Fanfic: shoot the breeze (this was a good thing), Avengers

The most important part of his skillset, Hawkeye had taught himself.

Using his five regular senses, using his feet, hands, any part of him he could turn dangerous, that was easy. It was common. He could dance or he could pretend not to, step on toes. He could do it so well, he was barely even there, leave his dance partner unawares and his mission successful. Talking, taking, keeping silent, sometimes a good old-fashioned brawl if necessary. Unremarkable.

He had a sense for the little shifts in the air. Like he could follow the breeze.

It wasn't about hearing it, or paying attention when it ran down his bare arm, made his hairs stand on end. He didn't use any of his mundane perception tools, what biology had determined – he used all of it, or maybe none, he wasn't sure. Just his imagination, turning the oversensitive parts of his brain into something tangible he could process, given enough attention. Something that proved real every time he hit a mark.

If Hawkeye could keep the breeze on his side, he could make sure it helped him. So he tuned to it, and in turn, the breeze tuned to his arrows.

Loki was a hurricane.

Clint didn't have a side, then. Loki had a side. Loki kept the wind to himself, unwilling and unwitting, so that it wasn't a partnership anymore. No one controlled anything, and Loki dictated everything. It didn't have to make sense. He just had to follow the gusts, violent and temperamental and unpredictable. Uncontainable.

Nat was there. Never, from the beginning, had Nat arrived with anything but herself. Not like Stark, who, Clint would learn, blew in like a breath of bitter winter chill, loud and cool and much too rambunctious. Too fast to keep up with. Nor like Banner, who'd hum his approach with practiced ease – the distant sound of lazy wind and charged clouds, carrying the threat of a devastating storm.

Nat was there. She always arrived with no breeze, no breath, no warning. She was there, and only then would Clint notice her presence.

The hurricane raged.

He fought her, she won, so Loki lost, and discovered at the same time they did what a hell of a team they made.

The hurricane died.

As far as the Avengers were concerned, Hawkeye was as much of a loner as the rest of them. Hawkeye didn't have a family. Clint did. Not Hawkeye. That was probably a good thing – every time he had to head off a budding argument like they were his quibbling children, it was innocent. He could fit in without disclosing some of his less obvious soft skills.

Natasha didn't count. She knew, but in a compartmentalized sort of way. Nat never let something she knew get in the way of other things she knew. Around the other Avengers, he was Hawkeye, she was Black Widow, and everything else didn't matter much at all.

But Hawkeye also worked for SHIELD, and that ended up mattering a little more than it should.

Nat warned him. She didn't expect help from him, nor would she drag the problem to his doorstep, but she warned him so he could take Clint's family and disappear. Just in case. And then, she also came to tell him that they were in the clear, and that his employment was terminated, and that he'd been assigned to a very long-term, long-distance, urgent mission.

Laura had rolled her eyes. "I'm sure it can wait long enough for you to get off my porch and come inside for coffee. You can explain over breakfast. Now, superspies."

Hawkeye was no longer employed, but he still had a boss. So did Clint, for that matter.

"Cap," Clint greeted, "how we doing? I was told earlier you were a national security threat, but I see now you're back to being a national icon. You're looking distinctly dashing and patriotic."

Rogers pulled a face and made a yeah-yeah-my-life-is-dramatic-get-over-it gesture. Nat smirked at him and brushed past to call the Stark tower elevator. "Nice to see you again, Agent Barton. I didn't know Natasha was going to loop you in."

The edge in his voice reminded Clint of the reason he was in New York in the first place, visiting Stark's monument to himself. The last time he'd seen it, it was very much a work in progress. He remembered – particularly well – having had a heavy hand in turning that progress right around, too. It was now fully operational, judging from the busybody look of the employees hanging around; keeping attention off himself while sneaking in had been more of a hassle than usual. An effort completely wasted on Rogers, who was ostensibly oblivious to the staring, and perfectly comfortable with sharing the spotlight with Clint and Nat.

From what he'd seen through the squinting look he'd snuck outside, the tower had suffered a makeover as well. The wind was whistling severely through all the external nooks and crannies, sun glinting off a giant gleaming letter, and then he'd stepped inside to a complete, abrupt silence. Clint briefly wondered why Stark had only seen fit to replace the A in his name, hanging atop the skyscraper. It was a striking addition to the New York skyline, at any rate, for better or worse.

He shrugged, willing Cap to ease up. "Why not? Sounds like fun."

The door opened before Rogers could reply, so Natasha did on his behalf. "I briefed him. He's clean," she added, correctly interpreting the side-eye that earned her.

"Suppose you're gonna tell me you just know that."

"I do." That was the end of that conversation. Clint wondered if that was enough trust for Captain America and leaned back against the metal, only inching into Nat's space a little. Her staring contest with Rogers kept her from making note of it.

The doors opened before he had to announce his continued presence in the background of the non-discussion the other two were having, out of an abundance of awkwardness. Fortunately, in the well-lit room they stepped into, there was a billionaire with an affinity for toiling in awkwardness.

"Look what the man-eating spider dragged in," Stark greeted cheerfully. He was wearing awfully bulky clothing that struck Clint as jarring, and he filed the observation away for later. In his hand was a characteristic glass of scotch, and sitting beside him on the couch – "Just in time too. Goldilocks stopped by for a visit." Thor, a relaxed arm thrown over the couch behind an uncomfortable-looking Banner, waved at them energetically. Rogers waved back. "We would have called to give you a head's up, but-" he gestured to his TV set, broadcasting the destruction Nat and Rogers had left behind in DC – "you seemed busy."

"Yeah, and it was rude not to extend invitations, but whatever, I'm over it," Clint said, eyes wandering over the ceiling to find the nearest vent duct. Rogers huffed like he was laughing just a little, which Clint took to mean he was officially off the hook of any lingering suspicions. "Nice place, Stark."

"I know," Stark preened matter-of-factly. "You should all feel free to stop by anytime you're not being actively chased by a federal agency. The FBI gets all up in a tizzy when you try and shoot the breeze with people on the no-fly list."

Cap's eyebrows looked pinched. "Does anybody else have any further smart comments to get out of the way?"

"If you lead an insurrection against tyrant powers, would you need any assistance, my friend?" Thor posited earnestly.

"No, no comments," Banner said patiently. Stark was smirking.

Rogers appeared to give up then, and flopped on the couch next to Stark with a bland expression on his face. "Do I look like the kind of guy who leads insurrections against the government? My name's literally Captain America."

Stark's smirk broke into full-on laughter. "Sure you do, just as soon as I become a company man."

Rogers' small smile faded quickly. "Still. If I've learned anything lately, it's that blind loyalty to- an agenda, it's always a bad idea. And anything – when a group of people gets big enough, it always ends up with an agenda."

"I'm proud of you, Mr. Anarchy." Stark patted his shoulder.

"Not to interrupt your date, gentlemen," Natasha said, perching herself next to Banner, "but there's a reason the rest of us are here too, Steve."

Uncharacteristically, Stark quieted, and eyed Rogers curiously. Banner took off his glasses and wiped the lenses, staring at the ground. "Tony said Agent Romanoff called him. Is this an Avengers meeting?" The name wasn't said without its fair share of irony, but the look on Nat's face was inscrutable.

Cap cleared his throat. "I assume you've seen the SHIELD dump Natasha uploaded online." It hadn't sounded like a question, but Stark and Banner answered 'yes' in tandem, at the same time Thor said 'no'. Rogers spared him an impatient look before plowing ahead. "There's cleaning up to do. I need help."

That got the room's attention. Clint exchanged a look with Nat and followed her to sit as well, accepting the full glass she'd mysteriously but unequivocally purloined from Stark's stash. The man himself was, however, far too preoccupied scrutinizing Rogers to make note of it.

"Wait, seriously? Cool," he stalled, speaking slowly. "You know, I was a little hurt you didn't invite me to take down the first federal agency, but you can make it up to me if we do the NSA next."

"I'm not going up against any more federal agencies," Cap replied tonelessly. "I need help rooting out Hydra all over the world."

There was a stretch of silence in which Stark's scrutiny intensified. Clint was well-trained not to react to things, but even Nat uncrossed and crossed her legs next to him, so he could be forgiven for putting his glass down not-so-quietly.

"Clint and I have a professional stake in this," Nat announced, suddenly and briskly. "Obviously, we're in."

"Obviously," Clint echoed, somewhat confused.

Stark scratched his chin, less pressure on him now he wasn't the first to commit himself. "Well, you're inviting me to go fight nazis," he stated simply. "What am I gonna do, say no? Gimme twenty-four hours to put a suit together."

"What happened to the old one?"

"Can't be certain, but it was either fire or water damage. Damn new-fangled Pokémon." Clint filed that away too. "Or, wait, you can't mean the one that almost took a trip to outer space?"

Rogers pretended to understand that and turned to Banner next, who sighed, shrugged, and said, "I'm already living here anyway. Might as well join you."

"That's the spirit," Stark complimented.

"Good," Cap said heavily. "Thank you. All of you."

"Of course," Thor reassured gravely. "This is what this team was made for, is it not?"

Cap seemed surprised but pleased by the implications of Thor's words, nodding firmly. Banner was frowning. "I take it the specifics of what happens to the Avengers Initiative without SHIELD will be the subject of later discussion?" he questioned.

"The team is the people in it."

Clint was fairly certain the only reason Stark kept his mouth shut at that was the pure earnestness on Steve Rogers' face, making that statement the way he made rousing speeches, easy and intense. He could see the billionaire's eyes crinkling at the corners, though, in a good way; a jerk in the fingers of his left hand. Even Nat smiled.

"I- sure, that's- a nice sentiment, but I was actually trying to make a point about logistics," Banner clarified with his own smile, fingers tapping his forearm. "For instance, half of us are- were employed by SHIELD, and the other half signed consultant contracts."

Stark made a face at that, somewhere between amused and disinterested, which Clint thought was his subtle way of reminding them all of how rich he was. "We can talk about it tomorrow. I've found that pre-dawn makes for the worst time for a meeting on finance and bureaucracy."

Rogers started at that, checking his wrist. Clint noticed he was still wearing the hospital's wristband, and he must have noticed it too, because he promptly ripped it off before turning his attention to the watch. "It's four am," he muttered.

"Nice of you to notice," Stark said pleasantly. "I take it you've had a long day?"

Rogers scrubbed his face vigorously and replied, "yeah," to which no one had much of a response. In the quiet that followed, Stark mostly eyed the swirling liquid in the glass he was holding, Nat stared unblinkingly ahead, and Clint took in each of them instead, and thought, 'there's more to this than he's saying'.

"Tomorrow," Nat muttered under her breath, just for him, like she'd read his mind. Clint accepted that. From the look on Stark's face, however, he wasn't gonna wait for a morning briefing.

"What aren't you sharing, Il Capitano?" he asked casually.

At first, Rogers tried to avoid any gazes, suddenly interested in his own hands instead. He didn't last too long in the silence, however, so he first glanced at Stark, then at Thor, and blurted out – "SHIELD had your brother's scepter, Thor."

At first, Thor didn't seem to process that. Then his eyes widened and he jumped to his feet. "It's gone?!"

Expression unreadable, Cap nodded. "I'm sorry. It'll be our first priority to retrieve it."

Thor still seemed distressed, but nodded quickly. "It must be. I have reason to believe that scepter has the same origin as the Tesseract," he explained urgently. "It must not land in evil hands."

"Don't besmirch the good name of the nazis," Clint mumbled, an attempt to lighten the mood that fell short in the face of Thor, Cap and Stark's stormy expressions.

"Remind me why that thing was on Earth in the first place?" the latter asked rhetorically.

"We'll find it," Rogers said firmly. Thor sat back down, an antsy glint to his eyes, and Stark poured himself another four fingers too many, but other than that, there was no response. The captain checked his watch again. "Should probably get going," he muttered, breaking the silence. "Need to find a low-key motel with adequate hygiene standards. Might take hours."

Stark sighed, as though someone was forcing him to speak up. "Motel?"

Rogers, who was already grabbing his coat, glanced over at him. "Well, my apartment's kind of drafty at the moment," he replied drily.

Stark squinted at him. "And there's something wrong with your room upstairs?"

Cap froze, staring back. "My what now?"

Stark reached for his glass casually and splayed himself on the couch further, almost but not quite overdoing the nonchalance. "Called in a favor with Rhodey so he'd salvage whatever stuff he could from your drive-by crime scene. Then I'm pretty sure he ended up owing me a favor when I mentioned whose stuff it was. Probably should've led with that." Cap seemed about to thank Stark profusely, so he got cut off by obnoxiousness. "I also set up rooms for Barton and Romanoff, but I didn't personalize them, because I'm still not sure the wonder twins are real human beings living on this green Earth."

"Nice. This is a good experience for me, since I never got to go to college," Natasha commented tonelessly, and Tony shook his head indignantly.

"Please. I'm too old to provide you with a proper college dorm experience."

Nat nodded thoughtfully. "I'm okay with that."

"Are you inviting us to stay here, Stark?" Rogers clarified, as though he was still slightly behind on the uptake.

Stark shrugged at him. "Unless you have any hidden, particularly nasty living habits. Can you think of a better solution for the scavenger hunt you came here to propose?"

Cap's eyebrows furrowed. "The rooms were obviously there before Nat called you."

"What's the A outside stand for?" Clint wondered aloud randomly, interrupting whatever deflective response Stark might be cooking up.

"It stands for Tony's-cheesier-than-cheese-deep-down," Nat replied monotonously. Beside her, Banner coughed to hide his chuckle.

Clint pretended to mull that over for several seconds, scratching the back of his head with a deep frown, and then shook his head resolutely. "No way. That doesn't start with an A."

Natasha's lips briefly twitched in his direction, and Stark rolled his eyes. "Sleep on the sidewalk, see if I care." She needed no further prompting and cheerfully dropped a kiss on Stark's cheek, who was almost startled enough to drop his drink.

Before disappearing up the stairs, she paused and looked at the ceiling. "Help me find my room, JARVIS?" she requested politely, and Clint's eye twitched when a voice from the ceiling replied.

"Right this way, Agent Romanoff."

"Get your own butler," Stark huffed at her retreating back. "This is the last time I invite ill-mannered spies into my real estate."

"Words hurt, you know?" Clint admonished, snapping out of his wonderings over Stark's wall person. He downed the rest of his own serving of his host's expensive alcohol, and Stark frowned in vague confusion at the glass. Clint stood up. "I'll make this place a home yet," he vowed solemnly.

"I already wanna kick you out," Stark promised.

Clint stretched, emboldened by the way Nat had made herself comfortable, and departed with, "I'm not kissing you. The walls can help me too, right?"

"I can, Agent Barton."

He caught a glimpse of Stark scowling, as well as Banner and Thor giving each other an amused look over his head. Cap was putting his coat back down, only a few traces of the earlier darkness remaining in his demeanor.

Tomorrow, Nat had said. Clint understood that. Best to take one day at a time. Otherwise, he'd start counting them, and that wouldn't help him at all.

This Avenger thing – it felt tentative, and weird, and something between a weirdly familiar rush and an unexpected high; but it could be easy so long as they all kept waiting for the morning.

Hawkeye didn't have a family. So Hawkeye could move into Stark's tower with little fanfare. He apologized and made promises to Laura on Clint's behalf, though. Told himself Captain America was only gonna be his boss temporarily.

He found out Thor had a girlfriend, for some reason. He found out Stark had a girlfriend. He found out Rogers wanted absolutely nothing to do with girlfriends, even if Potts' eyes had gone a little glazed over when they'd first met, which, statistically, made her a representative sample for a good chunk of humanity. Stark, far from being upset, found it hilarious. That's how Hawkeye found out Stark had a serious girlfriend who he was obnoxiously devoted to.

He found out Banner was terrified of the idea of a girlfriend, which roused Nat's interest in all the ways. He did not find out just how much until Laura told him, though.

He found out the quietest of them could be the loudest, and the loudest could go the quietest. Banner could turn into the most stubborn bastard on the face of the planet, and Stark sometimes had striking and obvious bouts of insecurity. Rogers appeared to have had an incredible – but surely righteous – falling out with the meaning of the word 'compromise' back in the forties, so he would only occasionally acknowledge it (everything was a test, and every test gave him something to prove), and Nat's three hundred thousand masks kept faltering with every moment she spent in their company, which left her a little less sure of herself every day.

Thor was – Thor didn't really appear to have any particularly hidden depths. Cheerful guy. Royalty.

"Smashing tableware on the ground in a well-mannered gesture of respectful appreciation is seen as barbaric on Midgard," he'd informed Clint once, cheerfully placing a cup on the sink with an obscene amount of care and gentle restraint. "Truly brings the wrong kind of attention to you."

"Yeah, sheesh, that's- thanks for the heads up, buddy," Clint replied with a straight face. "No, I mean, no kidding, learn something new every day."

"You sure do, Barton," Stark interjected, breezing past them straight for the expresso machine. "Tomorrow's lesson is on multiplication, don't skip it. Anyway, Caucasian Jesus, culture's a fluid beast, you never know what new fever might catch on. Don't knock it until it slams you into a wall at fifty kilometers per hour, that's what I always say." he continued, with a much less straight face. "Besides, is there really such a thing as the wrong kind of attention?"

"You use, just, so many words," Clint muttered. Stark smirked around both his expresso cup and his smug pride. "So much nonsense. Is more caffeine really a good idea?"

"I'll assume that's you giving me permission to break your property, Stark," Thor deadpanned, because he wasn't nearly as scatterbrained as they'd all like to think. "And when will you run out of imbecilic names to call me?"

"I have no idea, Lord of Wall Sockets, they just keep coming. My impulse control is entirely inadequate in all the best ways." Thor waved a plate in the air, wildly and threateningly. "Yeah, no. I'd have to ask JARVIS to order some new ones. Might require an actual full sentence, what a waste of energy. Much easier to spend the day spitting out garbled profanity."

"You talk too much for talking to be a burden."

Stark sort of wiggled a floppy hand in his direction, inhaling the coffee, and Clint figured he wasn't really supposed to interpret that in any way, shape or form.

Whatever Nick Fury said, his idea was a barrel of gunpowder and every single one of them had a lit match. Hawkeye's job here was clearly to gently steer all the hands holding them very far away from that barrel, all while keeping his own steady. Hawkeye's job here was impossible.

A team of remarkable loners, was what it was. Any one of them was a disaster in the brewing by definition alone.

Inside the tower, there was no breeze, none except Hawkeye's. He could always find it, as if it were any building. It did feel calmer in there, though. Like maybe as long as the wind didn't fan any flames, they wouldn't be a remarkable disaster – just remarkable.

The first match to flare up was Steve Rogers.

The whole reason they'd even founded this billionaire-funded frat house was because Patriot Man had led an insurrection against SHIELD on account of it being nazi-infested. Clint did not like nazis. Captain America probably liked them even less. He was also adjusting to the twenty-first century in the only way he'd been allowed, which is to say, abruptly and not at all.

Clint should really have expected some sort of fallout.

"I can help with that," Stark had claimed, once. Clint got the distinct impression helping was way down on his list of goals. "So, Cap, has anyone briefed you on the whole black president thing? Turns out, we decided racism was bad again. Second time's the charm."

Rogers' eye had twitched. "I served with a lot of good, brave men who happened to be black, Tony," he retorted. "Don't be ridiculous."

Stark squinted at him, interest vaguely peaked. "In the forties? Sounds fake, but okay."

"You've met Sam, Stark. One of my Howling Commandos was-"

"Cap, I'm gonna do you a solid, man, and stop you right there, before you start listing black people you know," Clint interrupted. Stark snickered and Rogers rolled his eyes.

"Like I started it," he complained childishly. Stark's grin got wider. The idea that their manufactured animosity was gonna keep them from getting along was laughable to Clint at that point. They liked needling each other. They enjoyed the bickering.

He only belatedly realized Stark's perverted idea of helping did actually help quite a lot. Rogers could hide it well enough, but twenty-first century progress was a savage whirlwind for people living through it, and it stood to reason that it would crush anyone dropped right in the middle of it. It was a good thing Captain America was the resilient stubborn type, even if his eyes would still tighten, watching Tony's hands flutter around his precious expresso machine, choreographing a well-designed dance until he had a cup of coffee in hand. Even if he'd once stopped midstride on the street, returning to base after a short recon mission, because there'd been an LGBT-friendly ad running right across the street from the tower, and it took him a bit to process it.

Thor had been blissfully oblivious, but the other four had exchanged uncomfortable glances, until Stark nudged Rogers forward and cracked a mean joke about nineteen-forties' sensibilities. It snapped him out of it much better than Bruce's approach, who took it upon himself to patiently explain social progress – Stark's sarcasm had a way to shed absurd amounts of down-to-earth clarity on any given scene.

At the very least, Cap seemed energized whenever their resident mechanic picked on him, and energetic suited him. It took Clint a while to work it out – Stark was intelligent, and with intelligence came perceptiveness. It was just that, unlike everything else, Stark chose to keep that on the downlow.

Like he'd done with Banner – he knew exactly what everyone else knew, he heard the exact same elephant in the room, but instead of ignoring it or dismissing the cracks it was stomping into the asphalt, he elected to throw an arm over it and talk louder. Banner turned into a freak of nature, so Stark called him one and then offered him blueberries in exchange for help hacking into SHIELD. Rogers was several-decades-removed from anything relatable or comforting or familiar, so Stark asked about senior discounts at the shawarma place and updated his pop culture knowledge by way of merciless ridicule and pointed references.

Clint needed an adjustment period. Testing was in order.

"Gentlemen," he greeted, the next time he was in the presence of them both again. He swung a kitchen chair around and sat backwards. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

Rogers spared him an amused glance and Stark squinted at him. "I'm only here for the caffeine. Talk to him, I'm pretty sure that's actual tea," he said with a genuine grimace, jabbing a finger in the Captain's direction.

Rogers glanced down at his mug. "I hear it's healthier."

"We gave up on healthy in this century when we figured out cigarettes were tasty little murder sticks," Stark informed him. He seemed to have forgotten about his expresso, crossing his arms and leaning against the balcony to face the conversation.

"Speaking of healthy, who's up for some exercise?" Clint said, reclaiming attention. Rogers visibly perked up at that, which made Stark roll his eyes. "I know a great place for laser tag, but I'm never in New York. Team bonding and such."

Stark actually seemed rendered speechless for a second. "Laser tag," he repeated. "I know I keep implying it, but you're not actually a fifth grader, are you?"

"I've already persuaded Banner, and Nat would take a bullet for me, I'm not asking for much more than that," Clint carried on, ignoring him. "How's about it?"

Rogers was tilting his head at both of them, looking lost. "What's laser tag?"

Stark took that cue immediately, pointing at him. "I bet they have rules against allowing the elderly inside."

"I bet they'd waive them for Captain America." Cap took a careless sip of his tea while Clint cracked a smile.

Stark clicked his tongue at him. "Incorruptible, indeed. A couple months in the twenty-first century and you're already leveraging your name. For shame."

"No, seriously. What's laser tag?"

"Eh, shooting game, Cap. It's- y'know, maybe it's best you and Thor acclimate yourselves a bit better before tackling this one," Clint dismissed casually. Rogers nodded thoughtfully, already standing up, neatly putting his mug away. "So, what'd you say, Stark? Me and Nat versus you and the doc?"

Stark turned back to his expresso maker. "I have real lasers upstairs. I'm not about to go wave toy guns around making pew-pew noises so you can get your middle-school nostalgia fix, Barton."

"You're a buzzkill."

"Besides, those guns have, like, a whole of two entire buttons. Who'd have the time and energy to teach Greatest Generation over there how to use them?"

"We just established I wasn't going, Tony," Cap reminded.

"And neither am I," Stark declared, reaching for a coffee pod. "Like Barton's setup would be fair anyway. It'd be like Bruce and I challenging him to a trivia contest on- well, any subject. Cruel."

Clint yelped in protest and Rogers chuckled. The subject appeared to be closed, so Stark waited for the Captain to walk out the door, then turned searching eyes on Clint. "You're evil," he accused.

Clint wiggled his eyebrows and zig-zagged around Stark, bypassing the expresso machine he was still manhandling to snatch an apple out of the fruit basket. "And you're not," he accused back.

"Hey. Watch the slander around the billionaire. I hear he's got a whole entire team of lawyers he keeps way too busy."

Clint bit into the apple to avoid answering, and exited after Rogers with a two-finger salute. The coffee maker hummed to life as he turned the corner – Clint flipped his apple in the air and caught a glimpse of Steve with a sketchpad in the tower's communal area. Nat was keeping him company.

For all of Stark's hot air, he didn't seem any keener on burning down the house, Clint decided with a grin. Maybe he could use the help keeping the breeze flowing steady.

Tony Stark was in constant movement.

Tinkering, fidgeting, snapping his fingers, clapping his hands, fidgeting, flitting around any minimally open space he found himself in, fidgeting, playing with any random thing in his vicinity, fidgeting, twitching himself into inconceivable positions on the couch. Fidgeting.

Non-stop, arrhythmic, maddening movement.

It sent tiny ripples of uninterrupted unrest into Clint's breeze. It drove Steve insane until he inexplicably adjusted to it. It made Nat's eye twitch once. Made it twitch. The only other time that had happened was when she'd gotten shot without planning on it. That had been yearsago.

It did absolutely nothing to Thor.

Stark's fingers mostly practiced their ADHD inside holograms that spun and flickered in and out of existence at dizzying speed. Hawkeye's arrows went right through those, he found. There was the possibility he might hit Stark's hands, but that was no good. His hands were only one part of the problem, and unless he was willing to stick an arrow into his forearms, feet, knees, thighs, stomach, neck, and, just, his entire face, no dice.

Hawkeye was willing. The problem was that Steve got this kicked-puppy look on his face whenever any single one of his playmates was sidelined. Treating Stark as a pin-cushion would likely sideline both of them.

So, a different approach, then. There was no way for Hawkeye's sharp awareness of the whole world to miss the fidgeting, but he could work around it. He would work around it.

Stark was his team. Iron Man was his backup. Tony was trustworthy. Motion didn't mean threat, not with him.

The ripples settled, Hawkeye relaxed. Like Tony and all his incessant movement were encased in a bubble. They all needed their shields, he supposed.

So, new baseline. It had only taken marginally longer than it had taken Cap to adjust.

The kid rushed in with a maelstrom of chaos and danger he seemed to thrive in. Hapless, reckless and euphoric. Sometimes, he'd dash past him, and Hawkeye could hear the echo of his laughter, even as the speed made it impossible to actually lay eyes on him.

At first, he was an afterthought – a small piece of their newest apocalyptic problem, and one mostly dangling off his sister. Right from the start, it was very clear she was in charge – she was absurdly more powerful, and she had the only string tugging her twin along. He, he was a speedy little shit, but not much more than a pain on Hawkeye's ass.

They learned their names – Wanda and Pietro – and their age, and that's when Hawkeye started to care. Because there were kids and then there were kids, and these ones were young– much younger than they'd theorized. And when evil overlords let kids– who had only the barest awareness of their powers and how to use them –run around carrying out their evil masterplans, things tended to happen – things like the Hulk breaking the South African capital.

Wanda was scared and traumatized and her brother was brave and full of faith (mostly in his sister). He got back up every time he was shoved to the ground. He took a liking to needling Hawkeye like they weren't real adversaries, some goofy kid playing at a fight. Falling into step with his sister at every turn, because Hawkeye wasn't quite sure the kid knew how to make choices for himself.

Hawkeye did meet-the-family for two different families, went to see his own kids to make sure he could still recognize what it was that the twins were hiding behind every red glowy wisp and every 'you didn't see that coming?'.

Sometimes Hawkeye forgot what he knew about humans, but he never forgot where to go for reminders. Wanda dragged her brother to Cap's side in the nick of time, and he was proven right again.

Then Stark was adding to his already three-story high pile of stupid bullshit, and Banner was getting angry at the girl, and Thor gave birth to a mythical-gem-infused super-AI, and Hawkeye was so done with all of it. Nat was missing, and he didn't have time for Cap's sanctimoniousness.

But Pietro, he still chugged along, still brave and full of easy faith and echoing laughter at every breezy sprint. Later, Hawkeye would wonder how he'd so easily let that get overshadowed by witchy powers.

Hawkeye counted down every arrow he let go of in Sokovia just to make sure there was a feeling of anticipation in him for when they ran out. Driving around the rubble of a flying city with Nat, he suddenly discovered, in that moment, he'd much rather be tearing his own house apart. There was a storm growing more restless around him every second that passed, and the only place he felt it dwindling down was back home.

He was done with aliens, he was done with superhero PR, he was done with Stark's brains and fears, he was done with enhanced kids pretend-fighting. Most of all, Clint was quite done with Hawkeye, and from the looks of it, Hawkeye had no further use for Clint. Not if this was what the job was going to be like from then on out.

The kid, though, it felt like he was just getting started. So he didn't get it – didn't get the way it ended, abrupt, a last-minute gust against his sailboat that Hawkeye hadn't even prayed for.

He heard the laughter again, the unadulterated joy Pietro took in running, when he and a different boy – surrounded by the remains of his own city – were unexpectedly shoved behind cover by a dying blur.

"What? You didn't see that coming?"

He took off the mantle the first available moment, and decided he wanted to stay Clint now, for good.

They didn't have a funeral for Bruce, because Nat had somehow brought four hundred thousand barriers back up and the rest of them were scared little boys. They did have one for Pietro, though. And if everyone understood the brooding silence – the aloofness, the not-togetherness for the first time in longer than any of them seemed quite aware of, the way Tony knocked back a few – a fair amount – an inordinate amount of glasses not really warranted by some kid who'd died too young to play hero – if anyone understood what it was really about, no one mentioned it.

Clint left quietly, and Nat said his goodbyes for him.

"Are you sure?" was the first thing out of Laura's mouth, when he shut his front door behind him. Clint's wife was all concern for his aspirations and self-sacrificing earnestness, and Clint was way overdue to appreciate that the way she deserved.

"Positive," he assured her, and he was so, so certain, in that moment, that he believed it.

When Nathaniel Pietro was born and Clint was there to hear him cry, he couldn't imagine ever not being certain.

"When'll Nat come by to see him?" Laura asked. Her smile was dopey and directed at the baby in Clint's arms. The nursery was half-done all around them – Clint had declared this an arts-n-crafts family day, and Laura had conceded to him because her joy and relief at having him home superseded her exasperation at his newly-discovered nesting tendencies.

Cooper and Lila were far more interested in interacting with their new sibling, whose novelty hadn't yet worn off after a couple of days, and Clint himself was equally interested in holding him for similar reasons. The end result was that they looked like a touring quartet with a baby mascot, clad in matching denim overalls. On top of that, the crib was still only halfway built and scattered on the floor, the diaper changer was in its original packaging instead of mounted on the wall, and Laura was the only one with splinters on her fingers.

In all fairness, she'd given up too by minute twenty, and joined the four of them on the floor.

Clint shrugged. "Not sure. She'll show up eventually. I'll have a bear trap set up on the porch in case she comes in the middle of the night."

That'd drawn more of a giggle out of Cooper and Lila than Laura, but Nate had burped, so hopefully that was a good omen for the kid's developing sense of humor.

"Bear trap won't stop her," Laura reminded.

Clint waggled a finger. "But it'll send a message."

Lila imitated him by waggling her own finger in Nate's face. The baby regaled them all with a full view of his gums and threw out his feet, swatting at his sister's hand like he was indignant over the violation of his personal space.

Clint swallowed back laughter. "Like this, baby," he suggested, taking her hand and pressing her index finger to Nate's pudgy little palm. He immediately wrapped his own fingers around hers, and Lila's eyes widened.

"He's tiny."

"Me too," Cooper demanded, shoving at Clint's arm so he could reach for Nate's other hand.

Clint huffed, eyeing the human chain his children had formed. "Yeah, sure, you wanna hold hands now. Give it a few years. By which I mean days."

"Take a good long look, honey," Laura said, grinning. "This is the first and last time you'll see the three little angels reenacting that one scene from Toy Story 3."

"And they're not even on fire. I'd get a camera, but-" he replied, jostling the baby swaddled in his lap gently to make a point.

"Would you like me to go get one for you?" an accented voice drawled from the door. Clint's head snapped over to see a red-head in a red duster offering the five of them a small smile. "You look very cute," she added teasingly, eyes stuck on the denim.

"Wanda!" came a two-person shouting chorus, and Cooper and Lila trampled each other on their way to grab a leg each. Wanda chuckled and ruffled both their heads.

"Wanda," Laura greeted warmly, pushing off the floor. "I didn't know we were expecting you, sweetheart," she said, throwing Clint a glance over her hug with the kid.

"How'd you even get in?" he added, amused. "But yeah, hello and such."

Wanda's smile flickered into a smirk for a second before her expression went carefully blank. "I need to practice fine motor control any chance I get. With my powers. Your front door lock was a perfect opportunity."

Laura's face went briefly sour, so Clint did his best not to break down snickering.

"Alright, you overgrown child," Laura sighed, because she could read his mind at this point, and extended her arms toward Clint, "gimme my son back and you can go play Avenger with your superhero friend. He needs to be fed anyway."

Clint acquiesced and handed over Nate, whose head started slightly from previously being in a sleepy nodding state. Wanda stared at the baby for several seconds, now that the kid was within sight, and Clint observed her thoughtfully until she sensed it and looked up. "He is very endearing," she explained quietly.

He cracked a grin and Laura's expression softened. "Would you like to hold Nate? You haven't met him yet," she said encouragingly.

Wanda's eyes flickered up to Clint as though asking permission and he waved her off. "Go on."

Laura hadn't waited and was already depositing the baby in her arms, scratching his belly so he'd show his gums again. Wanda held him carefully but followed Laura's example, and smiled widely upon obtaining the same reaction. "Very endearing," she emphasized, handing him back.

Laura rubbed her arm affectionately and then turned to her other two children. "C'mon, now. Let's leave daddy to talk with Wanda."

"Can't we go play Avenger too?" Lila piped up.

"We'll discuss that as soon as I'm declared clinically insane," Laura retorted blandly. Cooper pouted too and followed his mother and sister out of the nursery. "Or legally dead."

Clint turned to Wanda as soon as their backs disappeared into the hallway, who was watching his family leave as well, an unreadable look on her face. "Wanna gimme a hand? Test that fine motor control?" He gestured to the wooden crib pieces when she trained her gaze back on him.

"Free labor? Is this because I'm foreign?" she teased, but took off her jacket, producing a ponytail out of nowhere.

"No, it's because Tony's not here. Usually, I just do a really shitty job until he banishes me from the room out of desperation to do it by himself."

Wanda laughed and picked up a random strip of wood that looked like one of the crib bars. "What would you have me do?"

The first time Wanda had visited him in his farm, it was barely a day after Clint had retired – she'd been teary, and lonely, and desperate to escape a compound full of strangers and former enemies. Laura hadn't asked for much of an explanation – just set up the guest room and listened, later, to Clint's story about a boy named Pietro.

This time, Wanda still looked tired and lonely. But the tears seemed to have gone away. He'd chalk that up to progress and wait until she was ready to talk.

In the meantime, he would take advantage of the free labor.

"Stark is leaving," she eventually said, abrupt, reluctant, and sporting a frown; they'd only just mounted the second long side, and were moving on to the back of the crib. Wanda had already discarded her shoes, and Clint had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. "Technically, he already has left, but he keeps remembering things he left behind."

Clint nodded, puzzled. "So I've heard."

"He is retiring," she continued. "Like you."

"By all accounts," he agreed again.

"You are terrible at making conversation," she accused.

"Birth defect," he confirmed, laughing when she threw a piece of plastic at him and it fell on her lap instead. In retaliation, she used her freaky witch powers to shove it in his face. He sputtered it out of his mouth and frowned at her smugness. "Cheater."

"If you would like, you could try your arrows on me. I am sure that will even the field," she assured mockingly.

Clint bundled up the plastic and hit her forehead with perfect accuracy. "How's that for evening the field?"

Wanda laughed and smoothed out the plastic, fingers restlessly fiddling with it. "You are the best at what you do," she admitted, and it sounded much too earnest for her usual demeanor.

Clint straightened and scrutinized her. "You know, I didn't know having Stark around was so important to you," he tried, attempting to get at what was bothering her.

She shook her head. "It's not."

"So what's going on, kid?"

Wanda sat back and crossed her legs, elbows on her knees and hands on her chin. Coupled with the bobbed hair, the bare feet, and her sleeveless shirt, it was a very childish look on her. "I don't feel- closure," she explained haltingly. "There is still something unsettled in me."

Quietly, Clint stood and sat in front of her cross-legged as well. "Over what?"

She gave him a look, and Clint did know 'what'. It was just helpful to have confirmation. "I talked to him about it, you know?"

That stumped him. "With Tony?"

She nodded. "I was having trouble sleeping. And I don't think he sleeps at all. I caught him getting a caffeine fix at four am."

Well, that was troublesome. "He been doing that a lot?" Clint asked nonchalantly. "You been doing that a lot?"

Wanda hesitated. "I think so. And not really."

Clint held in a sigh and dropped back on his elbows. "So? What'd he say?" he prodded.

She drummed her fingers on her jawline. "I was wrong to hate him for so long. Pietro didn't really, did you know? He didn't care about blaming anyone. He mourned our parents, of course, and he made it his life mission to protect me – but he was never one to hold grudges. Not like me. He was like a puppy. Always just following me around. Better," she laughed, "a guard dog. I would hate and obsess, and he would feel it was his duty to fight on my behalf. Always, whatever it was."

Clint listened quietly and tried not to hate himself.

"Me, I saw a name on the side of a bomb once and let it define the next decade of my life," she sniffled. "I don't hate Stark anymore. I am not even sure I ever hated him. I hated someone – but I don't think he is that person that lived in my head. Not anymore, at least. He is- like you. Someone who wants to be the best at what he does. At being a good man."

Clint bumped his shoulder into hers. "That's good. He's a better guy than he gives himself credit for, you know."

Wanda stared at him for a few moments. Her eyes seemed particularly dark right then. "You don't know how much," she agreed, and he was left wondering what she meant. "But that is not how he likes to present himself."

He huffed out a laugh. "It's called style."

Her lips twitched. "He's scared too. Really scared. All the time."

Clint blinked several times. "Of what?"

She didn't meet his eyes, tracing invisible dust on the floor. "Nothing I can understand. Not yet, anyway. He thinks we all will, one day. He is capable of terrible things when he is scared."

He felt a chill as though a window had suddenly opened, specifically to create a draft running straight up Clint's spine, and elected to push it out of his mind for his own sanity. "You should probably quit peeking into his brain, you know," he advised. "For the sake of all parties involved."

She pursed her lips. "I am trying. I can't help it. He's too loud. And he's always wondering."

"Right," he said, pretending Wanda's powers weren't weirding him out as much as they were. "Well, keep trying."

She rolled her eyes but let it go. "And I- I guess I wanted to know, too. I just- I wanted to understand why- why, after everything, he let me into the Avengers. It is his compound, I won't pretend I don't know that. Everything I have-" she did the air quotes – "it was his money. I could not have pictured that even a month ago."

"It's not – that's not the way he thinks."

"I know!" she exclaimed. "The way he thinks is half the problem. I can hardly understand any of it. He's just- too smart. Like the doctor- like Banner used to be. Their minds aren't – they're not like other people."

Clint hummed and eyed her. "You never said what you talked about with him."

Wanda dropped her chin between her knees, hands wrapping around her calves, and looked toward something invisible, far away. "Fear. And guilt. I am capable of terrible things too. I have done terrible things already."

He winced. "Stark has a- serious guilt complex. Don't let it catch."

She huffed and straightened. "It's not a guilt complex, it's – he said he looked at it like this: at any given moment, he always had a choice. On what he would do, how he would deal with a situation. And he said that, because of his track record, it was unacceptable to decide to do any less than the most that he could. That he wasn't allowed- that he couldn't afford, given his 'debt to society'-" she did air quotes again – "to not stretch himself to his limits to- make the world better. He said it much more eloquently, but that was the gist of it," she murmured in conclusion. Clint mulled over that silently, until she cleared her throat. "That- seemed like a good way to handle things. He said that was how he knew I'd make a good Avenger."

"Wanda, look-" Clint began, but she interrupted.

"Don't worry," she said with a weary smile, "he also said that I couldn't just – let it take over my life. That if I obsessed, it would keep me from being at my best, and doing my best. It seemed like an oxymoron, but I think I understand."

"Yeah," he croaked, voice rough, "that."

She shook her head and her hair waved energetically all around her. "Stark made sure to be concerned with my comfort from the start. It wasn't his place, but he still did it. That- conversation, that was part of it. I- there was something in particular that he did, my room. I don't feel locked in, at all. That's important."

"How'd you mean?"

"I never – I just never feel trapped in the compound. I've felt trapped since the day a bomb brought my house down on me," she said, not meeting Clint's gaze. "Hydra was a prison cell with liars for jailers, and Ultron manipulated my ignorance, my pain-" She took a deep breath. "I am never locked in the compound. It- I appreciate the control over my own actions. I think – Stark, he understood, I think. The first thing he showed me was the fastest way outside from my room," she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. Clint thought about the report Nat had handed him on Stark, about a man named Obadiah Stane and the stint he'd done in Afghanistan. "I appreciate that a lot."

"So you're gonna miss him," Clint summarized.

Wanda smiled at him. "Maybe. But it's more that – he is retiring anyway. Even though he still believes all that he said to me, even though he is still scared, he is giving up the suit."

No, he isn't, an intrusive voice said in Clint's head, with a familiarity he found unsettling, maybe because it hit somewhat close to home. He determinedly pretended not to hear it. "Everything comes to an end, Wanda," he explained. "He's figuring out he's coming to his. It's not always so obvious. Sometimes we've got to push it along."

Wanda frowned at him, a tiny expression of disbelief that he chose to let slide. "I suppose. Thank you," she said, "for listening." She halted and looked away. "You don't have to, you know. Keep letting me into your house, listen to me ramble, I mean," she elaborated. He was about to protest, but she steamrolled over him. "I know it's because of Pietro, so if-"

"Hey," he cut her off, scowling, "c'mon, Wanda. It's not like that. You're not just some- you're not some debt payment. If I say I care, it's not because of what your brother did. That's the sort of debt you never pay, anyway."

Wanda didn't seem convinced, but when she trained sharp, insecure eyes on him, he could at least convince himself for sure.

Clint punched her arm to clear the air. She grimaced exaggeratedly and stood up, offering a hand. "In case your back cracks," she explained.

"Funny," he told her drily, and deftly jumped to his feet by himself. She snorted at that, and he wiggled his fingers to direct her to follow him. Outside the nursery, inside which the windows were still covered by plastic bags, the house looked far brighter. That helped with the mood. "We've been working hard, putting half of the other half of that crib together. Let's grab a bite."

Wanda hummed amusedly. "I actually think I should be going. Steve doesn't like it when people are late to meetings."

Clint nodded, walking her out without another word. "You're doing fine, Wanda," he promised at the door. "Things get better with time."

It was her turn to nod with a shaky smile, and then she was gone.

Laura was taking tea out of the stove when he got there. He sat down quietly and she presented him with a cup of coffee instead, keeping the tea for herself. "I love you," he told her, and she arched an eyebrow.

"I know. Nate's asleep," she informed him back, and he huffed at her, which she ignored entirely. "Wanda alright?"

He nodded. "Will be. Already left."

Laura hummed, eyeing him critically. "You've taken a shine to her. How come? Pietro?" she prodded gently.

He shrugged, struggling not to avoid her gaze. "Partly. But it's- just her, too." He gave it a moment's silence to think about how to phrase it. "She's just a kid." Laura waited patiently for the rest. "It's not like – like we're- they weren't aware of that, when she joined the team. It's kinda hard to see, on the actual field." He took in his wife's expression and backtracked instantly, knowing he never should have opened up that much. "I- there's a steep learning curve, that's all. I ended up taking the brunt of teaching it, back in Sokovia, it's nothing."

"You don't need to be so highly-strung about your Avenging stuff with me, you know," she sighed. "You know I worry, but you also know I support you."

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "There's just some things that-"

"Are too much," she finished. "I know. Like making a kid an Avenger."

"Like that," he agreed.

"And you-"

"I made Wanda an Avenger."

Laura nodded sadly. "I understand."

Clint took her hand and kissed the back of her fingers. "I'm not going back, you know?"

Laura hesitated and he pretended not to notice. "Yeah."

"I promise. I just need to keep an eye on her."

Laura smiled at him, and this time, it wasn't so sad. Hopeful. "Yeah."

Wanda kept coming around on occasion, and like he'd predicted, it did get better. The seasons changed – it got warmer like the weather was keeping up with her mood. Every time she picked his lock, the wind that rushed in with her became less frosty, more tender. Her topic of the day lost heaviness, gained the banality of gossip. It was a great way to freak out everyone at the compound unaware of his little spy.

The last time Wanda visited, she happily told him all about the aesthetics of the new vest Tony had made for her, but could offer no better specifications than "it gets bullets better". Rhodes had insisted on testing that himself, and Wanda allowed it because she was invariably Rhodes' ally in his and Tony's weird bet-driven ego-checks. In other news, Vision was now 'Vis', and Nat had taught her how to use her powers to wrap her legs around a target's neck. Clint didn't really get the mechanics, but he nodded and hummed to be supportive, and hoped it never occurred to the kid to try it.

"There's some mission in Lagos coming up," she'd told him in parting. "Natasha's trying to convince Steve I can go. I should go," she corrected. "For experience."

"Well, remember your sunscreen."

She rolled her eyes at his grin. "I'm not going sunbathing, it's a mission," she argued petulantly.

"And you're not allowed to take your boyfriend," he added, and Wanda scowled, offered him her middle finger, and left.

Clint had watched her go, and figured the weather was creeping up on him. Out of season. It felt chilly.

"Baby, one of your nerd friends is outside. Be back by dinner time, and if you come home bleeding, go straight to the shower, you better not stain the carpets."

Laura's tone was casual. Unconcerned. A little resigned, because it was easier to read that than it was to read resentment, in several different and complicated ways. Clint stood and dodged Lila, running after her brother with a primal scream. He imagined Nate yawning in his bed. Dirty diaper, bottle.

The breeze felt steady at his back. Balanced, even on both sides. He was calm when he walked out, taking immediate notice of someone pacing around a shapeless path with a familiar sort of restlessness.

Tony was staring at everything and nothing mind-absently. A pair of sunglasses Clint didn't recognize dangled from his fingers, wildly swinging around in a dangerous, knife-edge spin. Dark blazer over a loud t-shirt and tight pants. Normal Tony. If it weren't for his unexpected visit.

"In the neighborhood?" Clint prompted as soon as he was within earshot.

Tony grinned at him and stilled, snapping into a habitually brief laser-focus mode. "You don't have a neighborhood. This is the nowhere in the middle of nowhere. Kinda conspicuous, if you think about it. Well, if you think about it for more than two seconds, at least."

Clint waited, accepted he was done. "So what are you doing here?"

"Impulsive decision," he declared, sliding his sunglasses back over his eyes. "And you know me and my impulses."

Clint leaned over his fence, hand under his chin. Tony was still on the other side of it, practically sprawled against a sports car. "You need something? I'm retired."

"Unconscionable, making me feel like my presence in your life is borne solely of using you for Avenging needs and purposes." Tony offered a quick smile, almost apologetic, and Clint tilted his head. Tony was never this unsure of himself. Lost. His fingers twitched more violently than usual, so he clapped his hands, snapped his fingers, and visibly made his person seem bigger than himself. The breeze hissed disapprovingly around him. "Anyway, impulse over. New impulse, gun it 'til I see something in front of me. Should take a couple hours. Talk to you at your next retirement party."

He'd gotten the car door open and one foot on the gas before Clint managed to find the careful words he needed. "My understanding is you were trying your hand at retirement too."

Tony paused. "Romanoff's understanding is flawed."

"Steve's isn't."

"What is he, my mother?"

"He could be delightfully maternal if you gave him a chance, I'm sure."

"Seriously, I'm pretty sure I'm scheduled for some MIT thing later, I gotta jet."

"What's going on?"

Tony gave Clint a once-over. Considering him, and fidgeting. Some test seemed to have been passed. "Pepper – she's taking a break. From me." He thought it over for a few seconds, nodded resolutely. Fidgeted. "We're on a break."

Clint wasn't Rhodes, or even Steve. There was really not much he could say. Not much else Tony would say either. "Sorry."

Tony nodded, then shook his head. "Talk to you at my next retirement party." He got his other foot inside and slammed the door closed.

The car sped away, rattled Clint's breeze. He stared after it. In the silence, it was harder to ignore the uneasy shake of the air, the wind, the world. An oracle. That rattled Clint as well.

He went back inside and reiterated his retirement to Laura. She cocked her head at him and smiled, and then turned away so Clint couldn't see it fade.

When the phone rang, Steve Rogers flashing on the screen, Clint thought about not picking up.

"You've been busy," he said by way of greeting. There was a note of disapproval in his voice he couldn't get rid of.

"I need you."

"You need a lawyer."

"We're way past that."

"Don't be an idiot," Clint snapped, his grip tightening on what he belatedly realized was Nate's stuffed spider.

"He's got Wanda locked in her room, Clint," Steve countered, and the world screeched to a halt. There was a long, weary sigh on the other end of the line that blew into Clint's ear like a violent burst of wind, knocking the air right out of his lungs and everything out of place. "He's gone way too far too."

There was a long silence. "Who did he put on guard duty?"

"Vision."

"I'm gonna need a distraction."

Some siren had been blaring ever since Steve had called. Hawkeye really should have guessed Stark had been dangerously speeding over one of his stupid bullshit cliffs when he'd shown up to talk about Pepper.

And Laura – Laura was pretending not to be fighting tears, trying to drown out the siren.

"Clint, please don't go."

"I made Wanda an Avenger," Hawkeye repeated. Laura blew a shaky breath that turned into a nasty storm, made him lose his footing.

"I thought you made all of them Avengers."

Hawkeye shook his head, pursed his lips. Thought of Tony's fidgeting. He waited a bit until he could hear himself over the wind again. "The rest of them only needed to sync."

"They don't seem all that in sync right now," Laura replies. Her words, her tone, her gesture to the television broadcasting the Avengers' family feud, it was all sharp. Sharp and disappointed. And a little desperate in a hidden sort of way. "Are you going to hurt them? Are they going to hurt you?"

He pretended not to hear the second half of her tirade because he didn't want to know the answer. "Cap and Stark didn't need that. They were already doing their own thing. Thing blew up." He only let the silence hang for several seconds. "It's Wanda."

Laura deflated. "Wanda's in trouble?"

"I think so."

She nodded, a simple gesture in acceptance of a broken promise. Too simple. "Go, then."

The breeze was invigorated. As sharp as Laura, in a sense. Maybe a little too relentless.

It ignored the sadness behind his wife's eyes, and so did Hawkeye. He had to ignore a lot of things.

Nat pulled her punches. Wanda didn't. Hawkeye made Tony look, and the breeze almost faltered completely. The next time he saw his team, it was after the end of the world.

Secretary Ross only really wanted to talk to Hawkeye.

"You've got kids," he pointed out, patiently. "And Lang. Him too," he added as an afterthought.

Clint squinted at him, bit down on a carrot thoughtfully. "Once upon a time, I could keep information out of the hands of people whose hands can't handle it. I miss once upon a time."

"I'd like to invest in their future, Agent Barton."

"That doesn't sound like the federal government," Clint replied dubiously.

Ross flashed him a conspiratorial smile. "But does it sound like you? Children need their father. Right now, I'm only a guy, looking at your situation, trying to hold out a lifesaver. This is no joke. You know what you're in for, and you know the consequences you could be facing."

He couldn't feel the breeze in here, it felt claustrophobic. Cooper, Le Petit Prince. Clint didn't show it, though, just permitted Ross his curiosity. "What are you angling for?"

"An expert opinion."

Clint felt far too impatient for dilly-dallying. "On?"

"Stark." Disdain covered the word, and Clint perked up at that. Interesting.

"I've been told he's inexplicable."

It was Ross's turn to feel impatient. "Is he colluding with Rogers?"

Both of Clint's eyebrows rose slowly. "Beg pardon?"

"Apparently, everyone seems to flock to the Captain of Virtue." Nat. Nat had switched sides. Who was left? "I'm just wondering. Is Stark a sheep?"

Clint wasn't sure what the insult was supposed to accomplish. Did Ross want him to defend Stark? Mock him? Repudiate him? Clint was mad at him enough. Every time his face snuck onto his mind's eye, Clint's hackles raised so high and wide, he could almost punch the wall in a pointless and embarrassing display of cheap testosterone. Or he could throw Rhodes in Stark's face. And then it would go away, and Clint would be left with good, terrible memories and a growing sense of dread and guilt.

He decided that what Ross wanted was probably not important. Ross didn't seem like the type to know – or care – about his relationship with his teammates. Former teammates. He was there because Clint was the only one he could get to.

Instead, he thought about Steve Rogers. About every hand on every shoulder and how the hand was somehow always his. About the Hydra days, when Tony didn't just take orders from Steve, he sought them out. The level of trust and understanding between the two of them Clint had never worked out. Steve never listened to anyone like he listened to Tony.

About how he'd refused to do that this one time, and then asked Clint to fight the other half of their family.

What a broken A-team they were. One lost in space, one presumed dead. One alone in a compound made for double digits, two on the run with uncertain loyalties. And Clint.

"Have you tried asking him that?" he replied at last, voice distant and uninterested. "Bet he'd have something funny and insulting to say."

Ross didn't say anything for a while. Then he sighed. "You really need to reassess your priorities."

The clunking and scratching of his metal chair was loud, and Clint would have winced if such reactions hadn't been trained out of him. Everyone else settled back down in their respective cells when the secretary left, brief entertainment returned to regular monotony.

"You're the only one left," Wanda said. She wasn't looking at him – wasn't looking at much of anything at all, staring blankly at the ceiling. "The other five, they – either they're gone, or they've picked a side, or they've picked no side at all." She swallowed. Clint only heard it because the silence was so deafening. "Or made their own side. So what did you do, Clint Barton?"

I made you a promise, he should have answered.

Clint stared blankly at the ceiling as well.

The next day, Ross showed up again.

"Looks like your children are getting their investment after all." Hawkeye stared blankly at him, and he tapped his fingers against his forearm. "I'm not made of stone. Or iron," he added, ironically. "Got a plea for you. You get to spend the next two years on house arrest."

Hawkeye didn't move an inch, thought furiously for a couple of beats. "Not leaving here alone like some privileged-"

"Go," Wanda interrupted sharply, and he saw Wilson nodding in vigorous agreement from the corner of his eye. "You do not choose martyrdom over your children."

"Lang gets the same deal," Ross offered generously.

Hawkeye heard Scott Lang inhale sharply, and understood the man had no loyalties to respect here. No responsibilities. Not really. Hawkeye was beginning to doubt he had them himself.

He stood slowly. "Thought we were on different pages yesterday. What changed?"

"Merely different paragraphs. I caught up."

"What's that mean?" Hawkeye demanded sharply.

Ross looked like he was entertaining the notion that he could inject as much bullshit into his next sentence as he wanted, and not get called out for any of it. "I mistook a guilt complex for collusion." He seemed to have settled on the truth. "Once that was cleared up, negotiation became simple."

Hawkeye remembered a red glint attached to danger, destruction, annihilation, remembered how it looked like it'd been swallowed by the void. Snuffed right out of existence, like a proper parallel to the metaphor at last. Then he remembered the wormhole defiantly spitting Tony back out, like it didn't want him, or worse, like the universe wasn't done with him. Falling back inside his domain's perimeter, protector returned to his wards, job done, no, job started.

"What did Stark agree to in exchange for this?"

Ross didn't tell him. Ross didn't speak to him again. He seemed to be in a determined mood. It was getting harder for Hawkeye to breathe down there. Lila's toys scattered on the floor, Laura dodging them without looking.

Lang came out with him. He kept moving until he could feel the wind rattling inside his head again, screeching all around him because he didn't know where to go.

Rogers orchestrated a prison breakout. Stark was conveniently and suddenly absent from any kind of political public discourse. Rogers presumably developed savant-level technological prowess overnight to stump the quinjet's security. Stark parroted a teleprompter, in a monotone, regarding his reinvigorated commitment to the capture and arrest of some vaguely official titles. Rogers quietly evaded every lackluster attempt to locate him. Stark got his cargo plane crashed. Rogers was the ringleader of a merry band of war criminals on the run. Stark was obnoxiously engaged.

Clint didn't call either of them. One because he didn't know how, the other because he was both unsure if he'd be welcomed, and still very much ruminating in his anger. In his worst moments, Stark was a monster. In his best, Clint was far too ashamed of his own actions to pick up a phone.

He did manage to reach Nat once. He sensed she didn't want to keep in touch. Probably for his own sake.

"I don't think Stark really wants to find you," Clint had said in parting, a half-hearted piece of advice that was the last meager gift he could offer. "And he's Ross's best – only – bet."

"Steve sent him a phone and a letter. Actually warned him about our plan to break into the raft, the dumbass." Nat had sighed, a ragged sound from the other side of the world. "This is how children of divorce end up thinking their parents are getting back together, isn't it?"

Clint's days were spent with Laura and his kids. The ankle monitor didn't seem to bother her, nothing ever did. There was a sort of bitterly ironic twist to this, because what he'd tried to do years ago was become a stay-at-home dad. Unfortunately for him, he clearly hadn't wanted it enough, and now, he couldn't tell whether it was a punishment or an unjust reward.

Laura sensed his distress over his team, because Laura was a better partner than he'd ever deserve.

"Do you think – will this resolve itself?" she wondered worriedly, once, all out of original platitudes and comforting gestures. "Can they work it out?"

Some gust knocked everything off-course, Clint was disoriented all of a sudden. "I- I wish they would."

She sighed and placed Nate in his arms, dropping her head on his shoulder. "Give it time," she reiterated, yet another one of those platitudes that could be recycled.

Clint pressed a long kiss against her hairline, eyes closed, and focused on Nate blabbering nonsensically.

In the background, some gravelly news anchor announced another Hydra base cleared out by a mysterious motley band of vigilantes. Their way in was made by some supernatural force bending wall, support columns, wooden and metal frames out of shape.

Clint shut it off.

Hawkeye went to the compound. Nowhere else he could go. But it was empty. And silent, and still.

There weren't clocks on the walls. Stark didn't like analogue. He didn't like paper either. Hawkeye was pretty sure there was very little Stark liked beyond his own high-tech gizmos.

Hawkeye found that the sterile, sizzling light from blinking electronics was just as grounding as a regular old round watch face. The lounge had a widescreen with the time permanently stamped on it, never off. Large lettering, high contrast. Wasteful.

He kept vigil attentively, took in the numbers shifting and switching with careful appraisal. He wasn't really thinking of anything in particular. Just waiting. Didn't keep track of how long either.

"Clint."

It was Nat's emotional voice, suppressing the strangled twang of biological instructions she couldn't ignore. Done waiting, then.

They were all there. All five of them. Six. And some others. The sort of reunion no one had asked for.

"I went to your farm," Thor explained curtly. "But I found nothing there. We feared you had- With the others."

Something was wrong with Thor. Hawkeye nodded and looked away from him. Took in Rogers instead, but Rogers didn't seem to want to look at anyone. Something was wrong with Rogers.

Hawkeye looked to Banner next. Banner shrugged lightly, as if explanations were superfluous at the moment. Quaint. Inappropriate. He was not dead, but then again, the world had just stopped spinning. Something was wrong with Banner. Hawkeye registered the new information, then moved on.

Stark wasn't fidgeting. Staring, instead. "Where's your family?" he asked, that look of singular focus in his eyes almost familiar.

They all jumped, like they'd never heard him speak, except for Nat, who went stock still. Then they turned to Stark, except for Nat, who kept her eyes on Hawkeye. They gaped, except for Nat, whose hands shook. Waiting for him to say something reassuring but impossible.

Stark was still immobile. And staring. Something was wrong with Stark.

Hawkeye finally opened his mouth.

"Do we fix this? Or did we lose?"

Rogers let out a biting four-letter word, the kind Captain America never did, and disappeared into the maze of rooms, and hallways, and lounges. And more rooms.

Stark walked off in a daze, opposite direction, like Hawkeye's words had been a blow sweeping away any momentary clarity he'd managed. Nat stood wobbly right in the middle where she'd originally stopped with the rest of the Avengers, eyes closed and an air of uncertainty that did not suit her. Something was wrong with Nat. Banner looked like he was thinking very quickly, processing the new team dynamic with the same dismay as the rest of them.

Thor was disgusted.

"My people have been slaughtered," he began slowly, seriously. "My entire family is dead. My friends are dead. Yet I came down here, to find a team. Not- this. I thought us above these sorts of petty squabbles."

Hawkeye imagined telling him this wasn't really about squabbles anymore. Imagined telling him the chain broke, and now that the storm had run right through and ravaged everything, they were left standing in the devastation and the silence. Staring at that chain and thinking how depressing and pointless it would be to try linking it back up. A child holding the broken halves of a toy together.

"Not petty," he said instead. Thor scoffed and walked away too. Not too far. Hawkeye wondered whether he, just like the rest of them, had nowhere else to go either.

Something was wrong with all of them.

Clint asked about Wanda eventually. Nobody answered, which he attributed to the deathly quiet hanging around. No breath or breeze, and no one was brave enough to break the silence.

After that, he didn't bring up any other names. Instead, he decided to infer everyone else's status from their silent absence or their absent silence. Easier this way – easier to sneak around words, because words shaped a terrible reality.

Either the cosmos had one wicked sense of humor, or someone up there really, genuinely thought the Avengers needed a new hothead blow-in. This one seemed to be able to catch actual fire, too. Her name was Carol Danvers, and she was best described as the alarmingly belligerent approach to anti-war ideology.

"Fury was doing what with the Tesseract?"

Rogers and Stark crossed their arms at the same time, even if they were still not making eye contact. Hawkeye thought he saw Banner clench his jaw. Danvers ignored all of them, calculating eyes landing on Natasha instead. It didn't get her much of a reaction.

Stark found his voice. "How the hell do you even know about-"

"I know a lot of things, and feel free to assume more things than you."

Something ugly distorted his expression. "Yeah, like you know all about the cool artillery your bestest buddy was rigging up. Tell me, I've been wondering for years – do you know what color he was planning to dye it? Pink?"

"He wouldn't lie to me."

"Yeah, okay. Y'know, sometimes people let you down." Rogers went unnaturally still, and Thor scowled.

Danvers was unimpressed. "Sorry, I don't have time for your baggage."

"D'you have time to help us out?" Hawkeye pitched in. "Promise, we normally repress the baggage like everyone else."

She stared at him for a few seconds, then, for some reason, looked back to Natasha again, whose expression was still cold and unaffected. "I'll need to break his face later, so we're gonna have to get him back asap. What's the plan?"

Hawkeye had experience dealing with hotheads.

Pepper Potts arrived in short order. Clint wasn't sure whether Stark had called her, whether he was capable of calling anyone at this point. She came alone, and in tears, and threw herself into Stark's waiting arms with an aggression that was half borne of anger, half of despair.

Stark buried his head on her shoulder, and Clint could almost pretend the way he was shaking was really his usual fidgeting. Potts just kept running fingers through his hair, grief clearly intensifying. Stark was never this emotional in public.

"Tony?" she asked, sounding almost scared.

He pulled up abruptly, a ghost of his usual energy. "Let's just- Let's just go home."

Clint stiffened, and Bruce, who was also openly eavesdropping, froze. Potts didn't seem to understand, though. "What?"

Stark opened his mouth and let it run. "I want- I wanna go home, I wanna take you home, get married, and I don't want- to think. I don't want-" He took a deep breath. "I don't want to do this anymore."

For a painful moment, Clint pictured attempting anything with Stark bowed out. Like reading in pitch-dark. Pictured having nowhere to turn for equipment repair, pictured making intricate plans without one of their resident geniuses. Pictured being half-blinded without Stark's AI watching the battlefield, hard as it was to admit he'd been relying on crutches for too long.

Pictured trying to be a team with a member down. Pictured Rogers trying to pull himself back together on his own, long enough to lead it.

And Clint realized, for one hysterical second, that the fate of half the people in the universe was in Pepper Potts' hands. The other half too.

"You can't," she replied, quickly and quietly, like the words hurt. "Tony, you can't. Not until-"

But Stark was nodding already, understanding, unemotional, resigned. Crisis averted.

"I wish I was still in space," Bruce muttered, watching the two of them leave. "Space was much easier to deal with."

"Yeah?" Clint mumbled.

Bruce was startled, like he hadn't expected a reply. "I was the Hulk for two years," he confessed, and that caught Clint's attention well and good.

"That- must've been something."

"Yeah, for him, too. I think he got a taste for running around by himself." He hesitated. "I woke up and I didn't know- I asked about Nat, and you guys, and Ultron. Good thing Thor was there."

"Ultron was so long ago," Clint said absent-mindedly, thinking about how old Nate was, and then abruptly not thinking about it at all. "What'd you mean, he got a taste for running around?"

"He doesn't want to come out now."

"He- what?"

"Even if I get myself angry – I can get angry now," Bruce explained urgently. He clearly hadn't had the chance to have this conversation with anyone else. "I think- he doesn't want to do this anymore either." His head tilted toward where Stark had disappeared to earlier.

The breeze whistled again in Clint's ears, weak but prodded into action. "He, what, feels used? Neglected?" He thought of the big green dude whose sole joy in life was hilariously and maniacally smashing things, and wondered why his life had to be so weird. That guy had feelings Clint had to worry about hurting now, too? "Thought he liked kicking ass."

"He got his ass kicked too."

"Well, that's – yeah. First time?"

His words were only slightly mocking, but Bruce rolled his eyes. "He doesn't really do losing, turns out."

Clint hummed. "Who does?"

"Yeah, well, on top of that, he doesn't have access to advisable coping mechanisms."

"Again, who does?"

Bruce laughed a touch bitterly. "Let's not exculpate the giant green Tasmanian devil, shall we?"

"I like cartoons too."

There was a twitch in Bruce's cheek, like he wanted to say something to that, but inevitably just shook his head and smiled faintly. He didn't meet Clint's eyes. "I have no idea how to deal with him." The admission seemed to come at some cost, from the look on Bruce's face. "And if I don't, and if I'm not ready whenever Tony and Steve get their heads together-"

Clint's heartrate did a funny somersault at the little flash of hypothetical hope Bruce hinted at, dangling in front of them like the doctor didn't know it was taboo to point at the light at the end of the tunnel. At least in their current climate. He tried hard to focus on the far more pressing issues at hand. "Because you and the other guy are going through some stuff-"

"Because the other guy and I are going through some stuff-" Bruce agreed derisively – "I'm not sure I can handle that."

"You can handle that," Clint stated.

"Right, thanks, but I think this is one of those problems that need a little more than blind confidence. No offense."

"None taken. You're wrong, though. No offense."

Bruce sighed aggressively. "I actually forgot how aggravating talking to you can be. That's impressive, because, for the record, as far as my brain's concerned, I was just visiting your farm not too long ago."

Clint was grinning. "I said no offense, Banner, cut me some slack. So then, if confidence isn't the problem, what is?"

Bruce hesitated, eyeing Clint as though he was sizing him up. Clint waited patiently, which apparently passed the test. Bruce stared at his palms and started talking. "The Hulk has been a plague on my existence for almost fifteen years. And I learned to manage him. Just- clearly not myself. I kept hiding the- parts of me I hate, everything I don't want in me, behind an angry monster. Like maybe that'd let me pretend it's not still me. I even decided I'd rather put a gun in my mouth than face up to him."

"Well, that sounds as enlightened as you're ever gonna get," Clint said unflinchingly, and Bruce reacted to his bluntness by not reacting at all.

"He's still a monster, though," he said blandly. "And I still don't know how to handle that- productively. The problem here is that I have to."

"We're all monsters. At some point. At a bunch of points. You're just lucky to have a scapegoat."

Bruce scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's the thing, isn't it," he grumbled, and Clint couldn't tell whether he was speaking to himself or not. "I keep saying the other guy won't come out, but I'm the issue here. I refuse to own his actions beyond self-loathing. Because if I acknowledge there's something good about this creature I hate, then I'm not just the monster's host, I'm the monster. And it's always easier to blame the other guy."

Clint shrugged. "So blame yourself when you mess up. Cheer up when you don't. Own your mistakes and work to fix 'em. That's how the rest of us do it."

Bruce rubbed his left wrist with a faraway glaze to his eyes. "I'm not sure that's enough to snap him out of it. Or me."

"Well, you seem to get him well enough. You'll figure it out."

This didn't seem to have occurred to Bruce, startled him. "We're not- we're completely different. Even if- he might be part of me, but not in a way that I- still understand."

Clint scrunched up his face, now finally feeling as though he had a proper game plan. The breeze blew a little stronger, tentative. "You're different, are you? Like how you refuse to acknowledge his strengths and he refuses to acknowledge yours?"

Bruce, smart guy that he was, frowned thoughtfully at him. "Suppose there must be common ground. I didn't feel the need to be as guarded up there," he vaguely gestured to the ceiling, but Clint figured he meant the cosmos. "I think- neither did he."

"You weren't yourself out there," Clint pointed out.

"No, but I was," Bruce replied, as though the realization was only just hitting him like a ton of bricks. "I was."

Clint clapped a hand on his shoulder and called this a success. "Well – sounds like something you should work out with- yourself."

Bruce was looking at him, but, from the vacant sheen to his eyes, Clint felt reasonably certain he was seeing something else. He clapped the doctor's shoulder one more time and left him to it.

Clint had never met Jane. He was the first to greet her, though, and the first she introduced herself to.

"Where is he?" she asked gently, notably shoving away her own woes with a rare strength that Clint admired. He spotted two different phones in her hands, both clearly dead to the world, and figured that was one of the things she was sort of shoving away too.

"Up on the roof, I think," Clint told her, and Jane nodded. "Usually is."

"Would you-? I don't exactly know my way around. Can you take me there?" she requested, and he nodded too.

Jane didn't ask him something trite and oblivious like whether Thor was alright, possibly because she knew Clint wouldn't answer her. He liked that she let silence fill their short trek, and he liked that, when Thor laid eyes on her and froze dumbly, she unceremoniously dismissed Clint with a look and a subtle wave. So he backtracked and she carefully tiptoed toward the God of Thunder, standing over chalky chicken scratch that he'd drawn onto the pavement. (Clint had long ago decided that he didn't need to know what the chicken-scratch was. It made as much sense to him as Stark's elegant-scratch or Bruce's loopy-scratch).

Clint didn't see Jane again for a while after that. Thor, however, found him, a couple of hours later, lounging in the third floor vents, near Natasha's dead-silent room. Clint didn't announce his presence and Thor didn't say a word, but did look up at the tiny breach among metal and brick that allowed him to make eye contact. Clint wasn't familiar with the look on his face.

"I know of no place I could send her that she might be safer," the god said, out of the blue. "That she might be safe, full stop."

"So tell her to stay," Clint suggested. "This place's as good as anything. If Stark were in his right mind, he'd even show up right now, all indignant, and tell you it's better than anything."

Thor began pacing. "Stark is not of sound mind. No one is."

"That's what I just said."

"This doesn't bother you?" he demanded sharply.

Clint finally dropped down from the vents, placing the grid back in its place. He squinted at Thor. "What does that have to do with anything? And am I seriously breaking some sort of news to you right now?"

Thor looked stricken. "You are evading the query. But no, that is not new information."

Clint shrugged. "Course it bothers me. But unless being bothered is gonna fix anything-?"

The Norse god's expression evolved to outraged. "You see no value in pondering over m- our mistakes? Collectively, in general," he stumbled, and Clint gave him a second. "In pondering over mistakes, all mistakes?"

"What you're doing isn't mindful contemplation, buddy."

"What I am doing is the very least I owe to both the dead and the living."

"What, brooding? Somehow, it's not helping either group."

"I have already tried to help," Thor growled, and Clint saw a recognizable flash of emotion behind his one good eye at last. "It was a miserable failure."

"So, guilt and self-recrimination," Clint said thoughtfully. "Two proven drivers of action and initiative."

Thor stared at him resentfully. "There is nothing to initiate. There is no action to be taken."

"Not while you're busy brooding."

"We lost."

Clint threw his arms out to the sides as if to say duh. "And that's it?" he questioned derisively. "You wanna feel sad, then feel sad, man, god knows no one's taking that away from you. Just don't make it your day job. That helps no one but the enemy, and I didn't peg you for one to play in someone else's field, under the other side's rules."

"I do not."

"So you're gonna start now? Start listening to the bad guy now?"

Thor ran out of responses then, and went back to the staring. Clint felt the familiar itch to crawl back inside the vents, like little winter gusts biting at his ankles, wanting him to get sucked back into his hole and think for a while, eyes shut and ears plugged to the world.

"I think I will go speak to Jane again."

Clint saluted him and turned back to follow his instincts. "You do that."

He was fairly certain Jane left the following morning, without some sort of Thor-appointed armed escort. Thor seemed to formally rejoin the team, though – the chalk up on the roof eroded with the rain and scattered with the wind, but he stopped tending to it. It became more common to see him around the premises – in his old room, open door; in the kitchen, the only one to use it; in animated conversation with Bruce; somberly scrolling through inactive Avengers files, also in Bruce's company. Sometimes he even had a quiet word for Clint.

It was progress, Clint assured himself. The kind he wanted, the kind they needed. Even if it had to share room with sadness.

Every morning when he woke up, Hawkeye got to make a decision. One of those mornings, he decided he couldn't decide anymore.

(Get through every day thinking you can handle it, and then, one day, you can't.)

Moving around the compound was like mapping a maze, and when Hawkeye ran out of dead-ends, he chose the exit. After that, he couldn't find a reason to walk back inside, so he didn't.

The world was still plenty big even after it ended. He decided he'd like to live his life the way a bird flew: blended into a crowd, unknown, unattached, and going nowhere because he wasn't expected anywhere.

Everybody dies in the middle of something, he thought, one night, finding an abandoned church to bunk in. There was something pretty and white gathering grime and dust on the floor, a forgotten veil someone had dropped, and the dried flower petals surrounding it reminded Hawkeye of a painting that might make him deeply forlorn for no immediate reason. The dead flower bouquet was nearby.

There's misery too expensive to be worth a happy ending. He decided this in the morning, when the world was a little brighter and that meant something good, somehow. The giant cross hanging behind the altar, up front and center, it cast a chilly shadow – the statue's glare loomed over him resentfully, triggered some reminder of the higher duty Hawkeye had committed himself to, and then failed in the worst way possible.

There was a woman waiting for him outside when he pushed open the heavy wooden doors again, ready to flee another ghost graveyard. She eyed him suspiciously, and said something in a language Hawkeye didn't speak.

He shrugged back. "Lost?" she tried again, now in English.

He stared at her. "No," he lied.

She tsk-ed. "Work," she declared, and gestured for him to follow.

Hawkeye wasn't entirely certain why he did.

The world was a terrible place, he decided, one of those days he was helping make it that way. He kept deciding things. He'd learned more in the horrible stretch of an uncountable quantity of days than he had in a lifetime of loving his wife and three children.

The moment he acknowledged them, he couldn't stop thinking of them.

Hawkeye stormed a busy warehouse, brought it down with nothing but a pair of sharp swords, and remembered Lila had always been fascinated by his weapons. She'd quiet down for hours on end, just watching him train. She'd shoot off a million questions about technique, and would demand to be taught twenty times a day until he relented and showed her the grip. She'd love every word of praise he'd give her for the stance of her feet and the position of her hands.

Hawkeye completed an entire sleeve, and told himself Cooper would freak out at his tattoos. He'd whine about it for days until the twitching on his mother's face became too intimidating. He'd find a veritable trove of useless information on the internet, somehow peripheral to the ink. He'd love every story behind each design.

Hawkeye tore an occupied baby seat from a crashed car and the toddler's incessant chatter was eerily similar to how Nate would babble attentively at his siblings' behavior. He grasped at the new memory because he knew the rest were fading – made it similar, even if it wasn't. His baby would love to watch Lila stretch a bowstring or listen to Cooper read to him.

Laura would hate that he wasn't even trying to stop his humanity slipping away.

Natasha Romanoff fixed things one day, a proverbial stone in one hand and a very real bottle in the other, words drowning their bitterness in the alcohol. Her hair was longer, and the blond was washing away. Hawkeye drank with her while she talked at him.

"We've got Tony," she said, quietly. "And Bruce. They're- they're thinking of something. We could- It's possible we might get everyone ba-" Hawkeye interrupted before she said something to break him.

"You can't just – I think about them every day. I cry about them every day. I'm barely handling it, Tasha," he croaked, taking no satisfaction in the way she paled. "You're asking me to open wounds I never really closed on a chance-"

"We live our whole lives on a chance," she snapped, and Hawkeye cracked under her words. "We're Avengers. Since when did we start relying on absolutes?"

He packed up and followed her back to the maze. Everybody dies in the middle of something, Hawkeye thought, so I'd best build something for the next guy to finish.

There was one bad night, when Clint woke up in pitch dark, a t-shirt slapping his face, and couldn't remember, for a few seconds, whether he should reach for his bow, his knives, or his wife.

"Put it on," he heard Natasha order gruffly. "Two minutes."

Clint blinked and recalled only one out of three were within reach for the time being.

The sun hadn't yet dawned; just the way Nat liked it, particularly these days. The door was left slightly ajar from when she had, by all appearances, carelessly picked it. She wasn't waiting outside when he stepped into the hallway, only a few short minutes later. Clint mulled it over for two seconds and then asked FRIDAY to direct him to the compound's training area, inside which he'd yet to step foot.

"Gotta be a coffee maker on the way, right?" he mumbled, roaming the labyrinthic brainchild of Stark's lack of financial restrictions.

FRIDAY actually replied. "Boss designed the compound to have at least one expresso machine within a fifty step radius of wherever an individual might be standing."

"Yeah, course he did."

He showed up at the gym holding two steaming cups. Natasha, who was clad in a dark tank top and worn sweatpants, glanced over and took one, dropping a pair of metal wings that looked suspiciously like they belonged with Falcon's toys. They were carelessly shoved to a corner of the room, heaped along with the rest of the equipment for people who were not there to use it.

"You know, I haven't gotten a proper tour of the place yet," Clint said, looking around. "That why you woke me up at a non-human time of day?"

"Stark and Steve are up," she said dismissively, ignoring his actual question.

"That tracks. You gonna tell me what's going on now?"

Nat trashed her coffee, already empty, and trashed Clint's too, three-quarters empty. "Sparring exercise. We haven't done it in a while," she shrugged, and that was all the explanation he got. "You're always busy."

Clint shrugged right back, following her to the padded area of the floor. "Someone had to keep the ankle monitor warm."

Nat almost managed to hide the flash of a smile. "I wouldn't know. They never did manage to tag me with one."

Clint rushed her as a response.

It took twenty minutes of suffering Natasha's limbs and creative chokeholds before he got tired of stalling. It didn't seem to be helping her either – every hit that landed only seemed to mount her unrest, every flurry of movement felt like a newly charged upheaval. Evading her got him no reaction either, and silence from Nat was always a sign of extreme turmoil, especially when she could be goading instead.

He faked out a kick to her ankle and spun around her to trip her into the ground. She let herself drop to her knees, and managed to immediately flip him on his back using one hand and one leg, in a move Clint would never understand in his lifetime.

He groaned when his shoulder plates struck the floor. Nat was hovering over him, a brow arched and a hand outstretched. "You are bone-deep rusty," she accused, with little of her usual well-meaning bluster. "Testing your skills exclusively on street rats will do that to you. My concern for your safety is mounting."

"Oof, you smooth talker, you," Clint replied, accepting her hand. He soothed his ego slightly by noting the beginnings of perspiration on her forehead. "I'm gonna try again that question you keep ignoring. What's up, buttercup?"

Nat narrowed her eyes at him and unceremoniously let him drop back down before he got his balance back. "Oops."

"Yeah, okay," he exhaled, standing up by himself. "But you know I'm a huge stubborn ass, right? Think I'm done pestering you?"

Natasha crossed her arms, staring at him with a characteristically unreadable expression. "Why are you trying to sniff out complexity here? I'm antsy. I have plenty of painfully obvious reasons to be antsy. I'm working out the excess energy. Stop reading into puddle-deep stuff."

Clint stretched, feeling bruises in places he hadn't bruised in years. "So, I'm doing my bit to work out your frustrations."

"Not so far," she freely admitted. "Maybe I just need a fight."

"Want," Clint corrected. "You want a fight."

"Same difference."

"No, huge difference. 'Cause one says you're not deflecting, and the other says you're hurting and refusing to address it properly."

Nat's eyes tightened, which was a striking display of emotion when it came to her. "Can I start hitting you again?"

"I think my- everything, it might break, if you don't give me a minute," he said truthfully, wandering over to a watercooler.

She rolled her eyes and followed him. "Fine. But after that, we're training with a zipped-lip rule in place."

Clint scrunched up his nose and gulped down two plastic cups of water before answering. "Here's what I'm thinking, though," he said in a conversational tone, filling up a third. "You know me damn well enough to know I'd be like this. If it's really that irritating, why would you have woken me up for your untherapeutic experience?"

"You're the least breakable person around."

He handed her a cup too, which she accepted with a thanks-mom sort of glare. "Cap."

"He's too lethargic for sparring at the moment." Her voice wavered slightly for the first time, so Clint decided he'd unlocked another clue.

"Nat. You also know me well enough to know pulling the wool over my eyes, after all these years, is a fever dream."

She scoffed, throwing the cup in the recycling bin. "I can lie to you."

"Uh-huh," he agreed mistrustfully. "You know what? I'm pretty sure, right now, you don't want to. My pestering was expected."

"Yeah, I usually expect you to be a pain in the ass."

"Can we skip the part where I keep asking the same question and go straight to the part where you fake-reluctantly give in and tell me what's going on?"

"You're so smart, Barton," she mocked sweetly. "But where's the fun in that?"

"Nat," he prodded gently. "C'mon."

She merely looked away in response.

"Fine, you know what, you're right," he said agreeably, newly energized. Nat looked back at him suspiciously. "We should just work it out caveman-style. But this isn't gonna cut it. I've got a better idea."

Nat's eyebrows were arched. "Yeah? What's that?"

Twenty minutes later, Clint was dragging a trolley of fifty precariously balanced plates out of the compound into the grass, where Thor's weird alien rainbow brands were aging on the grass. Nat followed him leisurely, watching his struggle with a smirk on her face. Figuring they'd cleared enough distance from the compound's boundaries, he dropped the handle and rubbed the back of his hand over his sweaty forehead.

Nat tilted her head at him. "This is a stupid idea."

"Gimme your gun."

"You're insane."

"The one on the outside holster of your left ankle, the rest of them don't have the range."

She sighed deeply but complied, reaching down and sliding the weapon out in one fluid movement. Clint pulled his hoodie over his head and shifted his shoulders under the t-shirt, taking the gun off her hands. "Alright. There's fifty of those things in there." Nat glanced at the trolley and got into position, testing her range of movement. Judging the distance Clint had put between them, she picked up a plate and shoved the trolley away from her with ease. "I miss even one and I drop this conversation. I hit all of them and I get to stay annoying."

"Woah. How powerful are these magic plates that they can stop you from being annoying?"

Clint flipped her off, disabled the safety, and waited.

Nat flung the first plate with no flair or skill, and Clint didn't even bother to look up in order to shoot it down. "You see what I mean when I say you woke me up 'cause you wanted me to nag you? Are you even trying?" The second plate flew out before he even finished his sentence, and grazed the top of his head. He hit that one too and the shards landed a foot from where he was standing. "Much better."

"Do you think this is dangerous?" Nat asked casually, and Clint aimed and shattered the third plate still in her hand. She narrowed her eyes and threw the shard she was left holding at him. He shot that too. "Why did I agree to this exercise in wasting ammo again? My ammo?"

"Y'know, I think this is one of those situations- like how mom taught me to never run with a pair of scissors, but didn't ever say anything about fighting robot-alien armies with a bow and arrow. Raining shards of pricey tableware is- it's somewhere on that spectrum."

"You never knew your mom."

Clint snapped his fingers and hummed thoughtfully like that had never occurred to him. "In that case, I'll change my counterpoint to 'we're dangerous'."

Nat nodded and grabbed a fourth projectile. "Good point."

She made him work for that one, but only in the sense that he had to look at the sky before hitting it mid-arch. When he glanced back, Nat was frowning at the sky too, as though putting real thought into calculating trajectories. Clint cracked a grin at that, which she didn't fail to notice.

"Even if you manage to get what you want out of me humoring you," she said, throwing the plate into the path of Clint's bullet, "what makes you think I'll break under the strain of your continued annoyance?"

"Good question," he acknowledged, waiting for her to figure out what to do with the next one. "Let me answer that with another question. What makes you think you're not breaking already?"

She broke into a sprint to launch the plate, and remained silent for the next few throws. "I know what you're doing, you know. I get it," she said, not as harshly as he expected. "You – Bruce and Thor, you talked some stuff through with them. You're good at it, and you're a good person," she complimented. "But I don't need it, Clint."

Clint glanced over briefly and refrained, with a lot of effort, from shaking her into the realization she was letting out the biggest cry for help out of all of them. Then he shot another plate. "I'm not that altruistic."

"Yeah, you are, particularly when you're going through a rough patch yourself."

"Huh. In that case, shouldn't you be a good friend and help a brother out?" She rolled her eyes and went silent again for another couple of throws. He didn't miss those either. "So, what you're saying is you're perfectly well-adjusted to the present circumstances."

Nat scoffed and a dark shadow crossed her eyes. "No."

"Good start," he praised, watching her perform a particularly bad throw. She was starting to breathe heavy from the exertion of trying to outdo Clint. "Keep going."

"What do you want me to say, Clint?" she asked tiredly, flinging a plate behind her. Clint shifted slightly so he could aim around her. "You have anything in particular you'd like to know? I think we covered favorite colors years ago."

"Why are you avoiding everyone except me?"

She froze, so he shot the plate in her hand again. "I'm not."

"You are. You haven't said two words to Stark since-"

"'Why am I avoiding Stark?'" she cut him off, scowling and fully recovered. "Is that a serious question?"

He shook his head. "Don't hide behind his feud with Cap. You're avoiding him, too."

"Yeah, that's the only reason I have to hate him," she said sarcastically, her next throw particularly vicious. "Or the only reason he has to-"

"You don't hate him. And you know he doesn't hate you."

"He should."

Clint snorted incredulously. "Oh yeah, you're doing just fine."

"No worse than usual," she muttered, and Clint scowled at her instead of looking at where he was aiming his shot.

He crossed his arms when he heard the plate shatter midair anyway. "You're an idiot."

Nat threw a plate straight up and took a few steps to the side to avoid the pieces when Clint shot it. "We thought Tony was dead for a few days there," she said, looking like she was surprised at herself for actually talking. "We thought – Bruce said he went off-planet with the wizard doctor to protect the time stone, and then Thanos had the time stone – and we drew our conclusions. No one said it. I think Rhodes cried a little. I think Steve cried a little." She reconsidered. "A lot."

She hadn't stopped throwing plates, and Clint hadn't stopped hitting his marks. "But Stark isn't – he showed."

Nat nodded, doing a fake-out before launching a plate at his feet, which he struck easily. "D'you know what Steve said? When Tony crawled out of the wrong side of death's door- he really looked half-dead," she murmured, distressed, "I guess half-alive too. You know what he said?"

"A desperate declaration of undying love?"

Nat's eyes glistened like she wanted to laugh or, more likely, cry. Clint decided he'd officially won, but kept shooting down plates for the sake of his ego anyway. "'We still have a chance'. And then Tony wouldn't say a single word for ages, and I think Steve was counting- he was relying on that-" She took a deep breath. "Clint. Tony and Steve – until they get over it- everything, until they talk it out, we're going nowhere."

Clint couldn't find a way to argue with that. "Yeah."

She half-heartedly made another attempt at a throw. "Man, you are relentless," she muttered. "I don't get worn out this easily."

Clint did not ask whether she was referring to the exercise or her resilience against personal questions. "We're not done yet," he reminded her, gesturing to the trolley where around a third of the plates were still piled, intact.

Nat pursed her lips and just dropped a plate right next to her, which Clint still hit before it reached the ground. She sighed.

"The lack of morale is getting to you, is that it?" he asked, willing her to keep talking. She frowned at him. "You know, you can always be the morale you want to see. Or something."

She laughed. "Yeah, right. That's always been Steve's job."

"Cap's ability to do morale is dependent on his morale too, you know."

"Yeah, well, that used to be Tony's job, when he wasn't being an idiot."

"Nat," he said carefully, shooting down the two plates Nat had thrown in quick succession, "you know the fact that we're all here shows at least some willingness to work things out, right?"

He couldn't read her expression then, but it didn't inspire positive feelings in him. "Or maybe staying together is the least inconvenient option. Maybe hating each other isn't enough to want the universe to, just, self-destruct. Does that sound reasonable? Maybe, in that unhealthy way we're all more than comfortable with, we'd rather seethe and wallow in our misery than do anything to rock the boat," she hissed, and Clint was almost too stunned and distracted to hit her newest challenge. "Because it's the end of the world or something."

It was his turn to shoot in silence for several plates. Nat wouldn't look him in the eye, hit by a sudden wave of energy that kept her busy dancing and jumping around in solid attempts to beat his skills, which fell a little short every time. By the time Clint spoke, they were down to the final three plates. "You're wrong," he said, over the sounds of the first of the three exploding and splintering, "and giving in to your own fears."

"Fear of what?"

"I was being nice. I meant insecurities," he said, aiming and shooting down the second plate.

"Excuse me?" she said dangerously, knuckles tight on the last plate.

"I know you, Nat. Back when Cap and Stark first got into a fight, you were the most desperate to keep the team together. To hell with Barnes or the accords. Or Wanda's condition. It's why you wanted to sign. It's why you dumped Tony for Steve when you realized neither of them was backing down. It's why our current situation is giving you so much anxiety, it's breaking through all your training. Admit it."

Natasha stared at him. He stared back, gun cocked. Then her gaze dropped to her hand, still holding on to the plate, and she took off running.

She'd tried this tactic before. Sprint, then a randomly directed throw. Sometimes, she'd double back just to add to the variables. Other times, she'd throw it straight ahead just to block his shot with her own body. He'd never been foiled.

That time, though, Nat didn't stop. She weaved into a worn but overrun path among the trees near the compound, which was probably there to serve Rogers' early morning running needs. The trees shadowed her reasonably well, particularly at that time of day, so she took advantage of one of her biggest strengths to hide from him. He was familiar enough with her MO to track her anyway, though, and kept following even if he identified several opportunities to shoot the plate in her hands.

Halfway through their spontaneous run, and panting, Clint wondered what anyone noticing their current situation would think. Clint, armed, chasing a supposed team member holding ceramics. Then she disappeared, again, and he refocused his mental energy into finding her among the trees.

The track took them over forty minutes to jog through, and not once did Nat try throwing her prize. They ended up right back where they'd started, where she halted and stared at all the pieces surrounding them for several seconds. Then, she threw the plate off to the side in a straight line.

Clint was breathing raggedly, but he still looked, even aimed – but Nat's back was turned, and he didn't pull the trigger. The plate fell on the grass intact, and he put down the gun, safety on, so he could rest his hands on his knees and pant for a bit longer.

"Huh," she said. He looked up to find her scrutinizing him. It made him feel better that she was having trouble controlling her breathing too. "I win."

Clint nodded, and straightened. "Feeling better?"

"No."

"Next time, just say that."

Nat said nothing in response. "So, does that mean you're gonna stop being annoying now?"

"That depends on whether you're ready to talk. If you're not, I'll go get fifty more of these things and we'll go again."

Nat laughed. "You're not a man of your word, Barton. That's dishonorable."

"In my defense, you were the one who agreed to a childish, reckless game to settle the equally childish, reckless way you deal with your issues."

She found a broken shard of porcelain on the grass next to her and threw it at him. Clint avoided it easily. With a sigh, she sat down on the dirt and stared at the cloudy sky. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the effort she'd seen him put into his task, maybe it was because Clint had given her a choice and a way out; but suddenly she had loose lips. He sat next to her, shoving away several sharp-edged pieces of porcelain, and listened.

"I'm not sad enough, Clint."

He assumed that meant he didn't have to destroy fifty more of Stark's tableware. "I don't know what that means."

Natasha cleared her throat and Clint was alarmed to see her eyes fill with tears. "When everyone was trying to call people, and I- only ones I could think of were Bruce, who was right there, and you- Steve, Tony, accounted for, and you're here. My world wasn't ripped out from under me."

"And that's – a bad thing?" Clint asked, and if his voice was a little harsher than it needed be, well, his humanity had two extremes just like everyone else's.

"Everyone lost someone. Clint, I – I didn't lose anyone."

Oh. "Oh."

"Tony can barely even be in the same room with me," she continued, and Clint tried to ignore the rigid, frail inflexion in her voice. "Steve is in some sort of state of shock that- it's like he's not even around. Bruce sounds – he doesn't know how to talk to me anymore." Clint remembered how Bruce said he'd currently rather be in space than down on Earth, accepted Nat and Bruce were going to have a tragic ending. "I'm not- what do I have left?" That hurt in ten wildly different ways, Clint thought.

"Nat," he tried, "we're all still right here. Give it time."

She shook her head, pursed her lips. "Am I even in the world, Barton?" she demanded, suddenly sounding furious. "A person. So real she doesn't get an identity that anyone's sure of."

"Of course you're- Nothing here's unfixable," he said firmly, and fervently willed himself to believe it. "None of us are gonna just- forget, or let go. You're our friend, you're my best friend."

Nat flinched. "I'm not sure that's true. And I'm not sure you think that's true either." Clint flinched too, but couldn't work up the wherewithal to deny it indignantly before she spoke again. The wavering in her voice was becoming more and more unstable with each passing second. "When the old team was active, before Ultron, I thought- I never have constants, and as soon as I start thinking I do-"

"Nat-"

"I didn't lose anyone," Nat gasped, lurching forward suddenly. Her elbows perched themselves on her knees shakily, and she buried her face in her hands. "And I'm crying to you about it, and you lost everyone."

"Not everyone," Clint rejected instantly, wrapping an arm around her. "Not everyone."

Nat wept into his shoulder for a very long time. Clint watched the wind morosely ruffle the grass around them, tightening his hold and waiting out her pain. He'd never seen her cry – he'd seen Thor cry, once, when he'd accidentally dropped his hammer on top of a snake, an action that deeply depressed him but for which Tony declared him a true hero – but never his best friend. And now, this – like she was sobbing decades' worth of pain on him.

It was wrong. Natasha was supposed to be the strongest among them. For better or worse.

"Sorry," Nat croaked eventually, scrubbing a vicious hand over her face. Her head was still pressed into a damp patch on his t-shirt, so Clint just shook her arm lightly and exasperatedly.

"What for, dumbass?"

"Holy- What happened here?"

In lightening strike time, Nat jumped to her feet and wiped her face clean. Clint was left a little stupefied, staring up at her.

"Nothing. We'll clean this up."

Senses returned to him, Clint stood and looked up to whoever Natasha was talking to, finding Bruce staring back at him uncertainly. The doctor's hair was disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot, which was a regular-enough appearance for most people nowadays, but the shock on his face cleared away some of the lethargy. Nat had a passive mask back on.

"We were doing target practice on forty-nine of Tony's fancy dinner plates," Clint said shamelessly. Bruce's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "One of them is still whole, it you wanna look on the bright side. It was therapeutic."

Whatever was on Bruce's mind fled then, and his gaze flashed back to Nat with concern. Clint was an experienced observer, which meant he was able to identify the blush on her cheeks. "What? Is everything-"

"Speaking of therapy, time for a real doctor to take over," Clint said loudly, talking over him. He dusted off his hands with a nod, making an exaggerated show of the whole thing, and picked up his hoodie. The glare Nat was leveling him with could shred Iron Man behind Cap's shield. "Nice of you to show up, Bruce."

The good doctor's eyes resembled those of a deer caught in headlights. "I'm not that kind of-"

"Good luck," he wished obnoxiously, and then waved his departure. Bruce still looked uncertain, but not enough that he'd leave. And for all of Nat's current fury, Clint understood her well enough to know she wouldn't take off either.

It took a week for Natasha to grudgingly acknowledge Clint again.

"Thank you," she told him, quietly and hesitatingly, and he eyed her back, uncomprehending. "Thanks."

"What for?"

A woman came to visit one day, looking, like most people, as though she'd been crying for however long it'd been since the universe imploded.

Stark unfroze on sight.

It startled Potts, the way he was suddenly all gesticulating arms and legs, and pacing so fast he might as well be running. The way the woman's screaming and shouting seemed to energize him. He called her May, and when she started sobbing, he pretended not to cry.

At first, the Avengers had been drawn to the scene because, as far as they were concerned, nowadays, commotions were threats; and there was a commotion with one of their own as the target. Once she'd collapsed into Tony's chest to dispel that notion, though, it was just that they were watching a slow-motion train-wreck, and morbid curiosity was a coping mechanism. Stark and May didn't acknowledge their presence either way.

"What did he say-"

"May-" Tony's voice was shrill and strangled.

"I need to know, please, what – what was the last thing he said?"

Tony was shaking his head so vehemently, it was making Clint dizzy. He'd stepped away, keeping her at arm's length. "No. I can't. I won't. And you don't want me to."

May became infuriated at this. "You don't get to tell me what I want. You owe me an answer, Tony Stark."

In the icy silence that followed, Tony didn't speak, but another voice, younger, sweeter, still rang out in Clint's head, clear and gutting. Daddy, daddy, please, please-

"I know," Tony said at last, and then he left without another word. No one tried to follow him.

May stayed at the compound, Stark firmly did not budge on this point, but he went right back to his lethargy. Every time she crossed his sight, though, his not-fidgeting would pick up in urgency. Almost there, but not quite. Clint figured this was the limit of what Pepper and May could achieve in his stead.

"I wasn't with them," Clint told him, visiting the lab in a unique occasion, sat beside the mechanic. Stark didn't show any sign he was listening – hadn't said anything even when Clint had barged into his sanctuary – he just kept carefully working with some shiny metal tools, slowly enough that Clint could follow his movements. "Cooper, Laura – she was holding Nate – they were outside, and I wasn't- wasn't with them."

Tony stiffened. Maybe empathetic grief, or pity. Clint hadn't ever opened his mouth about this. Tony had stopped messing around with his toys. "Nothing you could do," he told him gruffly.

Clint nodded absently. "Only saw them go from out the corner of my eye. But Lila – I was watching some stupid cartoon, she had her homework on the floor. She was right there."

"Don't."

The order was sharp and a little breathless. Clint didn't heed it. "What was the boy called again?"

"Clint-"

"Heard you and that woman. Everyone heard you and that woman. Peter, was it?"

Tony flinched violently, turned to Clint with a murderous look in his eyes. "Here's the thing. I didn't ask for therapy. I don't want therapy. More importantly, I refuse to talk about this. Goodbye." He turned back to his stuff, working a little more frantically than before.

Clint didn't leave. "That is the current approach, isn't it? How's it working for you?"

Tony slammed a hand down on the table. "If you want therapy, Bruce is a wonderful listener."

"Time to try something else, Stark."

Tony sat up abruptly, a conspicuous symptom of some sort of avoidant energy. Clint followed anyway, tracked him to the other side of the room, where he pretended to need something from a pile of assorted chips and circuitry. Clint's presence over his shoulder was probably responsible for the way Tony grit his teeth, which forced him to acknowledge the invasion of his personal space.

He spun around to face Clint. The new arc reactor – nanoparticle container, some other Tony corrected in his head – glowed dully under his shirt. It only served to make his face shine even more gaunt and drained.

"I'm sorry, I'm having trouble pinpointing where exactly this coziness is coming from." Tony sounded cold in a way he usually only dished out to enemies. "This whole thing, right here?" he explained, gesticulating about. "It's a professional alliance. A time-out, if you will. Bygones are only really by-on-hold. I'm pretty sure I still trust you and your tea party about as far as I can throw you. Don't get the wrong idea just because your legal status is currently on the backburner."

Clint danced around both the hurt and the ire the jab invoked, because pursuing either would only take this conversation in the direction Stark wanted: its abrupt end. Whichever form that took. Clint inspected his fingernails instead, settled in against a wall. "You probably could throw me pretty far in that suit of yours."

"Guess I must trust you a lot more from inside a suit of metal than out."

"Yeah," Clint snorted, "hiding behind armor was always one of your many, many shortcomings."

Stark stiffened. "Are you trying to bait me into a fist fight, Barton? Because I'm really in the mood for it."

"Aren't you always?"

"So why provoke?" he retorted.

Clint pushed off the wall and felt blood roaring in his ears, drowning out his senses with the basest possible animal instincts. "Have you considered, with that giant brain of yours, that maybe this isn't about you for once? That maybe no one else on the team even has kids, let alone knows what it's like to lose one, and that I just found out that's not quite right – that there's a Peter?"

Tony had frozen in a different way now, emotions fighting for dominance all over his expression like he rarely allowed them to. "He wasn't- he wasn't," he clarified. "Not really. My kid, I mean."

Clint elected to ignore that and sat on one of Tony's tables. "When it happened-" he began, and Tony screwed his eyes shut, so Clint sort of lost his thread. "That girl- that girl was so scared," he mumbled. "And confused. She just ran over to me, thinking- Thinking-"

"Thinking you could fix it," Tony finished, something in his voice finally cracking. "Like I was supposed to know how, and maybe I was. Kid was begging, I don't- I couldn't do anything, didn't so much as know what to say."

Clint was now feeling frantic himself. "Lila just sobbed all the way through. She went last. I saw the other three go so quick, I don't know why she took that long-"

"Peter took forever," Tony said clumsily, words spilling out almost before he allowed them, like now he'd opened his mouth he didn't know how to close it. "Latched on to me and didn't let go until his arms started to-" There it was, now he could shut up. "Figured out I wasn't gonna help him, that I failed, and then he apologized. Why would he apologize?" he demanded, but Clint didn't really have an answer.

"I still don't know how I made it through that," he replied instead, a little dazed.

Tony visibly deflated then, holding on to the wall for support. He started speaking to the floor. "You know, all the way back in New York – I knew. I saw what was coming and I knew who was going to be meeting it when it did," he revealed. "The six of us. We were going to be the front line and – and we were probably not going to come out unscathed. That part, Wanda had to show me. Probably because denial's a bitch. Good of her to force me to acknowledge it." He tapped his fingers on the tabletop twice, next to Clint. "And then it happened, and look. Look. Here we are. The six of us. And who got to pay the price I- we were supposed to?" he asked rhetorically, and Clint didn't have an answer for that either. "Half the universe. Civilians. Kids." He clamped his lips shut abruptly and shrugged heavily, like he was growing old right in front of Clint. "I thought I was done so many times," he admitted, as though in disgusted disbelief at himself. "And every single downswing – I find another way to crawl out of the woodwork. I'm starting to wonder why. And if I'm just- running in place."

And that – right then, while Tony was open and vulnerable and looking thoroughly pummeled – that was Clint's opening. "So let's do something about it."

There were several seconds, while Tony just stared at Clint, that he was sure he was going to say no. That all these names floating around, the obsessive list being kept on FRIDAY's servers, that it was too heavy a load for him to carry, that the man made of iron had finally broken under the weight. That even that woman upstairs, eyes permanently red and sharing Tony's particular grief, that not even she was enough for him to push it a little further.

And then he opened his mouth to argue, and a Tony Stark that still argued wasn't a man who'd given up.

"You know what, Barton?" he said in a strange tone. "I'm not a- I'm not a real hero. I've been going around flying because it's cool, blasting people because it's justified – I don't know why I'm doing this anymore. Then again, there aren't real heroes in the real world, are there? We're all just- playing. We have costumes and fancy props." Tony shoved another one of his – particle unit containers – away brusquely. "When the going gets tough, time to bow out."

"Who's bowing out?"

"Half the universe. Me. Rogers. I don't know."

"What about the kid?"

"What?"

"Spiderman. Was he just pretending too? Sixteen-year-old taking an impromptu trip to outer space, doesn't strike me as the bowing out type. Would he be proud or embarrassed for you right now, do you think?" Tony stared at him. Clint silently dropped down from the table. "You and the Captain have been screwing around long enough. Time to snap out of it. You know why we're gonna need both of you, Stark?"

"I'm not-"

"'Cause Cap's the type to let the whole world burn for one person. You're the type to let one person burn for the whole world." Clint thought for a moment as Tony looked away. "Preferably yourself. You've got that in common with him."

"You have a point?"

"You need each other. And Peter," he emphasized, satisfied when it made him flinch, "needs you to get over yourself. Whatever kind of hero you think you are."

Tony sighed, long and heavy. "So what now?"

"You tell me."

There was a beat of silence. "We fix it," Tony confirmed, an echo of a conversation rushing in, carried by a gust of wind as strong as the memory.

"I can't help him," Clint informed Tony, a different day in the same play. "I can't help Rogers. But you can."

Whatever Tony was holding clattered, and he hunched into himself. He had his back turned to Clint, but the expression he'd be sporting was easy to imagine. A scowl Stark wouldn't even be sure where to aim, but always there for him in the mirror. Tense shoulders and evasive, glassy eyes.

"I don't think he needs my help. Or wants it, frankly."

"I think he really, really does. And I think you want to give it to him."

When Nat saw Tony head for Steve's room, she jerked around and instantly followed. When Bruce saw the worried look on her face, he went after her. When Thor realized he was being left out, he did as well. Clint brought up the rear.

Steve was at his desk. Drawing. Painting? Sketching. Clint knew jack shit about art. Tony hadn't knocked, and Thor eyed Captain America's work as though he were completely astonished at how he was choosing to spend his time at the moment. Bruce seemed to admire it. Nat chose to critically observe the real-life people around her instead.

Steve blinked at all of them, probably due to their sudden and inexplicable appearance. Tony, likely out of habit, made himself the center of attention, flicking through the vast portfolio. Clint saw Barnes depicted there, his face blurring into Tony's, into Wilson's, Wanda's, into Peggy Carter's and Bruce's – Tony slammed a palm down after three seconds of this, apparently decided to get down to business.

"Y'know there's a bunch of people in these you haven't actually lost, right?"

Steve cleared his throat, gently removed the papers from underneath Tony's hand. "Those aren't all recent," he murmured.

"Sorry, was I dead without my knowledge at some point? Did everyone say something nice at my funeral, or did they stick to honesty? I hope at least Rhodey had the balls to make a joke about how he always thought alcoholism would catch up to me first."

Nat arched an eyebrow. "Bold of you to assume it wasn't alcoholism that killed you in this hypothetical scenario."

Tony grinned, darker than Clint remembered. Bruce sighed. Steve stared straight ahead, sat perfectly still at his desk.

"You honor the fallen with your paintings then?" Thor asked unexpectedly. "These are tributes?"

"Memories," Steve corrected.

"Yeah, well, your memory's shit, Cap. This one's not nearly as good-looking as I am," Tony said, thumbing a particularly inspired portrait of himself.

"I couldn't capture your modesty, it's half of your appeal," he bit back.

Tony wanted to laugh, Clint could tell, but he turned away to hide his smirk instead.

Nat made the joke on his behalf. "Dirty," she commented, and Tony snorted loudly.

Steve went scarlet and sputtered. "The quality, not- Did you need something?" he finally asked testily, and there. He was finally a part of the conversation. All amusement died instantly.

Tony approached it by rambling. "Been doing some thinking-"

"Unheard of, really," Bruce deadpanned. Clint wished he wouldn't interrupt.

"Lots of free time," Tony continued. "Unfortunate consequence of all the other unfortunate consequences. Well, also a consequence of entirely ignoring all the people with urgent matters they need me to busy myself with immediately. Least I could do, right? Torture myself with my giant failure. Good for the soul, I'm sure." He tapped Steve's artwork again. "Real healthy too."

"You need to make your sarcasm clearer," Steve muttered back.

"Sarcasm? Who's using sarcasm? Far too pedestrian for me. Anyway, my point is, thinking. It's what I do, right? Could be helping clean up this fractured world, but my usual logic is way too stupidly smart to do something that productive. So – I've been considering probabilities."

It wasn't like anyone was properly following his thought process, but they didn't usually. Letting Tony talk until they finally got an idea of what he meant was the approach with the best track record.

Tony hadn't stopped walking around. Steve's eyes hadn't left him.

"You'd think – half the universe gone, how even is that going to be, right? Why'd it be this perfect? If you're just- selecting half of all life. Some planets should've lost everyone, others none. Three point five billion gone here, though. So, here's my theory: not so much picking half the universe, more like each individual person getting picked. Works like gym class. Y'know?"

Clint did not know. Steve did not look as though he did either. "No?" he replied, unsure. Bruce had a pained look on his face.

Tony clapped his hands, spun around and produced a pen to play with from somewhere within Steve's mess of a desk. Fidgeted.

"Universe can go batshit, world can spin off-axis. Stupid fucking probability still has rules and won't bend 'em. Nearly eight billion random trials means perfect division. Everyone got a chance. Fifty-fifty. Stay, or- go." His self-assuredness broke at the last word.

"Ah. So we're the lucky ones?"

Tony actually laughed out loud. "Uh, no. No. We're the ones who defaulted into the responsibility for fixing it."

Steve pressed both palms against his eyes very tightly. "Can we?"

"I count at least six people, in this room alone, who wouldn't be here if we couldn't." Tony's eyes flickered briefly to Clint, and then he rapped his knuckles on the desk twice. "Get up, Captain Rogers. You've got something to prove."

There was a long stretch of silence while everyone realized they were all, finally, on the exact same page; that even after a decade's worth of assorted bullshit, they were still people that understood and trusted each other to the point of insanity. Most importantly, the sort of insanity Clint knew they could use.

"Tony," Steve said quietly. He realized he hadn't done as asked and stood, turned to face the billionaire, who had a smug yet honest look on his face. "I am sorry."

"Yeah. Me too."

Tony held out a hand and Clint could hear the whistling again. Steve shook it and the wind blowing at everyone's backs was again blowing in the same direction. Broken toy mending itself back together.

Thor whooped, Bruce whooped, and Nat took that as an excuse to let out the widest smirk Clint had ever seen on her face.

"Remember when Ultron said I was just pretending I could live without a war?" Clint overheard Steve say in the lab, later, when he and Tony were catching up on years' worth of broken bridges. It was the odd hours of the morning, but it'd been a long time since any of them last tried to keep regular hours. Tony had yet another expresso in front of him. It didn't seem to be triggering FRIDAY's now-familiar caffeine overdose warning, so Clint didn't worry.

Clint was up in the vents – where else – comfortably nested in one of his current favorite places. The air flowed steady and controlled there, contained by a metal conduit. On the hard days where it seemed like no effort was good enough, like they were making zero progress and lying around being useless, watching Tony's chronic inability to sit still always gave Clint the impression the man didn't know to do anything but work and progress. It eased his consciousness in ways Clint had long ago given up on understanding.

If he could extract any sort of comfort from anything these days, that was an effort worth making, he'd learned.

The metallic sounds of Tony's tinkering didn't falter. "Remember very little of his lame-ass trash-talk. Why?"

Steve snorted. "He came by it honestly."

"You seriously wanna have another civil war? We only just wrapped up the last one."

The snort evolved into laughter, which made Clint feel like he was intruding somewhat unnecessarily.

And then the laughter died out.

"Wanda made me dream about a ball that day. Old-timey thing, not the current- equivalent." Steve seemed to barely mumble the last word, as though he found it distasteful.

"Setting aside your unhealthy preoccupation with modern art forms-"

"Dry-humping isn't an art form."

Tony sounded like he was swallowing back a fit. "Captain America just said dry-humping. I'll cherish that memory. But back to my point – what's your point?"

"Peggy was there."

Tony seemed to still, then. "I see. Got in a dance or two?" He sounded casual, but Clint knew better than to overlook the undivided attention he hardly ever offered.

"No. I think-" Whatever Steve thought petered out. "I don't know."

"Alright," Tony acquiesced, obviously struggling to figure out what Cap was trying to tell him. Clint was too. "Wanda has some unnerving powers, I'll give you that, but you know what she was targeting. So you dreamed about dancing with your dead girlfriend. What does that-"

"No, Tony, you don't get it. I dreamt about not dancing with her."

Tony froze, and Clint knew something had clicked in his mind. Clint wished he knew what it was. The billionaire turned to side-eye Steve a little more critically, more wearily. "Ah – well, that's- something else. Huh."

"A ballroom full of my peers celebrating the end of a war and I- and me. Just me. And I don't know- I don't think that works for me anymore."

"Well, we have been called loners, once or twice. Isn't that the reason for the death wishes?"

Steve seemed ashamed, looking away as Tony came closer to sit beside him. "I thought- I figured, you're the smartest guy I know, and you made Ultron, and he made that jab... It was the first time I was ever confronted with- how true it was. And I figured you had to know, and just- never brought it up."

Tony cleared his throat. "Yeah. Not that good with people, I'm afraid. Sorry to disappoint."

"That's not-" Steve took a deep breath. "I didn't want you to know, it's not something I felt- feel like sharing. You told me you didn't trust a guy without a dark side, and that's when I realized you didn't – you hadn't realized."

"But now you're telling me?" Tony clarified. He seemed confused. It wasn't a familiar look on him.

"Yeah. You said this was the endgame. Stuff needs airing."

Tony was silent for a bit. "Damn, Cap. I've always had a good chunk of screws loose, and deep down, I think I knew we all had to be a bit of a terrible mess inside, in this line of work. Figured my mess was the biggest, but now I'm starting to think I was wrong. I really- didn't expect that one."

Steve ran the back of his hand over his forehead. "You know, something I've always admired about you, Tony, is that – despite everything, no matter what happened to you, you never went- apathetic. You never lost your heart, and you've got a good one."

Tony looked like he was struggling to restrain his instinctive need to make a deflective joke. "Neither did you."

"Well," Steve mumbled with a self-deprecating laugh, "lately-"

Tony cut him off. "Cap, I don't know about you, but I've spent the last few-" He paused mid-sentence, like he wasn't sure what time-step to use. "I've been in a perpetual state of shock. Time to get to work now. No apathy involved."

Steve nodded, taking the exit he was given. "Thank you. I owe you much more than that, but – I can at least say thank you."

"Yeah, uh – same. Back at you." Tony exhaled heavily, nose twitching. "Alright, this has gotten entirely too cheesy, Rogers, tone it down." Steve laughed, and Tony got to his feet again, walked over to a different corner of the room. "C'mere. Got something for you."

Steve quirked an eyebrow and followed. Clint could barely see what they were looking at, but Tony appeared to be standing in front of a cabinet of some sort. "FRIDAY, unlock oh-four-oh-seven for me."

There was a hiss of metal sliding against itself, and new light pooling on the ground near the two men. Whatever Tony was showing him, it made Steve inhale sharply. "You like? I tried to keep with the theme, you know, righteous patriotic entitlement – I mean, virtue," he corrected teasingly. "Really, you've been in need of an update for, what, seventy-odd years?"

Cap sounded choked up when he next spoke. "Tony-"

"Ah, ah, ah, what did I just say about toning it down?"

"When did you even-"

Tony clearly didn't want to answer that question, so he talked over him. "Never been tested on the field, obviously, so I'll need feedback. That's just a prototype."

A moment of hesitant silence. "Your father said the exact same thing."

It was Tony's turn to inhale sharply. "Yeah, well," he said, sounding weaker than Clint had ever heard him. "Don't get used to it. I'm normally much wittier."

Steve huffed, they both chuckled, and Clint crawled away.

It took a few weeks for the six of them to be in the same room again for any prolonged amount of time, without an explicit reason. The Avengers weren't on bad terms, exactly – it was just hard, doing simple things that people who lived under the same roof tended to do, because it brought up stark memories of the last time they'd all lived under the same roof, and it reminded them of how fragile those memories were. It reminded them of how fragile their new-found synergy was.

So, they weren't avoiding each other. It was just that, for the most part, Steve spent his days with Tony, Bruce spent his days with Thor, and Clint spent his days with Natasha. It was easier that way, and whatever the newest members of the team thought of it, Clint was personally pretty unconcerned.

It changed like this, a random event full of unlikely variables. Steve had gotten bored of watching Tony work out equations, so he'd wandered to the common area to find a book. Natasha's ferocity had finally gotten the better of Clint during their non-stop training, so she'd dragged him to the most comfortable couch in the compound, which just happened to be in the same room. By the time she'd returned with an ice-pack for his back, Bruce had stumbled in with a steaming cup of coffee, Thor chattering his ear off about a quantum this and a geodetic that.

It took at least that long for the five of them to notice each other, and a bit longer for them to notice Danvers, Rhodes, Lang, Nebula and the racoon, sitting around a boardgame.

"You're playing Clue," Clint said, choosing to acknowledge the weirdest situation first. "You- Clue. You're playing a boardgame."

"Do you know how long it's been since I tried to frame Colonel Mustard for a murder he probably didn't commit?" Danvers asked flippantly.

Thor frowned, expressing outrage. "You would frame an innocent man for murder?"

Danvers was already opening her mouth to explain, but Bruce's interjection was faster. "Don't mind him, he damn well knows what Clue is, he's just an expert troll."

Which, of course, was the exact moment Tony chose to walk in too, a hologram hovering in front of his face and some weird metal instrument in his hand. Natasha kicked a foot stool out of his way before he could trip on it. "Rhodes, I need you to take off your shirt, I've got outdated measureme-" He blinked and the hologram vanished. Clint thought he could actually see his retinas refocusing on the current plane of existence. "Well, this place is crowded."

"Yeah, but don't let that stop you," Danvers said, and Clint started to seriously warm up to her. "Wouldn't dream of getting in the way of your work. You were talking about a striptease?"

Tony grinned. "You heard the lady, sourpatch."

"I'm off the clock," Rhodes deadpanned in return. "Try again later."

Steve was looking around critically, as though making a cost-benefit assessment. Eventually, he shrugged, headed for the couch Clint was currently splayed on, and sat down at his feet. There was, naturally, a book in his hands.

Clint exchanged a look with Natasha. She shrugged too and perched herself at his head, handing him the ice-pack. When Bruce and Thor found seats too, Tony seemed to accept this was happening – the holograms were up and running again by the time his butt hit the floor, back resting against the couch near Steve's legs.

He talked first, because he used to do that too, back in the day.

"Hey, Clint?" Tony's eyes hadn't lifted from his work.

"Yeah."

"What happened to my expensive dinnerware set, and what was that mess of broken china shards on the front lawn the other day?" Natasha shifted behind him, and Clint thought he heard Bruce hide a chuckle behind his sudden coughing fit.

Clint had to retaliate. "No idea. Thought I saw Bruce eat off one of your plates this morning."

"Yeah. There is, in fact, one left. I'm actually referring to the other fifty."

"Forty-nine," Clint corrected.

"So not helping your case, Katniss."

"… Why did you smash Tony's plates?" Steve finally intervened, sounding incredulous.

"First of all, when the six of us entered this committed relationship, I thought we agreed what was mine was yours, and yours, and yours, and yours, and yours," Clint argued, and Steve was groaning already by the second 'yours', so the glare, at the end of the sentence, wasn't entirely unexpected. "Secondly, when did we become so boring that we're discussing tableware? Honestly, let it go, this is how the romance dies."

"I dunno, this feels plenty familiar," Tony griped. "One of us doing something stupid, you being injured, Natasha mother-henning you, a solemn vigil all around your sickbed, the works."

"Fuck you, Stark," Clint complained good-naturedly. "Wasn't stupid."

"Right, I forget, you always have a perfectly valid reason. You just never feel like sharing it."

"Exactly," Clint agreed, and Nat sighed deeply.

"You know, I think that's cool that you guys made up so well after that fight," Lang piped up, leaning back on his palms. "No hard feelings, right, Mr. Stark?"

"I still don't know who you are, Scott," Tony replied in a deadpan.

"I still don't know what that fight was really about," Bruce said, exchanging a look with Thor.

"Tony took the last breakfast doughnut," Steve said, not even looking up from his book. It startled a snort out of Tony.

"Yeah," he agreed, catching on quickly and looking solemn under the room's amused gazes. "It had the red, white and blue sprinkles."

"What was I supposed to do, eat a plain one like some sort of traitor?" Steve continued, much to Tony's prolonged amusement.

"He got hangry," Tony added, which was all Steve could take before breaking down laughing himself.

Natasha crossed her arms. "Glad you can laugh about it."

Tony's head fell backwards on the couch cushions with a thump. He gave her puppy eyes. "I'm sorry, sweetie. Daddy and I promise never to fight in front of you and your brothers and sisters." She shoved a pillow on his face.

"You already did, dipshit," Clint reminded, and Tony scrunched up his nose and repurposed Natasha's pillow. Clint caught it expertly and threw it right back at him.

"That's only because Cap got a new friend and I got jealous he liked him more than me," Tony said, a tentative joke, clearly testing the waters of their new-found truce.

Steve frowned. Clint instantly tensed, and felt Natasha do the same behind him. "I- Joke, I get it, I know it's a joke, but you know it's not Bucky's fault-"

"Yes," Tony answered quickly, wincing himself. "I know, I didn't mean – I'm not blaming him, just saying he was the catalyst."

Steve frowned harder, put away his book, and Clint groaned. "He wasn't- I know I got tunnel-vision, but it's not like if he was out of the picture-"

"Boys," Natasha warned testily, but she went ignored.

Tony blinked at him. "C'mon. If it weren't for Barnes-"

"No," Steve said, head snapping up suddenly with a strange, intense gleam to his eyes. "No. Is that what you think? Everything I did for Bucky, I would do for you."

The surprise on Tony's face seemed to surprise Steve in return. It wasn't anger, or resentment, though, and they were clearly not gearing up for a fight. Clint relaxed.

Only once the mood had shifted back did he realize how tense the air in the room had become. He felt Natasha burning a hole into the back of his head and glanced back in mutual reassurance. Across the room, Rhodes blew a breath that was somewhat heavier than usual. Lang quietly settled his nervous tick.

Tony chewed on his cheek for a second. "I wouldn't have needed you to. Minute I was framed for something, I'd find all the airtight evidence in the world I needed to clear it up."

"But I'd believe you without any of it," Steve pointed out confidently.

Tony pretended not to hear him. "And the last several times someone wanted me personally dead, I didn't need anyone's help to hand their asses back over to them."

"Uh, beg pardon?" Rhodes demanded, patently offended, and willing to play his part in moving the conversation away from the previous topic. Tony winced in acknowledgement. "I knew you were working on stealth toys for War Machine, but I didn't realize you'd already managed to turn me invisible."

"You complete me so well, Platypus, half the time I just think of us as a package deal."

"Ultron," Clint reminded him, ignoring Rhodes' outrage. "Let's not forget how that one started and ended."

"And didn't Loki throw you out your own window?" Nat wondered. Steve's lips were twitching. "I distinctly remember that one, because it was the very first time you nearly died on a mission."

Tony threw his hands in the air in resignation. "Fine. I have no idea what this conversation is even about anymore, but consider me vaguely proven wrong."

"I agree with you on one count, Tony," Steve said, conciliatory. "You've never needed anyone to rescue you."

It was Tony's turn to offer up a small smile. Clint remembered a shouting match Nat had told him about, between Rhodes and Steve while they were still in Wakanda, words that had put a little faith back into their captain's expression – 'I was out there, for three months, every day – every minute that passed making it harder for me to believe – but I never gave up on him, not once, 'cause if there's one guy I trust to pull the impossible out of his ass, it's Tony Stark – you're not allowed to give up on him either, Cap'.

"Except, y'know, from the desert," Rhodes pointed out in the here-and-now present, shattering Tony and Steve's little moment. "Tony's arch-nemesis: sand. You're welcome, by the way."

"You're my raison d'être, Rhodey," Tony said dramatically, putting down his glass and leaning back on his elbows. "Couldn't live without you."

"And you'd damn well better remember it, running around with your superhero boyfriend like you've forgotten all about your humble beginnings," he grumbled back, and Tony cracked a grin.

"Do I count as a superhero?" Steve wondered.

"I deeply enjoy that that's the half of the description tripping you up," Natasha commented. "And that you instantly volunteered yourself as the person Rhodes was talking about."

"Yeah, he obviously meant the blond hottie," Tony mocked, and Thor instantly swooped down to plant a noisy kiss on his cheek. Tony grinned widely in response. "See?"

"I can't believe Fury named the bunch of you after me," Danvers grumbled, shaking her head at their antics.

"Still not buying that, by the way," Clint reminded her. "Your story's full of holes."

"First red flag was the idea Fury has a friend," Natasha agreed.

"I'm still not buying you know a guy named Fury," Rocket commented under his breath.

"Well, we know a talking racoon, so let's stop pretending you have any high ground on the suspension-of-disbelief-land," Lang said.

"I still don't know what a raccoon is," Nebula muttered.

Rhodes stared between the two groups like he was playing spot-the-difference. "We're gonna lose this again," he concluded in a monotone.

Tony's lips twitched a little, but for the sake of everyone else, he decided to pretend he was taking that a little bit seriously. "Are you kidding me – here's a bunch of people running around, calling themselves the Avengers – and some genocidal maniac goes and personally gives every single one of us something to avenge. How're we losing?" He made it sound so easy, so confident.

"Yeah, he brought Clint out of retirement," Nat agreed teasingly. "He's so fucked now."

"Why do I ever hang out with you assholes?" Clint wondered, watching everyone break down snickering around him.

Except for Steve, who was frowning very thoughtfully.

"We wouldn't be a team again without you," he seemed to realize just then, very quietly, very earnestly, nudging Clint with his elbow. No one else was listening. "If there's any way we'll win this-" The captain took a deep breath. "She's right. Even if it's a joke."

Clint quirked his eyebrows at him and took a sip of his drink, random conversations already murmuring all around him. He let it wash over him under Steve's scrutiny, half an ear on every word, building blocks in the knitting of whatever fabric teams were made of. Half an eye on every winding whirlwind.

When the time came, they were scattered, almost like in the old days. Cap on his bike, Thor and Tony zooming away in the sky, and the remaining three on a beat-up quinjet Steve had somehow kept alive for the entire duration of their collective depression. Clint was at the wheel – Nat and Bruce were sat behind him, occasionally whispering things to each other.

Everything – his mind included, his mind especially – felt clear. There was a fair amount of turbulence, but no clouds, no obstacles – just a direction and a straight line. Sometimes he glimpsed the trail of the bike down on the ground, sometimes there were glowing flashes of his flying teammates. And no one was speaking.

The silence on their frequency was almost comforting to Clint. Unfortunately, not everyone shared that opinion.

"Right," Tony made a couple of clicking noises, because even when he was out of sight, he couldn't be perceived as inert. "This is the part where we're all righteously galvanized by Captain America giving one of his speeches."

Steve made a breathy sound over their earpieces that sounded like a laugh. "Haven't felt like Captain America in a long while."

"Steve Rogers can talk too."

There was a stretch of expectant silence.

"We did a good thing," Steve said, abruptly, wavering, not at all like Captain America giving one of his speeches. "No matter- All the mistakes, all the people we couldn't help. Our fights- fight," he corrected himself, and Tony hummed over the comm. in acknowledgement. "This was a good thing."

Unexpectedly, it was Tony who picked it up from there. "I've done precious few good things in my life. Fewer still that weren't out of some selfish motivation."

"That's not true."

"Shut up, Cap, I'm trying to make a point. When I started out, I thought I'd go at it alone. Empirically speaking, solid strategy. One, people usually can't keep up with my strengths, and those strengths tend to neutralize my weaknesses rather effectively. Two – only one facing consequences for my poor decision making is me."

"Sounds lonely," Nat mumbled, and Clint wondered if she knew she wasn't hiding the edge in her voice as well as she usually did.

Bruce picked up on it too. "It does," he agreed.

"Yes, good, we've established we're all a bunch of ill-adjusted loners, thank you. Except for Clint, shithead's literally got two and a half kids and a white picket fence."

"It isn't white." Thor sounded like he was grinning. "Nor picket."

"I should paint it," Clint agreed. "When- when we're done here." He only let the lull play with the hollowness in his chest for a second. "And Stark? You're engaged."

"My point," Tony continued loudly. "My poor decision making has, as of late, been negated by your poor decision making. Apparently, that leaves us with some decisions that aren't all that poor. And they say six wrongs don't make a right."

"I'm ready for you to take charge of this speech again, Cap," Clint added.

"A good thing, Rogers," Tony reminded, a parting sentence. "Go out with a bang."

Steve murmured an 'okay' and then went silent for a long time. Clint landed the quinjet in the time it took him to think. "Okay," he said again, and cleared his throat.

"I can't think of much to say I haven't before, I've gotta be honest," he started, quietly. "I don't need to assign roles, 'cause we all know them. Don't need to tell you to push through or walk it off, you know that too. I think everything you're supposed to understand, we've been over already. So let me tell you something I understand instead.

"Being in the army, it was joining something greater than yourself. Adding to a fierce number and knowing you mattered by virtue of everyone else mattering too. That's important, but- this is – a team. Made up of individuals. That makes us matter in different ways. Irreplaceable ways. That's why we managed to do a good thing. World's gonna change after this. I know we are. Don't know how, don't care until it's over – just wanna make sure we all understand one thing. We're a team. Whatever happens, we'll be a team after, too."

"You're a real sap, Steve," Clint said, lips twitching up, walking down the jet's stairs. The wind was loud – he barely heard Nat and Bruce standing right next to him, and when they walked a couple of steps away, the gusts of winds storming all around them drowned them out entirely. His earpiece became the only way to communicate.

Tony cleared his throat. "Not to go all Toretto on you, but Ohana means family."

"Did you just reference Fast and Furious and Lilo and Stitch in the same sentence?" Bruce asked, sounding disgusted. Clint assumed it was the former that was offending his sensibilities.

"You're welcome."

"We're on the ground, people," Clint said, glancing up at the red glint of the Iron Man armor. "We gonna coalesce?"

Steve's bike roared somewhere behind him and Nat. "Put that thing down, Tony."

"That's such a mom thing to say."

"Bruce," he heard Nat say in his ear, "time for the big guy to come out?"

"He's excited," Bruce mumbled back. "Give it a second."

Tony landed and made a point to lift his faceplate to stare at them. "Are you trying to get me to crack an inappropriate joke?"

Bruce ignored him, but searched out Steve's eyes, probably for that determination he seemed to produce on demand.

"Let's do it," Cap said simply but firmly, and their giant green friendly monster finally made his entrance. Nat patted the back of one of his hands and he grinned back affectionately.

"Oh Captain, my Captain," Tony cried out, injecting an outstanding amount of obnoxious feeling into his voice. Nat snickered.

Steve turned to glare playfully at him. "You know, I'd be upset that you just turned this into a joke, if the years hadn't taught me that's just what you do whenever you're under the stress of some particularly strong feeling."

"Hey, Mr. and Mr. Marriage Counselling Case Study," Clint called, "not the time. Save it for the therapist."

"Sentiment," Thor, who'd slammed down next to Steve to clap a hand on his shoulder, said approvingly. "A good thing before glorious battle. A boost to our will, our morale, our strength."

"I swear, I will honest to god recite the rest of that fucking poem if all of you don't shut up," Tony threatened.

"Wait, it's a poem?"

Nat cleared her throat, eyeing the Hulk and their adversary in the distance. "Any further advice, boss? Maybe directions to the nearest hospital in case one of us gets a really bad paper cut?"

"We're on our own out here. Any medical assistance consists of hitting back. Trust me, adrenaline works miracles."

"There's the Captain America we all know and love," Clint praised.

Steve adjusted his shield. "Ready?"

A bunch of assenting murmurs, sobering blanket settling over them.

And then, the snappy initial bars of Queen's Another One Bites the Dust thrumming ever louder over the comms.

"Seriously?" Natasha breathed. "Seriously?"

Thor was confused. "Is this a Midgardian battle chant?"

"Damned right it is."

The Hulk was apparently not nearly as confused. "Freddie," he muttered, which would have been an hour-long distraction at any other point in time. "Dance."

"Tony," Clint chastised. "Tony. That's way too quiet. Turn it up."

Tony instantly obliged. Cap let out a strangled breath, and Clint couldn't tell if he was holding back amusement or a tongue-lashing.

Steve made sure to clear that up. "If it gets to the chorus and I'm not punching anybody, I'm gonna be in a mood. Move out."

Tony's fit of laughter drowned out the beat for a second, so he brought up the volume until it was booming directly into their eardrums, just as Freddie Mercury launched into the lyrics.

Oh, let's go.

Steve walks warily down the street…

Laura. Cooper. Nate. Lila. Lila.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Nate sniffled, waddling over so he could be picked up.

"Clint-"

"Dad, be quiet, is that Ant-Man?"

"Whatever, Captain America's got a new shield, pay attention-"

"Laura."

Laura, Cooper, Nate, Lila, Laura, Cooper, Nate, Lila, Laura, Cooper, Nate, Lila, Laura, Cooper, Nate, Lila.

In the end, Tony got married. He did the way he did most things, speedy and erratic and giving no one a dizzy chance to follow. One minute, he and May were both trying to smother the Avengers' shiny new toy to death – young, pint-sized, brown hair, brown eyes, young and excitable and full of gentle strength, his name was Peter – the next, Pepper had joined them, and Tony made a show of having a thought followed by a feeling, so he stated he'd be tying the knot now, thank you very much, and that was that, and then he produced a wide-eyed lovesick expression and looked to Pepper to wait her decision on whether that was that.

It would have looked like an impulsive jump into the abyss, the same vibe exuded by pretty much all of Tony's actions, a vibe he worked hard to nurture and display. But Clint knew, he'd known for a long time now, that when something worked much faster than normal – the ocean of thought and consideration that took any random person a long time to sort through – it worked out answers just as fast and much less dramatically. Tony's brain was one such thing. Impulsiveness was, Clint found, just a theoretical smokescreen, in Tony Stark's case.

They all – all the fighters, their desperate army, new and promising, there were so many – trudged to where Pepper Potts pointed, still wearing their battle armor and their bloodied suits and their battle faces, and marched to Tony's tune without a single complaint this time, because this one – this was an impulse for everyone else, if not for the bride and groom. Why not enjoy something warm and beautiful after crawling out from the wrong side of the sun? There were still shadows all over them, so it would turn out a tainted portrait, but that day Clint learned how to carry three children at once while holding his wife's hand for an indeterminate amount of time. Perfection wasn't all that in the first place.

"Rogers can officiate."

Steve blinked twice and exchanged a look with Barnes. He got an annoyed eyebrow twitch in return. Clint assumed it was because the man had still not been released from Steve's grip, who'd tackled a hold of him the minute they'd been reunited, and then kept it with an uncomfortable amount of diligence for someone who'd spent all day in Tony's presence. "Say again?"

"What? You look the type to be ordained, Steve."

"What even – I 'look the type'? What does the type look like?"

"I dunno, I feel like we just established this, but you, it looks like you."

Clint interrupted for the sake of keeping the whole thing appropriately emotional. "Can you officiate or not, Cap?"

There was a stubborn beat of silence, because of course there was.

"I'm assuming you're not gonna use a bible."

Bucky cleared his throat over Tony's grin. "Gotta let go of me to do it, dumbass."

"I know," Steve grit out, and he sounded so genuinely upset by it, Clint patted him on the back sympathetically. "Just get to your places."

"Hey-yo, that's an all-American order, that is."

"Do you or do you not wanna get married today, Stark?"

Steve didn't know the words, Thor said all the wrong ones, and Tony was an on-brand inappropriate sap. Rhodes took that as a pointed challenge to give the best worst best-man speech of all time, and Pepper was perfect. Tony made extensive note of that. The kid sniffled, Bruce cried, Natasha made sure everyone knew she was embarrassed for him, and someone named Happy looked happy, which didn't seem particularly noteworthy to Clint.

Because Steve was acting the gentleman and using his shield for a purpose it had explicitly not been designed for, Tony managed to dodge every projectile but one. He wasn't too happy about it. "You're an asshole, Clint, and how'd you even get your hands on rice?"

Pepper's bouquet was composed of roses and no one could say where they'd come from. Petals trailed around them, blown away by the wind every passing second. It kept whipping Laura's hair every which way too, like it couldn't get enough of her. Clint wouldn't let go either.

"Wanda."

The redhead didn't turn back to face him, so he joined her at her table. She was staring at Stark, busy in animated conversation with Vision and Steve. "You're intruding in my alone time," she said distractedly. "That's not as charismatic as it seems."

"I know. It just seems like the wrong circumstances for alone time."

Wanda broke her fixed gaze to look down and tuck two locks of hair behind her ears. "Haven't been alone the whole time. I've been with Nat, Sam and Steve all night."

Clint stretched and located Wilson easily, engaging in one of his favorite hobbies. Barnes was indulging him by returning the bickering. Nat was nowhere in sight. He flickered his eyes back over to Steve and caught him leaning over for some reason or another – his dog-tags swung conspicuously, even from a distance, and Clint had to bite back a renewed chortle when he, once again, caught sight of the appendage Steve had added to his chain.

("Oh my God," Natasha said when she'd noticed it too, expression hiding little of her mirth, for once.

"Wow."

"What?" Steve wondered, glancing down, and then flushed immediately. The dog-tags returned to the inside of his shirt. "Oh, relax about it. It's just a trinket."

"It's an Iron Man helmet. It's a tiny widdle-"

Steve had interrupted Clint by way of physical force, so Natasha took over. "Y'know, a one-worded explanation like 'Tony' would've earned you respectful nods all around."

"It's a piece of his armor," Steve explained hesitatingly. "It's carved out of a piece of Tony's armor, I meant."

"He's got a tiny Captain America shield, doesn't he?" Natasha deduced shrewdly, and Steve scowled at her in return.

"There was a bet, okay?" Steve defended himself, defensively.

"Oh, there was not," Clint called bullshit immediately.

Nat patted Steve's hand. "We all have regrets."

"I regret nothing," Steve replied firmly.)

Clint returned to the present day, shaking his head while Steve quickly made the tags disappear again. "Steve's flirting with the groom, Wilson's flirting with Barnes, and I assume Nat's flirting with Bruce. And you're sitting here by yourself."

She shifted and glared at him. "Appreciate the eye contact," he said cheerfully. "Hi. Nice seeing you." Her expression softened.

"I'm glad you're alright," she said, much more warmly. "And Laura, and the kids."

Out of nervous recent habit, Clint took that cue to sneak a look over to his wife, who seemed to be working on becoming fast friends with Pepper. She's fine, some voice boomed in his head, prompted by Clint's willpower, she's fine and no one here would let anything happen to her.

He looked back to Wanda, who'd gone back to staring at Tony. "Yeah, me too. You know, I actually missed you, kid."

She huffed, even though she was smiling a little. "You sound so surprised."

"Not surprised." He nudged her shoulder. "Trying to talk to you for the first time in-" He paused, and decided not to think about it. "You look like you've got a bee in your bonnet, though."

Wanda snorted, then broke down laughing in earnest. "I've got a what?"

Grinning, Clint vaguely gestured in the direction where he'd last seen Thor. "Don't make fun of the extent of my vocabulary. I learned it from the best."

"I'd never," she replied drily. "I have no bees or bonnets anywhere."

"And yet I hear buzzing," he singsonged.

She glared again. "It's the flies zooming around inside your skull."

"That's it, you're not allowed to hang out with Nat anymore."

"It's Stark," Wanda said abruptly, straightening in her chair. She rigidly turned to face him with her entire body, as though in the early stages of fleeing some threat. Clint glanced over to the man in question and caught him looking away with an identically closed-off expression. "Stark's the bee."

"What a revelation, never saw it coming." Clint casually shifted so his head was supported on his hand and his elbow landed on the table, some feeble barrier between Wanda and her bee. "Wanna talk about it?"

"No," she muttered, but still leaned closer, made herself smaller.

"Try again."

"Haven't we already been over this?"

"Why are you staring at him? Are you trying to get him to come talk to you, or trying to make sure he doesn't?"

"I don't- don't know. I can't stop."

"You're listening to his mental broadcast," Clint realized disapprovingly.

Wanda deflated entirely and took a deep breath. She shoved her hands under her legs because they were visibly trembling. "I can't understand – how someone so smart can do such stupid things," she sighed. "I want to understand. I hated him."

Clint nodded. "D'you still?"

Wanda shook her head mutely. "He thinks I do."

"Give it time."

"He invited me to his wedding anyway."

He squinted at her. "Getting into Tony's head is a- weird game. Not worth playing."

"I- alright," she acquiesced. "Guess I just need to get out of mine."

Clint made a noise of approval and dropped an arm around her shoulders; she leant into it with surprising enthusiasm. "Good. Let's go find some people, then, that usually does the trick."

"I'll go see if Colonel Rhodes is busy. Haven't had a lot of time to talk to him yet."

Clint nodded. Wanda snuck out from under his arm and dove into the sea of people, disappearing somewhere between Hank Pym and an alien Clint had been informed was called Mantis. He'd have kept an eye on her, but his attention was diverted by someone moving conspicuously behind him.

"Is she alright?"

Clint found himself smiling involuntarily. "Eh. That's a pointless question anyway."

Laura commandeered Wanda's chair but dragged it closer, so she could sneak her arm inside his elbow and curl her fingers into his. It still felt, after all this time, like a soothing breeze on a hot day. He didn't know if the feeling of perpetual panic in his chest would ever truly go away, but at least Laura seemed to be his own personal cure. "I don't ask pointless questions."

He squeezed her hand. "Where's Pepper?"

"May needed to talk to her. Apparently, Thor's hydrating a kid with Asgardian alcohol. Not one of ours," she assured, which was fair. "Ours have been recruited to be Cassie's minions."

Clint blinked at her twice and decided May and Pepper would have it handled better than he ever could. He also decided against admitting he had no idea who Cassie was, in case she'd been introduced to him while he should have been paying attention. His attempt to find Thor in the crowd failed. "Pikachu's more of a distant acquaintance than anything," he tried, and Laura hummed amusedly.

"Right, that is the impression I got. How distant, exactly?" she teased casually, and it took him a second to understand the question was a test. His gaze returned to search her face. "I figured all Avengers made some sort of blood oath. Does it have an expiration date?"

This was the first time she'd brought up his retirement since she'd been back, even though Clint could tell it was roiling around loudly in her mind. He didn't have to answer. She'd made the question flippant, and allowed him a deflective way out.

"I've promised you I was done before," he mused. Laura tensed against his arm. "I'm going to try showing it this time," he vowed.

It wasn't all that different. Still just words, and his only corroborating evidence was the passage of time. When Laura gave him her familiar shaky smile, it was still full of the same insecurities. Deep down, they both knew he was too.

Clint's choice was either keep trying, or break something he wanted whole. And the last time he'd been done trying, the world had cracked and blown away all around him.

"I think we'll be alright," Laura murmured, "so long as this-" she lifted their joined hands and let them drop again – "still matters the most to you."

He pulled her closer and buried his nose in her hair.

Clint visited the Avengers Compound on Official Business exactly three weeks and three days later. There was supposed to be a meeting, but he had yet to find out how a person would go about engineering a conference for an amount of collectively brazen people in the upper range of the dozens, all in that short amount of time. Tony had only vaguely claimed Pepper would have it taken care of. Probably because that claim satisfied everyone enough to stop asking questions.

He didn't bring his family, because it was a cold day outside. The weather in Clint's worlds changed at the drop of a hat, and he preferred to keep Laura in the one that was always warm.

It was crowded when he got there. He wasn't even all that late. Avengers' parties with high attendance rates were usually the sort that happened near the end of the world, so Clint nodded at Nat and disappeared into the vents, found himself tracing a familiar path down to Tony's shop.

"Come on down, Mission Impossible. Before FRIDAY thinks we have a rat infestation."

Clint blinked at the end of his nest, where there should be a metal gridlock. Tony was peering up at him instead. "How'd you know?"

"You really think my compound's ductwork is some sort of security blind-spot? You're lucky I built it with your continued anatomical integrity in mind. No, seriously, how do you not get covered in dust in there? Are there spiders?"

Clint dropped down and pretended to be completely unfazed. "Why're you here? Party's upstairs."

Tony was already turning his back on him, waving what was clearly a dangerously heated soldering iron around. Seemed like a safety hazard to Clint, but it wasn't like he was the mechanical engineer. "Pass. You know me, all retired from that scene."

"You can't pass. Steve'll kill you."

"I'm immortal."

"Nat will kill you."

"I was gonna go up, jeez, I'm only finishing up here. It's- loud. They're loud."

Clint nodded. "But not in a bad way."

"No," Tony agreed. The wind was a bit chilly for May, but at least the world wasn't ending.

The conversation was over, so Clint took a look at whatever Tony was fiddling with instead. This was the extent of Tony's involvement with the Avengers; ever since Thanos, his perspective had been permanently set, Clint knew, because it was the same realignment of priorities Clint had gone through himself.

Family, they'd both decided, for good. It was easier, these days, to find common ground with Tony Stark than any of the rest of his teammates.

At the moment, there was a hologram of Spider-Man's metal suit gyrating on Tony's table. That made a lot of sense to Clint too.

"Adding a couple hundred more webshooter combos to the kid's gear?" he threw out provocatively, perching himself on the first surface he found looked sufficiently clear. "Have you tried making Christmas-themed web-shapes?"

"In the spring? It's the middle of May," Tony protested, rummaging around the mess of one of his drawers for, apparently, a pencil with a broken tip. Then he tried searching for the packet of blueberries he'd left near where Clint was currently sitting, only to find he was already munching on them. "How the hell did you open that?"

"Kids like Christmas," Clint pointed out over the fruit, and downed another handful. Tony looked appalled, and snatched the packet back. "Were you gonna use a pencil to rip it open? You make me sad."

"It's May," Tony repeated, chewing on his prize. "And you opened it with your teeth, were you raised in a barn?"

"In a circus. Kids like Christmas," Clint repeated, and he was about to keep going over Tony's choked 'what do you mean, in a circus?!' – either to demand blueberries or to further challenge Tony's assertions – but he got interrupted by FRIDAY.

"Boss, Karen's watchdog alert protocol has been triggered due to constraint violations directly following a fight."

Tony's head snapped up so fast Clint almost reached for his bow. "Which parameters are out of bounds?"

The blueberries were carelessly thrown onto the counter, and Clint followed the mechanic to what was clearly his main terminal. The good mood he'd been in two minutes ago seemed gone – like someone had opened a window and the warmth had rushed out. Tony looked like some weird switch had been flipped in his brain as well – and, considering their last disaster was barely a month old, Clint sort of understood why.

"Peek-a-boo constraint, medusa constraint, monkey-bars constraint, stage-fright constraint."

"You know, the problem with coding all sorts of stupid names into my stuff is that I never remember what the hell it all means by the time the hour's up," Tony griped. "Heartrate?"

"Slightly elevated, but within normal range."

"Karen can't get a word out of him?"

"She is muted."

"Mute- the hell, kid?" Tony muttered, and then, to Clint's panic, turned to face him, as though expecting something.

"Where is he?" he reminded, trying to keep track of what was happening. "Location, Stark."

"FRI?" he called dutifully.

"Flight trajectory calculated to Queens."

"Yeah, okay," Tony muttered, and then did something worse – he made a display pop up, discrete and embedded into the floor, holding a single item: his old particle container. The thing he used to carry around in his chest, and which was, by all appearances, completely detachable.

It was there for emergencies, but Clint knew Tony hadn't expected this particular contingency to be tested so soon after the thing they didn't talk about. Clint didn't know Peter – only a name, associated with a bizarre set of virtues and vices. Mostly virtues. To hear Tony tell it, no vices at all. He couldn't assess the situation with the appropriate level of informed detachment and say whether this was that sort of emergency. Clearly, neither could Tony.

But he did know that opening the pandora's box – somewhat literally – would be a mistake. Maybe he didn't want to look in the mirror either, see how easy it was to fall off the wagon.

So Clint cleared his throat. "You don't need the suit. I'm your muscle. C'mon, I'll drive."

Tony blinked at him twice, then stood up in a blur. "I'll drive faster."

Tony drove faster.

FRIDAY led them to a secluded alleyway were there was barely any air circulation, let alone pedestrian circulation. Clint forced Tony to keep to the shadows, crawling around a very old building to find what they were looking for.

At this point, Clint made an executive decision – he halted Tony several steps away from the kid's field of vision and pressed a finger to his own lips. He wanted to listen. To his surprise, Tony seemed too taken aback by the scene to not comply.

Peter Parker was hanging upside down, dangling from a web safely stuck to the several-story building next to him. His mask was off, which brought a worried frown to Tony's face, probably because there was a girl right in front of him, at eye level. They seemed to be in a staring contest.

"What exactly are you waiting for?" the girl asked, sounding bored.

Peter scrunched up his nose, obtrusively forcing an air of nonchalance onto himself. "Waiting for you."

There was no reply, and they went right back to the staring contest. Clint and Tony exchanged a bewildered look.

"Y'know, this is awfully cowardly of a superhero," she told him breezily. "I'm underwhelmed so far."

Peter made a petulant face. Clint could imagine him crossing his arms. "I did my bit. It's your turn. Gratitude and all, MJ, really, it's about manners."

"Excuse you?" MJ sounded frosty, and now Peter's face betrayed a small amount of nervousness. He broke eye contact and fidgeted. "That's what I thought. You have five seconds to decide whether you want a broken nose or a kiss out of this situation."

They were arguing. About who was going to kiss who. Tony came to the same realization at the same time, and suddenly threw out a hand to clutch forcefully at Clint's shoulder. Whether for support or to ground himself so he wouldn't break down snickering, Clint didn't know. What he did know was that they were definitely not leaving now.

"I just saved your life!"

"Completely debatable without knowing exactly how the situation would have evolved without your interference."

Peter huffed at her. "Oh, I'll make sure to let it play out next time, trust me."

"No, you won't."

"No, I won't," he replied, sounding defeated.

"I'm not budging. Make a move, Spider-Baby," she informed him.

"I'm hanging here-"

"Yeah, you do that. Makes you look incredibly dumb."

"-Hardly have the range of movement- Okay, you know what, that's mean-" Tony inhaled so sharply, Clint thought they were getting found out. Fortunately, the two teenagers had their hearing impaired by being too involved in their difference of opinions.

"It's a miracle I'm even still standing here."

"-Really, it's awfully selfish of you to expect me to-"

MJ was looking increasingly impatient, crossing her arms. Tony was looking increasingly gleeful. Clint was increasingly certain there'd be at least ten different angles of this scene safely stored in twenty different servers by the time it was over.

He couldn't see the girl's face, but he could see her next move. She lifted a single finger, aimed it at Peter's forehead, and pushed lightly. He swung back briefly, eyes widening, and then toward her in a distinct trajectory. By the time he was kissing her, MJ had both hands holding his face.

Clint stared. Tony went red beside him from trying to contain his laughter. The kids were still smooching and Clint was starting to feel weird.

"Stark, your kid's girl is smooth," he said, announcing their presence rather loudly.

Tony stopped restraining himself then, and Peter definitely recognized who the obnoxious cackling belonged to. The kid screeched and dropped from his web, redder than a tomato. Clint began to worry whether Tony was ever going to be able to catch his breath, watching him place both hands on his knees.

MJ stared down for several seconds at the boy she'd been kissing, clearly deeply disappointed. He merely blinked up at her, but Clint doubted the dazed look on his face had anything to do with having dropped on his head.

MJ then turned to the two adults around, and Clint felt the inexplicable urge to take a step back. Tony even sobered up somewhat.

"It's extremely weird you didn't leave, like, five minutes ago," she informed them.

"Don't high-road me, DJ, I hope you're not forgetting what I just witnessed. It takes two to argue about- kissing." Tony couldn't finish that sentence without breaking down giggling all over again.

"You think it takes that much effort to high-road a billionaire weapons manufacturer?"

Tony gasped. "Low blow. That's a past life of mine."

Peter had regained his speech faculties, and just in time too. "They've been here for five minutes?"

"She exaggerates," Tony said generously, and, from the way the blood drained from the boy's face, that's when Peter noticed his breathtaking grin. "I taught you better than this, kid. Can't believe you wouldn't even lift a finger for the girl." Now it was Clint who couldn't help but snort.

"Oh no."

Tony made sure to reassure him his worst suspicions were completely founded. "Don't worry, I'll edit this dramatically before I circulate it on the appropriate channels."

"WhatsApp isn't an appropriate channel."

"That's the first time you've ever said that to me."

MJ was entirely uninterested in the whole thing, and turned back to Peter. "Why wouldn't you know they were there? I thought you sensed these things."

"I was distracted-"

That set Tony off all over again. "Range of movement," he repeated in-between wheezing, "I will never let you live this down."

MJ whistled loudly with a severe look on her face, diverting everyone's attention from Peter's misery. "Alright, time for the old dudes creeping on a couple of kids making out to beat it."

Peter choked on thin air at the words 'making out', and so did Tony, for entirely different reasons.

"Pete, when you two get married, I'm giving you away at the altar," he announced seriously. "Have fun but be safe, pumpkin!" he added in an obnoxiously high-pitched tone. Then he dragged Clint away.

They made it all the way back to the car before Clint couldn't hold it in anymore.

"So, you might – uh – you might wanna slightly relax at least some of those bells and whistles you've got on the kid. For his sake." He was trying very hard to keep a straight face. Tony would be able to tell he was being mocked anyway.

To Clint's shock, the only reaction he got was an explosive huff of laughter. When the car silently zoomed to a stop right in front of them, Tony practically skipped inside. It put a smile on Clint's face.

He curled his shoulders inward, snuggled further into his jacket, and shuffled in as well. The wind was a bit chilly for May, but the world wasn't ending.

"And where have the two of you been?" Natasha demanded as soon as they walked back into the compound. She greeted them at the literal gate, and her glare was focused on Tony, probably because she made empirical assumptions and blamed him. "Without even telling anyone or answering calls?"

"Emergency," Clint justified, at the same time Tony flippantly threw out "date night."

Tony eyed Clint disappointedly while dancing around the assassin in order to get inside. "All date nights are emergencies, sweet cheeks."

Natasha slapped the back of Clint's head, which he thought was rather unfair, since Tony was closer, and followed the billionaire through the entrance. Clint did too. "You swore no interruptions. Do you remember all the effort we went through to set up this meeting? The amount of people with insane lives and schedules-"

"All the effort Pepper went through," Tony corrected, inching away from them ever faster, like he was trying to drop a tail, or, more accurately, like he was trying to avoid Natasha when she was pissed off. "And I know for a fact that The Royal Prince of Bel'Wakanda isn't here yet, so chill out."

"You know for a fact?"

Tony spun around and stopped in front of the conference room where Clint assumed everyone was gathered. He clapped his hands and squinted at Nat like he was about to say something very obvious. "FRIDAY would have warned me about his little sister absolutely tearing through her firewalls before bravely and honorably going down on the battlefield."

"Get inside so I don't kick your ass."

Clint didn't wait to see if Tony would follow his lead in taking Nat's very sound advice.

They were meeting in the communal area, which made sense, considering the amount of people they were supposed to pack in there. The furniture had disappeared, replaced with seats and a scattering of tables, rolling trays of drinks carrying diverse arrays of bottles and several coffee makers. The room was half full already; Wanda was tucked away to a corner with Vision and Barnes, who was clearly trying to keep his existence on the downlow as much as possible.

Scott was there too, politely refraining from making himself heard under the watchful eye of his partner, who Clint vaguely remembered from the wedding. Strange was off to the side by himself, looking bored and like he was contemplating apparating away with increasing volition. Clint saw Wilson too, mid-conversation with Rhodes, both of them hovering around Steve, who looked up at their entrance.

"You're late," Cap said, echoing Nat in that way that meant they'd been bonding over their mutual love for inflexible schedules.

"And it's absolutely lovely to see you again as well, Steve, how are you doing?" Tony replied politely, speaking over Steve's protests that they saw each other practically every day, including that very morning, and pouring himself one of his rich-people drinks only he and Strange ever seemed to know anything about. "You can skip the lecture, Nat's got it covered."

"I don't lecture anymore, I'm retired. I was just pointing out your tendency for tardiness, wh-"

"Sounds like a lecture to me," Clint interrupted to point out.

The object of Steve's criticisms hummed in response, fishing ice cubes for his drink. "Retired from one of your two dimensions? Is that even constitutional?"

"You've no idea what Tony's idea of late is," Rhodey muttered. His best friend blew him a kiss. "This is early."

"Why am I here?" Bruce lamented, and Nat exchanged a long-suffering look with him. "Why are any of us here?"

"I've made a grave mistake," Strange agreed, a deep frown on his face. "I will hasten to correct it."

He had his sizzling circumference of orangey magic up and running by the time Tony grabbed his cloak and shoved a tumbler into his hands. He stared at the alcohol in pensive silence for a considerable amount of time, and then made the portal vanish, doing away with a significant portion of his serving in one go.

Wizard detour averted, Tony poured himself a drink too, and then turned to face Bruce. "'Cause Ross yada-yada-ed some legal stuff to me that everyone needs to get on board with, and last time I tried to formalize something involving the Avengers, we ended up doing a civil war reenactment, only without the slavery. I thought it only fair that everyone got to participate this time, in the unl-" Tony cut himself off and started over thoughtfully. "In the likely event that this is a prelude to the sequel."

"If we're doing teams, I'm on my own," Strange announced.

"First off, no one's getting into any fights during this meeting," Steve stated firmly. He spoke over Rhodey's 'then why am I here?', but did so with a renewed pinched expression. "Second, the team lineup's going through a major shakeup and we need to get everyone on the same page. So, yes, formalize it."

"But cabinet members aren't invited, though," Clint pitched in, mostly just to cause a reaction. "Party for cool kids only?"

Steve went silent and Tony squared his shoulders. "Right. That's for Tony to sort out later, because – and please repeat after me – Tony's an angel and we don't deserve him."

Thor scratched his chin. "Angels don't speak of themselves in the third person. Their most abhorred quality is narcissism."

"Serious holes in Tony's story, then," Rhodey posited. Bruce nodded somberly in agreement.

"Moving on right past that," Wilson said, the only one brave enough to try and break the stares Thor had attracted from most of the room, "who exactly is gonna be in charge of mak-"

"Mr. Stark," a young voice called from somewhere in the direction of the door, making Wilson shut up and everyone else redirect their gaze, "I want you to know I hate you forever now."

Tony smirked and Clint leaned against the wall to watch Peter make his entrance. Nat stared at the two of them, taking note of those reactions. "Who-"

Peter's tidy mop of brown hair peeked around the corner and she cut herself off. He was no longer sporting the red and blue spandex, distractedly fiddling with his phone in washed-out jeans and a cheesy t-shirt. "We need to have a serious conversation about privacy and boundaries-"

Peter choked on his own words when he looked up and realized he'd walked into a room far more crowded than he'd expected. The naked shock and awe on the kid's face was obviously entertaining Tony, who pulled him further inside the room with little resistance.

"Oh my god, I was unironically lecturing Iron Man in front of all the Avengers. I mean- hi."

Most of the aforementioned Avengers became amused at that, but Steve stared at Peter for a few seconds, brain slugging through some realization. His eyes brightened when he reached it. "Queens," he greeted teasingly.

Peter's cheeks went pink, but he grinned back and responded in kind. "Brooklyn."

"Right. Places were named, inside jokes were traded. Mutual admiration confirmed," Tony interjected, waving Steve away and casually dropping an arm over the kid's shoulders. "That's enough of that." Steve merely arched an eyebrow and turned away to rummage the extensive array of displayed beverages for something, making a show of settling in.

"I feel disadvantaged here," Nat said slowly, directing pointed looks at Tony, Clint and Steve. "Which puts me way out of my comfort zone. Who is this kid, exactly?"

Steve seemed surprised by that. So was Clint. "You don't know? He was at the wedding."

Bruce frowned at Peter, who seemed to be struggling to keep his mouth shut but just uncomfortable enough to push through it. "I know his face is familiar."

"Seriously?" Tony snorted. "How drunk were all of you?"

Nat stared at him. She seemed confused. Frankly, so was Clint. Nat didn't not remember things. And she definitely never got confused. "I must have been distracted," she finally said, which made Bruce twitch next to her, and all confusion was instantly settled in Clint's mind.

"Sometimes, I wonder how there is still a planet spinning, on which we are all still alive," Strange commented. "And then I remember the amount of failed attempts to save it that I had to comb through until I found one where you people finally showed a modicum of competence."

"Peter doesn't call attention to himself," Thor offered, ignoring the wizard like everyone else, and now Nat looked genuinely insulted that Strange and Thor remembered the kid too. "And there were a lot of people at the wedding. With plenty to occupy their minds."

Which was fair. Steve was still not looking convinced, but only because that was a character trait of his. He glanced at Rhodes, who looked baffled. Vision was expressionless. "He was with you in Germany too," he reminded.

A lightbulb went off over everyone's heads. "The spider-themed little shit?" Wilson gaped. Peter was reddening further at a steady pace. "He's twelve!"

Tony snickered shamelessly, and Peter glared at him, apparently finding his irritation again. Clint saw it downing on him that he was not getting any backup in this situation.

"You know, Mr. Stark, on my way here, I thought the worst, worst case scenario would be you emulating a Captain America PSA, but I clearly don't have a good enough imagination," Peter deadpanned, obscenely snarky.

Steve choked on a cup of soda. Tony turned to him slowly, brain visibly working out the connection between Peter's words, Cap's reaction, and all the implications.

Bucky did the honors, driven by malicious curiosity to speak up for the first time. "What's a Captain America PSA?"

Steve was avoiding everyone's gazes. In the background of the developing scene, Strange downed the rest of his drink and muttered 'no', followed by an audible full stop. Clint swore he saw him make a lifeless clone of himself right before walking through one of his portals.

"Alright, I hate to say it, but goatee Harry Potter might have a point," Tony said regretfully. "Table this discussion for later, kid, would you? There's already been enough mind-blowing revelations for one day."

Peter instantly flushed ten shades darker at that, and escaped Tony's arm with a renewed scowl. "There wouldn't have been revelations if you hadn't decided to invade my privacy."

"I know, close one, huh? I really need to give May a call later."

Peter huffed. Nat latched onto the least relevant detail and arched her eyebrows. "I thought you were out on a date?"

"I never said it was my date," Tony shot back smoothly, over Peter's sputtering. Nat didn't seem to have any retort for that. "Alright, let's put a pin in this. I need to go grab a wizard, not in the fun way," he sighed, poking Strange's magic illusion. It promptly vanished.

"No, you're not leaving again," Natasha said immediately, slipping her coat off a rack in the corner. "I'll go."

"How are you planning to make him do what you sa- Never mind, good luck with that," he said hastily, watching her produce a scarily large knife out of nowhere to cut a loose thread off the hem of one of the coat's sleeves.

The knife disappeared again just as mysteriously, and she put the coat on. "I'm taking your car."

"Of course you are."

"That lady is scary," Scott piped up for the first time, as soon as Nat was out of earshot. "I wanna be on her side this time around."

"We're not fighting again," Steve repeated exasperatedly.

"No, but seriously, how many teams? Dibs on Rhodey and the kid."

The boring legal meeting turned into a noteworthy dinner party, later, mostly due to the attendance. Tony and Steve didn't hash out their pre-resolved issues for very long, and by the time Thor was dishing out the last of his surprising diplomatic insight, even Natasha was beginning to lose interest. At some point, Bruce called for a vote, but Clint just voted with Wanda, who probably voted with Vision, and refused to think of it further.

No one seemed interested in leaving early, and Tony was gracious enough to provide catering for the impromptu feast, under no official duress from Natasha or Steve. As soon as the formal tone dissipated, people scattered – Clint was fairly certain Quill and his grey friend had disappeared out the door at some point, and hoped Tony had FRIDAY fully up and running again, after T'Challa's arrival.

(Tony presented both royals with coffee as the door swung closed behind their guard.

"'Sup, T'Challa," he greeted dismissively, already turning to the teenage girl in his company and bowing deeply. "Princess, it is lovely to meet you again. Thanks for driving my AI nuts on your way in." He presented a hand as though asking for hers, and Shuri complied with a grin. He kissed her fingers and straightened to meet T'Challa's unimpressed gaze.

"Brother, we should come to America more often," Shuri said before her brother could open his mouth. "They still have some white boys who aren't broken beyond repair."

"I will roll out a feast for you even if you show up at three am," Tony promised her with feeling.

T'Challa rolled his eyes. "I have already told her I'd allow a few extra hours for your lab playdate. You can stop groveling, both of you."

"Who was groveling?"

"I don't recall any groveling.")

It didn't help that alcohol had been made readily available.

Barnes was ten times more relaxed than he'd been at the start of the meeting, to the point Clint hoped someone hadn't used drugs as a problem-solver. Shuri had taken a liking to Peter, and that worked for him, since he seemed to take a liking to everyone. They were hunched over some gizmo of hers, watching something that was – Clint would take their word for it – highly entertaining.

Natasha was being uncharacteristically expressive, which could only mean she was trying to induce Bruce into getting a clue. For his part, Bruce was, by all accounts, obliviously enjoying the attention, which could only mean he'd gotten the clue when she'd first sidled up to him an hour ago. Somehow, this was not the weirdest social interaction going on in the room, because Tony and Bucky had clearly chosen Nat and Bruce's ineptitude as the perfect bonding opportunity. Steve had been silently gaping at their shared snickering for twenty minutes, while they both largely ignored him.

"Look at them. He's playing hard to get."

"Is that what that is? I figured he was – just really that excited about anti-electron collisions. I will say, he can change the subject like nobody else."

"She's not all that better. Black Widow I've heard of's supposed to be the type to eat him alive."

"Pun-like invocation to her name not intended."

Bucky seemed to swallow back a chuckle. "Point is, thought she was supposed to be all tough and smooth."

"The toughest. The smoothest. Can't you tell?"

Snort. "And him, God, he reminds me of this punk from Brooklyn-" Tony's subdued amusement evolved into a full-on fit of laughter, and Steve broke out of his stupor long enough to yelp indignantly. "Only he hasn't got the pint-sized excuse to be that hopeless-"

Tony sputtered, Steve sputtered, and Bucky kept his grin steady and charming and effective.

("And what about Barnes?" T'Challa had interjected earlier, unexpectedly, immediately installing an uncomfortable silence across the room. "Oh, my apologies. I forgot we were ignoring the elephant in the room."

"Weird thing to forget," Tony managed to get out. Barnes kept pointedly staring at the ground, eerily still and silent.

"Wakanda will, of course, continue to extend its offer of sanctuary," T'Challa added, ignoring him. "If need be. He is no longer in need of our medical attention, however. What is his status here?"

Tony leaned forward to plop an elbow on the table and a hand under his chin. "Sanctuary from what? Me or the US government?"

"Tony," Steve warned, but Bucky looked up at that, eyes set firmly on the billionaire.

"I don't need-"

"Shh, we're not asking you," Tony dismissed. Steve gave him a disapproving look, so he rolled his eyes and leaned back again. "Fine. Relax, T-one-thousand. Your life partner and I buried the- shield, if you will, while you were busy not existing. I even agreed to stop calling you orphan-maker. Okay, last time, I swear," he added hastily, holding his hands up against Steve's glower.

"I'm sorry," Barnes said in response, somewhat unexpectedly, fully straightforward and stoic. "About- Siberia. I'm sorry."

"You don't- About that. I'm the one who- I owe you an apology," Tony ground out. "Steve thought it'd be best with witnesses and everything."

"Did not," Steve protested instantly. "T'Challa brought it up, I have full confidence in both of yo-"

"So," Tony carried on, ignoring him, "I say 'sorry', you pretend that's a sufficient white flag after- y'know, the attempt of murder, and I stop- attempting murder. Sound good?"

Bucky looked from him to Steve, back to him and then Steve again. "You're kidding, right? He's kidding?"

Tony sighed. "Yeah, listen, we all hate ourselves, you're not special. Deal with your self-loathing on your own time, my turn now."

"He's not kidding," Steve clarified.

Bucky squared his shoulders in the ensuing silence. "If you're not trying to kill me anymore, that sounds like a step-up to me."

Wilson shook his head in disbelief. "You all need therapy, but that's a burden I refuse to bear."

Tony ignored him, nodding at Bucky with a grin. "Glass half-full kind of guy, I like it."

"Just like that?" Peter blurted out, probably the only one who might get away with it.

Tony shrugged at him, which was apparently an answer to the kid. "I'll build him a doghouse. He can even graze on the lawn outside."

"It's probably better if I just find my own place and- come by as needed."

Tony shrugged again, an unreadable look on his face. "Suit yourself.")

When they were all sufficiently buzzed, energy dwindling, Clint found himself sitting with Tony and Thor at one of the window-side tables, getting increasingly drunk at a rate he was increasingly unable to keep up with. Bruce and Nat didn't seem to want anyone else's company, so they were sitting at the bar, talking in hushed whispers. Barnes had clearly had enough of social interaction, and Steve was mingling with decreasing enthusiasm. Right up until he spotted them.

"Heads up, boss incoming," Clint announced, proud of the lack of slur.

Cap was fast on approach. "I heard that. Not your boss anymore."

Tony eyed Steve warily as he pulled up a chair. "Saw you striking up a thoughtful chat with the kid. That earnest frown you're wearing doesn't lie. E-mail me the lecture you've prepared about pint-sized pretend-vigilantes, I'm in too good a mood right now."

Steve folded his hands neatly, leaning over the table. "Just as well. I'm still working out the index table and references."

Tony relaxed at the complete lack of judgement in Steve's light tone. His discernment was clearly not as impaired as it should be. "Don't forget to annex Captain-America-is-concerned-and-disappointed selfies."

"I never do."

Clint concluded neither of them were interested in so much as a minor argument at the moment. Unfortunately, Tony had never met a loose thread he didn't want to obsessively pick at.

"You seriously don't have a single thing to say about that? Not even a little polite reminder of his age or something? C'mon, you know you can't resist the polite reminders."

Steve was laughing. "Do you know how old I was when I first tried to enlist? This isn't a war, which should be taken into account, but- I get it."

There was a beat of silence. "That was a polite reminder," Tony concluded resolutely, and Steve shoved at his arm.

"I like the boy," Thor said approvingly, at which point Peter officially became the topic of their conversation. "Courageous, fair judgement, a fearsome warrior."

Tony scoffed. "To the point of recklessness to the first, not at all to the second, and as for the third, he has his days."

"You were practically blubbering over him a while back," Clint pointed out, which earned him the few remaining drops of Tony's drink to his face. "Can't fake-tough it up now."

"Blubbering?" Steve repeated, amused.

Clint was beginning to realize he was drunk. "We bonded over dead kids, you know how it is."

That would have soured the mood were they even a drop soberer. Instead, Tony just groaned and reached for the nearest bottle. Steve, having not touched alcohol all night, looked slightly more disturbed. "I didn't realize you were that close."

Tony knocked back another glass and exhaled heavily. "Yes, you did. But it was hard enough to handle your own misery."

Steve's fingers twitched like he wanted something alcoholic too. To Clint's relief, he changed the subject instead; he wasn't sure adding gloomy Captain America to this rapidly spiraling back-and-forth would help matters any. "Peter said he's enhanced. Most of his powers have nothing to do with the suit you made him."

"He was being modest," Tony replied. "None of his powers have anything to do with the suit. It's mostly bells and whistles plus a mask."

Clint thought for a second, then stared at him. "The webbing actually comes out of him?"

Tony pursed his lips. "Okay, not that modest. He still designed the triggers, synthesized that stuff himself, though. I didn't mess with it one bit, no idea how it works."

Steve and Clint exchanged a grin. "Careful, if you sound too proud, we might start thinking you care about him or something."

"Y'know, my drink is a lot fuller right now than the last time I threw it in your face, like, three minutes ago."

Thor clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder. "It's a good thing. The boy needs a mentor, you are best suited for it. Besides, even if you doubt yourself like you usually do, you've had plenty of evidence he's become a better Avenger for your influence."

Clint, Steve and Tony stared at him for several seconds. "Buddy, I'm starting to think we've been unfairly stifling your surprising insights. You should speak up more often."

Thor hummed. "You're all very smart people. I save the insights for when they're needed."

"I think that's condescension. Clint, please crack open a new bottle."

"The kid also said the first contact he had with you was the day we, uh- met in Germany." Steve said, eyeing the generous way Tony was pouring.

"Needed the backup. You bite louder than you bark. I was patriotically forced to bring him in."

"But it wasn't the first you'd heard of him."

Tony leaned back and shrugged. "Course not. Had a suit ready for him, didn't I?"

"So why not introduce him to the team earlier?"

"He was a fourteen-year-old, Steve."

"But you had the suit ready."

"He was an impressive fourteen-year-old."

"So, making that suit, that was an impulsive decision?"

"He was going out in a onesie-"

"Nah, Tony doesn't do impulsive," Clint said, yawning. Thor drank from his flask, and Tony tilted his head. "Not really."

"If that's really your opinion, then you and Rhodey have spent years missing out on a giant opportunity for a lively debate between starkly opposing viewpoints."

"No, Clint's right," Steve agreed. "I think you were auditioning for your spot on the team, and Spider-Man was your top candidate. I just- really moved up your time-table."

"Yeah, but only in that way where I never would have ended up going through with it," Tony countered. "Leaving, I mean. Quod erat demonstrandum."

"You think you'll go back on your decision to quit the team?" Thor questioned, and Tony only hesitated for a very brief moment.

"I think that, back then, it was inevitable that I would have gone back on that decision. I also think that, right now, I've got my priorities in order."

"Still, he made an impact. You were all set. What was the suit even missing when you and I had our- political disagreement?"

"His web-shooters," Tony admitted, smiling.

Steve laughed. "Never seen you this drunk, aren't you affectionate. I think I'm gonna cry."

"I'll help," Tony replied, kicking Cap's chair under the table, which earned him absolutely no response. "I'll get the enhanced child to help."

"What are his enhancements, anyway?" Thor wondered thoughtfully. "I assume strength, speed-"

"He sticks to walls and is apparently pretty good about blood rushing to his head, considering his affinity for walking on the ceiling."

"Metabolism, then," Clint inferred.

Tony saluted him. "Duh."

"How strong?" Steve asked, frowning.

"He outdoes you," Tony needled. "At least five-fold," he added, now with a grin on his face.

"I guessed as much," Steve said back equally dramatically, lips tugging briefly. "He and I played tug-of-war for a bit, back in Germany. He's green, but you could tell he packs a punch."

"Well, at the time, I was fresh out of supersoldiers and superspies to show him the ropes. Currently, I'm just- out," he hinted back conspicuously. Clint's brows arched.

Steve rubbed his chin. "Are you making me a job offer, Tony?"

"Yes, I'd like you to homeschool a teenager," Tony deadpanned. "No, I'm saying – come by twice a week, knock him around for a few hours until he starts knocking back. If you want, you can knock some other people around too, whenever he calls a timeout."

"And – how is that different from what I said, exactly?"

"Eat it, Rogers. It's different because I have a carefully curated self-image to maintain."

"So, I can have my room back, then."

"It's like I've been having you sleep on the street or something, the way you're talking. Besides, I thought you wanted to move back to Brooklyn with Sirius Black over there?"

"What happened to staying away?" Clint interrupted before Steve could ask what a Sirius Black was, drawing Tony's attention. "Thought you were avoiding ties to this place."

"I'm staying away. Doesn't mean he has to," Tony explained, gesturing toward Cap. "As for my ties, well, I technically still own the keys to the castle. Someone has to make sure it runs, even from a distance. Which is what I'm planning on doing."

Clint pulled a face at him. "You're micromanaging. Meaning, you're not really leaving."

"I'm really leaving-"

"It's only about the boy. Haven't we established that?" Thor scoffed. "Tony's- mentoring."

Tony squinted. "… Not an unreasonable conclusion."

"Fair enough," Clint acquiesced, assuaged.

"Why this kid?" Steve asked. "Why're you investing so much on him?"

Tony shifted, poured himself another glass. "He's the future. That's what I do."

Steve nodded slowly. "Future looks good." Tony spared him a flashing glance, which Clint interpreted as gratefulness.

"Or, y'know, he just cares about him," Clint said, shrugging.

"Not mutually exclusive. Also, if I really, really cared, I'd minimize his exposure to unseemly company, which this room's full of."

Thor and Clint laughed, but Steve had better self-control. "You asked Nat to keep an eye on him." He shrugged at the look of shock on Tony's face. "I have good ears."

"You actually asked her?" Clint said, amusement doubling. "And she agreed?"

"Wasn't that hard a sell, trust me. And his aunt was very insistent on the rules for the only teenager invited to this- gathering."

"Why don't you keep an eye on him yourself?" Steve said.

"'Cause I'm getting plastered, and his aunt was very insistent on the rules for the only-"

"Got it!"

"This is a good thing," Thor declared. "You have trouble trusting people. Caring for people," he frowned darkly for a brief moment, and Clint was sure he'd gone somewhere else, thought of someone else. "The boy will do you good."

"Well, so long as it's all about me," Tony returned glibly.

"You'll do him good too," Steve assured.

"Or bad. You never know. After you lose the third parental figure, their faces kinda start blurring into each other."

"His parents gone?"

Tony's hand meandered all the way up to his chest, his wedding band glinting briefly, before he remembered there was nothing there for him to tap, so it dropped back down. "He hasn't exactly had an easy go of it," he confirmed, not making eye contact with anyone. "His uncle died right around the time he became Spider-Man, too."

Clint snorted. "So you're scared of loss on his behalf?"

Tony nudged his glass around, eyeing the expression on Clint's face. "I hear an opinion behind the sarcasm. Please share with the class."

Clint tapped his fingernails against the table twice. "It's not losing people that scares anyone, it's caring about them. 'Cause you lose everyone eventually. It's either that or they lose you, and then that pain, it's- well, it's on you. With so many things that can go wrong – caring about people in the first place is an act of self-flagellation."

"That's- very melodramatic, Barton," Tony said, looking a little stunned. "Easy there. That's my job."

"I'm not. Self-flagellation is still a better option than loneliness," Clint replied, looking in Natasha's direction. Then he looked back at Tony, whose expression had closed off. "I think you get that."

"Your smarter twin feeling down?" Tony asked by way of deflection, in that awkward, hesitant way of showing concern Clint had come to expect from him. All that was left was the crude joke to cap it off and place him firmly back in his comfort zone. "And by the way, don't let my restraint – just because I'm objectifying her brains instead of her looks – don't get the impression that it makes you the hotter twin. She's still both."

"Nat?" Clint stalled, ignoring the word vomit in favor of the actual question. They watched Bruce lower his head into her personal space, and whatever he said made her smile. "Nah. Never. Nat's fine."

Thor and Steve exchanged a glance but found nothing to add, so Cap held out an empty cup for the God of Thunder to fill. "Success, we've broken Captain America's sobriety," Tony said, and toasted Clint in celebration.

"It's a good thing we know you're not an asshole, Tony, because eighty per cent of what comes out of your mouth might lead us to think that way."

"You know me, I just got no polish- Hey," he said, sitting up suddenly as though he'd just realized something. He gaped at Steve. "You tricked me into the lecture."

Steve grinned into his drink. "I'm hoping you're not too drunk to remember it."

"I'm gonna third-wheel Bruce and Nat, you people are clearly the shitty half of this team." Thor waved him off as he made good on his promise.

"Good job, boss," Clint praised, and Steve acknowledged that with a nod. "I think you've solidified your place on the Christmas card list."

Steve scoffed. "Screw that, I better get invited to the Christmas party."

Clint surveyed the room – Thor was already wandering off, cheerfully striking up a chat with the tree. Tony really had gone and stuck himself in-between Bruce and Natasha; Bruce seemed to find it amusing, Nat was trying to murder via glare again. Strange had joined Shuri and Peter's conversation, displaying a surprising tolerance for their company. Scott had identified Barnes as the loner, and Barnes looked understandably confused as to why an effective stranger was trying to befriend him. Rhodes, Vision and Wanda had found a quiet table where they were, by all appearances, engaging in perfectly amicable conversation.

Clint turned back to face Steve, and found him taking in the people surrounding them as well.

"Gonna be a crowed one."

"Yeah. Good."

The most important part of his skillset, Hawkeye had taught himself.

His history book told a story. It kept starting, and it kept ending, but it never stopped. He'd read it over and over, and over and over his mind would catch on the people coded by every sentence, every paragraph – a whole world of beautiful and ugly islands they were each hiding.

Shiny gems can dull, and rough edges can be polished. If that were all there was to it, maybe Clint wouldn't care much at all – but he had no interest in perfection or irredeemable evil. As far as he was concerned, every chink in an armor kept it sturdy and whole; every lie came from the distortion of little blooms of truth, struggling to shine in paintings stained with pain and hope.

So, if he could focus there – if Clint could spend his whole life holding up a mirror at people, pointing at the cracks and the light, and screaming this is who you are; see, it's wondrous – then he could live happy. And he had an affinity. Clint loved that mirror.

He had taught himself how to unravel broken strings, turn them into something steady again. It didn't always work – some people were beyond his help – but it was a strength Clint believed in.

Above everything, it was his favorite craft.

Story:	Follow Favorite
Author:	Follow Favorite