The truth is, his heart did stop. For a beat. Or two.

Ok, yes, he technically died. Later he'd find out it nearly broke his sister. He'll tell her that he is made of stronger stuff; she shouldn't have worried. She can't decide if she wants to hug him, hit him, or both.

But that's much later.

Clint accompanies him to the helicarrier. Doesn't leave the boy's side. He refuses to leave the punk ass kid's side, makes sure that he get's medical attention right away. Makes a big fuss that there is an injured Avenger there, and he isn't talking about himself.

He takes a seat in the corner of the room as the docs get to work on Pietro. A higher vantage point would be much more appreciated, but there isn't one so he makes due.

After a few rounds of the electric paddles, they get his heart going again. The bullets are through and through, no need to go digging around to pull any out, so they stitch up the holes that don't require anything beyond such. They open him up to stop the worst of the bleeding and haul in more bags of blood than Clint has seen outside of a blood drive. Despite his best efforts, and the beeps and jargon chatter of the doctors, he dozes. He thinks. Either that or one of the docs slipped him something.

Probably on Nat's orders.

Doesn't matter. The speedster somehow pulls through. Well, for the most part. A nurse shakes him awake when they roll Pietro out and into a room.

The archer takes up occupation in the one chair in the room. Until the kid's sister got there he'd stay with him. From what he knows neither have had someone to sit by their bedside, aside from each other that is.

Clint decides it's time for that to change.

The decision is made to keep Pietro in a medically induced coma. Wanda rails at him, as he lays there, calling him all sorts of names in her native language. From what Clint catches she wants him to wake up so she put him through what she went through.

Steve explains that Wanda felt her twin's death.

He was not even going to try and understand what that means. All he knew was that it messed his sister up pretty fucking badly. He was never trained to help someone cope with shit like that.

The best he can manage is to comfort her when she starts crying.

They take Pietro to Dr. Cho's facility. She was pretty banged up after her encounter with Ultron. And since the AI stole her cradle (which was then destroyed with the help of various Avengers) and a great deal of her lab compromised, not to mention key and valued members of her team killed, her own recovery was slow.

Comparatively.

Not everything had been lost. Just enough to hinder her quick recovery, and ultimately Pietro's too.

SHIELD's doctors did all they could to stabilize him, and it seemed to be enough to keep the Sokovian runner alive until the good doc was up and running too.

"Your wife is going to be pissed if you miss the birth of your kid," Natasha said as she entered the room.

Like Wanda, Clint had accompanied her brother to Korea.

"She is right," Wanda adds sagely. "Go home. You have done so much for me and my brother. You deserve to see your family too."

Nathaniel Pietro Barton is born healthy and strong. Clint is there, holding his wife's hand through it all.

Having part off his son's name be Pietro is partially in thanks, and tribute.

In case things go south.

(There are a couple scares.)

Pietro awakens to unfamiliar surroundings. He has no idea where the fuck he is.

At least there is a face he knows. One he thought he'd never see again. "You look like mother starting out that window."

Wanda turns around and is at his side so fast he wonders if she had suddenly developed super speed.

"Ahh, ahh," he breathes as she embraces him. "Tender."

Wanda let goes of him and sits up, wiping her eyes. "You died."

"I thought so too, but it appears I have wonderful healing abilities to go along with all my other already amazing abilities." He lifts the sleeve of the hospital gown on his left arm to find the bullet wound there is gone. Grinning, he looks back up at Wanda to find her frowning. "What? Hoping I'd be out longer? Get a break from hearing my voice."

Sister dearest does not look amused at all. "Do you know how long you have been asleep?"

He shrugs. "Hours, a few days? I don't know." He doesn't care. He recovered and he's okay.

"You are an idiot and a fool," his sister spits at him. "You have been in and out of consciousness for nearly six months. This has been the most coherent you've been since getting shot. I am beginning to doubt that though." Wanda pauses to let that sink in. "Your heart stopped for so long, and often, at first that I am technically two minutes older than you now. Our so Dr. Cho says."

Pietro is quiet as he tries to understand what she is telling him. He died. By the sounds of it, possibly more than once. He could only imagine what that meant for Wanda. Since receiving her abilities, Wanda would constantly remind him they were connected, more than before. That she could feel if he was alright when they were apart.

Instead of addressing any of that he asks, "The doctor lived then?"

"Yes." She lets out a sob and laugh at the same time. Gently he embraces her, and holds her close. The last family he has in the world.

"Not quite," he hears her murmur.

She begins filling him. There is so much he has missed. Stark, of all people, was heading the way in helping Sokovia recover. The amount of humanitarian aid he was providing, the projects he personally oversaw was in conflict with what he believed to be true.

He was surprised when the man himself arrived and formally apologized. They may have become allies in stopping Ultron, but he was not expecting this.

"I feel like I should explain a few things," Stark had said right after greeting him. "I am not going to deny I was, am, a greedy bastard. I sold my weapons to the highest, legal, government bidder. However, you need to know that any and all sales done outside of those perimeters were not done by me."

The billionaire paces around the room as he spoke, poking at the machines connected to Pietro, reading his charts.

"There was someone I considered a second father, or an uncle. He was my business partner. He was my mentor. He was also a fucking bastard that sold my weapons behind my back. To invading militants, to rebels trying to start unjust wars. Basically everyone I was opposed selling to. He was the Black Market king." He stopped his pacing and looked Pietro in the eyes. "I was only made aware of his actions when he sold me to the highest bidder to be assassinate."

"Why are you telling me this?" Pietro questioned.

"I've told you sister all this. I just wanted to let you know I was wrong to sell weapons at all. I'm sorry to say it took my kidnapping to see that. I thought, deluded myself, that war was something done between adults. I didn't even contemplate that it could hurt families, that it would hurt children. I can't apologize enough, ever, and my words probably hold no weight or meaning for you. I am sorry. If you need anything, personally or for your people, let me know and it's yours."

Pietro was stunned. He wasn't sure what to say. Stark seemed at a loss of words too, a rarity for sure. He said his goodbyes, patted the hospital bed, and left.

Dr. Cho deems him well enough to be released.

"To where?" he asked his sister as get dressed in the bathroom.

"A farm!" Wanda replied.

Pietro paused as he put a leg in his pants. He could have sworn she said 'a farm'. He resolved to ask her when he got out.

Wanda wasn't lying, Pietro hadn't misheard her.

They were at a fucking farm in America.

What the hell were they going to do here?

Wanda is being mischievous and not telling him, and the archer, who is driving them to this farm, seems inclined to help his twin. No matter. He and Wanda would be out of there in no time.

Until they get out of the truck and Wanda greets a woman with dark hair, and holding a baby, with a hug. He realizes that his sister wants to be there.

He learns the dark hair woman is named Laura. She is married to the archer, Clint. The two have procreated and have three spawns.

The baby is named Nathaniel Pietro.

Pietro isn't sure if he wants to stay or not, but he's not leaving his sister and that baby is kind of cute.

Wanda thrives. She practically glowing. Or she actually is. He is never 100% what the limit to her powers are. Perhaps they make her glow when she is happy.

And that is the key. Wanda is happy. They children adore her, she bonds with Laura. The woman, despite the appearance of a typical American farm wife, is fairly skilled in combat. Where Laura lacks in training his sister, due to her limit in martial knowledge, the slack is picked up by the redhead assassin.

Natasha.

She visits often. Auntie Nat, she is called. Lila adores the spy, so does Cooper but the boy doesn't always have a special picture waiting for her when she visits.

Pietro always watches her, watches how she interacts with Wanda. Ready to strike if anything should happen.

He has no reason to distrust these people, aside for the decade or more hate he had carried for anything related to Stark. All these people are just a few degrees separated from the man.

The man who had apologize to Pietro while fully understanding that an apology would never be enough.

How can Wanda be so settled here?

He asks her one night, as they sit on the roof and loom at the stars.

"Why are we here? Why are we not back in Sokovia, helping our people to rebuild?"

Wanda blinks, staring at the stars as she thinks it over. "We were asked not to. Half of the country wants to put us on trial, the other half wants us dead for our involvement with Ultron. As part of the pact made with the Avengers, we are not allowed back until further notice."

She speaks very calmly, though he can tell she's upset about it.

"When was that decided?"

"While you were still fighting to live," she explained, "I agreed to it, for both of us, because I would rather you alive somewhere in the world, rather than rotting in a cell or actually dead."

Well, when she puts it that way there is almost no room to argue. Almost.

Pietro shifts his feet, making a scratching nice against the shingles. "Then why are we here? Let's go, somewhere, anywhere. We don't have to stay."

Wanda looks over at him and gives him a small smile. "I do. I am an Avenger now. I am staying here until they call me in or you are fully recovered."

"I am fully recovered," he grumbles. "If you're an Avenger, does that make me one as well?"

"That is up to you, brother."

They are quiet for a little while longer, just looking at the sky, before Wanda stands up. "I am going to bed - I want to let you know that Clint built our rooms, with Steve Rogers' helps, just for us."

She uses her magic to float down from the edge of the roof to the ground.

"When is the last time you went for a run?" she shouts at him from the ground before disappearing inside.

It is sometime later and somehow Cooper has convinced Pietro to go fishing with him. The thought of sitting still for an extended length of time makes Pietro's skin itch but he doesn't act on the urge to use his superspeed though.

He hasn't since he was shot.

They sit on the side of a small lake or large pond, the young man isn't really sure how you tell the difference. He's beginning to doubt that anything lives in it besides frogs and dragonflies. He chats with Cooper, not really to talk about with the kid. Pietro parrots questions he's heard the Bartons ask him before: how's school? Learn anything interesting? Got all your chores done? What was your favorite thing about yesterday?

The questions were near meaningless to Pietro, but if he wasn't going to be running anytime soon, he wasn't going to be silent too.

After he asks Cooper if anything new was going on, the boy perks up.

"I told my friends at school about my new siblings."

He thinks he hears him wrong. Sometimes Pietro doesn't translate things right in his head. "You've told them about Nathaniel," he clarifies.

"No, I mean yeah, but I told them about you and Wanda too."

Now he really thinks his second language skills in English are very lacking.

Time passes slowly. They recast their lines and move places several times. That is until Cooper catches a fish. It seems a good size. Pietro jumps and whoops as Cooper struggles to get the hook out of its mouth and put it in the bucket they brought. Both are very excited and Pietro assures the boy that it's big enough to keep for dinner.

They run home.

It isn't until Pietro is settling down for the night that it hits him. They ran home. More accurately Pietro ran while holding Cooper and their things up in his excitement. It was their first time he had exercised his accelerated speed since waking up.

They did have the fish for dinner. Clint gutted it and had explained what kind it was - Pietro didn't pay attention. He was listening to the way Cooper told Laura, Lila and Wanda the dramatic story of its capture. Laura cooked it up and it tasted delicious as they at together as a family.

Pietro nearly trips as he walks to his bed. Family. His family hadn't been whole since his parents died.

He realizes that's what they've become. Some weird amalgamation of a family. That Wanda had come to this conclusion before he did, much sooner than he did. Probably while he was still unconscious.

Clint Barton had taken them under his wing, brought them to his home and treated the twins as if they were blood related. He can't remember when the last that happened and genuinely meant it. Not only Clint, but Laura and the kids. They all thought them permanent fixtures in their lives now.

Pietro smiles as he gets in his bed. Okay. This was good.

Tomorrow, he planned to go for a run. Then he'd return to his family. Maybe he'd talk to Wanda about joining the Avengers. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd stay at the farm, take care of the chores that needed to be done (extra quickly) when Wanda and Clint were called away.

He wasn't sure, but liked having those possibilities. For the first time in a long time he felt centered. Not having it is what kept him from zipping around.

Not anymore.

The truth is, his heart did stop. For a beat. Or two.

Okay, maybe not for real but he was lighting fast as he caught Nathaniel around the waist as the little child tried to walk down the stairs head first.

"You're lucky you have me around, or we'd be forced to see if Dr. Cho's devices work of children."

The baby laughed and clapped Pietro's cheeks with both of his chubby hands. "Pe-pe," he giggled. "Pe-pe!"

Pietro kissed his cheek and smiled.

He'd tell his parents about this later. Much later.