"Tell me, Barton,” Bruce asks as he watches Clint scrunch up his eyes and scan the outside of the Tower. “Have you ever regretted leaving behind your life of crime?"

If anyone else had asked this question Clint would probably have taken offense. But since it's Bruce, he gives the matter half a second's worth of serious consideration before nodding in the affirmative.

"Pretty much the entire time while I was with SHIELD. Like, when those Nazis in Accounting refused to reimburse my hotel claims from Budapest? Even after I gave them a sworn statement that I'd lost the receipt in a gun battle and attached my bloody t-shirt as evidence? Should’ve sprayed the whole floor with arrows and taken my reimbursement from petty cash. But you can’t do that when you’re on the straight and narrow - so, yeah.”

He exhales in unhappy memory and pulls a peculiar looking arrow out of his quiver. Bruce feels compelled to clarify.

“Actually, that was a rhetorical question,” he says. “But remind me never to do your taxes again.  Do we know, by the way, what Tony has for security?”

Clint’s grin flashes white in the darkness as he nocks his arrow.

“I think that’s supposed to be us, and especially you, Banner. So we should be okay. Besides, everyone knows that the holidays are the best time to execute a heist.”

*****

The Day Before

Tony looks over Steve’s shoulder at the magazine he is currently flipping through.

“Speak Your Own Love Language This Holiday,” he says. “What does that even mean? And why do you read this dreck? Maybe we should get you a subscription to Guns and Ammo?”

Pepper is appalled.

“I thought you had sworn off the weapons industry, Tony. And the sexism. But I guess I still have work to do here.”

Tony ducks his head. 

“Ouch,” he says contritely. “Touché. I retract my previous remarks. Please, Captain Rogers, entertain us with whatever profound insights you have gathered from your research in – what is it – Hello Magazine.”

“Yes,” Thor booms from the corner of the family room, where he is occupying an enormous sectional all by himself. “I am keen to hear. My Lady Jane has invited me to touch my womanly parts more often.”

Six heads uniformly pivot in Thor’s direction. 

“I think what she meant was for him to get in touch with his feminine side?” Natasha ventures an explanation.  

Clint emits an undignified cackle, causing Pepper to glare at him. 

“Doing that wouldn’t hurt you either, Agent Barton. Or any of you guys, for that matter. Sometimes, you can cut the testosterone in this building with a knife.”

She exchanges a knowing look with Natasha while Steve clears his throat, in that polite, subject-changing way he brought with him from the 1940s.

“If you insist, Stark. Apparently, couples that understand how to express their feelings for one another last longer. So, if you show your love through gifts, but your partner prefers acts of service, they won’t be impressed if you give them…” here his eyes assume a sly glint in Tony’s direction, “… say, a Ferrari. Give them a backrub instead or paint their dining room.” 

He gets a faraway look. “The things I wouldn’t have done for Bucky…”

Tony brushes the sentiment aside.

“Ignoring seventy-year-old hypotheticals,” he huffs, “let’s test this in the now. Barton! What is your and Agent Romanoff’s love language? Do you two even communicate that way?”

Pepper’s takes in a sharp breath, almost like a gulp. She looks from one suddenly stiffening assassin to the other and a new kind of chill settles in the room. A sharp fold appears between Clint’s eyebrows, but he doesn’t skip a beat.

“You’re still alive, Stark. Which shows just how much I love Pepper. Guess mine is ‘act of service’.”

Natasha chimes in with what seems to Pepper like the finesse of someone out to defuse a bomb.

“But say the word, Pep, and he’s gone. So, ditto.”

Bruce shudders extravagantly.

“That is so dark,” he says. “Me and the Other Guy, all we want for Christmas for each other is sit around the fireplace and eat fattening foods.”

Bruce’s generous effort at a save generates a lively discussion of food preferences, including a list of Depression-era ersatz delicacies from Steve and a nostalgic homily from Thor about traditional Asgardian Winter Solstice feasts, followed by a scientific analysis from Tony on whether tables can actually groan. (Apparently, the answer is yes.)

“Cookies,” Clint says, with one last glower in Tony’s direction. “All I ever wanted as a kid at Christmas was home-made cookies. Never got any though. One year my mom actually had squirreled away some butter and eggs, but then…” His voice trails off. “Never mind. But yeah. Cookies would’ve been nice.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow with what Pepper assumes are ugly memories.

“In the Red Room, getting caught eating something sweet got you tossed into a punishment cell for a week. We were pretty much keto, way before that was a thing. Your body is a finely honed instrument, Dreykov used to say. Do not pollute the machine with sugar.”

She looks into the air, somewhere over Tony’s head.

“Cookies were definitely out. And as for home-made ones…” She finishes the sentence with a little ‘as if’ snort.

“Well, that’s all horribly depressing,” Tony declares. “Lump-of-coal kids, represent! Anyone for takeout and a Hallmark movie?”

*****

When Pepper heads towards the kitchen the next morning - very early because her job doesn’t know about ‘slowing down for the holidays’ - she can hear clanging and cursing halfway down the corridor. She arrives just in time to see a pyroclastic cloud of flour billowing across the granite-topped island and towards the doorway.

Stepping aside to let the worst of the cloud pass, she fails miserably and wrinkles her nose at the white residue settling on the black pinstripe Armani.

“I think when Bing Crosby sang about ‘White Christmas’, this is not what he had in mind,” she observes caustically. “What on Earth are you doing here, and at this hour?”

Natasha, dressed in a ready-for-a-serious-workout tank top and leggings (neither of which can be said to be black anymore), puts up her chin defiantly.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she says but her voice lacks its usual confidence.

“Well.” Pepper dusts off the offending particles and heads for the Nespresso machine. “For starters, I live here. Technically at least, this is my kitchen. Plus, I work, therefore I caffeinate. Your turn. What the ever-loving heck is going on here?”

She tactfully turns to the Nespresso machine to allow Natasha to collect her composure and plops a capsule into the slot. Colombia Fair Trade, bought at Clint’s insistence (“To get people off the drug trade, ‘coz those narcos suck. Don’t ask me how I know that…”) and now her personal favourite.

“Baking,” Natasha mumbles somewhere behind her back. “I’m…baking.”

Pepper’s hand stills, the maroon-colored capsule momentarily suspended in mid-air before she drops it into the slot and cranks the lever. She turns around to face Natasha.

“Baking,” she says and surveys the formerly gleaming kitchen. 

At least a dozen bowls are piled in the double sink; bags of sugar, butter wrappers and dough-encrusted implements litter every available surface on the island; and most of the black granite is hidden under drifts of flour dust. 

“I would have guessed, ‘re-enactment of the London Blitz, circa 1941’.”

“Yeah, well,” Natasha says – a phrasing that Pepper assumes she has assimilated from her partner. “I’m not very good at it. Yet. But I will be!”

“No doubt,” Pepper replies drily. It’s a well-known truism in the Tower that whatever Natasha Romanoff decides to do, she will inevitably excel at. But obviously, that time has not yet come. 

“So what are you trying to bake, exactly?”

Natasha runs her hand through her hair, leaving a streak of white in the red.

“Cookies,” she says, her voice uncertain. “For Clint. Because…”

Ah.

Pepper holds up her hand. 

“Say no more,” she says. She shrugs off her jacket and tosses it into the family room. 

“JARVIS,” she announces to the ceiling, “cancel all my appointments for the day. Family emergency. And have someone find me an apron.  No, make that two.”

*****

Clint pulls Bruce, huffing and puffing in protest, onto the window ledge and into the lab.

“Did I mention there’s an elevator inside the building? And that I actually have a key to the lab, with twenty-four-hour access and guest privileges?” Bruce wheezes when he gets his breath back.  

How does the Other Guy not get winded when he climbs up those skyscrapers? And why doesn’t any of his stamina translate into the Banner version even just one little bit, when their body is at least theoretically one and the same? Surely there’s a paper in that…  

“I could have just swiped us in through the front door.”

“Yes, so you informed me about a dozen times,” Clint says, as he lets his flashlight glint over the endless array of computer banks, monitors, spectrometers, miniature colliders and what-nots. “Fourteen, to be exact. One for each floor I hoisted you up. But that key records entries and exits, no? Too easy to pin this on you, especially at four a.m. The window is so much more anonymous.”

“And that grappling arrow of yours isn’t a calling card how, exactly?” Bruce objects, but Clint just ignores him.

Bruce still isn’t entirely sure what they’re doing here, why Hawkeye  asked him to be his accomplice wingman, or why he said yes, and is wallowing somewhere between partial regret and appreciation that Clint would ask him to spend time in his company. 

Truth be told, he’d been getting so bored sitting around in the Tower that he’d started to feel the Other Guy twitching; the invitation to commit burglary had come as a welcome distraction. Also, Clint was probably right: a little exercise wouldn’t hurt his squishy and soft alter-ego body. But still…what if JARVIS ratted them out?

Clint, blissfully unaware of the mental chaos roiling in Bruce’s head, emits a triumphant Ha! sound.

“Here he is,” he exults. “I was afraid Tony had shipped him off to Malibu.”

“He…?” Bruce starts, but then he sees what Clint’s flashlight is illuminating: Dum-E, Tony Stark’s own personal robot/sidekick/helper and Droid Friday.

“No,” he says. “Absolutely not. You can’t steal that thing! Tony’d kill us. Well, you, anyway. And besides…”

“Not stealing, Professor. Borrowing his service. Just for a few hours, and we’re staying right here,” Clint says as he puts the flashlight between his teeth and heads over to the workbench where Dum-E is curled up in robotic slumber. “And the sooner you’ll help me program him, the sooner we can get on with what I need to do and get out of here.”

Sputtering indignation isn’t a good look, Bruce decides and besides, he’s here now, trapped in whatever scheme Barton has concocted. And, he finally admits to himself, actually enjoying the ride.

“So, what exactly do you want to accomplish with that thing?” he asks.

For the first time this night, Clint loses a smidgeon of that cockiness he usually deploys to cover his lack of superpowers.

“Well, he’s basically a walking assembly line, right?” he says, as if to convince himself that he’s being perfectly reasonable.  “And I need help assembling something.”

Bruce’s eyebrows and shoulders do the And? What? thing, but Barton is taking his time. Finally, it comes out.

“I need to make cookies,” Clint says, a pleading look in his eyes. “Lots of cookies. But here’s the thing: I don’t know how.”

*****

Natasha glares at the timer on the kitchen counter with a look she might normally reserve for a particularly vile member of the Russian oligarchy. The timer keeps on counting down the seconds: 17:59 - 17:58 - 17.57…

“You do know this is an inanimate object, yes?” Pepper asks gently. “You can’t intimidate it into going faster.”

Natasha reluctantly takes her eyes off the offending timepiece.

“You would think that Tony Stark, being the genius that he’d like everyone to think he is, could invent an oven that bakes more efficiently?”

Pepper takes a sip of her coffee to project a soothing calmness. (The shot of Bailey’s helps.)

“He probably could,” she says. “But baking is chemistry. It would still take eighteen minutes for the eggs and butter to bind to the flour, and the leavening to…to…” She airily waves the hand not holding the mug. “…leaven. Or whatever it does to make sure cookies don’t turn into hockey pucks.”

Natasha sighs.

“I guess you’re right. In the meantime, should we start the next batch?“

Pepper flips through the ancient, dough-stained book she’s dug up from her private quarters. 

“Shortbread?” she suggests. “This one only needs three ingredients. Butter, sugar, and flour. Okay, plus vanilla and salt. Five.”

“Isn’t that kind of boring?” Natasha wants to know.

Pepper rolls her eyes.

“Simplicity is the thing. These will melt in your mouth. My mom and I used to make them together. We can drizzle some chocolate over them to glam them up, if you insist.”

“Chocolate is good,” Natasha nods eagerly. “Chocolate is very good, actually. Clint’s favourite is Lindt’s seventy-five percent Ecuadorian single estate.” She scrunches up her nose. “If I remember correctly…”

That’s an oddly specific thing to remember and then be insecure about, but Pepper lets it slide. 

“JARVIS?” she asks. 

The AI sighs. 

“On it, Ms Potts. I already alerted one of the runners. According to their product inventory, Dean and DeLuca has a stock of 17 bars, which I believe should suffice.”

 The gleam has returned to Natasha’s eyes.

“I think I have a blowgun somewhere that we can use for drizzling. It has a really fine point.”

*****

Clint eyes the incubator suspiciously.  

“You sure this thing goes up to 350 Fahrenheit?”

Bruce shrugs.

“I can’t see why not,” he says. “I haven’t used this particular one, but Thor told me he was trying to hatch a bilgesnipe egg in it last week. He said those normally mature in active volcanoes.” 

“Seriously? And did it work?” Clint is momentarily distracted. “I’ve never seen a bilgesnipe. They sound revolting.”

“I have no idea. I was in Kolkata, dropping off things for the kids in the orphanage. I assume it didn’t, or he would have bragged about it.” 

Clint squares his shoulders.

“Well, anyway. You know how to operate that thing, Professor?”

Bruce frowns in indignation. 

“You do know that one of my degrees is in microbiology?”

Clint nods.

“’Course I do. I read your SHIELD file, after Harlem, in case I had to take you out. You also have a PhD in chemistry. That’s why I asked you to help me, and not the Other Guy. So, can you? Operate that thing?”

Bruce gives Clint the side-eye, walks over to the incubator, turns a nob and punches in ‘350’.

“There. You sure you needed me for that? I assume you’ve managed to turn something on other than a coffee machine?”

Clint ignores both the dig and – much to Bruce’s relief - the opportunity for the obvious retort. 

“Shouldn’t you check whether anyone left anything in this thing first?” he asks instead. “I mean, knowing Stark, he might be trying to grow a cure for Ebola in there.”

Bruce huffs something about Tony being a mediocre biologist at best, but opens the door because Clint isn’t wrong. There something crumbly on the bottom that he quickly sweeps out before the unit gets too hot. 

“All clear,” he says. “Now tell me, why are we doing this again?”

Clint walks over to watch Dum-E, who has been appointed to nut-grinding detail.

“Cookies,” he says. 

“So you said. What’s it really about?”

Clint turns to the robot.

“Hey, Dum-E – I think those nuts need to be ground a bit more, buddy. The recipe says fine, not coarse.” 

Bruce frowns at the obvious prevarication, but bites nonetheless.

“I thought you didn’t know anything about baking?”

“I don’t,” Clint says. “But I do know about coffee, and the difference between grinding for filter drip, which needs ‘fine’, and for French press, which is ‘coarse’. I assume nuts are no different.”

Fine, point. But Clint hasn’t actually answered the question, so Bruce hints that the Other Guy would like to know more. Clint sighs and throws up his hands.

“You heard Nat last night. She’s never had proper Christmas cookies, so.”

Bruce nods. Lump of coal kids, Tony had called Nat and Clint the night before. He suddenly gets it, he really does. It even makes him feel a little better about being asked to lend a hand. But still…

“Why didn’t you just go and buy her some?”

Clint sets his jaw.

“They have to be home-made, or it doesn’t mean anything.”

Bruce’s eyes wander over the lab with its monitors and screens, vials and miscellaneous machinery, all partially dusted in flour, and past the incubator which is now at 275 degrees and rising. They arrest on Dum-E, who is pouring a big bowl of – finely - ground nuts into an enormous vat containing a bunch of other ingredients that one of Stark’s night runners had dropped off at the lab door; at least Barton hadn’t made himclimb in through the window.

“I don’t know,” he says. “What part of this says home-made cookies to you, exactly?”

Clint gives a disarming grin. 

“All of it!” he says, proudly waving his hand over the chaos. “Carefully planned mission; meticulous – well, almost – execution; limited collateral damage. Trade craft, my man, trade craft. Nat will appreciate that.” 

He picks up a printout of a photograph showing row upon row of vaguely moon-shaped cookies and stabs at the picture with a buttery finger. 

“Now, can you program Dum-E to shape the dough like this?”

*****

“I think we have enough here,” Pepper says, in a tone carefully devoid of criticism. Eighteen fully loaded cookie sheets are currently cooling on various available flat surfaces; three more are in the oven.

“You think so?” Natasha is skeptical. “I was thinking one tray for each year Clint missed out on.”

Pepper doesn’t know exactly how old Clint is – some days he seems sixty going on thirteen – but he must be at least in his thirties, and it’s getting dark outside.

“I think he’ll be thrilled with what we got here,” she says resolutely. “Especially if we finish drizzling the shortbread and decorate the pistachio Christmas trees. The runner just dropped off the chocolates and silver sugar balls.”

“Are you sure?” Natasha says, sounding uncertain. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Seven different kinds, about six dozen cookies each, spread over twelve tins - you can give everyone on the team one, and he’ll still have more than enough to send him into a sugar coma for a year.”

Natasha blows a lock of hair out of her eyes and lets them wander over her holdings. The last batch in particular looks almost professional; she’s getting there.

“I suppose you’re right,” she sighs. 

As it turns out, alas, a blow gun is not the ideal instrument for drizzling; Natasha’s attempts to get melted chocolate into the tube are a spectacular failure. What does come out the far end contains reddish crumbs, causing her to quietly dispose of five cookies in a bin labeled ‘biohazards’, together with the now useless weapon.

“Let’s try a spoon or a fork to do the drizzling with,” Pepper suggests. “It’s a bit pedestrian, but that’s what my mom always uses.”

Natasha looks at her thoughtfully.

“Is it nice, having a mother?”

Pepper laughs.

“It has its moments. She’s still not sure whether she approves of Tony and me. The money is nice, she always says,” and here Pepper changes her tone to a slight mid-Western twang, “…but what about all that whoring around he used to do, sweetie? Aren’t you worried about that?”

Natasha suppresses a snort but turns wistful again in an instant.

“I remember nothing of mine,” she says, a faraway look in her face. “I think I might have liked doing things like this with her. Although who knows what she would have thought about Clint.”

Pepper almost holds her breath; this is the closest Natasha has ever come to acknowledging a relationship she has always suspected, but never seen actual physical proof of - unless you count the current state of the kitchen. 

“I think she would have liked him,” she says, laying a reassuring, well-floured hand on Natasha’s arm. “Even if he is a bit of an acquired taste. I think we all are.”

*****

Mission accomplished.

Dum-E’s attempts to roll the cookies in vanilla-flavoured sugar while still hot, as demanded by the recipe, had not been a complete success; apparently, steel pincers lack the delicate touch necessary to avoid disintegration. Clint had ended up handling that part by himself, given the triggering effect of the heat on Bruce’s fingers. 

He looks at the haul of lumpy, sort of crescent-shaped cookies with a mixture of reluctant pride and skepticism. 

In a corner of the lab sits a tower of festive tins, delivered by another of Stark’s slightly resentful runners, together with a complaint aboutperhaps coordinating orders through the central system next time?  

“I have to admit that these things smell pretty good,” Clint says, “but…do you think they’re good enough?”

Bruce can practically see the waves of anxiety radiating off Clint’s scrunched-up forehead.

“Why don’t you just try one?” he says. Clint immediately throws up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Nah, I’m okay. But you should,” he insists, just as Steve sticks his head in the door.

“This is the best this floor has smelled since I moved in here,” Captain America declares. “Whatever you’re experimenting with, don’t stop. It sure beats whatever Thor’s been growing in here the last few weeks.

Clint and Bruce look at each other. Great minds, apparently, do think alike. 

“Oh, Steve!” Clint sings out, followed by Bruce’s, “Boy, do we have a treat for you!”

Clint passes Steve one of the halfmoons that looks a bit more like an asteroid.

“Here,” he says. “Let me know what you think.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Steve says. “I love warm cookies. Thanks!” 

He shovels the still-warm crescent into his mouth and his eyes widen in wonder.

“Man, that is actually good,” he says. “My mom made something like these, back before the Depression, that one time she had enough money to buy nuts.”

He reaches for a second, but Bruce swats his hand away.

“Wait for a few seconds first.” His voice is as professorial as he can make it. “Then, if you’re still breathing, you can have another one.”

Clint beams at Bruce fondly.

“I knew I picked the right guy to be my wingman. Now, where’s my wallet? Gotta leave some cash for the cleaners. Dum-E needs a real good polish.”

*****

Christmas Day dawns at around 11 am in the Tower. With no urgent world saving to be done, everyone is happy to sleep in and wander into the kitchen – which is gleaming again – for coffee and croissants on their own time.

The tree in the adjoining family room, lovingly decorated by Pepper, is ablaze with lights, illuminating a stack of presents piled up underneath and off to the sides.

Of course, Tony insists that his gifts be opened first. There’s a glittering necklace for Pepper that leaves her gasping; a brand-new set of permanently silenced Glocks for Natasha; a box full of tiny cloaking devices for Clint to weave into the fletching in his arrows; a set of post-war history books and a Playboy subscription for Steve; an extra-large waffle iron for Thor; and a small, lead-lined box for Bruce, wrapped in paper imprinted with ominous symbols and delivered with a recommendation not to open it up in public.

But the biggest pile – apart from a large box labeled ‘To My Friends” that has started to emit ominous thumping noises – is in the corner earmarked for Clint and Natasha. There, cookie tins are stacked atop one another, in a holiday-themed replica of the New York skyline.

To N. from C. says the smaller, Brooklyn-sturdy assembly; the towering homage to the Empire State Building is marked, To Clint, from Natasha.

Clint opens one of his tins, the tiniest of smiles playing around his lips.

“You didn’t,” he says softly. Natasha grins back at him as she peeks into one marked for her.

“Are these the ones I liked so much in Vienna?” she exclaims. 

“I sure hope so,” he says, suddenly doubtful. “The internet recipe mafia wouldn’t lie, would they?”

For the next couple of minutes they just stand there, side by side, unmoving, staring at each other. 

Steve waves his hands encouragingly behind their back and balls his fist in triumph when Clint finally wraps his arm around Natasha’s shoulder and pulls her close; she leans forward into a kiss that rapidly deepens. Thor claps slowly and earnestly, while Pepper and Bruce sigh contentedly.

“Annnd - we have our answer,” Tony announces to no one in particular. “Our lethal friends’ love language is...drumroll…baked goods. Who’d have guessed? Anyone?”

Pepper puts her hand on his arm.

“I don’t think this is about the cookies,” she whispers. 

“Well, whatever – Rogers owes me a tenner,” Tony announces, ignoring Pepper’s intervention. “They finally committed a PDA right in front of us, so pay up, Cap!”

Bruce has been watching the proceedings with a satisfied smile when his instincts give a sudden roar. He points at the large and as yet unopened parcel, which has started to move along the floor in a jerky bounce.

“What is in there, anyway?” he wonders.

Thor preens.

“It is my gift to all of you,” he declares. “Life in Midgard has become terribly uneventful of late and I thought you might enjoy a bit of sport to while away the winter hours.”

He walks over to the box and pulls on the enormous red bow.  Apparently, the ribbons are what has been holding it together; the front falls forward, leaving a gaping opening.

Pepper holds her breath, which, as it turns out, is just as well. 

The rottweiler-sized creature that explodes from its confinement belches out a battle cry that reeks of corpse and rotten egg, laced with essence of durian. It paws at the parquet floor, leaving a deep gash, and bares several rows of impressive teeth.

“Do not worry, my friends, this bilgesnipe is but a juvenile, hatched a mere three days ago,” Thor announces brightly. “It will not eat people yet. But it will be hungry, I suspect. They feed voraciously until their antlers come in.”

Natasha reaches for her new Glocks. Steve rolls up his sleeves while Clint turns to relieve the tree of potential projectiles. Bruce, for his part, closes his eyes and starts mumbling a tantric prayer of protection, interspersed with rhythmic chants that sound like, don’t turn green, don’t turn green, don’t... 

“JARVIS,” Tony shouts, “lock the door to the dining room and send in the Mach 8!” 

But the bilgesnipe does not appear interested in the dining room, despite the sizeable lunch buffet. Instead, it heads straight for the towering tins.

Natasha steps out of its path but can’t get off a clean shot – ricochets matter, when the bystanders are friends rather than someone’s henchmen. Clint lobs a handful of glass balls at the approaching creature’s eyes without noticeable effect, while Tony stands there, arms outstretched, waiting for his amour to finish arriving without hurting anyone.  

“Such fine sport,” Thor jubilates. “It brings to mind Loki’s tenth birthday celebrations.”

Steve valiantly tries to grab the beast’s protruding spine plates, only to find that they are razor sharp. Cursing, they can only watch as it rams into the pile of tins, scattering their contents like confetti. Its goal achieved, the bilgesnipe drops to its knees and starts hoovering cookies up off the floor with small, docile snuffles of contentment.

Natasha lowers her Glocks; Clint sighs.

“Chalk up another Christmas to neither of us getting any cookies,” he says. “And here, for a brief, shining moment I thought…”

Natasha looks from Thor, who seems rather pleased with the success of his gift, to the happily munching beast, whom Steve and a now fully armored Tony are now approaching in a pincer movement.

She reaches for Clint’s hand and pulls him towards the elevator. The last thing Pepper hears is a whisper: