Chapter Text
Desmond got the phone call a little after 11 at night while he was on break, halfway through sneaking a club sandwich in the back of the kitchen.
“Wha’ff up?” He asked awkwardly through his mouthful of sandwich. The noise alerted Damien to Desmond’s food thievery, and, sandwich remains in hand, he fled the chef’s snapping dish rag for the front of the kitchen.
A plate clattered to the counter behind him, and Clint swore.
“Aw, fuck, wait, are you working tonight?” Desmond was more than halfway through his shift, at the moment. There had been a bit of a lull, so he’d stepped back into the kitchen for a snack while Erin minded the bar.
“I’m about to head back out, yeah. What’s up, Clint?” The man sounded genuinely stressed.
“I- no. It’ll be alright, man, I’ll just-” Clearly not.
“Clint.” Clint’s other friend, Coulson, seemed to be fond of using the guy’s own name to keep him on track, and lo and behold, that was about all it took.
“I- yeah, alright. Listen Des, I- you know how I’ve been having trouble with those guys poking around?” Clint had mentioned that there was a gang of some sorts that had been harassing his tenants before, but always offhandedly.
“Yeah, the guys with the tracksuits.” Russian mob – bad time, but they hadn’t bothered him yet, and whatever sort of skillset Clint had seemed to be carrying him through that whole situation. Until now, at least.
“Yeah, them. See, the problem is, uh, I just got back into town, work thing, you know? And my apartment’s been broken into. And Rosie, you know Rosie,” he did, she worked the register and helped him and Erin on busy nights, “she and Aimee say they saw them poking around not too long ago. But Des, I,” a pause, a breath, “Lucky’s gone.” Ah, shit.
Desmond poked his head out of the back to check on Erin. She catches it, looking over, and gives him a thumbs up when he gestures with his sandwich at the bar, his phone, and then at her. Seemed like she was good to hold the place down for a couple of minutes.
“What do you need, Clint?” He asked once he’d retreated back into the kitchen. He got a look from Damien, but his otherwise, his presence went largely unquestioned. Lucky slipping his lead was a different situation than the scrappy retriever getting stolen by some mobsters with a grudge, and it wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to leave until morning.
“I- fuck, man. I don’t even know if they have him? He mighta just ran out when they kicked the door in, you know? But if they’ve got him, I don’t know if I’ve got a whole lot of time, and it’s been over a day-” Desmond cut Clint off there, leading the panicking man through some breathing exercises while he made his way out of the kitchen and upstairs. A couple of his patrons caught his words to his friend while he went, rising in concern, but Desmond waved them down.
He gave a wave to Ricardo on his way through the old dancefloor turned night-care space. It was pretty late at this point, and the lights had been turned off at this point. There were tiny little cots scattered about the floor, covered in brightly-colored little fleece blankets and sleeping bodies. Night owls as the adults might all be, his staff’s children all attended school in the daytime, and were only up for a few hours after opening before getting put to bed for the night. Some of them even ate breakfast here after closing before heading off to school to save time.
There had already been an incident when one of the younger kids had cheerfully told one of his buddies that he lived in a bar, been vehemently disbelieved, and had given his teacher Desmond’s personal cell number to call after the ensuing fight had gotten out of hand. That particular telephone tree had been a headache to deal with.
Drama aside – sometimes, after everyone had gone home for the day, he’d stand in the corner of this room and bask in the light of the happy little knee-high shades they all left behind.
Passing into the tiny hallway that lead to his bedroom, he unlocked his door. Checking out the window, he frowned slightly. Clint was right to worry either way, honestly. Even if Lucky hadn't been taken, it was the middle of November, and not the best weather to be out in. He turned to the giant-ass map of New York he kept on the wall.
“Still there, buddy?” Desmond asked into the phone. An affirmative, calmer now. Picking up a pin, he carefully marked out the rough location of Clint’s building in blue, then centered himself. This was a bit of a new trick, and he’d discovered it when Tyler had lost his phone on the subway.
That night, he’d come downstairs to open, only to be greeted by Tyler and his brother Adl – both frantically pouring over a map of the subway lines. Apparently they’d both gone to a party with a friend over the weekend, and the young man had lost the phone on an unfamiliar line while on the way back. Looking at the map, Desmond realized that it was the line that he used to take in from Brooklyn to Bad Weather, and just like that, he’d been able to remember the entire route clearly in his head, and there was a golden, glowing point both in his head and on the creased map.
They’d all taken a trip out to the closest station, and the phone had been located in short order, much to the brothers’ surprise. Desmond had sworn them to secrecy then and there – he had enough on his plate finding the occasional lost pet that still made its way onto his corkboard, he didn’t need to be finding every set of lost keys in New York too.
They’d promised him, tangling pinkies with his and everything. Desmond knew that his entire staff, along with half of his regulars, thought he had some sort of dowsing-related mutation or superpower at this point (What’s the difference, he’d asked once, and the answer seemed to vary) and to be fair, they weren’t totally wrong. But it was a hilarious misinterpretation of his skillset.
Clint seemed to have evened out on the other side of the phone. “Alright, Clint, you with me?” Desmond prompted. Traffic sounded for a second on Clint’s end before an answer came.
“Yeah, Des, I’m here.” His voice seemed steadier, too.
Desmond nodded, palming his jar of tacks. “Cool. Where are you right now? Rough estimate.”
Clint’s voice ticked up. “No, no, you’re working man, you’re on shift, it’s cool-” Desmond cut him off again.
“Clint, I own the place. If I need to step out, I can. But for now, I just need a couple of locations from you, okay?” A wary, confused silence.
“Yeah. Alright. Uh, I’m still in Bed-Stuy. Few blocks from the building, by the bagel place? Greensburg’s?” He knew it. Place was alright, had awkward hours for Desmond’s schedule though.
“I got it.” Another tack over Clint’s position. He didn’t really need them, per se, but they helped him focus.
“And these mob guys, they got a permanent location? They local at all?”
Clint answered faster this time. “Naw, they uh. They move around a lot. But yeah, they live in the area, as best I can tell.” Not great, but it’d do.
“Alright Clint. Stand by.” Show time.
“Roger that?”
It felt like a weird combination of crossing his eyes and the little leap he got in his stomach whenever he was up high. With a shift, the map on his wall seemed to come alive behind his eyes, and it felt like he was looking out over Brooklyn from a perch on high – like he was sat up on top of the Brooklyner again, from when he’d been doing his early-morning, highly illegal tour of the tallest buildings in New York a couple of months ago. He’d had a rough series of nightmares just after opening, and he’d taken to climbing again to soothe his Eagle Vision and his own nerves with some height.
Trying to mark out points on the flat map while keeping the 3D version held in his mind was a bit twisty, but he managed. When he came away, there were new clusters of red tacks scattered about the map, as well as one yellow pin stuck firmly in an alleyway a solid distance away from any of the others. Score.
“Do me a favor, Clint? Try the dumpster behind the Coyote Club? I’ve got a good feeling.”
The silence from the other side of the phone was heavy with skepticism, but he got an answer. “Alright, Desmond. If you think so.” Yeesh, full name. Hopefully Lucky didn’t decide to vacate before Clint got there.
He was probably straining Clint’s belief a bit at this point. Desmond wasn’t sure what the guy had been after when he’d called, but it was probably along the lines of another pair of feet on the ground to help search, and not Desmond’s particular brand of search and rescue.
“I’m pretty sure, Clint. I’ll stay on the line in the meantime, if you want.” So Clint could either let him know when Lucky got found, or so the guy could ream him out for wasting his time.
The response was tired. “Yeah. Yeah that’d be good.”
Clint found Lucky not ten minutes later, camped out happily in the Brooklyn bar’s dumpster. Desmond ended the call quietly, after the phone had started picking up Clint’s exhausted, relieved tears over the jingling of Lucky’s collar.
He snapped a quick picture of the red pins in his map, before sending it off to Clint with a caption that read, ‘Might want to check those spots later, if you still can’t find the guys that broke into your place.’ In for a penny.
Picking up the remains of his sandwich, Desmond headed back downstairs.
…
Clint set off to the 1000 Miles the very next night, with Lucky tagging after his heels with a waving tail, and his head held high. He was a bit reluctant to leave his dog behind, after the fucking trial it had been to find him.
He’d checked the spots that Desmond had sent him last night – he couldn’t sleep until he did, and every damn pin had marked out a little hidey-hole or sketchy apartment building occupied by at least one Tracksuit. Shit was crazy. He respected Desmond way too much to go directly to Coulson with this, but still. A guy had to wonder.
He’d heard the noise from the 1000 Miles in the background last night when he called, so Desmond definitely hadn’t scouted the place out personally, not unless he was some sort of Speedster, but the clean accuracy of Desmond’s markers smacked of inside information.
Desmond probably had nothing to do with the local mob scene. And if it was something else, cool, probably, but Clint hadn’t lived this long on assumptions.
(And if Des was tangled up in something, well, Clint owed him enough at this point to try and get him out. Time to see what his new friend would tell him.)
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