#swearing.

Tony steps out into the alley behind the tower. Taking a moment for himself to breathe in the (arguably) fresh New York air.

He's doing good, being healthy, and all that grand stuff. It wasn't at all because he dropped and detonated a canister of crowd repellent that he was attempting to install into his armor... essentially smoking himself out of his own building.

The outdoor air was already working wonders on drying his stinging, watery eyes and easing the burning deep in his nose.

Tony turns his face to the sun, shutting his eyes and letting it warm him.

This is nice, actually. Taking a moment to breathe.

Not that he'd admit that to Pepper.

Tony takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His sense of smell was returning.

Wonderful. Though he could do without the smell from the bins. Thinking of it, yesterday was the pick-up day for the bins. There shouldn't be any smells.

Frowning, Tony opens his eyes.

Better investigate whatever's wrong with his bins before he gets a fine from some by-law officer, and it makes the news. He didn't need that. Stark-Industries didn't need that. Neither did the Avengers.

He briefly wonders if it's safe enough yet to slip back into the garage to grab some PPE before doing this. Probably not. The canister was high-strength. But the allure of temporarily losing his sense of smell again was strong.

'What could even smell that bad? Geeze!'

With a drawn-out sigh, Tony turns. Freezing as he spots the issue.

It wasn't the bins.

Hanging from some of the cables crossing the alley were three dead bodies. Strung up by their feet, rotting in the afternoon sun.

Tony quickly turns away, retching. Thankfully managing to keep his lunch down.

He should do something. But he's afraid that if he looks, he will lose everything he's eaten the past week.

Tony looks up as the back door opens, and Cap-2-electric-boogaloo steps out.

"Crap!" Barnes says, immediately noticing the bodies. Pulling out his pocket knife, the man throws it at the cable. The cord snaps, and the bodies hit the floor with a thud.

Tony shudders sickly. Averting his eyes as Barnes investigates the bodies.

"HYDRA. High ranking," Barnes says, admiration in his voice. "Throat cut efficiently. Drained. Clean work."

"Please don't sound so impressed," Tony says, crossing his arms.

"He's good at what he does."

"Who? You know who did-" realization dawns on him. "Oh, no. Barnes-" Tony turns to stare at the man and regrets it as he spots the bodies again.

"I'd say he's doing a good job."

"No!" Tony says, "Do NOT encourage him to leave bodies on my doormat for you like some damn cat!"

Barnes shrugs, eyeing the windows with poorly buried longing. And Tony knows he's hoping to spot him. His Winter Soldier.

He carefully casts an eye around the alley and up at the windows, looking for the spooky Ghost of America Past. Hoping to spot him like he would a creepy bug; so he knew where the thing was. It's always worse when they disappear on you, but you know they're still there.

He has a feeling Winter was here, somewhere, watching Barnes inspect his gift, hidden in some crack or crevice. Able to see Barnes and himself, but completely invisible to them.

Tony shivers. Hair standing on end. He eyes the back door. He needed to get out of here.

"They," he says, gesturing to the bodies, "don't go in my bin. He's your buddy; you dispose of them."

Barnes barely gives any reaction to that. Lost, gazing forlornly into the dark of shadows. The only indication that Barnes even heard him was a small nod.

Needing to be sure he was actually listened to, he adds. "I want this area clean. Completely spotless, understood? Not a single hair left. I want to-"

"I know how to dispose of a body, Stark," Barnes grumbles, "It'll be done."

"Alright," he says, barely managing to not stumble over his words.

Barnes makes no move to start cleaning up, still looking.

Done with this entire situation, Tony turns around and storms back into the safety of the tower.

"I hope there's good onboard entertainment," Clint sighs as he boards the plane.

Rogers shoots him a disapproving look. "Behave," the guy warns.

"Behave," Clint mutters to himself. "This is going to be hell," he says louder, "There gonna be nothing to do. Nat's not even here to people-watch with me. It's not like I can use my phone. Why can't we catch one of Stark's private jets? Why do we have to fly commercial?"

"Because Tony's jet sustained damage in the supercell hailstorm," Rogers says calmly.

Stark grumbles behind them.

"But Tony got us first class seats," the Captain continues, leading the way up the aisle, "so we'll be alright, I think."

"'Alright' he says," Clint grumbles as he finds his seat and drops into it with a huff. Stark settles into the seat beside Clint without comment.

Rogers sinks into the seat beside Banner across the aisle, "It's only a short flight, it'll be fine."

"Seven hours isn't short, Cap," He says.

Rogers, the bastard, looks him right in the eyes and says, straight-faced, "Take it from a guy who caught a flight that lasted 70 Years... Seven's short."

What can Clint even say to that? So Clint elects to ignore Steve.

It lasts about twelve minutes after takeoff. A few flight attendants start making their way down the aisle.

One of the attendants, a brunette guy, makes his way over to them, stopping beside Rogers.

"Wow!" The attendant says, "Must be an airport nearby, or maybe that's just my heart taking off?"

Rogers looks up, expression a little bewildered.

The attendant lets out a low whistle, "Damn, daydreams start boarding right after eye contact with you, huh?"

Clint groans, rolling his eyes. He could appreciate the occasional corny joke, but this guy was bad.

Rogers lets out a small laugh, probably humoring the poor guy. He knows Rogers gets flustered when people try flirting with him, and even more awkward when he has to let them down. But the guy, 'Barnes' his name-tag reads, will soon realize he's barking up the wrong tree.

Guess he could be glad that Rogers wasn't making a scene about a guy flirting with him, but the man has always been a decent guy, it seems.

"Ever realize clouds envy your glow?" Attendant Barnes says.

'Ugh' Clint thinks.

"C-can't say I ever noticed. Though my experience is limited." Rogers says, face slowly turning red.

Attendant Barnes' smile grows wider, more than pleased that he managed to get that reaction out of Captain America.

Did this guy even know that's Cap? Surely he had to. There was no way he didn't. News groups had plastered Rogers' face everywhere after his return. Then there was the fact that they were on the news every few weeks, helping to save the world. And it was a fair bet that every gay guy probably knew what Captain America looked like. There were other attractive men on the plane that Barnes had completely ignored with professionalism.

The guy knew.

Clint could respect the balls on the man, even if he couldn't condone his overly corny pick-up lines.

"I'm no pilot, Doll, but I'm pretty sure we're meant to fly together." Barnes leans in a little and winks. WINKS!

Was it too late to get off this plane? Clint was done with this guy.

He looks to Stark, expecting to find some understanding, someone else who sees this and is tired. But Stark was deep in his phone, designing a doorknob of all things, effortlessly ignoring everything around him. Unbelievable.

"Uhhhhh!" Clint groans, flopping back in his seat. He wishes Natasha were here with him. She'd understand. She'd complain with him.

Maybe ignoring it all was the best idea. But there was nothing else to do.

Clint turns on his personal TV, looking through all the options available and finding absolutely nothing of interest.

"May I check your seatbelt?" Clint hears Rogers' attendant say.

'What was going on now?', Clint thinks, twisting to see past Stark.

"Wouldn't want a handsome man like you get all scratched up, now do we?" Barnes drawls.

Redder than before, Rogers leans back, giving the guy access to the belt.

Barnes makes a show of 'testing' Rogers' belt, complete with grunting. Satisfied, he leans back and says, "All good. Looks like you know your way around a buckle."

Steve rubs the back of his neck, "Yeah, you could say that."

Clint's seen late-night films better than this.

"Can I get you anything? Something to eat?" Barnes asks, and Clint is glad the man finally remembers he has a job. "We've got nice, fresh bananas... I could even peel it for you. If you'd like."

Nevermind.

"Or if you'd prefer, I bet I could find you a good peach," Barnes continues, dropping a hand to his hip.

"Uh, I'm more of a banana guy."

"Really?" Barnes says, dragging out the word as he looks Rogers over. "That's swell, maybe I'm the in-flight upgrade you need. Wonder if we can give turbulence a run for its money."

Barnes leans in and whispers something to Rogers, then continues down the aisle. "Feels like the altitude’s not the only thing rising..." Barnes says auspiciously as he goes.

"Didn't ask anyone else if they wanted to eat," Clint grumbles.

A bag of blueberries in the corner of his vision, "Want?" Stark asks, eyes glued to the phone.

"...thanks," he grumbles, "I can't believe that guy was flirting with Cap."

"Flirting?" Stark says, looking up at Clint over his glasses. "He was just trying to lighten the mood. Cap hates flying. Anyone can see how wound tight he is."

"What?!" Clint cries, earning a few looks from the other passengers. "He was obviously flirting," he says, quieter.

"He was doing his job."

"I don't think so. I doubt all that is in his job description."

"All what?" Stark says tiredly, "Reassuring nervous passengers, safety checks, food service? Barton-"

"I don't believe this!"

"-nothing out of the ordinary happened. Cap's straight as they come. If the flight attendant was actually flirting, I'm sure we would have heard about it." Stark says, returning to his phone.

Maybe Stark wasn't the most reliable judge in this situation. He'd obviously missed all the signs while working on his project.

Clint looks across the aisle. Steve was staring into the space in front of him. Bruce was deep in a book, headphones on.

Was he really the only one who noticed?

If Natasha were here...

Only a little less than seven hours to go. Clint lets out a heavy sigh and goes back to looking through the available movies.

He gets ten minutes into Top Gun: Maverick when Rogers gets up, muttering about the bathroom. Clint ignores him.

'Yeah, time was really flying, wasn't it, Cap?' he thinks, glaring at the back of Rogers' head as he goes.

When he can no longer see the man to glare at him, Clint crosses his arms and returns to his movie.

After a while, Clint manages to get into the movie. He doesn't know how long has passed when one of the passengers starts causing a fuss with one of the flight attendants.

Clint pauses his movie to listen in.

Apparently, the passenger can't use the bathroom because it's locked. And they want the Attendant to unlock it. Apparently, using the bathroom in the cabin down isn't good enough.

Clint rolls his eyes.

Just as he goes to hit play, he hears an important bit of information about the bathroom situation.

The door is locked because someone is fucking in there. Oh-kay!

Clint looks over to the others and notices that Rogers is still gone. 'Oh.'

...Bastard.

Clint looks to Stark, hoping at least to watch the pin drop.

Stark throws his hands up in frustration. "Don't look at me," Stark says, "I'm sitting here, I'm not the one having sex."

"And where is Rogers?"

"I don’t know?" Stark says, looking baffled at the question, "Maybe he was invited into the cockpit to see the pilots? Who knows? I don't care."

Clint's disappointed.

'You know what? Nat is partially to blame,' he thinks to himself. Well, not really, but he doesn't care. If she were here, he'd have someone to gossip with. He glares at the locked bathroom and thinks, 'I'm not going to tell Nat. Let her still try to unsuccessfully match Rogers with girls.'