Attachment Issues
A Word: And this brings us up to the Avengers movie.
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"What's the story here?" Tony's voice is sudden and unwelcome as Clint rolls over in the obscene bed the man insisted gifting each of them with when the Avengers moved into the man's tower. His ribs scream at the sudden movement, but not as much as his instincts when he realizes he's so out of it on painkillers he let Tony "Goddammit!" Stark into his room without waking up. Long enough for the man to get bored and go snooping. Granted, that sort of thing can be measured in seconds, but a single second is usually more than Clint needs to go from the sleep of death to fully alert and ready to kill.
"Hey, bird fucker," Tony's voice is closer and more annoying. Drawing Clint out of the confused sleep the drugs have been pulling him into. "Wake up! What's up with all the metal? You go through a punk phase or something?"
Clint drags his eyes open and turns his head out of his pillows to glare fuzzily at Tony. The man is wearing sweats and an oil stained wife beater. His hair is a mess and his eyes are suspiciously bright. All the signs he needs to know the man's been locked out of every lab in the building and is likely running from a search party headed up by Pepper to get him into a bed. He waves something thin and flimsy in Clint's face. A shit eating grin nearly swallowing his face as he pushes for details. Of something.
The stitches in his back from Clint's unfortunate meeting with a glass window pull as Clint reaches up to yank the glossy picture out of the man's hands. His fingers feel the scratches in it immediately, and if he wasn't still riding high on the drugs he'd know exactly what Tony was looking at without having to see it for himself.
Gamble and Street grin just as brightly as Clint tries not to remember, and it's every bit as painful to see again as he'd always known it would be. Even with the years between the end of that operation and now. Clint hastily stuffs the photo under his pillow to keep Tony's hands from snatching it up again. Stuffing his own face back into it so the other man can't see what Clint's probably too out of it to hide. "Fuck off, Stark."
"Aw, come on, Clint," there's enough of a pause between Clint's words and Tony's whine that Clint knows to be wary of the off note in the man's voice. To curse silently because it's clear that Tony saw something in Clint's face, and the man doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. "Come on! Share with the rest of the class."
His bed dips, and the only reason Clint feels that is because Tony's right on top of him. The mattress is one of those really expensive memory foam things that don't shift easily. Blunt fingers poke his back. Deftly avoiding the stitches and finding every cracked rib he has. All three of them. Clint growls. Tony's like a ten year old. The only thing missing is—
"Tell me!" Tony half sings and half chants. High and irritating in the way only Stark can be. "Tell me, tell me! You know I won't quit until you do. Tell me! Just give it up, save yourself the pain of being broken down. Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"Christ, Stark!" Clint rolls and ignores the sharp throb of pain as he lashes out. Hitting a nerve hard enough to make the man yelp and rear back. "It was a mission, I had to play a part. Alright?"
Clint takes the opportunity to reach up and shove. Sending Tony reeling backward off the bed and taking extreme pleasure in the curse of pain that follows the loud thump of Tony hitting the floor. "You fucker!" There's a series of smaller thumps as Clint rolls back over into the position that he's found hurts the least. Closing his eyes and feeling himself drift despite the still prominent threat of Tony being in the room. "And liar! You're such a liar."
"Nn," Clint feels himself starting to slide under even as a hand smacks his shoulder. He barely feels it. "Ask Tash. 'm too tired for this shit."
If Tony says anything else Clint doesn't hear it.
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"Stark is getting nosy," Natasha says as Clint stretches out. There's only a bit of pain from the healed cuts on his back. The new scar tissue getting accustomed to being moved. The dull throb in his ribs is negligible. Not even close to the burning in his muscles from the light workout he'd just finished. His body has grown lax from a month of little use.
It feels good and Clint itches to get to the range for an hour or two.
"He's always nosy," Clint says as Tasha pushes on his upper back to get him to go down further, bending him more in half and going past that point. Clint grunts and takes the burn. "What else is new?"
"He asked me about LA," Tasha says as she lets Clint up after a slow count to thirty. She moves to sit next to him and does that thing with her right leg that always makes Clint vaguely jealous even as he wants to wince. "About the Hydra and Montel ops."
Of course. Because Tony Stark never lets anything go, ever. "Goddammit, Stark."
"Hm," Tasha hums as she switches legs. Clint rolls backwards up onto his hands. Balancing there for a few seconds before flipping to his feet. "I put him off, but you know he's going to look into it himself."
"Yeah," Clint feels like slamming his head into the wall a dozen or so times. Revisiting Brian Gamble is not something Clint has ever wanted to do. The fact that he's going to have to just to stop Tony from doing something stupid doesn't make it any easier. "I'll figure something out."
"Let me know if you need to move the body," Tasha calls out as Clint heads out the door. His fingers twitching for his bow. He waves to acknowledge her remark that's only half in jest. She likes Tony in her own way, but that's never meant quite the same thing to her as it does to most people.
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Jarvis is kind enough to alert Clint when Tony starts setting up parameters for a facial recognition program based off a copy of the picture that Clint's honestly not sure how the man got a hold of after he removed the entire desk he knew he never should have brought with him.
Clint lets himself into the lab Tony's holed up in through the door that Jarvis helpfully leaves unlocked. He moves quietly behind the man who's inputing a string of nonsense into a screen that's already going through a facial database. Clint hops up onto the cabinet that's directly below the main ventilation shaft to this lab. Making himself comfortable before picking up a stray pen and flicking it at the computer Tony's bent over. Hitting the power button solidly enough to make the screen flicker, bringing up the "Are you sure?" shut down prompt.
If he wasn't so sure there's a backup battery he would've gone for the power cord.
Tony jumps slightly before spinning to glare at Clint. He eyes Clint and turns a frustrated glare up to the closed vent. "Those were some good sensors, you better not have destroyed them getting in."
Clint smiles and says nothing, because it's funny how absolutely convinced the man is that Clint camps out in the dusty as fuck ceilings. The fact that none of the increasingly complex sensors Tony places there -by hand and listening to Tony curse as he gets stuck in a shaft is the second funniest shit Clint's ever seen in his life- have registered his presence doesn't seem to phase his belief one bit.
"What do you need, Agent Barton?" Tony smirks as he turns back and gets the program up and running again. Not bothering to hide what he's doing at all. "I'm kinda busy here with this," Tony waves his hands airly over the screen, "thing. So, make it quick would you?"
"Well, if you're busy," Clint drawls out, not showing any bit of the irritation he's feeling show. It's like blood in Tony's shark tank. Any hint of discomfort or a flinch will get his undivided attention, because Tony always demands immediate satisfaction of anything that perks his curiosity. "I guess I can tell you about that picture you wanted to know about later."
Clint's got his fingers hooked inside the cover of the vent when Tony kicks off from the desk and propels himself towards Clint on the wheeled chair. Tony's eyes are bright and eager even as he makes a show of being disinterested. "Whoa, whoa! I'm not that busy if you feel the need to spill your guts."
It's one of the more annoying yet endearing traits the man has, and one that Clint has managed to escape being the focus of until now. Tony's need to force himself into the lives of the people around him with the power of his ego, and then finding things to do -to give, to fix- that would earn him the right to stay there. A behavior that Tasha had written a several page report on when she was playing secretary for the man, and Clint has read up on since finding himself playing puppet to gods with issues.
Clint snorts and drops back down to sprawl out on the cabinet. There's a blanket, one of Bruce's probably, folded up that he uses to cushion his elbows. "How about we just cut to the chase here. I know you've already hacked the files," he doesn't but it's Tony, of course he's done as much snooping as he could before even approaching Natasha. "So just tell me what it is you want to know."
Tony doesn't do him the discourtesy of pulling his punch. He flicks his hand and one of the holographic screens he's so proud of lights up. The slightly pixelated copy of the picture shows up and Clint doesn't flinch from it. Just looks placidly at it before turning back to Tony with a raised eyebrow. "Who's your friend?"
"A cop," Clint replies. The picture doesn't hurt as much to see, but he's been prepping himself for this since Natasha brought the subject up a week ago. "He was my partner while I was undercover. He was a good guy, we got along well."
"Yeah, I can see that," Clint strains but there's nothing in Tony's voice that could be considered an innuendo. A rarity from him, but then there were certain things that happened that hadn't made it into the official reports. "What about after? You guys get along just as well when you had to play bad guy?"
"No," Clint can't get the word out quite as placidly as he wants, but Tony already knows something's up. So the gravel in his voice seems to go unnoticed as Tony keeps his eyes focused on Clint. "Like I said, he was a good guy, and good guys kill bad guys like me."
"That was an LMD," Tony says immediately. Almost accusingly, and that's just another point in the list of Tony knowing Coulson's alive. Clint's fully convinced, but Tasha's still hedging her bets on that one. "You're still alive."
"Yep," Clint agrees easily, "but Brian Gamble isn't, and there's a lot riding on him staying that way."
"Huh," Tony's eyes go to slits and his head tilts like he's trying to see something against the sun. "I don't get it."
Dangerous words coming from Tony and Clint knows it. "What's to get, Stark? I went undercover, busted some Hydra ass, and got the fuck out. End of story."
"Well, yeah, but not that. It's the," Tony twirls one pointed finger at the blown up photo, "that."
"The pool cues?" Clint quips because he's actually not sure where the hell the man's going with this. "You never play a game of pool, Stark? I'm sure you can pay someone to teach you how to play."
"Fuck you, I learn off of YouTube for free! And I could take you in a game any day," Tony's mouth moves a little like he's going to continue but he stops himself with a glare that he shares equally with the lab and Clint. "So not the point, feather head. I was talking about the friend thing. You don't do shit like that easily. Hell, it took you most of a year to even trust us enough to walk around without bodyarmor!"
"You kept shooting bottle rockets at me!" Or things that had started off as bottle rockets. Clint's fairly sure the things could be considered actual weapons of small destruction by the time Steve set his foot down and refused to budge no matter how much Tony whined. Combined with the fact that his last barrage had landed worryingly close to Tasha Clint had felt safe enough to leave the vests behind eventually.
"Forget getting anything even vaguely personal out of you," Tony continues as if Clint hadn't brought up a very valid point. "You don't share, you don't hang out, you don't go out! You're just," Tony flings his hands, both of them, up to the ceiling, "around! Hanging out, watching us all like a creep from the ceilings. You're like ceiling cat!"
"Ceiling what?" Clint laughed and shook his head. "Tony when's the last time you slept?"
"My point!" Tony exclaims with a scowl as he begins to wheel himself back towards the desk. "My point is that you don't do the friend thing a lot. You can count your friends with one hand. Hell, maybe just one finger," and Tony doesn't seem all that upset by the last statement, that Clint probably didn't consider Tony a friend despite living with him. Which is something the behavioral experts in SHIELD would be all over if Clint was ever masochistic enough to report it like he should. "So you shouldn't have to throw out the few you have just because a mission ends."
"Tony," Clint sits up and props his elbows on his knees only to find himself staring at the back of Tony's head. The man's typing a bit and the slide of the database goes faster. "It was a mission. Faking-"
"Oh, no, please tell me you're not about to bullshit me," Tony turns around to give Clint a look that's kinda like the ones Tasha give him when he's doing something she thinks is particularly stupid. Clint wonders if Tony picked that up deliberately or not. "Cause that's all that's going to come out of your mouth if you're about to say any of that," his head jerks back to the screen, "is fake."
"It is," Clint says, and then continues right over the outraged sound Tony's making, "because Brian Gamble was fake. You can't have any sort of friendship with a lie, Stark, because I'm not that," Clint slides off the cabinet and shoves his hands into his pockets as he nods at the screen, "person."
Tony looks ready to argue. A mulish expression crossing his face. Jesus fucking Christ.
"Look, that was ten years ago, Stark," Clint tries to reason, but reasoning with Tony can be like trying to reason with a five-year-old at the best of times. "A lot of shit went down then, and it wasn't all that good," which is an understatement. Clint's had a decade to think about how killing Gamble could have fucked Street up. No matter their relationship, they'd been best friends for years. With that potential for more that Clint had tried hard to destroy. "As in years of therapy not good. The man's dealt with it by now, and bringing it all back up will ruin that," and that seems to get through to Tony a bit. The man's frowning now. The one he gets when something he's working on doesn't go his way. "Drop it, Stark. Your brony tendencies are starting to lead you astray."
"Like you don't know the theme song yourself," Tony bites back, and it's a give. The only one Tony will give as he backs down.
For the moment. Clint has no illusions that Tony will pick it right back up once he's had time to think his way around Clint's points. The man's need to fix things for people is almost pathological. Clint turns and walks out of the lab, taking the victory for what it is. Temporary. "No shit. You don't argue with the Hulk when he wants to watch the pretty ponies, Stark. Not unless you're an Asgardian god."
"Thor likes Rainbow Dash!" Tony shouts just before the door shuts.
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"I know this might come as a complete surprise to you, but I am actually a pretty busy man," Coulson sounds annoyed, but Clint knows better than to take the man at face value. Coulson's secretly pleased that Clint and Natasha keep going to him with problems. Clint'd put good money on the man smiling a little right now if he's alone in whatever bunker Fury's got him hiding in. "What do you want, Barton?"
"Stark got hold of classified mission documents," Clint stretches out on the battered couch he'd found in an alley on the way to moving into the tower so long ago. Worn and stained and slightly moldy smelling. He'd taken it along just to see Tony's face when it got brought up. It'd been a priceless expression that Clint still remembers fondly. Tony had retaliated by having the thing cleaned so thoroughly that the couch changed color overnight, and the only thing keeping him from declaring it a new couch was the way it groaned when he sat on it.
"Imagine that," Coulson says. Bland and totally deadpan. "Tony Stark looking at things he shouldn't. I'm beyond shocked. Tell me something new, Barton."
"It's an undercover mission and Stark's not letting it go," Clint shifts until he feels a sharp coil go sideways. "If he continues people peripherally involved will find out about the mission. Actually, I think that's what he's intending to happen."
"That's new for him," Coulson sounds a bit more intrigued, and Clint knows he's got most of the man's attention now. "What case are we talking about?"
Clint hesitates because this is getting perilously close to talking about it, but he's already started crossing that bridge with Tony. "LA, ten years ago."
"I see," and Clint can't read much in Coulson's voice now. It's the tone of voice he uses when he's feeling his way around something. Looking for a clue on where he needs to jump. He's used it more on Natasha than Clint, but it's still one he knows pretty well. "And how did he get started on that?"
"Drugs," Clint lets out a sharp bark of laughter. "So many drugs. I don't do well with the new brand of painkillers apparently."
"Hm," Coulson's biting back the urge to push on that point. His instincts to pinpoint just how badly his asset might react to a new drug still present despite having an entire team now. "I'll look into it," and this is a favor, because it's not his job to look out for Clint anymore. He's relieved though. Good as Sitwell is at handling the crazy that is the Avengers, there's just some things that Clint won't go to him with.
"Thanks," Clint says and there's not much else to say. A far off alarm goes off. Giving them an excuse to hang up before it can get awkward.
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"Pepper has given me blanket permission to maim Stark so long as I don't touch his face," Natasha says as Clint sights down a spinning target. "His looks are apparently directly linked to the company stock."
Clint pauses and blinks. Letting the target spin a full two rotations before letting loose. The target swings, off kilter with the added weight of the arrow dead center. "I don't want to know what we're maiming him for do I?"
"You already know," Tasha glides across the range. Deftly picking arrows out of targets as she moves. She stops by a target that has no arrows, and gives him a pointed look. Clint obliges her by firing off his last two arrows. Sinking them in right underneath the hand she's resting on it.
"Allow me my denial?" It's a pathetic request and Tasha gives it all the consideration it deserves when she flicks one of his arrows back at him with a snap of her wrist. It falls short because she's too far away but she makes her point. "He doing anything different?"
Last Clint was aware, Tony was still running facial recognition programs. Methodically. Starting in New York and working out from there. Granted, that was over a week ago. So who knows what the man is onto now.
"He's in LA. Physically," Tasha says, the arrows click in her hands as she walks back and dumps them on a table next to the door. Rolling them out so that Clint can sort through them and check for damage. "Conducting interviews for a new security position with very vague details on what might or might not be expected of the new hire."
Clint places his bow down and braces his hands on the table. Closing his eyes and rolling his head in a slow circle. Feeling the muscles in his neck stretch and his bones crack. "Let me guess. He's interviewing people with law enforcement background."
"And military," Tasha sits cross legged on the table as Clint opens his eyes and focuses on the arrows. They're practice ones. Nothing he'd take in the field with him, but there's no reason to not take care of them. "Priority is being given to anyone with SWAT experience."
"Aw, fuck," Clint drops the arrows he was examining and laughs. Because if he's not laughing at this brewing shit storm he's going to find the dullest arrow he has and go to LA to shove it by hand through Tony's thick head. The man couldn't have baited the hook more perfectly. There is no question that Tony knows who Street is now. "Fuck my life."
Cool fingers knead the tense muscles at the base of his neck and Clint drops his head forward to let Tasha have her way. Her thumb presses painfully into a knot and he grimaces through it as she prods it loose. "SHIELD is recruiting," she says and Clint wonders why she says that, because he knows this already. SHIELD is always recruiting. Their turnover rate is so phenomenally high it's a wonder they can get anything done. "We're dealing more with police on local matters and anyone with that kind of background can only help."
It takes Clint a second to line up what she's saying, and he doesn't know if he should groan or feel grateful that Coulson is apparently doing more than just looking into the whole thing. "Crap."
Tasha squeezes his neck once and pulls away. Her boots hit the ground with a soft thump that's intentional, and is something she's been doing more often. In the tower only. "Let's go."
Clint straightens up and looks at her. She's got her phone out and is tapping something out on the screen. "What?"
"Mission," Tasha says as she starts walking toward the door. Clint's phone remains silent for another minute before he gets the alert calling him in for briefing. The delay is a clear indication that he wasn't originally meant to be in on this mission. Tasha is obviously pleased with herself as she leaves to go start pulling out their kits. "Let's go, Clint."
Clint smiles as he follows her. She's always known the best ways to distract him.
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Tony's sulking when Clint finally drags himself out of his rooms a few days after returning. He's getting old. It never used to take him this much time to recover from a few days of not sleeping. He's still tired when he gets to the communal floor which has the best coffee pot in the tower. A move by Pepper to force Tony to occasionally drag himself out from the labs every once in a while.
Heavy emphasis on the occasionally.
Steve's leaning against one of the counters when Clint wanders in. He gives Clint a half smile, but all his attention is on Tony. Tony looks like he's on the down swing of one of his manic bouts of inventing that only ever really happens when he's frustrated with something. Clint's got a pretty good idea what this one is when Tony swings around with the coffee pot in hand to point it at him, "You!"
"No you," Clint says just to see Tony's face scrunch up as he tries to parse that out. The man is racking up a serious sleep debt. Clint hops up onto the counter beside Steve and watches as Tony turns in a circle a few times before spotting his mug. An oversized thing with binary on it that probably says something witty or offensive.
"No," Tony makes a triumphant noise as he pours a good portion of the pot out. He takes a healthy drink and then refills his mug again before setting the pot back into the machine. This time he points at Clint with his mug. Coffee sloshes over the rim a bit and drips to the floor. "You."
"Me," Clint points to himself and nods. Then he points to Tony and says, "You."
Steve snorts loudly, and does a bad job covering up his laugh with a totally fake sounding cough. Tony rolls his eyes, "Oh, fuck off, Tarzan."
"You're the one grunting monosyllables at me," Clint settles back on the counter and decides to wait for the pot to start brewing again rather than make it past Tony to get the dregs.
"Fancy words aren't your best suit, Birdy," Tony grumbles through the coffee. Clint's not sure if he's breathing it in or actually drinking it anymore. "Leave them to the professionals."
"Speaking of professionals," Clint decides to get it all out and done with now instead of waiting for Tony to passive aggressively prod at him until the inevitable explosion that won't be so passive. "I heard you were in LA looking for some security professionals. What happened there?"
Steve looks suddenly interested, and Tony nearly growls, "As if you don't know! Who in their right mind would choose SHIELD over me? Have you seen the benefit package I give my employees? And the pay! I know what they pay you and you're at the top end of the paygrade. Who in their right mind would turn down a salary that's double that? Who!?"
"Adrenaline junkies?" Clint drawls out because that's one of the points that definitely swayed Street. The fact that Tony probably insisted on a face to face meeting and annoyed the hell out of the man is probably another. Also, the lure of doing good for everyone instead of one particular rich person because Street is also a good man who likes to help people. He doesn't say any of that to Tony though. Tony's more likely to understand the rush of adrenaline anyway.
"Well, true," as predicted he concedes the point. Scowling down at his socked feet before rallying the way only Tony Stark can. "This isn't over. I'll get you and your little dog too!"
Tony spins and slips a little on the spilt coffee before doing a remarkably graceful strut out of the kitchen. It's a diva worthy strut that Clint's sure the man practices daily. Clint snorts and goes for the abandoned coffee pot.
"I didn't think Tony would have problems filling a security position," Steve says behind Clint. It's a statement that doesn't really prod. Giving Clint an out because Steve is the very definition of 'mind your own business' about many things.
"Tony was gunning for someone specific," Clint says as he tops his cup up with an unhealthy amount of sugar for the hell of it. He turns and Steve looks curious, but Clint really doesn't want to get into it. He shrugs. "Nat said something about SHIELD sniping him from Tony. Figured that's why he's upset."
Steve makes a thoughtful noise but continues to stare at Clint expectantly. Blue eyes calm and very not judgmental at all. Waiting for Clint to elaborate.
He doesn't.
Steve nods and moves to the fridge. "I'm making eggs. You want some?"
"Sure," Clint agrees because Steve, unlike Tony, knows when to let things just drop.
Clint's almost pathetically grateful for that.
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It's not dropped. Tony needles Clint about it often enough for that to be clear, but it's also readily apparent that the man can't actually do anything more about it for the time being. Clint doesn't allow himself to be hopeful about that though. Tony Stark is an annoying persistent man too used to getting his way. He's under no illusions on how long Tony will let this little set back deter him.
Clint doesn't call Coulson again, and he doesn't so much as glance at the highly classified files on new recruits that Tony has taken to emailing him. Training videos, psychological assessments, class schedules, and -eventually- mission logs. All minor, comparatively, and very far away from the places Clint finds himself. He doesn't allow himself to be hopeful about that either. Life has a way of fucking Clint over in the worst possible ways at the worst possible times.
It's an explosion waiting to happen. Clint can feel it. He just can't see the timer so he doesn't know when it's going to blow in his face yet.
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The Winter Soldier defects in what has to be the most spectacular shit show Clint's ever been privileged to see, and he'd laugh at it. Laugh at the sheer coincidence of it all and the mind screw that seems to have been waiting for almost seventy years to happen but-
But Clint finds himself letting himself into Tasha's quarters almost nightly now. Curling around the tiny, fragile ball she sometimes is and not saying anything. Not one damn word, because he's heard enough casual references to a man over the years to know. A man who taught, a man who spoke, a man who meant something before the Red Room nearly destroyed her ability to feel.
He holds her tight and doesn't speak as she sleeps through the night. Ignoring the finger shaped bruises she presses into his arms whenever she startles awake and purposefully doesn't let him see her face until she's wiped it clean of anything incriminating.
He gets up in the morning after she's left and wanders the Tower. Looks until he finds Steve. Pummeling the supposedly indestructible bags in the gym, holding a cold cup of coffee in the kitchen, or hunched over an unread book in some dark corner. His eyes always far off and not noticing Clint until he's reaching out. Pulling him back to the present with something. A word, a joke, a problem.
He doesn't talk about it with Steve either, and the man looks so grateful about it that Clint takes to carefully sabotaging shit in Tony's labs. Just enough to make the man spend more and more time fixing it, and then trying to figure out how it all went wrong in the first place. A reprieve for Steve who's too damn nice to tell the man where to stick his nosy questions.
Clint spends time on the Helicarrier too. Slipping through the security that neither Tasha or Steve have clearance for. Technically, Clint doesn't either, but Fury's smart enough to know he has to give a little or he'll find himself on the wrong end of a siege again. No one questions it when Clint slips into the debriefing room or into the observation chamber. His presence is taken for granted by all. Even the Winter Soldier, a man who used to be called James Barnes.
Bucky, he insists in a voice that slips from Russian to Brooklyn accent faster than most ears can discern. He smirks and snarls as he gives up secrets and holds back memories. His eyes are dark with everything they've seen and so damn fragile that Clint has no doubts at all anymore that he taught Natasha.
Clint waits for the information dump to get well into a second cycle of repetition -it takes fours days- before letting himself into the heavily monitored cell room that Bucky isn't sleeping in. He drops a book Steve's doodled all over in his lap and slumps next to him on the uncomfortable cot in clothes that still smell like Tasha.
He doesn't say a word, and Bucky doesn't snap his neck. Probably the best outcome anyone can hope for of this debacle.
It's tiring. Watching all these pieces and trying to, well, not fix it, but make it better. Make it bearable. Clint finds himself in the communal kitchen most evenings. Slumped over the table and tired as hell. It's where Bruce finds him most days.
The man only smiles and brews up a pot of coffee that is almost lethal in how strong it is. "You are my favorite person, ever," Clint says when Bruce sits across from him with Clint's coffee and tea for himself.
"You're welcome," Bruce says with a smile that verges on a smirk, and they drink in silence before going their own ways.
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The files and attachments show up frequently in Clint's email. He keeps deleting them. Perfectly fine to live in ignorance. It's been months. Street has to have established himself in with a team. Gotten the hang of the paperwork and inherent crazy that comes with SHIELD. Gotten comfortable enough that his continued employment is a sure thing. That it's apparent he's not going to leave anytime soon.
Long enough that someone has to have sat him down and debriefed him on the classified missions he was part of. Fully debriefed to prevent any nasty shocks from coming up further down the road.
Clint thinks about that. A lot. A depressing lot of times that usually ends with him challenging Bucky or Tasha to a drinking contest just because it's stupid enough to break his chain of thought most nights.
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The timer on his own personal shit show reaches zero during some infestation of six foot glowing bugs in Idaho, and, because it's Clint's life, it happens after one of the worst falls of his life.
The three inches of solid rebar going through the right side of his chest certainly beats out the time he landed on the full back end of a junk collector's truck. Especially since it seems to have gone straight through his lung. He's judging that by the way he's breathing out blood and has to struggle to get any air in. He could be wrong though. It's hard to judge anything given the amount of sheer pain he's in.
It's also why it takes so long for Clint to place why the horrified face of the SHIELD agent supporting his upper body is so damn familiar.
"Breathe, breathe," Street chants and this has to be a nightmare for him. Something out of the man's worst dreams, because he's not even yelling. He's just saying it quietly. Like if he gets any louder something will break. "Jesus fucking Christ."
Clint doesn't have the breath to say anything, can't even stop his labored pants long enough make a reassuring noise. To apologize, to deny, to do anything at all. Cool hands brush against his face and Clint forces his eyes open to find Tasha hovering over him. Face closed as she wads up some cloth around the bar. Pressing it in despite the way Clint spasms from the pain of it.
"Iron Man, I need you here now," Tasha's voice is steady and purposeful. He can feel one hand worming under his back. She gives Street a cool glare that's sent sane men running, but the man hasn't stopped looking at Clint's face once and he misses it. "Don't move him."
"I," Street's throat bobs as he swallows and shakes his head, and Clint doesn't need to ask to know that the man knows nothing. That he hasn't been briefed on the operations he'd been tangled up in before joining. Clint can't imagine Coulson forgetting that, but it does speak strongly of Tony's meddling. "What the fuck?"
The roar of Iron Man landing and clanking forward drowns out more words, and Clint can't really focus enough to read Street's lips.
"Dammit, Tweety," Tony replaces Tasha. His face plate up as he frowns down at his chest like it's one of Dummy's frequent messes. "What've we told you about jumping off buildings?"
Tasha gives Clint a nod as she steps back and says, reassuringly, "It's not as bad as Budapest."
"One of these days," Tony says conversationally as he takes in the damage without touching, "you two are going to tell me about that and why the only reports SHIELD has for that mission is a request form for lemons."
Clint rasps out a croak and feels his lips twitch. Those lemons had been awesome, and the fact that it's all Tony could ever find is all the proof Clint needs that Coulson has a sense of humor. Clint tries to laugh and distantly notes that he's starting to slide into shock.
"The rod is attached to the concrete," Tasha says just out of sight, and Clint can feel her weight settle on his legs even as his mind detaches from the situation. The pressure of Tasha and Street holding him still the only thing keeping him connected to the world. "Can you remove it without injuring him further?"
"Sure, shouldn't be too hard," Tony's down and peering under him leaving Clint with a wonderful view of Street's face as too many things run across it for Clint to name. "Might not even cauterize his lungs on accident if he doesn't move," Tony pops back up long enough to look Clint in the eyes with a rare seriousness. "I'm not going to lie, Bird Brain, this is going to hurt like a bitch. Feel free to scream. No one here'll think any less of you for it."
It's all the warning he gets before Street's eyes go comically wide and Clint hears the whine of a repulsor start up far too close to his head. Everything after that is just pain until he mercifully blacks out.
He doesn't think he screams, but he could be wrong.
.
.