Homecoming
Summary:
Aaron Cross doesn't remember his home. Really he doesn't remember anything before waking up in the hospital after being blown up, and even that's very blurry. All he really knows is what they told him. They lied.
Notes: A/N: Ok, so this is how this sort of came about. In canon mythology Odin is an extreme, abusive ass to Loki’s children. He’s enslaved, imprisoned, exiled, tortured and murdered these kids simply because they were Loki’s - because they were supposed to grow up to be the bad guys and because he was their mother. Homophobic does not even come close to describing Viking culture. Plus, Loki was so under the control of the cube. Two lines convinced me of this - ‘I come with glorious purpose’ and ‘The teseract shows us all different things’ and the fact that he told Thor that he never wanted to rule before he fell off the Rainbow Bridge.
So when there was this prompt to make one of the Avengers a hidden child of Loki’s, I thought that Clint was the best choice. He’s enamored of an ancient weapon, is freakishly accurate with anything that must be aimed, has a very prominent sense of humor, and loves heights to an extreme extent. Then I watched Bourne Legacy, and so many little things there pointed at ‘Aaron’ being Clint undercover. So yeah - this.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just the mixed up idea to put these two fandoms together like this.
Aaron Cross had been on the run for almost six months with Doctor Marta Shearing. He’d taught her as much as he could in that time about how to survive with a government agency wanting you dead. He didn’t know why he was so determined to keep her alive. He knew that he could survive on his own, and that keeping her with him would get him killed. For some reason though, he simply couldn’t leave her to her death. That was why he found himself backed into a brick walled, dead end alley in New York, with her behind him, in a standoff with his onetime recruiter.
“I’m sorry Aaron, but this is the way it has to be,” Bryer said. The two men were staring at each other over their pistols. The slightest twitch from either of them would cause all three of their deaths and they both knew it. “In order to save what we can, the program has to be burned.”
“Yeah, well I have this little objection to dying, sorry,” Aaron retorted. He was the only one paying any attention to the weather, and that was only because he had a tiny hope that the building thunderstorm would help provide them with a small chance to escape the situation they’d found themselves in, especially if it meant that the Avengers were fighting something. That usually meant enough chaos that he just might be able to get the drop on the man. It’d be nice to be kill the one who had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
None of them were expecting that a loud clap of thunder would result in a demigod landing between the two gunmen. “I am Thor Odinson of Asgard and you!” he pointed his hammer at Bryer, “lay down your weapon or pay the price!!” Aaron really wanted to exchange a WTF? look with Marta, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the confrontation between Bryer and the newcomer. Of course he knew who Thor was, everyone did. What he didn’t know was why one of the Avengers would care if the last two people involved in the Outcome program were killed.
A whisper of sound and suddenly Loki, brother to Thor, God of Mischief and fellow Avenger, was standing behind Bryer. “I really would listen to him if I were you, little mortal. Even if you could defeat him, which you won’t, you would never escape me,” Loki spoke in an almost concerned voice, but the threat was clear. Bryer looked disgruntled but handed his pistol over his shoulder to Loki as he knew that there was nothing else he could do. No mere human could oppose an Asgardian in a one on one fight, only the Hulk or other similar superhero could do that.
Loki smirked and grabbed him by his jacket, tossing him up onto one of the brick walls, sticking him there. Aaron put his pistol away now that the threat was contained. This was definitely one for the record books, too bad he didn’t keep one. Thor laughed and grabbed Aaron up in a hug. “We have found you at last Little Hawk! I am sure that you have many tales to us tell of your adventures!” Aaron had no clue what Thor was talking about, but he wasn’t about to object to whatever the demigods wanted to do. They’d saved his life and that of Marta. He owed them for now.
“Thor you idiot, put him down before you break him in half!” Loki scolded. He set his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Let’s see what these Midgardian fools have done to you,” he muttered as he sent a wave of magic flowing over Aaron. Loki began cursing almost immediately, causing concerned looks from everyone else.
“Loki, what is wrong?” Thor demanded to know.
“They’ve altered his memory and chained him!” Loki snarled. Without pausing to explain Loki sent a surge of magic through Aaron. Aaron arched back as a cry of pain was wrenched out of him. As he screamed he began to blur and shrink, and the outfit he was wearing; black jacket, blue jeans, worn t-shirt and black boots, vanished. Soon a large hawk was perched on Loki’s wrist. “Fly free!” Loki commanded, and launched the hawk into the sky.
“He flies well,” Thor complemented, thumping his brother on a shoulder.
“Of course he does,” Loki replied, as though it were a forgone conclusion that the man turned hawk would be a master of flight.
Of all the things that Marta had seen over the last six months, and of all the possibilities she and her fellow scientists had imagined in the years before that, nothing came close to seeing a man whose body she knew in intimate detail after four and a half years of physicals change into bird. That was why she was still standing there with her bottom jaw on her shoes instead of bolting when she had the chance the way Aaron had taught her when he returned.
The hawk landed on the ground, still between Marta and the demigods, and changed back into Aaron - only it wasn’t really Aaron, not the Aaron she’d gotten to know. One moment the hawk was standing on the pavement with his wings outstretched, and the next Aaron was kneeling on one knee and his arms outstretched. The outfit he was wearing was one that was as unmistakable as those of the Asgardians - that of an Avenger that hadn’t been seen in five years, Hawkeye. “Oh man, I missed that! Thanks Mom!” he said, standing up and catching Loki in a hug. “You would not believe the excuses I’ve been making up just so that I could get up high.”
“Um, Aaron? That’s Loki and he’s a guy,” Marta pointed out. She knew that Aaron wasn’t really his name, but then she doubted that Kenneth had been either and she just wasn’t sure that she should call him Hawkeye after six months on the run with the man. She was also dithering, but these three had just turned her world upside down and inside out on the most basic, scientific level possible. She was allowed a little dithering, especially since it was mental.
“Yeah, the fact that my mom is the Norse God of Mischief was hard for me to wrap my head around when I first found out, but then I always knew Mom was weird,” Hawkeye shrugged. Marta continued to stare at him and he asked, “You did see me shift into a hawk, right?” Marta nodded and he smirked. “Mom’s where my brothers and I get the shape shifting thing from. One of his favorite shifts is to be a girl for a while.”
“Your sister can shift as well, she simply chooses not to. Now that I’ve cleared that crap out of your genetics and reset your memory perhaps you can talk your lady into not shooting me anymore?” Loki asked.
Hawkeye whipped his head around. “Did you fix my aim?” he demanded to know. He was completely ignoring the reference to Black Widow. He refused to go there right now. He’d deal with Natasha later, when the two of them could be alone together to figure out where their partnership stood. “Those assholes downgraded me. I actually miss one percent of the time now. Plus I haven’t even held a bow in almost five years.”
“That’s downgrading?” Marta and Bryer chorused. Aaron Cross had been the top shooter to come out of all of the programs, blowing away everyone else’s scores.
Hawkeye turned his head again to take in the two full humans in the alley. “I NEVER miss,” he growled at Bryer. Marta had earned his forgiveness months ago. Bryer he was still pissed off at.
“Of course I did, and you are not getting out of it. You will talk to that insane partner of yours and get her to stop trying to kill me just because I can’t track you by magic,” Loki said, poking Hawkeye in the chest and reclaiming his youngest son’s attention.
“Of course you can’t track me by magic, you made that impossible when Barney and I were born to protect us from Odin. Monumental jackass,” Hawkeye muttered. “So how did you find me anyway?”
“Colonel Rhodes saw you in Alaska six months ago. By the way, you owe Fenrir an apology for blowing him up,” Loki said pointedly.
“I will not! He owes me one! He followed me for days. Every time I thought I’d thrown that pack off my scent, there he’d be bringing them right back on my tail,” Hawkeye groused. He didn’t bother to say anything about how, as he didn’t remember his family, the wolf’s behavior had freaked him out. “Didn’t it ever occur to the twit to just shift and say hi?” he asked sarcastically.
“We should discuss this later. We must decide what to do with the mortals,” Thor said, nodding at Bryer and Marta.
“Oh yeah, I found Bruce a new playmate,” Hawkeye said, gesturing at Marta. “But him,” he turned to face Bryer. “He needs to pay for putting me in the program that got me so screwed up.”
“Oh yes, he’ll pay wergild for his tampering with you,” Loki snarled.
“Bruce?” Marta asked in a whisper.
“Doctor Bruce Banner, also known as The Hulk. You two are going to get on like a house on fire,” Hawkeye told her. “Besides, as long as you’re living and working with the Avengers, no government flunky in his right mind is going to touch you.
"I also have the perfect wergild,” he told his mother. “Place a curse on a man named Jason Bourne; anyone who opposes him, tries to kill him, tries to silence him in anyway will always fail in the most chaotic way possible. He was in the programs and he’s on the run like I was. It’s going to be a storm and I can’t wait to sit back and watch.”
“You want me to make this Jason Bourne a chaos maker? Oh you are my son,” Loki cackled. He clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder and began leading him out of the alleyway. Thor offered Marta his arm and followed them.
Hawkeye shrugged. “From what I’ve seen, he already is one. You’d just be upping the mayhem factor.”
Bryer watched as the four walked away. He couldn’t believe that he’d been stupid enough not to recognize Hawkeye, or that by failing to do so he had brought down the full wrath of the one demigod fully capable of unraveling and bringing down not just one of the programs, but all of them. And to top it off, they’d left him here stuck to the wall of the alley, where it was now beginning to rain.
Aaron Cross doesn't remember his home. Really he doesn't remember anything before waking up in the hospital after being blown up, and even that's very blurry. All he really knows is what they told him. They lied.
Notes: A/N: Ok, so this is how this sort of came about. In canon mythology Odin is an extreme, abusive ass to Loki’s children. He’s enslaved, imprisoned, exiled, tortured and murdered these kids simply because they were Loki’s - because they were supposed to grow up to be the bad guys and because he was their mother. Homophobic does not even come close to describing Viking culture. Plus, Loki was so under the control of the cube. Two lines convinced me of this - ‘I come with glorious purpose’ and ‘The teseract shows us all different things’ and the fact that he told Thor that he never wanted to rule before he fell off the Rainbow Bridge.
So when there was this prompt to make one of the Avengers a hidden child of Loki’s, I thought that Clint was the best choice. He’s enamored of an ancient weapon, is freakishly accurate with anything that must be aimed, has a very prominent sense of humor, and loves heights to an extreme extent. Then I watched Bourne Legacy, and so many little things there pointed at ‘Aaron’ being Clint undercover. So yeah - this.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just the mixed up idea to put these two fandoms together like this.
Aaron Cross had been on the run for almost six months with Doctor Marta Shearing. He’d taught her as much as he could in that time about how to survive with a government agency wanting you dead. He didn’t know why he was so determined to keep her alive. He knew that he could survive on his own, and that keeping her with him would get him killed. For some reason though, he simply couldn’t leave her to her death. That was why he found himself backed into a brick walled, dead end alley in New York, with her behind him, in a standoff with his onetime recruiter.
“I’m sorry Aaron, but this is the way it has to be,” Bryer said. The two men were staring at each other over their pistols. The slightest twitch from either of them would cause all three of their deaths and they both knew it. “In order to save what we can, the program has to be burned.”
“Yeah, well I have this little objection to dying, sorry,” Aaron retorted. He was the only one paying any attention to the weather, and that was only because he had a tiny hope that the building thunderstorm would help provide them with a small chance to escape the situation they’d found themselves in, especially if it meant that the Avengers were fighting something. That usually meant enough chaos that he just might be able to get the drop on the man. It’d be nice to be kill the one who had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
None of them were expecting that a loud clap of thunder would result in a demigod landing between the two gunmen. “I am Thor Odinson of Asgard and you!” he pointed his hammer at Bryer, “lay down your weapon or pay the price!!” Aaron really wanted to exchange a WTF? look with Marta, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the confrontation between Bryer and the newcomer. Of course he knew who Thor was, everyone did. What he didn’t know was why one of the Avengers would care if the last two people involved in the Outcome program were killed.
A whisper of sound and suddenly Loki, brother to Thor, God of Mischief and fellow Avenger, was standing behind Bryer. “I really would listen to him if I were you, little mortal. Even if you could defeat him, which you won’t, you would never escape me,” Loki spoke in an almost concerned voice, but the threat was clear. Bryer looked disgruntled but handed his pistol over his shoulder to Loki as he knew that there was nothing else he could do. No mere human could oppose an Asgardian in a one on one fight, only the Hulk or other similar superhero could do that.
Loki smirked and grabbed him by his jacket, tossing him up onto one of the brick walls, sticking him there. Aaron put his pistol away now that the threat was contained. This was definitely one for the record books, too bad he didn’t keep one. Thor laughed and grabbed Aaron up in a hug. “We have found you at last Little Hawk! I am sure that you have many tales to us tell of your adventures!” Aaron had no clue what Thor was talking about, but he wasn’t about to object to whatever the demigods wanted to do. They’d saved his life and that of Marta. He owed them for now.
“Thor you idiot, put him down before you break him in half!” Loki scolded. He set his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Let’s see what these Midgardian fools have done to you,” he muttered as he sent a wave of magic flowing over Aaron. Loki began cursing almost immediately, causing concerned looks from everyone else.
“Loki, what is wrong?” Thor demanded to know.
“They’ve altered his memory and chained him!” Loki snarled. Without pausing to explain Loki sent a surge of magic through Aaron. Aaron arched back as a cry of pain was wrenched out of him. As he screamed he began to blur and shrink, and the outfit he was wearing; black jacket, blue jeans, worn t-shirt and black boots, vanished. Soon a large hawk was perched on Loki’s wrist. “Fly free!” Loki commanded, and launched the hawk into the sky.
“He flies well,” Thor complemented, thumping his brother on a shoulder.
“Of course he does,” Loki replied, as though it were a forgone conclusion that the man turned hawk would be a master of flight.
Of all the things that Marta had seen over the last six months, and of all the possibilities she and her fellow scientists had imagined in the years before that, nothing came close to seeing a man whose body she knew in intimate detail after four and a half years of physicals change into bird. That was why she was still standing there with her bottom jaw on her shoes instead of bolting when she had the chance the way Aaron had taught her when he returned.
The hawk landed on the ground, still between Marta and the demigods, and changed back into Aaron - only it wasn’t really Aaron, not the Aaron she’d gotten to know. One moment the hawk was standing on the pavement with his wings outstretched, and the next Aaron was kneeling on one knee and his arms outstretched. The outfit he was wearing was one that was as unmistakable as those of the Asgardians - that of an Avenger that hadn’t been seen in five years, Hawkeye. “Oh man, I missed that! Thanks Mom!” he said, standing up and catching Loki in a hug. “You would not believe the excuses I’ve been making up just so that I could get up high.”
“Um, Aaron? That’s Loki and he’s a guy,” Marta pointed out. She knew that Aaron wasn’t really his name, but then she doubted that Kenneth had been either and she just wasn’t sure that she should call him Hawkeye after six months on the run with the man. She was also dithering, but these three had just turned her world upside down and inside out on the most basic, scientific level possible. She was allowed a little dithering, especially since it was mental.
“Yeah, the fact that my mom is the Norse God of Mischief was hard for me to wrap my head around when I first found out, but then I always knew Mom was weird,” Hawkeye shrugged. Marta continued to stare at him and he asked, “You did see me shift into a hawk, right?” Marta nodded and he smirked. “Mom’s where my brothers and I get the shape shifting thing from. One of his favorite shifts is to be a girl for a while.”
“Your sister can shift as well, she simply chooses not to. Now that I’ve cleared that crap out of your genetics and reset your memory perhaps you can talk your lady into not shooting me anymore?” Loki asked.
Hawkeye whipped his head around. “Did you fix my aim?” he demanded to know. He was completely ignoring the reference to Black Widow. He refused to go there right now. He’d deal with Natasha later, when the two of them could be alone together to figure out where their partnership stood. “Those assholes downgraded me. I actually miss one percent of the time now. Plus I haven’t even held a bow in almost five years.”
“That’s downgrading?” Marta and Bryer chorused. Aaron Cross had been the top shooter to come out of all of the programs, blowing away everyone else’s scores.
Hawkeye turned his head again to take in the two full humans in the alley. “I NEVER miss,” he growled at Bryer. Marta had earned his forgiveness months ago. Bryer he was still pissed off at.
“Of course I did, and you are not getting out of it. You will talk to that insane partner of yours and get her to stop trying to kill me just because I can’t track you by magic,” Loki said, poking Hawkeye in the chest and reclaiming his youngest son’s attention.
“Of course you can’t track me by magic, you made that impossible when Barney and I were born to protect us from Odin. Monumental jackass,” Hawkeye muttered. “So how did you find me anyway?”
“Colonel Rhodes saw you in Alaska six months ago. By the way, you owe Fenrir an apology for blowing him up,” Loki said pointedly.
“I will not! He owes me one! He followed me for days. Every time I thought I’d thrown that pack off my scent, there he’d be bringing them right back on my tail,” Hawkeye groused. He didn’t bother to say anything about how, as he didn’t remember his family, the wolf’s behavior had freaked him out. “Didn’t it ever occur to the twit to just shift and say hi?” he asked sarcastically.
“We should discuss this later. We must decide what to do with the mortals,” Thor said, nodding at Bryer and Marta.
“Oh yeah, I found Bruce a new playmate,” Hawkeye said, gesturing at Marta. “But him,” he turned to face Bryer. “He needs to pay for putting me in the program that got me so screwed up.”
“Oh yes, he’ll pay wergild for his tampering with you,” Loki snarled.
“Bruce?” Marta asked in a whisper.
“Doctor Bruce Banner, also known as The Hulk. You two are going to get on like a house on fire,” Hawkeye told her. “Besides, as long as you’re living and working with the Avengers, no government flunky in his right mind is going to touch you.
"I also have the perfect wergild,” he told his mother. “Place a curse on a man named Jason Bourne; anyone who opposes him, tries to kill him, tries to silence him in anyway will always fail in the most chaotic way possible. He was in the programs and he’s on the run like I was. It’s going to be a storm and I can’t wait to sit back and watch.”
“You want me to make this Jason Bourne a chaos maker? Oh you are my son,” Loki cackled. He clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder and began leading him out of the alleyway. Thor offered Marta his arm and followed them.
Hawkeye shrugged. “From what I’ve seen, he already is one. You’d just be upping the mayhem factor.”
Bryer watched as the four walked away. He couldn’t believe that he’d been stupid enough not to recognize Hawkeye, or that by failing to do so he had brought down the full wrath of the one demigod fully capable of unraveling and bringing down not just one of the programs, but all of them. And to top it off, they’d left him here stuck to the wall of the alley, where it was now beginning to rain.