Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This series has a lot of non-linear storytelling. This issue starts out easy with just 2 timeframes run in parallel, which I'll simplify a lot.
Hawkeye (Clint Barton) in his recent Avengers costume falls backwards out of a window many floors up. He fires a grappling hook arrow and swings on the line to collide with the wall and then falls quite a way to land on his back on the roof of a car. Then we see him in traction in hospital with multiple severe injuries. 6 weeks later he's wheeled off the hospital premises in the insurance-mandated wheelchair, still with several bandages and sticking plasters. Then he gets out of the chair and kicks it into oncoming traffic.
That's not the 2 timeframes, this is. Clint's looking the worse for wear again in a vet's asking them to fix a heavily-injured dog. They try to persuade him to let them euthanase the animal but he insists they make it better.
In the 1st timeline the hospital orderly says Barton owes them $200 for the wheelchair, and Hawkeye hopes the Avengers insurance will pay for it. Then he grabs a cab to the Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone where he occupies the top floor, but traffic's bad so he gets out and walks. When he gets there he finds the landlord Ivan and his tracksuit mafia evicting Simone and her 2 kids because she can't pay the rent he's just tripled. Barton insists on checking the lease and there's nothing they can do about it. Ivan says they're all going to suffer the same fate. That night the residents have their regular summertime barbecue on the roof. They're all complaining about the rent and Clint says he doesn't care about the money, he just doesn't want to move. But the other tenants don't have his choice.
Next day he goes to a Chinese restaurant where 2 of the 'mafia' and a dog are standing guard. Clint gives the dog some pizza and shows the men a bag full of money. They let him into the illegal gambling den in the back. He locates Ivan and dumps the bag in front of him saying it's enough to cover the rent for everybody. But Ivan doesn't want it because he wants the building empty so he can sell it for loads *more* money.
Clint's been idly shuffling a pack of cards. Now he hurls a card to hit 1 goon in the throat and jabs an elbow in another jaw. Both their guns go off hitting others. He uses the ensuing chaos to clobber more of them but he gets thrown out of another window (but this 1's at ground level). The 2 guards pull guns and Barton runs away. A bullet grazes his arm but the dog attacks the shooter. Clint turns back to help and sees the dog kicked into traffic. He KO's the guys and sees an oblivious motorist about to run the mutt down. The expert marksman sends a coin through the driver's side window, alerting him into braking. But not enough to stop knocking the dog down.
Meanwhile we've seen Clint asleep in a chair at the vet's when Ivan and 2 guys track him down. They call him out but he seizes the initiative and decks the minions before beating on Ivan who he calls a tracksuit Dracula. Then he offers him another large amount of money to *buy* the building off him. Ivan sort of accepts and Barton calls him a cab to take him to JFK airport to leave the country.
Then the vet takes Clint to see the dog. He says he's lost an eye but he'll recover from his other injuries with someone to look after him. They find a collar with the name Arrow, but Clint says he'll think of a better 1.