The Lone Wolf (Clint Barton)

Chapter 39: Heading Back Home

Jackie POV:

"I'm going to go in alone." Dad informed as soon as the guard left us.

"Absolutely fucking not." I retorted, crossing my arms and glaring at him.

"Winter-" Dad started.

"No. Why the hell should I let you just be alone in a room with a man that made the Avengers break up?" I asked. "The Avengers? The most powerful and probably the most tight-knit group in the world? And besides, he's probably one of the few people that can successfully get under your skin."

"He hates the Avengers. You're a part of the Avengers. Connect the dots." Dad deadpanned. Glancing at Sam, I raised a questioning eyebrow at his silence.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I say let the bionic staring machine do whatever the hell he thinks he should do." Sam decided. "He's going to do it anyway, might as well not waste breath on trying to convince him otherwise."

"Fine." I mumbled, Dad slightly smiling before heading down the hallway towards Zemo's cell. "I'm going to call Clint." Sam nodded in acknowledgment before I headed down the hallway a little ways for a little privacy. Clicking the contact for Clint, I leaned against the wall and waited. Only getting his voicemail, I frowned and redialed. Getting his voicemail again, I hummed in confusion and headed back to where Sam was. He was fixing to say something (probably something along the lines of 'that was a short talk'), when Dad walked back out. He led the way back out of the prison, saying something about breaking Zemo out of jail while leading us into a basement somewhere.

"What are you talking about? You wanna break Zemo out of prison? Have you lost your mind, Buck?" Sam interrupted, glancing at me as I shrugged in confusion at Dad's actions. This was one of those few times that I actually had no idea what Dad was doing, which worried me. Usually, when this happened, it meant that he was doing something either crazy or idiotic, sometimes a combination of the two. And the feeling that I was getting from his rambling, it was the last one.

"We have no leads, no moves, nothing." Dad informed.

"What we have, is one of the most dangerous men in the world behind bars." Sam stated.

"We also have eight Super Soldiers that are loose." Dad quickly retorted.

"Zemo's gonna mess with our minds. Especially yours." I spoke up.

"Winter." Dad sighed. "Super Soldiers go against everything he believes in. He is crazy, but he still has a code."

"I've been on the wrong side of that code and so have you. He blew up the UN, he killed King T'Chaka and framed you for it. Did you forget that? You think the Wakandans forgot about it?" I asked, knowing a little about what they did while I was getting experimented on. "It's a rhetorical question. They didn't. I know why this matters to you, but it's pushing you off the deep end."

"We don't know how they're gettin' the serum. We don't even know how many of them there are. Let me just walk you through a hypothetical. Can I?" Dad asked.

"What did you do?" Sam interjected.

"I didn't do anything." Dad defended. "The weakest point in any system isn't the software, the hardware, it's the meatware. The human element. Now, in this lockup, it's nine to one, prisoners to guards. And if two prisoners start fighting, then the protocol says four guards have to respond."

"So why would two prisoners randomly start fighting at that moment?" Sam questioned.

"Who knows? There could be many reasons..." Dad trailed off while I narrowed my eye suspiciously. "But the point is, these things escalate. Lockdown procedures would have to be initiated, and with all those bodies flying around left and right, wouldn't be hard to slip down a hallway or two. And if the fire alarm got tripped while the prisoners were being separated...someone could use the chaos to their advantage."