Work Text:
It was a grey afternoon in the little Romanian village of Joseni, a chill wind licking around the corners of the damp stucco buildings and ensuring Clint Barton was the only patron at the outside tables of the little tavern in what passed for downtown. The rain had stopped shortly after dawn, but the clouds continued to lour, and he thought it would start to snow very soon.
Clint was drunk. He’d been drunk since shortly after his telephone conversation with Tony in the small hours of this morning. When none of his calls for extraction had been answered, and even Tasha hadn’t picked up, he’d called Stark Tower and Tony had given him the news: SHIELD was gone, riddled top to bottom with Hydra, that prick Pierce leading the pack; Fury was dead; and Tasha and Cap were in the wind. It was three in the afternoon, Tony couldn’t possibly get here to pick him up for another hour at least, and Clint was planning to keep right on drinking until his brain was vodka-soaked enough to stop calculating how much blood he’d spilled in the service of Hydra – fucking Hydra – over the last fifteen years. Thank Christ Phil was dead – this would have broken his heart.
The part of his brain that still retained some sense of self-preservation reminded him that he was cold, that Tasha might need him, that he’d lost enough blood that he should be eating and drinking and sleeping and keeping himself warm, and that it was beyond stupid to be sitting out in the open like this, shit-faced and exhausted. He rubbed his grimy hands over his face, wondering distantly if perhaps he had crossed the line from reckless to self-destructive sometime during the night.
When he opened his eyes again, there was a man sitting opposite him at the metal café table.
He was perhaps fifty, salt-and-pepper moustache and beard accenting a slightly-smiling mouth, dark eyes and glossy dark hair just greying at the temples. In contrast to most of the local population, he wore an elegant and expensively-tailored black overcoat, a white silk scarf just visible at the collar. Clint blinked owlishly, resisting the temptation to rub his eyes.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Barton,” the man said, in slightly-accented English.
“Who the hell are you, and how do you know my name?” Clint demanded, realizing only after the words were out that it might have been smarter to play dumb. The man’s smile broadened, and he tugged a leather glove off his hand, extending it to shake. Reluctantly, Clint shook it. The man’s hand was cool and dry, and he resumed his glove immediately.
“My name is Sam,” he said pleasantly.
“You got a last name?”
The smile broadened into a grin.
“I have several. Today, let’s say it’s Ellis.”
“Have I met you?” Clint asked. Ellis shook his head gently.
“No. We have come near to meeting often, but this is the first time we have met face to face. I have been following your career, Mr. Barton. You are a remarkable man, if I may say so.”
Clint’s hackles rose and he tensed.
“Following my career? What the fuck does that mean? How do you know who I am? Are you --”
“Hydra? No.” Ellis made a quelling gesture. “Be at ease, Mr. Barton. I mean you no harm. In fact, I have come to you today because I see you have been through a difficult time, and you have, I think, a difficult time ahead. It is at such times a man, even a remarkable man, needs encouragement.”
“What difficult time; what the fuck do you know about it?”
“I know that your organization has collapsed, that your faith in your work has been shaken and that you are concerned about Miss Romanoff.”
“Tasha? What do you know about Tasha?” Panic was rising in his throat, and he was acutely aware he was in no shape for a fight right now.
“She is safe.”
“Are you holding her? Where is she?”
Ellis laughed softly and made the quelling gesture again.
“I am not holding her. She and your friend the Captain are in a safe place. She is much safer than you are here.” Ellis shot him a reproachful look. “You risk much, to be inattentive in such a place.”
Clint stared down at his hands, cupped around his empty glass. Fat, perfectly-formed snowflakes like feathers began to drift down and accumulate on the scuffed metal tabletop.
“I’m tired,” he said finally, almost without volition. He shouldn’t be confessing the weakness – but how stupid was that? Anyone could tell by looking at him he was fucked up.
“Of course you are, you have done much.”
“I killed so many people,” he said, searching Ellis’ face for some sign of shock or disapproval. He saw only kind concern, and it almost undid him. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Mr. Barton, in all the years you were with SHIELD, did you ever doubt that the targets you were given were evil?”
Clint thought back. There had been Whitley, and Kaufmann – and Tasha, of course. And a few others. He nodded.
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“And what did you do those times?”
“I –“ He paused. “I didn’t take the shot.”
“And the other times, when you took the shot, you had evidence, yes?”
“Yeah. Yes. I saw –“ he shuddered. “I saw awful things.”
“And I fear you must see more before we journey together, my friend,” Ellis said, clasping his shoulder. “But that will not be today.”
Clint moistened chapped lips with a tongue that seemed to have grown too large for his mouth somewhere near the bottom of the bottle of vodka.
“Before SHIELD,” he started, then stopped, hanging his head, remembering the risks, the running, the nights he feared to sleep, barely one step ahead of his enemies, the nights when sleep itself was an enemy. He’d worked so hard, trying to make sure his kills were all bad men. More than once, he’d walked away from a contract, giving the money back, no hard feelings, guys, this one isn’t for me; and once he’d warned the target, and he’d had to lie low for months in a backwater shithole in Alabama – but sometimes hunger and exhaustion were all he knew, and the voice in his head that sounded so much like Barney had reminded him murder was murder, no matter what you called it, and he’d just taken the paycheck and done his job and tried not to wonder if somewhere, someone was taking a paycheck to kill him. And if that was righteous – he was a serial killer, after all. SHIELD had been a refuge, a beacon: somewhere to be a better man.
And now look at him.
“You are a better man than you think you are, Mr. Barton,” Ellis said. “Else you would not have been chosen for this work.”
Confused, Clint stared at him, taking in the gentle smile, the air of calm. He seemed so familiar, and yet Clint was certain he’d never seen him before.
“I know you,” he whispered. “How do I know you?”
“I have walked with you almost your whole life,” Ellis said with a kindly smile. “You know me, this face of me, perhaps better than any others ever have. You have won my respect, and even my regard. You are like an extension of my own hand.”
Clint stared into the dark eyes opposite. He couldn’t read anything in Ellis but kindness and concern for him. Quite against his will, he trusted him.
“Tasha,” he said thickly. “She’s safe?”
“She is safe.” The man smiled suddenly. “She is very angry,” he added, “but she is safe.”
“How can you know that?” Clint whispered. Ellis reached out a gloved hand and patted his arm.
“Does not the violinist know where is each of his fingertips at each moment?” he asked. His smile turned sardonic. “I know, too, where is the Captain’s friend James, and your so-entertaining colleague Mr. Wilson. But they, and your Tasha, they do not need me today.” The gloved hand came up and smoothed Clint’s hair in a surprisingly affectionate gesture. “You are safe, my friend,” he said. “None will harm you while I am near, and your friend Mr. Stark comes now.” He rose gracefully, clasping Clint’s hand in both of his, and smiling down into his face. “Remember this, Mr. Barton,” he said. “You are the shepherd dog, who brings the strays who have slipped away from the flock. It is a thing that must be done, be there storm or cold or danger. To do this work is difficult and costly, yet you have done it, with no thought but to protect those around you. You have been kind when you could be and quick when you could not, and though you have feared from time to time, you have never faltered. And that, my friend, is courage.” He stepped back, bowing slightly. “We will meet again, Mr. Barton, when the time is right. Go with God.”
Clint struggled unsteadily to his feet as Ellis turned away and disappeared around the corner of the café, the skirts of his coat swirling around his legs in the heavily-falling snow. There was something wrong with that, but his head seemed not to be working completely right, and he couldn’t quite figure it out. Behind him, he heard the whine of Iron Man’s repulsors in the square, and turned his head, waving at Tony, who raised his faceplate as he strode over.
“Jesus, Barton, you stink like a three-day drunk,” he said, not unkindly, staring into Clint’s face. “Are you hurt? How long have you been sitting outside in the snow? You must be freezing; come on, I’ve got the quinjet parked in a field down the road. Do we need to settle up your tab?”
“No, wait, I – there was someone – did you see him?”
“See who? I didn’t see anyone.” He tried to take Clint’s arm as he staggered, turning, but Clint shook him off.
“No, he was just here – he was sitting right there –“ He pointed at the chair opposite, than blinked stupidly at the seat, where a good two inches of the fat, white snowflakes had accumulated. “He was just right here,” he repeated, bewildered. Tony put a hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe you slept a little,” Tony said. “Come on, Katniss, let’s go get you warmed up. Bruce is onboard; he’s making soup.”
“No, I wasn’t dreaming,” Clint protested. “Look, he went right here, around this corner, we can catch up –“ Clint rounded the corner himself, and stopped abruptly, a rough stone wall easily seven feet high stretching between the tavern and the shoemaker’s shop next door. Snow had mounded on the top of the wall, and he looked in confusion for footprints that might show where Ellis had gone.
There were no footprints, other than his own. But on top of the drifted snow, between his feet, lay a single black feather.