Warnings: Veiled description of character death as well more graphic description of injuries. Also, did I mention the spoilers?
Disclaimer: I own nothing Marvel related and am just borrowing the characters.
Author's note: This is just a quick one shot without too much polishing, but I hope you'll enjoy it!
Didn't See That Coming
Hawkeye stumbled, only catching himself at the very last moment before he and his precious cargo would have gotten painfully acquainted with the unforgiving metal plating of the Helicarrier shuttle. He gritted his teeth and blinked furiously until the sudden darkness at the edge of vision cleared.
Of course he'd stumbled. The damn ground under his feet was jerking and shaking as the freaking city was flying through the atmosphere and besides the traumatized boy in his arms was squirming. It was only natural that he'd have a little difficulty maintaining his equilibrium under these circumstances.
And why was the kid trying so damn hard to wiggle free anyway? Hawkeye took another unsteady step onto the ramp of emergency shuttle and slowly started to make his way through the ranks of battered and shell-shocked Sokovians. Oh, yeah. The boy's mother. Sweeping the small vessel, he finally spotted her, huddled on the floor, staring out at what used to be her city before a megalomaniacal robot had literally torn it from its bedrock and launched it into the sky in a mad bid for world destruction.
Shifting the slight weight of the boy in his arms, Hawkeye altered his course. Squaring his shoulders, he planted his feet and willed the world to stop its slow leisurely spin, which was no doubt a side effect of Iron Man's attempts to sabotage Ultron's mammoth propulsion system. Hawkeye was oddly pleased that he managed to walk the last ten feet to his target in a mostly straight line, all the while ignoring the insistent stitch in his side.
Damn, he hadn't realized he was this out of shape. Nat was gonna laugh her ass off at him when she found out he'd gotten winded just from carrying a small child.
The woman looked up, hope chasing disbelief across her face as she realized her son had been saved and miraculously returned to her. Hawkeye carefully ignored the way tremors ran up and down his arms as he handed the boy to his mother and instead focused on her grateful sobs and the way she desperately hugged her child close. He tried to smile reassuringly, but feared it came across as more of a grimace. It didn't matter, she probably wouldn't remember him anyway.
As he straightened, he felt a sudden rush of dizziness which he ascribed to the thinning air combined with the sheer relief of having finished his mission. All that was left for him to do now was to sit back, relax and wait to be evacuated to the safety of the Helicarrier along with the rest of the civilians. There was nothing more he could do on this hunk of flying rock. Ultron's clones had all been destroyed except for a few maimed stragglers, so his arrows were useless. Besides he was just one mortal man after all.
It was up to the rest of the Avengers – to the gods – to save the world now.
Looking around blurrily for an empty seat to strap himself into, his eyes fell on the worn-smooth sole of a brand new sneaker. The world lurched again, but this time Hawkeye had no illusions that it was due to the unsteadiness of the ground.
Fighting down the sudden onset nausea, he swallowed thickly.
He hadn't forgotten exactly, but during battle you had to compartmentalize, had to push things away, which was why seeing the unmoving form of Pietro Maximoff, who was never not moving, felt like a punch to the gut. The pain seemed almost real.
Damn that cocky, brash, arrogant, pain-in-the-ass, Hawkeye's hand clenched, idiotic, brave, self-sacrificing punk kid. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look away from the bullet-riddled body of the Eastern European speedster.
His attention was briefly drawn to the dull sound of explosions still coming from the direction of the church and he wondered how Wanda would react to the news of the death of her twin. He flinched as another large explosion boomed in the distance. Something told him that she already knew.
What a mess.
Frowning slightly, he noticed that his right hand was clamped tightly to his left side and when he pried his fingers loose they came away glistening red.
Huh.
His breath hitched and this time the encroaching darkness wasn't content to just stay at the edges. He found his vision tunneling until all he could focus on was the empty row of benches directly in front of him. He was vaguely aware of waving concerned hands away as he staggered the last few paces and all but collapsed onto the hard surface, trying in vain to ease the jarring of his battered body.
"It's just been a really long day," he mumbled.
Rolling onto his side and using his hand to apply pressure to the wound, Hawkeye found himself staring once again at the lax features of Pietro. Cap must have taken a moment to arrange the body before he dove back into the battlefield. If it hadn't been for the large red stains littering his costume, the kid looked like he might just be resting, the faintest trace of a smirk still in place.
"Didn't see that coming?" Maybe it was the blood loss speaking, but Hawkeye could have sworn he heard the thickly accented words spoken out loud.
No kid, I guess didn't see that coming. He rolled onto his back, so he wouldn't have to look at the young Sokovian lying discarded on the metal floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
The city was well above the clouds now so all he saw when he looked up was a crystal blue sky and he could feel the slow burn of the sun on his skin, chasing away the chill that was rapidly spreading through his body. Not good, the tactical part of his mind noted, shock.
God he was tired. He was getting too old for this. Laura and the kids deserved better, but then again, they always had. Maybe this time he'd really make good on his promise to leave the Avengers and come home. Laura could finally have a husband instead of half-finished home improvement projects and the kids could have a full time daddy to tuck them in at night instead of a plastic action figure on their nightstand.
He could feel the engine of the shuttle revving and after a moment the metallic frame lurched as it disengaged from the half-destroyed bridge it had used as an anchoring point. By now his hand was slick with blood and he could feel a steady stream of fat drops flowing lazily from his fingertips onto the bench.
Drip drip drip.
Natasha was going to be pissed that he'd gotten himself injured again so soon after the last time. Oh well. The sky was turning from brilliant blue to tones of dark gray and he slowly blinked to clear his vision.
Trying to distract himself from the growing numbness in his side, Hawkeye idly wondered if Pietro had done the same impossible math in the seconds before the artillery shells hit. Had the kid come to the same bleak conclusion? That there had been no time for Hawkeye to move out of the way, no time to find cover or jump to safety. No possible way of avoiding the bullets raining down from the sky.
Hawkeye closed his eyes and imagined the farm, imagined Laura's warm welcoming smile and the feeling of his kids jumping into his arms.
Had Pietro realized in that last split second that even using his own body as a shield it wouldn't be enough to stop the bullets? Remembering the young man's dying smile, Hawkeye figured that yeah, Pietro had done the math.
But sometimes the math just didn't matter. Just like Hawkeye had chosen his last act to be to shield the little boy in his arms with his own body, Quicksilver had chosen to catch those same bullets before they ever had a chance to reach Hawkeye's exposed back. Both had known the futility of their actions when they made the decision, but while the barrier of a single body wouldn't have been enough to save the child, the combined mass of two had apparently done the trick.
The boy had been returned to his mother without a scratch.
Maybe it would be a comfort to Wanda. To know that her brother had died a noble death. That in saving an innocent child from a senseless death brought on by a war not of his own making, Pietro had in a way also saved the two terrified children who'd been trapped in the rubble just waiting to die all those years ago. That Pietro Maximoff had died an Avenger.
Maybe.
The blue was all but gone now, taken over by shadows, and Hawkeye felt his hand slip numbly from his side and land heavily on the hard surface on the bench. Yeah, he was done.
His last thought before the darkness rushed in was whether Laura would go for Pietro as a middle name for the new baby.
Nathaniel Pietro Barton.
Yeah, that could work.
Fin