Prologue
The sun was setting softly over the horizon, casting a deep orange glow across all of the fields and houses in sight. There was a slight wind that was rustling through the grass and whistling through the tree branches and leaves. The only other noise for miles in the desolate fields of rural Iowa, was the constant *thwip* and *thump* of arrows being aimed and shot at some rather battered targets. Clint had set them up far down in one of the empty fields that surrounded the old farmhouse.
Clint had been at it for hours- nocking arrows, aiming them, loosing them, and then watching as they sank into the target. It was a therapeutic action for Clint, as he was able to hit bullseyes without much focus and he could sink away into daydreams without noticing the passage of time. It was only when Clint reached for an arrow that wasn't there did he realise just how long he'd been shooting for, because he was out of arrows.
Clint huffed out a small sigh as he slung his bow over his shoulder and made his way over to the targets to rip out the arrows and bring them back up to the house. Clint would bring the targets back to the barn tomorrow- he couldn't be bothered to do so right now. Clint stuffed as many arrows into his quiver as he could and took the rest in his hands as he trudged back up to the house, ready for coffee and a movie. Or possibly hot chocolate, the days were getting colder and he knew he had whipped cream in his fridge.
The house in question was his childhood farmhouse that had been left to become rundown and desolate over the years. It had originally been put on the market, but no one wanted it and then it fell into Clint's hands when he finally turned eighteen. He had listed it as a safehouse under SHIELD. Until Captain America and the Black Widow dismantled SHIELD and the Hydra organisation that had grown like a weed in the crack of a concrete driveway. It was now his home- despite being public knowledge due to Black Widow's data drop onto all public databases.
It was a fairly big building: with three bedrooms upstairs, an en-suite in the master bedroom, a bathroom downstairs and another upstairs in between the two smaller bedrooms, and an open floor-plan downstairs. (Not including the spacious barn that was also on the property.) So, it was definitely bigger than anything Clint would ever need, but it was his and that was enough for him. He had renovated the porch the first summer he arrived- the entire thing was a rotten mess and it had to go- and then he had decluttered the entire house (attic included) and weather-proofed the attic ceiling. It was definitely hard work, but hard work was what Clint had needed when he'd first arrived.
Clint had left Shield roughly a little over two years before it fell, and it wasn't entirely his decision or his fault. At first, he had left to clear his head a little after a mission went wrong and ended up with three rookie agents dead and even more hospitalized. He was full of anger and petty rage, desperate to never again see the faces of the higher-up agents that were responsible. But then he never went back, and it was later revealed that the agents responsible were Hydra plants.
Clint was weighing the pros and cons of hot chocolate versus coffee as he got nearer to the house, but old habits die hard and Clint immediately knew that something was wrong. This was because: Lucky wasn't waiting for him on the porch like he usually did. The mutt would always, without fail, wait for Clint to come back in the house. If Lucky wasn't on the porch then something was wrong. Clint was eternally grateful for the bow on his shoulder and he dropped the spare arrows so he could draw his bow.
Clint very slowly and cautiously slid open the porch door and stalked into the house. That was when he saw his terrible guard dog trying to lick an intruder to death. Clint sighed and lowered his bow, the man's head whipped up to stare at him. Clint locked eyes with the stranger before saying "Tell Steve that I'm still not coming back, no matter how many people he sends." and turning on his heel to walk into the kitchen and started boiling water. He had decided on hot chocolate.
The man was wearing black tac pants, a green long-sleeve jacket, and what looked like a tac vest underneath the jacket. His hair was dark brown and brushing past his cheeks. He also had a duffel bag at his feet. Clint didn't quite understand his get-up, but he also didn't care as he just wanted to be left alone as soon as possible.
In the three years since Clint had left the Avengers and resigned from Shield, no less than twelve people had been sent to his house to try and re-recruit him. All twelve had been sent back to New York after no more than ten minutes in Iowa. Clint stood his ground each time and was now completely desensitized to intruders in his home.
Clint was busy finding the whipped cream and marshmallows for his hot chocolate when he heard the man enter his kitchen. Without turning away from his current task, Clint said "I told you to go back to Steve and tell him to stop sending people to my home and to leave me alone. Or I'll find him and shove an exploding arrow up his ass." Mystery Man said nothing, he didn't even laugh. Shame, Clint didn't like when his comedic talents went unappreciated.
Mystery Man stood in silence for a second longer before saying "Steve?" Clint froze. He turned to face the man, "Yeah, Steve, the guy who sent you an' the twelve other idiots to get me back on the Avengers?" The man's face was empty. "Okay, so you're not Shield, who are you? AIM? Hydra?" The man flinched. "Oh, shit. You're Hydra, ain'cha?" The man flinched again, definitely Hydra, then. "No." The word was spat out with hatred.
Clint scrubbed a hand over his face just as the kettle whistled, signifying that the water was boiled. Clint turned to the cupboard and grabbed another mug. "D'you want hot chocolate?" The man didn't answer, so Clint took that as a yes. He put the chocolate powder in the bottom of the mugs and then poured the hot water in, stirring periodically so that the powder didn't clump. "D'you want cream an' marshmallows?" No reply. Clint gave him cream and marshmallows.
He moved around the counter to sit down on one of the stools and handed Mystery Man the other mug. Which was when he saw it. Clint was so stupid. He should have seen it earlier, should have assessed the man longer. The way he listed left slightly, the confusion at the name Steve, the insistence that he wasn't Hydra. Because this man *was* Hydra. He was the most notorious member of Hydra. And Clint had made him hot chocolate. With whipped cream and marshmallows.
Clint just gave The Winter Soldier hot chocolate. Because he reached for the mug with his left arm, which was covered with a long sleeve and black leather glove. But Clint saw a slight gap. No one else would see it- but he was Hawkeye- and the tiny strip that was uncovered glinted in the overhead spotlighting of the kitchen. No one had seen The Winter Soldier since his fight with Captain America five months ago, when Shield had technically fallen.
They discovered that The Winter Soldier was actually James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes- highly commended and decorated World War Two soldier who had lost his life fighting with Captain America- but he fell off the radar after saving Steve's life and it was figured that he had gone back to a Hydra base for further orders. But here he was, in a retired Avengers kitchen in rural Iowa, drinking hot chocolate with a golden retriever curled in between his legs.
Clint stared for a moment before deciding that he didn't care all that much. "You can sit down dude, Lucky might tip you over otherwise." Not-so-Mystery Man looked slightly thankful before he pulled out the other barstool (that had only ever been used by Natasha) and sat down. Lucky immediately repositioned to lay over the man's feet, belly in the air. "Shameless." Clint muttered, shaking his head. The man stared at him confusedly. "He wants you to pet his belly," Clint explained, "He's shameless." That seemed to make perfect sense to the man, who leaned down and planted a firm hand on Lucky's stomach.
This was such a weird situation, though then again, Clint had a tendency to find himself in weird situations all the time as an agent. "Why did you come here?" The Not-so-Mystery Man looked away from Lucky, who whined, and said "This house was listed on... files, as empty. No one was supposed to be here." Clint scoffed, he had been using it as a safe-house for years. "Yeah well, you can go tell your precious Hydra that it is occupied now, Barnes."
Not-so-Mystery Man Stiffened, "I'm not Hydra." Clint snorted, "Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England." "I left." He looked down at Lucky for a moment, "How do you know my name?" "What, you really think that Captain America wasn't going to tell us all about his near-death experience and how he knew who The Winter Soldier was?" Barnes shook his head and Clint was pretty sure that he whispered "Fuckin' Steve." under his breath. Clint snorted into his mug and took a sip.
"What're you doing here, Barnes?" "I told you- this place was meant to be empty." "You on the run, Barnes?" Barnes opened to mouth to speak, before clearly re-calculating and instead saying "Who *are* you? You said very... colourful things about Captain America. From what I know, no one does that anymore."
"Oh no, plenty of people do it. Just not public people. Stark has *plenty* of things to say, most of 'em are more vulgar than anyone else'd dare." Barnes stared, "...Stark?" "Yeah, Tony?" "Oh. Right. Stop changing the subject. Who. Are. You?" Clint snorted for what felt like the hundredth time in this fairly short conversation. "God, what is this? An interrogation? If you're gonna insist you aren't Hydra, you gotta act like you aren't Hydra."
Barnes narrowed his eyes at Clint. Clint groaned dramatically, "Ughhh, fine! I'm Clint. Barton. D'you want my codename, too? How 'bout my Shield security clearance Level? Avengers status? Or maybe even my Social Security number?" "No, I remember it. Clinton Francis Barton, callsign: Hawkeye. Shield agent Level 7, Avengers status: retired. Thirty-seven years old, profound hearing loss in both ears, and a limp in the left side from muscle and ligament damage." He rattled it all off with a vacant stare, like he was about to reach out and slit Clint's throat any moment. Hell, he probably was.
Clint rolled his eyes and downed the last dregs of his hot chocolate, getting up to make himself a cup of coffee- he wanted to be awake for the rest of this conversation and another sweet hot drink was bound to have him yawning through heavy eyelids. He shuffled to the coffee maker and set about starting the process. "You want one, Barnes?" He asked over his shoulder. He got a slight hum of approval. Clint grabbed the now empty mugs and set them in the sink- he'd wash them later, probably.
Clint knew he only had one more clean mug in his cupboard- that didn't say something stupid on it like "World's greatest archer" with an arrow above greatest that had "2nd" squeezed in in red permanent marker (courtesy of Kate the last Christmas before he left)- but Clint didn't care, he'd just drink it out of the pot like usual. "D'you need a place to stay? 'Cos there's three bedrooms upstairs. The master is mine, but the other two are free. The beds are prob'ly too small, but you'll sleep on the floor anyway."
The coffee machine beeped and Clint grabbed the pot and mug, heading back over to barnes at the counter. Barnes looked confused, "Steve slept on the floor for the first seven months, Natasha still sleeps on the floor sometimes. I sleep on the floor sometimes. You'll sleep on the floor. Hell, even Stark sleeps on the floor sometimes. 'N the beds are too small 'cos they were for an eight and ten year-old." Clint explained this while pouring Barnes' coffee.
Clint paused before handing it over bashfully, "Um, it's an acquired taste, you might not like it. I had my own coffee machine at the tower 'cos of it." Barnes raised an eyebrow and took a sip. He looked... surprisingly happy about it. "It tastes... almost right. Everything in this new world tastes *wrong*, but this- this is good." Clint preened. Okay, so he had a slight praise kink, what about it?
Clint took a sip out of the pot and, ignoring the probable stare on Barnes' face, leant across the counter to grab the salt and a spoon to stir a little in. He took another sip and then looked back at Barnes, "The salt helps the bitterness." "I know, I think we did that in the army." Then Barnes picked up the salt and the spoon and did the same. "Why're you drinking outta the pot? D'you do that often?" Clint shrugged, "'Cos I can, tastes better straight from the source, and yeah, most days."
"I saw you had a bag with you, how long were you gonna' stay here?" Clint asked around a gulp of coffee. "As long as possible, but I'll get goin' tomorrow- get outta' your hair." "Honestly dude, I don't care all that much. The only company I've had the last three months was one'a those recruiters, an' I sent 'em runnin' pretty quick. You're a nice change of pace. Stay as long as you need." "But-" "Seriously. I really don't mind, Barnes. Stay a day, stay a week, hell, stay forever- you're probably good for heavy liftin' 'n I've got a lot of work to do 'round the house and property."
After a whole lot of pleading and negotiating, Clint *finally* got Barnes to agree to stay as long as needed. Clint wasn't sure *why* he had been so insistent on Barnes staying, but he was. It really wasn't a bother- Clint had plenty of space and enough food to last a good while. Clint didn't get to watch a movie tonight- which he was planning on doing, snuggled on the couch with Lucky and a blanket- as he instead dug out the least moth-eaten blanket and pillows he could find and directed Barnes to what used to be Barney's bedroom, wincing as he realized that it hadn't been so much as touched in near to thirty years, let alone dusted.
Clint rubbed the back of neck with his right hand as he looked at the dust swirling under the old lightbulbs. "Um, no one's been in this room since-" Clint cut himself off, "-For well near thirty years now, it's a bit dusty 'n there might be some angsty pre-teen clothes still hung in the closet. We didn't get a lot'a time to pack before- we um," Clint flushed with embarrassment, "we went into foster, so..." He trailed off awkwardly.
When Clint saw how Barnes was looking at him, he almost smacked himself for his sheer idiocy- "Oh, right, you know my file by heart." Barnes shook his head slightly before sighing and straightening up to look at Clint, "I only had to know the important things about the Avengers- you ran away with your brother when you were nine and joined the circus. Your brother critically injured you and left you for dead. Parents died in a drunk driving accident. Severe hearing loss since an accident at the age of six."
Clint snorted while he was getting the room ready-ish and absent-mindedly corrected Barnes, "Yeah, if drunkenly kicking your six-year-old in the head counts as an accident. And besides, it wasn't permanent. This," Clint tapped the bright purple BTE's, "happened a few years ago. It involved my brother, the Russian mob, and a Polish clown with a terrible name, but that's a story for another day. The bed is made if you want it, but otherwise just drag the blankets onto the floor. You won't sleep much anyways."
And finally, *finally*, Clint got to go to bed. He did his usual checks- bathroom, his old bedroom, downstairs, and glancing out the window for a perimeter check. When he finally got to his bedroom, Clint checked that everything was the same. This included the en-suite, checking under the bed, and making sure that his Just-In-Case knife was still stashed safely under his pillow. It was his usual routine, but a bit more extensive than usual because of the extra presence in the house.
Clint managed to drift off into a fairly calm sleep after only a few minutes of laying in bed; the day's events had taken both a mental and physical toll on him and his energy was sucked out of him, in the form of an adrenaline crash, as soon as he finished his night-time routine.