1. Multilingual
It starts on an avengers mission to Russia, to take down a hydra base in Moscow. Clint is in charge of rescuing people trapped in the base. Tony can hear him over the comms if he strain his ears, the faint creak of floors as he moves, the sounds are almost undetectable, and Tony knows that without Jarvis, he would not be able to hear him at all. Since he’s listening for the most silent sounds, it comes as a shock to him when someone starts speaking. The voice sounds like Clint, but the words are spoken in a foreign language that Tony doesn’t understand, probably Russian. The voice sounds almost fluent in the language, the words not marred by the American accent that belongs to Clint. Tony considers asking if that is Clint speaking, but realises that if it’s not him, then it’s someone else, and that means he probably can’t talk to him at that moment.
But then Tony hears a small whimper, the voice far too high pitched to be an adult male, so he presumes it’s a child. Oh yeah, rescue mission. Tony presumes that Clint probably only learnt a few lines to understand and speak to others in the area.
It happens again in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s a stealth mission this time, so it’s only Clint, Nat and Steve. Of course, (knowing their luck), it goes wrong, and the three of them find themselves trapped in a room, hopelessly outnumbered with what appears to be hundreds of guns pointing straight at their heads. Steve wishes for a second that Bucky was here, or the Winter Soldier as he’s now known, but then he pushes that though out of his head, because it’s hopeless to dwell on things that aren’t going to happen.
Things only get worse when someone, obviously the leader, walks out, of a hidden door to Steve’s left hand side. They wear a long dark coat that covers most of their body, Steve has seen the material enough, (mainly in Tony’s lab), to know what it is, bulletproof. He has no doubt that if he tried to shoot the figure walking towards him, the bullet would rebound and hit someone, probably one of his teammates. Steve wouldn’t take that risk, and the mysterious figure knows it. As they walk, combat boots echo on the floor with each footstep, the sound reflects around the room, sharp and dangerous. As they pass the soldiers, each one bows their head in a sign of respect.
They talk, their voice flows over Steve, calming him and soothing him. The voice is everything he loves, fresh baked cookies, the smell of fresh cut grass, the feeling of saving people. It’s beautiful, and he finds himself closing his eyes as the voice speaks. It sounds vaguely feminine, but Steve makes no assumptions of the person’s gender, learning long ago not to assume things about anyone, even the enemies. The language is foreign, so he doesn’t understand it. At a guess, he would say it was Danish, but he wasn’t sure. To him, it didn’t matter.
A different voice speaks now, and the sound jars Steve back to earth. It takes him a moment to figure out who speaks, but eventually he figures out that it’s Clint. Steve wonders how he understood that. It takes longer than Steve would like to admit for him to notice that Clint is not speaking English. Natasha is looking at him funny, he realizes that he is smiling still, and he quickly wipes the emotion off his face, Natasha narrows her eyes at him.
Clint speaks effortlessly, the words flowing off his tongue easily. Steve never knew Clint could speak Danish, but then again, he supposes that he doesn’t really know much about the archer, other than what he told Steve, which consists of his name, codename and birthday.
Whatever Clint says seems to work, and the woman, who Clint tells them is called Adalina, smiles at them, it’s an evil, angry smile that twists her features, and lets them go. Steve doesn’t know what Clint said to her, but he doesn’t doubt that they will meet her again. He doesn’t ask Clint about knowing Danish, Steve figures that it’s part of his job as an assassin.
Steve doesn’t even think about it until much later.
The next time it happens is in Tony’s and Bruce’s lab, Clint was in there, testing out some new arrows for Stark, one that exploded in mid air to send more arrows at their target, the arrows are a success, and Stark, happy with his work, wonders upstairs in search of food, leaving just Clint and Bruce in the lab. A thick silence stretches between them, but it’s not awkward, the scientist is lost in his work, and Clint is happily curled up on a chair, sipping his cup of coffee.
The silence is broken a few moments later, when Bruce curses under his breath and stands up, the glasses askew on his nose, and his brown curls on his head are unkept, there are dark circles under his eyes. It’s fairly obvious that he hasn’t slept in a while. Clint looks up, only to ask him what’s wrong, Bruce explains to him that after the last avengers mission (in Greece), some samples of the substances left behind by the creatures were sent to him for analysis, but the labels are in Greek, and Bruce doesn’t understand them.
Clint stands and stretches, placing his coffee cup on the table before walking over to join Bruce to look at the samples.
“Do you read Greek?” The scientist asks, voice laced with curiosity.
“I read everything” Clint replies with a smirk. Bruce smiles up at him, brushing the comment off as Clint-typical arrogance.
When, Clint tells him what the labels mean, Bruce masks his surprise and finds out that his predictions with what was in the test tubes was almost accurate. He wonders when Clint learnt Greek but doesn’t ask.
The next time it happens is in the avengers common room, they’re sat together watching a film, the Lion King to be precise (Thor’s Choice), when Tony notices Clint making weird hand gestures to Natasha, who stifles a laugh and signs something back. Tony watches them for a minute, before daring to ask,
“Clint, when the fuck did you learn all these languages, first in Moscow when you spoke Russian, then now when your fucking signing to Natasha?” he asks, everyone in the room turns to look at him. Clint just smiles before answering,
“Я знаю все языки Старк” Tony looks at him confused, Clint smirks at him, Natasha is the next to speak;
“Вы не единственный, кто является гением Железный человек»” Her mother tongue slides gracefully from her mouth, each word spoken beautifully. Stark realises she probably just insulted him, but he could listen to that all day.
“Clint, you spoke Danish on that mission in Copenhagen” Steve chimes in. Tony turns again to look at Clint, shock evident on his face.
“And you translated that Greek for me yesterday” Bruce inputs. Stark opens his mouth in shock, before looking at Clit again.
“Just how any languages can you speak then birdbrain?”
“Douze.” Tony knows enough French to understand that.
“Just how long have you been multilingual then?” He asks, mildly curious.
“Well I learnt French and Spanish when I was growing up, but the rest I learnt when I joined SHIELD. I also learnt sign language and morse code as I was growing up, to send secret messages to my friends, but it came in handy during later life. “ Clint replies, his voice stutters on the word friend, as if he’s hiding something, Tony resists the urge to ask.
Natasha nudges Clint in the side, before saying;
“Ich frage mich, ob auch jemand anders eine Fremdsprache kann”
Steve blushes for a second before answering her, in perfect German,
“Ich kann, ich musste es während des Krieges lerne”
Stark turns to look at Steve while shaking his head,
“Just how many of you know more than one language?” he asks, almost sarcastically.
The chorus of “I do”s that he gets are almost enough to make him leave the room, instead he stays, choosing to ignore the smirk on Clint’s face in favour of the film. He makes a mental note to tell Jarvis to download books to help him learn Russian, before taking a sip of his drink and leaning back into the seat, determined in his new self-set mission.
2. Raised In a Circus
The room is illuminated only by the flames spreading over the floor and climbing up the rafters to the ceiling. Smoke is thick in the air, making it difficult to breath. The walls are painted dark, and the ceiling is high, reachable only by a set of pipes the snake their way around the room. There is one beam in the ceiling, which stretches across the room, it is made out of metal, and is fairly sturdy. The room itself looks almost normal, apart from the fire and the four people strung upside down on it, suspended from their feet and bound with rope to keep them from escaping.
The first one is tall and male. Blonde hair is cut military style. He wears a red, white and blue costume, designed after the American flag. There is a cut on his face that stretches from his right eyebrow to the curve of his cheekbone. Blood drops down his face and soaks in his hair, matting it together. He doesn’t move.
The second is encased mostly in a red and gold suit of armour. The faceplate has been removed so that his face is visible. There is no obvious injury on him, but he still doesn’t move.
The third is female; the curves of her body are clearly visible in the light from the fire. Bright red curls hang limply from her head. Her suit is torn over her stomach, the area is stained darker with blood. She doesn’t move.
The fourth is male. He is dressed in a black and purple suit that hides his weapons effectively. His arms dangle over his head, closer to the flames then he would like. There is obvious bruising around his cheekbone. He is the only one awake.
Hawkeye shouts, trying to wake his teammates, his worry and concern obvious. After getting no response, he decides that freeing himself is the best way to help them.
He twists his body, arching and dishing his back to swing and create momentum. Before he gains enough height, a snapping noise sounds, and for a heart-stopping second, he thinks the rope has snapped, and that he will fall and crash into the flames below. But as he swings back, he realizes otherwise, and his heart beat slows.
Eventually, he gains enough momentum to push upwards and twist himself, so that he lands draped over the beam. It’s a trick he learnt in the circus, applied to his situation. It's not ideal, but it worked and that’s all he needed. The landing is painful, and as he hits the beam, he thinks he heard one or two of his ribs crack. His laboured breathing and the fire in his chest confirm that.
He pulls himself up, pushing his hands underneath him, so that he can reach the small knife hidden over his chest, he pulls if out and flips it around, gripping it in his mouth so he can use it to cut the rope tying his hands.
As the knife cuts the last strand, the rope unravels from around his wrists and falls to the floor, lost in the flames. He grabs the knife in his hands to cut the rope around his feet, movements hurried as he watches the flames growing, devouring the building piece by piece.
Finally, the rope falls to the floor, and he stands on the beam, years of acrobatic training ensuring each step he takes is precise, he won’t fall unless the beam falls, and that thought calms him slightly. He reaches the end of the beam, the tip of his hair scrapes the pipes above him. He realizes that there is nowhere to go and curses. This was a very well thought out plan, well done Barton, he thinks dryly. Then he glances up and notices the pipes overhead, one labelled gas, the other labelled water. He thinks about what would happen if the flames spread that far, then expels the though from his mind, choosing to not think too long about what could go wrong.
Clint coughs violently, his body desperately trying to expel the inhaled smoke, his foot nearly slides of the beam. It takes him a few moments to stop coughing.
Then, in an adrenaline fuelled move, he drags down the pipe saying water, and it explodes all over him, drenching him from head to toe in what feels like the coolest, freshest water he has ever felt and tasted. He drinks a mouthful, and then cringes away from the chemical taste. Ok maybe not clean, but it will work for the job he wants it to.
He twists the pipe, dousing the flames and watching as they sputter and then die completely, leaving behind a destroyed room full of smoke. As an afterthought, he soaks the rest of his team too in an attempt to help them regain consciousness.
With the immediate threat dealt with, Clint tries to remember what happened previously. He tries to see past the fog in his mind, but fails, seeing only glimpses of the team fighting against unknown villains, and the nameless face of a man, taunting him from afar. With a sign, he comes to the conclusion that they were drugged. So why isn’t anyone else awake?
He’s stood up, gun pointing in the direction of the sound before he even figures out what it is. It sounds almost mechanical, until it sounds again, and he detects it as belonging to Stark.
“w’y ‘r’ you ups’de d’n,” Stark mutters, “ ’nd w’y ‘r’ you pointin’ y’ur gun a’ me?” The words are slurred, and Clint toys with the idea of a concussion while he lowers his gun and places it back in the holster on his thigh. His ideas are scrapped when Stark speaks again,
“Are you going to let me down birdman or not? Cause I can wait here all day if I want to” Stark says, and Clint can almost hear the arrogance seeping though. Stark seems to think for a second, before jerking his arms up and tearing them apart, the added force from the suit enough to tear the rope. Clint cuts the rope between his feet, and Stark crashes to ground.
“The fuck was that for?” Stark asks bitchily, Clint shrugs and looks apologetic before muttering sorry, neither of them believe it.
Stark seems to notice how high up Clint is and does a double take,
“How the fuck did you get up there?” he asks, Clint once again shrugs, this time smirking, and walks over to the ropes holding Steve up, he pulls out his gun and shoots through the rope and it drops off his wrists. He cuts the rope holding his feet to the beam and Steve drops like a dead weight, straight into the arms of Iron man. He carries Cap bridal style, and glares at Clint, daring him to say anything. Clint doesn’t, but the evil glint in his eye tells Tony that he has something planned.
By this time, Black Widow is starting to come to, her head moving slightly. Hawkeye and Iron Man and quick to get her down and Tony lays her on a slightly less burnt piece of wood.
Steve stands woozily, his head spinning with the effort of moving. He walks slowly towards Natasha, there’s a small pools of blood beneath her already.
Clint moves forward to stand by her side, he inspects the wound, and breathes a sigh of relieve as he realizes that it’s just a cut that stretches across her stomach. The wound is long and wide, but the bleeding is beginning to slow down, and she’s had a lot worse, Clint knows this more than anyone.
As she wakes, she turns her head to one side, her eyes wide and looking for an attacker, she reaches over to punch him, not paying attention to who he is. Clint was expecting this, and grabs her hand, using the momentum to throw her off balance, and pusher hands down, so she can’t move, he bends down to her ear and whispers to her, soothing words, until she mutters his name and he stands, moving to look her in the face. Her eyebrows are furrowed in confusion, as she wonders where she in, he can practically see her mind working, trying to figure out what happens. So he fills her in. It takes a few moments, and when he stops, he becomes painfully aware of the others standing around him, watching silently.
He stands and helps her up. Steve leans against Tony. Together they leave the building behind.
It’s a lot later when Tony confronts Clint, they’re in the helicarrier on the way back to Stark tower, when tony leans over and asks him,
“So what was with you and all the acrobatics today hawk?” Clint looks at him for a second before laughing.
“I was in a circus y’know.” He says, thinking that for a genius, Tony sure could be stupid sometimes.
“You were? “ He asks, “ I never knew.”
“It’s in my file, the one Fury gave you all a copy to read”
“ You know I never do the homework he sets us, how was I supposed to know that!” Stark mutters, somewhat annoyed he didn’t know, even though it was all his own fault. Clint just smirks at him in response.
“So hawk, what was it like being in the circus?” he asks, partly out of curiousity, partly to wind Clint up.
Clint leans back in his seat before checking the time. Great 3 hours left of this. It was going to be a long journey.
3. Good With Animals
It starts early one morning, when Stark walks into the kitchen looking disheveled and very surprised. He probably hasn’t slept for around three days. Clint concludes that whatever Tony is about to say will be very, very bad.
“We have a cat problem.” He mutters, his voice thick with tiredness. Clint was right, this is extremely bad.
Its Steve who speaks first,
“We don’t have a cat?” he says, before turning around to glare at Clint, “Or did someone accidentally acquire a pet and forget to tell everyone else about it.”
“Hey,” Clint yells, “That was one time, and it was only a goldfish!”
Natasha shakes her head at him, before asking where the cat is. Stark directs her to it, and she perches down next to the shelves where the cat is hidden. She can see a small patch of black fur through a gap, so she reaches her hand up and strokes the cat. The cat turns his head and bites her, and she pulls her hand away, more on reflex than pain. Clint moves forward and asks if he can try, much to the objections of the others,
“Clint you are barely careful for yourself, never mind for a cat.” That’s Steve
Tony just laughs at him. Natasha laughs, though for a completely different reason.
“Just trust me on this ok,” he says, before looking up at the cat. Upon further inspection, he sees the small build of the animals, and realises that it’s only a baby, barely six months old. He makes a clicking noise with his tongue, so the kitten turns to look at him. It’s a pretty little thing, silky back fur and bright blue eyes.
He whispers softly to the kitten and holds his hand out, the cats sniffs it, but doesn’t react. So he decides to test the waters, and gently strokes the top of the kittens head, the fur is soft underneath his fingers. The kitten stiffens but doesn’t move, he decides that’s a good thing, and moves his other hand up there, ready to pick the animal up.
He puts one hand underneath the kittens stomach and the other underneath its tail, and clutches it to his chest, muttering random words into its ear in an attempt to calm it down.
Stark looks at what happened and laughs, the kitten flinches in his grasp, and he shushes Stark, who looks quite irritated at being shushed.
He gently carries it into the common room, before sitting down on the couch, the kitten moves from his grasp and settles on his lap, curling up into a little ball. He runs his fingers over the cats fur a few times before speaking,
“So who’s cat is this?” he looks up at the rest of the team and the identical shocked faces they all wear,
“How long have you been Doctor Doolittle” Stark comments, Steve mutters something about understanding that reference and Natasha smirks.
“I was in the circus, remember?” Clint explains, his patience dwindling, “I had more than my fair share of animal training.”
The kitten stirs on his lap, stretching out over him. The movement reminds him of his first question.
“Stark, how did the kitten get in the tower?”
“I don’t know” Tony answers, no one believes him. “Ok fine, I found it yesterday curled up in a cardboard box outside the pizza place.”
Clint nods in understanding, aware that he would have made the same choice.
“So can we keep it?” Steve asks, and if Clint didn’t know better, he would say that was excitement in Steve’s voice.
“Her.” Natasha adds, after seeing everyone’s confused faces, she expands, “The kitten, she’s female.”
“How do you know that?” Steve asks, and Natasha explains.
“What do we call her?” Tony asks. Clint shrugs.
“Let Natasha name her.” He says, Natasha hears it and looks up at him and smiles.
“Tiszta. “ She says, Clint smiles as he understands the meaning.
“It means pure in Hungarian.” Clint adds. After the sounds of agreement fade, he speaks again,
“So its decided then, Tiszta is the name, but who’s going to look after her?”
Everyone turns to look at him, and he resists the urge to groan.
“Why me?” He says, feigning hurt.
“’cause you’re the cat whisperer bird boy” Stark replies. Clint resists the urge to punch him.
4. Has a Tattoo
Hawkeye runs along the balcony, before leaping onto the grass ten metres below, the landing hurts, the roll putting extra pressure on his already broken ribs, but he pushes the pain aside and carries on running. Each breath rattles in his chest, his throat burns and his lungs ache as he struggles to supply his muscles with the oxygen he needs to continue running. The turns the corner of the garden and disappears down a small ally as the building behind him explodes, he can feel the heat from where he is stood catching his breath. Coulson asks him if he is okay though the comms and without even thinking about it he answers yes, before taking off running again, leaving the burning building behind.
He runs around 200 metres, before reaching the rest of the fighting. Around a kilometre of land has been cleared of any civilians, to avoid innocent deaths due to the giant slime monsters attacking the small Yorkshire countryside town. The monsters are tall, around 9 ft, and made of a clear jelly like substance. According to Coulson, they move and behave like people, only lacking the emotions and intelligence levels.
In any other circumstances, the town would have been beautiful, old houses stood in a large circle around a small garden of flowers in the center, newer and clearly more expensive houses stretch around the outside of the town. Quaint shops are visible throughout the town, they appear to give the town a sense of life, almost like a personality. The town is nestled into a valley, hills stretch up either side and seem to cast dark shadows over the town. As it is, smoke stretches up into the air, blocking out any sunlight that reaches the ground, the hills surrounding the town seem suffocating, like they are here to trap the residents of the town. The air is filled with the crackling of flames as the buildings, both old and new, slowly burn.
Curse those slime monsters for destroying something so beautiful. Actually no, it’s them doing most of the damage as the only way to kill the monsters is by setting them on fire.
Curse them too, he adds as an afterthought. Whose great idea was it to create these anyway.
Natasha is the first one he sees, brandishing a long plank of wood with flames spreading up one end, she throws it into the chest of the nearest monster and it goes up in flames. Clint picks up his own wood and lights the end using Natasha’s. He ducks to avoid the attack from the nearest monster, narrowly avoiding slime dripping on his head, before stabbing the flames into its side, the fire spreads over its body and then it’s gone, eaten by the flames.
“Be careful,” Natasha tells him, “we don’t know what kind of effect this stuff could have on us.” She pokes at a small pile of it lying on the road while she speaks. He nods his acknowledgement and them continues to fight.
Natasha leaves, running across the courtyard to continue fighting, leaving Clint to take down the other two behind her. That was the first mistake.
The fight goes alright at first, Clint takes the first one down easily while ducking under the attack from the other one. Then it starts to go wrong. The second one seems to be smarter than the rest, it watches his movements and learns his strengths and weaknesses. Clint should be worried, but he isn’t. That was the second mistake.
The creature attacks, he doesn’t move fast enough to avoid it, and the slime engulfs him.
His lungs fill with the stuff as he frantically gaps for breath, he tries to move but it’s like being trapped in honey. He tries to scream as the slime begins to burn his skin. The pain spreads over him, white hot and angry, consuming every part of him. He tries to block it out, his last part of conscious thought warning him that if he succumbs to the pain then he might not wake up. He tries again to move, using the last of his energy, before the pain becomes too much and he descends into the blackness.
Natasha watches him get engulfed in the slime, too far away to prevent it. She curses to herself, wondering how they are going to rescue him from this. She’s halfway to him when he starts screaming, she picks us her pace then, her insides twisting with worry at the pain in his voice.
Then, as quickly as it happened, the screaming stops, he makes one futile movement, before hanging lifelessly. His body is suspended in the slime, so that he could almost just be stood up, if his head wasn’t flopping over his chest and his feet dangling around a ft from the floor. The air seems deathly quiet without his screaming, she wonders which is worst.
Natasha almost begins to panic as she struggles to think of a way to rescue Clint without hurting him even more. As the monster turns to face her, it hits out at her with slime, spraying the ground she was stoop on only moments before. She defies gravity avoiding the attacks, her body twisting in the most agile ways, like a deadly dance. The monster hits out, attacking her blind spot, and she acts without though, she jams the flaming stick into the monsters chest, just to the side of Clint.
It goes up in flames, bright beautiful flames full of anger and power. She stands close enough to the burning creature to be almost able to touch the flames, the heat sears her face and singes the strands of her hair that float towards the fire. Her heart pounds in her chest as she realises what just happened. The creature burns for a while, longer than the others, and she watches with a sick fascination, well aware the fighting is done around her, and the other avengers (minus Hulk and Thor) have returned from their stations and are gathered around her and the burning monster.
Stark asks her where Clint is, and she finds that she cannot open her mouth to tell him, instead she lifts one hand and shakily points towards the fire. His shocked silence is enough of an answer for her.
Eventually, the creature stops burning, and she finds herself rushing forward, past the smell of burnt flesh and rubber. Clint lies there on his side, as Natasha sits near him, she checks for a pulse just like they were trained to as she notices the slight pink tinge to his skin, but otherwise he seems relatively unharmed. She runs a hand through his hair, its sticky with the slime. Disgusted, she wipes her hand on her pants and stands up. She nods that he’s fine to the others before turning away.
She walks less than a metre before the coughing starts. Loud, violent jerks mixed in with the occasional retch as he works to desperately clear the slime from his throat and lungs. A few minutes pass, with Natasha returning to awkwardly rub his back in an attempt to calm him, until the coughing slows and Clint is finally able to breathe.
He collapses back until he is laid against Natasha, Stark looks away awkwardly while mumbling something about how they should be a couple. Natasha seems to notice his strained breathing and asks him what is wrong. He doesn’t answer, but she seems to know anyway, as she pushes him off her and asks him to remove his suit. His protests are short lived and his suit is halfway unzipped before he can even react. He silently curses her fast moves.
The loss of the material reveals an intricate pattern of bruising stretching over his left side, the network of blacks and blues looks painful to touch and Natasha winces with sympathy at how it’s going to hurt for the next few days while it heals.
Stark gasps behind her, she first presumes he means the bruising, and then she turns around and sees Stark pointing to Clint’s front, on the left hand side just above his hipbones, where a small mark rests.
Natasha already knows what it is, having seen Clint half naked enough times to be able to map out the scars littering his chest and back.
It is five letters written in colourful ink, each punctuated with a small dot; C.C.o.T.W. The font is curvy, happy, it speaks of fun and adventure and happier times. It reminds Tony of trips to zoos and amusement parks and everything else he didn’t experience as a child. Clint looks down when he sees Tony pointing at the small tattoo, and smiles, only faintly, enough so that it was not obvious to an outside observer.
“How long have you had a tattoo birdbrain, and what on earth does it mean” Stark asks, sounding rude, but Clint can detect the plain curiosity hidden in his words. Clint freezes at the question. His emotions mixed between wanting to tell the story but also wanting to keep this last bit of information to himself. He glances over to Natasha, she nods at him subtly. He sighs before answering.
“You know I was in the circus right? This is from those days. It was compulsory; they forced me and Barney into getting it when we started performing. Everyone had one.” Tony pauses for a second, thinking about this newly discovered information.
“But what does it mean? What do the letters stand for?”
“Carson’s Carnival of Travelling Wonders” Clint answers. His voice fades at the end of his words, reveling in the memories, not all od them good. Tony doesn’t answer, or if he does, Clint doesn’t hear, all he can focus on is the memories buzzing around his brain. He blinks once, twice, three times, and the memories fade away, dissipating from his head. When he looks up, he notices the others are looking at him in concern, apart from Natasha and Tony, Natasha already know his story, she just looks sad and Tony is lost in thought, digesting the new information and trying to work out what to do with it.
He stands, gasping in pain as his ribs grind against each other. His breath comes in small pants that cause his ribs the minimum amount of pain. Natasha sees his efforts to stand and walks over to his side, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to lessen the strain on his ribs. They turn and walk towards the quinjet, Coulson’s voice in their ears ordering them to go to medical.
5. Has reading glasses
It’s his big secret. It's not even big. It's more of a big-secret-that-isn't-actually-big-its-just-the-only-secret-he-really-has. But that's a bit of a mouthful. Everyone has one, some are bigger than others but still. Secrets are a thing that exists, and some of them are never meant to be found out. This was one of them.
Nobody knew, apart from Tasha - but she knows everything about everybody so it doesn’t really matter, that was the way Clint wanted it to stay, but as to be expected of living in a tower with multiple other people, they were bound to find out eventually.
It didn’t happen the way he expected for them to find out, to be honest, he figured they would never really find out. But he was careless, and now they know (and he’s never going to hear the end of it from Tony).
It started when everyone else went out, he claimed he was tired and was going to bed, but actually he just couldn’t be bothered with the socializing. As soon as they had left, he went to his floor and grabbed his glasses and a book he had borrowed from Natasha before making his way back down to the common room floor where he laid on the couch, facing the huge window overlooking the city. He loves it here, especially when it is dark and he can just see the lights from different buildings scattered across the landscape. The rain banging against the window created a cosy atmosphere throughout the room. He settled down to read, the glasses perched on his head.
He is unsure of how much time passes, but he has read over half of the book when he starts to feel tired, his eyes droop as he fights to stay awake, until his head relaxes back to rest on the couch arm. His eyes shut and he is asleep, glasses now resting askew on his face.
He sleeps until he is woken by the sound of the elevator as it carries the others up to this floor, when he jolts awake and blinks until the cloudiness clears from his brain. As the elevator dings signalling their arrival on the floor, he jumps up and reaches to remove the glasses from his head. When he looks out of the window he can see that the sun is beginning to rise.
They enter the room just as Clint manages to hide the hand containing his glasses behind his back. Natasha notices, and glances at him questioningly, her tipsy mind unable to piece together the scene. Tony sees and outright asks what is in his hand. His tone is slurred and Clint doubts that he will remember this in the morning. He mutters a reply of nothing and turns to leave the room. That’s when he makes the fatal mistake. As he turns, his hand still remains behind his back, revealing its content to the room. Stark, however drunk he is, still has a sharp eye and instantly spots the small object and identifies it.
“You have glasses?” He asks. The question is meant in innocence, but the avengers turn and stare anyway. Clint squirms uncomfortably under their gazes.
“Yeah, uh”, he swallows. “They’re for reading.”
Stark blinks at him. “Are you telling me that, the superhero known mainly for having excellent sight, needs reading glasses?”
The words are still slurred slightly, but Stark seems more sober now. Clint stares at the floor. A feeling similar to shame spreads through him.
“Yeah, I’ve needed them since I was younger.”
Iron Man squints at the glasses, “I’ve got one problem here Hawkbrain, those glasses look old. They should be falling apart.” Clint looks down at the lens held in place with tape and sighs, Tony is right. The glasses are falling apart.
“In the morning, when the room stops spinning, I’ll try and fix you up some new ones.” Tony says, before walking to the kitchen and pouring himself a drink. Clint looks around at the other avengers. Natasha is watching him curiously, as if gauging his reaction. Bruce is standing to the side, considerably more sober than his science buddy and watching Clint, who looks away quickly. Steve looks confused. Clint can feel him about to ask a question such as “Why didn’t you tell us?” or “You know you can trust us right?”. Clint doesn’t feel up to answering, doesn’t want to answer, so he turns and walks out of the room. Shouting over his shoulder that he’ll answer questions in the morning.
He supposes, there are worst ways to tell people secrets.
Besides, he’s potentially getting some cool new glasses out of it so it’s not all bad.
He smiles contentedly as he collapses into bed and sleeps.