Chapter Text
CHAPTER FIVE:
2015. March, Downtown Manhattan
“Now let me get this straight,” Natahsa laughed at the pure stupidity of what Clint had just said. At least she thought it was stupid. “This guy that sells food from a truck in Downtown Manhattan of all places also has seating set up in a fenced off alleyway across from said truck?"
"Yes,” Clint nodded, not understanding what would be someone weird about this.
"Clint, if you want to get me killed you really could've chosen a less suspicious place."
"I swear I'm not trying to kill you." Now it was Clint's turn to laugh. “See? There's the truck. It's completely legit.”
"And the people that live in the houses bordering the alley?"
"There are no side doors and I'm eighty percent sure he pays off the residents with free food to not give him up. It's gonna be fine, I promise,” he looped an arm around hers (he did not lose the arm) and dragged her to the truck.
"You and I move in very different circles, I must say.”
“And mine are objectively better,” he smiled.
Who wouldn't like some good New York street food? Especially from such a great guy. Sure, the tables in the alley weren't legal, but c'mon! With all the Hydra agents running around was this really the biggest problem the police had? (Definitely. They always had the stupidest priorities.)
Once they acquired their food and drinks Clint very dramatically opened the gate in the fence and led Natasha through to the L-shaped alley full with tables, seats (a dumpster) and a bunch of people. Natasha pulled on her hood the second they stepped in, looking down. Clearly worrying about problems only people stupid enough to do hero business without a mask have.
“You don't have to worry about that.” Clint motioned at her head with his cup. “No one here cares that you're an Avenger. Ain't the weirdest thing they've seen."
"Then what is?" she hesitantly took off her hood.
"Could say blind man throwing away his cane and doing parkour, but probably not."
"These guys just know Murdock's identity?"
"Of course not. They have four– more than four vigilantes to choose from and he could be a SHIELD agent for all they know. Or Hydra. And what civilian wants to potentially mess with either of those?"
"I mean I guess– wait,” she stopped in her tracks and pulled Clint along with her. “What do you mean more than four vigilantes?"
"Nothing,” Clint freed his arms and continued walking. “Where do you wanna sit? I usually sit somewhere near the end.”
"N-no. Clint,” Natasha caught up with him. “How many vigilantes do you know about?"
"How many do you?"
"Four. But now I'm guessing there are a bit more than that..."
"Umm..." Well there was that scary lady, and those two dudes, not even mentioning the weird old guy Matt told him about and that other woman so that would be five, and then obviously there's the four of them so... "I've got nine, I think?"
"Nine?"
"I mean. I'm not sure where the line between a powered individual who helped with crimes ends and where a vigilante starts, so actually I'm not a hundred percent sure, but close enough.”
"Well thanks, I definitely didn't already have enough things to deal with and now you tell me I missed the existence of five vigilantes. Or at least powered individuals." They finally stopped before an empty table near the end of the alleyway.
"If it helps, one of ‘em is already dead.”
"No that does not... I will be asking more questions later. That is a threat,” she sat down and pointed a finger at him.
"And I'm not guaranteeing a single answer to them,” Clint sat down across from her with a wide smile.
Amongst other things Natasha did keep true to her words and asked him a number of questions and he very smoothly evaded all of them. Okay, like eighty percent of them. Seventy… fifty-two. Unimportant. That was only part of the conversation. There were other parts. Like the very important question she had just asked him:
“Are you still working in the depths of hell that is customer service?”
“Of course,” he took a bite of his food. “You know how much I love dealing with people who think they're better than me.”
“Was that another dig at SHIELD?”
“Yeah it was another dig at SHIELD,” Clint answered before she could even finish the sentence.
"You're never letting that mission go, are you?" Natasha sighed tiredly, but she was smiling.
"Nope. Never."
"Statistically speaking there's a good chance that the mission was thought up by Hydra..."
"It's possible, it's possible. But maybe you're saying that to make yourself look better."
"That's the fun of it, you may never know,” she smiled into her cup.
"How did things go with rooting out Hydra, anyway?"
"Before or after the outbreak?"
"Was there any rooting out to be done once they announced to the world they are nazis?"
"Before that? We were… working on it. Slowly, but surely getting rid of people, but…” she leaned back with a sigh. “We had to make sure none of them found out we were after Hydra. It would've been a long process and we only had five months and we didn't even know they were behind Project Insight. It was… it was chaos"
"I can imagine. I saw the helicarriers on the news. The idea that those things were in the hands of a bunch of nazis?"
"Yes, that is obviously horrible, but the carriers were a physical problem we could deal with. The bigger thing was…” she drew her eyes into a tight line. “All these people I've worked with for quite a while now, people I thought were my friends, or at least close to that turned out to be my enemies that wanted to kill me. That feeling... It kinda made me feel like I would've been better off had I not let them close in the first place. At least then they couldn't hurt me. Not this way."
"Yeah," Clint breathed, barely audible. "I have an idea what that might feel like."
2010. June, Manhattan
Two months ago he rid himself of Kate, his only ally. Now that he had nothing to lose he could hurt them back. Get rid of them. He could make sure they wouldn't hurt anyone else ever again. Now that Kate wasn't here there wasn't anyone to tell him to stop. To calm down. All the criminals in New York, not just the Red Room, were getting a new side of Ronin. One that gave them even less of a chance to run. To escape. To survive. Now that Kate was gone he didn't have anyone. He didn't want to have anyone. He made sure to disappear very fast whenever that Deadpool guy showed up and started blabbering about something. He couldn't afford to gain a new ally. Then what he did would've been for nothing. There would still be someone for the Red Room to hurt. Other than him. But that was fine. Not fine. Fine wasn't the word for it. It was tolerable. He could tolerate the physical pain that came with fighting off a bunch of angry Russians. He could heal from those wounds. The emotional ones he never quite learned how to heal from. It's not like anyone ever taught it to him. No one was ever there for him to teach these things. Not his parents, not his brother. And he couldn't teach this to his sister either. He couldn't do that. He couldn't do a lot of things that were emotional. That's why he liked the physical pain better. At least it reminded him that he was suffering, not Kate. Not someone else he cared about. Luckily there wasn't anyone like that left. And he didn't plan on gaining any new ones.
But the thing was, the world didn't want it that way. It kept on trying and trying to hurt him. To give him someone new to lose. He kept on running into that Deadpool guy. They kept on going after the same people. For Christ's sake Clint knew what the guy looked like under his stupid mask because of some unfortunate events that occurred while fighting some ninjas. And if that wasn't enough this guy kept and kept coming to him. Not only when they were after the same guys, no. He kept coming to Clint because he decided he wanted to talk. He decided to talk to him, because he felt like it. He wouldn't take the hint. And then one day, when Clint was desperately trying to ignore one vigilante he ran into another. Another one that kept on talking and talking. Spiderman, he called himself. Maybe if these two met they would leave him alone? He could only hope. New York certainly seemed small to him, maybe it was small to them too. And then there was another problem. And an even bigger one. An even less avoidable, and a lot less annoying problem. A problem Clint almost wanted to go to.
The horrid place Clint called his workplace, also known as Columbia University's coffee bar, was his biggest cause for concern. More specifically a certain someone that studied at said university and probably wouldn't be alive without coffee.
Clint was trying very hard to act normal and ignore the stinging pain in his side that might've been a broken rib from last night's endeavors. He hadn't been to work in a while, healing from a not so hideable injury, so now he couldn't stay away. He was fairly peacefully cleaning used cups in the sink, feeling something close to happiness, because Deadpool hadn't come looking for him in nearly a week now (maybe he met Spiderman and found a new person to annoy) when an ever so familiar voice called from behind him.
"Good to know you're still alive," greeted him one Matt Murdock, first year law student, weirdly agile blind man and — most importantly — Clint's biggest concern at the moment, because this guy also insisted on talking to him noticeably more than anyone else that lived off coffee and Clint saw nearly everyday. Also how he knew Clint was the one behind the counter was very unclear.
He put down the mug he was holding onto the rack and turned around. "I'm guessing the usual with enough caffeine to kill a man?" Clint tried to smile.
"Yes. And a less deadly one for Foggy." Why did this guy have to keep smiling at him so unnecessarily adorably?
"Comin' right up," he took the money from Matt, turned back to the machine and started punching buttons on it.
"Are you alright?" Matt's voice came from behind him, and Clint could practically see the little head tilt that he loved doing when he asked a question.
"Of course," Clint's hand stopped for a second, then continued.
"You sound tired."
Hitting the last button he needed to, Clint took a deep breath before forcing a smile onto his face and turning back around. "I serve coffee to law students that haven't slept in days. Obviously I'm done with life," he leaned against the back counter.
"What? You don't like it? Do you not enjoy my amazing company?"
"No, I enjoy it," he couldn't keep on the smile anymore so he just turned away. (He really was just turning back and forth at this point.) Which of course he didn't need to do, it wasn't like Matt could see him, but sometimes Clint felt like the other knew exactly what he was doing. "But you shouldn't be enjoying mine. It would be better for you."
"That sounded way too ominous for a guy who works in customer service," Matt laughed.
Too friendly. He was being too friendly. He always was. He was trying to be friends with Clint. He was trying to get himself hurt. Of course he didn't know that. But Clint did. And he could stop this. He just had to push him away. That worked fine enough with Kate. Sure, he felt — he was still feeling — like shit. But if it's what did the job. "And you're way too agile for a blind guy, but you don't see me pointing that out." He placed the finished cups on the counter and turned right back around (he was seriously getting dizzy from all this turning (or the blood loss from two nights ago (or both))) without waiting even half a second.
The aforementioned dizziness came forth with that last turn and he had to lean forward, all but gripping the side of the countertops. As if some fog filled up his head he saw black dots all around, his ears became clogged up. The last sound he could make out of the fog and the students' chatting all around him was Matt's cane tapping on the ground and the little bell over the door ringing as he left. That ringing got tangled in the fog, repeating over and over again in a muffled way, running around his head in a circle holding it tighter and tighter until he felt like his brain was about to blow up. Then a shout and a chair's clamoring dragged him back faster than he went. Some hungover guy tripped over himself and knocked over a pile of extra chairs.
Couldn't all the law students be like this? Couldn't they all be so bothered by their hangovers that they didn't have time to acknowledge Clint? He didn't want to be an asshole to Matt, he hadn't done anything wrong. He was just being a normal person. Unluckily for him he chose the one person here who hadn't had a normal day in his life since he was a child. But it was fine. Everything was fine. If he pushed everyone he had and everyone he could have away then the Red Room or anyone else that might have it out for him wouldn't have anyone to use against him. It was safer this way. It was safer to be without friends. If he didn't have anyone, then there would be no one to hurt, and no one for him to lose.
2015. March, Downtown Manhattan
"So how are things going with your friends? They still hate us?”
After having their mid-afternoon lunch Downton they moved further up to a bar Natasha mentioned. What better way was there to spend a Saturday afternoon/evening than drinking and talking with a friend anyway?
"It is ever-changing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Well, even then they find you annoying,” Clint took a sip of his drink. “Current problems are that you won't let them deal with Hydra agents they find. Not very happy about that. Considering everything that happened in 2013."
"Oh, I've heard from Tony the things Peter manages to say while still sounding polite. That boy has skills that I am afraid of.”
"Imagine the things he says once he's out of the HR's reach. And Wade... well he's still Wade. Unhinged as ever."
"And Murdock? He's still taking on the absolute craziest cases those fifteen streets he protects have ever seen?" Natasha laughed over her glass.
"Hell's Kitchen is at least twenty-six streets. And actually! We are dating now!"
"Wow. How'd you manage that?"
“What do you mean? I am charming. Also I asked him on a date and he — the catholic little nonswearing boy — replied with ‘fucking finally’ so it wasn't exactly that hard. You know I'm not sure, but he might've been flirting with me since we first met. Which was, for reference, more than five years ago. But yes. I managed to finally get the hint around a year ago,” he smiled proudly as if he hadn't missed four and a half years worth of other hints. To be fair he was having other problems in 2010, so he can't really be blamed for that.
"I mean yeah, he's also blind so you have an advantage there,” Natasha shrugged.
"I'm sorry? Did you just call me ugly? Wow. Okay. Then how are the Avengerses’ love lives goin'?" he slurred a bit.
"Oh, well, you know. Tony and Pepper are always on again off again. Depends what day of the week it is. Bruce's only love is science as far as I'm aware and Steve... Umm... Steve won't admit it, but he's still not over his best friend/crush from the forties so that's that."
"Still? That guy has to be what? Either dead or old and rotting by now."
Natasha just chuckled and tapped her fingers on the glass. "Funny thing is that no."
"What d'you mean no?" That wasn't even a yes or no question.
"Do you know what happened in DC during the Hydra invasion?"
"Some SHIELD base with a stupid name got taken over real bad."
"Oh if it was just that. Ever heard about the Winter Soldier?"
"Yeah. The guy's some myth the Soviets made when they got bored."
"Oh no, he's definitely real. Me, Steve and this other guy got attacked by him in DC. And now take a guess who he turned out to be."
Clint had thought what he and Wade went through around the time of the Hydra surfacing here in New York was bad. That some buildings blowing up, some old enemies resurfacing, more blown up buildings and a weird cyborg guy was the worst it could get. But compared to what went down in DC their day was child's play. There was no highway car chase committed by the world's deadliest assassin, no helicarriers, just one, singular cyborg. That actually left, so not even that bad. Clint wasn't nearly electrocuted to death either, he just got beaten up real bad.
"His friend from the forties?!"
"Yep,” Natasha kept on laughing at Clint's face.
"Literally no way. How is that even possible?"
"Lots and lots of cryofreezing."
Wait… "So they put him in a Soviet fridge?"
"Yeah, they put him in a Soviet freezer.”
"Well that's..."
Just the simple idea, the 'what if?' of having someone he thought was dead... no, not even the people he thought dead. Anyone who had left him coming back to kill him, to hurt him... If Kate had come back five years ago to get revenge on him he would've let her. He deserved it. He felt like he would've deserved it back then. He was an asshole to everyone. (Everyone was two people and maybe a half, but still.) People liked to say your past comes back to haunt you, didn't they? Your past coming to murder you might have to become a new saying. To make sure people prepared for all those they hurt coming back to kill them. To make them feel the pain they felt. The pain they deser–
"Clint! Clint!" Natasha snapped her fingers.
"Wha‐what?" Clint shook his head, trying to get rid of the fog clouding his mind.
"You keep blanking out on me, you sure you're alright?"
"Yeah, no I– It's–,” putting down his glass he took a deep breath. "I'm not saying I've had anyone I thought dead come back to kill me, but I sure as hell have been feeling like my past is coming back to haunt me this past while,” he smiled weakly. Not at Natasha. Not at anything, just… "My previous teammate. That thing you asked Wednesday. That question I very smoothly evaded by getting you to hang out with me."
"Yeah, I assumed that's why you asked to meet me in the first place."
"No– Well yes, but also no. I didn't just ask you here to talk about that. I wanted to hang out with you without having to chase anyone or anything. You know, normal stuff. Getting food, talking. All these things that... friends do,” he looked at her.
"I see. I'll be sure to remember that.” If there was one thing alcohol did it was make people's masks break and right now Natasha's mask had cracks in it. And through those fine lines something somber was seeping out.
"Do you..." Maybe he was reading too much into this, but still it felt as if... "You don't just hang out with the other Avengers? Or SHIELD agents?"
"No no, I do.” She tried to put on that perfect mask again. “I've spent quite a bit of time with the other Avengers these past months. We've been searching these Hydra base–"
"See? That's work. Not normal friend things. I'm not saying that's not hanging out, but outside of work?"
"I lived in the Avengers Tower from 2012 to 14... till Hydra... but then I went on the run and…” Her voice quieted down. “Huh, I guess I don't really just hang out with anyone."
"Wow... and here I thought I was bad at friendships."
"You? Bad at friends?” She looked at him in disbelief. “You have an entire team that aren't just coworkers, but your actual friends.” There were genuine feelings behind that. Some small hints of envy? Why would– “And believe me when I say it. I did my research on you four two years ago." Smile right back on. Clint really started to understand why they became friends so easily.
"I mean, yes... Now I have these guys... but I didn't always have them... and before that, well..." Clint rambled.
"Your previous partner?" Natasha stopped him before it got too long.
"Yes,” he closed his eyes for a second. “Her name was Kate. Another archer. Maybe even better than me. She was just so amazing. I loved working with her. But then... She was with me in Budapest. And the Red Room didn't take my attempt at Dreykov's life lightly.” His hands tightened around his glass. “They hurt her to hurt me. It went on until I just... I pushed her away. I made her angry at me. I was an asshole to her so she'd leave. And she did. Flew off to L.A. five years ago. Hadn't heard a word from her since. But maybe that's for the better. She's safer without me.”
"This is what you meant," Natasha stared off to the side, speaking quietly, "when I said the Hydra invasion and all that."
"I have wondered way too many times if her life would've been better if she just... never crossed paths with me..." And then, in the quietest voice possible he added, "If none of my friends ever…”
2015. March, Hell's Kitchen
Clint hoped he'd be feeling less like shit once he talked about Kate, about what had happened. He achieved the exact opposite of that. He felt even worse than how he's been feeling with just the memories, because now he acknowledged them. He didn't just black out for a bit, remember something and then ignore it with the same breath he remembered it with. And now guess what? He had all those conversations, all the memories he remembered slowly, but surely throughout these nearly two months in his head all at once.
He was back home. Sometime between the faint sounds of Kate's yelling at him and the pain of being beaten up he managed to get home. Technically he wasn't home yet. He was standing outside the door, his hand on the door handle, but not yet being able to turn it. He just stood there, staring at the chipped wood of the door. He took deep breaths, trying to rid himself of the past, at least until he could get to bed and probably cry himself to sleep. One last breath and he opened the door. He stepped inside the apartment with a smile on his face. Matt was sitting on the couch, a pile of papers once again before him on the coffee table.
“Good to know you're still alive,” he smiled, looking up.
Barely. “I wasn't in danger of losing it.”
“I thought you were just heading Downtown to get some food,” Matt scrunched his nose.
“I got a bit sidetracked,” Clint shrugged, hanging up his coat.
“I can smell that. You're reeking of alcohol.”
“I'll go take a shower,” Clint rubbed his eyes, “don't worry,” he planted a kiss on the top of Matt's head on the way to the bathroom.
After standing in the shower for a lot longer than needed, letting the water pour on his head hoping that would empty it out he finally got out of it. He dried himself and put on his pajamas, because it was past five p.m. and everybody knew that once it was past five p.m. you could change into your pajamas. Still in the process of drying his hair with a towel he walked back out into the living room where he found two times the people he left it with, except neither of them lived there.
“What brings you two here?” he asked the newly arrived Peter and Wade sitting on the floor around the coffee table.
“Ludo and/or Activity,” Peter replied at the exact same time as Wade said, “Your mental problems.”
“I would like some elaboration on the second one,” Clint leaned on the back of the couch.
“Activity?” Peter asked innocently. “It's this game where you draw cards and they have words on it, from which you have to–” His further explanations were cut short by a towel hitting him in the face.
“Rude!” he tried to throw the towel back at him, but Clint ducked down and it went flying over his head, landing in Matt's face, who only just now emerged from the hallway.
“I didn't know flying towels were a thing I had to worry about in my own home,” he stopped next to Clint and handed it back to him.
“Because you have to worry about them in other places?” Wade asked.
“I think we're getting side tracked here,” Clint interjected. “What do my mental problems have to do with you two?” Quite a lot, actually. Thanks brain, that is very useful, he thought.
“I can feel you've been having a bad time for a while now,” Matt took one of his hands in his own. “I thought a little team get together might help cheer you up.”
“So I'm guessing I'm not great at hiding my problems,” Clint huffed.
“You're bad at hiding anything from anyone period.”
“Right.” Obviously. He wasn't keeping anything from anyone.
“But hey, this way at least I can help.”
“Okay people, stop being mushy,” Wade groaned. “I came to play board games, not to witness public indecency.”
“We're inside our own house, Wade,” Clint rounded the couch and took place on the ground next to the coffee table. “This isn't public space.”
“It became public once I arrived.”
“I don't think that's not how that works,” Peter laughed.
“I'm sorry, did you want to continue watching that? What are you? Some freak?”
“What if we actually started playing?” Peter pulled out the Ludo board from the box.
“You're avoiding the question.”
“I want the blue pawns,” Clint said.
“You're all avoiding the question. Okay okay. I know what y'all are.”
“Just grab your pieces, Wade.”
After two rounds of Ludo Clint seriously wondered how this was supposed to help with his mental problems, because the only game that causes more fights than Ludo was Uno (thank god they couldn't play that one). But it did help him realize something. That he wasn't only friends with these guys, but also Natasha and maybe it would be fine if he told them about her. He actually decided on it. He actually started speaking.
“So guys,” he started quietly, “there's this–”
“Oh! And I forgot to say,” Wade spoke a lot more loudly than he did. “Wanna guess who I ran into today? And by ‘run into’ I mean who found me completely on purpose?” he asked while rolling the dice.
“I have some guesses,” Matt replied.
“Cap'n ‘Murica! Who else?”
“What did he want?” Peter took the dice Wade handed him.
“He said — and I quote – ‘Taking care of Hydra is not your job.’ You know, cause I killed a bunch of ‘em last week. But what the hell does he mean I can't do that?!” Wade threw his hands up.
Clint almost spoke. He almost said he couldn't blindly go after Hydra agents, because the newly formed SHIELD had agents undercover inside it and he could be killing the good guys. But he didn't say that, for obvious reasons. No one at this table would've liked to hear that, so he just stayed quiet.
“If I want to kill some nazis then I'm gonna kill some nazis and he can't stop me!” Wade continued.
“Not to mention they wouldn't have known Hydra was inside SHIELD if it wasn't for us,” Peter moved one of his pawns, sending one of Matt's back to the starting point.
“Yes! Like it's one thing that they did a shit job at getting them out of SHIELD and the uprising still happened, but without us they wouldn't have known at all! And they won't let us intervene!”
“Right? After the invasion I went to talk to Mr. Stark to ask him for some names. You know, so I could help a bit. Found him with Romanoff and they said this is SHIELD business. SHIELD is gone! There is no such thing as SHIELD business anymore!”
“The Avengers really are something else when it comes to trusting us, aren't they?” Matt reached for the dice to check what he rolled.
We're also something else when it comes to trusting them, aren't we? Clint couldn't help but think.
“That's one way of saying it,” Peter snorted.
Wade started to speak again, but then suddenly hit his forehead and turned to Clint. “You started saying something, didn't you?”
“Oh... it's…” Clint blinked, “it's nothing. Just... I think I'm close to getting the Red Room out of New York.”