Here is the Re-write! I'm so sorry it was super rough before!

Two Red Birds

By, Peech Tao

Technically he could blame all of this on Natasha, Pepper, or Tony in that exact order. Firstly, his mind deduced, it was Natasha's fault for needed to go out to the mall. Why walking up Fifth Avenue wasn't good enough for her, Clint could not understand. So, they went to the mall. Pepper suggested that she too would come along. Even though Natasha was a trained killer and technically falsified her information to get hired at Stark industries in the first place, that didn't mean Pepper didn't still consider Natasha and her girlfriends who could spend a day shopping and not feel weird about it. Lastly, Tony's intense need to bring Banner along rounded out what was going to be one of the worst afternoons in Clint's life.

But then again he tended to over exaggerate. Clint had a number of difficult afternoons leading to the present one. May 1st saw the invasion of New York by an alien race led by an individual who possessed his brain. A bunch of global killers in a Mexican hideout took him hostage and beat him nearly to death. July 3rd came around, bringing with it a still unidentified rogue aircraft that shot Tony and his jet out of the sky. By July 13th he was performing CPR of Tony Stark and almost ten days later Captain America tried to get him drunk in a bar. And that wasn't even the end of his adventures.

The minute his health clearance came through, SHIELD shipped him off for three straight missions in a row. Eager to get their top agent back in the field they wasted no time in his assignments in. He declined the latest jaunt to spend a little time back at the Tower.

Clint never intended to follow the girls to all the stores they fluttered in and out of while simultaneously reminding them how beautiful they were. Instead he struck out with Banner and Tony. Then Tony began his I-am-Iron-Man stunts for every human being within iPhone-camera distance which gave plentiful reasons for both Banner and Clint to move on.

They found a relatively sedate corner of Macy's in which to rifle through new clothes. Both men were in dire need of updating their wardrobe stacks. Clint, coming off a three week trip to Delhi ended up leaving the majority of his things behind between some local kids he found a soft spot for and the maggot infested dog shelter he bedded down in for five days before his evac arrived.

Banner thumbed absently through the hangers of shirts and the walls of pants. He grew used to the idea of never getting too attached to anything he decided to wear. After all, he was in some strange way shopping for two. His second just happened to be six times his size.

"Going for something besides black?" Dr. Banner asked off-handedly.

Clint looked up from where he squatted next to a stack of cubes and rifled through jean sizes.

"Contrary to popular belief, I sometimes imagine I have an off switch." Clint replied. He pushed his sun glasses on top of his head. "Are you going for something outside the big and tall?"

"Somehow I don't think spending money on an Armani suit would be the wisest purchase with my SHIELD allowance."

The archer snorted and pulled out the size he searched for. He unfolded the jeans and held them up to his waist. He preferred eyeballing his size rather than spending an hour in and out of the dressing room. After all, it was likely these particular jeans would survive a grand two months before they were covered in blood or gamma radiated backwash.

"Are you going to avoid spilling petri dishes on this pair?" Clint asked.

"As I remember it, you ran into that table on your own."

"But seriously, who leaves acid in jars?"

"Every college lab in the country. And a few high school ones."

"I never attended either."

"Ignorance does not make you exempt." Bruce pulled out a shirt he actually liked the color of. "And I am sorry about that."

"I really liked those jeans." Clint complained. He looked over and inspected the shirt Bruce contemplated over. "I like that shirt. You going to get it?"

Bruce pulled it off the rack and held it up. "I do like it."

They stared at the shirt for a minute indecisively. When the moment ended, Bruce put the shirt back on the rack.

"I'd feel bad destroying it." He said off-handedly.

Clint agreed, but grabbed the shirt back, checked the size, then put it over his arm with his new pair of jeans. At the gamma green gaze Bruce shot his way, Clint could only shrug.

They'd agreed to meet up with Tony again around two p.m. at the ground level Red Robin. As it broached one thirty already, they decided to finish with Clint's check out and start over toward the restaurant. On their way Banner remembered he needed a pack of socks and, after grabbing a six-pack of Hanes off an end-cap, he added them in with Clint's things and forked over a five dollar bill.

Clint carried the bag out.

In general the populace tended to ignore them. Few recognized Clint's face since the battle of New York, despite having his own action figure and television show now widely distributed. Being a spy under SHIELD meant most of his facial recognition had been altered over time to prevent quality images from existing. Even Facebook couldn't find him in a crowded photo collage. When it came to Bruce, most identified him as the Hulk. His milder mannered human half received all the anonymity he could hope to enjoy in life. Very few outside of the dire hard scientific community recognized Bruce for the Hulk he was and even fewer approached him over it.

With the advent of the digital age it was difficult to find somewhere in the world that did not recognize one of the Avengers. Traveling in a group was even more of a risk, but sometimes it was unavoidable. This particular day it seemed Tony had made enough of a spectacle of himself to attract all the attention to himself which left the others in a relative peace. Bringing Thor along, would have been the supreme mistake.

Clint's phone signaled him just as Bruce and he made it to the lower level escalator. He checked the number before answering. He mouthed Natasha's name to Bruce's curious look.

"Hey, yeah we're meeting up downstairs with Tony. Lunch. - Uh, huh. - I don't care what you got in Victoria's Secret if you won't at least show it to me. -Ok, don't get snippy, I apologize. -Of course I didn't mean that, what guy wouldn't want to know what panties you're packing? Are you coming to lunch? - No? - Yeah, I understand. - No, I agree, picking out Yankee Candle scents takes skill. - Oh, I'm sorry, Littlest Soap Shop then. What about Pepper? - Ok, I'll tell him."

Clint held his hand to the receiver and spoke over his shoulder to Bruce. "Girl's just finished filling up their bags fully of lacy underwear and all she wants to tell me about is how nice her new soap smells. I mean . . . really? Oh, Pepper says she can make it to lunch. She's not hungry, they went someplace. Cinnabun or something."

The chatting phone continued to buzz without his attention and, filling Bruce in, Clint placed the set back to his ear to listen in. "What? No, I was talking to Bruce. - I got an outfit, he got some socks so far. - Look, I live life out of a rucksack, I don't need a lot of clothes for that. I'll make sure he gets something. - Yeah, look, we're here and I'm hanging up. Have fun. - No, I didn't mean that either."

Clint hung up the phone and slid it back into his pocket.

"You sure have a way with them." Banner commented.

"Hulk doesn't seem to mind it."

"Come to think of it, this love affair between you and my other half has strange written all over it."

"It's not strange! It's called mutual respect of persons. He gets the fact that I give him reign to do whatever he wants – fine, within reason—and he gets to throw me through the air, or plant me on the top of buildings or something. It satisfies his King Kong complex."

Bruce shook his head, smiling. "Regardless, your touch, whatever it is, works wonders on Agent Romanov's sunny side."

"Yeah, sure I do. Apparently Natasha is ordering me to make sure you buy some new clothes. You know what that's called? Being whipped, is what it's called."

"Didn't she threaten to murder you a few weeks ago just for dancing with a girl?"

"I think she still has a thing for me." Clint touched the arrowhead necklace looped around his neck and smiled. "She just doesn't admit it."

Clint pulled open the door to Red Robin and waited for Bruce to walk in before he followed behind. He dropped Tony's name with the waitress to find that Stark had already arrived and waited in the corner for them. Bruce slid in across from Tony with Clint pressing in beside him.

The eatery wasn't much altered from every other casual dining establishment in Northern New Jersey. Most of the walls were adorned in sports memorabilia with five out of seven flat screens displaying the same Red Sox vs. Yankees baseball game. A rectangular bar jutted across the center of the room like an island with two groups of three men each taking up positions on either side. Despite the time of day, tall tankards of foamy beer rested in front of them.

Tony picked a corner out in the far right hand of the restaurant on the opposite side of the kitchen and restroom entryways. He hated being in busy corners. They were walled in by of B-rated baseball gloves at Tony's back and crossed lacrosse sticks to right of Bruce. Clint and Bruce's left side was the only open air available for the waitress who may inevitably show up for their order. The place was definitely more up to Steve's speed than the three who currently occupied the booth.

"Fancy digs, Stark. Will you even eat anything on this menu?" Bruce asked smiling. He knew as well as anyone Stark's distaste for poorly handled foodstuffs.

"Steak. Steak is safe. Full of calorie-clogging grease sure to kill me faster than the shrapnel cutting into my chest."

"You say that so happily." Bruce smiled.

"Are you going to design something to get it out?"

Bruce's eyebrow arched. "That would be a challenge, wouldn't it?"

"If you come up with something, we'll test it on Flyguy. No doubt he's got metal floating around in him someplace."

Clint scoffed. "Oh no, the last time you tested something out on me, I went blind for twelve hours."

Bruce chuckled, shaking his head. When the waitress showed up, Clint was the first to go simple and order a cheeseburger. It was a little early to drink so he went for straight water. On Tony's suggestion he avoided the potential salmonella that would have ensued should he have agreed to have a lemon in his water. Strange how Clint survived to this point without him?

Bruce wasn't much in a hungry mood, but he went for fish and chips anyway, expecting to pick around his plate and Clint's.

Tony went with a soup, he didn't even ask for the flavor but instead agreed instantly to whatever the soup of the day was and a basket of fries. He asked for a glass of weed grass and carrot juice which . . . surprisingly? . . . the restaurant did not have available. After a little him-haw about having it "his way" he agreed to a cranberry juice. With lemon.

When the waitress retreated Clint stared a pair of daggers across the table at him.

"You know, Clint, if I don't express concern over your health, then who will?" Tony said.

"I'm taking your lemon." Clint replied deadpan.

"You can try. But you will, most likely, fail. Because I can scream. And biting I could be reduced to using should the occasion call for it."

"Besides, I don't think we'll be staying long."

"I noticed you didn't care what they gave you. Did you accidentally anger some dames WWF boyfriend again?" Clint smiled as he asked it, scanning the room again for any untoward body builders.

"I resent that, she was really a man and her girlfriend was an MMA fighter. Much more respectable."

"Oh I remember that!" Bruce exclaimed. "She tore you up."

Exacerbated with the turn in the conversation, Tony sat back in the booth and folded his arms behind his neck. He wore a new Armani suit-jacket and if Clint wasn't mistaken, those Nikes he spied beneath the table were still wearing labels. Neither, he knew, were items Tony had entered the mall with.

"Steal yourself a wardrobe?" Hawkeye asked.

The drinks arrived and after an instant table scuffle, Clint was victorious in the theft of Bruce Banner's lemon. Satisfied, Tony picked up the conversation again as if they hadn't left off.

"Can I help it if my fans dote on me and just happen to work at the precise places I shop for new clothes?"

"You know, I think you could help that." Bruce interjected.

Clint laughed in his straw.

Tony's phone went off and for a while the table filled with the billionaire's one-sided conversation with Pepper about what scent he preferred for their mutual bathroom. As Clint stirred his drink, he remembered thinking how funny it was that Tony could be so involved in exactly what sort of floral undertones he tolerated and from there proceeded to discuss what color soaps would best match the Feng-shui of their bathroom drapery.

"You know I've never cared for army green. It makes me feel too penned up. I think Bruce would agree with me. I like going home and feeling comfortable, you know?"

For a little while at least, Clint was lost to those moments of domesticity that will only exist between two lovers like Tony and Pepper. Listening to them banter was like a peak into the only normalcy they must experience as a couple.

Enjoying their moment of mutual bliss was short lived. A commotion to their left and Tony's right interrupt his introspection. A row of waitresses filed down an aisle, clapping all the way with a sparkler topping a slice of cheesecake. Off in the middle of the restaurant someone began singing Happy Birthday. Clint watched them for a minute, wondering if he should on a whim subject Tony to the same punishment.

"Pepper, I can't talk too long, we'll be leaving soon."

"Tony, you keep saying that, what's up?" Bruce asked. He stirred his drink with his straw, secretly dipping his fingers into a distracted Hawkeye's glass to retrieve the procured lemon slice.

Tony placed his hand over the receiver. "As there is no longer a sniper rifle aimed at my forehead, I think I can safely say you may want to consider getting mad."

Clint turned back to Tony. The conversation had obviously taken a strange turn and Tony's face became the epitome of just that. Pepper's voice was nearly loud enough to hear across the table.

The birthday goers finished their singing and clapping. Now they were party-popping like madmen. Surely half the restaurant would going to be covered by confetti before they were done. The six men at the bar never stirred to watch. In fact, their eerie stillness caught Clint's attention more than once. He found his eyes on them again before he scanned the restaurant for the fifth time in as many seconds.

"Pepper, we need to talk later. Mind sending Natasha our way? And call the captain?"

"Tony, what's going on?"

Clint half stood in the booth. Blood pulsed like a tidal wave behind his eardrums, blocking the world out into a slow woosh-woosh-woosh of suspended movement. Bruce's face changed from a look of confusion, to genuine concern, and lastly panic. Tony's eyes fixed on someplace beyond their table as suddenly he got up and sunk back down. He grabbed the bottom of the table, trying his hardest to upend it, but given most casual dining restaurants nailed their tables down, he didn't have any luck at that.

Clint flipped his head to the front door to see what Tony had easily picked up on given his seat opposite of the archer. From the far left and directly behind Clint's seat came a slew of armed gunman. They joined the six men at the bar and the three other tables of silent diners who all bore similar semi-automatics.

The agent's body reacted automatically, even though it took a while for his mind to catch up.

It didn't make sense. Armed gunman, even petty thieves, just didn't show up at local Red Robins and begin killing people. This was a mall. That sort of oddity just did not fit, no matter how hard Clint tried to wrap his brain around it.

Clint shot a look under the table at the hiding Tony Stark. "What the Hell did you do now?!"


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