Chapter Text
There was something about the sky in New York, something about it that made it feel so much smaller than it should. Made it all feel so self-contained, like the whole world was just that one bubble of concrete and glass. Like a video game, or a snow globe.
Clint stared up at the gap of sky between two buildings and forcefully caught his breath, having just used a great deal of effort to turn himself onto his back. His knee twinged in pain, protesting the movement, and his head felt heavy and sluggish, blood dribbling down his cheek from a cut above his eyebrow. The sky above him was a clear, cloudless blue. It was a beautiful day.
Ok, so…yeah. This looked bad.
Smelled bad, too. The metallic tang of blood and sweat; the pungent scraps of a nearby seafood restaurant left to rot in overflowing trash bags. The general odour of New York alley juices, simmering disgustingly in the summer heat of the city. Eau de Clint.
Back in Iowa, the sky had always felt so big. When Clint was younger, he’d often had a feeling like it was massive enough it could have swallowed him whole. He’d run through the fields outside the boundaries of his family’s rundown farm until his lungs burned and his legs ached, imagining the whole time that he was outrunning that great big mouth of the world. Sometimes, he’d scale a tree and jump from the highest limb, and he’d imagine the wind catching him in his fall, himself soaring, the sky reaching down and plucking him from that sad, lonely life of feet fixed on the ground.
Where did it all go wrong? It was an idiotic question, a ridiculous question, but one that ran through his head regardless – sometimes, Clint felt as thought he’d been asking just that one question his whole life. Nothing else; just that. Where did it start? What went wrong? How the hell had he fucked up this time?
Well, he had brass knuckles. Or, maybe, you know how everyone always says never trust a man in a tracksuit?
Yeah, right. Who was he kidding. So I have this brother…
It was fine, really — he wasn’t that hurt. Not this time. Clint had taken worse beatings before, and no doubt would continue to take worse until the moment he finally kicked it. Nothing was broken, his hearing aids were both intact, and he’d already popped his left kneecap back into its rightful place. No — it wasn’t the hurt that bothered him, not really. It was the humiliation. That familiar little niggling voice in his head, crowing out how pathetic he was, how weak. It was the way he always had to force himself to stay down.
If the whole world were to disappear right that second, if something were to happen that made it so nobody would see him, then Clint might have just laid there until the sky got dark. Face-up in the alley, drowning in his own self-pity. But he could feel the passing eyes on him, commuting New Yorkers hesitating for a split-second gawk at the blood-covered lump by a dumpster – not that Clint cared what these people thought of him. It was just basic op-sec. A healthy wariness of the cops coming calling.
His temporary resting place was only a few blocks from the bar, anyways. Sometimes it was like all Clint did each day was pin-ball between different places to lick his wounds. But better to bleed over a beer than a puddle of urine, he’d always said. Put that on a t-shirt and sell it in a gift shop!
The walk was slow and painful. People crossed the street as they saw Clint coming, despite the pair of sunglasses he’d slapped over his bruised, bloodshot gaze and his valiant attempt to conceal the worst of his limp. Probably had something to do with the smell. He passed the time tonguing at one of his molars and trying to figure out if it was actually loose or he was only imagining things, and attempting not to drip more blood on his ratty purple hoodie. He stopped twice — once to spit out a gob of murky pink saliva into the gutter, the second to swipe a half-eaten pretzel from its spot perched tantalizingly atop a street-side garbage can. Even without mustard, and tainted faintly metallic by the liberally bleeding inside of his cheek, Clint savoured it. What the hell kinda world were they living in, that people were so easily content to throw away perfectly good food?
Sister Margaret’s School for Wayward Children, admittedly, smelled only marginally better than the alleyway. Inside, Weasel was wiping down the bar with a rag that was doing more smearing than cleaning. It was early in the afternoon and the place was pretty much deserted, safe for a few regulars throwing darts in the corner and a motionless heap of red leather and assorted weaponry slumped over at the counter. The group of hardened thugs suspiciously tensed up, instinctually closing arms around their game as Clint walked in. They were unfortunately used to him, by now – and so there went his hopes of scoring a few extra bucks that way.
Spotting him, Weasel whistled lowly and winced in a way that only marginally read as sympathetic. “Jesus, man. The hell happen to you?”
Clint collapsed onto an empty stool to the left of the suspiciously corpse-like figure at the bar. He waved a weary, dismissive hand. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. He breathing?”
Weasel eyed the mercenary at Clint’s shoulder. “Who knows.” He leaned over to poke at a leather-clad shoulder and shrugged, wholly unconcerned. “Guy’s been doped up all morning.”
As if on cue, Deadpool rocketed upwards with a gasp, almost toppling himself right over. “Bette Davis!” He looked around wildly, gloved hands creaking in their grip against the counter’s edge. Gaze landing on Clint, he perked up noticeably, rolling up the bottom half of his mask to reveal a pockmarked stretch of burned skin and a wide, grinning mouth of blood-smeared teeth. “Oh, hey Hawkguy. What’s with the ouchies?”
Clint made to reply but was distracted by Weasel waggling a bottle of beer at him from behind the bar. He made grabby hands back at him, gut lurching with desire. Oh, fuck yeah.
“Not so fast,” Weasel hastily pulled the bottle back, like he expected Clint to lunge across the counter for it like a feral animal scenting a prime slab of meat. “You good for it, this time?”
Fuck. Clint would resent the implication – but he couldn’t exactly refute it. Instead, he just grimaced in a way he hoped was more endearingly apologetic than just straight-up pathetic, and raised his palms in supplication. “I’m in so much debt.”
He didn’t startle when Deadpool clapped a heavy hand on his aching shoulder, just turned and raised an eyebrow.
I can buy you a drink, the mercenary signed, once he was sure Clint was looking. Well, actually it was more [me] [buy] [drink] [you] and then a lot of really confusing hand gestures and some lascivious tongue action Clint would really rather go untranslated.
Clint scrunched his nose up. “No thanks.” The last time he’d accepted a drink from this guy, Clint had woken up an entire day later wandering the streets of Montreal with no wallet, no shirt, and a surprisingly tasteful tattoo of an arrow over his left pec. And the border was a real bitch to hop sober.
Weasel snorted and disappeared the beer back behind the bar. “Tough luck, my friend. You here for a contract?”
Clint gave into the urge to thunk his head down on the counter, allowing himself a moment to mourn the loss of the much-needed drink and relish the coolness of the surface against his aching temples. “Yeah,” he said, voice muffled somewhat through a mouthful of perpetually grimy vinyl top. “What’ve ya got?”
“Woah, woah, hold on,” Deadpool interjected. Clint turned his head enough to look at him. As usual, Wade signed as he spoke, which depending on the day Clint found either wildly disconcerting or strangely thoughtful. “Since when’re you back in the business? What happened to ‘I’m turnin’ straight, fuck all y’all bitches, I’m gonna go dress up like Robin Hood and save some puppies yeehaw!’?”
“First of all,” Clint said, lifting a finger, “I do not sound that much like a hick, so fuck off. And second, it’s—y’know. Extenuating circumstances.”
Extenuating circumstances, Wade mouthed to himself, as incredulous as you could be in a featureless leather gimp mask. Ugh.
“I swear I told you this,” Weasel said, mopping at the counter where Clint had just been resting his head. Did he think the stupid was contagious or something? “It was a whole thing. Came crawling back with his tail between his legs, did some groveling, lurked around like a sopping wet cat whose owner abandoned him. Obviously, I forgave him. I’m super benevolent like that.”
He’d made Clint do dishes for five days straight before he’d allowed him to take more than a passing glance at another contract. But sure. Real benevolent. “Whatever,” Clint said. He wasn’t going to take offense to the wet cat thing. He wasn’t. “I’m back now. Great, awesome. I need a job.”
“Haven’t got a job big enough to cover your debts, baby Barton.”
Clint rubbed his face, suddenly exhausted – suddenly really fucking sick of this, to tell the truth. “Does everyone know about that? Seriously?”
Weasel shrugged. “Word gets around. And Ivan’s guys’ve got real big mouths.”
Wade gasped. “Russians! Want me to kill ‘em for you?”
“Thanks, but no. I’m handling it.” Truth was, it wasn’t that easy. Clint could kill Ivan, sure, probably wipe out most of the mob without too much trouble, but then everyone who was anyone would know Clint as someone who’d rather split guts than pay up his debts – and, well, tough luck then if he ever hoped to get another goddamn night’s sleep in this city the rest of his miserable life. No — the only option for him now was to pay it. Fucking Barney. “But seriously—jobs? Nothing? Please?”
The upper part of Deadpool’s mask wriggled around in such a way that probably meant he was doing something pointed with his eyebrows.
Weasel leaned away from him. “You know I can’t tell what your face is doing when you wear that thing. Don’t take it off,” he added quickly, as a precaution. “I just ate.”
Deadpool cupped a hand over his mouth and said, in a comically loud whisper, “Show him the high-roller.”
Clint made a face. The more coveted contracts – and thus the most expensive – tended to be high-visibility, and never failed to end up confusingly political. There were only so many Saudi princes one man could shoot before he started wondering about, like, the state of world affairs and stuff. And Clint could barely be trusted to handle his own affairs.
Weasel made a slashing motion across his neck.
Undeterred, Deadpool said, “y’know. The Black Widow contract!”
Clint tensed. Alright, so it got worse than a prince. “I don’t do—“
“Avengers, yeah, I know.” Weasel rolled his eyes and shot a little glare at Wade, irritated. “Doesn’t matter anyways, that one’s not going public. Professionals only.”
Clint straightened in his seat, affronted a little despite himself. “What? I’m a professional.”
Weasel snorted. “You’re a broke loser who dresses up like a tool and shoots fucking arrows at people in his free time. Professional, Jesus. Pull the other one.”
Clint scowled. “I’m fucking Ronin, asshole. I could take out the Black Widow.”
Weasel squinted at him and tossed the rag over his shoulder. “Are you saying you want the contract?”
“No. I just — I could. If I wanted to.”
Weasel snorted again. “Yeah, sure.” Okay, rude. “Wade already tried, man.”
“You ever been disemboweled and choked out by your own intestines?” Wade asked brightly, a slightly dreamlike quality to his voice. “High like no other, baby, trust.”
Weasel threw a rag at him. “No one wants to know how you get off.” And nobody wanted that mental image either, Jesus.
“Wade’s a shit shot,” Clint said, ignoring the mercenary’s offended gasp. It was true. Compared to Clint, at least – but then, everyone was. It wasn’t arrogance if it was true. “Show me the contract.”
Weasel endured a couple moments of steely eye contact before he acquiesced with a beleaguered sigh. “Fine. Nobody else is stupid enough to take it, anyhow.”
Clint judiciously ignored this too, and waited for him to slide the file onto the bar. He flipped through it quickly, scanning for the reward money. He stopped when he found it. Balked. Read it again, face so close his nose was almost touching the paper, blinking rapidly. “Holy shit.”
It was — a lot of fucking money. More than enough to pay off his debts, plus enough left over that Clint could probably live somewhat comfortably the rest of his fucking life. Enough to supply him with a lifetime’s worth of arrows. Enough that Clint would probably never have to kill someone again. Enough that he could buy the old farm in Iowa, could fix it up, even buy a goat or something. A few chickens. A dog. Shit, Clint could buy a crockpot.
And all he’d need to do was kill the Black Widow.
It was, objectively, a terrible idea. Clint had rules, ones he’d laid out for himself before he’d started all this. No kids, no sex workers, no petty thieves or drug runners – and absolutely no heroes. The rules were there for a reason. They kept him sane, kept him from turning into a homicidal crazy person. You couldn’t afford to bend on shit like that.
But…it was a lot of fucking money. And Clint was a little bit in dire straits, here.
“That’s not a good look,” Wade remarked cheerfully.
“There are easier ways to die,” Weasel agreed. He looked, almost, a little nervous. Probably he hadn’t expected Clint to actually think about it. He’d been clear in the past – had never wavered in his convictions. But – but. There was always a fucking but.
The guilt was already rising. Anyone else, Clint told himself, and he wouldn’t even contemplate it. But the Black Widow… Well. There was history there. Dirty laundry.
“Seriously brochacho, bad idea. You’d be better off robbing a bank.”
“I don’t really do that anymore,” Clint said absently, still staring down at the paperwork. A sea of zeroes swam before his eyes. He could almost smell the fucking chili he could make with that crockpot. He looked up, met Weasel’s shifty gaze behind coke-bottle glasses, and made a split-second, terrible, possibly life-ruining decision. “I’ll take it.”
Wade pumped a fist in the air. “I get the arrows when he dies!”
The walk back to his apartment seemed to take longer than usual, and it was only partly because Clint was still limping. There was something in the air, a strange feeling rising up in his lungs. The wadded up file in his hoodie pocket felt immeasurably heavy, like it was doing its damndest to pull him back down to earth.
In just an hour, something in the world had fundamentally shifted. Clint was left reeling to keep up. Things felt – clearer, maybe. Clint had a mission now. A way forward. A way out.
Clint splurged on a good cup of coffee, one from one of those fancy hipster places where the barista colour coordinated their pronouns pin to their hair colour, and luxuriated in the extravagance of a single pump of hazelnut syrup. He could afford it. Or, well – he couldn’t, really, but that was fine. The days of scrounging up enough change for a shitty cup of joe from a coffee-cart would soon be over. Times, they were a’changin’.
He bumped into Simone on his way up the stairs – the elevator was broken again, courtesy of the mob being a shitty fucking landlord – tromping up and down the flights in her nurse’s scrubs. She looked frazzled, and her expression lit up upon seeing Clint.
“You’re back! Thank god,” she said, steamrolling over Clint’s awkward attempt at a greeting. “I’m so sorry, I wouldn’t normally ask, but – could you look after Maddy for a bit? Just a few hours – I got called into work, and the sitter cancelled, and –” She cut herself off and just looked at him, eyes wide and pleading.
Clint swallowed his mouthful of coffee and paused across from her on the landing, caught off-guard. He hadn’t seen Simone look this much of a mess in – probably ever. “Uh.”
“Just a couple hours,” Simone reassured him, still with that edge of desperation. “It’ll be – I’ll pay you?”
Clint held his hands up, shaking his head rapidly with a grimace. “No way,” he said. “I’m not gonna take your money, Simone.”
The woman perked up, expression brightening hopefully. “But you’ll do it?”
Clint winced. “Uh,” he said again. “I’m not really good with kids.”
But Simone hardly seemed to hear him – in her mind, Clint had already accepted. She rummaged around in her bag, emerging victoriously after a moment with a pen and a receipt that she hastily scribbled a number on the back of. She thrust it at him, forcing him to juggle his coffee cup so as not to drop it. “Here. My number. I should be back before midnight – she knows her bedtime and to behave, but call me if anything goes wrong. Okay?”
“Okay,” Clint said, bewildered.
“Right,” Simone said. “Okay.” She hesitated for a moment, as if she wanted to say something, but then she just nodded firmly to herself and swept off, a whirlwind of nurse’s scrubs and the faint smell of cinnamon out the door.
Clint stood there for a moment, nonplussed, before shaking his head and stuffing the receipt in his pocket. Well. So much for a night spent planning a murder.
Maddy, like most children below the age of ten, was perpetually loud, refreshingly blunt, and almost always inexplicably sticky. Clint was very fond of her.
He’d always liked kids — though he didn’t exactly expect to one day have any of his own. The Barton lineage didn’t have the greatest track record, and based purely on the evidence available to him any kid of Clint’s was statistically likely to pop out of the womb with a full set of lockpicks, a penchant for dangerous weaponry, and a face untrustworthy enough that it would compel even the most easy-going folk to punch first, ask questions later.
Also, a very drunk seventeen year-old Barney had once told Clint that their mother had only had kids because it was the only way she would ever be sure there was something in the world that loved her as much as she loved it. And Clint had made a deal with himself that if he ever found himself starting to turn into his mother, he’d give in to the parting advice of every single ex who’d ever left him and go to therapy.
So. Kids were clearly out.
Clint had never babysat for Simone before, but Maddy knew him well enough, thanks to the weekly barbecues Clint sometimes forced himself to attend on the building’s roof. She made him show her a coin trick anyways, for payment to be let into the apartment.
“Hi,” Clint said, once the kid had been suitably bribed and he was lingering sort of awkwardly in their foyer. “Want to hang out until your mom gets back from work?”
It was weird – he’d never been in any of his neighbour’s apartments before. The layout was almost identical to his own, but there was something different about it regardless. Something that made the place look lived in, like somebody’s actual home, instead of the bleak, depressing emptiness of Clint’s. Also, they had a dining table, which was something of a novelty to him. Clint usually ate standing up over the kitchen sink.
Maddy appeared to think about his offer. “Ok,” she said finally. “We can watch a show and then play Avengers!”
Fantastic. “You like Dog Cops?”
Maddy, it turned out, had never seen Dog Cops. Clint thought this was crazy, and quickly made to rectify it. About halfway through the second episode, the kid thoroughly enthralled during a particularly heartfelt scene involving Sergeant Whiskers and the victim of a domestic assault, it occurred to Clint that perhaps this show was not for eight-year olds. But the only thing else on was Girls, and Clint wasn’t caught up on that yet.
He paused the tv and turned to the kid. “You said something about playing Avengers?”
Maddy frowned at him quizzically and pointed at the screen. “It’s not done?”
Clint floundered for an excuse that wasn’t I’m scared of your mother and I’ve never known what level of violence is suitable for children on account of my dad beating me half-to-death all the time as a kid. He settled on showing her another coin trick.
Appeased, Maddy dumped an armful of brightly coloured action figures on the coffee table. Clint picked up a grinning blonde hunk holding a small square hammer and whistled. “Is this proportionate?” Seriously, the fucking biceps on that guy.
Maddy snatched Thor from him, exchanging it for a kind of shoddy looking Hulk. It bore a suspicious resemblance to He-Man painted green. Which – made sense, when he thought about it. Clint would be surprised if people started manufacturing actual toys in the Hulk’s visage, seeing as how the thing had practically destroyed Harlem not that long ago. Or – was ‘thing’ offensive? The guy? Creature? Whatever.
Clint gracefully accepted the Hulk figurine and allowed Maddy to direct him very seriously in their makeshift battle. It took a surprising amount of time for Clint to cotton onto the fact that they were acting out a very small-scale recreation of the Battle of Manhattan – which people had since taken to calling the Incident, as if obfuscation constituted detachment – but in his defense Maddy was not a very good strategist, and the manoeuvres she was pulling didn’t exactly represent the reality. Also, the aliens had been replaced by plastic dinosaurs from Party City.
This was fine, obviously. Clint had nothing but good memories of the Incident. Ha. Haha.
Maddy raised the head dinosaur/alien above the city of cowering sheeple. “Puny mortals!” Captain America, quaking in his boots, took a diving leap off the coffee table to hide behind Thor. The dinosaur in Maddy’s grip was wearing a little golden hat. Like the Hulk, most of it was painted a bright, patchy green.
Clint swallowed and carefully placed the Hulk back on the table. Voice level, he said, “Maybe let's play something else.”
Maddy shot him a look of irritation. She’d really been getting into character, and didn’t appreciate the interruption. “You can’t be Thor,” she told him sternly. “You don’t do the voice good.”
Pft. Yeah right. That was a damn lie – and it wasn’t like Maddy had ever heard an Asgardian accent. Whatever. Clint held up the figure in his hand and wiggled it. “Hulk want out of New York,” he said, dropping his voice goofily low.
The edges of Maddy’s mouth lifted, but she shook her head firmly regardless. “He can’t leave. We still have to beat up Loki!”
Clint twitched. “Uh – ok.” He coughed out a laugh, and almost poked an eye out with the Hulk’s tiny fist while trying to run a hand through his hair. Was it getting hot in here? He felt kind of itchy. “What – um. What next?”
Maddy slapped a Hot Wheel on the coffee table and balanced a little dinosaur atop the hood. “Me and Mama are in there,” she said, pointing to the toy car. She hoisted Black Widow in her other hand and brought the figure swinging across, booting the dinosaur off the car and onto the floor with a clatter.
Maddy sat back on her heels and looked expectantly at Clint, who blinked. “Uh,” he said after a moment, very intelligently. “What?”
“Black Widow saved me and Mama in the car,” Maddy said, with a voice like duh. “I told you.”
“I don’t think you did,” Clint said, reeling.
Maddy rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Boys never listen.”
Ok, so, he couldn’t exactly dispute that – but he would’ve definitely remembered if Simone or Maddy had mentioned being saved by the Black Widow before then. He hadn’t even known they were there, that they’d gotten caught up in the battle in the first place. If the Black Widow hadn’t been there – They almost – They could’ve –
Clint sat very still, cross-legged across from Maddy on the shaggy beige carpet. He counted his breaths and acted, perfectly, incredibly normal.
“She got hurt,” Maddy said. “Right here.” She pulled her sleeve up and showed Clint her shoulder, then did the same with the Black Widow action figure. “She was bleeding.”
Clint swallowed. “I’m glad she was there,” he said. His voice came out strange and tight, weirdly raspy. Something felt – off. He felt off.
Maddy blinked up at him guilelessly, big brown eyes sparkling in the warm yellow light of Simone’s apartment. Right at home in afghans and pillows. She looked so young. She looked like someone who had never been hurt in her life. “She was really strong,” she said proudly. “She’s my favourite superhero.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He did not want to hear this. He really did not want to fucking hear this. Clint cleared his throat and said, “Oh yeah?”
“Mhm! I like her ‘cause she’s just normal.”
Insanely, Clint bit back a giggle at the thought of the Black Widow being someone’s benchmark for normal, and coughed. “What do you mean?”
Maddy walked the Black Widow figurine up and down the coffee table. Were they done with the aliens, now? That was a relief. Maddy made Black Widow kick Thor in the head until he toppled over, which was objectively hilarious. Then she said, “She’s not got any superpowers. All the others have superpowers. Aaron from class says this means she’s lame but I know that’s not true. It just means she’s way cooler.”
“Tony Stark doesn’t have superpowers,” Clint pointed out.
Maddy sent him a flat look of disgust. “He’s rich.”
Well. He couldn’t argue with that.
“Anyway it’s nice ‘cause it means that if I wanted to I could be a superhero like her too, right? Even if I don’t have powers I can still help people. Like Mama!”
Clint swallowed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess – I guess that’s nice.”
He watched her play with the figurine for a few moments, wincing in sympathy when Captain America got booted off the coffee table by a back-flipping Widow. He didn’t think about the beat-up Bucky bear he carried around as a kid, glued to his side until it was lost somewhere on a dusty road through Nebraska. He didn’t think about a little girl and her mom trapped in the wreckage of their car. He didn’t think about aliens destroying New York, and the weight of a slab of iridium, and the icy chill of blue, blue, blue. He didn’t think about the Black Widow.
He must have had quite the expression on his face anyways, because Maddy leaned over to pat his knee with one small hand. “It’s okay,” she said, with a great deal of sympathy. “You’re my second favourite superhero.”
Clint cracked a grin. “Aw, thanks Mads. But y’know I’m not a superhero.”
Maddy put her toys down to turn and face him properly. There was a confused sort of smile on her face, like she didn’t understand what he was saying. “Momma says you are. She says we’re not supposed to talk about it.”
Clint went still. “What?”
“Yeah!” Maddy’s smile dipped when Clint continued not to say anything, small hands clenching at the hem of her shirt. “Am I not supposed to say? Please don’t tell Momma, I didn’t mean to!”
Clint panicked in the face of the threat of little girl tears, and snapped out of his shock. “Woah, woah!” he said, nervously putting his hands up. “It’s fine! I was just…surprised.”
Maddy’s worry disappeared like it was never there. Clint couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. Did kids try to be this manipulative, or were they just kind of made like that? “Momma says you aren’t as sneaky as you think you are.”
Clint floundered for a moment. “Well…your mother is…a very observational woman.” Apparently.
“Uh-huh!” Maddy said, with all the pride of someone who had no idea what observational meant. “What’s your hero name?”
“Uh,” Clint said.
“Are you Daredevil?”
Clint thought about it for approximately half-a-second. “Yeah. You caught me. I’m Daredevil.”
“I knew it!”
Clint tried a grin that came out more like a grimace and ran a hand through his hair, checking the time. Only three more hours to go. Joy. “Why don’t we watch some more Dog Cops?”
During the third episode of Season 2, right when Sergeant Whiskers had finally tracked down the perp to a warehouse outside of town, Maddy turned to him and announced that she was hungry in a way that made it very clear she expected something to be done about it, and soon. Clint glanced through the kitchen cupboards and contemplated cooking something for about thirty seconds before giving up and ordering a pizza. Maddy was ecstatic. The kid had good taste.
They got through half a meatlover’s pizza and two more episodes before Maddy started to droop into his shoulder.
Clint slanted a glance at her. “You tired?”
“No,” Maddy said, but it was slightly offset by the way the word cracked half-way through into a massive yawn. Clint eyed the clock in the kitchen and winced. Did children usually stay up this late? The circus hadn’t exactly had a curfew.
He bundled her off to bed, remembering at the last minute to wrangle her into brushing her teeth and using the bathroom before she passed out. Hopefully Simone didn’t expect him to force her into having a bath or something. That was a step too far.
Maddy had Black Widow pyjamas. Because of course she did. Clint avoided direct eye contact and bundled her into bed. Once he was there, he hesitated. “Do you…want a story?”
“I’m not a baby,” Maddy complained. But then she perked up. “Do you have a superhero story?”
Clint cast his mind back, wracking his memories for anything that might be even slightly child-friendly. “Uh,” he said eventually. “That’s classified.’” He coughed. “Night.”
As Clint was going to turn off the bedside lamp, Maddy stopped him with a hand on his wrist. Yawning, eyes only half-open, she said, “You know – you’d be my favourite. …If you were an Avenger. And a girl.”
Clint huffed out a laugh. “I’ll get right on that,” he said. Then he turned out the light and left the girl to sleep.
Clint startled awake to the sound of a creaking door, eyes snapping open and flailing for the gun he usually kept beneath his pillow. He succeeded only in slapping himself in the eye and over-balancing in his confusion, tumbling off the couch and knocking his head against the sharp edge of a coffee table.
When the pain had cleared from his vision, he found himself looking up into Simone’s startled, wide-eyed gaze. “Sorry,” she said. Her mouth made the same exact shape as her kid’s when she was trying not to laugh. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Clint levered himself into a sitting position, rubbing at the tender base of his skull with a wince. “Didn’t mean’ta fall asleep,” he mumbled, embarrassed. Jesus. She’d probably never trust him with the kid again. Which, y’know – probably a good thing.
But Simone didn’t seem upset – her gaze was warm, if a little tired, and she was looking at Clint like she didn’t see anything wrong with him passing out on her couch for a couple hours. She was looking at him, actually, in a way he didn’t really know how to deal with.
He cleared his throat and averted his gaze. “Work ok?”
“It was fine,” Simone said. “Boring.”
“None of Daredevil’s unlucky victims?” As soon as it was out, Clint concealed a wince. God, he was stupid. Why the hell was he bringing up vigilantes, right now?
But Simone just shrugged. Clint thought, maybe, that he caught an amused twinkle in her eye. But it might’ve just been the lighting. “I think he starts later than this, usually.”
“Ah,” Clint said. He pushed himself to his feet, surreptitiously patting down the top of his head. It didn’t matter how little time he spent napping – something undoubtedly happened each time he slept so that upon waking his hair never failed to look like a leaf blower had been taken to it. “Well. That’s good, I guess.”
He watched her putter around the kitchen a bit, removing her jacket and pouring a glass of juice from the fridge. There was a spot of blood, right on her left shirt sleeve. Clint wondered if she realized.
“There’s pizza, in the fridge. If you’re hungry.”
“You didn’t need to do that.” Simone’s mouth twisted, just a little. Not mad – guilty, maybe. Clint relaxed. There were a lot of ways to deal with guilt. When it came to anger, his options were rather more limited. “She would’ve been happy with a PB&J.”
Clint shrugged. “S’fine. Kid needs to eat.”
“Kid needs to eat more than pizza.” Simone gave him a significant look.
Clint looked away.
“Clint.”
“Hm?”
“I’m glad you’re back.”
Surprised, Clint glanced back at her. Simone stood in front of him, arms folded over her chest, that same strange look on her face.
“I am,” she said firmly. “I was worried about you. We all were.”
“You don’t gotta be, ma’am. Really. I’m fine.”
Simone blew out a breath. “Yeah,” she said shortly, running a hand over her hair. She looked tired. “Alright. Just – I worry. Have you – you got friends? Family?”
Clint shifted on his feet; glanced towards the exit. “Yeah. You mind if I head over?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and offered a sheepish grin. “I’m kinda beat.”
For a long moment, Simone just looked at him. Eyebrows drawn, mouth tense. Clint was sure, right then, that she would push it. Finally though, she only let out another forceful breath and shook her head. “Take your pizza. And – here.” She held out a few bills in his direction, flapping the money impatiently when he made no move to take it. “Don’t fight me on this, for god’s sake. I’m too tired.”
Clint swallowed down a yes, ma’am and took the money, stuffing it in his pocket with an expression wiped of emotion. Not the worst way he’d ever made thirty bucks.
Simone retrieved the half-eaten pizza from the fridge, handing it over. At the door, she said, “You going out tonight?”
Clint paused. Simone didn’t look like she was asking anything more than a casual probing into his night-life. He was twenty-two, after all – it was a perfectly normal thing to ask. Normal if Clint was going out to party, or on a date, or to grab a drink with a friend. The silence began to stretch long enough to veer towards awkward. Clint cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Alright,” Simone said. Still casual. “I saw some of Ivan’s men by the entrance. Should be careful out there tonight.”
Pizza box clutched close to his chest, Clint licked his lips. Nodded stiffly.
“Take care, Clint.”
“Yeah. Uh. You too.”
This, primarily, was why Clint didn’t spend too much time around his neighbours. He liked them, he really did – it was only that the moment he let them get a little bit closer than showing off trickshots for the kids on barbecue nights, things got complicated. Clint might’ve been a performer, but he was a shitty fucking actor. People could always tell that there was something off about him, something fishy about the perpetually banged up loser who left New York for weeks on end and returned only to spend just as long never once leaving his apartment. He never had people over – didn’t trust one-night-stands in his space and never had visitors from out of town. He was, at his core, a deeply suspicious-seeming person, and would be surprised as hell if he found that everyone else in the building didn’t already suspect he was a criminal.
It was actually kind of crazy that Simone had left her kid with him. Maybe she thought he was Daredevil too.
Clint popped into his apartment long enough to shove the pizza into the fridge – snagging a slice for on-the-go – and chug a Four Loko which had up until then been hidden behind a carton of milk well-past the expiration date. Buoyed by this find, Clint snagged his gear from under his bed with a distinct pep in his step. He decided to forego the more elaborate get-up – didn’t really want to deal with the mask, tonight. He’d been straying away from it more and more, lately, like that part of his life was coming to an end. Plus, he was admittedly kind of roughed up still. That much purple would draw attention he could do without. Instead, he pulled on a black t-shirt – the athletic-type one, with a purple fletching insignia on the front (So, you know – still purple, technically. Just. Less purple.) – and his usual cargo pants - utility belt - combat boots get-up. Shoved his quiver and retractable bow into an ugly orange backpack and clomped his way down the stairs, pizza in one hand and sunglasses in the other.
Just like Simone warned, Ivan was loitering outside the building with a couple of his goons when he got out. The good part of having the Russian mob as a landlord, Clint usually found, was that they more or less left him alone about the small shit. Didn’t get on his ass about using the walls for target practice, or the blood-stains on his rent money, or his total lack of a legal identity. The bad part was — well. Literally everything else. Worst of which was that having a conversation with any of them meant Clint resigning himself to being called bro every fifth word, like he’d unwittingly stumbled onto some sort of weird slavic frat party.
“Hey bro,” Ivan said, when he spotted him. See? The scruffy yellow dog at his feet perked up.
“Hey. Can I pet your dog?”
“He bites,” Ivan warned.
The dog lolled a happy doggy grin, tail thumping against the sidewalk. It was eyeing the slice of pizza in Clint’s hand with a look of unbridled lust. Clint scratched the thing behind the ears and didn’t bother trying to keep it away when it lunged for the food. It could probably use it more than him. “Can’t be that bad. Dog likes pizza. Don’t you, pizza dog? Yeah, you do. You’re a good dog.”
Ivan shifted on his feet and flashed the gun at the waistband of his gaudy trackpants. “You got my money, bro?”
The other thing about mobsters — they couldn’t just let a nice moment lie. Clint gave the dog one last pat and stepped back. “I’m working on it.” Ivan did not look convinced. “Look man, do we gotta do this right now? I get it. We went over this, like twelve hours ago.” Clint was still fucking limping about it.
One of the goons piped up. Clint had never bothered to learn their names, and it was a little late to ask now. Let’s call him Tracksuit 1. Tracksuit 1 said, “Maybe we oughta go over it again, bro.”
Clint scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I’d rather not. I’ll get the fuckin’ money, ok?”
Tracksuit 2 took a threatening step forward. “You swear at my bro, bro?”
Wait, so that’s where they drew the line? Jesus, ok. “Sorry man.” Clint raised his hands in surrender and took another step back. “Wasn’t raised right.”
“The money or your brother,” Ivan said, like he thought Clint needed the reminder.
Yeah. Clint would quite like to get a hold of the bastard himself — but clearly that wasn’t in the cards right now. “Sure. Have a nice night, fellas.”
As he turned and left, Ivan called after him, “Two weeks, bro!”
Clint waved over his shoulder. Yeah. Two weeks.
Really, Clint shouldn’t be out. He should be packing – no way would he be able to afford his rent that month on time, not unless he cashed in on the Widow contract in the next couple of days. He still had his car – hadn’t sold it even when he probably should’ve, too attached to the memories, the corporeality of it, the flimsy notion it had always afforded him of a way out – so at least he’d have a place to sleep. Thank god it was still summer.
But it was a nice night, warm and syrupy, New York spilling out of the streets and into the gutters and subway tunnels and buzzing club bathrooms. Hells’ Kitchen a spot of gritty darkness in the sparkling light of the city. Just tonight, he wouldn’t worry about all that – the being homeless and the Widow thing and the relentless, ticking down of his clock.
Clint stopped a mugging on his way to the Kitchen; held himself back from beating a would-be rapist to death; chased down a young, light-footed purse-snatcher and tugged him back to his mark by the ear, forcing him to dip his head down and let out a stuttering apology with bright red cheeks. Stopped another mugging, this one with the two college kids whose wallets he’d just saved squinting drunkenly at him and huddling together against a wall like they thought he’d only knocked the first guy out to keep the loot for himself.
Clint raised his hands and stepped away. “Woah,” he said. “I’m – a vigilante?”
The two men glanced at one another. Skeptical, maybe. Clint didn’t exactly look the part. “You Iron Fist?” one asked.
Clint contemplated killing himself. “Yeah,” he said instead. “I’m Iron Fist.”
“Cool. Can we get a photo?”
Yeah, ok. Why the hell not. “Only if you promise to post it.”
Clint walked away from the interaction with slightly lifted spirits. Hopefully Rand would see it. The guy was so easy to confuse.
He found Daredevil in a dumpster a couple blocks from the docks. “Hey man.”
Murdock lifted his head slightly. He looked surprised, like he hadn’t quite noticed the other man’s approach. To be fair, he seemed a little preoccupied bleeding out into a pile of compost. “Clint. You’re back.”
“Yeah, missed you too sweetheart. You dyin’?”
Murdock made an aborted attempt to sit up, hissed in pain, and let out a low groan. “Maybe? Got a – a knife to the stomach. Fuckin’ – hurts.”
Yeah, it sure looked like it. Murdock was wearing the black get-up, the one with the weird mask-thing that signalled to everyone and their grandmother that the guy couldn’t see for shit and didn’t need to, and absolutely no body-armour. There was a gash right under the left side of the ribcage, bright red darkening the fabric around the wound. Clint thought, not for the first time, that Matt must go through a lot of Under Armour shirts. Hopefully he bought them in bulk. The guy got stabbed like, a crazy amount. “The Irish gotcha again?”
Murdock said something into the side of the dumpster. Clint grabbed his jaw and nudged his face around. “Ears.”
The man’s expression cleared. “Ah.”
Clint had a lot more patience for Murdock forgetting to face him when he spoke then he did for most people. Partly because he was way worse at remembering the guy couldn’t see him then Murdock was at remembering he was deaf.
“They on the fritz again?”
Clint made a noncommittal noise. Truth was, he couldn’t really tell. Probably he needed to go to the audiologist or something, but it wasn’t like he had insurance. Or, like, an actual, non-felonistic identity. He’d just have to get by, for now. “You just gonna stay in there all night?”
“Fuck off, Barton.”
“Yeah, ok man, lemme just leave you to die in there.” Clint hauled the groaning vigilante out of the dumpster and bullied his way under his arm as a makeshift human crutch. Clint’s knee gave a twinge of pain from the added weight but he breathed through it. “Where ‘m I takin’ you?”
Murdock seemed like he wanted to protest, but after a moment he just gritted his teeth and pressed his palm to the cut across his ribs with a pained inhale. “Claire.”
“I look like I know who the fuck Claire is?”
“I dunno what you look like.”
Clint exhaled harshly through his nose and Murdock’s mouth ticked up.
“I’ll direct you,” he said, starting to drag Clint forward. It was slow going — Clint was almost tempted to call for a taxi, but he was still pretty much broke as shit and he knew Murdock didn’t carry cash in the suit.
“Aw man,” he said after a couple blocks, as he felt something warm and damp start to soak into his side. “You’re gettin’ blood on my new shirt.”
Murdock inhaled, looking for all the world like a bloodhound scenting the air. “Not that new.”
Clint slanted a sideways glance at him. “You’re a fucking freak, anyone ever tell you that?”
Murdock hissed lowly as Clint hopped a curb and the movement pulled at his wound. Once he’d regained his breath he said, “Couple’a times. You saw Wade today?”
“Yeah. Didn’t mention you.”
“Hm.” Murdock noticeably relaxed, then pretended he didn’t. Clint got it. Wade was a freak. “When’s the last time you showered?”
“I just fished you out of the fuckin’ trash, you dick, you really wanna play that game?”
Murdock inclined his head like, fair enough. “Left here.”
They turned left. Very casually, Clint said, “so, who’s Claire? New girl?”
Murdock laughed softly, warm breath ruffling against Clint’s ear. He said something in a voice low enough that Clint didn’t catch it. Probably, you jealous?
Clint stepped on his foot. “Oops.”
“Nurse,” Matt said, when Clint shot a glance sideways. He was smirking, infuriatingly unfazed by the attempt at violent redirection. “She’s dating Cage.”
“Huh,” Clint said. “Civilian?” Matt nodded. “I thought Jess and Cage were seeing each other."
Matt laughed again. “Where the hell have you been?”
Clint frowned. He could’ve sworn Cage was one of the main reasons why Jess had called off her and Clint’s…thing. Huh. “I’ve been around.”
Matt said, “Uh-huh. You in trouble?”
“Aw, you worried about me?” When Murdock didn’t say anything, just kept his head tilted like he was staring dead-pan at Clint’s left eyebrow, he kissed his teeth. “I’m fine. Y’know. Jus’ – y’know. The usual.”
Matt said, “Uh-huh.”
Clint cast about for a change of subject. “Told a kid I was you, today.”
“Ok?”
“Thought it was funny.”
“S’not that funny. What kid?”
“Just – my neighbour. Babysitting.”
Matt pretended to trip over air. “You were babysitting?”
Clint scowled and caught him. “Yeah man. I’m fuckin’ trustworthy as shit.”
Murdock shook his head, mouth ticking upwards. “Don’t be so hostile. I just forget how young you are, sometimes.”
“Ok, you’re like, three years older than me, calm down.” Murdock was the one who actually partied and shit, really acted his age. Clint was in debt — arguably the most adult thing you could be in. (Besides, like, escrow or something, probably. Whatever that meant.)
“Alright,” Matt said, after a few more steps. “I’ll bite. Why’d you say you were me?”
“Oh. I dunno. She asked? Figured it was more family friendly than the alternative.”
Matt sort of — paused. “Clint,” he said, “I throw people off buildings all the time. Seriously all the time, I did it like thirty minutes ago.”
“Yeah? So? You don’t shoot people.”
After a moment Matt tilted his head in acknowledgement. Couldn’t argue with that.
They stopped in front of an old apartment building in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. Clint considered and discarded the idea of hauling Matt up the fire escape, and propped him up in front of the door. He surveyed the buttons to ring up. “Which number?”
“Uh.” Matt leaned over and ran his hand lightly across the panel, before pressing down on number six. How often did he come here? Clint refused to feel anything about it.
There was a moment of silence, and then a female voice crackled over the intercom. “Hello?”
Matt cleared his throat. “Hey Claire. It’s me.”
Another pause, then the door must’ve buzzed because Matt jerked his chin at Clint to open it. The walk up the stairs was worse than the whole walk there, and by the end Matt was panting, pained open-mouthed gasps, and Clint’s knee felt like it was on fire.
The door to apartment six opened to a tall, beautiful woman with dark hair and tanned skin. Seriously, where did Matt find these people? She was scowling slightly, and her eyebrows raised when she scanned them over. “You didn’t mention company,” she told Matt mildly. Despite the tone, it was clearly an accusation.
Matt grinned at her. It was a very charming grin, white-teethed and handsome. It made him look like an asshole. “Claire, this is Clint. Clint, Claire. Can we come in?”
Claire threw her hands up and turned back into the apartment. Clint hauled Matt in after her none-too-gently, hissing ‘Clint?’ into his ear.
Matt kicked at his ankle and collapsed onto the couch. “Don’t be paranoid.” Like he was fucking one to talk.
“Not on my couch!” Claire called, from what was probably the kitchen.
Matt grimaced. Clint left him to slide pathetically onto the floor and followed after Claire. He found her scrubbing her hands in the sink and cleared his throat. “Hey, uh. Can I…do anything?”
Claire turned and shoved an overflowing first aid kit into his hands. “What I say,” she said crisply, and whirled back into the living room.
Clint followed after her, feeling embarrassingly like a teenager caught out partying with his idiot friend.
“What was it this time?” Claire was asking as she unceremoniously cut away the tattered remains of Matt’s shirt. “And seriously, you have that stupid costume for a fucking reason. Maybe put it on once in a while.”
“Bullseye.” Matt hissed through his teeth and waved a hand. “And it‘s being repaired.”
“Fuck,” Clint said, kneeling down to pass Claire some antiseptic wipes when she pointed at them. “Seriously? I fuckin’ hate that bastard.”
Claire sent him a narrow-eyed look. Then, to Matt, “do I want to know who this guy is?”
Matt gave her another one of his charming little bullshit smirks. “I told you. That’s Clint.”
Clint gave an awkward wave and shrugged. Trying to be charming was not a thing that worked for him. The best he could ever seem to do was irritatingly pathetic enough to induce a backwards sort of pity. “Probably not.”
Claire sighed. “Right.” She completed the stitches in efficient silence, and left the room to grab Matt a shirt and some Tylenol.
Clint patted the guy on the shoulder and levered himself up, careful not to put weight on his messed-up knee until he was steady on his other foot. “Alright, well. I’ll see you later.”
Matt raised an eyebrow. The tattered remnants of his shirt, lost to the battle with Claire’s scissors, must have smelt very strongly of blood where it was draped over his shoulder like a bartender’s trusty rag, but he didn’t seem to mind. Clint figured that if there was any smell Matt was used to, by now, it was probably blood. There was blood on his chest, too – caked in dried up streams that ran from his ribs to the jut of his hipbone, darkening the silk band of his boxers where they peaked out from the waist of his pants.
Once, while running from the police in Venice a couple years ago, Clint had ducked into an art gallery to kill a few hours and found himself wandering the halls of gloomy Renaissance paintings for far longer than he’d anticipated. He remembered there’d been this one piece in particular – Saint Sebastian shot through with arrows, all tied up against a pillar. He didn’t find it particularly nice, or pretty, or anything – not that Clint knew shit about art, obviously – but there’d been something about it that struck him at the time in a funny kind of way. The look on Sebastian’s face; the body filled with arrows. He remembered that he’d sat down on a nearby bench and he’d stared at it for a very long time, just drinking it in, just staring, long enough that he’d last track of what he was doing and had ended up having to engage in a footchase with the cops anyways.
He didn’t know why he was thinking about that now. It was stupid. Matt would laugh. But maybe it reminded him of the guy, somehow. Sometimes, when Clint looked at him – the jut of his chin, the dark curl of hair falling over his temple, the slant of a rib – all he could think about was a body filled with arrows. Pierced from temple to jaw.
Matt said, “I’ll see you around.”
Clint opened his mouth to reply with – something. Came up mortifyingly blank. “Uh,” he managed eventually. “Yeah.”
The corner of Matt’s mouth ticked up, just slightly, like he knew what Clint was thinking. Blood on his teeth. Voice low – sweet like vinegar was sweet, acidic, mocking, “Yeah.”
Clint’s face heated. “I’m gonna – go.” He cleared his throat, jerked a thumb at the door, immediately felt like an idiot and dropped his hand. “Ha. Um. Yeah.”
Fucking loser.
Claire reappeared as Clint was making his – very graceful – strategic retreat. “Sit your ass down,” she said. “You think I don’t see you limping?”
Clint paused at the doorway. “Uh…What?”
Claire crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him. Clint had a flashback to being caught sneaking out of his and Barney’s trailer by the circus strongman while trying to meet up with some townie. The resemblance was uncanny. It was all in the expression.
Clint sat down.
“It’s his knee,” Matt said, the fucking traitor. “Right patella and surrounding ligaments. Probably torn meniscus.”
“Creep,” Clint said. To Claire, “I’m fine. Seriously, ‘s an old thing.”
“Sure. Roll your pant leg up.”
Clint grit his teeth and graciously allowed the woman to prod at his swollen knee. After a couple moments she sat back, her mouth twisting. “How recently did you dislocate it?”
“...This morning.”
“And before then?”
Clint wracked his brain, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Uh…a week ago? Two weeks?”
“Jesus.” Claire pinched the skin between her eyes and sat back on her heels. “How old are you?”
Clint kept his mouth mulishly shut.
Claire sighed but didn’t push it. “This needs surgery,” she said bluntly. “Do you know that?”
Clint smiled humourlessly. “No insurance.” He shrugged, like, what can you do? Beside them, Matt was silent. Clint’d say watchful, but – well. The joke wrote itself.
“Jesus,” Claire said again. “Ok, ok. Fine. Just — stay there.” She pushed herself up and left the room again.
Rubbing his face, Clint sat back against the couch with a sigh. When he turned to Matt, there was a strange sort of expression on his face. Clint bristled. “What?”
Matt raised his hands in surrender, the picture of innocence. “Nothing. How long you in town?”
Clint narrowed his eyes. “I dunno. I’ve got a…thing. Couple’a weeks, maybe.”
“Wanna grab a drink?”
Clint raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
Matt smirked. He stretched his legs out, nudging the other man slightly with his ankle. “Yeah.”
Clint swallowed. Willed his heart and his lungs and his fucking kidneys not to do anything funny. “We’ll see. If I got the time.”
“Good,” Matt said. And he sounded like he meant it.
When Claire reappeared there was a small black bundle of tough fabric in her hand. She looked like she wanted to say something about how close the two vigilantes were now sitting, but she just gave Clint a look, like Really? Him?
Clint only shrugged. What could he say? He liked ‘em crazy.
The car ended up being parked a couple blocks from Claire’s – it’d been the whole reason Clint had ventured into Hell’s Kitchen in the first place. The whole Daredevil thing had just been a coincidence. Or something.
The tires, a little surprisingly, had not been jacked, despite the sketchiness of the area. (Probably it was because his car was a piece of shit, but he’d take the win.) There was a parking ticket tucked up on the windshield, which would’ve sucked if Clint had ever bothered to do anything about those. He tossed it into the glove compartment with the others and promptly forgot about it. He’d worry when the car finally got towed, and not a second sooner.
Clint pulled the Ronin costume out of the trunk and folded himself into the backseat, undergoing some real complex manoeuvres to shimmy the thing on without flashing his ass to all of Hell’s Kitchen. Once outfitted, and a little out of breath, he checked the address scrawled on a note in his pocket. Kissed his teeth and cursed under his breath.
It was kind of far – back in Brooklyn, though, so he felt less bad about wasting some gas to drive there. Traffic was blessedly quiet, for a New York Friday, and Clint felt charitable enough that he actually considered calling ahead for a second. Not that he did, obviously – but it was the thought that counted. …Right?
By the time he got to his destination, it was nearing on 3am and the lights in the apartment were all dark. Clint drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and chewed on his lower lip. The guy was probably asleep. Maybe he should go, try again another day. But – time was kind of the fucking essence here. And Doyle was a scumbag, anyways.
Making his decision, Clint parked his car around the back of the building and slipped soundlessly out onto the street, moving liquid in the shadow of the streetlamps. Predatory and smooth. The Amazing Hawkeye nowhere to be found; discarded in favour of a darker sort of mask.