"But that still doesn't explain what they wanted with Loki's scepter." Stark's voice rose above the commotion. Everyone was grouped in the living room, all talking at once. "I think we need to figure that out before anything else."
"But what about the attack they mentioned?" Steve argued. "We need to stop them from hurting any innocent civilians."
Phil closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples, trying to block them all out. They'd been bickering for the last three hours. So far though, the only thing anyone could agree on was that Barton had overheard something huge and that they needed to stop it before it happened. But since they didn't even have a name, or any idea of when this supposed attack was supposed to happen, they were left clueless. The conversation just kept going around and around in circles and it was making Phil's head spin.
"Isn't there any way to trace the warehouse?" Bruce was pacing behind the couch, his hands twisting his thin glasses endlessly. Thor was sprawled on the couch, his face set into a mask that Phil was having trouble deciphering. The only time he had spoken all night was whenever someone had asked Clint a question.
The sound of Stark inhaling to start another tirade snapped Phil's last straw. He stood up quickly and threw up his hands, shouting "Enough!" The room fell into a deathly silence as everyone turned to stare at him. "We could keep going around in circles for days. I've already had SHIELD start trying to track who these guys are to try and figure out what their plan is. Until they find anything or until there is an actual attack, there is nothing we can do."
"But surely-" Stark started.
"No." Phil cut him off. "We are done for tonight. But if you want to be helpful, you could always get around to creating a translator that Barton can't escape from." Stark crossed his arms, throwing a silent temper-tantrum. "You will make one, Stark. I don't care that you don't know how he got out of the last one, just make sure he doesn't get out of the next one. And you," Phil spun on Clint who had been perched on Natasha's lap during the discussion. "You can bet that I'll be monitoring your whereabouts and if you so much as set a feather outside of this Tower, you will spend your first six months as a human again locked away in a windowless office and filling out your backlog of paperwork. Am I understood?"
Clint hesitated before nodding once. Phil could feel Natasha glaring at him over Clint's head and he took an internal steadying breath before looking up at her. He arched one eyebrow at her and her head twitched just slightly.
"Is there something on your mind, Agent Romanov?"
"Not particularly." Natasha ground out, glaring even harder at him. Phil was suddenly very thankful to be in a room full of superheroes. "Though I would like to suggest that, as we have reached an impasse, we should all get some sleep. It has been a trying day for all of us."
"Agreed." Stark piped up quickly. "I for one-"
"Will be working on the new translator." Phil interrupted.
"I'm sorry, Agent. But aren't you always the one trying to get me to have a normal sleep schedule?"
"Stark-" Phil growled, readying himself for an argument that he really didn't want to have.
Banner stopped it before it started, grabbing Stark by the arm and dragging him from the room, muttering something about knowing how to pick his battles. Thor and Steve followed them silently, Thor still wrapped in his own thoughts. Phil wanted to slip out after them but only made it a step before Natasha's hand was on his shoulder.
He spun to face her, noting Clint sitting half-asleep on the couch where Natasha had set him. She leaned forward so that she was mere inches from his face. "The reason Clint bolted in the first place is because you kept him on too tight of a leash. If you pull it tighter, you could lose him for good. So ease up." Natasha stepped back, giving him one last glare before plastering a huge grin on her face. "Goodnight, Coulson."
Phil watched as she crossed back across the room, gathering Clint up into her hands as she passed. The man went without protest and that, more than anything, brought the last 12 hours home. Tonight was the first time Phil had ever seen Clint let someone carry him. The only time he hadn't flown around everywhere, let alone how silent he had been. After explaining the story to everyone, the only times he'd spoken were when someone had asked him a direct question.
As soon as Phil heard Natasha's footsteps disappear down the hall he collapsed under it all, trying to sit back in the chair and missing and not even caring as he crumpled to the floor. Natasha was right. She was always right. It was Phil's fault Clint had left. It didn't matter that Clint had always planned on coming back. It didn't matter that Clint had only been doing it to prove some kind of point and to get it out of his system. Anything could have happened to him out there. He could have died. And that would have been Phil's fault. Entirely his fault. And Phil knew restricting Clint even more wasn't the right course of action, he really did, but…
The tears slipped from Phil's eyes before he knew they were coming. They rolled silently down his cheeks as one-by-one he pictured the millions of deaths Clint could have died. As he realized just how easily it would be to lose Clint for good. As he remembered every time Clint had fallen silent on the comms. Phil wiped away the tears, struggling to fight back the knowledge that was bubbling up towards the surface, that as much as he cared for his team, maybe he cared for one more than the others. More than he should.
;;;
Clint nuzzled into the warmth of Natasha's hands as she carried him down the hall. It wasn't until she had closed the door to her room that he realized that she had completely passed by his room. He turned to look up at her, trusting her to understand his confusion. "You're sleeping with me tonight." She re-adjusted so that she was carrying him with one hand, using the other to gather up the blankets into a small nest before gently settling him into it. Clint was out within seconds.
He was awoken when the bed gave a sudden sharp lurch. His instincts made him want to reach out, to spin and dive, using hands and feet he no longer had. In the second it took him to remember his bird-ness Clint realized that the bed was moving because Nat was tossing in her sleep. Nightmares. Clint had dealt with them enough to know what to say to calm her down, if only he could talk.
Once again cursing his bird-ness, Clint hopped to the edge of his makeshift blanket nest. Nat was tangled in the sheets, arms reaching mindlessly for the knife under her pillow. He could just make out her eyes darting back and forth under her closed eyelids. The pale moonlight filtering through the window cast long shadows over her, highlighting the deep circles under her eyes and hollowing out her cheeks. It made her seem a bit like a corpse and he would think she was dead if she wasn't twitching and covered in sweat.
"Agent Natasha Romanov." Clint chirped in shock, nearly falling over backwards at the sound of Coulson's voice. He quickly looked around the room, but it was empty. "- 097842318. Code name 'Black Widow'" Coulson's voice continued. Clint finally pinpointed where it was coming from, a small speaker in the ceiling. Jarvis. "Recruitment date August 18-" Clint looked back down at Nat's slowly stilling form as Jarvis or Coulson or whoever continued to recite her file. He watched silently, smiling to himself as he listened to the long list of successful missions. (The voice skipping over all of the botched ones.)
As she settled back into an easy sleep, Clint tried to relax back into is nest. But his mind was racing and he was wide awake. His method for calming Nat's nightmares had always been just to whisper her reassurances that he was there and that she was safe, but it had never worked as well as Coulson reciting her file. And he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that… Even if it hadn't really been Coulson, just Jarvis imitating his voice or playing a recording, it didn't matter. He didn't like that they might be closer to each other than they were to him.
As the jealousy, that he knew was stupid, grew up in him, Clint knew that he wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep any time soon. He stretched out his wings but stopped as the muscles screamed. Instead he hopped his way out of bed and across the room, cursing when he reached the closed door. Jarvis must have been watching though and the latch clicked open, letting the door swing openly just a fraction. Clint slipped through it silently, wishing he could pull it shut behind him. Even though there weren't any enemies here, he knew Nat hated sleeping with an open door.
Clint hopped a few feet down the hall, each hop sending a jolt of pain through his worn body. He was halfway down the hall, taking way to long for his liking, when he decided 'Fuck it'. Spreading out his aching wings he lifted off the ground. Even as each shift caused his muscles to scream in pain, feeling the air whistling around him and rustling through his feathers felt like coming home.
He flapped his wings and was down the hall and out into the kitchen. He banked right, cutting the corner that led to the living room, only to run head first into something ridiculously solid. The impact sent Clint's head spinning as he dropped from the air. Two gentle hands caught him before he hit the ground and lifted him back up.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there." Steve held Clint so that they were face-to-face. "I didn't think anyone else was still up." There was a beat of awkward silence as Clint simply sat there, unable to say anything in response. Finally he shifted to stretch out his wings only to have Steve lay a gentle finger on each of them, holding them down. "You've got to be exhausted after flying through that storm. Just point me in the right direction and I'll take you where you want to go."
Clint would have refused if it wasn't for the huge, accommodating grin on Steve's face. And Clint really was exhausted after all. He sighed and nodded his head back towards the living room, guiding Steve through it and to the balcony beyond with small little movements. The storm had passed and the sky was entirely cloudless, letting the sliver of moon shine down from a pure black landscape. As Steve set Clint down on the cold steel railing it made him miss his days in the circus. Travelling from small town to small town, the only constant had been looking up and seeing the same stars always smiling down at him. It would be amazing to see what the stars looked like now that he could see all of these extra colors.
And, like Steve could sense what Clint was thinking, he whispered, "It must look beautiful to you." There was a tone to his voice that Clint couldn't quite recognize. He looked over at him, trying to read his face. Steve was staring out across the city, his eyes not really focused on anything, and there was a hint of sadness to him.
He glanced over at Clint, who did his best to show his confusion and curiosity. Steve smiled half-heartedly and turned back to the city, dropping his voice even softer. "When they first gave me the serum, it enhances everything, you know. And my eyesight was one of those. Everything became clearer and sharper and so much more vivid. It made me work three times harder on my sketches, trying to make them match what I saw.
"So when I woke up as a pigeon, and I saw all of those new colors. The pazel and blange and brack." He listed off the new shades that they had spent hours naming together on this very balcony. "It scared me…" He took a deep breath, holding it a beat before letting it out. "Because when they thawed me out, from the ice, it took a while for my sight to go back to its super level. And there was a while when I was scared that it would never come back. And I shouldn't have been as scared as I was by that fact. I still had excellent vision, but I'd come to rely on it so heavily…
"And the moment I saw those new colors as a bird, I knew that this time it would happen. That I'd found something new and that, in the end, I wouldn't be able to keep it. That I'd switch back to human and that my super-serum vision would seem lackluster now. It's just,… It's like…" Steve closed his eyes and dropped his head, searching for the right words. Clint didn't move, waiting for him to speak. "It's like, even though I've gained back my arms and legs, that I've somehow ended up one limb short…"
Steve fell silent and Clint was frozen in place, unwilling to break the moment. He knew that he and Steve had grown closer during their time together as birds, but that Steve would trust him with this, it amazed him. It also scared the hell out of him. Because he knew exactly what Steve was talking about. As much as every fiber of his being missed drawing his bow and watching an arrow drive home into the target, being human would never be the same. He would always remember what it was like to be able to soar over the city; to ride the wind currents and feel the wind rushing past. Until his dying day, there would always be a part of both of them that missed being birds.