When a man in a black suit shows up at the jail during visiting hours and offers him a way out, Clint's really not in a position to say no.
Three hours and a helicarrier later, he's wondering how this became his life, but he's still not in a position to say no, so he rolls with it and flicks another paper wad at this Coulson guy.
Laura was beautiful and supportive and everything he could have dreamed of. He meets her when he's hiding out after an undercover mission goes wrong. She lets him hide in her barn.
It sounds like the beginning to some sort of romantic spy comedy, and somehow, six months later, he's marrying this incredible woman.
"How did this become my life?" he asks Natasha with what's got to be a pretty good stunned expression, judging by her smirk.
She adjusts his tux. "Shut up and start walking. The music's started."
He follows her advice.
They're at a press conference when he moans the question again. He's not sure whether he's referring to the reporters or the fact that they're asking about the alien invasion that just happened.
"Our lives," she corrects.
"Amen," Steve says fervently.
Captain America just agreed with something he just said. Seriously, how did he get here? He's no one special. Never has been.
He wonders if he's allowed to flick paper at the reporters.
He asks himself again when he's in an underwater prison. The answer's more depressing this time, but he does take comfort from the fact that there's still a plural in that question.
Our lives, not his life. They're still in this together, even if the "we" is a bit smaller now.
Thanos is standing there in all his blood splattered glory. He makes the Hulk look small.
Well. Had made. Everything looks small when it's lying still in a little crater of broken concrete.
Clint draws back his bow, and seriously? He's facing this guy with a weapon that was probably originally intended to hunt rabbits?
"How is this our lives?" he says into the comms, slightly hysterically.
When no one answers, no one even chuckles, he looks around and realizes, Oh. He can't use the plural anymore.
How he managed to be the last man standing, he'll never know.
He's having flashbacks to something he heard about as a kid in the orphanage. There's a definite David and Goliath feel here, and not even an explosive arrow is feeling all that much better than a sling and a rock.
But he's been outmatched since Loki started throwing tantrums, so he prepares to fire anyway.
However his life managed to come to this, it's still his, and he's not going to give it up without a fight.
A/N: #Saynotohydracap. Which no, isn't relevant to this story, but I'm furious and have no one to rant to, so I'm putting this here.
People, if Cap's Hydra, and has always been Hydra, then what are the implications of him being able to lift Thor's hammer? If Hydra's biggest enemy is on their side, why haven't they won yet? How on earth did he manage to fake being a good man so well he's famous for it for SEVENTY-FIVE years? Why did he do half the things he's done? If the serum makes good great and bad worse, how'd he turn out so well? Why would Hydra have bothered with a penniless kid from Brooklyn that nearly didn't live to adulthood?
Just . . . What were they THINKING?
It's the plot twist no one expected because it's not a twist, it's a betrayal and a retcon of the worst order. It's like saying Tony Stark's secretly been a Luddite all this time.
#saynotohydracap. Pass it on