Smashed

A/N: I tried to treat this as both a fully realized sci fi universe and a fully realized fairy tale universe. If you need a standard genre setting as a background, I imagine steampunk would work pretty well. It works to integrate the remnants of feudalism and the belief in magic with the city culture and fairly advanced science. Inspired by a post by ohthisismuchworse on tumblr: post/77844690675/hulkeye-au-where-clint-is-flynn-rider-and-bruce-is

Crossposted from AO3 as one chapter because it's easier for me to just build one file since it's been complete for a while now.

Chapter 1: Frying pans are actually really dangerous

Hawkeye perches on his lookout over the city, surveying the world around him. The buildings are stone and brick and wood, and he's perched on a carved gargoyle, himself as still as the statue beneath him.

He takes his shot, killing the target cleanly with an arrow through the heart, and then, regretfully, he leaves the tall building behind, escaping into the night.

"Man, I could stand to live in a palace with towers like that," he murmurs to himself as he goes. "Yep. Towers. Place to be."

The city watch is sharper than they used to be, though, and somewhere along the way he acquires a tail.

He's going to need to make himself even scarcer than usual, get away from the city for a while. Maybe spend the night in a tree. He's done it before.

But first he has to lose this tail.

Bruce wakes up to his usual cell.

It's a nice cell. It's got a really great kitchen and a cozy library and a nice bed and the walls are absolutely covered with equations, charts, graphs, notes, diagrams, and pencil smudges of various purposes and ages.

He keeps busy, like always, making himself breakfast, eating slowly, flipping through a sheaf of notes, and talking at Tony and watching the tiny green lizard make faces in return.

Tony watches the words and figures of the notes as well, sometimes pointing or gesturing emphatically with his tail, pointing out questionable conclusions or errors in arithmetic.

When Bruce finishes breakfast and stands, putting his dishes in the sink and then looking around the place in indecision, Tony skitters over to the window and widens his eyes pointedly at Bruce.

"No," Bruce says. "We're not running."

Tony sets his little chameleon jaw and keeps his eyes fixed on Bruce.

"Yes, I know your position on this. Yes, I know you have a life you'd like to get back to. Yes, I know you wouldn't be able to do that alone in your current form. And I know it's my fault you're like this."

Tony shakes his head emphatically at that last point.

"It is, though. I made those changes to the serum formula, and instead of going big and green, you went little and green, and you can't change like I can."

Tony pointedly develops red and yellow stripes.

Bruce chuckles. "That's not what I meant, and you know it," he says. "And I know it wasn't my call to use you as a test subject. I just feel bad for my part in it, and sorry that I can't do much to help you change back into a human. But I just can't risk it, not going to the city, not when I don't have any clue how to go about finding decent facilities or ingredients, not when I don't even know if any of my cure ideas have any promise at all."

Tony climbs up Bruce's sleeve to perch on his shoulder and prod at his ear with his little lizard nose, insistent and annoyed but also affectionate and reassuring.

"Yeah," agrees Bruce. "It sucks. I wish I could. But I can't. I'd put people in danger. I'd put you in danger. I just need to know more first, maybe have a more solid idea to go on. We'll get out of here eventually."

Tony grumbles wordlessly, but then settles onto Bruce's shoulder, waiting to see if today will bring any more progress than the last ones have, which is, practically nothing.

He watches as Bruce paces the room, looking at the notes that cover the walls and his limited supply of paper, looking for something he hasn't thought of. He jots down a couple of things, and Tony's eyes dart across the lines hopefully. When Bruce pauses at the door down to the lab, Tony twitches encouragingly on his shoulder.

"No. It's enough that Ross is still letting me stay here. If he doesn't want me using his lab any more, I'm not going to."

Stark stiffens and glares at the door. He really doesn't like Ross. Bruce sometimes wonders if it's just the rivalry of local nobles, or something more. Tony can express a surprising amount with his new lizard body language, but Bruce has never been able to figure out the history there, and Thaddeus Ross has never been anything but considerate and generous to him. First playing patron to his complex and dangerous experiments, and then, when he turned monster, not running Banner off his property and leaving him to the wilderness, where monsters belonged.

"We need more to go on," he tells Tony. The chameleon just rolls his eyes. He's heard it before.

Once dawn arrives Hawkeye has made his way out of the city, losing most of the city watch's pursuit, but there's still the sound of hoofbeats pounding the ground after him.

He climbs a tree to watch who comes past, how many and how well-armed.

But there's just... a horse.

A horse with saddle but no reins, and unusually, the horse is looking around, curious and wary.

What the hell.

He watches the creature disappear into the distance, and decides he needs to get into the deepest, most impenetrable brush he can find, out of open spaces and definitely away from roads, maybe make his own shelter or find some damp and long-abandoned cottage.

What he finds, as he works his way deeper into the trees and through passages between rocks that only his sharp eyes would have spotted, is a tower.

Ancient and weathered and almost certainly abandoned. Especially since there seems to be... no door. No entrance at the base. Perhaps there was one, once, on the uphill side, before that tumble of boulders and earth had built up against it.

Hawkeye grins, shoots a grappling arrow at the stone over the open window, and starts to climb.

He swings in the window, and immediately gets beaned with a frying pan.

Bruce checks the man's pulse - he didn't want to kill him, but he needed to disable him, and he's very glad he seems to have hit that tiny slice of middle ground - and ties up the rough-looking, bow-armed man with his own grappling cord and gets a napkin on him as a gag just as he starts to come to (good, no coma either). Bruce drags him into the pantry, examining his possessions as he considers what to do next. The bottom of the quiver contains lockpicks, identity papers in a couple of different names, and a small fortune in unmarked gold and gemstones. Tony looks on with eyes narrowed in speculative suspicion as these things are revealed.

Bruce decides to make use of the lockpicks to duck into the lab and shut the guy's other things into the incendiaries cabinet (where they really belong, by the look and smell of some of the arrowheads). Tony follows, with a wide, lizardy smile and enthusiastic skittering.

He comes back to work the grappling arrow out of its grip on the window lintel, and stashes it away in a cupboard just before Ross makes an appearance.

Ross comes to visit every day, walking through the brick-arch tunnel that connects the old tower door to the caves under the hill. It's good to have some company in his self-imposed seclusion, and his patron brings food as well, so it's a pleasure and a necessity, but still Bruce can't stop himself from reacting with a little start when he hears the lab door open.

Did he - ? Yes, he remembered to relock it on the way out. Good.

"I got that tea you kept asking about," Ross says as he strides in without knocking and puts a bag down on the kitchen table. "Not really my kind of thing, but if it keeps you happy." He gives a sort of patronizing smile as he hands it over.

"Thank you," Bruce answers genuinely as he takes it. "This is great." He puts it in a place of honor beside the stove and moves to put away the rest of the food, basic things like potatoes and onions and dry peas. Tony rolls his eyes.

Ross's eyes drift over Bruce and Tony and the pencil marks covering their plastered walls. He doesn't often stay long, they don't have much to talk about, now that he's banned Bruce from the lab after what happened to Tony. Bruce scrambles to find words to ask about what should be done with the intruder.

"While you're here, and the lab door's open," he starts, "there's something..." but Ross interrupts.

"I can't let you do that, Bruce," he says. "I know you want to keep working on the cure, get the two of you back to your normal lives. But let's face it. That's probably not going to happen. You spent years on it. It's too dangerous. While you're like this, it's better that no one leaves this room, no one knows about you, and you don't get yourselves into any more trouble."

"I wasn't going to start any more experiments," Bruce defends. "But if we need to get out of the tower..."

"I said no one leaves this room, except me!" Ross declares, voice nearing a snarl. "Do you understand that, Banner?"

"Yes, Sir," Bruce answers.

"Good," Ross says with a conciliatory smile. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Now, is there anything else you need?"

"No, thank you," Bruce says, but Ross has already turned to leave. Tony's tongue darts out in the direction of the noble's back.

Once Ross is gone, Bruce looks thoughtfully in the direction of the pantry. "Well, he got up on his own," he murmurs. "Maybe he can find his own way down, but should we trust him to try?"

Tony shrugs a little lizard shrug.

"Yeah," Bruce agrees. "We need more data before we can make that choice."

Bruce opens the pantry door carefully to find that the archer has snaked his way to the door and worked the gag out of his mouth. "Good call keeping quiet," Bruce tells him. "Ross doesn't take kindly to finding people on his property without his permission."

The man inclines his head pleasantly, as if the cords aren't biting into his wrists and ankles now that he's shifted position. "I'm good with waiting for the right moment," he says. "Hey. I'm The Amazing Hawkeye. Nice to meetcha. I'd shake your hand, but..." Hawkeye shrugs.

Bruce narrows his eyes. "I don't generally shake hands with people who are after my blood. Now tell me. How did you find me?"

"Uh... by accident?" Hawkeye answers with confusion. "Blood? You think I'm a vampire or something?"

"Well you haven't got fangs, so..." Bruce shakes his head, eyes narrowed again. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Are you going to reverse engineer it, or use it as is on some unsuspecting innocent, or just sell it?"

"No idea what you're talking about, Freckles. Just came here to lay low for a while. Didn't know anybody lived here."

"My name's Dr. Bruce Banner. You really didn't come here looking for me?" His brow wrinkles in confusion.

"If I had, I'd've been ready for you. Trust me, Freckles. I'm not in the habit of letting myself get knocked on the head." His neck bends and he cringes as he assesses the damage.

"Sorry about that concussion." Bruce crouches down to look into the man's eyes. "I couldn't take the risk of facing you on even ground. That wouldn't have been healthy for either of us." He keeps his gaze locked to Hawkeye's, now looking for a reaction to his words as much as checking for symptoms of brain damage.

But Hawkeye just looks confused. "Less healthy than this?" he says, wincing again as Bruce's fingers travel over the lump he's made on the back of his skull.

"Much less," Bruce says grimly. "You really must not know. So either you are just hiding out, or whoever paid you all that treasure to come here didn't tell you what you'd be up against."

"Hey, that payoff was for a completely different job. I don't make a habit of going in unprepared. I'm good enough I can pick my own targets." Hawkeye looks around at the pantry shelves and what he can see of the kitchen through the open door. "Speaking of which, where'd you put my stuff?"

"Nowhere you'll be able to get to it. I haven't decided what to do about you, but there's more I'd like to know first. And you should know, just a survival tip for being around me: don't make me angry."

"Right," the archer says, nodding like he thinks Bruce is a little off his rocker. "I'll try not to. But I really kinda need to get my stuff and get outta here. So what's it gonna take?"

Bruce looks at him thoughtfully for a moment. "What was the payoff for?" he asks. "The gold and the gems?"

The archer looks at the doctor for a minute before answering. "I'm an assassin," he says bluntly. "But I pick my own targets and none of them are the greatest people."

"You work mostly in the city?" is what Bruce asks next, and Hawkeye is a little thrown.

"I have," the archer answers. "Worked a lotta other places, too. Been all over the place. Moving around is safest."

"I can see the appeal," is Bruce's reply to that, staring vacantly at the window as he speaks. And that's something Hawkeye hadn't expected either.

He examines the doctor's face more closely. "Hey, you being kept here? Need a rescue?"

"No," Bruce says immediately, shaking his head, emphatically denying. "Nothing like that. I chose this." But there's something in his face that tells the archer there's more to it than that.

So does the chameleon perched on Bruce's shoulder, giving Hawkeye significant looks.

"Uh." Hawkeye says. "Either I'm more concussed than I thought, or there's a lizard on your shoulder."

Bruce tilts his head, conceding. "Hawkeye," he says, "meet Tony. He used to be human. But things... happen to people, around me."

"O-o-okay," Hawkeye replies. "For now, I'm goin' with the concussion theory."

Bruce smiles, small and dry. "I wouldn't believe me either," he says. The lizard mimes buffing and examining its nails. Hawkeye blinks at it.

"So you know the city pretty well?" Bruce asks, pulling Hawkeye out of his consternation. "You have contacts there? Any chemists?"

"Maybe," Hawkeye says with deep suspicion. "Why?"

"I have an idea. I'm working on a cure," Bruce says, nodding at the lizard. "I'd prefer to keep away from the city myself, but Ross has stopped providing me with the supplies I need. The more I know, the faster I can get in and out, the less chance there is of an... incident... in the city."

The archer frowns. "What kind of incident?"

"Let's just say I have a green side to my personality too," Bruce says. "And you don't want to see it."

"Okay," says Hawkeye. "Just leaving aside whatever weird shit is going on with you and your lizard, I am not going back to the city. The watch was on my tail when I left and if they catch sight of me again, let me tell you, they are not gonna be happy."

"Well, I'm not giving you back your bow and all that treasure until after I've gotten what I want," Bruce answers, "so I hope you're up for the long wait until I figure out some other way to get it done."

Hawkeye glares at him for a long two minutes, looking for the hesitation that he hopes is there, but he doesn't find it. He sighs. "All right," he says. "You win. You got yourself an escort to the nearest chemist's shop and back."

"Good," says Bruce, smiling. He gets out a knife and cuts the cords away from Hawkeye's wrists and ankles.

The archer stretches, rubbing his wrists and then putting a hand to his head.

"I dunno about your green side or whatever," he says. "I just don't want you to hit me again, 'kay?"

"You keep your end of the deal," replies Bruce with a hint of a smile, "and I won't have to."

Chapter 2: Honestly I'd be satisfied with a cup of tea

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Bruce says from beside Hawkeye.

The doctor had seemed pleased as punch to get out of the tower, to be on the ground again with the trees around him. But now he seems to be having doubts.

"You were free to go, right?" the archer asks him again.

"Yes," Bruce confirms. "And there's an argument to be made that I should be locked up. That I've done too much damage to be allowed back into human society. But I think this might stop that from being necessary. I think it might be worth the risk." His hands rub against each other in agonized uncertainty.

"So why'd we sneak out the window, instead of getting out however the Ross guy gets in?"

"He doesn't force me to stay, but he would like me to. Which makes sense. It's probably safer for everyone, really. And I... will do a lot to avoid confrontation. It isn't the best thing for my temper."

"If you say so," Hawkeye replies, and continues to stroll.

Bruce breathes deeply, shifting his focus very intentionally from the doubts that swarm in his thoughts back to the open air around them. Soon he's smiling broadly again, almost, but not quite, relaxed.

"I'd forgotten what this is like," he says. "Just walking, watching the scenery change? I'm actually really glad I came out." He raises his face to the sunlight filtering through the treetops. "How could I just forget?" he murmurs. "This is not something anyone should miss so badly."

From his shoulder, Tony makes an 'Oh, really? Tell me more' sort of face.

Bruce's buoyant mood continues for a few minutes, until a rabbit hops out of the brush before them. Bruce freezes.

Hawkeye looks between the not inconsiderable mass of the adult man beside him, and the quivering bunny in front of them, disbelief written across his face. "Really?" he says. "That's gonna be a problem? Want me to take care of it for you?" The archer pulls a knife.

"No!" yelps Bruce, and the rabbit starts away. Bruce breathes a sigh of relief. "The last thing I want is to cause any more deaths. To anything."

"It's just a rabbit, Freckles. I've eaten more of 'em in my time than I've had hot baths. You really gonna tell me I've gotta tally that with the rest of my body count?"

"No, I'm not that hypocritical. I've eaten meat too. Not for a while now, though. I'm vegetarian." He spares a glance for Tony. "Having a best friend who's a small defenseless animal just changes your perspective, I guess."

Tony gives him a glower at being called 'defenseless.'

"I'm really not safe to be around," Bruce says, spiraling down again. "I don't know what I'm thinking, going into the city. There's so much potential for destruction, so much life."

"Yeesh," Hawkeye replies. "you're kinda of two minds about this whole thing, aren't'cha?"

"What, no, I don't, oh, oh yeah, I suppose I am a bit conflicted."

"Uh huh." The archer nods. "You know, you don't need to do this, right? Tell you what, we go back now and you give me my stuff and I'll pick you up some chemicals or whatever next chance I get, deal?"

Bruce sighs, looking up at the sky again. "I'm out here now," he says at last. "I'm going to do this. Besides, I need to be able to talk tolerances and concentrations with whoever's selling."

"Yeah, I gotcha," Hawkeye says, the hope of getting out of this with his bow and his skin deflating. "You're the mad scientist."

Bruce laughs. "You'd better hope I'm not that mad."

Hawkeye shakes his head and wishes he'd never laid eyes on that tower.

A horse walks alone through the Ross estate, the name 'Rogers' stamped across its breastcollar.

Ross steps out of the caves that run through this part of his property and sees the creature, narrows his eyes and then smiles a slick, delighted smile.

"Hey there," he says. "Now where did you come from? City watch colors, huh? Well, you're a long way from home. On my land. And I think maybe that means you belong to me now."

Rogers doesn't like the sound of that, not at all, or the speculative glint in Ross's eyes. He dodges, darts and runs before the man can grab ahold of his tack.

Ross frowns after the horse. "You understood way too much for some simple beast," he ponders. "Animals that understand speech."

He frowns even more, thinking of Tony, and goes back into the cave, suddenly needing to know what Banner had been going on about that morning.

"Oh, hey, you know what's around here?" Hawkeye says as the time approaches midday and they get closer to the city, buildings and roads appearing more and more often.

"What?" Bruce asks.

"The Shawarma Palace!" the archer declares. "Great food. Although, I'm not strictly speaking sure what shawarma is, but I do know it has meat."

Bruce shrugs. "If you want to stop and eat, we can," he says. "I'm sure they have bread or something."

When they get inside the place, it smells of mystery meat and dangerous people. Everyone is bristling with wariness and anger and pointy weapons. Bruce changes his mind. This is the last place he wants to be.

"Uh, Hawkeye?" he says.

But the archer is busy examining a wanted poster by the door with the words The Amazing Hawkeye: Contract Murder, Reward and a sketch that looks remarkably like him, except with a bulbous nose.

"Aww, nose," says Hawkeye to his likeness.

Then Tony makes a getaway. He scampers over to a table where two solemn red-headed women are talking, and he climbs up on their table, and begins to climb up the arm of the lighter-haired of the two, who shrieks.

Bruce rushes over, grabbing Tony up and wincing in apology.

"I'm sorry, Miss, he isn't usually..." Bruce shakes his head and starts over. "Actually he is kind of always getting into trouble, never mind. I really shouldn't have brought him out with me."

Tony, still stuck in Bruce's grip, throws his lower jaw out in the chameleon version of a pout.

"It's... okay?" The woman answers as if she's not sure that it is.

Hawkeye tears the poster off the wall before coming over to join them. He smiles charmingly at the women. "Hey, mind if we join you?" he asks.

They wave at the free seats, and Bruce decides to follow the archer's lead, even though the darker-haired of the pair strikes him as dangerous, and his chameleon best friend just assaulted the other. Hawkeye is his guide, here. Bruce hasn't talked to a human person who wasn't Ross in far, far too long. He's not exactly the expert here.

"What do you want?" the darker haired one asks, finally speaking.

"Nothing," says Hawkeye. "Just a couple of seats, maybe some company. Why, are you here to do business?"

She tilts her head to the side. "Not today," she says. "I mean in general. I'm making conversation, I suppose. Or I'm curious."

"Nothing," Hawkeye repeats. The woman looks at him skeptically. Then she turns her eyes to Bruce.

"I'd just kind of like to get out of here without anybody suffering bodily harm," he says nervously.

"That's a long term goal?"

"More or less," Bruce agrees.

She raises her eyebrows at him. He doesn't elaborate. She turns to the woman next to her.

"I just want to find my long-lost boss," the lighter-haired woman says. Tony makes to surge forward out of Bruce's hands again, but Bruce has him solidly pinned.

"I could maybe help you with that," the other woman tells her. "I have some experience with tracking people down."

Then the table's eyes turn to the archer again.

"What?" he asks, shrugging.

"Do you really not have any greater goal in life than your next payoff?" Bruce asks him. "Is it just the money?"

Hawkeye resigns himself to giving a real(ish) answer.

"I just do the job, get the money, get away clean." He sighs. "Thing I want most, I guess? To get away clean once and for all, not be running all the time. But there's only the one thing I'm really good at. An' that's not all that great for avoiding trouble."

Speaking of trouble. Around them, there's murmuring and muttering and staring. It's mostly at Hawkeye, and some back and forth in between him and the wanted poster.

"Maybe we should get out of here," the subject of the scrutiny says.

"Maybe you should," the dark-haired woman answers with raised eyebrows that say she thinks this is obvious. She jerks her head to indicate a direction over her right shoulder. "Come on. I'll get you out."

She leads them, just in time, through a trapdoor and into a slightly dank tunnel, then she kisses Bruce on the cheek. "Good goals," she says. "Glad I could help." And she shuts the door behind them.

"You know her?" Bruce starts as they walk through the tunnel.

"Heard of her," the archer answers. "Competitor of mine. People like to mention her when I try to turn down a job."

"So, you, uh..." Bruce asks. "Assassin, huh? How do you get into something like that?"

Hawkeye shakes his head. "Sorry, Freckles, I don't do backstory."

Bruce gives a small smile. "Worth a try," he says.

And that's when the tunnel starts to shake.

The next few minutes are chaotic, and they involve several city guards, a horse expertly wielding a round buckler with a star in its center, and a badly constructed masonry and timber dam. Hawkeye wishes desperately for his bow to suddenly reappear in his hand, but he has no such luck, and things only get worse when the horse's shield rebounds off one of the supporting timbers and the dam nearly collapses on top of them.

They barely make it into a cave before the boulders pound down outside, trapping them in the quickly filling hollow, solid rock on three sides, above and below, water pressure and tumbled stone on the remaining side.

"Welp, guess that's it," Hawkeye says, assessing and coming to the obvious conclusion. "We're gonna die."

"I'm sorry," Bruce is mumbling, wringing his hands. "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have dragged you into this. I don't want you to die, Hawkeye."

"Clint," the archer murmurs.

"What?"

"Real name's Clinton Francis Barton. Just, you know, so you know. Nobody else does."

Bruce smiles. "Thanks for telling me, Clint."

"Figure we're gonna die anyway," he says. "Can't make that much difference."

Bruce's smile goes pained and tight. "You're going to die," he says. "Very probably. I won't."

"What d'you..." Clint looks hard at Bruce in the gloom of the quickly filling cave. "Bruce, what...?"

"I'm sorry," Bruce says again. "I'm so sorry, Clint. I hope... I hope it doesn't hurt too much."

There's nothing for Hawkeye to do then but twist his face up to take one last breath before the air pocket disappears and wonder what the hell Bruce thinks is about to happen.

What happens, apparently, is that Bruce sinks under the water, and then, a moment later, Clint is being wrapped in huge rough hands before everything explodes outwards, into light and air and the deafening sound of roaring, as the creature holding him leaps down to the streambed. The huge - green! - hands set him down, and the huge - green again! - face peers at him, then looks around for Tony, frowning and stomping fit to shake the ground. The chameleon climbs, sodden yet determined, up the bank, and the large creature smiles.

"Good," he rumbles. "Safe." The creature lies down on the bank, and apparently goes to sleep, whereupon he shrinks back down to the familiar figure of Bruce, only... naked.

Hawkeye can only stare.

The lizard smirks at him.

Bruce raises his head, looking around groggily, finding Clint. "You're alive," the scientist says blankly. "Did I hurt anyone else?"

Clint shakes his head, still staring in shock.

Bruce collapses back to the pebbled shore, relief in his every line. When he raises his head again, he's grinning. "Nobody died," he says, giggling with sudden, unexpected, uncontrollable lightness. "He came out and nobody died. God, that's good to hear."

Clint blinks at him, still lying where the green creature dropped him, just focusing on continuing to breathe. After a while Bruce settles and realizes and he frowns at Clint. "Are you okay? Did he..."

"What the hell are you?!" Clint bursts out at the prompt.

"An experiment gone very wrong," Bruce says, sighing. "Is it all right if I check you over for injuries?" He waits on Clint's absent nod before approaching.

Bruce checks him over, feels the bones of his skull and his ribs and is pleased to find only a little bruising.

"I was working from some old papers I'd found, by a man named Erskine. He claimed he had a formula that would make people resistant to injury and immune to disease, but it was a little cryptic and poetic about what else it might do. I thought there might be some superficial changes in appearance. Instead, when I get injured or upset... I turn into him." Bruce sighs deeply. "He's vicious, destructive, everything I... everything I wanted to get away from about myself. I'm glad he didn't hurt you too badly, but I'm having a hard time believing it. Are you sure nothing else hurts?"

"Yeah," says Clint. "Yeah, I'm good. He's not so bad. He didn't just not hurt me. He protected me. From the cave, the water, all that."

It's Bruce's turn to blink disbelievingly now.

"No, that can't be right. He... isn't like that. He can't be reasoned with. All he wants is to destroy. He doesn't care about the lives he takes. That's why I don't leave the tower. Not since the first Incident."

"Nah," Clint says casually. "He does care. He's a great guy. Better than me."

Bruce shakes his head. "Well, people are afraid of him, and I understand why. I don't want to disrupt any more people's lives than necessary."

"For the record, I like Hulk," Clint insists.

Bruce looks weary but contemplative as he says, "You'd be the first."

Tony makes a tiny annoyed noise and rolls his little lizard eyes.

"Or maybe second," Bruce says, a smile starting on his face again as he picks up his tiny friend.

Chapter 3: Sometimes you have to make your own luck

Bruce turns curious eyes on the man beside him. "So, Clint Barton, huh?" he says, and Bruce has just spilled his guts, so Clint thinks he knows where this is going.

"You don't really wanna hear my story," Clint answers. "It's not exactly lighthearted fare."

"No, I really do," Bruce insists.

"Well, gonna skip over the part with my parents," Clint starts. "Thankfully don't remember much of that anyway. The circus was better, learned how to shoot an' took the name Hawkeye. Used to imagine I was some legendary hero, savin' all the kids from whatever crappy lives they had. Turns out, that doesn't pay very well. Crime? That, I kinda just... fell into." He shakes his head. "Least I have some kinda choice who I work for. Pretty much all I have."

Bruce just hums contemplatively, not sure how to respond.

Clint bursts into speech again, putting on a cheerful front. "Well, you kinda need clothes, if we're gonna keep going," Clint says. "I'll find something for ya, you sit tight, all right?"

"Do I want to know how you're planning on getting clothes, in the middle of nowhere, without money?" Bruce asks.

"Probably not?" Clint says with an expression half wary, half teasing.

"Yeah, all right," Bruce says. "I'll stick around here, see if I can find the remnants of my pants. I had some things in the pockets."

Ten minutes later Bruce has found them, pockets intact, washed up a little way downstream, and he's feeling pretty good about his luck, until Ross shows up.

"Bruce, Bruce, Bruce," says Ross, surveying the man's naked and disheveled state. "This is exactly what we were both hoping to avoid, isn't it? The creature... it can't be controlled, it can only be contained, you know that. You need to come back with me."

"You know what, I don't think I will," Bruce replies mildly.

"It'll only make things worse," Ross tells him. "Being out here, around so many innocent people? You can never be sure of what might happen."

"Maybe I can't, but I can be pretty certain of what will happen if I go back," he tells Ross. "I won't come up with anything that will satisfy you, you won't let me use the lab, I'll go stir crazy and the Other Guy will get out and no matter how far the tower is from the more populated areas, that's not gonna be especially safe for people." Bruce looks after Clint contemplatively. "Although today he doesn't seem to have done much damage. Hawkeye says he's not so bad."

"You think a guy like Hawkeye is gonna be level with you?" Ross sneers. "You do know what kind of man he is, don't you?" He holds up a wanted poster.

"Yeah, maybe more than you do," Bruce answers. "He told me what he does."

"Hawkeye is a mercenary and killer for hire and you think he's not after your blood? If you give him opportunity you can be sure he'll take it and no one wants the Serum in hands like those. I'm just looking out for the good of the citizens, you know. Protecting them. From you. You should do the same."

"You know what, maybe I don't give a damn what you think I should or shouldn't do, because it's me that has to deal with the consequences," Bruce says. "Now are you going to let me be on my way, or do you want to take it up with the Other Guy?"

"All right, all right, your funeral," Ross says, backing away. "Well, figuratively. Really more likely to be someone else's."

Bruce watches him walk away, in an agony of worry about whether he's made the right decision.

It isn't too long before Clint reappears, bright purple tunic and brown pants in hand. He tosses them to Bruce.

"Really?" Bruce says, holding up the colorful garment.

"What can I say, it caught my eye," the archer answers with a grin.

"That's what I'm worried about," Bruce half-mumbles, but he gets dressed without further complaint. Tony gives an approving nod and a little green thumbs-up once he's finished.

"So, like, any chance that thing that happens to you is at all contagious?" Clint ponders, although he seems to be making no effort whatsoever to keep his distance. "Maybe just a little? Because I've got the aim thing, you know, which is great, but I wouldn't say no to some super strength or regenerative abilities. Maybe the ability to fly."

"No," Bruce answers, chuckling, but that niggling doubt that Ross planted in the back of his head is trying to tell him that any interest in the specifics of Erskine's formula is a bad sign.

Still, this is one of the more pleasant days of Bruce's life, and he refuses to let that doubt take over without more concrete reasons. They head towards the city again, talking companionably.

And then that damn horse shows up again.

"Hey, stop," Bruce tells the horse as he steps between it and Clint.

The horse makes a derisive noise and makes to push past him towards Clint.

"Wait, please listen to me!" Bruce says. "I'm doing important things in the city today and I kind of need him to help me get them done without too much trouble! I just want to help people, okay?"

The man with the fugitive seems earnest enough, but Rogers has his orders, and he's determined to carry them out. Hawkeye's a confirmed killer.

It's only when he spots the lizard perched on the other man's shoulder that he pulls up short.

The chameleon gives a sort of suppressing "chill" gesture with its forelegs, distinctly human in its attitude.

The man upon whom the lizard is perching has now started to explain that he's an alchemist and is working on a formula that has changed, among other things, himself into a giant green monster, and Rogers has started to realize that this might have something to do with why he woke up one day as a horse.

Rogers sits back, then, decides that he is going to listen, and he's going to decide on whatever course of action he thinks is best, to hell with his orders.

As soon as he thinks this, he begins to feel very strange. He seems to be shrinking. And soon he's all human-shaped again, and almost completely naked.

"Huh," he says, looking at his hands.

And while he's looking around, slightly flustered, the other two men beat a hasty retreat back onto the main road and escape into the crowd.

Clint leads the way into the city, walking tall and confident, as if he has every right to be here and isn't a wanted criminal at all. Bruce spends a bit of time being in awe of him.

They walk for a few minutes before they turn a corner and Clint gestures. "Shop's down at the end of this street."

"Right," Bruce says. "I should see how much I have." He reaches for his wallet... and now that it's dry, it feels... thinner. Lighter than it should. "Shit," he says, looking into it. "I think somebody picked my pocket."

"Cleaned out?" Clint asks, raising his eyebrows.

"No, I have a few coins, too," he says, jangling them together in his hand. "Not enough to even start buying the supplies I need." He looks down at them with exasperation.

"Well, it's something," Clint tells him, and then, "Hey, I've got an idea. How quick can you do math in your head?"

There's something about Clint's smile that gives Bruce a very bad feeling.

So it turns out that Clint has the sharpest eyes of anyone Bruce has ever known, and an encyclopedic knowledge of street games and how it's possible to cheat at them (from either side), and once Bruce has been familiarized with the rules and the signals, they make a great team.

It's glorious fun and hours later, they end up grinning at each other and counting their money and buying and eating herbed bread on a stick as they walk to the alchemist's shop.

"That was a lot of fun," Bruce says. "Thank you for teaching me all that."

"Best partner in crime I ever had," Clint answers.

A horse and carriage drive by and they're squished up against each other to keep out of the way, and the warmth of a person this close to him is something that Bruce has missed more than he'd known, and a moment later he realizes that the carriage is gone and he's still pressed up against Clint's side and Clint is just looking at him as if he's at a loss as to what's going on.

"Bruce," he says quietly. "Hey."

Bruce scrambles back, apologizing with quick, flustered words. "I'm sorry, that shouldn't have been, I..."

"No hey, it's fine, I," and Clint's having a hard time with words too, apparently, because he elects to stop talking and instead dart forward and grab Bruce's hand in his. "We're all good, right? This good?"

Bruce smiles and squeezes his hand in return. "Yeah," he says. "This is good."

They find the alchemist and Bruce buys everything he needs and they're walking back out of the city, when Clint picks a face out of the crowd and frowns.

"City Watch?" Bruce asks.

"Nah, just the opposite, guy hired me once," Clint says. "Job before this, actually."

Bruce sees the man beckoning, and then looks a question at Clint.

"Gotta go take care of this," Clint says. "I'll be right back, promise." He lifts Bruce's hand to his lips and gives it a graceful kiss, and he pulls away, grinning. Bruce smiles in return and watches him go, unworried.

The man is tall and pale with black hair, and he's dressed in black and emerald green. Clint approaches him with a touch of a cocky strut.

"Oh, hey, super-shadowy guy who hired me for my last job? Why are you talking to me again?" he asks right out.

"The name's Loki," the man answers with a small smile. "And I have some further work for you."

He lays a leather purse in Clint's hand, and as soon as it contacts the skin, Clint feels wrong, brain not working and skin too tight.

"Take that and walk away behind me," Loki says. And Clint... obeys the command.

Bruce can't hear what's happening, but he watches as Clint takes the money and leaves, and he watches, horrified, as the man in green stalks towards him, a knowing, malicious smile on his face.

He's been set up.

There are likely only two ways out - with this man, or big and green.

And Bruce doesn't honestly know which of those things he'd rather have happen right now.

Bruce is pretty thrown all around, to be honest.

Suddenly there's a cloud of smoke, and a hand tugging on his arm, and Bruce follows willingly. Once they're running through an alley, Bruce sees that it's Ross.

Bruce runs, but not quietly. "How'd you find me?" he asks.

Ross is breathing hard, but gets out in answer, "Had to keep track of you, hated to think of you doing something you might regret."

"Right, because that's your business," Bruce says, and he can feel himself skirting the edge of the danger zone.

"Come on, Bruce, you don't wanna do this," says Ross. "Don't fight me on this. You know I'm right. Come on. Let's go home."

Bruce doesn't understand any of this, but he is nothing if not practical and cautious, so he follows Ross back to the tower, going over all of it in his head as they ride.

It doesn't make sense. But he'd seen Clint, taking the payoff and walking away. It had to be true. But it couldn't be.

Clint is better than that.

Well, if Clint wants money over everything else he's told Bruce about, then he'll probably come back for what he'd had in the bottom of his quiver.

Bruce needs to find it, needs to keep it close, needs to look Clint in the eye one more time before he believes that the archer betrayed him for a payoff.

When they get back to the tower, Bruce waits until Ross is gone, and then uses Clint's lockpicks to get into the lab. But he looks around as he's heading to the incendiaries cabinet where he locked the bow and quiver, and something else catches his eye.

On the shelves. Bottles he doesn't remember. He steps closer. Serum. Serum with batch numbers past the ones he'd created.

He drops the lockpicks. In a seething halo of barely-controlled rage, he turns to go and find Ross.

There are footsteps on the stairs, so Bruce waits, glaring. Ross comes into view, and doesn't look too terribly surprised to see him.

"So we're doing this now?" the noble asks. "All right, then, give me your worst. But let's do it in there, where you won't damage any of this nice equipment." He gestures to the open door into Bruce's rooms.

The appeal does stop Bruce's rage from taking over somewhat, and he takes a breath and follows Ross into the kitchen before starting to shout.

"You lied to me," Bruce said. "You told me you thought the experiments were too dangerous! But you've been continuing them behind my back?"

Ross sighed shortly. "The lack of results was making you irritable, and I couldn't take that chance."

"So why continue at all? What did you want out of this?" His eyes drill into Ross as he realizes something. "You keep telling me how much people would pay for something like the Serum. You've got no reason to know that, unless you've been asking. If that's what you're planning? I won't let it happen."

Ross's expression turns slowly smug. "Is that what you think?" he says. "How? You've got no one on your side. You're dangerous, and a monster, and if you go out in the world? Show people what you are? They're all gonna turn against you."

"I don't believe that," says Bruce. "You've been telling me that all this time, but it turns out you're the liar and the mercercenary-minded one. You're the one that can't be trusted."

"But that's the thing, people do trust me," Ross says, smiling evilly. "I'm respectable. I've got men and money backing me up. You've got nothing but a lizard." Ross's smile turned even more predatory. "And oh, by the way, you might be interested to meet my new bodyguard," he says, calling through the doorway. "Hawkeye? Come out here where Bruce can see you."

And Clint strides through the door.

Bruce's breath freezes in his chest. Clint really has sided against him, then? Is really going to do this for the money? Help Ross keep him here, use him for all the knowledge he contains.

No, it can't be true. But Clint is in front of him, armed and waiting, a knife at his belt.

Then Bruce notices the unnatural blue sheen of his eyes.

Ross smiles smugly. "Loki brought me a gift, isn't he nice? A little suggestible pet archer. You wouldn't want to hurt him, would you? But he's mine, now. He'll do anything I say. Loki made sure of that."

Everything stops, then; nothing in the world registers except the deadness of Clint's eyes, the memory of him telling Bruce that the one thing he clung to in his life was hs ability to choose who he worked for, what he did.

Clint wouldn't want this.

Bruce makes a show of skulking off into the kitchen, as if he's cowed, as if Ross has won.

"Watch him," Ross says. "Make sure he doesn't get up to anything... too interesting. Go on."

"I see better from a distance," Hawkeye tells him in a horribly flat voice.

"You're supposed to follow my orders without question," Ross says, frowning. "Stick close to him."

Clint obeys. And he never sees it coming, when Bruce clocks him with the frying pan, again.

Bruce freezes, looking down at the man he's come to know and care about so much, fearing that he can't have gotten so lucky this time, that hitting someone in the head hard enough to knock them out is not something that you get to do without consequences. But he is breathing. At least he's breathing.

Ross grabs his hand and snaps a shackle onto it, pulling away the frying pan. The other end of the chain, he attaches to Clint's limp, unresisting wrist.

"No more of that," he says. "Wouldn't want your temper to get out of hand now, would we?"

Bruce stares in horror at where he and Clint are now tethered to each other's sides. "No," he whispers.

"Swear you'll stay, and I'll let him go," Ross says calculatingly. "That's the deal. You've got to stay here, stay under control, or else you'll kill him. It'll be on your head. And I know how much you hate that."

"Give me a minute, I need to make sure he's okay," Bruce stalls, and he leans over Clint, willing him to wake up, to be okay.

Clint groans, his eyes blinking open. They're clear of the blue sheen, and they focus on Bruce, and Clint gives him a smile that's half cringe.

"Hey, Big Guy," he says. "What happened? You clock me again?"

"Yeah, a little," Bruce answers, but any good humor he has is short-lived. "Ross has us chained together. He's got the Serum, and I've got no way of stopping him from doing what he wants with it, except to let the Other Guy out. But I can't do that." He held up their chained wrists.

"Yeah, you can," Clint tells him. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I always am, until the day I'm not. An' I'd rather take some blows taking down Ross than have anything more to do with him or his spooky sorcerer pet."

"This is not... a few blows we're talking about. I'm so angry right now, Clint. It's always the worst when I'm like this. He'll kill you. And I can't take that chance." Bruce takes a breath. "As much as I need the Serum and its results not to do any more damage to the world, I need you to be okay more."

Clint closes his eyes, frowning. "Don't see how I'm worth all that." He bites his lip. "Go on, do it, you have to do it."

"No, no," Bruce says, shaking his head. He turns to Ross. "All right," he says desperately. "Just unchain us, I'll stay, I won't make trouble for you."

"Can't let you do that," Clint murmurs. "This is no kind of life, Bruce." And he grabs up the knife that's still at his waist and stabs Bruce in the gut.

Bruce's eyes widen in shock and pain and accusation, and then he's turning, all out of his control, swelling and changing and overflowing with anger.

When he comes back to himself, the kitchen is destroyed and Ross... Ross is dead, that's for certain, anyway. Bruce looks away before the sight can make him throw up.

He doesn't see Clint immediately, and for a moment he allows himself to hope that the tether had snapped quickly and neatly, and the man had been able to get up and run away in time. But he's never that lucky.

Clint's been thrown under the table, a haphazard pile of unhealthy-looking angles and just-developing bruises.

Bruce rushes to his side, not at all caring about his own nakedness. "Clint? Clint, are you...?"

Clint coughs, and opens his eyes, but he's clearly concussed this time. "Hey..." he slurs. "You're here. 'S good. Wanted to see you one las' time."

"Oh no no, hey, no, stay with me, DON't DIE DAMMIt Clint..." Bruce's voice is fluctuating wildly between commanding rage and hopeless, desperate pleas. He keeps recalculating, but the injuries he sees still only add up to one inevitable outcome. The archer is right. This is the last time he'll see anything. Bruce's face falls.

"...Worth it," Clint slurs, and he smiles through the pain and strain on his face.

Bruce smooths the hair back from Clint's forehead and tries to memorize that face, that look full of dedication, despite the deep, dark bruises. "You'd risk anything for me, wouldn't you," he says with awe, and the beginning of an idea.

"Yeah," Clint says. "Pretty much." The words are slow to form, the archer's breathing harsh and painfully hitching.

"Then one more thing," Bruce tells him. "Just hold on a little longer. I'm going to try to fix this."

Clint makes a valiant attempt to smile. "Not goin' anywhere, Doc." But despite the promise, Clint fades into unconsciousness.

Bruce desperately debates with himself. This could go so badly. But it could hardly go worse than it's going now. Even if Clint goes big and green, or little and green, or something equally outlandish, at least the serum will heal him and he'll still be alive.

Bruce hopes.

His hands are shaking as he goes and gets it from the lab, and as he kneels down beside Clint again, noting the barely-visible rise and fall of the archer's chest. But he breathes, makes sure his hands are steady, before he gives Clint the injection which could save him, and could destroy him, and will change him in unknowable ways.

Clint convulses, and Bruce keeps careful watch, gently stopping him from hurting himself more than he is already. The archer's skin is rippling, changing, limbs straightening out and bruises vanishing, which is good, but soon Clint is crying out and rolling onto his front, because the skin of his back isn't just rippling, it's erupting, with some kind of huge, horribly indistinct mound of brown and white and black fur - or is it feathers?

It's feathers, and they're wings, enormous, graceful, brown-and-white-mottled wings that push aside the broken table and fill up the destroyed space. Bruce's horror turns to awe as he sees them, as he sees that the rest of Clint hasn't changed, except that he's whole.

Clint's leaned over on hands and knees, panting, trying to adjust, and Bruce says gently, "Clint?"

"What the hell was that?" the archer manages to say.

"No, not hell," Bruce says contemplatively. "Might even be the opposite."

"What?" Clint barks, startled, looking up at the alchemist. His wings move as he does, spreading and fluffing along with his shock, and his attention is drawn to them. He looks over his shoulder. "...Huh," he says.

"Erskine always said his serum's results would depend on the true nature of the person it was given to," Bruce says. "You? You've turned into an angel."

"No, no, no way," Clint objects. "Not possible. I'm not even nice."

"You're incredible," Bruce tells him. "You sacrificed your life to save me... or to save everybody from me... and you're back. That's what matters to me."

Clint looks at him searchingly. "Really? You don't mind that I'm... not exactly your average guy?"

"I've always wanted a guardian angel," Bruce answers with a sparkle in his eye, and soon after, they're in each other's arms, just glad that they're both whole and both free.

Chapter 4: What you need is to get your mind right

Tony climbs out of the half-collapsed entrance to the lab then and spots the two of them, and soon he's wearing a big lizardy grin and contorting his eyebrows knowingly.

"You like the wings too, huh?" Clint asks when he spots the creature. "Have to say, I was worried. Not that you aren't... impressive, in your own special way. But I like this better."

Tony makes a noise that is both disgruntled and conceding the point.

Bruce is just lost in looking at Clint, partly his wings but mostly his face, whole and healthy and his own again. "You're back," he says. "For once, the serum did something right. It did something perfectly." Then his eyes go just a little concerned again. "What happened to you back there? With the guy in green? Was that the Loki that Lord Ross mentioned? What did he do to you?"

"That's what he called himself," Clint replies, finally losing the goofy smile that the wings had brought to his face. "I don't know. But the minute that thing touched me... it was like I was emptied out."

"We need to find out," Bruce says, "so we can make sure he never does that again."

"I'm on board with that plan," the archer agrees. But then he turns to the half-collapsed doorway, hearing a noise.

"I'm not sure if I can do this," says a voice from beyond the stairwell doors. Tony perks up at the sound immediately and skitters in that direction. The voices continue, a second one chiming in.

"Whatever we find in here, Pepper, it's got to be better than spending your life wondering."

A moment later, the door to the stairway flies open, leaving the two red-haired women standing and surveying the destruction of the lab and Bruce's little home.

"Oh my God," the lighter-haired one says, eyes darting everywhere at once. "What happened here? Is everyone okay?"

"Ross isn't," the darker-haired woman informs her, gesturing briefly at the noble's remains. "But these two idiots seem to have survived."

Pepper's eyes focus on Bruce and Clint, only widening at Clint's wings for a moment before narrowing again in recognition.

"You two again? We tracked Tony's path back here, but I don't see him here now. Do you know what Lord Ross did with Tony Stark?"

Bruce points at Tony, who is, as always, green and lizardlike.

"Tony?" Pepper asks, worry and fondness coloring her voice. "Is that you?"

The chameleon immediately skitters up onto what's left of the sideboard next to her and looks at her with wide, pleading eyes.

"As far as I know, that's him," Bruce says, watching them. "Ross told me that he'd barged in asking about Erskine's work and wouldn't leave until he'd seen a demonstration. Ross wasn't comfortable with letting him near me, because of my... mood problem, so they compromised on testing the next batch on him. But I know now that Ross was lying to me about a lot of things, so I can't be certain. I wasn't actually there."

"Oh, Tony," Pepper croons, rubbing a thumb between the tiny lizard's eyes and watching colors ripple across his skin in response. "Whatever happened, it's okay now, okay? We're going to find a way to make this okay."

Tony just melts down onto the wooden surface, relaxing as Bruce has never seen him able to do, and then the shifting colors spread further, and there's a human-sized, naked Lord Tony Stark curled up on top of the slightly worse-for-wear sideboard, Pepper still petting his hair.

Bruce's eyes widen. "It's you!" he says. "Tony Stark. You're human again. How did you do that?" he asks, turning to Pepper.

"I have no idea," Pepper says, eyes also wide but voice hushed and gentle. "Tony, Honey, what the hell happened to you?"

Tony blinks around at his audience, then grins widely. "Hey, I'm back? This means you can hear me when I talk, right?" He sits up, rubbing his hands together gleefully, then just gazing at them contentedly for a moment before happily muttering "Thumbs" under his breath. He goes straight for Bruce's stash of pencils and paper before answering Pepper.

"I wanted to know what Ross was up to with Erskine's papers. Trying it out on myself? Not actually my idea. All Ross." Tony shudders. "That guy was absolutely the most repugnant human on the planet. Jabbed me while I wasn't looking, and then that happened. Thanks for taking him out, Buddy."

Bruce just looks sick.

"Not, you know, a terrible way to spend a years-long vacation in the woods, observing the work of a guy like Bruce here. Even learned a few things. But I missed my own stuff. And my voice. And my thumbs." He looks adoringly at Pepper again. "And you. I missed you. Thanks for not giving up. Thanks for changing me back."

"Of course," Pepper says simply.

"I'd really like to know what triggers your transformations," Bruce ponders. "I have a pretty good bead on my own, but yours seems to be less reliable..."

"Yeah, I've got a theory," Tony says, scribbling away again. "Rough idea, anyway. A little hazy on the details and not quite ready to test it out just yet."

And with that, a man in a city watchman's uniform bursts through the door, hauling a man in black and green by the scruff of the neck in front of him, and Tony startles and immediately pops back to the size and shape of a lizard again. He widens his eyes in anger, then makes an angry fist swat with one arm before glaring at the newcomers.

A small, neatly-dressed and unassuming man walks in behind the other two. "I apologize for coming to spy on all of you," he told the odd assemblage of people. "But this man seems to have beaten us to it, and that seems like an issue we should address before anything else. Do any of you know who he is and why he may have been lurking in your stairwell?" The unassuming man gestures to the two who had come in before him, and it's Loki, and holding him in place is the man who'd turned back from being a horse right in front of them what seems like a lifetime ago.

"Yeah," Clint says, sort of strangled. "He took over my body, and... Rogers, you callin' down the authorities on me now that Bruce has his stuff an' doesn't need me anymore?"

"That's not why I'm here, no," Steve answers.

The neatly dressed man beside him speaks up again. "I asked him to help me follow up a lead on the Black Widow." He then speaks to the seemingly empty air to his right. "Miss Romanov, I'm sure you know the Watch can't let you go on behaving as you have in the past, but your behavior recently has been interesting. I'd like to offer you a job."

The darker of the two red-haired women steps out from behind some rubble that had been hiding her quite effectively. "We should have a conversation about that," she tells him. "Some other time. For now? This guy's been making waves in the underworld in a bad way. Giving the rest of us a bad name. It's enough to make a girl want to get out of the business." She walks up to Loki wearing a predatory smile. "Well, now the law has caught up to us both."

Loki scoffs, glaring at her. "And if I had had a choice in the matter, I would not have had the need to be so clumsy and obvious. But choice is not a luxury a genie like myself has." He sighs, rolling his eyes. "I assure you, I much prefer a subtler way of getting things done, when I can. But with Ross holding the amulet that houses my life force, hiding it somewhere within this tower when not using it to command me? I needed a sharp pair of eyes scouring this place for treasures - or failing that, a pair of fists capable of leveling it to its last stone."

"You're a genie," Rogers repeats, somewhat disbelievingly.

"Yes, Captain, and I'd grant you that it's a little bit of a stretch of the imagination to believe, if I weren't speaking to a man who was so recently a horse."

"Is that how this has all been happening? Magic?" Rogers asks.

"I'm afraid Erskine's alchemy is outside the scope of my powers - I can do nothing so physical, or permanent. I specialize in tricks of the eye and of the mind."

"So whoever has this amulet, what, controls you?" the unassuming man asks.

"They may summon me," Loki answers, "and my power may only be used at their command. But now that the abominable Lord Ross is dead, I care very little whether it is found or not, for a while. I can hardly imagine a worse master."

Someone else can be heard coming up the stairs now. Bruce's little tower-top home, a hideaway only for himself for so long, is now not only falling apart but also full to bursting. He wonders who else could possibly find this place.

Nothing could have prepared him for seeing Betty step out of the stairwell and into the ruined rooms.

"I don't know what you're all doing in my father's tower," she tells them, "but I suspect that it has something to do with magic, because just a little bit ago I got a distinct feeling that there was something of mine up here and I had to come and find it. Would anyone care to explain?"

"Betty," Bruce says. "I'm so sorry, but it looks like one of your father's magical items has transferred ownership to you, through inheritance."

Her eyes widen, dart around the room, and find her father's remains. She trembles a little. "Bruce," she says quietly, "no one but you could have done that."

"I know," he tells her. "I'm so sorry." Clint's arm around him is all that keeps him from collapsing to the ground.

"I don't want to know anything more about any of you," she says, dead calm and frightening. "I am getting my magical object and I am leaving and then I am never going to set foot in this tower again." She walks around the ruins of the lab, shifting some crushed furniture to find a heavy-looking golden amulet.

"Lady Ross," the unassuming man tells her, "I'd appreciate it if you'd transfer ownership of that amulet to either Captain Rogers or myself. It's powerful, and I don't believe its owner will be left in peace."

"Fine," she snarls at him, and places it in his hand. "Good riddance."

Loki merely watches the man speculatively, studying his new master. But when she leaves, the whole room seems to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Well, I'm not sure at all what the best thing would be to do about this whole messed up situation," Rogers ventures into the silence, "but I think we should get out of here too, while the tower's still standing. Sort this out somewhere else. It kind of seems like the real villain is already dead, and Lord Stark's been found. Whatever the rest of you have done, punishing you for it is not at the top of my list."

"But you are all dangerous," the unobtrusive man adds. "So I'm going to be keeping an eye on all of you." He tucks the amulet into an inside pocket. "I'm sure we can all find some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement."

Tony, after another round of relaxing head skritches, flows back out into human form again. "That's gonna get old real fast," he says. "I'm going to need to build something that can talk and has thumbs for me, if that's gonna be a regular thing."

"It probably will be," Steve says somewhat ruefully. "When Coulson here approached me about helping him with his Black Widow problem, after I decided to agree, I turned back into a horse. There seems to be some kind of trigger for each person the potion has been used on, some attitude that's associated with their other form. I had to be determined to make my own calls, not just follow orders, before I could turn back."

"Huh," says Clint. "Wonder if I've got one o'those?"

Bruce shrugs.

"Okay, you heard the man," Tony says. "Let's move this party somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere... mine."

"Let's go home," Pepper agrees.

After a quick change of clothes for Tony, Bruce and Clint - which pretty much means the entirety of Bruce's meager wardrobe is on the three of them - the whole party stops off towards the city. The whole group is noisy and amused, but a little anxious about what's to come, because for all of them, it seems like the world is going to be a little different from now on, and none of them can be quite sure how.

The towers of the city are just becoming visible over the treetops when Clint's wings fold up and disappear.

Bruce squeezes his hand. "What just changed?" he asks.

"When I'm in the city?" Clint tells him. "I'm used to keeping a low profile. Just wanted to make my wings a little less obvious."

"Well, that seems like it's your trigger," Bruce says, rubbing Clint's smooth human back where the wings have disappeared. "That's pretty perfect. You're perfect. I kind of think Erskine's project was always meant for someone like you."

Clint shrugs off the compliment, but not the hand. "I'm glad it happened the way it did, anyway," he tells Bruce. "Means I got the chance to know you."

Tony pretty much throws a feast for all of them, greets all his servants warmly and then sends them running for this and that, food and wine and washbasins. It's all a bit overwhelming for Bruce, who was used to being alone, and he starts to remember all the reasons he'd been avoiding the city all these years. But the Other Guy hadn't shown up last time, and there'd been so much provocation.

Bruce squeezes Clint's hand, and thinks that maybe, this time, when he runs, he won't have to go alone.

Tony must be used to reading him by now, because there's a funny little wary look in his eye when the nobleman approaches Bruce's spot.

"Bruce, best buddy," he says, "you're sticking around, right? There are so many ideas that I got while I was watching you work, and I might need your help to follow up on some of them. Come on, my labs are better than Ross's anyway."

Bruce looks at Clint, whose eyes are wary and hesitant, waiting... waiting for Bruce to leave him behind for a better life.

"Only if Clint can stay too," he tells Tony.

"Really?" Clint's eyes are wide and full of hope now, and Bruce can't help but kiss him.

It's sweet and just a little hungry, and it doesn't last long, just until they're settled in each other's arms, content and comfortable. They don't even care that now everybody's staring at them, and neither of them is much for being stared at.

But this time, all the eyes are friendly.

Even those of Rogers and Coulson.

"I think I could probably see my way towards getting you a legitimate job here in the city," Coulson says. "Anyone possessed of your... unique talents, I'd much rather be fighting with than against."

Clint looks overwhelmed, but happy. "Long as I've got food an' shelter an' my bow, I'm good. An' not having to run, an' a tower view? Big pluses." Then he turns and puts his forehead against Bruce's. "But I'd follow you anywhere. Your choice, Big Guy."

"Let's stay," Bruce says, just a breath, with a tiny smile. "Let's stay."

Living with Tony Stark in his towering palace in the city is great. The labs are, in fact, better than Ross's, and his easy rapport with Tony continues surprisingly unchanged, given that the man has had his power of speech restored and now can't seem to shut up.

There's a special team, part of the City Watch but kept secret, and Clint and Rogers (who's now Steve) and the Black Widow (who's now Natasha) are all part of it. Loki is too, sometimes, under protest, but Coulson holds the controlling charm in the breast pocket of his suit. Loki wreaked havoc under Ross's control, tricking his way to the jailor's demise, but it's different with Coulson. Coulson listens, and gives Loki a chance to do things his own way, and never, ever gives a compelling order without discussing it first, if possible. In turn, Loki... seems to settle into an acceptance, even appreciation, for the other members of the team.

And sometimes, if the threat is big enough, they'll ask for the Hulk.

The Other Guy loves the opportunity to fight beside Clint, to see his pretty wings in action, to watch him shoot. Clint doesn't wear his wings much in the city, or around the tower; he isn't particularly fond of attracting that much attention, from most people. They're for fighting, and they're for Bruce.

Because when Bruce looks at them, there's only wonder, admiration, love, concern when they're bedraggled from a fight. Clint is his angel, and in return Bruce-and-Hulk watch over him.

Some nights, when the air is clear and warm, and the moon is bright, they'll go up to the roof of the tower, and they'll cling tight to each other, and Bruce gets to float up into the sky he's always looked to with fascination about what was out there, and experience what it's like to fly.