in technicolor

Brett was rewarded for two full weeks of vigilante-free police work with one week positively crammed full of them.

First he’d had to have a chat with Spidey about the knife situation and, like his asshole horned sibling, he was not interested in invocations of safety or the common good. He was a good fucking actor though, because he told Brett with a sickly sweet smile that no, sir, he totally understood where he was coming from. And yes sir, he would definitely use discretion in making weapons in the future. And no, sir, he absolutely did not intend to start up any kind of market in concealable weaponry in the near future.

Lies.

On every count.

Brett almost believed him at first, you just couldn’t help it with the kid, but he caught himself. He had learned over the last few months to be paranoid and to read between the lines with these assholes. No means yes and yes means no and “I had nothing to do with it” was only the truth 20% of the time.

After he’d taught Spidey zero lessons whatsoever, Brett was called in by the Harlem crowd to speak with Luke Cage, who, he learned, had information and had requested to speak to him and only him.

Luke Cage told him that his smaller companion, Iron Fist, had gotten the shit kicked out of him by some vigilante who was new on the scene and had since disappeared. He explained that he wasn’t there looking for police intervention, rather he was looking to tell a trustworthy officer that one of their own was getting up to some trouble.

He did not file a missing person’s report, said he’d find his troublesome pal on his own.

He did not find his friend. Brett knew because Brett found his friend.

Iron Fist’s real people name was Daniel Thomas Rand and he was? Oddly kind and cooperative? Brett had some serious concerns about all these peoples’ two-facedness. His sister told him knowledgably that every one of them had to be Geminis. He didn’t exactly plan on taking a poll, but he might have asked Fogs when Matt’s birthday was. Just to check.

He was not even remotely a Gemini.

Mr. Rand wasn’t a Gemini either.

Rand was, however, very happy to be released from his watery, sewer prison and even happier to jab a finger at one Officer Tahler, who he then proceeded to get in the face of and try to fight, thereby proving that no walk of life would get between vigilantes and their shared personality traits.

Exhausting. They were all exhausting.

Rand went away and was replaced by Jessica Jones who needed to be questioned about her involvement with a missing person’s case. She slammed her door in their faces and told them to get a warrant or get fucked.

Camping out outside her door did not yield any desired results whatsoever.

Jones disappeared and her case bled into Rand’s and he swore to someone or something Brett could not hope to understand that Officer Tahler was the one who had killed their mutual missing person.

When Brett sighed and mistakenly gave the guy the impression that he didn’t believe him, Rand threw out his arm and whipped out a fucking knife and said he’d give his arm from the elbow if it wasn’t true and holy fucking shit, no. Too cooperative, son. Far too cooperative.

Rand wouldn’t be talked out of it.

Brett was on the verge of having to put the guy on a psych hold when Jones reappeared to punch him in the shoulder and call him a fucking idiot. She cocked a hip at them all and told them she’d found their missing person. And he was good and dead.

“It was Tahler, wasn’t it?” Rand cried with determination.

Jones stared at him with pursed lips and lifeless eyes.

“It was Tahler,” she said.

Rand pumped his fist and celebrated by keeping his arm for yet another day.

Jones poured a metric shit ton of pictures and copies of receipts and footage and documents all over Brett’s desk, to the point where it started sliding off the sides of it and littered the floor around it. She evaluated him with cut eyes and told Brett that he wasn’t half bad.

Brett thought he’d done exactly nothing to earn such praise. He expressed this opinion and got squinted/glared at from that moment until Jones left the building with Rand in tow.

So that was fun. Just about as much fun as he was having right then, actually, where he had one of the Hawkeyes staring at him while he rattled the handcuff keeping him locked to Brett’s desk.

He’d been doing that shit for nearly half an hour.

Anytime Brett asked him to stop, he just said  “HUH?” really loudly and kept right on rattling like a fucking dick. Brett would ask him again and he’d frown at him and nod a little bit, like ‘cool, cool, cool’ and he would proceed to not. Fucking. Stop.

Brett couldn’t get anything out of this guy.

And he was going to murder him in the middle of all these officers if he had to sit here for one second longer.

He told the guy to wait there for a minute and stepped out to call Foggy so as to preserve both of their lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The guy watched him go with amazement.

“Brett, you fucking moron, that’s the deaf one,” Foggy hissed at him.

Oh.

Well.

“This is why you gotta tell people shit,” Brett snapped back at him. Then floundered for a second, because had he just insulted the fuck out of his kind-of sort-of perp?

“I can’t tell you everything, no one would ever trust me again.”

Fair. But not the fucking point.

“What’s etiquette for working with deaf people?”

“Don’t cover your mouth and don’t shout at him.”

A pause.

“Brett, sometimes, I swear to fucking god—”

“I’ll apologize, okay? Are you his lawyer? He’s punched a guy out on his doorstep.”

“His doorstep?”

“No, the other guy’s.”

“Clint, why.”

So it was habitual. Another one for the notebook: Hawkeye goes around punching folks in the face. That’s a fun thing he does. A l’il quirk, if you will.

“Fogs, come deal with this. We’re gonna have to charge him with assault unless someone says something magical in the next fifteen minutes. Should I get an interpreter?”

“I can’t, I’m in court. I’ll send Matt. I don’t think they’ve met, but they’ll work it out.”

“Thank you.”

“Ugh.”

No one in this party of brains had clearly thought these circumstances through. Matt walked in just as Brett was trying to get Hawkeye to sign a statement as to what had happened between him and his frenemy. Matt didn’t recognize his client, as was to be expected. His client, however, recognized the hell out of him.

“Holy shit, it’s you,” Hawkeye said, which were the first words besides “HUH?” Brett had managed to pry out of him. Matt stiffened from ass to neck, apparently recognizing Hawkeye’s voice.

“Oh god, it’s you,” he groaned.

So, a fine start all around.

“I’m not dealing with this,” Matt said, spinning around, but Hawkeye leapt up, only to slam his face into the corner of Brett’s desk when his arm didn’t come with him.

Perfect. Now they needed a medic, too.

A quick assessment from the nurse later, and Brett found himself watching Matt try and fail to give this man legal advice. He really did not like this guy and Brett could not figure out why.

Matt’s obvious disgust was compounded by his frustration. Hawkeye was, it turned out, not completely deaf but close to it. He didn’t, and Brett was baffled by this, seem to understand that Matt was blind. He signed while he spoke, when he finally spoke,  and Matt was so fucking confused why this guy was waving at him. He kept trying to look over his shoulders to figure out what he could be waving at.

Which could only mean that Matt didn’t know that Hawkeye was deaf. Fogs must not have told him.

Whoops.

The two of them were basically a comedy duo waiting to happen.

“What you doing?” Matt finally snapped when Brett asked Hawkeye to verify his statement.

Hawkeye, sensing the sensitivity of the situation, dropped his voice to a whisper and said, “Dude, I’m signing.”

Oh, god. Brett already knew what was going to happen next. It was going to be the highlight of his year.

“Signing what?”

“What?”

“You’re signing ‘what,’” Matt said sarcastically with a look which could peel paint.

“Oh. Words.”

Matt’s jaw twitched.

“I know how signing works, pal,” he growled. “I’m asking you what you’re signing. I need to know what you’re signing.”

Hawkeye squinted at him.

“What?” he asked, genuinely confused.

Matt started flushing red at that point and Brett was going to die.

“You’re signing what?” Matt tried to clarify again, about ready to throw himself out of the chair to strangle Hawkeye.

“I just fucking told you, man.”

“You know what? Just—just don’t sign anything. Brett--”

“Dude, what the fuck are you even saying right now?”

“I said don’t sign shit. Brett, can you--”

“Woah. I mean. That’s fucked up. That’s real fucked up.” Hawkeye crossed his arms and slouched low in his chair to demonstrate how heavy that statement truly was.

Matt was so confused.

And as much as he’d love for this Abbott and Costello act to go on for the rest of his life, Brett felt the need to do some clarifying for the sake of mankind here.

He cleared his throat.

“Mr. uh, Barton was it?”

“Huh?”

Ah, right.

“Matt, your client’s deaf.”

“WHAT.” Matt rounded on the guy in shock, “You’re deaf?”

“Oh, hey, there we go,” Hawkeye said happily, sitting up turning so that he could face him dead on. “Yeah. Did the signing not give it away or?”

“You’re deaf,” Matt repeated again.

“Yeah, and that’s perfect actually, stay just like that. Can’t see you very well when you’re all twisted up the other way.”

Matt did not stay just like that because he obviously had something he needed to work through. Possibly homicidal urges. More likely embarrassment. Or actually, Brett was delighted to realize, it was having to tell Hawkeye, who he must have met before as Daredevil, that no, he was actually blind. For realsies blind. The cane was not a prop.

And he was gonna have to do it in the worst possible environment and karma was really fucking coming through for Brett over here.

“You need a minute, counselor? Or do you need me to help you interpret?” he asked.

Matt smashed a fist against his lips as he tried to work out how to make this happen without ruining all their lives forever.

He nodded mutely.

Brett made sure to get Hawkeye’s attention before explaining that he was going to step away for just a second. Hawkeye told him that that was no problem. He was a pretty amiable guy once he could figure out what you were saying, it turned out. Brett made a mental note to apologize when he got back.

He knew when it was safe to return because Hawkeye said, “NO FUCKING WAY,” loud enough that Brett heard it from where he was lingering around the captain’s office.

He soon found himself sitting between the most awkward humans on the face of the earth writing up a report while Matt occasionally grabbed at Hawkeye’s arm and tried to find his face to talk to him.

“Why did you hit the guy, Barton?” Brett asked.

“Oh,” Barton said, “He beat the shit out of Hawkeye.”

What.

“He beat the shit out of you,” Brett repeated.

“No, Hawkeye.”

Oh hell no, not this shit again.

“The…other Hawkeye then?”

Barton was pleased that Brett understood and nodded at him with a wide grin.

“The girl?” Matt asked him.

“Hm?”

Matt held his hand at about shoulder height.

“Oh, yeah. That’s her.”

Brett wrote this down on the amended statement.

“Can you describe her for me?”

“I mean, no.”

Brett blinked at the paper in front of him and then looked up to make sure he’d heard right. Matt was equally puzzled.

“Why not?” Brett asked for both of them.

“’Cause she’s a minor and I ain’t stupid.”

Jesus Christ. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. Brett couldn’t have two minors running around in spandex right now. He just—for the sake of his blood pressure, he couldn’t.

“Was she with you at the time of this altercation?” he asked, deciding to shelve those feelings for now.

“Uh, yeah. But I sent her home.”

Why, man, why would you send the primary witness home?

“Like I said, she’s a minor and I ain’t that fucking dumb.”

“Is she related to you?” Brett asked.

“No.”

Of course not, it could never have been that easy.

“Were you under the impression that this man might do significant harm to your partner?” Matt asked in his ‘gotcha’ way because he was still a snake under all those fancy clothes.

“Well, yeah. I like my knuckles how they are, you know? They just fuckin’ healed from my last job. This guy, though, he’s with the Russians—you know the Russians? C’mon, you know the Russians—anyways, he comes in here out of nowhere and starts whaling on the kid and my fuckin’ dog in the middle of the goddamned street. So I had to get in there, you know? Well, no. That ain’t fair, coulda let K—Hawkeye sort it out herself, but you know young ‘uns. They never know when they’re in too deep. She’s all bruised up, by the way. He got her right here,” he thumped a fist into the middle of his chest, “And right here,” he thumped one side of his ribs, “And then that jackass put a boot into her and my damn dog. You seen my dog? Shit, man, poor fucker’s already lost an eye. He didn’t even see it coming, that piece of shit.”    

100% agreed. Any man who beat up on animals was a piece of shit in Brett’s humble opinion.

Also, that was about everything he needed to hear, this was a self-defense case if he’d ever heard one. Hallelujah. Praise be.

“Alright, Mr. Barton. I think that’s what we need for now. Is there anything else you’d like to say? If not, I’m gonna need you to sign this statement and then I’m gonna talk to some witnesses and we’ll see where this needs to go from here, okay?” he said.

“Oh yeah, for sure. Whatever you want. Just one thing, can someone get me a hearing aid?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Aw, that’s great. Thanks, man. You’re a doll.”

A doll.

That sounded awfully like a formerly missing, currently un-missing super spy Brett now knew.

God, imagine the two of those assholes together.

Or not. For the sake of his blood pressure.

Barton got to go home and Brett quickly decided that the munchkin girl with bandages on her face who tackled him and shocked the crap out of Matt as soon as they exited the door had to be Hawkeye the younger.

She was about shoulder height with black hair in a pony tail and so fucking young, dear god. Where had all these children come from? Where did they think they were going?

He was interrupted from this programing by the horrible realization that this girl and Peter probably knew each other.

God.

What if there was a whole troop of them?

Oh fuck, what if there was a whole troop of them??

“Peter,” he negotiated, trying not to let on too strongly that he was about to pump the kid for information.

Peter was smarter than that.

“No. I don’t know nothing.”

Damnit.

“Anything,” he corrected out of reflex. “But not the point, just one question—”

“No.”

“Nothing to do with whatever…whoever you’re hunting right now, I promise.”

Peter’s suit eyes squinted at him.

“No.”

Ugh. Fucking teenagers.

He sighed and dug his hands into his coat pockets and Peter stayed squinting at him for a few more seconds before returning to his city watching.

They all seemed to do this. Brett didn’t know what the fuck vigilantes saw from up high that no one else did, but they all really seemed into getting up there. He thought maybe it had to do with some kind of god complex. Maybe they liked to imagine that they had control over the city if they were literally above everyone else in it.

He couldn’t think of any other reason why someone who was blind like Matt would do that kind of thing.

Peter’s whole body changed when he spotted something down below. What was it? Hard to say. Brett had seen Pete have the same reaction to seeing an especially good dog at a café from above.

He was gone.

Must not have been a dog then.

Clint Barton lived down south in Bed Stuy in a shitty, shitty, shitty condominium and he was literally holding the entire pot of coffee in his hand when he answered Brett’s knock on his door.

He wasn’t holding it like he was gonna pour anything anywhere.

Brett chose to let this man make whatever bad decisions he was going to.

“Mr. Barton, my name is detective Mahoney, we spoke at my station last week after—”

“Yeah, I remember you.”

Ah. Hearing aids in, then.

“I have a few questions I’d like to ask you if you don’t mind, sir,” he said.

Barton stared at him for another couple seconds, then shook himself and looked behind him, probably at the state of his home. He looked back at Brett with guilt written all over his face.

“So, there might be some slightly illegal weapons in here,” he said.

No. Brett did not want to know.

“I might be too distracted with our conversation to notice them,” Brett offered. Hawkeye sighed in relief.

“Thank Jesus, yeah. Come on in, uh. Careful of the dog, he’s grounded for eating people’s trash again.”

Clint Barton was the owner of this condominium. The owner. As in, the landlord. As in.

What.

“Yeah, I had an inheritance from my uh, relative, and I’m a dumb piece of shit and very bad at letting people tell me what to do.”

There were more questions than answers in that statement, sir.

There was a bow, the bow, hung on the wall. It was a much taller and, surprisingly plainer, version of the one Amos had begged his mom for for his last birthday. The bow was overshadowed by the shitload of guns scattered haphazardly all over the living room’s coffee table and floor.

Barton sheepishly piled the ones on the couch into a wooden crate as if that made them any less fucking suspicious and invited Brett to have a seat.

“I’m sorry, man. I gotta ask,” Brett blurted out.

“They’re not mine,” Hawkeye blurted right back. “All of them anyways. JB—”

Brett fucking knew it.

“—got a hold of some old shit and we’re trying to figure out if they’re salvageable.”

He. He needed not to pursue that line of inquiry right now. For his sanity, if nothing else.

Barton offered him a cup of coffee. He made sure to specify that it was shitty coffee, although he seemed to think that this was praise for the liquid in the pot.

Brett politely refused. Barton either didn’t notice or didn’t care and started opening his cabinets to make a new pot.

“Mr. Barton—”

“Fuck, no. Call me Clint.”

Uh. How about no.

“Mr. Barton, you’ll forgive me if I sound ignorant, but I’m a little concerned about your uh, partner?”

Barton poured water into the angry pot and pressed the button on the machine.

“Katie-Kate?” he asked without turning around. “Yeah, no worries. I’m worried about her, too. She’s out there getting ideas in her head.”

Oh? What kind of ideas?

“Ones where she thinks she’s invincible. Dumb shit like that.” Barton sighed and leaned his back against his counter. “Only a matter of time before she goes off on her own.”

Yeah, that was exactly what Brett was afraid of.

“How old is Kate?” he asked.

“Seventeen. Eighteen before you know it.”

Shit.

One of the piles of guns by the radiator shifted at the gurgling of the coffee pot and a dog emerged from the wreckage to shake itself off and trot happily up to Barton. He stared down at it irritably. It wagged its shaggy tail.

“There’s not so many, detective,” Barton said, anticipating Brett’s next question and reaching down finally to pet the dog’s head. “Not as many as you think. I know all us super-vigilante-whatevers seem like fuckheads, but a lot of that’s just for show. It’s easy to convince people you’re stupid and get away with it.”

Brett wasn’t entirely convinced, but it was exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

“Spiderman’s pretty young,” he noted. Barton scoffed.

“Yeah, fuckin’ Stark’s over there, always calling me irresponsible, then turns around and picks up a fucking baby. Rude as hell if you ask me.”

Barton had a bit of an accent. A mid-western kind of thing. Brett wondered if he was aware of it.

“What happens when Kate strikes out on her own?” he asked gently. Barton kept petting the dog and shrugged.

“She’ll do whatever the fuck she wants to do, I guess. Can’t hold ‘em down once they get ideas in their heads. She’s been talking about going out west. She’ll all pretending to me it’s got nothing to do with her little girlfriend out there, which is horseshit to like, anybody with eyes. Or ears. Or hell, a functioning brain. But Spidey’ll be holy hell in a few years here, too, I guarantee you. Him and Stark are rocketing towards an ultimatum if you ask me.”

Brett hadn’t heard any of this before. Matt certainly hadn’t let on that there was conflict between Peter and Stark. You wouldn’t know it, watching the two of them interact.

“Yeah, no, man. Stark’s trying to get Spidey to join the Avengers and baby boy’s got a fuckin’ head on his shoulders and knows better than the rest of us that that’s a suicide mission.”

No shit?

“No shit. I tried to call out a few times and you just get sucked back in, man. It’s a sinkhole like that. Steve’s been trying to give up his mantle for years now.”

This was news that Amos could not hear, ever, in his entire life, as far as Brett was concerned. He didn’t know how he felt now that he knew it.

“Like, for forever?” he pressed. Barton must have read the uncertainty on him because he backtracked.

“No, no,” he lied like a body in a gutter, “Not like that. It’s not like that. Cap loves being Cap. Obviously. He’s just, uh.”

“Tired,” Brett offered, remembering Cap’s tension in his own house. Barton sighed through his teeth.

“Broken,” he admitted. “We’re all fucked up, but Cap’s just fuckin’ done. Sam’s gonn—no. Sorry. Sorry, I can’t tell you anymore. Anyways, no, the kids are alright. They either outgrow the job and move on or they get to the point where they don’t need us old folks anymore.”

Did he just say what Brett thought he did?

Did he just—was Sam Wilson set to take over for Cap?

Barton was clearly trying to change the subject and Brett’s heart was really loud in his ears, so he decided to gently lay that news aside for now.

“How many more are there, do you know?” he asked.

Barton was relieved.

“No, I don’t. They pop up like daisies, go down like nails. You’re not gonna find them detective, and no one can protect ‘em the way we all wish we could. Here, I’ll introduce you to—”

The dog lost its damn mind.

“Kate,” Hawkeye said over the ruckus. The front door opened and the dog was immediately showered with affection by Hawkeye the younger with a similar bow to the one on the wall strapped over her shoulder with a backpack full of arrows.

She looked up and snapped to attention immediately upon seeing Brett on the couch.

“I know nothing,” she announced to the room.

Oh, good. The indoctrination started early.

“Kate, this is—” Barton started.

“I KNOW NOTHING.”

“—Detective Mahoney—”

“Haven’t seen anything.”

“He’s the cop Dare—”

“Haven’t heard anything.”

 “—devil said is fine.”

“I’ve been at home all day, officer—wait, what?”

The bow slipped down over her shoulder. She was all in purple and had bandaids on her face like Barton. It kind of suited her.

“You’re the good detective?” she asked.

Aw.

That should not have been as heartwarming as it was.

“I try,” Brett told her. “We were just talking about you.”

Kate zipped right into a pout and stomped over to jab Hawkeye in the side with her fingers.

“You said don’t talk to cops,” she snapped. He poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Brett, ignoring her. She followed him from the counter to the couch, getting in his way the whole time.

“You said,” she repeated. Barton took a boiling sip from his mug and made no motion to indicate just how much it hurt him.

Kate wasn’t having it. She turned on Brett.

“Did Spidey rat me out?” she demanded.

Oh. Interesting.

“Don’t know. Why do you ask?” he asked.

She pouted at him.

“Because he’s a goody-two-shoes snitch.”

Alright. For the notebook: Hawkeye the younger does not get on with Spidey. Possibly does not get on with Hawkeye the elder.

“No,” Brett assured her, “Foggy Nelson told me about you. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright and that you’ve got someone to come to if you need it.”

The girl eased up. Didn’t ease up entirely, but gave enough that she wasn’t visibly prickly anymore.

“I like Mr. Nelson,” she informed him.

Yeah, no shit. They all did.

“Foggy and I go way back,” he said, standing. “If you ever need anything from the NYPD, you can come to me first and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got to be leaving now, though. Got to get home. Thank you for the coffee, Mr. Barton.”

The honorific made Barton flinch and Kate light up like Christmas. The second Brett left he knew that there was going to be hell to pay.

“Thanks for stopping by, detective,” Barton managed to say, “And uh, ignoring all the uh, illegality.”

No problem, pal. You have bigger fish to fry.