Chapter Text
Okay...
This looked bad.
Not that Clint didn't like being an Avenger. It was a lot of pressure, but almost everything in his life could match that description anyway. It's just that most of the time, he wasn't one. They assembled for special occasions – major villains; threats on a world-wide scale; international press conferences (only that one time though, but it had been as memorable and stormy as your average alien invasion); the rest of time, they just went on with their lives. They were not living in Tony's bosom like the press and the fans tended to dream about. Sure, the Avengers Tower was a thing and their individual floors were very much a thing, but it was just in case of an emergency – see above for examples.
Most of the time, Clint lived in a small, dirty flat in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and here in the deep city, the Avengers were only bright splashes of color on the television. Nobody even recognized him – well, most of the time. He wasn't that famous anyway, compared to the others. The stolen footage that circulated the web usually starred the Hulk or Iron Man or Captain America. Clint might be an Avenger, but in the end, he was just a guy with no super-powers. And a bow. People here were too busy dealing with how to pay the rent, how to pay for cable, and how to pay for their small lives in a general way since someone had apparently decided that human beings could not exist for free.
Becoming philosophical. Clint hated it, but it tended to happen to him in the face of a crappy situation. See, he liked it here. He didn't waste any time thinking about it out loud, but the fact was that he enjoyed his life on the top floor, his very normal neighbors, the nightly roof-top barbecues and his general anonymity. To the point of secretly paying everyone's rent once – and, okay, actually buying the whole building, shut up – but that was a story he preferred not to recall. Everyone that lived in this building he could have met during his circus years among the cheering public. They were the kind of people to pay a small fee just to see their children's eyes gleam, since apparently that couldn't be free either.
Losing himself in thought again. The point was, he did not want his neighborhood to be flattened or zapped or crushed anytime soon. Preferably never. He wanted the people here to get on with their lives, and that might be a foolish wish in Brooklyn – or any place in New York, for that matter – but all things considered, shit didn't hit the fan that often.
Except when it did.
Clint realized he was still frozen on the threshold with his hand gripping the door handle. His unexpected visitor had patiently waited for his internal monologue to run dry.
“Um,” he mumbled. “I can come back later if now's not a good time. I would have called, but I don't have your number.”
“No,” Clint answered automatically. “It's good. Come on in, man.”
He took a step back and what looked like an unassuming hobo stepped inside, hunching even more on himself as he crossed the door. This was maybe the only other superhero people recognized less than Clint. But he certainly was no normal human.
Clint thought again about how he dearly wished his neighborhood would still be standing by the end of the day. He really liked those roof-top grills. A nightly ritual they had in there. Most the building heading up to the roof for dinner and a bit of socializing. Even in November. Those moments made him feel average and sometimes kinda lame and normal – if only for a short time.
The only time he felt really normal was among the Avengers and that – that wasn't a good feeling then. Why couldn't anything ever be simple?
“Don't mean to disturb,” the hobo said. “It's very purple here. I like purple.”
Clint didn't ask how he had found his address. After all, they were colleagues.
Truth be told, he hadn't been called to the Initiative in over five months. He'd have rather had things stay that way, but when you were Hawkeye the Human, things were bound to go south any day. At least this time, his rent was payed, his leg wasn't broken, and he still had a few things to look forward to. So maybe he could make an effort and be polite with this man he wanted out of his apartment – out of his city – more than anything, even though he knew how it unfair it was.
Bruce Banner gave a soft smile and Clint realized he must be reading him like an open book, maybe because he was a fucking genius – or maybe because everywhere he went people always reacted the same way. Please let him be gone with my house still standing.
“Um, sorry,” Clint said, a nasty feeling of shame tightening his throat. “I haven't slept much, I'm a bit – out of it. Coffee?”
“No thanks,” Bruce said quietly.
“Oh. Right. I guess you don't drink beer either.”
He didn't have anything else.
“Water?” the doctor said. “Water would be fine.”
“Right. Yes. Sure.”
Clint went into the small kitchen, relieved he could turn his back to Banner if only for a second, and filled a big glass with tap water. The doctor took it and drank with the obvious pleasure of people who haven't had running water nearby in a long time.
Now that was weird.
“So how's Tony?” Clint asked, just to test the waters.
Bruce looked at him over the rim of the glass. “Um,” he said, setting it delicately on the coffee table. “Judging by the news, he's fine.”
“I thought you were living with him.”
Stark had been so dead set on dragging Bruce Banner inside his expensive, high-tech, breakable tower that everyone assumed they were sort of roommates now. After all, they had driven into the sunset together after Manhattan. Every time the Avengers had assembled after that, Bruce had been there – for a few seconds before something greener and bigger took his place. That the scientist hadn't Hulked out in the Avengers Tower was a miracle. But hey, maybe he had – who knew how his floor was built.
Except for the fact that apparently, he wasn't living in it.
“Oh,” Bruce said. “Um. No, I thought it would be better to give him and Miss Potts some space.”
Another way of saying that superheroes were freaking Pepper Potts out and that a radioactive monster living under her roof would have been the last straw. Clint felt a brief pang of pity for the guy, but then again he wanted him out of his place too. He couldn't blame Potts; she had an awful lot on her plate with Iron Man alone.
“Where have you been then?” he asked, taking back the empty glass.
“Here and there,” Bruce mumbled. “It's a nice apartment you have.”
“Thanks.”
Banner plunged his hands in the deep pockets of his down jacket. “Look, uh – ” he worried his lip for a second and Clint briefly wondered what he would look like, peeled out of his baggy clothes and without his beaten-up, stubbly, weary look. He had seen him like that only once – when they had sent Loki back. He'd been wearing Stark clothes and a tentative smile on a clean-shaven face then. But now Bruce Banner was buried in a coat too large for him, and there were dark smudges under his eyes.
“Actually, I need your help,” Bruce finally said.
“My help?”
Clint's disbelief was so obvious a tiny smile ghosted on Banner's lips for a second. “I would have asked Natasha, but...”
There were worlds of reasons hiding underneath those words and neither Clint nor Bruce wanted to dwell on it.
“Yeah, okay,” Clint said. “What about Tony or Steve?”
“It's not on their scale,” Bruce murmured.
You're on their scale, Clint wanted to say. But it seemed that if not for the monster hiding at his core, Banner would have belonged entirely on the streets. He was used to living without a roof over his head and since nobody knew his face, he was as much a target for ordinary trouble as anyone else. The realization shook Clint up a bit – that Banner's rumpled clothes were not an undercover disguise.
Clint felt he couldn't hesitate for much longer without being outright rude.
“Look,” he said. “Why don't you just sit and... tell me about it. Hey, just – can it wait half an hour?”
“Um,” Bruce answered, looking a bit owlish. “I guess?”
“'Cause I haven't eaten yet. I hope you don't have anything against frozen lasagna.”
The sparkle that lit up in Bruce's eyes drove Clint to think that apparently the scientist hadn't been starving just for water. Clint couldn't see how thin he was beneath that down jacket, but his face did seem a bit more angular behind his thick glasses and under the baseball cap covering his curly hair.
Bruce was quick to hide any pangs of raw hunger though. “I like it unfrozen,” he smiled, “but have it your way.”
“Har har,” Clint said, because it was easier than asking, when was the last time you had a proper meal? Wasn't his business anyway. “It'll be ready in ten minutes. Can you get us out paper plates or something ? In that cupboard over there.”
“Uh, sure. Thanks for – ”
“And you can ditch the cap and coat too. There's no paparazzi hiding under the sink. And I know the windows aren't double glazed, but it's not that cold.”
Bruce's eyes briefly took in Clint's tank top and dark jeans, and he had that faint smile again. He took off the baseball cap, but kept the jacket on and Clint didn't insist.
*
Ten minutes later, it still looked bad – the goddamn Hulk in Brooklyn, and in trouble too, what the hell was Banner thinking – but Clint managed to forget about who this man was for a few minutes as he watched him scarf down his plate of poorly cooked lasagna. Banner licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, obviously hungry still but not daring to ask Clint for more.
“Help me finish it?” Clint offered.
Bruce gave a tiny nod, eyeing the rest of the pasta. “Sure,” he murmured. “Thanks.”
“You don't have to keep thanking me,” Clint said, in a joking tone but slightly uncomfortable as he put another slice on the doctor's plate. “It's bad lasagna.”
His unexpected guest didn't answer and started eating again, a bit more slowly this time. Clint thought of the rooftop barbecue he was missing and sighed inwardly.
“So what's the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing really,” Bruce mumbled, still poking at his food. “My laptop was stolen and... I can't afford to lose it – not this one. I'd rather get it back without making a mess.”
“Who took it?”
“Guy in a tracksuit. After dark, during a heavy rainstorm. I wasn't fast enough.”
“Two days ago?” Clint said, remembering the storm he'd heard drumming on his roof.
“Yeah. I followed him to a crappy building three blocks down from here. I can't just go inside and take it.” He shrugged. “I thought about just buying it back from them, but I'm afraid they'd recognize me.”
This was getting weirder and weirder. Clint thought he was the only Avenger with a normal, mostly crappy life. But Bruce Banner obviously had his fair share of banal problems too. Clint almost felt like protesting – the doctor was arguably the most intelligent man in the world, and the most powerful being of the galaxy. Surely, life on Clint's scale, life on the streets, tiny life was nothing Banner knew about. Tony Stark was his best friend, for Christ's sake.
Yet Bruce was here, looking dejected and coming to Clint Barton because tiny life was apparently something they had in common.
“Of course, I can pay you,” the doctor began – and Clint flicked a green peppercorn right between his eyes. Bruce flinched and said “ow” and blinked at him.
“Don't be ridiculous,” Clint said in his sullen tone.
Underneath though, his heart was beating hard and fast at his own thoughtless move. This was the Hulk, for fuck's sake, not one of his ordinary worthless neighbors. What was he thinking? He had just forgotten for a second – then again, Bruce had it under control. Clint had heard stories about Tony Stark poking and prodding him and provoking nothing.
There was still a rush in his ears for a few seconds.
“Let's go then,” he said, trying not to show any of his fleeting fear. “You can fill me in on the details along the way.”
If he could get this done fast enough, maybe he could still make it in time for the nightly rooftop grill.
Banner was still gaping at him. When he understood that Clint had agreed to help him, he looked even more puzzled, then incredibly relieved.
“Okay,” he said. “Clint, thank you.”
“Hey, what else are colleagues for,” Clint said with a grin. “C'mon, let's roll.”
*
Night was falling as they approached the building. It was really crappy indeed – actually, it looked like it was about to keel over any second. Clint sighed.
“Yeah, I know these guys.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I destroyed one of their casinos once. And I shot trick arrows at them in a car chase. I wonder if they still remember.”
Banner obviously didn't know what to answer to that. Clint rolled his shoulders and said, “What does your laptop look like?”
“It's... a grey Asus, with silver scratches on the side.”
“Like a cat clawed at it?”
Bruce had a small smile. “Wasn't a cat. But yes.”
“Okay, I'm going.”
The scientist looked a bit nervous. “What, just like that?”
“I know what I'm doing,” Clint lied. “They won't even know I'm here. You just wait, okay?”
“Wait – but – are you sure you don't need me to... do anything ?”
“Doc,” Clint said, “I need you to stay here and... make yourself real small. Okay?”
Clint knew the anguish in his voice was palpable, and he felt kind of sorry he had to spell it out like this but the last thing he wanted was for the doctor to be triggered.
Bruce's face fell a little, and he nodded. “Of course. I'm sorry.”
He looked so sheepish Clint wanted to apologize as well, but he just shook his head. “It's alright. Let me do this."
“It's just... I'm just waiting for you to settle my problems,” Bruce winced. “I feel like the biggest asshole in New York.”
“Pretty sure Tony Stark steals the title,” Clint grinned. “And I agreed to help you, didn't I?”
The doctor nodded again. “Okay, so I'll just... wait here.”
“Atta boy.”
Clint ran across the street, jumped to grab the fire escape ladder and climbed it until he set foot on the lower flight of metallic stairs. He went up silently; the building was only four stories high and he could have just taken the stairs, but he'd still rather begin with the roof and make his way down. Always better to get closer to the ground.
The roof was empty except for a sad bag of chips rolling across it. Maybe they ate barbecue up here, too. Maybe they had forgiven him for kicking their boss's ass – maybe they could just give him back Banner's laptop without a fuss.
Keep dreaming, Barton, Clint thought as he forced open the door that led down to the top floor. Four apartments on each floor; Clint decided to use his awesome eavesdropping powers. Kids crying in the first one, a couple having sex in the second one, nothing in the third one and nothing in the fourth, but the names on the doorbells were nothing he recognized. He took the stairs down to the third floor.
And jackpot – the name sounded right and the tags on the door were street code for junk dealers. He rapped at the door and waited. A thousand bolts clicked in the bowels of the apartment before it finally opened on a small guy who frankly looked like a rat. Good – they had never met.
“What d'ya want?”
“Hi, um,” Clint said in an unassuming voice, hunching in on himself to appear smaller. “My cousin told me you had... stuff to sell?”
“Wha' kind?” the rat said, dubious.
“Cell phones? An Iphone 5? I've got cash, man. I don't want any trouble.”
“Alright.”
The door snapped fully open. Clint walked inside – and froze.
“You fucking punk!”
Great, Tracksuit Dracula. This one knew him. And the others three knew him too, judging by the way they stood up and looked around for something to beat him with. Why were so many people pissed at him?
Okay, let's just go Skyrim on those idiots.
Except he hadn't brought his bow, which made perfect sense because of how cramped the building was, but still Clint felt uncomfortable without the familiar weight in his back. He rolled on the side just as a bottle exploded over his head and ran into the next room. He had kinda hoped the window would lead to the emergency stairs, but there were no windows whatsoever – only a pile of junk, cell phones, microwaves, computers – and a grey laptop in a corner.
Hello there. He grabbed it and shoved it in his bag, then took a step back just as the door was flung open. The four mobsters walked in while holding a house contest of grim faces. Clint grabbed a computer and threw it at the first goon's face – loud crash, splinters everywhere, yowl of pain – then threw himself into a rough fight that had absolutely nothing heroic to it. There was biting and scratching and knee-to-the-crotch-ing, and Clint had fought against the Black Widow and lost, so hell, he could totally lose against four pissed-off guys with crowbars and baseballs bats. It had happened to him before.
As a matter of fact, something hit the back of his head hard enough to throw him into a daze. He wasn't knocked out, not really, but he had to watch his unresponsive body be pulled out of the small room; he was forced to his knees on the dirty carpet. Large, rough hands gripped his shoulders and upper arms; he was pinned on the coffee table and his t-shirt – no no no, guys, c'mon, that's my favorite – argh – was torn into shreds, exposing his back.
“So,” Tracksuit Dracula said with a heavy Russian accent.
Yeah, that guy. Clint had once punched him in the face for throwing his own dog into traffic, then proceeded to beat him up and send his boss Ivan away after buying his current business.
“You shoot your own foot, bro. Very stupid.”
Clint tried to break free, but he was only crushed more roughly on the table. The other smiled with lots of golden teeth.
“What you want anyway, bro?”
“I wanted a fucking phone,” Clint groaned.
“You got money to buy a building. You got money to buy normal phone. You don't come here.”
“Yeah, well – ”
“Don't care,” the mobster said. “Stop talking.”
He flicked open a knife and nodded to the other two, who held Clint tighter on the table. Clint struggled, but the bastards were heavy. Oh, this looked bad.
“You're not seriously gonna kill me,” he panted. “You got any idea how hard it is to ditch a body? Not to mention the mess. Your place's filthy enough as it is.”
“Not kill you. Finish unfinished business. Think logical, yes?”
He grinned.
“You walk into lion's den; is normal to get claw marks, bro.”
Clint winced and pressed his forehead on the table. Tracksuit grabbed the back of his head and dug his knife into his shoulder blade, slicing a few inches of flesh open. Hot blood trickled down and Clint groaned between his teeth.
“C'mon, man – ” he panted.
“Name's Piotr,” the mobster told him. “Full name Piotr Antonovitch Touliakov.”
He grinned and Clint caught the gleam of his teeth again. “Think your back is large enough, bro?”
“Please stop,” a quiet voice said.
Clint startled and looked up – as much as his captors allowed him to.
Bruce Banner was standing in the doorway, very casually pointing a gun at them. His face was absolutely unreadable behind his glasses – he looked like a homeless nerd, disheveled and dirty and scrawny, but he had a gun.
“The fuck are you?” spat Piotr Antonovitch Touliakov.
“You don't want to know who I am,” the doctor said calmly.
He cocked his gun. “Let him go.”
“Fuck you, bro.”
“Let him go,” Bruce repeated without changing the inflexion of his voice.
That got to them. Clint himself had to admit that for a guy who had anger issues, Banner was one scary-ass chill motherfucker.
Very slowly, the hands that were holding him down opened, and the goons stepped back. Clint slung his bag on his shoulder, wincing when the shoulder strap stung like hell on his wound – Barton, you dummy – and got up on his feet. His head hurt, his shoulder screamed, and his shirt was dead. Fucking great.
“We're leaving now,” the scientist said.
“No you're not, bro” someone said in the dark hallway behind him – and a hand crashed on the back of Bruce's head to slam his forehead against the wall.
Adrenaline shot through Clint's system like a clap of thunder and he grabbed a chair to crash it across Touliakov's face. The other two pounced on him again, but Clint was so terrified of what was happening in the darkness outside that he took them out without even realizing it. He turned to the threshold and saw Banner on his knees, holding his face, fighting a full-body spasm when the mobster kicked him in the ribs.
“Hey!” Clint yelled – and the knife flew from his hand to stab the man just under the collarbone. He yelled something that Clint should have probably understood, but his Russian was rusty and that wasn't even the problem right now. He turned to Banner and just stared at him, chest heaving, a thousand possibilities running through his head and all of them resulting in his death. An observer would have had a hard time understanding why he was so terrified of the trembling hobo curled against the wall that smelled like piss and dust.
Banner shook for a good minute, then seemed to force something back. He stopped moving and Clint braced himself for the explosion.
The doctor took a deep breath, then looked up with a small scowl.
“Sorry,” he said. “I got it. Sorry.”
Clint breathed out with relief.
“We've got to get out of here,” he said after a minute. “Can you walk ?”
Bruce's eyes flicked at the door in a swift, guilty movement.
“I've got your laptop,” Clint told him.
The doctor's face lit up. “Oh!”
He looked weirdly younger for a second. The happiness was quick to desert his features, though. “Okay,” he said, milder already. “Let's – let's go. Sorry.”
Clint held out his hand and Bruce gratefully took it. He winced when he was pulled up on his feet and Clint froze again.
“Alright?”
“Not really,” Banner murmured. “I hadn't been beaten up in a while.”
They were hurtling down the stairs now.
“What do you mean, 'in a while'?”
“Well, I've got a knack for trouble,” the scientist said with a wry smile. “At least I don't have any broken bones this time.”
Clint outright stopped. “Broken bones?”
“It was just my little finger,” Bruce said in a guilty voice, as though he was apologizing.
“But you didn't... ”
Clint's voice trailed off. The doctor gave him a small smile, then kept going down, and Clint followed him, struck dumb.
When the door opened on the freezing air, the scientist unzipped his thick jacket.
“Here,” he said. “We're going to get noticed if you go around walking bare-chested in November.”
He shrugged it off and handed it to Clint, who took it reflexively.
“I'm bleeding,” he said.
“Uh,” Bruce said. “Well, I washed it three days ago, it should be fine.”
It took a good minute for Clint to understand what the doctor meant – that his clothes weren't dirty enough to risk contaminating him or something. He cleared his throat.
“Banner. I meant: I'm gonna bleed all over it.”
It was Bruce's turn to look confused. “It's okay,” he said. “I'm not wearing it for the color, you know.”
Clint barked a short laugh, then dropped the subject and put the jacket on.
“So that's how it feels to be Bruce Banner,” he joked, zipping it up. “Kinda cosy.”
The doctor blinked, then gave him a small smile, but Clint realized his joke hadn't been all that funny. Bruce was awfully skinny and his shirt awfully dirty underneath the thick down jacket. Maybe this was the reason he hadn't wanted to take it off earlier.
They quickly went down the street to reach a more animated place. Only then did Clint really start to relax.
“I'm sorry,” he said out of the blue.
Bruce looked at him with owlish eyes. “Sorry?”
“I've been jumpy as fuck from the second you knocked on my door, I know. But obviously you're a lot more in control than everyone gives you credit for.”
The scientist smiled a bit wanly. “You need stitches for your back,” he only said.
“It's just a knife wound.”
“Exactly.”
“Hospital's crazy at this hour of the night.”
Bruce shrugged and didn't insist. They kept walking side by side until they reached Clint's building and the door fell shut after them.
*
“Put it in the washing machine,” Clint said, discarding Bruce's blood-stained coat. “Third door to the right.”
The doctor nodded and walked hesitantly down the hallway, while Clint went into the bathroom to dig through the medicine cabinet. Disinfectant, disinfectant, he knew he had it somewhere.
He had just found it when Bruce came back. “I – um – is that your dog?”
Clint looked down at the dog drooling on Bruce's shoes. The scientist seemed very uncomfortable, like he had no idea what to do with a living being touching him so willingly.
“Heh,” Clint said. “That's Lucky. Good boy, Lucky.”
He petted the dog between his ears. “He's very clingy, sorry.”
“It's... alright,” Bruce said softly.
He crouched, fingers grazing Lucky's head gingerly. “I had a dog once.”
He did not add anything, and Clint was careful not to ask.
“You know, I'm sorry too,” the doctor said in a low voice, flinching slightly when the dog raised his ears, then carefully beginning to pet him again. “I – I shouldn't have walked into this building.”
“Well you saved my skin,” Clint mumbled. “Literally. So I'm not gonna be bashing your head with that.”
“I shouldn't have asked you to do this.”
Clint rolled his eyes. “Did you need the computer or not?”
“As it turns out, I didn't,” Bruce said quietly, scratching Lucky behind the ears.
Clint stared at him.
When it became obvious that Banner wasn't going to explain, he said, “What?”
“It's, uh – ” a wry smile crooked his lips. “It's broken.”
“What?”
“The screen's shattered and it won't turn on. Probably happened during the fight – or maybe even the day they ripped my bag off my shoulder, I don't know.”
He looked up and slightly pursed his mouth at the sight of Clint's shoulder. “You really need stitches.”
“Wasn't that laptop the most important thing you had?”
“It was,” Bruce said lightly. “Now it's not. Can I have a look at your shoulder?”
“No, you can't have a fucking look at my shoulder!”
Clint only realized he had yelled when Bruce blinked at him.
The scientist got up from his crouch, causing Lucky to whine at his feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Maybe – um – maybe I've invaded you enough. Sorry about all that. This was kind of a wasted day.”
He stepped back and picked up the down jacket he had left on a chair – instead of putting it in the washing machine. The stain of Clint's blood came briefly into view as he put it on; then he zipped it up and he was just an anonymous hobo again, screwing a baseball cap on his head.
“Well,” he said in a dejected voice. “I guess I'll see you around. Thanks again.”
The door clicked shut behind him.