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The first thing Clint notices when he wakes up is the nasty, cottonball-dry staleness in his mouth. The second thing he notices is the water stain on his ceiling, which is maybe getting bigger, but can probably wait a few days before he has to deal with it. The third thing, which only comes to his attention when he tries to sit up, is the wrenching pain in his left shoulder where his arm has slipped out of its sling.
"Aw, heck," he grunts, trying to work it back into the sling as carefully as he can manage. His first instinct is to ditch the thing entirely, but he’s apparently at home by himself, so it’s not like he has to put on a show of wellness for SHIELD Medical.
With no small amount of stiffness and grumbling, Clint manages to get out of bed and shuffle into the kitchen, where some kindhearted person has apparently already made a pot of coffee so that all he has to do is press the ON button. He closes his eyes, rewinding a bit, and oh, right, he remembers the milk run he and Tasha had gone on, and the rickety fire escape that he’d put just a little too much trust in, and Coulson’s steady stream of muttered disapproval for the entire length of their extraction.
The intel they’d picked up had been sound, at least, and had been worthy of the other Avengers scrambling a Quinjet to Vienna, but Clint had been decidedly not cleared for duty. The aching in his head reminds him of Coulson bringing him home and quietly lecturing him on the risks of repeated concussions, but for once, Clint had accepted the good drugs, so it didn’t sink in as well as Coulson was probably hoping.
A glance at the clock says it’s about eight at night, although Clint can’t be futzed to figure out what day it is. He checks his phone to make sure he’s not missing any urgent messages, and then pours himself a cup of coffee and drags his feet to the sofa to settle in front of the TV.
He blinks a few times as the TV comes on, a serious-faced newscaster mouthing captioned words at him for that one minute before the muffled audio kicks in that always has him worried his hearing’s gone entirely, and then—
—say they hope to have this problem resolved within forty-eight hours, but in the meantime they stress the importance of boiling any tap water and using purified water whenever possible. Stores in the area are already reporting that they’re selling out quickly, as city health officials warn citizens of the dire health consequences of drinking the contaminated water.
Clint gives his coffee a suspicious glare, but he figures Coulson probably got that water a while ago, and he’s not exactly the type to poison Clint by accident. On purpose, maybe, one of these days, but that’s a separate thing entirely.
"Of all the days to take those damn knockout pain meds," he mutters, hauling himself back off the sofa and looking for his tennis shoes. Just because he’s an Avenger of indeterminate medical standing doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to check on his people. He’s still in his sweatpants, but he just shrugs—carefully—into one sleeve of his jacket and lets the other hang over his left shoulder before letting himself out and starting to knock on doors.
The thing is, even the half of the building that didn’t know about the water main… sewer leak… whatever the problem is, they all seem to be fine. No vomiting, or bleeding from the eyes, or whatever tales of doom were coming out of the TV. By the time he gets to Simone’s place, he’s starting to worry that he didn’t give himself enough time for the drugs to wear off.
"Is the water poison?" he asks as soon as she opens the door. “Or did I hallucinate that?”
Simone’s eyes widen a little, but not so much as they might have the first time she saw Clint looking like twelve kinds of hell. "Come on in," she says, pulling the door open the rest of the way.
"You guys haven’t been drinking the water, right?" He eyes the kids, already in their pajamas with one tucked up in one of those bouncy seats and the other reading comics on the sofa.
"No," Simone tells him. “Well, we were, but then my sister called me and told me to put on the news, and then…” She gestures to the tap in the kitchen sink, which is covered over with plastic wrap. “Kids,” she explains, shaking her head. “Can’t take any chances, you know?”
"But you’re all feeling okay?" Clint frowns a little. “I thought you were supposed to get real sick if you drank any of it.”
Simone just gives him a helpless shrug. "I was worried out of my mind after I got off the phone, because he’d had about two glasses after we got back from the park, but everyone seems fine. Maybe they’re blowing it out of proportion?"
"Maybe," Clint agrees, frowning. “Trying to avoid a lawsuit, probably.”
"I wouldn’t be surprised," Simone says. “But what about you? Do you need anything?” She hardly ever mothers him, so he knows he must look rougher than he thought.
"Nah. I’m just gonna go see what I can find out." He shoots a concerned glance at the kids, then back to her. “Don’t drink the city water, though, at least until they give the all-clear, okay?”
Simone gives a pointed glance back at the covered tap and then looks up at him, amused. "Whatever you say, mister landlord man."
"Careful," Clint grumbles, turning back to the door. “I might get that put on my business cards.”
"You be sure to give me one, and it’ll go right on the fridge."
"Ha, ha." Clint rolls his eyes, and then winces when he’s reminded of his concussion. “Just be careful, okay? Let me know if you need any bottled water and I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”
"Okay," Simone promises, expression a little softer now, and Clint hurries out of there before she can figure out he’s got a head injury.
Now, Clint’s not entirely sure what he was planning to do when he let himself into the boiler room, besides stare at the pipes and wait for them to start talking, but he’s distracted from his original mission by the fact that the door’s already ajar, the whole thing hanging from its hinges and the inside looking pretty beaten up.
"That’s probably not good." He peers inside to see if there’s anyone waiting to ambush him—although if they are, they’re already doing a poor job of it—but just sees the water heater standing innocuously in the corner. It’s not until he actually goes into the room that he sees anything out of the ordinary, but, well… it’s pretty much as out of the ordinary as he could have expected.
Clint closes his eyes for a minute, fervently hoping that the mysterious void in the middle of his boiler room isn’t actually there, but when he opens them again, it’s just staring back at him. In a manner of speaking, that is; it’s not really doing anything at all besides existing. Or, not existing. His head hurts as he pulls out his phone.
"Katie?" he asks when she picks up on the second ring, sounding a little out of breath. “Do you know anything about, um.” He scratches his head. “Outer space?” It feels like a good starting point, because he thinks he can see stars. He has to look away after a minute, because the vertigo’s not helping his head any.
"It’s… big?" Kate tries, then huffs. “I don’t know, Hawkeye, call Neil Degrasse Tyson.”
He frowns. "Do you have his number?"
"Oh my god, forget it. Did you actually need something?"
"Yes, Kate. Outer space. Like, when it’s inside." He squints a little. “I swear that makes sense.”
"Are you high right now?" She sounds a little bit amused, which doesn’t do anything for Clint’s mood. He hears some kind of noise in the background, and then Kate laughs. “Hey, I gotta go, okay? Call me if you find a spaceship in your kitchen.”
"That’s not even that unusual," Clint protests, but she’s already hung up on him. “Whatever.” He sighs, turning his back on the void to examine the damage to the boiler room door. He could probably fix it himself to save a little money, but not with only one arm working. Maybe Lupita on three will help him if he takes it out of her rent. She’s a welder, right?
His head’s not feeling any better, but it’s a relief not to be facing the black hole in the basement anymore, so he walks out of the boiler room, closing the door as much as he can. Even with his arm in a sling, Clint can probably manage making a KEEP OUT sign, or rustling up some caution tape, so he trudges back upstairs to his apartment and hopes no unsupervised kids decide to go play in the boiler room.
Or supervised kids. Or dogs, he thinks, worried.
"Lucky?" he calls when he opens his door, but then he hears his phone ringing insistently on the kitchen counter. It’s a blocked number, naturally. Looking around the apartment for a flash of fur, he answers. “Barton.”
"Were you still sleeping?" Natasha asks incredulously. “Did you let them drug you?”
"They didn’t drug me," Clint protests. “...I drugged me.”
"Well, that’s fine, then." He can practically hear her eye roll. “Listen, we need you to check something out. SHIELD’s picking up reports of an incident in Prospect Park, but we’re still about four hours out.”
“What kind of incident?”
"Since you’re already in Bed-Stuy, do you think you could do a little recon, see if there’s anything to it before we get back?"
"Sure," Clint says, then he shakes his head. “Wait, what kind of incident?”
"Just remember that you already agreed to do it, Barton," Natasha tells him, which isn’t ominous at all.
---
"Futzin’ unicorns in futzin’ Brooklyn," Clint mutters to himself as he walks outside. “What is with this city?”
Prospect Park isn’t far, but it’s far enough, and Clint’s got no desire to ride the train carrying a bow he’s not sure he can shoot at the moment, so he pulls out his phone and dials.
"Clint," Katie says when she picks up, sounding a little less patient than she did the first time.
"Hey, do you think I could get a ride?"
"What? To where?"
"Uh." Clint shifts his feet. “Prospect Park.”
"You want me to drop what I’m doing," she says, and there’s another noise in the background, “and come to Brooklyn to pick you up to drive you to the park.”
"Uh, yeah." He frowns. "Hey, have you seen Lucky?"
"I'm looking at him right now," she tells him, and he relaxes a little. Lucky wouldn't do well in outer space. Kate lets out a gusty sigh. "I’ll be there in twenty. You’re buying me coffee."
Clint walks down to the bodega on the corner and gets two cups of black coffee just to be an asshole, because he knows Katie likes almond milk in hers, and kills a little time by asking Reggie about his kids. Clint’s not sure how many kids Reggie has, how old they are, or what their names are, but he does know asking about them makes the guy happy, and once in a while Clint even gets a free coffee. He doesn’t realize how much time has gone by until he hears the familiar honk of Kate’s car horn, and he ducks out with an apologetic nod and two cups of coffee balanced in one hand.
He’s staring down at his hand as he approaches the passenger door, trying to decide if he should try to open it with his left, when the door opens and a girl he’s never seen is reaching back to open the door to the backseat for him.
"Oh," he says, shuffling into the seat just in time for her to shut the door again. “Thanks?”
"Sure," the girl says, glancing at him over her shoulder. She’s got curly hair and nice eyes, and her resting face looks moderately terrifying. Kate reaches back and takes both coffees from him, handing one to the other girl.
"Hey—"
"You need your good arm free," she says as she puts hers in the cupholder and pulls back onto the street. “And you got America out of bed, too.”
"It’s only, like nine o’clock," Clint mumbles, and Kate gives him a flat look. “Oh. Uh, sorry.” He tries not to think about Katie having sex, but the harder he tries not to think about it the worse it gets, so he decides to think about unicorns instead.
"Okay, so, Clint, this is America. America, this is dude Hawkeye."
America looks back at him like she wants to laugh, but he just shrugs his good shoulder. "That’s me."
She doesn’t say anything to him, just raises an eyebrow and nods before turning back around.
"So do you want to tell me what’s so important in Prospect Park that you had to go right now?" Kate actually doesn’t sound annoyed or anything, and it’s a fair question.
"Not really," he tells her anyway.
"Okay, let me rephrase: Clint, what is so important in Prospect Park?"
"Well," he says, debating lying for half a second before slumping back against the seat. “A unicorn?”
Kate laughs, but America’s head whips back around like he’s said something interesting.
"Dude," Kate says, “I was kidding before, but are you really actually high right now?”
"Did you see a unicorn?" America asks seriously, and Kate looks sharply at her before turning back to the road.
"No…" He narrows his eyes a little. “Someone called it in.” She’s still staring at him. “I’m an Avenger,” he adds, more defensive than he means to be, and she purses her lips.
"Since when are you into unicorns?" Kate asks, head turned slightly toward America. “Are you concealing a lifelong Lisa Frank obsession? Because that would really answer a lot questions.”
"I know who Lisa Frank is," America tells her flatly. “You’re not funny.”
"I’m pretty funny," Kate mutters, turning onto Atlantic.
Nobody says anything for a few minutes; America seems to be quietly worrying, and Clint is just trying to keep his headache at a manageable level and pretending he's never heard of Lisa Frank. He just replaced a few of Coulson's office supplies that one time, but Kate doesn't need that kind of ammunition.
"Turn here," Clint says as they come up on Washington, and he can pretty much hear Kate’s eye roll from the front seat.
"Thanks, navigator. Where in the park is this thing supposed to be?"
"Uh."
"Oh my god, are you kidding me? Did you ask any questions?"
"Natasha sounded busy," he huffs, because it could totally be true.
Kate just keeps driving, although now she seems to be somehow doing it in an irritated way, and after some truly alarming and potentially illegal lane changes they end up parked at one of the entrances. Clint feels mildly nauseated.
"End of the line, everybody out," Kate declares, even though they’re all halfway out of the car already. “We need a plan of attack here, right?”
"I mean, we’re not going to attack it," Clint says, frowning. “Are we? Unicorns are probably nice. I bet it’s just lost.”
"Unicorns can be pretty nasty if you cross them," America says, squinting into the trees.
"Okay, can you give us all a unicorn primer, please?" Kate puts her hands on her hips. “I’m going to want to know how you know so much about them later, but just the important stuff for now.”
"Not usually aggressive, don’t piss them off, drawn to the pure of heart, from a different dimension," she says, ticking each one off on her fingers.
"Pure of heart," Kate repeats, snorting. “Yeah, okay.” Clint stares at her for a second before remembering he’s heard that thing about unicorns and virgins, and he laughs too.
"What’s so funny?" America folds her arms, and suddenly looks more than a little terrifying.
"Nothing, it’s just, you said— Wait. Did you say they come from a different dimension?" America nods, eyebrows raised. “How do you get from one dimension to another?”
"Well, it’s pretty complicated," she hedges.
"You punch holes in the universe," Kate cuts in.
"It’s the multiverse," America corrects her. “And you don’t punch it, I punch it.”
"Whatever, same thing."
"It’s not the—"
"So what would it look like if you punched a hole in the universe?" Clint asks, and America frowns at him. “Multiverse. Thing. Would it be like…” He waves his hand in the air in front of him. “A black hole thing? Floating in the air?”
"Yes, it would," America says slowly, frown deepening. “Did you see one?”
"Yeah, in my, uh. In my boiler room?"
"America!" Kate throws her hands up. “You told me you closed that!”
"I thought I did, but I was distracted, chica. If you want me to pay more attention to those details, you shouldn’t stick your hands down my—"
"Okay!" Clint blurts out, desperate to stop that line of conversation. “So we know where it came from, right? All we have to do is find it, and send it back.”
"Well, we’re not going to find anything standing around here," Kate says. “I think we should split up.”
"Aw, no." Clint can run the most dangerous of ops with zero—okay, minimal—fear, but he knows what happens to people who split up in the woods at night. He watches movies.
"America and I will go north, you go south, and call me if you find anything." That seems awfully unfair, but they’re already striding down the path, so Clint just shrugs and heads the other way.
Other than a false alarm when Clint saw the carousel out of the corner of his eye and almost screamed, he hasn’t seen anything. Nothing. It’s been over half an hour of walking around, and he’s starting to think there aren’t even any squirrels out here, much less a unicorn. His shoulder is aching, and his head is throbbing, so he can’t be blamed for dropping heavily onto the next bench he sees. It’s just for a minute, just to get his breath back, and then he’ll get back to looking. He tells himself that as he lets his eyes drift shut.
When they snap open again, the nasty taste in his mouth tells him he dozed off, but it’s clear what woke him up.
"Oh," he says to the unicorn, which is standing about four feet from him with an inscrutable look on its face. He’s not really sure what a scrutable face would look like on a unicorn, but this one is definitely a mystery.
The unicorn snorts and stomps its hoof.
"Hey, uh, I’m Clint?" He slowly gets to his feet, careful not to startle it. “I’m here to take you home, I guess.” The unicorn doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, so he slides his phone out of his pocket and dials Kate.
"Yeah?" she says when she picks up, sounding breathless.
"Aw, man, did you just ditch me to make out with your girlfriend again?"
"She’s not my girlfriend," Kate says like it’s a reflex, and he hears America snort in the background. “What’s up?”
"Well, the unicorn is here? With me. The unicorn is here with me."
"Wait, really? Where are you?"
Clint gives her the best directions he can manage, because he hasn’t actually been paying that much attention, and he’s feeling really woozy. When Kate and America get there what seems like sixty seconds later, he figures he must have dozed off again.
The unicorn takes a few steps back at the sight of them, the whites of its eyes showing.
"Whoa, whoa, it’s okay, boy." Clint puts his hand up. “Or girl. Or whatever, sorry.”
"Don’t apologize to the unicorn, Clint. It’s a sign of weakness."
"Shush, Katie." He steps in and places a careful hand on its neck, relaxing a little when it huffs out a breath and noses at his hair. “Easy, there, I’m already concussed, okay?”
"Why did it come to you?" Kate asks, and he doesn’t like what he hears in her voice.
"I’m not a virgin," he tells her firmly. “I’m definitely not. I’ve had a lot of sex, all right?”
He glances back to see her watching him skeptically. "Uh huh."
"I’ve definitely had more than no sex. I can give references."
"Pass," Kate says quickly.
"Why would you think he was a virgin?" America asks, tilting her head.
"Well, you know, ‘pure of heart,’ right?"
"Yeah, pure of heart. Do you really think you can’t be pure of heart if you’re not a virgin?" She raises both her eyebrows at Kate.
"Of course not." Kate says, and then she slumps a little. “Wait, then why didn’t it come to me?”
"Because unicorns are smart," America says. “You were hanging out with me, and I’m pretty intimidating.” Kate’s mouth quirks up, but she must see that America’s not kidding, because her expression evens out again as she nods.
"Well, okay, what do we do next?"
"I guess we take it back to the boiler room?" Clint looks at America. “Hey, you owe me for a broken door.”
America gives him an unimpressed look. "Call my lawyer," she says. “But no, I can just make a new door here, then we can go back and close that other one. It might have closed on its own by now, anyway.”
"Well, we’re gonna double-check," Kate says, and America rolls her eyes.
"Whatever you say, princess." She turns to walk away from them, waiting until she’s a safe distance away before— yeah, punching a hole in the universe. Clint hopes he’s a safe distance away, and he discreetly shifts his leg to protect his potential future children from parallel universe radiation.
The unicorn is still watching America with barely disguised alarm, but when Clint starts to walk toward the portal thing, it walks alongside him without protest.
"Well," he says, once they’re right next to it, “I guess this is it.”
"Are you saying goodbye to the unicorn?" Kate asks. “I shouldn’t have answered my phone, I swear to god.” It would be more convincing if he couldn’t see her smiling out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, are you sure this is right?" Clint squints at the portal and just sees stars. “Are we sending the unicorn into outer space?”
"It’s right. You just can’t see it," America says, standing back far enough for the unicorn to relax a little. She sounds bored.
"Okay…" Clint doesn’t feel very sure about it, but the unicorn looks pretty unconcerned. Maybe it can see its home. He wants to ask where unicorns live, but then the unicorn is taking a step back from him and lowering its head until the point of its horn touches his shoulder. “Oh god,” he says, head full of visions of SHIELD agents talking around the water cooler about the time Hawkeye got impaled by a unicorn.
It doesn’t impale him, though, just lifts its head back up and… huh. His shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore. He gives it a cautious stretch, sliding off the sling, and if he didn’t know better he’d say it felt better than it had felt in years. Even that little click from the time he dislocated it in Ecuador is gone.
"Wow," he says. “Thanks.” Then, because his head really does still hurt, he points at it casually.
Clint wouldn’t have guessed that something with a horse’s face could effectively roll its eyes, but the unicorn manages. It still gives him a gentle touch on the forehead, and he sighs with relief as his headache dissipates.
"You’re letting all the cold air in," America says, gesturing at the portal impatiently.
"Right." Clint pets the unicorn’s nose, trying for a friendly smile. Later he can tell Coulson that he fostered a spirit of cooperation with an alien species. That thought makes his smile widen a little more. “Thanks again,” he says.
The unicorn just nudges his shoulder and then steps calmly through the portal. He sees the flick of a tail, and then it’s gone entirely and America closes the opening. They all stand quietly for a minute.
"There was a unicorn here, right?"
"Yes, Clint."
He blinks at the empty space in front of him. "You're sure."
"Don't take my word for it." Kate holds up her phone. “This picture of you communing with it already has twenty-six notes on Yamblr."
"Aw, geez." Clint squints at the picture, and then twists around to confirm the unidentifiable stain he spotted on the leg of his sweatpants. “Thanks, Katie.”
"Thank me by moving your ass so America can clean up her mess and we can go back to…" It looks like she blushes a little. “Back home,” she finishes, and America smirks before threading their fingers together.
On the way back to the car, Clint calls Natasha to give her a quick debrief, and she laughs for so long that he hangs up on her. He calls back right away, though. He’s not crazy.
---
"Clint, if you need more medical leave, you can just say so. You never take enough as it is."
"No," Clint insists, waving his left arm around again. “I’m serious, sir. It healed me. It was really there.”
"I’m taking you home," Coulson says. “You’re obviously still concussed.”
"I have witnesses!" Clint leans forward in his chair. “My concussion is gone, sir, I’m not making this up. You can’t make me take more medical leave.”
Coulson sighs. "How about supervised medical leave?"
"What? No, that’s worse. You’re not putting me in medical."
"Supervised medical leave at home."
"I don’t want— Wait." Clint frowns. “SHIELD does that?”
Coulson stands up, gathering some paperwork into his briefcase and giving Clint a pointed look.
"SHIELD does not, but I do." He raises both his eyebrows, and Clint flushes.
"Oh, well, okay. I guess that would be fine."
"Well, if you guess," Coulson says, voice faintly mocking, but his eyes crinkle up just a little.
"I can’t believe Katie thought that unicorn thought I was a virgin," Clint mutters as he follows Coulson out of his office and down to the parking garage.
"What?"
"Nothing."