Chapter Text
“Okay… This looks bad.
You cowboy around with the Avengers some. Guys got, what, armor. Magic. Super-powers. Super-strength. Shrink-dust. Grow-rays. Magic. Healing factors. I’m an orphan raised by carnies fighting with a stick and a string from the Paleolithic era. So when I say this looks “bad”?
I promise you it feels worse.”
- Hawkeye, Hawkeye #1
The thing about Clint’s life that he could not have predicted is this: things explode a lot. Well, he might have had a proclivity toward things exploding, and there were at least two foster homes on record (if one were to look) (Coulson had looked) that had asked to relocate Clint due to certain incendiary inclinations. (He had set fire to drapes, mostly. He still maintained that he was doing them a favor.)
But that was a long time ago, and honestly, he’d had nothing to do with causing this explosion. This was all on Tony. The entire situation, Clint thought, was Tony’s fault. Which was why it was completely unfair that Clint regained consciousness to a clean white-tiled ceiling, the smell of antiseptic, and Barnes glaring murder at him.
Clint blinked heavily, which did nothing to help the blurry vision, though it did, he hoped, help him appear sympathetic to Bucky. Bucky’s face remained unchanged. “Timeizzit?” Clint mumbled. Well. That was clearer than he’d hoped it would come out, anyway. Bucky could probably make sense of that. Yeah.
He watched Bucky pull a deep breath in, and then watched his lips say, “It’s four in the evening.” If possible, he looked even more unhappy. “You’ve been out for a little more than twelve hours.”
Well, shit. He must have hit his head pretty hard, then. He swallowed, and realized that he was very thirsty. Water, he signed to Bucky. Please.
Bucky shoved a straw into his face, and Clint grinned. “So,” he said once he had finished, “What’s up?”
“That’s what we’re trying to get Stark to explain,” Bucky said darkly.
“The hell does that mean?” Clint muttered.
Behind them, a crash and an indistinct sound of pain. Clint whipped his head around (ow) to see what the hell was causing so much noise in the med bay, and caught a flash of a small, sandy-haired kid on the tile. The kid scrambled out of the blankets he was tangled in, legs kicking to escape, chest heaving. Wide cornflower-blue eyes met his own, and then darted up toward the ceiling. Clint recognized the moment they settled on the air vent above the bookshelf on the far wall, and he said, “Fuck,” and threw himself out of bed.
He only caught the kid just before he could climb the shelf, wrapping his arms around the thin torso and holding on as the kid struggled and threw himself backwards, trying to break Clint’s face.
If the kid got into the vents, he wasn’t coming down.
Clint wouldn’t have come down.
Clint wrestled the kid to the floor, and ended up with the kids arms crossed in front of himself, like some parody of a hug, Clint holding both of his wrists so he couldn’t twist out of his grip. In this position, with the kid’s back pressed to Clint’s chest, he could feel the wild heaving breaths, the small sounds he made.
Panic attack, he thought. He pressed in close to the kid’s ear, held him tighter, and said, “No one looks up, don’t breathe, no one can hurt you.” This really worked better when he was up high. God, he hadn’t thought about this since -- since he was a kid. “No one looks up, don’t breathe, no one can hurt you. No one looks up, don’t breathe, no one can hurt you.”
Clint found himself rocking slightly with the repetition, and the kid was calming down in increments. At least he wasn’t actively fighting Clint’s grip any more. Clint’s eyes cast around until he found Bucky again, wide and frantic.
What the fuck, he signed.
Bucky was frowning, but more worried, less angry. “That’s what we need Stark to explain,” he said. “Somehow, that’s --”
“I know it’s me,” Clint snapped. “I have fucking eyes. What the fuck.” In his arms, the kid tensed, muscles going taught like a bowstring. Clint clenched his jaw, but ducked his head close again, cooled his tone and murmured, “Say it. You say it.”
The kid hitched a breath, and then whispered, “No one looks up, don’t breathe, no one can hurt you.”
Clint looked back at Bucky, who was watching him with more emotion than he usually allowed to show through on his face. Clint hadn’t realized this was still a thing, but wow he hated this. It felt like a raw nerve, like something long buried had been unearthed. That shaking little kid who had been forced down was now sitting on the floor in front of Bucky. He couldn’t handle this.
Clint looked away, curled a little closer, and hugged himself.
The reprieve didn’t last very long. Tony came into the med wing only a few minutes later, when the kid -- what the hell was Clint supposed to call him? Mini-me? Clint 2.0? Little Barton? -- the kid had just taking steadier breaths. They were still pretty shallow, but at least they were even. Bucky hadn’t moved from his spot next to Clint’s bed.
Tony stopped a few feet inside, grinned, and said, “Oh, good, I see you’ve met yourself.”
Bucky glared at him. “This isn’t a joke, Stark.”
“Oh, come on!” Tony protested. Clint could feel the little Clint move his head a little, following Tony’s motions with his eyes. Clint eased his hold on the kid’s hands. “When am I going to have that opportunity again?”
“Hopefully never,” Bucky growled.
Steve walked in behind Stark. “Tony, come on.”
Tony threw his hands up, “All right, I don’t have to share my toys!”
“Tell them what you’ve found,” Steve said, stern.
Tony rolled his eyes, looked over at Clint, and then plopped himself onto the floor in front of them. “Okay. So, alternate universes, right?”
“Sure,” Clint said. The kid in his arms tensed and drew himself in, making himself smaller.
“Things get kind of weird with time travel -- that’s what happened, by the way, and it was my fault, but I didn’t know it would mess with time, Steve! So, things go boom, time gets screwy, little-Barton ends up here, and the wormhole closes. Alternate universe established. Or, technically, the two timelines were kind of smushed together, he got stuck here, and we created a new one. And here we are.”
Clint stared at him for a moment. Tony was nervous. He didn’t talk this fast when he wasn’t nervous. “So, what you’re saying, is that this is permanent.”
Tony nodded. Clint was very aware of where Steve was standing, in the doorway, and Bucky standing near the hospital bed. “Okay,” he said quietly, because there wasn’t really anything else to say. The kid in his arms started squirming, which snapped Clint back to the moment. He held him tighter. “Don’t.” He looked around again. “Everybody who isn’t me, get out,” he said loudly.
“I see what you did there,” Tony said, but he was already standing up, herding Steve out of the room, so Clint didn’t say anything to him.
Bucky hadn’t moved. Clint swallowed down mean words that wanted to bubble up. He hadn’t said anything either, probably because he was used to being the exception to the everybody leave rule. Clint usually let him stay as long as he didn’t talk, or make Clint talk, so fine. He could pretend Bucky wasn’t there, wasn’t staring at him, or staring at the skinny kid. Clint hefted the kid up in his arms like he was a bag of flour, he was so light. Jeez.
He remembered being this hungry, scared kid, but he’d never thought he’d looked so … hungry and scared. Clint put the kid down on the hospital bed. He scrambled back to press his spine to the wall, and Clint sighed. “I get that you probably don’t like me, cause I stopped you from scaling the walls, and you probably don’t trust me, but can you sit there for like five minutes? Please?”
The kid gave a cautious nod, his hand coming up to his face so he could chew on his thumb nail.
“Great,” Clint said. He closed his eyes. “I have a concussion,” he muttered. Bucky’s hand was suddenly on his back, and he felt two pills being pressed into his hand. He popped them into his mouth without thinking about it, and then a glass of water was pressed into the hand. Clint didn’t say thanks, though it was on the tip of his tongue. He knew Bucky was hovering, and that he’d probably been scared to hell when the explosion or whatever happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to care for Bucky right now. Mostly he didn’t want Bucky to say anything.
He opened his eyes again, and they settled on the kid. Who was staring back at him unabashedly. “You understand any of that Stark-talk?” he asked.
The kid nodded.
“You believe it?”
The kid nodded.
“Yeah,” Clint said. “So, I guess you’ll stick with me.”
“Where’s Barney?” the kid asked. Clint winced. Of course he would ask that, with the first voluntary words out of his mouth.
“Barney’s gone, kid,” he said, trying to keep his tone gentle and not let through any of the anger or bitterness.
Still, the kid nodded a little, looking slightly deflated. “Yeah,” he said, “okay.”
Clint sighed. “Let’s get out of here. I hate hospitals.”
The kid jumped off the hospital bed, and Bucky looked like he was going to say something, but in the end he didn’t.
They went back to their shared floor – technically, Bucky had his own floor, but realistically he spent all of his time on Clint’s, so it was their shared floor. It was late in the day. Clint could see the sun setting through the wide windows on the west-facing wall. He hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours, and his head hurt, so he ordered a pizza.
Little Clint spent the half-hour waiting for the pizza by standing as close to the windows as he could, staring out over the city with wide eyes, and leaving fog from his breath on the bullet-proof glass. He didn’t volunteer any more words, but Clint could see the tension leak out of him, looking out over the city from up high. It was like being up a tree, but better.
Clint stood in the kitchen and watched, let the kid dart his eyes around the space and take it in, catalogue the hiding spaces. (Above the fridge, bookshelf near the television, air vent above the sofa, ledge over the bar). He felt Bucky come up beside him, his hand slide around his waist. He stood stiffly and still didn’t say anything. He felt like a dick, pushing away from Bucky. That Bucky would even reach out like this in the first place was a big thing, and Clint was shutting him down. He was an asshole.
The pizza arrived. Clint took the box to the living room, where he and Bucky ate, and tried to pretend that they didn’t notice little Clint stuffing his pockets with breadsticks. Clint resolutely didn’t look at Bucky, because he didn’t want to see the judgement or pity or disgust or whatever the normal reaction to that should be. He just gave little Clint an extra piece of pizza.
When it came time to retire to bed, Clint had a few seconds of hesitation. Did he let the kid go to one of the guest rooms? He had the space, obviously, but sending him off to sleep by himself seemed like a kind of dick thing to do? What if something happened? What if he was scared – Clint would be scared, hell, he was. But was it a better option to offer the kid to sleep in Clint’s room? No, sleeping next to a stranger would be worse, the kid wouldn’t sleep.
Little Clint seemed to sense the downward spiral of thoughts from the elder, so he muttered, “Just show me where to sleep.”
Clint nodded. Yeah. A locked door between him and everyone else would make him feel better. He showed the kid to a room, made sure he knew where to find Clint if he needed him, and then crawled into his own bed.
Bucky was already there. Clint turned his back to him and curled around a pillow. Bucky, undeterred, just molded himself to Clint’s back and firmly wrapped his arms around Clint’s middle. He tucked his face to the curve of Clint’s shoulder, and said, “I didn’t know you had a cute southern accent.”
Clint groaned and elbowed Bucky, who laughed. “Really? That’s what you have to say about this fuckall?”
“It’s cute,” Bucky said, defensive. “What do you want me to say?”
“It’s fucked up is what it is,” Clint muttered. “And I unlearned the accent for a reason.”
Bucky kissed the back of Clint’s shoulder. Uncharacteristically gentle for their usual interactions in bed. “You were a cute little feral child. And I grew up with Steve Rogers. I know little feral children.”
Clint shook his head. “Shut up.”
He felt Bucky grin against his shoulder. “Shut me up.”
When they woke, little Clint wasn’t in his room.