“Guys? This base is not abandoned and no sign of Bucky,” Cap said slowly. “Looks like they were having a party.”
Natasha frowned as she stepped forward. “Last time that I accept second-hand information. Felix Zimbardo, right? He tried to make a super-serum but never had a success on record.”
Clint was pleased to notice Sam staying back. Even better, Sam had kept to a position near a large bank of servers, and Matt was nowhere in sight. Natasha and Cap were both well-suited to toy with Hydra for a minute while they searched for the best way out. Clint was disappointed to note that Zimbardo had a firm grip on the Glock he had pressed in the hollow behind Murdock’s ear. Zimbardo’s finger curled around the trigger as Clint watched for his opening.
“You have not done your research this time, Black Widow.” Zimbardo stood his ground and made no instinctive move to start gesturing with his hands. “I did have a partial success. This man’s little boy was so promising to start but then he ended up a failure.”
“The only failure here is you,” Jack Murdock said coldly. From the sheer lack of surprise on Murdock’s face, Clint guessed that Hydra had told him about Matt earlier. Possibly before throwing him in a white room. Hydra’s asshattery tended to get predictable after a while.
When Zimbardo scowled, his left eye was shrouded in drooping lid. Clint should have done more background research. Just as the briefing had showed, Zimbardo’s left pupil was far smaller than the right, and the skin around the left eye was saggier. He wasn’t sure if that would change visual acuity or even if that would help them.
“The only mistake I made was giving the serum before I broke his little mind,” Felix hissed. “You think that he’s so special? That he’s so unique?”
Jack Murdock struggled to keep his expression neutral. “You picked him. You wanted my kid.”
“One of your competitors was a coworker of mine, Murdock, it wasn’t some sort of comprehensive search,” the scientist said with a slow shake of his head. “I wanted a subject capable of passing his classes who also was not a couch potato. Your boy was the easiest to get.”
Jack’s face twisted as he staggered back a step. “No,” he whispered.
Felix smirked. “It couldn’t have been easier. I simply pretended that you had sent me, Jack. I said that you wanted little Matt to see his dad’s big fight. He came willingly.”
Jack’s face was buried in his hands as Felix laughed. He flinched back another half-step when Felix spoke again. “Pity that—”
Jack’s right fist lashed out so quickly that Felix was still forming his next word when Jack’s fist rebounded off the flat space just behind the temple. Two more blows to the head landed before Felix started his trajectory backwards. Clint had one of the remaining Hydra guards in a headlock before Felix’s head hit the poured concrete floors with a loud thud. Matt had laid two more out before they could decide where to aim their weapons. The last three fell to a combination of Cap’s shield and Natasha’s widow bites.
Jack shook out his hands while Natasha and Clint started tying the hands of the downed Hydra agents.
Steve grinned. “That first step fooled me, sir,” he said cheerfully. “The rest, though? Beautiful.”
“Cap’s a boxer when he and Nat aren’t defying gravity together,” Sam added. “Anybody can appreciate a good clean punch, though. Are you alright, Mr. Murdock? I’m a bit out of certification but I was pararescue.”
“Jack, please,” he said. “I’m fine. Worst I’ll get is some bruising but damn if the skull-shot wasn’t worth it.” Jack nudged Felix with his foot before looking up to see his son hesitating near the edge of the room. “You know, Matt? I’m starting to think MMA is pretty alright after all. Kicking him a few times woulda been pretty satisfying.”
“It was good footwork,” Matt said as he edged closer. “I could tell that you weren’t nervous, though. Your heartbeat slowed down.”
“Look at you with all the words together!” Jack closed the distance. “C’mere. I just got kidnapped, I am hugging you and just this once you’ll—”
Before Jack could finish his disclaimer, Matt had wrapped both arms around him. Sam nodded to Clint before tactfully shooing the father-son pair away from the unconscious and/or zip-tied Hydra goons. Clint went to work making sure there were plenty of bindings on everybody and several extra sets on the scientist jerk because he didn’t like people that experimented on children.
Clint tapped into his communicator a moment later. “All clear down here, team,” he said. “Science-jerk decided to monologue and let his famous boxer hostage get enough room to knock him right out. Pulse is strong and he’s breathing. Six guards were present, all are restrained.”
“There are two more guards on the main floor,” Matt said. “No one else is here.”
“You are the best at recon,” Clint replied cheerfully. “That fits with what I saw moving through the base. I think they lost a lot of personnel to some other sect. Maybe we can try to track down the receiving base and have a proper Hydra base attack where Tony gets to play too. Plus next time I would like to actually do something more than recon.”
Natasha glared down at Zimbardo as if his strong pulse was personally disappointing. “A few of the grunts will need medical attention. Mostly head injury with loss of consciousness. Maria, is your team ready?”
“They’re about four minutes out,” she replied. “They’re rather pleased to have a hands-on opportunity instead of just a lecture. Do me a favor and incapacitate the two ground crew on your way up, would you? Everyone likes a full package deal. Good work, team. Sam, you’re with the Murdocks? Please get them back on the jet. Everyone else, I’d like wheels up as soon as possible.”
Clint saluted to Natasha. “Hate to leave you with the cleanup but pre-flight checks call me. Cap and I can knock the guards out on our way by.”
Later, Clint would realize that Natasha should have scowled at him. She should have traded favors or made a crack that the entire team had left the lady with the cleanup. If his attention hadn’t been already focused on safely exiting the base and running through the ritual of pre-flight checks with Bruce as his second, he would have wondered just why Natasha wasn’t saying more on the communicators. Usually she’d have a steady commentary as she worked.
Sam chivvied Matt and Jack into seats on the quinjet. He also pestered them into drinking a full bottle of water each and only took a seat for himself when Jack started munching through protein bars. Steve accepted his own bottle of water without complaint before grabbing a post-fight snack of his own. Clint munched through the chocolate-and-chalk flavored protein bar while Bruce helped him with the checklist.
Maria was still listening to Foggy, JARVIS, and Tony when her cleanup team of local police, FBI, and a World Security Council representative arrived at the base. She was distracted with JARVIS’s analysis of how many EMTs they might require when her team of law enforcement officers yelled about shots fired.
“It appears that we had an intruder,” Natasha reported calmly. “Two shots fired. He’s already heading out the back.”
Clint glanced up from his bulletin board.
“Get the EMTs down here stat, we have an unresponsive man with a head wound,” one of the officers said.
“That’s two bullets through the head and there’s no pulse. My partner started CPR.”
“Shooter had a metal arm,” a third reported. “Male, twenties, dark hair. Possibly Caucasian.”
Steve undid the seatbelt in a moment and was on his feet before Sam could blink.
Two voices murmured in Russian before Natasha spoke again. “Quinjet, do you have room for one more? Our ghost forgot how to ghost.”
“You stepped up the timeline,” a new voice grumbled. Unlike the police officers, his voice came through clear without the crackle of a relay. “I am not—”
“Seriously dude, get on the jet,” Clint said curtly. “Steve, sit your happy ass down, I am trying to fly us out of here before somebody gets the bright idea of putting faces all over the local news. If we’re lucky this might be the only splinter of Hydra that knows the full story on Matt.”
“Steve,” Sam said quietly. “We talked about this.”
Steve’s jaw worked. “Fine,” he growled. “Winter Soldier, you might as well get a ride back to Manhattan.”
Bruce leaned back in his seat. He tapped his pen quietly for emphasis while he looked from Steve to the jet’s open door. “If you are going to have any kind of discussions mid-flight, I’d rather not be on the jet,” Bruce said politely. “Talking about experiments right now would not help anyone’s mood.”
“We won’t make you walk back to Manhattan, doc,” Natasha said from the ramp. “Hi Steve. I’m not apologizing but we can talk about this back at the Tower.”
Natasha took the seat next to Steve without another word. Stone-faced, the Winter Soldier took the open seat between Jack Murdock and Bruce Banner. He set a large black plastic case at his feet and rested his right hand on top of the small black leather bag clipped to his belt.
Jack turned to look the Winter Soldier over. “You had a target in there? They only talked about one person getting shot.”
“Destroyed the data bank. Eliminated the scientist,” the Soldier replied curtly. The plates in his bared left arm whirred as he curled the metal hand into a fist.
Jack pursed his lips before shrugging. “I should maybe disapprove of somebody ending up dead but I kinda don’t. I’d just as soon not think that he’s going to take somebody else’s kid.”
“Last time a scientist was sent off alive to prison he got his hands on me a second time.” The Soldier’s words sounded just as clipped but he looked at Jack instead of a thousand feet ahead. “No one gets another Zola. I was planning to knock the place down but my approach doesn’t work well when they find themselves a hostage.”
“We appreciate the team-up,” Sam said. “We met briefly in DC, maybe you remember us not getting along right away. I’m Sam Wilson. There are no hard feelings here. You dragged Rogers out of the Potomac.” Sam kicked Steve’s ankle and continued without missing a beat. “Rogers, I would like you to agree that the man helped us out here with a very difficult rescue mission. We can all eat leftovers at the Tower and take a break.”
“I promised the Winter Soldier forty-eight hours without you chasing him,” Natasha added without looking up from her phone. “So let’s agree that starts after dinner and maybe the Soldier will join us.”
“Barnes,” the Winter Soldier corrected irritably. “I might as well go by Barnes, no interest in being ‘that guy.’”
“Thanks, Barnes,” Matt said quietly. “He was planning on starting over again. Zimbardo was already looking through candidates when I ran.”
“Already grabbed those files.” Barnes tapped the steel toe of his boot against the large black case. “Figured there wasn’t any use leaving temptation around.”
“Definitely not,” Clint agreed. “Everybody’s buckled in, good. Maria, Tony? You guys good?”
“We’ll catch up later,” Tony said over the communicator. “Maria is busy bossing around vast groups of people and proving that she’s clearly bored in her day job.”
“Clearly I’m wasted there,” Maria agreed. “I’ll have to talk it over when not coordinating several different agencies. Some disappointed data scavengers here are trying to pretend that they’re my priority. Pity that the computer system seems to be out of commission. Being shot to ribbons by the Winter Soldier and then accidentally wiped by Iron Man in the recovery effort really mess with system integrity.”
“I’ll take my poor jet on a proper flight later.” Clint patted a relatively innocuous part of the dashboard. “We’re out of here, Maria, happy managing.”
Matt grimaced with takeoff. He hadn’t spared any attention toward the movement of the jet on the way over but even a skilled pilot couldn’t change sudden acceleration and pressure changes. He and the rest of the passengers looked much more pleased when Clint touched down on the roof of Tony’s skyscraper.
“We’re clear, Fog,” Clint said once he had powered down the engines. Foggy had been waiting in the elevator, it turned out, because just a moment later the door opened and there he was.
Clint frowned as he watched the reunions. He was forgetting something. Barnes was standing on the roof with his big case of guns and papers slung over his back. He seemed happy enough to pretend he wasn’t within ten yards of Rogers and shook hands with Foggy. Natasha was standing over with Steve and Sam while the three of them pretended that they weren’t about to go have a very loud conversation somewhere. Bruce looked over the two groups before choosing to head over toward Natasha’s cluster. Clint hadn’t expected Bruce to go anywhere except his lab. It also was really great watching Steve visibly deflate after about two more sentences from Bruce. Clint wasn’t sure just which part of personal history Bruce would draw on but he imagined most of it would do.
Clint was texting JARVIS about timing a large order of shawarma to arrive just about when Tony got back when he remembered. His sunglasses had been perched up on his head because the way that Tony twitched was funny every time, but when they got in the way of the headset he used for the quinjet, he must have dropped them. When he pictured where he had been standing, it only took a moment to find them.
Kate Bishop’s dad had a bad habit of attempting to make up for poor behavior with expensive presents. Clint was pretty sure Kate would like the picture of the sunglasses crushed beneath the landing gear of the jet a lot better than she’d ever liked the gift.
She texted him back seconds later. ok old hawkeye that has some style
Clint frowned at his phone and thought about the terms of their deal. ‘Old Hawkeye’ probably qualified as admitting that he was the original Hawkeye. “Aww, Kate,” he grumbled before sending a copy of the picture back to Laura. There was no use hoping that Katie-Kate hadn’t been passing along a completely wrong version of events. Clint would just have to compare stories when Laura had time to set up an encrypted phone call.
lol Kate should be happy with that, Laura replied. Any PG bedtime stories out of today’s rat infestation?
Happy ending for the good guys and everything. Clint switched conversations to make sure that JARVIS didn’t have any further questions about dinner. JARVIS, of course, had already made sure that the leftovers from before the raid had been packed up for the security team before anything had time to get cold. He sent the AI a smiling emoticon because Stark’s fits about people corrupting his BFF were legendary.
JARVIS texted back a winking smiley face while Laura set up a time for the bedtime call.
“Alright, people, dinner is on its way,” Clint called out. He was very pleased to notice that Matt, Jack, and Foggy all had the sense to start heading toward the elevators and therefore food without further prompting. Sam was still in the group with Natasha, Bruce, and Steve so hopefully he would be as sensible as previously advertised.
Fill: Situation Excellent 10b/12
Natasha frowned as she stepped forward. “Last time that I accept second-hand information. Felix Zimbardo, right? He tried to make a super-serum but never had a success on record.”
Clint was pleased to notice Sam staying back. Even better, Sam had kept to a position near a large bank of servers, and Matt was nowhere in sight. Natasha and Cap were both well-suited to toy with Hydra for a minute while they searched for the best way out. Clint was disappointed to note that Zimbardo had a firm grip on the Glock he had pressed in the hollow behind Murdock’s ear. Zimbardo’s finger curled around the trigger as Clint watched for his opening.
“You have not done your research this time, Black Widow.” Zimbardo stood his ground and made no instinctive move to start gesturing with his hands. “I did have a partial success. This man’s little boy was so promising to start but then he ended up a failure.”
“The only failure here is you,” Jack Murdock said coldly. From the sheer lack of surprise on Murdock’s face, Clint guessed that Hydra had told him about Matt earlier. Possibly before throwing him in a white room. Hydra’s asshattery tended to get predictable after a while.
When Zimbardo scowled, his left eye was shrouded in drooping lid. Clint should have done more background research. Just as the briefing had showed, Zimbardo’s left pupil was far smaller than the right, and the skin around the left eye was saggier. He wasn’t sure if that would change visual acuity or even if that would help them.
“The only mistake I made was giving the serum before I broke his little mind,” Felix hissed. “You think that he’s so special? That he’s so unique?”
Jack Murdock struggled to keep his expression neutral. “You picked him. You wanted my kid.”
“One of your competitors was a coworker of mine, Murdock, it wasn’t some sort of comprehensive search,” the scientist said with a slow shake of his head. “I wanted a subject capable of passing his classes who also was not a couch potato. Your boy was the easiest to get.”
Jack’s face twisted as he staggered back a step. “No,” he whispered.
Felix smirked. “It couldn’t have been easier. I simply pretended that you had sent me, Jack. I said that you wanted little Matt to see his dad’s big fight. He came willingly.”
Jack’s face was buried in his hands as Felix laughed. He flinched back another half-step when Felix spoke again. “Pity that—”
Jack’s right fist lashed out so quickly that Felix was still forming his next word when Jack’s fist rebounded off the flat space just behind the temple. Two more blows to the head landed before Felix started his trajectory backwards. Clint had one of the remaining Hydra guards in a headlock before Felix’s head hit the poured concrete floors with a loud thud. Matt had laid two more out before they could decide where to aim their weapons. The last three fell to a combination of Cap’s shield and Natasha’s widow bites.
Jack shook out his hands while Natasha and Clint started tying the hands of the downed Hydra agents.
Steve grinned. “That first step fooled me, sir,” he said cheerfully. “The rest, though? Beautiful.”
“Cap’s a boxer when he and Nat aren’t defying gravity together,” Sam added. “Anybody can appreciate a good clean punch, though. Are you alright, Mr. Murdock? I’m a bit out of certification but I was pararescue.”
“Jack, please,” he said. “I’m fine. Worst I’ll get is some bruising but damn if the skull-shot wasn’t worth it.” Jack nudged Felix with his foot before looking up to see his son hesitating near the edge of the room. “You know, Matt? I’m starting to think MMA is pretty alright after all. Kicking him a few times woulda been pretty satisfying.”
“It was good footwork,” Matt said as he edged closer. “I could tell that you weren’t nervous, though. Your heartbeat slowed down.”
“Look at you with all the words together!” Jack closed the distance. “C’mere. I just got kidnapped, I am hugging you and just this once you’ll—”
Before Jack could finish his disclaimer, Matt had wrapped both arms around him. Sam nodded to Clint before tactfully shooing the father-son pair away from the unconscious and/or zip-tied Hydra goons. Clint went to work making sure there were plenty of bindings on everybody and several extra sets on the scientist jerk because he didn’t like people that experimented on children.
Clint tapped into his communicator a moment later. “All clear down here, team,” he said. “Science-jerk decided to monologue and let his famous boxer hostage get enough room to knock him right out. Pulse is strong and he’s breathing. Six guards were present, all are restrained.”
“There are two more guards on the main floor,” Matt said. “No one else is here.”
“You are the best at recon,” Clint replied cheerfully. “That fits with what I saw moving through the base. I think they lost a lot of personnel to some other sect. Maybe we can try to track down the receiving base and have a proper Hydra base attack where Tony gets to play too. Plus next time I would like to actually do something more than recon.”
Natasha glared down at Zimbardo as if his strong pulse was personally disappointing. “A few of the grunts will need medical attention. Mostly head injury with loss of consciousness. Maria, is your team ready?”
“They’re about four minutes out,” she replied. “They’re rather pleased to have a hands-on opportunity instead of just a lecture. Do me a favor and incapacitate the two ground crew on your way up, would you? Everyone likes a full package deal. Good work, team. Sam, you’re with the Murdocks? Please get them back on the jet. Everyone else, I’d like wheels up as soon as possible.”
Clint saluted to Natasha. “Hate to leave you with the cleanup but pre-flight checks call me. Cap and I can knock the guards out on our way by.”
Later, Clint would realize that Natasha should have scowled at him. She should have traded favors or made a crack that the entire team had left the lady with the cleanup. If his attention hadn’t been already focused on safely exiting the base and running through the ritual of pre-flight checks with Bruce as his second, he would have wondered just why Natasha wasn’t saying more on the communicators. Usually she’d have a steady commentary as she worked.
Sam chivvied Matt and Jack into seats on the quinjet. He also pestered them into drinking a full bottle of water each and only took a seat for himself when Jack started munching through protein bars. Steve accepted his own bottle of water without complaint before grabbing a post-fight snack of his own. Clint munched through the chocolate-and-chalk flavored protein bar while Bruce helped him with the checklist.
Maria was still listening to Foggy, JARVIS, and Tony when her cleanup team of local police, FBI, and a World Security Council representative arrived at the base. She was distracted with JARVIS’s analysis of how many EMTs they might require when her team of law enforcement officers yelled about shots fired.
“It appears that we had an intruder,” Natasha reported calmly. “Two shots fired. He’s already heading out the back.”
Clint glanced up from his bulletin board.
“Get the EMTs down here stat, we have an unresponsive man with a head wound,” one of the officers said.
“That’s two bullets through the head and there’s no pulse. My partner started CPR.”
“Shooter had a metal arm,” a third reported. “Male, twenties, dark hair. Possibly Caucasian.”
Steve undid the seatbelt in a moment and was on his feet before Sam could blink.
Two voices murmured in Russian before Natasha spoke again. “Quinjet, do you have room for one more? Our ghost forgot how to ghost.”
“You stepped up the timeline,” a new voice grumbled. Unlike the police officers, his voice came through clear without the crackle of a relay. “I am not—”
“Seriously dude, get on the jet,” Clint said curtly. “Steve, sit your happy ass down, I am trying to fly us out of here before somebody gets the bright idea of putting faces all over the local news. If we’re lucky this might be the only splinter of Hydra that knows the full story on Matt.”
“Steve,” Sam said quietly. “We talked about this.”
Steve’s jaw worked. “Fine,” he growled. “Winter Soldier, you might as well get a ride back to Manhattan.”
Bruce leaned back in his seat. He tapped his pen quietly for emphasis while he looked from Steve to the jet’s open door. “If you are going to have any kind of discussions mid-flight, I’d rather not be on the jet,” Bruce said politely. “Talking about experiments right now would not help anyone’s mood.”
“We won’t make you walk back to Manhattan, doc,” Natasha said from the ramp. “Hi Steve. I’m not apologizing but we can talk about this back at the Tower.”
Natasha took the seat next to Steve without another word. Stone-faced, the Winter Soldier took the open seat between Jack Murdock and Bruce Banner. He set a large black plastic case at his feet and rested his right hand on top of the small black leather bag clipped to his belt.
Jack turned to look the Winter Soldier over. “You had a target in there? They only talked about one person getting shot.”
“Destroyed the data bank. Eliminated the scientist,” the Soldier replied curtly. The plates in his bared left arm whirred as he curled the metal hand into a fist.
Jack pursed his lips before shrugging. “I should maybe disapprove of somebody ending up dead but I kinda don’t. I’d just as soon not think that he’s going to take somebody else’s kid.”
“Last time a scientist was sent off alive to prison he got his hands on me a second time.” The Soldier’s words sounded just as clipped but he looked at Jack instead of a thousand feet ahead. “No one gets another Zola. I was planning to knock the place down but my approach doesn’t work well when they find themselves a hostage.”
“We appreciate the team-up,” Sam said. “We met briefly in DC, maybe you remember us not getting along right away. I’m Sam Wilson. There are no hard feelings here. You dragged Rogers out of the Potomac.” Sam kicked Steve’s ankle and continued without missing a beat. “Rogers, I would like you to agree that the man helped us out here with a very difficult rescue mission. We can all eat leftovers at the Tower and take a break.”
“I promised the Winter Soldier forty-eight hours without you chasing him,” Natasha added without looking up from her phone. “So let’s agree that starts after dinner and maybe the Soldier will join us.”
“Barnes,” the Winter Soldier corrected irritably. “I might as well go by Barnes, no interest in being ‘that guy.’”
“Thanks, Barnes,” Matt said quietly. “He was planning on starting over again. Zimbardo was already looking through candidates when I ran.”
“Already grabbed those files.” Barnes tapped the steel toe of his boot against the large black case. “Figured there wasn’t any use leaving temptation around.”
“Definitely not,” Clint agreed. “Everybody’s buckled in, good. Maria, Tony? You guys good?”
“We’ll catch up later,” Tony said over the communicator. “Maria is busy bossing around vast groups of people and proving that she’s clearly bored in her day job.”
“Clearly I’m wasted there,” Maria agreed. “I’ll have to talk it over when not coordinating several different agencies. Some disappointed data scavengers here are trying to pretend that they’re my priority. Pity that the computer system seems to be out of commission. Being shot to ribbons by the Winter Soldier and then accidentally wiped by Iron Man in the recovery effort really mess with system integrity.”
“I’ll take my poor jet on a proper flight later.” Clint patted a relatively innocuous part of the dashboard. “We’re out of here, Maria, happy managing.”
Matt grimaced with takeoff. He hadn’t spared any attention toward the movement of the jet on the way over but even a skilled pilot couldn’t change sudden acceleration and pressure changes. He and the rest of the passengers looked much more pleased when Clint touched down on the roof of Tony’s skyscraper.
“We’re clear, Fog,” Clint said once he had powered down the engines. Foggy had been waiting in the elevator, it turned out, because just a moment later the door opened and there he was.
Clint frowned as he watched the reunions. He was forgetting something. Barnes was standing on the roof with his big case of guns and papers slung over his back. He seemed happy enough to pretend he wasn’t within ten yards of Rogers and shook hands with Foggy. Natasha was standing over with Steve and Sam while the three of them pretended that they weren’t about to go have a very loud conversation somewhere. Bruce looked over the two groups before choosing to head over toward Natasha’s cluster. Clint hadn’t expected Bruce to go anywhere except his lab. It also was really great watching Steve visibly deflate after about two more sentences from Bruce. Clint wasn’t sure just which part of personal history Bruce would draw on but he imagined most of it would do.
Clint was texting JARVIS about timing a large order of shawarma to arrive just about when Tony got back when he remembered. His sunglasses had been perched up on his head because the way that Tony twitched was funny every time, but when they got in the way of the headset he used for the quinjet, he must have dropped them. When he pictured where he had been standing, it only took a moment to find them.
Kate Bishop’s dad had a bad habit of attempting to make up for poor behavior with expensive presents. Clint was pretty sure Kate would like the picture of the sunglasses crushed beneath the landing gear of the jet a lot better than she’d ever liked the gift.
She texted him back seconds later. ok old hawkeye that has some style
Clint frowned at his phone and thought about the terms of their deal. ‘Old Hawkeye’ probably qualified as admitting that he was the original Hawkeye. “Aww, Kate,” he grumbled before sending a copy of the picture back to Laura. There was no use hoping that Katie-Kate hadn’t been passing along a completely wrong version of events. Clint would just have to compare stories when Laura had time to set up an encrypted phone call.
lol Kate should be happy with that, Laura replied. Any PG bedtime stories out of today’s rat infestation?
Happy ending for the good guys and everything. Clint switched conversations to make sure that JARVIS didn’t have any further questions about dinner. JARVIS, of course, had already made sure that the leftovers from before the raid had been packed up for the security team before anything had time to get cold. He sent the AI a smiling emoticon because Stark’s fits about people corrupting his BFF were legendary.
JARVIS texted back a winking smiley face while Laura set up a time for the bedtime call.
“Alright, people, dinner is on its way,” Clint called out. He was very pleased to notice that Matt, Jack, and Foggy all had the sense to start heading toward the elevators and therefore food without further prompting. Sam was still in the group with Natasha, Bruce, and Steve so hopefully he would be as sensible as previously advertised.