You Have Heart
They had given little Clint adult-Clint’s rooms as the boy wouldn’t recognize it anyway. And it was connected to Natasha’s so she could keep an eye on him. She had swept through, removing all the weapons he had hidden, a truly frightening amount, that had Steve and Tony’s eyes bulging. None of them realized that the Hawkeye in his dreams showed all the secret places in the rooms where he could slip away or just hide out when he was hiding during a prank war. Natasha and Steve had cleaned all the random clothes and shoes and arrow parts that the man had left scattered around the rooms. Tony had been busy helping Pepper pick out some kid-friendly furniture to augment for little Clint.
Thus, Tony found Bruce on the left side of the couch, absentmindedly stroking the rope jungle gym that surprisingly had already been part of adult-Clint’s living room. Hulk had been delighted to see it and chase the little boy through the rope maze, but sadly it wasn’t able to hold Hulk’s weight. Tony had taken one look at Hulk’s pout and had promised that if they couldn’t reverse this, he’d have the empty room above them allocated to part of Clint’s apartment and reinforce the ceiling and rope jungle so they could play like they really wanted.
“Hey, Tony,” Bruce said cautiously when the billionaire walked quickly into the room, then slowed down to look around while pretending to be casually dropping by. Tony held up a finger to his mouth to stop further questions, then quietly spoke into the air while the iron man gloves on his hands powered up.
“Front room clear.” Bruce stood up from the couch where he’d been surreptitiously guarding the front door while Clint played in his bedroom and felt the Hulk rumble up. Tony shook his head, asking nonchalantly, “Hey, how’s Clint?” Then he gestured for Bruce to answer as Steve eased into the room quietly behind him and took up a position to Tony’s left.
Bruce’s eyes went wide and he had to fight Hulk to let him handle whatever was happening at the moment, with the promise that if Clint was in danger, he’d let him have control if needed. Tony gently tossed him a comm, pointing to his ear. As Bruce slid it into place, he could hear Natasha’s quiet whisper.
“Almost there. Going silent.”
Bruce furrowed his brow in confusion, but then Jarvis spoke into his ear via the comm.
“Dr. Banner, please keep calm, but Agent Romanov is traveling via vents towards young Clint’s room as the Winter Soldier has escaped and all indications show that room as his current location. Thor is waiting on a nearby balcony to enter via the window.” Bruce’s eyes went wide again and he opened his mouth to yell, working harder to keep Hulk out of it for now. The big guy was seriously protective of the little boy but if the Winter Soldier had Clint, there was no telling what the Hulk crashing into the room would accomplish.
“You were saying…,” Tony prompted as he deliberately meandered towards Clint’s bedroom door. Steve tiptoed in a direct path, subtlety, not in his repertoire.
“Um, er, Clint’s playing in his room. He said he knew he was going to be in trouble, so he wanted to wait in his room.” Bruce slowly followed the other two towards the bedroom door.
There was a series of clicks in his ear that was Natasha’s indication that she was in place. They all remained quiet, still easing closer to the door, Tony putting his hand on the doorknob in readiness. There was another click and a red light that flashed in the room that apparently meant that she had spotted the Winter Soldier in the room and they could go in.
Tony threw the door open and stepped back, allowing Steve to be the first inside as he could take the most damage without causing a lot of damage. And as Barnes had been…was his friend, there was the hope that he’d pause. Just like they all lived in the hope that the Winter Soldier had not already just snapped Clint’s neck.
Steve barged in, shield up, but had to slam to a stop at what he was seeing.
Bucky, who had been floating in the cryo tank in just a pair black boxers, was sitting crossed-legged on the floor at the foot of Clint’s bed, his back to the mattress. Clint’s Robin Hood comforter was wrapped around his shoulders. As it had been Barton’s comforter before he was de-aged, it easily encompassed him.
Behind him, sitting on his heels, Clint was running a comb through Bucky’s wet hair, pulling it away from his face. Bucky looked slightly dazed and didn’t immediately react. He started to rise, the comforter sliding back off his shoulders, but Clint’s grip on his hair stopped him. The comforter got stuck between him and the mattress but it revealed that he was wearing the dark blue sweater Barton had gotten from Pepper for his birthday. None of them had seen him so quiet as when he’d originally opened it.
From what Natasha had told him, the first person who had ever given him a gift outside of his mom before her death, had been Nat herself. And he enjoyed everything she gave him, including any gag gifts. The sweater had been worn every chance he got during winter, and was always lovingly dry-cleaned and stored.
Bucky was also wearing a pair of Barton’s old jeans, nearly see through they were so worn. And on his feet were the furry sasquatch bedroom slippers he’d found in some odd little shop after a battle and had been so excited that he’d asked Tony to pay for them as he didn’t have his wallet. Tony had rolled his eyes but he’d given the store a $100 bill and waved away the change as he didn’t like to carry small bills. Clint had paid him back in homemade cookies the next day.
Bucky’s eyes were wide as he looked up at where Tony was slipping around the unmovable Cap. Hawkeye, the robot dog, swiveled his head to where Clint’s window slid open, with Thor flying in, landing in swirl of blond hair and red cape. The vent above the closet swung down, dropping Natasha, her Widow bites sparking, into a crouch.
“Don’t you move,” Clint admonished Bucky, a frown firmly in place. He had one hand gripped around Bucky’s long hair, keeping him in place. He pointed the comb at Cap. “I just got all the tangles out of the right side, Steve.”
“Clint,” Natasha growled, her eyes focused on the man seated on the floor. “Clint, come over here. Quickly.” The little boy frowned at her, then ignored the order, and went back to combing the long, dark hair.
“But I’m not done.” He whined loudly before he stopped long enough to pull the comforter back up, awkwardly attempting to wrap it around the man’s shoulders again. Bucky blinked, looking down at the small hands full of material. He raised his non-metal hand carefully and helped him by gripping and tugging it back into place. Behind him, Clint nodded and moved to the other side to finish combing.
Bucky looked up at Steve, who was staring, open-mouthed. Bucky shrugged, not quite relaxing back into the foot of the mattress.
“Um, what’s happening?” Bruce called nervously from the outer room and Tony had put his arms down as he tilted his head in confusion.
“I’m not exactly sure, Bruce, but Hulk might just have some competition to be Clint’s plaything.”
*****
“Clint,” Steve started, but the little boy had started humming something he couldn’t recognize, obviously deliberately ignoring anything they would say. As Bucky was still quietly allowing him to comb his hair, he indicated for them to back off. Natasha, eyes narrowed as she watched their interaction, refused to leave the room when Steve gestured for the team to follow him into the other room. She had her comm in, so they could still keep her in the loop.
Bruce was in Clint’s kitchenette, boiling water for tea. Ever since the archer had been de-aged and they’d discovered he and Hulk were instant friends, maybe due to both of them being childlike in their emotions and some behaviors, Bruce had been staying with Clint on the nights that Natasha was off with Thor hunting down the remnants of the group that had come up with the technology. He’d been charmed to discover several containers of his and Natasha’s favorite teas in the back of Barton’s cubbards. He’d thanked Natasha for stocking them even if he’d not ever had a reason to be in their rooms, but she’d only smiled softly.
“That’s all Clint, Bruce. If you look, you’ll find bottles of the old Coca-Cola that Steve prefers, some casks of an ale he knows Thor enjoys, and mixes for Tony’s smoothies. There’s snacks for everyone’s tastes too somewhere in his pantry.” She had patted Bruce on his cheek gently, leaving him thoughtful and silent.
They’d all learned so much about the man since that fateful day and all of them had spoken, never in front of Clint, of course, but all of them had talked about how they were continued to be surprised by new information.
Like when Steve had discovered that Clint had been the one to help Coulson finish his vintage Captain America trading card collection. Or when Thor had discovered that the archer had been seeing a therapist after everything that had happened since that day at Project Pegasus and had been asking the others the best ways to interact with the Asgardian because he didn’t want Thor to feel bad about what Loki did.
Tony had gotten to see most of Clint’s history from the files he hacked, but Natasha had warned him to stop digging because as bad as his files appeared, there were even darker things from his past that only she, Coulson, and Fury knew, and she knew there were some so horrible that he refused to tell even her. Most likely things that would and should never ever see the light of day.
The fact that the man had kept drinks and snacks around for everyone on their team ‘just in case’ they stopped by his rooms made him clench up inside. It made it so much easier to let Hulk come out to play when there was no danger.
There was danger now; in the form of their team leader’s long-thought dead best friend, turned brainwashed assassin with a deadly record. But Clint had even made space for him, which apparently stopped the assassin in his tracks.
“What the hell…,” Tony asked, throwing up a hologram from a panel on the wall, giving them all a monochrome view of Clint’s bedroom. Natasha was leaning against the closet door under the vent, deceptively at ease. In reality, she was guarding the exit through the vents while she studied the unnerving scene in front of her. Bucky’s eyes kept cutting over to her and then back to staring straight ahead.
“Why are you here?” they heard Natasha ask. Bucky turned his head to face her, but Clint huffed and turned his head back. The confusion on Bucky’s face made Steve snort a laugh. He avoided Tony’s glare as he caught Natasha’s brief relax in her frown. Barton had explained once that it was her secret smile when she was trying to keep a stern face. He’d wondered that the man had revealed the deadly Black Widow’s secrets like that. It wasn’t until later that he realized having that knowledge went a long way to figuring out how serious a situation actually was.
While the archer was feared by their enemies because he never missed and seemed to be unkillable, his assassin twin was feared for being deadly and unpredictable. Several Hydra agents they’d caught in the past had commented that if the Widow ever smiled, you knew you were dead, that there was no reprieve. Steve had seen Barton and Romanov banter and laugh with each other, relaxed and happy, draping themselves over each other. More Clint draped on Natasha, but it stood that sometimes it was hard to tell if Natasha was joking or threatening.
It became easier to watch how Barton reacted, because she wore her deadly façade most often, while he would snark and banter easily.
“I…woke up…here,” Bucky said. Clint finally finished the combing and hopped off the bed to move to stand in front of the man. Hawkeye remained on the bed, eyes firmly watching the interaction, just like Natasha. She puffed out a soft sigh, relaxing minutely.
“No. I mean here,” she gestured vaguely to the room, watching as Clint tilted his head to take in his handywork.
“’Tasha,” Clint whined, turning to face her once he was seemingly satisfied. “He’s cold and tired.” Clint yawned dramatically, stretching his arms. When Bucky fought and lost to a yawn right after Clint’s ended, the boy’s eyes twinkled in Natasha’s direction.
“It’s Clint,” Bruce said, turning in surprise. Steve, Thor, and Tony turned to look at him in confusion. “Think about it. With everything we know about the Winter Soldier, he just wakes up in the cryo chamber, but doesn’t bust out.” He had to settle against the counter to keep himself upright as the full realization hit him. “Clint somehow helped him escape. Clint somehow got Hawkeye, his Jarvis variant, to cover their escape.”
On the hologram screen, the little boy dragged Bucky by his metal hand to stand up and then gently pushed him backwards until he was sitting on the mattress, rather than next to it. Natasha was staring in wonder now as Bucky smiled at the boy, then yawned again, once Clint had finished another yawn.
“Holy shit,” Tony breathed out. “It’s Clint.”
“He mellowed Hulk out just by being here.” Bruce turned again to finish adding a drop of honey to his tea, then turned again to face them, smiling as he sipped it. “He saved Natasha and brought her in. She fought beside us because he was one of the ones Loki snatched up.” Thor nodded solemnly.
“Friend Clint was also the one who chose not to kill me when I first came to Earth,” he said. The others had only recently learned of his part in that event. Coulson had made the ultimate call, but from the report Agent Coulson had included in Barton’s records, Clint’s comments about his observations had been what made up his mind.
“Coulson told me he was also the one with the idea to set up the room where I woke up,” Steve said softly. They turned back to the hologram.
“Clint,” Natasha breathed out. She was no longer frowning furiously.
On the bed, the boy had pushed Bucky back until he was laid back, wet hair on the pillow. Clint yawned again and pulled Hawkeye to his chest as he curled around Bucky’s metal arm, holding both closely.
“Shhhh, Tasha. We’re napping.” Bucky turned his head to look down at the small, blond head and sighed softly, only glancing Natasha’s way long enough to shrug as though to say ‘what can I do’. Then he turned on his side carefully and slid the metal arm under Clint’s head, draping the edge of the comforter over it so it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable. He gave another sigh when Clint smiled and closed his eyes.