Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of "Mission: Impossible," they belong to Paramount. I also don't own the characters from Marvel Cinematic Universe, they are the property of Disney, Marvel, et al.

Author's Note: I recap some of the events of the first two stories in this, but it might be easier if you read the other stories in the Brothers in Arms universe on my profile. Geographically, I know Sokovia has been placed in Eastern Europe, but I don't know exactly where, in my story it's somewhere near the Black Sea. While it's AU, canonwise, this takes place before "MI: Rogue Nation" in Will's timeline.

CHAPTER ONE: It's a Small World

Sokovia, Eastern Europe

Automatic gunfire and short explosions peppered the background noise as IMF agent William Brandt walked down the cobblestone streets of the capital city of Sokovia. It should have concerned him, but with the instability of Eastern Europe at the moment, it was more or less just another day at the office.

The sun was shining, but it was a chilly winter morning. He, Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn had arrived in their rental van from Bucharest, Romania the night before, and now Will was out on a location scout, getting to know the city. The others were still sleeping, adjusting to the time change. He was an early riser, always had been. Side effect of having a father in the police force, a few months at The Farm in Virginia…and an inherent excitement to explore a new place when they got there.

He greeted a mom and her son in his limited vocabulary before spotting a small café open for business. Several locals were lined up already, so Will joined the queue. If the locals liked it, it must be good.

William Brandt thought it was fantastic to be out in the field again. To be here, in the thick of things in a foreign country, fresh air and the smell of ground coffee beans and fresh pastry…This is where it's at, he thought to himself as he stepped forward. He caught the eye of the young girl working the counter and flashed her a smile. She gave him a half-smile back before ducking below the display case. Will's smile faded as she disappeared, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

It felt weird to flirt.

It wasn't like anybody would care-Jane Carter was back home in DC. Although she was a hell of an agent and an asset to the Impossible Missions Force, she'd confessed to Will she'd had enough of the action. Will largely suspected it had something to do less with the hazards of the job and more with their disastrous failed attempt at a relationship and the revelation that his life was far, far more complicated than just working for IMF.

After all, when your brother was an Avenger….

Will had made the mistake of getting involved with SHIELD and the Avengers after his brother, Clint Barton (code named "Hawkeye"-a nickname he'd gotten from his father when he was a teenager) had gone missing from a SHIELD facility. That had put him and his team on a direct collision course with the Battle of New York, an alien race called the Chitauri, and far more weirdness than he suspected Jane had been ready to deal with. He was surprised that Benji and Ethan had been able to handle it as well as they had, but then again, Tony Stark was Benji's tech hero and Ethan, well, Ethan was Ethan.

Will hadn't handled it as well as he thought, either. Nightmares plagued him, a kind of post-traumatic stress that followed him on a near-disaster of a mission in Honolulu. Jane had almost died, a result of his hesitation. Ethan had sent him packing back to Baltimore, where he'd been kidnapped by a crazed competitor of Tony Stark, thinking that Will was his brother, Clint Barton. Jane and the IMF team had joined in the rescue effort with the Avenger team, and had come face to face with several incarnations of Tony's Iron Man tech. Staring into the lifeless faces of Iron Man armor was enough to scare anybody.

Will had asked Jane out shortly after that. Maybe not the best timing, but in the heat of a near-death experience, it seemed like a good time. They'd gone out for a few months, but then Jane had broken it off, telling Will she was quitting the IMF and transferring to a civilian job.

That had been almost a year ago. He hadn't spoken to her in that whole time, hadn't seen her. He wasn't even sure she was in the DC area anymore. And he'd been jet-setting around the world, so he hadn't exactly been home long enough to follow up, either. Not that he thought she would want him to.

"Can I help you?"

Will blinked, realizing that the girl behind the counter was talking to him. Not having any clue what the pastry in the case was called-he chose to do the tourist thing and point, then held up four fingers.

"Four of the apple?" she confirmed with him, in accented English.

Will laughed awkwardly. "Yeah. Sorry. And four coffees?"

She smiled at him. "Can you carry all that?" she asked him.

He grinned. "I think I can handle it," he replied, and she smiled at him before turning around to make his order. He dug in his pocket for some of the local currency as she set four paper cups on the counter in front of him.

Outside, he heard another explosion. That sounded awfully close, he thought to himself, and stepped away from the counter for a moment to glance out the window and down the street. At the far end, a building was on fire, and people were running his direction. Another explosion. This time, the counters and equipment rattled, the wooden floor shaking from the shockwave. The girl behind the counter stumbled and dropped one of his pastries. "I'm so sorry," she stammered.

"It's okay, it's fine," Will reassured her. He turned around to face the interior of the café. "Get down! Get under something!" he commanded, authority slipping into his tone. Some listened right away, diving under tables or crouching next to walls. There was another explosion. This one made the windows shatter, glass imploding into the shop. Will looked at the girl behind the counter for help. The young woman yelled his order in the native language, and then, there was panic. A few people bolted into the street, joining the wave of people running down the street toward city center. Others threw their hands over their heads and shrunk down in the booths or slid under the tables. Will yelled at the girl behind the counter, "Get down!", and as she dove into an alcove, he stepped out into the street.

Something landed right in front of him, and Will yelped and staggered back. It was a seven-foot tall, gunmetal gray robot with a familiar-looking "A" on the chest. "Stark?" he said aloud, looking at the icy blue eyes of the 'bot.

"This quadrant is unsafe. Please back away. We are here to help." The message repeated itself, and Will realized that this wasn't Iron Man-rather, some other kind of droid. A peacekeeping model. He should've known-it didn't have the flashy paint job of Tony's Iron Man armor, or the bright blue of the arc reactor in its chest. Or Tony's sarcasm in the voice.

"Stark tech. In Sokovia." The Avengers were here. Clint was here.

Will followed the robot's advice and backed up into the café again. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a slim black cell phone. There were three numbers programmed into it-Ethan Hunt's personal cell, Benji Dunn…and the third number he dialed keyed him into a special line. One only known to about nine people.

The phone rang, and Will ran a hand over his face. "Come on, Clint," he muttered. "Pick up."

Ten miles away, Clint Barton felt the phone in his cargo pant pocket vibrating insistently. He ducked through the snowy forest that ringed the city, keeping Baron Von Strucker's HYDRA soldiers in sight, trying to stay out of their line of fire. Nearby, he heard a sizzle and a crack and knew his partner Natasha had just taken another unsuspecting soul out with her wrist mounted Widow's Bites. A clang, and a thunk, and that was Captain America, Steve Rogers, and Thor.

A roar shook the trees, making him shiver. The Hulk had obviously found a toy. And all the while, Tony Stark chattered in his ear as Iron Man himself tried finding ways into the castle, fortified with some kind of defense system.

The buzzing his pocket wouldn't stop. He ducked behind a tree, tore open his pocket, ripped the phone out, and threw it on speaker. There were only two people who had this number, and if either of them was calling, it was not a good sign. "Kind of in the middle of something," he ground out. "Is everything okay?"

"Clint?"

"Who the-Will?" Clint almost dropped the phone. It was his brother, whom he hadn't seen in a good year. "What the hell are you doing on this line?"

"What are you doing in Sokovia?" Will shot back. "Last I heard, you were in Ohio! Long way from home, brother."

"Says you," Clint countered. "What the hell are you doing in Sokovia?" He stuck the phone in his teeth, yanked an arrow from his quiver, and fired at a bunker three hundred feet away. He closed his eyes, waiting for the explosive-tipped arrow to produce a fireball.

Nothing happened.

"Clint?" Will's voice asked. Clint ignored him, turning again to fire at the bunker. The next thing he knew, something slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the snow covered ground. The phone went sliding away. Clint groaned and rolled.

Someone was staring down at him. A young man, maybe half his age, in a dark blue track jacket and sweats. He had wild blonde hair that was almost white, and dark eyes. "What?" the young man said. "You didn't see that coming?" It was an obvious barb at Clint's marksmanship, and Clint growled, jumped to his feet, nocked an arrow and bringing his bow up just in time to see the young man….disappear. He could see footprints in the snow that led away from his position, but that was all.

"Guys-" he began, but a burning sensation garbled the rest of the words, and Clint collapsed to the ground, clutching his side. One of those HYDRA bastards got a lucky shot off, he thought, grimacing in pain. He tried to drag himself to a tree to get out of the way.

He never got there. He could see dark red staining the snow. He was losing blood. The world was starting to go from white to gray.

"Clint?" Will Brandt yelled into the phone. Nothing. One minute, his brother had been there, the next, nothing.

Will swore, turned around and sprinted back toward the hotel, dodging past the people running up the street, all thoughts of his own safety out the window, even as buildings took fire around him. He flew past the front desk at the Hotel Blue to some very confused looks from the front desk staff, up the stairs and banged on the door to room 201.

Benji Dunn opened the door, but Will barely acknowledged the tech as he burst into the room. "My brother is here. The Avengers are here. In Sokovia."

Ethan Hunt looked up from their mission briefs. "Your brother is here?" Ethan asked him. "How-"

The building shook. Ethan frowned and looked out the window. "There's a tank rolling into town," he said. He looked at Will. "HYDRA?" The organization was well-known to IMF. After the fall of SHIELD, revealing it to be chock full of HYDRA infiltrators, the few left from SHIELD that weren't HYDRA were scrambling to track down the HYDRA personnel, and IMF had been tasked to help find a few of them.

"There's Stark Industries tech down there trying to keep civilians out of the line of fire. I reached Clint, we were talking, and then nothing…" He ran his hands through his hair. "I think something happened to him. I need to find out." He looked at Ethan pleadingly.

"Go," Ethan said. "We can handle this." He looked at Benji for confirmation, and Benji nodded, looking with concern at their teammate.

Will nodded. "Okay." He reached over and grabbed his day pack. "I'll keep you guys in the loop," he promised.

"Hey, Will," Benji said, as Will practically jogged past him. Will turned, looking at his friend. "Be careful," Benji said simply.

"Always," he replied. "You guys, too. Some of the fight was headed this way." He clapped Benji on the back and left the room again, sprinting down the hall and down the stairs, out into the streets.

He knew the main action was happening outside the city, so that's where he started to go. He turned down a side street and found himself looking down the barrel of an old Soviet-made tank. Whoever Clint and the Avengers were fighting, they obviously were trying to cause chaos by rolling into town and splitting the team's focus.

He glanced to his left. An apartment complex stared back at him. He looked right. A giant condemned building. "Great," he muttered. Go left, and potentially endanger civilians. Go right, and risk the building collapsing on top of him.

There was a small metallic ping at the end of the street. Then, something grabbed his arm and pulled him into the air, depositing him on top of the apartment building just as the tank at the end of the street exploded.

Will wobbled on his feet as he found himself looking into the blue eyes of an Iron Man suit, this one decked in bright red and gold. "Hey, it's Thing 2!" Tony Stark's voice said from the other side of the visor. "What are the odds of Thing 1 and Thing 2 being in Sokovia on the same day?"

"Is Clint okay?" Will demanded.

"Someone's up on his current events," Tony said, surprised. "Uh, no. He got shot, Bullet is stuck in his side. Thor just got him on the jet and we're almost ready to take off."

"Got room for one more?" Will asked, making a split second decision.

He could practically hear Tony grin. "Sure. Hold on!"

"Oh, shit!" Will yelled as Tony grabbed his arm and took off. The 'flight' took less than a minute, and Will found himself standing shakily in front of a slick black Quinjet. Tony's visor popped up and the man himself grinned at Will. "Welcome aboard, Agent Brandt," he said, jerking a thumb back at the jet's open hatch. Inside, Will could see Steve Rogers and Thor hovering over a flat table. Clint's SHIELD-issue combat boots were all Will could see of his brother. He brushed past Tony and jogged up the ramp. "Hey, guys," he said at Thor and Steve's confused looks. "Been awhile," he added, seeing Natasha and Bruce on the floor as Tony stepped past them and moved up to the cockpit to take off.

Will stepped up to his brother. Clint was unconscious. "What's his status?" he asked Steve. He put a hand on his brother's arm. Clint was clammy. Will saw his torn uniform Kevlar vest with bright white bandages already staining red. "Oh God…"

"Bullet's lodged in his side. Too risky to try to take it out here. We've got a doctor waiting back in Manhattan for him." Steve said, reporting the facts like a military field medic.

"But he's okay?"

"He'll live," Natasha said from near his feet. Will noticed she had an arm around Bruce Banner, and wondered if his friend was okay. "It didn't hit anything vital."

Will breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "Good."

"Where the hell did you come from?" Steve asked after a minute.

"Uh," Will said, leaning back against the bulkhead as the jet lifted off, "we were in town for a mission."

"In Sokovia?" Steve frowned. "Seriously?"

Will shrugged. "Small world."

Author's Note II: "Age of Ultron" timeline-wise, the meeting between Tony and Brandt would have taken place after Tony's Scarlet Witch-induced vision.