Five Times Hawkeye Got Shot, an avengers fanfic

Five Times That Hawkeye Got Shot…

By sparx

Rated PG13

Disclaimer: I do not own the avengers. Or ShotBoxer. More's the pity.

Warning: Um. Yeah. Because I really have to warn y'all about the non-con non-sexual corporal punishment of an adult. Uh huh. (There are references to abusive situations, but nothing graphic.)

A/N: ShotBoxer expressed disappointment in the dearth of Hawkeye fic. This is what came of that. ;)

Maybe it was the newborn team feeling. Maybe it was something about engaging in physical activity that didn't involve deadly weapons or twisted ideals. Heck, call it the power of the pick-up game—whatever it was, something had Steve seeing… really seeing… each of his teammates in a new light. Maybe that was why, in a game of shirts vs skins (in which, quite obviously, Miss Romanov was not a skin,) the old young captain happened to notice a faded but savage scar kissing Mr. Barton's spine, and couldn't get the image out of his mind. When the two were relatively alone in the locker room after the impromptu game, Steve asked about it, casually, and the shooter just as casually dismissed the whole matter as unimportant and uninteresting. Of course, that was like telling Mr. Stark that Prometheus was an unbeatable video game. Maybe it shouldn't have mattered, maybe he should have respected the response and let the subject drop, but…

When Steve realized that what had started as mere curiosity was turning into genuine (and somewhat irritated) concern for no reason that he could see, he waited until Mr. Barton had been summoned to consult on an actual uniform that the young sniper kept insisting was a waste of time, and then the captain sort of conversationally tossed out the question. To his surprise, it was not Miss Romanov, but Mr. Fury, who answered after a heavy pause. By the time the grizzled 'talent scout' finished quietly explaining, with an economy of words, that Mr. Barton had been shot in the back during a home invasion at the tender age of seven (and then sent back into the foster care system by abusive foster parents who'd blamed the child for sticking them with medical bills,) the team was riveted. And that only made the next morning that much more complicated with the discovery that their hawk had flown the nest.

It was Bruce who noticed the dent in Hawkeye's right tibia; the astrochemist was the sensible choice for team medic, and so he was taking full advantage of being able to practice and learn on his five convenient guinea pigs (okay, so Thor wasn't so much with the convenient, or with the consistently present, but what can ya do?) Hawkeye wasn't thrilled about this, but then, Hawkeye was still technically grounded, so no one really cared what he thought about being poked and prodded.

If there was one behavior the two men had in common, it was focus—Bruce wouldn't let it go, and wouldn't let Hawkeye go, until he'd gotten a real answer, so Hawkeye grudgingly revealed that he'd spent some time with a traveling circus as a kid, and that he'd broken his leg in an over-rotated landing after being shot out of a cannon, which was the only thing the circus manager thought that the child was good for (well, except for… but they really didn't need to know about that. Ever.) The break had been set and splinted, but there'd been no cast because of the bulk, and the human cannonball had returned to work a scant two weeks after the accident. A scan revealed that the bone was, indeed, dented, a couple of inches midway between knee and ankle actually only half as thick as the healthy rest of the bone. Bruce started to put that in his notes, but Hawkeye appealed to the scientist's sense of autonomy and practicality, convincing him that since the injury was old and wasn't endangering the team, no one else needed to know.

Agent Vetter was handsome, suave, charming, funny, and very, very surprised that Hawkeye was still alive, let alone part of a team of heroes. Hawkeye wouldn't say why; in fact, while Vetter was around, Hawkeye took to spending so much time not being around that Pepper went hunting for him, bearing gifts of very large and manly sandwiches, and had to use Tony's tracking software to locate the latest nest. He was there, all right, and he thanked her for the meal, but he wouldn't come back with her or commit to a time when he would be back.

Then worried Pepper became incensed Pepper when a 'reluctant' Vetter finally decided to advise them, as a friend with only their best interests at heart of course, not to trust Hawkeye because he was a criminal. The Avengers generally wouldn't buy that with a coupon, and a rather betrayed Black Widow gave the SHIELD agent and ex-crush a couple of inventive suggestions for what he could do with his advice. Vetter left and Fury dropped in, having anticipated trouble as soon as he'd heard who had been assigned to consult with the team this time. They'd never thought that they'd see Nick Fury actually look sheepish, but sheepish he was when he admitted that Vetter had, against orders, shot Hawkeye in the flank and then tazed him during their first encounter with the archer, despite the fact that Hawkeye had stopped one of his admittedly criminal mentor's other students from killing another SHIELD agent. That had been the first Fury had heard of this kid, and not liking not knowing about viable talent, the ops director had somewhat guiltily bullied the now-homeless Hawkeye into SHIELD's employ as a sort of recompense.

Thor decided that Clint of Barton would be a funny drunk, though presently the Asgardian was less than amused—his friend's drugged blitherings were not funny enough to distract the alien from thinking about what could have happened, had the one called Shadowkat not noticed that the Avengers' wounded fletchling was not where he'd been put to await triage, and the one called Wolverine not literally sniffed him out, and the one called the Beast not retrieved him from the fire escape and plunged a rather large needle into Hawkeye's hip. The powerful potion in the syringe seemed to be effectively keeping the young marksman from caring about the pain from the injuries inflicted by the savage Sabertooth, though thus far the sedative was only calming the boy. Even through his silliness, Hawkeye kept insisting that he did not need drugs and did not appreciate being 'shot up' and was fine to continue in the fight, and that Thor could put him down now, thank you very much, as he was a warrior and not a sack of flour (which might have sounded a bit more impressive had the young human been able to pronounce the words 'sack' and 'flour.' Ah, well.)

A week later, though, with those wounds on the mend, the boy was wishing for another shot of the medicine as Thor discussed, in detail, his feelings about disregard for orders (especially those of designated healers such as Bruce and the Beast) and disappearing in order that one might further endanger one's already precarious health and safety by leaving half of one's blood behind on the way to a very high rooftop. Clint gave escape an admirable effort considering his weakened state, but Thor had experience keeping fully healthy warriors (and, once in a while, a certain slippery little prankster) in place whilst he communicated his wisdom and authority to their heads via their other ends. Thor made a point of avoiding the small bruise in the boy's upper hip from the injection, reflecting out loud that now the practice of delivering medication through the bottom made sense to him.

ShotBoxer sighed, long and with feeling, as she stepped into her apartment and dumped her bag and keys. She toed off her shoes, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and went into her home office, eyeing her computer with approximately the same affection as a thief viewed a cracked safe. She was sooooo ready to spend some time with some fanfic (and her custom wallpaper.) She turned on the machine, shuffled to her room to change into play clothes, wandered back into the office, grinned at the desktop wallpaper of the day (she did love her some Ben and Greg and Stephen and Cutter,) flipped on the ceiling fan, and…

"Gotcha!" Shot squeaked as her brain registered a blizzard of glitter and—were those flower petals?—cascading from her ceiling fan, followed rapidly by someone speaking up from behind her and gently grabbing her waist. She nearly socked her assailant before realizing that she knew him, and then she nearly socked him anyway, on principle. But he saved himself, narrowly, when he drew her back against his solid form with one arm and brought around a small cake (covered in clear plastic to protect it from his prank) with a single unlit candle in the center and the words 'Happy Wednesday' written on top of the creamy fudge icing. She found herself grinning at the treat, and then outright smiling as she plucked some 'confetti' from her hair and saw that she was holding orchid and lily petals. She decided then to let Hawkeye live, and maybe even share the cake. But he was gonna vacuum up all this glitter if he had to do with with a dentist's suction (and she was gonna supervise, 'cause hey, his butt did take some watching.)

And One Time that Shot Got Hawkeye…

"Shot! Hey—OUCH—Shooooot!" He griped and struggled, but she'd made very sure that there was no getting out of this position until she was ready for him to move—as it turned out, Tony Stark had no qualms about designing and delivering helpful little gadgets like the one currently holding the metal mesh in Hawkeye's uniform's upper chest and shins in its magnetic grip. It didn't do much for his dignity, but it sure helped keep his deserving little butt in the idea position for her attentions.

Shot wailed away on him with the paddle, deaf to his protests and sputterings—he'd taken some really stupid risks and almost made a leather-clad pancake of himself, and then he'd shown up at her place trying to act all nonchalant. He wasn't aware of a couple of things, though: one, that knowing that she'd watch the news, Pepper Potts had called her just aftheher the incident in the interests of friendship, and two, that when she called for someone to pick him up (after she'd tanned his butt and stuck him in the corner for a bit and then, of course, given him some comfort,) he'd be ferried straight back to a bunch of people who cared about him and would cheerfully take turns relighting the fire she was stoking now in his rear end. She didn't envy him the next few days, as he'd have to answer to his team not just for his conduct during the battle but also for effectively running and hiding to avoid them afterward; but she knew that his friends loved him and would take good care of him… even if part of him didn't think so.