Worth (Sequel to Games of Deception)

Chapter 3 - Signs

-Clint-

"Jacqueline."

Of course. Of course that was what, or should I say who, they wanted.

I spun my head to the side to gauge her reaction, but she was frozen in place. Her eyes widened and hands curled into fists, she stared ahead, unmoving and fighting to maintain her composure; this last fact, I was fairly certain, was only obvious to me. Despite the others being there with us, I wrapped an arm around her now slightly-trembling form.

"The hell we're letting that happen." I replied, suddenly fueled by anger.

"None of us want that, Clint." Nat replied, somewhat quietly. It was a bit...awkward to discuss with Jacqueline in the room, but in that moment I didn't care. "But what are we going to do?"

"Do they know h-our location?" Rogers asked. "We need to know what time we have before we make any decisions."

"Not yet. But once word gets to Fury he'll probably want to move you guys around. They'll go after more than one of you if they know where you are." Tony answered, looking to the agents of the group. I nodded in hesitant agreement, but that was when Jacqueline slowly pulled away from my grasp.

"I'll...be back in a bit." She uttered, slowly turning on a heel and beginning to step away. Steve and Bruce stepped aside to give her an open space, and she was quickly out of the room. I could feel the others' eyes on me now, but I had nothing to say.

"Barton..." Evangeline began, but I stopped her.

"We have to do something." I spoke, not knowing where the words were coming from, but feeling that we had more freedom to speak now that Jacqueline was gone. I turned to Stark. "Tell me really, does Fury know about any of this?"

"You know he does." Nat replied for him. "But he wasn't going to tell us, at least not yet."

"Which is why I am." Stark added. It was strange to hear him this serious. "I think we all know by now that Fury's secret-keeping isn't always to our advantage."

"Isn't that the truth." Rogers muttered while staring down at the floor. He looked up slowly, not really focusing on anything in particular. "I can't believe they're back."

"It's doubtful they were ever completely gone." Bruce stated, the first thing he'd said since we'd gone into the lab. "But something's brought them back out, changed the game."

We all knew what, who that factor was. From what we all knew, Jacqueline had been one of their most prized possessions; all those other attempts to perfect their serum had failed, so Jacqueline was a symbol of their success, removed from them all those years ago when she'd set out on her own. And now that our names and faces had been so publicized because of New York, they knew she was alive and who she was working for. For a group like Hydra, that was all the information they needed. She, along with the files SHIELD had confiscated in regards to her experimentation, was all they had left of their project to create superior beings by using Tesseract energy. And they would fight at all costs to get that back.

"But we can't exactly get a plan together until we know more." Tony stated after we'd stood in silence for a moment. He looked to Evangeline, Natasha and me. "Keep low. Especially make sure Jacqueline does. It'll be fine for a while still yet, but stay alert. We have no way of knowing where they'll be coming from until SHIELD finds out more." He paused, then added pointedly, "You may have to take care of that part with a bit of your own effort, though."

"What's all this "we" talk?" Evangeline asked. "This isn't really a-"

"You want me to just stay out of it?" Stark's voice rose slightly. "This is a big deal Evangeline. I know what Hydra's capable of. You're not safe in this." He turned briefly to turn off the lighted screens around us, and took a step closer to the group. "Rogers can vouch for that, obviously more than the rest of us."