Thanks to dysprositos for a helpful beta read! Also, this was inspired by a prompt at the kinkmeme, but I didn't really cover everything they wanted, so. I wanted to write a de-aging fic but couldn't think of a way in, so the prompt helped! Warnings for past child abuse mentions, violence, and angst. Oh, and I have a tumblr if you're interested. It's westgateoh. Thanks for reading! Oh, and background Clint/Coulson, but minor.
Clint swam into consciousness. He was lying on a small patch of green grass and above him he saw blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. It was quiet, and as he looked off to his side he saw an enormous bed of wildly colored flowers. He had a sudden, faint memory of his mother, a petite woman with pale skin and trembling hands, telling him that she thought heaven must be beautiful and quiet, since everything here on earth seemed so ugly and loud.
Maybe he was dead.
Maybe the doctors had thought he was ready to be out of the hospital but he wasn't, or maybe those thugs who caught him stealing their cigarettes earlier today hit him harder than he thought and now he had died of internal bleeding. Whatever had happened, it was pretty here in this moment, so Clint stayed, breathing deeply. When he recognized the scent of smog, though, he sat up, looking around carefully because heaven probably wouldn't smell like downtown Richmond, Indiana, where he'd been standing a second ago.
He felt the shift of too-large clothing across his skin and he looked down. There was a vest made out of something weird; it was thick and felt like a cage around his torso. The gaps between his shoulders and the vest were big and awkward, and the material rubbed against his neck uncomfortably. His pants were just weird. No self-respecting sixteen year-old would be caught in leather pants with buckles stretched across at odd intervals, and these didn't fit either, bunching up around his waist and billowing a bit at the thighs. Everything was too big.
He looked around again, seeing an empty playground and basketball court, and realized he was in a city park; there was an alleyway across the street. There was a lot of noise approaching, an odd screeching sound overlapping a helicopter and – was that a roar? Maybe someone let some lions loose in the city, he thought with a grin as he scrambled to his feet. He was a little dizzy, but he swallowed and took a deep breath, figuring being out in the open and dressed like this wasn't probably where he wanted to be. That was when he saw a gorgeous compound bow on the grass nearby and realized there was a complicated quiver next to it.
He leaned over and picked the bow up. It was a little heavy for him, but god, he'd never held such a bow. He'd seen pictures of compounds, but had only used a recurve in the circus. He ran his finger across the trigger, sensing strength and power and wondering why the hell it was here. He shook his head, blinking hard against confusion and a thread of fear. He looked at the bow again and then looked toward the sounds of chaos. He had to figure out what was going on before that chaos reached him, so he hitched his pants up with his other hand, picked up the quiver and threw it across his back, and took off at a jog down the alley across the street.
He figured three things out quickly.
One, he needed different clothes. Two, he wasn't in Indiana anymore, and three, he was going to have to ditch the bow. Ditching the bow was directly related to the first two. He needed clothes and he didn't have any money, which meant he'd have to steal them. Stealing meant subtlety and he wasn't going to be able to be subtle with a compound bow and a quiver. He was also clearly in New York City, based on the bus he saw and the subway stop looming at the end of the alley – what the hell - and that meant that he'd have to be careful; a bow was just going to draw attention he didn't need.
So he grudgingly hid it behind a dumpster. Hiding it was probably futile, but a part of him hoped he'd be able to figure things out and come back for it since it was so god damned beautiful. With a sigh he ducked out of the alley and thought that heading away from the chaos he could still hear was probably the way to go, so he clung to the storefronts and headed down the street, biting his lip and looking around furtively.
He passed a store that sold souvenirs and t-shirts, and he ducked inside. He realized the shopkeepers were watching a television in the corner, enraptured by something about giant robots. He used the distraction and grabbed a sweatshirt off the rack, along with a baseball hat, and ducked back out of the store unnoticed. He passed an alley, shucked the strange vest, and pulled on a sweatshirt, navy with the words 'New York Rocks!' on it. The hat was a Yankees hat, and after he pulled that on he continued on down the street.
His pants were still a problem, but he figured he'd put some distance between him and the chaos before he addressed that. He didn't know the city at all, so he just kept the chaos at his back and walked for almost an hour, trying not to think too hard about what was going on. He needed space.
He came to another city park and he stopped, found a deserted corner of the park, and sat down with his back against the fence surrounding a basketball court. He let out a deep breath and wasn't surprised when he started to tremble a little.
He had been pushing the little wave of panic that kept threatening down into his chest for the last hour. It rose, now, up his throat and he bit his lip again, trying to keep it in, and he tasted blood after a moment. He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to hold the shaking in. "What would Barney say about all of this," flew through his head and he shoved it out as quickly as he could. Barney wouldn't help him three weeks ago when he and Duquesne stood over Clint's bleeding body, and Barney certainly couldn't help him now.
Looking around the park, Clint wondered what the hell was going on. He'd been leaning against a wall in an alley in Richmond, Indiana an hour ago. He had gotten beat up by two guys who caught him trying to lift their cigarettes and was trying to catch his breath when the world tipped, landing him in New York fucking City.
He'd never been to New York City. Chicago was the biggest place he'd ever been, and even then it was only once with Barney and a couple friends from the circus troupe. They'd been performing outside the city and had all piled into a car on their day off and wandered around, not really doing anything other than eating pizza and people watching. He didn't like it much, preferring the open fields where they'd set up each week, the little towns where people were nice and would often give the circus kids a free slice of pie and glass of lemonade if they wandered into the local diner. Now he looked up from where he was curled up and saw the city closing in around him, he wished he were anywhere but here.
Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself to wonder, just for a minute, what Barney would do in this situation. Barney, who had fucking left him for dead, was good at thinking on his feet, had taught Clint a few things – like how to lift a wallet – and was always the one Clint looked to for answers, before. He was still trying to get used to the idea of after, and now…this.
So he stood, figuring he had to deal with his food and shelter situation first. As he looked around the park, he saw a thrift store across the street. Ten minutes later, after using his 'soulful eyes' (according to the fortune teller in Carson's circus) to explain that he didn't have any money but just needed a pair of jeans to get him through for a bit, he thanked the kind old lady behind the counter and threw the weird pants with the buckles in a nearby trash can.
That's when he spotted the red and gold robot flying through the sky in widening circles.
He stared for a moment – robot flying through the sky – and then started running again. He wasn't sure why he felt like he needed to run, but something weird was happening to him and a flying robot was definitely weird, too. He didn't like it.
He jogged a few blocks and finally came to an alley that didn't look too dingy. It had a dumpster he could hide behind, so he headed for it. He almost tripped when he spotted a concert poster advertising a show coming up on October 12th, 2013. That was impossible. Frustrated, he tucked himself behind the dumpster, shoving his fists against his eyes...
Giant robots were impossible.
Flying red and gold robots were impossible.
Fighting in Richmond and then waking in New York was impossible.
2013 was impossible.
Understanding one fucking thing about his stupid fucking life was impossible on a good day, he figured, so what the hell, how different was this, really?
Clint stayed hidden until it got dark, and then he decided to find a subway station or bus station. Those are really good places to pick pockets, Clint. Everyone's in a hurry, you know? Clint shook his head to clear it, and made his way back out to the street. He passed a middle aged guy sitting on a doorstep and asked where the nearest bus station was.
About ten blocks over, he found it. A crowded, dirty bus station that was teeming with people. Thanks for the advice, big brother, he thought grimly, and after he pulled his hat a little lower on his face and took a deep breath, he headed in. Light hands and speed was what made it work, and he'd been practicing. That's how he'd gotten from Iowa to Indiana in the first place. He was going to head south, but shit. New York in 2013 happened. So now, he found a group of young guys who looked like they were heading out on a trip, laughing, carrying only backpacks filled to the seams with water bottles hanging off the clips.
Clint tucked one hand in his jeans pocket, slouched a little, and bumped into one of the guys – he had blond hair like Clint and was probably twenty or so – just a little older than Clint – perfect. He slipped his fingers in lithely and pulled the wallet out, reaching out with his other hand to grab the guy's backpack as he offered an apology, "Sorry, man, sorry," and wandered away, heading for the ticket counter to make his path seem legit. He got in line and pulled the wallet out and looked down with a grin. Jackpot. One hundred dollars in cash and a driver's license for a twenty year old blonde kid named Devon Smith.
Clint could make that work for him.
He didn't want to stick around when that kid figured out he'd gotten robbed, though, so he ducked back out of line and headed for the bathroom, veering off at the last minute to leave through a back entrance to the station. He found his way to a nearby diner and had a cup of coffee and a hamburger while he stared numbly at a newspaper he'd picked up off a table. It really did seem to be 2013, and when he looked around the diner in awe, he realized people were all using little handheld devices, a few people had things stuck in their ears, and the cash register at the end of the bar looked really weird. He looked up and realized the TV was flat and really, really big, too.
God, he just wanted to get out of this unfamiliar place and sleep for a while. Maybe he was dreaming. He stopped his sandwich halfway to his mouth as he thought about that one. A really fucking vivid nightmare? That just might be it. He set his sandwich down and considered it. How could he tell? This felt real. He was tired, bone-tired, and confused, but it didn't feel like a dream. He remembered everything over the last six or seven hours, and dreams usually jumped around. And weren't quite as clear. Or sensory – fuck. He couldn't count on it being a dream.
He went back outside and a few people were standing around smoking. He approached an older woman in a sweater and scarf. "Could I bum one of those?" he asked. She gave him a once over and shrugged, handing him a cigarette and offering him a light. "Thanks," he said, and she winked and turned away.
He inhaled on the cigarette and waited for the small rush from the nicotine, closing his eyes for a moment when it hit. He inhaled again, and as he watched the smoke leave his mouth he thought that maybe staying in New York wasn't so bad. He had an ID and he was a good liar; maybe he could find some work to do. After he slept. God, he hadn't felt this drained since the first time he had to do two shows in one day. He needed a place to crash.
He walked over to a brochure stand outside the station and found a map of the city and a list of hostels. He found his way to a nearby hostel, stopping for his own pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the way, gave them the fifteen bucks for the night, and after washing his face in the bathroom and trying not to talk to anyone, he collapsed on the top bunk and rested. He never slept well in unfamiliar places, but he had been quietly freaking out all afternoon, and he had possibly been magicked to New York City in 2013, so he dozed on and off, waking when someone came in the room and dozing once they were asleep.
It was better than nothing.
"Hawkeye, report," Phil said sternly as he watched Stark take out another giant robot with a well-placed repulsor blast. There was no answer. That was the third time Phil or Steve had tried to raise Clint on the comms, and nothing. He turned to Sitwell, who was sitting two chairs down in the remote observation room in SHIELD headquarters, where Phil was coordinating with his team. "Jasper," he said, and nodded to a nearby monitor, "Go back through the footage to these coordinates and look for Hawkeye. He's gone off-comms." Phil handed him a post-it with some information.
He looked back to the battle and kept up his calls to the team, directing Stark and Thor in the air, mostly, while the Captain took care of the ground assault. He wanted to switch with Sitwell, but this was his job. Worrying about Clint wouldn't help.
A few minutes later, Sitwell found something. "Fuck, that's weird," he said suddenly, still staring at the screen.
"What?" Phil replied, adding "Stark, Sixth Avenue, go." He turned to Jasper. "What's weird?"
Sitwell leaned back in his chair. "Well, he's on this roof, here, see?" he said, pointing at his screen. Then he pushed a button. "Then if you watch, he just disappears."
Phil watched, and sure enough, Clint was standing on the roof one second and was gone the next. Phil checked his own monitors and then followed a hunch, checking Clint's tracker that was implanted just under his skin at his stomach. Phil drew a sharp breath when he saw that the signal was just gone.
"What do you mean the tracker's gone?" Tony demanded an hour later as they finally got rid of the robots completely. They were in the conference room of headquarters for debriefing, and Tony stood and walked over to the computer in the front of the room and started typing. After a moment, as Natasha stood and crossed her arms, her gaze darkening, Tony sighed.
"He's right. It's offline."
"What do we do?" Natasha asked.
"It's got to be magic," Bruce said quietly from across the table, and Phil's stomach turned a little because magic? He could not control that and hated dealing with it.
Everyone looked at Thor, who looked startled. "It does appear to be what you might call magic, yes. But I do not know the source. There's no other disturbance in the picture."
They sat and watched the video feed over and over until Phil was sure he was going to see Clint disappearing in his nightmares the next time he got a chance to sleep. After an hour or so, he sent Stark out to do a sweep of the area just on the dumb off-chance that his sensors might pick something up. Phil sat staring at footage until he decided to send out three five-man teams of agents in three quadrants around where Clint vanished, and he took the fourth, along with Natasha, Steve, and Thor.
An hour later, Natasha found Clint's bow. It was stashed behind a dumpster, along with the quiver. "He didn't drop it," she said carefully, looking around for other signs of Clint.
Phil nodded, a spark of dread lighting in his chest. "Someone stashed it. Hid it. Why?"
Thor looked around the alley and narrowed his eyes. "One hides something if they want to return for it."
Phil looked down at his watch. "It's been three hours since he disappeared." He wanted to say Clint couldn't get too far, but this was Clint they were talking about. He could be on a plane to California for all they knew. He had bolt holes with – "We need to check his bolt holes," Phil said, looking at Natasha. "I know of two in the city, what about you?"
She nodded. "He has three. I'll go."
Just then Phil's radio buzzed. "Sir," one of the agents in another quadrant said, "We found his vest. It was in a dumpster on 23rd."
"Affirmative," Phil answered. "Keep looking." He hooked his radio back to his belt and sucked in a deep breath. "Go find his bolt holes, Natasha. We still don't know enough otherwise."
"If it's him throwing this stuff out," Steve said, "He's trying to blend in better."
"He's definitely compromised," Phil muttered. Shucking his equipment meant something was very, very wrong, and Phil took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose against a coming headache. Natasha left, and Phil and the others kept looking. Soon, another team called in saying they found Clint's uniform pants in another dumpster.
Phil pulled out his phone and pulled up a map of the area on a hunch. He pinned each spot they'd found something and let out a sigh, pulling up the keypad and dialing Hill's direct line. She answered and he said, "I want any store with a camera along the path I'm sending you to hand over their security footage if they have it," he said. "If he's shedding his stuff, he's doing it in a pretty linear path."
And that bothered Phil.
If it was Clint who was getting rid of his gear, he wasn't being very careful about it, which was unlike him. If it was Clint who was getting rid of his gear that meant he'd disappeared off a building roof and reappeared somewhere else, compromised. Compromised could mean so many things in this new world, Phil thought to himself, and he tried not to panic.
They kept looking, but two hours later Natasha reported that none of Clint's bolt holes had been raided, which meant that he wasn't using any of his fake IDs he kept stashed, and that meant that he didn't have an ID on him right now.
Finally, at ten o'clock at night, Phil and the others called off the foot search and headed back to base. Phil went to the conference room and queued up the security footage Hill had gotten and Bruce brought enough coffee for all of them. The whole team came in and watched.
It was Tony who saw the first clue. "Wait, is that him? That looks like his vest," he said, reaching over to stop the tape of a store that sold souvenirs and snacks, not far from a popular park. He backed up the footage and played it again. The camera never caught a face, but the person was certainly wearing something like Clint's clothes.
Phil watched warily because something was off. The build was wrong, the movements were wrong, and Phil knew how Clint Barton moved. The person stole a sweatshirt and hat smoothly while the store operator was distracted, and ducked outside, avoiding the camera as he went. "That looked like his vest, yeah," he said, making a note of the place on a pad of paper in front of him. "Let's keep looking." They did, and it was when they looked at footage from the bus station that Phil caught it. He was watching the crowd when he saw the sweatshirt and hat that had been stolen from the other store. The guy was wearing jeans now, but was the same height and build as the guy who stole the clothes.
"He lifted that kid's wallet," Natasha said, pointing at the screen. They backed it up and watched it again, and the grainy footage didn't give them much, but Tony froze the frame and held out his Starkpad and scanned it.
"Jarvis, clean this up," he said, setting the pad down on the table where everyone gathered around. What they saw a minute later caused Phil's knees to buckle a little and Natasha steered him over to a chair. Tony's jaw dropped, Steve crossed his arms tightly over his chest, Thor scratched his head, and Bruce ran a hand wearily over his jaw. Phil saw Tony give himself a shake and then he said, "Jarvis, run a facial recognition comparison on this kid and Clint." He stole a glance at Phil and shrugged. "Just to make sure."
"It is a facial recognition match, sir," Jarvis said from the tablet mere seconds later. "That is Agent Barton."
Thor added quietly. "Magic, indeed."
Phil took a deep breath. That was Clint stealing that wallet. Clint, who looked like he was maybe sixteen years old, who was missing the scar on his left cheek from the HYDRA agent who tortured him while Phil watched in horror three years ago, who was missing the lines of laughter around the blue eyes that Phil adored. This was Clint with longer hair framing his face, and smooth skin, and haunted eyes. This was a young Clint, and he was running, probably scared and definitely alone, doing what he knew how to do to survive.
"He's cuter," Tony said, staring at the screen and glancing up at Phil with a grin. Phil glowered at him and Tony added, "As a grownup, I mean – he looks like an asshole here."
"He doesn't know what happened," Natasha said carefully, and Phil could hear her measured tone, holding back whatever she was feeling inside. "If he knew, he'd come to us."
Bruce asked, "Can we figure out whose wallet he took? That way if he uses the ID, we can find him."
"Jarvis, run facial recognition on the kid who lost his wallet."
That took longer, and Phil sipped his coffee while they waited. "Thor," he asked, "Who could do this, altering his age?"
Thor grimaced and said, "There are several possibilities, Son of Coul. Would you like me to return to my people and see what we can find? Hemdall may be able to help."
"Yes," Phil answered. "We need to know how to reverse it as soon as possible."
Thor left, and Natasha stood. "I'm going to get food. What do you guys want?"
Phil looked up as Tony said, "Hamburgers." Phil shrugged and nodded, and Natasha left.
Tony let out a deep sigh as he stared at the photo of Clint at the station. "He looks like a baby there."
Phil didn't reply right away. Clint at sixteen or whatever he was here was not a baby. At that age, he'd already been through more shit than Phil could even imagine, and Phil hadn't had what would be called a stellar childhood. Neither had Tony. "He's used to fending for himself and he'll do a good job of it." Phil closed his eyes for a moment and then looked at Tony. "He might be hard to find."
Tony looked at Phil. "We'll find him."
Phil nodded, feeling warmth in his chest at the determined tone in Tony's voice. They sat quietly for a few minutes waiting for Natasha to return with food, but Phil looked over once to see Tony scrub a hand down his face and sigh heavily. Phil raised an eyebrow in question and Bruce leaned forward in his chair.
Tony narrowed his eyes and said, his voice suddenly dark, "This is when it went to shit for him, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Phil answered, not sure about what Tony was getting at.
"He and I might have bonded a little over gin and tonics one or two times," Tony said with a shrug. "He said he'd been able to handle the circus until he was sixteen but then everything went to hell. He said that's when he ended up taking jobs no one should ever take. He didn't elaborate, but it sounded bad."
Phil nodded, remembering a few conversations over the years, some involving a version of gin and tonic and some just moments of honesty with each other. "Yes, he was almost seventeen when he had to leave the circus."
Tony stood, crossing the room to get a closer look at the photograph. "So if things have gone to hell for him and now he wakes up here with those memories fresh. . ."
Phil stood, too, moving over next to Tony, who added, "He's got to be scared out of his wits."
"He was a tough kid, Tony. He didn't back down or break. He just went down a bad path for a while. We'll find him before he can make those kinds of choices, and we'll get him back here and get the magic out of his system." Phil said it to convince them both. He had to believe they'd find this kid who would become one of Tony's best friends and Phil's partner. It was the only way it could work out.
He ignored the nagging feeling in his chest that told him that was easier said than done.