“Oh yeah? Were there specifics? Did you leave him with plenty of caffeine?” Summer glances up from her laptop, grinning. “Or is this him doing that thing where he’s afraid he’ll screw it up if he tries to … make his friends be friends?”
Clint lifts his hands up in a surrender and gazes at you with mirth filled eyes. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. You are surprised by this so I’ll guess I don’t have myself as a competition then.” He jokes looking at you. The changing emotions on your face confuse him and when he notices the fear for just a moment, it causes him to frown. What should you have to fear he thinks, hoping that’s he’s not the cause of it himself. Clint rather likes you so he wouldn’t want to drive you away or destroy the budding friendship that is building.
“I’ll skip telling about my childhood for now, maybe we’ll come back to it later. You only need to know that miss Iowa, my nanny told me stories of mythology and folklore every time I was there. And I basically grew under her care, with those tales, a certain mischievous trickster had a big role in them.” The hawk starts. “It was a secret dream of mine to meet that trickster someday. I had come to ‘idolize’ Loki after a while. He was my hero even if I didn’t know that he was more than just lore told to me.” Clint chuckles at his own words before admitting. “I used to pray at him, I told him all my troubles and dreams. Years later I ended up working for shield after I met Ph- Agent Coulson. He helped me out and took me under his wing. During one mission I met Loki and got a little obsessed with finding more about him I admit. I can’t explain what I felt then the sense of amazement after confirming that he was indeed the trickster I practically worshiped.”
The hawk’s voice lowers little after getting to this point and he gazes at something past your shoulder. “This is where things got bit troublesome. I tried to find an way to keep both my job and friends at SHIELD and my frail and still fresh friendship with Loki.” Clint raises his head having lowered it at some point and spits out bitterly. “I managed for a while too until Black Widow decided to betray me during a mission by nearly killing me. She was my closest friend and she stabbed me in the back. I did the only thing I could at that point, I left. I went to Loki and stayed with him after that. I’ve been dealing with assassins since and have have met my so called friend more than once on those occasions.” After getting those words out Clint closes up.
It’s almost too much information to take in. Most of what is immediately clear is that for this Clint, the events that made up the last year of her life never happened. She’s not even sure if she should tell him, far less how.
Choosing her words carefully, she says, “I don’t think you need to worry about anyone — from this worldspace anyway — hunting you. If you’re followed here,” her eyes darkened, “we’ll deal with that. Tony’s already all but adopted you, and in this household we protect each other.”
As you speak Clint relaxes little and gives you a grateful smile. “Thank you.” the archer mutters unable to believe that he can stay even after explaining. To think they offered him protection and consider him one of their own even, to Clint that’s simply priceless.
Summer puts up her hands, smile going a little twisted. “Whoa there, slow down on the gratitude. You’ve still got to talk to Loki, and I’m not really the one to say how you’re going to fit in here in the long run. But what Tony wants, he usually gets, and he seems to want you.”