oedipisms

Clint’s got a voicemail sitting weighty and expectant in his answering machine.

He’s listened to it a good four times.

The thing’s from his lawyer. Not the bullshit one--not Stark’s lawyer who deals with all the fallout from the Avengers; the real one. For real day-to-day Clint Barton issues, both criminal and civil. The one whose services he pays for out of pocket. The one Nat recommended he enlist after the clusterfuck with the tracksuits and those white vans. Staking out his building all the damn day.

Murdock.

Matt Murdock wants to buy him fries at a diner right outside of Bed-Stuy.

His lawyer. Wants to buy him fries.

There’s definitely something going on here. Some ulterior motive. Some reason for cornering him inside a public establishment and bribing him with shit food.

But fuck it, fries are fries and Clint’s fridge is horribly emaciated from his recent lapse in motivation to go out and get groceries. Or do anything else, really.

Clint naps instead of calling the guy.

Kate drops by at some later point with a twenty-four pack of plastic water bottles and a pile of microwave dinners which she dumps all over the last available space on his crowded counter. She scrunches up her lips when their eyes meet across the room. Clint makes himself horizontal on the couch, maintaining eye contact as he does so, and says, “Thanks.”

Kate’s eyes scrunch to match her lips. “You’re not gonna touch this stuff, are you,” her scrunchy lips ask without asking.

“I’ll try.”

Kate scoffs. “That means no, Clint, you know it does. Get up.”

Clint shoves himself deeper into the couch. “I’ll do it, Katie. I’ll do it later,” he whines.

She beams one of the bottles with her left hand and it middles his sternum. She growls, “Sit up and drink the water,” with all the ferocity of a predator on the hunt.

Fuck. Who taught her how to be that intimidating? Damn chill goes down his spine and everything.

He sits up.

Kate crosses her arms and glares him down while he drains half the bottle. He raises an eyebrow at her when he pauses to take a breath and she turns with a flip of her hair to load the microwave dinners into his freezer.

Clint goes to lie back down, but she catches him in the act and gives him a look with enough potential energy to level a city.

“Girl, what?”

“Finish the water. No naps.”

He tosses his hands up in defeat.

Kate spends the night, but it’s only because she wants to play with the bow he’s been adjusting for the past week.

She tosses the thing in his face when she gets bored of messing with it and tells him the pressure’s too much on the limbs, that he needs to restring it.

Clint takes offense. He’d spent a few hours fiddling with the tension and he takes pride in how well maintained his bows are.

He gets up and shoots off a couple lazy arrows into the bullseye of the target just to prove her wrong.

When he turns around, the grin on her face is disgustingly smug. “Got your ass off the couch, and all it took was insulting your craftsmanship,” she remarks.

Oh.

Clint understands now. He’s been had. “You sneaky shit, I was thinkin’ about havin’ a nap, ” he complains.

Kate waves him off and dips low to steal the arrow right out from between his fingers. “Betcha can’t catch me,” she throws over her shoulder as she flits to the fire escape window.

She’s right. He ain’t got the juice to go chasing that force of energy over rooftops tonight. He mourns the loss of the arrow briefly before diving gratefully back into the couch.

Kate slinks back into the apartment a couple hours later. She tosses the arrow at him with much contempt and frustration and stomps to the kitchen to heat up one of the microwave meals.

Clint doesn’t feel like getting up to make one for himself. He returns to his staring at the back of the couch and settles back into where he was before the interruption, teetering on the edge of a midnight nap.

Kate shoves his legs aside when she goes to sit on the couch, plastic container of noodles in hand. He peeks over the slope of his hunched shoulder to watch as she kicks her legs onto the coffee table and turns the TV on. Her face sours at the ad on the screen and she flips the channel to a sit-com riddled with canned laughter. Satisfied, she leans down to rub Lucky’s belly when he offers it.

Clint takes the aids out of his ears and sets them on the coffee table so the dog doesn’t accidentally step on them. Bathed in blissful quiet, he closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep.

Lots of naps transpire over the course of the next week. Lots of not moving very far in a day and then feeling guilty about his null productivity and then doing nothing to rectify it.

Voicemails from his lawyer pile up in his answering machine. His counters collect used cups and beer bottles. A sock monster takes form and then gains sentience at the foot of the couch. Stark sends Nat to bug him when he misses a meeting, but she gets one good look at the state of his apartment and rules it a lost cause.

Cap shoots him a text or two inquiring about a shared mark, but he forgets to answer in a timely manner and then it’s too late to respond without excessive apologizing and awkward excuses.

It’s all exhausting. Clint naps about it.

He’s heavy when he finally musters the energy to eat a full meal. Gravity pounds in his broken ears and tugs at his tired knees.

He eats in the kitchen. Standing next to the microwave.

Then he’s already up and cleaning his plate, so why not hand wash the other dishes?

And now his coffee carafe is all nice and clean and, hey, would ya look at that, so are his mugs!

A little coffee never hurt nothin’.

Oh, how he loves coffee. He does some rearranging while it brews, so now more counter space is usable. He unearths the answering machine. Finally calls Murdock back about that lunch meeting and gets a time sorted out. He replaces the paper face of his target in the living room.

And then his energy’s depleted. But he desperately needs a shave and a shower, so he does that and rewards himself with a nap. Makes it to his bed and everything.

Bed naps are better than couch naps. Clean shaven jaws are better than itchy scraggle.

No more voicemails sitting on his conscience.

A meeting arranged. A Time to Be Somewhere.

The kid’s in there. Sitting with Murdock. Clint sees them chatting through the window.

The Spider-kid. Plainclothed and nonchalant, chatting with his lawyer in a hole-in-the-wall diner.

Peter. Who is, evidently, invested in Murdock both in the suit and outside of it.

Something isn’t adding up.

Whole thing smells trap-ish.

Clint opens the door and Peter notices him approaching over Murdock’s shoulder. He gives a little wave and switches to Murdock’s side of the booth to give Clint room.

He slides in across from the two of them.

Feels like a gallows. Feels like he’s about to be evaluated, analyzed, measured. Gonna be handed down a couple life sentences, Judge Murdock presiding, Peter Parker Esquire on prosecution. The jury: plates of fries, yet to convene.

A server comes and takes their orders before Clint gets a chance to strike up a conversation. Peter asks for a massive milkshake to accompany the near 2000 calories of fast food he requests. Murdock’s face reads disgusted but unsurprised the entire time he’s ordering.

The server leaves and Clint pulls his head out of his ass for long enough to drag his eyes away from his nervously twitching thumbs on the tabletop. He narrows a venomous, suspicious glare at Peter, who has the social grace to look sheepish, before clearing his throat and addressing Murdock.

And all them fresh scars mingling with his crow’s feet which those shades of his just barely fail to fully conceal.

He and Murdock open their mouths to speak at the same time. Clint beats him to the punch.

“Thanks for reaching out and setting this up. Didn’t realize you were bringing a young, impressionable person along; I might have made more of an effort to dress professionally.”

Murdock chuckles. It’s a little dark. “Peter works with me at the office. He managed to strong-arm me into letting him come to this. I’m trying to trick myself into believing that he wants to spend more time with me while I run errands, but the reasonable part of me knows he’s here for the food and the food alone,” he explains as he extends a hand across the table for Clint to shake.

Peter gazes between them with all the youthful innocence he can muster plastered across his face.

Clint shakes. “I seem to have lost a few of the details in phone tag translation; why were you--and Peter, I guess--wanting to meet with me? I’ve been keeping my head pretty low. Tryin’ to keep out of the precincts, your offices,” he says. “No offense,” he thinks to tack on at the last second.

“Well. I got your flowers a couple of months ago. That was very considerate of you.”

D’aw. That’s not a word people usually use to describe his behavior.

Fuzzy feelings awaken in the back of his head. The spy in him immediately recognizes the lawyer schmoozing disguised within the compliment and a chorus of little alarm bells awakens in his subconscious.

“Mmm. Yeah. I’m real sorry about what happened. Guess I felt bad that I didn’t make it in time to--”

Murdock flaps a dismissive hand. “No, that’s not your fault. It’s--” He pauses as if he’s thinking about how to continue.

Peter’s lost all interest in the exchange. He’s watching a patron at the counter across from their table pour syrup on his food. Clint catches him mid-yawn and he sticks his tongue out.

Murdock figures out what he’s trying to say. “I wanted to thank you for finding me. In person.”

Oh. “Don’t mention it, man.”

“No, it’s important. You saved my life and I need you to know how grateful I am for that. How much of a debt I owe you.”

“It’s not like that. You don’t owe me anything.”

“No, I do. I’ve been--”

The server gets to their table and Murdock clams up while plates are distributed and drinks are topped off. The server narrates the location of utensils and condiments and then they’re alone again.

Peter’s looking at the massive burger in front of him like he’s been starved his whole life, but he waits for Murdock to start eating before he digs in.

Weird fuckin’ behavior. Kid’s giving off one hell of a vibe today.

Then the smell of greasy food hits Clint’s palate and all thoughts of stilted apologies and suspicious mannerisms disappear in the pursuit of consuming all the fries as soon as possible.

The combined power of food and coffee lightens the atmosphere at their table. About halfway through the meal, Peter picks a fight with a loose thread on the sleeve of Murdock’s right arm and damn near rips the jacket in half trying to remove it.

He gets a swift whack for his efforts. Clint stuffs his mouth with fries to stifle his chortle.

Discussion shifts away from serious topics and into the world of career highlights. Peter weaves a hilarious story about an interaction between a classmate and their chemistry teacher which went up in literal flames. Murdock pulls out a backlog of law school shenanigans. Clint finds himself relaxing into the flow of conversation.

Murdock excuses himself to go to the bathroom after the check’s been picked up and Peter’s scatterbrained vibe disappears in an instant. Those big brown eyes focus their gaze at Clint, rapt and fully engaged.

Clint shifts in his seat, self conscious. “There food on my face, kid? Or--”

“I need help with a job.”

“Do you need to be staring through my soul while you tell me about it?”

Peter’s eyes dilate briefly and then redirect to a coffee creamer tower he’s been surreptitiously working on. “I pulled an all nighter last night, and Red Bulls only work on me for about an hour, so I thought I could supplement them with coffee and now everything’s happening all at once,” he explains.

Clint’s heartburn moans in sympathy. He says, “Okay. What’s the job?”

Peter leans down to flick a little ball of straw wrappers at the base of the tower of creamers. The structure comes toppling down. “Workin’ with Double D and Deadpool on some recon in Brooklyn. S’for one of DP’s quote-unquote ‘mortal enemies’.”

“Why not ask Jones or Rand?”

“They’re not in the country. We needa extra pair of hands for a bird’s eye vantage. Daredevil’s shit at fast-paced long-range and I’m gonna be busy with another part of the plan.”

Murdock returns from the bathroom and Peter shuts the fuck up. Clint returns the creamers to their basket and makes small talk while Peter scribbles something on a napkin.

They leave the diner and part ways about a block north. Murdock shakes his hand again and sets off in the direction of the subway station. Peter slips the napkin into his palm and then skips away in Murdock’s shadow.

Clint looks down. Smudged ballpoint ink informs him of a Tuesday night meeting atop a high rise in Brooklyn.

An asterisk along the base of the napkin implores him to bring rubber bullets and aim to maim, not kill.

Clint wonders, a little morbidly, if Deadpool also has to adhere to that guideline.

He shows up at the meeting site--which takes the form of a dizzyingly tall rooftop that knocks all the wind out of Clint’s lungs in the process of trying to access--a few minutes early. Spidey’s there, laid out on the roof. Stargazing.

He turns his head and gives Clint a little wave when he crests the edge of the roof.

Clint comes up to him and sits hard on his ass to pant and sweat and make nice with his rapidly approaching middle age.

Peter returns to his staring at the stars and quips, “You just get back from runnin’ a marathon?”

Clint continues to heave and shoves a select finger in Spidey’s direction.

Deadpool surfaces on the southern edge of the building. Spidey hops up when he notices and trots over to greet him.

Clint stays exactly where the fuck he is because sitting down is nice and his lungs are tired and Deadpool gives him the heebie-jeebies.

Spidey steals one of the lumpy bags from Deadpool’s shoulder and scurries back to Clint to open it.

Thing’s full of guns. Lots of guns. There’s no way they’re gonna need this many guns; Clint only has so many hands and Spidey won’t touch anything that shoots metal rounds.

Deadpool approaches them. He drops the other bags he’s carrying, sweeps his gaze across Clint’s sorry state and the rest of the roof, and asks, “Where’s the dumbass?”

“He’s sitting right in front of you, nerd,” Peter responds automatically. He doesn’t even look up from his investigation of the bag.

Ouch.

“Not the blonde one, Pete, I have eyes in my skull that can see. Talkin’ about Red.”

“Ooh, what’s got you all riled up? Better hope the other dumbass didn’t hear that.”

Deadpool unzips his mask and takes it off to more effectively glare at Spidey. It’s an icy, dangerous thing. “I sent him ahead of me. Should be here by now. Where’s the dumbass.”

Peter doesn’t miss a beat. He shrugs and says, “Don’ know. Chill the fuck out, probably just got distracted.”

Deadpool--Wade Wilson, that’s his name, Clint’d forgotten--flares his scarred nostrils and yanks his mask back over his head. He zips the neck back up and narrows the white lenses at Clint when he catches him staring. “Whadda you doing?”

Clint raises a skeptical eyebrow at him and responds, “Dying. Y’all always have such reclusive meeting sites? I had to scale a good fifty floors to get here.”

Wilson sneers at him through the mask. “How d’you think I feel hanging out around these two acrobatic fuckers all the time, eh? Only reason I’m still in any kind of shape’s ‘cause of them.”

Peter makes a racket with one of the guns behind them. Clint turns his head in time to see a magazine of bullets spill forth and roll in all directions across the rooftop.

Wilson claws at his face and cries, “Peter, why?!”

Spidey’s suit lenses dilate. He picks up a handful of the bullets and tosses them at Wilson. “These ain’t rubber, bitch!”

Wilson moans and groans as he sets off to retrieve the scattered bullets. Clint takes pity on his crouched silhouette and gets up to help.

Daredevil shows face a couple of minutes later. He’s got a mean-looking scratch along a forearm and his rope bindings are shiny and crimson with fresh blood. His baton-grappling-hook-club comes closed in his wake with the significant hiss of metal against metal.

Clint wrinkles his nose at the sight of blood dripping down an elbow and returns to collecting bullets. Spidey yells some sort of nonsense and abandons his vigil at the gun bags to bug Daredevil.

The bullets are amassed and then concentrated into an emergency ziploc, which finds a home tucked into the bottom of one of the duffles.

Daredevil ignores Spidey’s ranting in order to maintain his intimidating aura of stoicism. He crosses his arms over his puffed out chest and strolls right past Peter’s animated gesticulations to nod cryptically at Clint.

Wilson pulls out a spiral notebook from a bag and flips to a page upon which a rough map of the layout of an office has been illustrated. He goes and sits with his legs crossed, then sets the map several feet before him like he expects them to gather for circle time.

Clint almost ignores it, but Daredevil and Spidey stop their song and dance when they notice Wilson being silent. They walk over in borderline terrifying synchrony and sit.

What the fuck is Clint supposed to do, not go and close the circle?

Disgusting. This is peer pressure. Gaslighting.

He sits.

DP walks them through a ridiculously complicated plan to infiltrate the office building upon which they’re meeting. It involves shooting out windows in a particular pattern, superfluous grappling arrows (they’re not strong enough to carry all four of them at once, Wilson, no), and shooting an administrative assistant in the head with a rubber bullet.

All to steal a couple of hard drives from some CEO’s desk.

Peter protests the final point of the plan, but he’s thoroughly and efficiently shot down by his teammates.

Clint tries to parse the dynamic going on in front of him. There’s a lot of cracking wise and getting into pissing contests over little details. Seems like Wilson’s the ring leader, although he and Daredevil tend to deliberate as if it’s a democracy. Peter’s either treated as an equal or fully ignored, depending on the content of his contribution.

Clint supplies a couple of things specific to his role in the mission, but for the most part he’s content to sit back and observe and absorb information.

It’s what he does best. Watch.

So watch he does.

Some things start to bop around in his head.

The familiar angle of the stubble on Daredevil’s frowning chin.

The way Wilson narrates shit about the building that should be obvious: lightswitch locations, what an elevator plaque is going to say, what to do if Daredevil reaches the computer first.

The care Daredevil’s fingers take as they trace the map etched into the paper. Scored, actually, when Clint takes a closer look. Like Deadpool pressed hard enough to break the nib of the pen he drew it with.

Ah, goddamn.

It’s Murdock. That’s Murdock all wrapped up in the black suit and bloody ropes.

Murdock’s Daredevil. Or Daredevil’s Murdock. They’re the same person.

Clint is, as evidenced by this belated revelation, a piss poor intelligence operative.

Known the guy for years. Worked with him longer than that, on harder jobs than this.

How did he never get it? Not even a guess.

Fucking sleazy lawyers, yo.

Murdock stiffens under Clint’s sudden gaze. He draws his hand away from where it was reading the map and brings it to rest in his lap. Wilson and Spidey look up at him, and then at Clint.

It’s so damn quiet.

Peter breaks first. “Did you figure it out?”

Murdock whaps him with one of his knotted fists. He turns his head to Clint, expectant.

Shit, man. “How did I not connect the dots before?”

Murdock shrugs and grins a mean-spirited, shark-toothed lawyer grin. “I’m a great actor.”

Wilson fakes a belly laugh and informs him that he is the opposite of that.

Murdock looks a little put out. Spidey pats his upper arm and earns himself another whack.

Clint comes to another realization. “Y’all set this up? So I’d find out?”

Wilson chuckles and says, “Don’t flatter yourself, sweet cheeks. We figured it’d happen one way or another. I needed an archer and Pete couldn’t get a hold of the other Hawkeye, who, I’ve been informed, is a younger, more capable, less crass version of you.”

Peter nods his mean little head and hums in affirmation.

Clint feels patronized. He lets it show on his face. “How many fucking times have I worked with you?” he aims, accusatory, at Murdock’s smug face.

“Too many to count,” that shit-eating grin responds.

Oh, he’s ticked. He is so fumed about this. “And how long? Have you been my fucking lawyer?”

“Long fuckin’ time, Barton. You’re really only observant when you want to be. I figured I’d been made when you found me in that barn with most of the suit on.”

Clint wracks his brain for a memory of that night, but all that comes up is a negative image of Murdock’s eyeless face, pools of blood, a ruined torso. The faded boxing robe that had all but fallen apart by the time he got there is the only textile he can recall. “Wasn’t really paying too much attention to what you were wearing, man.”

Peter cuts in to say, “To be fair, I don’t think anyone was.”

Murdock holds up his hands, conceding the point.

A thought occurs to Clint. “Is--is Nelson also secretly a vigilante?”

Wilson nearly wipes out off the side of the roof from the force of his mirthful, gasping laughter. Murdock has to grab onto an arm before it tumbles over the edge.

Clint’ll take that as a no, then. Spidey stops trying to contain his giggling.

Murdock pinches the bridge of his nose through the mask and says, “Lord, give me patience,” which sets Wilson off a second time.

Clint feels the corners of his mouth tugging at the beginnings of a smile. Wilson’s rude, barking laugh is kind of infectious. He finds it easier and easier to laugh at himself as the seconds go by. He can see now why they work so well as a team.

In a couple of minutes, they’ve all laughed themselves calm. They get back to workshopping the final couple of loose threads at the end of the plan. Then they break to get into position, Deadpool gives the signal, and Clint looses an arrow into the first window.

He almost gets killed a couple of times, but they pull it off.

Afterward, they nurse their wounds in Murdock and Wilson’s shared apartment (c’mon, Barton, it was right in front of you, they live together and everything, get your shit together) and Peter finagles his way into free takeout from down the road with a little help from the mask.

Clint thinks he’d maybe like to start working with them a little more regularly. Get Kate in on it too.

He’s absolutely positive she’s known Murdock’s other identity since the day she met him. The gal’s shrewd like that.

Oh, how Clint is gonna be the butt of jokes for weeks after this.

But hey. The more the merrier.