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1
Barney Barton wasn't most people's idea of comfort. He wasn't safe, wasn't good; he was a scrapper and a fighter and he'd punch the lights out of anyone who looked wrong at his baby brother Clint for longer than a moment.
Anyone but their father.
When Clint struggled to consciousness and he couldn't hear, he was still young enough he should've been crying for his mother. Instead, he cried for Barney until his brother was there, hand on his, hissing "Hush!" through his teeth with narrowed eyes.
Clint hushed and Barney patted his shoulder as though Clint was just scared of the silence and it was all taken care of.
Their father didn't get angry, and Barney let out a small breath of relief.
2
Clint had never had the luxury of tears or most people's idea of comfort. Instead, he had a fiercely protective brother who told him to shut up, that tears made him weak, to not make himself a target. He had an older brother, Barney, who shoved and pushed and taught him to shove and push back to become strong. Their mother would hug them and kiss them goodnight. She'd put up token protests when Harold broke out the alcohol or his bare fists, but she wouldn't stop them. Barney would mouth off until Harold hit him instead of Clint.
Clint didn't even know why he cried after the car accident. It wasn't like he was going to miss his parents.
But he was young and small and scared and there was nobody but Barney left.
Barney caught him around the shoulders and held on when the police came. He gritted out through his teeth, "Shut up."
Clint shut up and sank against Barney's side. Barney would handle it. Barney always knew what to do.
3
This wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a nameless, faceless, somebody hired thug on the other side, pointing a gun at Clint and firing.
Clint got off an arrow but didn't escape the bullet burying itself in his body.
He stared in horror as he realized the hired thug was neither nameless or faceless. It was Barney.
—
Bobbi was the first one who identified the bullet from his scar as she traced over his skin one night. "What happened?" she asked quietly.
Haltingly, hesitantly, it spilled out of him. The one person who'd actually been there with him through losing his hearing (the first time), through losing their parents, through all the pain and beatings and hardship of growing up a Barton—Clint had killed him, on accident.
Bobbi laid her head over his heart and held him a little harder. "I love you."
It was years too late to take back all the hurt and anger he'd held for the world after that, but he took the comfort anyway, clinging to her because Barney wasn't there anymore to cling to.
4
"You gave yourself a paper cut?" Kate's eyebrows climbed higher than Clint would like.
He hissed and shook his thumb against the pain. "I got startled."
It was true enough as far as it went. He was startled, he cursed loud and startled Kate, which startled him and he cut his finger on the d— letter he wished he'd never gotten. He didn't really care if she thought he'd cut his finger and yelled afterward. Barney Barton was alive. Alive.
But she hesitated because she was Kate and she could read the other Hawkeye like an open book half the time. "Clint?"
He shook his head, wishing for a harsher comfort, the kind that knew how to shove aside the pain of living through a car accident and staring at your mother's broken body in the front seat.
She looked a little upset that he wouldn't tell her, wouldn't open up, but then she reached for his hand and held on tight while she dragged him toward the couch.
"I saved the new episode of Dog Cops from last night." She pulled him down beside her, invited Lucky up with them, and turned on the TV.
Somehow it was just right.
5
"And you're just as Clint Barton as you ever were, aren't you, baby bro?"
Barney had gotten leaner and sharper over the last few years. He wasn't in the FBI anymore, and he swore he was officially out of crime. (Natasha and Bobbi did a little research and agreed, or Clint probably wouldn't have trusted him enough to open the front door in the first place.)
Barney ruffled Clint's hair, that he was a grown man notwithstanding, and shook his head a moment before pulling out the appropriate bandage to wrap Clint's bleeding arm.
Another bullet wound. At least this time, it wasn't brother against brother.
"Never keep your head down, do you?"
Clint tried not to bark a laugh, but he couldn't stifle it. This wasn't funny, but it struck him as absurd anyway. "Why would I?" he demanded.
But Barney just sighed. That attitude is what got Clint deafened more than once, got him shot, beaten, abandoned. He just couldn't let the bad guys get away with it.
They sat on the couch, side by side, brothers. It was enough.