In an abandoned railroad tunnel,
Hawkeye, still wearing the outfit that was torn up last issue, has
been practicing his archery for the last 42 hours and has yet to hit
a bulls-eye. He collapses from exhaustion and his depression over
what happened last time; a gang of punks discover him, recognize him
and plan to torture and kill him. His instincts kick in and he fights
back, clobbering them and heading off. He returns to his apartment
and finds that, having lost his job as security chief for Cross
Technological Enterprises, he has forfeited the company-owned
apartment and all of his stuff was removed. Mockingbird meets him
there and takes him back to her loft where he asks who she is. She
tells her tale: Barbara “Bobbi” Morse, science student, SHIELD
Agent, tracked down Ka-Zar, investigated corruption in SHIELD under
the code-name Huntress, changed her name to Mockingbird, got shot,
recovered, went free-lance. Clint falls asleep, Bobbi runs some
errands, a Cross hitman called Silencer (black outfit with shiny
metal eyes) enters to assassinate Clint. Feeling a gun barrel to his
head wakes him up and there is a fight but Hawkeye is at a
disadvantage since the bad guy makes no noise at all; it's Bobbi who
saves the day and clouts the villain who dives out the window and
flees. Clint deduces that the baddie had a sound dampener in his suit
(“Great gimmick”). Clint dons the costume Mockingbird repaired
for him and they visit scientist Jorge Latham who can brief them on
the changes in security made since Cross fired Clint....
The two heroes break into CTE's
administration building where they search the top secret files for
evidence on the mind-control project. They are interrupted by
Silencer; Hawkeye takes him on while Mockingbird continues the
search. The two enemies scuffle silently for several pages (“Weird
character. I'm used to baddies who can't shut up”) and go crashing
through the window to land on Hawk's sky-mobile was hovering outside.
The fight continues on the moving craft and ends with Hawkeye
dropping Silencer into a smokestack. He returns to the office where
Mockingbird joins him, having found the info they were looking
for—and she doesn't mention the eight guards she took down in the
process....