Butterfingers
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The door was pale, clean, innocuous. So was the patient in the bed beyond it. Natasha let herself in, past the 'secure' lock, and closed the door silently behind her. She left it unlocked to stand and wait.
"Took you long enough," a voice grumped. Propped up at a forty-five degree angle, a magazine balanced in his hands, Clint Barton was facing away from her in a gurney-style bed by the window.
Is that to spare him from seeing anyone who walks past the window? Or to protect people from his 'Resting Face' glare? Ignoring the neutrally coloured, spartan room, she crossed to the bed. Her hands went behind her back as her eyes flicked over the magazine currently under scrutiny in his hands. She caught sight of forest camouflage coloured items on the page, and looked down the patient's sheets instead. Beneath the white blankets, his left leg was levered up slightly by virtue of a pillow under its ankle. His right appeared to be in a triangle, his foot underneath his left knee. "Why are you sleeping in this room? You have your own apartment," she said.
"Closer to the window," he muttered.
She tilted her head in agreement. "There were no candy bars left in the kitchen. I had to make a trip out," she said imperiously.
Clint slapped the magazine shut and tossed it unceremoniously to the covers beyond his foot. "What kind of place is Stark running here?" He looked to his left, to the large window clad in smooth, soft beige curtains.
She put a hand inside her brown leather jacket and pulled out something that rustled. "Here. Don't say I never do you any favours." She let the yellow packet drop to the sheets by his right hand.
She waited, but he didn't turn. His eyes were fixed on the window, his face settling into a look she had come to liken to that of a bulldog sitting next to a wet patch on a brand new carpet. "Is this about your leg? Or… before? Loki. And… " She looked at the bed.
He didn't answer.
She poked at the yellow wrapper by his hand, encountering the hard chocolate item inside. "Eat it."
He didn't answer.
She put a hand up and flicked at his right ear. He jolted in shock before pinning her with a look that would have made a hole in the wall, had she ducked. She simply put her hands out and shoved at his hip, successfully making room on the side of the bed. She perched on the edge, facing him. Her eyes challenged his to a fight to the death; hers won and he looked back toward the window. "You are bored. When you are bored, you let yourself review - too much. Is this about the crossbow bolt in your leg? Why you didn't see him?" she asked.
"It's not that I didn't see him," he breathed. "It's that I didn't want to see him."
Natasha studied his face. It gave away nothing, save the few days he had gone without a shave, and the deadness that boredom had brought to his eyes. At least, I hope that's what it is. "If you have decided that you want to die in the line of duty, I am more than willing to do it for you," she snapped.
He looked back at her, surprised. "That's not what I meant."
"It had better not be," she warned. "A partner with a death-wish is no partner at all."
His eyebrows raised at her, and she looked down at the grey S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt over his chest. "Nat," he sighed. "The guy had a sight, ok? A sight for lining up his crossbow. It was blue. I think I kinda… kinda pre-programmed myself to not see flashes of blue light. Blue lights, needle-thin tactical lights, blue flashes… I don't like 'em." He looked at the window. "Not any more."
"You have to remember that it's not whether you like them or not, it's whether you want to be hit by them."
"Yeah, I got that," he grumped.
"I don't think so." She paused. "Next time, if this happens - I may not be there. If we hadn't already taken out everyone but one, I wouldn't have been there then. You would have been stuck there, pinned to a stanchion."
He looked at her. "Your point?"
"I believe the phrase is 'suck it up'," she allowed. "How about this: if you see a blue light, a tactical, targeting, flash of light - you shoot it. Would that make you feel better?"
He smiled, but sniffed and looked back at the window. "I suppose."
"Clint… Why did you lock the door?"
"Because people keep coming in."
"Tupoy," she tutted in Russian. She picked up the yellow candy bar and waved it at his face. "There are three more in the kitchen. You have to go and get them if you want them."
He took it from her reluctantly enough, but she saw his private smile as he read the label that proudly heralded the arrival of a Butterfinger in his life. "Thanks," he managed.
"You should be in the shooting range," she said. "This… room. It's like an infirmary."
"Nurse Ohluv was real insistent that I let my leg heal."
"It's been a week," she said, twisting to look down the blankets over his left leg slowly.
"Feels like six," he grunted. He tore the top of the wrapper open. "And that bolt went all the way through, Nat. It wasn't a nick or a flesh wound. It went right through and out the back. I'm lucky to have any muscle left on that side. Ohluv keeps talking about when to start physiotherapy."
Natasha got off the bed. She grasped the sheet and lifted it, looking underneath.
"Hey!" he protested. He grabbed the sheet off her but she simply held her hands up, to keep a clear view of everything underneath. "Isn't this against some hospital code or patient's rights about not getting molested?" he cried.
"You're not in hospital," she said, amused, as her eyes interrogated the bandage round his thigh. "I was just checking you weren't wearing Captain America shorts."
"They're in the laundry," he said sarcastically. "Along with the ones covered in Disney's Robin Hood." He jumped as her hand traced over the bandage. "Um-"
"It seems to be healing fine," she said to herself. She looked up, catching his Glare of Death. "Relax, Clint. It's nothing I haven't seen before."
"I'm not one of your marks," he groused, pulling the sheets from her grip and making them drop back over his leg - and everything peripheral.
She took a step back, uncertain. "N-no - that's not what-. I just-." She cleared her throat and caught him studying her face. She put her hands behind her back. "I should have done a better job at triage before we exited with our prisoner," she said firmly.
He relaxed back into the pillows behind him. "You did a pretty good job. It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have got shot in the first place." He paused. "You do know Nurse Ohluv is here cos Tony paid the hospital for a private nurse, right? I'm betting he's billing S.H.I.E.L.D. for her anyway. You don't need to check on her - or me."
"That's not why I came up here."
"Then why did you come up here? To pester me? To gloat cos this time I'm the one in 'hospital' and you're not?
She turned away, walking round the end of the bed to stop in front of the window. "I… I have noticed this place is… quieter. More boring. With you locked away in here," she ventured, watching the clouds pass them by. She waited, but there was no sarcastic remark from her left. She straightened her back. "Everyone would benefit from seeing you up and about. Even Banner asked about you." Her head tilted; still no response. "Thor says you are… 'hardy'. For a mortal. He says… he says New York wasn't long enough ago, and then this happens… He says you should join him for 'many beers'." Pause; no response. "Steve has asked if you need anything. He's got this thing in his head about wounded soldiers." Pause; silence. "Stark asked me three times if he could show you how his arrow development is going." More silence. She huffed slightly. "Fine. I want you to get out of bed and stop feeling sorry for yourself." Still more silence. She bit her lip at his silent torture, willing her frustration not to escalate. But it did: "Because you're the only one I really know, really trust, in this place - this palace of computers and comfort and polite friends. I want you to come down to the shooting range so we can go through our routine. I miss y-. It. I miss the routine. There. Satisfied?" she demanded. Still more silence. She turned in anger.
And found Clint Barton with an empty wrapper in his hand and his mouth full of one of Nestlé's finest Butterfingers.
"Sounz goo," he managed, past the tar pit of chocolate and peanut butter. He swallowed hurriedly. "Thee' are goo, too."
She glared at him. Hard. Clint simply raised his eyebrows. She squeezed between the bed and the wall. She took the wrapper from him. "That's it. Get out."
"Na'!"
She whipped back the sheets. They were dumped on the floor. Her hands went to his side and she shoved. Clint was heaved across the bed a few inches. He took the hint and put his hands to the mattress, shuffling off the side to stand up in nothing but black shorts and a grey S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt as Natasha came round the end of the bed and grabbed him by the upper arm, ready to pull.
The door opened and Tony Stark walked in. He paused. His eyes went from Clint, to Natasha, and back to Clint. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked quickly. "Cos I could, you know, come back in like - what - half an hour? An hour?" He looked Clint up and down. "A few minutes?"
Clint's face hardened so fast a tiny part of Tony's brain went about identifying which chemical mixtures were doing the setting. Natasha's arms folded in a way that suggested torture was imminent.
"I just came to find out where the Butterfingers bars came from in the kitchen," Tony rattled off, "cos Bruce has already devoured a whole one like it looked at him wrong. I swear to God it's like he opened his mouth and the whole thing just kinda got vacuumed up like - you've seen Jaws, right? You saw that movie? I'm telling you, it was straight out of-"
"They're mine," Clint interrupted. "So's most of this floor. Or so you said when you wanted us to move in."
Tony stopped short. He looked behind himself, out of the door, then back round at the pair of them. It was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Truth?"
"In short sentences," Clint warned.
"I got these new arrows for you to try, Cary Elwes. You know how you asked me about trick ones with-"
"Ok, slow your roll," Clint said, one hand up. "Can I get some pants on before we get into this?"
Tony wandered backward through the open door. "Sure. I mean, I'd hate to get in the way of whatever it is you kids are up to that doesn't need pants." He tossed them a shit-eating grin before closing the door in his own face.
Clint sagged to lean against the edge of the bed. "And you wonder why I locked the door."
He heard drawers and movement and then Natasha came round his right side. She thrust a pair of folded-up combats at him. "Shooting range. Let's go."
"Can I get Stark to hold the target?"
.
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The room was huge. Twelve feet high, it ran about a hundred and fifty yards from the white line painted on the slightly spongey flooring. Large fans spun lazily overhead, providing welcome fresh air so far below ground. Banks of lights ran down the middle and sides of the room, hitting the wings on the fans to produce cheerful, shiny snatches of colour.
Clint looked down at the white line, just shy of his Converse trainers. He looked up toward the end of the hangar. "You ever wonder what else Stark's got down here?"
Natasha was at the counter behind him. It ran the width of the room to afford shooters somewhere to reload, to rest arms, and in Clint's case, leave a bow, a quiver, and a coffee jug. Natasha picked up a magazine, checking it was fully loaded before pushing it into a Glock 26. She set it down and then reached along the bench for a set of ear protectors. She looked back at Clint. "I don't waste my time. I'm sure half of it is all to do with building better suits. The other half is probably statues of himself in various superhero poses."
Clint grinned as he went back to the counter. He looked at the three arrows laid out for his inspection. Each one had a tiny label on the side of the shaft, by the fletching. "1-A, 2-A, 3-A," he read. "Great. Seeing as Stark thought these up all by himself I'm going to say that stands for Aggravate, Annoy and Anger."
"You know Stark - he wants you to be surprised and then tell him how much you adore his ingenuity," she scoffed, and hung the ear protectors round her neck by their large, padded bar. She picked up the Glock 26 and then went to the lighted board to her left. She read the names under the various lights before pressing at them. A large wicker bale, at least a foot thick, had a paper target of a figure pinned to the front. The whole arrangement dangled from two thick ropes currently sweeping toward them from the back wall.
Clint sighed in resignation and picked up the first arrow, pointing it away from him but lifting it to study the entire shaft. He brought the tip up, inspected the broadhead, and then flipped it round to scrutinise the fletching. "There's nothing in this one. It's just an arrow," he said, confused.
"What about the weight? What's he packed inside it?" she asked.
"Feels the same," he said, hefting it in his palm. "Whatever. What distance?"
"I'll start you off easy. Ninety metres."
He picked up his bow from the counter, then turned and looked down the length of the room. "Let's see which one this arrow is - Annoy or Anger."
"Probably Aggravate." Natasha let go of the lighted button and the flying target stopped. It made a whirring sound and adjusted itself backwards a few feet. A light pinged on along the brace at its top, and then the number '90' appeared in bright lights.
"Swanky," Clint commented. He stood over the white line, one foot beyond, one behind, and lined himself up. Natasha waited, her Glock by her side, as he let the arrow fall into the rest. She waited, she listened, she appreciated the sound of him taking a breath as he drew the bow. He shifted his left foot out an inch. Natasha heard the tell-tale halt of breath before he started to exhale. His hand relaxed. The bowstring began to roll over the finger tabs.
Until a tiny blue flash splashed over the corner of the target.
His back tightened in shock. His right hand torqued the bow; the arrow flinched out of the rest.
It flew as he cursed under his breath. It landed twenty feet short, sticking into the floor at a twenty degree angle.
"Heh," he managed weakly.
Natasha watched him but he simply cleared his throat, wiping at his top lip with the back of his left hand, encountering the leather of his worn glove. He looked up and his eyebrows raised; she turned to see strange gas bleeding out of the fletching of the arrow - until a warning klaxon went off and they heard machines kicking in. Green mist rose up from the tail of the arrow, sucked up toward giant extractor fans in the walls near the ceiling. Natasha raised an eyebrow, but she noticed Clint stared at the slowly twirling ceiling fans - and the shiny blue flashes of artificial light.
She cleared her throat. "Reflections," she said.
"Yeah."
"All different colours. Must be the metal in the fan blades."
"Yeah."
She went back to the counter.
He narrowed his eyes at the arrow still sticking in the flooring, then at the fans. Then he turned and went back for another arrow. He found Natasha reaching for '2-A'. "I got it," he said irritably. His hand landed on top of hers. He froze, unsure.
"Butterfingers," she said, with a secret smile. He began to withdraw his hand but hers was already moving faster. He was left holding the second arrow of the day as she walked back to the white line. "Come on then, Hawkeye," she ordered. "Or are you going to stand there holding your shaft all day?"
His eyebrows went for his fringe as if fired from his bow. He picked up the arrow and turned back to the line, nocking it securely and raising the elite recurve. "I don't know what's more distracting," he muttered, lining up the shot. "You having a hand on my shaft or all this Star Trek lens flare."
"I hope it's not the 'lens flare'."
He smiled. He settled on the target. Something blue shone from his upper left. He let fly.
The arrow hurtled away from them at close to three hundred feet per second. It slammed into the centre of the paper head attached to the thick wicker bale.
Clint hadn't moved. He simply stared through the bow, waiting.
Natasha pursed her lips as she watched the target. "It definitely isn't the 'lens flare'," she mused. She cast him a sly look. "At least, not any more."
Clint let the bow drop. He glanced at Natasha. "Maybe this arrow's emp-"
The wicker abruptly burst into flame. It ate up the entire five-foot wedge in less than two seconds. The metal arrow hung in the air for the time it would have taken Wile E. Coyote to peddle at nothing. Then it clattered to the floor.
The door behind the safety counter opened and Tony shoved his head through. "You've started already? -What do you think?"
Clint turned and looked at him. "Not bad."
"Try 'em out - let your hair down, Meridia. If you like them, I've got a few more ideas," Tony grinned. Clint simply went back to the counter, but instead of taking the last arrow, he picked up the coffee jug. Tony's eyes followed. "Oh, hey, I shoulda brought mugs." He pointed a delicate finger at Natasha. "You want mugs? I'll get mugs. I got this cool-"
Clint lifted the jug and drank out of the side. Tony's mouth waited, open and slackened, until Clint put the jug down again.
Natasha looked at Tony - just looked.
"Right," Tony managed. "I'll - uh - do some - um - tech. stuff." He retreated, closing the door behind him.
Natasha smiled as she pressed more lights on the control board, ordering two more targets to fly toward them. "One hundred and twenty?" she offered.
"That'll do for static targets," Clint nodded, picking up the last arrow. He looked over at the quiver of twenty-four of his own arrows. "I want to try the last trick one. Then we'll… You do the eyes. I'll do the smiley mouth."
Natasha watched the targets come to a rest. Her thumb slipped off the board and she stepped up to the white line next to Clint, pulling her ear protectors on. She raised her gun but felt the huge rubber cup over her left ear lift up.
"I'm glad you got me down here," he said, before letting go of the ear protector and twisting back straight. The rubber slapped back against Natasha's head.
She elbowed him, rather roughly, in his bow arm. "You owe me." She lined up her gun again.
"Anything you want," he breathed.
She lifted her ear protector deliberately. "I'm sorry, Clint - what was that?"
He turned a serene smile on her. "I said I'll pay you in Butterfingers."
She let the protector drop and lined up her shot. She grinned. She fired.
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FIN
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Nurse 'Ohluv' is named for Nurse Chapel. Of course.
Seeing as 12 minutes and 44 seconds was a little short to glean any actual personality of Clint Barton, I've gone for a mix of Earth's Mightiest Heroes!Barton and Matt Fraction!Barton. Hope it works.
Thanks for reading!