In which we find how connected Clint truly is to the entire team.

And, an interview.


Recovery in Cabo

Chapter 3: Bruce

The warm sun threatened to bake Clint from the outside in, but it wasn't enough to chase him into the water or the cool shade of the villa. His pale skin had been indoors long enough. It was time to start branching out, enjoy the sunlight again. Thor and Steve reclaimed their game of Frisbee in the surf, and spent their time performing acrobatic feats that rivaled any gymnast. Tony slept in with Pepper, not wishing to be roused before ten a.m. at the earliest. Already noon, they'd missed that mark by a long shot. Natasha lounged a few chairs down, with an umbrella that could double as a parachute, and a Pina colada.

Since he was required to RICE his legs (rest, ice, compress, elevate) for the next six weeks to six months, he went for the hammock instead. He had water well within reach and something Steve made in a blender he found slightly appetizing. According to the Captain, he meant to put hair on his chest. Clint replied by pointing out that he occasionally went to lengths to prevent that.

Something hit Clint in the belly, and he launched up at the impact. He grabbed the object and found his fist wrapped around a newspaper. He looked up at the apparent delivery boy; Banner.

"Some wake-up call I didn't order." Clint said, unfolding the paper in his lap.

"You're telling me. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled out of the rainforest, in nothing but some stretched out boxers, and saw that on the news stand in San Juan." Bruce replied. He looked around, found himself a chair and dragged it over.

Clint used his good arm to shift himself back up into a seated position. He checked the paper, skimming the key pieces.

INJURED IN EXPLOSION, GRIEVING HAWKEYE RECOVERS IN MEXICO

"San Juan? New Mexico? I thought you and Thor went to go play throw the boulder."

"We did, and then I . . . I mean the other guy . . . turned into the boulder. What happens in Cabo..."

Beneath the headline, a photo of Clint, coached on by Steve, bench-pressing the lowest amount he'd ever tolerated on a bar. A few other photos accompanied the first. One showed Clint hobbling across the sand on his crutches. A second had an intimate moment between Bruce and he, where the doctor worked his shoulder loose, and still others. He didn't have to look at the courtesy of column to know where the photos came from.

"Everheart. That magazine reporter. She popped out of the woodwork the other day when I went to the gym. She must have enjoyed that little interview." Clint didn't bother to read the article. Instead, he dropped the paper on the sand between them.

"You spoke with her?" Bruce asked.

Clint shrugged one shoulder. It was starting to be a habit. "Didn't give her much. Enough for a headline though I guess."

"She didn't say where we were, thankfully. But once news of this breaks, the press is going to follow you around like you're Brad Pitt."

"They did that before too." Barton pointed out.

"It's weird."

"I know. I guess I'm getting used to it, though."

"I'm not used to it."

"Been running from things for a while. Be nice to just sit and pretend nothing exists out there." Clint leaned back again and made an effort of raising his knee a little higher. Of all of them, Banner continued to admonish him on proper altitudes for swollen limbs.

"I hid in Alaska, Canada, the Maldives, and Calcutta. I think I beat you on the run away point." Bruce replied. He picked up the article, shook out the sand, and perused it again. There was nothing particularly defamatory or groundbreaking in it. The entire planet got a good hard look at exactly who Clint Barton was when Barney took over the White House and publicly displayed every Barton family secret. Even Bruce had to readjust his opinion of Clint after seeing the news. So much had been revealed that he couldn't have imagined. Apparently, that was just the start of Clint's troth of surprises in store for him.

"Yeah, but wherever you went, I found you." Clint replied.

"Natasha found me in Calcutta." Bruce pointed out.

"Did she?"

Bruce dropped the paper and stared at Clint to see what sort of expression the archer had. Clint was serious. "No, you were zombie-fide by Loki. I distinctly remember Natasha showing up in my hut."

Clint continued to rest back with one hand under his head. "Uh huh. Bruce, how long were you in Calcutta?"

"Three months."

Clint opened one eye and stared at him. "Uh huh. When you left the Tower and were determined to never come back, who did SHIELD send out to find you? Natasha or me?"

That, Bruce could not argue. He'd had a fling with a woman once who turned out to be an undercover HYDRA agent, the first one to come out with her true identity. She became the catalyst that started Clint on the undercover mission Bruce asked him to leave SHIELD for. That conversation happened on a beach in New Jersey one year before. Looking back, it was amazing to see how far Bruce's split second request took them.

"Why did they send you out to find me?" Bruce asked, genuinely curious.

"It might surprise you to know that I'm called Hawkeye for more than just my incredible aim. I told Steve, I don't know that you ever heard about it, but when Tony first went missing in the desert, I was sent in with my team to find him."

"No, I hadn't heard that."

"I'm good at finding people. I was on his trail for a few weeks when Coulson pulled me off the case to go to Budapest. Natasha had run off, gone rogue, and he wanted me to bring her back in. It was the rest of my team on board that helicopter with Rhodes which picked Tony up."

Bruce swung his legs over the side of his chair and leaned forward. "Oh, so is this the famed Budapest story everyone speculates on? What really happened in Budapest?"

"Don't get too excited. It's not that interesting. I say I let her take me, she says she grabbed me by force. But whatever way you read it, I ended up shot, handcuffed to a chair in her basement hideout, and tortured for a while."

"Red in her ledger. She always said she didn't love you. That she owed you a debt." Bruce cut a sideways glance to where Natasha had abandoned her sun bathing. She sat, poised on Steve's shoulders, and grappled with Pepper, sitting on Thor's. The entire four person group went careening into the ocean.

"She felt guilty about it afterward." Clint affirmed softly. "Coulson found me. With my good word and his, SHIELD took her back. It wasn't easy. For a while, she had the same reputation stuck to her that Loki branded me with. I partnered with her because I trusted her."

"Despite what she did to you?"

"I know when I can rely on someone. Natasha might be difficult, but she's loyal to her friends."

That, Bruce could not refute. The people closest to Clint had copious experience with the infallible nature of his heart. He didn't trust easy, but he knew who to put his faith in, and who not to. Like a human lie detector, he had a sense of those around him. Sometimes, his willingness to forgive got him neck deep into trouble. His brother, Natasha. Surely there were others in the world he'd put his life on the line to protect, whether they deserved it or not.

"OK. So SHIELD sent you to find Stark. When she went rogue, they sent you to find her. After that, you tracked me down?"

"The first time, yeah. I think you were in… Bali? Or was it Sri Lanka?"

Bruce leaned back, stunned Clint had such exceedingly detailed information about his whereabouts. "Yeah, maybe Sri Lanka."

Clint reached over, picked up the Captain America protein shake, and sipped from the straw. "Sri Lanka. You were there for two and a half weeks. Then you took a boat, stayed at sea for a week on a fishing charter, sailed for Thailand, stayed on foot for two months, and then made your way to Calcutta. That all sound familiar?" He glanced over again to watch the news sink in. "Scary, isn't it? I've been tailing members of this team for almost eight years."

"I never even saw you." Bruce said, driving his memory back to the times Clint so accurately described.

"You Hulked out in Islamabad after an Armed Forces splinter team came across your location. That was my fault. I thought my radio line was secure when I contacted Coulson with my mission update, and I turned out to be wrong. General Ross piggy-backed my line and drew a bead on you. Fury refused to give me a go-ahead to take the Armed Forces garrison down. Back then, SHIELD wanted to play nice with the other military branches. I lost your trail for a few days before picking it back up a thousand miles Southeast in . . ." Clint struggled to remember the name of the city.

"It was probably Bhutan." Bruce supplied.

Clint shrugged. "Possibly. Anyway, you made your way south, and I figured you were either headed for Bangladesh or Balsore. You went with Calcutta, so it's right in between."

The way he wrapped up the news in a perfectly knit ball stunned the physicist. He'd known Clint intimately for three years, and in all that time the spy could still come out with information that sent his head spinning. Placing that information into the stack of Clint's already known assets created an ever expanding interest in the archer.

After leaving Calcutta, Clint followed Coulson to New Mexico where Thor's hammer was found. At that time, Natasha worked undercover in Stark Industries as Tony, and then Pepper's, personal secretary. Thor returned to Asgard, Clint was pulled off the New Mexico assignment, and stationed at the tesseract base where some tech began to disappear. As important as the research there became, and with Selvig now pulled into the research, security became paramount in everyone's minds. Clint, the Hawkeye and people finder, rooted out the first branch of HYDRA then. He had just worked into digging deeper when Loki struck. The rest was Avengers history.

When Bruce ran off, Fury sent Clint to find him because he knew Clint was the best at it. When a SHIELD team went missing in Libya, who did they call when all else failed? Hawkeye. Despite Fury wanting to keep the truth of the mission, and the apparently undead Phil Coulson out of Avengers knowledge, he risked sending Barton in because he knew the job would get done. Thor, even, wasn't immune to asking Clint's help in a missing person case. Fandral, during a mission to find Loki's portal on Asgard, had disappeared, and Thor went out of his way to bring Clint in as the bloodhound who tracked the man down.

"It's strange how right you are. I never thought back to it before." Bruce admitted thoughtfully.

"It's why you asked me to do it, isn't it?"

Bruce looked at him, and Clint's blue eyes stole his attention.

"That's why you asked me to leave, and why I was the best one to go under cover out of all of us." Clint clarified. "I find people. I see through them. I'm more than just a guy that's great at using a Paleolithic-era weapon, and people forget that. You didn't."

Bruce wondered if Clint's assessment of his own decision proved valid or not. He wanted it to be true. If anything, it was food for thought. Bruce rolled the paper a little and tapped Clint with it as he moved to go back inside. "Your fan club's on her way over. Want me to scare her off?"

Barton twisted around to see Everheart stalking across the sand to get to him. He grinned a little as he watched the struggle. "Nah, let her be. I've got an idea about this press thing."

The doctor couldn't be sure Clint knew what he was doing, but he preferred to leave now rather than find himself on another front page. He headed up the beach and disappeared into the villa. The doors drew shut behind him.

Clint watched him retreat before gauging the distance of the other Avengers. Thor had run off toward the pool with Pepper in hot pursuit. Steve grabbed Tony's girl by the waist and threatened to dive into the water with her. Natasha came up behind him and swept out the Captain's legs. Steve hit the sand, Natasha rescued Pepper, and together the women drove Thor into the water. Clint chuckled to himself as he watched the antics. He couldn't remember the last time they'd enjoyed this type of freedom, especially all together.

"You know, I'm usually happy until you show up." He sensed the shadow poised at his side, and addressed the reporter before she opened her mouth. Clint turned slightly and looked at Everheart.

There was a microphone taped beneath her blouse on the left side, and an auricular receiver in the right ear hidden beneath her hair. She wore an oversized teal bag, which might have contained a camera lens if this was 1985. But Clint figured the true recorder was laced in the brand new Luis Vuitton sunglasses hanging in the V of her top.

"You know, trying to interview a spy with tech like that strapped to you is a little ridiculous, right? Have you even seen Mission Impossible?"

She flushed. "If you want me to take it off, I will."

Clint held up his good hand to stop the tirade ahead of the storm. "Actually I prefer for you to keep everything on. I know exactly how your first interview with Tony went. Sit down for a second."

Everheart's jaw dropped.

Clint waited. When she still didn't move, he motioned to the chair beside him. "Look, this is a limited invite that's going to shut down in five seconds when I come to my senses – "

She scrambled in the deep sand to circle his hammock, and planted herself on the lounge chair Banner evacuated. The teal bag hit the sand, and she tousled through it to emerge with a pen and paper. Clint didn't miss the four tape recorders all set for spoken word either. Apparently, she anticipated on getting lucky, or at least planting something in the sand around him to sift for later.

"I have some rules for this." Clint said first.

"Sounds like this isn't your first interview." Everheart said. She looked up from the paper. Her name, date, time, and location were already written in. She was fast.

"You'd be wrong. But I've been interrogated plenty, and to me, it's the same thing." He corrected. Clint carefully lifted out of the mesh trough and eased his feet into the sand. He motioned to the next closest lounge chair. "First, bring that over."

Everheart left everything behind, kicked off her fashionista sandals, and launched across the way to retrieve it. By the time she dragged it over, Clint had just managed to stand on the ankle cast.

"My crutches are inside—no! Get back over here, you aren't going in there." Clint called her back the minute she dashed for the villa doors. He held up his arm. "Just get over on my left for a second. I'm not going to lean too hard. Get me close enough, and I'll sit myself down."

Everheart did as he instructed and, cradled against his bare chest, they gently walked the few steps to the waiting beach chair. Clint pulled his arm from around her shoulders, grabbed the armrest, and one-handedly lowered himself down. Bruce's abandoned lounge chair was close enough for him to put his feet up on, so he did. Everheart sat beside them.

"I don't like laying down when I'm being interrogated. It's an old war thing. That, or I spent too much time around psychiatrists. And, before you ask, you can't write that."

Everheart disappointedly crossed out a few lines. She brought her pen up to the corner of her mouth and regarded the Avenger. He seemed so . . . normal in person.

His left leg had an intricate, molded cast from the first knuckle of his toes to the top of his -for medical records told her he suffered a fracture to his second and third metacarpals and talus. He had a fist-sized purple bruise over his left knee, and a smaller dime-shaped one above that. His left leg appeared normal from foot to calf. A heavy-duty brace, complete with traction gears, immobilized him at the knee. She could make out the white bandages occasionally dotted in red beneath the brace. Injury or surgery? Flight plans mentioned a team of crack physicians took an impromptu vacation to this exact resort ten days ago. More than likely he had surgery. Knee surgery. ACL tear seemed plausible.

Moving up, her trained eye analyzed him like a string of editorial photographs waiting for print. His shorts started mid-thigh, where another bruise appeared. The band of his trunks cut his abdomen in half. In the center of his chest was a blue/green outline, roughly the same shape as a MAC-10 gun stock. He'd been hit there with one the minute he stepped onto the White House lawn. To the right, she noticed an odd depression in the normal flow of his ribs that she couldn't quite explain. Either he'd crushed an entire side in, or never had them to begin with.

Eyes went up again, noting the mass of scars that disfigured his chest like a crossword puzzle. His left shoulder seemed normal enough, but the right, she knew to be off. Up close, Everheart saw the three taped-on bandages. She recognized the familiar locations for an arthroscopy according to her research. Half of the surgical team were joints specialists. Apparently, his knee wasn't the only item of interest to them.

Lastly, she looked at his face. He had a scar one wouldn't notice from far away. It reached beneath his left eye, crossed his nose, went right down the cheek, and into his ear. Where it ended, his ear too looked different. He'd had reconstructive surgery at some point to recreate the shape. The incision on either side of his head, where his auricular implants were inserted, had long ago receded into his hair.

"Enjoying the view?" He asked. Her assessment took her less than a few seconds, but Clint was used to people sizing him up the way she did.

"You just aren't what I expected." She admitted, and rolled her shoulders. "You said you had some rules? Before I get my hopes up and write down everything you say, would you care to tell me what those are?"

Clint looked away for a moment. She turned in place to see who stole his attention away, and noticed Tony Stark standing on the deck behind them. He'd walked out soundlessly and rather than address her, spoke to Clint through sign language. The archer signed something back, and Tony disappeared inside again.

"What was that?" She asked.

"He wanted to know whether or not I wanted lunch outside. Before that, he asked if I wanted him to drag you to Chihuahua and drop you in a coffee field. I said no to both."

"He wouldn't do – "

Clint arched his eyebrow.

Everheart nodded. "Never mind. Yes he would do that."

"I've never seen him sign the word Chihuahua, so thanks for that. It was pretty funny." Clint chuckled to himself. He indicated the glass of water he left beside the hammock, and Everheart handed it to him. He took a few mouthfuls, and then set it on his thigh. "Rules. The rules are, you aren't publishing anything that I tell you until we leave here."

The blonde nearly launched herself out of the seat. Certainly she started swearing internally. For her sake, and the scoop of the century, she kept it in. Clint admired that little granule of self-control. Perhaps his plan would work out after all.

"You can have your interview. Only with me, unless someone else decides to talk to you. You aren't to follow me around, jump out of any bushes, and no hidden camera tricks. No newspaper articles, anonymous publications, or selling off the photographs you take."

Everheart dropped her pen and crossed her arms. "I'm a reporter, Mr. B – "

Clint leaned forward very quickly and stopped her before she said the word. "That's rule number two. I am not Mr. Barton."

She tilted her head slightly in brewing annoyance. "Fine, Mr. Hawkeye. I'm a reporter. What you're telling me to do, is interview you and never tell anyone about what you say. How exactly does that work out?"

"Perfectly." He relaxed again, but a twinge in his knee made him hitch. He slowly massaged the side of his leg. "You get the exclusive. You publish it after we go back home. I came here for some privacy. News gets out we're here, and every reporter in every country is going to be interrupting the little paradise I'm looking for. I could do this the easy way and have Thor just fly us off someplace else. But, I'm giving you an opportunity."

The idea made a few laps around her brain. Clint waited for her to come to terms with his offering, and occupied that time by watching the others. Pepper and Steve decided to sit out a few rounds of whatever game they conjured for themselves, and Natasha proceeded to drown Thor. A smile crept onto his face. Soon enough, he'd be able to join in on the rough house.

"OK."

Clint returned his attention to the reporter. For a moment, he'd forgotten she was there.

She picked up her pen and notebook again. "I get the exclusive, you talk to no one else. I sit on the location, the details, and the photos, but just until you check out of the hotel. That's a pretty steep price for my editor, so I want one more thing."

"Depends what it is." He told her.

"I want a photo shoot."

Clint laughed. He shook his head a little. Him? In a photo shoot? The last time he did something like that, it was for a party he crashed at the British Ambassador's office in D.C. while working on his HYDRA leads. Legitimate photo shoot? He was supposed to have one with the other Avengers during the Battle of New York fundraiser Tony hosted, but he came down with a bad case of the flu, and then got shot at. He was a spy then. Still working the shadows. Having his face out there put him at risk.

"Don't laugh! You have your terms, I have mine. I want a photo shoot. Right now, whether you know it or not, you are the new James Bond or Jason Bourne. Everyone wants to know what happened when you left the Avengers. Everyone has their theories. I want a chance to show everyone the real side of Hawkeye."

She was tenacious, he gave her that. The last time she had this kind of pull, though, Tony ended up in bed with her. He had half a mind to give her what she wanted, minus that last idea. By then, he'd most likely be on two legs again. No one asked how long they planned to stay in Cabo. That was Clint's decision, and the entire team waited on him. No one pressured him, asked him, or wondered out loud. They only enjoyed the time together for once.

"Fine." Clint agreed. "Rule number three, if I find you in my bedroom, or any other random part of my temporary house in an attempt to repeat that Tony Stark spread you did, Natasha won't kill you. But you'll wish she had."

She didn't appear rattled on the outside, but he could tell by the furtive little look she shot across the beach that his warning hit home.

"Is that you confirming a relationship with Agent Romanov?"

Clint smiled. With the ground rules laid out, it was time to start the interview.


He's such a snarky guy, isn't he? I love it.

Next time: Tony

the next 2 chapters are probably my favorites. First Tony, then Natasha, and then, its the end!