InsaneJournal

Who: Clint and Tony
What/When: Wednesday@ 1 PM meeting.
Rating/Notes: Green, some language

Tony completed the full set of Clint's gear and weapons before one o'clock, including some new incapacitating arrows. He set up a target across the lab, and hoped like hell Clint wasn't going to turn and fire one of them at him. He really didn't want to be drooling on the floor for the next six to twelve hours.

If anything, it might be worthwhile, since it was a proximity release. So if Clint blew his load, he'd get a big whiff of mini-coma too. The chemical composition assured it would smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, just to make taking an extra sniff all that much more pleasant for the bad guys to indulge in.

Friday was set to let Clint in, just as soon as he hit the top floor lab that Tony spent his days working in. He managed to go home now that Pepper was back, but there was a stab of guilt that somehow, by some freak twist of fate, he managed to get Pepper (and the bun in her oven) back again.

Clint wasn't so lucky. After the Raft (in two parts, although this Clint didn't know that), Tony was sure there was going to be a whole lot of potentially volatile baggage rolling through his door when Hawkeye arrived. At least he could suit up with a thought, but that didn't ease the antsy energy running through him full bore, on all cylinders.

Or maybe that was the three cups of extra dark roast coffee he knocked back since that morning. Thanks, javabot.

If Tony was expecting a bristling bundle of hostility when Clint came through the door, what he got was a man in a grey overcoat at least one size too big, a knit purple cap, and a Starbucks with the name KLINT scrawled across it.

“Stark,” he said with a nod as FRIDAY let him into the lab. “Been awhile. Longer for me than for you, I guess.” A parade of Clints had tromped through this universe but for this particular Clint, the last time he had seen Tony Stark was across a jail cell.

He'd already gotten off to 'a start' with rubbing Natasha the wrong way on contact, and it wasn't like Tony ever forgot that low blow regarding broken backs. Despite that, he buried that hatchet through some Clints and a couple of Buckys. Flipside Land was an anxiety-inducing adventureland for someone like Tony, who felt like there were only so much he could deflect anymore.

"Hey, Barton," Tony said, picking up his cup of coffee to take a sip while eyeing the clothes and the misspelling on the cup. He squinted hard, his neck craning forward like he didn't read that correctly. "Does that say...I need my eyes checked again because it looks like..did you piss someone off, and they wrote KUNT in block print on your cup? That's not cool. I'd ask for the manager. Kids go in there. You know, for their caffeine fix. And cake pops."

Tony cleared his throat and made a face, raising his eyebrows and grimacing. Wow, this world. What are you coming to?

“My eyesight’s perfect,” said Clint, taking a sip from the cup. “I know what it says. Perks of being me.” Whether that was being called Clint or Kunt was open to interpretation.

"I guess getting you a namebadge is probably not gonna fly, huh." Tony smirked, unable to help it, before he patted a hand on the tabletop. There were multiple items there, laid out like Q presenting new gadgets to James Bond. "Ok, so I got some stuff made up. If the fit's wrong on the suit, let me know. Got some experimental stuff that's beyond kevlar on there. Your guns, ammo, knives, old SHIELD gadgets that other yous left behind...and a new bow and arrows."

“Tired of me getting shot?” Clint was particular about his body armor. Range of movement was crucial. He had to be able to move freely, flex his arms and shoulders. Before looking at the body armor, he picked up one of the knives. Still holding his coffee cup, Clint picked up one of the knives, spun it to reverse the grip for throwing, and flicked his wrist. The knife flew across the room and buried itself in one of the targets.

“Not bad.” He sipped from his coffee.

"Nah. I got Helen Cho on speed dial." Tony smirked at the target and knew that one was a hit. Literally and figuratively. He even whistled with appreciation. "That's the carbon-steel, non-slip grip. Even if it's coated in blood and oil. I have a self-healing titanium blade there that's lighter than the steel. Bends twice as far as the steel one before breaking, just a bit under the same hardness and tensile strength rating as what you just chucked over there. Non-magnetic. You can defuse a magnetic mine with it if you have to, and it surpasses what the SEALs' ordnance disposal are using right now."

Tony picked up the bow and quiver of arrows, holding them out to Clint.

"Go on, hot shot. Give this a try. Avoid the explosive arrows and knock-out gas? Pep will yell if I have to have Friday bypass the fire alarms again. Safety hazard. In my own lab? Pfft."

Tony's entire life was a safety hazard.

Clint stood still for a long slow moment before putting down his coffee cup. He took on the bow and slung on the quiver. Clint could draw a bow in one fluid motion and release it with a breath. He hesitated before notching an arrow this time.

Clint hadn’t shot a bow in more than a year.

There was a grimace on his face when Clint pulled back the string and fired. His arm was shaking from the strain when he notched a second shot. He let out a low grunt, guttural and ugly, and released the second shot half-cocked and shaky. It went wide.

Clint strung his bow with 75 pounds of draw force. Every shot meant pulling back against 75 pounds of force and in a fight he could release a hundred arrows with grace. It was like going into a fistfight doing benchpresses and never getting tired. And Clint hadn’t fired a bow in a year.

“Goddammit,” he swore, tossing the bow down with a clatter.

It wasn't often that Tony Stark stopped talking. This was one of those times. There was a hard blink of his eyes as the bow landed, yet his eyes never strayed from Clint.

When he did speak, it was nearly thirty seconds later and his voice dialed down on the sarcastic rhetoric.

"Hey," he said, not budging from his spot leaning against the lab table. He feared this was something beyond a design issue. "Bad balance, something feeling out of whack, draw's off...or did the Hobbit movies ruin it for you? Because Legolas was a dick through most of it. Lord of the Rings was way better...."

Clint snorted. “Maybe it’s been different for all the other Clints but where I came from, my bow’s been property of the US government. I haven’t done any shooting in a year. And now that I can,” he said with a breathy laugh, “now that I can I can’t pull back the goddamn string.”

That realization dawned on Tony, and he blinked a few times as it sunk in.

".................sonnuvabitch." Even mumbled, that statement covered all the bases right now. Tony snapped his fingers a few times, saying at normal volume, "Friday, drag me those latest bow specs and...shit, hold on."

As the design hovered in mid-air, he began to manipulate the draw weight and plans around, stopping to squint as he crunched numbers in his head. He wasn't coming up with a good spot for Clint to be in, bow-wise. It made it worse knowing that if Ross hadn't gotten his claws into them all, if he hadn't felt so guilty about killing more people, he wouldn't have signed the Accords that led to everything falling apart. The situation with Barnes was just fuel to the fire.

"All right...all right, yeah." He swiped the diagram aside and scrubbed that hand down over his face. "That's my bad. I should've taken that into account. Ok, I'm thinking. How long will training take to get your arm back up to snuff? What else do you want as a backup instead?"

Clint watched the specs. He wasn’t an engineer but he knew instinctually what Tony could do by equation. Subtract a pound of force from the string and that was less distance an arrow could travel and less force on impact. Making it basically useless. Not unlike himself.

“What’s the point of all this? Why bother? The Avengers are over, SHIELD is dead. Right now you’re a bored billionaire with a weapons fetish and I’m,” Clint smiled in a way that didn’t extend to his eyes, “I’m not anything. So what do I even need this stuff for?”

Tony barely glanced in Clint's direction at the jibe. While he built weapons, it was only to stop more significant threats than drug dealers or outright warfare. Tony didn't love weapons for the sake of having a cooler way to blow things up, but as a way to keep people safe from the real threats that were coming. Threats he saw with his own eyes when he went through that wormhole.

There was a laundry list of current projects that didn't involve the Avengers. His nagging anxiety and unstoppable guilt complex meant he kept coming back to what might happen next. It reminded him how many people might die if he didn't try to do something. Because he didn't want to sit at home like a bored billionaire, watching things happening on TV when he knew he could try to help.

"The Avengers are gone. That doesn't mean I'm quitting. Thanos is still lurking out there. Because Sharknado randomly popped up out of nowhere. There's advanced weapons smuggled out of Hammer's cesspool that're being sold to insurgents. Because if you or I can do anything to help everyone else who can't...shouldn't we try to?"

Tony moved his hands and tapped his fingers around to open and close a dizzying amount of files. He finally settled on looking over some experimental composite materials.

"I know you've got guts, Barton. I've seen you dive in against aliens and robot armies with a freaking bow. You've got a shinier moral compass than me, too. A lotta people do. You still want to use it to help out or not?"

“Sounds like a vigilante.” Clint shoved his hands into the pockets of his oversized coat. “I been a weapon and I been a hero. They're not the same thing.”

He looked down at the equipment, at the bow he couldn't fire. “Maybe it's time to admit that Hawkeye’s over. He went in to the Raft and he didn't come back out.”

"Not much choice now, whatever it is. There's no Accords here," was Tony's conversational reply, clapping his hands and closing all of the windows in one fell swoop. "Elsewhere it's still sticky, but as soon as something huge and bad happens? Phones start ringing anyway."

He couldn't make someone do what they didn't want to. Clint came out of retirement to help Cap and Wanda, so maybe Cap or Wanda could talk to him about helping out in whatever capacity. They might not be able to talk to him about joining in. Not if his heart wasn't in it, just as much as his draw arm wasn't in shape for it.

No one could change Tony's mind easily either. Even more so after everything changed for the worst after the wormhole, after being shown his worst fears...after that videotape. It only got worse for everyone as time went on, including Clint.

"Maybe think about it some more," he suddenly suggested, cutting off that train of thought. "Talk it over with Cap or Wanda. You know, someone who isn't me. All I can do is tell you I'm sorry because I am. What happened is probably always going to hang over our heads. I made a mistake trusting Ross. I went to the Raft to tell him who framed Barnes for that bombing. He blew me off. Not interested in catching the real criminal, at all. Talked to Wilson and went to Cap to make it right. Then I lost my shit and effed it up even more. I'd love to back out...but I can't. There's still things I can try to do. And if you think about it, there's probably something you can do, too."

Tony rubbed the side of his neck with one hand and squinted, annoyed at himself. He wasn't capable of pep talks. That was Cap's schtick.

Clint reached out for an arrow shaft, spinning that between two knuckles. “That’s a lot to be sorry for,” he said. “You sorry for locking Wanda in the compound and worse, making her think she deserved it?” The arrow continued to spin in an unbroken rhythm. “What about bringing up my family in a room under surveillance? You sorry about that, Stark?”

"Sure am," was Tony's rapid-fire response, reaching out for his coffee cup. "I'm sorry means I'm sorry, for all of it. Already had a sit down with Wanda, months ago. So I guess this means we're not gonna be hanging out on watching cheesy Hong Kong action flicks anymore. That's unexpected."

He patted a hand down on the table full of stuff, taking a drink of coffee while eyeing the spinning arrow. After putting the cup down, he began placing some of the things on the table back into some holders and put them into a long black carrying case, clamping it closed. It was pushed across the table toward Clint.

"It's your stuff," he said. "Old bow and gear is in there, along with the knives. If you don't want any of it, leave it here and I'll stick it back in storage. If you take it to dump it 'cos I got my cooties all over it, just don't throw it in the trash. Got some knives in there. Last thing we need is dumpster divers playing Psycho, minus the whole plastic shower curtains and bad grandma cross-dressing."

Tony nodded at Clint and slid over another case for the next meeting.

“It’s not personal, Stark. I can’t tell if alternate universes are a curse or a gift for you. Endless string of mes, all pissed at you. Sounds awful. Then again you got a martyr complex so maybe it helps.” The arrow between Clint’s fingers stilled.

“I’m glad you and Wanda worked it out. She’s had a hard time and she deserves things to start going her way. It’s not personal. Once you’re a father you’ll understand.”

All that Tony got out of that was yet another pissed off Clint, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, scrunching his face up for a few seconds to fend off a headache. At least he was facing away when he did it, telling himself and his bundle of antsy nerves that the quick fix was slamming down a drink and covering it up with more coffee. Being a functional alcoholic was a blessing and a curse too.

By the time he turned around, he had covered it all up quickly with a thumbs up and a smirk. When all else failed, it was better to use his standard fall-back coping mechanism: sarcastically joke about it like the asshole everyone expected Tony to be.

"Hey, thanks for the advice, Barton. Wanda does deserve that, absolutely agree. Sucks I gotta nip this tête-à-tête in the bud, but I have a cross that I need to climb up and nail myself to. So if you change your mind, pop one of us a line. I got nothing better to do. I'll just be sitting around building more bombs to blow up in my face."

Tony folded his arms over himself and waited. Waited because there was a bottle in a desk drawer with his name on it. He wrote it over the label with a Sharpie pen. The same pen he used when scribbling THOR on a Pikachu action figure that was sitting on his desk.

Clint dropped the arrow on the desk with a clatter. “Screw you, Stark.” He took the knives, vanishing them with startling efficiency inside his coat. His hand brushed against his phone in his pocket and he thought, I’ll call Laura. Except he couldn’t. He couldn’t step outside and call his wife and tell her, ‘You won’t believe what Stark just said.’

Clint wasn’t anything. Not an agent, not an Avenger, not a dad. He had the knives but when he walked out he left the bow on the table. Hawkeye was over.