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Friends Check for Bullet Wounds

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans (bum, bum bum, bum, bum bum)
Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans (bum, bum bum, bum, bum bum)
Well, roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man (bum, bum bum, bum, bum bum)
I said Shake, rattle and roll
I said Shake, rattle and roll….

Pepper laughed in delight, throwing her head back as she swayed her hips left, then right, then left and spun in place, leading the good Captain on his first dance lesson over the white drop cloths in the living room of Clint's apartment. Steve did his best to keep up, despite the guffaw from a paint-covered Thor reclining on the floor. Apparently the thunderer had seen better dancing by a pair of fish he once hooked on a line. In the kitchen, Bruce thumped out the beat along with Clint's new record player. The couch had been pushed back to give them room to work and Tony took a break from laying the new hardwood kitchen flooring to watch. He sipped from the neck of his beer bottle and critiqued Steve's technique. Sitting beside him with his own non-alcoholic version was Clint.

"Cap, I swear, if you don't start leading her I'm going to laugh at you and silently judge you for all time. I will consider you less of a man," Tony said.

"Hey, I'm trying my best! Gimme a break, it's my first time," Steve said. He was all left feet and zero rhythm. A hilarious combination for Captain America. He tended to have a natural groove that came from being the America's first super soldier. Watching him try to dance was like seeing a noodle, balloon man in front of a car dealership.

"Come on, this is painful even for me," Natasha complained. She sent a glance Thor's way. "Get in there Mr. Son-of-Asgard and show the Cap how to cut a rug."

Thor sprung to his feet at the opportunity offered. "Well, I do not believe you actually imply for me to bisect our good friend's carpeting, but Asgardian dancing is something with which I am keenly familiar."

Tony sat up and turned so he could have a better view of the show to come. "Hey, Cap, try to put something on that isn't from the pre-1985s. Clint's taste in good music might as well be yours."

Clint punched him in the shoulder. "Hey, I don't complain about Ozzy going full blast one floor down."

"You love my music and just don't care to admit it."

"I really feel, from the depths of my heart, that you are insane."

Thor and Pepper ignored their conversation and began to cut it up Asgardian style. Steve found a copy of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" and the music started all over again. Apparently, they discovered Asgardian's did a great deal of hand clapping, leg-slapping, and carrying of women in their dances which became a fantastic show for his friends. Pepper lasted a few minutes into the first song and collapsed onto the drop cloth laughing hysterically. Thor extended his hand to Natasha who politely declined.

"You complain about Ozzy Osborne and you have Whitney Houston?" Tony asked, smiling over his shoulder at Clint.

"I found her in your Glass Castle," Clint replied.

Bruce, on his second beer and feeling no effects from it, scooted into the living room and fell into the Asgardian groove right beside Thor. The others watched the two of them thump right around the front room together in a moment of utter joviality. While it wasn't the electric slide, or even the Cotton Eyed Joe, it was still two people in a line performing impossible looking feats.

This is different, Clint considered to himself. The last time he'd been invited to a team function, and actually attended, it was Maria Hill's SHIELD Christmas party three years ago. Someone had the bright idea of challenging him to target shooting the Christmas balls off a tree. He'd been banned from such events for the foreseeable future. He'd led teams. Sometimes been part of them but for the most part SHIELD understood that Clint worked the best when he worked alone. Too many minds tended to cloud his judgement and as a certifiable pain-in-the-butt no C/Os wanted to work with him. Fury was always playing clean up to his arguments with higher ups. Often times, the SHIELD director was at the head of those self same verbal lashings. Hawkeye, regardless of his faults, got results. Left to his own devices, managed with a structural, soldier's way, he was a lethal weapon in SHIELD's arsenal. Friend, confidant, Family Night man he was not.

The Avengers offered to help him fix up the place if he wanted. Laying hardwood, painted walls, fixing tile, assembling a bed, and re-doing plumbing might take him another six months or a year to complete on his own, especially given his constantly shifting mission schedule. Natasha pointed out the logic of letting people in and Clint conceded. After all, he'd been stabbed in the chest last week. What's the worst that could happen?

Tony's hand bumped the back of Clint's, drawing him out of his introspection. He whispered, "You good? If we're taking up too much of your space, we can pack it in for the night."

Clint didn't realize he'd been thinking for so long. Another song had started and Bruce taught Thor the chicken dance. "No, it's fine. This is fine. I'm actually enjoying this a bit. A lot, I meant a lot. I just don't normally do this kinda thing."

Tony nodded at that. He didn't exactly do this all the time either. In fact, it didn't start until the Avengers moved in. He had plenty of parties in the past, but this wasn't like the others. He was surrounding by people he actually knew, enjoyed himself, and all it took was four boxes of pizza, a few cases of beer, and Clint's apartment makeover. "I don't do this thing either."

"It's nice. You were right too. That wall does look better white. Makes the place bigger feeling."

Tony looked at the wall on the right of the windows. While the rest remained the dark eggplant, this one Thor had worked to repaint a softer white. "Every room needs a good anchor. The windows are good for that too, but the whole place feels like a cave if it's all one color. I never thought that yellow would go with purple, but it actually does." He indicated the back plash for the kitchen they spent the afternoon letting Bruce install. There was a fine stone tile, smooth as river rocks, with a summer yellow painted directly above it. The cabinets were deconstructed, re-installed, and turned from wood to a country white. They kept the appliances, even adding a few others, like a blender. Clint decided he couldn't live without one.

"I never thought I'd like yellow."

Tony leaned up, grabbed his plate of pizza off the counter and settled back down. He handed one of his slices to Clint. They ate in silence while Bruce taught Steve and Thor how to do Thriller. Clint tried to laugh at Thor's utter confusion, but swiftly stopped. He held his hand against his side and winced. Tony set his food down and touched the archer's shoulder.

"Doing too much, I think," Clint whispered to him.

"Ok, well your time card's punched. We'll install the next of the back splash later. I think you just earned a time out." Tony replied, equally low. He could see Clint considering to fight him on it. Barton had gotten in trouble once already for going overboard and spent his Monday sleeping off some torn stitches. He sighed and conceded instead.

Tony chewed his dinner and enjoyed the view from the living room. Something still ate at him, though. A conversation that went unsaid between them "I know why you went alone, and why there are some missions you're always going to do alone. I have those too. Just remember you do have a team here, Clint. We're friends. If you ever come back again and you're not sure about something, like whether or not there's a ten inch steak knife hanging out of your chest, then just come ask me."

"Friends check friends for bullet wounds, is that it?" Clint asked with a grin.

"And knife wounds, and repulsor blasts, or crush injuries, or accidental impalements. You know, why limit this wonderful thing we may develop?"

"All right, fine," Clint said, genuinely appreciative for his concern. He took his hand away from the bandage over his side. "Let's finish the floor, I'll let Thor paint the rest of the accent wall, and we'll call it a night."

Tony nodded. "Good plan. Rest up, though, because I'm sure Pepper's going to make you go out there and do the electric slide or something."

Clint snickered. "Nah, that's all right. I'll play the music, not groove to it."

Tony arched an eyebrow. This was another discovery. "What do you play?"

"Piano, guitar. Did drums for a while 'cause I never miss a beat." As the words left his mouth, Clint pointed his fingers in a did-you-get-the-joke gesture.

"Oh… Oh, that's bad. That was just terrible!" Tony laughed, nearly inspiring the same in Barton if he didn't respect his pain levels more than his sense of humor.

Natasha draped herself on the arm of Clint's couch, her drink hanging toward the floor as she stared at the pair. "Look at you two getting to know each other. Barton, I'm shocked. You haven't bitten anyone."

"Tony's not my flavor" Clint replied, the endless wit rearing its ugly head.

"He doesn't like Italian," Tony explained.

"My mother was Italian," Clint corrected.

"Actually we were talking about Clint's prowess with piano keys and his lack of groove on the dance floor," Tony reclaimed his slice of pizza and chewed threw half of it.

"Clint can dance. He's better at playing though," Natasha said, not realizing that the music had come to a close and everyone else happened to hear her compliment. She didn't hand them out often.

In a hoard of overwhelming curiosity, they approached to inquire about the conversation. Tony caught them up, and their evening of rehabilitating Clint's room dropped into cajoling the archer into playing them a tune. Bruce was the first to point out the old, six-string guitar that appeared in Clint's bedroom since the last time they'd been by. After a few more swigs from his, regrettably, non-alcoholic drink, Clint finally conceded to play them something. They mst be making him soft. There wasn't much the planet itself could do to force him into something he initially refused. Not Pepper's puppy-dog eyes, Tony's flat out orders, Steve's gentle prodding, Bruce's assurance, Thor's clapping, or even Natasha's knowing, private look. But something that formed from those people as a group did get him onto his feet, into the next room, where he emerged with the guitar. Fury would never let him hear the end of this if he found out.

He might not have been used to the strange sort of family Tony tried to draw him into, or the invasions of his privacy. He might detest allowing others in and certainly breaking out of the SHIELD mindset was a difficult transition for any agent. But with the old six-string on the floor and his fingers dancing along the cords, Clint felt a strange sense of something he hadn't experienced for a long time. It was entirely possible he might start referring to this place as "home".

Natasha stuck up for him when it counted most, and despite Steve's attempts to stop her. Agent Daniel's hadn't been heard from in nearly a week. He left a typed note about visiting the brother he didn't have in San Juan. Coincidentally, he never arrived. Twelve other field agents met similar "reassigned" fates at the hand of the Black Widow. Fury turned his blind eye to it. After all, he liked Barton too. And the case was a royal... well, you get the idea.

It was in that moment when Barton transitioned from distant loner to potentially all-in Avenger, that Barton's wall of windows exploded inward with an otherworldly force. There were screams as men and women dove out of the way and buried their faces from potential shards. But when the dust settled, Natasha knew that there was someone on Clint's most wanted list she'd missed. The form of a massive man flew into the room and stood towering over the team. In his paw-like hands he held four knives a piece and they were more than prepared to begin slicing into his prey. This was one dandy of a surprise they had never expected!

"THOR ODINSON!" Balfore the Surmounter shouted in his Asgardian way. "I CHALLENGE YOUR RIGHT TO ASGARD'S THRONE!"

Clint smiled a little. So maybe he was getting his re-match after all. There was no rest for the wicked and, recovering injury or not, he was planning to be plenty bad tonight.

Sorry for the long time before updating. Finals week has come and gone, and you are now reading the words of a 4th year student! HOOT! Thank all of you for the overwhelming support. I hope you move on to my other works and enjoy those just as much as this. I do have other ideas in the mix incorporating the new AOU work, so expect those at some point also!

-Again, Thank you all.

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