Thanks for all of the reviews! I'll try and work in some Hulk but I've pretty much got the story finished. i'll see what I can do though! This is Barney's chance to be an Avenger!
Also, being a huge X-Men fan i just had to work something about them in. don't worry it's nothing too complicated!
Barney's day went much less smoothly. The morons in the Friends of Humanity had managed to restart three Sentinels and the damn things were tearing up the country side. He was firing arrow after arrow at the robots, only managing to stop one arm on the Sentinel closest to him.
They had arrived under a hailstorm of firing. All around them the robots had been attacking the town, trying to reach whatever mutants lived within.
"Barton, aim for the neck and joints. I can see exposed wiring. Trask oughtta be ashamed." Tony yelled.
Barney did as he was told, narrowly dodging a blast from the Sentinel's hand. "Sheee-it!" He yelped as he rolled over a rock and banged his arm painfully.
"I think I'm finding new respect for Scott Summers. How that guy keeps from just blasting these guys I'll never know!" Tony yelled as sever FOH members stood by and watched the destruction. "Goddam, Trask built these things near indestructible."
Cap's shield bounced off the head of a one armed Sentinel knocking it back. He caught it and slammed it again, this time severing the head.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Tony yelled, blasting his personal Sentinel with both hands. "Eat repulser beams."
The Sentinel spun backwards and began to try and raise it's palm to fire another blast but Barney stopped it with an arrow directly to the firing center. The bomb in the arrow detonated and the hand blew up.
"Good one!"
The fight dragged on for another hour, eventually ending with all three Sentinel's disarmed and Tony shouting profanities at the FOH while Steve tried to drag him away.
"How the hell did you even get them? Why the hell did you think this was a good idea? If the X-Men show up and burn your asses to the ground I'm not even going to try and stop them! You destroyed half the town!"
Barney took a seat outside the ruined head quarters. How Clint managed to fight things like this on a daily schedule was beyond him.
"Feeling okay?" Steve asked, abandoning his attempt at reining in Tony.
"Yeah. Drained. You guys are crazy."
"Well, we don't fight giant robots everyday. I'm not sure why the X-Men didn't catch this. It's normally their thing."
"Crazy."
Steve laughed. "A little maybe. Clint does okay with it and he doesn't have any superpowers ether."
"Yeah, he's crazy too. "
They laughed.
"You think he'll be okay with just Dr. Banner?"
"I think so. Bruce was hesitant to babysit but I think he'll do a fine job."
"I'll take your word for it. So what do we do now?"
"Well, Tony's gonna take his time dismantling the rest of the Sentinels so I was planning on going into town and helping with the clean up. There are some fires that need putting out. Think you're up to helping?"
"I can do that." They headed into town in time to see the courthouse being doused with water.
"Need a hand?" Steve offered to the firemen and police stationed around.
A cop who looked as though it was his first day eyes' nearly jumped out of his head and he shook Steve's hand enthusiastically. "Y-yes sir!"
"Great, what can we do?"
They set to work clearing debris out of the street, kids popping up every now and then to gape at Captain America as they did.
Eventually Tony joined them, saying he was having the remaining parts of the Sentinels shipped back to Stark Industries for final dismantlement. "We done here?" He asked.
"Guess so." Steve said, looking around. They had gotten the main road mostly cleared with the help of the police and several clean up crews. "Quin Jet ready?"
"Fired up."
The ride back was a grateful reprive from the constant work of the day. Barney sat in the back of the jet feeling dead on his feet. He'd been out of the game for too long. A lengthy prison sentence and his time on the streets had not diminished his aim but it had certainly left him winded and the fact that he was covered in grime form cleaning didn't make him feel better. Still, Stark seemed to feel that he'd done something to redeem himself and was talking to him a much more friendly way now.
"Showers all around. You stink Barton. I dunno what it is about archers but you people always manage to wrack up some impressive B.O. in the field."
Barney gave his poor joke a pained smile and put his head between his knees to catch his breath. "I could use a beer if you've got any."
"Yeah, there's some scattered around the tower. I'll leave it to you to find, I don't touch the stuff anymore."
Barney gave him a mildly impressed look. He always respected it when someone cut themselves off from a bottle
"I've got some." Steve said. "It's better stuff than what Clint put's in the fridge."
Barney grinned, still feeling worn out. "That'd be great." Every muscle in his body hurt and his arms were aching.
When they returned to the tower Clint was watching a movie with Bruce and the two of them had just finished a puzzle. Barney gave his brother a smile and almost signed that he was going to take a shower but caught himself and just said he would be right back. Living with Clint for the past month had gotten him used to signing things. Clint had a nasty habit of forgetting to buy new batteries for his hearing aid and sometimes didn't wear it just for the heck of it. Barney thought he might have been doing it to annoy him and had once when he was complaining about Clint never doing the dishes caught him pretending he didn't have it in when he did. His brother could be sneaky and as he stripped off the uniform he'd borrowed he found himself laughing.
The shower was a blessing. Steve had made them stay almost the whole day and help clean up. He wouldn't hear of leaving before they at least had the main road clear. A regular do-gooder.
He was using his guest room's bathroom. Tony had told him all of the rooms had their own bathroom and it was nice to have a clean shower. It was great that Clint let him live with him but if he'd just clean his house once in a while he wouldn't complain.
Trapped with his thoughts in the steam he thought that maybe he had earned a little trust from the Avengers. Tony had been more congenial and Steve seemed to think he had proved his worth. He shut off the water and stepped out, toweling off and dressing quickly he headed back to the living room where Clint was sitting between Natasha and Bruce, telling Natasha about his day.
"He grinned and leaned in the doorway, listening quietly. Even if it wasn't supposed to be like this, Clint was happy and that made him happy.
"Did you stop the robots?" Clint asked suddenly, noticing him in the doorway.
"Sure did. Helped anyway."
And then Clint gave him a huge smile and he knew that for the first time in a long time that he was his brother's hero.
Thanks for reading!