A/N: Me? Crippled by Pietro feels in 2019? It's more likely than you think

We found him.

Nat's words echoed in Clint's head as he stepped warily onto the Tokyo street. Dead bodies were strewn all around it, making Clint's heart sink further with each one he counted. Their limbs jutted out at odd angles, their necks broken, dead before their wounds even had time to bruise. He could still hear the abruptly-cut-off screams of those being killed.

He had known, of course, what the younger man had been up to the majority of the last five years. Experiencing the carnage as it happened for the first time… that was a whole different story.

"Kid?" Clint called, hating that he had to reach warily for an arrow. "Kid, it's Clint. Clint and Nat."

She was a pace behind him, holding her gun but not touching the trigger, looking at the carnage with the same horror in her eyes that Clint felt. "I don't think he's a kid anymore, Clint," she whispered.

But Clint remembered him taking every opportunity to eat a donut, forcing him to eat a vegetable every once in a while, watching him squabble with Wanda over who got the last muffin. He remembered the constant pranks, the days he wore the kids out with hours of play, the movie nights that were the only thing that convinced him to sit still for more than two seconds. And he remembered taking care of him when he was injured, sneaking pictures of him passed out in a cuddle pile with the kids he'd spent all day exhausting, giving him the proper birthday parties and holidays he hadn't had since he was ten.

Sure, he was his own man. But back on Sokovia, Clint had seen the kid in his heart, the one who had lost his parents and struggled to care for his sister, the one who deserved happiness and a place to call home.

Surely that kid couldn't be gone?

"You shouldn't be here."

In the blink of an eye, he stood before them. His silver curls were gone, shaved off, the remaining hair dyed jet black. His silver and blue suit was a thing of the past, his new one as black as his hair, the only color on it a small, rippling scarlet design on his left shoulder. His blue eyes, once so full of life and mischief, were hard and dark. Even his accent was gone, now rough, American.

Clint had trained his whole life not to freeze in the face of anything. But here, now, he froze. Except for one word, one tiny word. "Pietro?"

"Pietro's dead," he growled. "My name is Black Death."

"That's, um… that's a name," Clint mumbled. "At least you stuck with a color."

He disappeared, reappearing a few feet behind them with only a breeze to suggest he hadn't teleported. He broke the neck of a man sneaking up on them with chilling efficiency, the snap tearing through the air around them.

"Leave," he said. "Before you get hurt."

"Someone with a name like Black Death doesn't protect people he loves," Clint said. He turned to face him, dropping the arrow back into his quiver and lowering his hand. "You're not dead, Pietro."

He spun to glare at Clint with those icy eyes. "Pietro died in Wakanda with his twin."

"No, you didn't," Clint pushed, taking a step closer. "Months passed before you started killing people. You run to the crater that used to be Sokovia. You still check up on that woman you had a crush on when the city blew up. And whenever I've gotten into trouble tracking you, you showed up to save me. Those aren't the actions of a dead man, Pietro. Or a soulless one, either."

Wordlessly, he started to phase, becoming a featureless blur.

It was what he always did. Right before he ran.

"We can save them," Clint blurted. "Wanda, the kids, Laura. We can save them."

He solidified. Something cracked in his eyes, something that Clint could recognize. For the first time in five years, Clint could see Pietro. "Don't," he rasped, his Sokovian accent bubbling through the crack in his voice. "Don't give me hope."

Slowly, Clint reached out, grasping Pietro's shoulder over the scarlet design. "Come home, kid," he whispered. "Please."

Pietro trembled at his touch, tears swimming in his eyes, fracturing the mask even further. "You really mean it? I… we can come home?"

Clint nodded. "We can bring her back, Pietro. You can both come home."

He broke with a sob, falling into Clint's arms and burying his face in his shoulder. Clint held him tight, closing his eyes and resting his forehead atop Pietro's head. "Never do that again, kid."

Despite it all, Pietro laughed, and when he spoke, it was in full Sokovian. "No promises, old man."