DAREDEVIL AND HAWKEYE
NO SLASH
The Christmas lights had long since faded into big blurry balls of light surrounding the building he was currently watching through his glorified magnifying lens. The tips of his hair were frosted over, frozen into what Barton would've sworn could be lethal spikes. There was a good inch of snow covering his back and the ground around him. No matter how many times he blinked, the ice still crusted in his eyelashes, landing on his nose. He focused more on regularly brushing it off his rifle and keeping his hands from losing feeling than he did on anything else. The most frustrating thing though, by far, was the way his scope kept fogging. It made keeping track of Murdock more difficult than was strictly necessary. Daredevil was fast as hell and functioned almost exclusively in the shadows, which made Hawkeye's job even harder. He hated the snow almost as much as he hated the rain.
And he was frickin' cold.
His intervention wasn't needed until Murdock got into the main office of the penthouse, and by then, his fingers were stark white, tinged purple, and he could barely feel trigger against the pad of his finger. He could hear Murdock's breathing through his hearing aids and tried to ignore it and regulate his own breathing. As his inhalations and exhalations leveled out, he began the mental calculations in his head.
39.4 meters between the ridge he was lying on and the building Murdock was in.
39.4 meters, 129.4 feet.
He was 150 meters off the ground, Murdock 128.
102 degree angle from the muzzle of his gun to the floor of the penthouse.
7 mph hour winds.
30 caliber rounds leaving the rifle at 2,820 FPS.
The measurements and subsequent ballistics that took place took over the course of two seconds were followed immediately by his frozen index finger stroking the trigger and the bang of the bullet exiting the rifle.
The man who had gotten a few good hits in with his sword crumpled and Daredevil wasted no time altering his footpath to avoid tripping over the incapacitated body. Shots rang out one after the other, each explosion followed by the thud of at least one body hitting the ground, sometimes more. Barton didn't kill when he operated missions with Murdock. It bothered the Devil. The shots he fired were meant only to drop them, legs, arms, non-lethal torso shots carefully executed to avoid the major organs. The noise of Hawkeye's rifle attracted the rest of the guards Daredevil had cautiously avoided alerting to his presence, Barton had his back though, leaving him with only a few men to fight off while he fiddled with the safe, tuning his hearing to the locking mechanism inside it. It took all of fifteen seconds for him to have the door swinging open and the USB in his hand. Then he was gone, out the window via the zip line Hawkeye's bow had created for him when they first arrived.
They wound up back at the safe house at nearly two in the morning on Christmas day. At least, it was Christmas in Tirana, it was still Christmas Eve back home.
Barton had pulled Murdock's arm over his shoulder about a quarter mile out of the op site. The blood loss was making him shaky on his feet and Barton was done with freezing his ass off, so the faster he got his partner to the house, the sooner her could light the fireplace and sit his frozen ass down in front of it. Though, the longer they walked, the more of Murdock's weight fell on Barton's shoulders.
Well…. Shit.
"Murdock?" he called, only realizing when he couldn't quite hear the full volume of his own voice that the freaking ice had screwed with his hearing aids.
Double shit.
"Can you hear me, Murdock?" he asked, lowering his voice out of habitual self-consciousness. Murdock squeezed his shoulder lightly. "Alright, you've gotta hold it together for another mile. Then we'll patch you up." he said. Another squeeze.
Their safe house was a wood cabin, with no heating. Just a front and backdoor, a fireplace, two cots, a mini fridge, and a crappy little, puke colored couch. Barton had bitched about it, but Coulson had promptly hung up on him. He slapped the hand covered in Murdock's blood against the palm scanner. The heavy duty lock clicked and he kicked the door open with his combat boot clad foot, helping Murdock inside before it could ricochet off the wall and hit them in the ass.
Barton set his rifle case, and compact recurve, down just inside the door and dumped Murdock rather unceremoniously onto the couch, the blind man's groan of pain falling on nearly deaf ears. Barton turned to get the first aid kit but the other man's hand grasped his, dragging him to a stop. Murdock's other hand raised, then came down in a fist, a point in Barton's direction, and a tap at his ear.
Can you hear me?
Hawkeye shook his head angrily, then grabbed the hand he was using to sign and pushed it down against the stab wound in his side.
"Pressure." He instructed. Murdock nodded.
Fire first. He mouthed to the deaf half of the partnership. He narrowed his eyes hesitantly, then realized just how warm Murdock's hand was around his. He wouldn't be able to complete a single stitch with his hands half frozen. So he moved away from his partner, tossing some wood on the fire, striking a match and throwing it in after the logs. He let his hands defrost for a moment before even bothering trying to struggle with the zipper on his coat. Once a little bit of the feeling had returned, he set to work stripping off his soaked and stiff jacket, then his fleece, then his long sleeved shirt and finally his tee shirt. His boots followed, thudding to the floor almost too close to the fire. His cargo pants were for the most part water proof so he left those on as he shuffled around the small safe house collecting the stuff he needed to fix up his partner's broken body. Those things consisted of a tee out of his SHIELD issued go bag, a half empty, drug store bought bottle of vodka, and the huge first aid kit that took up more space in the safe house than Matt himself did.
By the time Barton returned to Murdock's side, the man looked to be almost entirely passed out, hand limp over the deepest stab wound he was supposed to be applying pressure to.
"Matt," Clint called quietly, tapping his cheek gently then ducking out of swinging range. The right hook never flew though. The man's head just twisted to glance at Clint. "Hey there. Let's get you up and undressed." He instructed. He loved that Matt's hearing surpassed superhuman. It meant he could whisper when he couldn't hear and still be heard by the other man. It cured a little of his insecurity. That thought reminded him exactly how useless his hearing aids were right now, and he ripped them out, tossing them angrily on the cot behind him. Matt flinched softly in their direction and his eyebrow arched questioningly. "Frickin' ice, man." He sighed in explanation. Matt smiled a little bit. "Alright Matty, up an at 'em." He slipped a naked arm under Daredevil's body's feeling the red Kevlar slide along his calloused forearm. He lifted Matt up into a sitting position, almost grateful he couldn't hear the small groan that he could feel shuddering through the vigilante.
Clint made quick work of the suit, settling with pulling it down to the man's waist then letting him lay flat again. His face had gone impossibly whiter at being made to sit up. He started laying out the things he needed on the floor beside him where he knelt beside the couch. Straight lines of instruments in the order he would need them. Vodka, shirt, disinfectant, sterile napkins, suture needle, thread, gauze, medical tape.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Matt's nose crinkle and smirked slightly. It had taken him a little longer to sniff out the vodka, but only by a few seconds.
V-O-D-K-A?
Matt finger spelled shakily.
"You'll want it." Clint responded. "Trust me."
Matt's hand shook the whole way to his head, then even more so with the fist he dragged away from his body and the finger that pointed at Clint.
I trust you.
Clint unscrewed the bottle, being sure to create as much noise doing so as he could.
"Here," he said, holding it out to Matt who opened his mouth. Clint poured what was almost a mouthful over his tongue and watched him swallow hard and cough. The hand lying limply on the couch, beside the half of his body not losing blood by what looked like the gallon, reached out for the bottle gripped it tightly. "Take another swig. You'll want something to bite down on and it shouldn't be a glass bottle. Matt obeyed while lifting his other blood drenched hand up, making a fist then spreading his fingers.
How many?
"Nine maybe." Murdock took three more swallows then lowered the bottle for Clint to take, wishing that he was as much of a lightweight as his partner. He lifted it onto the floor and rolled up the dingy purple shirt he'd grabbed, holding it in front of Matt's face until his mouth opened and the smell of vodka wafted out.
I'm going to ruin your shirt.
Murdock signed as Clint pushed it into his mouth and brushed his knuckles against Matt's cheek letting him know he could bite down. Clint chuckled in the tone of admirable disbelief Matt knew generally preceded a question.
It smells like you.
"Don't worry, it's old anyway." Clint said as he unscrewed the cap from the disinfectant. He sighed and took Matt's hand then and guided it to wrap around his upper bicep. The hand not holding the bottle pressed down on Matt's chest in an attempt to hold him down when the inevitable jerk happened. His fingers tapped the blind man's chest. First three fingers, then two, then one, accompanied by Murdock sucking air in through his nose. Clint poured, a good half of the bottle, over the wound that blood was still oozing from. He left the rest for the other shallower cuts and paid no attention to staining the couch with it. Matt's blood was already absorbed into the cushion, like that of many SHIELD agents before him. His body jerked upwards hard against Clint's palm. He couldn't hear the deep yell of pain but could feel it vibrating in the chest that had ceased to rise and fall under his palm.
"Breathe, Matt." Clint instructed firmly. His chest rose sharply with obedience. The hand on his bicep had tightened impressively, shaking with the effort of using Clint's arm as an outlet for pain. He tipped the bottle upwards again, ceasing the flow of disinfectant over the sword wound.
Clint was kind of done with people stabbing Matt with swords. He used the napkins to wipe away as much of the blood as he could. Then threaded the needle and wasted no time beginning to stitch his skin back together. Matt passed out after the third one; a combination of exhaustion, overexertion, massive blood loss and pain.
When Matt came to, the shirt was removed from his mouth, the taste of vodka had been replaced with the taste of Clint's toothpaste, his sliced up uniform traded out for Clint's SHIELD issued sweatpants and the shirt Matt knew to have Barton printed across the back. The shallow cuts were held together by butterfly bandages, the deepest one throbbing and packed expertly with gauze and medical tape. And then there was one, just above the waist band of the sweats covered by a Bandaid, and if he had to guess it was-
"It's Hello Kitty!" Clint chirped quietly but excitedly.
Matt chuckled and immediately regretted it.
"Yeah I wouldn't do that." Clint sighed, voice carrying something that sounded like both sympathy, sadness and guilt.
Matt turned his head and arched an eyebrow questioningly. Clint's hawk eyes caught it of course, regardless of how much he would've liked to pretend otherwise.
"Should've taken him out before he skewered you." Clint laughed dryly and Matt heard him stand and move over to the portion of the safe house that was very loosely considered a kitchen. He could smell the cup of sugar that Clint topped with coffee, and a second cup of brutally black coffee that Clint liked to say was the coffee they served at the Starbuck's in hell.
The nearly silent thuds of Clint's feet as he walked back over to the couch. The clink of his glass being set down. The rustle of his pants as he shuffled closer to Matt. Then the feeling of his hand being lifted into the archery calloused hand and led to the mug of scalding black coffee. Matt wrapped his hand around it and set it down on the couch, next to his thigh, leaving his hand on it to keep it from tipping over. The following sentence was signed awkwardly, speed lost due to his ability to only use one hand. The other was occupied keeping the coffee from hell from adding a burn the injuries marring his chest.
I asked you not to kill. If we were doing it your way, this wouldn't have happened. But we're doing it my way and therefore the consequences are my own fault. You had a kill shot. I asked you not to take it. This isn't your fault.
Clint laughed. "Lawyered."
Matt carried on as if he hadn't made the same comment he always did whenever something Matt said sounded correct.
There isn't anyone else I trust to have my back.
Clint scoffed incredulously.
"No chick flick moments. Drink your coffee, Devil Boy."
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