When they arrive at the base, Bobbi disappears almost immediately under the pretense of preparing rooms for their new guests, but Clint knows it's to escape Nat. Not that Bobbi has to worry since Nat instructs Phil to lead her to his office almost as soon as they arrive. She doesn't invite Clint or anyone else to accompany them. Which leaves Hunter to accompany everyone inside. He helps Clint out of the car, when the others see him struggling, Tony and Thor come over to support him. Hunter nods his thanks before taking point. He swipes his ID to gain them all access into the compound, once in the hallway inside however he blanks on where to take them. Thankfully he's quickly saved by a raging Simmons.
"That man needs medical attention." Simmons roars, poking Hunter in the chest, she seems to be temporarily oblivious to those that are with him. "What were Coulson, Bobbi and yourself thinking taking him out of here? He was practically dead this morning. He needs rest and proper medical monitoring."
"I don't disagree." Hunter decides to surrender. He motions for Stark and Thor to follow him. As he walks, Simmons falls into step with him, not done ranting.
"You obviously do disagree, or otherwise you wouldn't have helped him leave."
"Barton's a big boy, Simmons. He wouldn't have listened if I tried to stop him. The least I could do was go along with him to make sure he didn't die." They arrive at the lab, Simmons already has a table cleared for Barton. Thor and Stark help him onto the table, Clint reluctantly holds his arms out as Simmons begins working.
"Do you need privacy?" Hunter feels awkward in the lab like usual.
"Not at all, but if you'd like to make yourself useful, you can go find Fitz and Skye."
"You positive you want Quakes around these guys?" Hunter cocks an eyebrow at the Avengers. For the first time it seems to dawn on Simmons exactly who is in her company. She gawks for a moment, before snapping abruptly out of it when Clint clears his throat.
"She's better help than you. At least she knows the difference between a blood bag and a tissue sample bag. Now go."
"Am I gonna be okay doc?" Clint offers her a playful smile as she begins accessing his injuries.
"You'd be better if you stop moving, Mr. Barton."
"Call me Clint." He winces as she presses on his rib cage.
"Four broken ribs. How are you not in constant pain?"
"I've had worse."
"How can you possibly have had worse. It seems like every part of your body is damaged."
"I've been dead before." Clint shrugs. "That was worse."
"You've been…"
"Dead. Not like Coulson. Nothing as long as that. I think I maxed out at twenty minutes."
"Clint?" Steve steps forward. "Is there anything we can do?"
Barton winces due to Simmons before shrugging. "Not much." He says biting his lip. He has to fight off the urge to kick Simmons.
Thankfully Bobbi comes into the room. "Simmons, I'd ease up." She says noting Clint's pained expression. "He's an attacker even when he doesn't mean to be." She then turns to the other occupants in the room. "If you'll all come with me, we've prepared some rooms for you to stay in for however long it is you'll be here." The others slowly collect themselves and follow her out of the room. As they leave, Skye, Fittz and Lincoln all arrive.
"Fittz, I need you to prep the x-ray. I think Mr. Barton has some internal injuries. Lincoln since you're here, can you set up a heart monitor? And Daisy I need hydrating fluid hooked up to an IV, and various blood bags filled with…" Simmons looks to Barton for his blood type. Clint only shrugs. Luckily Phil arrives in time to bail him out.
"Type AB negative." Phil turns to Barton. "How do you still not know your blood type? What are you still five?"
"I've always got someone else around who knows it." Clint shrugs. "Plus most of the time it's needed I'm unconscious. Where'd Nat go?"
"I sent her to the gym. She said she needed to blow off some steam. I was hoping she'd do it on a dummy rather than Bobbi's head."
"You picked up on that?"
"You'd have to be dead not to pick up on that."
"If you say so. It didn't use to be so obvious."
"Nat didn't always hate Bobbi." Phil says with a shake of his head. "It might have seemed that way to you. Seems how you're as dense as lead, but they use to get along pretty well. Wasn't until you and Bobbi split that Bobbi became a bad taste in Nat's mouth."
"How do you know all this?"
Phil shrugs. "I listen." He then turns away from Clint. "Daisy, I need you to report to my office as soon as possible." Phil turns back to Clint. "You should try it sometime."
"I listen." Clint protests.
"No, you don't." Phil says it with such authority that this time Clint doesn't argue. With that Phil leaves the room, leaving an awkward silence in his absence. Clint heaves a sigh then closes his eyes while Simmons and Lincoln begin working on him. It's not long before he's drifted off into sleep.
"So, Buddy, you want to tell me the story between you and the hot blond?" Tony had come to bring Clint his dinner. The assassin is under strict orders from the pushy biochemist to stay in bed for the next few days. So far, he'd been playing along, at least now that Coulson got it cleared for him to leave the lab and recover in the comforts of a private room. Clint's friends had all stayed at the base to watch over his recovery and help him deal with his grief. They'd taken turns coming to tell him stories. From what Clint gathered, they all liked it here. And surprisingly the SHIELD Agents didn't mind hosting them. Stark and the boy called Fittz had hit it off well, the two had been building and exchanging ideas for days. Which had meant out of everyone Clint had seen the billionaire the least.
"That's a long story, you sure you've got time for that Stark?"
"Sure, the kid and I've taken the night off. He's got a date with the Biochemist or something lame like that. So i'm all yours."
"What do you want to know?"
"How about everything, I mean that woman is extremely out of your league. Which is probably why it didn't work out between you two…"
"That's not why." Clint mumbles, looking shyly toward the ground.
"Really, cause I find that hard to believe. Come on Birdbrain, spill your guts."
"I don't know where to start."
"How about the beginning. Out of everyone I know the least about you, I even know more about Nat than you."
"The beginning of what, Stark? My life isn't divided up into sections by clean cut lines."
"How'd you meet the girl?"
"That's a complicated story."
"Yeah, I'm getting that. Look if you don't want to talk you don't have to Barton, I can tell when someone's avoiding a topic."
"Nah, nah. I got this. Bobbi and I didn't meet like most people do, but we met in a place that's common enough, a bar."
"This all happened before I joined SHIELD. Not many people know about my history before and I were in drinking after a heist. It was before my time at SHIELD, which you might want to know means I was fourteen. Bobbi came in, eyes wild. She knew what we had done, it had been her family we'd robbed. We hadn't taken much, a few paintings worth a few million each, some cash they'd stashed around their house that added up to roughly a million, and a television. We'd been hired by some rival of her families to take the paintings, the cash and the television were just our way of giving ourselves a bonus. But believe me, the things we took were barely a blip on the wealth that family had. Still apparently Bobbi had seen us as we were leaving. She was older than me but not by much, only three years. Hunter was a year her senior.
"Anyway, she walked right up to me and smacked me hard across the face. All conversation in the room stopped, she shouted called me an ass. Hunter tried to stand up for me, but she shut him down. Then she leaned in real close to my ear and whispered 'Let's take someplace a little more private.' She grabbed my arm and lead me into a private room, Hunter thankfully followed. The moment the door was shut she shoved me up against the wall and threatened me. She said that if I didn't give back the things I took she'd find me again and next time she'd gut me. I believed her, but Hunter and I had already sold handed over the paintings to our buyer and the television was already in it's permanent home of our loft. So I grinned and told her that I'd like to see her try. She didn't like that. She hit me again, this time she broke my lip. Hunter stepped in all high and mighty and tried to stop her but she dropped him to the ground. Even then, Bobbi knew how to fight. I told her the truth and for some reason she believed me, only she had run out of a plan. She took a seat at the table and motioned for me to do the same. I think it was only then that she realized I was younger than her. Anyway, we talked for a while and eventually we parted on better terms. We even exchanged phone numbers to keep in touch."
"So Robin Hood was once a thief. Let me guess, you gave what you stole to the poor."
Clint snorts. "Not exactly, I was the poor, at least in my mind. Before I got involved with SHIELD, my life was a shit storm. Afterwards it was too, but before it was a different kind of shit storm. I don't think you know this, unless Tasha told you. But I was an orphan, my father killed my mother in a drunken car accident when I was six. He was hospitalized for months in a coma before he finally left the world, but for better or worse my brother and I were considered orphans the moment he hit the other car. I wasn't sad to see him go, he was abusive. I'd run away more times than I could count to escape his fists… Barney helped me sometimes. Other times, he helped my father..." Clint trails off for a minute lost in the memories. Tony tries not to let what is going through his mind be displayed across his face but it's hard. He half wishes he could bring back Clint's dad just to kill him again.
"Anyway, once dear old dad was dead, Barney and I were sent to a home which was basically an orphanage. Would have been an upgrade from how we had been living, if the guy who ran it wasn't a pedophile. He left the older boys, like Barney alone…." Clint trails off again. This time Tony can see the thoughts, the memories cross Clint's face. The expressions and the knowledge of what they mean makes Tony want to puke. "I'd let him pick on me, so he'd leave the other boys alone." Clint finally finishes. "I knew Barney was around the home, and I thought that once he heard about what was happening he'd help me… what I didn't know was that Barney knew all along. Still not even Barney would let the bastard kill me, which is what almost happened. I started running away like I had from my dad. Only unlike when I came back for my dad, coming back there made things worse. Barney heard me screaming the night that man pulled a knife on me. He didn't come right away, but he did come right after. He found me hiding in the shadows of the woods outside. It had been as far as I could get away from the place. Barney had already packed all out things, they were in backpacks on his back. He picked me up off the ground and carried me all the way to the hospital. He told the clerks there that I had been in a knife fight. They stitched me back up, then Barney smuggled me out. He robbed some small boutique and pawned his finds. He bought us train tickets and a small supply of food with the money. We rode the rails until the money and food ran out. That was how we ended up at the circus." Clint stops talking very suddenly, he seems to realize that he's gotten off track. "Sorry, Stark you wanted to know about Bobbi."
"Nah, it's fine. Sounds like this is stuff you need to get off your chest. I'm gonna guess it'll lead back to Bobbi anyway.
"The circus isn't exactly a can or worms I want to reopen. So let's skip that part." Clint thinks a moment about what to say next. "Eventually I ran away from the circus too. I was around ten when I finally left. I didn't have anywhere to really go, but while at the circus I had gained a particularly useful skill set. I had learned how to shoot an arrow. Even then, my aim was uncanny, I had never missed. I had never learned how to miss." Clint lets out a mostly humourless laugh. "Like most kids on their own do, I found my way into a jail cell. While there even though I was only locked up a few days, I met a man who knew exactly what I could do with my skill set. Once he got out himself, he talked to his boss. A few hours later, his boss pretended to be my dad and bailed me out. The next thing I knew I was working for the mob as an assassin." Clint takes a minute to breathe, his lungs suddenly felt empty of air. Tony recognizing the symptoms of a panic attack, gets ready to call someone in. Thankfully Clint manages to calm himself down. "That's how I got on SHIELD's radar. While working for the mob and those my boss lended me out too, I killed almost six hundred people. I had stumped every police investigation. The FBI didn't know what to think of me. The CIA, the Marines, the Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard were all after me. I killed internationally. Always with an arrow, but never with a trace. They investigated thousands of men and women as potential suspects, but they never thought to look for a child. Even SHIELD didn't look in the right place, at least not at first."
"I left the mob around the time I was thirteen. I was one of the most wanted people in the world. They couldn't use me anymore, it was getting too risky, so they let me walk freely as long as I promised to never talk about them if I was caught. I agreed willingly and took to the streets of New York City." Clint pauses just long enough for Tony to consider leaving. " That's how I met Hunter. He was the head of a little gang at the time. I say little but it was close to twenty boys and men he oversaw. It was like the mob, only smaller and without all the killing. I recognized I would fit right in. Lucky for me, so did Hunter. Only took him two minutes after meeting me to offer me a job. When I wasn't working, while I was in the mob, they had taught me every trick they knew. Soon after I joined, Hunter saw that he could downsize his operation in numbers. I became his only employee. We were well off. I was still young, he wasn't much older only my senior by a few years so we shared a place in Brooklyn. We lived that way for a little over two years. Our partnership only ended when SHIELD finally found me. Apparently even though I had left the assassination business, they still wanted me dead. Thankfully, a young recently promoted level eight agent had been assigned to my case. On the downside, that man was also the only reason SHIELD ever found me. He looked in all the places everyone else had never thought to look. He found out about my time at the circus and tracked me backwards then forwards from there. I don't know how he ever found me in New York. All I know is one day there was a knock on the apartment door, then it was broken down. Next thing I know Phil Coulson was introducing himself and then offering me a job. He completely ignored Hunter, but he made it clear that if I didn't leave with him I would be dead. He gave me just enough time to collect my things, then he promptly threw a sack over my head and escorted me to DC."
By this time, Tony is laughing quite hard. When he manages to catch his breath there is a twinkle in his eye. "Good old Agent does know how to make an impression, doesn't he."
Clint smiles too. "Yeah he does." Clint's smile slowly grows bigger. "But too bad for him, so do I. Phil escorted me to Fury himself. Apparently the World Council had ordered me dead. The only reason Phil hadn't already killed me was because given my age Fury had been convinced by Phil that I might still be someone they could save. Fury explained that to me and I promptly spit in his face."
"You spit in Fury's face?" Had Tony had a drink in his hand it definitely would have just been sprayed across the room.
A full fledge grin breaks across Clint's face. "Like I said, I make an amazing first impression even when I'm not under mind control. You probably think I should be dead for that. And believe me I think the thought crossed Fury's mind; for some reason though me spitting in his face only gained his respect. Instead of killing me on the spot he assigned me to training. Phil personally escorted me to the academy. I was only there four days before I graduated. The fastest graduation time ever from a SHIELD academy."
"Bit of a bragger aren't you?"
"Nah, I'm just giving you the facts. Anyways, once I graduated, Coulson decided to let me go back to New York. He put a tail on me, that much was obvious, but I was allowed to go back to the loft where Hunter and I lived. Kid nearly choked on his whiskey when I walked back into the bar. He was talking to Bobbi, apparently he was trying to recruit her as a new partner. I pretended to take offense. He pretended that he never thought I was dead and things went back to normal only Bobbi joined our group. Hunter needed her cause with SHIELD on my ass I couldn't help him like I used too. Coulson was willing to overlook infractions Hunter and Bobbi made as long as I didn't participate. He always said what they did was below his pay grade and it wasn't even worth his time to tip off the police. So I hung around the house, while those too had all the fun. Somehow even with all the time they spent together, I won over Bobbi." Clint chuckles. "Our first date was a disaster. Hunter made us almost an hour late to our reservations by holding up the bathroom. Then ten minutes into eating our appetizers, Phil came in and told me that we needed to leave. Bobbi had no idea that I worked for SHIELD so she told him to bugger off. I tried to tell her that I had to go but she called Phil a few names then grabbed his arm and flipped him over her back, then told me to run. We ran out of the restaurant and into a nearby but not too close store. SHIELD descended and all hell broke loose. Phil eventually found is making out in the back of a book store. He took it's both into his custody. After a rather long lecture on his part, I was sent to Bermuda for an intelligence opp. I never got to see Bobbi before I left. When I got back two months later, Bobbi was a level one SHIELD agent training in the Academy. Coulson wouldn't let me contact her, but he did let me go back to Hunters. Only this time it was just long enough to collect my remaining things and tell him I was leaving New York. Fury had ordered that I be relocated to DC, so Phil made me obey. What Phil couldn't stop, was Hunter moving with me. Few days after I had been reassigned, I see him walk into the bar I'm drinking at. He claps me on the back, calls me an asshole then orders himself a drink. I continued to work for SHIELD, he continued his work on the wrong side of the law, eventually becoming a mercenary. We met up every night for a round at the pub. Life was good until Bobbi came back. Then things got complicated." Clint sighs then glances at the clock. It's now late, and his eyes are getting heavy. "I'll tell you the rest some other time. For now, why don't you tell me what's been going on around here?" Realizing that Clint is emotionally exhausted, Tony complies with the assassin's wishes and launches into a riveting tale of a joke that he and Thor had pulled over Coulson just hours before. As Tony talks, Clint slowly drifts off to sleep, his dinner long forgotten and cold on his bedside table.