![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathierif_ficTitle: From Across a Distant Shore
by:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathierif_fic
Fandoms: The Avengers/The Lord of the Rings
Characters: Clint Barton, Legolas, the rest of the Avengers
Rating: FRT-13
Disclaimer: This is a very transformative fanwork. No money is being made at any point of time.
Summary: Loki's back - but whatever he expected when he opened the Tesseract, it was not a real Elf of Mirkwood falling through.
It's up to the Avengers and Hawkeye to deal with the surprise guest now and find a way to bring him back.
A/Ns: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avengers_rbb and rosaluis gorgeous, awesome artwork - which can be found here - go take a look, it's gorgeous!
Uncountable thanks toginny305 for the nitpicking, the betaing, the cheering, everything despite the RL stress you have. <3
16413 words.
New York was burning, a thick cloud of ash hanging in the air, making breathing difficult and sight almost impossible. The roar of the fires was deafeningly loud, the screams of the injured and dying adding to the cacophony of noise and fighting and chaos.
Clint Barton lifted an arm and wiped his wrist across his face, clearing off as much of the mix of dust, ash, sweat and blood accumulated there as he could. He couldn’t see far, but he didn’t need to.
He knew exactly what was happening on the roof opposite him, knew who was up there and to what purpose.
Loki.
Clint knew that the God of Mischief had to be stopped, if possible, before he managed to use the Tesseract he’d brought back to Earth again. Clint still had nightmares from the last time Loki had opened a gate to a different point in space and he had no desires to repeat that experience.
He didn’t know how Loki had managed to escape from Asgard’s prisons or how he’d managed to find his way back to Earth, a feat not easily undertaken if Thor was to be believed. The only thing Clint knew was that Loki was back and, with him, the Tesseract.
And this time, Loki was even more determined than before to bring the planet under his destructive control; his eyes were feverishly bright, his dark hair stringy and his grin wide and dangerous. Clint had only managed a brief look from afar, but what he’d seen had been enough to send a shiver of dread down the length of his spine.
He hated Loki more than he hated anyone else; more than he had ever hated anyone else. Loki had made him do things he’d never thought he would do, and if he was honest with himself, there weren’t a lot of things Clint Barton wasn’t willing to do. He was a spy and an assassin and, basically, there were just a few lines he’d sworn to himself he’d never cross.
Lines that Loki had dragged him across, had wiped out with one careless swipe of his spear, and Clint swore that he would stop Loki, would make him pay for what Loki had done to him.
This time he would protect these people around him, not turn around and hurt them because Loki made him do it.
The comm unit in his ear crackled with static, followed by Tony Stark’s broken-up voice. “What is he planning?” A snort of disgust followed him. “And why does he always have to do it on my tower?”
Clint bit back a grim smile. Loki had managed to attack Stark Tower - Avengers Tower - in exactly the moment when they had all been busy elsewhere putting out the fires of destruction Loki had started and Tony had bitched about it ever since they’d realized what Loki was planning.
“Iron Man...” That was Steve’s voice, rough from smoke and from yelling orders, but the reprimand came through loud and clear. Now wasn’t the time to bicker and moan. Now was the time for the Avengers to stand united, to stop Loki and the creatures he’d already called through the Tesseract. Half man, half beast, they looked like creatures who had come straight from a disturbed mind’s nightmares, and they were wild and dangerous. Steve had named them Berserkers, and nobody had objected to that name. Clint, who had suffered more than his share of nightmares, had only been able to shudder, clench his teeth and shoot arrow after arrow into these creatures, hoping to stop them because they didn’t slow down unless they were dead.
“Hawkeye?” That was Steve again, an undercurrent of tension running through his voice. It was barely audible, but Clint had known Steve for several months now and he had gotten to know him better during that time.
“In position,” he reported back and squinted over the edge of the building he had chosen as vantage point. “Not that it helps a lot. Visibility is pretty much zero, Cap.”
“Understood.” Steve coughed sharply. “Move to a better position, but don’t attempt to make contact yet, okay?”
Clint didn’t bother with a reply, already moving along the edge of the roof toward the exit route he’d mapped out earlier. There was a scratchy, raw sensation at the back of his throat and a tightness across his chest he didn’t like, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of slowing down.
Not when Loki was still wreaking havoc.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting roar pierced the ash and smoke and one of Loki’s creatures curled razor-sharp tipped tentacles over the edge of the roof.
The creature’s tentacles were black and slimy like oil, the beak in its misshapen head sharp and wicked-looking. It had tiny, beady eyes that were focused on Clint, the only moving thing up here. Blood was smeared across its head.
Clint didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed his arrow - the last one still in his quiver – and, not missing a beat, fired it at the creature, aiming at the opened beak before whirling around and rushing toward his backup exit route, the one that would take him longer to get down by about thirty-five seconds.
It brought him around to the other side of the building. The smoke had cleared slightly here, allowing Clint a perfect view back over his shoulder, over the howling and twitching creature and the human leg it had swung over the edge of the building and at Stark Tower.
At Loki, standing on Iron Man’s assembling platform, arms raised high into the air in triumph, his head thrown back.
Clint could feel the thud of his own heartbeat in his ribcage, the burn of smoke in his lungs and the ache in all of his muscles. The taste of bile filled his mouth and he swallowed it back with some difficulty. No matter how tired he was right now, he was certain that, if he had an arrow, a single arrow, left, he would be able to hit the pale length of Loki’s throat, exposed as it was, and end this nightmare.
He didn’t have any arrows left and he wouldn’t be able to throw his knife across the distance.
He was helpless and had to watch as the beam of blue energy shot up into the cloudy sky in a straight column that rose from the Tesseract in front of Loki’s body.
“Iron Man?” Steve’s voice snapped through the comm and broke the paralyzing stillness in Clint’s muscles. He started moving again. “Where are you?”
There was a long silence followed by Tony cursing and coughing. Clint didn’t need to hear the words to know that Tony was too far away to stop Loki, probably injured, and that Hulk, Natasha and Steve were trapped on the ground.
This time, the Avengers couldn’t do a single thing to stop Loki.
They were too far away, too widely spread out.
If Loki managed to open a stable portal and call forth his army, they all would face a big, big problem, Clint realized while he hurried down broken stairs, jumping over pieces of concrete and steel.
He redoubled his efforts. Of all the Avengers, he was the closest to Loki, he had the best shot at stopping him. All he needed was one arrow.
One single arrow.
The bright blue energy emerging from the Tesseract subtly changed its color. A high whine emerged, overwhelming Clint and making him stumble and fall down to his knees, his hands pressed tightly to his ears as he screamed, pain overwhelming him.
He didn’t know how long he stayed in that position, unable to do more than whimper in distress, but when the pain finally ebbed, he found that his muscles had locked up and it was almost impossible for him to get back to his feet. He was exhausted, his hands and face sticky and red, his skin covered in a thick layer of dirt and ash, but he couldn’t stay in the position he’d found himself in.
He needed to get to Loki.
He needed to stop Loki, no matter the cost.
His numb fingers almost slipped as he gripped his bow and set out to find out what exactly had happened. One thing, he thought grimly, was for certain: no matter what Loki had attempted to do, he hadn’t called an army to New York, not this time. They would have noticed that already.
The portal emerging from the Tesseract had closed, he realized when he was halfway down from his perch. It left a bad taste in his mouth, a heavy feeling of dread in his chest, and an itch where Loki’s spear had touched him all those months ago.
It was disturbingly quiet, he realized once the tinny ringing in his ears had subsided. Whatever Loki had called forth...it wasn’t anything good. He could feel it.
Distantly, he was aware of Steve, Tony and Natasha checking in over the comm, of himself grunting acknowledgement when Steve hailed him. Hulk roared, but Clint didn’t know whether it was in triumph, in pain or in disappointment. He didn’t wait for Steve’s order before taking the elevator up, Jarvis’ smooth voice assuring him that he wouldn’t get stuck halfway there.
Clint left his bow behind and gripped his knives tightly. He slowly approached the assembling platform, ready to attack.
A figure was crumbled to the ground where Loki had been standing, long limbs sprawled ungainly, robes puddled and covering the person’s head. It looked like Loki, Clint thought, but he quickly revised his opinion - the robes were green, but they were distinctively different from the ones Loki favored. The green was less brilliant, more muted, and the cut of the grey cloak covering the figure was definitely not Asgardian, if Clint was any judge of fabrics and designs.
“Hawkeye?” Steve snapped and Clint took another careful step closer to the fallen figure.
There was no sign of the Tesseract unless it was hidden by the body. Clint took a calming breath and nudged it, using the tip of his boot to roll the figure over to its back.
He was fully prepared for more tentacles, razorsharp dangerous teeth and horribly disfigured facial features, this being one of Loki’s creatures just waiting for him to get close enough to attack and slice open with its claws.
Long, blond hair spilled over the dark grey floor, and Clint stared down at a pale, drawn and almost translucent face. The creature’s ears were pointed, its clothes simple but elegant, and there was no sign at all of claws, teeth or tentacles.
“Guys?” he said hoarsely, his grip on his knives not easing. “Whatever Loki expected when he opened the Tesseract...” He stared into the unearthy face of the unconscious creature in front of him, certain that this was not a human being, but also not one of the monsters Loki had conjured up. “...I don’t think this was it.”
~*+*~
“Gentlemen. Natasha.” Fury gave Natasha a brief nod as he strode to the head of the table and turned his chair around.
“Sir,” Steve replied respectfully. Clint and Natasha simply nodded, and Stark remained surprisingly silent. He’d been hit by a tentacled monster and had complained about slime-induced malfunctions of the Iron Man suit the entire time until they’d reached the Helicarrier. “How’s Doctor Banner?”
“He’s resting,” Fury replied. “As is our unexpected guest.”
Clint felt the muscles in his back twitch slightly and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What do we know about him?” he asked, to distract himself from his sudden discomfort.
“Not much,” Fury admitted and finally sat down. “At first, medical personnel thought he was dead; the whole open eyes thing apparently freaked them out a little. But it turns out he’s breathing and has a pulse. For now, they assume he’s simply unconscious. Maybe in a coma.”
“Where did he come from?” Steve frowned slightly. “I mean, last time Loki opened the Tesseract, he opened it to space, right?”
Tony narrowed his eyes slightly. “Yes,” he replied almost reluctantly, but he didn’t elaborate. He had been very tight-lipped about the things he’d seen when he’d carried the nuke through the portal, but Clint was not the one to point that out. He himself preferred not to reminiscence too much about the time he’d spent under Loki’s control.
“Is he a danger to us?” Natasha interrupted, as usual cutting right to the chase.
Fury shrugged. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “At first, we thought he was a mutant, but preliminary examinations revealed that not to be true. As of right now, we do not know where he came from, what he is, or what his intentions are.”
“Or whether he’s here voluntarily,” Steve added.
Fury nodded. “Agent Barton, I’d like you to take a look at his weapons and give me an assessment,” he ordered. Clint dipped his head in consent. He’d seen the silverish-grey longbow the stranger had carried and he was admittedly curious about it, and he was not surprised by Fury’s order. He was the resident expert on archery, after all.
“I’d like you to be present when he wakes up,” Fury added after a brief moment of silence and Clint nodded again as he murmured an affirmative.
Tony lifted a hand and waved it slightly until Fury turned his glare in his direction. Only then did he take it down with a smirk. “I have a question. Do we have any idea if Thor’s coming back, now that his little brother is causing trouble again?”
“Unfortunately, we don’t,” Fury admitted before sighing. “For the moment, we should assume that he is unaware of Loki’s presence on Earth and therefore remaining in Asgard.”
In Asgard, where they couldn’t contact him. Clint took a deep, calming breath and slowly released it again.
It wouldn’t help if he freaked out about Loki being back, he knew that. He needed to focus on the task at hand, do what he could to help bring the trickster under their control and make sure he wouldn’t cause any more destruction, and then, when the situation was clear, he could retreat to a safe place and have a breakdown.
Until then, he had his orders.
~+*+~
The first sign of the stranger waking up was a soft beep coming from the machines next to the bed. Clint’s eyes flickered up just in time to see him slowly blink twice.
“Hey,” he said, as quietly and soothingly as he could, while lifting his boots from the bed’s edge and sitting up straight.
The man’s entire body tensed, like a bowstring, Clint absently thought, and then he sommersaulted out of the bed and away from him. The machines gave an accusing screech as lines were ripped out from under inhumanly pale skin, and Clint winced at the cacophony of noises as a nurse came running into the small room.
“He woke up,” Clint reported, nodding at the corner where the stranger was towering. He was tall, taller than Clint and maybe even taller than Steve, and the hospital gown they’d put him in didn’t conceal the willowy strength of his slender body. His eyes were opened wide, his back pressed against the wall, and it was obvious from his body language alone that he was confused and probably panicking.
“Calm down, okay?” Clint said, careful not to appear threatening. “We’re not going to hurt you, okay? You’re safe here.”
The stranger frowned, and that was the moment where the nurse managed to turn the alarms off and deafening silence filled the small room.
“We’re the good guys,” Clint added, his voice unnaturally loud to his own ears. “We’re not gonna hurt you. I promise.”
The stranger opened his mouth and started talking, but it was not in any language Clint had ever heard before, and he had heard a lot in his life. The voice and words were melodic and completely foreign to him.
“Slow down,” he interrupted. “I don’t...I can’t understand you, okay, big guy? We need to figure out what that language is and find someone to speak it. I’m sure Fury has his guys already on it, as soon as the first syllable left your mouth, really, but in the meantime, I’m sorry, I don’t understand a single word you’re saying.”
The stranger looked at him for a long moment without blinking. “This is not the land of the Firstborn,” he finally stated while tilting his head to the side with a frown. “And it is not any other land I have known. I sense nothing of living and breathing nature around us, only dead metal. Is this a realm of the dwarves?”
Clint blinked. The way this man talked reminded him of Thor and, even more, of Loki; his looks, with his smooth-shaven face and pale skin, only pulling more attention to the similarity to the God of Mischief. It made Clint’s skin crawl slightly and he had to take several deep breaths before he could continue.
“No?” he replied carefully.
“You certainly do not belong to the dwarf-people,” the stranger continued, his sharp eyes focused on Clint, and Clint suddenly found himself wishing that the stranger had shown up with an equivalent of Natasha’s Widow’s Bite instead of a bow. She was so much better at this kind of thing than him, and she would have much less trouble dealing with the whole situation.
Natasha would have already found out the stranger’s name, his history and how he’d gotten here, if she was in Clint’s place, discomfort and flashbacks nonewithstanding.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” he suggested. “I’m Hawkeye. Er. Clint Barton.”
The stranger stared at him for a long moment. “Very well,” he then decided. “Greetings, Hawkeye Er Clint Barton. I am Legolas Thranduilion.”
Clint’s lips twitched slightly. “No, no,” he said. “My name is Clint Barton, but I’m also called Hawkeye, okay?”
Legolas bowed his head a fraction of an inch. “I apologize. Now. Where am I and how did I get here?”
~*+*~
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tony Stark stared over Steve’s shoulder at the security feed. “Did he really say Legolas?”
“He did,” Steve agreed before frowning. “Why is that so important, Tony?”
Tony stared at him for a long moment. “Remind me to show you Lord of the Rings later,” he said. “Oh, hey, you like to read, right? Maybe start you off with the books before showing you the movies. Jarvis, make a note.”
Steve nodded. He was already used to Jarvis’ presence wherever Tony Stark went, and he had slowly got the hang of ignoring the sentences not meant for him but for the AI. He liked to read, yes, but since the formation of the Avengers, he hadn’t had the time to read much, besides SHIELD-issued briefs about the time he’d missed.
“Anyways,” Tony continued blithely, “he says his name is Legolas, he carries a bow and arrows like Katniss...” - another reference Steve didn’t understand, and he filed it away under things most likely to do with another fictional archer, if he understood the context correctly - “...and his DNA implies that he’s much closer related to Thor than to us...you know what that means?”
“We have a stranger on our hands who apparently isn’t here voluntarily and who probably wants to go home?” Steve suggested, a sudden strong feeling of yearning and empathy filling him.
“It means we might actually have a real Elf at our hands. If the myths are right and Tolkien didn’t lie to us,” Tony corrected, but there was something almost gentle in his eyes as he glanced at Steve again. It was scary how well Tony could read him if he put some effort in it, and Steve quickly focused his mind on something else.
Now Tolkien, that was a name he vaguely recognized - he was some kind of children’s book author, wasn’t he? Steve decided to google him later and maybe make use of the Amazon account Bruce had set up for him. For now, he pushed the wave of homesickness swamping him away and focused on the task at hand.
They still didn’t know whether Legolas was a threat to them and Earth, and they needed to know.
~*+*~
“What is the last thing you remember?” Clint asked and moved to sit back in his chair while using every ounce of training and experience he had to appear non-threatening.
“I was walking among the old trees of Fangorn Forest.” Legolas followed his example and sat down on the edge of the bed. “And then, I was here. How did I get here?”
Clint shrugged slightly. “You were brought here by a guy called Loki,” he said. “He’s got a device that forms portals through space.”
“Can this Loki bring me back home?” Legolas asked.
Clint shrugged again. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I don’t even know where your home is.” He held up a hand when it looked as if Legolas wanted to interrupt him. “What I do know is that we are doing everything in our power to track Loki and the Tesseract...the device...down, and if there is a way to bring you home, I’m sure that we’ll do our best to find it.”
“So, you are not aware of this creature’s whereabouts at all?” Legolas asked with a frown.
Clint shook his head. “Not at the moment, no. But we will find him.” He knew that they were. Bruce had barely woken up when he’d already worked on tracking down the Tesseract the same way he’d done it the first time, by following its gamma-ray signature. With Tony’s help, he’d refined his search parameters to a point where he had assured Fury that it was only a matter of time before Loki was found.
~+*+~
The ringing of an alarm pulled Clint from his restless sleep and he was on his feet and half out of the door before he was even awake.
Clutching his bow close to his chest, he fumbled with the earpiece of his radio. He had almost reached the bank of elevators before it was in place and he could check in and find out what the emergency was.
"Our guest has disappeared from the infirmary," Maria Hill's voice informed him, crisp and cool, and Clint bit back a comment as he adjusted the quiver he'd thrown over his shoulder to a more comfortable fit.
"Since we still haven't determined if he's been brought here on purpose, finding him has top-priority," Hill reminded him and Clint acknowledged his orders with a brief grunt and passed the elevators in favor of the staircase.
There weren't many ways Legolas could've gone, he thought as he started climbing, his boots noiseless on the steel staircase. He'd said something about dwarves, which indicated that the Elf would, if he were trying to escape, most likely aim for high ground. After all, dwarves lived in mines, didn't they?
"Hawkeye, come in." Natasha's voice came in through his earpiece, quiet and confident.
"This is Hawkeye," Clint replied and jumped up another couple of stairs. "Moving upwards, eastside staircase, fifth level. You?"
"Westside," she replied. "Cap's got Banner and Stark."
Clint didn't bother replying and focused instead on climbing the stairs even faster, until he reached the roof access door.
SHIELD's current headquarters were half-buried and hidden underground, leaving only a modest seven floors above ground. If one was in the corridors or the huge, windowless labs housed in the building, there was no way of telling whether the floor was above or below ground, and, if Clint was right in his assumption that Legolas thought he was in a mine somewhere, he would try to get as high up as he could, which meant the roof.
Taking a deep and calming breath, Clint pulled an arrow out of his quiver and placed it against his bowstring before easing the door open and risking a quick glance around.
The side of the roof with the helipad was quiet and unpopulated, and Clint followed a hunch and turned toward the small roof garden.
At first, he thought he'd been mistaken. It was quiet, the little patch of green with its potted plants seemed abandoned as well. But he wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing and his sharp eyes quickly caught the shadow moving in a breeze that wasn't there.
"Legolas?" he asked, his fingers twitching on the nock of his arrow. "That you?"
"Indeed," a disembodied voice floated through the darkness of the night.
"You scared us, running off like that," Clint stated as he took a careful step closer. "Where were you planning on going?"
For a moment, only silence greeted his words, then the melodic voice of the Elf filled the air. "I merely wished to see the sky and the trees."
"Trees, huh?" Clint slowly relaxed and put the arrow back into his quiver. "Not many of those around here, you know."
"So I see," the Elf said, his voice filled with indescribable sadness for a long moment. "Small, young and weak are your trees."
Clint risked a glance away from the shadow and toward one of the pots. "Yeah, maybe," he replied, eager to steer the conversation away from plants. "This isn't really the place to grow trees, you know?"
“My heart is not accustomed to these dwarvish halls,” the Elf said and finally stepped closer. “It bears heavy on my mind and I yearn for the presence of living things around me.”
Clint nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Tasha, I’ve got him. On the roof. Everybody stand down, I have it under control.”
Legolas gave him a long and questioning look, and Clint grinned and pointed at his ear. “I’m letting our guys know that you didn’t disappear,” he explained. “As I said, you got them worried. You escaped a little too easily for their peace of mind.”
He wouldn’t have gotten far, he thought, before being caught, but then, he should’ve been stopped on his way up here. SHIELD-agents were supposed to report suspicious activity; a man dressed in a gown should definitely fall into that category.
There were only a few possible explanations and Clint wasn’t sure he liked either of them. Infiltrating SHIELD headquarters should be harder, especially after Clint’s own attack on the Helicarrier.
“Hawkeye,” Tony’s voice filtered through his comm, “I know where you can bring your new friend.” He’d switched them to the Avengers’ frequency, the one he insisted SHIELD couldn’t listen in to, Clint noticed.
“Where?” That was Steve’s voice, trying to be strict and commanding and yet sounding more curious and weary than anything else.
“Well, you know how is, I have this unused mansion lying around...” Tony started, but then he interrupted himself and took an audible breath. “Because, you know, I was thinking, if the Avengers as organization grow independent from SHIELD, we need a bigger base of operations, and the tower is pretty much full to capacity with Stark Industries’ offices and labs. As long as it’s just us, we can fit in, but, you know. I like to plan long-term.”
“So you thought what?” Bruce wanted to know, and Clint shook his head amusedly and turned his focus back to Legolas, who was still wistfully staring at the plant.
Fury and Hill would never agree to let Legolas leave the base, not without precautions, but having the entire Avengers-team there counted as a good safety measure, Clint thought.
“We need a vehicle… and an address,” he said, his mind already working through strategies to leave the premises unnoticed. “Meet you guys out front?”
In a way, it was as much a mission as any other. They had an objective and, as usual, the group of bickering people came seamlessly together to form a unit, all of them bringing in their individual skills and abilities to reach a united goal.
“I’m gonna get you out of this building and somewhere with a few more trees and living...plants,” he promised Legolas and lifted his eyebrow. “But you have to stick with me and follow my orders, okay? Understood?”
Legolas gracefully bowed his head. “I shall do so,” he said, and Clint nodded in satisfaction and turned toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
They made it down a flight of stairs before Natasha intercepted them with a bundle of clothes.
“I am not used to this kind of garments,” the Elf admitted helplessly when Natasha pushed them into his arms. “No fastenings, no strings...”
“Pants,” Clint muttered and tugged them out of Legolas’ grip. “Zipper, buttons.” He demonstrated how they worked and handed them back to Legolas while Natasha helped Legolas out of the gown. “Put them on.”
Legolas fumbled slightly with the unfamiliar clothes, but he still moved with quiet grace as he stepped into the pants and fastened them. Clint made short work of the shirt and simply pulled it over the Elf’s head, keenly aware of the fact that they were still standing on a staircase landing and, any second, SHIELD-agents could surprise them.
“Arms,” he instructed and tugged them through the shirtsleeves before repeating the whole process with the hoodie.
“We need to do something with your hair,” Natasha murmured while glancing over her shoulder. She was just as aware of their precarious situation as Clint was, and a quick look at her confirmed that she was thinking along the same lines as he was. They had known each other for long enough to trust each other, out there and here, at SHIELD, and the tension in her shoulders relaxed a small, almost unnoticeable fraction when Clint’s lips twitched upwards.
“Here, use that,” he said and pulled a bandana out of his pocket. He could read the silent question in her look as she took it, but a shrug answered it, and they didn’t have the time for long conversations, silent or otherwise, now.
“Let me,” Natasha ordered, quickly refolding the fabric into a triangle and using it to cover Legolas’ hair and the elaborate braids in it.
“Almost perfect,” Clint grinned as he led them deeper into the complex. “All we need are shoes.” Legolas was still barefooted, moving silently and keeping up with the two agents without apparent trouble.
“Roger that,” Tony cheerfully said, his voice filtering through their comms. “I’m taking care of that, meet you outside in five?”
“Three,” Natasha replied, taking point on their group and ducking down another corridor, Clint and Legolas following her without hesitation.
Natasha knew the layout of the building as well as Clint did, and he quickly realized that she had chosen a route with a little more risk of getting caught than Clint was strictly comfortable with.
Luck proved to be on their side.
They left the building unnoticed and unhindered, sticking to the shadows and doing their best at blending in. Five minutes later, a dark car glided to an almost silent stop next to them.
Legolas startled.
He pulled away from the car with a loud hiss, and even in the darkness Clint could see that his eyes had widened with panic.
“It’s a car,” he said, his voice pitched low and soothing. “It’s not magic, it’s not evil, and it will take us to our destination.” He thought of Thor, how he had demanded a horse when he’d arrived in their world for the first time, and how the pet shop owner had told Clint and Coulson afterwards about Thor asking for a cat large enough to ride.
Back then, his words had made Clint smother a grin behind his upturned collar, and even Coulson’s lips had twitched slightly.
“It’s a little bit like a horse,” he added now, pushing the memories back down. “Come on. You promised you’d follow my lead.”
“Indeed, I did.” He watched as the Elf took a deep, calming breath and exhaled with a soft hum before they followed Natasha, who had already climbed in.
Clint didn’t know the man behind the wheel, but apparently Natasha did, and she seemed to trust him enough to let her guard down slightly, which was enough reason for Clint to do the same.
“Drive, Happy,” Natasha ordered, “let’s get the others.”
The man behind the wheel nodded once, glanced into the rearview mirror, and muttered, “Yes, Miss Rushman.” The car accelerated smoothly and silently, not that Clint had expected anything less from one of Tony Stark’s.
At the next corner, the car slowed down again, and Steve, Tony and Bruce tumbled in.
“Go, Happy,” Tony ordered breathlessly, sprawled against the seat and Steve’s body. “To the mansion. Make it quick, okay?”
Clint smirked and tilted his head slightly to the side, to watch Legolas. He was still tense, unused to the movements of the car, his eyes flitting from the view beyond the windows to the people he suddenly found himself with, people he didn’t know.
Clint coughed. “Let me introduce everyone,” he said quietly. “These are friends, Legolas - you’ve met Natasha, and here, this is Steve and Bruce. And Tony.”
Tony looked back at Legolas with unhidden curiosity in his eyes. “So you’re a real Elf?” he asked.
Legolas straightened to his full height. Even sitting, he was taller than all of them except Steve, his posture under perfect control and regal.
“I am indeed,” he said.
Tony grinned. “Cool.”
A frown marred Legolas’ face. “Cool?” he echoed.
“He means he’s impressed because he never met an Elf before,” Clint translated. He definitely had been hanging around Steve, and to an extent, Thor, for too long, because he had realized immediately what exactly it was that Legolas hadn’t understood.
“Yeah. That.” Tony nodded. “We brought your clothes. Interesting weave. And your weapons, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Legolas stilled. “You touched my weapons?”
Tony’s chin came up stubbornly. “We didn’t break them, okay? Jeez, a little gratefulness wouldn’t hurt, after all, we rescued all your stuff and who knows what SHIELD would’ve done with them, especially that bow, archaic as it is...”
“Tony,” Steve interrupted. “Give the man his boots, will you?”
~*+*~
“It’s true, what he said. About your bow.” Clint nodded at the longbow Bruce had placed with a lot of care on the table. It was gleaming in a pale silver under the harsh overhead lights, the decorations on it a stark contrast to any weapon Clint himself had ever owned. “It’s beautiful. What’s it made of?”
Legolas’ fingers slid reverently over the curve of the bow. “It is mallorn heartwood, and the string is made of hair from the Lady Galadriel,” he said.
Clint snorted. He had no clue what that meant, but one thing was for sure. “And here I use fiberglass for mine.”
Legolas brushed his fingertips thoughtfully over his quiver and the pheasant design etched into it. “May I see it?” he asked.
“Sure.” Clint shrugged. “It’s at the Tower, but tomorrow, we can go down there.” He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting Natasha to be there, but they were alone. Unlike Stark Tower, the mansion was old and filled with antiques and memories. Steps in the hallways sounded different, echoing off wood paneling instead of glass and metal, and Clint wasn’t used to the creaks and moans of the building itself.
If Stark really had planned to relocate the Avengers here, he thought, he better quickly get used to those sounds, or he would never be able to relax enough to go to sleep.
The floorboards of the mansion creaked, even under Natasha’s steps when she wasn’t careful. It was almost impossible to sneak around, at least for people who weren’t intimately familiar with the layout of the building.
Tony Stark, having grown up here, did surprisingly well when he bothered, and then, there was Legolas.
Legolas, who seemed to float a fraction of an inch above the floor. It didn’t matter where he went, he managed to walk without making a single noise.
It was enough to make even Natasha jealous, Clint had noticed. She hadn’t said anything, but the little twitch of muscles in her shoulders when she’d noticed that Legolas walked soundlessly had spoken a loud and clear language.
“Do you want a room or do you want to walk around in the garden all night long?” Tony’s voice startled Clint from his thoughts. He hadn’t even realized Tony had come in, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders tense under the thin veneer of careless ignorance he liked to put on.
“A room,” Clint decided for Legolas. “You can go talk to the trees tomorrow. For now, I think we all could use some rest.”
Tony smirked. “I have just the right place for you. Unless you don’t want a bed and prefer to hang upside down from the rafters.”
Legolas shifted next to Clint, his fingers twitching toward his bow. It was a feeling Clint could understand - Tony Stark certainly was an acquired taste.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “And show us the rooms, Stark.”
~*+*~
“Mister Barton, Director Fury is in the kitchen and wishes to talk to the Avengers,” the smooth, British voice of Jarvis interrupted Clint’s sleep and yanked him straight back into the land of the awake.
It took exactly three seconds for his words to filter through Clint’s brain.
“Director Fury?” he asked while kicking off the sheet and rolling out of bed, the first maneuver he had perfected after joining SHIELD. “What does he want?” He didn’t expect an answer as he pulled his pants up his legs and haphazardly tied his bootlaces.
Padding on relatively quiet feet out of his room and down the sweeping staircase, he oriented himself toward the kitchen, giving Steve, who joined him a floor further down, a brief nod which Steve returned.
They didn’t talk.
Entering the kitchen, they quickly found out that the others had been faster, because they were all there. Natasha was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, a facade of bored nonchalance on her face. Clint didn’t miss the fact that her body was angled toward the knife block, ready to attack or defend at any given moment.
Bruce was making tea, his shirt and pants even more rumpled than they had been the day before, and Tony was pacing, his hair sticking up wildly, hands flying through the air as he talked, words tumbling out of his mouth and falling over each other, until it was almost impossible to follow him.
He didn’t look as if he’d slept, dressed in frayed jeans and a black Iron Maiden-shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Seriously, how did you even know we were here?” he ended his tirade, just in time for the coffee machine to beep.
Fury gave him a very unimpressed stare. “This was Howard’s home,” he pointed out. “The only place you have access to that is nearby and big enough to house all of you, plus a garden for our guest, who identified himself as a wood elf to our people and who mysteriously disappeared overnight.” Fury fixed his stare on Clint. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, Agent?”
“Hey, that’s not...you can’t pick on him like that!” Tony protested weakly, waving a mug with Stark Industries’ logo on it in Fury’s face.
“You’ll find that I can,” Fury calmly replied. “As an agent of SHIELD, Mr. Barton here is to follow my orders, and the little stunt you pulled last night borders dangerously close on insubordination.”
“Not insubordination,” Steve said firmly. “It was a command decision.”
Fury focused his gaze on Clint, ignoring Steve’s words. “Now where is our guest?”
Clint licked his lips. “Upstairs,” he found himself replying. “Sir.”
“Director...” Steve interrupted again and took a step forward. “He’s not a threat to us.”
“How do you know that?” Fury calmly reached out and plucked the mug out of Tony’s hands. “After the last surprises that came through the Tesseract, I believe all of us would do good in being very cautious about every single thing that cube spits out.”
“We are,” Steve promised. “He was under constant supervision.” His lips twitched. “It is a little uncanny, how he sleeps with his eyes open.”
Clint bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from reacting. He hadn’t known that Legolas was under constant supervision, and he couldn’t help the small tug of disappointment that Steve hadn’t trusted him with that knowledge, even if it made sense. After all, they didn’t really know anything about Legolas.
“Jarvis is keeping an eye on him right now,” Tony added. “And so far, the guy has done nothing to indicate he’s here because he wants to be. He wants to go home, that’s all.”
“Do you know to what means he would go to achieve that goal?” Fury asked coolly, and Tony stopped, eyes moving from Steve to Clint and back.
“You have nothing to fear,” Legolas announced calmly from the door.
He had put his own clothes back on, the silver leggings and the moss-green tunic, but he had kept Clint’s bandana wrapped around his hair.
“Yeah?” Fury asked, slowly rising to his full height. “How can we be sure? Too many good men have died already because of the Tesseract.”
“I give you my word,” Legolas said. “As prince of Mirkwood, I solemnly swear not to try and...cause any trouble for you and your man.”
Fury sighed. “I hope you people know what you’re doing,” he muttered at Steve.
Steve dipped his head. “I hope so too,” he evenly said.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, frozen in their places, then Fury’s lips twitched slightly. “So,” he stated, “how were you planning on tracking down the Tesseract without SHIELD’s resources?”
~*+*~
The garden of Stark’s mansion didn’t really deserve that name, Clint thought as he methodically checked the longbow he usually kept for special occasions and because of a rare case of nostalgia. In his line of work, he usually preferred either a recurve or his compound bow - or a crossbow for special cases - but for this, the longbow was perfect.
Tony Stark’s garden was a crazy huge park with color-coordinated flower beds, meticulously cared for lawns and several rows of ancient-looking trees that had not quite brought a smile to Legolas’ face, but had made him seem more serene than Clint had seen him since his arrival.
They were standing in the shade of a tree now, at the edge of the lawn, their bows in their hands, and were looking at a good old-fashioned target, put up at a big enough distance for it to be a challenge.
“You want to go first?” Clint asked and brushed his fingers over the fletching of his arrow.
Legolas gave him a thoughtful look. “You are certain?” he wanted to know.
Clint grinned, wide and carefree. “Yeah.”
He loved what he was doing, loved the calmness that came with the rhythm of archery, but it had been a while since he’d shot a couple of arrows just for fun, not on a mission or during a training exercise.
This was going to be awesome.
Legolas nocked one of his own arrows, aimed, and let it fly, hitting the target’s bullseye perfectly.
“Good one,” Clint said appreciatively and shot an arrow of his own, the tip slamming through the target right next to Legolas’.
They both let a few arrows fly and were playfully calling their shots and following through without hesitation, when Tony wandered by, apparently lost in thought. Clint suspected that he had come up from the depths of his workshop in the search for coffee, but then Tony stopped and watched them play around and compared their weapons for a long moment.
Clint grinned and nocked another arrow. The target was riddled with arrows by now, their make and color distinctively different, but all of them exactly where they had been aimed at.
Hawkeye didn’t miss, and neither did Legolas.
“You want to try?” he asked, nonchalantly letting another arrow fly to complete a smiley-face.
“Ha.” Tony frowned as he took an involuntary step closer to them, curious despite himself. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Just a little,” Clint admitted. “I think my bow is more than you can handle, but if you want to learn...” He trailed off and raised his eyebrows.
Tony’s lips twitched. “Yeah, no,” he said. “Maybe later. ‘Sides, it’s enough if there’s one Robin Hood around...” He glanced at Legolas, who had followed the conversation quietly. “...or two. Hmm.” He frowned and wandered off without another word.
“Robin Hood?” Legolas asked, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.
For a brief moment, Clint thought about showing him the Disney movie, but then, he decided against it. The sun was shining, the weather was nice, they were having fun, and there was nothing wrong with telling the story himself.
“It’s an old story,” he said and reached into his pocket for his sunglasses. “The really first Avenger, kind of.”
Legolas let loose another arrow, hitting Clint’s smiley right in the forehead, and Clint started talking, at first haltingly, about what he remembered of the story. If he was honest, it was pretty much only what was in the movie, but for now, it was good enough. Legolas listened quietly, not interrupting him, his head tilted to the side.
They wandered over to the target eventually, to collect their arrows, while Clint wrapped up his story.
“A good story,” Legolas said and gave Clint a soft smile, a quirk of the corners of his mouth at best, but still a smile. “Thank you, for sharing it with me.”
“You’re welcome,” Clint replied. “Maybe you can tell me one from where you’re from some time.”
“I shall think about it,” Legolas promised, but the smile had disappeared from his face, as if remembering his home and the stories told there made him realize again that he might be stuck here instead of going back eventually, if everything went according to plan.
If Bruce didn’t manage to track down the Tesseract...Clint forcefully pushed the thought away. Bruce had managed to find it once, he would find it again. And Loki would have to help them bring Legolas home, even if Clint had to put an arrow through his eye after all.
“Hey,” Tony called out, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he made his way over to them, a fist-sized ball in his hand.
“Hey, yourself,” Clint replied and raised both eyebrows again. “You, coming out of your cave twice a day, without an emergency or Pepper dragging you by the ear? Is the world coming to an end?”
“Aren’t you funny,” Tony replied without heat. “Here, I got something for you.” He tossed the ball into the air, aiming at Clint. Clint reached for it, only to have the ball stop in mid-air and whirr mockingly at him.
“What?” Clint asked. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Legolas had frozen on the spot, like a giant, dangerous cat ready to pounce and attack.
“I’ve been working on that,” Tony said. “I mean, to shoot at something that’s as big as that target over there and that doesn’t move, that’s not really a challenge, for either of you, is it?”
He held up a sleek black remote control. “This little thing works just like those toy helicopters you can buy, only better. It flies. Runs on batteries, and for the extra kick...Jarvis, you’re driving!”
“Certainly, sir,” the voice of Tony’s AI filtered out of the remote and the little ball wobbled slightly in the air.
“Happy hunting,” Tony said with a smug grin and handed Clint the remote. “Two beeps means low batteries.”
Clint grinned and pocketed the remote. “Thanks, Stark,” he remembered to say, and then all thought of Tony Stark, Loki and the Tesseract was forgotten as they focused on the little ball criss-crossing in almost unpredictable patterns across the lawn, shooting arrow after arrow at it.
It was fun, Clint thought as he managed to shoot an arrow behind his back and in mid-jump, Legolas matching him move for move and shot for shot. He suspected that Jarvis was going easy on them and allowing them to predict the ball’s pattern to a certain degree, but he didn’t mind.
“Ha,” he crowed as he managed to take a particularly complicated shot. “Take that!”
“I shall,” Legolas replied before copying him, his arrow hitting the little bouncing ball as if it were a lot bigger than it was and holding perfectly still.
“Fuck me,” Clint muttered before shaking his head. “It took me years to get that right.”
Legolas just looked at him and fired another arrow without looking, Clint just a few second behind him.
They traded arrows, and for one memorable shot, bows, before agreeing that each was best off with his own weapon, and then, they set out for another series of increasingly complicated shots, always trying to edge out the other one for top spot without quite managing to do so.
~*+*~
“I demand a re-match,” Clint grumbled, limbs spread akimbo, bow resting on his heaving chest. The grass he was lying on was cool and tickling his neck and arms, and Clint focused on the sensation of muscles relaxing while his heartbeat slowed down again.
Legolas hummed and sat down next to him, his hands busy putting arrows back into their quivers. “You are a worthy fighter, Clint Barton,” he said. “No mortal and few Elves are capable of what you can do.”
“Thanks,” Clint huffed and turned his head toward his companion. “No mortal, huh?”
“None that the tales of old mention, and none that I know of,” Legolas said. “Songs shall be written about you and sung in the houses of...” he stopped himself and bowed his head slightly.
“You want to go home,” Clint guessed. It wasn’t hard to see.
“I do.” Legolas nodded. “I do not belong in your world. I’ve seen miraculous things on the...drive here, and in your houses, and I feel lost here.”
“You should talk to Steve,” Clint pointed out and sat up. “He was frozen in ice for years, and he felt just like you, I guess. He still managed to get used to this time pretty quickly, even if for all intents and purposes, he doesn’t belong here either, but...he still does, you know? He adapted.”
Legolas didn’t seem convinced, and Clint chose to drop the topic. “I can’t believe I didn’t get that last shot.”
“Your arrow glanced off the magic sphere,” Legolas said. “Were this a mortal foe, he still would be greatly incapacitated.”
“Maybe,” Clint said and rolled onto his feet. “But I’m still the Amazing Hawkeye. I never miss.”
~*+*~
thus ends part one and part two begins.
by:
kathierif_ficFandoms: The Avengers/The Lord of the Rings
Characters: Clint Barton, Legolas, the rest of the Avengers
Rating: FRT-13
Disclaimer: This is a very transformative fanwork. No money is being made at any point of time.
Summary: Loki's back - but whatever he expected when he opened the Tesseract, it was not a real Elf of Mirkwood falling through.
It's up to the Avengers and Hawkeye to deal with the surprise guest now and find a way to bring him back.
A/Ns: written for
avengers_rbb and rosaluis gorgeous, awesome artwork - which can be found here - go take a look, it's gorgeous!Uncountable thanks to
ginny305 for the nitpicking, the betaing, the cheering, everything despite the RL stress you have. <316413 words.
New York was burning, a thick cloud of ash hanging in the air, making breathing difficult and sight almost impossible. The roar of the fires was deafeningly loud, the screams of the injured and dying adding to the cacophony of noise and fighting and chaos.
Clint Barton lifted an arm and wiped his wrist across his face, clearing off as much of the mix of dust, ash, sweat and blood accumulated there as he could. He couldn’t see far, but he didn’t need to.
He knew exactly what was happening on the roof opposite him, knew who was up there and to what purpose.
Loki.
Clint knew that the God of Mischief had to be stopped, if possible, before he managed to use the Tesseract he’d brought back to Earth again. Clint still had nightmares from the last time Loki had opened a gate to a different point in space and he had no desires to repeat that experience.
He didn’t know how Loki had managed to escape from Asgard’s prisons or how he’d managed to find his way back to Earth, a feat not easily undertaken if Thor was to be believed. The only thing Clint knew was that Loki was back and, with him, the Tesseract.
And this time, Loki was even more determined than before to bring the planet under his destructive control; his eyes were feverishly bright, his dark hair stringy and his grin wide and dangerous. Clint had only managed a brief look from afar, but what he’d seen had been enough to send a shiver of dread down the length of his spine.
He hated Loki more than he hated anyone else; more than he had ever hated anyone else. Loki had made him do things he’d never thought he would do, and if he was honest with himself, there weren’t a lot of things Clint Barton wasn’t willing to do. He was a spy and an assassin and, basically, there were just a few lines he’d sworn to himself he’d never cross.
Lines that Loki had dragged him across, had wiped out with one careless swipe of his spear, and Clint swore that he would stop Loki, would make him pay for what Loki had done to him.
This time he would protect these people around him, not turn around and hurt them because Loki made him do it.
The comm unit in his ear crackled with static, followed by Tony Stark’s broken-up voice. “What is he planning?” A snort of disgust followed him. “And why does he always have to do it on my tower?”
Clint bit back a grim smile. Loki had managed to attack Stark Tower - Avengers Tower - in exactly the moment when they had all been busy elsewhere putting out the fires of destruction Loki had started and Tony had bitched about it ever since they’d realized what Loki was planning.
“Iron Man...” That was Steve’s voice, rough from smoke and from yelling orders, but the reprimand came through loud and clear. Now wasn’t the time to bicker and moan. Now was the time for the Avengers to stand united, to stop Loki and the creatures he’d already called through the Tesseract. Half man, half beast, they looked like creatures who had come straight from a disturbed mind’s nightmares, and they were wild and dangerous. Steve had named them Berserkers, and nobody had objected to that name. Clint, who had suffered more than his share of nightmares, had only been able to shudder, clench his teeth and shoot arrow after arrow into these creatures, hoping to stop them because they didn’t slow down unless they were dead.
“Hawkeye?” That was Steve again, an undercurrent of tension running through his voice. It was barely audible, but Clint had known Steve for several months now and he had gotten to know him better during that time.
“In position,” he reported back and squinted over the edge of the building he had chosen as vantage point. “Not that it helps a lot. Visibility is pretty much zero, Cap.”
“Understood.” Steve coughed sharply. “Move to a better position, but don’t attempt to make contact yet, okay?”
Clint didn’t bother with a reply, already moving along the edge of the roof toward the exit route he’d mapped out earlier. There was a scratchy, raw sensation at the back of his throat and a tightness across his chest he didn’t like, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of slowing down.
Not when Loki was still wreaking havoc.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting roar pierced the ash and smoke and one of Loki’s creatures curled razor-sharp tipped tentacles over the edge of the roof.
The creature’s tentacles were black and slimy like oil, the beak in its misshapen head sharp and wicked-looking. It had tiny, beady eyes that were focused on Clint, the only moving thing up here. Blood was smeared across its head.
Clint didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed his arrow - the last one still in his quiver – and, not missing a beat, fired it at the creature, aiming at the opened beak before whirling around and rushing toward his backup exit route, the one that would take him longer to get down by about thirty-five seconds.
It brought him around to the other side of the building. The smoke had cleared slightly here, allowing Clint a perfect view back over his shoulder, over the howling and twitching creature and the human leg it had swung over the edge of the building and at Stark Tower.
At Loki, standing on Iron Man’s assembling platform, arms raised high into the air in triumph, his head thrown back.
Clint could feel the thud of his own heartbeat in his ribcage, the burn of smoke in his lungs and the ache in all of his muscles. The taste of bile filled his mouth and he swallowed it back with some difficulty. No matter how tired he was right now, he was certain that, if he had an arrow, a single arrow, left, he would be able to hit the pale length of Loki’s throat, exposed as it was, and end this nightmare.
He didn’t have any arrows left and he wouldn’t be able to throw his knife across the distance.
He was helpless and had to watch as the beam of blue energy shot up into the cloudy sky in a straight column that rose from the Tesseract in front of Loki’s body.
“Iron Man?” Steve’s voice snapped through the comm and broke the paralyzing stillness in Clint’s muscles. He started moving again. “Where are you?”
There was a long silence followed by Tony cursing and coughing. Clint didn’t need to hear the words to know that Tony was too far away to stop Loki, probably injured, and that Hulk, Natasha and Steve were trapped on the ground.
This time, the Avengers couldn’t do a single thing to stop Loki.
They were too far away, too widely spread out.
If Loki managed to open a stable portal and call forth his army, they all would face a big, big problem, Clint realized while he hurried down broken stairs, jumping over pieces of concrete and steel.
He redoubled his efforts. Of all the Avengers, he was the closest to Loki, he had the best shot at stopping him. All he needed was one arrow.
One single arrow.
The bright blue energy emerging from the Tesseract subtly changed its color. A high whine emerged, overwhelming Clint and making him stumble and fall down to his knees, his hands pressed tightly to his ears as he screamed, pain overwhelming him.
He didn’t know how long he stayed in that position, unable to do more than whimper in distress, but when the pain finally ebbed, he found that his muscles had locked up and it was almost impossible for him to get back to his feet. He was exhausted, his hands and face sticky and red, his skin covered in a thick layer of dirt and ash, but he couldn’t stay in the position he’d found himself in.
He needed to get to Loki.
He needed to stop Loki, no matter the cost.
His numb fingers almost slipped as he gripped his bow and set out to find out what exactly had happened. One thing, he thought grimly, was for certain: no matter what Loki had attempted to do, he hadn’t called an army to New York, not this time. They would have noticed that already.
The portal emerging from the Tesseract had closed, he realized when he was halfway down from his perch. It left a bad taste in his mouth, a heavy feeling of dread in his chest, and an itch where Loki’s spear had touched him all those months ago.
It was disturbingly quiet, he realized once the tinny ringing in his ears had subsided. Whatever Loki had called forth...it wasn’t anything good. He could feel it.
Distantly, he was aware of Steve, Tony and Natasha checking in over the comm, of himself grunting acknowledgement when Steve hailed him. Hulk roared, but Clint didn’t know whether it was in triumph, in pain or in disappointment. He didn’t wait for Steve’s order before taking the elevator up, Jarvis’ smooth voice assuring him that he wouldn’t get stuck halfway there.
Clint left his bow behind and gripped his knives tightly. He slowly approached the assembling platform, ready to attack.
A figure was crumbled to the ground where Loki had been standing, long limbs sprawled ungainly, robes puddled and covering the person’s head. It looked like Loki, Clint thought, but he quickly revised his opinion - the robes were green, but they were distinctively different from the ones Loki favored. The green was less brilliant, more muted, and the cut of the grey cloak covering the figure was definitely not Asgardian, if Clint was any judge of fabrics and designs.
“Hawkeye?” Steve snapped and Clint took another careful step closer to the fallen figure.
There was no sign of the Tesseract unless it was hidden by the body. Clint took a calming breath and nudged it, using the tip of his boot to roll the figure over to its back.
He was fully prepared for more tentacles, razorsharp dangerous teeth and horribly disfigured facial features, this being one of Loki’s creatures just waiting for him to get close enough to attack and slice open with its claws.
Long, blond hair spilled over the dark grey floor, and Clint stared down at a pale, drawn and almost translucent face. The creature’s ears were pointed, its clothes simple but elegant, and there was no sign at all of claws, teeth or tentacles.
“Guys?” he said hoarsely, his grip on his knives not easing. “Whatever Loki expected when he opened the Tesseract...” He stared into the unearthy face of the unconscious creature in front of him, certain that this was not a human being, but also not one of the monsters Loki had conjured up. “...I don’t think this was it.”
~*+*~
“Gentlemen. Natasha.” Fury gave Natasha a brief nod as he strode to the head of the table and turned his chair around.
“Sir,” Steve replied respectfully. Clint and Natasha simply nodded, and Stark remained surprisingly silent. He’d been hit by a tentacled monster and had complained about slime-induced malfunctions of the Iron Man suit the entire time until they’d reached the Helicarrier. “How’s Doctor Banner?”
“He’s resting,” Fury replied. “As is our unexpected guest.”
Clint felt the muscles in his back twitch slightly and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What do we know about him?” he asked, to distract himself from his sudden discomfort.
“Not much,” Fury admitted and finally sat down. “At first, medical personnel thought he was dead; the whole open eyes thing apparently freaked them out a little. But it turns out he’s breathing and has a pulse. For now, they assume he’s simply unconscious. Maybe in a coma.”
“Where did he come from?” Steve frowned slightly. “I mean, last time Loki opened the Tesseract, he opened it to space, right?”
Tony narrowed his eyes slightly. “Yes,” he replied almost reluctantly, but he didn’t elaborate. He had been very tight-lipped about the things he’d seen when he’d carried the nuke through the portal, but Clint was not the one to point that out. He himself preferred not to reminiscence too much about the time he’d spent under Loki’s control.
“Is he a danger to us?” Natasha interrupted, as usual cutting right to the chase.
Fury shrugged. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “At first, we thought he was a mutant, but preliminary examinations revealed that not to be true. As of right now, we do not know where he came from, what he is, or what his intentions are.”
“Or whether he’s here voluntarily,” Steve added.
Fury nodded. “Agent Barton, I’d like you to take a look at his weapons and give me an assessment,” he ordered. Clint dipped his head in consent. He’d seen the silverish-grey longbow the stranger had carried and he was admittedly curious about it, and he was not surprised by Fury’s order. He was the resident expert on archery, after all.
“I’d like you to be present when he wakes up,” Fury added after a brief moment of silence and Clint nodded again as he murmured an affirmative.
Tony lifted a hand and waved it slightly until Fury turned his glare in his direction. Only then did he take it down with a smirk. “I have a question. Do we have any idea if Thor’s coming back, now that his little brother is causing trouble again?”
“Unfortunately, we don’t,” Fury admitted before sighing. “For the moment, we should assume that he is unaware of Loki’s presence on Earth and therefore remaining in Asgard.”
In Asgard, where they couldn’t contact him. Clint took a deep, calming breath and slowly released it again.
It wouldn’t help if he freaked out about Loki being back, he knew that. He needed to focus on the task at hand, do what he could to help bring the trickster under their control and make sure he wouldn’t cause any more destruction, and then, when the situation was clear, he could retreat to a safe place and have a breakdown.
Until then, he had his orders.
~+*+~
The first sign of the stranger waking up was a soft beep coming from the machines next to the bed. Clint’s eyes flickered up just in time to see him slowly blink twice.
“Hey,” he said, as quietly and soothingly as he could, while lifting his boots from the bed’s edge and sitting up straight.
The man’s entire body tensed, like a bowstring, Clint absently thought, and then he sommersaulted out of the bed and away from him. The machines gave an accusing screech as lines were ripped out from under inhumanly pale skin, and Clint winced at the cacophony of noises as a nurse came running into the small room.
“He woke up,” Clint reported, nodding at the corner where the stranger was towering. He was tall, taller than Clint and maybe even taller than Steve, and the hospital gown they’d put him in didn’t conceal the willowy strength of his slender body. His eyes were opened wide, his back pressed against the wall, and it was obvious from his body language alone that he was confused and probably panicking.
“Calm down, okay?” Clint said, careful not to appear threatening. “We’re not going to hurt you, okay? You’re safe here.”
The stranger frowned, and that was the moment where the nurse managed to turn the alarms off and deafening silence filled the small room.
“We’re the good guys,” Clint added, his voice unnaturally loud to his own ears. “We’re not gonna hurt you. I promise.”
The stranger opened his mouth and started talking, but it was not in any language Clint had ever heard before, and he had heard a lot in his life. The voice and words were melodic and completely foreign to him.
“Slow down,” he interrupted. “I don’t...I can’t understand you, okay, big guy? We need to figure out what that language is and find someone to speak it. I’m sure Fury has his guys already on it, as soon as the first syllable left your mouth, really, but in the meantime, I’m sorry, I don’t understand a single word you’re saying.”
The stranger looked at him for a long moment without blinking. “This is not the land of the Firstborn,” he finally stated while tilting his head to the side with a frown. “And it is not any other land I have known. I sense nothing of living and breathing nature around us, only dead metal. Is this a realm of the dwarves?”
Clint blinked. The way this man talked reminded him of Thor and, even more, of Loki; his looks, with his smooth-shaven face and pale skin, only pulling more attention to the similarity to the God of Mischief. It made Clint’s skin crawl slightly and he had to take several deep breaths before he could continue.
“No?” he replied carefully.
“You certainly do not belong to the dwarf-people,” the stranger continued, his sharp eyes focused on Clint, and Clint suddenly found himself wishing that the stranger had shown up with an equivalent of Natasha’s Widow’s Bite instead of a bow. She was so much better at this kind of thing than him, and she would have much less trouble dealing with the whole situation.
Natasha would have already found out the stranger’s name, his history and how he’d gotten here, if she was in Clint’s place, discomfort and flashbacks nonewithstanding.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” he suggested. “I’m Hawkeye. Er. Clint Barton.”
The stranger stared at him for a long moment. “Very well,” he then decided. “Greetings, Hawkeye Er Clint Barton. I am Legolas Thranduilion.”
Clint’s lips twitched slightly. “No, no,” he said. “My name is Clint Barton, but I’m also called Hawkeye, okay?”
Legolas bowed his head a fraction of an inch. “I apologize. Now. Where am I and how did I get here?”
~*+*~
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tony Stark stared over Steve’s shoulder at the security feed. “Did he really say Legolas?”
“He did,” Steve agreed before frowning. “Why is that so important, Tony?”
Tony stared at him for a long moment. “Remind me to show you Lord of the Rings later,” he said. “Oh, hey, you like to read, right? Maybe start you off with the books before showing you the movies. Jarvis, make a note.”
Steve nodded. He was already used to Jarvis’ presence wherever Tony Stark went, and he had slowly got the hang of ignoring the sentences not meant for him but for the AI. He liked to read, yes, but since the formation of the Avengers, he hadn’t had the time to read much, besides SHIELD-issued briefs about the time he’d missed.
“Anyways,” Tony continued blithely, “he says his name is Legolas, he carries a bow and arrows like Katniss...” - another reference Steve didn’t understand, and he filed it away under things most likely to do with another fictional archer, if he understood the context correctly - “...and his DNA implies that he’s much closer related to Thor than to us...you know what that means?”
“We have a stranger on our hands who apparently isn’t here voluntarily and who probably wants to go home?” Steve suggested, a sudden strong feeling of yearning and empathy filling him.
“It means we might actually have a real Elf at our hands. If the myths are right and Tolkien didn’t lie to us,” Tony corrected, but there was something almost gentle in his eyes as he glanced at Steve again. It was scary how well Tony could read him if he put some effort in it, and Steve quickly focused his mind on something else.
Now Tolkien, that was a name he vaguely recognized - he was some kind of children’s book author, wasn’t he? Steve decided to google him later and maybe make use of the Amazon account Bruce had set up for him. For now, he pushed the wave of homesickness swamping him away and focused on the task at hand.
They still didn’t know whether Legolas was a threat to them and Earth, and they needed to know.
~*+*~
“What is the last thing you remember?” Clint asked and moved to sit back in his chair while using every ounce of training and experience he had to appear non-threatening.
“I was walking among the old trees of Fangorn Forest.” Legolas followed his example and sat down on the edge of the bed. “And then, I was here. How did I get here?”
Clint shrugged slightly. “You were brought here by a guy called Loki,” he said. “He’s got a device that forms portals through space.”
“Can this Loki bring me back home?” Legolas asked.
Clint shrugged again. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I don’t even know where your home is.” He held up a hand when it looked as if Legolas wanted to interrupt him. “What I do know is that we are doing everything in our power to track Loki and the Tesseract...the device...down, and if there is a way to bring you home, I’m sure that we’ll do our best to find it.”
“So, you are not aware of this creature’s whereabouts at all?” Legolas asked with a frown.
Clint shook his head. “Not at the moment, no. But we will find him.” He knew that they were. Bruce had barely woken up when he’d already worked on tracking down the Tesseract the same way he’d done it the first time, by following its gamma-ray signature. With Tony’s help, he’d refined his search parameters to a point where he had assured Fury that it was only a matter of time before Loki was found.
~+*+~
The ringing of an alarm pulled Clint from his restless sleep and he was on his feet and half out of the door before he was even awake.
Clutching his bow close to his chest, he fumbled with the earpiece of his radio. He had almost reached the bank of elevators before it was in place and he could check in and find out what the emergency was.
"Our guest has disappeared from the infirmary," Maria Hill's voice informed him, crisp and cool, and Clint bit back a comment as he adjusted the quiver he'd thrown over his shoulder to a more comfortable fit.
"Since we still haven't determined if he's been brought here on purpose, finding him has top-priority," Hill reminded him and Clint acknowledged his orders with a brief grunt and passed the elevators in favor of the staircase.
There weren't many ways Legolas could've gone, he thought as he started climbing, his boots noiseless on the steel staircase. He'd said something about dwarves, which indicated that the Elf would, if he were trying to escape, most likely aim for high ground. After all, dwarves lived in mines, didn't they?
"Hawkeye, come in." Natasha's voice came in through his earpiece, quiet and confident.
"This is Hawkeye," Clint replied and jumped up another couple of stairs. "Moving upwards, eastside staircase, fifth level. You?"
"Westside," she replied. "Cap's got Banner and Stark."
Clint didn't bother replying and focused instead on climbing the stairs even faster, until he reached the roof access door.
SHIELD's current headquarters were half-buried and hidden underground, leaving only a modest seven floors above ground. If one was in the corridors or the huge, windowless labs housed in the building, there was no way of telling whether the floor was above or below ground, and, if Clint was right in his assumption that Legolas thought he was in a mine somewhere, he would try to get as high up as he could, which meant the roof.
Taking a deep and calming breath, Clint pulled an arrow out of his quiver and placed it against his bowstring before easing the door open and risking a quick glance around.
The side of the roof with the helipad was quiet and unpopulated, and Clint followed a hunch and turned toward the small roof garden.
At first, he thought he'd been mistaken. It was quiet, the little patch of green with its potted plants seemed abandoned as well. But he wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing and his sharp eyes quickly caught the shadow moving in a breeze that wasn't there.
"Legolas?" he asked, his fingers twitching on the nock of his arrow. "That you?"
"Indeed," a disembodied voice floated through the darkness of the night.
"You scared us, running off like that," Clint stated as he took a careful step closer. "Where were you planning on going?"
For a moment, only silence greeted his words, then the melodic voice of the Elf filled the air. "I merely wished to see the sky and the trees."
"Trees, huh?" Clint slowly relaxed and put the arrow back into his quiver. "Not many of those around here, you know."
"So I see," the Elf said, his voice filled with indescribable sadness for a long moment. "Small, young and weak are your trees."
Clint risked a glance away from the shadow and toward one of the pots. "Yeah, maybe," he replied, eager to steer the conversation away from plants. "This isn't really the place to grow trees, you know?"
“My heart is not accustomed to these dwarvish halls,” the Elf said and finally stepped closer. “It bears heavy on my mind and I yearn for the presence of living things around me.”
Clint nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Tasha, I’ve got him. On the roof. Everybody stand down, I have it under control.”
Legolas gave him a long and questioning look, and Clint grinned and pointed at his ear. “I’m letting our guys know that you didn’t disappear,” he explained. “As I said, you got them worried. You escaped a little too easily for their peace of mind.”
He wouldn’t have gotten far, he thought, before being caught, but then, he should’ve been stopped on his way up here. SHIELD-agents were supposed to report suspicious activity; a man dressed in a gown should definitely fall into that category.
There were only a few possible explanations and Clint wasn’t sure he liked either of them. Infiltrating SHIELD headquarters should be harder, especially after Clint’s own attack on the Helicarrier.
“Hawkeye,” Tony’s voice filtered through his comm, “I know where you can bring your new friend.” He’d switched them to the Avengers’ frequency, the one he insisted SHIELD couldn’t listen in to, Clint noticed.
“Where?” That was Steve’s voice, trying to be strict and commanding and yet sounding more curious and weary than anything else.
“Well, you know how is, I have this unused mansion lying around...” Tony started, but then he interrupted himself and took an audible breath. “Because, you know, I was thinking, if the Avengers as organization grow independent from SHIELD, we need a bigger base of operations, and the tower is pretty much full to capacity with Stark Industries’ offices and labs. As long as it’s just us, we can fit in, but, you know. I like to plan long-term.”
“So you thought what?” Bruce wanted to know, and Clint shook his head amusedly and turned his focus back to Legolas, who was still wistfully staring at the plant.
Fury and Hill would never agree to let Legolas leave the base, not without precautions, but having the entire Avengers-team there counted as a good safety measure, Clint thought.
“We need a vehicle… and an address,” he said, his mind already working through strategies to leave the premises unnoticed. “Meet you guys out front?”
In a way, it was as much a mission as any other. They had an objective and, as usual, the group of bickering people came seamlessly together to form a unit, all of them bringing in their individual skills and abilities to reach a united goal.
“I’m gonna get you out of this building and somewhere with a few more trees and living...plants,” he promised Legolas and lifted his eyebrow. “But you have to stick with me and follow my orders, okay? Understood?”
Legolas gracefully bowed his head. “I shall do so,” he said, and Clint nodded in satisfaction and turned toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
They made it down a flight of stairs before Natasha intercepted them with a bundle of clothes.
“I am not used to this kind of garments,” the Elf admitted helplessly when Natasha pushed them into his arms. “No fastenings, no strings...”
“Pants,” Clint muttered and tugged them out of Legolas’ grip. “Zipper, buttons.” He demonstrated how they worked and handed them back to Legolas while Natasha helped Legolas out of the gown. “Put them on.”
Legolas fumbled slightly with the unfamiliar clothes, but he still moved with quiet grace as he stepped into the pants and fastened them. Clint made short work of the shirt and simply pulled it over the Elf’s head, keenly aware of the fact that they were still standing on a staircase landing and, any second, SHIELD-agents could surprise them.
“Arms,” he instructed and tugged them through the shirtsleeves before repeating the whole process with the hoodie.
“We need to do something with your hair,” Natasha murmured while glancing over her shoulder. She was just as aware of their precarious situation as Clint was, and a quick look at her confirmed that she was thinking along the same lines as he was. They had known each other for long enough to trust each other, out there and here, at SHIELD, and the tension in her shoulders relaxed a small, almost unnoticeable fraction when Clint’s lips twitched upwards.
“Here, use that,” he said and pulled a bandana out of his pocket. He could read the silent question in her look as she took it, but a shrug answered it, and they didn’t have the time for long conversations, silent or otherwise, now.
“Let me,” Natasha ordered, quickly refolding the fabric into a triangle and using it to cover Legolas’ hair and the elaborate braids in it.
“Almost perfect,” Clint grinned as he led them deeper into the complex. “All we need are shoes.” Legolas was still barefooted, moving silently and keeping up with the two agents without apparent trouble.
“Roger that,” Tony cheerfully said, his voice filtering through their comms. “I’m taking care of that, meet you outside in five?”
“Three,” Natasha replied, taking point on their group and ducking down another corridor, Clint and Legolas following her without hesitation.
Natasha knew the layout of the building as well as Clint did, and he quickly realized that she had chosen a route with a little more risk of getting caught than Clint was strictly comfortable with.
Luck proved to be on their side.
They left the building unnoticed and unhindered, sticking to the shadows and doing their best at blending in. Five minutes later, a dark car glided to an almost silent stop next to them.
Legolas startled.
He pulled away from the car with a loud hiss, and even in the darkness Clint could see that his eyes had widened with panic.
“It’s a car,” he said, his voice pitched low and soothing. “It’s not magic, it’s not evil, and it will take us to our destination.” He thought of Thor, how he had demanded a horse when he’d arrived in their world for the first time, and how the pet shop owner had told Clint and Coulson afterwards about Thor asking for a cat large enough to ride.
Back then, his words had made Clint smother a grin behind his upturned collar, and even Coulson’s lips had twitched slightly.
“It’s a little bit like a horse,” he added now, pushing the memories back down. “Come on. You promised you’d follow my lead.”
“Indeed, I did.” He watched as the Elf took a deep, calming breath and exhaled with a soft hum before they followed Natasha, who had already climbed in.
Clint didn’t know the man behind the wheel, but apparently Natasha did, and she seemed to trust him enough to let her guard down slightly, which was enough reason for Clint to do the same.
“Drive, Happy,” Natasha ordered, “let’s get the others.”
The man behind the wheel nodded once, glanced into the rearview mirror, and muttered, “Yes, Miss Rushman.” The car accelerated smoothly and silently, not that Clint had expected anything less from one of Tony Stark’s.
At the next corner, the car slowed down again, and Steve, Tony and Bruce tumbled in.
“Go, Happy,” Tony ordered breathlessly, sprawled against the seat and Steve’s body. “To the mansion. Make it quick, okay?”
Clint smirked and tilted his head slightly to the side, to watch Legolas. He was still tense, unused to the movements of the car, his eyes flitting from the view beyond the windows to the people he suddenly found himself with, people he didn’t know.
Clint coughed. “Let me introduce everyone,” he said quietly. “These are friends, Legolas - you’ve met Natasha, and here, this is Steve and Bruce. And Tony.”
Tony looked back at Legolas with unhidden curiosity in his eyes. “So you’re a real Elf?” he asked.
Legolas straightened to his full height. Even sitting, he was taller than all of them except Steve, his posture under perfect control and regal.
“I am indeed,” he said.
Tony grinned. “Cool.”
A frown marred Legolas’ face. “Cool?” he echoed.
“He means he’s impressed because he never met an Elf before,” Clint translated. He definitely had been hanging around Steve, and to an extent, Thor, for too long, because he had realized immediately what exactly it was that Legolas hadn’t understood.
“Yeah. That.” Tony nodded. “We brought your clothes. Interesting weave. And your weapons, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Legolas stilled. “You touched my weapons?”
Tony’s chin came up stubbornly. “We didn’t break them, okay? Jeez, a little gratefulness wouldn’t hurt, after all, we rescued all your stuff and who knows what SHIELD would’ve done with them, especially that bow, archaic as it is...”
“Tony,” Steve interrupted. “Give the man his boots, will you?”
~*+*~
“It’s true, what he said. About your bow.” Clint nodded at the longbow Bruce had placed with a lot of care on the table. It was gleaming in a pale silver under the harsh overhead lights, the decorations on it a stark contrast to any weapon Clint himself had ever owned. “It’s beautiful. What’s it made of?”
Legolas’ fingers slid reverently over the curve of the bow. “It is mallorn heartwood, and the string is made of hair from the Lady Galadriel,” he said.
Clint snorted. He had no clue what that meant, but one thing was for sure. “And here I use fiberglass for mine.”
Legolas brushed his fingertips thoughtfully over his quiver and the pheasant design etched into it. “May I see it?” he asked.
“Sure.” Clint shrugged. “It’s at the Tower, but tomorrow, we can go down there.” He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting Natasha to be there, but they were alone. Unlike Stark Tower, the mansion was old and filled with antiques and memories. Steps in the hallways sounded different, echoing off wood paneling instead of glass and metal, and Clint wasn’t used to the creaks and moans of the building itself.
If Stark really had planned to relocate the Avengers here, he thought, he better quickly get used to those sounds, or he would never be able to relax enough to go to sleep.
The floorboards of the mansion creaked, even under Natasha’s steps when she wasn’t careful. It was almost impossible to sneak around, at least for people who weren’t intimately familiar with the layout of the building.
Tony Stark, having grown up here, did surprisingly well when he bothered, and then, there was Legolas.
Legolas, who seemed to float a fraction of an inch above the floor. It didn’t matter where he went, he managed to walk without making a single noise.
It was enough to make even Natasha jealous, Clint had noticed. She hadn’t said anything, but the little twitch of muscles in her shoulders when she’d noticed that Legolas walked soundlessly had spoken a loud and clear language.
“Do you want a room or do you want to walk around in the garden all night long?” Tony’s voice startled Clint from his thoughts. He hadn’t even realized Tony had come in, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders tense under the thin veneer of careless ignorance he liked to put on.
“A room,” Clint decided for Legolas. “You can go talk to the trees tomorrow. For now, I think we all could use some rest.”
Tony smirked. “I have just the right place for you. Unless you don’t want a bed and prefer to hang upside down from the rafters.”
Legolas shifted next to Clint, his fingers twitching toward his bow. It was a feeling Clint could understand - Tony Stark certainly was an acquired taste.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “And show us the rooms, Stark.”
~*+*~
“Mister Barton, Director Fury is in the kitchen and wishes to talk to the Avengers,” the smooth, British voice of Jarvis interrupted Clint’s sleep and yanked him straight back into the land of the awake.
It took exactly three seconds for his words to filter through Clint’s brain.
“Director Fury?” he asked while kicking off the sheet and rolling out of bed, the first maneuver he had perfected after joining SHIELD. “What does he want?” He didn’t expect an answer as he pulled his pants up his legs and haphazardly tied his bootlaces.
Padding on relatively quiet feet out of his room and down the sweeping staircase, he oriented himself toward the kitchen, giving Steve, who joined him a floor further down, a brief nod which Steve returned.
They didn’t talk.
Entering the kitchen, they quickly found out that the others had been faster, because they were all there. Natasha was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, a facade of bored nonchalance on her face. Clint didn’t miss the fact that her body was angled toward the knife block, ready to attack or defend at any given moment.
Bruce was making tea, his shirt and pants even more rumpled than they had been the day before, and Tony was pacing, his hair sticking up wildly, hands flying through the air as he talked, words tumbling out of his mouth and falling over each other, until it was almost impossible to follow him.
He didn’t look as if he’d slept, dressed in frayed jeans and a black Iron Maiden-shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Seriously, how did you even know we were here?” he ended his tirade, just in time for the coffee machine to beep.
Fury gave him a very unimpressed stare. “This was Howard’s home,” he pointed out. “The only place you have access to that is nearby and big enough to house all of you, plus a garden for our guest, who identified himself as a wood elf to our people and who mysteriously disappeared overnight.” Fury fixed his stare on Clint. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, Agent?”
“Hey, that’s not...you can’t pick on him like that!” Tony protested weakly, waving a mug with Stark Industries’ logo on it in Fury’s face.
“You’ll find that I can,” Fury calmly replied. “As an agent of SHIELD, Mr. Barton here is to follow my orders, and the little stunt you pulled last night borders dangerously close on insubordination.”
“Not insubordination,” Steve said firmly. “It was a command decision.”
Fury focused his gaze on Clint, ignoring Steve’s words. “Now where is our guest?”
Clint licked his lips. “Upstairs,” he found himself replying. “Sir.”
“Director...” Steve interrupted again and took a step forward. “He’s not a threat to us.”
“How do you know that?” Fury calmly reached out and plucked the mug out of Tony’s hands. “After the last surprises that came through the Tesseract, I believe all of us would do good in being very cautious about every single thing that cube spits out.”
“We are,” Steve promised. “He was under constant supervision.” His lips twitched. “It is a little uncanny, how he sleeps with his eyes open.”
Clint bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from reacting. He hadn’t known that Legolas was under constant supervision, and he couldn’t help the small tug of disappointment that Steve hadn’t trusted him with that knowledge, even if it made sense. After all, they didn’t really know anything about Legolas.
“Jarvis is keeping an eye on him right now,” Tony added. “And so far, the guy has done nothing to indicate he’s here because he wants to be. He wants to go home, that’s all.”
“Do you know to what means he would go to achieve that goal?” Fury asked coolly, and Tony stopped, eyes moving from Steve to Clint and back.
“You have nothing to fear,” Legolas announced calmly from the door.
He had put his own clothes back on, the silver leggings and the moss-green tunic, but he had kept Clint’s bandana wrapped around his hair.
“Yeah?” Fury asked, slowly rising to his full height. “How can we be sure? Too many good men have died already because of the Tesseract.”
“I give you my word,” Legolas said. “As prince of Mirkwood, I solemnly swear not to try and...cause any trouble for you and your man.”
Fury sighed. “I hope you people know what you’re doing,” he muttered at Steve.
Steve dipped his head. “I hope so too,” he evenly said.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, frozen in their places, then Fury’s lips twitched slightly. “So,” he stated, “how were you planning on tracking down the Tesseract without SHIELD’s resources?”
~*+*~
The garden of Stark’s mansion didn’t really deserve that name, Clint thought as he methodically checked the longbow he usually kept for special occasions and because of a rare case of nostalgia. In his line of work, he usually preferred either a recurve or his compound bow - or a crossbow for special cases - but for this, the longbow was perfect.
Tony Stark’s garden was a crazy huge park with color-coordinated flower beds, meticulously cared for lawns and several rows of ancient-looking trees that had not quite brought a smile to Legolas’ face, but had made him seem more serene than Clint had seen him since his arrival.
They were standing in the shade of a tree now, at the edge of the lawn, their bows in their hands, and were looking at a good old-fashioned target, put up at a big enough distance for it to be a challenge.
“You want to go first?” Clint asked and brushed his fingers over the fletching of his arrow.
Legolas gave him a thoughtful look. “You are certain?” he wanted to know.
Clint grinned, wide and carefree. “Yeah.”
He loved what he was doing, loved the calmness that came with the rhythm of archery, but it had been a while since he’d shot a couple of arrows just for fun, not on a mission or during a training exercise.
This was going to be awesome.
Legolas nocked one of his own arrows, aimed, and let it fly, hitting the target’s bullseye perfectly.
“Good one,” Clint said appreciatively and shot an arrow of his own, the tip slamming through the target right next to Legolas’.
They both let a few arrows fly and were playfully calling their shots and following through without hesitation, when Tony wandered by, apparently lost in thought. Clint suspected that he had come up from the depths of his workshop in the search for coffee, but then Tony stopped and watched them play around and compared their weapons for a long moment.
Clint grinned and nocked another arrow. The target was riddled with arrows by now, their make and color distinctively different, but all of them exactly where they had been aimed at.
Hawkeye didn’t miss, and neither did Legolas.
“You want to try?” he asked, nonchalantly letting another arrow fly to complete a smiley-face.
“Ha.” Tony frowned as he took an involuntary step closer to them, curious despite himself. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Just a little,” Clint admitted. “I think my bow is more than you can handle, but if you want to learn...” He trailed off and raised his eyebrows.
Tony’s lips twitched. “Yeah, no,” he said. “Maybe later. ‘Sides, it’s enough if there’s one Robin Hood around...” He glanced at Legolas, who had followed the conversation quietly. “...or two. Hmm.” He frowned and wandered off without another word.
“Robin Hood?” Legolas asked, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.
For a brief moment, Clint thought about showing him the Disney movie, but then, he decided against it. The sun was shining, the weather was nice, they were having fun, and there was nothing wrong with telling the story himself.
“It’s an old story,” he said and reached into his pocket for his sunglasses. “The really first Avenger, kind of.”
Legolas let loose another arrow, hitting Clint’s smiley right in the forehead, and Clint started talking, at first haltingly, about what he remembered of the story. If he was honest, it was pretty much only what was in the movie, but for now, it was good enough. Legolas listened quietly, not interrupting him, his head tilted to the side.
They wandered over to the target eventually, to collect their arrows, while Clint wrapped up his story.
“A good story,” Legolas said and gave Clint a soft smile, a quirk of the corners of his mouth at best, but still a smile. “Thank you, for sharing it with me.”
“You’re welcome,” Clint replied. “Maybe you can tell me one from where you’re from some time.”
“I shall think about it,” Legolas promised, but the smile had disappeared from his face, as if remembering his home and the stories told there made him realize again that he might be stuck here instead of going back eventually, if everything went according to plan.
If Bruce didn’t manage to track down the Tesseract...Clint forcefully pushed the thought away. Bruce had managed to find it once, he would find it again. And Loki would have to help them bring Legolas home, even if Clint had to put an arrow through his eye after all.
“Hey,” Tony called out, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he made his way over to them, a fist-sized ball in his hand.
“Hey, yourself,” Clint replied and raised both eyebrows again. “You, coming out of your cave twice a day, without an emergency or Pepper dragging you by the ear? Is the world coming to an end?”
“Aren’t you funny,” Tony replied without heat. “Here, I got something for you.” He tossed the ball into the air, aiming at Clint. Clint reached for it, only to have the ball stop in mid-air and whirr mockingly at him.
“What?” Clint asked. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Legolas had frozen on the spot, like a giant, dangerous cat ready to pounce and attack.
“I’ve been working on that,” Tony said. “I mean, to shoot at something that’s as big as that target over there and that doesn’t move, that’s not really a challenge, for either of you, is it?”
He held up a sleek black remote control. “This little thing works just like those toy helicopters you can buy, only better. It flies. Runs on batteries, and for the extra kick...Jarvis, you’re driving!”
“Certainly, sir,” the voice of Tony’s AI filtered out of the remote and the little ball wobbled slightly in the air.
“Happy hunting,” Tony said with a smug grin and handed Clint the remote. “Two beeps means low batteries.”
Clint grinned and pocketed the remote. “Thanks, Stark,” he remembered to say, and then all thought of Tony Stark, Loki and the Tesseract was forgotten as they focused on the little ball criss-crossing in almost unpredictable patterns across the lawn, shooting arrow after arrow at it.
It was fun, Clint thought as he managed to shoot an arrow behind his back and in mid-jump, Legolas matching him move for move and shot for shot. He suspected that Jarvis was going easy on them and allowing them to predict the ball’s pattern to a certain degree, but he didn’t mind.
“Ha,” he crowed as he managed to take a particularly complicated shot. “Take that!”
“I shall,” Legolas replied before copying him, his arrow hitting the little bouncing ball as if it were a lot bigger than it was and holding perfectly still.
“Fuck me,” Clint muttered before shaking his head. “It took me years to get that right.”
Legolas just looked at him and fired another arrow without looking, Clint just a few second behind him.
They traded arrows, and for one memorable shot, bows, before agreeing that each was best off with his own weapon, and then, they set out for another series of increasingly complicated shots, always trying to edge out the other one for top spot without quite managing to do so.
~*+*~
“I demand a re-match,” Clint grumbled, limbs spread akimbo, bow resting on his heaving chest. The grass he was lying on was cool and tickling his neck and arms, and Clint focused on the sensation of muscles relaxing while his heartbeat slowed down again.
Legolas hummed and sat down next to him, his hands busy putting arrows back into their quivers. “You are a worthy fighter, Clint Barton,” he said. “No mortal and few Elves are capable of what you can do.”
“Thanks,” Clint huffed and turned his head toward his companion. “No mortal, huh?”
“None that the tales of old mention, and none that I know of,” Legolas said. “Songs shall be written about you and sung in the houses of...” he stopped himself and bowed his head slightly.
“You want to go home,” Clint guessed. It wasn’t hard to see.
“I do.” Legolas nodded. “I do not belong in your world. I’ve seen miraculous things on the...drive here, and in your houses, and I feel lost here.”
“You should talk to Steve,” Clint pointed out and sat up. “He was frozen in ice for years, and he felt just like you, I guess. He still managed to get used to this time pretty quickly, even if for all intents and purposes, he doesn’t belong here either, but...he still does, you know? He adapted.”
Legolas didn’t seem convinced, and Clint chose to drop the topic. “I can’t believe I didn’t get that last shot.”
“Your arrow glanced off the magic sphere,” Legolas said. “Were this a mortal foe, he still would be greatly incapacitated.”
“Maybe,” Clint said and rolled onto his feet. “But I’m still the Amazing Hawkeye. I never miss.”
~*+*~
thus ends part one and part two begins.