A/N: Hey anyone who bothered to click on this. First fic ever for me, don't expect perfection. This is more of a trial chapter than anything. If you like it, review, maybe I'll write a second. If you hate it, that's great, please tell me what I did wrong, I'm sure there's a lot. BTW my major is psychology not English so yeah, things you didn't really need to know.
Disclaimer: This is m for (potential, depending on response) dom/sub themes, this is SLASH, i repeat, men will be doing the things with other men. I don't own the avengers, marvel does. If you have major problems with anything stated here, I suggest you stop reading. I cant make you stop, but I can advise it.
Tony Stark was dying.
Not in the literal sense. He was in the best physical shape of his life, and no longer had palladium poisoning his blood. But his emotional ailments were more severe than any illnesses he had ever faced.
He hid well. He always had. Everyone close to him thought Pepper was his soul mate, including her, he assumed. But being alone was an unfortunate addition; his pain was nearly impossible to locate, not to say he hadn't tried. The many romantic interests in the past had unintentionally masked his solitude. Most were tests, experiments attempting to discover if his ability to connect had finally developed. Some were special. He had legitimately tried with Pepper. He did like her, he thought. He liked her enough to let serve as his companion for years, and more recently, she had remained his girlfriend for far longer than any previous endeavor.
There had been many women, a somewhat notorious amount, and some men, just to see if it made a difference. Each time he had allowed himself to hope for a connection, and every single time, he failed to feel any attachment. He found that each experiment managed to push him deeper into the chasm, but the further he went, the more desperate he became to get out.
It wasn't about finding the right person. The problem wasn't from incompatibility. He didn't find all of them boring. In fact he liked many of them. The problem was internal. He was the only constant in all of the relationships; therefore he was the one unable to connect.
Perhaps his strongest friendships were with the other members of the Avengers. They didn't always get along too well, he and Steve didn't exactly see eye to eye most of the time, but they were fun to be around. Out of all of them he was closest to Bruce. They had a mutual love of science, and got along quite well, which was a blessing, considering how much time Tony spent in the lab. He found that work was the only thing that could take his mind out of the dark place it lived in, and at least this way he was doing something productive. Due to the lack of appropriate housing, Tony had remodeled Stark Tower to provide appropriate accommodation for each of the avengers. The only one that wasn't living there was Hawkeye. Tony couldn't say he minded much though. He wasn't entirely sure the mind control wouldn't resurface again, and Barton didn't seem all that friendly to begin with. Pepper was the one that insisted they include a room for him, but Tony still added a few extra security features to be safe. Pepper seemed to like control, and he didn't mind letting her have her way, but he still felt the constant ache of loneliness.
His larger pain stemmed from places he could not find, rooted somewhere in the portion of his mind he kept secret from everyone. It caused him to work through the night, and when he did manage to sleep for any period of time, his dreams were torn apart by it. He had tried and tried to figure out the source of the depression, he had contemplated on the trauma in his life, from his father's absence, to the battle for New York, and still hadn't found the answer. He had thought about therapists, he could have the best psychologists and psychiatrists in the world begging for the job, but there was no one he trusted. He could talk to Pepper, she wouldn't tell, but without a connection between them he would be unable to gauge her reactions, and know that she would stay with him once she knew everything.
Over the past few years he came up with many theories as to what would resolve his suffering. Everything he tried failed. Even drugs, which were supposed to take away all his feelings, only managed to numb his loneliness. He found himself wondering if the two pains were connected. Perhaps if he managed to go deep enough inside himself to resolve his emotional damage, he might be able to connect. But even with his genius intellect, he couldn't see any solution in sight. He had considered suicide, he often felt the desire for death, but work always kept him going. Just knowing that he was doing something that mattered always kept him from anything extreme, now more than ever.
It was fall in Manhattan, Tony always had liked fall. He knew Pepper disliked fall, it reminded her that another winter was coming. The temperature had been her one complaint with moving to New York, but she didn't put up much of a fight. Here he had access to all the lab equipment and technology he could ever need.
Tony had been working on new suits for the past 3 weeks, and the process was starting to bore him. There were only so many specializations he could make until he started repeating the suits in different colors. He was almost happy when his earpiece started ringing.
"Why do I feel like I should be avoiding apologizing?"
"Perhaps because I had to give away some of the rarer merlot from our collection to make up for the fact that you completely skipped the entire Von Schinder luncheon?" At least she wasn't completely furious.
"Sorry, I had some…scheduling conflicts, I think."
"It was 4 hours long Tony, all you had to do was show up for 5 minutes."
"Maybe I was saving the world again."
"That's strange, I didn't see any aliens or gods with scepters."
"Would you be less mad if I just forgot or was deliberately avoiding it?"
"Funny Tony, really funny. But we need to talk tonight, can you remember dinner at 8?" He was definitely in trouble now
"I can try." She would think that was sarcasm, but he would need a reminder from Jarvis.
"Goodbye Tony."
"Bye honey, love you." He almost felt bad lying.
*.*.*.*.*.*
"Are the flowers too much?"
"It's a little much Tony, but thank you. And I didn't ask you to dinner just to scold you."
"What, you want to spank me?"
"Tony, we're in public…"
"We can go home if you want to that much."
"You know that's not what I meant. Ok, moving on, Director Fury called me, because apparently you wouldn't pick up"
"What? He scares me." At least this was true.
"Anyway, he said Clint Barton would be moving into Stark Tower tomorrow."
"Why does he think he can decide who I let in my building? It's private property. He should at least give me some warning first, rather than tell me the day before. What if I want more security added? What if I want to build a containment cell?"
"Tony, you can't still blame Clint for what he did, he was being controlled."
"Oh, it's 'Clint' now? I didn't realize you were so fond of him." The disapproval was real, the jealousy was not.
"You don't know him. You can't expect me to accept your opinion of him"
"You don't know him either, and you seem to have quite an opinion."
"I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, you should too. He did kill quite a few aliens as himself."
"If he kills everyone, it's your fault."
Clint wasn't the same. He still acted like he had before, enough to pass all the psych tests, and have extended conversations with Fury without alerting him. But he could feel the differences in everything he did. He filled his time with SHIELD special assignments, disabling terrorist cells, assassinating threats to national security, and gathering intelligence. Out of all the directives floating around in his mind, two seemed logical, and one worried him. The logical directives were to keep away from the rest of the Avengers, and to prove that he was still useful to SHEILD. He knew Nat would immediately forgive him, she probably wouldn't even consider it forgiving. Thor would understand the power of the tessaract, and not blame him for his actions. But he didn't know what Steve, Tony, or Bruce would think. After killing so many agents, he owed SHEILD for not killing him and risking more lives. What worried him was a small change in his attitude toward his work. Killing people, no matter who his target was, had always been a duty, one to perform out of necessity, but now it seemed like a privilege.
He hadn't been overjoyed to receive the orders to come to New York and join the rest of the super squad. Fury had to know he preferred to keep his distance, it wasn't like learning teamwork was necessary for him anyway. He always fought alone, even when other people were fighting on his side. He watched and he shot. That was what he was good at. He could map arrow ricochets, he could calculate any shot he could make, he could strategize, but working with other people was not an option. The difficulty, as with everything involving other people, was communication. How was he supposed to hit anything with 5 other people shouting in his ear? If he planned it out, he should be able to see everyone involved in the engagement from his vantage point, but warning his team members of danger before they were killed was an entirely different matter. The reason he liked Nat, more than he'd like to admit, was that she was able to understand him without the need for words. The thought of her always managed to distract him in the most unfortunate circumstances. Maybe they could be something, he didn't know, he'd never tried real feelings.
He didn't know why they had to pick him anyway. He wasn't super. Sure he was strong and could see better than most, but that hardly qualified him to be on a team that contained a god. Nat was the only other normal one, and she didn't seem to mind being there too much, he thought there might be a chance he wouldn't hate every second.
He hadn't bothered to pack much. He never did anymore. The only things he needed were his arrows, his bow, and his uniform. Civilian clothes were pointless, he could buy them whenever he needed them, and he hadn't in a very long time. A part of him missed living in one location for more than a few weeks, it was a small part, but it was becoming obvious while he sat and waited. He was realizing how much he wanted to leave the endless cycle of assignment, debriefing, assignment, debriefing. It had helped in the beginning. Having a routine meant he didn't have any time that was unaccounted for. His brain only had to deal with the guilt of killing hundreds of innocent people in small, manageable amounts during the short amount of time he allowed his mind to wander. But all that was over, at least for now. He would go to New York and force himself to make friends with the other avengers.
oOo
The flight was only a few hours, so rather than sleep, Clint planned to do the official write-up of his activities, but he had done that last night when he found he couldn't sleep. Nervousness, that was a new feeling for him. For once he actually seemed to want to fit in. He wanted the other avengers to like him, it was a long shot, but he still hoped they wouldn't avoid him 24/7. He wondered what Nat would think when she got the news. Her feelings were a mystery to him. He could never judge her reactions, but he imagined she would be some level of happy to see him. Would she blame him for avoiding her though? He would have to tell her she wasn't the one she was avoiding. But was even that true? He hadn't thought about that. He wanted to see her, but it was more complicated than that. She had saved him, she had saved him before, but this seemed different. Any of the other Avengers would have killed him without a second thought, but she had knocked him out, and gave his mind back to him in the process.
He didn't know what to think about that. Did she really have feelings strong enough to risk dying and allowing many other deaths just to bring him back? His feelings toward her were definitely not that strong. Not anymore. There was a time when he would have done anything for her, But that time was over for him. She was his only girlfriend. He wasn't ashamed that it was her, or that there was only one. After her, he had decided it wasn't worth it. He often remembered how she felt the first time they had been together. He missed that more than anything. There were other parts he would miss, the trust between them, the understanding, but that had stayed even after they stopped sleeping together. But all of it, the sex, the connection between them, it wasn't worth the control she had over him. He had disregarded all his morals for her. He would have killed anyone on earth to be with her. That was the reason for keeping his distance from women. He had never viewed men sexually. The only complaint he had with gay people was how they complicated things, but even that didn't really matter to him.
They were landing in a few minutes, and the only thing he'd managed to do throughout the entire flight was make himself even more nervous, he hoped it wouldn't show. The tower had its own helipad, but he felt like driving. He didn't drive much, most of his activities involved being silent and invisible, but he navigated the heavy rush hour traffic decently. When he arrived at Stark Tower, he had to circle around it a few times to take in its size. When he finally parked and walked into the building, he still wasn't ready for what he found inside. The lobby (if you could call it that) was as large as the average stadium. There had to be thousands of people, all in a great hurry, walking and running through it. The sheer number of possible combatants was already making his head split in half. Pepper Potts was briskly walking through the sea of people as businesslike as your average CEO, she must have had lessons. He remembered her from the one time he had seen her during the battle of New York. She had an entourage of assistants and security accompanying her, and for a minute, he thought they hadn't been informed of his reassignment and were here to throw him out. As soon as she made eye contact with him her face arraigned itself into a much practiced smile.
"Welcome Mr. Barton, or should I call you Hawkeye?" Maybe her smile was a little more genuine than he'd thought.
"Clint is fine, thanks for receiving me on such short notice, Ms. Potts. I realize I'm not your favorite person, but once you tell me the way to my room, you won't have to deal with me much longer." He could tell his nervousness was about as subtle as your average lighthouse.
"Pepper, please. And I don't want to hear any self-hate from what happened; you weren't responsible for any of your actions. I want you to know that we don't blame you at all, and the team is happy to have you join them." She was lying about the team, even he could tell.
"I don't want to take up too much of your time. You seem like a busy person."
"Don't be silly, of course I'll show you around, the building is far more complicated than it looks. It should only take about half an hour, and then I'll let you join the rest of the team."
She didn't seem to hate him, so he allowed himself a bit of hope. The tour turned out to be quite useful. He always liked to know everything about his surroundings, but in a building this size, it would take months to map out. His room was much more than he'd expected. Each of the Avengers (except Tony) had their own little complex near the top of Stark Tower. They weren't huge, but they each had a private living room, office, bathroom, and bedroom. The closet was obviously meant for quite a bit more than just the two uniforms he'd brought, he'd have to remember to go shopping tomorrow, assuming he was allowed to leave. That was a stupid thought, of course he could leave. If they didn't like him, why would they make him stay here? Pepper had left him in his room to unpack and sleep a bit if he wanted to, but he really just wanted to see Nat as soon as possible. He had to calm down first though. He wouldn't win anything for looking desperate. His mind was still busy looking for vantage points as he walked towards the labs, probably to distract him from the thinking about how he was about to walk into a room filled with superhumans that didn't like him all that much. As soon as he turned the corner, Nat noticed him immediately.
"Clint!" Well she didn't seem to blame him for avoiding her, and if her tone was anything to go by, she was ecstatic.
"Nat! How are you?" He didn't really need to ask, he could see she was fine, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.
"Great now, I haven't seen you in forever!" What's the correct response to that?
"I know, I was just screwing my head back on." Maybe the somewhat honest approach would do well. She finally released him, which let him see that everyone was staring at them. Thor was smiling, Bruce seemed happy, but reserved, Steve looked cautious, and Tony was frowning slightly.
"Before I formally introduce myself, I want to say that I owe you a great debt for letting me live, when killing me would have saved many lives. I don't know how I can make that up to you, but I'll never stop trying." Fuck it, might as well get everything out now. "I wasn't just accidentally put on assignments, I requested them. I figured you wouldn't want me here after what I did, and this way I could do something to help. There were many other reasons, but those were the most important. I would still be out in the Middle East if it weren't for special orders from Fury to relocate to Stark Tower. So the most I can do is hope I'm not intruding too much already, and try to stay out of your way."
"Nonsense! A human of your ability is always welcome here!" He hadn't expected such a reaction from Thor, but he felt a bit more relieved.
"Your actions were not your fault, and judging you based on them would be a mistake. You don't have to introduce yourself by the way, we know your name by now, and don't bother with Dr. or Mr. or any of those formalities. Tony and Steve don't mind either." He could see that Steve did mind a little, but he wasn't about to call him Captain when he was never in the navy.
"Hello, Mr. Barton. You don't owe us anything. It would be unjust of us to kill you when you were not the perpetrator of your actions. My only concern is a relapse into the other mindset." Steve was honest, but he talked like he was scolding him.
"I suppose you'll be a decent addition to the team. You don't have much in the way of super powers, but you certainly know how to kill." He didn't know whether Tony was just bad at being friendly, or not making any effort to hide his dislike of the new guy. He was betting on the second.
"Tony, at least try to be nice." He wished Nat wouldn't fight his battles for him, but support couldn't hurt.
"I'll stay out of your way Tony; you don't have to bully me into submission."
"No, I don't. I think Loki already covered the submission part. Did you like serving him, how was the sex?" He could feel his cheeks reddening, but he forced himself to remain calm.
"TONY!" Nat was visibly livid. Thor looked slightly confused. Bruce was alternating between trying not to laugh and looking apologetic.
"Tony, be friendly, we're all on the same team. You should apologize to Clint." Steve really did like scolding. But in this case, it was deserved.
"But I don't want to."
"It's fine, I'll leave you all alone. Feel free to laugh at me though, god knows I thought it was absolutely hilarious." The scathing sarcasm was uncontrollable, he was furious. He stormed out of the lab and down the hallway with Natasha running after him.
"Clint! Clint, don't let Tony drive you away. He doesn't mean it." He was pretty sure Tony did mean it.
"He owns the place Nat, and he doesn't want me around. Who am I to go against him?"
"He's a spoiled brat, but he makes jokes so people won't think he's scared of you."
"Scared of me? Why? Does he think I'm gonna take over as team leader? Do I seem like alphamale 4.0 to you?" So that's why Tony doesn't get along with Steve, fascinating.
"Clint, don't act like you don't know."
He didn't know what it was about that statement, maybe it had to do with the fact that it was coming from Nat, but it released his floodgates, and before he knew it, he was on the floor sobbing.
"Jesus Clint, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." She obviously had no idea what to do, so she stood awkwardly.
"I didn't want to come here. I didn't wanna be on this team. I don't belong here. All the rest of you are amazing, and I'm on the upper end of average."
"How do you think I feel? You have more of a super power than I do."
"Why didn't you just kill me? It would have been so much easier for all of you. Now everyone's just gonna hold what I did over my head until I do whatever they want."
"I can't believe you're actually saying this. You're asking ME why I didn't kill you? Do I really have to answer that question?"
He didn't wanna believe that was her reason, it couldn't be.
"Nat we broke up long before that."
"That doesn't mean I don't still care about you"
So the only reason that he was alive today was because the one person who could have killed him loved him. It had nothing to do with his skills, or his morals. It was probably better than being dead, but not by much. At least he didn't feel like he owed anyone anything anymore. "Sorry Nat, that was stupid." He would have a very stern talk with himself about controlling emotions sometime in the future.
"Clint, you're fucked up. The psych doctors might not be able to see it, but you aren't ok are you?"
"I know Nat. I don't know what's different, but there's something and not knowing is killing me." If he could trust anybody, it was her.
"You don't have to go through this alone. I know you don't like talking to people, but if you can't trust anyone else, trust me."
"I do. More than anyone. That's why I told you this much."
"You're keeping something from me. I'm not an idiot Clint; I know when you're holding back. I promise that whatever you say to me stays with me."
"Not here, we've probably already given Tony enough of a performance." Fuck, he hadn't thought about that before. He chose a security camera and gave it an impressively menacing death stare.
"You'd probably feel better in your room rather than mine." She seemed to remember everything about him.
He noticed she seemed a bit surprised when she walked through the door. "What? Is it different than yours?"
"No it's probably nothing, never mind." That was weird
"What? You're mad cause mine is bigger than yours?" He shouldn't be joking around, but he couldn't help it.
"I believe you were in the middle of an emotional breakdown?" He'd forgotten how great her memory was she was.
"Do you really want to know about it? It's gonna make you like me less."
"For god's sake spit it out."
"So before…Loki happened, killing people was never something I enjoyed. I knew it needed to be done, so I did it. But now, killing isn't something I have to do, it's something I want to." That should scare her away, but he was kind of hoping it didn't.
"Clint, as long as you aren't going on killing sprees, wanting to kill people is perfectly acceptable. The reason behind it could be anger, maybe something more powerful, but as long as you control your actions, there's nothing bad about it. If you really want to find the source, you could try therapy, but from how you describe it, you aren't any less of a hero than you were before."
"Thank you Nat, but I don't think I was ever a hero." He was always annoyed when people used the word hero to describe slightly above average people. But it's so widely misused he might have to give up caring. He couldn't help yawning, it wasn't from boredom, but he hadn't slept in over 24 hours.
"I'll let you sleep now, you seem tired. I hope I've helped get rid of some of your nervousness. Goodnight Clint."
"Night Nat. See you tomorrow." She seemed disappointed to leave. Had she expected to stay? Was he supposed to take the opportunity to start up their relationship again? Or was he overthinking it? Maybe she was disappointed in him. He wasn't the man she cared about anymore and all that emotional bullshit. That was harsh. He could only blame himself though. He wasn't the same person that loved her.
Tony was bored. Mind-blowingly bored beyond belief. The afternoon was eventful enough. Clint had proved to be a fun distraction. And the lecture on civil behavior from Steve had provided another hour of amusement. But now he was in the process of fabricating mark 40, the first miniature version. He failed to comprehend the use of a suit he couldn't actually wear, but it almost counted as decent intellectual stimulation. He almost felt sorry for Clint. He had just shown up at an incredibly unfortunate time. Clint was entertainment. Nat was the only one that would stick up for him, so he could have some fun until Clint became friends with the others. Then Tony would go back to being the comic relief. He was respected for his suits, but no one really liked him. He was alone in the labs now. Nat hadn't come back after going with Clint. He didn't know whether they were together or not. She certainly seemed like she wanted to be. Steve and Bruce had left around 9 to go have dinner. Now that there was no one around to scold him, he decided to watch the security tapes.
"Jarvis, can you microwave a bag of popcorn and bring up the hallway and room footage after our archer friend stormed out?"
"Certainly sir." Jarvis didn't seem to approve, but at least he obeyed without question.
"Spoiled brat? All the money I spend is money I've made." This was getting interesting.
"Woah, Jarvis can you replay that?" He certainly didn't expect that to happen. He didn't think he was that harsh to Clint. He felt genuinely sorry now. Not enough to apologize, but enough to make him reform his opinion of Clint. Did he really think that Tony would hold his actions against him for all eternity? Well he had planned on it, but he definitely wouldn't now. He couldn't say he particularly liked Clint, he didn't know him at all, but Tony wasn't a cruel person. He could relate to a person in immense pain for reasons they didn't understand. Clint didn't seem to like him much, but he deserved that judgment. The last line Clint said before they walked to his room left Tony with a dilemma. He wanted to restart things, but that would be admitting he'd seen the video. Would Clint immediately hate him again for invading his privacy like that? I mean they were in a public hallway, but it was obvious this was a personal conversation. He decided that it would be best to talk with Clint in private tomorrow and smooth things out from there. As much as he wanted to, he wouldn't watch the feeds from Clint's room. They were on a private server, so only he could access them, and they had no chance of being discovered. But he didn't really want to learn things that he wasn't supposed to know. He wasn't interested enough in other peoples' pain enough to get involved.
He couldn't be any use to the fabrication now, and not sleeping in his penthouse was better than not sleeping in the lab. He couldn't help looking down the spot where Clint was bawling, almost to make sure it was real. To make sure that it hadn't just been some faked footage by Steve to stop his hazing. When he walked into the foyer, he found Pepper waiting for him at the coffee table. He wasn't looking forward to the imminent conversation.
"I ran into Natasha today. She was quite obviously fuming. I'm surprised you're still alive, she is one of the best killers in the world." So she was opting for the indirect approach. Two could play this game.
"Well my security is top notch."
"Speaking of which, I saw your performance this afternoon. That was a bit extreme don't you think? Asking if he liked killing hundreds of people then accusing him of sleeping with Loki?" Even he had to cringe a bit on how he'd included that last part.
"What? They're both valid concerns. I was really just gauging his mental health. And to be fair, I was accusing him of fucking Loki, not sleeping with him."
"From what I saw in the hallway, you're more of an instigator of mental trauma than Loki ever was." How had she seen all this? He would have to talk to Jarvis about sharing classified information.
"That seemed therapeutic to me, in a 'get it all out' kind of way."
"Tony, what's happening with you? You can be a pain in the ass, but you're never this cruel."
"Well I used to manufacture weapons…They killed a lot of people. That's pretty cruel." He waited…and waited. "I don't know Pepper, too fucking much." He waited for her to let him off the hook, and go to bed. But she just stood there, expecting him to continue. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't really slept in days. The only distraction I have is working, and now even that's not helping. And he's better than me Pepper. I don't know what's going to happen, but if he does decide to start killing, we're fucked."
"Tony, he's just a guy with a bow; you have millions of dollars of security. Do you really think he can just walk around shooting people?"
"He's better at killing than any of us." Oops, that wasn't meant to be about Loki. Her eyebrows adopted the most skeptical look he'd ever seen. "I didn't mean it like that and you know it. I only have my armor. Armor is armor, its defense. Thor is seemingly incapable of doing anything subtly, so if he went postal we'd all know in a matter of seconds, same with the big guy. Cap has that whole moral stupidity; he couldn't kill in cold blood. That only leaves the assassin. She's got him beat on stealth, but he wins on lethality. She's limited to hand to hand combat if she wants to keep a low profile."
"But Tony, none of that matters here. There's been nothing in any of his brain scans to suggest Loki has any hold over him. But I don't think that's what this is about. I think you're doubting yourself. Clint is the only other non-superhuman in the Avengers. Even Natasha has had some of the serum they gave to Steve. You think he's done better than you." How could she lecture him on what he thought? Why was he listening to this? She wasn't wrong but she still had no right to judge him.
"You don't know what I think. Now please stop telling me about my private thoughts."
"Tony you're a good, loving, person. Your mind is so much more valuable than any muscle memory."
"I thought I said to stop talking about this." Calling him loving wasn't helping her point.
"This is too important, Tony. I can't let you wallow in self-pity over pointless feelings of inadequacy." She would be the one wallowing in something if she didn't shut up soon.
"Please leave."
"I live here."
"Not anymore. JARVIS, please book Ms. Potts a hotel."
"TONY, you can't kick me out at 10 at night."
"Watch me."
A/N: I'm a rather slow writer so if you really want another chapter, and tell me, it might be a few days. I hope You weren't expecting tony to hop in bed with clint, the pacing is gonna be a bit slow, I'd really like to explore the feelings that go along with falling in love with someone you shouldn't be attracted to. Anyways. I love you for reading this, and I'll love you even more for reviewing.