Chapter Text
‘Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.’
~ Psalm 127:4-5
Tickticktickticktick.
The tiny rocket ship and moon clicked on their elliptic track, accompanied by equally teeny stars framing the mobile.
How do babies ever find this soothing? Worse than a grandfather clock, this thing.
Clint stared up at it. The delicate metal pieces were hyper stylized, cartoon-like, but had never run out of battery in the ten years since its gifting. A modern-day miracle to most people. Run of the mill for the mobile’s bestower.
Clint’s throat tightened, at the visual reminder of a mind the world would never see again. Had it been almost two years already? The taste of ash dried his tongue if he let his mind linger on it.
He reached up for his hearing aid and slipped it out. The silence rushed in with a broken dam’s force, muted like the words he couldn’t say. Voices played across the soundless stage, guttural noises of blood and bone hitting stone and the agony of screams without words at all.
“Nat!”
“It’s okay.”
“No…”
“Let me go—”
Gasping, Clint shoved the aid back in his ear. Laura’s easy breaths layered underneath the mobile and kept him company for another long hour. More staring. More fatigue that reached past his joints. He forced the borderline panic attack to retreat from the Western front, back into its hidey hole where the other slimy images and feelings lived.
Beside him, Laura snuffled in her sleep. A nightlight was still plugged into the wall by their heads, a relic of bedrooms past, and it thew her chocolate waves in a desert-dunes-at-dusk motif Clint never tired of admiring.
The clock sneered at him—3:12 am. No bad dreams, no injuries to keep him awake. Just a stupid mobile and memories of its inventor and a crippling fear of too much silence.
TickticktickclickclickCLICKCLICKCLICK—
Clint shot bolt upright, fumbling for his phone on the window sill above the bed. Even louder than the sound of the mobile came the controlled beep-click of a pre-set alarm. One that hadn’t activated for real in almost a decade. His phone flashed too, a visual strobe for whenever he took out his aid.
“Honey?” Laura stirred.
“Sorry for waking you.”
“It’s fine. Wha’ss going on?”
“Uh…” Clint stared at the notification. “Great question.”
Laura sat up too and, leaning on his shoulder, gaped at the screen. “Sector five sensor? That one’s way off in the woods. Animal?”
Still blinking, Clint shook his head. “They only notify for moving objects over ninety pounds. And it didn’t trip the other sensors nearby, just that one. Unless we’ve got a rabid bear on the loose…”
“No. You’re right.”
Bears rarely came this far south, to their property. They dwelt on flat farmland, far from the mountains and waterfalls bears preferred. Few people, even at what used to be SHIELD, knew the true size of the Barton property. Most only saw the mowed lawn in front of their house and considered that it.
But with over ten acres total to his name, Clint didn’t take any chances protecting his family. Not after the Ultron fiasco and certainly not since Thanos. Even if they did win, he wasn’t stupid about the possibility of lesser threats.
“Another drunk ATV-er?” Laura suggested.
“If it is—I’m firing a gun this time instead of an arrow.”
Laura tried to look stern and grinned instead. “That guy’s face was white, Clint. A recurve bow is plenty intimidating to make someone get lost. I think that sloshed man actually peed himself.”
He’s lucky I was in a good mood that day.
“I’ll go check it out.” Clint leaned in for a kiss before climbing over Laura’s legs. “And I’m going to tear down that noisy mobile if it kills me.”
Laura snickered, warm. “You wouldn’t dare touch that thing.”
Clint grumbled but didn’t deny it. No point.
“Were you…” Laura rubbed his arm. “Did the sensor alarm wake you?”
Clint hesitated.
“Clint.”
“No,” he finally admitted.
“Still can’t fall asleep? The magnesium didn’t help?”
Clint shrugged. “Just can’t seem to stay asleep. That new guacamole dip recipe I tried out tonight is probably the culprit, indigestion and all that.”
Laura’s mouth nose dived on one side, but she didn’t call him out or investigate that statement. “I’ll keep my phone handy in case we need to wake the kids. Be safe.”
“Will do.”
Unlikely we’ll have to get the kids involved, he wanted to assure her. But then, well…Clint wasn’t stupid about that either. Semi-retirement hadn’t softened his wits any. All those ‘who can run to our secret bunker in the woods the fastest’ drills with his kids weren’t for fun, no matter how much of a game they’d made it.
Clint tugged on a pair of jeans from the hallway hamper and threw his leather jacket over the long sleeved T-shirt. He chose a light running shoe over the boots, opting for stealth. He set his phone to silent but noted the tracker still going off.
“Alright.” Clint strapped on his bow and quiver, hiding in a secret compartment of the entryway closet, a self-made archery ascham, and locked the front door behind him. “Let’s see what’s lurking in my forest. If it is another drunk guy on an ATV, Laura owes me twenty bucks. And a few new arrows.”
This positive thought firmly in mind, Clint took off down the porch and out into the grass. He ran for thinner vegetation, the section he recently mowed masking his footfalls. A few squirrels startled at his appearance in the milky, gibbous moonlight, but otherwise the world was dead still.
Normally Clint loved that—two kilometres away from the nearest major road helped a lot with both privacy and noise levels or blessed lack thereof. Tonight Clint grit his teeth at how loud he sounded, his exhales broadcast more than his feet. He slowed his pace to maintain the near-silent breaths. Any hint of panting eased from his chest.
Clint jogged and tiptoed for another six minutes before he made it within a quarter mile of the sensor and halted altogether.
Time for a different approach.
The nearest elm tree branch hung a scant four feet off the ground. Clint levered himself up onto it. He let out his breath when his biceps reached maximum tension, still soundless.
Freezing, he listened for movement. Nothing. Not a creature disturbed by his exertion. The forest lay serene, aside from what sounded like a barn owl a few trees over.
Clint carefully sprang onto a neighbouring tree. He made sure not to disrupt the skunk scurrying along fifteen feet below. Even it didn’t note his acrobatic movements so he deemed his clandestine approach successful.
Now it’s time we see what’s kicking up a fuss.
Clint checked his phone, shaded in his jacket pocket, and noted that the tracker had shut off. No more movement to detect—but that didn’t mean no intruders. They could be huddled down, still and serpentine, baiting Clint to draw him out. That or Drunk Guy had come back for round two and passed out.
Thankful now for the moon, in what would have been a pitch black curtain otherwise, Clint squinted ahead at the fifth out of thirty sensors around the acreage.
It should be right there, right beside the oak tree that looks like a face.
Sure enough, Clint spotted the hidden sensor peering out from the roots, with only a dull Plexiglas shine to show for it. The tracker in his pocket started to flash again as it picked up his body climbing down to a lower branch.
In the dead stillness, a reckless ATV or wayward grizzly bear didn’t seem plausible. They’d never have been able to hide this fast or even care to. It set Clint on high alert.
Should have brought the gun, Barton.
Then again, he could draw a bow without making a noticeable sound, so perhaps he’d chosen the better weapon tonight. Someone had to be hiding, waiting for Clint to show himself. No other alternative made sense. A well trained someone, to avoid so much as a single leaf rustle.
Clint strained his ears, checking on either side of the sensor for what could have—
An orange swatch of canvas caught his eye. Covered in Hawaiian flowers and umbrellas.
What the…
Clint risked landing on the forest floor to weave his way around knots in the ground. He braced himself for what he might have to dodge, looping the bow off his back and notching it with an arrow in one smooth rotation. As traps and bait went, this was pretty creative. Points for that.
He rounded the oak and stopped cold in his tracks, eyebrows high.
Between two parallel birch trees hung a Hawaiian printed hammock. A gaudy tourist trap of a thing, but with sturdy rope on either side and thick steel gromets. This was not what had Clint’s jaw—and bow—dropping, nor the black plastic trash bag tied up close over the hammock for meager rain protection. Not the ratty backpack looped around the hammock ties in place of a pillow.
Clint hadn’t been caught off guard like this in years, and yet his eyes shone with wonder.
“I’ll be damned,” he breathed.
Silent as a breath, he backed away and melted into the shadows.
“So.”
Laura slathered peanut butter on another piece of whole wheat bread. “So.”
Clint leaned on the counter next to his wife’s hip. His insides churned.
“Dad?” Lila tapped his arm. “Can you sign my permission slip for the school field trip on Friday?”
“What? Where are you going?”
“The re-enactment, Dad. Remember? I told you last week about all the actors in authentic period costumes, the fake fight they do down by the park. They even have real wool jackets dyed with plant matter like they would have back then.”
Clint blinked, covering the blank out with a nod. Easiest thing in the world with years of undercover training. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”
He dutifully signed permission for the state to take his baby girl to an American Civil War re-enactment. Cooper rushed by for his lunchbox and fist bumped Nate at the table, already working on homework.
“Wait up!” called Laura, her eyes still on Clint. “I’ll drive you to the bus stop today.”
“Not Dad?” asked Cooper.
Laura asked Clint a question with her eyes. He shook his head.
“Not today,” said Laura. “He’s got some time sensitive projects to finish up.”
“Okay!” said Lila.
She bounded out the door, ever the early bird of the family along with Nathaniel. Laura and Cooper always lamented this state of affairs. Clint fell somewhere in the middle, an early bird by necessity on missions and a breakfast-at-nine-am by choice. Brunch was the best meal of the day, end of discussion.
“Nate, pumpkin, did you remember to brush your teeth after breakfast?”
Nate’s eyes widened at his mother’s words. “No, I din’t! I’ll be quick!”
Clint smiled at the slight lisp, a remnant of his baby years that Natasha used to coo over when she thought no one was looking.
Once both teens disappeared to wait out on the porch and Nate had scrambled off to the bathroom, Laura turned to her husband. “So?”
“So.” Clint folded his arms. “We have an intruder. Of a sort.”
“Intruder as in someone hostile? Should I prepare those raid shields we hide in the attic?”
“I don’t think so. I’d laugh if he tried.”
“So…”
“So we have a kid living in our woods.”
Laura had dealt with Avengers showing up at her house unannounced and missing five years of life and finding out her husband killed people on unsanctioned rogue missions while she was ‘away,’ so it surprised him when she dropped the peanut butter knife.
Laura swore. “Wanna run that by me again, Mr. Barton?”
“I checked out the sensor last night.”
Laura’s eyes were intent. “And?”
Clint held a breath, let it out. “And I found some Dickensian waif of a kid sleeping in a hammock by the oak tree. Cut open trash bag for a blanket and one for a ‘tent,’ if we can in good conscience call it that. Looked malnourished.”
Laura swore again, while also blowing her bangs off her forehead. An impressive multitasker, Clint’s wife, and he loved her for it. She picked up the knife, fisted it thumb-over-knuckles and away from her center masss in a professional stance. Clint loved her for that too.
“When you say kid…”
Clint waffled his head. “Thirteen, maybe?”
“Oh honey.” Laura’s eyes filled. This at least didn’t surprise Clint. “That’s awful. Why here? Why so far away from people?”
It was a question beyond their ken to answer and they lapsed into silence. The brooding silence of worried parents. Especially when Nate pitter pattered back into the kitchen humming a Psalty the Songbook tune.
“All done, Mom.” Nate showed her his clean hands. “Are we p’acticin’ letters first?”
“Actually…” Laura glanced at Clint. “Why don’t we skip homeschooling this morning to drive Cooper and Lila to the high school ourselves? After, we’ll go for ice cream.”
Nate lit up like a Roman candle. “Really? Ice cream?”
“Go get your coat, Nate-man.”
“Only if Daddy helps with my laces.”
Clint pretended to groan and creak as he knelt down to tie Nate’s shoes. Nate giggled. “Still haven’t gotten them to stay tight, huh?”
“When I run around with the chickens they slip. Your knots don’t come loose.” Nate watched with eagle eyes while Clint tied them in an exaggerated motion, letting the five-year-old see the process in broad strokes. “Thanks, Dad!”
“Aht.” Clint squeezed his left ankle. “This side’s all yours, buddy.”
Nate whined but crouched. Clint bopped his forehead with his own, eliciting a dimpled smile.
“Like this?”
Clint beamed at the progress. “Look at that! Two bunny ears and all. Up top, dude.”
Nate broke into a toothy grin and high fived Clint, jumping up and down. “Ice cream now! Ice cream!”
“He’s been needing a treat to slog through the last few months of school anyway.” Laura kissed Clint’s cheek. “We’ll give you some space to figure out how you want to handle this.”
“Should I just leave him be?” Clint met her eyes, an invisible lean into her wisdom.
Laura hung her coat over her arm and thought about it. She fingered Clint’s wedding ring when he took her hand. “Did he seem okay?”
Clint shrugged. “Well enough to sleep soundly. Didn’t even wake when I hopped down.”
“Maybe find out why he’s there and if it’s an innocuous reason, like camping or some survival kick, leave him to it.”
Clint’s shoulders lowered. “You’re an empathetic savant, dear.”
“And don’t you forget it.” Laura playfully knuckled his chin. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
Clint waved off the SUV full of his family, his expression fond and wistful. How he never thought he’d get to see that again, Nate’s gap toothed smile at the back window, Laura and Lila already bopping out to classic rock while Cooper flopped his head back, presumably complaining about said music choices.
Clint would be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate that he got an extra five years with his kids, that Nate was still a little child and not an eight year old like he would have been if things had progressed normally.
Clint’s smile faded a bit, now that he was alone.
Precious cargo. My greatest treasure and Laura and I’s greatest achievement. He’d never take them for granted, not even after he took his last breath.
Clint shook himself from the steepening rabbit trail of morbid thoughts and donned the running sneakers again, mostly mesh so he had flexibility and a light footfall. The bow and quiver he left locked in their closet box. He doubted he needed such things for a homeless kid.
Camping kid? Kid sulking away from his parents to prove a point? Unease curled in Clint’s gut at the fact he didn’t know either way.
Still, he made sure he had a hunting knife strapped in a sheath up his sleeve before leaving the house. Caution never hurt anyone. Oh, and the other half of a ham sandwich from the fridge; he stuffed it in his sweater’s front pocket.
In daylight, the trip went faster, even if morning dew made silence a trickier task. He resisted mulchy patches where his feet would squelch.
Once at the sensor’s oak tree, Clint inched forward at a crawl.
No need for stealth—the kid was still dead to the world, and up close he looked much worse. Inflamed bags under his eyes, lips cracked and pale to match his bloodless skin, bruises on his jaw, curls of an unidentifiable shade long over his ears and spilling out the windbreaker hood.
Large bruises. Green and yellow and horrid shades of burgundy that bled together up his cheek in an explosive haze. One was the shape of a boot tread.
Clint’s jaw coiled. A burn started behind his belly button, raw fury.
Someone had deliberately laid hands on this child to hurt him.
Definitely a runaway. I would be too if my parent kicked me around. A long-buried memory of his brother’s split lip flitted through his mind. Clint shook his head to dispel it, leaning over for a better look at the backpack. Maybe there’s a tag or name that I can—
“Ah!” The kid went from asleep to awake in less than a second. He extended his arms as if to ward off Clint’s looming face and heaved a rattled breath. His dried-leather scream was loud enough to send Clint practically out of his skin.
They both jolted and the kid went flying backwards out of the hammock, a nasty fall, scrambling across the leaves like a wild animal.
“Hey, hey!” Clint held up his hands. “Hey, kid! It’s—Hey—”
The boy scuffled around the tree so he was hidden from view. To his shock, Clint felt his own heart spasming in his chest, nigh out of control, a forbidden occurrence in his line of work. He placed a hand to his sternum and took a deep breath.
Haven’t felt like this since Nat pointed my own Glock at me.
The association put his head on straight, somehow. Even though there was no gun and the scariest thing in this situation were the disembodied whimpers and how hard their owner hit the ground just now.
“Kid? I’m just coming around to make sure you’re okay. Stepping under the hammock now…”
Clint ducked low and stayed that way once he saw the state the kid was in. Clint’s heart tumbled into his stomach altogether. He kept his hands raised where the boy could see them.
He’d never watched a kid shake like this, frenetic bursts that jarred his very teeth. There weren’t even tears, just unfiltered terror and the whites of dilated eyes, terror caused by a larger, muscular man in the same radius.
Caused by Clint. Bile burned his esophagus and he swallowed it back, settling into a crouch.
“Hey,” he said, softer. “Didn’t mean to scare you. In fact, I’d simply hoped to make sure you were still here and leave you be.”
The kid breathed hard—harder than Clint would have expected from someone so lanky, and a wheeze dovetailed the end of each exhale. It sounded painful and dire and exactly the sort of thing that upped Clint’s blood pressure. The kid avoided Clint’s eyes like the plague. Instead, he examined escape routes through the close-knit trees on either side.
Clint leaned his elbows on his knees. “Scared the crap out of each other, I guess.”
The boy hesitated, recognition filling his eyes, then his fist came up to his heart.
He circled it twice.
Clint blinked. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who crept up on you while you were sleeping.”
The boy’s eyes whipped around to Clint and finally met his own. Clint put his fingers to his temple and levered them off, then pressed his palms together and slid the right across the left, with two ‘d’ letters touching, and ended it by pointing at the kid.
He said it out loud too—“Hey. Nice to meet you.”
The kid’s mouth was still open. Clint murmured a note in his throat, mouth closed, and the kid jumped a bit.
Not deaf, then. Interesting.
Up close, Clint’s heart sank even more. No way was this kid thirteen—he looked nearer to Cooper’s age, just very…very emaciated so he appeared younger. When had this kid last eaten? Something about him prickled hairs on Clint’s arms, the depleted doe eyes and effaced, dim expression. A beaten creature who’d forgotten anything else.
“It’s alright,” Clint crooned, in the voice reserved for Nate when he cried his eyes out after banging his knee or had nightmares about the Blip. “Just you and me here. I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.”
The boy’s eyes flashed. Which, yeah alright. Fair.
“Honest.”
Another cautious hand gesture, this one harder. Clint had never seen this one before in his life, despite all the ASL books he and Laura read for when Nate was a toddler and wouldn’t talk and later once Clint lost his hearing.
Clint’s brow furrowed. He sounded out the hand shapes. “Bird…point…no. Wait. Bird gaze…oh! Hawkeye, yeah. That’s me. It’s a cool sign you made up, but just Clint is fine.”
This didn’t make the kid look any less tightly strung. Not exactly the reaction Clint was used to, on the rare occasion children clocked him and ran up for a photo or wanted to tell him all about their new goldfish. Implicit trust, all because he shot some aliens and robots with an antediluvian weapon.
Not this kid.
This kid kept a razor blade gaze on Clint’s hands at all times. Especially his arm, where the knife lay, almost like he could see through the fabric.
“Did you hurt yourself falling out of the hammock?”
The boy resumed his stubborn stare of the forest floor. His hands tremored at his sides in spastic blurs. One came up to touch his ribs.
Clint’s eyes sharpened. He resisted barking a question and sat down cross legged instead. The boy watched with wary eyes—rather bloodshot eyes too—and something in the deadness of it made Clint feel like an elderly man.
“Gave my wife and I a good shock, kid. I have no idea how you strung up that hammock in time to fall asleep before I noticed the sensor alarm and came out to investigate. Industrious of you.”
The boy hunched his shoulders, a pitiful wall to block out Clint’s attention. The way a trampled dog would.
Clint sighed. “My wife buys deli ham even though she and my son Cooper are the only ones who like it. Nuts, right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat anything. Had to all my life. But it’s the principle of the thing.”
Clint dug out the plastic wrapped sandwich and set it halfway between them, the entire span of his arm. He had to lean over just to get it that far. “Ham sandwich on ciabatta bread. Or half of one anyway. Thought you might be hungry.”
The dead stare roosted on Clint. Chestnut irises, or what would have been chestnut if they weren’t dilated so far, looked suddenly sad, like Clint felt on the inside. They settled to half mast, and only then did Clint notice the absurdly long eyelashes.
The kid brushed a lank piece of hair off his forehead and tapped two fingers against his thumb.
“No?” Clint sat back. More surprises. “Why not? I’m genuinely never going to eat it. It’ll just go bad, kid. I’ll probably throw it out when Laura’s not looking.”
The kid hiccupped a strange sound. Experience immediately suggested he was trying not to cry, but Clint examined the boy’s face closer and a complicated nexus of emotion rippled across it. Much more complicated than just fear or relief at having food in front of him.
‘No,’ the boy signed again.
Suddenly it clicked. Clint placed his hands oh so slowly on the ground and levered himself up, backing away as he did so and making sure not to puff his chest or look big. Leaves crinkled under his feet.
But the kid’s shakes lessened, and he just looked tired. No, not tired.
Defeated.
More days than Clint could count had that exact face glared back at him from the mirror. An accusation. A plea. A desperate longing for it all to be over.
Clint didn’t even have to soften his posture to be less intimidating. He sagged in a subtle motion, but the kid caught it, brows up.
“This is my property, but you can stay as long as you need. Please don’t leave.” Clint looked around at the trees. “We’re far from other people or threats, and honestly I’d feel better about you being here than somewhere else.”
Especially since I have trackers and sensors that will alert me if someone attacks you.
The boy looked confused. He finger-signed a word—‘R-E-P-O-R-T?’
“Nah, kid.” Clint stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Ain’t my place to tell Child Services. You feel safe here? Great. I see no reason to change that. The trees are all yours for your hammock.”
For the first time, something that wasn’t a negative emotion or blankness lightened the kid’s face. Just a little, and after a beat Clint identified the wider eyes and closed mouth.
Bet the kid has dimples just like Nate.
Sorrow gored Clint at the reality that he’d never get to find out. He blinked back the emotion. The boy’s amazement didn’t fade even when Clint was almost out of sight, licking yet another invisible wound, this one caused by an assaulted child and the evidence that they hadn’t saved the world for everybody.
The kid put his fingers to his lips and flicked them away. He signed the way a toddler did or someone who hadn’t been learning the language long, only with better motor control.
Clint scooped a hand to his belly in reply—‘You’re welcome.’