Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There's also canon typical references to superhero stuff. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: I wanted this to go to a certain place and it was taking it's time. So now it's part of a story that I may someday get to the point that I wanted. Have an actual decent Clint Barton who has been shifted into the MCU.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: n/a
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 03
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [211](Sunny); Auction [D15A3] (Clint Barton)
Other MC4A Challenges: Ship (Black Bow)[Bingo](5D - Dimension Hopping); Chim [Dextrin] (Royal Purple); Fire (FixItFelix); Garden [Ship Ahoy!](Black Bow)
Representation(s): Clint Barton/Tony Stark; Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff QPR; Avengers as Family
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: n/a
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: n/a
Word Count: 1094 words

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Shifted Perspective
Part 01: A New World
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Clint landed in what smelled like the dumpster of the dumpling shop that Nat wore had the best pelmeni. His hearing aids gave the small warning whine that meant they had experienced EMP exposure before they stopped functioning. If this whatever it was had a Tony Stark, then the genius would be able to get them to power up again, but outside of that, Clint was back to lip-reading, signing, and what limited ranges he could actually hear.

He took a minute to be thankful that the dumpster wasn't literally on fire this time before reaching up to take out the buds and tuck them into a specially designed pocket in his royal purple armored shirt.

Hopefully, Nat would remember to feed Lucky while he was stuck in whatever dimension that here happened to be. Hell, he hoped that someone remembered to feed Tony while he was gone. Preferably someone with an actual body that could physically remove him from the workshop and sit on top of him in a bed if necessary. Rhodes had been off planet with Carol and Maria, but Cap would probably take care of it. He was normally Clint's backup on Tony-wrangling, given how the genius was still a little nervy around Nat.

Damn, he missed his partner already. What he wouldn't give to be forcing the genius to visit Helen in Medical at this very moment. Tony would probably whine until Clint pulled him into a kiss just to shut him up. Not that just a kiss would ever shut his genius up for long.

Still, there was no use laying there wishing he was back home. Tony and Bruce had made sure that every single Avenger could recite their basic step by step plan for handling unexpected travel in time, dimension, and slash or relative space. Tony had been extra careful to make sure that Clint in particular knew what to do. Clint knew that a lot of the caution was Tony's insecurities telling him that Clint would not come back if something like that happened. Oh, sure, Tony claimed that it was just because Clint was the one statistically more likely to encounter a portal given his propensity for rooftops not to mention Clint's general clumsiness and magnetism for trouble, but Clint still knew.

There had been times when Clint knew that the reason Tony asked for his help on a project had been in the hope that something would unexpectedly explode. It was bad enough that Clint had been banned from Bruce and Helen's labs by both the scientists and by a very stern-looking Rhodes. Clint would admit that he didn't understand why Tony had gotten so flustered when Rhodes had said that there would be no more tofu bunnies on his watch, but the genius had been adorable as he protested that whatever was being referenced was not his fault.

Clint flipped himself onto the rim of the dumpster. Using it like a tightrope, he walked over to the nearby fire escape and flipped himself onto the first landing easily. From there it was easy to get up all the way to the roof.

This was definitely Hell's Kitchen.

He turned until he spotted the familiar tower that he had learned to call home as much as he did his apartment or Laura's farm. It had the balcony that was large enough for the quinjet to land as well as the renovated smaller landing which held the dismantling bots for both the Iron Man and War Machine armors. The roof was still flat and he could definitely see the structures of what Bruce claimed for his garden, just without any sign of the green it should have at this time of year.

That was odd, but maybe this universe's Bruce happened to be on one of those sabbaticals theirs took occasionally. If it was something with Thor or the Guardians, then it was even more likely that Bruce hadn't even started his garden this season. No matter how many times Tony had offered to make bots to take care of all the stuff that goes along with a garden, Bruce had always declined.

What was odd but not explainable, however, was that the building didn't have the Avengers logo on it. It didn't have Stark either, like it had before the would-be invasion that Loki sabotaged as much as he had led. Something was definitely off about this universe.

Tony had been so ridiculously enthusiastic about the Avengers staying together after the battle. He had designed first floors and then more modestly suites for each of them with extras for future members or guests. He was proud of being an Avenger, of having the Avengers there.

Tony had always been the heart of them. Yeah, Cap tended to take the mantel of leader along with all the headaches that went along with the title, but at the end of the day, it was Tony who made them an actual team. It was Tony who had given them all a home. It was Tony who made them, a bunch of misfits rejected by everyone else, a family.

Something too cold to be a New York summer breeze cut through Clint.

What if something had happened to this world's Tony Stark?

Clint didn't even want to think about a world where his genius didn't exist. It would be a colder place, that was for sure. It would also be a more dangerous world. That wasn't because of everything that Tony had done in revamping SHIELD or as Iron Man or as an Avenger. Tony Stark had been fighting for a better world since long before he had come up with Iron Man or the world started behaving like it was a stack of comic books written by multiple authors all with their own directions. It just sped up when he decided to stop propping up his father's legacy at the same time.

Earth's Best Defender would always be Tony Stark, and that was something that Clint felt down to the bones of his very soul was a universal constant.

But Tony would never have allowed their home to just be abandoned.

Clint wanted to go home as soon as possible, but at the same time, he couldn't just leave any version of Tony in potential danger, not without knowing for certain. Determined now, he used the roofs to go three buildings over before taking its fire escape back down to street level. Then he started heading towards the Tower.

He had a genius to check on.

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To Be Continued
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