It's a stark battlefield: black and white. It should be easier to tell who's winning, but it's been tug of war for hours. This isn't even the first battle.
Phil moves his bishop four spaces diagonal. "Your move, Clint."
"Pawn to E-5," Clint says, his voice slightly muffled, but that's what happens when a face is pressed against a table. The game would probably be going better if Clint could bring himself to look at it, but he's so tired. This last week hasn't been good for anyone. This last day is going to send him to an early grave. Which is ridiculous—he's not even yet two millennia old.
Phil sighs, but Clint can hear him move the piece for him. "It's been quite a day. Are you alright?"
Clint closes his eyes. "That's still a question?" he asks tiredly.
"You know," Phil says conversationally, "this isn't the end of the world."
Clint smiles sardonically to himself, one hand curling into a fist where it rests on his knee. Even Phil doesn't get it. It's enough to make the constant, low-burning rage flare up from time to time. "You say that. You don't know."
The response is a thoughtful hum, until Phil says, deliberately light, "And I wonder why it might be that I'm lacking in information."
Clint pulls his head up—it feels like it weighs about a thousand pounds, even though he's been wearing his human form constantly for going on two years, now—and sets his elbows on the table to rest his chin on his curled fists. "It's been a shitty day," he says flatly. "Happy now?"
"Happy isn't the word I would use," Phil murmurs, sliding his castle forward. "Your move."
"You know I hate chess." Clint stares straight at Phil, searching for something—an answer, anything—but Phil seems fascinated by the board. Or maybe simply underwhelmed by Clint's frustration. "I'm just—" He breaks off. He's not even sure how he intends to finish the sentence, but it's better to keep quiet. God know Phil doesn't deserve six centuries of his issues dished out.
"I know you think you're alone," Phil tells him quietly. Clint keeps his mouth shut with the knowledge that Phil can't possibly understand to what extent that's true. "But as of what happened in the kitchen today? You aren't anymore."
Clint laughs, loud, short, and hollow. "Yeah, right. I don't care what mojo shit Stark got himself hit by," he says. "He's not, he's just—" And again, Clint doesn't know how to finish that sentence. Doesn't know how to make Phil understand. "Just leave him out of this."
Phil narrows in on that, lifting his gaze from the board to look shrewdly at Clint. "Do you think he's going to be okay?"
What does he even want? The truth? That Clint has no idea how Stark has survived this long with a curse in his blood, that it would be easier for everyone if he spontaneously combusted and Clint just disappeared?
He doesn't answer, because there isn't a good one to give. Everything's so messed up.
He's so tired.
"Is he going to survive?" Phil presses.
"Maybe," Clint offers.
After a long, tense moment, Phil seems to sense he isn't going to get anything else out of Clint and subsides. The tension in the air decreases and Phil sighs, looking away. "Don't tell him I said this," Phil finally says, "but for the record? I think Stark will make a fine dragon."
Clint snorts. His eyes meet Phil's and he smiles, his teeth just this side of too sharp for a human grin. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."
—§§§—
Clint.
He chose the name because he liked the way it sounds. The English word flint feels appropriately sharp on his tongue, but he's never liked the quiet consonants, so he replaces the wispy ffff for k, the sound of steel striking and sparking and creating a fire.
K-lint. Clint.
He doesn't choose that name until he comes to Earth, of course. But it's the only one to use in telling the tale. The name he hatched with is something he left behind, even in his memories. He forged his new name to be human fire. Clint.
He doesn't find the rest of himself so easily.
—§§§—
Roughly Three Centuries Previously
The night is heavy and humid. That's not unusual for this time of the season, especially since mother hates the humming of the humidity controls through the night, but despite the comforting silence, Clint lies awake itching out of his skin and scales even as his family sleeps soundly around him.
He's awake for other reasons too, of course.
Softly, he rolls to his feet, cringing when his talons rasp against the metal edges of the cushioned nest. Can't have that. He presses his wings close to his back and breathes until they merge, until he stands and he's smaller, pink soft skin and a flat, expressive face.
They call this form humanoid, sometimes. Clint isn't sure why, and apparently the name got hi-jacked by some up and coming species a while back. He hasn't seen a human before, but he's heard they look something like this form. Even though it's their only form.
Clint can't imagine trying to sleep in this fragile form every night. But he can't imagine staying here, either.
Mother stirs as he reaches the mouth of their clan's glass-windowed sleeping bay, wary of one of her hatchlings leaving the safe bounds of their home. [Son?] she queries, reaching out throughout their mental link, her huge, scaled body shifting uneasily at the back of the cave.
A long time ago, that link used to be warm sunshine and a safe embrace. Now Clint suppresses a shudder at the feeling of fingers scrambling for a hold on treacherous rocks. [Mother,] Clint returns obediently, if hesitantly. Anything to make her go back to sleep.
She's still halfway in her dreams, anyway, by the feel of it. Her absent concern washes into him. Awake/not sleeping, [Nightmares?]
[Not tonight.] Restless, he sends, as close to the truth as he dares. [Going for a night flight. Love you.] He pushes reassurance at her, hoping, and soon enough, she settles back down. His eyes linger on her garnet scales, dulled with pain and grief, and holds his breath at the sudden onslaught of guilt and anger. He can't believe he's doing this. Only the insane leave their clan behind willingly, and yet here he is—but there's nothing left to stay for.
Not anymore.
[Love you,] Mother sends, the thought a faint, sleepy whisper.
Clint steels himself against it and slips away from his home for the last time.
The balcony drops off from their sleeping bay and down to the dimly lit metal chasms between towering chrome buildings. He can't see the bottom at this time of night, and even if he could, he would have no intention of touching down that far. He likes to be able to see the sky. He glances over at the Accipiter next to him, sleek and fast as a vehicle could be, but in the end decides to fly under his own power. He shrugs his wings out of his skin and steps with quiet, soft feet off the edge, letting himself fall and fly before the scales have even closed around his hands to turn them to talons.
The cool night air calms his anxiety, but the peace makes him question himself at the same time. What is he doing?
It's not too late to go back and curl up next to his sisters. No one would know. He could pretend he's fine.
He's sick of pretending. And his clan-mates, of all people, should know better. They should be able to see. And if they can't, that's only proof that there isn't anything worth going back to anymore.
No one guards the portal, if only because no one's stupid enough to actually go through it. It's impossible to get through without flying, and by the time a young fledgling is capable they've been thoroughly warned off. Clan bonds can't bridge the gap.
Clint isn't concerned about that. He's almost—only almost, because he's not completely insane—looking forward to it.
But he's not alone when he touches down a mere few feet from the portal entrance, far from the safety of his clan's sleeping bay.
On the upside, it's Elder, the old jade dragon probably as old as the Disk itself. Her scales are grayed around the edges and Clint swears he can hear her bones creak every time she moves. She hardly ever even shifts to her other form anymore—old as she is, she finds it easier to balance with four limbs on the ground, as she'd told Clint when he was young, wingless, wide-eyed and curious as a crow.
She's the only thing that hasn't changed in those intervening years. Clint certainly isn't wide-eyed anymore. "You can't stop me," he snarls at her. No use denying his intentions—there's no other reason he would be at the portal in the middle of the night, and besides, Elder has always had a supernatural sense of everything that goes on in the kingdom.
On the downside, if anyone is going to shame Clint into going back home to his shattered clan, it's her.
"Hatchling, I wasn't going to try," Elder assures him. "I only mean to ensure you know you take a journey that leads to places across bridges your bond cannot span."
Oh, he knows. "You call this thing a bond? I want it gone," he growls.
Elder slowly shakes her head. Even her neck seems to creak when she moves. "There will come a day you might rethink that." Clint crouches, like an outward defense will keep her words from hurting. He nearly protests—"But," she continues, "I understand that day is not today."
"Then get out of my way," Clint insists. "I'm leaving before dawn. I have to." The last comes out closer to a beg than he intends.
"Where will you go on Earth, with your appearance?" Elder questions. "You're marked as a dragon."
"I don't care." Even humans know to respect dragons, surely.
Elder folds her wings down onto her back and shifts into her other form, a creaky old woman with papery, yellowed skin covered with a faded olive ritual wrap, steel-gray hair, and jade eyes. She's holding a golden chain in her hands, from which a pendant flashes with the Gems of the dragons. "Take this," she says, her voice sad as the whisperings of crumbling parchment. "It will protect your true form from human eyes."
Cautiously, Clint extends his neck. "And your eyes?" he questions.
She chuckles lowly. "Well, dragon eyes too."
Clint folds his wings together to shift to humanoid and allows her to loop the necklace over his head. The amulet settles heavily on his chest. He can almost feel it all fade away, and he touches his face. The skin feels rougher, yet weaker, and the markings by his eyes are gone like they'd never existed. He pulls a lock of his hair in front of his face—it isn't pale and streaked with amethyst. Instead, it's the color of old wash water. "My eyes," he says, suddenly worried.
"Brown," Elder says gently.
Clint swallowed and ignored the sinking feeling in his gut, struggling to keep it from his bond. He can't afford to alarm his mother before he's already gone. But it hurts, in a blunt-and-rusty-knife kind of way, that he isn't Amethyst by sight anymore. No one will understand that he epitomizes Trust.
But this is what he asked for.
"It's nearly dawn, hatchling," Elder warns him. "Are you going?"
"I'm not a hatchling," Clint snaps. He's barely even a dragon anymore. He smoothes his new dishwater hair back over his head nervously and reminds himself he still has his wings if he needs them. The amulet feels irrationally heavy.
Elder smiles slightly. "You're young, I'm old. Do you really think it makes that much of a difference?"
"Sure it does," Clint says. "I couldn't leave without my wings." His voice is trembling and he can't take his eyes off the portal behind Elder. It's so dark in there, distant stars and a vague glittering of gems the only light to be seen. He's suddenly terrified.
"And now you have them. So use them."
"I will," Clint declares loudly, even though he doesn't think Elder meant her words as a challenge. He takes a wary step closer to the portal.
Elder steps to the side, one moment humanoid and the next scaled, slinking wearily over to the rocks to watch him go. Clint draws his own scales around him, wings flaring out.
[Where'd you go?] Adrastea asks sleepily in his head. Clint can't suppress a flinch. Apparently it translates through the bond, because Adrastea is far more alert as she asks, [Are you okay, brother?]
He has to leave. Now. [Goodbye.] He leaps off the ground and takes off through the portal.
[Brother!] Adrastea seems to sense that something is seriously wrong and pulls on the bond, pleading with him to come back. Not to do this. [Bro—]
The call shatters in the void and the sudden ringing silence makes Clint's wings falter for a split second, but he determinedly brings himself back into rhythm. The bond was already mostly broken anyway. He just has to keep going. He just has to ignore how he feels, here in the dark sky.
For the first time, he's alone.
—§§§—
Ohio, 2002
Clint pulls the hood of his hoodie up over his head in a somewhat vain effort to hide from the rain. Luckily he isn't freezing, seeing as it's almost halfway through May. Still, he's had more than his fair share of being wet and cold in the past few centuries, so he ducks through the doorway of one of his favorite diners.
There's a man in a suit and black tie sitting in a booth in the corner, where Clint usually likes to sit. It's a defensible position, where Clint can keep his back to a wall and still be able to watch everyone who walks into the diner.
The man is rather bland and average-looking, but Clint's got a knack for faces that have followed him through more than one town. This guy is definitely the persistent type.
Clint does a quick check, but there doesn't seem to be any of his goons waiting outside for Clint to turn around and get away as fast as possible. Maybe Mr. Monkey Suit assumes Clint will think there are, so he'll come in anyway. Or maybe it's just a gamble.
The man meets Clint's eyes and inclines his head slightly.
Clint's getting a little bored of running. He might as well go take a look. If he doesn't like what he sees, he's got four shrike throwing knives on his person before he has to resort to anything that might expose him as anything other than human.
He nods to the friendly waitress who has alternately doted on him and hit on him for the past few months and saunters over to slide into the booth across from the Man in Black. "About time you found me. It's been, what, two years?" Since the first time Clint had found these guys sniffing around the crime scene. Since this man's bland face had become a recurring, unfriendly appearance.
"Something like that," the man allows. "You're a hard man to find."
Clint snorts. That might be because I'm not actually a man. He kicks his leg up onto the seat next to the spook. "Well, you've found me." He smirks a little. "So shoot."
"That's the idea," the man says smoothly. Clint's smirk vanishes. Has he misjudged this? Are they going to shoot him? He whips his head around to scan the restaurant, well aware he looks like a cornered animal in the gesture, but not relaxing until he's sure he doesn't see any (obvious) signs of guns.
Clint turns back and glares at the man, but he doesn't seem fazed. "Your aim is impeccable," he says, and Clint almost rolls his eyes at his own jumpiness. They meant that kind of shooting. Whatever. "Every job we've been able to associate with you, the kill is clean and efficient. There's hardly ever any evidence."
"Yeah, well, that might be because I leave one bitty piece of evidence one time and I've got folks like you showing up. The tie's a nice touch," Clint snarks, nodding to the black silk. "No color allowed?"
"I find black hides bloodstains rather better than most other colors," the man says evenly.
The corners of Clint's mouth twist upwards. "You get blood on that, odds are you're already dead."
"Not quite. Most people don't have your aim."
"Nobody has my aim," Clint says automatically, glancing around again, this time looking for more innocent tells. There aren't many customers sitting near them, but even the ones who are either aren't listening to their conversation at all or are plants, because there doesn't seem to be much of a reaction from the young-faced teenaged boy or the middle-aged woman sitting at tables of their own nearby. The kid probably isn't with the suits like this guy. Clint isn't putting any bets on the woman.
"Exactly," the man agrees. "That's why we'd like to recruit you."
"Really," Clint muses, still eying the woman. "Who's 'we'?"
"The Strategic Homeland Intelligence, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
Clint gives the spook another evaluation look. He doesn't seem to have much facial expression one way or the other. "That is an acronym waiting to happen," he says finally.
"Everyone who's had to learn how to say that in one breath is certainly hoping so. Are you in, Mr. Barton?"
You have no idea what you're in for. The thought makes Clint smile. "You know my name"—or he thinks he does—"but I don't seem to know yours. Rude."
"I'm Agent Phil Coulson," the spook—Agent Coulson—says. Pauses for a moment, then asks, "Well?"
Clint sighs, putting on a show of mock reluctance. "Well, you can't possibly be any more boring than my life at the moment. I'll give it a chance."
Coulson graces him with a tiny, probably fake, smile. He's going to be like all the other humans Clint's tried associating with in the past few centuries: greedy and stupid. Not even worth Clint's time. Nothing is; nothings enough to fill the emptiness where his bond used to be.
But it doesn't really matter anymore, does it? Nothing much does.
"Thank you or your consideration," Coulson says.
—§§§—
SHIELD HQ, 2004
"What are you?"
Clint doesn't bother straining against the handcuffs, or looking away from the light. It's going to take him a while to see anything but a sunspot once the light is taken away, but it seems to have the desired unsettling affect on his interrogator.
He knows the only reason he doesn't have a bullet in his brain is because Phil has an admirably level head in stressful situations, such as his asset suddenly exhibiting signs of shapeshifting that—coincidentally—he'd never told anyone about.
"I'm a dragon," Clint says, then smiles, showing off his teeth. They're a little too sharp. The amulet keeps his true form from showing through completely, but it's easy after three centuries of practice to take off just a thin layer of the glamour and show some warning of his true nature.
"Alright," Phil says steadily. Impressively, Clint can't actually tell if Phil believes him or not. "What did you do to Agent Barton?"
"I am Agent Barton," Clint sighs. That, Phil is definitely not going to believe. It's almost disappointing, a betrayal by someone who—what, he trusted? Clint shakes himself internally. He trusts no one this side of the Dragon Disk, and no one back there, either. "Surprise?" he quips, a little mean.
"Very funny."
Maybe a little proof, Clint considers. Probably not worth it, not enough to fix this, but he can try, can't he? "You were the Agent who hired me. You were wearing a black tie at the time and claimed it was good for avoiding visible blood stains. You appealed to my pride and desire of a challenge and I took you up on it because I was bored and there wasn't anything better to do."
"Anyone could know that, especially if you captured Agent Barton and questioned him."
Oh Tiamat, Clint thinks viciously. Nothing's going to convince him. So why the hell is he even trying? Oh, right, because Clint went and got himself attached to some little human with an exaggerated sense of their importance on the planet. Clint has seen generations go by and could tell Phil (when did he become Phil? he asks himself viciously) that only a handful of humans are going to retain importance a hundred or so years from now.
"Then you might as well shoot me in the head," Clint says sweetly. "Because nothing's going to convince you."
Phil—no, Coulson, he has no attachment to this stupid human—is silent for a long moment. "Why did you allow me to convince you to join SHIELD?" There's a clanking sound that Clint just knows is a gun on the table, because he's seen Phil (Coulson, oh hell, he gives up) do this when he's extending an olive branch to the victim of the interrogation. I'm not hiding from you. I will shoot you if I have to. Cooperate, the gun stays where it is.
Clint closes his eyes. He's got nothing left to lose, because for once in four hundred years he's actually in a place where a human can kill him easily. "Because I was bored," he says. Just like he'd told Phil in that diner a long time ago. "And hey, I figured, it ever comes to something like this? You can't possibly let me down any more than I already have been. Go ahead. Pull the trigger, quit the games."
There's another long silence before Phil sighs. And the light switches off.
"I'm not so sure about the dragon thing," he says wryly, as Clint tries to blink the residual glare out of his eyesight, "but I've only ever heard that mix of anger, self-depreciation and sass from Barton himself. So if you're an impostor? Congratulations and feel free to kill me in my sleep."
Finally, Phil's face swims into focus. And Clint has no idea how to respond to that, especially when Phil's so blank-faced and put-together. Like he hasn't just figured out about a new species. "Last time I checked that's not how SHIELD does things."
"Yes, well, last time I checked I didn't actually contact SHIELD about this little predicament before deciding to interrogate you." Phil comes around the table and Clint swivels his head to stare at him. All he does is take out a set of keys and unlock the handcuffs, though.
Clint rubs his wrists, even though it hasn't been long enough to chaff. "So what now?" he asks awkwardly. He'd kind of been expecting to die, and isn't entirely sure he shouldn't be disappointed that he's still alive.
"Now, I hope you'll explain your… magic, or illusions. Whatever the source of that little scare was."
"I told you. I'm a dragon."
Phil stares at him. Clint's not always very good at reading faces—reptilian instincts, so sue him—but Phil's being even more indecipherable than usual. "Alright," he says neutrally.
Probably still kind of disbelieving. Clint huffs, annoyed, but he has the inexplicable—and frustrating—desire to prove himself. So he crouches to give himself space and shrugs his wings out of his back, holding the shift there to keep the rest of his body recognizable. For once, Phil is recognizably flabbergasted, mouth actually dropping open a little as he takes a hasty step back, and Cling smirks to himself. "Believe me yet?"
"It's not like I've got much of a choice," Phil points out, frowning slightly.
Clint steels himself. "So. Is SHIELD still going to want me after you tell them?" It doesn't matter, it's just a group of ridiculous humans trying to postpone the inevitable death of their species. Clint has no reason to want to stick around.
"Tell them?" Phil asks, mock surprised. Or maybe actually surprised. "How? I don't think there's paperwork for this sort of thing."
It's Clint's turn to stare, and he's not imagining the vague smile on Phil's face, almost mocking him. And he reluctantly lets himself accept that, just this once, maybe this human didn't let him down so badly after all.
—§§§—
New Mexico, 2010
Clint hears Phil approach before he sees him, but that's mostly because of the rain. It's pouring out here and has been for a while, but there's no way Clint's going inside. He'd probably end up ripping the head off some poor, unsuspecting junior agent.
"Someone's in a foul mood," Phil says, and sits down next to him.
Phil can't have been outside for more than a minute or so, but he's already soaking. "I hate the rain," Clint says shortly.
"It certainly seems to have dampened your fiery personality."
Clint gives him a flat look, but Phil's face isn't giving anything away. The junior agents are all terrified of the practically mythological Agent Coulson, but no one except Clint, Natasha, and Sitwell seem to realize how corny he can be. "You think you're smooth, sir, but I'm pretty sure there's a name for that, and it's called cliche."
"You're too unique to be the victim of a cliche." Phil side-eyes him, considering. "So, do you want to tell me about what happened with the Stark Incident?"
Clint suppresses a wince and glares harder out into the rain. "Can't you let it go?"
"You looked like you were going to shoot the messenger. You almost did." Clint opens his mouth. "With an exploding arrow," Phil adds, his voice dry and unamused, and Clint closes his mouth again.
"You could have told me you sent Tasha to play with Stark," Clint grumbles. Anything but the cold wash of fear from hearing a stranger tell him that his favorite human on this planet—save Phil—was that close to someone he wasn't sure he shouldn't be afraid of.
"I didn't think I had to," Phil says reasonably. "It's not anything I thought would merit this kind of reaction."
"It's Stark," Clint snaps, like that explains anything.
Phil turns his head and raises an eyebrow that Clint doesn't even try to decipher. "And Natasha is a big girl. She can make her own choices."
Clint scowls. "That's not what I meant, Phil, and you know it."
"Maybe, but I don't know what you actually do mean."
His fists clench together briefly, but he makes his fingers uncurl. To speak, or not to speak—"The Ten Rings," he says softly.
Phil's silence is far more significant this time. Clint had told him years ago the same excuse he's been using on himself for why he stays on Earth: the Ten Rings, stolen from the dragons centuries ago, lost on Earth. Clint has still only found three of them. As far as he's been able to tell, the humans that have them don't yet know how to actually use them. He's not looking forward to the idea of them figuring it out.
"The terrorist organization or…" Phil trails off, because they don't use words for Clint's secret when there are other people around.
Clint snorts. "Is there a difference? Look, if Stark was their prisoner for that long—"
"I thought we had this discussion already," Phil cuts him off.
"Yeah, to disprove it!"
"So it's been disproved." Because Phil's efficient and doesn't see the point in poring over information a second time unless they've learned something new.
"Yes," Clint agrees, then hesitates. "No." Because Clint can't even give him straight answers, anyway. He shakes his head. "It just gives me a hebejebes. It's not like them to let anyone go." And, if Stark has been somehow affected by the Rings, whether the people or the objects? He wants Tasha as far as possible from the potential fallout. Draconic magic has a nasty way of backfiring on unsuspecting users and victims. There were startling parallels to the recently discovered 'Hulk,' actually. Science and magic—two sides of the same coin that humans just loved to try and splinter in half.
"Would this be easier if you told her why you were worried?" Phil wonders.
Clint entertains the idea for a mere moment before flinching at the idea of her reaction. "No."
"Then leave it," Phil tells him flatly. "Stark isn't going to bite her. Unless she wants him to."
Clint scowls out at the horizon, or where it should be through all the rain. "Because that's and image I definitely needed."
"You're welcome." Phil cups his hand around his earpiece to hear it better in the rain; Clint's ears deliver something about the hammer they're guarding and fluctuating magnetic forces. When he concentrates, Clint can feel it, the happy pulsing of a tool with a purpose again. He doesn't know why the humans think they can do anything to stop magic this strong. "Get your head in the game," Phil says, "I'm going to need your eyes up high in t minus twenty. Natasha will be fine. You don't have to stress about my clan."
One word, and Clint's halfway over the edge of his perch because he feels like he's about to hit something. "She's not my clan," he snaps. "And neither are you."
Phil doesn't respond, but somehow his expression makes Clint think of Elder, looking unamused at a hatchling. Clint ducks his head and starts bringing himself into mission mode. Ten Rings and dragon magic can wait.
They always do.
—§§§—
Helicarrier Medical Bay, 2012
"You know, there are reasons I have trust issues."
Phil winces, but Clint can assume that's from the pain of trying to shift up into a sitting position when your body's that screwed up. Unable to help himself, Clint presses down on Phil's shoulder (he'd told himself he wouldn't touch this human again, wouldn't mourn) to keep him from hurting himself. Phil subsides with a sigh. "And I assume I just gave you another one," he says regretfully.
Clint shrugs carefully. "At least you're aware of it." He perches on the edge of the plastic seat, not entirely convinced he should be here. "Fury's a lying liar."
Phil huffs out part of a laugh before grimacing in pain and aborting that particular mission. Clint makes a mental note to intimidate the doctors into giving Phil more meds. "You only just noticed?" he asks wryly.
Every human's a liar. "Reminded myself, yeah."
"'Lying liar,' really? Those sound like Stark's words."
Clint tries not to slouch, but he really didn't come here to talk about the ragtag team Fury threw together. Banner wasn't kidding when he said they were a time bomb, and Clint's not sure he wants to be inside the blast radius when it all explodes. "So sue me. The guy talks too much."
They sit in silence for a moment. That's fine by Clint; he came for visual assurance that Phil's actually alive, not because he wanted a touchy-feely conversation. But humans have this pesky habit of needing to say thingsaloud when they want them heard, so a few minutes later, Phil says, "I'm glad you're okay. When Loki had you…"
He doesn't have to finish the sentence. Clint was afraid too, down in the deep, dark recesses of his subconscious that remained his own. But he's still (justifiably) more than a little pissed at Phil's reaction. "You decided it gave you permission to try and take on a god alone?" he says testily.
"I thought we were done for. I thought Loki had a dragon." There's that word, the one they never say aloud, and it makes Clint want to look over his shoulder even when he knows the cameras are turned off and they're alone in the room. Phil gives him a look far sharper than it should be, this close to escaping death. "Did he?"
Clint rubs his face. "No. He didn't." And he thanks his lucky stars for that one. He'd thank Tiamat, but he's pretty sure the goddess of the dragons left Earth with the rest of them centuries ago.
"How? It was pretty obvious you weren't in control."
"Oh, shooting the agents tipped you off? Who'd have thought," Clint retorts. He realizes he's snapping at an invalid and breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. "Define control."
"You weren't calling the shots. As you've so elegantly pointed out."
"That was a rhetorical question." Clint purses his lips and tries to think of a way to explain this, but neatly. Where he doesn't have to give Phil more than he's comfortable with. "Okay. So, magic."
Phil makes a skeptical expression. That or it's a constipated one; Clint still isn't great with the human nonverbal language tics.
"Yeah, that's probably your least favorite answer by now. There's not really an easy way to explain it."
Phil raises an eyebrow.
Clint has no idea why, of all people to hunt him down for his ability to kill, the one to find him just happened to be the one human who always seem able to make him divulge his secrets. "Fine," he mutters. "It's… well." Clint takes a breath and pulls his amulet out from under his shirt. Phil blinks slowly at it. Clint smiles bravely: here goes another secret. "Magic. Keeps me looking as human as I do."
"I was under the impression this was just a different form," Phil says, faintly puzzled, "not an… adopted one."
He's rathe reluctant to actually show himself, so Clint dismisses it. "I'm just more purple than most humans without this thing on."
"And more powerful."
"Nope." Clint fiddles with his amulet before deciding that fifteen seconds is far too long for exposure like this and tucks it under his shirt again. "Just the same."
Phil nods, then frowns slightly. "I don't understand how Loki didn't get a dragon."
"Well, the amulet makes me seem human, right? Not just visibly. And it was under my shirt, so Loki does his spear thing to my 'heart,'" he taps his chest, right where the amulet is, right where Loki's scepter hit, "and he pokes the amulet, which protected the dragon bits from him. This is a powerful piece of magic." Clint didn't even know how powerful—Elder was respected for a reason, and a good one. "So Loki only got me as a human."
"But there wasn't anything the dragon inside you could've done."
It's not a question, they way Phil says it, but it makes Clint's hands tighten into fists until his nails are digging into his palms. It hurts, because there's nothing Clint could have done, but if he had a clan, none of this would ever have happened.
"Hey." Phil's voice brings him back from the empty spaces inside his head. "I'm not trying to blame you. In fact, I commend you on your performance. We all came out on the other side—"
"You almost didn't," Clint reminds him. That's not supposed to hurt, either, but Clint likes Phil more than he should. He's more attached than he should ever have allowed himself.
"We all came out on the other side, Clint," Phil reiterates firmly, "and that was at least in part because of you."
Clint stares at Phil's pale hands resting on the bedsheets and suppresses the urge to reach out and hold them. It's not something he does, so he resists the urge, but he wants to be human for just a moment and pretend that Phil can tell him he's okay with any kind of real authority. Earth could have died and it would have been on Clint's head if it had.
"I've got some good news for you," Phil tells him. Clint looks up from his hands to his face.
"Better than you being alive?"
Phil snorts, but again, the pain his body is in gives him pause again. Clint wants to wrap him up in his wings and not let him up until he's healed and even the realization makes him want to run away, fly away and never look back.
He stays seated.
"That depends on your priorities, I suppose. You realize that you've officially been accepted as part of the Avengers Initiative?"
Clint's eyes widen. "I was just filling in. Helping out. Because of the damage I caused." And they'd allowed him his penance, which was nice of them, but he wasn't one of them.
"None of that was your fault," Phil says sternly, and Clint averts his eyes because if he doesn't he's going to end up rolling his eyes. The truth is right there, whether Phil likes it or not. "Maybe that's why you decided to help, but you should know that you're a permanent member of the Avengers."
"Barring future screw ups," Clint completes.
"Barring your personal request to not be on the Initiative."
"Like I'd turn down a team?" A group of people that Clint contributes to and who contribute to Clint? Sounds pretty good.
"Wouldn't be the first time." It's Clint's turn to wince. You're not my clan. In his own defense, Phil is about as close as a human's ever gotten. But life won't let that kind of delusion exist for longer than a few decades, so why bother pretending?
Phil's staring at him again. Slowly, he says, "I don't pretend to know anything about your culture, or about your clans. But I know that teamwork and trust are important to you." Clint could cry, if he ever cried anymore—he was Amethyst. Amethyst was trust, the way Jade was wisdom, Sapphire was healing, and Obsidian was killing. "This is your team. It's only waiting for you."
Maybe the Avengers were a time bomb. Maybe there wasn't a maybe about it. But bombs can be disarmed and people—fragile humans living frantic lives in a fraction of the time that Clint has—can change. Maybe the team who saved the world can become a team that Clint can trust. There was nothing else that resonated as deeply as trust, for him.
And nothing that cut as deeply.
"A team, you say," Clint murmurs, but he's willing to give it a shot.
—§§§—
Just Outside New York City, 2012
Clint shoots the movement at the edge of the hallway, and an arrow sprouts from the chest of a man peering around the corner of the corridor. He's not sure where Cap is, exactly, Natasha's gone silent to take care of her foes on her own, and Hulk's roar vibrates the presumably sound structure of the building. Clint eases his bowstring back from where he'd drawn it and reaches up to switch his comm to a private channel.
"You call this a team, sir?"
"Nuance," Phil says, voice clipped, and this isn't the time or place for this conversation, but Clint is beginning to wonder why he ever thought it was a good idea to go back with these crazies. "Get the guy on your ten o'clock."
Clint can hear him. He fires without looking and there's a gurgle of blood and the thud of a body hitting the floor. "Got him."
"Good. Now get back on the community comms."
"With my team?" Clint sneers.
"Yes, Agent, with your team."
Clint rolls his eyes. "Sir yes sir," he says sarcastically, and switches the channel again.
Stark's AI, which is frankly reminiscent of Skynet and apparently named Jarvis, said that Tony was most likely in the basement—lots of cement, lots of doors in the way, but plenty of space, judging by the blueprints. Cognitively, Clint recognizes that he should tell Cap he's at the elevator and ask for his orders. But he hates orders, has only been able to take them from Phil with any real consistency. The Battle of Manhattan was an outlier when he still wasn't sure of his own judgment.
It's a trust thing. And Clint knows all about trust.
"Going in," is all he says into the comm, and Natasha will know what he means, Phil will know what he means, and Cap can ask one of them if he wants to know so badly. It's petty, but Clint resents that they're here. It's Tony's fault for getting kidnapped. Thor doesn't have to be here. (Because he's off-planet, the reasonable part of Clint's brain reminds him. He's started calling that reasonable voice Mini-Coulson in the privacy of his own mind.)
He pries open the elevator doors and jumps in with barely a thought, grabbing the cables and partial-shifting until his hands are covered in rough scales. Satisfied that he won't end up skinning his hands, he lets himself slide down the cable. Two floors later, he lands on top of the elevator car and pries open the door that leads into the basement.
Natasha turns around and gives him a flat look that's betrayed by the way her lips twitch. "Took you long enough."
"Yeah, yeah," he mutters. His hands palms shift back to soft skin against his weapons. "You get them all?"
"Yes." Natasha turns neatly and sashays over to the chair that Clint hadn't noticed in his distraction. Stark's tied to it, his head lolling over. Natasha cuts the rope and hauls him up with an arm under his armpits. "Barton, get over here. You're the pack mule, here."
Clint rolls his eyes. "And you're the carrot, I presume?" But he takes Stark's weight himself as requested.
He's not actually unconscious, though. By the sharp scent Clint can detect from his breath, he's extremely high. When he nuzzles Clint's shoulder, it's pretty obvious. "He's been drugged," he tells Natasha.
"Of course he has," she sighs, then reaches up, presumably to switch on her comm. "We have Stark. We're in the basement. Hostiles have been eliminated."
"Stay there," Cap instructs. "The elevator's out. I'll clear the stairwell for you and you can come back up."
"Roger that," Natasha says, and she's in work mode, so it's probably not even a pun. Then she turns the mic off and rolls her eyes. "Feel like defending Stark up two flights of stairs while carrying his deadweight?"
"Can't be any harder than Ontario," Clint shrugs.
Stark giggles into his shoulder. "Can I buy Canada? It's cold. It's too hot in here."
Clint and Natasha share a look, something along the lines of why and how did we get roped into this? Clint is sure that he doesn't remember.
"As long as we're not caught in the crossfire," Natasha tells Stark indulgently. She jerks her head toward the stairwell. "Lets get out of here."
—§§§—
Jarvis insists on Tony going straight to the tower to let the drugs go through his system. Never ones to push a most likely sentient AI, SHIELD allows it after a cursory vitals check to ensure he won't die in the meantime. Cap volunteers to drop him off. Fury sends Nat with him and tells Clint to take a break.
"I'm not fragile," he snarls—quietly—to Phil as he stalks out of the room. "I don't need a break."
"That's not the question." Phil doesn't look at him. When he's walking, he rarely looks at the people he's talking to, but Clint can't stop watching. "The question is, are you going to follow orders?"
Clint doesn't go to his quarters. For one, they're too cramped for comfort in the limited space of the helicarrier, and for two, Phil's office has a couch.
When the reach Phil's office, though, Clint doesn't get to the couch before he turns around and levels an unamused look at Phil. "Really."
"Give it time," Phil says placidly.
"This is not a clan," Clint says lowly, voice almost a growl. "It's not even a team."
"I never promised you a clan," Phil retorts, raising an eyebrow and staring at him shrewdly. "You made it very obvious that was something I couldn't give you."
Clint cringes inside but doesn't let it show on his face; he's not sure Phil doesn't see it anyway. But he doesn't have a clan. He doesn't know why pretending he does should make it any better.
"But it will be a team," Phil promises. "Not now. But someday."
"Don't promise me something you can't deliver," Clint says quietly.
Phil's staring at him again, but Clint can't take it anymore, so he looks away. "I'll keep that in mind," he says levelly. "Out of curiosity, if you want a clan so badly, why haven't you gone to find one?"
Clint turns around and walks out the door. He tells himself that it's because Phil doesn't deserve to know. He tells himself it's nothing a human could understand.
But more than anything, Clint is afraid. What if he no longer knows how to trust?
—§§§—
A/N: I won't promise to update this fic regularly, since RL tends to get in the way of writing my stories. But I have the entire thing planned out, so rest assured that I will finish it.