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Phil Coulson first finds out that his car might actually be a sentient, alien life-form when the metal around him abruptly shifts, leaving him on the gravelly floor of the parking lot, to intercept what looks like a dragon’s toothy maw. It’s an off-kilter train of thought that doesn’t really strike until the dragon’s been subdued and his car has reverted back into an unassuming black SUV with dark-tinted windows in a flurry of mechanical whirs and clicks.
It doesn’t rule out the possibility that Stark’s been experimenting with new tech (again).
A junior agent comes running up and Phil eyes his car a little warily anyway. “Get me a report on all of Stark’s projects. He’s not supposed to be making giant self-aware robots out of our cars.”
It might just be a reflection from the cars that are starting to pull up around them, but Phil swears his car has just flicked its lights on in its own silent reproach, as if being a labelled a Stark project is an insult.
--
The technicians arrive half an hour after the clean-up crew.
Phil’s SUV has already been cordoned off, and is unnaturally silent (as a car rightfully should be) sitting there almost sullenly. Which is impossible, because it is a car - that has just turned into a giant humanoid form - and cars are not in possession of the ability to sulk.
One of the technicians comes over, toolbox in hand. Phil absently reads the name off his name-tag as he watches. His back is to his car because he’s supervising the methodical removal of a dragon and any loose parts from the middle of the parking lot.
Phil’s turned away for roughly three seconds when there’s a loud bang, as if someone has been slammed against metal. Specifically, the metal surface of a car.
Around them, agents raise their heads, craning their necks around to see what the fuss is about. Phil follows their gaze, only to see Bobby clutching his face and stumbling back.
The hood of the SUV is open slightly, and Phil could swear that the vehicle is radiating smugness at the wounded technician who is now sitting half-sprawled on the ground with blood streaming liberally down the front of a probably broken nose.
Another tech is by Bobby’s side within seconds, dragging the man off for medical attention and leaving Phil with his SUV. His now obviously smug SUV with an opened hood that has a little smear of red from where it’d hit Bobby in the nose. The agent reaches over to rub the sticky substance off the comfortably warm metal, still a little wary of whatever it is that’s taken the shape and form of an SUV, but the car doesn’t so much as twitch as Phil’s fingers ghost over its surface.
Almost as if the car trusts Phil. (Which is ridiculous, again, because it is a car. A car.)
There’s a quiet laugh from somewhere behind Phil, past the cordon. It’s low, like the rumble of a contented engine.
The man’s eyes are electric blue, almost glowing, and there’s a smirk playing about his lips when Phil follows the sound with the dim glow of the lamp post barely casting enough light over his features. He’s muscular, that much is certain, clad in form-fitting jeans and a black shirt that looks molded to his frame and the ends of his hair almost disappearing into the light.
Something about him is surreal, there’s something otherworldly in the way he stands and the glimmer of his eyes, as if he would vanish into the light at the first opportunity..
“Agent?”
Phil’s thoughts are abruptly pulled away by another suit standing in front of him.
This is a man that he doesn’t recognize because he isn’t SHIELD (the suit that this other man is clad in doesn’t fit half as well as SHIELD’s, and he can see the silhouette of what looks more like a rubber duck than a toy gun tucked away under the fabric, something no self-respecting SHIELD agent would ever be caught dead with because Fury would chew them up and spit them out).
Beside him, the car seems to stiffen, a faint vibration under the hood that Phil can feel right at the tip of his fingers, almost as if the car doesn’t want this man anywhere near it.
“Phil Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Can I help you?” The look on Coulson’s face is a patented sort of bland, eyeing the other agent like he’s a piece of bad news (not that he’ll ever let it show) or a time-bomb waiting to go off.
“Simmons, Sector Seven. We’ve seen what your car can do,” and Simmons glances over to the SUV that’s practically bristling, “and believe it to be a non-biological extraterrestrial sent here from a yet undiscovered planet to initiate contact, the first of its kind! It’s imperative that it be brought it for examination!”
It’s the way the man says examination, with that manic gleam in his eye, that makes Phil distrust him. He’s heard of Sector Seven - his security clearance is high enough - and even then they’ve been rumored to be doing some pretty nasty things down south somewhere in Arizona.
The SUV is shuddering on it’s wheels now, thinly concealed agitation obvious perhaps only to Phil, who hasn’t moved his fingers from the warm surface of his car’s hood.
Phil catches sight of Hill and her clean-up crew nodding a confirmation that they’re done, boxes being moved into SHIELD-marked black SUVs with fluid efficiency and white-clad Hazmat suits disappearing into a larger white van.
“Mr Simmons,” this Simmons person looks as if he’s about to interrupt, but Phil gives the man The Look, the one that makes most civilians retreat. “I’m afraid SHIELD doesn’t have the time for conspiracy theorists in black suits, Sector Seven or not. If there is anything else of actual importance, please feel free to call.”
Coulson holds a card out. It vanishes into Simmon’s left jacket pocket.
“Goodbye, Mr Simmons.” The finality of his tone is almost challenging, as if daring the other man to argue. There’s a deeper, almost primal instinct that makes him dislike this man standing in front of him, something that even his car seems to agree with (which is ridiculously absurd, because Phil knows that his car cannot possibly be sentient, even if it is something that Stark’s tinkered with).
The man leaning against the lamp post is long gone by the time Phil glances over, climbing into his SUV without a second thought.
He’s halfway out of the parking lot, tailing the group of SHIELD-marked vehicles, when he realizes that the metal around him is practically radiating warmth. It makes him lean his head against the steering wheel when he pulls up to a red light, a groan escaping his lips.
“You’d better be worth it.”
Phil doesn’t quite know why he’s talking to his (definitely non-sentient) car and he pretends that he doesn’t hear the purr of the engine. It’s as if the car’s trying to reassure him that not handing it over to this dodgy (and possibly crazy) Sector Seven man was the right thing to do.
--
The car is silent for the next few days. Incredibly well-behaved even, acting up only once when Phil allows a different technician near the lot that it’s parked in. This technician is luckier, getting away with just a shock when the alarms of at least half the fleet parked in the garage suddenly go off in a cacophony of blaring klaxons, stumbling away and hurrying to the elevator from where he’d come from.
Phil gives the vehicle a withering look and the noise starts to fade. He sighs, pushing back his sleeves as he pops the hood open himself, catching a glimpse of that man from under the lamp post at the corner of his vision as he does.
He still doesn’t believe that his car is something more than just a car, even if the long-distance scans it’s been hit with (from across the parking lot) paints a picture of technology more sophisticated than Stark-tech. He won’t quite let anyone else do anything to the car either, if his attitude with Simmons is anything to go by.
Tony had even swung by once after hearing rumors - Phil knows that Teddy from R&D looks up to the guy and that’s probably where he gets his news from - of a ultra-high tech vehicle with transformation capabilities, wanting to take it apart to study. The car had suddenly gone missing for an entire day after that, despite the GPS that’s supposedly installed in every SHIELD vehicle, showing up in the parking garage of Phil’s apartment building sometime well after the man returns home.
Phil pushes the hood up, propping it open on a strut.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary under the hood except for a silver, two inch-wide insignia of a robotic face, smooth surface and angular lines that Phil runs his fingers over, leaving smudges over the polished metal. It doesn’t look like any sort of customization Fury would have allowed on the car and it doesn’t seem like a manufacturer mark.
Instead the logo looks out of place,
and alien
a patch of gleaming silver against the matte black of the engine.
He shuts the hood and leans against the car, a single figure in the basement garage. There are questions in his mind, questions like ‘what are you’ topping the list. Phil isn’t Stark, he doesn’t possess that man’s madman intelligence and he definitely isn’t compelled to take apart machinery to figure out how it ticks, but the vehicle in front of him did once somehow repel a part-organic dragon just over a week ago.
Even if it had turned into a giant robot to do so.
But his car is not sentient.
Not even if it is a giant robot that just so happens to be smarter than JARVIS and more complicated than half the technology that’s sitting in the R&D labs of SHIELD. That’s saying something, because SHIELD-tech is only out-classed by Stark-tech and this is completely above Stark’s level.
Phil’s phone rings, the sound echoing in the garage, and he turns to answer it. He completely misses the figure of a grinning, barefoot brown-haired man perched on the roof of his SUV with a smug, smug smile as Phil strides out of the garage.
--
As it turns out, nothing will ever, ever go according to plan, at least, not when SHIELD is involved. Especially when SHIELD is involved.
--
It’s supposed to be a simple extraction, a missing box of things that shouldn’t have even left the lab. Their recon scouts have reported a chemical, possibly biological weapon (and that really shouldn’t be left unchecked) tucked away in unassuming crates pending illegal export, with the movers nowhere to be found.
The warehouse is empty barring a few burnt-out vehicles and a whole stack of crates in a corner when they get there. They match the description the recon team had relayed and Phil holsters his sidearm as he checks the faded label. It tells him little, the words are weeks-old and faded to the point of being unreadable against the grain of the wood.
It doesn’t matter where they were planning to send them, because none of these crates are ever going to get there.
He makes a gesture, signalling an all clear for the team to start removing the crates. The sooner they get these things into actual containment units, the better, because they’re all sitting ducks here clad in white Hazmat suits that offer little protection if their not-so-friendly hosts decide to greet them with gunfire.
They’re halfway out the door with the first of the crates and the assault team covering their asses when the first volley comes. It’s a stuttering rasp amplified by the echoing space of the warehouse and Phil ducks as the edge of the crate splinters, showering them with wood chips.
“Get clear!”
Coulson lifts his gun, returning the unwanted greeting as the rest of the assault team manages cover-fire around the crate-carriers. He estimates at least three, or four judging by the sound of gunfire, but it’s mixed up with the rattling of the M4s from somewhere behind him.
Then there’s a high-pitched whistle that Phil’s military training recognizes a second too late, recognizes only when there’s the bloom of heat and the sound of wood and metal fragmenting under the sheer concussive force.
He chances a look over to where the crates had been.
Had been.
The space where the crates had been standing are now a furnace of melted metal and burning wood, the poor excuse for a containment unit completely obliterated.
Phil swears in five different languages, seizing hold of his headset. “Containment breach, possible contamination, affected personnel numbering-”
The wall opposite Phil suddenly implodes, a particularly large chunk of concrete sending up dust and green-blue particles that the agent thinks is - was - part of the bio-weapon that SHIELD had been trying to retrieve. A part of Phil is resigned because he’s well aware of the danger that had been (and still is) in the job description, but he sure as hell isn’t going to go down without a fight, bio-weapon or no bio-weapon.
He scrambles up, gun in hand, only to be met with the sight of a metallic monstrosity at least two storeys high and barreling straight towards him through the fog of a spreading biohazard weapon.
Phil can see gears shifting and plates moving as fingers almost twice his height reaches for him, trailing dust from where the creature had first burst through the wall, crushing his attackers under the hail of twisted metal and concrete pieces.
He squeezes off a couple of shots but the bullets ping harmlessly off the metal, scorch marks barely obvious on the thing’s burnished surface.
Then the fingers close around him and Phil’s aware of sleek lines realigning themselves around him, a sense of deja vu nearly knocking the wind out of him as the thing curls a protective ball around Phil and changes.
He recognizes this shift, recognizes it from a night not too long ago when his car had transformed into something not of this world to rip a dragon’s maw clear off its head, leaving him standing on the gravel of a parking lot.
“You-”
The image of the man with those beautiful
otherworldly
blue eyes flashes through Phil’s mind.
Then he’s sitting in his SUV, half sprawled on leather seats with his standard issue firearm clutched in a white gloved hand with the car driving itself, speeding through tongues of flame and past the ragged hole of what had been the entrance to the warehouse.
It’s chaos outside, SHIELD agents scrambling away from the fire and into Hazmat suits to get away from the fast-spreading chemical as already-suited agents spray a mix of foam and de-contaminant.
Phil’s car skids to a halt inches away and transforms.
Everything comes to a standstill as everyone turns to stare at the mass of moving and whirring parts, the car’s grilles splitting apart, clanking and clicking as a head, torso and a pair of arms emerge from what had been the cab of Phil’s car, pushing itself upright as stray struts and metal panels click into place.
A pair of brilliant blue eyes blink once, and Phil steps back as the mechanical being straightens, those eyes not far from his face.
That insignia he’d seen under the hood has moved, right square to the centre of its chest. If Phil squints, he can probably see the Acura logo somewhere, split neatly into two halves alongside what used to be the cab of his SUV.
The bot crouched in front of Phil has a faceplate that retracts with a metallic clang to reveal what looks like a grinning mouth, if robots can actually grin. Phil really wouldn’t put it past this one to be able to, considering that it had been what he had thought to be an actual non-transforming SUV for the past month or so until that incident with the dragon.
“You’re not a car.” Phil’s voice is completely deadpan, as if it’s an everyday occurrence for SHIELD-issue vehicles to turn into humanoid robots of questionable, possibly extraterrestrial (or just Stark-related) origin.
The bot makes to stick his hand out, only realizing when Phil gives him The Look that what he’s just done is completely ridiculous because Phil can fit into the palm of that huge mechanical palm. “Codename Hawkeye. World’s greatest marksman.”
Phil thinks he hears a tinge of regret in that, but he doesn’t have the luxury of analyzing what Hawkeye is saying.
The car’s mouth widens, curving upwards at the edges. “Not Stark-tech, either.”
Well, that rules one possibility out.
--
If anyone asks, Phil is going to deny everything.
But in truth, the retrieval op had gone much easier after the bot assisted despite the fact they’d spent half the time shepherding gaping junior operatives away from his giant feet as he carried the remaining crate away from the fire. Phil grudgingly had to admit that having something mostly impervious to fire and biological contaminants has its uses, but he’s not looking forward to explaining its presence to Fury.
Especially when said mechanical being had been masquerading as one of their SUVs for god knows how long. He can already hear the voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Fury saying things like security breach and should be destroyed.
He’s not quite sure which is more disturbing, to destroy the SUV he’s come to like or the fact he’s got a mental voice that sounds like his boss.
Phil walks over to the console at the far end.
“Get Fury on the line.”
It takes a few minutes for the secure line to connect before Fury’s face fills the screen in front of him. Fury’s impassive single eye fixed Coulson with a look, and then he looks up. There’s no surprise on his face, as if it’s an every day thing to be contacted over a secure line by an agent and a fifteen-foot tall robot.
“Barton, I thought I told you to stay covert.”
Phil blinks. Fury obviously isn’t addressing him, and he can’t remember any one in this deployment with the name of Barton.
Behind them comes the sound of mechanical shifting. Coulson chances a quick glance at their mechanical companion reflected on one of the screens, only to see the bot shrug (or at least, it looks like a shrug). “We got the crates.”
“You blew up half the crates.” Fury doesn’t even sound accusing.
“We retrieved the crates with no personnel loss.” Phil gestures to the containment unit that’s at the opposite end, wrapped in bio-hazard tape with a two-foot radius cordoned off around it.
“We got the other half, no sweat.” The bot grins again, flopping into a cross-legged position that shakes the hangar’s foundations slightly. It’s actions are disturbingly human, as if it’s not completely made of metal and steel parts but flesh and muscle, but there’s only so much gears and cogs can emulate.
Fury scowls, and the agent isn’t entirely sure who it’s directed at, presumably the bot because that one eye is flicking in between on a spot somewhere above his left shoulder and somewhere square in the centre of his chest.
“I expect a report about this on my desk, Coulson.” The mech makes a sound that could probably be passed off as a giggle, and Fury’s glare intensifies. “The same applies to you, Barton.”
Then the screen clicks off, leaving man and machine standing there. Hawkeye makes the mechanical equivalent of a groan.
Phil pieces together the puzzle just as Hawkeye folds in on itself, metal pieces sliding back into the sleek shape of the Acura that the man is more accustomed to, door opening in an invitation for Phil to get in.
The realization is startling as Phil climbs into the car.
Barton is the mech standing behind him.
--
There is nothing in SHIELD archives on a marksman named Barton, even in some of the most highly encrypted and heavily redacted files. There is no personnel file, no reports that mention his name, nothing. It’s almost as if everything on the man (or machine) has been wiped clean or tucked into the database of things that never again see daylight.
It’s almost as if Barton has never existed in SHIELD, be it as a man or as a two-and-a-half storey tall black and silver robot.
Phil takes to other databases. Interpol. CIA. FBI. The latter yields something, but the photo of him isn’t right. This other man is more heavy-set with longer, darker hair, eyes a pale grey and not the brilliant blue that Phil remembers.
“That’s not the man you’re looking for.”
It’s a testament to all the strange and otherworldly things that have happened within the walls of SHIELD that Phil doesn’t even flinch when something walks through his door, the holographic gleam coalescing into the form of a barefooted man with Barton’s inhumanly blue eyes.
They aren’t the most expressive, but Phil can see the hint of sadness in the holoform’s expression, as if he knows the face on the FBI’s database.
Then it’s gone, replaced by a grin that’s as human as the shell Barton wears. It’s as if the man sitting there on his couch had been flesh and blood before he’d become a creature of metal plates and miniature cogs and gears.
Phil can’t help but wonder as he returns his attention to his paperwork (additional work for a higher clearance level after his encounter with Barton), running an eye over the man who’s not really there, sprawled out with a content smirk on tanned features.
--
Barton soon becomes a regular fixture in Phil’s office over the next few months, a slightly glowing figure that is sometimes perched on the edge of the filing cabinet or sprawled on the couch. The agent never quite figures out why he does it because he’s obviously just a projection that can’t feel but he’s never said anything about it.
Phil starts calling him Clint because the holoform had once fixed him with a look and told him, ‘it’s my name’, as if it actually means something, something more than just a bunch of letters arranged in a specific order.
Clint always lingers after a mission and he’s almost always talking, making snarky comments at Phil when he’s working on another post-operation stack of paperwork.
He’s a remarkably good driver too (despite his penchant for speeding recklessly on the highway), sometimes detouring to a nearby Starbucks on days where he knows Phil’s been in the field for hours on end, keeping a steady stream of 80s rock no matter what station it’s tuned to.
There’s even that one incident where Phil had disappeared into the R&D labs on the eighth floor for almost six hours only to return to a giant face peering worriedly into his office and Fury on the other end of the line.
“Keep a damn eye on your car, Phil. We don’t need another PR nightmare on our hands, not after the fiasco with Blonsky.”
Phil doesn’t quite know when Hawkeye had become his car especially since the Acura technically belongs to SHIELD, but he’s the one who drives the Acura through the car wash on Sundays and spends an hour with sleeves pushed up to his elbows buffing smooth metal until it shines.
Clint never stays around if anyone who’s not Fury or Natasha or Phil comes into the office, vanishing in a flicker seconds before the door opens. It’s one of his little quirks, and the man has many of them apparently, almost as if he’s a sentient being.
He still hasn’t found anything on him, not even in the deepest recesses of SHIELD’s filing archive, twelve floors underground and fifteen shelves in.
“You won’t,” Clint suddenly says one day, fiddling with a holographic rubik’s cube.
Phil doesn’t ask how Clint knows.
--
The peaceful intermission doesn’t last.
Fury sends him on another mission. “Take Barton with you.”
Phil thinks of the fifteen-foot robot that had lunged at him through the smoke and debris, wrapping metal fingers around him in a protective cocoon, and wonders if Hawkeye would fit into the jet.
“I hope you’ve got a bigger plane, sir.”
--
They lose Barton in the midst of the chaos. There’s debris all over the streets and a couple of collapsed buildings, and no sign of the Acura on the street that Barton had deposited Phil on, away from the falling concrete that would have crushed him before racing into the dust, the sound of whirring gears fading as the mech vanishes past a couple of steel bars.
The comms are dead, silence weighing heavy in Phil’s ears despite the shouts of agents around him. Barton had engaged the opponent when it had become obvious that conventional weaponry wasn’t going to work against that thing that looks remarkably like him, all spikes and deadly claws.
Phil shouldn’t be this worried, not about a car.
The GPS clutched in his hand is blank as well; Clint had permanently disabled the GPS ever since revealing to Phil his fifteen-foot metal-structured nature. So Phil’s standing in the end of one of only mostly-intact streets with what’s left of SHIELD’s team scrambling to get their acts together, staring at the spot where Clint had vanished.
A high-pitched screech, fading and weakened, echoes around him, and a couple of junior agents, the ones who haven’t been on the field for long, flinch at the cry.
The SUV that Phil appropriates feels incredibly different from the warm familiarity that is Clint, but it’ll do for now.
Phil slams a foot down on the accelerator. He has no idea where he is because Clint’s hands had been curled protectively around him as the mech spirited him to safety, barely recalling the multitude of twists and turns Clint had skidded around.
“Damn it, Clint!” A curse slips out as Phil wrenches the steering to avoid a particularly jagged piece of metal jutting out from the ground.
The car rounds the corner, and Phil sees a sight that actually manages to stun him.
Clint has his hands full, clamped firmly on a red-eyed mech’s arm to keep the spinning saw away from him, an equally deadly looking sickle extending from his arm. There are gouges on his armor, a pale blue liquid dripping from under the wiring, and there’s a portion of his shoulder that’s been pierced through with a broken-off blade.
Phil manages to climb out of the car, watching as Clint weaves around his equally bulky opponent with a grace that shouldn’t exist for a being of that size. He’s close enough to hear a snarled “Die, Autobot!”, watching as Clint yanks the blade out of his shoulder, battered edge shattering under his opponent’s saw, shards scattering around them.
Both man and machine miss the smaller, suddenly glowing blade until it’s buried hilt deep into Clint’s chest. He makes a sound, something choked that sounds far too human for a being of metal, glancing down at the thin, glowing sliver of metal protruding from his torso.
“Clint!”
Time seems to almost stand still until the mech moves, sickle slicing the air and embedding itself in his opponent’s arm, cleaving clean through wire and cable bundles.
Pale blue liquid splatters on the ground as the red-eyed bot stumbles back, wrenching out the sickle as it does. It snarls something in unintelligible clicks, baring fangs as it does, and stumbles off in a shaky retreat as SHIELD agents start converging on the scene, greeting it with a particularly nasty shot from one of the agency’s new rocket launchers.
Clint’s huge form is sitting at the corner of a building when Phil makes his way over. The damage looks even worse up close, the gash opening up his chest area and letting fluid leak over cut wires and tubing and ragged edges. The once-gleaming metal that comprises his vehicular form is slowly graying, brilliant blue eyes flickering every now and then.
Phil doesn’t need to be an expert on fifteen-feet-tall robotic organisms to know what that means, he recognizes fatality when he sees it.
“Medics are en route.” A few months ago, Phil wouldn’t believe he would be telling that to a being made of metal, lying there on the side-walk with no real use for human paramedics.
Clint barks out a laugh. It’s harsh and tired and strained and all too human, coming from whatever constitutes a voice box in robots. “What are they going to do, slap a band-aid on torn metal and weld it back together?”
Phil’s learnt to read between the lines.
“I’m sure SHIELD can come up with something of the fifteen-foot variety.”
The mech laughs again. “Not in this lifetime.”
He knows what Clint is saying, as much as he’s trying to ignore the reality of it. The stony gray texture has spread even further now, and Phil is now standing in an ever-expanding puddle of that pale blue fluid that’s pooling around Clint’s metal frame.
It’s strange, how he’s managed to become attached to a car.
The agents are bustling around them, Sitwell shouting out orders to coordinate some of the more inexperienced ones, but Phil doesn’t hear it. Instead he rests a warm hand against the cooling metal of Clint’s arm, watching in silence as the light slowly fades out of bright blue.
He gives the order to remove the body twenty minutes later.
--
The quiet that encompasses the office is unsettling without a glowing figure half sunk into the couch, talking Phil’s ear off.
Phil fills out the endless stream of reports that file through his desk and learns to deal with the silence all over again.
--
The phone on Coulson’s desk rings twice before Phil picks up, barely pausing to fill in the date and time of the latest incident. “There’s a sniper in the lobby requesting to meet you.”
He doesn’t remember any appointments, and today’s box on his calendar sitting on his desk is blank. It’s been that way for a good six months now, and if anyone else asks Phil merely fixes them with The Look, the one that makes most of them suddenly recall a matter of utmost importance that they have to do.
“Send him up.”
The door creaks open a good five minutes later.
“You’re a lot bigger when I’m not fifteen feet tall, Phil.”
He’s heard this voice before, six months ago, on a street somewhere in downtown Manhattan. Phil thinks that the pencil in his hand is going to snap. His knuckles are white from how hard he’s gripping it.
Then Phil looks up, and the pencil clatters away, forgotten.
Barton looks almost the same as his holographic form, with blue eyes and spiked brown hair that’s a little longer than Phil remembers. A long, pale scar along his arm starts from his wrist and disappears under fabric of his sleeve, and Phil thinks that his heart has just stopped. There are dark circles under his eyes, as if the man hasn’t slept in a long time, but it’s definitely Clint that’s standing there, the man Phil had thought was just a holographic form who’d liked to lounge on his couch.
“How-”
How are you alive, he wants to ask. How come you’re human, the questions are all on the tip of his tongue but Phil doesn’t give voice to any of them.
Clint smiles.
“They terminated the project after my mech got stabbed to the chest. Something about improving invulnerability and all that. I wanted out. Spent six months in rehab trying to get the use of my arm back.” The man shifts slightly, and Phil notices the stiffness with which he moves his arm.
It makes him want to reach out and trace the scar on Clint’s arm, where it branches out before disappearing under his sleeve, and Phil aborts the move the minute he realizes that his hand is reaching out.
“You were a sniper.” It’s a wonder that Phil’s voice isn’t shaking. His hands clench into fists at his sides.
The grin on Clint’s face grows wider. “Still am. Fury’s got me on a new assignment to SHIELD once I clear the next round of therapy. Better than just lying there and pretending to be a car.”
It takes a few moments for Phil to remember the latest security clearance and agency transfer forms he’d filled out and left on the Director’s desk, the ones that were blank where a name would have gone.
“That was you.”
The realization on his face must have shone through the bland mask he usually keeps on, because Clint now looks like the Cheshire Cat, holding a hand out. “Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. World’s greatest marksman, at your service.”
Clint’s hand is warm and strong and human when Phil shakes it.