#said probation involves helping the avengers and other supers doing their jobs protecting people

[worldly-diversity]

@wbslngr ○ 𝕡𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕤𝕜𝕖𝕕 𝕝𝕠𝕜𝕚 ○

          ⤷  『  ❛ have you come to laugh at me? ❜  』

To be fair, the spider hybrid had managed to get himself tangled up in his own webs, he is entirely justified in being highly amused. The spiderling is even upside-down, much akin to footage he had seen where the spider's victims were left behind in a similar manner.

"Just a bit." He muses, smirk playing at his lips as he enjoys the show. Alas, not all joys can last forever and with a flick of his wrist, he cuts the web with a few well aimed daggers, leaving Peter to crash to the ground gracelessly.

"Come on then, we've better things to do than merely hanging around."

[whiskeyxcola]

The American Initiative

Part Nine

Summary: Grace Cleveland and Eleanor Baker both thought their lives were over, until they became part of something much bigger – the Avengers. Pairing(s): Clint Barton x OFC, Steve Rogers x OFC Word Count: 1290 Blanket Warnings: Death, mentioned a couple of different ways, but not detailed; canon divergence; more based on Marvel movies. In the infamous word of Steve Rogers, “Language.”

Masterlist

A/N: This was the first Marvel fic I ever started, and I’m super excited to share it with you all! Thanks to @captain-s-rogers​​ for your help, approval, and encouragement on this one!

Tags: @captain-s-rogers @the-murder-strut @delicatecapnerd @life-of-a-nerd

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“She isn’t ready, Fury, not to be on her own,” Clint told his director through clenched teeth.

Nick took a good look at the angry man. “She’s either ready, or she isn’t, Barton.”

“She still won’t talk about him and you want to send her right back to him? Undercover?”

“We have to know what he’s up to, and there’s no one that man trusted like he trusted Grace.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to — this isn’t your call.”

Fury made the statement with such finality, Clint knew the conversation was over. Fine; if he couldn’t get through to Nick Fury, he would convince Grace what a horrible idea this was.

She was packing her bag in her room when he found her. He knocked on the door frame; Grace looked up and gave him a nervous smile.

“Time for me to fly the nest, I guess,” she said.

“Don’t go,” Clint replied.

Grace sat on the edge of her bed. “Clint, did I ever tell you why I joined this initiative?”

“Fury told us -- because you witnessed the murder of a senator while on a job and wanted more protection than the FBI could offer.”

“That’s partially right.” She got up to pull a classified folder from her nightstand drawer, and held it out to Clint. “I was going to give this to you before I left -- just in case -- so that you would know everything.”

Clint took the folder, but tucked it under his arm. “I want to hear it from you.”

“Fine. Joel Rockley, the man I’m going undercover to find information on, was my boyfriend. We started the bounty hunting business together back home, but he got mixed up in some bad stuff. I bailed him out, put him on a bond with my name. He cleaned up his act, came back to work.” She took a moment to compose herself before delving into the harder details. “S.H.I.E.L.D approached him about The American Initiative before they even found Ellie. They started out with a series of injections, to make sure that it would work. The Senator that Joel killed was heavily involved in the project. He believed that S.H.I.E.L.D makes our country a safer place. Anyway, Joel’s record had been sealed, so they didn’t find it right away when they took him for the program. The senator found out and threatened to out him to Director Fury if Joel didn’t come clean on his own.”

“That’s why Joel killed him,” Clint surmised.

Grace nodded. “Yes. He missed a check-in with his probation officer, so I went after him. I was on the job, since I could lose out if he went back to jail. Tracked him to the Senator’s office -- I had my suspicions of what he was going to do, but I didn’t warn anyone. I didn’t want to believe that Joel was capable of murder. So, after I witnessed it, I went to the police. The FBI put me in protective custody, but I had to do something to reconcile what happened to the Senator.”

“Gracie, that wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe I didn’t put him on his knees or put the gun to his head, but I could have stopped it. I could have gone to the police before it happened.” She got up, zipped her bag, and pulled the strap onto her shoulder. “That’s why I joined, Clint. So that I could have the chance to make this right -- to save somebody else. Maybe I can’t bring the senator back, but I can stop Joel from hurting anyone else.”

Clint shook his head. “No. I don’t like it.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“I trained you!” Clint argued. “You’ve known this was coming and you didn’t say anything! I’m going to talk to Fury again -- if I have to pull you from the team, so be it!”

Grace caught him by the arm. “You. Don’t. Get. A. Say. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, I really do. But just because -- just because you kissed me, that doesn’t make you anything other than a teammate. I’m going.”

She pushed past him out of the room and out to the front of the facility. Clint cursed and slapped the folder against the wall before storming out of the room as well.

“Have a good time, kid. Give ‘em hell,” Tony was saying to her when Clint caught up. “Oh, and — something to remember me by.”

He clasped a delicate gold bracelet around her wrist; there was a small opal, Grace’s favorite, centered on the chain. She smiled up at him.

“Thanks, Tony. I’ll see you.”

Grace kissed the older man on the cheek, then she was gone. Clint made himself known only after Grace was out of earshot.

“You got something going with her?” Clint asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, I do,” Tony answered, stopping when he was shoulder to shoulder with the archer. “Faith. You should try it, Barton.”

Ellie was reading a book in a quiet, secluded area she had found in the facility. She wasn’t used to people finding her here, so when Steve showed up, Ellie was more than a little surprised.

“Thought I was pretty well isolated here,” she said, smiling shyly.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not,” Ellie promised, shaking her head for emphasis. “I’ve been reading a lot. Figured out I like it — love it, actually. Mostly fiction.”

Steve shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Ellie nodded. “True. Did you need something?”

“I wanted to check on you after Grace left. You two have a connection you’ll never have with anyone else.”

“True,” Ellie ceded, “but Grace is doing what she came here to do. How can I be upset about that? I’ll be lonely probably, and I’ll miss her, but I also know she’ll come back.”

Steve smiled. “You’re right. She will be back. In the meantime, you don’t have to be lonely, Ella. You have Natasha — and you have me.”

Ellie couldn’t help but grin at that; having Natasha as a stand-in for Grace was far more than okay, but having Steve fill in for her friend — that was a different kind of comfort.

“Jarvis, initiate the OTS,” Tony said, walking into his lab and waking up all the systems.

“Osprey Tracking System initiated, Mr. Stark.”

Tony stood back and waited, arms crossed over his chest, while the computer locked on to Grace’s coordinates. It took a couple of minutes, what with her being in the air somewhere between LaGuardia and Logan, but soon enough, Jarvis alerted Tony that Grace had been found.

“Right where she’s supposed to be,” Tony smiled. “Jarvis, keep the tracker open on the back burner. I wanna be able to find her at a moment’s notice.”

“Will do, sir.”

Grace was watching the clouds as the plane sped by them when the opal on the bracelet Tony had given her vibrated. She glanced down at the bracelet and whispered, “Hello, Jarvis.”

She had no earpiece to hear anything Jarvis might say in return, but if she was in trouble, all she had to do was call Jarvis via the bracelet, and the team would be on their way. Much like the repulsors and wings that were part of her Osprey suit, this bracelet was her fall-safe in case the undercover case went south.

Settling back in her chair as the captain announced the plane was beginning its descent, Grace smiled to herself. She would have to act far more lost once they touched down in Boston, but, for now, she could revel in the fact that Joel had no idea what was in store for him.