About to Blink

AN: This first chapter is set during the events of Iron Man 3. Warning for Clint swearing at Tony and spoilers for Iron Man 3.
AN2: This is very much not what I am supposed to be spending my writing time on, but Clint wasn't done with being whumped, Tony was begging me to deal with his angst, and Cap wanted to prove that he's getting the hang of the 21st Century. I really want to tackle what the other Avengers are doing during IM3, Thor2 & CA:TWS, so this is my first go at that continuity. This story only goes up to Thor2.

AN3: Apologies for the short first chapter, but it needs to stand alone I think.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers.

The phone hit the ground and the screen smashed. He really wished he'd thrown it harder to be honest.

"Bill me," said Tony Stark and climbed into his car.

He had no idea why reporters had to be such assholes. They were always shoving smart phones in his face and trying to get some kind of reaction out of him that they could record. He hated the fact that they'd been waiting for him outside the hospital that his injured friend was currently lying in, but he'd fully expected it. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator and was gone in less than a minute.

He was in the car for a full five minutes before his own cell phone rang. The caller display read "number withheld" which was a surprisingly common occurrence now that he had friends in top secret organisations. Only a handful of people actually had his personal cell phone number, and none of them normally appeared without caller ID. He was pretty sure he knew the organisation that was calling, it was just which of his spy friends had got to a phone first.

"Jarvis, put it on speaker," he said with a fair amount of resignation.

"What the hell were you thinking? "My name's Tony Stark and I'm not afraid of you". Fucking hell, Tony. Do you have an actual death wish?" asked a terse but very familiar voice. The line was crackly and Tony wondered where he was calling from – somewhere far away and with bad communication links.

"Legolas! It's so nice to hear from you. I'm fine thank you, apart from the obvious friend being blown up by terrorists thing…" Tony was talking fast because otherwise Clint would get a few more words out and then he'd be in trouble.

"Tony, would you just shut up and take this seriously for a second. You threatened a terrorist," said Clint. "Damn it, I'm currently out of the country and so's Natasha. Bruce isn't exactly the protection detail type, Thor's back in Asgard and Cap's on assignment. You could not have picked a worse time. I won't be able to get back for at least a few days." Clint actually sounded concerned.

"I didn't pick it, they did," replied Tony, pretty annoyed now.

"I'm sorry about Happy, but I think you're in over your head with this one," said Clint. "Even Iron Man can't take on an entire terrorist organisation on his own."

"If I didn't think I could handle this then I wouldn't have made the threat," said Tony.

"You may think you can handle it, but this is Ten Rings that you're messing with. They are evil sons of bitches, Stark, and they've got a lot of ways of getting to someone, ways that your armour won't protect you from."

"You have so little faith in my abilities," replied Tony. "I've got a plan. There's something weird going on here and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"I've experienced your plans, Tony," said Clint. "I'm going to arrange SHIELD protection for you."

"What?" said Tony. "No. Do not do that. I need them to think I'm on my own."

"You are on your own, and you're the one who lectured me on doing stuff like this by myself. Steve is going to be pissed. At least get back to New York, the security system in the Tower is better than the one in the house in Malibu."

Tony suspected that it was just that Clint had helped to set up the New York system so he trusted it more than the one in Malibu.

"No, I'll put the house into lockdown and everything will be fine. Really, Hawkeye, I mean it. I honestly do know what I'm doing and I will be being very careful," said Tony.

"I wish I believed you, but there isn't much I can do from here. And if you won't accept SHIELD protection, then I hope Rhodey's around to bail you out when it all goes south. I'll be there as soon as this mission's done."

The phone line went dead as Clint hung up on him. Sometimes having superhero friends was a real problem.

Almost as soon as Hawkeye had hung up, the phone began to ring again. Once again no number was shown on the caller ID. This would be the other one.

"On speaker, Jarvis," said Tony with a sigh.

"I've decided that you just died? That was the best line that you could come up with, Stark?" asked a female voice. "If you're going to give your address to the world then I'd have expected you to manage to do it with a bit more style. The idiocy that you displayed was totally predictable however."

"Yeah, yeah, Widow. I've just had your boyfriend on the line saying all the same stuff that you're about to say."

"Good, then he's already arranged SHIELD protection for you," said Natasha Romanoff, apparently ignoring the crack about Hawkeye being her boyfriend.

"No! What is it with you two? I'm Iron Man. I don't need the protection of SHIELD. I mean where were you guys when I was actually being captured by the Ten Rings?"

"Drafting a plan to break you out, but you beat us to it," said Natasha. "Clint was just a little bit annoyed by that; R and D had made him some new desert gear that he was longing for an excuse to test drive."

"Awesome. Yeah, I should totally have waited for you to come get me, just so that Hawkguy could test out his latest toys… Wait, what? Did you say you were about to rescue me from the terrorists when I broke myself out? You and Clint?"

"What? You think SHIELD would let one of the world's smartest arms dealers be held by terrorists forever? Director Fury hunted you down as a matter of priority. Unfortunately it's hard to find people when they're hidden in caves in the desert. This wasn't what I called to talk about," said Natasha. "Take the offer of the SHIELD protection detail, Tony."

"No, but thanks for thinking of me. I'm going to put the house in lockdown and everything will work out fine," said Tony.

"Do you live in that delusion or just rent it for the holidays?"

"Oh, wow, sarcasm from the Black Widow. It's come to this. Thanks for the call, Natasha. Bye, Natasha."

He dropped the call, which he knew would piss off the spy immensely and he took a perverse joy in that.

If he'd had any inkling of what he had now got himself into then he might have taken the two phone calls that he'd just received a little more seriously. Hindsight is always twenty twenty though. He spent the next several days simply trying to stay alive, so he honestly didn't get much time to mull things over until well after that.

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