in the lobby. It boasted a semi-full carafe of hot coffee, which she used to refill her mug and then Felicia's. She shoved the carafe's handle at Clint. "I think you're going to need the rest of this."

"God, yes," Clint said, taking a long sip directly from the carafe. "If my girlfriend were any less awesome, I'd legit ask you to marry me right now." He quirked a brow at Felicia as he unlocked his phone and hit Clarice's speed dial. "Both of you, but I know marriage isn't really your thing and I dunno how you'd feel about polygamy."

Felicia smiled with her incisors. "I plan on marrying up, soooo... no."