Chapter 2:
Clint was having a rotten day, no wait, scratch that a rotten week. Really he should have known better when Fury called him in. He was supposed to be on vacation for chrissake, eating pizza and watching movies with his family. Instead, here he was following a nameless agent down into the concrete bowels of SHIELD's headquarters.
They led him to a windowless briefing room. Inside there was a steel table and two metal folding chairs. Clint plopped down in one of the chairs and kicked his feet up on the table. He saw the agent's eye twitch in irritation but the woman was enough of a professional she didn't comment. Instead, she gestured at a thick manila folder on the table and closed the door behind her.
The top of each page was stamped with the bright red top secret lettering. Clint didn't blink an eye at that or the dozens of black redactions scratched across the pages, that was all usual for his line of work. No, what was odd about this was the mission topic, compromised SHIELD agents at a top-secret lab? That kind of thing didn't happen at SHIELD, not on Fury's watch. Everyone knew that even Fury's secrets had secrets, so who the hell had gotten enough intel to lead a successful attack?
Clint skimmed halfway down the page until he got to the names of the compromised personnel.
He froze. Third down on the list in plain twelve point font were the words: Phillip Coulson.
The files slipped out of his hands as he stood. There was no way, not Coulson. Coulson was one of the few people he could trust with his life. The man would sooner cut his wrists and bleed to death than give up SHIELD secrets. There had to be a mistake.
"I need to talk to Fury. Now!."
The female agent poked her head through the door, "I'm sorry Agent Barton, the Director is busy. Have you finished reading? If so, the Director requested you wait here for your partner."
The female Agent smiled warmly at him as she gestured back to the folder. She had no right to be that positive, not when his world was damn near crumbling around him.
Clint ground his teeth as he grudgingly sat down again, his hands flipping through the pages absently. These bastards got their hands on Coulson. They'd nabbed him from right under SHIELD's nose.
A sudden shiver ran down his spine.
He was supposed to have been on the Pegasus Lab detail. They'd originally given that mission to him. The only reason he wasn't there was a time-sensitive mission in Japan popped up. A few more hours and it might not have been Coulson that was a brainwashed alien agent; it could have been him.
Clint glared his way through the rest of the report. Trying to file away the important details despite his bubbling rage.
His takeaways?
Apparently, aliens were real, they had some sort of problem with Earth, and they'd somehow gotten their scaly hands on Coulson.
The aliens' thing probably would have been a lot more shocking if he wasn't still seeing red from Coulson being listed as a compromised asset. Should he be worried? Probably. But, right now he couldn't bring himself to be anything but pissed. It was the aliens that should be running scared because he's going to put an arrow through their eyes the first chance he gets.
He knew shit was real when the door clanged open and Natasha swept into the room. She had a bruise on her face and murder in her eyes. Natasha was one of the best; she didn't get hurt, much less bruised like that unless she wanted too. The cold look in her eyes told him this particular shiner wasn't intentional and that never boded well for anyone.
Natasha slid into the seat across from him and glared at the other female agent until she left the room. She flipped the folder closed with a swish.
"We're going to India to pick up Banner."
"The Hulk? I thought Fury said that was just observation for now."
"Not anymore. Fury's activating the Avengers Initiative."
Clint sucked in a breath. Well, fuck him, things kept getting better and better. He ran a hand through his cropped hair.
"Okay, fine I guess we're doing this. Let me grab my bow and we'll go."
Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him, but her eyes didn't crinkle in amusement, "Sure you don't want something with a bit more firepower?" She said, gesturing to her sidearm.
"Nat, if half of what's in that folder is true these bastards are lucky I'm not getting anymore medieval on their asses. I have half a mind to use some shit I know would break international protocol."
Natasha's expression morphed into a feral smile, "I wouldn't worry about that or the Geneva Convention. Our orders are any means necessary."
Well, if the aliens weren't running scared yet, they damn well should be, Clint thought with a grim smile. Between him and Natasha, they knew over five hundred ways to kill a man with a toothpick —they'd sat down and counted after a mission in Kosovo— and right now he was just itching to try them all out.
That was four days ago; since then SHIELD had collected a narcissistic playboy, a man out of time, and a non-descriptive scientist that had a bad case of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. In Clint's honest assessment the Earth was screwed and he wasn't just saying that because he was an eternal pessimist, thank you very much, Natasha. No, the reason was that Rogers and Stark couldn't even sit in the same room without starting to play fisticuffs. Their macho bullshit was going to get everyone killed. And then there was Stark's habit of flirting with everything that moved, including Banner. Clint could tell by Natasha's eye tick she was getting closer and closer to making the inventor disappear permanently after this particular mission.
And then Germany happened-
And honestly, fuck Germany, no scratch that, fuck all of Europe. Nothing good ever happened when he went to Europe, Budapest included.
He'd gotten stabbed in the shoulder by some kind of telekinetic Squidward looking son of a bitch, Ebony Maw his addled brain supplied. The flat faced grey alien had called himself Ebony Maw as he went around murdering civilians. The recorded screams from the CCTV cameras were still fresh in his mind.
The bastard and his cronies killed sixty-five people before the Avengers touched down, all while preaching about 'our lord and savior Thanos has saved you' and 'releasing them from chains of universal suffering'.
Clint didn't know this Thanos, but if he ever met him he was going to put an arrow through his fucking eye.
Sayonara motherfucker.
Between Stark and Rogers they'd managed to get the rest of the terrified civilians out, but not before Maw waved his magic glow stick and set Coulson on them.
The fight was fast and brutal. Coulson didn't go down without a fight, a well-aimed left hook from him had Clint's head ringing. Clint jabbed out with an elbow and managed to catch the man in the guts.
The two grappled before Clint got his arms around Coulson and flipped his former friend to the ground. Clint pressed his knees into Coulson's shoulders as he used his full weight to keep the man pinned. Coulson stared up at him with his unnaturally iridescent blue eyes, then he smiled, blood in his teeth. That's when Clint noticed the flashing light in Coulson's suit pocket.
His hearing aids finally registered the rapid beeping over the sounds of the struggle. Then the beeping stopped. Clint's eyes widened as he dove for the ground.
Around them, the buildings exploded.
Mechanic feedback screeched through his aids. His hands flew to his ears as he tried to yank out the tiny devices. He cursed as he managed to pull out the tech and the world around him went back to its usual silence.
When he looked back at the ground. Coulson was gone escaping in the chaos and Maw was nowhere to be found. The Avengers were left standing in the flaming ruins of Berlin. Not one step closer to tracking the Tesseract or gaining insight into Maw's plans with it.
While the details of Maw's plans were foggy at best, his intentions were clear as day. If the man spewing zealotry was to be believed they were looking at some sort of species-wide cleanse, a xenocide on a scale hitherto undreamt of.
Clint was currently sprawled out on an uncomfortable swivel chair on the bridge of the Helicarrier. He'd commandeered an entire pot of black coffee. The other agents were giving him odd looks and a wide berth. It was hard to tell if they were in awe of meeting the legendary Hawkeye or if they were disturbed by his uncivilized coffee habit.
Screw them. They had no right to judge, he'd been running on an average three hours of sleep per night this week, if he didn't meet his caffeine quota he was pretty sure he would collapse into a useless puddle on the spot.
Natasha strolled in a couple minutes later. She quirked an eyebrow up but didn't say anything as she reached over for the pot and poured the brown steaming liquid into her own mug.
"I see where all the coffee has gone."
Clint grunted at her as she gracefully fell into the chair next to him. She leaned towards him so her hands were in his line of sight and then quickly signed, "There's a problem."
He groaned internally. This week kept getting better and better.
"What kind of problem?" Clint flashed back with his hands.
Natasha casually looked over her shoulder before she leaned in closer and passed him a note. He shot her a look of disbelief —because really Nat if he knew they were going for the old Cold War bench (or in this case coffee counter) trade-off he would have gotten in character first. She seemed to read his line of thought and rolled her eyes at him while he unfolded the page.
In Natasha's carefully coded handwriting was the following: Fury thinks there might be alien planted tech on board. Banner picked up weird interference coming from the hanger. Whatever it is it's messing with the machines enough that Banner is recalibrating the system to ignore it and lock unto the cube. The mission is to contain or remove and keep status silent.
Clint crumpled the paper in his right hand and took a swig of his coffee before replying in a low voice, "Sounds great. Fury should put Stark right on that, sounds just his speed."
Natasha gave Clint a look, "Stark already went to check it out. Said it sounded like his kind of party." She glanced around them, eyeing the agents working on their computers, "He just thinks that the more the merrier."
Great, so he and Nat were backup or the cleanup crew whatever was necessary. Clint nodded. Stark was a lot of things, but subtle wasn't on the list. If Fury wanted this kept quiet and dealt with he should have sent in anyone but Stark. Then again, the reality was that whatever the anomaly was it was probably above everyone's pay grade here except Stark's and Banner's.
Clint stood and Nat rose to follow him as they headed for the hanger. He checked around them to make sure they were out of anyone's earshot before he pulled Natasha to the side.
"When did this interference start? Right after we pulled out of Germany?"
If that was what happened then their quinjet was likely the source of the problem. It would be annoying, but easy enough to deal with. If worse came to worse the could blow the thing up over the ocean. That was petty change compared to SHIELD's overall budget.
Natasha shook her head, "No, that's what's strange about the whole thing. It was after we were cloaked and halfway over the Atlantic. At first, they thought it was an unexpected electrical interference from the storm, but none of our other sensors have been affected."
"Storm?" Clint asked. It'd been clear starry sky when they'd returned from Berlin a few hours ago.
"A big one. Not enough to steer us off course. But still a bit odd considering that it picked up suddenly and wasn't on any of the forecasts." Natasha frowned and Clint could see the pieces coming together in her mind. In their line of work, there was no such thing as coincidences or happy accidents.
"Huh, well let's go see if our resident tech genius has the situation under control yet."
Whatever Clint expected when he walked into the hanger, it wasn't this.
Natasha and him found Tony in full armor with his faceplate lifted. His arms were raised in a placating gesture to something beyond their field of vision.
Clint was immediately on his guard as he pulled his bow from his shoulder and notched an arrow. On his left, Natasha reached for her pistol.
"Look, kid. I don't want to hurt you just come out." Stark said, his voice lacking its usual sarcastic bravado.
Stark took a step closer and a red blur rushed out from behind the metal containers. It tackled him to the ground and the man went down like a rock even with his suit on. He either must have been off balance or the attacker had a hell of a tackle.
Natasha nodded at him, Clint went right, as she quietly moved to the left to pin in their target on either side of Tony. From this distance, neither him nor Natasha would miss.
"You cannot fool me, Man of Metal!" A small voice rang out. On instinct, Clint lowered his bow to his side. There was a kid up here?
Then the attacker fully sat up from his place on top of Stark.
Oh shit, Clint thought as blond hair fell away from the figure and he was left staring at what looked like an eight-year-old child.
The kid was dressed like he'd come from a renaissance festival. A green little tunic, some stained brown pants, boots, and to top it all off an honest to god red cape. He had his fists raised above Stark's mask as if hitting him would do anything to that armor. If the situations were different Clint might have laughed. It wasn't every day a kid tried to beat up Iron Man.
"Who are you?" The little kid demanded in a near growl, suspicion sounding in his voice. "I don't know you. You're not supposed to be near the Bifrost!"
"Real good with kids aren't you Stark." Clint snorted.
The kid's eyes suddenly darted to him and then flitted over to Natasha. His eyes widened, as he scrambled off of Stark in surprise, and darted back for the crates. Clint flashed a hand sign at Natasha to be ready on standby. Natasha gave him a curt nod then stepped back in the shadows to watch.
Clint took a step towards the metal crate, slowly approaching the direction the kid went. His fingers curled protectively around his bow, but he didn't take out an arrow. He'd done a lot of shit in his life for SHIELD ーhell even before SHIELDー But hurting children was always where he drew the line. It might be one of the only things he and Stark agreed on.
Clint forewent going around the container and instead opted to take the high ground. He grabbed the top of the crate and in one smooth motion hoisted himself up. He peeked over the side to assess the situation. The kid was crouched defensively in the corner, a wild look in his eyes. Clint moved nearer to the edge of the crate. The kid tilted his head to the side and his eyes roaming around before landing on Clint.
The blond stepped forward, even without a weapon he looked like he was ready to throw himself at Clint the first chance he got.
"You will not take me easily. I am a warrior and my father will come for me!" The kid snarled out with a surprising amount of ferocity. It would have been cute if he was someone else, as it was Clint felt a shiver run down his spine. The kid reminded him of a young Natasha. Missions with child soldiers were never a fun time, not to mention you know, the impending alien invasion.
Clint blinked and looked over to where Natasha was studying the scene behind him. He met her eyes, she inclined her head slightly and Clint knew she understood his plan.
"Hey, it's okay kid," Clint said crouching down and putting his hands up in a placating gesture. Step one was to assure the kid you weren't a threat, "No one is here to hurt you. You just surprised us is all, not used to kids joining us up here in the sky. What's your name?"
Step two, was to try to form a bond before aggression set the stage. Step three was simple; that didn't mean he hated it any less though. Step three was the takedown.
The kid glared at him. His eyes were red and slightly puffy like he'd been crying.
"You first archer. How do I know you are not spies of my Father's Court?" The kid's eyes darted around the room, checking for enemies before his gaze landed back on Clint.
Clint blinked. That was… not what he expected. Court? Who did this kid think he was? Royalty? Was this brainwashing talking?
"That's fair, bud," Clint settled on, trying to keep his tone light, "My name's Clint Barton, though most people call me Hawkeye."
"Hawkeye?" The kid said slowly as if he was testing the word out for the first time, curiosity sparked in his eyes. Clint scoffed, and Natasha thought his codename was dumb.
Clint frowned internally. Something wasn't adding up right. The kid clearly had fighting experience. Sure, Stark wasn't exactly an expert fighter, but he was still much larger and heavier than this kid; the fact that he went down like a sack of potatoes meant something. But the kid didn't have the hollowed out or lost look like so many of the child soldiers he'd seen before. No, somehow the kid still looked… innocent for lack of a better word. He reminded him of his son, Nathan, like he would still believe in boogeymen and dragons. He was missing something.
Clint shifted his weight and he dropped down next to the kid. A change of plans might be in order.
"Yup," Clint said popping the last syllable, "I'm one of the best marksmen in the world. I can shoot the wings off a fly at 200 meters."
"Truly?" The kid asked as he shifted gears from wariness to awe. Definitely not a child soldier, no brainwashed kid looked like that and not even the best spies could look so —so fuckin' cute. That didn't mean the kid wasn't a threat though.
Clint saw Stark gawking behind them like he couldn't believe the kid was fawning over archery instead of his armor. That or Stark couldn't believe that he was better with kids but given the notoriety of Stark's Daddy issues that wasn't likely.
The kid reached out and tugged on his sleeve, "Show me." He demanded.
"No problem kid, but I'm gonna need a name. I only show my skills to my friends and I know all my friend's names," Clint lied smoothly.
"Thor," The kid burst out excitedly, "I am Thor, Son of Odin. Will you please show me your archery skills now Son of Barton?" The kid turned his big blue puppy eyes on him and Clint gulped. Damn it, this kid was way too cute.
"Sure," Clint said standing slowly, "We can go down to the range. Why don't you just take my hand so you don't get lost?"
He wasn't sure how this kid got here or what his purpose was, but an occupied compliant kid was a hell of a lot easier to keep an eye on and get information from than a suspicious one with unknown affiliations. Besides, Stark still needed to find the alien tech disrupting their sensors and he had a feeling the kid would only be a distraction.
"Okay!" Thor said jovially, as his little fingers encircled Clint's hand and clamped down. The kid had quite a grip on him, not enough force to break fingers or anything, but still. At least Clint wasn't going to lose the kid in the bowels of the Helicarrier, not with a grip like that. As he allowed himself to be pulled out of the hanger, he caught Natasha's eye and gave her a look that said: 'Please figure out what the hell is going on.'
Author's Note: I attempted to balance Clint from the MCU with comic Clint here, not sure how that turned out. This was from Clint's perspective and I've never written him before so any feedback on that would be very much appreciated. Anyways Thor is on Earth now, even if he doesn't know it yet, during one of the worst possible times. Anyways next chapter has some more Avengers shenanigans and some Loki POV. As always comments and constructive criticism are all welcome here so let me know what you guys thought!