(no subject)

[beenunmade]

Loyalty.

It was one of the many words that echoed in his mind. Usually it was loyalty to SHIELD. Loyalty to the Avengers. To Natasha. To Phil. He really only had simple loves in his life and things that could be easily pinpointed if someone were to look in the right direction. Even if he wasn't the type to wear his heart on his sleeve. But it was clear in his eyes and the way he carried himself around the others that this wasn't a temporary place for him. He intended to stay and he intended be (somewhat of) a team player. He wasn't chosen for his good looks, after all. Even if he did say so on something of a daily basis. It was all in jest.

He wasn't really in a jesting mood now. Loki hadn't exactly sent him on a mission. There wasn't a failure to utilize the specialist because, to Clint, Loki hardly failed. Acting on his own accord wasn't something Clint did. Acting in the best interest of ensuring Loki, ensuring that they gained some part of an upper hand was. SHIELD was still in shambles in his mind. The helicarrier was a good month or two from being passenger ready and most SHIELD agents had been forced to head for the solid ground of headquarters. Those surviving at least. The unfamiliar faces of new recruits littered the hallway. Out of necessity. There hadn't been a rush on getting more bodies -- the recruits that had been flagged previously but never seen the light of day were just finally getting their time to shine because SHIELD had lost so many. And Clint? When he wasn't usually running around terrorizing the junior agents or pushing the buttons of those that he knew -- he was either with the Avengers, in Medical, or on the range.

Today it wasn't any of those. His clouded blue eyes were shrouded by the sunglasses he hid behind almost daily. Somewhere along the way he had discovered that people found him slightly enigmatic when he was wearing them. After a visit to dictionary dot com; Clint had reasoned it was a good thing in his eyes. Now it was a benefit. He walked with purpose -- the technology he carried wasn't very astounding if somewhere were to compare it to the like that Stark carried. A single drive to save the documents he wanted so he could disappear undetected and offer what he found to Loki. Nothing extravagant. Just something simple. A show of his loyalty and obedience. Clint turned on his heels, around a corner and if someone paid attention it was almost as if he had disappeared. In reality, he had gone up the air ducts that he knew so well. Stealth was, after all, Clint Barton's forte as he moved above everyone before stopping above a room that housed a majority of the personnel files. One singular guard was easily knocked out and dragged off into a corner as Clint bound and gagged him before walking over to the computer interface.

Easy. The man slid his sunglasses to the top of his head as he brought up the files he needed, beginning the tedious upload onto the storage device before taking a step back. With part one in process, part two could begin. One storage device to house the information. Another to plop a virus in the middle of SHIELD's files. It wasn't Clint's typical approach. His approach would be blowing things up. But to do things covertly, without alerting SHIELD to his presence -- it required more espionage than Clint was accustomed too. Once the upload was finished, he just deposited the second part before sliding back on his shades once more before stepping into the hallway, pocketing the device and tossing the other in the hallway trash before starting to walk away.

Comments

[theshield_agent]

Phil and Clint have a routine. Clint gets bored and Phil gets punished for it. It's how they work and much as Phil complains sometimes, he likes it. It's dependable. Since the Avengers came together, Clint hasn't gone a day without dropping by Phil's office at least once for some reason or another. Not that he didn't stop by before, but now it was a sure thing. Every day. That was how Phil knew that something was wrong. He found himself hitting dinner time without a single visit.

Clint missing for one day had been concerning. Phil had told himself that Clint was allowed a day to himself--really to himself and without Phil hunting him down or pulling up any of his surveillance tactics. He had let it go. By the end of the second day, though, Phil was worried. When Phil wanted to find him, Clint had never managed to evade him for this long before, no matter how much he wanted to and Phil was sure that he hadn't given Clint any reasons to avoid him, anyway, unless letting your friend use you as a pillow was suddenly a terrible thing.

Phil had spent the next few days scrambling together everything he had to try to find Clint. He was downright neglecting his other work trying to figure out who could have kidnapped him or if he could be dead in a ditch somewhere. He'd also put up an alert on Clint's ID, in case whoever had taken him tried to use it to break into SHIELD. It was especially surprising when it finally did ping up on his computer and he brought up the security camera in time to see Clint walking into SHIELD headquarters. Not what he'd expected, but at least the man was alive.

He dropped what he was doing and headed out of his office to where he thought he could run into Clint. He seemed to be one step ahead of Phil, but Phil was going to find out what was going on. You don't just disappear without a word and then show up again at work like it's nothing.

He finally caught up to Clint in the hallway. "Agent Barton."