#demon clint barton

"Natasha Romanoff," Pepper slides the file across to Tony, who thumbs it open to see the striking figure of a petite redhead, "I need you to go down there for a couple months. Figure out what her story is."

"It says here that she has almost two hundred kills to her name," Tony looks up at Pepper with a furrowed brow, "Surely this isn't a hard judgement to make."

Pepper's face twists, and if Angels were capable of grimacing, that's what Tony would've called her expression, "This isn't from me. This is from the Woman upstairs. Says that Natasha reminds her of somebody and wants to make sure we're doing the right thing before we condemn her to Hell."

Tony wants to say something, but he knows better to argue with Pepper, so he dips his head slightly and sees himself out. It's quick work to pack a small bag of essentials and glamour his wings away; his white robes falling away to reveal a loose black tee and jeans. He stretches a couple of time experimentally, shaking out his fingers - and stuffs the file inside his quiver.

Then he stretches his hands out, palms facing up; and falls.

This is always his favourite part, the way the air whips around him and the world shifts and changes before his very eyes. He knows that when the Demons fell, it wasn't fast or smooth or painless - that Heaven wept for their pain, but he can't tell but imagine that it must have felt something like this.

He falls gracefully into a back-alley, narrowly missing a hunkering black trash-can filled to the brim. When he's finishing dusting himself off and looks up, Clint is leaning against the wall and looking at him with a smile, dressed in some sort of purple monstrosity.

"Clinton," he says with faux politeness, "I presume you're here about Natasha Romanoff?"

"Is that her name?" he pursues his lips, and Tony hates him all at once because he'd never known lust until he met Clint, "I've been calling her Little Red in my mind. You know because she's -"

"petite and a redhead," Tony finishes, "yes I can put that together for myself thank you."

Clint beams at him, "I always knew you were a smart cookie. You're wasting away upstairs. You should come and hang out with me sometimes." He waggles his eyebrows in a way that's clearly meant to be suggestive, but damn if it doesn't stir something inside of Tony, "I can show you how the other half lives."

"No thank you," Tony says shortly, and he must imagine the way that Clint's face falls, because it’s gone in a second, "I like where I am right now."

/

"So, correct me if I'm wrong but Little Red -"

"Natasha -"

"Natasha has, or had rather, past tense - " Clint touches his forehead and then his chest, before moving to his shoulders, and it takes Tony an absurdly long amount of time to realise that he's just made a cross. The thought makes him want to laugh, but he bites his tongue, " - has an incredibly long list of victims."

He twists so that he's walking backwards, and Tony wants to reach out and grab him because he's expertly flitting through the crowd, and it's going to give them away, "Which begs the question, what're you guys interested in her for?"

Tony shrugs, "I'm not sure," he says honestly, "I asked Pepper the same question. All she said was that the woman upstairs thought that Natasha was worth redeeming, so I had to come and investigate."

"You don't feel the same," Clint says knowingly, and Tony flushes. "It's not for me to decide who is and is not worthy," Tony says loyally.

Clint snorts, "that sounds like a Company line. Pepper tell you to say that one too?"

Tony doesn't say anything. Mostly because it was Pepper who told him to say that, but he doesn't want to give Clint the satisfaction. From the way Clint smiles though, he has the feeling that he already knows.

"If you think she's a shoe in for Hell," he says, to change the topic, "Why did you come up to investigate?"

Clint puts a hand against his chest and gasps theatrically, "And miss a chance to see you? Never."

Tony's cheeks heat, and he resolves to keep quiet for the rest of their time together.

He missed the time when all humans did was eat forbidden apples and lie. Things were so much easier then.

Undeterred by Tony's vow of silence (probably because he was unaware of said vow), Clint fishes out a file from his quiver. It's also purple. "Born and raised in Russia," he reads aloud, "Graduate of the Black Widow programme before she defected and worked for -" he squints his eyes, even though Tony knows that he has perfect vision, "Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division."

He whistles lowly, "They need to find a way to shorten that. That's a mouthful. Imagine having to yell that on the job." He thrusts out his hand in a facsimile of the few humans they'd seen in law enforcement during one of their trips down, "STOP. I'm Agent Clint of Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division."

Tony can't help it, he giggles; eyes crinkling. "The person you're catching would run away by the time you finished," he agrees. "I think they call it SHIELD, for short," Clint looks at him with a quizzical expression and he rushes to explain, "I was investigating a human once, an Agent Coulson. He worked for the same agency."

"I can't believe you sat on that information, and allowed me to embarrass myself in front of all of these humans," Clint gestures around widely, even though they're in a secluded portion of the park and there's nobody around to watch them, "One would think you were out to get me Tony."

"That would be outrageous and ill-founded," Tony replies in a deadpan voice, and resolutely ignores the way his heart skips a beat.

"You're a little shit aren't you?" Clint says with ill disguised awe, and jostles Tony with his shoulder, "Under all that Angel-ness, you're a little bit like me."

"No," Tony says with a frown, "You're evil. You manipulate your words to deceive people. I'm nothing like you."

Clint's silent for a couple of seconds, and Tony sneaks a glance at him, worried that he's offended the Demon. His face betrays nothing though, and he throws his arm around Tony's shoulder, pulling him in closer. "I'll get you to admit it eventually," he says with a smile, even as Tony's face goes red because of their proximity, "but for now - I believe we have a pirate to interview about our redhead."

Bucky signed the guestbook “James Barnes and Guest” and looked at the table of photo buttons laid out as favors. It took him all of three seconds to find his own. The music pumping from the speakers greeted them at the door, making nostalgia fill Bucky’s chest.

“Whoa. Holy hair gel, Batman.”

“Everybody was doing that with their hair.”

“Is that a sun visor flipped upside down?”

“Leave me alone. It was cool.”

“Tell me who’s been filling your head with those foul lies.”

Bucky pinned the button to his lapel and elbowed Clint. “Quit yanking my chain and get us some drinks.”

Clint grinned. “That, I can do.”

Clint worked his way through the crowd, drawing appreciative and intrigued glances from the crowd as he passed. Bucky suppressed a tiny smile. Okay. He brought a hot date, even though Clint wasn’t really his date. But, for all appearances, they made a decent entrance.

“BUCKY?!”

“Spoke too soon,” Bucky hissed under his breath, and he turned toward the raucous voice, course and cracked with hard living.

“Flash. Hey, buddy. What’s shaking?”

Flash Thompson grinned, flashing whitened, invisaligned teeth and catching Bucky’s fingers in a crushing handshake that included the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder bro hug that these occasions demanded. “You got yourself a personal shopper? Look at you!”

“Just a little something I threw together,” Bucky lied. “How’ve you been?”

“You’d know if you ever joined the group chat I sent you the link for,” Flash complained, but there was no malice in his eyes. “You went to NYU, right?”

“More or less.”

“Yeah, I hear that.” Flash took a swig of his microbrew and then promptly dragged Bucky to a crowded table close to the edge of the tiny dance floor. “Guys! Look who I found!”