Chapter Text
Enough is enough
Clint tossed his duffel bag out the window and it landed with a soft thud. He checked his door one more time and then climbed out of his window carefully and into the tree beside it, slowly making his way down as he had a million times before when he snuck out to get some space and fresh air.
He was more careful than usual, knowing that he was working with what might very well be broken ribs and possibly a concussion. His left hand was aching and his grip was weak, so it took him three minutes to get down to the ground instead of his usual one and a half.
Once he was down, he picked up the duffel, sliding the strap across his body despite its protests. Once more he glanced back at the house. The lights were off, everyone was asleep, he could do this. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, his eyes still glued to the window belonging to his parents’ bedroom. He watched it for a moment longer and then slowly stepped away, walking backwards at first, his eyes still fixed there.
Once he reached their driveway he turned and he ran.
The closest bus stop to their home was a ten minute walk, which translated to about a five minute run though he wasn’t going as fast as he usually could but still he pushed himself. If he missed this bus, the next one wasn’t for another two hours according to the schedule.
He’d found it online sometime ago and then watched from his house to confirm its accuracy. Living in the middle of nowhere, he could see a good distance in all directions and now the corn stalks were the only things providing him cover from his father and he was using that to his advantage if Harold were to look out the window now.
Clint stayed close to the side of the road for that reason. He wasn’t worried about traffic. It was a small town and it was three in the morning. People around here were asleep at those times. There was nothing to do in the city after ten and if you were out past then, you earned yourself a reputation, so few people did it.
Clint hated living in a small town. Everyone knew everyone but there was nothing cosy about it. It didn’t feel like a tight-knit community, it felt like his own personal hell. Everyone knew Clint, son of preschool teacher Edith and the town’s favorite mechanic, Harold. And because Harold had been around a lot longer than Clint and was so beloved, what he said was law and that meant his son was a good-for-nothing delinquent.
And people treated him as such; giving him looks and whispering noticeably when he’d walk through the town. He felt like a pariah in the only place he’d ever known and for what? Because his father was a shit stain of a human.
Clint ground his teeth and carried on, ignoring the stabbing pain in his left shoulder and the way his hand ached. Nothing was going to stop him from leaving.
For the last seventeen years, Clint had endured daily abuse from his father. Mostly physical, Harold wasn’t a man of many words and after a while the same insults and accusations became like a fly buzzing around Clint’s head and he could ignore it. There were only so many times that it could really cut deep to hear him call Clint useless, or worthless, or a waste of space.
No, the verbal abuse Clint could take. Even the emotional abuse and he could go toe-to-toe on his best day but the physical abuse was… well, Clint was at his limit. He had been for a while and tonight was the final straw.
He had been planning to run for a while—a few years, in fact—but having somewhere to go had always been the problem. What good would it do him to get out of this house only to die on the street in a place where no one knew him? Those were practically the same thing to him, there was no lesser of two evils.
Six years ago the beatings got even worse. Clint… well, Clint knew why but he didn’t like to think about it. Ever.
So instead he chalked it up to his own failings. He was a klutz, he had a disability—albeit caused by Harold—and Harold made sure to remind him just how unwanted he was with each and every hit, slap, and kick.
Ever since then Clint had spent his free time planning how he would get away but the destination had always been the big question mark, the thing keeping everything on hold.
Until now.
He finally reached the bus stop and dropped the duffel onto the ground, breathing hard, his side screaming in protest with every deep breath and the rest of his body also joining in to make known its objection to whatever Clint was doing.
He checked his watch. He had five minutes before the bus arrived. He’d cut it too close but he was here and that was what mattered.
The bus stop was nothing more than a sign and a hard, metal bench and tonight of course had decided to be especially chilly. Clint zipped up his jacket though he knew it wouldn’t do him much good. It wasn’t great quality but it was better than nothing. He tugged his beanie down further and then slid his hands into his pockets, once again ignoring the pain in his hand as he did so.
He hadn’t taken the time to properly examine his injuries yet. Clint had come home from work, tired and just wanting to crawl into his bed, but his father had other plans. He was already four beers in by the looks of it and when Clint walked in, he demanded another case be brought in from the garage. Clint, feeling bold and stupid, had said no. He said Harold had had enough for one night.
The last thing he truly remembered was the look of utter terror in his mother’s eyes as his father got up and stormed over to him. Not long after he was peeling himself up off the floor. Harold demanded he clean up the blood before he went off and once that was done, Clint went upstairs and started packing.
He had planned to do this next week but it wasn’t like he hadn't memorized the schedules for every day leading up to then just in case of a situation like this. Most beatings were painful and usually ended in Clint blacking out and waking hours later to a dark house, everyone else gone to sleep and himself still wherever Harold had left him.
His mother used to help but Harold had quickly beat that habit out of her and now she was just kind of… empty. Every now and then, Clint would see glimpses of the woman he remembered or he’d see the fear and worry in her eyes for her son, but she hadn’t put herself between her husband and her child in a very long time. A part of Clint couldn’t help but resent her for that as much as he tried not to.
Tonight’s beating had been different. Clint realized that he had never truly understood the phrase ‘beat someone within an inch of their life’ until tonight. He was probably four inches from there but still much too close to risk dying tomorrow when he could escape tonight.
He raised a hand up to his face as bright lights suddenly appeared around the bend and the bus approached, groaning to a halt in front of him. He gathered his things, deposited in the fare, and took his seat. It was just him and a man at the back asleep. Or passed out. Either was possible.
He sat at the front near the driver and looked out the window, anxiously chewing the inside of his cheek. There were a lot of What Ifs going through his mind right now. What if Harold realized he was gone before he could actually get away? What if someone else recognized him and held him until Harold could come pick him up? What if—
He shook his head, trying not to fixate on the worst case scenarios. He knew the plan and the plan would work. They had gone over it at least a dozen times and he knew that his worries were unlikely to happen. Though that didn’t stop him from glancing back at his house until it was out of sight, making sure the lights stayed off.
When he got to the bus station, he headed straight inside, his head down as he avoided eye contact with anyone inside. Most of the people were drunks or addicts and they weren’t paying Clint any attention. Though there were still security guards. He risked a glance up to see one of the guards asleep in his chair and the other beside him on his phone. He quickly passed by them and headed for the ticket office.
“Hi,” Clint said. He didn’t recognize the man at the ticket office, which was strange. Clint knew the people in this town as well as they knew him. Though he wasn’t ever really in town after dark. Maybe he didn’t know Graveyard Shift Waverly. “A ticket to Cleveland, please.”
The man looked up, eyeing Clint for a moment and then he looked almost… sad? If that was what he was seeing, it would certainly be a first.
The man continued to stare and then looked back to his computer screen.
“One way?” he asked.
Clint sighed in relief. Now was not the time for anyone in this town to grow a conscience and suddenly worry about Clint’s wellbeing.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Of course. I’m never coming back to this hellhole
“That’ll be $28.76,” he said, printing off the ticket before Clint could even take out the money. He slid the ticket under the plexiglass and offered Clint an apologetic smile.
“Have a good trip.”
“I—”
“Platform two. It leaves in fifteen minutes,” the man said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Take care, kid.”
Clint put his wallet away and took the ticket, offering the man a nod. “Thank you.”
Seventeen years in this fucking infected scab of a town and now I get my first act of kindness? Well, better late than never
Clint made his way for platform two—it wasn’t hard, there were only two—and looked around. From here he couldn’t see the ticket office and the station felt deserted. If a tumbleweed blew through right now Clint wouldn’t even bat an eye.
He spotted a vending machine and decided to load up on snacks for the trip. He hadn’t been able to grab anything from the house because he couldn’t risk another trip downstairs. All he had was a bottle of water that he’d had in his room and a long trip ahead of him.
Stocked up, he took a seat on a bench at the far end of the platform behind a pillar. He didn’t want his face to be on cameras, he didn’t want to be easily spotted, they had planned this out so well that it actually helped to calm him a little.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when the bus driver turned the engine on and pulled the bus up, opening the luggage storage although it was still just Clint.
Clint took his bags on board with him. Keeping things close and accessible was just smart.
As he settled into a seat at the back of the bus by the window, he flinched every time he heard someone come running into the station to catch the bus. There were only four other night owls out traveling late and thankfully they all sat at the front and none of them seemed to be his father.
When the bus driver finally closed the doors and pulled out away from the station, Clint unclenched his jaw and his fists. Once they were on the highway and he couldn’t even see the town anymore, the tension melted away and Clint was left with a sudden lightness that caught him completely off guard and before he even knew what was happening, he was crying.
He was free.
“I did it,” he whispered to himself, crying into his hands. He curled up in his seat and allowed himself this.
He hadn’t cried in a long time. Perhaps a tear or two would escape mid-beating but afterwards? No, he hadn’t cried about it in a long time. Instead he was angry and determined and tonight that determination paid off.
Clint was jolted awake when the bus hit a pothole. His neck felt stiff but he wasn’t sure if that was just the aftereffects of Harold or because he had fallen asleep against the window.
He looked out and squinted into the daylight. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep but after a quick glance at his watch he realized it had been almost six hours. He wasn’t really shocked. After that cry, he’d felt incapable of keeping his eyes open and it wasn’t like he slept all that well normally anyway.
He took his phone out to check his whereabouts. They were about twenty minutes outside Dayton, Ohio, and then another three and a half hours to Cleveland. He felt a sudden giddiness run through him at the thought of having put so much distance between himself and his father. And not just any distance but secret distance. Harold had no idea where Clint had gone or where he would go next.
With that on his mind, he checked again to make sure his father couldn’t see his phone location nor contact him, staring at the number on his blocked contacts list. He put it away after it started to make him feel anxious and decided to try out some of his snacks as his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten dinner last night either. He’d been too sore.
He was trying to decide between some kind of off-brand honeybun or a strawberry nutrigrain bar when his phone vibrated and he almost dropped everything. He could feel his pulse speeding up and the instant cold sweat covering his body but he put his snacks down and slowly picked up his phone, relief washing over him as he read the name.
Natasha: Are you okay? Did you make it?
Natasha: Clint please text me back
Clint stared at the message for a moment, feeling the smile on his face slowly growing. God, he couldn’t wait to meet her in person.
Clint: Sorry, I’m okay. I made it. Got another few hours until Cleveland.
Natasha: oh thank god I’m so relieved. You were supposed to text me as soon as you got on the bus ! [angry face]
Clint: I know, my bad. I was just a little… overwhelmed
Natasha: feels good, doesn’t it?
Clint: like I’ve been trapped under water all this time and can finally breathe
Natasha was the only person on earth that Clint trusted. Coincidentally, she was also his only friend and they had met in the least trustworthy way possible—over the internet.
Contrary to what Harold Barton would have people believe, Clint had quite a few talents. One, though, far outshone the others—he could hit anything. Not punching but throwing, shooting. And not guns, a slingshot. Clint hadn’t met a target he couldn’t nail on the first try and after his mother bought him his first slingshot in secret, it had become something of an obsession.
It was his thing. He enjoyed it, it was just his, and Harold knew nothing about it and it made him happy. Clint didn’t travel and he didn’t eat delicious, fancy foods. He didn’t have any pets either so he used his Instagram to showcase his shooting talents.
One day five years ago, Natasha commented on one of his posts. Interestingly enough, she had been interested in his slingshot skills but it was the combination of a particularly cool shot and the music Clint had chosen to post over the video that finally grabbed her interest. She had never heard anyone else play the group Clint had posted and turned out to be just as much of a music junkie as Clint was.
There was a lot of back and forth in the comments and then the conversation moved to direct messages, and then to texts, and then to FaceTime. It didn’t take long before they were talking to each other every day, calling and texting. Clint would call her on his way home from work so she could help him keep it together knowing what was waiting for him. Nat would call Clint when she felt especially lonely or just missed him because, for a while, Clint was also her only friend.
He loved her—they loved each other—but it was platonic, not romantic. It hadn’t even been considered for a moment. It was like they just knew they were meant to be best friends. Clint had never believed in soulmates until now because he had never considered that they could be platonically bound to one another. Destined to meet and be intertwined in each others’ lives without romance. It was exactly what they both needed.
On a call once, when he had been unable to hide his latest injuries from her, she had firmly asked him what was going on and how she could help and he explained bit by bit until he had told her the entire story and was sitting there in tears. That was the last time he could remember crying before last night.
The next time Natasha called him after that it was with a plan and an offer for Clint.
Natasha: I’m glad to hear it. Your room is waiting for you
Clint: I know you said don’t but Tasha I can’t thank you enough
Natasha: get your butt to me in one piece and that’ll be thanks enough, alright? And call me when you get to Cleveland, I gotta get back to work now
Clint: you got it, talk soon [heart emoji]
Clint held his phone to his chest, hugging it tightly. It was a placeholder for Natasha until Clint could pull her into a bear hug in person. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, feeling tears coming on again but he forced them back down.
Five more days and Clint would meet her. He would be in his new room, in his new home with Natasha and her other friends. He would be somewhere safe and he would finally be able to live his life.
+
The hostel was nothing fancy but it was central, cheap, and had a door that locked. And, thinking about the nights when Harold had gotten angry and locked him out, it also wasn’t the most uncomfortable place Clint had ever slept.
He’d paid a little extra to get a single room. He didn’t trust people generally so he certainly didn’t trust them enough to sleep in a room full of them or leave his things unattended during the day. But it wasn’t like it was a huge splurge and even so, Clint had managed to put away a decent amount of money and actually—though he never would—he had Harold to thank for it.
When he’d turned fifteen, Harold had decided that Clint was, for all intents and purposes, grown and needed a job in addition to school. He also made him pay for his phone and even give Harold rent, despite the fact that they owned their home and paid no landlord.
So Clint got a job at the gas station. It paid alright, allowed him to work evening and night shifts after school, and for the most part, didn’t require him to have a lot of social interaction, for which he was grateful.
He didn’t go out, he didn’t eat out, he didn’t have a social life, so everything he didn’t use to pay his pills, he was able to save and now he wasn’t flush with cash but he could make his way to Natasha without an overly strict budget to add to his list of worries.
The room was small but it had everything he needed—a bed, a closet, a sink. The toilet was communal and located in the hallway but it was a small price to pay for something he’d never really had—privacy.
He put his things away, showered, and changed and then climbed into the bed to nap. He’d slept some on the bus but a real bed would be nice. Even if the mattress did feel like a piece of stale toast and the pillow was conspicuously lumpy.
He sat up for a while, texting back and forth with Natasha who was on her lunch break now and telling her his plans for the rest of the day. She said she would FaceTime him once she was back home and then wished him a good nap.
He set his alarm so he wouldn’t sleep the day away, pulled the blanket up, and closed his eyes, drifting off quickly.
The plan was four days in Cleveland and then he would catch the overnight bus to New York on the fourth night. If he had left next week like he had originally planned, it would only be one night in Cleveland but since he left early, the next bus to New York wasn’t until then. Although a quick google let him know there wasn’t a whole lot to do in Cleveland, it was nice being somewhere else on his own. Now that he was safe, he didn’t feel the need to rush through the rest of the trip.
Now he could just live and he wanted to start immediately.
Feeling refreshed from his nap, he decided to get out and explore. It was a warm summer day and he walked at a leisurely pace, taking in the sights and sounds, ignoring odd looks he got.
He’d finally taken a good look at himself in the mirror before his nap. He looked like he’d gotten into a fight with a rockslide. He had a black eye on the left side, a long cut along his cheekbone under his right eye, and a pretty nasty-looking busted lip. There had been a little bit of blood under his nose and in his hair that he had missed the first time around and honestly, no wonder the ticket man had taken pity on him.
His ribs didn’t seem to be broken but there was a huge bruise across his right torso and right pelvis and smaller cuts and bruises were dotted all around his body like he was a living game of twister.
It hurt. It hurt a lot but it wasn’t like a part of Clint wasn’t used to the pain. It felt, well, normal. And when he really thought about that for too long he could put himself in a very dark mood, so he did his best not to.
Now he focused on the hotdog he had bought to enjoy on his walk around town, finding a bench to sit on and do some people-watching. Every now and then people would double take when they glanced at him and he always expected to be met with rolled eyes or angry expressions or pure indifference like he was back home, but each time instead he was offered a small smile and he honestly didn’t know what to do with that.
He offered smiles back but he was sure they looked a bit off. He wasn’t used to smiling at people he knew, less so strangers. But he wasn’t his father nor his brother, and he knew how to be kind. In fact, it was something he prided himself on.
No matter what Harold had done to him, damaged though he may be in many ways, he was not broken . Harold had never broken him, had never turned him into a hate-filled monster like he was.
Clint had issues. Oh boy, did he, but he had never given up or in. And at the end of the day, he thought that that might’ve been what made Harold hate him so much more as he got older.
He shook his head again to try and change his train of thought, instead watching two kids chase each other around the park where he’d come to sit and eat. They were screaming and laughing and it warmed Clint’s heart.
No, he wasn’t his father and he never would be. Clint was going to be a good man, a good person, to and with everyone he met as far as was possible.
+
Clint came downstairs to head out for the day. He was trying his best to not waste the morning even though sleeping in was also a new thing in his life. Plus, he had seen a delicious-looking breakfast place yesterday and they only served pancakes until eleven.
As he passed through the common room of the hostel, he looked around the room and someone sitting on the floor in the corner on the far other side caught his attention.
He looked to be on the younger side with wild, curly brown hair and a light brown complexion. He was curled up tight in his corner, knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. His hands disappeared completely into the oversized sweater he had on over a polo shirt and beside him was a backpack so worn and tattered he was surprised it hadn’t fallen to pieces.
But what really caught his attention was the boy’s face. Not because of his attractiveness—because, if Clint was being honest, he was quite cute—but because of the way he was staring down at the floor, his eyes wide and unfocused.
He looked vacant, like he was a thousand miles from the here and now but it wasn’t daydreaming-vacant, it was numbness. Clint knew the feeling. He’d retreated into before himself, sometimes not talking for days on end, and that was what this looked like but worse.
And then there were the cuts and bruises.
His jaw had a big, purple bruise spread across it and there was a cut across his eyebrow, still bright red and angry-looking. He had a few more scratches and bruises on his face and then his hands too were spotted with injuries, much like Clint’s own.
Clint didn’t need anyone to tell him that this boy was in the same situation as he was. He only wondered if he was actually free or was he here with whoever had hurt him? Did he need help? Could Clint even help him?
He hesitated, taking a half-step towards him. What would he even say? What would Clint want someone to say to him? Maybe he should start small.
“Hey,” he called but the boy didn’t react. He took another half-step and then repeated himself but slightly louder. The boy flinched and then looked around the room like he wasn’t sure where he was. Finally his eyes raised to meet Clint’s but his expression remained devoid of emotion.
Clint swallowed.
“Hi, uh, I’m Clint and I—”
The boy stood, grabbed his backpack, and walked off, brushing right past Clint and heading back towards the bedrooms without a word.
Clint couldn’t do anything but watch after him until he couldn’t see him any longer. He took a moment to process what had happened before he turned and continued on his way to breakfast.
“I tried to make a friend this morning,” Clint said, wiping the pasta sauce away from his mouth with a napkin as he looked up at his phone. He had found a decent Italian place that did take out and wasn’t too expensive. He brought it back to the hostel so he could eat and FaceTime Natasha while she also enjoyed her dinner.
“Oh?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. “How’d that go?”
Clint laughed. “About as well as you would expect it to go. I mean… I don’t know. He just left. Didn’t say anything.”
“What made you be Mr Social anyway?”
Clint shrugged. “He looked so alone, Nat. And hurt.”
“Physically hurt or…?”
“Yeah, both. All of the above. A little hopeless. And young. I don’t really know what I was expecting but I barely got my name out before he just… left.”
He fell quiet, staring down at his food. What was the boy going through? Clint hadn’t been able to tell if he was angry or sad or annoyed, nothing. He had just looked blank and distant.
“Keep trying,” Nat said. “You’ve got a couple days. If you see him again, start small. Just greet him. A hello goes a long way. That’s what I did with Tony.”
Clint nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll try. How is he now?”
“If I can get him away from Steve for five seconds, I’ll ask,” she laughed, glancing over her shoulder to talk to someone who had knocked on her door. “One sec, radnoy, Nick is calling my name.”
“Tell him hi,” Clint said, watching her nod and then disappear, leaving him with just a view of her room.
He was oddly already very familiar with it. She’d given him tours of it each time she changed something and he wondered if it would feel strange at all when he was there in person or if it would be like finally unlocking a memory.
He was actually pretty familiar with the entire house already and had met some of its other occupants briefly when they passed by Nat while she was calling him or giving him a tour.
The house was owned by an older man named Nick Fury, an eccentric millionaire whose husband had passed away a few years ago. He had been coming home late one night when he was jumped by some kids and Nat had spotted it. She was living on the streets then. She’d run away from the last orphanage where she’d been given back to and had decided that the streets were better than being treated like an item that could be returned.
She saw what was happening and took pity on Nick, scaring off the other kids and helping him up. She’d helped Nick to a nearby store so they could call an ambulance and then disappeared, not wanting to wait for whatever awful reaction he was about to have to this dirty, homeless child. She had had enough of that for one lifetime.
But then he came looking for her. Roaming the area and asking around until he found her, thanked her, and took her out for lunch. And then he took her to a gym owned by a friend of his where she could shower. And when she came out, he asked where she was living. It took a lot more than one visit and a few kind deeds, but he won her trust and eventually, adopted her himself.
Legally, she was his daughter, he treated her like his daughter, and as far as Clint could tell, she felt similarly even if she never actually said the words. He could tell that she loved Nick, and, even more than that, she trusted him. Behind his gruff exterior, he had a big heart. Like Nat.
That all happened about six years ago when Nat was eleven. Fast forward a few years and Nat had ‘adopted’ a few more siblings. She didn’t extend the invitation to just anyone but she had a knack for finding the good ones in a bad situation.
Three years ago she’d met Steve fighting in an alley. He was small, probably didn’t even weigh ninety-pounds soaking wet, and yet protecting a stray cat from some kids trying to hurt it. After getting to know him, he was the first person she asked Nick to allow to move in with them.
Next had been Tony. She’d found him a year and a half ago on a late night run. He was sitting on the side of a bridge staring down at the river, tears streaming down his bruised and bloodied face. She’d talked him down and brought him home that same night. He’d fought her invitation and her kindness for a while, running away all the time, but Nat found him each time, gave him whatever he needed in that moment and left him alone until he came back on his own.
He and Steve had started dating about a month ago.
Clint would be the latest of her runaways collection and he couldn’t wait to get there and finally be somewhere where he felt he belonged, where he felt wanted and appreciated.
“Okay,” Nat said, plopping down on her bed again and offering Clint a smile. “I’m back.”
“Hey, Clint,” Clint heard Steve call out as he passed Nat’s room though he couldn’t see him. “Can’t wait to meet you!”
“Hi, Steve!” he yelled back loudly and Nat scrunched her nose at the volume. “Ditto!”
Yeah, he couldn’t wait.
+
Following Nat’s advice since nine times out of ten she was right, Clint decided he would greet the boy again if he saw him. He hoped he would see him. It occurred to him now as he headed downstairs to go find breakfast that maybe he was gone already. And honestly what were the chances of him being in the exact sa—
“Oh,” Clint said aloud, looking over at where the boy had been yesterday only to find him in the exact same spot again.
He was sitting with his body pressed tightly into the corner of the room, a cushion under him, his backpack held tightly in his arms and that same blank stare. The cuts and scratches didn’t look as red and irritated today but his mood didn’t seem to have improved at all. Not like Clint thought that today he would be sunshine and rainbows but at least he didn’t look worse. Hopefully that meant he had gotten away from whoever had put those marks on him.
“Hey,” Clint called, waving a hand to get the boy’s attention.
The boy looked up slowly, his eyes taking a moment to focus on Clint. His gaze swept up Clint from his feet to the top of his head and then dropped back down to meet his eyes, his lips tugging down into a frown and eyebrows knitting together. He blinked twice, confused.
“Uh, hi?” Clint tried again, taking a step closer and the boy flinched like he had been struck. Clint moved back immediately in response and raised his hands to show he wasn’t hostile. “I’m Clint.”
The boy stared at him for a few seconds, his expression darkening, moving away from that blank, emotional void it was yesterday to something hard and angry.
“What do you want?” the boy snapped, his voice much too hard for how young he seemed. It also sounded a little hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.
“Nothing. I, uh, I just wanted to say hi.”
The boy narrowed his eyes, pushing his glasses up further on his face and brushing a stray curl away from his eyes. Clint noted that his glasses were taped in the middle.
“Leave me alone.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, no problem. But if you need any—”
The boy stood and stalked over to Clint, tilting his head up to look at Clint. He really was small. Clint hadn’t noticed just how small yesterday, too surprised by everything else going on, but the boy’s head only reached the middle of his chest.
“Alone. Leave. Me. Alone,” he repeated angrily. For someone so small, he managed to make himself impressively terrifying.
He huffed angrily and then stormed off again.
As much as he wanted to say ‘message received’ and leave him alone, he also couldn’t. Not when he looked like that. Not when he sounded like that. Clint only had another two days here and he was no miracle worker nor was he Nat. He wasn’t good with people. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what not to say.
Even so, as he turned his head to watch the boy leave out the front door, he felt determined to at least find out his name. Maybe swap phone numbers. It was still something, right?
That evening Clint saw the boy in the common room again, wished him a goodnight but got nothing in return. The next two days were much the same. The boy was always downstairs in the common room when Clint came down. Clint greeted him but he didn’t speak back. He only looked up, sent a glare Clint’s way, and then looked back down at the ground or at his book.
Today was the last evening Clint would be spending in Cleveland. It had been a nice experience, interesting for sure. Would he ever come back to Cleveland? Eh, probably not, but he was still happy he got to experience it. It was still a new place that he never would have been able to see if he hadn’t left and for that reason, he would probably always have a soft spot for the city.
As he came downstairs to check out, his backpack on and duffel slung over his shoulder, he tried to practice what he would say to the boy.
He stopped as he got to the door, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. He put on his friendliest smile and walked through the doorway, his eyes going straight for the boy’s usual corner only to find it empty. He wasn’t there. He was gone. Clint had missed him.
He couldn’t totally explain it—maybe it was because he could tell the boy was going through something and knew from experience how valuable having a friend to help you was—but the idea of never seeing the boy again, of never knowing whether he was alright or got to wherever he might have been going, made Clint incredibly sad.
He could feel the way his chest was tightening and his eyes stinging. He blinked a few times to get rid of the feeling, swallowed past the sudden dry ache in his throat, and made his way to the front desk to give in his key.
Outside the city felt a little less than. Less than what he wasn’t sure and he wasn’t even sure what exactly that meant but it was how he felt. Odd how much of an impact strangers could have.
He made his way to the bus station after grabbing a few snacks and some water from a 7-11. He had another fifteen hours plus two bus changes ahead of him. He really wasn’t looking forward to the trip but he couldn’t wait to arrive at the destination.
By the time he found his bus, people had already lined up to board so he joined the line and waited patiently, grateful that he wasn’t putting his bag into the cargo area because then he was able to get on a little bit earlier.
It was pretty packed, which he should have expected for a NYC-bound bus. The back, his usual go-to, was completely taken and most of the window seats as well. He sighed and then spotted an empty window seat, making a beeline for it, so relieved to have found the last—
“Oh,” he said, stopping when he realized that it wasn’t empty, its occupant was just too short to be seen over the tops of the seats. “Hi. Can I sit here?”
The boy looked up at him and Clint only barely stopped himself from grinning outright. He had a feeling that that would only make this worse so he contained it to a small, friendly smile.
The boy sighed. “I realize I can’t stop you.”
Clint stuffed his duffel underneath his seat and sat down, his backpack on his knees. He wasn’t going to wait for the boy to change his mind, so he acted quickly and once he was situated he turned to him and said, “I guess this works out well. It’s a long trip and at least I know you won’t want to make small talk.”
The boy turned to look at him for a moment and then frowned, turning away to face the window and curling up tightly in his chair. He slipped an old pair of wired earbuds into his ears and Clint let out a soft sigh.
I tried
He unzipped his own bag and pulled out his over-the-ear headphones and his book of crossword puzzles, putting his music on shuffle and opening the book to the page he’d dog-eared. It wasn’t long before the world around him disappeared and it was just him, Matt and Kim, and his trivia.
They had been driving for about an hour when Clint paused, tapping his pencil to his lips as he silently read a crossword clue. He was good at these. He’d always been good at retaining information, both important and unimportant.
But now he was stumped on an area in which he wasn’t exactly an expert. Pop culture, history, geography, and even languages he was pretty good at but science and math? Clint knew it was such a cliché to suck at math and science but he did and there was no point in pretending he didn’t. The sciences he could understand once it was explained to him but math always went in one ear and out the other.
He leaned back, chewing the inside of his cheek as he racked his brain for the answer. Maybe he had heard it once in class or on television. Read it in a book?
He looked down again at 23 Across and read the clue: Latin word for “bridge” in relation to the brain.
Honestly, he had no idea. He’d come back to it later and hope that he could fill it in using the clues from the answers around—
Clint turned when he felt a tap on his shoulder to see the boy staring at him. When had he turned around? Clint didn’t even know but he seemed intent on the crossword and tapped it with his finger. Clint slid one side of his headphones off.
“Huh?”
“Pons.”
“What?”
“The answer. To the Latin one. It’s pons. P-O-N-S.”
Clint looked down at the crossword, at the answers surrounding it, and then wrote in what the boy had said, turning to him after a second.
“Uh… thanks.” Clint hesitated, unsure but desperately wanting to keep the conversation alive if it was possible. “How did you know?”
The boy looked away, seeming shy but at least not angry or vacant. He was quiet for a long enough time that Clint turned away from him and went back to the crossword, pausing his music so he would hear if the boy did decide to speak again. Maybe he would answer in his own time and Clint didn’t want him to feel pressured.
“I really like science,” he finally said.
Clint turned and offered him a soft smile. “Oh? That’s really cool.”
Something in the boy’s expression changed. A bit of that defensiveness faded, there was a small smile on his lips, and his eyebrows went up in surprise.
At what, Clint had no idea.
Clint felt a little more confident in offering conversation now. He moved the crossword onto his left knee and tilted it slightly towards the boy.
“You know this one?” he asked, pointing to a question about positively charged ions.
The boy shifted tentatively so he could see a little better and then answered as he pushed his glasses up with one finger. “Cations.”
“Sweet, thanks,” Clint said, filling it in. It fit perfectly. “Hey, and you’re welcome to say no of course but, um… you wanna finish this one with me?”
The boy wrung his hands nervously and Clint couldn’t help but notice the cuts and scratches on them now that he was closer to him. They weren’t too different from his own. Clint’s left hand was still pretty banged up too but the stiffness was beginning to subside.
“I, uh…” he said, swallowing and then looking up at Clint. “It’s yours. It’s okay.”
“I know it’s mine. And since it’s mine I can offer to share it with you, right?”
“I… yeah—yes,” he corrected himself immediately, a tremor running through his hands. Clint recognized that kind of behavior. That ‘waiting to be hit’ dread.
“In that case, you wanna?”
“Yes,” he said, the word coming out crisp and clear. Clint made a mental note of that. He might not ever get an explanation but it didn’t hurt to be optimistic.
“Sweet. Alright, just jump in whenever you know one, okay? I mean that.” Clint used the softest tone of voice he could without sounding patronizing.
The boy nodded but said nothing, his eyes scanning over the crossword. His glasses slid down his nose as he read and he absently pushed them back up. Clint almost smiled at the sight of the sweater-paws but managed to keep his face under control and turn his attention back to the crossword.
He filled in two he knew and then pretended to be stumped, tapping the pencil against his lips again.
“Um,” the boy said, and Clint didn’t look at him but lowered the pencil, hovering it over the page as he waited. “17 Down is ‘relativity.’”
Clint filled it in without a second’s hesitation and then thanked him. After a moment, the boy piped up again, pointing to 7 Across and then 14 Down.
When they had nearly finished it, the boy spoke again but this time it wasn’t to give a crossword answer.
“Clint, right?”
Clint nodded, allowing himself to smile this time as he turned to the boy. “Yep, that’s me.” He didn’t push him for his name. He would let him give it when he was comfortable doing so. They did have at least a four hour trip ahead of them, more if the boy was also headed for New York City.
They finished the crossword and then the boy leaned back, seeming sad.
“You all crossworded out? ‘Cus I’ve got the rest of this book to do, so if you wanna do another one with me, I’d love that.”
The boy perked up, again adjusting his glasses. Clint wondered if they had never fitted or if it was just because of the break and they had been poorly repaired. He was all too familiar with receiving things that didn’t necessarily fit him just because they were cheap.
“Really?”
“Yeah, here.” Clint handed him the book. “You pick the next one. Each one’s got a different theme. I think there’re others with science questions too.”
“I-I—are you sure?” He held the book in his hands as if Clint had just handed him a newborn baby.
Clint nodded. “Very. Pick whichever you want.”
The boy’s expression hurt Clint’s heart a little. He seemed so surprised, so utterly shocked at Clint’s words. Clint would never try to compare situations but damn. What had been done to this kid?
But then again, Clint had a Natasha and his Natasha had most definitely put in the hours to convince Clint that he deserved better and that he mattered. Maybe this kid didn’t have a Natasha.
Well, then, he could have a Clint.
Finally, the boy chose one. The theme was the ocean and Clint handed him the pencil. The boy froze again, hesitating to reach out and take it but he did and then started filling in the blanks as he and Clint worked out the answers together.
It was at least an hour and three crosswords later that the boy spoke again.
“Why are you so interested in me?”
His voice sounded small and nervous.
Clint let out an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I noticed you were by yourself and I was trying to be nice. I’m a little rusty with social interaction. Sorry.”
The boy looked up, brushing another rogue curl away from his eyes. “It’s okay. Me too. I just, uh… I didn’t understand. I’m not used to attention. I thought you were making fun of me.”
Clint’s heart hurt a little more as the boy continued to talk. He wondered if this was how Natasha felt in the beginning when she was talking to Clint and he was still hiding the details of his home life from her. Was he also so obvious about it? Did he also say things that raised red flags for her and made her want to grab hold of all the people who had ever hurt him and shake them?
“No, no. Definitely not. I’ve been bullied enough in my life to not go around doing it to others.”
The boy snorted and Clint turned to him. “S-sorry,” he said immediately, flinching away from Clint. Did he think Clint was about to hit him? “I just… I can’t imagine anyone bullying you.”
“No need to apologize,” Clint said gently, making sure to keep his hands still. “And yeah, I’m sure you know what I mean when I say kids can be evil. Teenagers are just slightly worse.”
“I do,” he agreed, his eyes still focused on the crossword they were doing now.
He chewed his bottom lip for a moment and then looked up at Clint who was waiting and offered him a warm smile, trying to silently encourage him to speak.
“Did some teenagers do that?” He pointed with the pencil to Clint’s hand that was mostly still a deep purple with blue and yellow splotches around the edges of the bruise.
Clint lifted his hand and looked at it, the memory only a few days old so very, very fresh and vivid in his mind. Harold grabbed him by his shirt and threw him roughly onto the tiled kitchen floor. Clint’s head hit hard and he tried to crawl away and that was when Harold stomped on his hand, still in his heavy work boots. Clint remembered crying out in pain and then more insults before his father told him to clean up his mess.
He tucked his hand away into his hoodie pocket and swallowed past the lump in his throat, not sure if he wanted to cry or scream. He suddenly remembered that he had been asked a question and hadn’t answered it yet.
“I, um… No... no. Teens didn’t do this.” He couldn’t bring himself to elaborate.
But thankfully it seemed he didn’t have to.
“Ah,” the boy said, twisting the pencil in his hand, his own bruises fully on display, “adults can be evil too.”
Clint simply hummed in agreement and they fell back into their comfortable balance of silence and filling in the crossword.
Eventually, Clint took out a snack, offering some to the boy but he declined, taking out his own food. They closed the crossword for now and ate in silence.
“Um,” the boy said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and quickly glancing over at Clint nervously, “my name’s Bruce.”
“Nice to meet you, Bruce.”
“Likewise.” He gave Clint a small smile, the first one he had seen on the boy’s—on Bruce’s —face. It was nice, it suited him really well. Clint hoped to see it again and hoped even more that he could be the reason why it was there.
They chatted for a while, talking about neutral topics. They discussed where they had learned a certain piece of crossword trivia and they talked about their impression of Cleveland. It was the first city either of them had been to that wasn’t their hometown. Clint found out Bruce was actually from Ohio, from Dayton, and he told Bruce that he was from Waverly, Iowa.
They talked about the hostel, Bruce telling Clint that he was always up early and in the common room because there were three other guys in his room with him and socializing had never been his strong point. Finally Clint knew why he was always there.
By the time they reached the next station where they had to change buses, they had been chatting on and off for nearly three hours. It was comfortable and simple; they didn’t dive into any heavy topics nor did they clash on the things they did talk about.
And now Bruce seemed a lot more comfortable as they stood in line to get on the next bus.
“Hey,” Clint asked, standing behind him. Bruce turned. “Sick of me yet?”
“What?” Bruce asked, genuinely worried, his big brown eyes growing wide.
Clint laughed. “I’m only kiddin’ but, uh... can I sit next to you again?”
“Yeah,” Bruce said, and this was one of the first times that he didn’t hesitate after Clint asked him something. That made him smile. “I’d like that.”
After they found their seats and got comfortable again—Clint noting that Bruce only had a backpack with him and making another mental note for later—Clint dug into his bag and pulled out another snack, sour gummy worms, offering it to Bruce who wrinkled his nose but took one and hesitantly put it into his mouth, chewing slowly.
“Good?”
“It’s almost 3am, why is this your go-to snack?”
Clint grinned. “Well, it all started when—just kidding. Uh, I used to work at a gas station before I left and I worked graveyard shifts on the weekends so I’d do anything to stay up. I didn’t wanna overdose on coffee so I went for sugar and well…” He held up the colorful package as if to say and voila . “I’d try any candy but these are my favorites.”
Clint tilted the package towards Bruce who eyed it and then took another, this time a blue one, chewing it slowly but wrinkling his nose in distaste again.
“I prefer the other one.”
“What? Here I am offering you a fine dining experience and you have the nerve to be picky?”
Bruce looked nervous for a moment and Clint almost apologized and assured him that he was joking but then his expression cleared and he smiled, and then he laughed. It was a short, sweet sound but dammit if Clint wasn’t already thinking about what he could say to hear it again.
Somewhere around the two hour mark of this leg of the journey, Bruce fell asleep, his head rested against the window and Clint knew he was going to wake up with a crick in his neck at the very least and a headache at the most. He almost reached over to put his scarf between Bruce’s head and the window but that felt like a bit much and he didn’t want to touch him without asking first. Clint knew he valued people asking first and could only imagine that Bruce did too.
Clint let out a sigh and put on his headphones, trying to get over the weird feeling that he was still in Iowa just going in circles in this bus. He would be happy when they were in New York and he could look outside the window and know for sure that he was somewhere else.
Right now with the open, empty fields surrounding them there was nothing to distinguish rural Pennsylvania from Iowa. Once they were looking at that famous skyline, he’d be able to rest easy.
Clint looked away from the window and decided to stare up at the bus ceiling instead to ease his paranoia.
The bus took a sharp turn and Bruce landed on Clint’s shoulder, still asleep. Clint froze, determined not to move or wake him.
From this angle, he was even cuter and his hair was a bigger temptation than Clint had expected. He just wanted to touch one of those soft-looking curls but he could resist. Even so, he couldn’t help but study his face. Thick, dark brows sitting perfectly over long, dark lashes. The gentle slope of his nose, ending in a cute little button nose and the softest-looking pair of lips, his bottom one slightly bigger than the top. His cheeks were dusted pink over his light brown complexion, making him look so young but now up close Clint thought that perhaps he was a little older than he’d originally assumed.
Clint felt a tiny smile on his face and then turned away from Bruce and closed his eyes, drifting off too.
Clint braced himself against the seat in front of him with one hand, his other moving outwards instinctively to hold Bruce in place and honestly, he wasn’t even sure where the instinct came from but he was happy it was there.
The bus came stuttering to a halt, a loud bang sounding and Clint wasn’t sure if it came from the exhaust or the engine but either way it didn’t sound good at all.
Clint turned to see if Bruce was okay. He looked terrified and Clint realized that Bruce was holding onto his arm.
“It’s okay. Probably just an overheated engine. These buses are all really old,” Clint reassured him.
Bruce inhaled slowly through his nose and it came shakily out of his mouth. “Yeah… yeah. I—oh, sorry.” He let go of Clint’s arm and Clint pulled it back into his own lap.
“No worries. I didn’t hurt you, did it? I swung my arm out kinda hard.”
Bruce just shook his head, craning his neck to see the front of the bus. Everyone was talking now, all having been rudely woken by whatever was going on or at the very least caught by surprise.
“Hey there, folks,” the driver said over the loudspeaker, “just having some engine trouble. I’m gonna hop out and take a look-see and I’ll update you as soon as I can. For now, just sit tight. I’m sure we’ll be back on the road in no time.”
People began to relax slightly and Clint watched the bus driver, an older man with greying hair, get out of his seat and exit the bus with a flashlight.
They were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Clint thought where he lived was nowhere but this really took the cake. There wasn’t a building or light for miles in any direction. Fields of corn and tall grass flanked them on either side and the road went on in a straight line seemingly without end.
Apart from the headlights on the bus, the only other sources of light out here were the moon and stars.
It made him anxious, bringing back that feeling of never really having left Iowa. He swallowed dryly, tugging at his shirt collar that suddenly felt too tight.
It would be fine. They would be on the road again in no time, that’s what the driver said. Clint would make it. He would. He had to.
He was brought out of his own near-panic attack when he noticed Bruce’s building up. He was breathing shallowly and shaking ever so slightly. Clint’s eyes dropped down to his lap where he was kneading his hands so roughly Clint felt himself wince just imagining how much it must hurt.
“Hey,” Clint said softly, reaching out but then hesitating. What if touch made it worse? “Can I touch you?”
Bruce turned to him slowly, wide-eyed and out of it. “Huh?” he asked, another tremor going through him that made him look like a terrified kitten.
“Can I?” Clint asked, his hand hovering over Bruce’s.
Bruce looked at their hands for a long moment and then he made eye contact with Clint for a split second before dropping his gaze and shaking his head.
“No problem,” he said, dropping his hands back into his own lap. “Look, it’s gonna be ok—”
“Uh, hiya, folks,” the bus driver said over the loudspeaker, interrupting Clint’s reassurances, “so it looks like the engine’s died on us. Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to wait on another bus. It should be here in a couple hours and then we’ll make the switch and continue on towards our destination. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Um,” Clint said, swallowing past his own sudden flare up of anxiety to try and comfort Bruce whose trembling had gotten worse. “Okay.”
He needed a minute to round up his chaotic thoughts, all of them talking at a hundred words per second and none of them on the same topic. A very, very irrational part of his brain almost sent him into shut down mode at the idea that Harold was somehow behind the engine failure and was just waiting for Clint to notice him. Just in case, Clint took a good look at the bus driver who was standing now to help people off the bus.
Definitely not him but he had to be sure.
He exhaled shakily, wiping his sweaty palms off on his jeans and turning to Bruce who still looked like he had seen a ghost.
“Some people are getting off,” Clint began softly, “you wanna get some fresh air? We’ve got a few hours.”
Bruce nodded and Clint stood, grabbing his stuff.
“You’re taking your things?”
“Um.” Clint didn’t really want to say yes, I am because I don’t trust anyone as far as I can throw them because that might have a negative impact on his budding friendship with Bruce. So instead he simply said, “Yeah.”
Bruce chewed his lip for a moment. “I guess we have to change buses anyway.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Clint said, throwing his duffel over his shoulder and maneuvering his way down the aisle and off the bus.
A few people were out sitting on the side of the road chatting and snacking, others were taking their luggage off the bus. Clint wanted somewhere a little quieter both for his sake and Bruce’s. He pressed up on his tiptoes and saw that just a little ways into the grass was a clearing. He explained it to Bruce who seemed grateful for a quiet, private spot and followed him to where they dumped their things and plopped down onto the soft grass.
Clint ran his hands through it, grabbing handfuls but not tearing it out, just enjoying nature. As excited as he was for the city, he knew he would miss wide open landscapes like this. He would miss the tranquility of it all and being able to see as many stars as he could. He’d once FaceTimed Natasha in the middle of the night from out in a field and showed her the sky and she was shocked. There were too many lights in New York City to see the stars like that.
He would also kind of miss Bruce. It was odd because they had only introduced themselves to one another properly a couple hours ago but he seemed like a nice person. Or maybe Clint’s standards were just low. But that didn’t feel right either because he had Natasha to keep his expectations in check. Bruce was just… interesting. Good interesting.
He turned to him only to find him leaned back, his palms flat on the grass and head tilted so far back Clint was sure his glasses would slide off. He was looking up at the sky, his lips parted slightly, and with a look of awe and appreciation so pure that Clint smiled.
“I’m guessing you like astronomy too?”
Bruce turned, smiling and adjusting his glasses. “I love it.”
“Know any constellations?”
Bruce nodded, swallowing before he asked, “See that there?”
Clint tried to follow Bruce’s finger, leaning more over into his space and Bruce seemed fine with it.
“I think.”
“Okay, wait. See that box of stars? The four here?” He traced the outline with his finger slowly two times and then Clint nodded. “And see the three rows coming off this side and the one off that side?” Again Clint nodded. “That’s Pegasus.”
“Wait…” Clint tilted his head, envisioning it. “Oh, wow. That’s so cool. Know any more?”
Bruce glanced quickly at Clint. Whatever he saw in Clint’s expression made him continue, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Clint laid back in the grass and Bruce laid beside him, the bus and its occupants far enough away that their conversations and laughter barely registered. Instead it was just the sound of the wind rustling the grass around them and Bruce's soft voice telling Clint about the stars.
It wasn’t long before drowsiness won out and they fell asleep in the grass, Clint sprawled out and Bruce curled up tightly into a ball beside him.