"Are you ready, Clint?" Natasha asked as her friend finished saying 'goodbye' to his family. Looking back up at her, Clint nodded and began wheeling himself down their makeshift porch ramp and onto the cold, dirt driveway.
Since a normal wheelchair required the use of both working arms, this wasn't a normal wheelchair. This chair had a lever which worked as a pump, allowing him to move forwards and change directions easily with his left hand. It was the closest thing to working he was going to get since he was immobile, and he was glad to have this exercise. Even if it was a lot of work to move his whole body with one arm down his endless driveway.
By the time he reached the jet, Clint was practically out of breath. For once, he was glad to let Natasha take over his work and push him up the steep quinjet ramp as he waved one last time to his wife and kids.
And with that, the two were off to New York.
Each weekend, Clint was required to go back to the Avengers base for physical therapy and check ups. If he wanted to get back on his feet soon, and in prime condition, he still had a lot of work to get done.
But not all of it had to be work, he was still planning to have some fun while outside of his house. Even if he loved being with Laura and the kids, he loved to visit his second family too. He couldn't stay a caged bird for long, and it was nice to have an excuse to spend time with both of his families and get some fresh air.
It was less than an hour later before they landed at the facility, Natasha splitting off to help Steve train the young Avengers. Clint continued on his own path to see the physical therapist alone, until his progress was stopped when he turned a corner, nearly colliding with someone else in the halls.
"Woah!" The familiar voice of Tony said as he stumbled to avoid the collision, trying to prevent his coffee cup from spilling out of his hand. When he finally looked down to see who he almost hit, he saw Clint in his wheelchair. "Oh, sorry Hawk. I didn't even see you there," He said while studying him. "Did you shrink?"
As a smirk plastered itself on Tony's face, Clint gained his own. "Yeah, I did. For once, you don't need heels to be taller than me..."
Tony's smirk was slapped off his face. "I hope you're only here to go on a mission..." Tony's monotone reply let him know he didn't appreciate it Clint's 'short joke'. All the Avengers knew that Tony hated short jokes, especially once they found out he purposely put a heel in his suit to make him appear taller as Iron Man. Ever since that discovery, the Avengers would occasionally share a joke, much to Tony's dismay.
Clint shrugged to try and move their conversation forward with, hopefully, the last word. "Physical therapy. But why are you here, Tony? You aren't usually at this facility."
Tony unwillingly decided to let the short joke slide. For now. "Had to talk with Fury about a few security details, but wow…" Tony exclaimed as he properly looked down at his injured friend. Currently, Clint had a blanket over his legs to cover the colorful pictures from passerby's eyes. He didn't want a random agent interrogating him over his colorful casts and expose his kids. However, his arm cast was still exposed and Tony took note of the many designs, including the Avengers ones. "That's a very… Colorful cast there. Did the kids prank you while you were sleeping?"
Clint laughed remembering the similar situation that started this cast decorating. "Well, Laura and I joined in. It's more of a tradition than a prank."
"You get injured that often, you made it a tradition? Are you sure you're fit for this job?" Tony smirked.
Instead of denying it, Clint shrugged. "Either way, you can't get rid of me, I'll just keep coming back."
After saying that, Tony knew he was right, he would always keep coming back like the rest of them. If there was one thing all the Avengers had in common, it was that they were all too stubborn to quit.
As Tony looked back down at Clint's covered leg, he couldn't help but wonder what designs were hiding under it. "Seeing what you guys did to your arm, I'm curious to see what's on you leg..."
Clint rolled his eyes before glancing around the hallway. When he saw nobody else in the vicinity, he lifted the blanket to cure Tony of his curiosity. His jaw dropping was enough to make Clint chuckle.
"And I thought the arm was colorful..." Tony shook his head in disbelief at the sight of the forest scene among the other designs. Rubbing his beard, he continued to stare at it with wide eyes.
Without warning, his face changed to one of contemplation as an idea dawned on him. "You know what…" Tony said and quickly started patting his suit jacket for a pen. Whipping one out a second later, he said, "May I?"
Clint had to admit he was curious as to what Tony was up to, so he silently motioned towards the casts. "Be my guest."
Bending down by Clint's leg, he carefully scratched the ink onto one of the few blank spaces of the plaster. After a minute, he stood up and Clint was able to see what he did. He wrote his signature big and bold, adding a message reading, "Don't break anything else, Hobbit."
Clint half sighed and half laughed as the billionaire officially got the last word. "There," Tony proclaimed, "Now you have the most expensive cast you can get, because it has my priceless signature."
"I am honored to have The Tony Stark's signature on my lowly, old cast," Clint mocked with a smile still present on his face. There may have been times Clint hated the billionaire, but moments like these always made him glad to have Tony as a friend. He always tried to keep a smile on their faces in rough situations.
Clint continued, "Maybe when it's off I'll sell it on Ebay. Now, I'd love to stay and rebuttal you some more, but you're holding me up from physical therapy."
Tony stepped aside with an exaggerated wave to let him pass. "Oh, we can't have you miss that. You have to get back in the field or Fury will be extra grumpy at all my meetings."
As Clint started his way forward, he heard Tony in the distance say, "See you rolling around, Hobbit."
With a sigh, he didn't bother putting his blanket back over his leg as he continued his way forward. He was close to the therapy room anyways, and he wanted his therapist to see the designs.
Folding the fabric in his lap outside of his destination's doors, it was only second's after he entered that he was greeted with comments on his cast from Doctor Marta Shearing. "Nice! You're kids are back at it again I see..." She said and instantly admired the artwork on his cast this time. "I think this is the best injury yet. There's actually a whole forest scene... And is that the deer I heard about?"
Nodding, Clint smiled. Marta had seen all his colorful casts in the past, and he had come to know her well over the years. She was a brilliant scientist he basically recruited into Shield when she got wrapped up too deeply into one of his solo missions.
She was a survivor of a lab shootout, but she wasn't supposed to be a survivor. She managed to escape the first storm, but she didn't know a second was coming to finish the job. Clint was sent to intervene and managed to help her escape. She even found a new life with Shield, since her old one would've gotten her killed.
She wasn't always a physical therapist either, she was a biochemist who studied gene modification in the lab that had the shootout, but after that situation she decided to change paces a bit. She was still a scientist for Shield, but also studied and became Clint's regular physical therapist whenever he was injured on the job. She was one of the few people who managed to keep Clint in check while healing. That in itself was a feat.
"You're right, those are the famous deer," He replied. "It's good to see you again, Marta."
"You're late," She accused.
"I had a surprise run in with Tony," Clint defended.
Directing him out of the therapy room and down the corridor, she sighed. "Of course it was. Mr. Stark likes making everyone late..."
As silence fell upon them in their mini stroll, Clint broke it by asking, "Where are we heading?"
"We're going to see Dr. Spencer to get a few x-rays before we start. See how you're healing." She simply replied.
With that, it wasn't long before they took the x-rays and smiled at the results. "Well, your injuries are healing rather nicely. Hopefully within the next three weeks your leg fracture will be healed enough so you can get that cast off. A shame though, you guys just decorated it," She said as she handed him the scans.
"Well, the sooner it's off the better." Clint said as he took and studied them. The fracture clearly had healed significantly over the past few weeks, but it would still take a little bit more time.
"The arm will probably take a little longer, but at least you'll be able to fully walk soon and stop having to get around in a wheelchair."
"Thank god," Clint let out a relieved breath as she put the x-rays in Spencer's medical files and headed back to the therapy room for their session. "Man, I wish I was young again and these bones would heal in, like, three weeks."
"Well, you've gotta grow old sometime," She laughed. "You can't keep doing this forever, you know."
"I'm going to try," Clint smirked as they finally got to their therapy session. As they did basic muscle exercises, Marta guiding Clint through them, they caught up like old friends. She couldn't help but go off into a tangent or two about her current lab work on genes, and Clint couldn't get out of telling her the full story behind these injuries.
After, Marta joined in on Tony's idea of signing his cast. She ended up writing a sweet message about strength before heading off to attend other Shield work. Clint smiled at how supportive Marta always was, nothing seemed to have broken her spirit throughout the years, even the rough mission where they met. Clint admired that.
Pumping the lever of his wheelchair, his main work was done for the day and it was finally time for some fun. He made his way to the main gym in the facility, the one he knew the Avengers trained at. It was a huge room which included many training obstacles, but the one Clint payed attention to was in the back corner of the room. Various machines Tony created ran through training exercises, the young Avengers doing their best to take the metal minds down.
For minutes on end, Clint simply sat behind one of the observation windows, seeing how Vision, Wanda, Sam, and Rhodey were taking out Tony's practice robots without their powers one by one. Occasionally, he heard shouted orders from either the team of four or Steve off to the side, but they seemed to be doing well at anticipating each other's movements.
Steve was right, their teamwork had improved significantly.
When they were nearing the end of their exercise, almost all the bots taken out, Clint finally decided he was safe enough from flying debris to enter. He easily rolled through the automatic door and pumped himself over to where Steve and Natasha stood.
Natasha didn't even acknowledge Clint to know he was there as she kept her eyes glued to the team. "Sloppy back stab, Rhodes!" She shouted.
Noting the critic, they all took out the last bot and caught a breath before acknowledging a job well done through giving each other high-fives. On their way over, they smiled when they noticed Clint for the first time.
"Hey, there he is!" Sam said and lightly punched the man's shoulder. "Flightless! The man certainly living up to his name!"
"We're not done boys," Natasha cleared her throat in slight annoyance before she and Steve updated the team. Their lesson wasn't over and she was clear in pointing that out as the two continued to teach and give feedback on what improvements still needed to be made. It felt like they were all in school again as it seemed like an hour before they were released for the day.
Though none of them left. It had been weeks since most of them had seen Clint since the incident and wanted to catch up on the details.
Clint wasn't surprised that the first thing Rhodey brought up was, "So, what's with the cast?" He asked as he looked down at the colorful arm and blanket covered leg.
Clint smiled before taking off the blanket. They were bound to see the rest at some point and plus, Clint didn't mind showing off his kids' work to his friends. He was rather proud of it. "So many people are asking me about them, I guess I don't blend in very well."
Most of the team's eyebrows raised at the other cast joining the mix. "Not with all those bright colors," Rhodey laughed before he bent down to get a closer look at them. After a moment of observing the forest on his leg, he noticed a fresh design. "Wait, did Tony just sign it?"
"Yes he did," Clint said before taking out a pen from his own pocket and holding it out. "Feel free to join his act of vandalism. I think these casts are so forgone that more filled space won't make any difference in getting noticed less."
Rhodey took the pen first with a devious smile. "Any chance to vandalize a mark Tony's made in the world, I'm up for."
He wrote his own signature above Tony's and wrote a little note saying "The better Iron Man," with a huge arrow pointing to Rhodey's name.
Clint laughed. "You guys act like kids."
"Well," He replied and handed the pen over to Steve. "As long as I'm the cooler kid..."
Steve wrote his name next, managing to find the Captain America shield that Cooper had drawn on his arm and signed his name next to that with a simple note of "Get well soon."
They continued down the line of teammates after that. Natasha wrote a note of simply, "Idiot," which only made Clint shake his head. Wanda had already wrote a note when she visited which read, "Thanks old man." Sam's said, "Nice shot," referring to the poor decision making Clint had, but when it came time for Vision's turn, he was very confused as to what he was supposed to do.
"I am supposed to sign this, correct?" He asked and as soon as everyone nodded, he continued, "But I do not have a signature…"
"Well then," Wanda answered as she moved to stand beside him, "It's about time you get one. Just spell out, 'Vision,' one letter at a time."
Still very confused on how to write, since he had never done it before, he nodded and took his best guess. He held the pen in a slightly awkward position as he pressed the ink onto the cast, doing his best to write his identity onto the plaster. It took him a minute, but he eventually got his name down in an uneven fashion as if a toddler had wrote it. "Is that alright?" Vision asked, still unsure if he did it correctly.
"Could use some practice, but it's looking good." Rhodey stated as he observed the writing.
Satisfied, Vision silently handed Clint back the pen as Wanda piped in, "If you want to learn how to write, I could help teach you," She offered.
"I would appreciate that," Vision commented as the two shared a smile that didn't go unnoticed by the team.
Coughing as he noted Wanda's slight blushing, Clint slipped the pen into his pocket and changed the topic. "So, I clearly ran into Tony earlier. Did he swing by you guys too?"
Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "We saw Tony alright."
"Cap's just annoyed his training schedule was interrupted again." Sam smirked at his friend.
Steve grinned. "Yeah, that's why training ran a little late today. I'm sure you all enjoyed the extra work..." He deviously answered.
"Totally," Sam replied, monotone while the others mentally sighed.
"Since this is Tony we're talking about, I assume something interesting happened in his brief visit?" Clint interrogated as the team walked out of the training area to talk in a more private location.
"Oh, you have no idea. Don't worry, we'll tell you all about it…" Sam said as they walked down the halls of the base with Clint rolling right alongside his second family.
And as they told their story about how Tony barged in and started running the show, much to Steve's dismay, Clint couldn't help but grin while he enjoyed the new additions to his casts at the same time. His friends' signatures made the plaster feel much more complete than it already had been, the missing pieces filled.
After all, he was a part of two families and without one of them, he would be incomplete himself.
Sorry for the late updating, life has been busy, but a fun busy. I've been making room for some other activities I love and missed in my life, but that means I've lost some time to write in the process. Updates may be slow right now but I'll eventually get the hang of balancing it all and plus, some breaks are coming up so hopefully updates will be sooner rather than later:)
You also may have noticed that sometimes I like to put in little easter eggs that hint at other movies Jeremy Renner had been in, so there was a connection for one in this chapter. It's just a fun thing I like to add in and I hope you all enjoy them and this story! Thanks for continuing to read and support!:D