Good day all,
Please enjoy installment number five of Soul Keeper – I call this chapter "Traps of the Mind". I am enjoying writing this story very much and it brings me a lot of joy. I am trying my hardest to do Hawkeye and Jeremy Renner justice, seeking to fill a loop that my brain has made. There is a long road left to go, and I hope you are enjoying the ride!
Thank you much for the review… it carries me to hear from you all.
Happy writing,
Elaine
IOIOIOIOIOIOI
Clint had to admit that it was amusing – he was currently lounging on a couch in the Tower, crunching away on some dry Trix cereal he held in a bowl on his lap when Stark came gallivanting in. The resident genius didn't comment on the archer's choice of lounge pants nor his two-sizes-too-big longsleeve Captain America shirt that he wore, and blatantly made a point to ignore the Iron Man socks that Clint had purposely donned before strutting out here. It was a calm Sunday morning, sun lazily peeking through the windows of the tower as the massive TV screen played a rerun of an old Tom and Jerry episode.
He hoped secretly that his humor wasn't too clearly obvious when Tony strut straight over to him with a StarkPad in hand, face perturbed, and paused the cartoon with a quick stab of his finger to the remote on the couch cushion next to Barton.
"Okay, Birdbrain," he huffed, standing a couple feet away as he clutched the StarkPad closer to his chest and planted his free hand on his hip, "Spill it."
"My cereal?" Clint mused, tapping the bowl with two fingers and pretending to knock it over, "That's a waste of food, Stark. 'Sides, you can't eat this anyway cuz Trix are for kids and you're approaching the wrong side of the hill to qualify."
"You're hysterical," was the dry response, and with a couple taps to the StarkPad Tony brought up the item in question: a picture of a whiteboard in his lab that Clint remembered writing on earlier that week. So it seemed he forgot to erase the evidence…oops. Hazel eyes locked onto his and he debated his next words. Tony presented it to him with: "This. This is what I mean. How did you do this?"
"Dry erase markers. Math."
The answers were a clear attempt to get the genius to back off – Clint was far from pleased that Tony was focusing on him, sparing him a thought… he was still far from comfortable with attention. Stark's answer to that was an exasperated roll of his eyes before he reached behind him, grabbing a hold of the papasan chair and drawing it to the back of his knees before he sat down. He made sure not to tilt the screen that bore the image of Clint's solved equation. Barton was beginning to get skittish. Tony seemed to sense that and chose to hoist himself, shoes and all, into a cross legged position on the chair. This was far from comfortable and dignified, but the relaxed muscles of Hawkeye's shoulders told him he was on the right track. Small form, no threat. He needed an answer.
"Bar- Clint," he spoke slowly, his soft tone surprising even him. He wasn't good at emotional stuff, but he was a hell of an empath to the dark tunnels of the mind. The archer keened on the sound of his name and shuffled in his seat a bit, popping another piece of the cereal in his mouth. Good. Sure that he had the assassin calm, he spoke again, this time using his fingers to zoom the screen onto the complex mathematical equation that was on the pad in his hand before looking back to his friend.
"This is a complex, biochemical equation that Bruce and I have been stuck on for a week. This is an equation that is measuring, ounce by ounce, the effect of an output of energy mixed with both Kepler's and Newton's laws in order to create a damage ratio of max efficiency without drawback. This is using chemical weights and atomic measures that Bruce and I are just starting to understand – we need it to weigh out a chemical input for an experiment. We've been on it for a week. You finished the equation in an hour according to JARVIS. You finished it right."
He moved to place the StarkPad on the coffee table to his left, propping it on its built-in kickstand, and then gazed on the assassin again. Clint surprised him in that he didn't look back…his eyes were for the image on the StarkPad that stared back at him. He almost seemed… worried.
"Clint."
The sapphire eyes met his.
"That," he pointedly jabbed a finger at the picture, "That is amazing."
He sought to ease the weariness he felt from his ally.
"Where did you learn that?"
Barton crunched slowly on his bite of cereal. He was contemplating, trying to wait Tony out – but to his credit, Stark wasn't budging. Damn persistence of a bloodhound on a trail he was, and Hawkeye couldn't find the energy to try and mislead him today. It was his first morning being back from a long draw mission in France and he didn't even have Natasha to keep him focused (who knew where she was out galivanting), so he weighed his options. With a half sigh he swallowed his bite of cereal, eyes dropping to the bowl. The team had been together for about six months now. Natasha had been prodding him to let them in – even if it was just to view the other side of the door. He found himself surprisingly willing to give Tony a try.
"I see better from a distance," he offered, numbly stirring the dry cereal bites in the bowl with his index finger, "Selvig left his equations up when he studied the Tesseract… gave me ideas. Kind of the same thing here."
He half expected Tony to be angry at his intrusion, almost expected him to laugh at the audacity of such a statement; instead when he raised his gaze to meet his friend's he was surprised to see intrigue, amazement, pride. He didn't understand this reaction.
"You learned this," Tony spoke slowly, gesturing back to the image, "From watching me and Bruce?"
A half nod was his answer. Neither moved for a solid four or five seconds, Stark clearly sorting out some form of internal dialogue and Clint deciding whether he had just spoken too much or if he should avoid the genius for a week or so until the intrigue on him blew over and he could return to being a ghost. Finally Stark gave an approving hum, reaching to his left leg to fish in a pocket of his cargo pants. Barton unconsciously felt himself reach for the holster on his thigh – the one that wasn't there.
'Stand down, Barton,' he reminded himself, and instead saved the motion as though he were scratching an itch.
Tony fished out what he was looking for and held it triumphantly in his left hand, presenting it to Clint's view as Stark rested his elbow on his knee. Hawkeye stared at the arrowhead, then looked back to Tony. So that was what the two geniuses were working on.
"Think you can do it again?"
The question was met with a soft smile, the first one Clint gave him without hesitation. Those arrowheads were the best in his collection, and he held onto them even after that fateful night with Kate.
Even after Tony was gone Clint remembered that day – the very first time he was able to show what he could do without trepidation.
IOIOIOIOIOIOI
It seemed so long ago. A lifetime ago, at times – there were days, like today, that Barton would have gladly sacrificed whatever he needed to in order to be there again. The lab experiments with Tony, regaling tales with Thor, coffee with Steve, any moments at all with Natasha, chess games with Bruce…
His eyes wandered over to the Smart Hulk. His green-skinned friend stood across the room from him, glasses slipped partly down his nose, one arm wrapped around his waist while he nibbled on the thumbnail of the other. He was confused, nervous; Clint recognized that face anywhere. The Smart Hulk's eyes were for the screens in front of him and no one else, the data that rolled in front of his eyes seemingly not making sense to the incredibly logical mind. It had taken Bruce around a half hour to get the computers running again and had rigged Clint's hearing aid to the point of being mildly useful – it was honestly more humming and static than an aid, but he was more than willing to let his friend have the small win in exchange for the headache he was dealing with. There were few lights online, the room cast in a soft blue light that illuminated the figures of his friends. They had all retreated to an undamaged conference room to regroup.
The archer himself was currently straddling a chair, his top half bare as he hugged the front of the piece of furniture. Rhodey worked as carefully as he could behind him as he cleaned and stitched the gash on his shoulder, surprisingly more skilled in delivering first aid than the archer would have initially given him credit for. The Clint's belongings were in a far corner of the room next to the couch, save the bloodstained sword that lay on the ground by his feet and the three cellphones he had brought (two burners and his normal). They were all dead, all useless and, in his annoyance, Hawkeye had chucked them to the ground. No one bothered to pick them up. Clint's right hand pressed his discarded shirt to his bleeding nose, his eyes wandering the room to take in the rest of his friends.
Bucky stood in the far corner of the meeting room, leaning onto a joist beam and staring broodily out the window to the forest on the other side of the glass. If Clint didn't know better, he would guess that he was grumbling to himself on his lack of ability to engage with the Ravager – he was impulsive, reckless…that's why he and Clint were such close friends. He started slightly when Sam came almost crashing into the room with an armful of food and a heavily laden bag swinging from his arm, steadying when a warm hand rested on his shoulder. He was suddenly reminded of the sharp pain near his shoulder blade where Rhodey had begun to press the stitching needle and stilled again.
"Now why is it," Sam's voice came with a grunt as he set down the bag and began to unpack the food from his arms and onto an empty table, "That every time I'm around y'all we end up demolishin' buildings and fighting some alien monster things that ain't normal?"
"It's team building, but if you're not interested we'll be sure to uninvite you next time," Rhodey's voice came from behind Clint dryly, earning the Iron Patriot a soft snort from Bucky.
Sam rolled his eyes at both of the responses, glancing to the scientist who was absorbed into the holographic screens.
"You stare much harder at that stuff you'll go cross-eyed," he muttered, "What's eatin' ya?"
Bruce didn't offer him a response right away. Finally, after a pregnant pause, he removed his glasses with a sigh and reached up to pinch the skin of his nose between his fingers as he squished his eyes shut. It was a testament to his healing abilities that the crack to his forehead was clotted over already and didn't seem to bother him at all.
"None of this makes sense."
"You mean the devil-Grim-Reaper thing that decided to smash the compound or the fact that you had to practice your old school hotwirin' skills to get us electricity?"
Bruce nibbled on the edge of his glasses. He and Clint locked eyes, and Barton had actually admit his surprise when he learned they were on the same page.
"Clint shouldn't be alive," the Smart Hulk pondered out loud, almost missing the brief flash of amusement in the eyes of his friend.
"Sorry to be a disappointment, Bruce. I'll have Bucky give it a hand next time," he quipped quietly through the shirt pressed to his nose before he pulled it away to inspect the blood flow.
"Don't tempt me, Barton," Bucky grumbled to him from the corner, returning the lovingly rude hand gesture that was flashed to him.
"Alright children," Rhodey chided them both, trying hard to focus on his work. He glanced at Bruce to continue.
"All I'm trying to say is that whatever that was knocked me thirty feet through the air and straight through a wall. It drew blood," he gestured to the sealed cut on his forehead, "When Thanos blew the compound and I got stuck under that pillar I didn't get a scratch. By all accounts… whether we want to admit it or not, Clint shouldn't be alive."
He hummed softly, tapping the screens in front of him to bring up a frozen image he had pulled from the security camera – a soft flutter of anxiety bubbled in Clint's chest before he gave a soft grunt at the needle that Rhodey pressed into his back. He stared back at his own frozen face on the screen, his imaged eyes locked straight on his prey. He thought he had left that look in the past.
"It was almost bulletproof," Bruce pondered aloud, "We all gave it a shot….and then it brushed us aside like broccoli it didn't order. Us. We aren't lightweights. And yet Clint escaped with a nosebleed and – what, Rhodey, two stitches?"
"Probably three," was the answer as the needle pressed into Barton's flesh again. A few of the muscles below his hand tensed and he gave a sympathetic wince, "Sorry, man."
"It shouldn't be possible."
"Barton's no amateur opponent," Bucky countered as he stepped away from the window and closer to the blue holoscreens that Bruce had been studying. He was as deadpan as normal, but Clint didn't miss the tightness around his eyes that gave away his concern.
"No shit, Sherlock," Sam huffed, returning to unpacking the bread and other food items from his bag, "But Banner has a point. All things considered, most of us shouldn't be debatin' this."
"More to the point," Banner muttered, sliding his glasses back on his nose, "Those signals you've been tracking are growing, Rhodey. They're becoming more frequent, more widespread….I guess that takes my electromagnetic field emitter theory and throws it out the window."
"Well, we saw first-hand that Bones the demon dog effected the electricity," Rhodes answered him, placing a final strip of tape on the gauze he pressed to the newly fastened stitches on Clint's back, "Maybe he has friends."
Satisfied, he reached down to give a soft pop to the archer's elbow, flashing a quick thumbs up to his when the blue eyes glanced over his tensed shoulder. Barton was glad to finally be able to pull the spare shirt he had brought with him over his head and stand to turn the chair around. His nosebleed finally ebbed, so he resorted to using his torn and bloodied t-shirt he had fought the Ravager in to begin to clean his blade. He sat stiff-backed and listened to the conversation, accented only by Rhodey's packing up of the first aid materials behind him.
"Oh god don't even tempt it," Sam groaned as he finished his set up and pulled a paper plate off of the stack he had brought, beginning to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, "One of those things was more than I wanna handle – I can't take no more James Rhodes being thrown into my chest."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks for padding my landing, Sam – but could you pack on some weight next time? I'd like a softer mat."
"Fuck off, man."
Clint felt a small smile twitch on his lips as he listened in – ah, the witty banter was such a welcome distraction from the prodding in his skull, and it reminded him distinctly of the arguments that used to go on between Steve and Tony. Eventually Clint had rubbed off on the tech genius and that resulted in Stark clearing arguments with the flip of a finger or a stuck out tongue, and it was so badly missed. Satisfied at the cleaned steel that reflected his exhausted gaze back to him, he allowed it to retract. It found a temporary home in the pocket of his cargo pants as he stood, chucking the trashed and bloody t-shirt into a garbage bin before entering a conjoined bathroom and shutting the door behind him.
He allowed himself a calm moment to finally relieve himself and then crossed to the sink, pumping out a handful of the foaming sea salt soap into a shaking left palm. The sound of the rushing water was a relief to his throbbing head and he set about scrubbing the blood from his arms, hands, neck and face. The feeling of water on his skin brought a roll of nausea to his stomach.
That lake. The water. Vormir.
"Ohhhhhhh boy," he groaned in a whisper, leaning over the sink.
His stomach rolled, and it was to his surprise that he didn't immediately start heaving what bile was in his stomach into the porcelain drain. The throb in his head had him raising a trembling hand to his temple. It only made it so far as to tickle his skin before he slammed it to the faucet head, shutting the water off.
'Breathe, Barton,' he ground out into his own head, 'Breathe. Panic doesn't help.'
Had he really been back to that hell of a planet?
No, he couldn't have been. It was at the center of space, nowhere near the floating rock he was currently standing on. But if that was true, where had the Ravager come from? What was this voice in his mind, the ghost that attached itself to him? What about the stinging heartbeat that wasn't his that shook him to his core?
As if in response, that heartbeat throbbed once in his ears. He felt it in his chest, and a trembling hand wound itself in the fabric of his dark grey shirt. He raised his eyes to stare at his reflection. Even to his own gaze, he looked….haunted. Hollow. His eyes were beginning to slowly sink into his face, the tiny scratches and knicks marring his skin only making his pale color seem more pasty white than it should have been.
'What is that?'
His thoughts were grim.
'A demon heartbeat?'
He had to be losing his mind. There wasn't another logical conclusion here, no way to write off the chaos that was in his head. He was finally facing karma. Exhausted eyes stared themselves down for another second in the mirror before he sighed, grasping the hand towel that was on the metal arm to his left, wiping himself dry. He replaced it and folded it calmly back onto the hanger before turning on his heel to shut off the light and exit the restroom.
He didn't lie to himself much these days – he was far from the Avenger that he was. Like he had told Kate: he was no role model. He wasn't the hero people pegged him to be, the great figure printed on those posters, the warrior that those actors had sung about on stage. Those honors were reserved for those who deserved that legacy:
Tony, the man who was more than ready to lay down his life when the time came – and had stood ready more than once.
Thor, son of a god who had defied everything to make an alliance with mortals and come to their aid when they needed him.
Bruce, the man of two minds who feared himself more than anything else in the world and yet willingly gave of himself to anyone who needed it – even now.
Steve, the man Clint had so despised at first but who he eventually came to understand was a brother who needed him.
Natasha….
His stomach churned again and he swallowed heavily as he crossed the expanse in front of him to the chair where he had been not long ago. Sam, Bucky, and Rhodes were all still bickering amongst themselves, the sound not bringing the joy it had before. There was only sadness…and pain.
Every day, he tried to earn what she had given him. He tried to ignore the dripping red that bled from his leger and stained everyone around him, countering it with the crimson hues of his own blood and self-sacrifice in a desperate attempt to make amends. In the end it hadn't worked….or he would be long dead, Natasha an Tony and (should he have chosen) Steve would all be here. A part of him whispered that he needed to distance himself from the four in this room… something was very wrong.
Finally reaching the lonely chair he decided against claiming it again, his aching knees demanding that he give them a rest. The pounding pain in his skull escalated by the playful banter behind him, so he switched off the hearing aid with a determined grimace. He chose his perch to be the couch in the corner where he planned to go through his belongings – and sitting atop one of the cushions was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate joined by three bright blue Aleve pills, a sealed bottle of water resting gently in the nook of the cushions. He sat next to it with a sigh, shooting a look to Bruce. The genius met his eyes from the other side of a hollow screen as he peered over his glasses at his old friend. The message was clear.
Barton spared him a scowl. That earned him a half smile, Bruce knowing full well that he was the victor here – and as if to prove him right the archer took a small nibble of the sandwich next to him. His eyes wandered to Bucky who had separated himself from the other two who were in the midst of some grand storytelling. The Winter Soldier cocked his head in a wordless message, quickly signing out to the worn man across the room:
'HE-WILL-NEVER-LET-UP-ON-YOU. EASIER-TO-GO-WITH-IT.'
Barnes was right on that account. Clint twitched a lip in a partial smile, another nibble of his sandwich making it down his throat to his churning stomach harmlessly. His groaning muscles gave a thankful twinge as he braced back against the soft couch cushions. He couldn't recall how much time had passed, or how long it was until he felt the paper plate leave his grasp, or who it was that dared to turn him on the couch so that he lay back heavily against the pillows and drew a soft cover over him. Long gone was his instinct to destroy anyone who disturb his rest, and his mind was plunged into the soft darkness of sleep. It didn't come without its own story.
oIoIoIo
In his dreams he could always hear…and the sharp echoing of his boots on the floor racketed from the walls of the black hallway he traveled down. There was a warm white light waiting for him, and the softest of smiles spread across his face as his wife and children melted into view. Laura met his sight with a smile, waving her children away and out of the living room as her husband approached. Unsuspecting Clint reached out to her –
And his hands hummed against the orange field that suddenly blocked him from his wife. His shock wore off quickly and he patted the wall with desperate hands, sharp eyes staring through it in terror to his spouse.
"Clint, it's almost time," she told him with a sad smile, pressing her hands together in her lap.
Barton swallowed thickly, pressing on the forcefield that hummed against him.
"Laura? Laura, honey I can't get to you!"
He felt the panic bite hollowly at his throat.
"Clint."
Her soft hum of his name made him freeze.
"Clint, you need to listen closely."
He didn't understand. He could hear that distant heartbeat as a faint whisper. She gave him a sad smile.
"It's okay."
That whisper sounded so hauntingly familiar. The distant heartbeat thumped slowly closer.
"It's almost time."
She glanced around at the sound of the heartbeat thrumming again, and then looked back to him lovingly.
"Don't worry, honey…. We'll be alright."
"Laura?!" he was straight shouting now, slamming his fists on the wall that separated them.
"We're going to be alright, Clint," she whispered to him, her eyes sad as she raised a hand to her lips. She pressed a kiss to it and then held it out to him – a timeless gesture they had developed between them, "You have to be brave now. She needs you…. We all need you. Go be who you are meant to be. Be still….and listen."
"Laura!"
His scream echoed hollowly as he suddenly felt himself ripped backward away from her and back into the darkness, her final "I love you" nothing but a faint whisper as he was flung through his mind's reality. He couldn't manage to scream as he barreled through his consciousness, his entire vision throbbing orange in tune to the once soft heartbeat that now slowly thumped fully in his ears.
Thump-bump. A flash of orange.
Thump-bump. A wave cast over him.
Thump-bump.
The light cascaded, and then suddenly his entire existence was a moment tinged in orange light. In it, a distant red tail hawk perched in a tree raised its head in alarmed response to the heartbeat. A single blink was spared as if it was trying to see him more clearly before time slowed, and Clint watched it majestically unfold its wings as if it were ready to fly.
Thump-bump.
oIoIoIoIo
He felt his consciousness return with a slam, a deep breath being drawn into his painful chest. He still lay on the couch he had fallen asleep on, the blanket on top of him (to his surprise) hardly wrinkled. He became fleetingly aware of the coolness that enveloped his forehead and the top of his skull, a shaky hand reaching up to reveal that someone had taken one of the velvet covered ice packs Sam had brought earlier and used it to calm the throbbing pain in his skull. On a normal day he would be annoyed at the hovering – right now it grounded him, and for that he was grateful.
In no hurry to leave the calm of his current cocoon he allowed himself to crack an eye open to peer out around the room. The others must have turned in, the holoscreens Bruce had been studying dulled in rest mode. None of his allies were visible in the room with him and he knew they were more than likely all in the adjoining office – and more than likely Barnes had decided to take watch. Clint was annoyed to note that the sun had fallen long ago. Of course they would leave him to sleep.
He finally convinced himself to sit up and swing his feet to the floor with a soft groan, catching the falling ice pack and momentarily clenching it in a fist. It was just a dream.
Wasn't it?
His eyes looked to the floating screens not far from him. He had to know what they were fighting. It didn't take him long to fall back into his old ways, his partnership with Tony having taught him more on navigating this system than he ever truly desired to know. He easily found the records Bruce had begun to fill out on the details of the Ravager, Clint's painful headaches that Bruce had linked to every instance of that energy spurt that formed the wave on the screen in front of him, the tracked wavelengths that seemed to suddenly and sporadically appear across the global map since Hawkeye had felled their otherworldly enemy.
None of that is what made him move… it was the cluster of activity marked on the map in the midst of the country that set forward an absolute flurry of events. The cluster of activity that appeared ten minutes before Barton found it. The cluster of activity that was less than a mile from his home.
When Bucky came to peer in a few fateful moments later he would find Hawkeye gone, his weapons missing, and a glow of engine fire illuminating the windows as the jet shot away from the compound and headed straight to where those marks had been. The jet shot with purpose in a straight line for an hour, making it only a handful of miles from home before Clint felt it.
The heartbeat throbbed once, loudly in his ears.
"….Clint. It comes."
The flash of light.
And the jet released its life then, slowly howling its way toward the earth. Despite his very best attempts, the last thing Clint recalled in that moment was the spitting sparks from the computer dash in front of him, the shock of dread, and the fateful shattering of the steel ship around him as it crashed into the ground.