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Entry tags:
Avengers - In Visibility [1/2]
Title: In Visibility
Genre: Gen, Team
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~14,000 words
Warnings: Violence, Language
Synopsis: He was used to slinking in shadows, hidden from sight. This was just ridiculous, really.
Author's Notes: For the "invisibility" square for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo. I'm still trying to figure out how it got this long.
Disclaimer: I do now own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
His job was to not be seen. If someone saw him, spotted even a glimpse of him, it was already too late. One of them, either the target or himself, was not going to come away from the event unscathed.
He rather liked it when it was them and not him.
Which is why being thrust into the limelight after the events of New York was troubling, to say the least. There were cameras everywhere, interviews with all sorts of media, pictures and talk shows and rumors of action figures and all sorts of other merchandise. It was horrifying.
It saved his life.
Tony Stark, for whom he had very few kind descriptors, was the ringleader of it all. He knew SHIELD needed a patsy to blame for their failure. He also knew a formerly secret organization was not going to be able to throw one of the known saviors of more people than anyone was willing to admit under the bus. He pushed Clint forward, physically as well as mentally, into the spotlight. He personally scrubbed any lurking records so that any searches would only find a loyal employee and pseudo-soldier, who did his job because it was the right thing to do. If SHIELD was to take him down, to take him out or otherwise try to blame him for anything that happened, they would have a lot of explaining to do to say the least.
They liked the light even less than he did.
So Clint Barton the Avenger was a bonafide hero, smiling for the blinding flashes and rescuing kittens from trees and all that jazz. Clint Barton the SHIELD Agent was reinstated with minimal fuss and allowed on the few missions that had a relative guarantee of him staying to the shadows and keeping undercover because sending him in was a guarantee the job would be completed successfully. Clint Barton the human being just wanted to get through a week without another nightmare or feeling he needed to look over his shoulder non-stop, waiting for someone to take him out the way he took out so many others, and hoping they at least got a clean shot because, really, he had trained damn near every sniper in SHIELD’s reserves and knew they were better than that.
His need to slink away boiled over into everyday life from time to time. The entire team knew that, after yet another publicity blitz, he would likely be scarce for days and they tended to leave him alone only to coax him out eventually with good food and bad movies. They also knew he would try for the same after certain missions and that they had a pretty small window to nab him lest he get away. Sometimes he even had help with the escape and those days were the ones where he reminded himself that, yeah, he was where he needed to be.
It was after a relatively uneventful mission that the team was to gather to make a statement and assure the populace that, yes, they really were safe. He had been teased already over the comms, which was usually a sign that he was going to get off easy. Stark hadn’t come up to get him, but his own armor was on the fritz from some sort of residual energy field thingy, so Clint made his way down to street level on his own, almost to the others just as the man in question replied to a particularly annoying reporter that, “Well, if Hawkeye was here, you know he’d just say, ‘I shot some arrows, things went boom,’ or the equivalent, so...”
He took that as an out and ran with it, as in damn near literally. The tower was only half a mile away because bad guys were dumb, and it was easy enough to collapse his bow and grab both a hooded sweatshirt and a duffle from one of the SHIELD vans, and hit the street. The sweatshirts were supposed to be for Bruce, but there was always enough to go around, and the duffles were just because SHIELD needed to carry the stuff somehow and ballistic grade briefcases tended to look suspicious more often than not.
Apparently the low level energy whatever that was screwing with Stark’s suit hit the tower as well. Some of the features worked, and some were well and truly out of commission. He could get in, but the retina scan for the Avengers’ suites was nixed. Instead, he rode the elevator to the lowest unsecured floor, and took to his back roads, AKA the vents and power conduits, and made a mental note to let Stark know of just how easy it was to still get in. Then again, it was only easy because he himself programmed the overrides and security to access the things, which maybe he should keep to himself. Then again, again, Stark’s fancy AI knew everything, so Stark probably knew too and just let him do it and put in his own safeguards against it being abused by outsiders.
He cleaned and put away his gear, and then stripped and showered and looked to the incredibly welcoming bed and the equally welcoming couch with remote. He decided trash tv could wait for now, and plunged face-first into the pillows, pausing only long enough to pull up the blankets before he passed out.
He awoke rested but starving and realized he had missed dinner in his need for a nap. It was three in the morning, which meant the others had eaten without him - nothing new there, though he did appreciate them letting him sleep for a change. His own cupboards were less than full, so he pulled on some sweats and headed for the main level and its usually overflowing kitchen. Some cold pizza, hot noodles, and a fair deal of cookies later, and he was ready for another nap. He left his dishes in the sink because the dishwasher hated him and he liked his fingers not to be permanently scarred, and headed back up to his rooms.
His schedule was completely thrown off by the weird sleep patterns, and so he found himself passing an oddly silent Steve as he left the gym and finishing up at the range just as he heard Tasha come down. He watched her wrap her hands for one of the punching bags, completely engrossed in her work, and decided to let her be. If she wanted to spar, she’d tell him. If she wanted to beat the crap out of a bag, he was out of there because it usually meant she was less than pleased with someone or something. He had learned long ago not to risk being the target.
His dishes were gone before he got to them, which meant exactly two things: one, he didn’t have to fight the dishwasher, and two, he had a little sticky note with a frowny face waiting for him from Steve. He shrugged, grabbed a bottled water and left a note on the grocery list for his requests for the week, and went up to take another shower.
He may have, possibly, gotten caught up in playing video games after said shower. He may have, possibly, sighed when he found he missed dinner again. Normally the others at least tried to call him down if he was on premises, but either they had skipped that part thinking he wanted his space or he hadn't heard their attempts what with his need to save the princess. His individual groceries were delivered right outside his door in a cooler, again with a frowny face note. He put away everything save for what he shoved into his mouth, and jotted a note of his own that he placed on Steve’s door for the morning, this one in apology.
The call to assemble should have been expected, which meant it woke him out of a dead sleep. He slipped his comm into his ear immediately, and pulled on a clean uniform to head on out. He knew he was a few minutes behind his usual suit-up time, but he also knew he was never the last one, so he was rather surprised to reach the deck to find the Quinjet hatch already closing.
Even more surprising were the snippets of conversation he caught through the comm.
“Where the hell is Barton?”
“Well, he’s obviously been around. I’ve cleaned up after him several times this week.”
“Even Clint wouldn’t ignore a call to assemble.”
“Why not? He’s ignored everything else this week.”
“I have not!” he insisted. True, timing had been off, more than usual, but he hadn’t actually actively ignored anyone. That he could remember. He was just dead tired and possibly forgetting the usual niceties when he thought about it, but they should be used to that by now as this was hardly the first time it happened - he was only human after all.
“Barton? Where the hell are you?” Stark demanded.
“Watching you try to fly away without me,” he replied. If he sounded petulant, it was only because he was.
“Try again, rear cameras show nothing,” Tony countered. “If you’re going to lie, don’t be stupid about it.”
“Tony, just go get him. We’ll fly on without you,” Bruce suggested, always the voice of reason. Well, you know, when he wasn’t an irrational green monster.
The jet was a decent ways out from the tower by now, and Clint watched as the back hatch lowered and spit out the bright red armor. Stark landed with his usual whump and then stood there tapping his foot, the reverberations echoing through the bay. “Come out, come out wherever you are...” he called, faceplate now flipped up and a seriously peeved expression on his face. It was followed by, “Seriously, Barton, dick move to be late, call me back, and then not even be ready...”
“I’m ready!” he insisted.
“Where the hell are you?” Tony demanded. “I am not dealing with Fury because you can’t get your crap together.”
Clint took a calming breath, reasoned Stark hadn’t had time to test his suit repairs and maybe they weren’t up to snuff yet which, hey, dangerous to go into the field like that anyway so he was actually doing the whole team a favor. If the suit’s sensors couldn't see him literally right behind him, Stark was no good to anyone. That settled, he slapped the back of the helmet with his bow and said, “Right here, asshole.”
Tony whipped around, then whipped right back where he started. “Barton?” he asked. His tone ranged from annoyed to mildly concerned in a single word. He turned slowly, eyes scanning, eyes looking right through him as he kept on going.
Clint tapped him on the chestplate with the top of his bow. “Right here,” he repeated, now more concerned for Tony himself than the suit.
Stark flipped down his mask and the eerie eyes lit up in the way that meant he was scanning with anything and everything he had. Clint knew the exact moment he reached the right configuration as the man jumped back and swore. “Can you see me now?” he asked, unable to resist.
“On a modified heat spectrum only,” Tony replied, ignoring the jibe. He reached a hand out tentatively and bumped it against Clint’s shoulder. He flipped his mask up, and then down again and then began to mutter incomprehensible garbage under his breath. The only thing Clint could make out of it all was, “Oh, this is not good.”
“What’s not good?” Natasha's voice cut across the comms.
“Our pet sniper is invisible,” Stark replied. He then amended that to, “Well, mostly.”
Clint waved his hand in front of his face, and saw it just fine. He peered at the golden shiny of the suit, and absolutely nothing reflected back. “I can’t tell if this is cool, or just weird,” he admitted. He thought back to the past few days, and realized he really hadn't bothered with a mirror at all. He shaved in the shower and his hair was short enough to do whatever it wanted to on its own and he had no sign anything was off proprioception-wise as he still saw enough of himself to be grounding.
“Put your bow down,” Tony ordered.
“Yeah, how about no?” he countered. His bow was his life. He could see it, feel it now. If he set it down and it mysteriously disappeared, or if he suddenly could no longer even hold it, there would be hell to pay.
“Fine, an arrow, something,” Tony tried, easily adapting, possibly because he was used to his crazy teammates and their quirks by now.
Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver and verified that, yes, it looked perfectly fine to him. He set it down on the ground before him and asked, “Okay, now what?”
“Take a step back. No, wait, take several. Keep walking until I tell you to stop.”
Clint rolled his eyes but did as asked. He managed about a step and a half before Stark’s muttering changed and he reach down to pick up the offending bit of composite carbon. He then began to babble about localized fields and energy barriers and muse about what caused it and how long it would last and the effects on the human body and was, thankfully, cut off by Steve’s rather exasperated, “Tony, focus. What’s wrong with Clint?”
“Yeah, so you know that residual energy that messed with the suit?” he asked, spinning the arrow in rough turns about his gauntlets. He thrust it forward, and then back again, though Clint could see no discernible change.
“From the incident two days ago?” Steve confirmed.
“The one and the same,” Tony nodded, even though no one save for Clint could actually see him and wasn’t that just ironic? “Something hit Barton. He’s currently in the non-visible, extreme infrared land of light and refraction.”
“Wait,” Bruce cut in. “You’re saying that he’s invisible?”
“Yes, to us mere humans at least, and I believe I said that already,” Tony replied. He thrust the arrow forward again and it stabbed into the outer layer of Clint’s armor.
Clint slapped it away and it clattered on the floor. “Stop poking me!” he complained.
"Stop screwing with the laws of science!" Tony countered.
It was, as always, Steve who cut in before things could escalate to truly childish levels. "We have a situation here and not just with Hawkeye being out of commission," he said in his I-am-the-Captain-and-you-will-listen-to-me voice. "We have a call to assemble and need eyes up high, preferably armed. Iron Man, I need you to report to our location. Hawkeye, I-"
"I'm not out of commission," Clint insisted. "I am in normal working order. It's not my fault you can't see me. Hell, it might even come in handy. I can still call out the angles and make the shots and be out of sight and out of mind to whatever big bad we're fighting this time. And when we fix this, because you know we will and or it will fix itself and probably at an inopportune time, y'all will say just how awesome I was."
"We won't be able to see if you're in danger," Cap pointed out, but even Clint could hear the waver in his tone.
"Tony can see me," Clint replied. "Things get dicey and he gets me out of there, just like usual." He paused and looked to Stark to see if he'd go for it, and received a reluctant nod for his troubles.
He waited a full three-count before Steve caved. "You stay on comms the whole time, and on task on comms. You let us know exactly what your situation is and if you need help before you fire the grappling arrow and hope it holds, do you understand?"
"Sir, yes, sir," he replied. He would have saluted but the action would have been lost on him even if he wasn't in a Quinjet, now miles away.
He hitched a ride on the Iron Man armor to Midtown, and let Stark place him high and dry and only rolled his eyes at the "Stay," he received and tried to ignore the muttered prediction that everything was about to go horribly wrong.
Thor swung by about halfway through the battle and told Clint to duck. A piece of masonry was stopped about a foot above his head and tossed to the side, severely damaging a car below if the resulting alarm was any indication. Clint was going to ask how he could even tell, but the big guy offered him a hand to right himself again and observed, "You appear as if a shade, but I see you well enough."
That, oddly, made Clint feel better. He was outside of human visual range, but at least two of his teammates had the ability to verify his existence, albeit one needed a bit of assistance to do so. He continued to call out baddies and shoot what he could and listened to more than a single bad guy lament their inability to locate the source of all the pointy sticks that kept falling on them.
Of course that changed when Stark caught a bit of a transmission that seemed to indicate Clint was well and truly fucked. It involved the words "triangulate" and "lock on suspected position" and "destroy the entire building if you have to." The giant lasers that were already troublesome for the rest of the team began to cut a swath through all sorts of fancy whatevers and it didn't take a genius to figure out they were headed his way.
The resident genius felt the need to announce the obvious anyway, and shouted, "Hawkeye, get out of there!" and, when Clint fired off one last shot at what they had previously determined to be a primary power source, "Barton, for fuck's sake, run!"
There was no way he could make the stairs in time, so he used his now trademark escape method mixed with a whole lot of best wishes because, if Stark was correct, any sort of grappling hook would be seen and available to target as soon as it was a fair distance away. Stark caught him in a blaze of bruises midair, some truly colorful profanity filling the comm link as he ranted, "I can barely see you let alone your Hail Mary reserves and I have no idea if you have a line or not and you jumped anyway and can you please actually talk to me here so I know if you're conscious or not?"
"I'm fine," he lied, ignoring the rest. His arms ached and there was a gouge in his leg from the masonry earlier and he was fairly certain the rough edge of the armor had torn more than his trousers, but there was no reason to mention any of that any more than usual.
Tony set him down behind the cadre of SHIELD vans. Sitwell threw open a door and demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Depositing one invisible archer. I'd say keep an eye on him, but you can't do that on a good day, so..." Tony pseudo-explained.
"Barton?" Jasper asked, looking in the completely wrong direction.
"Spin an arrow or use your innate talents to offend him enough to know it's you, will you?" Tony suggested. "I've got to go blow up the things that are trying to blow everything else up." He flew off and the line was soon filled with the sounds of inappropriate chortling as apparently the Hulk had taken personal offense to someone aiming for his buddy and was really going to town on their current enemy.
"Are you really okay?" Sitwell asked. His tone indicated he wasn't going to believe any answer given, so Clint felt no desire to be completely forthcoming.
"I'm an invisible assassin - how cool is that?" he asked instead.
He shifted to lean up against the van and Jasper's gaze got eerily close to following him. "You're out of breath and there's spatters of blood where Stark dropped you. I have no idea if they are fresh, or if they are turning red as they congeal, but I'm willing to assume they're yours based upon your record," the agent corrected. "No medic can assist you in your current state, so I need you to actually be honest here: how are you really?"
Clint sighed and glared at the betraying trail of his own bodily fluids. It answered as many questions as it asked about just what was doing what and what part or parts of him were actually invisible, but it was far above his pay grade to figure that sort of shit out. "I just got caught by a chunk of flying metal about ten stories up so, yeah, getting my breath back. I've got a cut on my thigh that shouldn't need stitches and that's probably what's leaving the trail. Get me some water and a first aid kit and I should be fine."
Sitwell looked doubting because he wasn't actually stupid, but relented. Water, Gatorade, and a first aid kit were laid out on the bumper, and more than a single agent watched as things randomly disappeared only to return with less than when they started. He kind of hoped no one was actually keeping track of just how much gauze he used because, after Alice expressed concern with the first blood-soaked pieces appearing, his shoved the others into his pockets to dispose of later.
Gauze wasn't cutting it and the tiny little bandages were worthless. He found the field sutures kit and prepped the needle with a frown because he hated getting sewn up, especially sober, and hated it even more when he was the one doing the sewing. Of course, that's when Thor appeared, took one look at him and whispered in his ever not so quiet voice, "Wrap it soundly and I will assist you shortly."
Sitwell wanted to know what was being wrapped but Clint wasn't dumb enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, or Norse god-like thing with the ability to fly him home as the case may be. He tossed a pressure bandage around the worst of it and pocketed the kit and let Thor carry him back to the tower because traveling with him never got old.
Thor was a warrior and was actually fricken awesome at patching people up, even though he rarely needed the skill for himself. He brought Clint to his room, pausing only to grab a bottle of Jack to split between them, and created a neat row of impossibly small knots along the injured thigh. He had once explained how the knotted sutures had been found to created patterns on the skin and how the addition of dyed thread spawned the traditional Norse-style tattoos. Basically, listening to him was like listening to a living, breathing, history lesson, only cooler because it usually involved booze. True, it also usually involved the patching of wounds which led to stories of similar wounds which led to said lesson, but it was still cool in a roundabout sort of way.
This time while Thor stitched, Clint listened to a combination of voices through the comm and tried to figure out how screwed he was. Sitwell was listing the missing supplies and threatening to send pictures of the bloodstains left behind while Rogers was smoothly explaining to the press that Hawkeye suffered a minor injury during the debacle and Thor had left to see to his treatment, which is why neither were available for comment. Stark was pissed because he had to verify to the gathered agents that he wasn't the one who stained the arm of his suit a rusty red, and Nat was pissed because she was Nat.
By the time the team came home, Clint was feeling no pain, though he suspected that would change with the hangover in the morning. Thor could always be counted on to downplay an injury as insignificant and, as he was the only one who could actually see Clint with some semblance of accuracy, the rest of them had to believe him. Tony augmented JARVIS' sensors to verify that, yes, the archer was on the premises, but that said archer was now laying really still on his bed to prevent the room from spinning. Vitals were still beyond him, so Tony had to be happy with the reports of the fluctuations signifying Clint was still breathing.
Steve insisted on both food and interrogation and, if Clint was in no state to come to them that they would come to him. This meant a distinct lack of passing out, and a distinct annoyance of Bruce's enhanced senses smelling the blood and Tasha finding the discarded bandages and Steve frowning mightily at the prevarication of the extent of the wounds.
It did, however, mean that Bruce and Tony and no doubt the cadre of SHIELD techs could use the bandages for testing instead of blindly shoving needles in the direction of an invisible body, so there was technically an up side to the whole thing.
Clint shoved a few egg rolls in his mouth and debated using the chopsticks for nefarious means, but was stopped by Tasha's unnervingly knowing, "Don't make me hurt you, Barton."
She made him drink tea to counteract the effects of the Jack Daniel's and pointedly left a huge bottle of water on the side table near his bed. Bruce added some analgesics, right before he started to snore, propped up against the side of said bed. Exhaustion was a known thing post-transformation and Clint was not above using his teammate to aid his cause, so Steve left the questioning to a hushed minimum and strongly implied more was to come later.
He awoke in the morning to find Banner still passed out on the floor, a pillow and blanket gifted to him from somewhere and Tasha curled up at the foot of the bed with a single hand wrapped soundly around his ankle, apparently not bothered in the least that at least a portion of her own body would have joined him in invisibility with that proximity since he hadn't been walking around naked the past few days yet no one had seen his clothes wandering off on their own. The message was clear: if he tried to sneak out, there would be hell to pay. There was a rumpled blanket that bespoke of Stark, but JARVIS cheerily informed him that he had already disappeared down to his shop to work on the problem when advising as to the status of those he couldn't see for himself. Of course, said announcement woke the others, and Clint had the sneaking suspicion that that was the whole point in the first place. It turned out Steve had taken the couch in the other room and Thor a chair beside him and he was soundly surrounded with no place to hide despite the fact no one really knew where he was.
Tasha followed him to the shower reasoning that, even if he were to suddenly become visible, she had seen it all before. Thor checked the stitches because no one else could and no one trusted Clint himself to be honest about them, and declared him healing sufficiently for whatever that meant by Asgardian standards.
His leg hurt as did his head, but there was the promise of something fried and wonderful for breakfast, so he joined the others around the table to dig in even knowing he was just setting himself up for more questioning. He found that he actually didn't mind it as much as he thought he would though. It was clear that the experience was awkward for everyone save for himself, but they were making an active effort to include him even as they continued to ask questions that he had no idea how to answer including everything from if he saw things differently through the field to if he had used his new trick for nefarious means. It made his mind drift back over the past few days and his lack of human interaction. He could go for days avoiding anyone and everyone and be fine, but he hadn't actually been trying and so it had felt more than a little like he had been getting the cold shoulder, that he had unknowingly stepped on toes or some such thing and pissed them off and had been paying the price. Somehow the idea that his teammates hadn't been ignoring him but simply didn't know he was there was reassuring.
Not that he told them as much. Not that he told them much at all. He had already done a verbal walk-through of the original attack and nothing stood out as an exposure source. He didn't know what happened, just that it did, and left it at that.
Tony wandered up around lunchtime. He pointed to an empty spot on the couch and raised his eyebrows and Steve shook his head in reply that, no, Clint was not there as far as he could tell. Of course, Clint was there, but no one left knew it. Thor had gone to do whatever he did away from the others and Clint had originally planned on just hanging out in his room or on the range, but knew it was BLT Day and wasn't going to miss out on that so he had come back. He had plopped down on the ottoman in the corner right before Steve took his usual comfy chair to watch the midday news and apparently the super soldier hadn't sensed him and Tony hadn't been bright enough to verify with JARVIS, so it was totally not his fault that he stayed perfectly, quietly still and listened in on the conversation.
Tony scrubbed his hands across his face and the ran them through his hair and stalled and stalled until finally he sighed, "I don't know if I can fix this."
"It's only been a day," Steve tried. His usual pep talk face was on, but Stark was having none of it.
"Three, almost four," he corrected. "We've only known about it for a day, but Barton's been gone for longer than that."
"Not gone," Steve protested. Clint would have applauded his anti-fatalistic attitude, but it would have given him away, so he refrained.
"Gone," Tony confirmed. "We can't see him, he's gone from us, and, if the simulations regarding the radiation that destroyed the armor are correct, he'll be gone-gone sooner rather than later. Don't ask about the virtual mice. Really, don't ask. Just know that I'm really glad I didn't use a virtual Barton because I'll be having nightmares from this shit as it is."
Clint made a mental note to try to hack the file. It was about him, so he totally had the right. Then again, since he had this argument with Stark before, he might just be able to ask JARVIS nicely and have it delivered to his personal server.
Speaking of Stark, he was still talking. He had moved on to all sorts of randomness like he usually did when he was nervous, but did hit a few key points worth mentioning. The first was that the suit that had been hit and gone all wonky during the attack that had likely changed Clint was degrading, as in the metal itself crumbling away. That was of the not-good and hopefully the difference of organic versus inorganic versus please-don't-be-the-same-field. The second was that Fury wanted an update and had an odd gleam in his eye about the whole invisible assassin thing because, like Clint himself, the concept was far too good to be ignored.
"He wants to use him, doesn't he?" Steve asked resignedly.
Tony rolled his eyes at the naiveté. "Wow, a spy agency wanting to use a trained spy and assassin that's now damn near undetectable? Whoever would have guessed it?"
Steve leaned forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees, chin against his folded hands. He was actually quite close to Clint, but Clint didn't dare move, didn't dare risk giving himself away. He had stayed in far more uncomfortable positions for far longer in his time as a sniper, and used those skills now to their full advantage. "They would send him in alone," Steve finally sighed. "They would send him in alone with minimal backup. They would have him march right out in the open and take down a target with no regard to the fact that he'd be at risk, that he could turn back to being visible at any time, that he could be caught and killed and we would never be able to do a damn thing about it."
His tone had changed from resigned to angry in the span of a few simple sentences, and Clint was torn between the possible adrenaline rush of such a mission and the way his erstwhile team leader's voice broke a little at the end, like putting an asset at risk in such a way was something he could never bring himself to do, not unless it was truly a life or death situation. It reminded him of how very different the Avengers were from SHIELD as a whole, and once again made him question just which one he would side with if it ever came down to it: the ones that took him in, saved him, and gave him purpose, or the ones that treated him like an equal and like something or someone who deserved to have a say as much as the rest of them.
"He is an assassin, Steve," Tony pointed out. "His job is to slink around and make the shot others can't." He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up even more before he added, "It's just that this time he has one hell of an advantage, or one hell of a detriment if whatever this is wears off on its own or whoever he gets as a mark has the sensors to find him."
And that would be why Clint put up with Tony, despite the attitude and arrogance and everything else that usually drove people away. He was smart, like dangerously so. He thought of not just how to do something, but what could go wrong and how before he even started designing whatever hit his fancy this time. When it came to things that could and would have an impact, possibly literally, upon his team or his friends, he looked at all the angles before some even knew the rough shape. Clint was honestly tempted to take whatever job Fury threw his way. Knowing the risk of returning to the normal visual spectrum didn't exactly make him change his mind, but it did make him think of different backup plans and escape routes than he would have otherwise bothered to consider.
He let Tony and Steve argue the point back and forth for another ten minutes or so, until one stormed off to his workshop and the other stormed off to the kitchen to start lunch. He slunk off to his rooms and found the waiting message from Fury. It asked if he could come in for a covert op or three and/or if there were any extenuating circumstances about his current condition that the others were keeping under wraps. He typed a quick response back confirming interest in the ops, but warning that his situation was considered unstable at the present and that standard exit strategies would be necessary. He was in no way surprised to get a near immediate request to report to Fury's office for review as soon as possible. Clint being Clint, he of course waited until after the BLTs were done.
Part Two on Live Journal | Part Two on Dreamwidth
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Gen, Team
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~14,000 words
Warnings: Violence, Language
Synopsis: He was used to slinking in shadows, hidden from sight. This was just ridiculous, really.
Author's Notes: For the "invisibility" square for
hc_bingo. I'm still trying to figure out how it got this long.Disclaimer: I do now own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
His job was to not be seen. If someone saw him, spotted even a glimpse of him, it was already too late. One of them, either the target or himself, was not going to come away from the event unscathed.
He rather liked it when it was them and not him.
Which is why being thrust into the limelight after the events of New York was troubling, to say the least. There were cameras everywhere, interviews with all sorts of media, pictures and talk shows and rumors of action figures and all sorts of other merchandise. It was horrifying.
It saved his life.
Tony Stark, for whom he had very few kind descriptors, was the ringleader of it all. He knew SHIELD needed a patsy to blame for their failure. He also knew a formerly secret organization was not going to be able to throw one of the known saviors of more people than anyone was willing to admit under the bus. He pushed Clint forward, physically as well as mentally, into the spotlight. He personally scrubbed any lurking records so that any searches would only find a loyal employee and pseudo-soldier, who did his job because it was the right thing to do. If SHIELD was to take him down, to take him out or otherwise try to blame him for anything that happened, they would have a lot of explaining to do to say the least.
They liked the light even less than he did.
So Clint Barton the Avenger was a bonafide hero, smiling for the blinding flashes and rescuing kittens from trees and all that jazz. Clint Barton the SHIELD Agent was reinstated with minimal fuss and allowed on the few missions that had a relative guarantee of him staying to the shadows and keeping undercover because sending him in was a guarantee the job would be completed successfully. Clint Barton the human being just wanted to get through a week without another nightmare or feeling he needed to look over his shoulder non-stop, waiting for someone to take him out the way he took out so many others, and hoping they at least got a clean shot because, really, he had trained damn near every sniper in SHIELD’s reserves and knew they were better than that.
His need to slink away boiled over into everyday life from time to time. The entire team knew that, after yet another publicity blitz, he would likely be scarce for days and they tended to leave him alone only to coax him out eventually with good food and bad movies. They also knew he would try for the same after certain missions and that they had a pretty small window to nab him lest he get away. Sometimes he even had help with the escape and those days were the ones where he reminded himself that, yeah, he was where he needed to be.
It was after a relatively uneventful mission that the team was to gather to make a statement and assure the populace that, yes, they really were safe. He had been teased already over the comms, which was usually a sign that he was going to get off easy. Stark hadn’t come up to get him, but his own armor was on the fritz from some sort of residual energy field thingy, so Clint made his way down to street level on his own, almost to the others just as the man in question replied to a particularly annoying reporter that, “Well, if Hawkeye was here, you know he’d just say, ‘I shot some arrows, things went boom,’ or the equivalent, so...”
He took that as an out and ran with it, as in damn near literally. The tower was only half a mile away because bad guys were dumb, and it was easy enough to collapse his bow and grab both a hooded sweatshirt and a duffle from one of the SHIELD vans, and hit the street. The sweatshirts were supposed to be for Bruce, but there was always enough to go around, and the duffles were just because SHIELD needed to carry the stuff somehow and ballistic grade briefcases tended to look suspicious more often than not.
Apparently the low level energy whatever that was screwing with Stark’s suit hit the tower as well. Some of the features worked, and some were well and truly out of commission. He could get in, but the retina scan for the Avengers’ suites was nixed. Instead, he rode the elevator to the lowest unsecured floor, and took to his back roads, AKA the vents and power conduits, and made a mental note to let Stark know of just how easy it was to still get in. Then again, it was only easy because he himself programmed the overrides and security to access the things, which maybe he should keep to himself. Then again, again, Stark’s fancy AI knew everything, so Stark probably knew too and just let him do it and put in his own safeguards against it being abused by outsiders.
He cleaned and put away his gear, and then stripped and showered and looked to the incredibly welcoming bed and the equally welcoming couch with remote. He decided trash tv could wait for now, and plunged face-first into the pillows, pausing only long enough to pull up the blankets before he passed out.
He awoke rested but starving and realized he had missed dinner in his need for a nap. It was three in the morning, which meant the others had eaten without him - nothing new there, though he did appreciate them letting him sleep for a change. His own cupboards were less than full, so he pulled on some sweats and headed for the main level and its usually overflowing kitchen. Some cold pizza, hot noodles, and a fair deal of cookies later, and he was ready for another nap. He left his dishes in the sink because the dishwasher hated him and he liked his fingers not to be permanently scarred, and headed back up to his rooms.
His schedule was completely thrown off by the weird sleep patterns, and so he found himself passing an oddly silent Steve as he left the gym and finishing up at the range just as he heard Tasha come down. He watched her wrap her hands for one of the punching bags, completely engrossed in her work, and decided to let her be. If she wanted to spar, she’d tell him. If she wanted to beat the crap out of a bag, he was out of there because it usually meant she was less than pleased with someone or something. He had learned long ago not to risk being the target.
His dishes were gone before he got to them, which meant exactly two things: one, he didn’t have to fight the dishwasher, and two, he had a little sticky note with a frowny face waiting for him from Steve. He shrugged, grabbed a bottled water and left a note on the grocery list for his requests for the week, and went up to take another shower.
He may have, possibly, gotten caught up in playing video games after said shower. He may have, possibly, sighed when he found he missed dinner again. Normally the others at least tried to call him down if he was on premises, but either they had skipped that part thinking he wanted his space or he hadn't heard their attempts what with his need to save the princess. His individual groceries were delivered right outside his door in a cooler, again with a frowny face note. He put away everything save for what he shoved into his mouth, and jotted a note of his own that he placed on Steve’s door for the morning, this one in apology.
The call to assemble should have been expected, which meant it woke him out of a dead sleep. He slipped his comm into his ear immediately, and pulled on a clean uniform to head on out. He knew he was a few minutes behind his usual suit-up time, but he also knew he was never the last one, so he was rather surprised to reach the deck to find the Quinjet hatch already closing.
Even more surprising were the snippets of conversation he caught through the comm.
“Where the hell is Barton?”
“Well, he’s obviously been around. I’ve cleaned up after him several times this week.”
“Even Clint wouldn’t ignore a call to assemble.”
“Why not? He’s ignored everything else this week.”
“I have not!” he insisted. True, timing had been off, more than usual, but he hadn’t actually actively ignored anyone. That he could remember. He was just dead tired and possibly forgetting the usual niceties when he thought about it, but they should be used to that by now as this was hardly the first time it happened - he was only human after all.
“Barton? Where the hell are you?” Stark demanded.
“Watching you try to fly away without me,” he replied. If he sounded petulant, it was only because he was.
“Try again, rear cameras show nothing,” Tony countered. “If you’re going to lie, don’t be stupid about it.”
“Tony, just go get him. We’ll fly on without you,” Bruce suggested, always the voice of reason. Well, you know, when he wasn’t an irrational green monster.
The jet was a decent ways out from the tower by now, and Clint watched as the back hatch lowered and spit out the bright red armor. Stark landed with his usual whump and then stood there tapping his foot, the reverberations echoing through the bay. “Come out, come out wherever you are...” he called, faceplate now flipped up and a seriously peeved expression on his face. It was followed by, “Seriously, Barton, dick move to be late, call me back, and then not even be ready...”
“I’m ready!” he insisted.
“Where the hell are you?” Tony demanded. “I am not dealing with Fury because you can’t get your crap together.”
Clint took a calming breath, reasoned Stark hadn’t had time to test his suit repairs and maybe they weren’t up to snuff yet which, hey, dangerous to go into the field like that anyway so he was actually doing the whole team a favor. If the suit’s sensors couldn't see him literally right behind him, Stark was no good to anyone. That settled, he slapped the back of the helmet with his bow and said, “Right here, asshole.”
Tony whipped around, then whipped right back where he started. “Barton?” he asked. His tone ranged from annoyed to mildly concerned in a single word. He turned slowly, eyes scanning, eyes looking right through him as he kept on going.
Clint tapped him on the chestplate with the top of his bow. “Right here,” he repeated, now more concerned for Tony himself than the suit.
Stark flipped down his mask and the eerie eyes lit up in the way that meant he was scanning with anything and everything he had. Clint knew the exact moment he reached the right configuration as the man jumped back and swore. “Can you see me now?” he asked, unable to resist.
“On a modified heat spectrum only,” Tony replied, ignoring the jibe. He reached a hand out tentatively and bumped it against Clint’s shoulder. He flipped his mask up, and then down again and then began to mutter incomprehensible garbage under his breath. The only thing Clint could make out of it all was, “Oh, this is not good.”
“What’s not good?” Natasha's voice cut across the comms.
“Our pet sniper is invisible,” Stark replied. He then amended that to, “Well, mostly.”
Clint waved his hand in front of his face, and saw it just fine. He peered at the golden shiny of the suit, and absolutely nothing reflected back. “I can’t tell if this is cool, or just weird,” he admitted. He thought back to the past few days, and realized he really hadn't bothered with a mirror at all. He shaved in the shower and his hair was short enough to do whatever it wanted to on its own and he had no sign anything was off proprioception-wise as he still saw enough of himself to be grounding.
“Put your bow down,” Tony ordered.
“Yeah, how about no?” he countered. His bow was his life. He could see it, feel it now. If he set it down and it mysteriously disappeared, or if he suddenly could no longer even hold it, there would be hell to pay.
“Fine, an arrow, something,” Tony tried, easily adapting, possibly because he was used to his crazy teammates and their quirks by now.
Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver and verified that, yes, it looked perfectly fine to him. He set it down on the ground before him and asked, “Okay, now what?”
“Take a step back. No, wait, take several. Keep walking until I tell you to stop.”
Clint rolled his eyes but did as asked. He managed about a step and a half before Stark’s muttering changed and he reach down to pick up the offending bit of composite carbon. He then began to babble about localized fields and energy barriers and muse about what caused it and how long it would last and the effects on the human body and was, thankfully, cut off by Steve’s rather exasperated, “Tony, focus. What’s wrong with Clint?”
“Yeah, so you know that residual energy that messed with the suit?” he asked, spinning the arrow in rough turns about his gauntlets. He thrust it forward, and then back again, though Clint could see no discernible change.
“From the incident two days ago?” Steve confirmed.
“The one and the same,” Tony nodded, even though no one save for Clint could actually see him and wasn’t that just ironic? “Something hit Barton. He’s currently in the non-visible, extreme infrared land of light and refraction.”
“Wait,” Bruce cut in. “You’re saying that he’s invisible?”
“Yes, to us mere humans at least, and I believe I said that already,” Tony replied. He thrust the arrow forward again and it stabbed into the outer layer of Clint’s armor.
Clint slapped it away and it clattered on the floor. “Stop poking me!” he complained.
"Stop screwing with the laws of science!" Tony countered.
It was, as always, Steve who cut in before things could escalate to truly childish levels. "We have a situation here and not just with Hawkeye being out of commission," he said in his I-am-the-Captain-and-you-will-listen-to-me voice. "We have a call to assemble and need eyes up high, preferably armed. Iron Man, I need you to report to our location. Hawkeye, I-"
"I'm not out of commission," Clint insisted. "I am in normal working order. It's not my fault you can't see me. Hell, it might even come in handy. I can still call out the angles and make the shots and be out of sight and out of mind to whatever big bad we're fighting this time. And when we fix this, because you know we will and or it will fix itself and probably at an inopportune time, y'all will say just how awesome I was."
"We won't be able to see if you're in danger," Cap pointed out, but even Clint could hear the waver in his tone.
"Tony can see me," Clint replied. "Things get dicey and he gets me out of there, just like usual." He paused and looked to Stark to see if he'd go for it, and received a reluctant nod for his troubles.
He waited a full three-count before Steve caved. "You stay on comms the whole time, and on task on comms. You let us know exactly what your situation is and if you need help before you fire the grappling arrow and hope it holds, do you understand?"
"Sir, yes, sir," he replied. He would have saluted but the action would have been lost on him even if he wasn't in a Quinjet, now miles away.
He hitched a ride on the Iron Man armor to Midtown, and let Stark place him high and dry and only rolled his eyes at the "Stay," he received and tried to ignore the muttered prediction that everything was about to go horribly wrong.
Thor swung by about halfway through the battle and told Clint to duck. A piece of masonry was stopped about a foot above his head and tossed to the side, severely damaging a car below if the resulting alarm was any indication. Clint was going to ask how he could even tell, but the big guy offered him a hand to right himself again and observed, "You appear as if a shade, but I see you well enough."
That, oddly, made Clint feel better. He was outside of human visual range, but at least two of his teammates had the ability to verify his existence, albeit one needed a bit of assistance to do so. He continued to call out baddies and shoot what he could and listened to more than a single bad guy lament their inability to locate the source of all the pointy sticks that kept falling on them.
Of course that changed when Stark caught a bit of a transmission that seemed to indicate Clint was well and truly fucked. It involved the words "triangulate" and "lock on suspected position" and "destroy the entire building if you have to." The giant lasers that were already troublesome for the rest of the team began to cut a swath through all sorts of fancy whatevers and it didn't take a genius to figure out they were headed his way.
The resident genius felt the need to announce the obvious anyway, and shouted, "Hawkeye, get out of there!" and, when Clint fired off one last shot at what they had previously determined to be a primary power source, "Barton, for fuck's sake, run!"
There was no way he could make the stairs in time, so he used his now trademark escape method mixed with a whole lot of best wishes because, if Stark was correct, any sort of grappling hook would be seen and available to target as soon as it was a fair distance away. Stark caught him in a blaze of bruises midair, some truly colorful profanity filling the comm link as he ranted, "I can barely see you let alone your Hail Mary reserves and I have no idea if you have a line or not and you jumped anyway and can you please actually talk to me here so I know if you're conscious or not?"
"I'm fine," he lied, ignoring the rest. His arms ached and there was a gouge in his leg from the masonry earlier and he was fairly certain the rough edge of the armor had torn more than his trousers, but there was no reason to mention any of that any more than usual.
Tony set him down behind the cadre of SHIELD vans. Sitwell threw open a door and demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Depositing one invisible archer. I'd say keep an eye on him, but you can't do that on a good day, so..." Tony pseudo-explained.
"Barton?" Jasper asked, looking in the completely wrong direction.
"Spin an arrow or use your innate talents to offend him enough to know it's you, will you?" Tony suggested. "I've got to go blow up the things that are trying to blow everything else up." He flew off and the line was soon filled with the sounds of inappropriate chortling as apparently the Hulk had taken personal offense to someone aiming for his buddy and was really going to town on their current enemy.
"Are you really okay?" Sitwell asked. His tone indicated he wasn't going to believe any answer given, so Clint felt no desire to be completely forthcoming.
"I'm an invisible assassin - how cool is that?" he asked instead.
He shifted to lean up against the van and Jasper's gaze got eerily close to following him. "You're out of breath and there's spatters of blood where Stark dropped you. I have no idea if they are fresh, or if they are turning red as they congeal, but I'm willing to assume they're yours based upon your record," the agent corrected. "No medic can assist you in your current state, so I need you to actually be honest here: how are you really?"
Clint sighed and glared at the betraying trail of his own bodily fluids. It answered as many questions as it asked about just what was doing what and what part or parts of him were actually invisible, but it was far above his pay grade to figure that sort of shit out. "I just got caught by a chunk of flying metal about ten stories up so, yeah, getting my breath back. I've got a cut on my thigh that shouldn't need stitches and that's probably what's leaving the trail. Get me some water and a first aid kit and I should be fine."
Sitwell looked doubting because he wasn't actually stupid, but relented. Water, Gatorade, and a first aid kit were laid out on the bumper, and more than a single agent watched as things randomly disappeared only to return with less than when they started. He kind of hoped no one was actually keeping track of just how much gauze he used because, after Alice expressed concern with the first blood-soaked pieces appearing, his shoved the others into his pockets to dispose of later.
Gauze wasn't cutting it and the tiny little bandages were worthless. He found the field sutures kit and prepped the needle with a frown because he hated getting sewn up, especially sober, and hated it even more when he was the one doing the sewing. Of course, that's when Thor appeared, took one look at him and whispered in his ever not so quiet voice, "Wrap it soundly and I will assist you shortly."
Sitwell wanted to know what was being wrapped but Clint wasn't dumb enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, or Norse god-like thing with the ability to fly him home as the case may be. He tossed a pressure bandage around the worst of it and pocketed the kit and let Thor carry him back to the tower because traveling with him never got old.
Thor was a warrior and was actually fricken awesome at patching people up, even though he rarely needed the skill for himself. He brought Clint to his room, pausing only to grab a bottle of Jack to split between them, and created a neat row of impossibly small knots along the injured thigh. He had once explained how the knotted sutures had been found to created patterns on the skin and how the addition of dyed thread spawned the traditional Norse-style tattoos. Basically, listening to him was like listening to a living, breathing, history lesson, only cooler because it usually involved booze. True, it also usually involved the patching of wounds which led to stories of similar wounds which led to said lesson, but it was still cool in a roundabout sort of way.
This time while Thor stitched, Clint listened to a combination of voices through the comm and tried to figure out how screwed he was. Sitwell was listing the missing supplies and threatening to send pictures of the bloodstains left behind while Rogers was smoothly explaining to the press that Hawkeye suffered a minor injury during the debacle and Thor had left to see to his treatment, which is why neither were available for comment. Stark was pissed because he had to verify to the gathered agents that he wasn't the one who stained the arm of his suit a rusty red, and Nat was pissed because she was Nat.
By the time the team came home, Clint was feeling no pain, though he suspected that would change with the hangover in the morning. Thor could always be counted on to downplay an injury as insignificant and, as he was the only one who could actually see Clint with some semblance of accuracy, the rest of them had to believe him. Tony augmented JARVIS' sensors to verify that, yes, the archer was on the premises, but that said archer was now laying really still on his bed to prevent the room from spinning. Vitals were still beyond him, so Tony had to be happy with the reports of the fluctuations signifying Clint was still breathing.
Steve insisted on both food and interrogation and, if Clint was in no state to come to them that they would come to him. This meant a distinct lack of passing out, and a distinct annoyance of Bruce's enhanced senses smelling the blood and Tasha finding the discarded bandages and Steve frowning mightily at the prevarication of the extent of the wounds.
It did, however, mean that Bruce and Tony and no doubt the cadre of SHIELD techs could use the bandages for testing instead of blindly shoving needles in the direction of an invisible body, so there was technically an up side to the whole thing.
Clint shoved a few egg rolls in his mouth and debated using the chopsticks for nefarious means, but was stopped by Tasha's unnervingly knowing, "Don't make me hurt you, Barton."
She made him drink tea to counteract the effects of the Jack Daniel's and pointedly left a huge bottle of water on the side table near his bed. Bruce added some analgesics, right before he started to snore, propped up against the side of said bed. Exhaustion was a known thing post-transformation and Clint was not above using his teammate to aid his cause, so Steve left the questioning to a hushed minimum and strongly implied more was to come later.
He awoke in the morning to find Banner still passed out on the floor, a pillow and blanket gifted to him from somewhere and Tasha curled up at the foot of the bed with a single hand wrapped soundly around his ankle, apparently not bothered in the least that at least a portion of her own body would have joined him in invisibility with that proximity since he hadn't been walking around naked the past few days yet no one had seen his clothes wandering off on their own. The message was clear: if he tried to sneak out, there would be hell to pay. There was a rumpled blanket that bespoke of Stark, but JARVIS cheerily informed him that he had already disappeared down to his shop to work on the problem when advising as to the status of those he couldn't see for himself. Of course, said announcement woke the others, and Clint had the sneaking suspicion that that was the whole point in the first place. It turned out Steve had taken the couch in the other room and Thor a chair beside him and he was soundly surrounded with no place to hide despite the fact no one really knew where he was.
Tasha followed him to the shower reasoning that, even if he were to suddenly become visible, she had seen it all before. Thor checked the stitches because no one else could and no one trusted Clint himself to be honest about them, and declared him healing sufficiently for whatever that meant by Asgardian standards.
His leg hurt as did his head, but there was the promise of something fried and wonderful for breakfast, so he joined the others around the table to dig in even knowing he was just setting himself up for more questioning. He found that he actually didn't mind it as much as he thought he would though. It was clear that the experience was awkward for everyone save for himself, but they were making an active effort to include him even as they continued to ask questions that he had no idea how to answer including everything from if he saw things differently through the field to if he had used his new trick for nefarious means. It made his mind drift back over the past few days and his lack of human interaction. He could go for days avoiding anyone and everyone and be fine, but he hadn't actually been trying and so it had felt more than a little like he had been getting the cold shoulder, that he had unknowingly stepped on toes or some such thing and pissed them off and had been paying the price. Somehow the idea that his teammates hadn't been ignoring him but simply didn't know he was there was reassuring.
Not that he told them as much. Not that he told them much at all. He had already done a verbal walk-through of the original attack and nothing stood out as an exposure source. He didn't know what happened, just that it did, and left it at that.
Tony wandered up around lunchtime. He pointed to an empty spot on the couch and raised his eyebrows and Steve shook his head in reply that, no, Clint was not there as far as he could tell. Of course, Clint was there, but no one left knew it. Thor had gone to do whatever he did away from the others and Clint had originally planned on just hanging out in his room or on the range, but knew it was BLT Day and wasn't going to miss out on that so he had come back. He had plopped down on the ottoman in the corner right before Steve took his usual comfy chair to watch the midday news and apparently the super soldier hadn't sensed him and Tony hadn't been bright enough to verify with JARVIS, so it was totally not his fault that he stayed perfectly, quietly still and listened in on the conversation.
Tony scrubbed his hands across his face and the ran them through his hair and stalled and stalled until finally he sighed, "I don't know if I can fix this."
"It's only been a day," Steve tried. His usual pep talk face was on, but Stark was having none of it.
"Three, almost four," he corrected. "We've only known about it for a day, but Barton's been gone for longer than that."
"Not gone," Steve protested. Clint would have applauded his anti-fatalistic attitude, but it would have given him away, so he refrained.
"Gone," Tony confirmed. "We can't see him, he's gone from us, and, if the simulations regarding the radiation that destroyed the armor are correct, he'll be gone-gone sooner rather than later. Don't ask about the virtual mice. Really, don't ask. Just know that I'm really glad I didn't use a virtual Barton because I'll be having nightmares from this shit as it is."
Clint made a mental note to try to hack the file. It was about him, so he totally had the right. Then again, since he had this argument with Stark before, he might just be able to ask JARVIS nicely and have it delivered to his personal server.
Speaking of Stark, he was still talking. He had moved on to all sorts of randomness like he usually did when he was nervous, but did hit a few key points worth mentioning. The first was that the suit that had been hit and gone all wonky during the attack that had likely changed Clint was degrading, as in the metal itself crumbling away. That was of the not-good and hopefully the difference of organic versus inorganic versus please-don't-be-the-same-field. The second was that Fury wanted an update and had an odd gleam in his eye about the whole invisible assassin thing because, like Clint himself, the concept was far too good to be ignored.
"He wants to use him, doesn't he?" Steve asked resignedly.
Tony rolled his eyes at the naiveté. "Wow, a spy agency wanting to use a trained spy and assassin that's now damn near undetectable? Whoever would have guessed it?"
Steve leaned forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees, chin against his folded hands. He was actually quite close to Clint, but Clint didn't dare move, didn't dare risk giving himself away. He had stayed in far more uncomfortable positions for far longer in his time as a sniper, and used those skills now to their full advantage. "They would send him in alone," Steve finally sighed. "They would send him in alone with minimal backup. They would have him march right out in the open and take down a target with no regard to the fact that he'd be at risk, that he could turn back to being visible at any time, that he could be caught and killed and we would never be able to do a damn thing about it."
His tone had changed from resigned to angry in the span of a few simple sentences, and Clint was torn between the possible adrenaline rush of such a mission and the way his erstwhile team leader's voice broke a little at the end, like putting an asset at risk in such a way was something he could never bring himself to do, not unless it was truly a life or death situation. It reminded him of how very different the Avengers were from SHIELD as a whole, and once again made him question just which one he would side with if it ever came down to it: the ones that took him in, saved him, and gave him purpose, or the ones that treated him like an equal and like something or someone who deserved to have a say as much as the rest of them.
"He is an assassin, Steve," Tony pointed out. "His job is to slink around and make the shot others can't." He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up even more before he added, "It's just that this time he has one hell of an advantage, or one hell of a detriment if whatever this is wears off on its own or whoever he gets as a mark has the sensors to find him."
And that would be why Clint put up with Tony, despite the attitude and arrogance and everything else that usually drove people away. He was smart, like dangerously so. He thought of not just how to do something, but what could go wrong and how before he even started designing whatever hit his fancy this time. When it came to things that could and would have an impact, possibly literally, upon his team or his friends, he looked at all the angles before some even knew the rough shape. Clint was honestly tempted to take whatever job Fury threw his way. Knowing the risk of returning to the normal visual spectrum didn't exactly make him change his mind, but it did make him think of different backup plans and escape routes than he would have otherwise bothered to consider.
He let Tony and Steve argue the point back and forth for another ten minutes or so, until one stormed off to his workshop and the other stormed off to the kitchen to start lunch. He slunk off to his rooms and found the waiting message from Fury. It asked if he could come in for a covert op or three and/or if there were any extenuating circumstances about his current condition that the others were keeping under wraps. He typed a quick response back confirming interest in the ops, but warning that his situation was considered unstable at the present and that standard exit strategies would be necessary. He was in no way surprised to get a near immediate request to report to Fury's office for review as soon as possible. Clint being Clint, he of course waited until after the BLTs were done.
Part Two on Live Journal | Part Two on Dreamwidth
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