Chapter Text
This doesn’t have to be his problem.
There are plenty of other things that warrant his attention. Calling Laura. Cleaning up Kate’s apartment. Fixing that water heater Simone is always on about. Maybe knock on Grills’s door, borrow a cup of sugar or whatever sometimes-neighbours do. Or he could fly back to his family, leave this whole mess for someone else to clean up.
Except that someone would be Kate. The Tracksuits are up to something if they want this building so badly they'd commit murder for it, and Clint figures he should probably hang around until they reveal what that reason is. And then make sure that Kate doesn’t tackle it alone. He’s left a mess for a partner to deal with once before, for five years. He’s not making that mistake again.
He could give his full attention to any of those things. God knows they deserve them. Instead, he stares at the neatly folded blanket propped on the end of the couch.
It’s the folding that gets him. It isn’t haphazardly tossed to the side, as though Peter had left in a panicked hurry. Rather, there is every indication that the teen deliberately slipped out in the early hours of the morning knowing his mostly deaf host wouldn’t hear him. He’s even placed the peas back in the freezer.
Clint’s been turning over the idea that Peter and Tony are related—both Tony and Howard Stark had enough of a playboy history for it to be possible, not to mention the physical resemblance. If that’s the case, though, the kid’s genes must be pretty strong on his mother’s side if he had the impulse to tidy up.
And now he’s thinking about Tony. About he’d been the only one of the Avengers who thought it worthwhile to try and fix him before the Time Heist. The only one who didn’t think bringing his family back would be a magical fix-all, like it would wipe out the last five years as though they didn’t happen.
He decides to find Peter.
He dresses down for it, throwing on a nondescript hoodie and leaving the bow at home, even though he tucks two of his better knives into their regular hiding places on his person. He mournfully recalls his favorite one is now at the bottom of a concrete pit. Maybe he should invoice the Tracksuits for damages.
The thought makes his lips twitch as he sets out, ignoring the ache in multiple muscles. He can weather aches. Aches means he survived. Another reason to make sure the kid who pulled him out of death’s doorway isn’t recuperating from a serious head wound alone.
Clint doesn’t bother trying to track the secret hideout of Spider-Man, or whatever. Many have tried and failed already. The guy has been off the radar for well over a year now, with not a hint to his real name. The closest clue to his identity has been his rumored proximity to Iron Man and… well. Clint wants to make sure the guy’s fine, of course he does, but he doesn’t hate the idea of getting some questions answered either.
He goes off what information he has. Claire had said Peter was malnourished and it hadn’t taken much to put together that the kid's been sleeping rough. Clint recognizes the signs. There had been a period between endless foster homes and Carson’s where he and Barney had called themselves lucky if they found somewhere both dry and warm to sleep. And then, after. After he wasn’t useful anymore. After Duquesne had kicked him out. After Barney had left.
Before Phil had plucked him out of the mud and given him a fresh start.
Spider-Man is known as a Queens local, so that’s as good a place to start as any. Clint hasn’t slept rough in New York specifically, but it’s not hard to suss the most suitable areas. It isn’t also difficult to info on the most popular spots for the unhoused population to hunker down for a handful of bills. Not all of it had ended up going on the building and this is as good a place to spend the funds as any. With every new face he meets, the guilt grows. Homelessness has been worse than ever since the Blip ended. He’s not a hero to anyone who doesn’t have a roof over their heads. He should be doing more.
He gets enough tips to find the common camping spots, but there’s no scruffy-haired teenager to be found. The sun is setting and he’s almost ready to call it a day, when it hits him. In hindsight, it’s so obvious that he kicks himself.
Newly acquired paper bag in hand, Clint approaches the construction site that was almost his grave with extreme caution. There have been signs of work here, no doubt trying to figure out who the hell wrecked their cement mixer, but everyone has packed up and gone home for the day. Even so, he keeps the hood pulled low over his face as he jogs towards one building over, the construction on this one-halfway complete. It’s all structure beams and scaffolding—no elevator. No stairs.
“Of course,” Clint sighs, and starts to climb. He has to put the bag between his teeth to do so, really hoping no one is capturing this on camera. He takes frequent breaks, reminding himself to not look down as he monkeys his way up the scaffolding.
He finds Peter in the incomplete top floor of the building. Clint eyes the limp shape curled up in a fraying sleeping bag with trepidation, half-expecting the kid to bolt. He hadn’t exactly been quiet in his climb—he is embarrassingly out of breath—and if Peter can smell a smidge of Kate’s blood on a bag of peas, he can definitely smell the smorgasbord of burgers Clint’s brought him as an olive branch.
But there’s no movement. That prompts Clint to move faster, suddenly terrified that the head wound caught up to him after all and he’s died in his sleep or something equally grim, but his haste causes him to trip on the very last bar of scaffolding. He tumbles into Peter’s makeshift home, only just managing to stop himself from dropping several stories without a grappling arrow to slow his descent.
He still skins the flesh on his unbandaged palm as he catches himself, pushing himself upright to see two web-shooters pointed right in his face.
Clint lets the burger bag drop from his mouth. “Um, hey.”
Peter’s eyes are bloodshot, his hair sticking up in tuffs, and god the kid looks exhausted. Clint makes a show of putting both hands up, sinking slowly back onto his knees.
“You’re bleeding.”
Clint checks his palm. “I’ve had worse.” He plucks up the takeout between his two pinkies, which have somehow remained unscathed, and tosses it to Peter. “You didn’t let me thank you for last night. So, thank you.”
The kid doesn’t lower the web-shooters, but he looks more disorientated than threatened. “I thought superheroes weren’t supposed to use their powers on one another.”
“I agree.” Clint nods at the web-shooters. “You wanna put those down, then?”
Peter blinks at the web-shooters as though he’s just remembered they’re attached to his wrists. “Not those.” He does lower them though, even as he casts a nervous look behind Clint as he does so. “You.”
Maybe that concussion had been nasty even for someone with accelerated healing. Clint gestures to the empty space at his back. “No bow.”
“No, not the arrows you…” Peter breaks off, sinking back into the sleeping bag with a frustrated huff. “You were a spy. Agent. Whatever. You used your SHIELD stuff to track me down, didn’t you?” He sounds somewhere between agitated and terrified by the idea. “I’m going to have to move, again, I already ran out of places in Queens, I don’t—”
“Okay, let’s slow things down.” Clint shuffles further into the space. Peter stiffens, clearly uncomfortable with the proximity. Still, Clint’s not having this conversation a few inches away from a nasty drop when he's not one of the Avengers with super-healing or flight capabilities. “Firstly, I didn’t find you with SHIELD stuff. I found you because I was an unhoused teenager. I know where to look for somewhere sheltered where the cops won’t bother you. Besides,” he gestures towards the pit many feet below them. “You came to my rescue very quickly last night. Figured that’s because you were close by already. Put two and two together.”
Peter doesn’t look appeased. “Why?”
There are a dozen ways he can answer that question. He picks the simplest. “Because you saved my life. Thought the least I could do was buy you a burger.” He picks up the bag and tosses it the rest of the way, right into Peter’s lap.
Peter lets it fall into place. “Nice shot.”
“It’s what I do.”
Tentatively, Peter pulls out the first burger, staring at it like it’s going to evaporate. Clint recognizes that hunger. He’d felt it more often than not during his time living on the streets. Even so, Peter extends it towards him. “Do you want one?”
Tidying up after a concussion, and now offering someone his food even though he's clearly starving. Someone good clearly raised this kid. And that someone is just as clearly not in the picture anymore, if this is the best he can do for a resting spot. “I ate on the way here. Got peckish trekking all over Queens. Those are all for you.” Then for good measure, he adds. “Can’t remember the last time it took me an entire day to find someone in the same city as me.”
The words have the effect he wants. “It took you hours to find me?”
“You’ve not made it easy.”
Some of the tension finally bleeds out of Peter’s shoulders, enough for him to take a bite. He closes his eyes as he swallows, and Clint tactfully looks away as he devours the rest of the bag.
“You want more?” he asks when Peter’s finished. "There's a Taco Bell two blocks from here."
Peter looks a half-second away from saying yes before he catches himself. “I’m fine.”
From the wistful way he looks at the now empty bag, Clint very much doubts that’s true. He’d gone off what Steve used to eat for a usual meal, but maybe this kid needs even more than that. "You sure? I don’t think one bag makes up for me still breathing this morning.”
Peter shrugs that off. “I was in the area. Anyone would have done the same.”
Clint fights not to shudder at the memories of the Tracksuits jeering as they tried to bury him alive. “Trust me, they really wouldn’t have. So,” he gestures around the construction. “How long you got before you have to give up this place too?”
Peter wilts. “Not long,” he mutters. “I actually think last night bought me some time. They’ve closed down construction until they clean up the cement mixer but…” He looks around miserably. “It's always dry up here.”
Despite the lament of lack of shelter, the kid had still fled Kate’s apartment without so much as a goodbye. Clint’s been on the other side of this conversation. Phil had to fight tooth and nail to convince him he’d be safer at SHIELD than trying to do everything on his own. “So. Why exactly is Spider-Man living in a construction site?”
Peter’s walls go back up. “Whatever you’ve come here to do, or if you think you need to pay me back or something, I swear I’m fine. I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody.”
Yeah, Clint had thought the same thing once. More than once. Natasha Romanoff had proved him wrong in two separate decades. “Okay, you don’t need anybody,” he agrees easily. “What about running water and four walls? You don’t need those?”
Peter starts picking at his fraying sleeves. Clint suddenly wonders if this is how Kate had felt when they’d first met—determined to find a wayward hero an outfit that actually looked heroic. Where the hell was the suit Tony had built that let this kid survive a fight against Thanos? “Turns out it’s hard to get a place without an ID. I mean, I have ID, but it doesn’t… it’s complicated.”
Clint recalls the photo of Peter and Tony at the Compound and realizes with a stab of loss that it was undoubtedly destroyed in Thanos’s attack. Still, this kid would have to be on the grid in some capacity if Tony had let him into Stark Industries on an internship.
“I had a place for a while,” Peter continues. “The guy didn’t care if I didn’t sign a contract or pass any checks if I paid in cash. But then he kept raising the rent every month, and I didn’t have any way to stop him, and it’s not like being Spider-Man pays past selling photos so…” He breaks off, retreating. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Clint would put good money down on the reason for that being that Peter hasn’t had a decent conversation with anyone in god knows how long, but he knows better than to point that out. “Hero,” he points at Peter, then at himself, “Hero.” In profession, at least. “Same side, remember?”
Something like pain passes across Peter’s face before he drops his gaze to his knees. “Anyway. What money I do earn needs to go on food and supplies. You guessed right that I eat a lot so…”
“Nothing left for rent,” Clint finishes. He risks stepping into more dangerous territory, “You know about the Hero Fund, right? What Tony left each of us?”
That pain is back in his expression, sharper than before. “Yeah I… I know about it.”
“I know the Blipped Avengers had a lot of trouble getting access to their share, but Pepper finally pushed the trust into releasing what Tony left everyone.” He’s thinking about that photo again. “He must have left you something.”
“I can’t access it.”
“I know it took forever but they’ve paid out Sam, Bucky and Scott so now—”
“I can’t access it.” Peter hugs his knees into his chest, looking thoroughly miserable. “What Tony left me so I could keep working on the suits, my MIT tuition, all of it. I can’t get to it. Not that it matters now.” He swipes at his eyes. “Besides, Spider-Man is meant to be, you know, friendly neighborhood and all that. Can’t really be that if I’m running around in a multi-million dollar suit. So maybe this was what was meant to happen, or something.”
Clint knows an argument being made to justify a shitty situation when he hears one. He doesn’t call Peter out on it though. “Yeah, but there’s a bit of a jump between turning down a billionaire’s tech and sleeping rough every night. Why can’t you access what Tony left you?”
“Long story." Peter turns his head away, watching the sun dip towards the horizon through the missing wall of his makeshift home. "And I can’t tell anyone.”
Clint shifts so he can stretch out his legs, aching from crouching for so long. “Everyone on the streets has a story they don’t think anyone else will understand.”
Peter huffs, still not looking at him. “What if mine involves magic, a lizard man and Spider-Men from another dimension?”
“Then I would tell you I fought an alien army over a bunch of rocks with a raccoon. Nothing really phases me at this point.”
The kid's lips twitch, just a fraction. “I still can’t tell you. Too dangerous.”
Clint recognizes a dead end when he hits one. He changes tactics. “You know what else is dangerous? Sleeping off a head wound when anyone could sneak up on you.”
“Not anyone,” Peter protests. “I can sense danger coming. Usually. I have a…” he makes a vague gesture around his head, “tingle thing. You didn’t set it off.” He looks vaguely surprised at that concept.
Well, good to know a malnourished teenager doesn’t consider him a plausible threat. At least it’s working in his favor if he’s managed to keep Peter talking this long. Phil had to track him down three separate times and Clint really doesn’t want to spend another day traipsing all over New York. He decides to keep the conversation neutral for a few more beats. “Is that how you sensed that guy was shooting at us last night?”
Peter grimaces, reaching up to touch the side of his head. The wound is completely gone. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though. “I didn’t even consider the bullet could ricochet,” he mutters. “Stupid.”
“Bad luck,” Clint corrects him.
Peter glances at the empty bag. “You didn’t need to buy me anything. You helped with the head wound. So we’re even.”
Clint tries a different angle. “You know,” he says lightly. “The Tracksuits won’t be done with this. They’re pissed because I bought my friends’ apartment building. Guessing if I’m dead, they think they can claim it, send all the families living there out onto the streets to… well, actually I don’t know what they want it for. I’m working on that.”
Peter straightens up, worried. “They’re threatening people?”
“Something’s coming.” The moment he says it, he knows it’s true. The Tracksuits have been more active, increasing in numbers. Kingpin has been confirmed as alive, because the wrong people in this universe keep surviving. “Would be great to have some backup. Preferably in the building the Tracksuit Mafia are so keen to get their hands on.”
“I can’t afford—”
“You’re talking to the landlord. You can pay rent in protection, or something. Jesus, now I sound like the Mafia. But yeah, there’s a bunch of empty apartments, the neighbors are good people, and I stay on top of repairs when I can. There are worse places.”
Peter looks thoroughly torn. “If you’re the landlord, don’t you need rent rent?”
“Probably,” Clint admits. “But who cares. It’s my building. Given how I paid for it, feels right.”
“Hero Fund,” Peter guesses.
“Hero Fund,” Clint confirms. The money Tony left him had been burning a hole in the back of his brain ever since he’d learned of its existence. He and Laura already have everything set up for the kids’ futures, their farmhouse is self-sustaining, and besides, Tony had left it so the Avengers could keep being Avengers despite the loss of their unofficial sponsor.
It would have taken a decent chunk of time to set up. As though Tony had known that they wouldn’t all make it back from their Time Heist. As if Tony had decided that, if someone had to go down, it would be him.
He wondered if the same thoughts had gone through Natasha’s mind. He hadn’t asked. Now he’d never know. He hadn’t been in the best shape for those kinds of conversations. He hadn’t been in the best shape for a lot of things. And Tony had included his name in the Avengers’ Hero Fund anyway.
He had toyed with throwing the entire lot at charity, but blanched at the amount of paperwork and legalese involved with such a hefty donation. Because going through that process would have been to acknowledge that the money existed, and why it existed, and… well. He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to visit the empty grave that has been erected for Natasha in Ohio. Like if he ignores all the reminders that his friends are gone, he can pretend they’re not.
But they are, and the shivering teenager in front of him is a striking reminder of it.
Peter takes a deep breath, looking younger than ever as he squeezes his eyes shut and says, “Thank you, Hawkeye. But I can’t.”
“You can call me Clint. Hawkeye belongs to someone else now, anyway.” He recalls that week when Kate had first stumbled into his life, turning everything on its head. Reminding him that he didn’t have to live entirely in the past. Not only was there still a future ahead of him, it was still possible to meet some of the most important people in his life as opposed to just losing them.
He wondered if Tony had felt the same way about Peter after the Accords. Another thing they’ll never get to talk about.
He tries a new strategy. “Look, I didn’t know Tony as well as I’d have liked to at the end, but what I do know is that you meant a lot to him. And now I’ve had the experience of some kid—”
“I’m not a kid.”
“—crashing into my life, I know the last thing he’d want is for you to be living like this.” He has a sudden vision of an alternate world where it’s Kate who needs help, where it’s Tony stepping in to give it. He knows Tony would have done so in a heartbeat. He wishes he and Kate could have met. “Whatever trouble you have on your tail, Peter, I swear we can work out what—”
It’s as if he’s electrocuted him. Peter scrambles into a low crouch, looking as though he’s a breath away from throwing a web and bolting from the scene. “What did you call me?”
Clint stills, trying not to detonate the landmine he’s just stepped on. “Peter Parker,” he says slowly, taking note of the way that makes the kid’s eyes fly wide. “That’s your name, right?”
“It’s…” Peter swallows, distressed. “It was. I don’t—how do you know that?”
“You were pretty out of it after bashing your head.”
“I shouldn’t have told you, no one should know—”
“I haven’t told anyone else,” Clint assures him. “I know the whole Spider-Man secret identity is a big deal. Trust me, if I could take my name out of public consciousness, I absolutely would. So much for being a ghost.”
Peter doesn’t relax, but he looks a fraction less like he’s going to pull a runner. “You don’t want to be a ghost,” he mutters. “I thought everyone knowing was the worst thing, but… well, sometimes I still think that. At least for me. But no one knowing is better for everyone. Can you just… just forget I told you? Please?”
Clint ignores that last part. “You said not knowing is better for everyone. Does everyone include you?”
Peter folds his arms, resolute. “It was my mistake to fix. Everyone else is okay now. That’s all that matters."
“Everyone like…” Clint tries to remember the names Peter had been muttering in his sleep. “MJ and Ned and May—”
“Don’t.” Peter buries his head in his hands, miserable, but he does sink back towards the floor as opposed to fleeing into the New York night sky. “You shouldn’t know their names. Or mine. Or any of it.”
He sounds close to the edge of terrified, enough so that Clint decides to leave those names alone. He gets it. He’d been on edge for weeks after last facing Maya, well aware that she knows who his children are. She hasn’t rematerialized, however, and they’d found Kazi’s body, which gives him hope that the tentative peace treaty they’ve struck is going to stick.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he promises, but that doesn’t seem to be the reassurance Peter is looking for.
“You shouldn’t know that name,” he stresses, and Clint doesn’t miss the odd phrasing. Not my name. That name. “No one should. It’s too dangerous.”
Clint’s back is starting to ache. Slowly, so as not to startle Peter, he edges towards the wall so he can lean against it. “Last night you took on about twenty guys with guns at once to get me out. Seems I owe you a little danger.” He pats the ground next to him, remembering Phil making the exact same gesture all those years ago. He’s not Phil. He’s never been able to live up to that. But that doesn’t mean he can’t try.
“If you tell me to get out of your hair, I will,” he offers. “But also, if you want to tell whatever story ended you up here, I have nowhere else to be.”
He does, actually. He needs to figure out what the Tracksuits are up to. He needs to fill Kate in on the events of last night. He needs to get home to his family and remind them that he loves them more than anything else on this Earth.
But the words have the effect he’s going for. Slowly, still looking unsure, Peter sinks to the floor next to him, and starts to talk.
The first few minutes are halted and tentative, Peter’s eyes darting around the space as though his words are going to bring down the skies. However, the further he gets into the story, the more his shoulders drop from his ears. His fists unclench, the tension in his jaw loosens, and the faster the explanation comes, from Tony showing up in his apartment to the final spell he'd asked Doctor Strange to cast. The sleeping on the streets and malnourishment was evidence enough, but Clint could have figured out just from the way Peter pours out his tale that the kid hasn’t had a conversation with another living being in months.
“And that’s why I don’t have access to anything Tony left,” he finishes his story of redeemed villains and alternate selves and complicated spells gone wrong. “My IDs are all useless—school records, passport, my birth certificate. I had no idea Doctor Strange’s spell was going to be that thorough. I mean, I would have said yes to it anyway, of course I would have, but I…” He swallows, looking more exhausted than ever. “There’s nothing left,” he whispers. “Just Spider-Man.” He gestures to his worn-out suit. “Just this.”
Clint allows himself a memory of pulling on the Ronin suit for the first time, putting down the bow and taking up the sword. Just this, he’d decided. No more Hawkeye. No more Clint Barton. Just a weapon to be fired at whatever targets he deemed worthy of his blade.
He’s not going to burden Peter with any of that, however. Instead, he says, “Well, I know your name. World didn’t end.”
Peter glances out the window as though to confirm that statement. “Maybe not the world,” he murmurs. “But I can’t go back to them. I can’t make them pay for my mistakes.”
“You said everyone was back in their dimensions, right? So what are you worried is going to happen?”
Peter is quiet for a long moment before he says, “Them being in my life, it ruined their lives. I can’t do that to them again.”
The night is growing colder, starting to cut through his thin hoodie. He doubts Peter’s paltry sleeping bag is enough to keep out the elements. “I know this can be hard to believe,” he offers. “But making mistakes doesn’t ban you from being in other people’s lives. Not if they really care about you.”
Peter ducks his head. Clint can’t see his face properly in the darkening night anymore, but his next words are thick and hitched. “Not mistakes like this.”
“I'm sure it's not as bad as you think.”
“It's not just the spell.” Peter stares straight ahead for a long time before he admits, “I had the Infinity Stones. I held them.”
A stone sinks in Clint’s heart. This is a thought he’d had many, many times over the past year. It never fully goes away. “Yeah,” he mutters. “So did I. When Thanos destroyed the Compound, I ended up pretty much face-first in that gauntlet.” And then he’d held onto it, for a decent chunk of that battle. Plenty of time to use them. Could have Snapped first on Earth—could have fought harder on Vormir. He didn’t. He has to live with that.
But maybe Peter doesn’t. “Didn't Strange give some big speech about this being the only way to win?” Clint reminds him. “He made it pretty clear that it had to be Tony.” But not that it had to be Natasha. “Besides, you really think Tony would have wanted you gone instead?”
Peter tucks his chin into his folded arms. “He should still be here. It would be better if he was still here.”
Clint closes his eyes for a moment, gathering himself. “I know the feeling. And it’s a crappy feeling. But…” It takes him a moment to dredge up the words. “Whenever I start thinking about how I should have Snapped first, I remind myself that Natasha would have been pretty pissed if she had sacrificed herself only for me to screw that up a few hours later.” He recalls the photograph again and makes an educated guess. “I think Tony would have felt just as put out if he invented time travel to bring you back only to lose you all over again.”
It’s a long time before Peter answers that. “It all had to be exact,” he murmurs. “So… I don’t know, maybe it did have to be you who got the Stones out of the Compound wreckage.”
This is not the direction Clint expected this conversation to go. “What?”
“I’m just saying, surviving an attack that destroyed the entire Compound without a suit or anything would have been pretty much impossible. You must have been in just the right place to not get crushed by the rubble.” He shrugs, the outline of his body bobbing up and down in the darkness. “What’s the odds that if the Black Widow had come back from Vormir, she would have chosen the exact same position you did? Then Thanos’s monster-alien-thingies would have gotten the Stones straight away. Battle could have ended before it even began.”
Clint blinks, stunned. There’s no way to prove that’s true but… well, it’s something. He turns Peter’s logic back around on him. “In that case, who says you Snapping earlier would have been the answer either? According to Strange, it wouldn’t have worked.” He twists his body sideways, looking at where Peter’s hand is limp against his knee.
Suddenly he’s back in Tokyo, covered in blood and rain, begging with one final request. Don’t give me hope.
Natasha hadn’t listened. She’d known they could pull this off even though she didn’t know the price. He’d spent a long time angry at her about that. Don’t give me hope. And she’d done it anyway, that he could have all of them. He’d just ended up swapping one grief for another.
But…
He’d gotten Kate. And Lucky. And Grills and Simone and everyone else in that building who didn’t deserve a Mafia banging on their doors. And he has that because Natasha hadn’t quit. Because he’d stopped feeling nothing and started feeling everything, the good and the bad all mixed together. Twilight and sunrise. Awful and beautiful at once.
And it had all started with Natasha putting her hand in his for the first time in five years.
Slowly, as though he’s trying to not spook a kicked dog, Clint reaches out to take Peter’s hand. His fingers are ice-cold. “You couldn’t have done anything to save him, Peter. You knew Tony. Once he made up his mind to do something, he was doing it.”
There’s a long silence when Clint is sure Peter is taking some time to process that idea. Then he hears the sob.
Dad instincts take over and he extends his arm so Peter can lean into his chest. Peter all but collapses into him, and Clint can practically feel every ounce of guilt and regret the kid’s been carrying around since Tony’s Snap. There’s been too much of that going around.
He doesn’t say anything as he lets Peter work through what he needs to. He’d been too exhausted last night to properly register just how bony Peter is under the suit. He needs to get him somewhere warm, get him fed, but he also knows Peter needs this too. Someone to check on him. Someone who sees someone who needs help; not someone broken beyond repair. Someone to remind him that hope is worth having.
“Sorry.” Peter suddenly straightens up, hastily mopping his eyes. “Sorry, we’re… we’re like coworkers, I shouldn’t—”
The word punches a laugh out of him. “The Avengers have been a lot of things over the years, but I think coworkers is a bit reductive.” He glances out at the now fully darkened sky, their only light from the streetlamps well below. A hug and a cathartic cry aren’t going to magically fix what the kid’s been through, but it’s enough of a start that Clint turns back to his physical health. “So. About that apartment.”
He’s so close to convincing him, he can feel it. But Peter still shakes his head. “I can’t. Thank you, but I just can’t.”
“I won’t tell anyone your name,” Clint reminds him. “And I won’t force you to go back to the people who knew you before. That’s your choice. Even though I think you can, if that’s what you want. It sounds like it’s what they wanted.”
“I just…” He sounds so young. “I don’t want to start thinking I can have them back. Because what if I think that, and then I’m wrong. I don’t…” His voice breaks. “I don’t think I can go through that again.”
“I get it,” Clint says and he really, really does. “I understand that hope can be the most terrifying thing in the universe.” He pictures his family waiting for him back home, alive and well. He’ll also always feel the cost of what it took to get them there. “But I also understand you can’t remove yourself from the world and pretend it doesn’t exist. It does. It will keep moving forward without you. They’re moving forward without you. The longer you wait, the more you’ll miss out on. Trust me, Peter—that’s not a regret you want to carry around for the rest of your life.”
“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
It’s not a yes. Clint hadn’t expected one. But it’s a start. Whether or not Peter decides to pursue that path is in his court now. “Can you think about it from a room with four walls and a bed? Only rent due is scaring off any Russians in red who try to terrorize my tenants.”
He holds his breath, praying. Hoping. Then—
“Okay,” Peter breathes. “I’d… I’d like that.”
Clint exhales in relief. He thinks that Phil might be proud. It's a nice thought. He'll try to keep that one. “Great. There’s one with a fire escape right outside the bedroom window. Very easy for subtle Spider-Man activities. And I know someone who can give you a suit upgrade. Not quite Tony Stark-level, but the LARPers all say she’s the best.”
“Thank you,” Peter murmurs, the words so sincere that they break his heart. Yeah, Clint can see why Tony went to the ends of the Earth for this kid.
“I’m paying it forward,” Clint replies. He stands, offering Peter a hand up. He takes it. “Still hungry? Because I’m starving.”
“I could eat,” Peter admits.
“Great, because the best pizza place in New York is right next door to the building. Kate swears by their BBQ chicken.”
“Will she be there?”
“In a couple of months. You guys can be neighbors.” He gazes out across the city, thrumming with life. “Ready to head home?”
“Yes.” The night is still dark, but he can hear the tentative smile in Peter’s voice. “I’m ready to go home.”