Pray Harder As Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell Intensifies

by JuzuGardenia

Summary:

Clint Russell Barton is now officially Agent Hawkeye, and has his own fancy job title to go with it. (Haha, he’s the C.O.S.T. Liaison. Also, NO he DOESN’T work in Sales.)

But is his first SHIELD Mission weeding out all the undercover monsters in the organization? Is it annoying his bosses and running circles around his coworkers? (Maybe if he ever learns to keep all their names straight.) Nope, it’s something he was in no wise prepared to face - Camp’s worst nightmare: debriefing meetings.

Now Clint has a list of things to do: paint a banger mural on his barrack wall, learn to stay awake at night and lie, kill monsters, train two surprise partners, gather information for both Camp and SHIELD, acquire the real names of the different parts of this plane, oh, and figure out how to keep his two families from nuking each other.

His first priority above all that, however, is keeping his little brother Percy alive on his first trek across the States. Without anyone but SHIELD knowing, of course.

-
Warning: Several chapters are almost entirely worldbuilding (I seem to like fitting round PJO and MCU canon pegs into my rectangle hole) and there's so MUCH dialogue, but I'll let you know ahead of time.

Chapter 1: Not Me Feeling Michael On A Spiritual Level

Summary:

Clinton wraps up his last few days at Camp Half-Blood by spending extra time with his family before he runs away to his new job at SHIELD. He also gets an emotional gift from his brother, Charles.

The only downside to being a morning person, Clinton has decided, is the waiting for other people to fully wake up. He knew the moment he woke up on the morning of the 4th, that he had less than a week left with the people at Camp, at his home. The meeting on the 3rd had lasted 7 hours and ended with a date, a time, a place, and an assignment. That the assignment would last several years went unspoken. 

Every morning for years, he would rise with the sun along with his other siblings and get ready to the faint soundtrack that his dad liked to play at a frequency only his kids and roosters could hear. Their dad usually played a bit more variety, but for the last three weeks, it had been “Here Comes The Sun” by the Beatles every morning, and it was obvious that a few of his siblings were getting sick of it. Michael, ever the unique one, always acted like “the only sane person here”: groaning, clamping his pillow around his ears, turning over to wrap himself in the warmth of his blankets, and stubbornly ignoring the literal divine wake-up call in favor of staying in bed. 

Then, Clinton would enjoy a nice early morning breakfast with his siblings, go through activities with his cabin, sometimes go to counselor meetings with Lee, occasionally break into Cabin 9 or Cabin 5, often prank multiple cabins at a time (he was only still alive because no one could trace any of them back to him), attend trainings, teach acrobatics, gossip with Charles about people right in front of them (since there were less than half a dozen people at camp that were fluent in ASL besides them), and generally live the demigod life. 

For his last few days though, Clinton decided to change it up a bit. From the 4th to the 7th, he waited at Table 7 after he had finished eating for his new little brother to approach the dining pavilion (which usually took a few hours), and then quickly skipped over to Table 3 to air-chair while the little sea star ate.

For lunch every day, he would gather Percy, Charles, and Laura, give their offerings to the gods, and then take their food down to the lake to eat altogether. At dinners - the most formal meal of the day due to the report-like announcements at the end before they were dismissed to the bonfire and sing-along - he would sit with his siblings without coercion than follow them dutifully to the amphitheater to enjoy the presence of family all around him, with Laura or Percy occasionally joining him.  

On the 4th and 6th, he made use of the “Counselor Loan” rules that covered the fact that a counselor or a second from one cabin was allowed to be “loaned out” to another cabin in order to help them keep the peace for specific activities. This rule had been made mostly for Cabin 11 since one or two counselors had no chance of keeping 20-40 kids (depending on the day and time of year) all in line, but was occasionally invoked for other situations, such as the one Clinton found himself in.

Clinton easily got permission from Lee (via bribery) and Chiron (via blackmail) for himself to be “loaned out” to Cabin 3 since the Apollo Cabin was usually pretty chill (and even if they weren’t, Michael could easily help Lee keep them in line for weeks; everyone in camp was terrified of the fact that he had the skills of a internationally renown brain surgeon but hadn’t officially taken the Hippocratic Oath yet). 

Those two days were spent showing Percy the ins and outs of life at Camp Half-Blood and diving head-first into as much trouble as they humanly possibly could without getting caught. He showed Percy the blindspots around the Big House so one could walk up to it without anyone in it seeing them. He dared Percy to try to water bend, and then took on a return dare to shoot an apple sitting above the surface from a tiny air bubble under the lake. They attempted to sneak into Cabin 9 together and left singed, wild-eyed and with a new perspective. 

“Wow!” Clinton said, snuffing out the small part of the dazed boy’s raven hair that was still on fire by pinching it. “I had no idea getting caught was so fun! I’ll have to try it more often.” 

On the 5th, Clinton handed Percy off to Cyrus, the Demeter Cabin’s counselor, easily getting him to agree to “let Cabin 3 do combined activities with Cabin 4” since those happened often enough between other Cabins. He then spent the day with Charles and annoyed him as much as possible since he wouldn’t be able to for a while.

He detailed his assignment, moped and complained about having to leave, collected 20 drachma’s worth of debts, pranked him at meals, bantered with and chattered at the broad teen constantly while he was trying to work on a blueprint, made contradictory predictions abut what his job would be like then insisted he was right and Charles was wrong since his dad was the god of prophecy, and just generally was a nuisance to his best friend. 

On the 7th, he spent the first half of the day with his maybe-girlfriend-except-he-hadn’t-actually-asked-her-out-yet, Laura. They’d met when she had been led to camp through dreams and half thought she was going insane until she’d run into some evil cactus spirits in Manhattan and gotten the attention of two daring campers out on a date. The couple, Rensuke (Cabin 5) and Aurelie (unclaimed), wanted to drop her off and run, and Clinton had happened to be there when they stumbled into camp. Laura hadn’t been claimed yet, but she had arrived on Valentine’s day, so when she had gravitated towards Cabin 10, they let her due to the auspiciousness of the day she showed up on. She had a sleepover there at least once a week. 

He had first outlined his new job and that she shouldn’t worry when he “mysteriously disappears” and then spent the rest of the morning attempting through various methods to get her do that “ugly snort” thing she does when she laughs uncontrollably and NOT making puppy eyes whenever he succeeded.

In the afternoon, he went with Chiron to have a meeting about some of the more intricate details of his liaison situation on the camp side, including setting up a bank account so that SHIELD could actually pay him. The paycheck wasn’t too bad, but less than he had originally thought it’d be. Apparently, a lot of thought went into determining the exact amount: balancing what SHIELD’s budget could afford, compensation for the mortal danger they continuously put their agents in, subtracting the value of the room, board, and training they provided them for free, etc. 

But all too soon, his last four days were over and Clinton was saying goodbye to the people who had been his home for four years. Lee peppily led the campfire as he usually did, but Clinton could still see the sadness in his eyes every time they strayed to him, which they did much more often than normal that night.

Since Clint was scheduled to leave Camp at six am the next morning, a time when no one but his siblings would be awake to say goodbye, he gave Percy extra squishy cuddles told him to, “Take good care of yourself while I’m not there to do it for you, Perseus Russo Jackson,” and gave him magically charged flick to the forehead before he sent him off for the night. The flick was actually a blessing of health, and while it was nowhere near the level of a god’s blessing, Clint knew that his little sea horse would need it on the quest to come. 

(It hadn’t actually been ordered yet, but Chiron had confirmed what Clinton had already guessed at the meeting earlier that day: that a quest would be ordered and that it would be given to Percy. Chiron had said he wasn’t planning on giving it for a few weeks though, unless something drastic happened.) 

He then took the chance to walk Laura to the Aphrodite Cabin, where she was having a sleepover that night. At the door, he gave her a pearl bracelet with a songbird charm that he had crafted himself out of Celestial Bronze and then enchanted himself (with much bribing of, guidance from and singed eyebrows to both Charles and Lou, the one young confirmed child of Hecate that camp had stuffed in the Hermes Cabin). 

At her curious raised eyebrow, he admitted that upon questioning several children of Aphrodite (and then confirmation from other girls from several different cabins that knew Laura to make sure no one was pranking him), he’d learned that - due to her love of regency romance novels - she would find it extra super romantic if he made the effort to attempt to court her old-fashioned style.

He almost bit his tongue off in nervousness admitting that the bracelet was his first official gift to show that he was interested and that she didn’t have to accept his affections yet since the style of courting meant the recipient could be courted by several people at once. It was a relief that courting was literally supposed to be long distance dating since he was leaving in the morning. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and left. 

The next morning, on the 8th, Clinton woke up at 4am (before the rest of his siblings). Instead of getting ready and heading to breakfast, he got ready in the one change of clothes he’d left out, stuffed his pajamas in the duffle bag that held 90% of everything he owned and left the Cabin before fifteen minutes had passed. He hiked to the top of Half-Blood Hill to wait for the sun to rise in order to set off and was surprised when Charles joined him a mere 35 minutes before he was going to leave. His best friend was not an early bird. 

At his raised eyebrow, all Charles did was throw a box at him and sit down next to him to watch the sunrise. They had done this only a handful of times before and it made Clinton scan through the memories they had in the exact spot they that they silently sat in. 

They had spent a few minutes resting there as the sun rose on that first morning they’d left the infirmary and gotten lost trying to find Cabin 11 (before they ran into Chiron), talking about what the camp might be like.

Charles had made the effort to go up there for the first of Clinton’s birthdays at camp and suggested it become a birthday tradition, but the Son of Apollo knew that the taller boy would hate to get up so early even twice a year, so they saved it for delicate occasions instead.

When Clinton got word that two of his three older siblings from the circus had died in a riot, the blacksmith had listened as the archer reminisced from after the bonfire until dawn on the hill (the riot had happened almost a year prior to him learning of it but that didn’t make it hurt any less).

Clinton had gotten the other up early to talk about Charles’ nerves as light began to touch the sky the day after he was appointed Cabin Nine’s counselor.

He had found the Son of Hephaestus there when Charles’ mother had attempted to reach out to him and the resulting internal crisis took them until noon to talk out. 

Thinking of their very first morning spent on the hill, the first day that they explored Camp, Clinton made a joke about how, “What goes around comes around,” to which he got told to shut up and open the box. Inside was a harness of sorts, with wide straps made of leather that he knew would form perfectly around his torso. Along the straps were several pockets of different sizes and eight dagger sleeves, each filled with a gleaming, newly made dagger. He could tell just from looking at it that every knife was exactly the same weight and balance, like throwing knives should be, but were solid and dense enough to act as daggers should he need to fight close quarters. 

What really threw him for a loop was that instead of them being the same design - as most throwing knife sets were in order to easier make their weight and balance uniform - each was unique. Their shape and style was the same: a modified dagger design the two of them had come up with themselves, a crossbreed between the tips of the Ancient Greek ankyle (throwing javelin) and a Spartan xyele (a curved knife similar to a sickle). However, each had a unique design along the blade and on the hilt. He slowly took each of them out to examine the eight separate designs, with Charles explaining each along the way. 

The first dagger was a deep red with cloud-like swirls not engraved into the blade, but created out of the way the steel was forged. Its cross guard was slightly more pronounced than most grecian blades and its grip was firm and gray, with the pommel below that molded into a simple sphere. Charles explained, “I know you don’t know much about your birth family, but your last name, Russo, is Italian and means ‘Red’. You didn’t have much time with them, but they are who you come from and do count as your first family.” 

The second dagger’s grip was a familiar shade of light purple with a shimmering steel blade that shone as he inspected the shapes in the design. There were music notes entwined with little circles and arrows, and the crosspiece was in the familiar shape of trapeze catch bar. The pommel was in a weird dollop shape reminiscent of a Big Top’s dome stuck upside-down to the bottom of the dagger. “After them came your circus family, and you became The Great Hawkeye. They shaped your skills and your heart and I know that they’d want to be with you in battle if they knew what kind of life you live now.” 

The third dagger’s blade was a normal looking celestial bronze with pegasus wings engraved on it, a laurel shaped finger guard, a bright orange grip, and a pointed pommel almost as sharp as the blade. “As of now, the Camp is your home. I know you’re going out there to try and protect the people here and even though no one will know what things you’ll face or what you’re doing for them, everyone you know will be with you in spirit and will wait for you to come safely back home to them.” 

The fourth dagger was a bright enchanted gold with a soft yellow grip and shimmering lines streaking down the blade. Clinton knew that if he counted them, there would be 21. The cross guard’s engravings was reminiscent of arrow fletching and the pommel was prism shaped and engraved with tiny lyres. “Cabin 7 is your close family now. You have siblings that love you and will support every decision you make with no hesitation, even if they have no context or are completely aware its a bad idea. I know that while you’re gone, many prayers will be sent from them to your father about your safety. Keep that in mind with everything you do.” 

The fifth dagger had a gleaming blade that he could tell was made of misted silver and engraved with a plethora of different of flowers. It’s crosspiece was shaped into an elongated teardrop jewel cut and the grip was a dusty pink with a rose shaped pommel. Charles smirked, “You know that Laura will think of you and pray for your safety every day, man. I also know you well enough that you’d like to have a piece of her with you as you go, but are too much of a wuss to ask her for something like that. So, this will have to do until you man up. Every demigod should carry a silver weapon just in case, but hopefully this one will serve you well in cases other then that, like maybe to serve as something you can stare at with hearts in your eyes when she’s not there for you to make them at her.” Clinton rolled his eyes as he reached for the next one. 

The sixth dagger took him a little longer to figure out, as the metal was a grey-blue, but he eventually puzzled out that it was also made of misted silver, it had just been treated or something during it’s forge. The blade was covered in wave shapes and occasional stars spotting it, with a black grip, a twisting ocean blue finger guard, and a jagged pommel engraved with shells and pearls. “You claimed Percy as a Russo. That means he’s more than just a Cabin sibling. Camp establishes early on with most campers that the gods don’t have DNA, but we choose to be family with our cabins. This means that Percy, despite also being a demigod, is your first mortal family since the circus. That means he’s different. Mortal families can be even more difficult than our godly one, but they’re also more precious. You claiming that kid meant a lot to him, but I know it meant even more to you. I know you’ll protect him when he goes out there, and I know he’ll worry for you even when he really oughta be worrying about himself.” 

The seventh dagger he pinned right away as Charlie’s. It was normal celestial bronze with a red motif of flames licking up the blade and a gear collage engraved in the cross guard. The pommel was carefully molded into what looked like a jumbled mess of wires and the grip was red and brown with a word pressed into its leather: Δάμων, meaning Damon. “I wasn’t the first you called brother, and I won’t be the last, but you were the first to call me family, and that means more to me than the world. I trust you with my life, and if there’s even the slightest detail I can help you with while you’re out there keeping us safe, you call me. Because I’ve always got your back. I refuse to sit here doing nothing but worrying, so if you don’t ask for help at least once a week, I will be tracking you down on your latest mission and enforcing help upon you.” 

The eighth dagger was enchanted gold, but had geometric fish etched up the blade in deepest black that he knew was a reference to his run down guitar. The crosspiece was molded into the shape of a hawk’s wings, and the pommel rounded at the bottom with facets delicately engraved with tiny music staffs. Clinton could tell that the notes on the staff spiraling down made up the classical piece Charles most commonly hummed to him, Chopin’s Waltz in A Minor, B. 150. It was the only other dagger with a word pressed into it’s sky blue and light purple leather grip to match: Πυθίας meaning Pythias. Clinton could have cried. 

Charles kept talking, his eyes suspiciously dry. “The point of all of this is that you’re not alone. You’re going out there into a strange and dangerous place with new rules and unexpected challenges all by yourself in order to keep us safe, but don’t assume that means that nobody you know wants you safe too. Camp needs this, so we’re letting you go, but all those people that this gift embodies are only connected by one thing: you."

"The lives of so many people were changed for the better by you, and just because you’re moving on to go save so many more doesn’t mean that those you’ve already touched are going to let you up and leave to do it all yourself. A group is able to do so much more than an individual, and I’d like you to remember that every time you look at these weapons, Clinton Bartone Russo.” Charles stood up, and Clinton stumbled to his feet, still speechless. The blacksmith clapped him on the shoulder in a firm hug, then stepped back. “Make sure you write about stuff that’s not just work. I don’t want to only ever hear from you when you’ve gotten into trouble, Clint Russell Barton.” 

And then, his soul brother was gone, and the Son of Apollo had to take a deep breath, man up, and take his first step into the next dangerous era of his life. 

Notes:

Two things:

First, when google searching up what an ankyle is, the AI will tell you that the word refers to the throwing strap in the middle of the javelin, but don’t be fooled! Further research will prove that Ankyle refers to the whole javelin while the word “Amentum” is the actual name of the strap :)

Second, I felt way too “middle school girl writer describing every freaking detail of her ‘strong’ female lead” while writing the part about the daggers.

I just really liked the idea of Charlie making Clint a new set of daggers for his new job but then I was like “bro, Beckendorf would defo have given each dagger a unique feature if he ever made a set” but then I realized that my version of Clint is a scatterbrain and obv his brother would know that so he would defo make them all look different so they can’t be mixed up but then I was like “broo wait” and then I just had so many good ideas about how each could embody a different piece of Clinton’s family and then the easter eggs basically threw themselves onto the daggers and then each description had its own paragraph and then Clint and Charlie were having a bromantic moment and I was just awkwardly there as an invisible witness and there was nothing I could do about it. Sorry :/

---

Michael: I fear no man. But that...
Clinton: *wakes up on time in the morning to his internal clock w/o any alarms*
Michael: That THING… It scares me.

Laura: Bring the beat in!
Clinton: ANYTHING FOR YOU BEYONCE

Charles: I can show you the world bro.
Clinton: bro, show me then.
Charles: *holds up a mirror*
Clinton: …bro
Charles: 'cause you're my world, bro
Clinton: *teary* bro, you're my world too
Charles: *teary* bro

Chapter 2: How To Get Your New Bosses To Trust You (And Simultaneously Give Them Continuous Panic Attacks)

Summary:

Clint meets up with his bosses, signs a contract, makes an oath, and settles into his new home base, spreading chaos along the way.

Clint could immediately tell that Director Fury was ticked off when the eyepatch guy approached him as he bounced between the balls and heels of his feet. He didn’t think it was because of the bouncing and he had been right on time, having been told to be at Nolan Park on Governors Island at 7am on June 8th. He tilted his head, glancing at the position of the sun in the sky, and estimated that it was between 6:39am and 6:44am. That meant it couldn’t be because he was late. Clint mentally shrugged. If Fury was mad because of him then the guy could either tell him why so he could fix it, or the spy could deal with it and move on with life. 

Apparently, the SHIELD Director picked the former. 

“This island is only accessible by ferry. How did you get here without using one?” The man said in lieu of a greeting. 

The truth was that he’d flown here on one of the smarter Pegasi, Daffodil, who was often chosen for drop offs since she could be relied on to fly back to Camp with no rider. Not always straight back, but she always ended up back there within the week, which is more than can be said for any of the others. But because this answer involved a myth, his reflex was to deflect. 

“Hey, Chief! How have you been since we last spoke? Me? Oh, I’ve been pretty great myself, no new broken bones or anything in the last four days. Thanks for asking!” He chirped cheerfully as Agent Coulson hurried up to the two of them, obviously having been left behind by his furious boss (HA). “And thanks for the attempt at stalking too, man. Nice to see that you’re still sticking to espionage and schemes to try to get my secrets out of me rather than, like, torture or something.” 

Fury pressed further, undeterred. “Not a single camera or agent detected your arrival until you were already in the park. This island is only four acres. How?” 

Clint’s instincts almost won over, a good seven or eight more deflections on the tip of his tongue as he opened his mouth to reply. Then, he remembered that he’d already told them about the gods, and Camp, and his parentage. He had no need to hide, so he considered how to gently word, ‘I descended from the sky on a bird horse’. 

Then, his love of mischief crept up, bidding him to be mysterious and vague, which would most definitely frustrate the Director and be hilarious. Then his lust for drama attacked and he considered telling Fury that he did, indeed, take the normal ferry and his agents must just be slacking off. Then his sense of reason stepped in and decided that pissing off his new boss who is giving him the opportunity to protect his home and family on a nation-wide, pinpoint accurate scale was not his best idea. 

This was when he realized he had been standing there like an idiot, with his mouth open to answer and two of his new co-workers waiting for a reply, for like twenty whole seconds. His brain short circuited and he blurted, “You wouldn’t believe me.” 

Fury raised an eyebrow. “I watched you kill a snake-legged woman with projectiles made of solid light particles after jumping off a forty foot building to collect a cursed necklace. A day later, I threw the ancient gold coin you gave me into a rainbow to trigger a magic video call to set you up as the liaison between my public spy organization that deals with aliens monthly and your secret society of monster hunting half-gods.” 

Clint shot him a finger gun. “Point.” He dropped his hand, deciding to be blunt. “I flew here.” 

Coulson scrunched his nose in confusion from behind Fury, who raised his other eyebrow, eyes not betraying any skepticism nor surprise. “On?” 

Clint shifted his weight on his feet, slightly uncomfortable openly talking about things usually kept from adults in power. And adults in general that were under the age of 500. “A pegasus.” Agent Coulson’s eyes lit with curiosity and excitement, so Clint elaborated. “Most of the pegasi that stay at Camp have to be manned at all times on quests, but two or three are trained well enough to return after dropping off their passenger. I flew the most reliable one here and sent her back immediately, so she’s probably most of the way back by now.” 

‘-If she didn’t make any pit stops on the way.’ He didn’t add. 

Agent Coulson was very openly disappointed. Fury possibly looked slightly upset by that as well, but it might’ve been the demigod’s imagination. 

Clint clasped his hands in front of him loudly, grabbing both of their attention. “Well, gentlemen? Straight to business then?” 

At Fury’s affirmative glance, Agent Coulson nodded, pulled up the briefcase he carried, and opened it. He withdrew a folder and passed it to Fury, who grabbed a click pen out of an inside pocket of his trench coat and handed both to Clint. 

The Son of Apollo opened the folder and began to flick through the five double sided pages, scanning them to make sure the contract was correct. The meeting that had taken seven hours had been filled mostly by two things; nailing down details of the liaison position and negotiating the contract between the two organizations (as much as Camp can be called that). Clint did not have an eidetic memory, but he did make sure to sear most of the key points they had covered into his brain. 

The gist of it was “I won’t give away any of SHIELD’s confidential information without one of my boss’ permission unless it’s an emergency (and then the definition of emergency was outlined), I won’t betray my bosses (with a list of scenarios of where compromise is allowed and those when it is not), I will share any matters of national security that my organization aware of, I will report all findings from my missions to my bosses, etc, etc. In return, I can choose to prioritize quests from my own organization as long as I properly notify my bosses, I’m allowed to share information important to the safety of my organization, the only people I have to defer to as my bosses are Nicholas Fury and Phillip Coulson (unless further negotiated), I reserve the right to keep some information about my organization to myself, etc, etc.” 

The rest was just the boring workplace safety rules, the employee files clause, vacation guidelines, training and lodging details, insurance and dental benefits, and the ever encouraging, “SHIELD is not responsible for my death and I definitely signed this contract of my own free will.” 

Clint, being one of the few extra lucky demigods that swapped dyslexia for a different problem (he suspects his deafness, but can’t be completely sure), sped read the contract just to make sure nothing had been added or taken out since the end of their talk. After a few minutes, he was satisfied and clicked the pen a good six or eight times just to annoy the two men waiting in suspense, and signed his new name in both block and cursive next to the date. Technically, it wasn’t legally binding since he was only fourteen, making it a contract with a minor, but “Clint Russell Barton” was eighteen, so he would pretend it was official since he needed the job. 

He handed the contract folder back to Agent Coulson but kept Fury’s pen, clicking it incessantly as he turned to his new superior. “So, did you two do your research?” 

Coulson froze from where he was putting the folder back in his briefcase, his face draining into a pallor. Fury’s brows furrowed and his expression hardened. There was a tense silence between the three of them. Clint kept clicking the pen. 

Finally, Agent Coulson spoke up. “You… You weren’t serious, were you? You can’t be serious.” 

This, of course, was referring to the fact that during their meeting, Clint offered to “make a magically binding vow” to seal the contract. At the time, the two SHIELD Agents welcomed it, thought it a great way to prove trust and be sure no betrayal or subterfuge could occur. After asking for more details, all Clint would elaborate on the subject was that they should look into “Oaths on the River Styx” as thoroughly as they possibly could. 

Apparently, they had done so properly, since they seemed appropriately terrified. 

Clint’s pen clicking continued. “I don’t expect either of you to swear.” 

The two agents exchanged loaded expressions. Coulson turned to him. “Clint, we don’t want you to swear either. It’s… deeply moving that you even suggested it, especially when we had no idea how serious this pledge is and would’ve been prone to taking it lightly. But we wouldn’t…” The agent faltered, obviously horrified by this situation. “Clint, we wouldn’t ask you to put an eternity worse than death on the line for a peaceful agreement between organizations that are both dedicated to protecting the safety of the world. Aren’t there any other kind of oaths?” 

Clint shrugged, finger working overtime to keep the pen clicking. “There are vows to the gods, which only incur their divine wrath singularly focused on the ‘reneger’ when broken. If I swore on my dad, though, he might let me off if I had a good reason, so that’s out of the question.” When it looked like both of them were going to protest, Clint shook his head, cutting them off. “Listen, I know you’re concerned, but the point is that this is a show of trust. I’m willing to take these risks of eternal danger because I don’t intend to back out. No bad things will befall me since I’m not going to go back on my word. And a vow to a god is only between the person pledging and the god. You wouldn’t be able to ascertain for sure if I was lying or if the vow even existed. An Oath on the Styx is so powerful that even the mortals in the area can tell how serious a pledge was just made.” 

The other two were quiet as they let that sink in, and Clint, pen still clicking away, took the opportunity. He took a deep breath in, and then let it out. If he was doing it, he was doing it as dramatically as possible, and no one could stop him from making a scene of it. Just for the fun of it, he turned to the side, sank to one knee, and laced his fingers together in an earnest clasp mere inches from his bowed head. It might’ve been more reverent if the pen wasn’t still between his hands but at least he had stopped clicking it. 

“I, on this day,” He began, the audience of his two new bosses staring at him in horror. “Do sincerely swear and attest to the hallowed and tenebrous deity of Olympus, Her Eminence, the Goddess Styx Deinḗ, and on her counterpart, the sepulchral and supreme torrent of the underworld, the River Styx Acheron, that I will abide by the criteria, observe the arrangements, and comply with the conditions, of which were previously negotiated with the organization of SHIELD on the date of June 3rd, 2007,” He eyed his slowly panicking coworkers and tilted his head at them in a ‘see? I'm not a total idiot’ sort of way as he finished with, “To the best of my ability, provided that the agreed upon requirements, understandings, and compromises are recognized and maintained in return.” He clicked his pen for good measure. “This I so swear.” 

The relief on the SHIELD Agent’s faces at his closing statement was quickly replaced by the comprehending horror and disturbed shock as the air became heavy, thunder rolled darkly and the ground shock ominously in recognition of the vow. 

They stared at him mutely as he got up from the ground, dusted off the knees of his jeans, and casually began to click the pen again. He grinned, straightened smartly, and saluted with his free hand. “So, when do we start?” 

— 

Turns out, the first thing he did as the official SHIELD Civil Occult Specialist and Theurgy Liaison was get lectured on reckless behavior on his way to his new training base. 

Everyone knows that SHIELD HQ is in Washington, DC, but what is less known is that SHIELD has at least one base for every other state, and at least three small outposts per state for monitoring and quick response. One such small outpost was located underwater, just off of Governors Island, where the Dimond Reef used to be. That was why Fury had him meet them at a park within walking distance to Soissons Landing, the Ferry Terminal less than 500 yards (like four football fields) away from it. 

Clint took one look at the strange looking plane Fury wanted to cram him into and immediately fell to his knees and began to orate an ancient hymn to Zeus just as fast as he could speak, praying for safety and unbothered passage. As Coulson attempted to get Clint to tell him how he managed to recite 86 lines in two minutes without stopping for breath once, Fury raised a brow at him. 

Clint shrugged. “Usually only the Lord of the Skies’ nephews receive animosity and therefore immediate destruction when passing through Mr. Almighty’s domain, but it never hurts to be safe. It’s like checking to make sure the breaks in your car haven’t been slashed before you drive it; they usually are fine, but the one time they’re not, well, aren’t you glad you checked?” 

The base that Fury had arranged for him to be stationed at for training and housing was in Maryland, “somewhere sort of close to Appleton and near-ish to the Christina River”. It took them 37 minutes to get there, so Clint guessed that the strange jet they were in had been going around 200 mph. He looked around the inside of it and saw all the blinking lights and sleek designs and wished he could introduce this plane to Charles. Apollo knows he’d rip it apart, put it back together better than it was, and then mass produce them monster-proofed. These were the only thoughts he was allowed to have in peace before Fury laid into him about “protocol” and “manuals” and “survival instincts” and “common sense”. 

Once they touched down in Maryland, he was given a quick tour of the facility. Coulson spread his arms wide and grinned when they stepped out of the plane. “Welcome!” He said dramatically. “To SHIELD base 18-08: Aeacus.” 

Clint froze at the name, his mind having to reboot. Then he narrowed his eyes at Fury. “Do you think this is funny?” 

Fury tilted his head. “Actually, we stationed you here since you said you wanted to stay close to Connecticut and this is the closest SHIELD base. However,” He smirked slightly. “Yes, I do find the name funny now.” 

Clint rolled his eyes. “You’ll regret that when I have to find increasingly more creative things to call the base I’m stationed at.” 

Fury raised an eyebrow. 

Clint just shook his head. “Later.” 

The layout of the base was fairly simple, but it was obviously built to be slightly confusing for anyone who hadn’t previously been there so didn’t know their way around, and had strategic spots for combat. Both features were obviously for if the base were ever attacked or infiltrated. Afterwards, Clint was brought to one of the smaller meeting rooms and given his own blank personnel file to fill out. He was a little nervous about this. 

He had seen it coming after the seven hour meeting and had practiced his fake information afterwards so that even if his bosses knew it was fake due to there not being civilian records connected to his answers, at least it wasn’t obvious by how much he hesitated. The problem was that, at fourteen, Clint had never had a job before, much less a job in government intelligence, and therefore knew he couldn’t predict all the information they would ask him for. So he just practiced every question he could think of and prayed to his father that the rest wouldn’t be too hard to make up on the spot. 

Name: Clint Russell Barton 
Codename: Hawkeye 
Date of Birth: August 30th, 1988
Age: 18 
Position: Civil Occult Specialist and Theurgy Liaison 

All easy so far. 

Qualifications for position: 

Clint tilted his head, then shrugged. 

Qualifications for position: Son of Phoebus Apollon 

And so it went. He knew that for a lie to be believable, it had to be partially true, especially since Clint would be expected to remember this information and give it to others on command. That was why he picked August 30th as his fake birthday, just three days before his real birthday. He wasn’t sure how visible his file would be to other SHIELD Agents, but he did know that Fury and Coulson needed complete (as they were going to get) information to both build trust and so they could realistically gauge his skills, so he did include all relevant “supernatural” information that he and Chiron had agreed that they would share. 

After he was done, he passed the filled out form to Agent Coulson, who had been sitting across the meeting room table from him, and followed his superior through the winding hallways. They ended up in a training hall, and Clint spotted Fury in front of a group of ten or so Agents dressed in work out clothes. Clint grinned crookedly, guessing how this was going to go. 

Sure enough, after Fury introduced him as a new recruit to be trained and stationed at the base, and Clint had greeted everyone and been greeted in return, the Director clapped his hands for attention. “Agent Barton here has previous experience, but we need an estimate on just how much, so you ten have been selected to spar with him, going all out. I’m sure you all know well enough what order to line up in on that side of the training mat.” 

As the Agents all wandered over to do as he said, Clint pouted at his new boss. “What, I don’t get to change into fancy fighting clothes like them? I have to do this in my jeans?” 

“I watched you take down an army in jeans.” Fury deadpanned. 

Clint shrugged, having no argument. He did indeed go on the quest to the museum in a camp shirt, a faded gray jacket, and worn out jeans. “My kind tend to work with what we’ve got, which is jeans more often than not.” He perked up. “Hey, that rhymed! Dad would be proud.” Coulson snorted over from by the entrance door where he was waiting and Fury rolled his eyes, them being the only two to get the reference. 

No one was laughing twenty minutes later as the majorly bruised agents stared in shock at Clint, who stood over - the undefeated until now - Agent Phil Coulson. 

“Am I hallucinating from the head trauma?” A woman Clint vaguely remembered being introduced as Agent Claire Tashimoto asked. 

Clint raised his hands in a surrendering gesture as Coulson stared at the ceiling in confusion. “That was a fluke!” He yelled, actually truthful for once. “I could tell he was more experienced than me, so I used a move made to be unexpected and take down someone in seconds. He would’ve beat me if not for that.” 

The agents blinked at him owlishly. 

Clint sighed. Now he’d have to give Coulson a rematch and get beat into the dirt on his first day. Joy. 

Notes:

Listen, do you know how many times I’ve been employed by a secret government agency? ZERO TIMES. I may know my way around medical paperwork, but if you think I have the first idea how business organization paperwork goes, then idk ur wrong ig?

I don’t know what I’m doing, Clint doesn’t know what he’s doing, and in truth, what are ANY of us doing.

Today’s existential crisis brought to you by your resident chronically ill perfectionist pessimist.

—

Fury, watching every single camera set up on the island at once: I am vengeance, I am the night
Clint, a magic fourteen year old committing identity fraud: *coughing up bugs 200 ft above him*

Clint: IMPOSSIBLE!
Fury, who did his research: Like flying pigs? And status quo illusion vapor? And solid sunlight???

Phil, concerned for this small child: Let’s maybe, idk, NOT doom you to an eternity of torture? Please?
Clint, finding his innermost theatre kid: What? You’re excited for my speech to literally tear up the floor?

Clinton, age 10: And I’m not supposed to be able to read?
Lee: It’s ok sweetie, none of us can- wAIT a second you little fungus, SUPPOSED to????

Phil, trying to make a joke to his new coworker: Welcome to Aeacus!
Clint, who now can't refer to the base he's stationed on by name: Does my suffering amuse you?

Phil: *getting up for round two*
Clint: HahA iM in DANger

Chapter 3: I Work Hard To Make This House A Home

Summary:

Clint blows up a room, finds his new room, draws on the wall, is tested physically, then tested emotionally, then gets to show off his archery skills, then goes to bed and starts his first day on the job.

The rest of the tests to feel out his levels of experience went just as disastrous as the first. At least he didn’t have an audience this time, Fury and Coulson having asked the other ten agents to recuperate in the training hall while they led Clint to an attached shooting range so they could test some of his powers without spreading the word. 

They then tried to give Clint a handgun, unaware that he’d never even held one before, much less fired one. Clint was sure he could handle it, as it was technically a projectile weapon - the classification that is the specialty of the Children of Apollo - so he took it without complaint or warning. 

He knew the basics; wide stance, firm grip, two hands, etc. Fury and Coulson still clocked the inexperience the moment Clint aimed at the target in front of him. Before they could say anything though, Clint had already flicked off the safety and fired. The good news: he hit the ring just outside of the center. The bad news: he underestimated the recoil and his loose elbows (a habit from shooting his bow) sent the handle of the gun directly into his left eye. 

Fifteen minutes later, all three stumbled out of the shooting range and back into the training hall, covered in soot, ash billowing out of the door behind them as the fire alarm blared and they all coughed heavily. None of them were willing to explain to the ten agents how a hand gun blew up the target board, nor why there was evidence of more than one explosion and shrapnel in the walls. Fury quietly ordered Coulson a new handgun the next day. 

(Charles would be the only one he’d ever tell about how disastrous his powers were when combined with a gun wrong. The light projectile was unstable, which blew up on contact with the target, which would come in handy in a pinch if not for the fact that it also reacted unstably with the mechanism in the gun itself, which also blew up and would have taken his whole hand off if he hadn’t thrown it at the target like a shrapnel grenade.) 

(Despite only ever telling Charles, Natasha would use this experience as blackmail, having been told by Phil.) 

Fury declared a break for brunch - since it was only, like, 10:30am - but made it clear that the ten agents were to report to a different, similar training room on the other side of the building by 1300 hours exactly. Coulson threw a pouch at Clint with his security badge/official ID in it and told him that his assigned barrack was D6, then left with Fury to clean themselves up. Clint took one look at the wide, curious eyes of his bruised new coworkers and ran for the door. 

— 

The assigned barracks were a detached building to the west of the main facility, and had two floors. The first floor had five hallways, A through E, with ten barracks each. Hall A had barracks A1-A10, Hall B had barracks B1-B10, and so on. Hall E seemed to be empty for the moment, and Hall D was only full up to D6, his new dorm. There seemed to be a smaller building for visiting higher authorities with only five rooms, which was where Fury and Coulson were headed to. 

He glanced longingly at the door next to his, D7, but ultimately tapped the badge to the panel next to the door to open it. He stepped in and looked around, turning in a circle to take everything in. The room was twelve feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet tall, with a second, sliding door on the back wall. It had a small desk, a tall dresser, and a bare twin size bed inside its wood floored and white walled space. His duffle bag had been thrown on top of the dresser. 

Peeking through the sliding door in the back, he saw a bathroom as wide and tall as the bedroom, but only four feet long. It was tiled from floor to ceiling and had a simple toilet, sink, and mirror cupboard to one side of the door with a small shower on the other. 

He was surprised at how nice his room was. It was all obviously regulation for this base, and he was completely certain that all of the rooms in the assigned barracks were the same dimensions with the same floors and walls and furniture, but he was still surprised. He glanced around, thinking about how he would want the room arranged in the long term, since he would be staying here every weekday that he wasn’t on a mission and every other weekend when he wouldn’t be at camp to report to Chiron.

Eventually, he moved the twin size bed to the back right corner, long side to the wall, and put the dresser next to its head in place of a nightstand. He shoved the desk to the opposite corner on the same side as the bed, leaving the entire left wall blank. 

He then opened his duffle bag, grabbing a new change of clothes and stuffing the bag under the bed before taking a quick shower. Because the water temperature of showers at Camp relies on the order of cabins that take their showers, Clint has had everything from the most scalding of showers in the world to the most frigid.

It was nice that he could pick the temperature here, but he didn’t enjoy it for long, since short showers were ingrained in him due to the ten minute cut off at Camp. In this case, it was more than enough to rinse out the soot, even with only a generic bar of soap already in the bathroom. After all, Camp activities usually left him in worse hygiene conditions and again, no matter what, Camp showers have a ten minute cut off. 

He threw on the new clothes, another pair of jeans that had seen better days and another worn Camp shirt, this one with holes that had been patched with embroidery for some reason. It was one he’d gotten from the Pooled Clothes Bin at the Camp Store when he’d first gotten to Camp four years ago, as they only ordered twenty new shirts a year and while it was way too big, it was the only one he could find in December. Who the embroidery was done by had always been a mystery to him, but having been homeless previously, he was not picky about the quality, and even charmed by its uniqueness among Camp shirts. 

He was glad that he had taken off his light gray jacket to spar since that meant it was untouched by soot and he could throw it on before he had to leave the room. He was proud of his home, and so wore the bright orange shirt proudly as well, but he didn’t want to advertise its existence to all these spies, and so would wear his plain hoodie over it when not in his own room. 

With it now being only 10:50am, and over two hours to spare before he needed to report to the training hall, he grinned and dug a pencil out of his bag. He then divided the wall to the left of the entry door in half with a pencil line from floor to ceiling, then sat on the floor and began to doodle on the right half of the division. An hour and a half later, he stood up, having covered only maybe one square foot with tiny doodles and dusted off his pants, shrugged on his sweatshirt over his knife harness, verified he had his security badge, and walked out the door. 

Thirty seconds later, he walked back into his dorm-like room and grabbed his collapsable bow and quiver arm guards on a whim, both having been designed and made for him by Charles. 

When he arrived at the previously announced warehouse-like training hall (maybe only getting lost a few times), Fury immediately had him begin his testing again, only this time, it was physical abilities. He had Clint run 10 meters as fast as he could five times, made him lift different weights in several odd positions and ways to see how strong he was, got him to windsprint back and forth across the room to test his stamina, and a myriad of other physical tests. 

He was tested in various ways for several hours, and every now and then, an agent or two or five would walk by and stop to watch, or poke their head in for a few minutes. Clint didn’t mind that, but what was really bothering him was the singular fly that had somehow found its way in and would not leave him alone. It wasn’t too annoying for the first four hours, since he wasn’t very strained, but after he hit the five hour mark and he began to sweat and breathe heavily, it trying to land on his face and lick salt off of him really began to grate on his nerves. 

Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He stopped, grabbed the fist sized bundle out of his pocket, flicked it out, threaded the loose end of bowstring attached to the lower limb through the mechanism on the upper limb, and pulled it tight. The next second, he flicked the two compact halves of an arrow out from their spot on his arm guard, clipped them together, and took half a second to breath while the arrow was nocked to calm down and aim for where the bug would be, then shot. 

As he’d hoped, the fly was pinned to the wall by the unexpected projectile piercing through its body and into the hard plaster. To both perform such an impressive shot and get rid of something that had been annoying him for hours made his head rush a little with superfluous euphoria but he managed to regain control of himself, knowing he’d already done something irrational and unnecessary by shooting the fly in the first place. So instead of jumping around like a maniac, he only flipped off the dead fly and began to put away his weapon, hitting the release on his collapsable bow’s stringing mechanism. 

But before he could hit the switch that would unlock the joints of the bow’s collapses and wrap the string around the fist size bundle again, Fury stormed up. “What was that?” He demanded. 

Feeling a bit silly about his overreaction, he hung his head. “Sorry, sir.” He figured defaulting to respecting his superiors wouldn’t hurt. “That was a bit extreme. I’ll do better to stay calm next time.” 

Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Fury walked over to the arrow and yanked it out of the wall. He raised a brow at the strange design of the arrow: no arrowhead, just a sharp point to the shaft - like a dart - and a juncture halfway down the quarter inch thick rod where the piece with the sharp end and the piece with the fletching fastened together. Then he blinked, stunned, at the body of the dead insect stretched around the arrow, exactly after where the point had stuck into the wall. Clint, rather embarrassed, shuffled his feet. 

Fury turned to him. “This fly made you so mad you decided to kill it with a bow and arrow rather than swat it with your hands?” 

Oh, that was a good point. Yeah, he definitely could’ve clapped his hands around the fly to smash it. He knew his reflexes were good enough, and he often did it with all sorts of bugs at Camp when he was in a normal, rational mood. 

The problem was that, in his exhausted state, he was much closer to his instincts, which left him high strung, with his senses on their highest settings, and prone to his combat reflexes. This was a good thing when exhausted by monsters and other various threats to his life, but in this situation, it just left him delirious and erratic for no reason. Of course, surrounded by cameras and being watched by agents other than those he was allowed to disclose confidential information to by Chiron, he couldn’t say that. 

So he ended up just looking Fury in the eye seriously, shrugging, and saying, “Sorry, habit. I’ll explain later.” 

Fortunately, the Director seemed to get the hint, and nodded. He then walked to a nearby drawer along the wall, extracted a clean sticky note from the pad inside it, and stabbed a pen through, making a hole. Then, he walked over to the wall and stuck it to the surface. Backing away, he jerked his head towards it. “Can you hit that?” 

Clint grinned, restringing his bow and sliding two more arrow halves out of his arm guard, attaching them together with a click, and nocking the arrow smoothly. Excitement thrummed through his veins. “No problem.” He was only maybe four yards away, so he was absolutely certain he could hit the penny sized hole, especially since he was in a state so attuned to instincts with his senses almost painfully reactive. Sure enough, when he let the arrow fly, it hit dead center. 

Fury tugged the arrow out and bid him back up, so instead of retreating only five or ten yards, he turned and jogged to the other side of the room, a whole forty-five yards away. He turned back to see Fury’s doubt filled face and couldn’t help but grin as he snapped another arrow together. He nocked it unhurriedly and closed one eye for show, letting himself take his time.

Once he was sure, he let go, but immediately he could tell as he watched the arrow hurtle through the air in a blur, that it wouldn’t hit dead center. Exactly as he predicted, while it hit inside the penny sized hole in the paper, it wasn’t at the central point. He looked at it with his face scrunched in disgust, staring at it as if it had offended him. Mostly because it had. 

Fury was still staring at the arrow in the paper, so he didn’t register when Clint slung his bow over his shoulder, popped three more arrows together, held them in his mouth, and began to literally climb the walls. Once he had found a vantage point in the rafters, he yelled down. “Hey, move that arrow, would you?” He really didn’t want to break the nice arrows that Charles had designed for him that Clint had had to whittle and polish the tips with Celestial Bronze himself. 

Fury, who had very quickly broken out of his reverie of staring at the arrow and then silently began to watch in confusion, disbelief, and slight horror as Clint ascended to the roof, unconsciously yanked the arrow out of the wall. Clint nodded in thanks and unslung his bow, nocked an arrow, aimed for a few seconds, and fired.

This time, he watched smugly as it sped through the air and hit the center. He asked Fury to remove the arrow again and, without waiting to watch him do so, spun 180 degrees and fell backwards, catching himself on the rafters by his knees, leaving Clint hanging upside down. 

To his surprise, not only had Fury ripped the fourth arrow out of the wall, but he had also moved the paper, sticking it to a spot on the wall further from Clint than it had used to be. Grinning around the arrow in his mouth at the obvious challenge, Clint nocked the arrow in his hand and fired smoothly, catching the center of the hole once more. He watched Fury move the paper further again as he himself nocked his last prepared arrow, then fired as soon as his boss stepped back. He was pleased to see it hit the center once more. 

Satisfied, he kicked off of where he was hanging upside down by the rafters, thirty feet in the air, and shifted as he fell. When Clint hit the ground, he rolled for a good two and a half yards, then popped up back onto his feet. He tilted his head at the strange look that Fury gave him as he approached his boss, but the eyepatch guy just shook his head and gave him a calculating look as he handed back his arrows. “So how fast can you shoot those things?” 

Clint grinned ferally. 

— 

After testing how fast Clint could shoot, Fury ordered him to go have dinner and get to bed, having missed breakfast due to the flight, and lunch due to the six hours of training. It was now 7:26pm, and Clint was thanking his dad profusely for June being the month with the longest days of the year. The sun wouldn’t set until just after to 8:30, so he still had an hour of high energy before he became a zombie. 

He knew that the barracks had a community kitchen on the bottom floor, but he didn’t really want to make anything (nor did he have too much ability to), so he made his way to the cafeteria in the main facility. While there, he chatted with some of the other agents stationed there, and even got to apologize to a few of the agents he had beaten up earlier in the day (He really hadn’t expected mortals to be so… fragile and… feeble, but he’ll definitely keep that in mind going forward). Several of them told him how much he smelled, which he laughed off and promised to fix. 

He ended the day by showering again, doodling some more on his barrack dorm wall, then doing dagger training drills as he counted down the minutes until sunset. At the five minute mark, he got up, prayed to his father for guidance and good luck, and laid down in his bare bed.

He nodded off thinking about how the whole praying thing might become a habit simply because of how anxious he was for everything to turn out well. He’d paid his respects at meals for years, had offered hymns to his father when healing in the infirmary, and given the odd prayer of thanks when things turned out in his favor, but never prayed as much as he had that day. But with how important his mission was to the survival of their race and culture of half-humans, perhaps he’d better start praying more often, just in case. 

Notes:

Fury, trying to feel out his new specialized agent’s strengths: Ever shot a gun?
Clint, whose bloodline has a very specific divine blessing: a gun is definitely a projectile weapon, right?

The SHIELD Agents, looking at their coworker for all of ten minutes: You’re smoking hot
Clint, literally still on fire: Thanks, I get my looks from my dad’s side.

Clint, being unable to enjoy a perfect temperature personal shower for however long he wants: MY CHILDHOOD HAS RUINED ME! I AM A BROKEN HUMAN, DO YOU HEAR ME?
Clint, five minutes later, seeing an empty wall and no artsy siblings around to lay claim to it: i have a VISION

A fly, landing on the sweet nectar of his perspiration: *harmless*
Clint, with his war flashbacks and divine battle reflexes: so you have chosen death

Clint: NO NO NO! I have to try again!
Fury: But… why?
Clint: *pinches* I was this far off!
Fury: …Your fingers are touching.
Clint: *throws his hands up* i knOW I WAS SO FAR OFF

Clint, after sparring with mortals for the first time IN HIS LIFE: oh my- what, they’re so precious and smol and i must protecc but i literally hurt them so bad they might never get better... Hello, 911? Yes, I need to be arrested.

Sometime in the future -
Random Avenger: when did you first learn to shoot?
Clint: I’ve been training with the bow since I was seven.
Random Avenger: Wow! And guns?
Natasha, from the other room: He was fourTEEN AND HE-
Clint, not sure where she heard it from but very sure she knows s o m e h o w: nataSHA THATS UNNECESSARY THANK YOU

Chapter 4: I Would Like To File A Complaint To The God Of Meetings Please, They’re Boring :(

Summary:

Clint cooks his coworkers breakfast coz he feels bad for beating them up, jumps out the window, shows up perfectly on time for a meeting he wasn’t even told about, ruins it with a handspring jumpscare, then gives a spontaneous lecture on the history of the gods, and other worldbuilding explanations, but not nearly as much as the next chapter goes into them. Also the plot twist of the Harry Potter books existing in this universe.

Clint rose the next morning with the sun, like always. By 6:00am, he had no idea what to do with himself. He’d already showered, thrown on some of his nicer clothes (jeans with no holes and one of his two not-Camp shirts), prayed to his father again, and done a light warm-up work-out from Camp. Unable to tolerate standing still any longer, he wandered out of his room and down to the first floor. 

He found himself in the community kitchen, staring as Karen Tarimora (or something?) sleepily made some sort of dark colored tea that smelled weird and he’d never seen at Camp. As he was wide awake, like he always was the whole time the sun was up, and had accidentally picked on this poor fragile woman the day before, he couldn’t bear to let her hurt herself trying to make toaster waffles or fried eggs or something. 

(He knew rationally that this woman was actually rather strong, and was probably more than capable of feeding herself, but as someone who felt way more guilty than need be by every little thing and had just had a wake up call to how much more brute force he had than a base line human, he needed to do something to feel better about himself, and providing for others usually did the trick.) 

And so, he ripped open the fridge, ignored everything with a name on it, dug out as many different kinds of fruit as was in the kitchen, and began to chop everything into small pieces into a plastic bowl he found. Thinking logically, Clint knew he wasn’t very good in the kitchen, but he knew he was good with a knife, hence the impromptu fruit salad.

He also knew that baking anything was out of the question, and microwaving things made everything taste worse. Furthermore, he knew that a normal working adult was usually up and at work doing adult things by 8am, sometimes even by 7am, so whatever he made had to be done quick and have the ability to be picked up and eaten on the way to somewhere else. 

The thing was, Clint knew how to cook, but only specific things. He’d helped out in the snack bar of the circus every once in a while when he wasn’t performing. By the time he was nine, he’d been able to make cheese fries, pretzels, and candy apples from scratch all by himself. But it had also been four years since he’d tried to cook anything, so he figured that if he wanted nothing to blow up in his face, he should stick with what he knows well. As he sped-chopped fruit, he mentally put together a list. 

He could make chili, because of chili dogs, but that wasn’t a breakfast food. He could make cinnamon rolls, but those needed time to rise. Most of what he knew was deep frying everything under the sun, for obvious reasons, but these were SHIELD agents, they needed more protein than anything else.

Eventually, he decided that by combining experience from making taco meat for nachos and frying eggs into rice for the few times he’d made fried rice, he’d probably be able to manage a breakfast burrito filling. He wanted to add a starch and wasn’t completely sure he could translate his experience making fries into proper hashbrowns, so he eventually decided on the iconic funnel cake, something he’d made thousands upon thousands of times. 

Fruit salad, breakfast burritos, and funnel cake. Not great, but good enough. Pausing from his chopping fruit at inhuman speeds, he rushed around and made sure all the ingredients were there, then sent a prayer of thanks to his father that probably sounded mildly hysterical (it’d be fine, it’s not like his dad ever actually listens to his prayers).

He seared up some meat first, then mixed the taco seasoning into it, making sure that it was super mild, since it was breakfast, and added some bacon bits. Carefully, he added some scrambled eggs and cooked it until it wasn’t shiny anymore. Taking that pan off the heat, he mixed up the funnel cake batter, dry then wet ingredients, then fried up enough cakes to feed his cabin at home, and powdered them lightly with sugar, wincing at the blasphemy of not having a glaze. He set out the platters of cakes and the pan of burrito filling next to a bag of tortillas and washed any dishes not in use. Finally, he resumed chopping fruit at supernatural speeds. 

When he finished with that, he finally looked up, and found that it was now 7:20am and he had an audience. Embarrassed, he left the dirty cutting board and knife where it was, opened the window behind the sink, and hurled himself out of it, missing the dismayed calls of several people behind him. Munching on one of the funnel cakes he’d packed to eat with his bosses, he set off to find them. As this was a smaller base, they didn’t have official offices here, and while he knew which building they slept in, they most likely weren’t going to be there this time of day (“This time of day” being 7:30am. Man, were mortals weird). 

He quickly found himself in the facility’s vent system, having realized at the museum that he rather liked being in them. He couldn’t quite remember how he had gotten in them, but he decided to make the most of it and began to use them to check every meeting room in the building. Eventually, he found the both of them in a meeting with three other people, having just finished a briefing. 

“And… when will we be meeting this new liaison?” One asked. 

Fury glanced at his watch. “I told Agent Tashimoto to inform Agent Barton that he was to be here at 8am.” 

Clint focused, deciding it was somewhere between 7:56am and 8:01am. Finding this to be the perfect opening, he knocked the grate free and dropped through the opening head-first with his hands out, falling the eight feet to the floor and executing a perfect forward handspring (making sure it was extra bouncy looking just because he could). When he landed on his feet, he was just in front of the table that the other three people were around, only further to the back of the room than them, and was the person furthest away from Director Fury, whom he decided to address first. 

“I heard you were talking about me behind my back.” He quipped, then shook his head and dropped the valley girl accent. “I’ve actually only been here for like thirty seconds, so what exactly have you told them about me?” 

Fury rolled his eyes, ignoring the stunned faces of the other people in the room. “I’ve covered the existence of your organization, that you’re made of half-humans whose other part is from powerful life-forms that the Ancient Greeks declared gods, the missing piece of your DNA that proves this, the supernatural powers that are passed down from your parents, the monsters you fight, and what your mission is supposed to be. I’ve proven this with several segments of recovered footage displaying incidents with thinner Mist than usual, as well the few times we were able to catch you yourself on camera. This included footage and eyewitness accounts of the supernatural phenomena that occurred at the exact time you took your oath, among other things.” 

Clint nodded, accepting that to make the transition easier existentially, Fury described the gods as “powerful life-forms”. He then jerked his head towards the others in the room. “And these are the three you chose?” 

He was referring to how, in the contract, they had negotiated that only six officials were allowed to know about Camp, which could include those outside SHIELD, but that those six included Clint, Fury, and Coulson. Fury nodded, so he turned to the them. He didn’t know who they were, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know, so he simply inclined his head. “Clint Barton, SHIELD Civil Occult Specialist and Theurgy Liaison, as well as a Son of Phoebus Apollon.” 

He hopped onto the table before any of them could reply and walked down the center of it to the front of the room, where Fury was, then jumped back to the floor and turned to the room at large to begin his own briefing. “In our records, the gods’ seat of power has always moved with what we call ‘the Heart of Western Civilization’. This was once, and for a long time - the best documented time - Ancient Greece. The beings that gave us life gain their overwhelming power from what humans associate with their domain, and when large bodies of people gather, the collective power they get from the belief in their domain’s power grows as well, which is why our parents follow the strongest and most populated civilization at any given time.” 

He raised a hand, palm to the ceiling, and lines of light danced in the air, making the shapes of different countries to follow along with his words. “They moved from Greece, to Rome, to Germany, to France, to Spain. They spent several centuries in England. Then they settled here, in America, the new Heart of Western Civilization. And so the new Mount Olympus, the convergence point of their powers, has remained here since it’s establishment. Since these beings are made of the combined energies of all human belief in the forces of concepts such as nature and emotions, they do not have DNA, hence all of the incest in the myths and the missing half of our community’s own DNA.” 

The man in the dark navy suit - as other two people were also wearing suits, but one was black and one was gray - laced his fingers together and leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, seriously but not suspiciously. “And where is Mount Olympus?” 

Clint shook his head. “I am under Oath to not give out any more information than is permitted, and if you seriously think the location of our government and parents’ seat of power is on that list…” He scrunched his face in concern at the man. “χαζός (chazós).” 

Despite that - or, more likely, because - it was obvious that Clint had just insulted him, the man in the navy suit smiled slightly. “So what are you permitted to tell us?” 

Clint nodded at Fury, mentally asking him to sit down so he wasn’t awkwardly standing next to him for his whole presentation and, miraculously, his boss somehow got the message and took a seat next to the man in the navy suit. Once he did, Clint cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “I will, from now on, be referring to the beings in question as ‘gods’ since this is what they have been called for thousands of years. If it brings some comfort, simply take this term to mean ‘a person of substantial authority or influence’ rather than ‘a deity’.” 

With no objections, he launched into an explanation of the Mist first, then briskly outlined the monsters still around since ancient times. He led into the hierarchy at Camp, explaining that the gods were bound by ancient rules in order to keep human society safe, and therefore were mostly removed from Camp with only a number of exceptions.

He explained that the highest position at Camp had been Activities Director for hundreds of years, and had always been held by Chiron, the trainer of heroes, and followed with the more recent development of Dionysus’ instatement as Mr. D. He clarified the cabins and how they were divided, and how the Counselors made up a committee that ran the camp by majority rule - Chiron being the only person to hold the ability to overrule their decisions - with each Second as their literal second in command. 

He described some of their training exercises and combat drills, but kept most of the details to himself, then described some of the intricacies of Camp, such as the offerings to the gods at meals, the oracle, quests, and the two blocks - summer and winter. He did not mention the necklaces, shirts, or anything else that could help them identify a demigod on sight, as agreed upon unanimously by all authorities at Camp.

His goal was to humanize what these people most likely thought of as unknowns literally half made of alien life forms and help them more easily picture Camp as what it was: a home for people with nowhere else to go instead of a secretly trained military armed with untold superpowers. He did not share the easiest signs to recognize a demigod nor explicitly gave their life expectancy. 

He did inform them that a demigod begins to grow into their supernatural talent and enhanced physical abilities, even if they do not exude any outward magical gifts, around the age of thirteen, and therefore begin to be hunted by monsters around that age. He told them that Camp has a retrieval program that scouts for demigods at that age, but that the rate of survival drops if they aren’t found by the time they turn thirteen.

He confirmed that most demigods choose to leave Camp after they turn eighteen, however many years that means they spent there, and try to make a life outside of Camp amongst the mortals. This led to him admitting that many of the talented figures throughout history had a divine advantage, but refused to clarify which ones. 

He knew they wanted as much information as possible about their “secret society”, but that didn't mean that Clint had to give them anything really useful. As long as SHIELD learned a lot about Camp, Clint was doing his job as one of their Agents well. And as long as SHIELD didn't learn anything that could be used to harm Camp, Clint was doing his job as a Camp Counselor well. 

At the raise of the Navy-suit-guy’s finger, Clint nodded in question. 

“Does the recent increase in natural disasters and unsafe environment as a whole have anything to do with your community?” The man asked. 

Clint pointed at him. “Good question!” He dropped his hand. “Yes.” 

At his nonexistent elaboration, Fury sighed. “Clint, the contract states that you have to share any matters of national security.” 

Clint narrowed his eyes, curling his lip. “Yea. I was intending to share. With my boss. Not whoever these guys are.” He crossed his arms. “I swore I would uphold the terms established at our original meeting, where we agreed that I would answer to no one besides you and Agent Phil.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t have to tell these guys anything.” 

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose, and Clint couldn’t hold back his smile anymore. He snorted, which only exasperated his boss more. “Sorry,” He conceded. “I couldn’t help myself.” 

And so, when Director Fury gestured for him to get on with it, Clint launched into yet another explanation, this time outlining the current situation Camp was facing - the Big Three Oath from decades earlier, Zeus’ paranoia, the missing Master Bolt after the Olympian Council adjourned, and that he was accusing his older brother’s only child, leaving nature on the cusp of warring with itself unless something was done. 

Everyone in the room looked less than thrilled when as Clint finished with, “Basically, they’re looking at the kid who has been at Camp for two weeks and accusing him of Grand Theft δύναμις (dunamis) even though he’s known he’s a Son of the Sea God for all of…” He paused to think. “Just over six days, simply because he exists when he shouldn’t - despite Mr. Almighty having a daughter a few years back.” He shrugged. “The kid’s dad isn’t very happy since he knows he didn’t get the kid to do anything, having never even spoken to the kid, and has demanded an apology by the summer solstice. The King of Olympus has demanded his Bolt returned by the same deadline. Twelve days.” 

Fury began, “So, Posei-” 

“AHT!” Clinton interrupted. At the stink-eye his boss gave him, he raised his hands in surrender. “Haven’t you noticed what I’ve been calling them this whole time? Even before the meeting?” 

The Director pinched his chin in thought. “Lord of the Skies, King of Olympus, Mr. Almighty.” He snapped his fingers. “You even only called the demigod ‘Son of the Sea God’ instead of naming the kid or the god.” 

Clint nodded. “Names have power when it comes to monsters and gods fueled by the energy of fear and beliefs. Using a myth’s proper name grabs its attention, and trust me, with how frustrated the Sky and the Sea are right now? You don’t want either of them focused on you, especially with how you posed their existence to this meeting.” He sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Yea, that would make them real mad.” He pointed accusingly at his boss. “That’s also why I’m not super happy about this base. Even I have to admit that its kind of funny now, but given a few weeks? Constantly having to call where I’m stationed at by anything except its name or else risk drawing the attention of one of the judges of the underworld?” 

Fury didn’t look embarrassed; it would mess with his “I’m-super-mysterious-and-know-everything” vibe. But he did look rather chastened. Clint shrugged. “I’ll just have to get used to calling it ‘Base 18-08’.” He tilted his head in thought. “It is a fast and easy way to get their attention if you are in need of it though, such as when I made that Oath, or whenever I introduce myself as ‘a Son of Apollo’. It makes Dad happy when we acknowledge him, so most of my siblings do the same instead of saying ‘a Child of the Sun God’.” He grinned. “Or ‘a Child of the God of Archery’. Or ‘a Child of the God of Poetry’. Or ‘a Child of the God of Plagues’. Or-” 

“Enough.” Fury growled. 

“How does that work?” Navy Suit Guy asked. “A god has more than one domain, so what decides which talent is passed on? How is it determined how a talent will work? Is there a set number with fixed properties?” 

Clint grinned. “The children of the beings made of and fueled by imagination being constrained by logic? πόσο ανόητο! (póso anóito!)” His face turned more serious. “The talents a demigod grows into has always clicked with their personality in some way or another, stretching their character to its full, unique, devastating potential when trained, interpreted, and explored properly. Inversely, a demigod’s essence can destroy them in ways uniquely catastrophic to the individual, since just as it is human nature to have weaknesses and flaws, the gifts themselves can lead to ruination if trained or used wrong. Some have theorized that a demigod’s personality is influenced by their power, while others say the talent is shaped by their character. Some say they have correlation but no causation, and others insist there is no connection between them at all. Because, like I said, our parents - and therefore what we inherit from them - cannot be defined by rules or reason, it is hard to nail down any particular or consistent explanation.” 

When Navy Suit Guy nodded for Clint to continue, he looked to Fury, who gestured for the same, so he shrugged and made an example of his Cabin, outlining traits from their dad. 

He first noted standard attributes like blond hair, blue eyes, impeccable body clocks, lethargy after the sun sets, skill with first aid, an affinity for one medium of art, an inability to lie, a soft spot for kids, and sharper hearing. Then he listed common talents such as archery, healing, musical talent, minor disease conjuring, sonic whistles or yells, lie detection, skill with children, and other artistic specialties. Following that, he listed some of the rare talents: prophetic daydreams (worse than normal demigod dreams), poison powers, light manipulation, verbal Mist control, vocal hypnotism, instrument crafting, speaking to certain animals, banishment of light, minor thermokinesis, and x-ray or infrared vision. 

Ignoring the stunned looks from around the room, he matched both talents and contradictions to his siblings, making sure to leave them unnamed. He described how one brother (Lee) had okay archery and healing skills, impressive literary talent, detected lies like a bloodhound, was amazing with children, constantly had deja vu, and occasionally spouted cryptic lines that always came true, but couldn’t carry a tune with a bucket and would lie to your face with proof right in front of you.

Then he recounted another brother’s talents (Michael) who had standard “healing vibes” and nurturing skills, the voice of an angel, better archery than baseline, was beyond a prodigy when it came to mortal medicine, was a rare light banisher, could talk to swans, ravens, snakes, mice, and probably other things, yet somehow was able to ignore the sun’s schedule and, worst of all, wasn’t blonde. 

Clint let himself rant about that for a while. “I mean seriously, Cabin Seven had been only blonde for 49 years, we were going to celebrate our literal golden jubilee the next year and had been planning it for 26 months when this random camper laughs at something this garden snake said at the bonfire, a Cabin Six kid yells ‘He’s the heir of Slytherin!’, and then that stupid sun was above his head, and we all look over and realize, yea, he’s a brunette!” Clint throws his hands up. “And everyone knows Michael is a Hufflepuff!” 

“Anyway, and then there’s me,” He begins, pretending to not notice how everyone in the room is immediately more interested in his every word. So, they’d like to get to know what sort of weapon they got, eh? 

Notes:

χαζός (chazós) - stupid
δύναμις (dunamis) - a Greek philosophical concept meaning "power", "potential" or "ability". TAKEN TO MEAN HERE: THE GOD'S SYMBOL OF POWER
πόσο ανόητο (póso anóito) - how stupid/foolish

---

Okay so in case anyone was wondering, what I did here was instead of saying that the gods just WERE and then the greeks discovered them and then they were somehow changed when the romans adopted them, I took that second half and ran with it. What Clint is trying to explain in this chapter is a REALLY INTERESTING concept known as “thoughtform manifestation” wherein the belief in something gives an idea energy to manifest itself into reality.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE GREEKS CREATED THE GODS WITH THEIR MINDS, what I AM saying is that the gods are beings that are fueled by the most powerful emotions and ideas associated with their concept. FOR EXAMPLE: if three people passively associate shoes with evil, and then a whole group of 1000 people actively think about shoes being fashionable every day, then the goddess of shoes (whoever she is) would probably be a diva prep girl rather then a malicious force, but she’d also be weaker since “stylish” isn’t really a character trait linked directly to strength, while an ultimate evil being is.

To put this into practice: the greeks, the most powerful and ingenious civilization of their time, thinking the sea was terrifying and wild and untamable lead to Poseidon being one of the most wrathful beings in their myths even though others in the world probably thought of the sea as, idk, just something pretty to look at. However, since America is currently the Heart, and public American perception of the sea is, while still powerful, something more calming and relaxing, Poseidon slowly shifted into what he’s like in the PJO books, a quiet but strong fishing dad vibe. I WILL be taking questions in the comments.

---

Clint, feeling bad about beating up the puny mortals: *sobs while making muffins* they’re just so f r a g i l e

The meeting held after Clint stopped dropping bombs on them -
Coulson: Show of hands, who here almost screamed when Clint dropped out of the ceiling?
All three suit guys: *raises hand*
Coulson: *raises eyebrow of doom*
Fury, pouting: *raises hand*
Coulson: That’s what I thought.

Clint, who was just asked to hand over the key to his culture’s destruction like three times: wouldn’t you like to know weather boy?
The president, probably: Intriguing. My interest is piqued.

Clint: *explains the starting plot of the first book*
The whole room: What Is Wrong With Your Parents?
Clint: THANK YOU

Clint: We’re not a threat
Also Clint: *begins listing “common” demigod gifts like he’s Saiki K*

My version of Clint: "I have to do things for others to feel good about myself", "I have been cooking since i was nine and still have to hold a strategy meeting before entering the kitchen", "I'm responsible for the well-being of my younger AND older siblings", "I have to make it clear that while these are my beliefs, I will still respect yours because I don't want people to get mad at me or yell or try to argue with me about things like PERSONAL OPINION"
Me, ONLY after rereading MY OWN work for the 13th time: Oh, wow. I might be self projecting onto him a bit too much. Oops.

Chapter 5: My Vibe Today: Casually Trauma Dumping On The Most Important People In The Country

Summary:

Clint messes with these meeting guys, then admits most of his talents, gets upset at one of Fury’s throwaway comments and then explains why by word-vomitting every demigod’s customary existential crisis, then elaborates into how every greek hero has to have their own personal tragedy, then plays Spot the Monster, then is very busy, then has lunch with his bosses, who are slowly getting more and more concerned.

Knowing all their attention was on him to assess his usefulness, Clint decided to be a bit of a jerk about it and began to list things that had nothing to do with his divine talents. “My favorite color is pink, but like a pastel pink, not a hot pink. And even though Apollo kids are more likely to be left handed than any other Cabin, I’m still right handed. Also, I can’t whistle. What child of the God of Music can’t whistle?” 

Fury sighed loudly, even though Navy Suit Guy looked like he might laugh, so Clint stared at him innocently, but began listing the information they wanted. “It should be obvious from my tests just yesterday that my archery gift is major, even for a Son of Apollo.” He did not admit that Kayla, younger than him, was better. 

“I have a minor lie detection gift, but I also can’t lie to save my life under pressure. I’m okay with kids but my vocal range is one of the worst in the cabin and it has no magical properties whatsoever - sonic attacks, hypnotism, persuasion, or otherwise - unless I imbue it with healing magic, which is one of my strong suits. I’m not as good a healer - magical or mortal - as the two best in the cabin, but I did once perform an emergency surgery with no prior experience and succeeded.” He shrugged since it was no big deal compared to Will’s ability to fix nerve damage or Michael’s innate and extensive medical knowledge, and tried to ignore how nerve-wracking it was to lie to these people, as he could use his voice to enchant objects. 

“I can play the guitar and have an easy time learning new instruments, but I can’t pick up a completely new one and know exactly how to play, how it’s made, what repairs it needs, and so on, like my little brother.” Everyone in the cabin was jealous of Austin and he knew it. “I’m good with paints and pencils, but no other art mediums, my poetry is subpar, I can’t talk to any animal but ravens, and I have no powers of prophecy nor fancy heat or vision abilities.” 

Fury raised a brow. “Poetry, music, and art don’t seem all that essential to survival in a pinch.” 

Clint, being used to hearing this same thing from newer campers, managed to reel himself in, take a deep breath, and look at his boss extremely calmly. “Please never insinuate that any divine talent isn’t useful ever again, no matter how stupid or minor it might seem.”  

The whole room was silent, floored by the danger lurking in his voice when it came to something they didn’t think was so important. Clint thought about letting them stew in his disapproval for a while, but ultimately decided that he wanted to get out of this meeting room and do something. He was done doing nothing but stand in front of these people and talk. 

So he decided to cut straight to the point. “In case you missed entirely the unspoken point from my introduction to demigods, or the theme inside any of the myths you supposedly researched, the whole reason our parents even have kids is so that we can fight their battles - the easy solution they came up with to get around the ancient laws. Combat is ingrained in us first and foremost, built into us from the ground up, and every ability we are given is to help ourselves and our Συμπολεμιστές (sımpolemıstés) to not just survive, not just win, but defy the odds stacked against us, destroy the monsters hunting us at every turn, and demolish our enemies to declare either a glorious victory to dedicate to our parents and, above that, our gods…” He grimaced at the ceiling. “Or else to valiantly attempt that and instead produce a sentimental, tragic spectacle to appease them.” 

Chugging right along because he didn’t want to touch that thought with a forty foot pole ever again, he dove into the information they originally wanted. “I have three major gifts - two of which are rarities - and three minor gifts among my baseline talents. Because of this, I can actually be classified on the strongest side of Cabin Seven demigods. I’ve already listed most of those, including archery as one major talent. Another is photokinesis, which you’ve already witnessed."

He waved his hand and little sparks flickered around it. "While minor light particle manipulation is not uncommon, full photokinesis is actually one of the rarest and strongest talents Children of the Sun God can receive. One of my little brothers also has this gift, but he doesn’t seem to have the same strain as me, since I’m the first to branch into light solidification in several centuries. The other major gift I have is toxigenesis, not toxikinesis. I can create and secrete toxins that cause disease such as poisons, but I can’t manipulate or control them once produced. This power has been theorized to be a combination of the disease branch and the medicine branch, and is just as rare as light solidification.” 

Once Fury got over the shock caused by that last one (Clinton was actually rather proud of himself for how long it took), he spoke up - thankfully brushing past the rant about spectacles that Clint was already fully embarrassed about. “Is there… a drawback or handicap to having so many rare powers?” 

Clint pointed at him. “Good observation. Yes. No power comes without a price. The greater the power, the greater the price. Most downsides to our powers are minor enough that we can compensate for them readily, and they’re usually unique to the person. Remember, when it comes to our culture, everything is set up to be a individualized tragedy. As for me, it is only fitting that a demigod with such an anomalous combination of prominent gifts has a weakness of equal measure to offset it.” He grinned. “However, the one they chose to give me, while poetically devastating from a narrative look, is also, realistically, rather easy to overcome.” 

Having said that, he reached up to his left ear, switched off that individual hearing aid, and popped it out. He set it on the table gently and smiled widely at the intrigued company. “While all technology attracts monsters and complex technology tends to malfunction around demigods, this here is specially made by my κολλητός (kollitós), who happens to be a Son of Hephaestus and specializes in magical technology. His ongoing side project is figuring out how to monster proof tech for demigods, and he’s succeeded in smaller instances - including this one.” 

Three of the people in the room were looking at the small device with clear fascination, but the fourth had lingering confusion in his eyes, even as he observed the hearing aid with curiosity, so Clint sighed and clarified. “I know that to you people, being deaf in comparison to all this power seems a little unbalanced. I’ve heard it all. Someone once literally said to me, ‘Sure, being deaf is an unfortunate disability, but it’s nothing earth shattering, especially when you have the stuff to live with it and all the cool powers that make it worth it.’”

Clint gave them all a deadpan glare. “I’m a Son of Apollo. Music and color and light and laughter and the very joy stemming from and appreciation for all the beautiful details of the world runs through my very veins.” 

He closed his eyes and smiled serenely. “The perfect shade of dandelion from a real velvet petal; the dainty sunbeams breaking through thunderous rainclouds; the whisper of the breeze bringing the harmony of shaking leaves and a songbird’s melody; the taps of a soft flurry landing on the blinding mirror of the sun reflecting off of the powder of a snowdrift.”

He looked at them seriously. “Being the children of the gods means being connected with the domains that give them their power and drawing life energy from them. A Child of the God of Music being deaf? The silence is not just empty or numb or grating. The silence is downright torturous.” 

—

All that drama, all that trauma dumping, and what did Clint have to show for it? Yes, he’s out of the meeting, but he wasn’t allowed to lap the training room warehouse even once before he was shoved into another, smaller meeting room and stuck in front of a screen while an agent flipped through the entirety of SHIELD’s personnel files. He wasn’t being shown any classified or private information, but even just the picture and name was enough to identify a monster by. Every person that Clint pointed out was then flagged and set aside to be gone through more thoroughly later by him and his bosses. 

They hadn’t even been doing this for ten minutes before Clint got bored, and that was an hour ago. But the agent wouldn’t let him doodle to keep his hands busy or hum to keep his brain alert since he “needed to focus all his attention on going through these agents, Fury said it was a top priority mission,” or whatever. Maybe if this guy had been one that popped their head into the room when he sniped the penny sized hole from half a football field away while hanging upside down than he would let Clint do something to prevent himself from going insane. 

He took one look at the next file and sighed loudly as he dropped his head onto the table. 

Name: Irma Ariti 
Codename: Succubus 
Date of Birth: April 4, 1980
Age: 27
Position: Health Information Management Clerk

Just as his indignant supervisor went to scold him once more, Agent Coulson himself opened the door and saw just how done he was with the situation. He frowned in concern. “What’s the problem, Clint? You were jumping at the chance to sort out- sort through our agents just yesterday. ‘Something change that?” 

Clint just glared at him with all the fiery rage of an ADHD teenager forced to sit still for an hour and a half. Coulson sighed and gestured for the other agent in the room to step out momentarily, then came over and sat across from him when the man did as he said. Clint said nothing, simply turned the screen around and continued glaring. 

His boss read through the file, his brow quirking in confusion. “Agent Succubus? I’ve heard both good and bad about her. She’s been stuck in the Health Services Department for a while because even though most of her superiors give her glowing reviews, a bunch of her underlings have lodged complaints about her to HR. She probably won’t see much action.” He blinked at the grumpy half-god. “What about her?” 

Clint sighed again. “Her birthdate is a year ending in zero to make it easier to calculate her age quickly. Good for when she forgets how old she’s supposed to be since it’s a fake identity. Rookie mistake though.” He rolled his eyes as he pointed to her name. “Irma Ariti? Seriously?” 

Coulson narrowed his eyes, paying attention now. “What’s wrong with her name?” 

The demigod turned and gave him a disgusted look. “Ariti is a greek surname meaning friendly or approachable.” Clint began to move his pointed finger between the names as he explained very slowly, as if revealing something obvious to an idiot. “Irma Ariti. Irma Friendly. I’m friendly.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “It only makes it worse when taking into account what she is.” 

Coulson made a ‘go on’ gesture, so Clint turned back to the screen. “She’s an empousa, a blood-sucking fire demon of seduction commonly mistaken for a vampire. Her code-name is Succubus, also a demon of seduction. And she’s never transferred out of the Health Services Department because she doesn’t want to be. She’s there for two reasons: easy access to a multitude of blood-bags for constant snacking and that’s where she’s been collecting information from.” 

Ignoring how cool he undoubtedly found this information, Coulson frowned. “You’re doing well, so why are you so frustrated?” 

“I don’t mind the task; it’s my job, I agreed to do it, and it will help both of our sides - not to mention that any demigod would jump at the chance to ruin the plans of so many monsters at once.” Clinton scowled. “But I’m hardwired for violence and battle. It’s like I’m a traumatized vet with earbuds that someone’s playing warzone recordings through constantly. Try getting them to sit still in that situation with no brain stimulation.” He rolled his eyes. “It makes me restless and I have strategies to manage that, but the agent you got to supervise me thinks that doing anything else at the same time would hinder my ability to recognize my mortal enemies. I could just pull rank and claim that I don’t have to listen to anyone but you and Fury, but I also didn’t want to start an argument on my first day.” 

Coulson sighed and made a mental note to update the Director on this new and exciting information about their liaison. “You’ll come back to this if I let you take a break?” 

Clinton’s smile went from nonexistent to megawatt brightness Apollo Kid Style™ in 0.3 seconds. “Really? How long a break? It’s 11:30 but surely you didn’t mean a lunch break. Surely you meant a break for morning training?” His eyes were wide, pleading, and desperate. “Right?” 

Coulson blinked, momentarily blinded by his first time seeing a full Cabin Seven Sunshine Smile™ but eventually got ahold of himself. “You have two and a half hours to do whatever you want, but you have to eat somewhere in there - when is your choice, though - and you have to be back here by 2pm sharp, ok?” 

Clint flung his arms around his boss and squeezed. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the best, Agent Phil!” He then literally flipped over the table by doing a handspring onto it and off of it, then wrenched the door open. “χάριν σοι ἔχω (chárin soi écho)!” 

— 

Clint was used to having a schedule at Camp, but his day had never before been so busy. After he spent two hours sprinting and swooping around a training room and ate a big lunch, he finished flagging all the monsters in the entire SHIELD personnel database in just two more hours. Then, Fury sat him in front of a blueprint of a mechanical bow that he had ordered to be made just for Clint. The Son of Apollo had offered his suggestions and tweaked the blueprint itself, being used to them through exposure - he was the brother of Cabin 9’s head counselor, after all. He then had his measurements taken for the multiple permanent sets of SHIELD uniforms to be made for him, and had finally been given a spare uniform, which he changed into immediately so that he could stop walking around the secret spy base in jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. 

By that point, it was 6pm, so he dragged his bosses down to the cafeteria and had a meeting with them over dinner about his first official SHIELD mission. Fury and Coulson had already gone through the 264 agents Clint had flagged, diving into their history a bit more thoroughly to double check that they looked to be fake identities and divided the list into two categories: Yellow and Red. The 156 flagged agents they had put into the Red category were those that they had confirmed were definitely monsters and had given the go ahead for Clint to take them out as soon as possible. The 108 flagged agents that made up the Yellow category were agents they had confirmed were fake identities, but were unsure if they were monsters or simply human spies, and hadn’t figured out how to tell the difference. 

“That’s easy,” Clint had said around a bite of his nachos. “Normies aren’t hurt by my special knives. I can just ask them to hold one for me - or throw one at them - and if they can’t touch it then I shouldn’t kill them.” 

Coulson looked a bit concerned by how blasé the teenager had been as he basically suggested, “attack first, make sure it wasn’t an enemy later” but Fury just raised a brow. 

“Your special knives blew up an inanimate target yesterday.” His boss said. 

Clint shook his head. “No, those were my surprise knives. I’m talking about my special knives; the ones made of the same things as the ones I gave you the day we met. Besides, all of the knives I have work on inanimate objects, the only difference is that some of them work on my enemies and some of them work on normies.” 

The two of them blinked. 

Coulson frowned. “It should’ve been obvious that you’d get more knives before you left home again. I don’t know why I expected the ones you gave us to be the only ones you had.” 

The Son of Apollo shrugged. “Probably because those were the only ones I had, and I was going to leave home without a new set, but then my κολλητός (kollitós) surprised me with a new set, like, two hours before I left home. He even made a few of them out of stuff that works on normies since I might need them with this job and my species’ luck.” He grinned wickedly. “I’ll have to introduce you to them later.” 

His two superiors looked at him warily, unsure if their curiosity won over how sketchy that smile was or not. 

Notes:

Συμπολεμιστές (sımpolemıstés) - Literally means fighters who fight together or co-fighters (comrades)
κολλητός (kollitós) - best friend
χάριν σοι ἔχω (chárin soi écho) - I have thanks to you

---

Clint, seeing any of his employers trying to gauge his experience in any given field: This looks like an opportunity to sew chaos

Rest of the Apollo cabin: *innate medical knowledge, glowing powers, healing vibes, inhuman aim*
Austin, the best musician of the century: I-
Rest of the Apollo cabin: SHUT UP FRANK, THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU
Austin, the best musician of the century: *smug about it*

Fury: It doesn't seem like poetry would help you fight monsters
Clint: *counting to ten while also imagining Fury exploding*
Clint: This is Counterproductive.

Clint: Shut up, our parents literally built us to be weapons so we can fight their battles or die trying
Everyone in the room: this is Concerning.
Clint: Yes, our powers all have drawbacks because inevitable, individual tragedy is a Fact Of Life.
Everyone in the room: this is Also Concerning.
Clint: Yea, most of my handicap is just being deaf, which is pretty ok to manage this day and age.
Everyone in the room: *collective sigh of relief*
Clint: EXCEPT THAT I'M A SON OF APOLLO WHICH MEANS IT'S PARTICULARLY TORTUROUS

Clint, airing all of his and his entire culture's trauma out for this room of strangers: Idk man, things could be worse. The room could be on fire, or full of monsters, or be running out of air, or sumn.
Clint, stuck doing a repetitive task with no fidgeting or music or multitasking allowed: THINGS COULDN'T GET WORSE

Clint: It's a stupid name
Anyone out there actually named Irma Ariti: ...
Clint: I Said What I Said

Coulson, experiencing his first Apollo Cabin Sunshine Smile at full blast: I will never recover emotionally from this

Clint: If I stab it and it gets hurt, then I kill it. If I stab it and it doesn't get hurt, then I check a box and leave.
Fury, somehow channeling Dadzawa energy from across the multiverse: That's Assault.
Clint: Yes, I'm aware.

Clint: *Sunshine smile*
Entire Aeacus base: awwwwwwwwee :3333 hes so sweet
Clint: *Actual smile*
Entire Aeacus base: I believe this feeling is called... Terrified?

Chapter 6: POV: The Terrifying Kid With A Knife Chasing You Is Humming “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”

Summary:

A shorter chapter because I’m trying to work my way onto an actual upload schedule rather then “dump five chapters every six months”. This will aggravate my perfectionism, but I need to learn to deal with it and come back for editing after all the chapters are actually out. ANYWAYS-

Clint steals a quinjet, kills monsters, makes a friend, kills monsters, annoys Fury, kills monsters, then gets a call.

Clint continued to hum “Grandma’s Armor” to himself as he hit the button on the screen that he was only moderately sure would answer the incoming call. It miraculously worked, and the unimpressed face of Agent Coulson filled the screen. 

“You know,” Agent Phil began. “You were only added to the system at midnight. Most people wait longer than 6 hours before using their new found security access to fly off into the sunset alone on a Quinjet.” 

The demigod looked around at the inside of the jet in mock surprise. “Is that what this thing is called?” He hummed. “I did wonder.” 

Phil huffed in amusement before shaking his head. “If not for that Oath, Fury would be shutting down your access and sending out ‘Dead or Alive’ notices with your face on them. Even as it stands, you’re lucky that today’s schedule was flexible, but you’ll be even busier tomorrow than you were yesterday because of this stunt.” 

Clint grinned, ignoring the wanted poster reference. “Fury has been really focused on learning how experienced I am; not just in combat, but how capable I am in as many situations and fields as he can. I figured the sooner he gets this runthrough example, the sooner I can move on from profuse training and orientation and start getting into mass amounts of boring paperwork stuff and routine missions.” He grimaced. “Besides, seeing proof of so many monsters integrated into a security network that tracks the supernatural doesn’t sit right with me. The more I thought about the damage they could cause and how they might’ve learned to track down unclaimed demigods with SHIELD’s tech, the more restless I got. It was like going through those files was me dropping a lighter above a brush pile, setting my instincts ablaze, and I felt like if I tried to force myself to not do anything about it for another day, then I might get too high strung and hurt someone on accident.” 

Coulson sighed. “These demigod instincts of yours sure are a hassle sometimes.” 

Clint laughed. “Yeah, right up until they save hundreds of lives.” 

Phil began to rummage through some papers offscreen. “Anyways, for the sole reason that you took your communications wristband with you to let us know where you were, Fury gave the go-ahead for you to execute the mission like we discussed last night.”  

“As if I’m running it for Camp?” 

“Just so, fellow half-blood comrade whom I am definitely speaking to via rainbow video message.” 

That startled a laugh out of Clint. “We’ll make a proper camper out of you yet, mystery legacy. Lesson one: they’re called Iris Messages, communication blessed by the Goddess of Rainbows.” Coulson nodded, so he continued. “Lesson two: quests almost never check in with Camp. They return with a report of success, or they die and are never heard from again.” Coulson’s face screwed up just in time for Clint to hit the disconnect button. 

He could feel the plane landing, so he hopped over to the part that opened for people to get on and off - wow, Clint really needed to learn the proper names of everything in here - and peeked out as it cranked open. 

He blinked at the two agents standing at the end of the plane’s de-boarding part, who blinked back at him. It was a lady holding a clipboard standing next to a man with a loading dolly, both wearing normal SHIELD uniforms. There was confused silence from all three parties before the girl turned to the guy and whispered, “Is that a child?” 

Clint’s face scrunched in offense. “If you wanted to see my ID, you could’ve said so. That was uncalled for.” 

“You’re holding a cheap Harry Potter backpack and wearing ratty jeans.” She deadpanned in return. 

Clint rolled his eyes, very proud of his Camp uniform. “Recon. On orders. I’m suppose to look like a kid. Back off.” He unzipped said backpack and rummaged around until he found his SHIELD ID card. Only after he had it out and visible did he begin to approach them. (See Fury, Clint was paying attention to security procedures.) The man took what Clint still thought looked like a grocery store barcode reader out and scanned the back of the demigod’s security badge. When his face popped up on the screen, the two agents’ postures relaxed minutely. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be out of your hair in, like twenty or thirty minutes.” 

As the two continued on to the next craft landing in that bay, a helicopter, he took out the paper he’d snuck off of Coulson’s desk. Clint had no doubt that the man had another several copies of the list in various places, so he had no problem taking the paper copy. There seemed to be a total of eleven monsters at this SHIELD base, so actually - 

He flicked the golden knife he’d named Birdie out of his sleeve, the rest still in their harness on his back, forcing his lips not to curl into the ferocious smirk they wanted to as he disappeared into a nearby hallway. 

- it wouldn’t take twenty minutes. It might not even take ten. 

—

After a twenty minute lunch break, he’d hit two more SHIELD bases, bringing him up to 145 names checked off the list. Only twelve of those had been human spies that he’d marked down on the paper and then moved to the next name, which he inevitably struck through with red pen on the way to the next base with a vicious glee. He was sure that the only reason he was working through such a large number so quickly was the element of surprise combined with knowing exactly where the monsters were stationed. Also he was fabulous. 

Currently, however, he was in a rather awkward situation. He had taken out nine monsters by slinking through the vents and catching them off guard with a surprise attack from above. Before he truly fell out of the vents on top of them though, he did exactly as he’d told Fury he would; throw a celestial bronze dagger at their hand to see if the agent was truly a monster or an unlucky mortal. As previously stated, the dagger only went through the target’s hand - indicating a mortal spy - twelve times prior, in twelve different bases. Each time, he’d been easily able to cover the stray dagger by manipulating the Mist, something Clint kind of sucked at but had been practicing. 

This time however, he’d thrown the first bronze dagger, hit the target, dropped out to ambush them from above, and been caught. Of course, he’d gone from having the upperhand to fighting on equal footing several times on the mission before this moment. But this time, he found himself above a woman whose mist disguise didn’t drop after she’d been hit with the bronze dagger. She was holding his wrist, trying to keep him from dipping his dagger low enough to harm, even with her injured hand. He tried to brute force it for a minute, attempting to overpower her and plunge his blade deep enough into her that she’d disintegrate into dust. 

That is, until he realized that her injured hand was bleeding. Her blood was red. Like a mortal’s. Or a demigod’s.

He gasped, his eyes widening as he wrenched himself away from her. He stumbled back and threw his dagger away, and her eyes followed it for a moment before flicking back onto him, her good hand clamping around her wound. Clint just stared for a moment, not quite sure what to do in this situation. He’d found a random lady who most likely didn’t know she was more than a mortal and was probably spying for a mortal organization. Making up his mind, he threw up a flare with his powers, pure light that wasn’t solid but was much brighter than his knives. The woman gasped as she was blinded, and Clint moved quickly. 

Five minutes later, he was back on the Quinjet and in the air, with one (1) new passenger, tied up and gagged with bindings of solid light. He knew he only had a few minutes before the Quinjet would land at the next SHIELD base on the list, so he needed to get direction, and he needed to get it quick. He tapped his communications wristband to wake it up (or whatever electronics do), then moved his hands to begin patching up his injured captive. She was entirely immobile, and he could control the bindings that held her, so it really wasn’t that hard. He was being glared at rather intensely, though. 

“Passcode 72702.” He intoned as he willed the bindings to hold the woman’s uninjured hand to the floor while the wounded one was held aloft in the air, palm up, so he could tend to it. 

He rolled out some bandages and held them under her hand while he poured nectar onto her wounded palm. The woman flinched, but Clint saw the signs of the wound beginning to close, so he simply added some antibiotic cream for extra measure and then began to wrap her hand. He could’ve multitasked earlier, but he didn’t feel the need to do so while watching for nectar overuse, so now that he was onto the easy part, he decided it was okay to. 

“Call Director Fury.” He ordered his watch, not taking an eye off of his work. He did see the woman’s eyes widen though. The watch beeped, and a dial tone began. A few more seconds of silent bandage wrapping, and the call connected. 

“What is it, kid?” Eyepatch man asked gruffly. 

“There’s been a complication in my mission.” He chirped, quickly figuring out how to tell Fury what happened without telling Fury what happened. “You remember how I said I was going to figure out who of the undetermined was on the Yellow list and who of them was on the Red list?” 

Fury sighed. “Yes, you said you were going to attack first and ask questions later. Which is better than anything we could come up with, but still wasn’t a very good plan.” 

Clint wrinkled his nose in offense, continuing to tend the woman’s wound. “It’s worked perfectly fine up until now.” 

Fury audibly narrowed in on the second half of his response. “And how is the ‘now’ going?” 

Clint rolled his eyes. “My knives worked on a Yellow lister, so I went for the kill and almost missed that she was legitimately bleeding. This means she still belongs on the lists, just a list of her own since she’s got something in common with me and my cousins.” He hoped and prayed Fury got what he meant. “Any orders on what to do with her? She’s still an agent, and her sharing some of my own characteristics actually makes me even less inclined to leave her on the jet by herself while I finish the rest of my mission.” 

There was a moment of almost surprised silence, so Clint grinned. “What? I told you we were everywhere. I just didn’t expect one of us to be on my lists.” He frowned. “She’s probably unaware, by the way. The Activities Director doesn’t send out moles.” He watched the woman’s expressions carefully, and relaxed when she didn’t react to his reference to Chiron, and simply made a mental note when she did react minutely to being called out as a spy. 

Fury sighed. “I’ll send an order to the base you’re heading towards to have a security team escort her to their holding cells until we can figure it out.” 

Clint nodded and ended their call, and continued to hold the hand (that he had finished wrapping within a few moments of conversation) as he counted to sixty and hummed a hymn to himself. When a minute was up, he began to unwrap her hand again and could basically sense the confusion radiating off of her. He kept humming while he rolled the bandage up as he unwrapped, but changed from a hymn about Apollo to another campfire song. When he finished, he got up and turned back to watch the map on the screen as it showed how close they were getting to their destination, humming the whole ride there. 

He missed the look of wonder on her face as she stared at her now unmarred hand. 

—

The next morning, he woke up congratulating himself for taking out 200 whole monsters himself in one day. It might’ve taken him until close to 10pm, but he’d needed the practice staying up late anyways. Falling asleep on the jet only two minutes into the flight home was unplanned, but he’d managed to slur his way through some sort of explanation about the sun schedule when they’d woken him up to walk him to his room. 

He blinked, freezing in his motion of tying on his arm guards during his morning routine. Who had he given an explanation to? If it was Coulson or Fury, that was fine. But he was very sure that Fury had been very busy most of the day, so would he really have been able to take the time and walk his rouge agent of the day home? 

Thankfully, after breaking into Coulson’s office with breakfast at 7am, Phil assured him that he had been the one to walk Clint to his room, and hadn’t managed to figure out any of what the boy had been trying to say besides “not compromised, just sleep need”. Therefore, even if it had been a different agent, Clint wouldn’t have slipped any demigod secrets to a random person. 

Clint had just finished explaining his Apollo Kid Body Clock Problem - to which Phil had told him he needed to stop going to bed before 10 to begin training it out of him - when the air began to shimmer to their right. Clint stopped in the middle of complaining about staying up to turn to receive the Iris Message, gesturing for Coulson to remain calm as he did. The mist shimmered until the clear form of Chiron broke through. 

Normally, Clint would greet him with familiarity, having technically been raised by him for the last four years, but they had talked about how they would interact in front of his new bosses before he’d left Camp. Chiron had made the call that until they could trust SHIELD more, they shouldn’t show just how much of a tight-knit family their community was. So, when the bearded, world-weary face of the centaur appeared, it wasn’t Camp’s favorite uncle that Clinton greeted, it was Half-Blood’s Activities Director that Clint reported to. 

He rose from his seat. They didn’t go so far as to make up a salute or formal greeting - the Greeks have never rolled that way - but he did incline his head. “Activities Director, sir.” 

Chiron nodded back. “Clint. There has been… A development.” 

Clint tilted his head. “A development, sir?” 

“The timeline has been pushed up and the Oracle has spoken. He is leaving today.” The horse man said. 

Notes:

Cool cool cool cool cool. So when I made the timeline that is my book outline, I did extensive research through many a MCU timeline and many, MANY a PJO timeline. I even individually went and looked at timelines of TLT, then one of TSOM, then one of TTC, then one of TBOL, and then one of the TLO, and took notes on each individually to add to my master timeline. I haven’t gone into that much detail with HOO, just an overall timeline, BUT I INTEND TO when and IF I actually make it that far.

Anyways, what happened was EVERY timeline of TLT said June 1st is Percy’s first sword lesson w/ Luke, the 2nd, he plays capture the flag and is claimed, and then the 3rd-10th was always something along the lines of “Percy gets used to Camp” and then the 11th is when he sees the oracle and leaves. THAT’S why I’ve been so clear about what day it is to Clint. I talked about EXACT DAYS when he spent time with family before leaving Camp, and why I make it so clear when another day has passed. It’s also why - not sure if it’s obvious - I’m so clearly rushing Clint’s integration into SHIELD, because I only had so many days to work with and divided them accordingly when building my master timeline.

HOWEVER, something felt off (also I wanted to check exactly what time of day that Percy visited the oracle) so I went and actually read the book chapter wherein I found that the scene where he’s claimed ends the chapter and then the beginning of the oracle chapter starts with the exact word, “The next morning,” so I kinda had a huge mental breakdown about my timeline being off when I was so careful and thorough and everything bc I totally messed it up somewhere, but then I read the rest of the chapter and it’s like, “so i kinda sorta fell into a sucky different routine in Cabin three and then I had a bad dream and then I got called by Mr. D to be given the quest” and so I had this like crashing relief moment that those days were grouped together on every timeline I saw was because ITS LIKE A MONTAGE where time passes in like four words so I wasn’t actually screwed. But I felt the need to rant about the crisis and turmoil I went through writing this chapter. So… idk, there?

—

Me: I’m being so sneaky, no one will EVER see the demigod spying for mortals comi-
Sue_Clover: Needs more testing because what if he hits a demigod?
Me: …
Me: A True Oracle has appeared.

Clint: Welcome to demigod school!
Coulson, playing along: Glad to be here!
Clint: Lesson one! Proper slang.
Coulson, playing along: Iris Message, got it.
Clint: Lesson two, accept your death with honor. Never ask for help unless the very fate of the world is at stake.
Coulson: …I don’t like this game anymore.

Clint: *falls from the sky, stabs her, ties her up with what seems to be glowsticks, then kidnaps her and pours strange stuff that burns on her wound while she’s bleeding out*
Demigod spy: I have one enemy.
Clint: *is literal sunshine, unwraps her wound to show her hand is completely healed*
Demigod spy: …I have no enemies.

Fury: He has promise. With our combined forces, we could save the world.
Clint: *steals a jet for an impromptu genocide run through all of SHIELD’s bases, his dumb plan causing complications*
Fury: *sigh* The world is doomed

Clint: *breaks into Coulson’s office*
Coulson: you have thirty seconds
Clint: *Has food*
Coulson: you have infinite seconds

Chiron: *Appears out of thin air*
Coulson: AAAAAAAAAA *shoots Iris message like eight times* AAAAAAAAA

Coulson: What's that you keep humming? It sounds like-
Clint: Yep! Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.
Coulson: ...I thought you were technically Pagan?
Clint: That defo is a Pagan song tho?
Coulson: The Christian hymn?
Clint: Idk what you're on man. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is a campfire song about my dad.
Coulson: ???
Clint: ???

Chapter 7: The Age Old Debate: How Much Can I Trade My Brother For? (But Slightly To The Left)

Summary:

NGL, this whole "quick updates thing" is really spiking my anxiety. I'm so glad I didn't make a set schedule, but the perfectionist in me is NOT liking the week-ish of editing I have been forcing upon myself instead of several months.

In which Clint talks to Chiron about the upcoming question, introduces his “bosses”, talks to his brothers, interrogates the demigod spy for mortals, and makes a deal in hopes that everyone’s brothers can end up safe.

“Tonight?” Clint asked in shock. “Sir, you said the quest wouldn’t be given for at least another week. That I’d have time to-” He shook his head. This wasn’t a too much of a surprise, and he’d been taught to be more adaptable than this at Camp. “Understood, sir. I’ll adjust accordingly. Any specific orders?” 

“You’re well aware of the rules against interfering in quests, so I’ll allow any assistance that doesn’t undermine them.” Chiron said, and relief hit Clint like the Minotaur. 

“Thank you, sir.” He really was glad, it was more than he’d expected: he hadn’t been ordered to stay away from the quest and was explicitly told that he could offer any help that wasn’t against the rules! 

Chiron raised a brow. “Thank you, Clint. I’ve wanted to offer more than just minimal assistance to my heroes for centuries. It is you who has made that possible.” When the teenager didn’t respond, Chiron continued. “The companions he has chosen are his Protector and the architect owl. They have each been given the standard questing packs, and will be leaving before noon.” 

Clint couldn’t help his little scoff-giggle in disbelief. “Your precious little girl is going? Aren’t you worried?” 

Chiron smiled sadly. “I have worried for every child I have ever taught, but some more than others. Not because I favor one over another, but because of each hero’s unique… hindrances. I fear that I do worry for her, Lad. More than I do for even our young Son of Poseidon.” 

The centaur turned to look out the nearby window. “Either way, it may not be what is best for her, but it is what she has convinced herself that she wants. She may turn bitter if I do not let her have this chance to prove herself, and the reality of life outside of Camp may be what she needs to truly understand instead of continuing to emptily learn.” 

Clint smirked. “Ah, and here I had thought you were turning a blind eye to her hubris.” He shook his head. “Unimportant and not my business. I assume the Protector is going in order to keep his license?” 

Chiron nodded. “Your brothers are waiting in the other room to speak with you momentarily.” He glanced at Agent Coulson briefly before turning back to the Son of Apollo. “But I was hoping to be introduced before I leave you to it.” 

Swallowing down his question about which brothers and his follow-up exclamation that one had better be Percy, he nodded. “Of course, sir.” He glanced back at Phil for confirmation, and the Agent nodded his agreement, so Clint stepped to the side while Coulson stepped up. “This is SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, Director Fury’s right hand man.” Clint knew he had a more proper title, but that it was supposed to be some kind of secret, so he figured that was the best way to introduce him. 

Coulson nodded politely to the centaur. “Pleasure to meet you, and I hope our organizations continue to work beneficially together in the future.” 

Chiron’s face softened and his raised eyebrows showed marvel. “Ah, a delight to make your acquaintance also, young legacy. I am both Camp’s Activities Director, as well as Chiron, the ancient trainer of heroes.” Clint snickered; the old horse had a soft spot for anyone with godly heritage. It wasn’t obvious, but Chiron had an adoption addiction worse than Zeus’ ego. His urges to glom onto a demigod (or legacy) and wrap them in blankets and force-feed them soup were often hidden (due to inevitable death), but were legendary even so. 

Not showing his surprise at any of what the old man had said, Coulson asked, “You are aware I’m a legacy?” 

Chiron nodded. “I must admit that I was not entirely convinced of the fact until I had seen you. But I have been around far long enough to recognize the signs of one immediately.” 

Intrigued (and hiding his childlike excitement so well that Clint was surprised), Phil inquired, “Have you seen enough to recognize my heritage, or is that a mystery as well?” 

Chiron scanned him a bit closer for a while before asserting, “A nature god, three generations back - your grandparent on one side was a half-blood. I apologize for not being able to tell you more, but there are so many nature goddesses that even I haven’t yet seen one child of each.” 

Phil actually looked at Clint, conveying his skepticism with his eyes, so the Son of Apollo added, “Chiron has called almost every demigod’s parent before they’re claimed. He never tells any of the unclaimed his suspicions so as to not cause… complications, but I did once see him call a legacy of Aeolus mere moments after he stepped foot through Camp’s boundary, and he was proven right two years later.” 

Phil and Chiron made some more small talk - unsurprisingly, weirdly amicable small talk - before a thud sounded from the room behind the centaur, so the ancient being said his goodbyes before calling in the first of Clint’s two brothers waiting for their turn. 

The blonde hair and sky blue eyes customary of most his siblings filled the screen, but the matching mature yet mischievous smile and permanent thin plaid flannel was uniquely Lee Fletcher. Clint grinned. 

“Hey there, Chief! How’s managing the family?” He chirped. 

Lee groaned. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this ahlone, Deputy." 

Clint kept his face clear of the twinge of homesickness he felt at hearing his big brother's soft New England accent. Despite Camp being in New York, 95% of the Campers were from out-of-state, so the dialects and accents of the kids there tended to be very diverse. For someone from Connecticut, Lee actually had a rather harsh accent, but compared to Michael’s when he first showed up, freshly shipped in from Maine, it was wicked soft (hah). Mike’s had calmed over the years, but on a bad day, Lee and him could accidentally set each other off and then both end up speaking so incomprehensibly that no one could understand them. 

"Just get the Doc on your side, then you can scare everyone else into submission. That's how I always get them to listen." Clint suggested. Everyone was scared of Michael and his talents, except maybe Will, but he was well-behaved enough anyways. 

Lee glared at him. "Yea, but what ahbout when it's me against the Doc?" Thankfully, he picked up on Clint not naming any names and followed suit. 

Clint pursed his lips as if thinking for a moment. "...Good luck?" 

The flat look that Lee sent him was impressive. "Thanks." 

The younger demigod snorted. "I'm kidding. Remind him he's on clinic duty with the baby whenever it looks like someone is about to get mauled and he'll whip them into shape, even if he loses entertainment. He doesn't want to infect the Glowbug with chaos or traumatize him too soon. Other than that, not sure what to tell you." 

The blonde eyebrows of his Cabin Head raised. "That's... Actuahlly surprisingly good advice." 

After Clint sufficiently complained about that comment, the two of them switched to Ancient Greek. Lee wanted an update on how his little brother was settling into his new job and how they were treating him, while Clint wanted to know all about how Camp was doing. Lee made him laugh with a few anecdotes about his siblings' antics and Clint made the other's jaw drop in awe and envy by describing the mission he went on to take out hundreds of monsters already. Lee made him grimace when hearing about some of the changes in the Camp's politics (if they could be called that) and Clint made his brother blush by asking about any developments between him and his crush. 

"Shut up, παρακαλῶ σε (parakaló se)." Lee hid his face in his hands. "He's like, almost fou' yeahs oldah than me. And I have no chance with him, he's the whole Camp's sweet-haht." 

Clint shrugged and sang back. "Yes, but who among them knows all of his red flags, much less likes them?" 

Lee narrowed his eyes, turned and stalked towards the door to the other room. "Sea kid! Get in he-ah and tell your brothah to shut up!" 

The door opened almost shyly, and huge sea green eyes peaked around the corner, the marine shades filled with childlike confusion. His soft voice asked, "My what?" 

Clint took the opening and gasped. "You don't want to be my little brother anymore? Even after I gave you my last name?" 

Percy stepped in, letting Lee leave the room, his baby seal looking eyes and all traces of innocence disappearing instantly, replaced by a deadpan look. "I asked because I couldn't hear him over your theatrics." 

"There's my little brother!" Clint's voice was loud, excited, and slightly mushy. "I missed you, Otter-pop." 

Percy rolled his eyes, but his mother had taught him better than to snub genuine family feels. "Missed you too." He grimaced a little. "I wanted to ask for advice. You and Luke are the only two who have been sent out in the last few years and he won't tell me anything really useful." 

Clint's smile wavered in the face of thinking about his little brother wandering around unprotected. He was a strong kid - extremely smart and resourceful - but the blonde had been hoping Percy would train for at least a few more months at minimum before being sent out on his own quest. The Son of the Sea had been at camp less weeks than most humans had fingers, and imagining the blue bundle of salt water and snark having to figure his way out of traps and fight monsters for real this soon made Clint's heart pound and soul ache. 

But the son of Apollo gathered his wits and kept smiling. He told the kid the basic essentials: have an escape route at all times, monsters use the mist to hide even from demigods so trust no one but your companions, stock up on rations whenever possible, always take the time to rest properly, keep everything you're not prepared to lose on your person, and other little tips he picked up on various quests (and some from being homeless too). 

Percy quickly jotted them down on a nearby napkin in wonky Greek letters to show his travel companions - Annabeth and Grover - while Clint complained. "I could've taught you so much more if I only had more time. I could’ve told you what food brands keep the longest, where the best places to take free showers are, how to tell whether you can be arrested for sleeping somewhere, who outside of Camp is the most trustworthy in a tight spot, when the best times to take breaks are, why-" 

The younger boy cleared his throat. "I really appreciate this, big bro." 

Clint's eyes filled with tears and his heart slowly melted out of his ribcage. "Awwwwe-" This was the first time the Son of Poseidon had initiated familial affection. 

Percy narrowed his eyes at him, and Clint knew he didn't like to be treated "like a baby", so he gathered himself as quick as he could. 

"Anyway," His voice was still a bit thick. "I'm sure you'll do great. I know you can do it. Someone will watch over you-" namely Clint himself "-so I know you'll be okay. But stay alive. I know I can't ask you to stay safe, so stay alive, Sea Star." 

Percy nodded, looking a little flustered at the sappy display, and mumbled something in return then swiped through the Iris Message, leaving Clint alone in a SHIELD office with nothing but his tears and his boss. 

---

Unfortunately, Clint could not immediately leave to begin tailing the questing group, despite them being scheduled to head out from Camp in just a few short hours. Fury was making arrangements for Clint to be dropped off near them, but he had a few orders for Clint first. Most of it was filling Fury in on the few things he'd learned in the Iris Message, but the other thing was... a bit more delicate (otherwise, Clint would've skipped town to go help Percy without delay). 

As it turns out, the woman he had ambushed for his Monster Genocide Mission™, had been questioned quite thoroughly with various SHIELD lie detecting technologies and had been found to be a surprisingly high ranking member of an organization (named "MalWick") that had somehow managed to plague SHIELD for several years.

She had agreed to cut a deal, but had very strict terms. She swore she would give up every scrap of detail she knew - from locations and names to which rooms have trash cans and what everyone's favorite food is - and would accept either the equivalent of indentured servitude to SHIELD or become a death row inmate… as long as she got two things in return. 

Fury had been personally interrogating her from the beginning due to the sensitive and secretive nature of the new Civil Occult Specialists and Theurgy Department, and she didn't hesitate to state her case in full once she knew who she was talking to. She claimed her twin brother had been gravely injured in an accident when they were younger and that she had only joined MalWick because they had told her that they would not only pay his medical bills, but also look for a way to cure his lingering sequelae in lieu of paying her. 

She had agreed and been living her best life until they had - in her own words - "asked her to do shadier and shadier things" to the point that she had tried to leave. They had responded by threatening her brother's life and she had since then been following their every order for her brother’s sake, while he stayed a permanent, helpless hostage. 

It sounded like a classic sob story, until every single method of lie detector told Fury it was true. She bargained her services (the half of her deal that SHIELD didn’t want as bad) for extracting her brother from the organization unharmed, and her information on MalWick (which SHIELD did, in fact, really want) for healing her brother (which SHIELD would have to retrieve her brother first to complete at all). 

"I won't ask questions," She had sworn. "I won't ask how he healed my hand or how he'll heal my brother. I don't even expect him to be healed entirely - just to the point where he's not in constant pain anymore." 

That's right, the woman had no idea she was a demigod (or legacy) nor had any idea what that all entailed. She didn't have a clue about anything supernatural except that a blonde SHIELD agent had fixed a hole through her palm in less than five minutes. She also seemed to be quite intelligent, as she pieced out rather quickly that SHIELD wasn't privy to how the healing worked; that knowledge belonged solely to the blonde agent (which should seem impossible, since SHIELD usually has to know everything about everything). 

Thus, Fury's hands were tied on both ends: he could wipe out MalWick extra easily and save hundreds of lives, but it hinged on Clint and his healing powers. After his boss had finished giving him the low down, Clint agreed to it so easily that Fury seemed shocked for a whole two seconds! (Super long as far as Clint is concerned.) 

After working out the details of Clint's mission to follow Percy's quest and make sure they succeeded, Clint was guided by his bosses to the woman's cell - as she had been carefully transferred to Aeacus 18-08 overnight. Fury took up a stance behind Clint while Coulson hovered further down the hall. The woman looked up and her eyes widened with hope and glinted with desperation upon seeing Clint. She tried to straighten her posture as best she could - unsuccessfully, as she was more restrained than a normal prisoner. Most people might've called it overkill, but Clint actually found it funny that Fury had been right to do so, since it is much harder to confine a demigod than a normal person. Before she could speak, however, Clint took control of their interaction. 

"Pleasure to meet you, miss. My bosses haven't been kind enough to tell me your name yet." He greeted amicably. 

She nodded at him respectfully, probably hoping to get on his good side. "My full legal name is Vitalya Elise Gavius-Kotik. Most people called me Elise before I went into the business of having eight different aliases per week." Contrary to her name, she had no obvious accent, so she probably was born or grew up in America. 

He cracked a small smile at that, and she untensed slightly. "Well, Lizzy, we seem to have stumbled into quite the situation." He leaned casually on the wall beside the ridiculously high tech prison bars. "There's a lot of moving parts and not a lot of time to make sure each one individually lines up." He tilted his head. "How old is your brother?" 

Her eyes filled with confusion but she answered. "Nineteen, same as me." 

He nodded, knowing instinctively that she was telling the truth. "And how old was he when he was injured?" 

"Sixteen, and I was the same." 

"Did you join MalWick to help him?" 

"Yes." She seemed to be settling into the impromptu interrogation. 

"And he was then held hostage after you tried to leave?" Clint was glad she was answering more simply now. His lie detection gift wasn't very powerful and yes/no answers were much easier for him to feel out. 

"Yes." 

"So you are now working there against your will?" 

"Yes." 

Last question. "And would you die to get your brother out of there? Die to fix his injuries?" 

"Yes." No hesitation. And true at that. 

He nodded. "Alright so now that we've established that I am willing to help you, we need to parse out if I can help you." At Elise's confusion, he elaborated. "What I used on you doesn't work on everyone, and more importantly, it doesn't work on everything. First, I'd need to check if he is among the population of people on earth that it works on, then I'd need to figure out if the injuries are too severe for it to help." 

He held eye contact, his expression as serious as he could make it. "Let me be clear. I am from a place with much more advanced medical and healing capabilities than probably anywhere in the world, but there is no such thing as a cure all. There is no unconditional fountain of youth, no panacea, no instant health regen, nothing of the sort. We are more advanced, we are miracle workers, but we are not omnipotent." 

Her eyes had gotten glassy with tears as he gave it to her straight, but Elise's face was understanding and she nodded in acceptance, which boosted Clint's respect for her exponentially. She seemed to not know what to say, so he kept speaking. 

"The other thing is that MalWick will notice you defected or are missing soon. Either way, they won't have need of him anymore and will probably rid themselves of your brother." There was horror, but no panic; only begrudging resignation. "This time constraint would normally be fine as we'd be able to do both at once: rescue your brother to bring him in for medical help as well as take down MalWick. But there's another moving factor." 

Elise's face scrunched in confusion. "What other factors are at play?" 

Clint's smile turned pained. "You see I received a message about ten minutes before Fury informed me of the situation. It was from home and said that my own brother is in danger." Clint's instincts hadn't decided she was untrustworthy and she looked both concerned and slightly unconvinced, so he elaborated despite not fully trusting the SHIELD agents behind him. 

He smiled wryly. "His name is Percy. He looks nothing like me, but I don't think that matters much at all. I have a large family - five older siblings and five little siblings." Elise's eyes widened, and Fury and Coulson startled from behind him. "I have a lot of cousins too. Anyway, Percy isn't even the youngest of them - that's Austin, he's seven - but he ran off on his own spy mission to copy me at my job." Not entirely true, but close enough. "Problem is, the thing he got mixed up with is so dangerous that it was actually something already on SHIELD's radar." He grimaced, hard. "He's twelve. I have to go make sure he doesn't get hurt or end up dead. Today." He glared at Fury. "I'd already be on my way to him if I could be." 

He shook his head out and turned back to her. "Anyways, here's the plan. I'll be gone for at least a week, but not more than two weeks. You help Fury take down MalWick and save your brother while I'm helping my kid brother and finishing the SHIELD mission. Keep your brother stable for the few days until I get back, and when I drop off Percy, I'll grab everything I need to give your brother the best care, literally, in the world. I'll bring our two most skilled doctors - whose skills blow mine out of the water by a lot - and any other supplies that could even possibly help him, and we'll see what we can do for him." 

There were nods all around the room. And with that, they all split off to get things done. 

---
I have to put some of my end notes in the chapter bc it was too long >:(

1) When Chiron and Clint were discussing Annabeth, I’m sure many of you rose to arms immediately. Don’t get me wrong though! Annabeth is in my Top Three Fav PJO Characters, and she CARRIED in HOO. I just feel like with all the backstory and chaos throughout TLT, it’s kind of overlooked that - until around the sirens in TSOM - she kind of let her hubris control her. IT MAKES SENSE tho, with how talented and experienced she is, from both her time on the streets and her FIVE whole years of training, but it never sat well with me that everyone around her just let her do whatever she wanted.

For example: Her strategy for that first capture the flag game was solid (set Percy away from everyone else as a decoy so that the Ares tanks would go after him for their personal grudge and be out of the way) but she didn’t consider that by doing so, MAYBE she’d make an enemy out of Percy. She didn’t since Percy is so forgiving and had better things to worry about immediately after, but if things had gone differently, then it might’ve created some sort of bitterness between the two of them, and then one of the most powerful demigods at camp would have a negative bias against her. She also didn’t think about how being attacked during HIS FIRST game at Camp, after being there for less than a week, might have effected Percy mentally.

I could go on and on, but TL/DR, I feel like her uncontrollable hubris during the first book shouldn't be overlooked.

2) I’m VERY aware of how suspiciously Dumbledore-like Chiron is EVERY time we see him in the books, but I also NEVER get to see a good, beloved, grandpa-like version of him, so I’ve decided to make my own because that would be soooo cuteeeee.

This version of Chiron trains the kids because he feels like SOMEone should give them a fighting chance to survive, but if he was struck down for breaking any of those STUPID ancient laws (because this one DOES think they’re very stupid), then who would protect these kids? So, very begrudgingly, this version of Chiron keeps the secrets he’s not allowed to share while also subtly gesturing in the vague direction of the truth. Like a grandpa that you ask for a cookie and he’s like, “well, gee, your parents said you shouldn’t have cookies before dinner,” while magically losing his glasses and waving his hand at the cupboard they’re hidden in.

He has an ongoing list that he keeps on himself at all times (still on parchment coz it’s that old) of the names of EVERY child he’s EVER taken care of (no matter how brief), his favorite memory with them, and what their fate was - whether it was dismemberment or old age that took them from him. Sometimes he’ll bring it out at look at it and think of all the ways he’s failed and have to go find his current favorite child and make them rest and eat something so he doesn’t cry. (Spoilers: from the year after she arrived until past HOO, his favorite is Annabeth)

3) Lee has a very soft New England accent, and I set guidelines for it, but its still hard to try to write it. His accent is very close to a Boston accent, but not quite so bad? He drops Rs at the end of words (car=cah, park=pahk), but not in the middle of them and most of his As switch to a long A sound (ex: bath=bahth and dance=dahnce). He doesn’t have intrusive R’s (idea=idear) or dropped Ts (cow=kee-ow) but it should be expected for him to use his local regionalisms (soda vs pop, bubbler vs drinking fountain).

4) In PJO canon, Austin and Kayla don’t show up until just before TLO, but they’re here now bc I didn’t do the research in time and have already made several references to Austin, and I REALLY want them to have shown up together.

Notes:

παρακαλῶ σε (parakaló se) - I'm begging you

---

Clint: wait, you're AWARE that your favorite grandchild is unbearably arrogant???
Chiron: please lad, I'm not BLIND, just biased.

Chiron: Every hero has their...
Chiron: *gets war flashbacks of grown men breaking their necks trying to do cool flips and accidentally stabbing themselves and of literally ever dumb thing he's seen ancient heroes do*
Chiron: ...hindrances

Coulson: *a war veteran wearing his best super spy poker face while squealing inside*
Chiron, who's been training super soldiers longer than Phil's bloodline has existed: omg he's so adorable and mine now he totally doesn't have parents right? I call dibs please he's so adorable I have so much soup to give

Michael and Lee meeting -
Lee: ...
Mike: ...
Lee: Mainiac >:(
Mike: Nutmegger >:(
Them: <3
Cabin 7: ???

Lee: -and his eyes are so pretty and he's so tall and strong and-
Clint, bored out of his mind: mhm
Lee: -and the way he manipulates everyone around him with the double meanings of words and threats so veiled that you can't tell they're there makes the poet in me swoon-
Clint: The what???
Lee: The poet in me, obviously there is one.

Percy: *tiny, big green eyes, fluffy hair, innocent mannerisms, momma's boy*
Clint: Awwwwwweeeeee <3
Percy: *would cuss someone out while stabbing them, sassier than a god*
Clint: Awwwwwweeeeee <3

Percy: *shows up with a checklist of questing tips*
Annabeth: At what point were YOU homeless?
Percy: When was I what???

Fury: finally, I can take down this pain in my butt
Elise: actually, you can have the info when my brother is healed
Fury, who does not have Magic Hands:

Elise: I'll give you my life if you'll save my brother
SHIELD: meh
Elise: I'll give you information for healing my brother
SHIELD: Danggit now we actually have to save the brother >:(
Elise: >:)

Clint: Nothing in existence fixes everything. We are not omnipotent.
Also Clint: We are the miracle working children of literal gods.

You have the chance to take down a massive criminal organization
Fury: :D
And the quest that has a war hinging on its success is happening at the same time
Fury: :C

Elise: My brother is in mortal danger :(
Clint: bro, samsies!
Elise: ???
Clint: We're so in sync, I think I'll keep you :3
Elise: ???????

Notes:

I'm on my third installment of Hawkeye: The Hero No More! Honestly, this is the longest time my brain has focused on any idea ever, so I'm surprised I even made it this far. FOURTEEN whole chapters in one series!!!! I'll upload my notes and timeline if I ever decide to abandon this, but I'm also kind of riding the high of getting so many complete chapters out, even if I now look back at CBATNOH and pick it apart mentally, screaming at my foolishness and mistakes internally.

Hopefully, you, the reader, found this work ok. I'd appreciate a comment, but honestly, just get a drink of water lol

LOVEZZZZZZZ

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Hawkeye: The Hero No More