![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Only Satellites
Fandom: Avengers movie
Pairing: In my head, this is Clint/Coulson/Natasha, but you wouldn't know from reading it!
Characters: Clint, Fury, Natasha, background Coulson
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 7,250
Summary: Clint knows how to survive, how to pick himself up and keep going; after everything with Loki, that's something he's glad for. On the subject of which: he's also glad for Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, and Smudge the cat. Not so much for Steve Rogers turning up on his doorstep though.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avengers_rbb, from kultiras' music mix.
Read the story on ao3
Only Satellites
Clint doesn't get nightmares.
He never has, and he's grateful for it, because there's not many things he'd choose to live through twice, especially not as nightmares. It's probably weird – even Natasha has nightmares, sometimes, a mix of memories and fears that she doesn't talk about. There's probably a word for it. Phil will know, and if Phil doesn't know, Agent Berry will. Would.
Which isn't much help; it's not like Clint can go ask either of them now.
Clint doesn't get nightmares, but he does get dreams.
His dreams are actually really boring, which is another thing he's grateful for. His dreams are like reality, turned twenty degrees off course, and sometimes not even that much. More than once, he's had to restart a conversation after it turned out he dreamed it, the first time, and couldn't tell the difference.
His dreams are also heavily influenced by what he's been thinking about that day.
Right now, that's the worst part.
*
Clint's not really surprised when he feels soft fur against his foot – Smudge was out in the night, but he comes in the windows all the time. "Hey there, little one."
Smudge grumbles when Clint picks him up, trying to climb into Clint's shoulder. Clint holds onto him tighter, wincing when Smudge's claws dig into the still bandaged places. "You being a parrot?" Smudge head butts Clint in response, which he takes to mean yes. Smudge is like him, likes to be up high, where he can see everything happening around him.
Clint closes his eyes, even though he knows what he's going to see: Fury and Selvig standing over the Tesseract, the whole picture bathed in a blue glow that didn't exist before Loki appeared. It's the last time he felt in control.
Smudge grumbles, clawing his way out of Clint's hands and wriggling down to curl in his lap. Clint hugs him close, feels Smudge's purr that's too low for him to hear. Clint's always been an animal person, since the foster home with two Labradors when he was twelve. One of the best parts of joining SHIELD was finally having somewhere stable enough to have his own pet, even if Smudge is too independent to really be his. Right now, his cat feels like maybe the last part of SHIELD that's still okay.
Clint maybe drifts for a while, he's not sure, hazy with lack of sleep and Smudge's rhythmic purring, but when he looks out the window, the world is still dark. Clint mostly prefers it that way – it's easier to pretend New York wasn't half-destroyed by Loki's army when he can't see the gaps in the skyline. He sighs, wanting to just fall back into bed.
He doesn't let himself think about the alternatives, about the ways he used to deal with sleepless nights, before, because before is over now, and he's learned more than he wanted to about leaving things behind. About not dwelling, and accepting things, and moving forward, holding onto the things he gets to take with him.
It's not a lot better than the alternative, but the alternative isn't an option, not right now. Right now is feed the cat, take a shower, get dressed, make coffee; hope that by the time he gets through those, he'll know what comes next.
Clint gets up, and goes into the kitchen to feed Smudge.
*
SHIELD holds the memorial a week after the Battle. Clint stays near the back of the room, far enough back to get away, but not so far that he doesn't melt into the sea of SHIELD uniforms and suits. It's not the first time he's been back to SHIELD since everything, just the first time he's been back that isn't about everything with Loki or the Avengers.
Clint fixes his eyes on the line of agents in front of him and doesn't let himself see all the spaces where people should be, all the people who are still injured, still damaged. It's easier than being on the Helicarrier, where he can't stand still without expecting Loki to appear out of the walls. He wants to stay in this room forever, surrounded by people he trusts.
There's a shift in the people near him, and when Clint looks over, he finds Natasha standing next to him, looking like any other agent, her hair pulled neatly away from her face, her suit immaculate. She turns her head slightly, enough to catch Clint's eye and smile slightly.
"Didn't think you'd come," he says, quiet enough to be lost under the low murmurs of conversations.
Natasha twitches one shoulder in a shrug. "Made it after all." She looks away, then back. "You're not sleeping."
"Not right now." He means it come out like a joke, like he means not right now at this second but it comes out more like not right now, in general, too close to the truth. "You?" he asks, instead of trying to fix it. She disappeared the day after the Battle, and Clint's not sure where she was sent, or what it means.
"I can sleep anywhere," she says. She looks to the front of the room. "The others –"
Clint looks around automatically, like there's any chance that the rest of the Avengers could have turned up without him noticing. They haven't, of course, and he's grateful in a way he probably shouldn't be. It's just that SHIELD is home, SHIELD is him and Natasha and Fury and Coulson and Hill and... And the Avengers are something different. Clint knows what Fury means to do with them, but right now the Avengers are the Hulk who nearly killed Natasha, the brother of the man who turned Clint, Tony Stark who thinks he knew Phil, and Captain America. Clint knows they're just people, felt it after the battle, exhausted and beaten up in the schwarma joint, but he's glad that they're not here.
"I'm glad you could come," he says, instead of trying to explain any of that to Natasha.
She bumps her shoulder against his, but Fury steps up to the podium before she can say anything.
It's stupid, Clint knows – he should have expected that Fury would start with a roster of those they lost, but he didn't, he doesn't, and when Fury starts reading out names, slow and solemn, it's a shock. He ducks his head, tries to block them out - Agent Anna Berry, Agent Terry Brightwell, Agent Jatinder Cathaway, Agent Andrew Culver...
"You're shaking," Natasha says, her voice in his ear reminding him that she's standing right next to him, that the warmth he can feel against his arm is her.
She's right, he is shaking, and he's hunched into himself, trying to protect himself from the litany of the dead, but he can't change that.
"Clint," Natasha says softly.
Clint shakes his head, no idea what she's asking but sure that the answer is no. He stares at his boots, letting the names roll over him, and doesn't even notice when he starts crying.
*
Debriefs are... Clint doesn't love the paperwork part of them, but the point of them, the way they work to tidy everything away and make sense of all the detail sloshing around in his head by the end – that part, he kind of likes.
Completing the debrief for everything that happened with Loki is totally unlike any he's ever done. Worse than New Mexico, where he had to keep himself from making King Arthur jokes the whole time, more confusing than Budapest, where he and Natasha eventually gave up on making their reports bear any resemblance to each other, more time-consuming than the 2009 op that spanned six months and three continents.
Though that last part might just be because he keeps getting stuck at the beginning.
It's not like things are fuzzy, no matter how much he wishes they were. It's just that – he gets as far as Loki appearing through a gateway to space, a spear in his hand and...
Clint didn't even draw his weapon till it was too late. Director Fury was right there, the scientists were right there, the whole damn base, Coulson and Hill and the security officers he said good morning to, the damn catering staff who always put too much pepper in the spaghetti sauce. All those people Clint's supposed to protect, and he just stood there.
He could've shot Loki right then, while he was still... whatever he was in the few seconds between him appearing and Fury speaking to him. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, because God knows automatic weapons didn't, but there's no way to know, not any more.
That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that, in his memories, those few seconds when Loki had hold of his arm stretch like an eternity, and Clint knows every single move that would have put Loki down, on the ground where they could have separated him from his staff. When he remembers – when he stares at the form he's supposed to be filling out – it's all right there, every step he should have taken, and everything that would have happened afterwards. All the people who wouldn't be dead, the destruction that wouldn't have happened.
All the things that happened to him that wouldn't have happened. All the things he wouldn't have done, the memories he wouldn't have to carry.
It's hard to get past that point, when the only thing that means anything is I fucked up, I was too slow. Look what happened because I wasn't good enough.
*
Clint's apartment buzzer sounds the weekend after the memorial, early enough that Clint's not really up, still in bed with Smudge curled around his head. Smudge starts at the sound, head going up like he can smell who's visiting. When he doesn't immediately settle down again, the way he does for familiar people, Clint closes his eyes again. If he's not expecting anyone and it's no-one he knows, he's not interested.
The buzzer sounds again after less than a minute, and then double-sounds barely twenty seconds later.
Clint fumbles for his cell phone, which has no missed calls and no texts.
There's a long drag of silence. Clint's just starting to think whoever it is has given up, when there's another buzz, slightly longer than is really polite.
"Go away," Clint says, but he gets up anyway, too conditioned by years with SHIELD not to, even knowing there's no way SHIELD have come calling.
"Oh," a half-familiar male voice says when Clint answers. "Um, Agent Barton? I didn't think anyone was home."
Captain fucking America is at Clint's door. Coulson would have a field day if he knew. Clint just really wants to go back to pretending he isn't home. He de-activates the front door lock instead, partly because he's not actually rude enough to leave Captain America standing on the street, and mostly because he doesn't actually want to spend all day wondering what the guy wants from him.
He doesn't change his clothes. Captain America can deal with him in sweats and a T-shirt, and if he can't, Clint's not about to make that his problem.
Of course, Rogers turns up looking perfect, not even a little out of breath from the nine flights up to Clint's attic apartment. Something in his expression changes when he steps inside, enough like a frown that Clint's skin prickles defensively, even knowing that Rogers grew up in a smaller apartment than this, that Rogers isn't frowning because he's judging where Clint lives.
"You want something?" Clint asks, then adds, "Coffee, or something?" because that came out a little too defensive even for him.
"No. Thank you, I'm fine." Rogers hesitates, shifts a little closer to the couch, finally sits when Clint nods. He doesn't take his eyes off Clint the whole time, just drops his gaze to Clint's bare feet for a moment. "I came to – I haven't seen you since everything happened. I wanted to check in on you."
Clint resists the urge to point out he could have called; he knows Rogers has taken to modern cell phones like they were made for him. Well, Natasha knows, and she tells him. "I'm fine. Mostly healed."
Rogers looks at him for too long, intense in a way that makes Clint want to look away. It's maybe been a couple of days since he shaved, but he's not on duty, which is a good enough excuse. Better than how he loses minutes, nearly half an hour the other day, convincing himself that he's not seeing the curls of blue around his eyes, that there's no-one in his head except him.
Rogers doesn't say anything, looks like maybe he doesn't know what to say. He's young in a way that Clint doesn't really remember being, and the decent thing would be to rescue him, but Captain America is in his apartment, and it's all he can do not to say anything about Phil.
"I thought – maybe we should talk, about what happens now, with the Avengers," Rogers offers eventually.
It's one more thing that Clint doesn't want to think about, not when he knows there's no way in hell he could pass a field readiness test right now. Not when the idea of sliding back into the camouflage of being a regular SHIELD agent sounds so damn appealing. "You think we need to worry about another alien invasion already?" It doesn't really come out sounding like a joke, though Rogers cracks a smile, like he knows Clint meant it that way.
"I know Director Fury planned for us to be a strike team under SHIELD's wing, but that's not the only option available."
That doesn't sound any kind of good, especially not with how Steve apparently reacted to the Phase 2 prototypes. Which – the guy's a soldier, and okay, he fights with a giant shield, but he fights with it, uses it to do damage to bad guys. Phil shot Loki with one of the prototypes, and it did more damage than anything else they could throw at him. Clint doesn't really get what Rogers' objection is.
"I signed a contract with SHIELD," he says, mild like Rogers is. "Me and Nat, we've both got a few more years to run yet."
That gets him another long, considering look before Rogers straightens his jacket and stands. "I see." He holds out a hand that Clint stares at for a moment too long before realizing Rogers means for him to shake it. He does, and gets a smile in return.
"I guess someone's told you that Thor's taking Loki back to Asgard for trial in a few days?"
Loki's name out loud in his apartment is like a shock of electricity, a jolt that makes Clint's whole body jerk tight, and for a moment, he can't remember words, let alone pick out the right ones to say.
Rogers looks like he's thinking of reaching out, which is way past what Clint can handle. "Yeah," he says, ignoring how raw his voice sounds.
"I think you should be there." The frown is back, like Rogers doesn't know what to make of Clint. Which is fair; it's not like Clint knows any better what to make of him. "The others will be."
Clint nods, hoping Rogers won't claim to read agreement in a gesture that just means acknowledgement. He knows that watching Loki be taken away from Earth will help, he's just not sure he can actually get close to Loki without throwing up.
Rogers returns the nod, like maybe he gets some of this. All he says is, "Thanks for letting me up," though, before he leaves.
Clint will freely admit that social interaction is not always his strongest point, but even he thinks that whole visit was a damn weird experience.
"Today," he tells Smudge, who has wisely not shifted from his spot on Clint's pillow, "Is not looking worth the effort of staying awake."
*
Clint buys groceries, because food and shelter are life's necessities, and he's got shelter covered. He logs into his online bank accounts and donates a chunk to relief efforts in the city, because he needs to help, but getting down into the rubble and the injuries and the bodies is just – it's not happening, not right now. He breaks down and cleans all his guns, Natasha's voice in his head from the time he laughed at her for doing it in a nice hotel, when he'd just watched her do it that morning, before they left SHIELD.
There's an archery range not far from his apartment, where they know him, a little. He's not allowed to shoot yet, with the injuries to his back from going through a window, but he could still walk down there, stick his head inside, even probably stay anonymous, because the pictures and film-at-11 show Hulk and Iron Man and Captain America, not unidentified-guy-on-a-building-with-a-bow. He could go, but he doesn't.
Unlike his last visitor, he's not particularly surprised when Natasha appears in his apartment one morning, doing her best impression of harmless civilian.
Clint's is better, but that's mainly because he hasn't shaved in a couple of days.
"Today?"
Smudge, in blatant disregard of everything Clint's ever tried to instil in him, pads across the kitchen counter to where Natasha's leaning against the fridge, and head-butts her elbow until she scratches his ears.
"Today," she agrees, not looking at Clint. Which is fair, since he's not looking at her.
He wants to say that he's not going, that he can't, or won't, could be either and it doesn't much matter. If it was anyone except Natasha, he could, except Natasha faces her fears down until they run away to cry in a corner, and she doesn't understand Clint, who tries to will them out of existence by avoiding them. It hasn't so much worked for him, but he's still holding out hope.
"Clint," she says, quiet and firm. "It can't get better if you're always expecting him to be hidden in the next shadow."
Clint flinches at the thought, which maybe proves her point a little. "What if –" It comes out way too scared, so he clears his throat and tries again. "What if there's something in my head and he triggers it because I'm nearby?"
He's grateful when Natasha doesn't try to argue logic back at him. She just picks up Smudge, walks across the kitchen, and deposits him in Clint's arms. Once her hands are free, she tips his chin up with one finger. There's more compassion in her face than she usually lets show. "Then I'll knock you out again. You know I'm good for it, Barton."
That's why Natasha will always be his best friend in the world.
She probably reads it on his face, because she takes Smudge back, ignoring how he immediately climbs onto her shoulder and digs his claws in. "Go get changed. And shave, you look like you're being hugged by three-day-dead squirrel."
*
Clint's not hugely surprised to turn around, after Thor and Loki have vanished for another planet in a flash of blue light, and find Fury leaning against a car parked a short distance from them. Natasha spots him a moment later and immediately looks away, before Stark, who's waiting for Banner, can notice and start anything.
Clint risks a quick second glance, which Fury catches, jerking his head in a clear order for Clint to present himself at his earliest convenience, by which he means now. "I gotta-"
Natasha nods. "I'll wait for you."
Fury doesn't move until Clint's within speaking distance, looking over his shoulder like he's watching the Avengers. "Agent Barton."
"Director." Fury's not – Fury brought Clint into SHIELD, years ago now, and practically sat on him until he figured out how to be an adult with a real job, and tracked him down after everything. Fury's not going to fire him over this.
"I thought we'd talked about being discreet," Fury says mildly. "And not sending off villainous gods in the middle of a public street."
Clint shrugs, since Fury's guess is as good as his about why they did it this way. He just went where Natasha pointed him. He turns, enough to see Natasha talking to Banner, and Rogers and Stark actually looking like they're engaging in something close to civil discourse. Who'd have thought.
"Can I – You said, after Loki was gone..." Yeah, Clint's just babbling there. "Is it time now?"
Fury looks sort of sympathetic, which is even more terrifying that when Natasha does it. "Soon," he says, then, before Clint can do more than think about protesting, "Two or three days, Barton. We have to be sure there's no magical residue."
Clint nods and doesn't ask who they have to be sure about.
Fury answers anyway. "For him. We're not worried about you."
Clint's sort of worried about himself, but he didn't spontaneously turn evil again on catching sight of Loki, so maybe less worried than he was an hour earlier. He nods again.
"In the meantime –" Fury hands over an honest-to-god paper appointments list – "Psych are expecting you at the main office, eleven hundred tomorrow, and Medical at fifteen hundred. Don't be late."
It's not like Clint hasn't been expecting it – he knows he only got a reprieve because SHIELD's New York base was damaged in the attack, and they needed time to get it up and running again. He just wasn't expecting it quite yet.
He folds the paper neatly into thirds, then in half, and says, "Yes, sir."
*
Clint knows the plenty of agents dislike Medical, or, like Phil and Natasha, break out the moment the staff's backs are turned, but Clint doesn't actually mind it all that much. It's sort of – not exactly restful, but if he's in Medical, he's not expected to be doing anything else. No thinking, no shooting, no tactical planning. He doesn't get many chances to just be, and if he has to break a couple of bones (or in this case, shred his back by going through a plate glass window at speed), that's a price he can manage to pay.
Psych is less easy. He definitely doesn't get to relax while he's there, whether it's for post-mission counselling, general check-in, or field-work recertification, but it's kind of like debrief reports, making sense of everything and putting it into a box.
It's also exhausting, and so the last thing Clint wants to see when he walks out of his second appointment is Fury, obviously waiting for him. Again.
"Checking up on me, sir?"
"With me, Agent."
Clint falls into step by habit as much as anything, and it's not until they're most of the way to Fury's office that it really occurs to him to worry. Which he should be, because Fury doesn't come to you, you go to him, usually in response to a brusque summons.
"Sir?"
Fury doesn't break stride. "In my office."
Clint knows he can be paranoid, but he's pretty sure, right now, that it's not actually paranoia he's feeling. He doesn't bother sitting when they get to Fury's office, just waits in front of the desk while Fury settles and turns on his computer screen.
"You're not going to like this," Fury says, not exactly gentle, but like it could be if Fury did gentle.
"Is it – did something – "Clint can't actually get the words out past the lump of ice that's suddenly in his throat, because there's really only one thing left that he could not like happening.
"It's not about him," Fury says firmly. He sighs, then turns the computer screen.
There's a picture of Clint, likely a security camera still, dressed in black, bow in one hand – and in the other, he's holding Loki's eye scan machine. "That's – where did it come from?"
"We're looking into it. This picture isn't the problem, though."
Fury taps a key, and there's a second picture, obviously taken when they were sending Loki back, Clint looking at Stark, the edge of Natasha's arm just visible. Cell phone camera, the modern curse of spies everywhere.
"This picture identifies you as an Avenger," Fury says, tapping the second picture. "And this one puts you as part of Loki's crew."
Clint nods, unable to look away from the picture from Germany. His face is mostly shadowed, but he looks bad. Even worse, he looks intent, burning with purpose. He feels a little sick. He would have done anything then, maybe even worse than what he did.
"I'll have my notice on your desk by the end of the day, sir."
"Excuse me?"
"That's what people do, right? When they fuck up and it gets, what, onto the TV news? They give their notice and slink away in shame."
"That is what people do when they fuck up, but since you didn't fuck up, that isn't going to be what you do." Fury turns the screen back and gestures for Clint to sit. He does, and tries to curb his jittery nerves to just his right knee. "I'm showing you this because I don't want anyone blindsided when it shows up on the news."
"The WSC will hate this," Clint says numbly. "They're going to ask for me to go."
"I don't answer to the WSC," Fury says, which isn't strictly true and they all know it. "You remember when I brought you in? You promised to stick it out until you were ready to leave or I threw you out. I'm holding you to that, Agent Barton."
Clint does remember, vividly, though what he mostly remembers is that Fury bought him chocolate milkshake and fries and didn't say anything about how Clint's hands shook with cold and the kind of desperate anxiety he hadn't felt since he was a kid in foster care, hoping for a family who'd want to keep him. That, and how Fury let him have the dignity of pretending he wasn't choking up with relief at the thought of being picked up and rescued finally, by someone who seemed decent, seemed like they thought he was decent.
"This is a bad idea," he says.
"We're good at bad ideas," Fury says.
*
The pictures hit the news that evening, and Clint watches from his couch, Smudge curled in his lap. It's not as bad as he expected – sure, they talk about how he's a traitor, how he hurt people, how he shouldn't be an Avenger, but there's other people there too, trying to explain how he wasn't himself without talking about Loki and gods and magic. Trying to say that he's a decent person, and remind people that he helped save the world, in the end.
It's something, even if it's not enough for Clint to actually read any of the text messages his phone is lighting up with, or answer any of the calls that finally send it vibrating off the coffee table, the carpet muffling the sound.
The hard part isn't having his worst week ever all over the national news. The hard part is knowing that it's out there, now, and it will never go away. Like Stark's days designing weapons, or what the Hulk did to Harlem, this, Clint shooting his own people and feeling good about it, is part of how the rest of the world will always see him.
It means he'll never get to forget, or put it in the past.
Not if he stays, anyway, and he could run. It wouldn't even be hard, to get away, to start over somewhere, grow a beard and dye his hair and smirk at the odd, 'you kind of look like that guy, the one with the bow and arrow,' until the world mostly forgot about Hawkeye as anything but an, 'I wonder what happened to,' sound-bite on late night TV. Clint has always been good at blending in, and SHIELD took that skill, cranked it up to eleven. Fury would let him go, the World Security Council would encourage SHIELD to let him stay gone, and Natasha wouldn't like it, but he thinks she'd probably understand. She wouldn't approve, but she knows him well enough to make sense of him doing it. Maybe he could even take Smudge; he's a weird cat, after all, likes car travel.
Except. Except there's something Clint's waiting for, something he has to do, before he can cut all ties and disappear.
And, if he's really being honest with himself, no matter how much this hurts, how much he hates it – he doesn't want to go. SHIELD's home, and he wants to stay.
*
His shrink asks him if he wants to talk about the pictures and the news. He does, kind of, but he doesn't know where to even start, so he just shakes his head. He likes his shrink; she lets him change the subject, and only says gently that they can come back to it.
His medical doctor turns the TV set off when she sees Clint, and when he tells her it doesn't matter, says fiercely that it does.
"It's an excuse to show all the same footage all over again, instead of looking for actual news," she says, and, "I pity whoever leaked that security footage, when the Director tracks them down."
Yeah. Clint kind of does too.
"You're looking good, Agent Barton. If I didn't know you better, I'd almost be convinced you followed medical advice for once."
Rose smiles gently enough that Clint can pull up a grin. "Anything for you, Doc."
"That's what they all say." She pulls up something on her tablet and writes with the stylus. "I'm clearing you medically for duty. Resist the urge to over-do it in training."
Clint doesn't ask her to repeat that, but he comes close. Now that he's got permission, his hands itch for his bow, the smooth draw and release that he can get lost in. For maybe the first time since everything, he wants to shoot again, like pulling on a part of his SHIELD agent identity that hasn't felt like it could fit right.
Rose taps his knee with her stylus and smiles warmly when Clint looks up. "Now that's a look I wish I could see a little more often in here."
*
Clint coasts through on the safe, strong feeling of being able to use his bow again, right up until he's heading out the door of his apartment, at which point he remembers that his picture is all over the news, and there's no way he's going to go unnoticed at the archery range. The people who go there are close in age to him, people who shoot for the fun or the exercise, a couple of people who could have made it to the Olympics but didn't quite manage.
It's a good collection of intelligence on them, but none of it tells him anything about how they'll react to him in their space.
Except that it's his space as much as any of their's – he pays his membership fees like everyone else, he's coached a couple of beginners and bought raffle tickets for charities, pretending to be a normal person. He wants to be there, maybe more than he wants to avoid the possibility of being shunned.
Smudge headbutts the back of his legs, which is as good a sign as any. Clint grabs his keys, and lets himself out.
The guy on reception looks startled when Clint walks in, but just says, "Do you have your membership card, sir?" and nods when Clint hands it over.
"There's a couple of slots free until a private booking in an hour. Or if you're looking for longer, I can book you something for later?"
"An hour's fine." Clint taps his card on the desk, unsure what he wants to ask. "Thanks."
It's not as bad as Clint would have maybe expected. A couple of people turn their backs on him really obviously, and a handful more won't meet his eye, but there's a few who smile or say hello, and the older guy shooting next to him says, "Nice work," when Clint splits a cheap practice arrow neatly down the middle.
Clint still takes a lot longer than he normally would to settle into the rhythm of shooting, but he manages it eventually. He loses the worries – about SHIELD, about the Avengers, about the pictures, and Natasha, all of it; he loses the blue shadows and the fear that Loki isn't really gone, or isn't really gone from his head; he loses the grief and the horror and the pain.
It's wonderful.
Right up until it's broken by the sound of his cell ringing where he threw it into his bow case.
"Barton," Fury says, before Clint can even say hello. "It's time."
*
Clint hails a cab, bow still in hand because he's not taking the time to go back to his apartment, and gives SHIELD's address. He's holding onto his phone so tight he's a little worried he might crack the casing, and thinks, Hulk smash, laughs slightly hysterically in his head.
Heading into SHIELD, he texts to Natasha. Fury says it's time.
In Toronto, Natasha sends back. Say hello from me.
A moment later, his phone vibrates again: And that he's an idiot.
Clint really wishes she was here with him, and not just because he knows she's not thrilled about having to wait even longer than he has. It's more like – he and Natasha have been together since the beginning, near enough. He's out of practice getting through rough emotional situations without her.
It is what it is, though, and he's not selfless enough to wait until she's back, especially when he has no idea how long her mission is. And if he turns into a bit of a sobbing wreck, it's not like he isn't owed at least one mental breakdown over everything that's happened.
Security hand over an elevator key when Clint gets to SHIELD, and offer to take his bow and quiver.
"Just till you're ready to leave," the guard assures him. "We'll take good care of your equipment."
Clint mostly trusts them, but that doesn't do anything for how his grip tightens involuntarily. He forces himself to loosen it again, and put something close to a smile onto his face. "Sure. Thanks."
The key takes him down to Sub-Basement Three, which he last visited with Natasha a couple of years ago, bringing in someone that SHIELD did not want to be public knowledge, even within the agency (Clint maintains it was due to the thing's three heads and seven arms; Natasha says it was just because SHIELD agents gossip). He knows it's been turned into a medical auxiliary dedicated to treating people who came into contact with Loki and didn't get a kick in the head, but he's still surprised when the elevator doors slide open and he's looking at a corridor of sterile rooms, not a dim prison cell.
"Agent Barton." There's a women heading towards him, a doctor from the coat, and then Clint realizes he knows her, it's Dr Argent, who even Natasha doesn't mind being treated by.
It might be possible that Clint's starting that whole mental breakdown thing after all. It's just that, now he's here, now it's finally time after waiting what feels like months, all the stuff he's been pushing away is sort of spilling out in a mess of fear and worry and memories that he doesn't know what to do with.
"Director Fury said to expect you," Argent says, not touching Clint. He focuses on breathing, and paying attention to what she's saying, doesn't let his mind wander to the rooms and the closed doors and – "I'm going to be right outside with Nurse Delaware, but it's really just a precaution at this point."
Nurse Delaware could probably bench press Clint, which makes him a hell of a precaution, but not one Clint is inclined to argue with. "Promise I'll scream if I need you."
Argent smiles again, and stops outside a door, second from the end of the corridor, soft orange light coming through the frosted window pane. "Whenever you're ready," she says.
Ready is probably pushing it, but Clint's as close as he thinks he's going to get right now. He takes one more deep breath, taps a quick beat on the door, and pushes it open.
Phil's inside – of course Phil's inside, Clint's know that Phil was in the bowels of SHIELD, being treated with some kind of terrifying experimental tech and scanned for residual evil magic since right after the battle, but he hadn't known, not until now, standing in the doorway and seeing Phil right in front of him.
Phil's not just inside, he's sitting up, he's wearing slacks and an open-necked shirt, he's sort of smiling the way he does around Clint and Natasha, and –
And Clint can barely breathe through the rush of, of just everything, too many things to actually feel and make sense of. He does the only thing he can do, which is stumble the half dozen steps it takes to cross the room, and drop down onto the bed next to Phil.
Phil doesn't say anything, just slides his arm across Clint's back and tugs slightly, the way he does when he's not sure if Clint wants to be hugged or not, but thinks Clint probably needs to be. It's a gesture Clint's very familiar with, and he one hundred percent wants to be hugged, so he lets himself relax into it, head on Phil's shoulder, body tucked close enough to feel Phil's heartbeat and the warmth of his skin.
Eventually, Phil says, "Hello."
Clint swallows the sound half-choking him, and says, "Hey, sir," back with as much neutrality as he can manage.
Phil smoothes his thumb over Clint's side, through his T-shirt. "Rough couple of weeks?" he asks, completely deadpan. It makes Clint want to tell him everything, except that, actually, he thinks maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he's been doing okay this whole time, taking circumstances into account, and finally getting to see Phil, see that he really is alive and whole and okay – maybe that's not going to be the one thing that finally fixes him, because maybe he doesn't actually need one thing to be fixed. Maybe he's working his way there on his own.
Clint shrugs, unwilling to move away quite yet. "Could've been better." He doesn't move away from Phil, and Phil doesn't make him. "You're okay?"
Phil nods, fingers brushing over his chest. "I think I'd prefer not to ask too much about how, but yes."
"And you're not –" Clint closes his eyes and forces himself not to rub at the place where Loki's sceptre touched him and took away everything that matters.
Phil's hand closes tighter on Clint's shoulder. "Loki just killed me – no magic involved."
Clint flinches, totally unable to stop himself, even with Phil clearly alive right next to him. He found out Phil was in a medically induced coma the same moment he found out the others had been told Phil was dead, but it took three days before they were sure Phil was going to survive. He's known Phil almost as long as Natasha, and the thought of no more days at SHIELD with him was almost as bad as thinking of being without Natasha.
"You're okay," Phil says quietly.
Clint nods, just breathing, being close to someone he cares for and safe.
*
Fury accosts Clint before he can do more than think about leaving SHIELD for the day – Phil's got three more days yet before he's allowed home, and doctors who have strict ideas about what visiting hours mean.
"I'm sending you to Toronto. Your flight leaves in two hours."
"I – what?" Clint says intelligently.
"We need a shooter up there. You're a shooter, one flight and you'll be up there." Fury hands over a briefing packet. "Pack a bag, call whoever looks after your creature when you're working, be on the tarmac thirty minutes before scheduled departure."
"With my bags packed and my passport in my hand?" Clint asks, just like he would have done before. He can tell Fury wants to roll his eyes and isn't. It's a pretty good feeling. He taps the packet once against his thigh, already trying to remember if he's got a go bag tucked away anywhere here (the answer is probably no, because he's pretty sure his go bag went with him to watch the Tesseract and, unlike him, didn't come back again).
Fury hands over a second piece of paper, this one a business card that, when Clint turns it over, appears to be from his SHIELD-appointed mental health professional. "At least one call every twenty-four hour period."
If Clint didn't know better, he'd say that was Fury and Psych's compromise to put him back in the field, since he's not really that close to getting mission clearance from Psych. He's pushed his luck about as far as he can, though, and he appreciates Fury getting him back out into what he's good at almost as much as he appreciates Fury waiting till he got to see Phil to do it, so he just nods and says, "Yes, sir."
*
Natasha, for all that there's no-one else in the world who looks like her, is amazing at making herself look like someone else. So much so that in the early days, even Clint sometimes had to look twice, though that hasn't happened in years. For Toronto - or maybe because there aren't pictures of her like there are pictures of Clint but her red hair is distinctive enough even in flashes - she's dialled it up a notch.
It makes her walking into his hotel room ten minutes after he arrives in it a little weird.
There's a moment where he feels like she's still miles away, over the border in another country, and then something shifts and she's Natasha again, best friend and sister and partner-in-crime.
She smiles, says, "I hoped Fury would send you."
"I saw Phil," Clint says, ruthlessly suppressing the shiver that wants to run through his body, because he doesn't understand it, and anyway, he's not a person who shivers unless it's minus thirty or lower. "He looks good. He says hi."
Natasha crosses the room, sits next to Clint and lets him take her hand when he reaches for it. "I hoped Fury would send you because I wanted to see you," she says gently. "But thank you for telling me."
Clint leans his head against hers and breathes, slow and easy, at Natasha's side, the two of them and a mission and a target, like it's been for what feels like forever. It's not quite right yet, but he knows he's getting closer. At least he can, for a moment, what right will look like. "Missed you."
Natasha squeezes his hand, which he knows means she's missed him too, even if she hadn't just said it. When she takes her hand back, he feels cold, until he looks up and sees Agent Romanoff looking back at Agent Barton. "You ready?" she asks.
"Ready," he tells her, and means it. This is who they are. This is what they do, and nothing will ever change that.
Fandom: Avengers movie
Pairing: In my head, this is Clint/Coulson/Natasha, but you wouldn't know from reading it!
Characters: Clint, Fury, Natasha, background Coulson
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 7,250
Summary: Clint knows how to survive, how to pick himself up and keep going; after everything with Loki, that's something he's glad for. On the subject of which: he's also glad for Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, and Smudge the cat. Not so much for Steve Rogers turning up on his doorstep though.
Notes: Written for
avengers_rbb, from kultiras' music mix.Read the story on ao3
Only Satellites
Clint doesn't get nightmares.
He never has, and he's grateful for it, because there's not many things he'd choose to live through twice, especially not as nightmares. It's probably weird – even Natasha has nightmares, sometimes, a mix of memories and fears that she doesn't talk about. There's probably a word for it. Phil will know, and if Phil doesn't know, Agent Berry will. Would.
Which isn't much help; it's not like Clint can go ask either of them now.
Clint doesn't get nightmares, but he does get dreams.
His dreams are actually really boring, which is another thing he's grateful for. His dreams are like reality, turned twenty degrees off course, and sometimes not even that much. More than once, he's had to restart a conversation after it turned out he dreamed it, the first time, and couldn't tell the difference.
His dreams are also heavily influenced by what he's been thinking about that day.
Right now, that's the worst part.
*
Clint's not really surprised when he feels soft fur against his foot – Smudge was out in the night, but he comes in the windows all the time. "Hey there, little one."
Smudge grumbles when Clint picks him up, trying to climb into Clint's shoulder. Clint holds onto him tighter, wincing when Smudge's claws dig into the still bandaged places. "You being a parrot?" Smudge head butts Clint in response, which he takes to mean yes. Smudge is like him, likes to be up high, where he can see everything happening around him.
Clint closes his eyes, even though he knows what he's going to see: Fury and Selvig standing over the Tesseract, the whole picture bathed in a blue glow that didn't exist before Loki appeared. It's the last time he felt in control.
Smudge grumbles, clawing his way out of Clint's hands and wriggling down to curl in his lap. Clint hugs him close, feels Smudge's purr that's too low for him to hear. Clint's always been an animal person, since the foster home with two Labradors when he was twelve. One of the best parts of joining SHIELD was finally having somewhere stable enough to have his own pet, even if Smudge is too independent to really be his. Right now, his cat feels like maybe the last part of SHIELD that's still okay.
Clint maybe drifts for a while, he's not sure, hazy with lack of sleep and Smudge's rhythmic purring, but when he looks out the window, the world is still dark. Clint mostly prefers it that way – it's easier to pretend New York wasn't half-destroyed by Loki's army when he can't see the gaps in the skyline. He sighs, wanting to just fall back into bed.
He doesn't let himself think about the alternatives, about the ways he used to deal with sleepless nights, before, because before is over now, and he's learned more than he wanted to about leaving things behind. About not dwelling, and accepting things, and moving forward, holding onto the things he gets to take with him.
It's not a lot better than the alternative, but the alternative isn't an option, not right now. Right now is feed the cat, take a shower, get dressed, make coffee; hope that by the time he gets through those, he'll know what comes next.
Clint gets up, and goes into the kitchen to feed Smudge.
*
SHIELD holds the memorial a week after the Battle. Clint stays near the back of the room, far enough back to get away, but not so far that he doesn't melt into the sea of SHIELD uniforms and suits. It's not the first time he's been back to SHIELD since everything, just the first time he's been back that isn't about everything with Loki or the Avengers.
Clint fixes his eyes on the line of agents in front of him and doesn't let himself see all the spaces where people should be, all the people who are still injured, still damaged. It's easier than being on the Helicarrier, where he can't stand still without expecting Loki to appear out of the walls. He wants to stay in this room forever, surrounded by people he trusts.
There's a shift in the people near him, and when Clint looks over, he finds Natasha standing next to him, looking like any other agent, her hair pulled neatly away from her face, her suit immaculate. She turns her head slightly, enough to catch Clint's eye and smile slightly.
"Didn't think you'd come," he says, quiet enough to be lost under the low murmurs of conversations.
Natasha twitches one shoulder in a shrug. "Made it after all." She looks away, then back. "You're not sleeping."
"Not right now." He means it come out like a joke, like he means not right now at this second but it comes out more like not right now, in general, too close to the truth. "You?" he asks, instead of trying to fix it. She disappeared the day after the Battle, and Clint's not sure where she was sent, or what it means.
"I can sleep anywhere," she says. She looks to the front of the room. "The others –"
Clint looks around automatically, like there's any chance that the rest of the Avengers could have turned up without him noticing. They haven't, of course, and he's grateful in a way he probably shouldn't be. It's just that SHIELD is home, SHIELD is him and Natasha and Fury and Coulson and Hill and... And the Avengers are something different. Clint knows what Fury means to do with them, but right now the Avengers are the Hulk who nearly killed Natasha, the brother of the man who turned Clint, Tony Stark who thinks he knew Phil, and Captain America. Clint knows they're just people, felt it after the battle, exhausted and beaten up in the schwarma joint, but he's glad that they're not here.
"I'm glad you could come," he says, instead of trying to explain any of that to Natasha.
She bumps her shoulder against his, but Fury steps up to the podium before she can say anything.
It's stupid, Clint knows – he should have expected that Fury would start with a roster of those they lost, but he didn't, he doesn't, and when Fury starts reading out names, slow and solemn, it's a shock. He ducks his head, tries to block them out - Agent Anna Berry, Agent Terry Brightwell, Agent Jatinder Cathaway, Agent Andrew Culver...
"You're shaking," Natasha says, her voice in his ear reminding him that she's standing right next to him, that the warmth he can feel against his arm is her.
She's right, he is shaking, and he's hunched into himself, trying to protect himself from the litany of the dead, but he can't change that.
"Clint," Natasha says softly.
Clint shakes his head, no idea what she's asking but sure that the answer is no. He stares at his boots, letting the names roll over him, and doesn't even notice when he starts crying.
*
Debriefs are... Clint doesn't love the paperwork part of them, but the point of them, the way they work to tidy everything away and make sense of all the detail sloshing around in his head by the end – that part, he kind of likes.
Completing the debrief for everything that happened with Loki is totally unlike any he's ever done. Worse than New Mexico, where he had to keep himself from making King Arthur jokes the whole time, more confusing than Budapest, where he and Natasha eventually gave up on making their reports bear any resemblance to each other, more time-consuming than the 2009 op that spanned six months and three continents.
Though that last part might just be because he keeps getting stuck at the beginning.
It's not like things are fuzzy, no matter how much he wishes they were. It's just that – he gets as far as Loki appearing through a gateway to space, a spear in his hand and...
Clint didn't even draw his weapon till it was too late. Director Fury was right there, the scientists were right there, the whole damn base, Coulson and Hill and the security officers he said good morning to, the damn catering staff who always put too much pepper in the spaghetti sauce. All those people Clint's supposed to protect, and he just stood there.
He could've shot Loki right then, while he was still... whatever he was in the few seconds between him appearing and Fury speaking to him. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, because God knows automatic weapons didn't, but there's no way to know, not any more.
That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that, in his memories, those few seconds when Loki had hold of his arm stretch like an eternity, and Clint knows every single move that would have put Loki down, on the ground where they could have separated him from his staff. When he remembers – when he stares at the form he's supposed to be filling out – it's all right there, every step he should have taken, and everything that would have happened afterwards. All the people who wouldn't be dead, the destruction that wouldn't have happened.
All the things that happened to him that wouldn't have happened. All the things he wouldn't have done, the memories he wouldn't have to carry.
It's hard to get past that point, when the only thing that means anything is I fucked up, I was too slow. Look what happened because I wasn't good enough.
*
Clint's apartment buzzer sounds the weekend after the memorial, early enough that Clint's not really up, still in bed with Smudge curled around his head. Smudge starts at the sound, head going up like he can smell who's visiting. When he doesn't immediately settle down again, the way he does for familiar people, Clint closes his eyes again. If he's not expecting anyone and it's no-one he knows, he's not interested.
The buzzer sounds again after less than a minute, and then double-sounds barely twenty seconds later.
Clint fumbles for his cell phone, which has no missed calls and no texts.
There's a long drag of silence. Clint's just starting to think whoever it is has given up, when there's another buzz, slightly longer than is really polite.
"Go away," Clint says, but he gets up anyway, too conditioned by years with SHIELD not to, even knowing there's no way SHIELD have come calling.
"Oh," a half-familiar male voice says when Clint answers. "Um, Agent Barton? I didn't think anyone was home."
Captain fucking America is at Clint's door. Coulson would have a field day if he knew. Clint just really wants to go back to pretending he isn't home. He de-activates the front door lock instead, partly because he's not actually rude enough to leave Captain America standing on the street, and mostly because he doesn't actually want to spend all day wondering what the guy wants from him.
He doesn't change his clothes. Captain America can deal with him in sweats and a T-shirt, and if he can't, Clint's not about to make that his problem.
Of course, Rogers turns up looking perfect, not even a little out of breath from the nine flights up to Clint's attic apartment. Something in his expression changes when he steps inside, enough like a frown that Clint's skin prickles defensively, even knowing that Rogers grew up in a smaller apartment than this, that Rogers isn't frowning because he's judging where Clint lives.
"You want something?" Clint asks, then adds, "Coffee, or something?" because that came out a little too defensive even for him.
"No. Thank you, I'm fine." Rogers hesitates, shifts a little closer to the couch, finally sits when Clint nods. He doesn't take his eyes off Clint the whole time, just drops his gaze to Clint's bare feet for a moment. "I came to – I haven't seen you since everything happened. I wanted to check in on you."
Clint resists the urge to point out he could have called; he knows Rogers has taken to modern cell phones like they were made for him. Well, Natasha knows, and she tells him. "I'm fine. Mostly healed."
Rogers looks at him for too long, intense in a way that makes Clint want to look away. It's maybe been a couple of days since he shaved, but he's not on duty, which is a good enough excuse. Better than how he loses minutes, nearly half an hour the other day, convincing himself that he's not seeing the curls of blue around his eyes, that there's no-one in his head except him.
Rogers doesn't say anything, looks like maybe he doesn't know what to say. He's young in a way that Clint doesn't really remember being, and the decent thing would be to rescue him, but Captain America is in his apartment, and it's all he can do not to say anything about Phil.
"I thought – maybe we should talk, about what happens now, with the Avengers," Rogers offers eventually.
It's one more thing that Clint doesn't want to think about, not when he knows there's no way in hell he could pass a field readiness test right now. Not when the idea of sliding back into the camouflage of being a regular SHIELD agent sounds so damn appealing. "You think we need to worry about another alien invasion already?" It doesn't really come out sounding like a joke, though Rogers cracks a smile, like he knows Clint meant it that way.
"I know Director Fury planned for us to be a strike team under SHIELD's wing, but that's not the only option available."
That doesn't sound any kind of good, especially not with how Steve apparently reacted to the Phase 2 prototypes. Which – the guy's a soldier, and okay, he fights with a giant shield, but he fights with it, uses it to do damage to bad guys. Phil shot Loki with one of the prototypes, and it did more damage than anything else they could throw at him. Clint doesn't really get what Rogers' objection is.
"I signed a contract with SHIELD," he says, mild like Rogers is. "Me and Nat, we've both got a few more years to run yet."
That gets him another long, considering look before Rogers straightens his jacket and stands. "I see." He holds out a hand that Clint stares at for a moment too long before realizing Rogers means for him to shake it. He does, and gets a smile in return.
"I guess someone's told you that Thor's taking Loki back to Asgard for trial in a few days?"
Loki's name out loud in his apartment is like a shock of electricity, a jolt that makes Clint's whole body jerk tight, and for a moment, he can't remember words, let alone pick out the right ones to say.
Rogers looks like he's thinking of reaching out, which is way past what Clint can handle. "Yeah," he says, ignoring how raw his voice sounds.
"I think you should be there." The frown is back, like Rogers doesn't know what to make of Clint. Which is fair; it's not like Clint knows any better what to make of him. "The others will be."
Clint nods, hoping Rogers won't claim to read agreement in a gesture that just means acknowledgement. He knows that watching Loki be taken away from Earth will help, he's just not sure he can actually get close to Loki without throwing up.
Rogers returns the nod, like maybe he gets some of this. All he says is, "Thanks for letting me up," though, before he leaves.
Clint will freely admit that social interaction is not always his strongest point, but even he thinks that whole visit was a damn weird experience.
"Today," he tells Smudge, who has wisely not shifted from his spot on Clint's pillow, "Is not looking worth the effort of staying awake."
*
Clint buys groceries, because food and shelter are life's necessities, and he's got shelter covered. He logs into his online bank accounts and donates a chunk to relief efforts in the city, because he needs to help, but getting down into the rubble and the injuries and the bodies is just – it's not happening, not right now. He breaks down and cleans all his guns, Natasha's voice in his head from the time he laughed at her for doing it in a nice hotel, when he'd just watched her do it that morning, before they left SHIELD.
There's an archery range not far from his apartment, where they know him, a little. He's not allowed to shoot yet, with the injuries to his back from going through a window, but he could still walk down there, stick his head inside, even probably stay anonymous, because the pictures and film-at-11 show Hulk and Iron Man and Captain America, not unidentified-guy-on-a-building-with-a-bow. He could go, but he doesn't.
Unlike his last visitor, he's not particularly surprised when Natasha appears in his apartment one morning, doing her best impression of harmless civilian.
Clint's is better, but that's mainly because he hasn't shaved in a couple of days.
"Today?"
Smudge, in blatant disregard of everything Clint's ever tried to instil in him, pads across the kitchen counter to where Natasha's leaning against the fridge, and head-butts her elbow until she scratches his ears.
"Today," she agrees, not looking at Clint. Which is fair, since he's not looking at her.
He wants to say that he's not going, that he can't, or won't, could be either and it doesn't much matter. If it was anyone except Natasha, he could, except Natasha faces her fears down until they run away to cry in a corner, and she doesn't understand Clint, who tries to will them out of existence by avoiding them. It hasn't so much worked for him, but he's still holding out hope.
"Clint," she says, quiet and firm. "It can't get better if you're always expecting him to be hidden in the next shadow."
Clint flinches at the thought, which maybe proves her point a little. "What if –" It comes out way too scared, so he clears his throat and tries again. "What if there's something in my head and he triggers it because I'm nearby?"
He's grateful when Natasha doesn't try to argue logic back at him. She just picks up Smudge, walks across the kitchen, and deposits him in Clint's arms. Once her hands are free, she tips his chin up with one finger. There's more compassion in her face than she usually lets show. "Then I'll knock you out again. You know I'm good for it, Barton."
That's why Natasha will always be his best friend in the world.
She probably reads it on his face, because she takes Smudge back, ignoring how he immediately climbs onto her shoulder and digs his claws in. "Go get changed. And shave, you look like you're being hugged by three-day-dead squirrel."
*
Clint's not hugely surprised to turn around, after Thor and Loki have vanished for another planet in a flash of blue light, and find Fury leaning against a car parked a short distance from them. Natasha spots him a moment later and immediately looks away, before Stark, who's waiting for Banner, can notice and start anything.
Clint risks a quick second glance, which Fury catches, jerking his head in a clear order for Clint to present himself at his earliest convenience, by which he means now. "I gotta-"
Natasha nods. "I'll wait for you."
Fury doesn't move until Clint's within speaking distance, looking over his shoulder like he's watching the Avengers. "Agent Barton."
"Director." Fury's not – Fury brought Clint into SHIELD, years ago now, and practically sat on him until he figured out how to be an adult with a real job, and tracked him down after everything. Fury's not going to fire him over this.
"I thought we'd talked about being discreet," Fury says mildly. "And not sending off villainous gods in the middle of a public street."
Clint shrugs, since Fury's guess is as good as his about why they did it this way. He just went where Natasha pointed him. He turns, enough to see Natasha talking to Banner, and Rogers and Stark actually looking like they're engaging in something close to civil discourse. Who'd have thought.
"Can I – You said, after Loki was gone..." Yeah, Clint's just babbling there. "Is it time now?"
Fury looks sort of sympathetic, which is even more terrifying that when Natasha does it. "Soon," he says, then, before Clint can do more than think about protesting, "Two or three days, Barton. We have to be sure there's no magical residue."
Clint nods and doesn't ask who they have to be sure about.
Fury answers anyway. "For him. We're not worried about you."
Clint's sort of worried about himself, but he didn't spontaneously turn evil again on catching sight of Loki, so maybe less worried than he was an hour earlier. He nods again.
"In the meantime –" Fury hands over an honest-to-god paper appointments list – "Psych are expecting you at the main office, eleven hundred tomorrow, and Medical at fifteen hundred. Don't be late."
It's not like Clint hasn't been expecting it – he knows he only got a reprieve because SHIELD's New York base was damaged in the attack, and they needed time to get it up and running again. He just wasn't expecting it quite yet.
He folds the paper neatly into thirds, then in half, and says, "Yes, sir."
*
Clint knows the plenty of agents dislike Medical, or, like Phil and Natasha, break out the moment the staff's backs are turned, but Clint doesn't actually mind it all that much. It's sort of – not exactly restful, but if he's in Medical, he's not expected to be doing anything else. No thinking, no shooting, no tactical planning. He doesn't get many chances to just be, and if he has to break a couple of bones (or in this case, shred his back by going through a plate glass window at speed), that's a price he can manage to pay.
Psych is less easy. He definitely doesn't get to relax while he's there, whether it's for post-mission counselling, general check-in, or field-work recertification, but it's kind of like debrief reports, making sense of everything and putting it into a box.
It's also exhausting, and so the last thing Clint wants to see when he walks out of his second appointment is Fury, obviously waiting for him. Again.
"Checking up on me, sir?"
"With me, Agent."
Clint falls into step by habit as much as anything, and it's not until they're most of the way to Fury's office that it really occurs to him to worry. Which he should be, because Fury doesn't come to you, you go to him, usually in response to a brusque summons.
"Sir?"
Fury doesn't break stride. "In my office."
Clint knows he can be paranoid, but he's pretty sure, right now, that it's not actually paranoia he's feeling. He doesn't bother sitting when they get to Fury's office, just waits in front of the desk while Fury settles and turns on his computer screen.
"You're not going to like this," Fury says, not exactly gentle, but like it could be if Fury did gentle.
"Is it – did something – "Clint can't actually get the words out past the lump of ice that's suddenly in his throat, because there's really only one thing left that he could not like happening.
"It's not about him," Fury says firmly. He sighs, then turns the computer screen.
There's a picture of Clint, likely a security camera still, dressed in black, bow in one hand – and in the other, he's holding Loki's eye scan machine. "That's – where did it come from?"
"We're looking into it. This picture isn't the problem, though."
Fury taps a key, and there's a second picture, obviously taken when they were sending Loki back, Clint looking at Stark, the edge of Natasha's arm just visible. Cell phone camera, the modern curse of spies everywhere.
"This picture identifies you as an Avenger," Fury says, tapping the second picture. "And this one puts you as part of Loki's crew."
Clint nods, unable to look away from the picture from Germany. His face is mostly shadowed, but he looks bad. Even worse, he looks intent, burning with purpose. He feels a little sick. He would have done anything then, maybe even worse than what he did.
"I'll have my notice on your desk by the end of the day, sir."
"Excuse me?"
"That's what people do, right? When they fuck up and it gets, what, onto the TV news? They give their notice and slink away in shame."
"That is what people do when they fuck up, but since you didn't fuck up, that isn't going to be what you do." Fury turns the screen back and gestures for Clint to sit. He does, and tries to curb his jittery nerves to just his right knee. "I'm showing you this because I don't want anyone blindsided when it shows up on the news."
"The WSC will hate this," Clint says numbly. "They're going to ask for me to go."
"I don't answer to the WSC," Fury says, which isn't strictly true and they all know it. "You remember when I brought you in? You promised to stick it out until you were ready to leave or I threw you out. I'm holding you to that, Agent Barton."
Clint does remember, vividly, though what he mostly remembers is that Fury bought him chocolate milkshake and fries and didn't say anything about how Clint's hands shook with cold and the kind of desperate anxiety he hadn't felt since he was a kid in foster care, hoping for a family who'd want to keep him. That, and how Fury let him have the dignity of pretending he wasn't choking up with relief at the thought of being picked up and rescued finally, by someone who seemed decent, seemed like they thought he was decent.
"This is a bad idea," he says.
"We're good at bad ideas," Fury says.
*
The pictures hit the news that evening, and Clint watches from his couch, Smudge curled in his lap. It's not as bad as he expected – sure, they talk about how he's a traitor, how he hurt people, how he shouldn't be an Avenger, but there's other people there too, trying to explain how he wasn't himself without talking about Loki and gods and magic. Trying to say that he's a decent person, and remind people that he helped save the world, in the end.
It's something, even if it's not enough for Clint to actually read any of the text messages his phone is lighting up with, or answer any of the calls that finally send it vibrating off the coffee table, the carpet muffling the sound.
The hard part isn't having his worst week ever all over the national news. The hard part is knowing that it's out there, now, and it will never go away. Like Stark's days designing weapons, or what the Hulk did to Harlem, this, Clint shooting his own people and feeling good about it, is part of how the rest of the world will always see him.
It means he'll never get to forget, or put it in the past.
Not if he stays, anyway, and he could run. It wouldn't even be hard, to get away, to start over somewhere, grow a beard and dye his hair and smirk at the odd, 'you kind of look like that guy, the one with the bow and arrow,' until the world mostly forgot about Hawkeye as anything but an, 'I wonder what happened to,' sound-bite on late night TV. Clint has always been good at blending in, and SHIELD took that skill, cranked it up to eleven. Fury would let him go, the World Security Council would encourage SHIELD to let him stay gone, and Natasha wouldn't like it, but he thinks she'd probably understand. She wouldn't approve, but she knows him well enough to make sense of him doing it. Maybe he could even take Smudge; he's a weird cat, after all, likes car travel.
Except. Except there's something Clint's waiting for, something he has to do, before he can cut all ties and disappear.
And, if he's really being honest with himself, no matter how much this hurts, how much he hates it – he doesn't want to go. SHIELD's home, and he wants to stay.
*
His shrink asks him if he wants to talk about the pictures and the news. He does, kind of, but he doesn't know where to even start, so he just shakes his head. He likes his shrink; she lets him change the subject, and only says gently that they can come back to it.
His medical doctor turns the TV set off when she sees Clint, and when he tells her it doesn't matter, says fiercely that it does.
"It's an excuse to show all the same footage all over again, instead of looking for actual news," she says, and, "I pity whoever leaked that security footage, when the Director tracks them down."
Yeah. Clint kind of does too.
"You're looking good, Agent Barton. If I didn't know you better, I'd almost be convinced you followed medical advice for once."
Rose smiles gently enough that Clint can pull up a grin. "Anything for you, Doc."
"That's what they all say." She pulls up something on her tablet and writes with the stylus. "I'm clearing you medically for duty. Resist the urge to over-do it in training."
Clint doesn't ask her to repeat that, but he comes close. Now that he's got permission, his hands itch for his bow, the smooth draw and release that he can get lost in. For maybe the first time since everything, he wants to shoot again, like pulling on a part of his SHIELD agent identity that hasn't felt like it could fit right.
Rose taps his knee with her stylus and smiles warmly when Clint looks up. "Now that's a look I wish I could see a little more often in here."
*
Clint coasts through on the safe, strong feeling of being able to use his bow again, right up until he's heading out the door of his apartment, at which point he remembers that his picture is all over the news, and there's no way he's going to go unnoticed at the archery range. The people who go there are close in age to him, people who shoot for the fun or the exercise, a couple of people who could have made it to the Olympics but didn't quite manage.
It's a good collection of intelligence on them, but none of it tells him anything about how they'll react to him in their space.
Except that it's his space as much as any of their's – he pays his membership fees like everyone else, he's coached a couple of beginners and bought raffle tickets for charities, pretending to be a normal person. He wants to be there, maybe more than he wants to avoid the possibility of being shunned.
Smudge headbutts the back of his legs, which is as good a sign as any. Clint grabs his keys, and lets himself out.
The guy on reception looks startled when Clint walks in, but just says, "Do you have your membership card, sir?" and nods when Clint hands it over.
"There's a couple of slots free until a private booking in an hour. Or if you're looking for longer, I can book you something for later?"
"An hour's fine." Clint taps his card on the desk, unsure what he wants to ask. "Thanks."
It's not as bad as Clint would have maybe expected. A couple of people turn their backs on him really obviously, and a handful more won't meet his eye, but there's a few who smile or say hello, and the older guy shooting next to him says, "Nice work," when Clint splits a cheap practice arrow neatly down the middle.
Clint still takes a lot longer than he normally would to settle into the rhythm of shooting, but he manages it eventually. He loses the worries – about SHIELD, about the Avengers, about the pictures, and Natasha, all of it; he loses the blue shadows and the fear that Loki isn't really gone, or isn't really gone from his head; he loses the grief and the horror and the pain.
It's wonderful.
Right up until it's broken by the sound of his cell ringing where he threw it into his bow case.
"Barton," Fury says, before Clint can even say hello. "It's time."
*
Clint hails a cab, bow still in hand because he's not taking the time to go back to his apartment, and gives SHIELD's address. He's holding onto his phone so tight he's a little worried he might crack the casing, and thinks, Hulk smash, laughs slightly hysterically in his head.
Heading into SHIELD, he texts to Natasha. Fury says it's time.
In Toronto, Natasha sends back. Say hello from me.
A moment later, his phone vibrates again: And that he's an idiot.
Clint really wishes she was here with him, and not just because he knows she's not thrilled about having to wait even longer than he has. It's more like – he and Natasha have been together since the beginning, near enough. He's out of practice getting through rough emotional situations without her.
It is what it is, though, and he's not selfless enough to wait until she's back, especially when he has no idea how long her mission is. And if he turns into a bit of a sobbing wreck, it's not like he isn't owed at least one mental breakdown over everything that's happened.
Security hand over an elevator key when Clint gets to SHIELD, and offer to take his bow and quiver.
"Just till you're ready to leave," the guard assures him. "We'll take good care of your equipment."
Clint mostly trusts them, but that doesn't do anything for how his grip tightens involuntarily. He forces himself to loosen it again, and put something close to a smile onto his face. "Sure. Thanks."
The key takes him down to Sub-Basement Three, which he last visited with Natasha a couple of years ago, bringing in someone that SHIELD did not want to be public knowledge, even within the agency (Clint maintains it was due to the thing's three heads and seven arms; Natasha says it was just because SHIELD agents gossip). He knows it's been turned into a medical auxiliary dedicated to treating people who came into contact with Loki and didn't get a kick in the head, but he's still surprised when the elevator doors slide open and he's looking at a corridor of sterile rooms, not a dim prison cell.
"Agent Barton." There's a women heading towards him, a doctor from the coat, and then Clint realizes he knows her, it's Dr Argent, who even Natasha doesn't mind being treated by.
It might be possible that Clint's starting that whole mental breakdown thing after all. It's just that, now he's here, now it's finally time after waiting what feels like months, all the stuff he's been pushing away is sort of spilling out in a mess of fear and worry and memories that he doesn't know what to do with.
"Director Fury said to expect you," Argent says, not touching Clint. He focuses on breathing, and paying attention to what she's saying, doesn't let his mind wander to the rooms and the closed doors and – "I'm going to be right outside with Nurse Delaware, but it's really just a precaution at this point."
Nurse Delaware could probably bench press Clint, which makes him a hell of a precaution, but not one Clint is inclined to argue with. "Promise I'll scream if I need you."
Argent smiles again, and stops outside a door, second from the end of the corridor, soft orange light coming through the frosted window pane. "Whenever you're ready," she says.
Ready is probably pushing it, but Clint's as close as he thinks he's going to get right now. He takes one more deep breath, taps a quick beat on the door, and pushes it open.
Phil's inside – of course Phil's inside, Clint's know that Phil was in the bowels of SHIELD, being treated with some kind of terrifying experimental tech and scanned for residual evil magic since right after the battle, but he hadn't known, not until now, standing in the doorway and seeing Phil right in front of him.
Phil's not just inside, he's sitting up, he's wearing slacks and an open-necked shirt, he's sort of smiling the way he does around Clint and Natasha, and –
And Clint can barely breathe through the rush of, of just everything, too many things to actually feel and make sense of. He does the only thing he can do, which is stumble the half dozen steps it takes to cross the room, and drop down onto the bed next to Phil.
Phil doesn't say anything, just slides his arm across Clint's back and tugs slightly, the way he does when he's not sure if Clint wants to be hugged or not, but thinks Clint probably needs to be. It's a gesture Clint's very familiar with, and he one hundred percent wants to be hugged, so he lets himself relax into it, head on Phil's shoulder, body tucked close enough to feel Phil's heartbeat and the warmth of his skin.
Eventually, Phil says, "Hello."
Clint swallows the sound half-choking him, and says, "Hey, sir," back with as much neutrality as he can manage.
Phil smoothes his thumb over Clint's side, through his T-shirt. "Rough couple of weeks?" he asks, completely deadpan. It makes Clint want to tell him everything, except that, actually, he thinks maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he's been doing okay this whole time, taking circumstances into account, and finally getting to see Phil, see that he really is alive and whole and okay – maybe that's not going to be the one thing that finally fixes him, because maybe he doesn't actually need one thing to be fixed. Maybe he's working his way there on his own.
Clint shrugs, unwilling to move away quite yet. "Could've been better." He doesn't move away from Phil, and Phil doesn't make him. "You're okay?"
Phil nods, fingers brushing over his chest. "I think I'd prefer not to ask too much about how, but yes."
"And you're not –" Clint closes his eyes and forces himself not to rub at the place where Loki's sceptre touched him and took away everything that matters.
Phil's hand closes tighter on Clint's shoulder. "Loki just killed me – no magic involved."
Clint flinches, totally unable to stop himself, even with Phil clearly alive right next to him. He found out Phil was in a medically induced coma the same moment he found out the others had been told Phil was dead, but it took three days before they were sure Phil was going to survive. He's known Phil almost as long as Natasha, and the thought of no more days at SHIELD with him was almost as bad as thinking of being without Natasha.
"You're okay," Phil says quietly.
Clint nods, just breathing, being close to someone he cares for and safe.
*
Fury accosts Clint before he can do more than think about leaving SHIELD for the day – Phil's got three more days yet before he's allowed home, and doctors who have strict ideas about what visiting hours mean.
"I'm sending you to Toronto. Your flight leaves in two hours."
"I – what?" Clint says intelligently.
"We need a shooter up there. You're a shooter, one flight and you'll be up there." Fury hands over a briefing packet. "Pack a bag, call whoever looks after your creature when you're working, be on the tarmac thirty minutes before scheduled departure."
"With my bags packed and my passport in my hand?" Clint asks, just like he would have done before. He can tell Fury wants to roll his eyes and isn't. It's a pretty good feeling. He taps the packet once against his thigh, already trying to remember if he's got a go bag tucked away anywhere here (the answer is probably no, because he's pretty sure his go bag went with him to watch the Tesseract and, unlike him, didn't come back again).
Fury hands over a second piece of paper, this one a business card that, when Clint turns it over, appears to be from his SHIELD-appointed mental health professional. "At least one call every twenty-four hour period."
If Clint didn't know better, he'd say that was Fury and Psych's compromise to put him back in the field, since he's not really that close to getting mission clearance from Psych. He's pushed his luck about as far as he can, though, and he appreciates Fury getting him back out into what he's good at almost as much as he appreciates Fury waiting till he got to see Phil to do it, so he just nods and says, "Yes, sir."
*
Natasha, for all that there's no-one else in the world who looks like her, is amazing at making herself look like someone else. So much so that in the early days, even Clint sometimes had to look twice, though that hasn't happened in years. For Toronto - or maybe because there aren't pictures of her like there are pictures of Clint but her red hair is distinctive enough even in flashes - she's dialled it up a notch.
It makes her walking into his hotel room ten minutes after he arrives in it a little weird.
There's a moment where he feels like she's still miles away, over the border in another country, and then something shifts and she's Natasha again, best friend and sister and partner-in-crime.
She smiles, says, "I hoped Fury would send you."
"I saw Phil," Clint says, ruthlessly suppressing the shiver that wants to run through his body, because he doesn't understand it, and anyway, he's not a person who shivers unless it's minus thirty or lower. "He looks good. He says hi."
Natasha crosses the room, sits next to Clint and lets him take her hand when he reaches for it. "I hoped Fury would send you because I wanted to see you," she says gently. "But thank you for telling me."
Clint leans his head against hers and breathes, slow and easy, at Natasha's side, the two of them and a mission and a target, like it's been for what feels like forever. It's not quite right yet, but he knows he's getting closer. At least he can, for a moment, what right will look like. "Missed you."
Natasha squeezes his hand, which he knows means she's missed him too, even if she hadn't just said it. When she takes her hand back, he feels cold, until he looks up and sees Agent Romanoff looking back at Agent Barton. "You ready?" she asks.
"Ready," he tells her, and means it. This is who they are. This is what they do, and nothing will ever change that.
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