Disclaimer: I do not own "The Avengers" or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie or tv show in the works.
Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism, remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"
Hey there! So I don't know if you noticed, but it's April 25th! And besides being the source of an awesome quote from Miss Congeniality, April 25th is also Clint's birthday in the VPU! So how fitting that we get the next birthday one-shot!
This was beta'd by my entire beta team, I think that's the first time all three of them have gotten a hold of a fic lol. So thank you to Kylen, JRBarton, and Arlothia! You three are all amazing and I'm so lucky to have you!
Here we go! Clint's 22nd birthday!
Don't just count your years, make your years count.
George Meredith
April 25, 2007
12:23 a.m.
SHIELD Safe House, Sana'a, Yemen
Clint stepped up next to Phil, looking out over the street. Phil had already cleared it, which was why the man was still standing in the doorway. But it was an ingrained habit for Clint to do his own visual sweep.
"He can't have gotten far," Clint insisted. He was itching to take off in pursuit, to run down McGuire and put an end to this mission.
Next to him Phil was speaking into his phone, asking for Fury. But before Clint could wonder if he'd been ignored, Phil looked at him.
"We have no idea which direction he went," his handler reasoned.
It was true. But Clint was the best at his job for a reason. He didn't need to know a direction.
"He might still be in the area," he pointed out. "A guy like that would want to make sure no one was left to tie him to this plot." He held up the stack of papers he'd found detailing the hit on the president. "He's gotta be close, Phil. I can feel it."
His instincts were thrumming, his gut tight. McGuire hadn't run. He was close.
Phil nodded, agreeing but not giving the order to pursue. Clint stamped down his impatience as Phil's attention was dragged back to his call. He held up a finger, clearly telling Clint to wait and not do anything reckless.
"Andric is dead. McGuire killed him," Phil told Fury.
Clint shifted, feeling adrenaline coursing through his veins. He needed to move. He needed to act. He scanned the street again out of habit. He saw the light as it shifted. He cocked his head curiously. It was a red beam, not unlike the targeting light he had on his bow. He turned to tell Phil, already reaching out to pull the other man back to cover.
The was a red dot on Phil's chest.
There was no thought process. There was no conscious decision. Clint just moved, reacting to the sight with nothing but instinct. He heard the sharp rapport of a single gunshot as he shoved Phil back a step and shifted to the left to shield him.
A searing pain in his arm as the bullet tore through his bicep, and then Phil was crying out, stumbling back a step and then falling.
"No!" Clint shouted, reaching out to get his arms around Phil before he could hit the ground. He stumbled over Phil's lax limbs as he bodily manhandled him back into the house and behind the cover of the wall. More bullets tore into the air around them and Clint was forced to ignore Phil for the moment.
He drew his bow and reached for an arrow even as he peeked around the edge of the door frame. He only got a quick glimpse of McGuire, but it was all he needed.
Drawing back behind his cover for just long enough to draw a breath, Clint slid the arrow into place and spun out into the open doorway. He brought the bow up as he moved, drawing the string back in one smooth motion. He didn't need to look for McGuire again, he already knew where he was. He let out a breath as he released the string. He didn't have to watch the arrow fly, he knew he'd hit where he aimed.
He dropped his bow carelessly to the ground as he spun back and went to his knees next to Phil. He vaguely heard a brief cry of pain from McGuire, but he ignored it.
"Phil," he called out as he dug into his cargo pocket for a field bandage.
Phil didn't move, his eyes were closed and his skin pale.
"Phil!" Clint barked, pressing the bandage hard onto the wound on Phil's chest.
Nothing, not even a twitch.
"No…no, no, no," Clint muttered to himself as he pressed his fingers against Phil's throat. He tried to calm his own raging pulse and held his breath as he waited. He waited to feel the thump against his fingers.
Nothing.
He hadn't been fast enough.
No.
NO!
Clint gasped as he woke, twisting up on his cot and looking wildly around the room. It took a beat for his surroundings to sink in, for him to realize where he was.
Safe house. Yemen.
Right.
He reached blindly for his phone, nearly knocking it off the small table next to the cot in his haste. He hit the speed dial #1 and brought the phone to his ear. He just needed to hear his voice. It had just been a dream. He knew that. He knew that. But he just needed to hear his voice.
It rang and rang. Then,
"You've reached Phil Coulson. Leave a message and I'll return your call."
Clint hung up without speaking and stared down at his phone.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten Phil's voicemail. Phil always answered…always.
Clint's gut twisted and he kicked off his blanket, reaching for his pants. He found his t-shirt balled up on the floor and wasted precious moments getting it right-side out so he could pull it on. He snagged his shoes as he headed for the balcony door, hopping his way into them as he went.
He burst out onto the balcony and drew in a deep breath of the cool night air. It centered him a little. He turned and hooked his hands around the drain pipe next to the balcony, climbing hand over hand up to the roof.
As soon as his feet hit the rooftop, he took off at a run.
The next rooftop was separated from him by an alley.
He pushed off the edge of his rooftop and for a few amazing moments he was defying gravity. Then his feet hit the next rooftop and he tucked forward into a roll. He flowed to his feet and continued.
He pushed harder and faster as he made his way through the city. He leapt over alleys. He scaled the side of buildings. He jumped, leapt, flew over anything that got in his way.
By the time he circled back to his roof, he was exhausted and sweating. But he felt so much better.
He took his time in the shower, ate cold leftovers for breakfast, and headed out for a day of surveillance. Just like he'd been doing surveillance every day for the two weeks he'd been here. He been bearing the punishment for refusing to kill Natasha Romanoff for nine months now.
As thin as it was wearing, at least Yemen was nice this time of year.
5:30 p.m.
He was just walking into his safe house when his phone suddenly beeped.
He dug it out of his pocket distractedly as he dropped his pack to the floor and tossed his sunglasses onto the cot.
It was a text…from Elena.
'Happy Birthday! Hope to see you soon!'
Clint frowned. Birthday?
He twisted his arm to look at his watch.
April 25.
"Huh…" he huffed. He'd forgotten his own birthday…again.
Though in his defense, days kind of ran together when he was doing back-to-back surveillance assignments.
His phone beeped again.
Two messages now.
'Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you look like a pain in my ass, and you act like one too.' Clint chuckled and rolled his eyes at Todd's message and switched to the next one.
'You've gone months without getting hurt. It's a birthday miracle. Have a nice one, kid.' And there was Dan, sarcasm and sentiment all rolled in one.
He stared at his phone, half expecting it to buzz again. A call this time, surely. Phil would call. That was Phil. Birthdays were a big deal to his handler. He'd been forcing Clint to celebrate for the last few years.
He would call.
But his phone remained silent.
Clint chewed his lip, unwillingly remembering his unanswered call from this morning.
"Stop being needy," he scolded himself. He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and reached for his sunglasses.
He needed to stretch his legs, get some air. Phil would call by the time he got back. Clint was sure of it.
6:30 p.m.
Clint checked his phone as he walked down the street. Nope. He hadn't missed a call. He hadn't gone suddenly deaf and not heard the ringtone he had set at the highest level.
He slid the phone back into his pocket with a sigh. He didn't even care. He didn't even like his birthday.
A muffled cry in the alley up ahead of him had Clint speeding up his walk. He eased around the corner and watched two men holding a woman against the ground by her arms. One had a hand clamped over her mouth and a third man was looming over her.
Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest.
Clint didn't call out. He didn't give them any warning. He just moved.
He slammed his boot into the back of the one holding her right arm, sending him tumbling over her and into his buddy. Then Clint turned, throwing a left cross into Dumbest's jaw. The man stumbled, but didn't go down. While he was recovering, Clint grabbed the woman's flailing arm and yanked her up, pulling her behind him and shoving her back out of the way.
He ducked a broken piece of pipe swung by Dumber and kicked the toe of his boot into Dumb's thigh. When the leg collapsed beneath the man, Clint slammed his elbow into Dumb's temple. As he tumbled to the ground, Clint caught the backswing with the pipe. His hand stung from the impact, but Clint held firm, twisting the pipe from Dumber's grip and swinging it sharply into Dumbest's chest as he lunged forward. Clint hooked his foot behind Dumber's knee and swung the pipe back, cracking it against the man's face and kicking his leg out from under him. Dumber fell and didn't move again. Clint swung back with the pipe, catching Dumbest in the jaw and putting him down with his buddy. Dumb was lurching to his feet and Clint met him with a knee to the chin.
He dropped the pipe and turned back to the woman.
"You okay?" he asked.
She nodded around hiccupping breaths.
"Then go, go home," he instructed gently.
"She's not going anywhere," a voice rang out from behind Clint. He turned to see a large man sliding out of a door that had been mostly hidden in the shadows. "And neither are you."
Behind the new arrival came several more men.
Clint didn't look back at the girl again, but he spoke to her over his shoulder.
"Run," he ordered lowly. He heard her respond to the authority in his tone and take off.
The movement spurred his new opponents into action and they surged forward.
Clint toed the pipe back up into his hand and grinned.
This would be fun.
7:14 p.m.
Clint wiped at the blood dripping from his eyebrow as he gingerly climbed the fire escape back to his safe house. He'd let the fight last longer than he should have. But it had been a slow day, a slow week…month…year. It had felt good to let off some steam. He'd paid a little for that, evidenced in fresh bruises and drying blood.
But damn it had felt good.
He pushed open his safe house door, instincts flaring in immediate warning that he wasn't alone.
He had his gun out of its hidden holster in a half a breath and used it to lead the way inside.
He rounded a corner to see a man wielding a knife.
"Whoa!" Phil shouted.
"Jesus, Phil!" Clint snapped, lowering the gun quickly. "What the hell are you doing here? I almost killed you!"
Phil just rolled his eyes, brushing off Clint's irritation.
"Oh, relax. Your reflexes are way too fast to ever accidentally kill anyone."
"Who said it would have been an accident?" Clint shot back with a feral smirk.
"Is that any way to talk to someone who brought you cake?" Phil motioned with the knife at the small cake on the table.
Clint moved forward and peered down at it. It was simple. Had the words 'Happy Birthday' neatly written on it. Clint furrowed his brow when he noticed that a name had been obviously scraped off.
"Who's cake is this?" he asked skeptically.
"It's yours…now," Phil replied easily.
Clint arched an eyebrow.
"Did you steal a birthday cake, Phil?"
"No!" Phil defended. "Who would do something like that? But I couldn't very well fly one here from New York and pickings were a little slim on such short notice. I had to buy an unclaimed one from a local bakery."
Clint stared at him.
"So it's a second-hand cake?"
"Hey, it's a cake. What more do you want from me?" Phil groused.
Clint just chuckled and shook his head, looking down at the cake.
"Nothing," he murmured.
A warm hand was suddenly squeezing the back of his neck.
"You think I'd miss your birthday, kid?"
Of course he wouldn't. He was Phil.
Clint just shook his head and felt himself smile.
"How'd you swing it? I thought I was still on lock down. No calls. No fun. No joy."
"You are." Phil moved away and started unloading boxes of takeout from a bag on the counter. "Officially, this is a recruiting trip."
Clint nodded and slid his finger along the edge of the cake, gathering some frosting. He licked it off his finger a moment before Phil turned back to face him.
"So, you wanna tell me what the hell kind of trouble you managed to find on a cushy surveillance mission on your birthday?" Phil demanded, gesturing at Clint's haggard appearance.
Clint shrugged a shoulder.
"Clint."
He sighed.
"I saw a girl about to get gang raped in an alley and I put a stop to it. Turned out the three guys I caught in the act had fifteen buddies waiting in the wings."
Phil nodded slowly but didn't scold him further.
"Is there a first-aid kit here?" he asked instead. "I don't want you getting blood in the food."
His handler's concern was poorly concealed, but Clint didn't call him on it. Instead, he just pointed at the cabinet under the sink. A few minutes later he was settled on a kitchen chair with Phil hovering around him with antiseptic and gauze.
It didn't take long for Phil to get him squared away. It had actually been his knuckles that had taken the worst damage and after cleaning and bandaging those, Phil had deigned him fit to eat.
So they ate.
9:43 p.m.
Phil watched Clint gingerly chew his cake and resisted the urge to check the kid's jaw for anything worse than the bruise he'd seen earlier.
Clint wasn't saying much. Though, he rarely did. But there was a vague weight to this silence. Like there was something that needed to be said and Clint, as usual, was unwilling to say it. He studied his protégé a little closer, noticing the weary set to his shoulders. That meant he'd been awake for too many hours. That meant…oh…
He thought of the call he'd had to ignore earlier. The one he hadn't gotten a chance to return.
"I saw I missed a call from you earlier," Phil said abruptly, drawing Clint's startled gaze up to his. "I was in a meeting, trying to get things cleared so I could leave. I figured I'd be seeing you soon anyway so I didn't call back, didn't want to risk your annoying perceptiveness ruining the surprise." Phil eyed Clint critically. "Should I have called you back?"
Clint shook his head immediately, but the way his gaze dropped gave a different answer.
"No, it was nothing."
Phil had known this kid far too long to be fooled by a lie now.
"Cut the bullshit, Clint. This is me and I know you. You look like you've barely slept."
Slightly reluctant blue-gray eyes rose back to meet Phil's.
"It was nothing," Clint said again.
Phil held his gaze. This kind of resistance meant a dream. Clint hated talking about his own vulnerabilities, his own weaknesses.
"What was it about?" he asked quietly.
Clint sighed and rolled his eyes, apparently realizing that Phil wasn't going to let it go. He wasn't sure why that was coming as any sort of surprise.
"It was nothing," Clint insisted.
"Clint."
"Croatia, Phil," Clint snapped. "I had a dream about Croatia."
Phil sat back in his chair, realization dawning. Without meaning to, his gaze slid to Clint's left shoulder, imagining the surgery scar hidden beneath the t-shirt.
"Your shoulder?" he asked carefully.
Clint just forced out a frustrated huff and shook his head.
"No," he stated like Phil was being an idiot. Phil snapped his gaze back up to Clint's, saw the latent heartbreak there, and he knew.
"Oh."
Clint shook his head again and looked away.
"Hey," Phil leaned forward again. "I'm right here. I'm okay."
"I know that," Clint replied. But he still wouldn't look at him. "It's just…you always answer your phone."
Phil sighed.
"I know. I'm sorry," he offered warmly. "I'm sorry," he said again, softer this time.
Clint looked back at him and gave him a slight glare.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to answer your damn phone next time."
Phil nodded dutifully.
"I swear."
Clint held his gaze for a moment longer before nodding.
"Now," Phil stood, heading for his bag, "time for your present."
"What, you being here isn't my present?" Clint said with a latent hint of sarcasm that had Phil turning back to glare at him.
"You know, I hear the sarcasm there, but I'm going to let it slide since it's your birthday."
Clint just grinned.
Phil rolled his eyes and retrieved the brightly wrapped package from his bag. He tossed it at Clint without giving him any warning, but the archer just caught it with a frustrating lack of effort.
He watched Clint tear into it and savored the immediate smile that broke out on the young man's face when the gift was revealed.
Clint opened the Oakley case and immediately slid the new sunglasses onto his face.
"How'd you even know I wanted these?" Clint asked as he looked around, seeing the room through his new shaded view.
"Like I'd ever reveal the source of my power?" Phil teased. "You like them?"
Clint nodded and slid them back off his face.
"I like them even more since I didn't have to pay for them myself. You should really pay me better."
Phil rolled his eyes and stood, starting to clear the table.
"You can take that up with Fury."
Clint scoffed.
"No thanks, I'll take my crap pay over having that conversation any day."
Phil turned back in time to see Clint collecting dishes as well.
"Sit down," he shoved a hand against Clint's shoulder until he was sitting again. "It's your birthday, so the dishes are mine."
Clint held up his hands in surrender. He settled an elbow on the table and propped his head on his hand, snagging some stray frosting off the cake tray. Phil gathered more dishes and moved to the sink. He flipped on the water and started rinsing.
"You know, those sunglasses are going to come in handy. Word is that once you're done here in a few weeks and take a little R&R, they're sending you to Siberia. The new shades will help with the reflection on the snow."
He waited for the complaining. Clint wasn't a big fan of the cold. The frozen tundra of Siberia was probably going to be a great source of moaning and groaning.
But there was nothing.
Phil arched an eyebrow and glanced over his shoulder. He smiled immediately.
Clint's head was still propped on his palm, but his eyes were closed and his cheek was slowing sliding off his hand. Phil shut off the water and wiped his hands on his pants as he moved. He touched Clint's shoulder and was ready for the immediate, defensive flailing in response.
"Easy," he soothed. "It's just me."
He wrapped a hand around Clint's bicep and pulled him up, steering him towards the cot across the room. Clint didn't even offer protest as Phil eased him down onto the bed. Instead, he immediately rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. Phil shook his head with an affectionate chuckle and pulled at Clint's boots.
When those were taken care of, he pulled up the back of Clint's t-shirt and grabbed the hilt of the sheathed knife. He pulled the knife free, flicked Clint's shirt back down and grabbed Clint's nearest hand. He pressed the hilt into it and waited for Clint to tighten his fingers around it and slide it under the pillow before stepping back and turning back to the kitchen.
"Hey, Phil?" Clint's groggy voice rose up from the muffled confines of the pillow.
"Yeah?" Phil paused his retreat.
Clint shifted, squinting eyes appearing out of the pillow.
"Thanks for comin'."
Phil smiled and reached for the edge of the blanket that was bunched at the foot of the bed.
"Happy birthday, kid," he whispered as he pulled the blanket up. Clint's face was already hidden in the pillow again by the time Phil stepped back. He watched him for a moment, seeing his breaths slowly even out.
Satisfied, Phil headed quietly back to the kitchen and the dishes.
He'd have to call Fury.
This recruiting trip was probably going to take him a few days at least.
End of Many Happy Returns: 22
So there you go! Many of you will also be happy to know that the next part to Arrows and Impalas is being released Wednesday! So if you've been following that, get excited! Arlothia did a great job on it!
Drop me a line guys! I love to hear from you! Have you recovered from Untold Stories? Are you living in terror of Not So Ancient History? Are you enjoying Clint's birthday?!