A Gift From: alphaflyer
Title: Winter Wonderland
A Gift For: michuniverse
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: Choose Not To Warn
Summary/Prompt Used: Olympics AU and Avengers Tower Mischief
Author's Note: This story is for Anon Michelle. I couldn’t decide between two of her prompts: Olympics AU, or Avengers Tower Mischief. And so, as I usually do when I can’t decide between two pairs of shoes, I went with both (with a dose of mission!fic thrown in). Maybe not too Christmassy, perhaps, but I there is snow!
(PS: This is early 2014; no sign of The Farm or the Winter Soldier.)




Winter Wonderland

The Olympic opening ceremony is everything Clint had predicted it would be: Interminable, loud, and designed to make the authoritarian heart soar. Plus, the uniform they’ve all been made to wear? Red, white, blue, stars, stripes, US flags and Olympic rings – looks like someone lost a bet to see how much patriotic fervor you could vomit onto a single garment.

Marching into the stadium with the US team, when the participants are finally allowed inside, is actually kind of fun though, in a weird way. He’s surrounded by dozens of excited kids, for whom this moment is the pinnacle of their dreams; Natasha is within his sightlines; and the people they’ve come here for are lined up in the VIP booth like targets in a carnival booth.

The Sochi Olympics: Gathering place of the finest winter sport athletes on the planet - and a virtual smorgasbord of Russian, Chechen and Abkhaz mafia chiefs. A target rich environment, Coulson had said. Pick off as many as you can, we’ll send a list.

The Godfather Games. The IOC would probably hold the Olympics on Mars, if some ambitious billionaire paid off the right people.

Clint takes advantage of the bursting of fireworks to pop off his first mark, a man responsible for laundering billions of rubles wrung from the misery of Chechen civilians, with a sideline of torturing its queer population. Oleg Aslanbekov is well known for high living; in light of the night’s excitement, no one will look for the tiny little dart embedded in his jowls that caused his heart to stop.

Clint raises a finger and waggles it at Natasha, across the bobbing heads of the women’s luge team: One.

***

Pepper sighs contentedly as she nestles her head into Tony’s shoulder.

“I love the Olympics,” she says, probably for the third time in ten minutes. “Pure spectacle, all the nations united, peace and goodwill – the opposite of what you guys normally get up to. I love it unconditionally.”

“Me too.” Tony plants a kiss on her head. “Always did have a soft spot for circuses. And bread. Lots of bread being spent here to amuse the masses. Look, there’s Vlad the Impaler! Or is that Baron Harkonnen? Hard to tell under that jaunty hat.”

Pepper whacks him on the arm.

“Just shut up and enjoy the show, Tony. For me? Please? It’s bad enough that Natasha got called in by SHIELD. She’d promised to watch with me.”

Steve wanders in from the kitchen, a mug of piping hot Americano in hand. It may be evening in Sochi, but here in New York it’s still very much coffee time. He casts a jaundiced eye on the big screen, where a cute children’s choir is extolling the virtues of Mother Russia to their President’s beatific smile.

“Reminds me of Berlin in ‘36,” he says and shudders. “Charm offensive. I bet Putin is getting ready to invade someone just as soon as the flame goes out.”

Bruce frowns.

“You didn’t get to Germany until ‘43, Cap,” he says. “I call bullshit.”

Steve shrugs.

“News Of The World,” he says, and lowers his impressive frame on the armchair beside Bruce’s. “Saturday morning Flash Gordon specials, with my friend Bucky. They always showed the newsreels first. Why do you think we signed up?”

An hour later, the cultural program has given way to the athletes filing into the stadium, always one of Pepper’s favourite moments. Tony has started to snore softly (and Bruce not so softly at all), when Thor’s voice booms across the room. Pepper hadn’t even seen him come it.

“Behold!” he announces, his enormous finger stabbing at the screen. “’Tis our friend, the Archer, on the Television.”

Steve leans forward, stares intently at the screen with his enhanced eyes, and mutters a soft curse that causes Tony to blink himself awake.

“I’ll be damned,” Steve says. “Clint didn’t mention he was going to Sochi, did he? I mean, it’s not like he would need to train, but do they even have archery in the Winter Olympics?”

Pepper squints. It can’t be - can it?

“JARVIS, can you freeze frame and rewind, please?”

“Of course, Miss Potts,” comes the solicitous voice from nowhere. The screen stills.

“There. Hold it. Now zoom in?” she asks. “A bit more to the left?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Tony says. They all stare at the mane of very red hair, spilling out from under a touque whose star-spangled hideousness has Pepper vow to purge all evidence of Ralph Lauren designs from her wardrobe for evermore.

For a moment, silence reigns in Avengers Tower.

Because sure enough, these are their missing teammates, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, waltzing into the Olympic Stadium in Sochi as if they belong there. And clearly on a job so secret, they’d kept everyone in the dark about it.

“No wonder Nat couldn’t be here to watch the opening ceremony with me,” Pepper gripes. “She’s in it.”

Bruce, completely awake now, takes a swig of his cold coffee just as a crawler appears at the bottom of the screen: “Prominent Russian billionaire and Putin associate succumbs to heart attack during opening ceremony at Sochi.”

He closes his mouth and wipes an embarrassing amount of caffeinated drool off his chin.” “SHIELD must have pulled an awful lot of strings to get them in there. I mean…”

“JARVIS?” Tony’s tone is all business now. “Pull up the US delegation list for Sochi.”

It takes about a minute to verify that Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff are indeed both on the list, declared to be officials. Pepper finds herself somewhere between appalled and impressed, at the sheer chutzpah that is Nick Fury.

“JARVIS?” Tony again, this time with a glint in his eye. “I need you do something for me.”

He turns to the room at large, lifting his glass of whiskey in salute.

“Let’s see what kind of shape our favourite assassins are really in.”


*****

“Barton? Clint Barton? Open up!!”

The banging on his door gets louder and more insistent. Clint tosses off the flimsy blanket that’s been covering half his torso and swings his legs over the side of the equally flimsy bed. Whatever zillions have been spent on this shitshow, they sure as hell didn’t go into furnishing the Olympic village. All that’s missing is the bed bugs, and they’ve probably been discouraged only by the lack of heating.

“You’re late for training,” the Russian-accented voice says, clearly concerned. “The bus leaves in ten minutes.”

Training?

Clint shakes off the sleep fog and opens the door, where one of the local volunteers is about to resume his banging.

“Sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else. I’m here as an official. I don’t...”

“A last-minute qualifying spot opened up in the biathlon – the Association sent your credentials through half an hour ago! Congratulations!” The kid beams at Clint. “You must be so happy. Isn’t this a dream come true for you?”

Happy isn’t exactly the word Clint is looking for, but what choice has he got? Best to go with the flow for now and plot revenge against Sitwell or Coulson or whoever fucked up later.

“Yeah,” he says. “Dream. I’m thrilled. Just … thrilled. What a fabulous surprise.”

Something occurs to him then. A way out of this fucking nightmare?

“I didn’t bring any equipment,” he adds hopefully. “That’s how unexpected this is.”

What he doesn’t say is, What the hell is biathlon anyway, and what would I even need?

Of course the team being from the US of A, and this being the Olympics, they have lots of kit to spare. Kit that, when he gets there, turns out to be snowsuits, skis and…guns.

Well, well. Could have been worse – Clint hasn’t skated since that frozen pond in Waverly, and that was without skates. But he did ski that one time, during that op in Arkhangelsk, where the frozen river had been the fastest way out of town. So he’s not a complete novice. Shooting, well. That he can totally deal with.

His sudden teammates, of course, are less than happy to see him.

“Never even seen this guy before,” one of them mutters, guy named Aaron-something, who looks like he’s been around the block a few times. “Where’d he train, Mongolia? That extra spot should have been Johnny’s. He came third in Berchtesgaden.”

Clint turns his best glare on the guy and gives the gun an experimental twirl. It’s well balanced, with decent scopes, if flimsier than his usual Barrett M82. He pops off a couple of quick shots, which freaks everyone out because he’s not “in the right position”, but who cares. The targets flop down despite the angle, and all is well.

“Suck it up, bro,” he says to Aaron-something. “I’m already here. Johnny ain’t. They probably just wanted to save on plane fare and jet lag.”

Lemons, lemonade – he’s now got the perfect excuse to wander around Sochi with a gun. Depending on who of their long list of possible targets comes out to watch, this could actually work out. Maybe Sitwell is on to something?

By the end of his first training run, Clint has learned three things:

1. Whatever SHIELD signed him up for, it involves 20 kilometers of skiing in a circle, interrupted by having to shoot at ridiculously easy stationary targets every so often; miss, and you have to ski more. (Clint doesn’t miss.)

2. Half the time you actually have to shoot while lying in the snow, what the fuck is up with that? Punishment for his and Nat’s expense claim from Medellin?

3. Norwegians and Canadians aren’t nearly as nice as everyone thinks they are; they use their elbows when no one is looking. (Clint can do that, too.)

Oh, and he really needs to talk to Natasha.

*****

“They tried that with me, too,” she says over a cup of hot, smoky tea in the Village that night. “Sitwell should be fired. Changing operational parameters in the middle – you’d never see that in the Red Room. Highly unprofessional.”

“Tried?” Clint says. “Past tense. Not are trying. You got out of it? How?”

Natasha shrugs.

“I told the woman who came for me that I’d twisted my ankle when one of those mascots ran into me at the opening ceremony. Bye-bye, luge medal hopes. I may not be the most risk averse person you’ll ever meet, but I am not getting on one of those toboggans from hell.”

Shit.

Natasha’s eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up.

“Tell me you didn’t think of that?”

Clint glares at his partner balefully as she breaks into a peal of laughter.

“At least I don’t have to conceal-carry anymore,” he grumps. “With any luck, we can hit quota and skip town by Wednesday. Aaron will be happy to take my spot, I’m sure.”

Natasha is still giggling when their phones start to buzz, both at the same time. Coulson. Clint glowers at his with what he is pretty well aware is pure petulance and elects to ignore it. Natasha, ever the pro, pulls hers out and looks intently at whatever message SHIELD has sent.

“On second thought, make that Thursday,” she says. “Apparently, Anton Makhadov absolutely loves the biathlon and will be putting in an appearance in the VIP section for the final. His seat booking just came through. Front row.”

She looks up at Clint.

“Do they have qualifying runs, or are you in the final automatically?”


*****

It’s nine o’clock at night New York time, but the TV room in the Tower is never empty these days, not even on a Thursday. Not much world-saving to be done in February.

“Did you bring popcorn?” Steve looks up hopefully when Tony walks in.

“Scotch,” Tony shakes his head. “The only thing worth ingesting at this time of day.”

He pours two glasses, neat, and sits down on the couch beside Steve.

“How are the medal standings?”

Steve sniffs his Scotch, takes a sip and pulls an appreciative moue.

“According to JARVIS, Russia is in the lead, but the US is closing in. Three cases of lethal food poisoning in the VIP cafeteria; a single stray bullet hit the general who used the Russian air force to fly drugs out of Tajikistan, and his Number Two, at the same time. Oh, and some drug testing apparatchik fell out of a window, carrying a bunch of clean urine samples for that old bait-and-switch. So I guess three to two, that we know of, and a blow struck for drugfree sports.”

“I make that a solid lead for Romanoff. Defenestration isn’t Barton’s style, it’s hers,” Tony says. “Four to one. Unless we count the opening ceremony, which smelled of Barton. Four to two, then. I still sense a tenner heading my way, Rogers.”

Bruce wanders in and scratches himself.

“You are morphing more into your mild-mannered alter ego every day, Doctor Banner,” Tony adds, rolling his eyes. “Go have some calming fluid.”

He waves vaguely in the direction of the bar just as Pepper arrives, followed by Thor.

“I was ready to go to bed for an early night, but JARVIS insisted I come,” Pepper yawns. “Something about the men’s biathlon starting in ten minutes. Is this something to do with Clint, Tony? What exactly did you ask JARVIS to do?”

“I hear that Great Feats are about to happen on the battlefield of nations,” booms the Norse God. “The people of my father’s erstwhile fiefdom will win the day, I am sure. They excel in snowy pursuits.”

Steve is appalled.

“You’d cheer for the Norwegians? Whose team are you on, anyway?”

Thor beams benevolently.

“Of course, if our friend the Archer were to succeed, I would rejoice even more.”

The TV now shows a series of figures in different-colored onesies, their eyes hidden behind fetching sunglasses and wooden rifles slung over their backs, skiing their little lives out except for when they stop to shoot at a line of lollipops. Tony is not impressed.

“They all look the same. JARVIS, which one is Agent Barton, or did he get himself disqualified already for running his mouth off?”

Pepper turns to Tony, a look of alarm on her face.

“Tony. Tell me you didn’t…”

JARVIS’ voice interrupts the inconvenient question.

“Agent Barton is in the purple, Sir. Number 616. He appears to be doing surprisingly well, although a French and a German skier are in the lead for now. I am sorry, Mr. Odinsson. The Norwegians are faltering badly in this event.”

The lead pack, including Barton, has reached the stand where the majority of spectators are seated. One by one, the athletes drop into the snow, fire a series of shots and rise again. The first three shrug their weapons over their shoulders before powering off with their poles, to the pop-pop-pop of the next group’s shots.

The camera follows them as they head around the bend in the tracks to do it all over again, this time standing up. The whole thing has a chilly repetitiveness that makes Tony feel almost guilty.

“That’s… all very interesting,” Bruce’s attempt at team enthusiasm falters badly. “They’re doing this for what, twenty kilometers? Isn’t there a hockey game on, maybe if we switch to cable?”

“If Clint is in there somewhere, we have to watch,” Pepper declares loyally. “I mean, he’s our friend, right?” She glares at Tony. “Right, Tony??”

The broadcasters have taken note of the relatively unknown American, who seems to be challenging for the lead, but are giving him zero chances. Too much energy spent too soon, one of them opines. Tony rises in indignation.

“Oh, come on, Barton. You can’t run out of gas. An Avenger, about to be beaten by some random French dude? Not even a Norwegian? Where’s your pride, man? Surely, the Great Hawkeye can…”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence. The last thing he feels is a sharp rap on the temple and darkness falls.

*****

Clint fishes the medal out from under Tony’s head and sticks it back in his pocket.

“That felt good,” he says. “Is there any Scotch left? I could use something decent. Stark owes me.”

“Don’t worry, Pep.” Natasha walks over to Pepper and briefly lays a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He’ll be fine in a few minutes. The design has a hole in it. Limited amount of gold.”

She heads over to the bar, waves her hand over the lock on the secure cabinet where Tony keeps the Really Good Stuff, and takes out a bottle of 50-year-old Macallan Lalique.

“Did you know that the medals in Albertville in ’92 had a center made out of Lalique crystal?” she asks nobody in particular as she pours two generous portions. “It was supposed to make them look like ice. Very creative. Too bad Clint was only ten then; I would have liked one of those.”

“Wait.” Thor looks at the two of them and back at the screen, where the purple figure continues to battle through the snow, in hot pursuit of two other skiers and in sight of the finish line now. “What wizardry is this? How came you to be both here and there at the same time? Even Loki could not have managed such a marvel.”

Natasha dips her tongue in the amber liquid and runs it over her lips. She winks at Clint, who has been watching the taste test with considerable appreciation. Avengers Tower may be a zoo, but at least it affords some privacy when you want it...the Olympic Village sure hadn’t. It’s been a long few days.

“JARVIS,” Natasha says, passing Clint his glass and allowing their fingers to touch briefly. “Please explain to these good people the idea of time zone differences and the nightly Olympics round-up for US prime time viewers.”

“I could not possibly comment on that, Agent Romanoff,” says the A.I. piously. “But I would like to congratulate you on the speed with which you flew the Quinjet home after the medal ceremony. And I hope you both forgive my role in changing your assignment. As you know, I cannot refuse an order from Sir; I can only question his wisdom and clean up the mess as best I can.”

“Well, JARVIS. You made us come here and watch Barton ski around in a circle, and you already knew how it ended?”

Bruce points at the screen in mute protest, while Captain America succumbs to a giggle fit.

“I never said the race was live, Dr. Banner. And no one asked.”

Clint waves his glass at the ceiling.

“We’re good, J, provided you erase me from the record books. Not that anyone will give a shit about biathlon, now that the figure skating has started.”

“Already done, Agent Barton. The official gold medalist for the men’s 20 km biathlon is now a French gentleman; his government will never question his elevation after your sudden, sad disqualification. Also, I took the liberty to remove all footage of that extra shot you took while slinging the gun over your shoulder.”

“Tell me something, Clint,” Steve says. “If you’re so keen on keeping a low profile, why go for the gold when you could be, say, forty-fifth and no one would ever notice you exist?”

Clint shrugs.

“You ever been to Russia in the winter? It’s fucking cold. I skied to stay warm, until Tasha could get the Quinjet. Wasn’t my fault everybody else skied so slowly or missed their shots.”

Tony has started to stir on the carpet, but nobody moves to help him up, not even Pepper.

Natasha heads over to the bar to grab the Macallan, and motions Clint to join her. He puts his arm around her shoulder and plants a kiss on her head to thank her for this most excellent initiative.

“It’s been a long day, and we’re going to bed,” she announces and steers him towards the door.

Tony sits up, rubbing his temple, and moans.

“Oh, Stark?” Natasha says over her shoulder. “You better start packing. You’re expected in Kona, Hawaii, for the 2014 Ironman. They’re very excited to have you! Bring a swimsuit and a bike.”