Chapter Text
Opening his eyes to the darkness, Clint could sense another person sitting across the small mews, where he’d last seen his new austringer sit. He twitched in on himself, curling slightly both to protect his body, and to prepare to lash out with a kick. The movement must have alerted the stranger: the pattern of slow, almost too slow, breathing changed, regulating to a normal speed, and he shifted backwards. A rush of air meant the man - musky scent, more earthy than most while still clean, faint confusing chemical traces on top of the earthen - had raised his hands, to placate. ‘Peace,’ his hands said, a white flag of movement.
“Hawk Barton,” the voice was pitched low, a little husky, a little ironic, “Austringer Coulson, your new austringer, asked me to wait with you. His other hawk just arrived home from a long mission, and he had to attend to her for a little while. He hated to leave you, I can’t remember when I’ve seen his feathers so ruffled, pardon the pun, but when you’re ready, I’ll bring you to your new mews, where he’s greeting Hawk Romanov. If you’d rather stay here until he’s free, he said you could do that, too.”
The man paused, letting his words sink in. Clint could still not believe anyone who barely knew him would be that upset about his reaction, especially an austringer when it was his hawk, but then, Austringer Coulson hadn’t actually done anything to disprove that his reaction would be in keeping with the kindnesses piling up around Clint like presents around rich kids at Christmas. “Now that you know your options, and why there’s a weird guy meditating in your mews, I’m Dr. Bruce Banner, I’m one of the scientists the Agency employs to keep up with the latest and greatest in health and tech for hawks, and for austringers, for that matter. Also I’m kind of about as good at living in the real world as most hawks, so yeah, there’s that. Heh. Um, so there’s some water here, and I can turn on a light, or open the door, if you’d like.”
He’d never directly dealt with one of the Agency’s doctors before. He’d been injured, of course, but Au-... but his previous austringer had either cleaned him up, himself, or had taken him to a seedy third-rate doctor who Clint had always doubted still had his license, if he ever had. And this man was clearly much more than just a doctor, a scientist, and someone that his new austringer trusted, which, for the moment, was all that Clint wanted to focus on, or really could, when he processed it. “I’d like water, light, and I think... I think, if you could take me to Austringer Coulson after that, I’d like that.” He wanted to wait, to prove he didn’t mind sitting here in the dark with the slightly odd doctor, but he was both curious about his new mews and mewsmate, and about how Austringer Coulson handled her. And, when he thought about it, he wanted to spend more time with the person now responsible for him, both out of curiosity and need.
“Of course, of course.” Dr. Banner stood and opened the door a crack, as Austringer Coulson had, letting the light slowly flood the room until his eyes could cope before he flicked on the overhead light. The doctor was younger than Clint had expected somehow, curly dark hair framing his face, or perhaps taking over it, and eyes that held the same sort of gentleness as his austringer. He handed the water cup to Clint, watched as he drank it down, and stepped out into the hallway ahead of him, moving to the side instead of naturally taking the place in front as an austringer would do.
There were too many hallways at SHIELD Agency headquarters and Clint had to use every bit of his tracking sense to follow the twists and turns that led them from his holding mews to where he’d be staying. He knew that was part of the point, the Agency had no great desire to be simple to breach, or easy for a hapless hawk on the run to escape from. SHIELD supposedly stood for Strategic Hawk Identification, Education and Leashing Division. The general public were taught that being a hawk was something that, for the most part, naturally came to certain people as opposed to something took years of teaching and training - of course some were much better suited for it than others, but Clint had always thought that his previous austringer had not cared a bit about if he ‘spoke of great potential’ so much as that he was homeless, unattended, and a pathetic looking thirteen year old with a hint of fight in him.
Pausing in an empty hallway that looked like the previous four, the doctor pulled out his cell and entered something, waited, and then after a moment nodded at it. “Coulson says he’s done debriefing Hawk Romanov.” He nodded abstractly at his phone before putting it away and continuing around the corner. Three corners later and Clint could tell they’d reached the Agency Mews: doors led to windowless rooms, each labeled with an Austringer’s name and the list of the hawks under his care. Most had only one or two, but a rare few handled more than that. At the very end of the hall, which was a dead-end, the door was labeled ‘Coulson’, and had ‘Nat. Romanov’ and ‘Clint Barton’ under it, in handwriting so neat it almost looked printed. A quiet vocal hum came from inside, and when Dr. Banner knocked it stopped abruptly.
Instead of Austringer Coulson, the door was opened by a young woman with hair so red as to make ‘flame-like’ seem not quite enough to describe it, and yet the color was clearly natural. She looked between them with the instant, cautious gaze and steady, unmoving face of a hawk, her movements almost exaggerated in their birdlike way. Her gaze moved over the doctor quickly and turned to Clint, sizing him up, cataloguing him, filing him away. If it wasn’t exactly what Clint, himself, did, upon meeting new people, he would be unnerved. He wondered if he looked quite as deadly serious about it as she did, but then, she could probably look any way she wanted and still be fascinating.
“Hawk Barton,” she stated, casually, a fact lined up and already assessed. She held up her hand, small and no doubt deadly dangerous, for Clint to shake. He could feel the strength there when he did, hovering just under the assumed exterior of weakness. He had not spent time with many other hawks, in fact he could count the times he’d exchanged more than a nod with another of his kind on one hand, but if they were all like his new mewsmate, he could see why the Agency had the reputation it did.
“Hawk Romanov?” Clint asked, despite knowing the answer. She nodded and then moved out of the way as Austringer Coulson tapped her on the shoulder. His hazel eyes scanned Clint, and like the other hawk, his expression gave away nothing, despite the fact his smile, when he’d finished, was warm.
“Thank you, Dr. Banner, I’ll see you at the meeting later?” he paused to give the doctor a quick smile in dismissal.
“I’m sure I’ll see you around, Hawk Barton,” Dr. Banner ran a hand distractedly through his curls, “If you ever need anything and your austringer isn’t available, know that you can come to me, alright?”
Clint caught himself nodding even though he almost wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to. It was so completely foreign to him to have so much attention spent on his comfort within such a short period of time - or at all - and why the wry scientist with his kicked-puppy-Bambi eyes would care was almost as much of a mystery as Austringer Coulson just was. Dr. Banner wandered away back down the hall and Clint turned his attention at once to his new handler.
“Glad to see you, Hawk Barton. I’ve been working with Hawk Romanov for almost five years now, so we have a fairly steady partnership, hence the fact she goes on missions without me being on site with her. That leaves me time to work with you, to get you back out in the field as quickly as possible. I may end up working you together sometimes, and this is where you will both be housed. I don’t have a private mews at the moment, my apartment is being used as a safehouse for the agency, so until that changes, this is home.”
Home. Partnership. Clint clung to the ideas that swam thick through Austringer Coulson’s simple words, nesting them in his mind in a place where he could pick them up later and turn them over, feel out how they sounded, albeit silently, on his tongue.
Austringer Coulson made room in the doorway so he could pass inside, the bare room still obviously more comfortable than the mews Clint was used to. The two beds were slightly different, Hawk Romanov’s had been there longer, and had a small collection of impersonal personal items on a nightstand next to it. Clint’s was a blank slate, the standard issue bedding carefully folded at the foot, along with a new set of leather jesses and his hood, freshly cleaned. It would probably smell of leather soap again: his previous austringer had given him a bar once as a reward, one of his few.
“Thank you, sir.” He turned to give Austringer Coulson his full attention. “I will do my best to deserve my place here.”
“I’m sure you will. I want to get you a new hood soon, but small steps, and you’ll probably need one here, in order to sleep.” The austringer reached to the wall next to him and pushed a small button inset against the creamish grey plaster, causing curtains to slide upwards over a larger picture window. “Natasha, Hawk Romanov, doesn’t like to be enclosed in a black room, or a hood. She is unable to sleep that way, due to bad handling in her past. That’s why my mews is at the end of the hallway. When you are here alone, you may keep the window closed, and no light will enter, but when you are both here, the window must remain open. If knowing the window is there will cause you distress, hood on or not, let me know now and I can arrange something.”
“No,” Clint stared out the window with a gaze that was close to hungry. They were so many floors up that security wouldn’t be any kind of issue, so Clint knew there was no reason to fear. “I’ve never been in a mews where I was allowed to look out. But I think for sleeping I will need my hood, so thank you for returning it to me.”
“Of course.” Austringer Coulson gave Hawk Romanov a nod that Clint caught out of the corner of his eye, and she disappeared from view, the door closing behind her.
The silence between Clint and his new austringer - handler - master - was one that he could live with: it didn’t drag on uncomfortably, there was no nervous tension, and he almost wondered how long the two of them would stand, staring out at the frenetically moving city. Eventually Austringer Coulson turned, giving Clint a serious, searching look.
“I don’t want you to have false expectations about the nature of our relationship. I know you’ve been one-on-one with your previous austringer for all of your adult life, and most of your teens, and I can... guess... from certain things said that you and he were intimate sexually, as well. Many austringers have that kind of relationship with their hawks, but I never have, and considering what you and Hawk Romanov have both been through, it isn’t appropriate to take advantage of you in that way.”
Clint tried out a small smile that he hoped was reassuring.
“However,” the austringer continued, looking less intense but just as serious, “that doesn’t mean you won’t receive all the care and attention I can give you. I won’t spoil you, and I will expect total obedience, but the rewards will match your actions, and if you continue to do as well as you have in the past, you’ll be rewarded often. Sometimes that will be in the form of physical touch, if you are comfortable with that, in a non-sexual way, sometimes in the form of short leaves for an afternoon or day, sometimes with new equipment or food, we’ll have to work out between us what works. Punishments, if you disobey, will be harsh, but fair. You’ll have somewhat of a retraining period, mostly so I can see where you are on different skills, and during that time I expect you to obey as quickly as you can, partially so we can begin to bond, and partially so I can gauge your reaction times.”
Austringer Coulson stopped and reached out to the bed, picking up the jesses, rubbing the thin leather strips across his palms. “For now, I will hood and tie you at night and when you’re doing other activities. Eventually I’d like you to just be hooded except in special cases, but we’re starting from square one, in order to develop trust, and respect, both on your end and on mine. Does all of this make sense?”
“Yes, sir!” Clint could almost feel his spine straightening, his body loosening from its perpetual almost-slouch. Respect. Trust. He could work towards that.
"Good, my hawk," the austringer set the jesses down, and reached to ruffle Clint's hair, the hesitance in his smile leaving. "Good."