Chapter Text
When Clint was a child, he spent far too long trying to make himself smaller than he was. He would bend and contort his fragile body to fit into the smallest places possible. Even before he was Hawkeye, he was flexible and he had the ability to climb to impossible heights. If he was a normal child, these skills would be useful in a game of hide and seek. But the thought of his abusive father or manic depressive mother or crappy older brother playing with him was hilarious and instead he used his skills to hide; hiding was a form of self preservation for the boy.
At the young age of four, Clint had learned that being out of sight meant that he was almost invisible to his father. The man’s anger went only as far as his blurred, drunken eyesight and Clint could avoid the belt and punches and harsh words by curling up under his bed or in the darkness of his closet or in the highest branches of a tree in the backyard.
Clint remembers vividly the feeling of hiding under his bed whenever his father would drink at night. He remembers the dust in his lungs and the cramped feeling of curling himself up in the darkness. He had a torn, yet soft, purple baby blanket that he would run over his face whenever he was stressed and it made him feel safe and happy and loved.
When he was in foster care, he lived by the same rules. Being out of sight meant that he was safe from the older boys in group homes or abusive foster parents. Both situations taught him to take up the least amount of space possible. If he was small and hidden away and silent and invisible, that meant that he was safe. When people would yell at him, Clint would curl into a ball in the corner of rooms or under desks or in closets. He would focus only on his heartbeat and the feeling of being somewhere safe and small and protected and out of reach and eyesight of people who wanted nothing more than to hurt him.
When his childhood turned to adulthood, like leaves turning shades of red and orange and yellow in the fall, he found it hard to let go of the habits from his childhood. As a young adult working for S.H.I.E.L.D, Clint was trained to be stoic and keep a straight face in all situations. But he sometimes found himself falling into the habit of flinching away when someone came too fast or from behind. He tended to hoard his food, as well, never sure of when the next meal was coming or if someone would steal it from him.
He was never able to shake the feeling of safety that small spaces gave him and those were the moments that he found himself making his first nests. He used to drag blankets and pillows and stuffed animals up into the vents above Coulson’s office and he when he was stressed he would sit up there for hours, dozing off in his nest and focusing on Phil’s rhythmic words.
He always loved Coulson, but he wasn’t sure of what capacity his love could take. Part of him loved Phil in a romantic, ‘I want to hold your hand and dance in the rain’ type of way and some parts of him loved him in a ‘I want you to fuck me until a scream way’; that part of Clint made him feel like he was drowning. He remembers his father touching him when he was little in places and ways father’s should never touch their children and sometimes, all the time, sex scared him.
The bigger part of him loved Phil in a ‘you’re the only older man that hasn’t hurt me’ way. Phil Coulson wasn’t considerably older than him, but her certainly had his fair share of grey hairs and stiff joints. He also had a way of looking at Clint as if he was young and naive and it strangely made the younger man feel warm and fuzzy. It figured that Clint couldn’t escape his hellish childhood without some sort of Daddy issues and Phil’s presence in his life scratched that itch.
Sometimes when he was wrapped up in a nest in the darkness of the vents above his office, Clint would close his eyes and imagine Phil’s calm words as he spoke to another agent or on the phone were directed towards him. He treated the words like they were a lifeline between Phil and himself and he wanted nothing more than to melt into the safe feeling he felt when he heard them.
When Phil found out about the nest in the vents above his office, he had looked at Clint so fondly he had felt like he was melting. He had insisted that the younger man move the nest in the vent to a less intrusive location and he had even helped Clint set up a nest in his small room. It made him anxious at first, he was terrified that Phil would find out how broken he was and up and leave him. But then they had started dating and Clint quickly understood that Phil was trying to insert boundaries into a new relationship and they were both on a learning curve.
Growing up bouncing from abusive situation to abusive situation, Clint hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to learn about healthy relationships and boundaries. But Phil, calm, cool and collected Phil, had helped him understand how a healthy relationship worked. They started out slowly exploring their growing relationship. Phil always made him homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and held his hand softly and he never commented when Clint flinched away or tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. Phil was soft and sweet and warm and he treated Clint’s problems like they were falling stars; rare but eager to catch the glittering balls of fire, dangerous yet beautiful at the same time, and help him piece together the broken parts of his life.
Then Loki happened and Clint had even more reasons to be broken. Every time he breathed, he felt his entire body shudder and Clint was scared. He was so fucking scared. His body felt like it wasn’t working for him and he felt like he was walking backwards on a treadmill. He felt like was falling from a cliff and drowning in the depths of the oceans and choking on his own vomit all at once and Clint felt like every one of his insecurities were open visible to the world like an open wound. Icy blue tendrils taunted him in his dreams and Clint felt like he was falling apart.
He flinched at every raised hand or sharp movement, feeling like a terrified little boy stuck in an older body. He hoarded his food, scared of somebody stealing the granola bars and water bottles he treated like a lifeline, and he cried- a lot.
The worst habit that came back to him was the fear that coursed through his veins when ever he was near any man. His childhood of abuse had caused the feelings of fear to overtake him when he was around males. Being intimate with Phil made his entire body feel like it was breaking into a million tiny pieces. He felt like he was crumbling and cracking and falling Phil promised that it was alright, that he still loved Clint no matter what, but Clint never believed him. He felt like he was failing Phil and he hated himself for wanting to fall apart at the touch of a hand, nonetheless a kiss or hands groping further down his body.
Spending time with the Avengers made him feel just as terrified and scared and small. He spent countless hours tracing the soft feminine features of Natasha’s face, terrified of the way his male teammates faces would contort into his father’s harsh features when he stared too long or tears welled up in his eyes. Sometimes Natasha would run the pads of her fingers over his face and he would bask in the warmth and the feelings of safety. Women had never hurt him like men had and Clint found security in the gentle feelings of a woman’s touch.
Slowly the Avengers started to make him feel less and less panicked, but Clint never truly stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was always waiting for something to go wrong, for some man to ruin it for him and hurt him and make him feel as useless as he felt when he was a four year old being hit by his father for the first time. It made him feel like he was falling back into his past life, Barney hurting him and his foster parents hurting him and the older boys hurting him and everyone hurting him. Everyone always hurt Clint.
But his teammates started making him feel like maybe, just maybe, there were people out there that didn’t want to hurt him- people who loved him. Phil and Natasha had been his only supports for so long that it was hard to let other people in. They somehow had found the door to his heart and they had opened it and were making themselves comfortable.
Steve often sat with him, sketching softly while Clint watched a stupid reality show or polished his bow with an old, dark green cloth. Clint traced his eyes over the bulging muscles of Steve’s arms as he shaded with a 6B pencil and for the first time, he hadn’t been scared of a strong, intimidating man. He found Steve soft and lovely and he wanted a hug from him. Clint was never scared that the man would hit him or hurt him and he could breath easily around him.
In comparison to Steve, Bruce was impossibly sweeter and softer. Bruce Banner wouldn’t hurt a fly and he made Clint green tea, which Clint hated the taste of and drank only after adding at least five spoonfuls of honey. He had warm eyes and one night, over a cup of green tea with extra honey, he confided that his father was abusive as well. Clint had never flat out told Bruce that his father was abusive and he feared that he wore his emotions on his sleeve or rather his flinching was so obvious that everyone knew his father had hurt him. His anger had quickly faded away, however, when he realized that Bruce’s father had hurt him in much of the same ways and they cried together, little drops of salty tears landing in his sugary green tea.
To be honest, Thor scared him the most. The man was loud and boisterous and he often crashed large glasses of Asgardian mead against tables and the ground. His heart beat as loudly as the shattering glass and he found himself hiding under the table until Phil found him and coaxed him out. He was terrified both of the shattering glass and the smell of alcohol in the air. It brought him back to a time when he was far younger and made him feel like he was a little boy once again.
Thor had been apologetic and when he returned from Asgard he brought Clint a gift. Glass was spun into the shape of a flame and it magically never stopped glowing and flickering a warm yellow color that made Clint’s heart feel warm and fuzzy. He had thanked the man profusely for the gift and he flushed bright red when Thor had whispered to him that it would keep him safe even when he was surrounded by darkness.
Thor sometimes reminded him of Loki. His mannerisms and words and whispered phrases were so familiar it made him feel like he was being plunged into darkness. Those were the days where Clint wouldn’t look Thor in the eyes. He would hide under his bed until Phil, or sometimes Natasha, would drag him out or join him in the darkness. Phil would kiss him softly and Natasha would run her small hands over his face and it made him feel grounded and like the world wasn’t spinning out around him.
Clint felt lucky that Thor left to go to Asgard often. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to deal with seeing Thor all the time without regressing into a terrified little boy, scared of his father beating him; or a young man, helplessly under Loki’s control. When Thor left, he felt like he could breathe again and he hated himself for finding solace in the comfort of the man leaving. Thor was kind and truly did care about Clint, but he couldn’t escape the pit inside of his stomach and the fear that the large man was going to hurt him.
Stark simultaneously made Clint want to scream and curl up in a ball and let the man pet his hair and promise that everything would be alright. Tony Stark was clearly as broken as Clint was himself, the man simply did not express his hurt in the same way. He was pompous and over generous and snarky and Clint was overwhelmed by how loud and exaggerated the man often acted. But he was also small and soft and sweet and when you caught him at three in the morning, a mug of black coffee burning the insides of his palms and eyes blearily blinking, well those were the moments that Clint connected to Tony most. He saw himself in Tony and sometimes he fleetingly wondered if they should make a club with Bruce titled “Disaster Children of Abusive Fathers”.
Every Avenger did something individual for him and for his healing and he cherished each of his friend’s attempts to make him feel better. But nothing could beat what they did for him all together. Nothing could beat the nest.
At the very beginning of Clint’s time in the tower, his teammates had one by one picked up on the fact that he needed small places to feel safe. They watched him cower under the kitchen table and hide under beds and crawl into the vents until small spaces became synonymous with Clint’s need for safety. The Avengers took care of each other because they were family and they had used the knowledge of his love to create him the perfect safe place.
His nest was small, but expansive all at the same time. It took up almost the entirety of his bedroom, blankets and pillows and stuffed animals sprawled across the floor and it was large enough to fit the entire team within it’s fuzzy depths. Glow sticks, which had long since stopped glowing, were haphazardly buried in the many blankets and poster for a variety of bands and children’s cartoon hung low enough on the wall that one could reach up on run their fingers over it while still lying on the ground.
He loved his nest because it made him feel safe and small and it was a place where people could openly express their love for him. They often spent their nights snuggled together in the nest and that night had been no exception. He feels the warmth deep in his bones as he shared his special place and a part of himself with the team.
Phil was spooning him from behind, Clint was always little spoon despite being larger because it made him feel safe. His lover held him tight like a lifeline and their bodies felt like two islands in a sea of blankets. Natasha was sleeping on the other side of Phil and her hand had somehow curled itself over the man and into Clint’s soft hair. It was a somewhat strange angle, but he refused to move and rather focused on the feeling of being physically connected to someone who cared about him.
Clint was cuddling a stuffed hawk to his chest and Bruce had one hand wrapped around the stuffed animals wing, the other tucked under his head in lieu of one of the dozens of pillows around him. The scientist's glasses were askew on his face and if Clint wasn’t so peaceful he might reach forward and remove them so that they wouldn’t snap. Bruce was adorable while he slept and Clint was glad that at least a part of the “Disaster Children of Abusive Fathers” club was happy.
In comparison to Bruce, and even Clint for that matter, Tony was even more energetic and chaotic in sleep. The man tossed and turned every few seconds, tangling his limbs up in the blankets. He was sleeping vertically at the bottom of the nest and Clint was scared that he would fall out of the warmth and onto the floor. But Steve was there to protect him and it made a small smile cross his face when he saw the muscled man pull Tony close into a hug even while he was asleep. Stark automatically calmed down, his breath evening and his parted lips pressed against Steve’s chest in a wet, sleepy kiss.
It made Clint’s heart feel warm to see a man with a body like Steve’s be so sweet. He had spent his entire life terrified of men that looked like Steve, but Steve would never hurt him. Tony and Steve had been dancing around their relationship like middle schoolers who had their first crush for months. They were both too stubborn to admit that they were interested in one another and treated their affection like some sort of foreign parasite. But regardless, Tony should be glad he had Steve and that was yet another section of the “Disaster Children of Abusive Fathers” club that was happy- well as happy as Stark could be.
That only left Clint to be accounted for, the third and final member of their little club of broken people. The man stared up at his ceiling, tracing his eyes over the slightly peeling glow in the dark stars and a polaroid picture of him and Phil kissing that he had taped right above his head. He snuggled further into Phil’s embrace, the man shifting and holding him impossibly closer even while he was asleep. He focused on the feeling of Natasha’s hand in his hair and Bruce clutching the stuffed animal and he glanced down at Steve and Tony spooning at the foot of the nest. He was surrounded by people that loved him and it was intoxicating.
Clint had spent his entire life bouncing from one abusive situation to another. He never felt safe anywhere or with anybody. His body felt pre programmed to flinch and cry and hide and he had been a mess for the longest time. He felt like he was able to slip away from this world with no one noticing or caring. He had always felt like an outsider, like he didn’t have a space to exist, a family or a home. But he now had all those things and he was safe, so incredibly safe. The third member of the “Disaster Children of Abusive Fathers” club was safe and he was going to be ok.