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tagged by @romanoff-queen to post my phone wallpapers! i think i got these both off pinterest (and then added a little something to the home screen one)
i’m gonna tag @critfail-lesbian @adhdpanchito @sweatermac @naikia @colorblindsteverogers @sapphicsteverogers @hoenursey @renecdote and the rest of my fam whose urls i’m currently forgetting because i have trash memory!
hi morgan! for the fandom family: db7093 <3
of course!
join my fandom fam!
(it’s me, i’m the witch)
anyway! the discord has been a little quiet lately, and also it’s almost halloween, so i’m opening up my fandom fam again!
the only requirements are
reblog this post
be following me (maybe check out the other members if you’re feeling it)
then just send me an ask with a color in hexcode saying you want to join!
things you get:
a place on the fam page (if i ever get around to updating that for real)
access to a discord server to chat with other members, share your creations, your selfies, your music recs, and a whole bunch of other stuff! we have a robot!
a tag to track and use so we can all see your original content!
my undying love and affection.
HEY SO it’s been a lil bit quiet in my fam discord, so if anyone would be interested in joining that jawn, send me an ask with a couple things about you (name and pronouns specifically) and a hexadecimal color and i’ll maybe pop you in there to join the fun! (pros, you get some fun friends, and also you get to track the tag morgansfam to share your stuff and see everyone else’s!) (ps if current members wanna spread this around to share the love that’d be rad!)
Impact.
Clint Barton is not born with wings. He is not a mutant, though he doubts that would have helped his case. He is an ordinary boy, until he, one day, is very suddenly not.
Or: the wingfic nobody asked for, in which Clint's wings have brought him nothing but trouble until one day, they suddenly don't.
[on ao3 (heed the tags please!)]
Clint Barton is not born with wings.
He is not a mutant, though he doubts that would have helped his case.
He is an ordinary boy, until he, one day, is very suddenly not.
When Clint is young, he lives with his mom and his dad and his big brother Barney, and for a very short time, things are okay. His mother loves him and his dad is a little angry sometimes but it’s mostly alright. But very soon, his dad is a lot angry most of the time, and Clint knows how to hide a bruise before he knows how to tie his own shoelaces.
When Clint is a little older, things are less okay, and Barney is angry a lot now too, and his mom is sad and his dad is mad and Clint is very, very afraid.
And then, very suddenly, it’s just him and Barney.
And Clint is still afraid.
They are two boys from a broken home and it’s so very easy for their names to slip through the cracks, and before he knows it, Clint and his brother are no longer wards of the state, no longer given even that thin protection.
Clint Barton is six years old and he knows the mechanics of shady deals better than he knows the alphabet.
Clint Barton is six years old, and he knows pain more than he knows love, and he does not know it’s meant to be any other way.
The men who take them want them for something Clint doesn’t really understand, but he knows that he doesn’t like it. He knows it hurts. He knows he wants it to stop. He knows he wants his mom to tell him it will all be okay.
But all he has is Barney, and it continues, and it doesn’t stop hurting and Clint feels like the dried tear tracks on his cheeks are never going to go away.
A few weeks into their stay, the men who took them seem to decide Barney isn’t working out for whatever it is that they’re doing, and so most days, Barney stays in their little room that’s really more of a cell and Clint is taken to the room with all of the machines and pokey things and he hates every second of it, but they tell him they’ll hurt Barney if he fights, and as much as Clint fears his brother, he fears being without him even more.
So Clint screams and cries but he does not fight, and the men who took them inject him with something and they do something that hurts to Clint’s back and then they bring him back to the not-room and Barney yells at him for not being stronger when he cries and the pain in his back gets worse every day and he does not fight.
One day, Clint returns to the not-room and Barney looks at him with disgust plain on his face, and asks what the fuck is on his back and Clint can’t see because there’s no mirror but it hurts and why doesn’t Barney care that it hurts?
Everyday the disgust on Barney’s face gets worse and worse and every day the pain gets worse until one day Clint wakes up and he can see what they’ve been doing to him.
He glances over his shoulder and wakes Barney up with the scream he lets out because there is something growing from his back, pink and ugly and dusted with a layer of downy feathers.
Barney wakes up and yells at Clint and when Clint doesn’t calm down, Barney hits him, and that makes him fall very suddenly silent, but he cannot settle his breathing or quell the panic clawing in his chest.
That day, Clint fights, because he is afraid, and when he returns to the not-room, Barney has a bruise high on his cheek bone and angry words for Clint on his lips, and Clint shrinks under the attention, and curls up in a corner as far away from Barney as he can and falls asleep there.
He doesn’t fight again, but it is no longer because he is afraid of what they’ll do to Barney. Now, he’s afraid of what Barney will do to him.
And so it goes.
Clint Barton is nine years old and he knows pain like the back of his hand and fear like his own heartbeat and he is so very, very sick of it.
So he takes what they have taught him, and he uses the wings they have forced on him and he takes his brother and he leaves.
There is a fair amount of fighting involved in it, and they use something to try to stop them that costs Clint his hearing, but in the end, it boils down to just that.
He leaves.
They leave and they walk for almost a day until they hit the edges of the nearest town and they find a big colorful tent in what should probably be an empty field, and they sneak in to get out of the rain, and are promptly caught.
The man they run into snags them both by the backs of their depressingly grey shirts and looks them both up and down, drenched, soaking wet, Clint with wings sticking out of his back, and grunts and steers them through the tent. They exit through a back flap and hurry through the rain to where there are trailers parked. The man shoves them into the biggest trailer, and they come face to face with another man who’s equally intimidating to them, Clint nearly shakes clean out of his skin right then and there.
But nothing happens, and they exit the trailer with jobs and the promise of a roof and three square meals a day and hearing aids for Clint as long as they help with stuff around the circus. Little hands are better suited to some tasks.
It turns out that little hands are also better suited to stealing things, but that’s something they don’t bring up until later. Until Clint and Barney are too far indebted to them to say no.
After the thieving, when they’ve got blackmail and a debt hanging over their heads, they tell Clint that he could be making them even more money, and Clint makes the mistake of asking ‘how’.
Swordsman trains him, and then so does Trickshot, and pretty soon the ever so cleverly named “Hawkeye” has taken the center ring with the other acts, introduced as a sideshow freak.
Clint hates it, but he has no other choice but to comply, they’ve got too much leverage on him.
Clint Barton is 18 years old when he he finally gets the balls to turn on Swordsman, and the only thing that gets him is the rest of the circus turning on him, and his brother spitting in his face and leaving, and Clint is very, very alone.
It’s probably why when Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD approaches him, slumped in a chair at a police station after he got picked up for petty theft, Clint says yes to the job offer.
He says yes, on the one condition that no one else knows about the wings.
Coulson agrees easily and gives Clint a sleek black business card with nothing besides an address on it, and tells him to sort out what he needs to sort out and report there at 0600 the next morning. Clint shoulders the backpack he has with him, and tells Coulson that this is all he has. He can go now, he just needs a minute.
Coulson just nods and leans back against the wall, and Clint hurries into the bathroom, and wraps his wings around his chest, and binds them there as tightly as he can without restricting his breathing. His shirt is loose and when he tosses on an unbuttoned flannel over top of it, it’s unnoticeable.
He returns to Coulson, and Coulson leads him to a car and that is the end of the life Clint knew.
Clint Barton is nineteen years old and he is the youngest Agent on the SHIELD payroll, though no one knows that besides Phil Coulson, Maria Hill and Nick Fury. He’s also the only enhanced on SHIELD’s payroll, but again. No one really knows that. He keeps his wings bound at all times when he’s out of his quarters, undoes the bindings when he takes out his hearing aids at night, and no one but Coulson and Fury know that he’s a freak.
He’s a normal Agent, albeit a very good one, and one with a very odd choice of weaponry, but still he’s just another Agent to everyone who isn’t Coulson. He works his way to a Senior Agent and then Special Agent and then Specialist, and he’s the guy they call in for stuff no one else can handle, and they dispatch him to make the calls they know that others may hesitate at, and he is good at his job.
Clint Barton is twenty three years old and he is sent after the deadliest assassin known to the intelligence community and he looks at her and all he sees is himself, young and made into something he didn’t want to be and unable to be anything else for fear of repercussions. So he slings his bow onto his back, and puts the arrow back in his quiver and makes himself known to her and brings her home very much alive.
Fury and Hill each spend about an hour chewing him out like it’s going out of style, and make it very clear that he is responsible for the Black Widow now that he’s brought the girl in to SHIELD, and that if she fucks up it’s his ass on the line too. He’s well versed in anger, by now, so he grins and bears it, and as they leave, he jokes with the girl and makes it very, very clear that he does not blame her for the verbal dressing down he’d just gotten, and that he is not mad at her for it.
Coulson greets them in the hallway, and leads them to the containment quarters the two of them will be confined to until the Black Widow has made progress in breaking her programming. The Black Widow will not be allowed to leave the quarters when Clint is out on missions, and when Clint is there, she will not be allowed to leave the facility, with an insane number of security measures in place. Clint will not be able to keep his weapons in the quarters, nor any of his identification tags or cards to make sure that she cannot use his IDs to gain access to any of the armories, she’s been fitted with an ankle monitor. There are so many new protocols for him to follow Clint thinks he’s going to forget at least half of them. But the girl’s alive. That’s what matters.
The smug smile on Coulson’s face tells Clint that he was selected for this mission for exactly that purpose.
Clint Barton is twenty five, and Natalia Romanova is twenty when Natalia becomes Natasha Romanoff, and is assigned to Coulson, and the three of them become Strike Team Delta.
Natasha does not know about Clint’s wings, and it stays that way, because she’s become as good as his sister, and he does not want to deal with the inevitable fall out of her realizing he’s a freak.
Clint Barton is thirty one years old when he is dispatched to New Mexico with Coulson, while Natasha remains in New York with Fury, undercover to keep an eye on a dying Tony Stark.
It is the first time that Strike Team Delta has been separated for longer than a couple of days since they were assigned to each other.
It makes Clint’s wings itch.
He still keeps them bound tightly the whole time he’s on duty, despite how desperately they strain to be released when he’s in the lift, an arrow nocked and aimed at a guy’s chest while he takes out a dozen of their best agents and makes for the crazy, maybe alien hammer stuck in a rock.
Clint Barton’s life only gets goddamn weirder.
Turns out, he was pointing an arrow at an actual literal god, there are billionaire tin men flying around in the sky, there’s a doctor turning green and levelling boroughs and they’ve just defrosted a national icon.
But hey. Fuck it, he guesses.
Clint Barton is thirty four years old when he has the singular most terrifying week of his entire life. Loki walks out of that cosmic gateway and Clint’s entire life changes. He’s lived through some pretty terrible stuff, but at least he’s always been in control of himself before. But now.
Now.
Now he can’t even attempt to defend himself. He’s at Loki’s beck and call, pliant to his every whim and it’s fucking petrifying that someone has that much control over him. Luckily, by some absolute miracle, Loki never finds out about the wings, never makes him reveal himself to anyone else.
He makes Clint murder sixty three of his friends and coworkers and Loki kills Phil, so it’s not really an adequate trade off.
But Clint’s secret is still safe, he guesses.
Lucky fucking him.
Clint Barton is thirty six years old when SHIELD falls, and Steve comes home toting a slightly damp man with a metal arm. Steve’s brought the Winter Fucking Soldier into Avengers Tower’s living room like it’s an everyday occurrence. Clint’s wings flutter and flex in alarm under the binds and his ribs ache like they normally do now, because he’s been more paranoid about keeping his wings wrapped lately. He ignores it, he knows how to deal with the pain, and greets the Winter Soldier as though the man is not the stuff of even Natasha’s nightmares.
“Hey, man, what should we call you?” he asks, because he knows that was the first step Natasha took in reclaiming her identity. Deciding what she wanted to be called.
The guy seems to consider it for a long while, before he says, very softly, like he’s afraid of wanting anything, which is all too familiar to Clint, “Steve calls me Bucky, but I think I’d like to go by James, for now.”
And Clint smiles and nods, and stands, and extends his hand to the world’s deadliest assassin, and says, “Nice to meet you James. I’m Clint.”
Because his life is already so goddamn weird, this might as well happen.
James Barnes has lived in the Tower with them for four months before there is a crisis big enough that it calls the entire team out at once. James assures them that he will be fine, he’ll stay out of trouble and even after that, they have to talk Steve out the door, and he’s distracted the entire time they deal with Monster of the Month number seven hundred billion.
Clint really can’t blame him for his distraction, for having part of his mind on James what with that whole situation, but when he has to shove Steve out of the way of an incoming goddamn projectile, he gets a little annoyed. Especially when he hears, almost more than he feels, something in him shatter.
He tells the team he’s injured as soon as the threat is neutralized, and then turns off both his hearing aids and comms and fucking flees back to the Tower, because he’s not going to be of anymore use like this and because he’s in so much pain he can barely breathe. He flees to the Tower and does the last thing he ever thought he’d do.
He knocks on James’ door, and shoves his way in, and says, “I need your help.” As soon as James gives him a skeptical nod, Clint struggles out of the top half of his uniform.
His hands are trembling so badly he almost can’t get at the releases for his body armor, and his chest is heaving hard enough that it’s jostling whatever’s broken and he feels like he’s a half step from crying but he forces himself forward, until he’s standing there in just his uniform pants, and the bindings keeping his wings trapped.
James’ eyebrows leap towards his hairline.
“Clint, what the hell is… Christ, are those wings?” he says incredulously, and Clint makes a sound that could be a whimper.
“I know, I know, I’m a freak of nature, just--” he cuts off, and very, very carefully begins to undo the wrappings holding his wings down, but every movement jostles the wing joints in his back which in turn jostles the bent, broken, shattered part of the limb still bound to Clint’s side.
After only a moment, James steps forward, and places his hands on top of Clint’s.
“Let me,” he says, and Clint almost sobs in relief. It’s a very near thing, but he manages to choke off the worst of the noise. James doesn’t comment. He finishes unwrapping Clint’s wings in silence.
With a gentleness Clint wasn’t expecting and more care than anyone has ever shown them in Clint’s lifetime, James helps the wings unfurl. His right wing is fine, flaring behind him to stretch now that it’s finally free. His left wing, however, is not faring as well. His left side had taken the brunt of the impact when he’d shoved Steve out of the way, and it shows.
After the first joint, the wing is mangled and out of shape, and even the slightest twitch shoots a searing pain through the entire left side of Clint’s body that makes him want to sob.
He trained himself out of that response long ago, though, so he remains silent, though he trembles and shakes and grits his teeth so hard he feels he may break them.
Unfurling the broken wing is almost more painful than growing them had been. Clint’s knees nearly give out underneath him as James straightens out the wing.
“What the hell were you thinking?” James asks then, into the too silent room and Clint freezes, cause that sort of question never precedes anything good.
“Steve was distracted,” he’s quick to explain, because maybe a good and hasty explanation will make James less angry. “He wasn’t paying attention and there was something flying at him so I shoved him out of the way. The thing sideswiped me instead of laying him out.”
“Not that,” James snaps and Clint flinches. “What the hell were you thinking wrapping these wings like this? Are you stupid?”
Never let it be said that James Barnes sugarcoats things.
“What? No, I--”
James cuts him off, poking a finger into the side of his chest, where Clint’s developed a bruise that’s lasted for a fairly long time, at the edges of the bindings. “And this? This is clearly not good for you, and going out into the field with your chest wrapped up like that? Do you have a death wish?”
Clint almost says yes, but decides that is too dark of a joke for this moment.
“No one on the team would want to look at these things. Easier for everyone if I keep them out of sight,” Clint mutters with a half-shrug.
Clint sees James throw his hands up in the air out of the corner of his eye, and then feels when metal fingers accidentally clip his injured wing. The action is so unexpected and so is the jolt of pain that Clint cries out, a guttural, wounded animal noise that Clint is ashamed of.
James doesn’t apologize verbally, but Clint can see it in his face, when he steps back in front of Clint, and nudges him to lie down on his stomach on the floor.
Clint’s entire body is wracked by a fine tremor by the time he’s successfully lying down, with his wing spread next to him.
James works quickly and quietly, exiting the room only once and returning faster than Clint thought possible with emergency supplies from Banner’s lab. He cleans the few places that Clint’s wing is bleeding and begins fashioning a splint as best he can to keep the bones of the wing immobile so that they can heal from the fractured mess they are.
The room is silent, until James, very uncharacteristically, breaks it. “Why don’t you want the others to see them?” he asks in a low voice. “They’re beautiful.”
Clint scoffs. “Yeah right. Everyone who’s ever seen these things has been disgusted by them or wanted me to use them for their own gain. Coulson was the only one who ever saw more than that, and he’s dead. Secret died with him. Or. You know now, I guess.”
James makes a face that Clint can’t decipher from this angle.
“If I’m allowed to ask, were you born with them?”
Clint almost shakes his head. “No. After my parents died, my brother and I were taken by some lab coats to some place I can hardly remember. Didn’t get what they wanted out of my brother, but they sure as fuck got something out of me before I busted out.”
Clint thinks it must be the pain, loosening his lips this way.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” James says and Clint laughs. He regrets that as soon as he does it, because it hurts like hell, but he has no better way to react.
“Oh, no. He’s not dead. Or at least, he didn’t die then. He survived to become the world’s third biggest asshole,” Clint jokes. Right behind Loki and Clint’s father. James doesn’t ask about who beat Barney out though, and Clint doesn’t offer up the information.
They’re quiet for a long moment more, and then, “You know, you’re all always telling me I shouldn’t be ashamed of my arm, just cause HYDRA gave it to me. That it’s part of me now and so it doesn’t matter where it came from, and all that shit. You’ve said something like that to me before. If you believe that about me, why’s this so different?”
Clint would shrug, if he could, and give a self deprecating smile, and crack a joke. But instead, he says, “This is different. That’s something they did to you. This was… These are all me. I’m a freak all on my own. Just needed a little bit of encouragement.”
James’ hands flex near Clint’s wing joint in his back for a split second.
“You’re not a freak,” he says, stony cold and serious.
Clint almost flinches and then thinks better of it, and tamps down on that response.
“Nice of you to say, Barnes,” Clint mutters, and clenches his hands when James sets part of his wing back into place. God this fucking hurts. A thought crosses his mind then, and he curses. “I’m not going to be able to wrap them like this. Fuck. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I can’t-- Fuck.”
James’ hands still where they’re securing the split around Clint’s wing. He presses his flesh hand to the space right in between Clint’s shoulder blade, right in between where his wings sprout from his back and he just leaves it there for a second, a gentle pressure holding him. It’s not until James increases the pressure ever so slightly that Clint realizes his breathing was becoming erratic.
He heaves a deep breath with a great amount of effort and steadies himself.
“Clint,” James says, in a low, level voice, not a hint of worry in it. It’s calming to Clint, more than he’d like to admit. No one’s done this for him other than Phil and his mother, no one’s ever been able to notice Clint’s panic and work him through it. James is astute though. Clint’s not surprised he noticed. He is a little surprised that he’s staying to help him though. “Breathe. You’re fine. You’re safe. You’re in Avengers Tower, it’s just you and me here. I won’t hurt you.”
Distantly, Clint recognizes those words, has heard them before. When James first came to the Tower and was dealing with a rush of almost a century’s worth of memories, and he was overwhelmed and couldn’t breathe right sometimes, Steve would sit him down, and say that to him. James was recovering remarkably well, for what he’d been through, so Steve hasn’t had to do that in weeks, over two months, but Clint can still see it, clear as day, in his mind’s eye.
His ears are ringing, he thinks absently, and he moves to fidget with one of his hearing aids.
James doesn’t move his hand from Clint’s back for a few more minutes, and keeps talking, low and slow, and Clint quickly feels like he can breathe easy again.
“Clint?” he finally asks, impossibly gently for someone who looks like…. That. Clint just nods and grunts in what he hopes is a ‘go on’ sort of way. “What is the absolute worst you think will happen if the team finds out about your wings? Will you tell me?”
Clint shudders as James removes his hand.
He does not whine at the loss, though he really kind of wants to, and how pathetic is that?
“It’ll end up just like everyone else,” Clint says after a long moment of silence, rolling the words around in his head like he’s not sure they make sense.
“What do you mean everyone else?” James prods and Clint scowls.
“Everyone else! They’ll want me off the team, or they’ll make me into the resident freakshow, or they’ll let me stay but they’ll think I’m disgusting! None of it’s good! Are you fucking happy, Barnes?” Clint snaps, because he’s angry goddammit! Not with Barnes, sure, he’s angry with himself for being so careless and for getting himself hurt and for not being good enough and for being such a goddamn freak in the first place.
God, if his dad could see him now he’d--
No. No, he’s not going there. He can’t do that.
“And what’s the best case scenario?”
Clint shakes his head. “Best case? They only show their disgust through thinly veiled looks?”
He doesn’t know. He hasn’t thought that far ahead.
James smacks the side of his leg, probably because it’s the closest thing to him.
“You’re really stupid sometimes, for someone so smart.”
“I have the reading comprehension ability of an eighth grader,” Clint mutters.
“Shut the fuck up,” James snaps back. “So what, you’re not an academic genius. You’re smart, in other ways. Ways that are likely more important for you and your team. Barton, I’ve seen you practicing. Your spatial awareness is insane. Your tactical knowledge is astounding. Your skills with people are impeccable. For all your lack of a sense of self preservation, your survival skills are pretty much unmatched. So what you can’t read the Iliad? Who gives a shit? You’re smart in ways that keep people alive, Clint. In ways that keep your team safe and civilians out of harm’s way, and criminals off the streets. Do you get how important that is?”
Clint half shrugs and makes a non-committal noise. “M’still a freak.”
James is a little rough with the next piece of the split he slots onto Clint’s wing and Clint grunts in pain.
James sighs. “You’re just as stubborn as Steve, you know that, asshole?”
“You flatter me,” Clint deadpans.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees James shake his head and look skyward.
“I never wanted the team to know I’m any different. No one at SHIELD besides Phil, Fury and Hill ever knew I was… this. I liked it that way. Everyone treated me like I was normal. I liked that. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t… doesn’t matter. Once they know I’m like this, the team’s going to treat me different,” Clint says, to fill the silence.
James sits back on his heels and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Barton, do you wanna know something?” Clint makes a noise in the affirmative. “You are the first person to ever, ever, ask me what I wanted, since the whole HYDRA thing. Not even Steve, and god save that little idiot, he’s done so much for me, but even he never asked me what I wanted to be. But within a second of knowing me, you asked me who I wanted to be. Do you have any idea how much that meant to me?” Clint shrugs and James continues, “You were the first person who didn’t handle me with kid gloves or treat me like a monster. That meant everything to me. I haven’t forgotten. I never will. I just. I want to do something to return the favor. So can you believe that I’m not lying to you, for just, two minutes?”
“I don’t think you’re lying to me,” Clint says quietly. He thinks this is the most he’s ever heard James speak all at once.
“Good. And I’m not lying when I say that if the team can accept me, after what I’ve done, and what’s been done to me, they can accept you too, and they will, with open arms.”
Clint shakes his head, and furrows his brow. “But this is different. I was… I mean it’s not--”
“God, shut the fuck up, Clint! There’s nothing different about what happened. HYDRA stuck a weapon to my shoulder without my consent. Some lab monkeys forced you to grow wings against your will. Different results, same principle. Someone modified our bodies without us wanting it. That’s what it boils down to. You are no different than me.”
Clint actually has to choke back a pained noise. It has nothing to do with the crushed wing.
He turns his face away from James, pressing his forehead into the floorboards like it’ll do something for him other than leave a mark on his face.
“I get that it’s… I mean I know how hard it was for me to follow Steve here from DC, and I’ve known Steve all my life. But these people, you all seem really, stupidly good. You can’t keep hurting yourself to keep this hidden because you think there’s a chance that they won’t like that you’re enhanced.” James studies the work he’s done on Clint’s wing and makes a face. “I also think you should tell them because Banner should probably look at this. I’ve never splinted a wing before.”
Clint coughs and gasps out a laugh.
Who knew he’d be spending his afternoon having a heart to heart with the Winter Soldier. Who knew the guy had such a dry sense of humor.
“Will you… if I tell them, will you be there? I don’t want to…” he trails off. He doesn’t say ‘please be there with me, I’ve afraid to do this alone, please don’t leave me alone’, but he thinks the message gets across well enough, because James nods.
“Whatever you need, Barton.”
And Clint takes the first steady breath since he arrived back at the Tower.
Clint Barton is thirty-six years old, and he tells his team about his wings for the very first time.
They take another three hours to return from aiding civilians and debriefing.
JARVIS lets Clint and James know when the team arrives back on the common floor, and they go down to meet them.
Steve has a lecture on his lips when they get down there, Clint can see it, but it dies as soon as Clint steps fully into the room.
He’s still just wearing his uniform pants, even just the idea of wrestling into a shirt at the moment far too painful, so his wings, particularly the mangled one, are on full display. So are the blue-black bruises from where the hit had cracked a few ribs, and from where Clint’s binding had left him with ugly purple marks.
The rest of the team are stunned into silence.
It’s Natasha who breaks it.
“Clint, what happened? How did-- there was no magic involved today, how did this happen?” It’s a question, but she doesn’t say it like one.
Clint wrings his hands and his wings flare behind him nervously and he hisses at the pain.
He can’t make himself speak for a second, so he signs to Natasha, No magic.
“No magic? What--” She cuts herself off. “Oh my god, Clint.”
Clint shrinks away from them, his wings attempting to fold away, to make him look smaller, and he is met with James’ hand at his back, the same gentle pressure between his wing joints as before.
“No magic,” he repeats, very quietly. “I’ve always-- Well, not always, but almost as long as I can remember.”
“You’ve never said anything,” Tony says, and Sam smacks his arm, in a manner he probably thinks is subtle.
Steve’s eyes haven’t moved from his crudely splinted wing, from the bruises of cracked ribs on his chest. His face is stony and unreadable. Clint’s expecting the worst, and then Steve speaks.
“Did this happen when you were protecting me, today? Did you let this happen to yourself to keep me safe?” He sees the guilt in Steve’s eyes then.
Clint shrugs, with only his right arm. “Healing factor or not, that thing would’ve caved your chest in. I just got clipped. It was just cause I had my wings wrapped that I got hurt like this. It’s no big deal. The ribs’ll be fine soon, and the wing shouldn’t take too long to heal, and I’ll be able to wrap them up again soon so you guys don’t have to look at them.”
Much to Clint’s surprise, it’s Banner that speaks up then.
“No. Clint, do you have any idea how bad that is for you? Even if we did take issue with your wings, which none of us do,” he all but growls, with a warning look at the others, “you should not compromise your health for our comfort. No one will mind you letting them stay as they should be.”
Clint has never heard Banner speak with that much conviction in his voice. He’s never been more grateful for the man.
And then Tony goes and ruins the moment. “So, no magic, how’d you get them? Born that way? Volunteer to be a science project like Cap?”
Rhodey smacks Tony, this time, and then shares a weary look with Sam.
Clint’s right wing flutters nervously. “Didn’t exactly volunteer,” he mumbles, and Thor holds up a hand.
“You owe us no explanation, Barton. You are still the same great warrior who joined this team, there was simply something we didn’t know about you before, that we know about you now. That is all that we have to know.” He steps forward, and claps Clint on the right shoulder, and gives him one of those broad, beaming smiles, and heads for the kitchen. “Now, we bested an enemy in battle! That calls for celebration!” he declares, and the team, with one last glance towards Clint, nods their approval of Thor’s idea.
Banner hangs back a moment to let Clint know he’ll look over his injuries later if he needs it, and then it’s just Clint and James, alone in the living room, while the others file into the kitchen.
As soon as they’re gone, Clint lets himself relax.
Immediately, his entire body starts trembling.
James does not leave his side.
“What did I tell you, Clint?” he says quietly, and Clint lets out a laugh that’s just a touch hysterical. “You see? Not one of them looked at you any different. A little pity about the injuries, cause they’re a bunch of saps like that. But that’s it. You’re still Clint, you’re still you, and you’ve still got the same sort of place on the team as you did before, as soon as you’re healed up.”
Clint laughs again, and turns and throws his arms around James.
James tenses for a second, and then very carefully gives Clint a brief hug back.
“Thank you,” Clint says, so quietly he can’t even hear himself speak.
James just pats his arm once, and follows the others into the kitchen, shouting about how none of them know how to use a stove, and they better not have set anything on fire yet.
Clint Barton is thirty-six years old, and he’s certain that he’s finally found a family worth fighting for.
there is no team cap or team iron man, there is only team “rhodey, bucky, pepper and sam” because they have to constantly put up with whatever flavor bullshit of the week steve and tony cook up and that’s not tea just truth
LGBTQIA(vengers)
Steve Rogers comes out on a Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday morning, it's hit every major news outlet. Twitter has some opinions, and Pepper Potts is taking no prisoners.
[on ao3]
Captain Steven Grant Rogers comes out to the public on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in May sitting in a quiet cafe in Manhattan, talking to a reporter from the New York Times. The woman wears a bright yellow blouse and a flared black skirt and she smiles when Steve looks at his hands and softly admits, for only the second time in his life, that he is bisexual, that he always has been and always will be no matter who he ends up falling in love with. His heart thumps in his throat for a second, two, three, and then he looks up and the journalist and he smiles wide and he laughs, a genuine, sunny laugh to match the sunny day, and he takes her hand and thanks her for giving him the voice he didn’t know he was allowed to have. She smiles, and squeezes his hand back, and says it’s her pleasure.
By Wednesday morning, the story has hit ever major news outlet across the planet, Captain America Comes Out! spread across front pages everywhere.
Steve feels something he doesn’t really have a word for.
He just knows he’s really, really happy.
And then he checks Twitter.
That, in hindsight, was a bad idea.
There are a number of tweets with the hashtag #StandWithCap, which Steve thinks is incredibly sweet, until he sees the need for that hashtag, because wow, #AntiCap and #BoycottCap are trending number two and three, directly beneath it. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest, when he clicks on it, because he expected some people to have loud and rude opinions, but this is crazy.
And then he reads the first tweet in the tag.
@theRealDonaldTrump
We need to make America great again because this reason! Outdated science experiments are not the same as good American citizens even if they look like they! They should be careful what they say!
Steve doesn’t even know how to react to that. He’s still sitting, staring at his phone when Pepper comes to find him.
“Oh, Steve, I was just looking for--what’s wrong?” she asks as she steps into the room, her heels clacking on the floor until they meet the soft carpet under the couch that Steve had been trying to sit on. He’d missed, and wound up on the floor, and hadn’t moved. He doesn’t move to get up now, nor does he answer. He simply raises his phone for Pepper to read. “Oh honey,” she says, and suddenly the heels are off and she’s folding herself up next to Steve and resting her head on his shoulder and looping an arm around his waist.
Steve speaks softly, his voice rough, and he realizes distantly that he’s been sitting here for almost three hours. “I’m not-- I mean, I’m more than just-- How could he say something like that?”
He knows that the president, to put it lightly, is an ignorant, bigoted, moronic asshole, but he still couldn’t have prepared himself for just how hurtful it would be to read something like that. None of the responses were particularly good either. Sure there were people standing up for him, which made something warm settle in his chest, but the number of people so ready to make him out to be nothing more than a science experiment, something less than human, less deserving of respect and dignity…
There are not tears in his eyes. There aren’t.
He still buries his face into the crook of Pepper’s neck, just to be sure. He doesn’t want her to have to see him like that.
He’s not sure how long he sits like that, but Pepper doesn’t complain once, just lets him have as long a moment as he needs.
When he finally pulls away, she keeps her hand at the small of his back.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bother to you,” he says quietly, and Pepper uses her free hand to swat his shoulder. He jumps in surprise, and gives him a look before resting her head on his shoulder again.
“Steven Grant Rogers, you are not bothering me. You are my friend and this?” she takes his phone, and waves it in front of them both. “This is horrible of someone to do to you. You’re allowed to be upset about it. You’re a person, with thought and feelings and this cheeto-dusted shit-gibbon trying to reduce you to a science experiment is despicable.”
Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Thanks Pepper,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
He scrubs a hand over his face and scratches the back of his neck and tries to hide that his hands are shaking, from fear or anger or raw, searing pain, he’s not sure.
Pepper sees it though, and takes his hand and holds it tight.
“You know, you’re not alone, Steve,” she says softly, looking up at him with so much unfiltered affection that Steve thinks he actually might cry. He likes this side of Pepper.
“I know. Everyone was really supportive when I told the team I was going to do this. I really appreciate it.”
Pepper smiles and shifts, resting her chin on his shoulder instead, so that she can look up at him. The whole thing is strangely intimate. He can’t say he doesn’t like it.
“That’s not what I meant, Steven,” she says and Steve raises an eyebrow. “She said we could wait until I wanted to say something to tell people, but I suppose now is as good a time as any. Steve, sweetheart, Natasha and I have been dating for almost four months now.” When Steve’s other eyebrow creeps towards his hairline, Pepper laughs. “What, did you think you were the only queer in this Tower?” she asks, a smile pulling at her lips, as Steve pulls her into a hug.
He knows, obviously, that he’s not the only queer person on the planet, but to hear someone else say that, to have it reaffirmed that he really isn’t alone in this, is reassuring in a way he can’t even begin to verbalize. He tries to show his feeling to Pepper in the strength of his hug and the gentleness of the hand he runs through her hair, the kiss he presses to her forehead as she draws back.
Steve lets out a quiet laugh, just this side of hysterical, and Pepper wraps one perfectly manicured hand around his wrist and they just sit for a moment.
“You’re not alone, Steve. And it’s not just Natasha and the team and I.” She picks up Steve’s phone again and holds it up so his face will unlock it, and taps into the Twitter app. Ignoring the #AntiCap and #BoycottCap tags, she clicks on #StandWithCap, and begins to scroll.
The first few tweets are nothing noteworthy, just the hashtag and nothing more. A few celebrities have tweeted in his favor, he notices Tony’s name among them, with some harsh language and not a single lowercase letter. And then Pepper tilts the screen away from him, and scrolls until she finds what she’s looking for.
“From an @amylee: #StandWithCap, Cap, I’ve been there, I went through the bullshit when I came out. You’re not alone and the entire community supports you. Anyone who doesn’t can kiss my apple taters.,” Pepper reads from the phone. Steve smiles, and rubs at the back of his neck. “@ajcray says ‘Captain America is honestly an icon. Overcoming the ideals of a different time and accepting and loving yourself like that? Goals.’ @shayshouldgoaway says ‘Your fav could never. #StandWithCap Fuck Trump and his shitty homophobic self.’ @zavage says ‘Nothing but respect for my Captain.’” Pepper snorts and reads, “And @bottompride says, ‘Can’t believe Cap is one of us. Suck it straights.’ I know it might be hard to see right now, but you did something really, really good here Steve.”
Pepper scrolls through his Twitter feed a little longer, reading the notable ones to him and laughing to herself as she goes. She’s still curled into his side on the floor when Natasha finds them.
“Trying to steal my girlfriend, are you Rogers?” Nat teases, and Steve flushes red up to the tips of his ears. Natasha comes and sits on the couch behind them, one ankle hooked over Steve’s shoulder, her fingers carding through Pepper’s hair, and Steve feels lighter than he has all day.
~*~
Steve’s not sure when he fell asleep, but he wakes up late, to his phone absolutely blowing up. He fumbles for it blindly in the half light of mid-morning filtering in through the shaded windows, squinting against the light of the screen when he switches it on.
The little red number on the corner of his Twitter app is ticking up higher and higher by the second, he has almost seven hundred new emails and approximately six million text messages, which is an exaggeration, but still. Steve, intimidated by the number of emails and Twitter notifications, goes for the texts first, and is surprised to find a few numbers he doesn’t recognize. He scrolls past them until he hits one he knows, Pepper’s contact, messages from Tony, Nat, Sam and, well, most of the team actually. He clicks into Pepper’s message first.
[From: Pepper Potts 8:49 A.M.]
Don’t look at Twitter when you wake up.
That sounds ominous, I’m sorry, but I would sincerely advise against it.
[From: Pepper Potts 8:51 A.M.]
I released a statement this morning stating that the team and I stand behind you, and it got more attention than I was expecting.
Someone released all of your contact information on Twitter, and some people are saying some truly repulsive things.
He sighs and goes for the other messages, with very low expectations.
[From: Tony Stark 8:36 A.M.]
I cannot believe you got doxxed, Spangles.
Do you know how hard people had to work to break through my security to get even this little bit of information?
Steve.
Do you understnad.
DO YOU UDNERSNTAD.
MY security is the best there is.
Besdies Shuri’s.
[From: Tony Stark 8:41 A.M.]
And YOu got someone mad enough to break through all of that to dox yuo.
Anyway, we need to change your email address, get you a new phone number and maybe also change all the passwords on your accounts.
JARVIS is screening all incoming attempts to contact you, so he’s caught the bulk of it, but I’m sure some stuff slipped through.
[From: Tony Stark 9:00 A.M.]
I’m really sorry that people are doing this to you Steve. You’re a good man, and you don’t deserve this, especially not over coming out.
[From: Sam Wilson 8:27 A.M.]
If you need anything, say the word.
[From: Sam Wilson 9:02 A.M]
Are you still asleep or should I be concerned?
I mean I’m still concerned cause you never sleep this late, but should I be seriously, seriously concerned?
[From: Sam Wilson 9:36 A.M.]
Steve, let me know you’re alright when you see this, okay?
[From: Clint Barton 9:14 A.M.]
Nat’s got addresses of the doxxers i am willing and able to put arrows in eyes
Or other places
Or just bricks through windows
Or arrows through windows
Or both
Whatever u need steve, i know i’m bad at all this, but seriously, i’ll be there if you want
Steve skims through the rest of the messages, and lets Tony know that he’ll see him about changing his contact information later, and he lets Sam know that he’s okay, and lets Clint know that he does not want arrows in anyone’s eyes, but that he wants plausible deniability so he’s just going to pretend he didn’t see anything about bricks.
And then he considers Pepper’s first message, and ignores it in favor of looking at what the hell is going on.
As it turns out, he probably should have avoided Twitter like Pepper said.
He sees the notification for the post that must have started all of this, a tweet that reads “ @CaptainRogers is a fucking disgrace to his uniform. pulling this stunt to try to convince good american youths that being a fuckin queer is okay. disgusting. #BoycottCap #AntiCap”
Under it is the rest of the thread, his phone number, personal and his extension at the Tower, his email, the floor of the tower he’s on, and messages encouraging people to do something with the information, to show him what the American public really thinks of him. Several users start calling him the f-slur with a ‘Captain’ affixed to the front of it as though they’re clever and it turns into a hashtag and it’s well on its way to trending.
The thread is interspersed with a few people trying to stick up for him, but it mostly consists of people hurling homophobic slurs around like it’s going out of style, and even more people saying crude things about the nature of Steve and Pepper’s relationship, with a sprinkling of “if he’s sleeping with a woman how is he gay?” for good measure.
Front and center to all of it are tweets, from the Commander in Chief himself.
Steve feels sick.
He grips his phone so tightly that the screen cracks.
“Fuck,” he sighs, tossing the phone onto the bed. “Hey JARVIS?” he says softly to the room, and overhead, the AI hums to life.
“How can I help you Captain Rogers?”
“Can you tell me what the statement Pepper released this morning said?” he asks, shyly, as though he isn’t talking to an artificial intelligence that is pretty much incapable of judging him.
There’s a pause and then, “Ms. Potts’ statement, released in time to hit all of the major news outlets this morning, read: ‘A few days ago, my dear friend Steven Rogers came out publicly. This is a big step for him, and I know he has appreciated the support that many of you have shown him. It is incredibly kind of you. However, we cannot help but notice that there has been some hatred directed at Captain Rogers as well, some of it even directed towards Stark Industries and official Avengers channels. Stark Industries, the Avengers would like to take this opportunity to go on record and say that we will not tolerate this sort of behavior. It is unprofessional, and absolutely unacceptable. Additionally, I would like to take this opportunity to go on the record and say that I do not appreciate this hatred being spewed towards my friend, and I will not respond to any unkind messages on any form of social media. Thank you.’”
JARVIS falls silent and Steve takes a moment to think he doesn’t deserve Pepper. She’s too good. And then he thinks ‘fuck’ and looks to the ceiling, even though he knows by now that that’s unnecessary.
“JARVIS, can you send a text to Bucky?”
“What would you like me to send to Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers?”
“Hey, Buck, I don’t know if you’ve seen what’s up, but I’m so sorry. I know you were okay with me coming out like this and even with me gearing up to tell the team about us, but I didn’t know people would bring Pepper into it like this, or take things so far. I’m really sorry. I’ll text you when I’ve got a new phone number and everything. Give Shuri, T’Challa and the others my best. I love you.”
“Will that be all, Captain?” JARVIS asks and Steve wraps his arms around his stomach, and nods, and then remembers he’s talking to a robot.
“Yes, that’ll be it, JARVIS. Let me know if Buck responds, or if the Princess does for him, I forget what he’s meant to be up to today,” he says, as though the AI is going to actually do something with the excess information. He still feels weird not offering it up though.
He gets up then, placing his ruined phone on the nightstand at his bedside and heading for his closet. He’s only halfway through getting ready when JARVIS interrupts him.
“Captain, Sergeant Barnes has responded, would you like to hear his message?” JARVIS asks, proper as always.
Steve nods, and tugs a shirt over his head. “Yeah, please.”
“Sergeant Barnes says he will be out of contact for most of the day if you attempt to reach him, but not to worry, he is with Princess Shuri. He also says to let you know that he will not tolerate you apologizing for things out of your control, that he wants you to take your time in telling your teammates about your relationship, to extend his apologies to Pepper as well, and to make sure you are caring for yourself. He finished his message with ‘You’re a stupid brave man, Stevie. I love every inch of you. None of this is your fault. I can’t wait to see you again.’ That is the end of the message. Would you like me to send a reply?”
Steve presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. He’s not getting teary eyed over a message from his boyfriend. He is not.
“No, JARVIS,” he croaks out. “But could you tell me where Pepper is?”
“Ms. Potts is in the common kitchen on the first residential floor. Would you like me to inform her you are looking for her?”
“No, that’s alright, thanks JARVIS,” Steve says, stuffing his feet into shoes and grabbing the ruined phone to give to Tony later. The trip to the kitchen on the first of the common floors is too short; he still has no idea what to really say to Pepper, how to apologize for all of this.
As he approaches, she very sternly says into her phone, “I don’t care what they said to you, I don’t want them there, if I even so much as hear the word FOX I’m going to lose my mind, am I understood? Good,” and then hangs up, and looks to him. “Oh, Steve, just the man I was looking for.”
Steve winces and then blurts out, “I looked at Twitter. And then I broke my phone.”
Pepper sighs, “Steve--”
“Pepper, I’m so sorry you got dragged into all of this like that. It’s completely unfair to you and--”
Pepper cuts him off with a noise and a pointed finger. “No! Steve, you do not apologize. There is not a single thing that has happened this week that has been your fault. What you did was incredible. Do you know how many lives you’ve impacted, in a really, really good way, in the past few days? You’ve given people all over the planet someone to look up to. It puts sort of an unfair spotlight on you, I know, but you did something good. As for me? I’m a grown ass woman. I made the choice to make that statement, knowing what could happen. Some people are pigs. That’s how it is. Do not ever apologize for the actions of others. They should be held accountable, not you.” She reaches up and cups his cheek with a hand. Her skin is smooth and smells like the lavender lotion she keeps stashed around the Tower. Steve almost smiles. “I’ve got some things to take care of. Make sure you take care of yourself. And stay off the internet for a bit, okay?”
And then she’s gone.
Steve smiles as she goes.
~*~
Tony fixes his phone, hooks him up with a new phone number and changes his email and all of his passwords and then abandons him in the common area when he gets a phone call. Steve worries about being alone--it’s a really bad day for that-- for all of two seconds, before Nat glides into the room and pushes him onto the couch, before flopping down next to him to use him like a pillow.
“Pep says we should watch the news,” she says, by way of greeting.
Steve, because it is Natasha, accepts it and moves on, focusing on the TV instead.
It’s tuned in to some news channel that’s currently airing a gossip show, with a live feed…
That’s the Tower.
Steve has a moment of panic before Nat grabs his knee and squeezes, just short of painful. He relaxes, though he’s not any less on alert, thinking the worst, even though the gathering of reporters he can see on screen is rather small. But then Pepper’s face fills the screen, her picture perfect media smile out in full force as she glares down the cameras and speaks.
“It’s come to my attention that since my earlier statement regarding Captain Rogers, there have been some rumors started about the nature of our relationship, and I thought it best to address them all before they got out of hand.” She smiles into the camera, no longer picture perfect, rather predatory and dangerous . Steve would be terrified of her if that look were directed at him. “Captain Rogers and I are nothing more than friends, and my girlfriend does not appreciate the insinuation those rumors make about me. Now as for the announcement promised, I am thrilled to announce that the Maria Stark Foundation will be starting work on a shelter for LGBTQ youths to provide a safe haven--”
Steve tunes the rest of the announcement out, still trying to process what has just happened. Nat pokes his side, and looks up at him from where her head rests in his lap, giving him the softest smile she’s ever seen on her face.
“Didn’t think we’d leave you out there on your own, did you, Cap?” she says, squeezing his forearm.
Steve smiles, and wonders how he could have ever expected anything less from either of them, and thinks that he’s incredibly grateful for his family.
Hi! Would it still be possible to join your fandom family? If so, could I get added as either Misty Knight or Sharon Carter? Thanks, and congrats on the big follower milestone! (p.s, I follow from here but captainmistyknight is my marvel sideblog rip)
you can absolutely join as sharon!
(ps i’m sorry this took so long i suck)
