Clint always wondered how long would it take for them all to figure out that he wasn’t just the guy with the bow. Of course, Nat and Laura knew, but the former was very good at keeping secrets, to the point where she made it, willingly or not, her job, and it wasn’t like they needed to know the latter. Quite the opposite. That was the entire point of having Fury to keep his family hidden, to protect them, and not to make them an easy target for the people Clint would eventually piss off.
He knew that with two geniuses and an actual god in his team, though, it would have been so easy to keep his own real identity hidden. Or so he thought because after a couple of months spending his time in the Tower, well, he realized that they didn’t. Maybe it was just because they labelled him as the guy without powers, or, maybe, it was just that Clint respected others’ mind privacy far too much, but it was both funny and frustrating.
“Do you know that I can feel you looming in the vents, don’t you?” Nat’s voice reached him and Clint flipped down, landing on the kitchen counter and receiving a dark glare from the spy who was having her coffee here.
“Yeah, just you, apparently,” He rolled his eyes, knowing far too well that it wasn’t the point. He decided to have a bit of fun with the entire thing, trying to figure out how long it would take for them to understand there was something weird with Barton.
“Just tell them,” Natasha said, and, just like the other times, she sounded exasperated by what she considered to be Clint’s annoying shenanigans as if she didn’t understand which his problem was. Clint thought it was pointless to explain her, but, once again, he knew she was smart enough and was tired of hearing his friend keep telling him to tell the others about his powers. “Or don’t, but don’t be a baby about it.”
“I’m not being a baby,” He answered, knowing far too well that it was exactly the kind of behaviour he was having.
--
What he wasn’t expecting, though, was to give up to his farçe in front of everyone else on the battlefield. Clint had no idea how they ended up like this. The enemy of the week didn’t seem to be more than an annoyance. From Shield and Stark’s databases, they figured out they were most like overpowered minions, not a real threat both for New York or the Avengers who decided to intervene more because of the damages the small group of supervillains were causing to the streets of New York than to people.
Honestly, that was probably what got half of the Avengers to underestimate the group. Only Steve and Nat of his teammates were still trying to have them to try and understand why or for whom the group was working for. But Clint knew that his best friend tended to be a little bit paranoid while Steve was too much of an army boy to think that, sometimes, people just do things because they were bored and had nothing better to do. That seemed to be something that Stark really understood, though, and, for once, the archer agreed with the billionaire without any reserve.
It didn’t take them long to have their enemies on the ground, but it seemed like they didn’t stay like that for too long either. In a beat of the eyes, something appeared from under the street level, as if it was coming straight from New York subways. It was something Clint couldn’t name, too fast even for his eyes to make out the shape of it. All he could tell was that it was something dark. From the face of the people they were originally fighting, well, whatever that thing was, the Avengers were in big, big troubles. And Clint fucking hated that. He hoped there was no magic involved, he hated magic with a burning passion and was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of how Loki used it on him.
He couldn’t make out the shape of whatever arrived before finding himself pinned against the ground, the lower part of his body trapped in asphalt. Barton looked around, trying to understand what was going on or a target on the thing that attacked them, but all he could see was Tony flying up and down, attempting to fight against something which was too fast for him to target. A moment later, he heard the thud of metal against metal and turned to look at Steve crashing against a parked car which seemed to fold itself against the super soldier’s body trapping the Captain there.
From his position, the archer couldn’t see the other Avengers, but after what seemed to be a couple of minutes, the figure just stopped to move around and slowly lowered themselves on the ground. Clint could make out the appearance of a man wrapped in a thigh suit. Which stayed still for less than half a second before going back to be an indistinguishable blur aiming at Thor’s cape.
“If any of you has an idea, it’s time to share,” Tony’s voice reached Clint in the com over the mess of thunders and the god’s colliding body against the hard ground. “Whoever this person is, doesn’t rely on tech and without a target, we can’t hit him either.”
“Can’t we predict his movement?” Natasha asked, and a part of Clint knew she was speaking with Bruce who stayed at the Tower. After the fight against Loki, the Doctor decided that he worked better from the backlines, providing them information when his teammates were on the field and letting the Hulk loose only if it couldn’t be avoided.
“He isn’t following a scheme. His movements are random,” Bruce answered the moment Clint decided to play with chances anyway. The dark silhouette of their enemy passed in front of his eyes and he tried to get up what was necessary for him to aim to the point where the man was supposed to be. If only for the figure to dodge a second before the arrow hit its target.
“Super-speed and enhanced hearing?” The archer complained, exhaustion clear in his voice just as it was in Tony’s moments before.
“Guys,” Steve shouted back, probably his com got down during his short confrontation with the man. He was now fighting against the sheet metal of the car and in an almost standing position so that it wasn’t hard for their attacker to drop Thor just right on his head. The scene would have been hilarious if only they were running short of options.
“Clint!” He turned, to look at the person who called his name and found Natasha by his side, shooting at the asphalt to free him. The man seemed to be taking his good time messing around with Tony who was blasting the void in front of himself. She had a slip lip and was bleeding from her left cheek but, apart from that, she seemed to be fine. “You can slow him down.”
“Not without a target,” He tried, knowing far too well what she was implying. The firm glance he got in return spoke more than a hundred words. “I’ve never tried.”
“Well, it’s about time to do it.”
Clint knew that he wasn’t going to like what came next. He’d like to say that he knew because of his instincts, but the truth was that he had seen the light in Nat’s eyes one too many times. It was the same light she had before running into a KGB base in Moscow the first time he was sent on the field with her. It was the same light she had when she jumped from a plane in Paris, and the same light she had for the duration of their mission in Budapest.
That light meant troubles, most times for Clint. Completely ignoring his protests, she raised and walked in front of the archer before starting to shoot at the dark figure. The man moved on the side, allowing Tony to take his previous position just for him to be hit.
“Thank you, Nat!” The billionaire yelled over the comms before the shadow descended on her. She turned over, her jade eyes on Clint’s and moved on the side, not fast enough to avoid their enemy who was already on her but giving Clint exactly the target he needed. They both knew that the man wasn’t going to stop, but if that was going to work, Clint had to make the best out of spare seconds.
He never tried to use his power to force other people to do something, even if Laura said that he used it unconsciously with Lila, but was well aware of the fact that every fraction of a second was going to be extremely important in that case. So he closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of revenge that he could grasp in the air around him until he started to turn it into calm and boredom. As a response, he could feel confusion rising in the man’s brain, but that was as good as everything because when he opened his eyes back he could see Thor’s hammer smashing the man’s face.
--
“I don’t know what that was, pal,” Tony was almost screaming in his ears, doing nothing for the headache which was starting to form. “But it was fucking amazing!”
“It’s Clint’s secret,” Natasha answered, having the man rolling his eyes to the ceiling. He regretted telling her about how annoying it was for the Avengers not to know that he had powers because now she was going to tease him about that every given occasion.
“So, was Hawkeye being a master in control of empathy supposed to be a secret?” Thor asked from the sofa where he was drinking his victory beer. Being ten in the morning, nobody by Tony joined him, and the Asgardian took it as a personal snub.
“Clint is what, now?” Bruce asked the same moment Barton, wide-eyed, spoke once again: “You knew it?”
“Of course I do,” The Asgardian answered. “If I well understand how you Midgardians call them, Barton is an empath,” He continued, a moment later, as if he was explaining something to a class. “He can perceive others’ emotions and projects his own or others.”
Clint thought it would have been fun having the others find out about his power, but looking at everyone’s surprised faces was even better. It was stupid, maybe, but he didn’t even care. Of course, being threatened by both Stark and Banner to stay out of their minds and not steal their ideas for new patents was possibly even funnier, so funny that he forgot to explain to them that he couldn’t read their thoughts.
Let them live with the doubt.