Chapter Thirty-Three: What's In A Name?
*TIME SKIP: ABOUT A YEAR* (A/N: basically, a year after the Chitauri invasion, so Hiro and Peter are seventeen-ish now. –Lucky)
Living in a tower with genius, a super soldier, an assassin, a god, and a part-time rage monster made for an interesting lifestyle, Clint mused as he strolled down the New York sidewalk. Especially when said genius liked pranks just as much as the bird-themed archer. Just last night the blonde had been doused head-to-toe in surprisingly high-quality shaving cream that made him look like a melting abominable snowman, though he had reveled in the squeals he got out of Tony when he started throwing the stuff at the billionaire before simply full-on tackling the man. He couldn't even remember what that prank had been revenge for. Clint had lost count of who-owed-who-what a while back, but what he did know was that he was officially out of pranking supplies. Which only meant one thing…
He needed more.
And this shopping trip of Tony Stark's doom was also an excellent opportunity to plan his retribution without the off chance that someone would try to stamp out his train of thought. Well, Steve was the only one who even tried to half-heartedly protest after living with them all for a year. Bruce just moved out of the way, Thor found everything hilarious – something that stroked his own ego – and Natasha tended to ignore his antics unless he accidently caught her up in something. Then his only option for survival was to run away and hide until she cooled off enough to consider maiming or embarrassment rather than murder.
The blonde shook his head a little in the bright sunlight, trying to get back onto his original train of thought. Where was he? Ah, yes, revenge planning. He had a bag of wonderfully shocking pranking supplies, plus some random junk food, in each hand and about a dozen ideas flitting through his brain about what exactly he could do to the metallic superhero. All Clint had to do now was to choose one and he smiled slightly wickedly at the thought. He supposed he could just enjoy the warmth of the day for now and do all the "hard work" once he got back to the tower.
As his eyes flicked around and his lips curved upwards in a smile at the practically perfect day, he caught random details in his surroundings and catalogued them unconsciously. On his right, there was an Asian man in a blazer and scarf walking his golden retriever in the park. The male had curly hair and his dog sported a hot pink leash. Clint's blue eyes moved on. A gaggle of soccer players, judging by their neon blue uniforms, exited from a pizza shop across the street. One girl on crutches hopped along at the front; there were two redheads, four blondes, two brunettes… and one bright female with neon green at the tips of her hair. He caught the smell of garlic wafting over, making his mouth water even though it was definitely past lunchtime.
Behind the excitable team was a trio of faintly annoyed joggers who looked like soccer moms, but who weren't with the players judging by their lack of attentiveness. The Caucasian woman gossiped loudly about her landlord to the Pakistani woman who looked like she really didn't care. However, the Southern woman at her side seemed totally immersed in the tale – and yes, he knew that wasn't a technical race, but Clint could hear her thick accent as she exclaimed something loudly. He was pretty sure he could've heard it without his hearing aids in, though didn't test that theory.
On his own side of the street, there wasn't much to note among the commonly bland commuters and the typical storefronts. But his eyes caught on a closed martial arts dojo and the duo sparring inside of it. They fought with staves as tall as themselves and the girl with the Mediterranean complexion seemed to be winning.
Her hair was pulled back in a fishtail braid and dark until it faded to a bleach at the end and her eyes were just as deeply colored. She wore what some would call "punk" clothes, ripped black jeggings, the same shaded combat boots, layered black leather and silver chain belts. The loose charcoal midriff top, entertainingly enough, read "RIP Barbie" on a gravestone with a half-buried doll. One bright pink heel stuck out, the only spot of color. The boy fighting her had darker skin, but lighter clothes, and both wielded their weapons confidently, the boy perhaps less so. Clint slowed to a halt almost unintentionally to watch the girl knock the boy's staff out of his hands, sweep his feet from under him, and hold his flat, panting body at staff-point all in one fluid motion. There were flaws in her technique that his agent's mind picked apart, yet the rest of his brain saw how good she and her friend were for teenagers their age.
The girl glanced up at the blonde, finally realizing he was there, and recognition and a touch of awe flashed through her dark irises before she smirked. A twirl of the wood in her hand released her partner as she straightened back up, comically pointing the staff at him through the window with a grin as if challenging him. Clint smiled back easily but declined the invitation to spar and had to stifle a laugh when he caught the slightly disappointed twitch at the corner of her mouth as he walked away.
A few dozen long strides brought him far enough away from the dojo that the neighborhood took a turn for the worse, the whole atmosphere seeming to become darker as the buildings became more run-down. It was a patch of bad neighborhood he usually passed through without worry to get to Avengers Tower. Because who would mess with an Avenger? Well… there was that one time with the foolish pickpocket who got his hand broken by Thor, who had then personally carried him to the hospital and apologized. Clint was sure that being carried like a damsel in distress hadn't helped the already thwarted thief's ego. Made an interesting photo for the newspapers, though. People still couldn't figure out what was going on with that one and he laughed quietly to himself at the memory.
Suddenly, his good mood was cut off as the unmistakable sounds of fists hitting a body floated their way to his ears and he stopped, looking around for the culprit.
"Don't got any little buddies to help you out, huh? Whatcha gonna do, pretty boy?"
A groan followed the angry words, speeding his pace up. The hubbub led the archer to a particularly nasty-looking back alley, but something changed before he could jump in to save the day. The person-getting-beat-up noises changed to a scuffling shuffle of sounds, clattering wood, a squeal, a groan, and again the pound of someone getting hit. Clint rounded the corner cautiously, both bags transferred to one hand as the other's muscles clenched in preparation, and he found a… well, not a fight per se…
There were two teens and one scrawny, rat-like man, the latter pressed against a dirty brick wall. One of the adolescent boys had messy brown hair, ruffled from what he could assume was a fight, and a scattered collection of bruises on his face. He favored one leg ever so slightly and there was a painful-looking bruise peeking out from his torn – and not fashionably so – jeans, as well as one from under the sleeve of his worn, olive-and-grey hoodie. A glance at his face showed the faint tightness of someone hurting, but mostly worry in those chocolate brown eyes. But not worry of being attacked again, no, the worry seemed to be directed at the greasy man who had beaten him.
Who was currently propped harshly on the wall by the second boy with the remnants of an old… walking stick? The man himself wasn't remarkable other than the exceptional amount of hair gel his head contained. The teenager, on the other hand, was definitely something. For one thing, he seemed to be blind, or at least partially, with dark sunglasses and the cock of his head that gave away how he was listening to his surroundings. Pitch black hair was pulled back into a tiny, messy bun near the crown of his head and he seemed to radiate a dangerous air directed at the criminal whose windpipe he had effectively trapped.
"Hi," the raven was saying. The tone was lighthearted for the tension in the alley. "I'm Peter's 'little buddy.' And you are?"
The only response was a squeaky attempt at speech that left Clint with the problem of containing his laughter.
"Thought so," the boy sighed almost genuinely if not for the hint of dark humor. "I'll let you off this time. Here's the compromise: I let you go, you run off, you do not steal from people, and you do not mess with my friends. Yes?" This next squeak came through as an affirmative to the proposition and thinly veiled threat. "Wonderful." With that, the man was released and dashed abruptly into the blonde watching the scene from the sidewalk.
The agent-turned-Avenger met his eyes with a hard stare that elicited another squeal-ish sound from his throat. "Is that all you can say?" he asked with a chuckle that was at odds with the message the rest of his body communicated. Looking like he was about to faint right then and there, the man instead turned and bolted unsteadily away from the three left at the scene. Young laughter erupted once he had cleared at least a block in under five seconds and Clint turned back to the teenagers, one of which was bent over in hilarity.
"Bloody brilliant!" the one with the sunglasses applauded happily and he realized with a jolt that he had a British accent. "Good show!"
The brunet seemed to snap out of the trance staring at the famous archer had induced, grinning widely at his friend. "Awesome!" His eyes moved to the edge of the backstreet and stuttered to a starstruck stop on Clint, something unidentifiable in them. "You're Hawkeye!"
"That's my name, kid, don't wear it out," he perhaps preened a bit. Fans were, after all, good for the ego.
"Whoa." He seemed to be stuck on that word and the man suddenly hoped he hadn't broken the kid's brain.
"Peter… Peter… Peter." The raven whined the last one humorously before snapping his fingers in front of what he could now assume was Peter's face. "Come on, mate, I thought you said Stark and Banner were your favorites."
"W-well, yeah!" the brunet protested with flushed cheeks. "But he's still an Avenger!"
"We see them all the time, their tower's right around the bend."
"But never up close!" The still unidentified teen gave Peter an unimpressed look over his sunglasses, giving Clint a glimpse of scintillating green irises. "Oh, shut up."
"I didn't say a thing," came the triumphantly smug reply. The brown-haired adolescent pulled a silly pout and turned his body a bit away and back towards the archer.
"So, what are you doing down here Mr. Hawkeye sir?"
The man smirked, holding up his bags. "Pranking supply run. And call me Clint." His answer garnered a similar devious smirk to his own from the maybe-blind raven and a grin from Peter, who gave his companion a rather wary glance before coming back to his cheerfulness. The former rubbed his hands together above his walking stick in the comical way of stereotypical villains.
"Oh I knew I liked this one," he stated. "My dad probably would've too."
He held a sentimental gleam in what little of his eye peeked out from over the slipping glasses and the oldest smiled. "Your old man sounds like fun."
"He and his mates were the best pranksters in the history of the whole ruddy school until the Weasley twins decided to follow in the footsteps of the Marauders."
"Didn't catch your name," Clint laughed at the response, wondering if he could meet them and completely missing the melancholy that briefly overtook the teen.
"Didn't throw it," he retorted before the other elbowed him sharply. "Ow."
"I'm Peter," he said brightly.
"Harry," the now-named raven let up with a mischievous smirk.
The blonde replied probably unnecessarily, "Clint Barton," and shook their hands after awkwardly transferring his bags to the other limb. He was starting to feel like a snow-laden tree, though the thought fled as he caught Peter wincing at his grip. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," the American waved off, "just a headache." Immediately, Harry grabbed his head and pulled it closer to study where his nose almost brushed his captive's hair. He ignored the weak protests in favor of studying and feeling under the hair until he found something with a worried frown.
"You're bleeding."
"I'll be fine."
"You might have a concussion," Clint put in, a cheeky smile on his face at their interaction.
"I'll sleep it off."
"You don't sleep a concussion off." The boy pushed his glasses up on his nose as Peter opened and closed his mouth, then crossed his arms with a huff. "You know that, ya berk."
He grumbled before running a hand through his tawny hair. "Maybe."
The elder blonde raised his eyebrows amusedly. "Come on, I can get you patched up." That statement flicked Harry's attention from concern directed at his friend to what appeared to wariness towards him. He could imagine the teenager's eyes narrowing at him under the shaded lenses. The boy eventually stopped his scrutiny after a second as if it hadn't happened, switching the hand his walking stick was held in jauntily.
"Hup hup, Petey, let's go get you fixed," he beckoned and tapped the wood on the pavement. Peter groaned but wisely didn't argue after getting pinned by the Brit's eyes that pierced him even through the sunglasses. The brunet allowed Clint to lead the way with his fairly smug smile and instead brought up the rear after Harry, which seemed to amuse the raven. They didn't make much conversation, the silence punctuated by a tip-tap of the cane on the sidewalk every so often as the adolescent behind it found his way through the city. Despite his likely faulty vision and Peter's general distractedness at the fact that he was walking through New York with Hawkeye, neither missed the fact that they were headed towards Avengers Tower.
"Holy crud," was the only whispered thing as they entered the lobby and Clint sent the lady at the desk a friendly nod.
"Quite right."
"C'mon kiddies, into the elevator." He shuffled them into the wide space, pressing one of the dozens of buttons lined up on the door-side. He watched Peter's eyes flicker around wide open and take in everything they landed on in the admittedly glamorous machine while the darker-haired teen observed what he could, listening to the rest. "This'll take us straight to the med bay. Hey, J?"
A voice answered seemingly out of nowhere. "Yes, Agent Barton?"
"It's Clint," the archer grumbled as his new brunet tag-along went even more wide-eyed. They could practically see the gears turning in his head. "Call Bruce down, will ya?" A pause.
"Dr. Banner wishes for me to relay his concern and tell you he will be there in a moment."
His snort echoed through the elevator. "That what he said?"
"I believe he worded it, 'Nobody better be bleeding on the couch again.'"
"Of course."
"Is that an AI?!" Well, sounded like Peter had found his voice again.
"No, it's a ghost," Harry deadpanned.
"I am called J.A.R.V.I.S."
"Cool. Hey, how fast do you think you could calculate the indefinite integral of e to the power of x times the sine of x times dx if u equals the sine of x and dv equals e to the power of x time dx?" Clint blinked blankly, Harry sighed, and J.A.R.V.I.S. began instantaneously rattling off a list of numbers and words that the mini genius nodded along to.
"What language was that?"
"Nerd," the disabled boy scoffed fondly. "Or computer geek, either." The intelligent youth kept babbling to the computer as the automated entrance of the elevator opened, and his partner had to shoo him out with the end of his stick as he still went on. Thankfully, that was distraction enough to get Peter past the couch, up on the medical table without any trouble, plus he stayed there long enough for Bruce to arrive just as he was asking another question.
"Chemical make-up of deoxyribonucleic acid."
"Adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine?" the doctor quirked an eyebrow, strolling in with a clipboard and a small smile.
"No, like phosphorous, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hy-hydro – Dr. B-Banner!" His list stuttered to a stop at the sight of his idol.
The man nodded before turning to Clint. "Hello. Clint, mind telling me why there's one blind and one bleeding teenager in our med bay?"
"I'm not blind," Harry put in and crossed his arms. His gaze lingered vaguely around Bruce.
"Just half blind," Peter recovered.
"If you didn't already have a concussion, I'd give you one."
"With your eyesight? I'd dodge."
"You're going to get it tomorrow, you complete and utter Dorcus." The three other people in the room peered at him strangely, to which he didn't respond, and Dr. Banner began gently probing the back of the injured boy's head. Harry turned their way, carefully nudging things with his cane until he could find his seat in a cushy chair by the table and took it, sighing contentedly. Back on the table, Clint's sharp eyes watched Peter reluctantly submit to the experienced hands of Bruce, who seemed less than happy with the whole situation and generally concerned. Catching the wince as his fingers passed over the side of his head, he paused.
"What happened anyway?" Another wince as inspection continued and he turned to grab a tube of some ointment.
"I never got the whole story either," the archer realized, intrigued.
The raven staring around from his seat spoke before anybody else could. "My genius mate Peter here decided it was a good idea to place his scrawny arse in between a purse snatcher and the lady with the purse." Said friend curved his lips downward in an amused pout as laughter echoed from the adults, making Harry smirk and resume his storytelling. "The woman got away, but as always Peter the punching bag had to have me pull him out of the kerfuffle."
"Hey!"
"It's true. If you'd just—"
The chocolate-eyed teenager huffed, cutting off the second statement and ignoring it. "Suppose it's better than Puny Parker… ow."
"Almost done…" Bruce trailed off as he finished pressing a padded bandage over the younger's temple. His mind wandered as his practiced hands finished checking over his patient one last time, finding decent distraction in what he had walked in on earlier. "You like science? Biology?"
"Yeah!" the brunet exclaimed excitably, then withdrew sheepishly. "Well, I'm better with technology and chemistry, I dipped into physics once—" For some reason, Harry snorted in the background. "—but I know some biology. I-I've read some of your papers, actually, Dr. Banner, sir…"
"Just Dr. Banner, or Bruce is fine," he commented offhandedly. "And you understood them?" The impressed note in his voice was wasted on the oblivious boy.
"Mhm."
The blonde in the room made a surprised noise in the back of his throat. "You should've heard what he was spouting earlier! d's and u's and x's, crazytown."
Peter's cheeks flushed. "Just calculus."
"College-level calculus." Hidden emerald eyes just missed the glare sent his way as a flippant smile tilted across his face.
"I read a lot."
"No shite, Sherlock. The books in your bag weigh a bloody tonne."
"My bag!" he shouted suddenly, eyes wide. "I forgot my bag!" Jumping off the platform – to Bruce's plain exasperation, though he was used to it from living with superheroes – one arm shot out to snatch the zipper-edge of the hooded jacket they'd managed to coax off him. After almost tripping over an untied shoelace and then shoving said shoelace into his sneaker instead of tying it, the teen about forgot his friend in his race to get back to the alley. "Come on!"
"It'll be fiiiine," Harry yawned and stood up to stretch like a cat. He was in total juxtaposition to the frantic youth by the door, but they seemed to work together.
"Did you forget what part of town we were in?!"
"I left mine there, it'll stay."
"Sometimes I wonder what goes on in your head." The only response was a quiet, delighted cackle at the first sentence. "Now both our bags will be gone!"
The paler of the two flashed them a smile as Peter dragged him from the room by the arm with the walking stick in its hand. His sunglasses dangled so that they were holding on by one ear and his eyes were bright with laughter. "So long! It was lovely to meet you all!"
The two adults shared a look. "Do they know where the door is?" Clint questioned around his entertained expression.
Hopefully you can guess which once Aziza was. If not, I'll just tell you now that she was the Mediterranean girl kicking the other guy's butt in the empty dojo.
Once again, I have been faking my way through the genius-talks. I literally looked up "college calculus worksheet" for that part. But the DNA thing was all me. See, I'm smart! But as said before, I'm only in high school.
Next-to-last, please note that Avenger's Tower will not be the one from Age of Ultron, nor will it be exactly like Stark Tower from the first movie. I'm making it up as I go (hooray for creativity!).
Now, on a semi-serious note, I have to give you people a fair warning about how my summers work. My family travels A LOT. We go on a lot of road trips and we fly down south to visit family often, which doesn't leave me with many opportunities to update. Summer updates will be sporadic, but I'll update when I can. I know for sure I'll be gone to see family until July 16th and won't be able to update next week. You'll probably get at least one update before I'm gone again from around July 25th- August 12th on a camping road trip and then updates should get back to normal mid-August.
Sorry for the inconvenience, please be patient with me. Love y'all!
Lucky
To Lockolocka: Gods above I have no words for how sweet you are! That review was so entirely awesome and thank you again! It was so long that all the email had was the first half and then it was like "go read it in the browser, lazybones." But I have no words! And I know I already said that but still! You're amazing. Done deal. There's no need to be sorry for anything, much less not reviewing a chapter. I absolutely loved reading your opinion and would like to say good luck on your exams and everything! Also, get some sleep, Locko! ;D
To SkylerHollow: Great to hear! I actually based some of their interactions off of me and my ridiculous friends, whose mental ages are 5 and 7, I swear, even though we're supposedly high school juniors now. They're hopeless, hilarious, and awesome. Anyways, sorry for the ramble, and don't worry, they'll get off the streets.
To MayaHikari: Oh booo, sorry. I'll treasure it while it lasts! Have a good school year!
To son of morgana: That might be a slight exaggeration, but I'll take what I can get! Thanks!
To Vladimir Mithrander: Thank you! Always love your insight. Fingers crossed the boys can let those hero complexes go long enough to accept some help (though that might be more of a Peter Problem than a Hiro Problem).
To Beth9891: LOL, they really are emotionally stunted. Happy to hear you like the portrayal!
To Merlin (Guest): I've confused a lot of people with this detail… in this story/AU, Loki wasn't being controlled. His actions were all his own and he's an all-around bad guy. Now, I really do like MCU Loki and I do know that he was being controlled in canon, but I'm ignoring canon this time. I recognize the lack of character development that this causes with Loki's character, but I have no future plans for Loki in this story. Sorry. He's just evil this time around.
To Guest (the one talking about Artemis Fowl): I love the series! And now they're making a movie! They just better not mess it up, I swear… anyways, thank you! =D