Chapter Text
A suspicion sneaks up on Clint.
It isn’t a sudden one, or one he notices is coming before it actually arrives. It doesn’t give him plenty of warning to prepare himself for its arrival. It isn’t a considerate suspicion in the slightest. It’s the sneakiest of all fucking ninja suspicions, one that Clint was happily not entertaining as he went about his daily business and handled his regular shit.
But then he turned around, and the fucker was there, crashed out on the couch in its tightie-whities, scratching its nuts and hogging the XBox in all its loud and obnoxious glory, a thoroughly unwelcome guest he didn’t want but can’t get rid of.
And it keeps yelling at him that Toni fucking Stark, bristlier than a porcupine and generally more asinine than him on his snarkiest gold-medal day, is his goddamn Guide.
He’d do the dramatic thing, stomp out into some rainstorm with his fists raised to the sky and shout at the universe with whining demands for answers as to how this is his fucking life, but what holds him back is the ball-shriveling terror of possibly getting an answer from the universe that is calm and rational and so logical he can’t argue with it.
And it smacks him in the head, with all the force of an enthusiastic thunder god’s pet mallet, the day the Avengers are called out to deal with a quartet of two-bit losers with the on-the-nose-and-oh-so-clever name of the Wrecking Crew.
Clint just barely manages to avoid making a Mystery Men crack when he finds out one of them actually calls himself Excavator. He nominates himself for the Hawkeye Shiny Star of Awesome Self-Control because he still doesn’t break into hysterical laughter when Excavator whips out a goddamn sparkly shovel and comes at him with a war cry that is probably meant to be intimidating but is totally ruined by all the pretty colors glimmering around the blade of the shovel.
And promptly disqualifies himself from the award for laughing until he’s crying at the comically exaggerated look of absolute shock and dejection on Excavator’s face when the shovel he’s swinging at Clint’s head suddenly impacts against against an outthrust red and gold metal fist and breaks in fucking half.
Toni finishes swatting aside Shovel Boy’s splintered toy and follows up with an absolutely beautiful punch to his teeth that knocks Excavator onto his ass, down for the count and out cold. She turns back to Clint, and her visor slides up to reveal her completely unamused eyes and school mistress scowl that actually kinda turns him on just a little bit.
“What the literal fuck, Barton?” she rails, cheeks flushed and eyes flashing. “You wanna be the guy who gets killed by a fucking shovel in a fight with a barbershop quartet of disgruntled contractors, be my fucking guest! I’ll make sure your headstone is vibranium, engraved with the words Here lies Clint Barton, who died because he’s a fucking moron who’d rather laugh than dodge. Just so it lasts forever and future generations can use you as a cautionary tale!”
Goddamn, she’s something when she’s that pissed off, he thinks, absently lifts his hand to let the hummingbird flitting around Toni’s head briefly alight on his fingers, and watches her stomp back into the fray, charging full-steam ahead at the Wrecking Crew’s self-professed brains-of-the-outfit, so smart he’s fighting against a woman in titanium who can turn on a dime, with a heavy, unwieldy and awkward wrecking ball on a chain.
He’s still chortling over the surreal fucking bullshit this fight has turned out to be, when that goddamn hummingbird brushes over his fingertips and a jolt jumps through him like Thor misaimed a lightning bolt. He chokes on his chuckle, and has to cough until his lungs start sucking in air again, because he’s never felt that before, but any Sentinel worth their title knows what it means. And he’s worth his title.
“Toni,” he croaks, even though he doesn’t have his comm on (too busy laughing, dammit) and she can’t hear him, “how fucking long have you had a hummingbird spirit animal?”
oOoOoOo
Toni wishes Clint's stupid fucking hawk would leave her alone.
It's been eyeing her for weeks, unblinking golden eyes tracking her every movement. It's been following her for days, perching near her to keep watching her closely every time she and Clint are in the same room. Half the time she turns around and there it fucking is, roosting on the nearest thin, branch-like surface it can find.
She doesn't think Clint is aware of it, because he never seems to see his own goddamn spirit animal. Toni's met more than her share of Sentinels, and she can safely say she is experienced enough to label Clint the laziest, blindest Sentinel in the whole fucking world.
In another life, his spirit animal’s attentiveness might have been flattering, even welcome. In another life, one where she was still a Guide, might have been worth half a damn, might have had something to to offer a Sentinel of Clint's caliber.
Any chance she had of living that life, being that Guide, died with her empathic abilities, ripped out with half her ribcage and replaced by a blue rave light and snaking scar tissue that aches in the rain. She has just enough of a proper Guide left in her to still see auras and spirit animals, and it’s the universe's cruel joke reminding her of everything she's not, and everything she can't have.
She's never minded the attention Rhodey's bear has given her. They're old friends, she and it, and she takes comfort in knowing she still shares some part of that with Rhodey. She takes solace in its presence, likes to pretend she can feel it the same way she used to, when they were a couple of ballsy kids in college banding together in determination to never let some asshole Sentinel screw up their lives.
So the bear is fine.
The hawk, on the other hand, just fucking aggravates her.
She doesn’t leave the tower often. Since she had the brilliant idea to fly through a hole in the sky with a nuclear warhead on her back, going anywhere she can see the sky has been more than a little difficult for her to do. Her breath seizes in her chest and her eyesight blurs with grey polka dots when she gets one glimpse of the endless heavens overhead. Going out in the car is easier, but Happy recently earned himself a promotion to the head of SI security — not that Toni knows how the fuck that happened; she might own the building and theoretically be Bitch In Charge, but she sure as shit isn't anything but flat-out mystified at half the shenanigans that get carried out in her name — and she hasn't found herself a new driver yet.
Still, she’s agitated enough by the spirit world harassment she faces on a nigh-hourly basis lately, she’d willingly take another nuke into a galaxy far, far away if it just meant she didn’t have to be here. So when Rhodey calls her out of the blue, finally back in the city from wherever the Air Force has him running missions, and asks her to meet him for lunch at their favorite diner, Toni's practically stripped and in the shower before the call is so much as disconnected.
Once she's through the glass doors at the street level of Stark Industries, however, she wants nothing more than to crawl back inside and hide under her decadent bedspread until the world is facing Armageddon.
Starks are Sentinels made of iron.
Her father's voice floats from the back of her mind, unwelcome and harsh, and she scowls as she readjusts her sunglasses on her nose and squares her shoulders. “Fuck off, Dad,” she mutters under her breath and, steeling every last drop of dwindling courage she can, steps off the curb to cross the street.
A furious, high-pitched screech halts her in her tracks, just as she steps into a puddle. There's a rush of feathers, another screech and then a storm of feathers, wings beating her back, talons raking in front of her face. She yelps and scrambles backwards, hands coming up to protect her eyes, and trips over the curb behind her. To add to her indignity, her ass has barely hit the sidewalk when a car speeds through the puddle, and a wall of water soaks her completely.
She sits in shock, drenched from head to toe in filthy street water, watching the grey droplets fall from her fingers. She looks up, through her sodden hair, over the rim of her askew sunglasses to see the hawk perched on a nearby garbage can, feathers ruffling and eyes unblinkingly watch her.
“I’m going to kill you,” she hisses.
“Dr. Stark!” The voice and the sound of footsteps jerk her attention from the hawk to glance over her shoulder. Rhoda Freeman, her chief of analytics, hurries towards her, and, even though she’s carrying a tray of steaming coffee cups, holds out her free hand to give Toni help standing. “Dr. Stark, are you alright? God, I could have sworn that car hit you!”
Toni gratefully accepts the help, but does her best to keep from dripping anywhere near Rhoda’s work clothes or her coffees. “No,” she says, disgruntled, and wrings her hair out with a grimace of disgust at how gritty the strands feel. “There was a… wasp. Buzzed into my face.”
“Vicious things,” Rhoda says in sympathy. “You’re okay, though? It didn’t sting you?”
She dredges a smile from somewhere, and half-turns away to shake the water off her hands. Surreptitiously, she eyes the trash can, but the hawk has disappeared again, the sadistic little fucker. “Nothing hurt but my dignity,” she says, gratefully accepting the paper napkin Rhoda fishes out of her pocket, and starts dabbing at her eyes, though it’s probably too late to save her eyeliner. “And I broke most of that ages ago. Thank you, Dr. Freeman. I appreciate it.”
Rhoda hovers a little longer while Toni makes her way back into Stark Industries for one of the several changes of clothes she keeps in her office. She gingerly fishes her phone out of her pocket, but doesn’t bother checking for water damage. It’s not a standard market feature, but her personal Starkphone is completely impervious. She’s tested it in the Hudson.
“Yeah, hi honeybear,” she says as she stalks through the lobby, ignoring the looks she’s getting, and jabs the button for her personal elevator. “Change of plans. Get my lunch for me, and bring it up to the office. I had a run in with a puddle, and I need to shower New York street sludge out of my fucking hair.”
----
Toni’s still pissy about the fucking hawk half an hour later, freshly showered and in clean clothes, stabbing at her omelet with her fork. “I think it’s just bored and likes to pick on me,” she mutters, and stuffs a bite in her mouth, chewing savagely.
From the armchair on her right, Rhodey eyes her with an arched eyebrow, spearing gravy-covered fries at a more sedate pace. “I think it’s trying to tell you something,” he says, and starts chewing.
She snorts, but keeps her eyes on her food. She knows exactly what Rhodey’s talking about, but it’s never going to happen. Ever. “Yeah. I’ll torment you until you’re hit by a car.”
“And yet,” Rhodey says easily, and steals her root beer while she’s distracted with not looking at him. He grins at her indignant squawk and takes a long swallow, smacking his lips with an exaggerated aaaah! of satisfaction before handing it back.
“Christ,” she grouses, using the hem of her shirt to wipe the rim of the can, “could you be any more juvenile? I swear to fucking God, Rhodes, if I find backwash in here, I’ll end you in a heartbeat.”
“I used to hear that six times a day when we were in college.” Rhodey smirks, and laughs at her sneer. “And yet here I sit, still stealing your root beer and talking you down off the ledge of your sorry-ass love life. I think you’re all talk, Stark.”
“There’s no ledge,” she says, rolling her eyes and raising her voice just in case the sixth and loudest time she says it will make it sink in. “There’s no love life. There’s nothing at all to even speculate about, Rhodey.”
From the other side of the chair, Rhodey’s bear lifts his head over the armrest, eyes her, and huffs derisively before it disappears into its comfortable sprawl behind Rhodey. “Even Ursula agrees with me,” Rhodey says, smug and grinning, and drops his hand off the armrest to presumably scratch behind her ears like he usually does. “For every Guide, there is a Sentinel. For every Sentinel, there is a Guide.”
Toni’s stomach clenches, and her throat goes dry, and her eyes want to burn, but she ruthlessly shoves every single bit of that into a tiny ball and stuffs it into the deepest pit in her mind. With all the other times she’s felt this way. The pit’s getting full. “You wanna put it like that?” she snaps, reckless and sharp. “Fine. I’ll put it like this. I’m not a fucking Guide. Not anymore. And good riddance to it anyway. I prefer it this way. No need to worry about when the wrong Sentinel is going to creep up on me and start giving me orders they think I’m obliged to obey.”
Rhodes swallows, ashen and pale, but his eyes are so very gentle and filled with compassion. Without speaking a word, he offers her his hand. She stares at it for a minute, then chokes on a sob and reaches out to take it. Just as quietly, he draws her from her seat on the couch into his lap. She goes willingly, and curls up under his chin, like she used to do in college.
He smooths her hair away from her face and kisses her forehead. “Healer Wilson didn’t think it was a physical problem,” he says, leans his forehead against her head and strokes his thumb over her cheek. She closes her eyes and burrows in, drinking in the comfort he’s offering. “You might just need more time.”
“It’s been four years,” she whispers hoarsely, squeezes her eyes tighter so she doesn’t start weeping again. “It’s gone. I’m broken. So even if I wanted to … pursue anything, God, Rhodey. No Sentinel deserves a shadow of a Guide.”
She can feel Rhodey’s sigh reverberate through his whole body. “You’re a person, Toni. People don’t break. And even if they did, you’re an engineer. You can put yourself back together again.”
She’s shaking her head before he’s finished talking. She wants to believe it, but she can’t let herself believe it. She tried that, tried hope, tried therapy and hard work. “Doesn’t matter,” she says, clears her throat, and sits away from him. “It doesn’t matter, Rhodey,” she says again, at the disbelieving expression. “I’m fine the way I am. I don’t need anything else.”
He shakes his head slowly, doesn’t take his eyes off her. “Liar,” he says softly, but without malice. “You need to talk to him, Toni.”
“I need to do no such thing,” she says, and slides off his lap to sit on the couch with her omelet again. “Now,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument and forks up more omelet to her mouth, “tell me all about your adventures with Super Sentinel Carol.”
Rhodey heaves another sigh, gives her the disappointed eyes, but launches immediately into telling her all about he and his partner's latest escapades on special assignment with the Air Force. Toni has never been terribly invested in following Rhodey's military career, but right now she has no plans except paying dutiful attention to his every word.
If only because it will distract her from the silent hawk, perched in the corner on a lampshade, watching her with those goddamn unblinking eyes.