CHAPTER THREE

When Clint got off the train at Union Station, he groaned as he saw people flooding into the station drenched from the rain, only a few smart ones with umbrellas. One of those, he was not. He pulled his black hood over his head, adjusted his grip on the duffle bags, and started towards the exit onto the streets of Washington, D.C. He should've expected rain in October.

He glanced at the large clock on the wall. 8:54. The train had taken longer than expected. Clint just hoped Steve stayed up this late because he was starving. As he walked out into the rain, he made a cursory glance of the nearby Columbus Circle. A few taxis lined up. He ran towards one.

"Hey!" Clint knocked on the window.

The taxi driver lowered the window. "Where are you going?"

Clint gave him the address as he tumbled into the back of the black cab. He tossed his bags into the seat next to him and flung the backpack off his back to the floor. As soon as he closed the door, the driver started away.

The glow of the streetlights, sometimes red, sometimes green, sometimes yellow, flashed off the pools of water on the ground in the darkness of night. Clint stayed quiet. A weight seemed to lift off his shoulders now that he was in a different city than New York. Most of the clean up from the Chitauri had ended a month ago, but whenever he saw the under construction Avengers Tower he felt sick to his stomach.

It had been easy during the battle. Focus on the mission. Just the mission. Capture Loki. They'd had to put a stop to his rampage. Killing had never been his favorite activity, despite being called an assassin by most in his business. But with Loki he'd been tempted.

Maybe if I'd killed him, I'd sleep better, he mused to himself, watching the rain cascade in waves down the window of the taxi. Flashes of headlights as cars crossed in front at the light almost put him to sleep. He rarely slept anymore. At least not soundly. Sometimes he would get so tired that he'd sort of drift into unconsciousness that it was hard to wake from, but he didn't count that as sleep. It just made him feel more exhausted when he broke out of it.

He yawned. He had a mission. Focus on the mission. Just the mission. Capture Paige Wilson. His phone buzzed. Steve Rogers. "Hey are you almost here?"

Clint nodded to himself. He replied. "ETA five minutes. What's there to eat in your place?"

After a moment, he got a response. "There's a Subway right next door. We can grab sandwiches."

"You haven't eaten?" Clint raised an eyebrow in surprise as he waited for a reply.

Buzz. "Figured I'd wait for you."

Clint shook his head with a smile. Trust Steve to be like that. Such a class act. He'd been down to D.C. and seen Steve multiple times with Natasha since the Battle of New York. They'd been debriefed at the Triskelion over and over. Clint held a tremendous amount of respect for Steve. "Thanks. Almost there. I'll drop my crap off in my apartment and then find you."

A minute later, the taxi pulled up to the street corner where Steve's building stood. Clint paid before barreling out of the car and rushing into the small main lobby. He fished through his pockets and pulled out the key with the apartment number on it that Fury had given him via Natasha. Apartment 203. He found the stairs and took them slowly, his black converse squelching on the wood from the deluge outside.

Finally he found his door. Heading inside, he flipped on the light in the hall and breathed a sigh of relief. He preferred trains to planes, but neither one was particularly comfortable. He dropped his key into a small plate that sat on a counter near the door. The apartment was furnished in a casual traditional manner. It felt very different from his modern art deco Manhattan penthouse. He liked it.

Clint unpacked his suit. He'd recently gotten Fury to okay the purple in place of the red material, much to his enjoyment. Red was Natasha's color. He didn't want it. He wanted purple. Purple had always been his color when he and his brother had been in the circus and he'd learned to be the World's Greatest Marksman. It felt good to have it back with him.

Next came the bow case. He'd brought his collapsible recurve bow, the most practical for a clandestine mission like his now. Next came the guns. He put one in the drawstring backpack he'd packed, along with a knife. A second knife went into his pocket alongside his wallet. He slipped out of his hoodie and into a black leather jacket over his purple shirt. With a nod to himself in the mirror, he picked up his phone.

"Meet in the lobby?" he texted Steve. Clint didn't wait for a reply before taking the stairs quickly back down.

It didn't take long before he caught sight of Steve. The super soldier nodded at him with a smile, his unmarked baseball cap looking out of place indoors.

"Hey man," Clint grinned. "What's up?"

They shook hands. Steve sighed and looked around. "Pretty hungry. You?"

"Starved."

"Cool. Like I said, Subway's right next door." Steve led the way out of the apartment complex and they hurried to the right. The rain still came down in sheets.

As they rolled into the Subway, Steve took off his hat and placed it on a table. There weren't any other customers, but Clint supposed it was habit. After getting their sandwiches, the men scooted across from each other into a booth. Clint scarfed down his foot long quickly, and chewed on a chocolate chip cookie as he waited for Steve to finish his. They didn't do much talking. A public subway, empty though it was, felt too exposed for conversation.

"We should head back to the apartment I'm using," Clint suggested after a couple minutes of silent eating. His leg shook up and down where he sat. The antsy feelings before a mission had started to creep in. "You can take a look at why I'm down here."

Steve nodded. "Definitely."

When they walked outside, they were pleasantly surprised to find the rain had stopped. Not that the quick walk to the left took long, but no rain was a definite plus in Clint's estimation at least. As they approached the apartment complex, he stopped in his tracks.

Stuttgart. Why did the buildings have to look so similar to Stuttgart, Germany. His breathing sped up. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the entrance. Where was Lucky when he needed him?

"Clint?" Steve turned back and looked at him in concern and confusion. He furrowed his brow. "You okay?"

Clint forced his breathing to slow. With a quick grin and a light laugh, he nodded and hurried past Steve, patting the man on the back. "Course, man! Just admiring the old buildings down here in D.C."

Steve eyed him carefully, not buying his explanation. But he didn't say anything. Clint led the way up the wooden stairs to the second floor. With a flash of his key, he unlocked the apartment door and led the way inside.

"So Fury keeps this as a safe house?" Steve asked, taking off his jacket and cap.

"One of several in close proximity to the Triskelion." With a nod, Clint retrieved the intel on Paige and gestured for Steve to sit on the armchair adjacent to the couch. He spread the photos and shield files out on the coffee table. He looked at the ceiling and spoke. "Blackout mode, authorization Barton-7-5."

A female voice replied from a hidden security system. "Voice print confirmed. Blackout Mode Enabled." The windows became covered in a black tint, and the doors locked automatically with a quick 'click' for good measure.

Steve watched in surprise. "My apartment doesn't do that."

With a laugh, Clint shook his head. "Probably not. It's a standard security setting for most Shield safe houses. Blackout mode ensures we won't be monitored, even by Shield. Only level seven agents and above have access to Blackout Mode for that reason." He stood from the couch. "Coffee?"

"Do you have tea?"

Clint shot him a look of surprise. "Tea?"

Steve scoffed. "I'll take that as a no."

"I don't know. I don't stock these safe houses." He went into the kitchen and rummaged through the sparse pickings in the cabinets. He grinned when he found coffee for the coffee maker. After putting that in to start working, he messed around until he found the tea bags. "We've got chamomile, peppermint, and something called sleepy time."

"Peppermint, please," Steve called from the other room where he sat reviewing the mission files.

As he microwaved a black mug of water and waited for the coffee, he went back into the living room. "That's my mission."

"Paige Wilson. An enhanced?" Steve sighed. "More of those keep popping up."

"It all started with you," Clint reminded him. Then he shrugged. "We don't know though. There are some in Shield that think she's alien, not enhanced."

"Why?"

"Her power set, for one." Clint dug through the file and pulled out a paperclipped group of photos. They showed the blonde young woman using her powers. "She has magic, like-"

"Loki," muttered Steve, interrupting him. Then he glanced over at Clint. "Fury chose you for this mission? Even after-"

"This is my job," said Clint defensively. He turned and went back into the kitchen as the microwave beeped, signalling that Steve's tea was ready. He pulled the mug out of the machine and placed the tea bag in. "Here." He handed it over. Then he picked up another picture. He stared at it for a while. "She's just a kid, really."

"How old?"

"Twenty-one." Clint didn't remove his eyes from the photo. The target - Paige - she had blonde hair and blue eyes. A weird facial perfection that reminded him of Thor. Most humans had defects of some sort, but her face was just nice. He didn't like it. Finally he looked back at Steve with a smirk. "You haven't seen her, have you?"

"I wasn't exactly looking," countered the other man. "But no. Not that I remember."

Clint scoffed. "Course not. That would make this too easy." He paced for a moment. "My source down here said she frequents the Smithsonian, specifically a food truck line about half way down the National Mall, on 14th Street."

"Across from the Washington Monument?"

He nodded. "It's a busy street. Few cameras. Lots of food and people. A good choice for someone who needs food while trying to lay low." Heading back into the kitchen, he picked up the glass coffee pot and sniffed the coffee. He closed his eyes. "Just what I needed."

Steve watched him with his eyebrows raised as he saw Clint take a gulp of black coffee straight from the coffee pot. He didn't say anything.

Clint paused and looked at the pot. "What?"

Steve hid a smirk behind his hand and shook his head. "Nothing." He turned back to the files. He pulled one out that had her medical history. "So we have records for her from 1991 to 2009?"

"Yeah," Clint sat on the couch and put his feet up on the other end of the coffee table. He grabbed another photo, this one of her in the middle of a pickpocketing job. "She went off grid at 18, when she aged out of the foster care system. She's popped up in several cities across the US, coinciding with car thefts and reported findings of the same stolen cars."

"So she doesn't try to keep what she steals?"

Clint shrugged, taking a large drink of coffee. "Not the big stuff, like a car. That would be hard to hide and keep off cameras. It's too noticeable. I'm not surprised she dumps them fairly quickly."

"So what's her motivation?" Steve looked at one of the photos.

Clint frowned down at the photo he held. "That's what I intend to ask her."