Last chapter of the night!
Chapter 55
There Clint Barton was. A single window separated the team from the member they thought they'd lost so many times now. He sat up in his bed, looking at the pin-point scars on his hands and wondering where they might have come from. The team watched the elves change his bandages, arrange his bed, and shift the world around him.
Pepper had to leave for it, unable to endure the sight of his missing side. No one sat beside him or supported him. He'd been left alone for a while so the Avengers might see exactly the state he had been reduced to. He still couldn't walk, though his legs had finally healed. Much of his muscles threatened to wane away with disuse, despite his attendant's attempts to work life into them. His face was lean and gaunt from illness. He'd suffered a setback while Rinon was gone, and had nearly lost his life to the same fever that took Lirrie's life.
"I will introduce you," Reylano told them. "until Rinon is well again. Please do not overwhelm him, he has been through a great deal. They say he has forgotten much of the life he had known."
"We won't scare him," Natasha agreed, looking around. She booked no room for argument. Tony stayed by the glass, never taking his eyes off his friend.
"I will return in a moment." Reylano opened the door, and let himself into Clint's room. The place was very white, clean, and perfected. There was a long wall beside him, which connected to the canyon itself. Hidden springs dropped water along its surface like the face of a water fall. His linens were clean and pressed, made of the cottontail moss Alfheimr's textiles were famous for. Seeing Reylano enter, Clint stopped his inspection of his hands, and watched the elf. A smile spread over Barton's face that very nearly unmade Natasha. Steve stepped toward her, and took her body in his. She fell into him, allowing his embrace. The blond child was gone, enjoying the attention of her extended elven family. Natasha thought it best not to bring her in just yet.
"Fel leselli," Clint said.
Reylano mirrored the greeting. The Avengers watched as he angled his body away from their view, so Clint might see the mirror. "I have guests for you," he said.
"More singing?" Clint asked, chuckled, and then stopped. A twinge of pain passed over his face, but disappeared instantly. "You're too kind."
"Not this time."
Curious, Clint turned his head to look at the glass. Tony clenched his jaw when Clint's eyes found his. He knew the archer couldn't see him, but was there some way he still knew? He placed his hand on the glass, wanting to simply break through and take his brother back.
"Friends?" Clint asked.
"We have told you of them. They are your friends from Midgard. They have journeyed a long way to see you. They understand you may not remember them, that is all right, for they have experienced it before, so do not allow that to stress you. If you can bare it, I would like to bring one of them in."
"The Avengers? Is that who you mean?" Clint said the word as if it was foreign to him, like a peculiar concept he couldn't grasp. He might as well have said 'trigonometry'.
"Yes."
Clint tried to sit up a little more. Reylano helped him. He patted down the blanket, flattned the mess in his hair, and looked at the floor beside his bed. "Should I stand? I should try and stand, shouldn't I?"
"You don't have to do that, Clint," Bruce whispered to the glass.
"I do not think it is necessary. They have known you well enough to understand," Reylano said.
"I still think I'd rather stand."
Reylano conceded. He pulled the blankets away, arranged them by the foot of the bed, and extended his hands to Barton. Together, he managed to swing Barton's legs to the floor, took Clint under the arms, and lifted.
"Oh my God," Steve cried.
Clint was wearing shorts so the teams could better access the wounds on his legs. Two long incisions were on his thighs, stitched together in black thread. His shirt was off, allowing them to see the second massive wound repairing along his shoulder. Like all the elves, they wondered how Clint could have possibly still fired his arrows while nearly missing one arm. From the bridge of his nose, across his eyes, and into his hairline, a long band of black flecks dusted his face like a mask. The gunpowder in his exploding arrow tip still scarred him. The worst of it, though, still hid beneath his chest wraps. Clint made it to his feet, nearly fell over, and regained his balance. Reylano left him to pick up his shirt, and helped Clint pull it on.
"They tore him apart," Thor muttered, referring to the beasts of Nova Luna. Everything he saw now, confirmed the mental image he received looking into that pit. No one disagreed with him.
Feeling that Clint might be stable enough on his feet, Reylano took a few cautionary steps back. When Clint didn't immediately fall, he thought it may be safe to leave him for the few moments it took to let one of the Avengers in. He returned to the door, pushed it open, and looked at the people waiting inside. At first, they decided Natasha would be the most logical to see Barton first, but the second that door opened, Tony moved.
He didn't bother to glance at the others, and simply walked right inside. He put his hands in his pockets and, like a spy himself, fell into an actor-like role they could have never expected from the man. Tony was too emotional, too caught up in his brotherhood with Clint, to think rationally. Out of everyone, they decided he should be the last one in that room. No one, though, dared to try and pull him away.
Tony smiled. His shoulders were down and relaxed. He strode in with a suave fluidity that visibly had an effect on Clint. The tension that once entered the archer's body eased away. He worried over meeting men and women from his past. He'd been warned that his head wasn't quite right, that he'd forget things and people. He didn't know what these visitors expected out of him.
"Hi, I'm Tony," Stark said, holding out his left hand. He didn't want Clint to attempt shaking with the right.
For having high expectations, Clint was veritably relieved. He extended his left hand, shook quickly, and returned the hand to the side table beside his bed. The fingers extended to touch the top. Half of his body weight rested on those alone, but he dared not mention that.
"I'm Rellya," Clint told him. He paused, though, closed his eyes and shook his head before reopening them. "Sorry! Clint...Clint Barton. They gave me a nickname."
"You have a lot of those?" Tony asked.
"Increasingly," Clint replied, visibly calming. Maybe this man didn't know him as much as Clint thought. "I think it means Hawkeye."
Tony considered it and nodded. "You know, I think that's right. I can't keep all that straight though. I prefer studying French to Elvish, but that's just me. Pointy-eared people give me flashbacks of an old tv show."
"They've been very kind to me," Clint said, smiling warmly.
"I bet. That bed looks nice. Cotton ear moss?" Tony approached, keeping himself at an angle to Clint, not pressing any boundaries. He touched the fabric and grinned. "Nicest stuff around. I have a bed like this back home. I think I sleep like the dead now. At least, that's what my wife says."
"You're married?" Clint asked, turning slightly to watch him.
"Pepper. She's a great woman. I feel like you might like her. She can't cook, not as bad as my friend Bruce, but close." Tony indicated the bed. "May I?" Clint shrugged one shoulder. It was a habit he'd gotten into before when he suffered a shoulder injury, and it never seemed to leave. Even now without that memory he continued to do it. Tony sat down, patted a space beside him, and took the pressure off of Clint's need to stand. Barton sucked up his energy, and managed to slide down beside him without falling over.
"How did you get here?" Clint asked conversationally.
"Rinon came for us. He knows you mean a lot to this little team of ours, and he wanted a chance for some of us to say hello and to make sure they were treating you good." How Tony managed to keep his calm, would forever remain a mystery to the team. He simply spoke as if he and Clint had either only just met, or had the briefest interactions in their past. Clint, though, responded to that instantly.
"I was supposed to die, I think. Then that didn't happen. I'm not really sure how I ended up here. I have a feeling there was a war. Sometimes I ask Rinon about it, but I can see the sadness it brings him. Do you know?" Clint asked.
Tony sighed. "Well, a little. I don't have a lot of details. No more than the people here do. There was a war. A big one. You were in that, yes." He turned his head away to look at the wall of gently-cascading water. "That's a nice bedroom feature."
"What?"
He turned back to Clint. The archer seemed a little sheepish and peculiar.
"The wall," Tony explained.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know if they told you, I'm reading your lips. I can't exactly hear. There was an explosion, I think," Clint replied.
Tony did know that, but he was happy when Clint felt comfortable enough to point it out. Years ago, when Clint went deaf after a mission, Tony and Bruce designed an auricular devise for his ears. It worked as a high-definition cochlear implant, with a transmitter the size of a tack.
When Clint had been healed by the Sarhorn, way back on M-day, he no longer needed the devices. He elected not to go under the knife to remove the internal portions. The Avenger reached into his pant pocket, and extracted a small silver case. He'd kept hold of the external transmitters, or Clint had, all this time, just in case Barton ever needed them again.
"Try these," Tony said, opening the case.
Clint carefully looked inside. The devices weren't familiar, but he seemed to know what he should do with them. At Tony's direction, he picked them up and, one at a time, inserted them on the outside of his ear canal.
"Rinon had me bring these. I won't bore you with details, but they help you hear. I'm turning them on, so let me know when – "
"Holy crap, I can hear you!" Clint exclaimed with a jump.
Tony smiled. "Is the volume too loud?"
"A little."
Tony adjusted them. "Is that better?"
"Yeah, worlds better. How did you do that? I thought I was never going to hear anything again. I just can't believe this! Are you some kind of tech genius?"
To that, Tony couldn't say. For the first time, he threatened to absolutely crack. He forced himself up, and took a few steps away from Clint to gain his composure before spinning around again. Clint might have noticed the momentary change, but he didn't say so. "Actually, when they tried to define me, genius didn't quite live up to expectations."
"Well, thank you, regardless. I was feeling – "
"Abandoned? Alone?" Tony supplied.
"Lost," Clint said, "without my hearing. I don't understand why though, apparently I know sign language. I assumed I must have been deaf before . . . well, before whatever-it-was happened. Do you know if I was?"
"You were, yes, for a time. Then you got better and stopped using those."
"Rinon and I talk constantly. I think he's told me about you."
"All good things, I hope." Tony fiddled with a few of the files on Barton's desk. Some contained pictures of his recovery. His heart seized in his chest as he looked at them. He might have thought Rinon's wounds bordered the unlivable, Clint's took the cake. Somehow, the archer never ceased to surprise them.
"Are we friends?" Clint asked, point blank.
Tony flipped the pages on the file, coming to one when Clint was first admitted. Blood coated the floor and all the attendants. Rinon was standing to one side, pale as death itself, and supported by Reylano. Faraday offered a silent scream into the air as others attempted to console him. The now dead Lirrie tried to help where he could, despite his nearly amputated leg. Tony swallowed the lump in his throat, and closed the file. Natasha, and definitely the others, should never see it.
"Tony?"
"You tired?" He asked suddenly, feeling the overwhelming risk of shattering under the pressure getting to him.
"No, I'm fine," Clint said.
"Liar," Tony called him out. He returned to the bed, and picked up the silver case. He slid it into his pocket again, grabbed Clint's ankles and helped swing them into bed. "I've got stuff to do besides babysit you all day. Get in, and when you feel better, we'll talk more."
"You aren't leaving?" Clint asked in surprise.
Tony grabbed the comforter, and pulled it up Clint's body before patting it down around him. "Leaving? I just got here."
"I'm not keeping you from something?"
"Nothing else I have, is more important than being here and making sure you get better," Tony said.
Clint didn't want to sleep. He wanted to stay awake a little longer, discover more about this man who knew him more than he let on initially. The more Tony mentioned him taking a nap, the harder it was to resist. He yawned against the pillows. "Will you be here when I wake up?"
"More or less. There are a couple others who want a chance to see you."
"They won't come in all at once?"
"Not unless you want them to. That might be a bit much. If you want me, just ask for me. I'll be here somewhere." Finished tucking the grown man in, Tony stood and took a few strides toward the door. Clint called out to him though, and forced him to stop.
"You didn't answer my question," Clint said.
"Friends?" Stark repeated, extending his hands and letting them fall. "We're as much friends as I am a genius. The word doesn't live up to it. I like to call us brothers, if that's all right."
Clint thought about it. "I think I'd like to have a brother like you."
Indescribable emotion tore at Tony's throat. His voice came out cracked. He could hardly see through the water welling in his eyes. "Go to sleep. We'll be here. We're never leaving."
"Don't make it weird," Clint chuckled, turning over on his good side. Tony wondered to himself whether Clint knew that was what he always said. He opened the door, but didn't go through until he began to hear Clint's steady breathing. The archer was alive, asleep, and Tony wasn't leaving this realm until Clint was able to come with him. Even if that meant he never left at all.
"Tony," Natasha said when he rejoined their group. She left the company of the others to put her arms around his neck. Tony knew how unorthodox it was of her. He knew how much she loved Barton, whether she ever admitted it or not. He held her for a moment before she pulled away. "You handled that so well."
"He's scared," Tony replied, glancing through the two way mirror. If the Avengers were asked to place a bet on what Tony's reaction might have been, everyone of them would have lost.
"We can't push him. If he gets his memory back, fine, but I don't care. It's still him. He loved us all once, we can just start over from scratch."
O.M.G.
POOR TONY! What will they do now?!