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The fight seemed normal at first. Some guy using Chitauri tech had managed to mix it with a magic amulet that had supposedly been in his family for generations. He using a mirror to shine sunlight through it and was aiming for the people walking by but so far everyone had avoided it. The cops could not get close enough to take him out. There was something about his clothing that seemed to repel bullets and anything else they tried to throw at him.
Steve’s shield came back to him after bouncing harmlessly off of the sorcerers back. He yells up to Clint to take the shot. Nothing. Sitwell calmly asked Hawkeye to report.
“Um, guys,” Barton’s voice said shakily. “I think I’ve been here before.”
“Of course you have, Birdbrain,” Iron Man said as his repulsor bounced off of the magic user's coat. “We’re in New York.”
“No. Something crazy is about to happen. Whatever happens, keep me away from Stark!” Clint said and then the sorcerer turned around and shot a blast to where Hawkeye was perched. An arrow had already been released but instead of hitting the man it knocked the amulet out of his hand. The Black Widow had snuck up behind him and her widow's bite had no problem jolting him into unconsciousness.
“Hawkeye, report... Barton...Anyone have eyes on Hawkeye?” Sitwell still sounded calm but he was trained by Coulson so no one expected any less.
“Um, guys, some help?” Iron Man’s voice rang over the com.
The rest of the group ran to the building that Hawkeye was perched on to see Iron Man coming down to the street holding onto a struggling figure. He landed and let the person go. Even though the air was very crisp the young man was wearing just a pair of shorts, a white t-shirt, flip flops and a metal collar. His hair was cut a bit longer and tended to fall into his face.
“Clint?” Natasha looked at him. He looked back in confusion.
“Do I know you lady?” The boy in his mid teens asked before he fell down, his body jerking with the electricity that was coming from his collar. Steve grabbed it, grunted as the jolts went up his hand and tore the collar off, flinging it away from the group.
Clint put his hand up to his neck. He rubbed it for a bit. “You are going to get into a lot of trouble for doing that.”
“For stopping you from getting electrocuted?” Steve's confusion was growing.
“For taking me away from my job and destroying Carson’s property.” Clint was scowling. He was also still shivering a bit but now it was from the cold. A SHIELD agent tried to hand him a blanket but he flinched away from her. “Look Lady, I can’t afford that so take it away.”
“The blanket is free,” she said.
“Nope. Nothing is free. Please leave me alone,” Clint moved further away but was stopped by Natasha from leaving the group.
“Sorry little bird,” Natasha put a hand on Clint’s shoulder and turning him around. “SHIELD needs to have a little talk with you.”
“Ask Carson. Look Lady, I really need to get back.” Clint was starting to panic slightly. The rest of the group didn’t know what to make of him. He was deaged and no one had any clue what was going on. He obviously didn’t realize that Carson wasn’t even alive anymore. The man had died of a mysterious arrow to the heart five years ago.
Clint backed up until he felt a metal wall behind him. Iron Man stood there and stared at him a bit before saying, “You are not going back to him for a while.”
The younger man started to breath a bit quicker. “No, no. I need to get back right now!” The panic attack was in full swing. The others tried to calm him down but where unable before he passed out.
XXX
Clint woke up in a medical center. Crap. There was no way to get out of the beating now. Carson hated spending money on medical bills. He took a quick inventory. No new pain. No trouble breathing. Yeah, time to go.
He tore the iv out of his arm and the leads off of his body. He was in the ducts before the beeping brought a nurse to check on him. Maybe if he escaped and managed to finish the hit he wouldn’t be whipped as hard.
XXX
Tony was in the conference room with the rest of the Avengers leaning his chair back far enough to almost tip over. Steve was sitting at the head of the table tapping his fingers subconsciously. Natasha was standing in the corner, fuming. Bruce was looking at a copy of Clint’s file trying to figure out if there was any scientific reason for the change.
Sitwell walked in and sat down in the middle of the table. “What did he mean when he asked to be kept away from Stark?”
“He’s missing most of his scars,” said Tony as he frowned down onto his lap.
“Well, he is a lot younger...”
“No. He’s missing the scars he received when he was 15.” Tony interrupted.
“So he gets those when he gets back,” Natasha responded. “We all know that he is looking at a beating for being missing all this time.”
“No. He didn't get the beating for disappearing. He got it for not killing me.” Tony said still frowning down at his hands.
“What?” Steve looks at Tony. “Why on Earth would he kill you?”
“Stane took out a hit on me,” Tony looked up at his friend. His lips taught. “Clint would never tell me why he refused the hit but he almost died from the resulting punishments.”
“So your the job he’s so worried about. That’s why Clint told us to keep him away from you,” Sitwell sighed as he put a piece of the puzzle together. “We also know it's a body swap and not an age digression since he showed signs of this being a memory.”
“But how long is this going to last?” Steve asked.
“That would be the puzzle,” Sitwell took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
XXX
Now who on earth put these pillows in the vents? How many people use them to escape or travel from room to room? This was not a normal occurrence no matter where Clint went and his curiosity was more than peaked. Okay, this looked like the nest he set up in the orphanage all those years ago. And there are romance novels... really cheap romance novels stacked up. Oh, power bars. Just what the doctor ordered. Now all he needed was... a gun. A bit larger than he was used to using in tight courters but the pistol would work just fine for his needs.
XXX
The SHIELD agent left after a brief talk with Agent Sitwell. The others looked at the strain in his eyes as he informed them that Clint had gone missing. Tony was the first to get up. “Can we move to a room without vents? I sorta got a clue as to where he went and don't need to be within his line of sight.” He said as he moved towards his suit.
XXX
The older Clint found himself on a rooftop. He was surrounded by his usual nest items. The bow and arrow in front of him was much smaller than he currently used but he remembered it fondly. The scratch from where he had to drop it to get down a fire escape quickly. The bit of paint on it from when he didn’t put it away between practices and the workmen were too close building a new set. Even the arrows brought back memories of sitting there fletching them between shows.
Clint looked down at the crowd. It was a national science convention and Tony Stark was the celebrity judge that they had brought in. He was weaving his way through the people with a very beautiful brunette on his arm and a very upset Pepper following him. The archer chuckled to himself. Yep, that was definitely vodka in Tony's glass by the way he was meandering around and people seemed to take a step back when he tried to talk to them.
Tony looked at a few of the inventions before stopping at one and really taking his time to look at it. It was an exhibit by a boy that looked familiar. Clint squinted his eyes for a better look at the name tag. Henry Pym. Wasn’t that the name of the new scientist at Stark Industries that Tony was bragging about last week? The assassin shook his head to bring himself back to task. He knew that he had limited time.
He pulled out the notebook his kept in his leg pocket and a pencil. He drew a picture of Tony and then a picture of his bow and arrow. He then exxed out the bow and arrow. He wanted to let his younger self know not to kill Tony. He dirtied his hand and left his fingerprint as a signature. He remembered getting a message like this. He wasn’t really sure what it said because he destroyed it right away to keep it from Alejandro but he remembered it was one of the reason’s he never took the shot. The rest is sort of fuzzy.
Clint wanted to write a lot more. Let him know that Barney would manage to escape in a few years. Let him know how Coulson would get him out of the circus and away from the brothel tent. Let him know that not only was Captain America alive but would become one of his best friends. Yet he knew the abused boy would not have understood. He also knew that any information about the future would have changed his reactions to it and he ended up in such a good place. No, that was enough.
The rooftop was not what he thought of as a good place to pass the time but Clint had nowhere to go. And there was a part of him that really wanted to avoid seeing Alejandro. The lessons to stay until the job was done were harshly taught. The lessons that were still ingrained even after all of those years. No, the time difference between switches was much shorter on this end. He would just sit and wait. Although watching Stark trip his way through the science fair was amusing enough that he would at least be entertained. Pity his camera phone was back at base.
XXX
The team was walking through the hallways, Tony was wearing his Iron Man armor and was being kept in the middle of the group. His faceplate was open as he talked to the others about what they were going to do next. When they were almost to the elevators a ping rang out as the bullet ricochetted off of the back of Iron Man’s helmet and into the wall right next to Natasha. Thor wasted no time. He punched into the wall next to the grate and grabbed the struggling boy. The god screamed as a bullet went through his arm but he did not let go until Captain America had managed to reach into the vent and grab the arm that was holding the pistol.
Steve quickly disarmed the boy and dragged him out of the vent. Clint’s punches and kicks were wild and he bit the hand that grabbed his head, trying to bring him into some sort of control. Tony had enough. “Stop!”
The boy stood there in shock. He knew that he was outnumbered, overpowered and done for. He didn't want to think about the price of his failure. It had been alluded to in the past but he had managed to avoid Trickshot’s wrath until now. And his target had every right to take revenge on him. If the target didn’t kill him, his owner would.
XXX
Sitwell sat silently for a moment taking the boy in. He looked so much younger than their intel stated. Was this boy really 15? He was given a sandwich but even though his stomach rumbled, he refused to eat until Sitwell took a bit and ensured it wasn’t poisoned.
Jasper had pulled out a folder that was created from the older Clint’s file. It contained everything they knew about him before the age of fifteen. It wasn’t as complete a file as he would have liked. It looked like Clint may have managed to edit it. A lot.
“So, Mr. Barton, would you like to tell me why you attacked Mr. Stark today?”
Clint tapped his fingers on the table and just stared at the agent.
Sitwell decided to see if the boy even knew what had happened to him. “Can you tell me what this was all about?” He slid a copy of their conversation after the change over to Clint.
He looked at it a second and then asked very politely, “Sir, is this a joke?”
“What? No. Why would you think that?” Sitwell was getting impatient. Who knew how long they were going to be stuck with this boy. Magic worked in strange ways. He could disappear at any moment or the change could last for years. Because older Clint existed the change was temporary. Would it be best to alter the boys memory to keep the past safe or send him back with a warning. Who knows how many disasters could have been avoided with such information.
This was too much. Sitwell excused himself to go talk to Fury and Hill. Clint just continued to tap his fingers on the table. He completely ignored the paperwork in front of him even though it was all about him. Tony was watching the video feed with Steve and was very curious about that. He knew that if he was there he would be all over that file, learning everything SHIELD knew about him. Heck, he was sure that his friend had already read his own file and memorized or altered it to his liking.
“What is going on with that boy.” Tony threw his hands into the air. “Wouldn’t you be the least bit curious as to what was in that file? He didn’t even look at the paper that Sitwell gave him.”
Steve sighed and looked at his friend, “Tony, have you ever wondered what his life might be like?”
“What, why?”
“Do you think he was ever trained to not be curious?”
Tony rubbed his hand over his goatee for a bit. “Nope. That is an ingrained human trait. I’m going to go find out.”
Before Steve could reach out and stop him, Tony was down the hall and opening the door. “Hey sunshine, mind if I come in for a visit?”
Clint just sat back and glared at the older man.
“Yeah, you're speechless. I do that to a lot of people.” Tony turned the seat around and straddled it. “So, let's see what is in here?” Tony opened the file and started to read it. “Francis? Clinton Francis Barton? Anyone ever tell your dad that is a girl’s name? I mean really. Did they try to come up with the geekiest name available.”
“Wow, turns out you’ve been with the circus for five years by now. Tell me, are the acrobats as nimble as they appear?” The playboy gave a smirk at the boy who just continued to scowl at him.
“Okay. Let’s see what else. Oh, you have a brother. During all this time you never mentioned him.” Tony read further into the reports. “Barney, huh. Yeah, your mom really did want you both to get beat.”
Clint held his hands in fists. “Please leave my mum alone, sir.” His body trembled for a bit and by the twerk of his mouth it was clear that he was biting the inside of his cheek.
“He does speak. Don't worry. No matter. I’ll leave your mum alone.” That calmed Clint down. He slouched down deep into his chair and stared at his feet.
“Are you still going to try to kill me?” Tony asked.
Clint shrugged and said, “It’s my job.”
“Well, your out of a job for right now. What I am truly curious about is if you didn’t read this out of fear or just a lack of curiosity.”
“Will you all please stop joking with me?” Clint looked up and went back to glaring at Tony.
“We're not joking. Why would you think that?” The man was honestly perplexed.
“I can’t read, you ass.” Clint spit out.
Tony was rarely shocked. Over the years he had seen exactly how Photoshopped models were, scientific advances that still blow peoples minds, atrocities done with his own weapons and his own home crumble around him as it fell into the ocean. Yet it never dawned on him that a boy as smart as his friend would not know how to read.
As shocked as Tony was, he wasn’t nearly as surprised as Clint with the outburst. The boy’s eyes went wide as he quickly pushed back his chair and flung himself onto the floor under the table. He grabbed one of Tony's feet and put his forehead to it. “Please forgive me,” he pleaded. “I...I won’t talk out of line again. Don’t tell anyone I was rude. Please.”
“Whoo, just hold on.” Tony reached down and pulled the boy up to his feet. “What’s the problem?”
Clint just kept his head down. He trembled slightly.
“Look, kid. You did nothing wrong. Calm down okay?”
The boy used his sleeve to wipe his nose. “You arn’t gonna punish me?”
“No, kid. Just sit back down and I’m just gonna be right back. Okay?” Tony left before he could get an answer.
XXX
“Sitwell!” Tony came roaring towards the man interrupting his talk with Fury. “What the hell is wrong with that boy?” Sitwell, Fury and Hill just crossed their arms and glared at him. Without skipping a beat he continued, “That child is not Clint. He may look like him but there is no way the man I know would freak out after a simple little outburst.”
The agent just pulled his glasses off and cleaned them before putting them back on and leveling a very simple look at the genius. “The man you know had years of retraining before he met you. Do you honestly think he was born a SHIELD agent?”
“No but I did figure that he held his own. That boy in the other room is terrified of a simple outburst!”
“That boy can kill a man a quarter a mile away without the use of a scope. He has already killed three people with just his hands by this age. Yet it took him years to stop falling to his knees when ordered and those that used that trick against him soon found out that grudges can last for years. I told you to leave him alone.”
“But, he...” Tony started.
“He what? Acted like a slave who did something bad? Expected a punishment for yelling at a free man? What did you think was going to happen when you marched right in there? Captain Rogers was supposed to keep you out for a reason.”
Tony took a step back and blinked. He had never seen Sitwell actually angry before. Even Fury was looking at him with his hard to come by respect. The billionaire found himself lacking a proper comeback.
“Well,” started Hill, “At least we know one more thing. We know that Coulson helped him get his GED but it looks like Clint managed to erase his inability to read from his file. What else do you think he altered?”
Sitwell had calmed down by this point. “I suggest we call Coulson and find out.”
“No,” Fury said. “I do not think it is wise for this boy to meet his future lover. Keep the two apart. Clint can fill him in when he returns to normal.”
XXX
Bruce had gone down to the R&D lab. He worked with the other scientists there to find out how the Chitauri piece-crystal combination worked. No one could get out of the sorcerer the directions of how to use the thing and the lab workers were getting frustrated trying to figure out how to trigger the magic.
Dr. Ferguson moved his lamp closer to the device. The light went through the crystal part, bounced off the metal table and hit him. Suddenly a fifteen year old was standing in his place. The boy was wearing his pajamas and looked like he was still asleep. Bruce managed to catch him as he fell. Dr. Martinez helped him move the sleeping boy to a couch against the far wall.
On a hunch Dr. Martinez removed the crystal from the Chitauri device and turned it around before replacing it. Then she took a pen light and shined it through the crystal at the boy who was starting to stir. Dr. Ferguson sat straight up and looked around wildly for a second. Then he took a deep breath and asked, “So, I take it we made some progress?”
XXX
Sitwell walked into the R&D lab to find Dr. Martinez arguing with Dr. Ferguson over ten more minutes. Ten minutes of what he wasn’t really sure. Something about seeing his father.
Bruce walked over to Sitwell with a smile on his face.
“You said you had good news,” Sitwell said as he watched the fight.
“We cracked the use of the crystal. Actually those two did it but they seem to be a bit preoccupied. It seems that it will exchange any human with their fifteen year old self but time seems to be a bit different. Dr. Ferguson only remembers being in his old room for a few seconds while his younger self was here for over ten minutes.”
“Younger self! And what does he remember from that time?”
“Luckily we caught him while he was asleep so he remembers nothing as a teenager but it seems that he wants to test the crystal again. Something about seeing his father one last time. Dr. Martinez and I decided against it.”
“Good,” answered Sitwell. “This cannot be allowed to be used by anyone.”
“But we just discovered true time travel! Why wouldn’t we use it? Think of all of the...” Dr.Ferguson could be heard yelling.
Dr. Martinez cut him off, “And we discovered the perfect way to alter things for the worst. Do you really think your parents would have accepted a grown man that they have never met coming out of their little boy's room? You would have been shot on sight!”
“People,” yelled Sitwell. “We thank you for your discovery. Now please calm down long enough for us to get our agent back.”
XXX
“Is it going to hurt?” The young man asked as he sat down in the R&D lab.
Dr. Ferguson was adjusting the crystal and the flashlight so that it shone on the boy when turned on. “No, it didn’t hurt a bit when I did it.”
“Am I going to remember anything?”
“Probably not,” answered Dr. Martinez as he brought up an injection gun and used it on the teen before he had a chance to flinch. Clint grunted through the pain and then blinked a few times as the world around him became blurry.
“Was that really necessary?” asked Bruce as he watched his friend try to shake the fuzzy feeling out of his head.
“We cannot risk changing the past. He may have seen something. Don’t worry,” said Fury, “he will simply feel a little drunk for a while and forget the last 24 hours almost completely but he will be fully cognizant of his surroundings so he won’t hurt himself."
Before Fury was done talking the flashlight was turned on and off for a second. The view of the chair went from having a teenage Clint to the adult Clint in less than a blink of the eye.
“Wow, Stark. You looked funny with longer hair,” said Clint right before the medical team descended on him.
XXX
The crystal was wrapped tightly and placed in a lead box. The Chitauri tech was handed over to the research department tasked with discovering everything they could about the creatures. The sorcerer was eventually found harmless without his device and was let free after being warned of the dangers of turning evil. Clint was allowed to give that speech to him and after the recent reminder of the hell he grew up in he had no problem making sure the guy was shaking when he left.
Agent Sitwell wheeled the trolly that held the lead box over to a that had just pulled into SHIELD’s parking lot. An older gentleman with curly dark hair and who looked like dessert was his favorite meal got out. “Got another item that we can take off your hands?”
“Artie, always a pleasure. Looks like we got a nice little addition to your warehouse in South Dakota. Here is the information that we have on it. We are keeping the alien half but would like to make sure that this half stays out of human hands.” Sitwell said as he moved the heavy box from the trolly to the trunk of the car and then handed a manilla envelope to the other gentleman.
“Thanks, Jasper. Is this one going to suddenly liquidate any copper it touches or create portals to the middle of the ocean?”
“Hey, we had no idea those things could do that,” Sitwell countered.
“Yeah. That’s what they all say. Just in case,” The brunette pulled a vial filled with a blue liquid and poured it over the lead case. “No such thing as overkill in our lives, is there?”
The two talked for a few minutes, catching up on problems with their agents and experiences of the truly weird and bizarre. When he left, Dr. Artie Nielsen had another item to catalog into his library and Sitwell had a better appreciation of the calmer life that he led.