initiate
The rest of creation--or the universe. Or whatever--doesn't seem to be any more impressed with Tony's problems than Clint is because he's halfway through defending his breakfast choices to the coffee machine when they get called out to fight a buggy infestation that might be some kind of mad experiment let loose and might be interstellar invasion.
"Another day at the office," Tony tells the coffee machine. It hisses steam, but he's not sure if that's meant to be commentary or just coincidence.
The quinjet's hum, when he gets onboard is more easily readable. An impatient engine whine as it waits, that then rises to a joyful scream as it leaps upwards.
"At least someone's happy about this," he says, and Steve looks up and asks, "Huh?" face calm and distracted by information being relayed over his comm unit. Not hearing even a fraction of the jet's delight.
He goes back his communication without even noticing that it's Clint who says, "Nothing, Cap."
-----
Everything goes pretty much to plan--in so much as they ever have a plan, anyway--until Clint falls off a roof. Or at least, based on Clint's track record, Tony's guessing that that's whats about to happen when Steve calls for locations, and no answer comes.
"Hawkeye?" Cap's voice is a weird mix of question and restrained panic. The combination comes out sounding almost like friendly inquiry. Like he's calling Clint on the phone and isn't sure who's picked up. His voice rises a bit too much on the question to really be casual though, which is what catches Tony's attention, pulling it away from the sound of JARVIS smoothly relaying information.
There's no answer.
"Hawkeye!" Steve sounds annoyed now. If he gets any more worried he's going to start barking orders.
Tony says, "Hush," to JARVIS, so he can listen. There's silence on the comms, the team's focus shifting, waiting for a reply, and then Clint grunts.
"Bit busy, Cap," he says, sounding breathless, and Tony finds his location, zeroing in on Clint's comm to find him up high and shooting arrows in a rapid succession that means he's firing at something too nearby.
Close quarters isn't really the best kind of quarter for arrow-shooting. Clint doesn't really have the space or time to keep up with the press of chitinous creepers. Especially since they keep coming, heedless of anything but catastrophic injury and even then, their legs keep waving, long and heavy enough to be hazard. It's like fighting cockroaches.
Clint loads an explosive arrow. There's a flash and a spray of heat signature on Tony's sensors, and then the indicator that is Clint is retreating across the roof, probably to buy enough time to load another arrow. Maybe to try to get to the even higher ground of the elevator housing.
"Hang on, Hawkeye," Tony tells him, "Don't worry. I'm almost--"
Clint fires two arrows. They go off too close. The explosion destroys two roach creatures, but it also throws Clint backwards off the roof. It's typical Clint foresight.
Tony dives, but he's still too far away. He could floor it, if it was just a matter of distance, but at that velocity the impact of the suit with Clint's minimally-armored body would likely break enough bones to turn him to mash.
"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck," Tony yells, "Tell me we have a Hulk, or a Thor or a--"
A low garble of words comes across the comm, but Clint's not calling for rescue. He's just falling.
Picking up speed as he--as he slows down.
It's like he's falling through some sort of ever-thickening matrix. As if the air is turning to water, then syrup, then silicone gel, maybe.
Tony comes to a hover as Clint hits the pavement, still hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but not nearly enough to kill him. He doesn't even look particularly injured. "What the hell, Barton?" he snaps, as Cap's voice comes over the comm, a repeating request for status reports in the military bark that means he knows something's happened and that it might not be good.
"That used to work better," Clint says, when he gets some of his breath back, letting Tony provide cover fire while he does. Then he says, with his back turned and to what seems to be the alley in general, "Hey. Thanks," and hauls himself to his feet before dusting off.
Taking his time like he's on some kind of damn vacation.
"You want to get a move on, Hawkeye?" Tony snaps, keeping the roaches on the roof and at bay by dissuasive application of repulsor blasts. Clint checks his bow.
Then looks over and grins. It's not the self-satisfied Hawkeye smirk--the see how I rock? that Tony's used to--but there is the sharing-an-in-joke wink-wink to it.
"Did you--?" Tony asks, looking up at where the roaches are milling along the roof ledge, antennae waving in confusion.
"Yep," Clint says.
"Can I--?"
"Probably. If you ask real nice."
For that? He's willing. Even if Clint is a giant shithead. "Barton. Would you pretty please show me--"
Clint laughs. "Not me, you dumbass. The," and waves his free hand at the space above them, "you know."
Tony looks up, all he sees is the roaches, waving their antennae and maybe not liking the feel of whatever Clint's done, because they stay where they are, piling up over each other in an insectine mass.
Clint sighs like he thinks Tony is the world's most hopeless case. "The air, Tony."
"What are you two talking about?" Steve snaps over the comms, "If you're okay, Thor needs a hand."
"Roger, Rogers," Tony says, and snags Clint before he can whip out a broomstick or fly away on his bow or something.
-----
At the end of the day, Tony's grateful for his suit. Not so much for the protection it offers, but because the rest of the Avengers are covered in bug goop. Steve had his cowl up, so his hair isn't plastered to his head--or, in the case of Clint, spiked up--by slime and nastiness. There's chunks caught in Natasha's and Thor's and Tony tries not to look too closely at that as he watches the team troop over to hose off or decontaminate, or whatever it is SHIELD's having them do in the biohazard van.
By the time they re-appear, looking a little bit less like they've been half-digested, but a lot more like they've been displaced from their homes--dressed in wrong-sized clothing clearly rustled up from SHIELD personnel--he's stripped himself out of the suit and is halfway through deciding where to get lunch.
"How can you even think of food?" Natasha demands, combing fingers through her hair. Probably, she wants him to think she's grossed out by the bug pieces, but she probably just doesn't want to be seen in public dressed in a baggy SHIELD sweatshirt and with her hair wrecked by the decon wash, half-dried in the sun and frizzed into a red cloud.
"I'll lend you a scrunchie," Tony offers, clipping his briefcase shut. Despite what Steve might think, he's prepared. Had his own change of clothes stashed with the Banner emergency-pants onboard the quinjet, so that he's at least got slacks and a shirt if not a jacket and tie.
Image to maintain and all that. Natasha looks less than impressed. "Pizza?" Tony asks her, "Korean barbaque? Falafel? No? Really no?"
-----
Two showers later, he can still smell bug goo. No matter what Lucky says, Clint swears the stuff is still in his hair. "Are you sure, dog?" he asks, careful not to step on his untied laces as he wanders up the sidewalk. "Do you even know what alien bug smells like?"
It's still hot out, even though it's close to midnight. The sidewalk's probably still giving off heat, after baking all day in the sun. Clint wanders up to the corner and back, Lucky dutifully trailing, giving signposts and the fire hydrant a bored sniff. He's sniffed it all before, the half-hearted puffs of breath say. No dog's been through since their last circuit. Clint wanders back in the other direction.
"Sleepy," Lucky complains, ignoring his question, and yawns for emphasis. His pink tongue curls as his ears go back then twitch forwards again and then he licks his nose. A doggish gesture of disgust. He drags his feet dramatically as they reach the other corner again and Clint turns to head back. "Inside," Lucky insists with a whine, "Go to sleep."
"Fine," Clint says, "Don't be my insomnia beard,' but Lucky stays at his heel as he wanders up the sidewalk again, his wet nose bumping Clint's hand every so often. "I'll just look like a lunatic, wandering around in my pajamas alone," Clint tells him. "Without my dog excuse--"
"Bad boy," Lucky tells him, the most grievous insult of dog-human interaction. Maybe offended by being used as cover. His grumble has that high whine in it that means it's friendly though, so Clint ruffles his ears when he yawns again.
"Sorry," Clint tells him, yawning himself, and rubs at his eyes. "Come on, then. We can go back inside and watch the ceiling. You can sleep on the couch and get dog hair everywhere."
Lucky's tail wags at the suggestion, but he walks a bit further up the street and looks back, waiting. The canine are-you-coming? "Yeah, yeah," Clint mutters and follows him back up the street.
-----
"You look like hell, Barton," Tony chirps, when Clint heads over to make sure he hasn't started unraveling reality to see what would happen. He's busy at his kitchen counter with a set of screwdrivers and a small machine. Cheerful for a guy who looks like he's been up for hours even though it's only maybe eight in the morning. Clint wrangles the coffee pot free of the machine and peers inside.
"Couldn't sleep," Clint says, and grabs a mug from the sink instead. Gives it a rinse.
"You know I have cups, right?" Tony says, and points with a screwdriver,"Upper shelf."
"Sure," Clint says and doesn't bother. Tony has his Starkpad out, but he can't tell what he's doing. If he's just sorting his music library or something while he works, or if he's up to something stupid.
"Bug trauma?" Tony asks, tactless as usual. It's probably good that Clint doesn't, but Tony goes on without waiting for an answer either way, "Since Nat ruined my team lunch plans yesterday, have a bagel. They're somewhere around." Tony scans the counter, then grabs a paper bag. Tosses it.
Clint grabbed breakfast on his way over, but he's not opposed to more. He catches the bag and unfolds the top. Even Stark's bagels are fancy.
"Look at this thing," Tony says, while Clint's hunting around in his fridge for jam or cream cheese or chocolate spread, "I dug it up last night." He's probably been fiddling with it since, too. Tony looks obnoxiously energetic for a guy who's probably been up longer than Clint.
"Uh-huh," Clint says, still rummaging. Tony's peanut butter is awful. It tastes like it's just ground peanuts, with a pool of oil separated out and pooling on top. His chocolate spread looks like it might be Belgian or something. The label is some kind of European anyway. The vowels have little accents over them, but the chocolate is kind of bitter. "Do you have any real food in your bizarro fridge?"
"I have bagels," Tony point out, and, "I built this robot when I was twelve." He sounds really thrilled with himself.
"I built stuff when I was twelve," Clint tells him, "What makes you so special?"
Tony starts to say something indignant, then stops and puts down his screwdriver. It makes a sharp little plink noise on the stone of the counter. "Right," he says, "Right. You were already doing this--stuff."
Clint twists open a jar. It's butter. Who the hell puts butter in a jar? He sniffs it suspiciously, but it's just regular, normal butter. "Uh-huh."
"So?" Tony asks, pushing back from the counter to watch him hunt around for a knife or a spoon or whatever one was supposed to use on jar butter, "Show me this falling slow thing."
"Spell."
"Falling slow spell."
Clint pries his bagel apart along the partial cut, trying not to break the halves,"You don't already know a falling slow spell? Or a hard air spell? Or a--?"
"Would I ask if I did? And why do you keep sniffing stuff? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I can't tell if this is supposed to be marmalade."
Tony makes an impatient sound. "It's quince, Barton. Air spell. Come on. Focus."
Clint shoves the jam back in the fridge, giving up, and decides the jar butter is good enough. "What do you know?" he asks, opening drawers until he finds a butter knife. Tone isn't being much help on his cutlery hunt.
"Stuff?" he says, evasively.
Clint stops. Looks over. "You didn't have a--a thing?"
"I can see that they choose wizards for their eloquence. Yes, I had a thing. So sue me if I'm a bit behind in my reading this one time."
"You can't be behind in your reading," Clint says, "You don't get to be behind in your reading."
"Relax, Professor Barton. I think I can catch up. I read at at least a fifth grade level."
Clint ignores the dig at his manual and says, "No. I mean, if you can't even--" and waves his knife to indicate Tony and his Starkpad and the general space space around him. "You should be dead."
Tony starts to look offended, but before he can say anything, Clint swears and stops buttering his bagel. Throws the knife into the sink, where it clangs then settles with a rattle. "Oh my god. You didn't do a thing. I thought the tesseract was your thing, but it wasn't."
"Barton? Clint, whats--?"
"God damn you, Tony," Clint tells him, "I'm going to be dragged along on your goddamn Ordeal." He's already being dragged, probably. "I knew this would happen."
"You're telling me," Tony says, "that the tesseract thing wasn't enough for you? I hate to toot my own horn, but you might remember--"
Clint kind of wants to smack him, and maybe Tony realizes because he stops short of mentioning the nuke. Or maybe he just realizes that he doesn't want to talk about it. Instead he ends with, "I'm just saying. Maybe you don't think that was an ordeal, but it wasn't exactly a picnic either."
"Oh god," Clint says, and laughs. It sounds like the tree outside the grocery, dry and scrapey, "I bet this is because you're old. I'm getting dragged along to make up for how you're old and clueless."
Clueless probably hurts Tony's feelings, because he give him a long look, then picks his Starkpad up, "Well if you're supposed to help me, get helping," he says in the flat-but-snippy tone he uses when he feel under-appreciated, and taps the computer a few times, "I've got the section on air spells. Where do you want to start?"
The little robot on his counter whirrs.
Clint decidedly doesn't take pleasure in saying, "I hope you can at least write your own name."