An Accidental Hero

Part III

His old man is yelling again. He's louder than he usually is, and Clint can hear each angry word, even from where he's hidden perched on the top shelf of the mud room's coat closet. He stuffs his fingers into his ears because he doesn't want to; they scare him, and he doesn't want to start crying because Barney told him that only babies cry and he's not a baby anymore.

Clint doesn't move, not when a bottle shatters, not when his mom screams, not when Barney shouts, "Leave her alone!" It's only after there's the distinctive thump of a hand hitting flesh and Barney lets out a sharp cry that he inches down to the ground and cracks open the door.

It creaks. Clint's breath catches in his throat, and he's suddenly face to face with his old man.

"What do you want?"

His old man grabs him roughly by the arm and drags him the rest of the way out of the coat closet. Then, he slams him against the wall and roars directly in his face, "You will answer me when I ask you a question, boy!"

Clint doesn't know what to say. He's frozen, and he watches helplessly as his old man raises a hand and strikes him across the cheek. It stings, but he bites his lip to keep from making a sound. "Are you deaf, boy? I asked you a question."

Before Clint can tell him to stop hurting Mom and Barney, his old man disappears in a flash of blue light. In his place stands the god, in his full battle armor no less. Clint doesn't even have the chance to scream for help; the god places the scepter to his chest, and Clint kneels. "Yes, little hawk, you have always kneeled. And you always will."

Clint blinks awake. Groaning as a spasm of pain seizes him, he reaches for his knife, but it's gone, and his hand is slick with blood. And that's when it all comes rushing back to him.

It hadn't taken long for everything to go to hell and back again. With the benefit of hindsight, he knows that he jumped the gun, but he wanted to get it over with while his target's son was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it was because he rushed, maybe it was because he hasn't managed to sleep through the night since Manhattan, maybe it was because he really isn't at his best with a gun—Clint doesn't know, not that it matters now—but he missed. He finished the job, yes, but his mistake gave his target just enough time to alert his cronies that there was a sniper nearby.

Clint took bullets to the side and shoulder before he saw them coming. After fighting them off, he fled to the sewers to ensure that he didn't put any innocent civilians at risk by starting a battle royal in the middle of the busy city streets. Once he eliminated his tail by throwing his knife through his throat, he pried open a manhole cover in a back alley and attempted to climb down the ladder. But he slipped and plunged the rest of the way to the ground, snapping his left leg.

Managing to shift so he's leaning against the wall, Clint digs into his pocket and produces the picture. As he looks at Laura, Cooper and Lila's faces, and comes to the realization that he'll never see them again, a single tear manages to leak out of his right eye and run the length of his face. Another quickly follows it. And then, for the first time since he was rescued by Coulson and brought to S.H.I.E.L.D., Clint allows himself to cry. "I-I'm…sorry," he whispers even though he knows that they can't hear him. "I-I…I love…you. I'm so…"

An ugly, wet cough cuts Clint off, and his head sags against his chest. Before he passed out, he had managed to bind his wounds, but a glance at the bandages tells him that he's still bleeding out. He doubts that he'll be found in time; actually, he knows that S.H.I.E.L.D. won't look for him. They'll declare him MIA and, after a month or two at the most pass, they'll change his status to KIA. He vaguely wishes that he had brought his burner phone with him, but he had dumped it in a trashcan on the way to his way to his perch, and he doubts that they would drop everything to come to his rescue. If he were them, he wouldn't. He missed, and that was all he was good for anyway after what happened.

Seconds before the world mercifully fades away again, Clint sees a flash of red in the corner of his vision and feels a small, familiar hand clasp his.

Clint doesn't know how much time passes. His reality melds seamlessly with his nightmares, and he never knows where he is or who he's with. More often than not, his world is tinted a sickening blue. Sometimes, in his least lucid moments, he is certain that he really did die and that he's been damned to hell. His ledger had been dripping red before the god turned him against the people he cared about, who he would die for in a heartbeat, and he knows that, even if he lived to be 105, he never would wipe his ledger clean, just as he couldn't erase the words stained on the wall of his room.

He screams when the rough hands prod him, his mind lost in another place, in another time. His eyes burn against the fluorescent lights that should be familiar but aren't because of the blue haze enveloping them. He hears somebody calling his name, begging him to stop, but he thinks that it's a trap so he screams louder.

Eventually, the world sways, and he is back in the bunker, and the god laughs at him and asks, "Tell me did, foolish mortal, did you honestly believe that you could resist me? That I would not notice your silent rebellion? They call you Hawkeye for a reason, do they not? So, tell me, how you did you manage to fail to eliminate the agents, as I ordered you?"

He shifts nervously under his master's knowing gaze but does not answer. He bites down on his lip to clear his mind. Then, he lowers his head respectively and replies, "I'm not at my best with a gun, sir."

"Truly, is that it?" his master sneers, and the world flips upside down, and he crumples to his knees as a white-hot pain blossoms in his temple and…

"Clint? Clint can you hear me?"

Clint forces open his eyes. The world's still blurry, but at least it's not coated in blue anymore. Blinking against the harsh light, he goes to grab the knife that he keeps in his boot—it's a trap, he knows it, he's been captured and they've done something to mess with his mind—but he can't. Before he can thrash against his restraints, a gentle hand reaches down and cards a hand through his hair. "Clint, it's me, Natasha. It's okay. Look at me. You're okay. We have you."

"'Tasha?" he mumbles, and he's surprised by how thick his voice is. "'Tasha, where am I?"

"You're back at base," Natasha replies, still running her hand through his hair. He leans into her touch, allowing himself to take a breath and begin to accept that he is safe, somehow. "You've been in and out for four days—had a pretty nasty infection, but your fever broke late last night."

Clint blinks a few times, mainly because, as he does, the world increasingly comes into focus, and he notices that his wrists are shackled to the bedrails with padded handcuffs. He groans, fairly humiliated, but he doesn't blame them. "Take off the cuffs?"

Natasha's lips slowly twist into a familiar smirk. "Only if you promise to behave."

"Really?" Clint groans again. "You go down that road?"

"Now you sound like you," Natasha chirps. "I would if I had the keys, which I don't because Fury thought you'd badger me into sneaking you out of the sick bay as soon as you woke up."

Clint glares at her, but she only laughs. "Sorry, Hawkass, but it looks like you're grounded for now."

Clint catches himself laughing with her, and, for a moment, everything is the way that it was before. As soon as he realizes what's happening—that Natasha got him to forget, even if only for a split second—the weight of his guilt comes crashing down on him again. And that's when he realizes that none of this makes sense, and he demands, "You were following me, weren't you?"

Natasha hesitates, clearly taken aback by his abrupt change in moods. When she replies, her words are careful, her tone neutral. "Yes, you could say that. Fury assigned me to be your backup in case anything went wrong."

Clint lets out a harsh, bitter laugh. "You guys didn't even trust me to finish a simple mission?"

"That's not why I was following you, Clint." Natasha looks him dead in the eyes, as if willing him to understand. Clint looks over at his heart monitor to avoid her gaze.

"You know what's funny?" he blurts out, mainly to keep her from continuing to lie to him. "The same people who couldn't trust me with a simple mission want me to be an Avenger, think they need me. A team of superheroes and gods needs a guy who fights with a weapon from the Stone Age. It's fucking hysterical, don't you…"

"You're right," Natasha breaks in after taking a deep breath through her nose. He can see the hurt barely masked in her green eyes, but he doesn't really care. "They don't need you. But they would—we would love to have you, if it's what you want."

"What? Now you're going for reverse psychology?" Clint spits, and he's actually insulted that his partner, the person he trusts most in the world besides Laura and the kids, is blatantly playing him like he's her mark. "Sorry, Romanoff, it's not gonna work on me."

Natasha shoots him a deadly look, one that's usually reserved for her marks. Clint can't help but gulp. "Look, Barton, that's not what I'm doing. You should know that. What I'm trying to say is…" She trails off and turns away for a second. When she continues, her voice has lost its edge, and there's a deep sadness in her eyes, "I'm not any good at this, but I'm sorry. I shouldn't, we all shouldn't, have pushed you to do something you clearly didn't want to do. It doesn't matter what we think; if being an Avenger isn't what you want, we shouldn't make you do it. What I don't understand is what you do want. Fury told me about your deal and…I just don't understand what you're trying to prove, Clint. So help me understand."

All the fight leaves Clint. He stares at his partner mutely for a minute or two, maybe more, weighing what she had said. He wants, more than anything in the world, to go home to his family, but he can't, and that's that. Period. Before Cooper was born, back when he worked almost exclusively as a sniper on solo ops, he admitted to Laura that being a father terrified him more than being sent on all of the dangerous missions Fury assigned. If he failed those, he would be the one who ended up hurt. If he failed as a father, like his father had failed him and Barney, he'd hurt the ones he loved.

And Clint had failed. But, since he can't tell Natasha any of that, he admits instead, hating how childish he sounds, "I want to be an agent." That's not even close to the whole truth, so he adds quietly, "I just…I just want things to go back to the way they were before."

Natasha offers him a smile but then shakes her head. "You know that won't happen, Clint. But, I promise you, things could be even better if you would just let yourself see what we all see."

Hi all! Hope you enjoyed Part III. I have to admit, I had writer's block there for a bit, which is why I wrote so many one-shots (shameless plug: check them out by heading over to my profile page!). Anyway, I enjoyed writing the interaction between Natasha and Clint, and I really like how much these scenes tie back to earlier ones in this story and ones in "Hide & Seek." Oh and there's a fair amount of foreshadowing just to keep you on your toes haha.

I would LOVE to hear what you think. Not going to lie, I kind of lost the motivation to keep writing this when my one-shots got more play than it did, so please drop a review if you like it. Until next time. ~Moore12