Small Interlude I
He is not at home when the news of Captain America: Fugitive blindside the News-stations, blinking at him through the shop-window of an electronic-store’s TV-exhibit.
Clint hasn’t been in contact with his former team-mates since he had been relieved from his station among them, but even then he can smell something fishy going on – Steve is the most paragonous paragon of virtue that America has ever had and Clint’s pizza-slice hits the ground in front of the shop as he turns to hightail towards Bed-Stuy like a mad-man possessed.
Despite the fact that he is too far out to make it to the house on time in case anything would happen, he doesn’t even spare a thought to taxis or the metro. His very bones tell him something will happen and to move the fuck faster – he doesn’t break his running stride even as he pushes past Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock on a corner.
On any other day it would be a funny coincidence and the perfect opportunity to tease Matt, but Clint is unable to think about anything else than Darcy – home, alone, unprotected. He feels sorry for elbowing Matt’s friend in hindsight.
By the time he is in Williamsburg, SHIELD Heli-Carriers are rising from the Triskelion and Clint’s worry morphs into an overpowering sentiment he knows intimately but has always been unwilling to acknowledge. He doesn’t know what they do, but he knows what one Heli-Carrier is capable of and to have three of the beasts rise from their stations is a fucking scary thing.
Suddenly it’s no longer just Darcy.
It’s his whole house.
It could be all of America – the whole world.
His steps falter for the barest of moments and the power of inertia tricks him into stumbling before he uncaps the lid on his anger and forces his feet through the pull of gravity, speeding up, pushing through people.
When he finally barrels through his front door, he is pumped so full of adrenaline that the merest glimpse of a black barrel pointing towards him catapults him into a dodge-and-roll before feels the whistle of a bullet sail over his left shoulder and as he stands he barely manages to hold back from breaking the wrist of his assailant.
Darcy’s glasses reflect in the shine of the laptop before her; barrel not smoking exactly, but perfectly lined up in front of her; her red lips drawn into an unrepentant frown.
He doesn’t yell. “Tenants.”—he snaps at her instead, needs to know.
“Cellar.”—she answers just as curtly, returning to clacking on her keyboard at astounding speed. “Lead walls.” Clint has never been so relieved to technically have stolen, even though it was an entirely legal action, a house from the Russian Mob.