Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from "Avengers", they belong to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just borrowing.

Author's Note: SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR.

She could hear the boots clomping on the porch before he even opened the door. She could tell he was trying to be quiet, because the front door eased open slowly. She had kept the lights off in Nathaniel's room because she was trying to get him to go back to sleep. Odds were good Clint didn't know she was up.

Laura heard him set his gear down, untie the tennis shoes he preferred to wear when he wasn't wearing armor and Kevlar.

What she didn't hear was the sound of him locking away his gear. She heard it thud to the entryway floor. That wasn't right. Clint always made sure his arrows and his gear were locked away when he was home, so that the kids didn't get into it.

Something was wrong.

He sounded tired. That's how he usually felt when he came home from 'avenging.' His footfalls were heavy on the stairs as he tried to keep quiet, knowing that everyone in the house was asleep. Lila and Cooper had been in bed for almost seven hours already.

Everyone, that is, except Laura, who sat quietly in Nate's room, and waited.

"A short trip to Germany," Clint had promised, inbetween swipes of the paintbrush in the dining room.

"Like your 'short' trip to New York?" Laura had countered. "Or the 'short' trip to Sokovia?"

He set the brush down as he finished the last stroke of the beige top coat. "Honey, it's Steve. I can't just not go when Captain America calls."

"Especially since it took him a week to figure out a cell phone," Laura replied. Sarcasm runs heavy in the Barton family. Lila and Cooper are both picking up on it. Thank goodness Nate's too small for more than a limited vocabulary. If he ends up being anything like his middle namesake, they're screwed.

Cint stood up, wiping the paint flecks onto his ripped jeans, and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "This is tearing everybody up, Laura. If I can fix it…if I can help, then I need to."

"Yeah, I know," Laura said, and she did mean it. "But this isn't you going against an army of robots, or aliens…these are your friends."

He took a breath, let it out. It was Nat. And Tony. Vision and Rhodey. Oh yeah, he knew. "You told me once that they needed me to keep them down to earth," he reminded her. "If ever there was a time for that…it's now."

Of course, 'down to earth' had then included a nine-story tall Giant Man and a spider kid from Queens and a furious clawed prince from Wakanda...

She heard Clint hit the top of the stairs. She heard him stop, as if he figured out something wasn't quite right, and he made a sharp turn into Nate's room.

She glanced up at him. Even in the glow of Nate's nightlight, Clint could tell that Laura was furious with him. And thank God it was three in the morning, or else this could get ugly.

"You. Are. Late." The three words were bit out in a harsh whisper.

Okay, it was gonna get ugly anyway. "Hi, honey," Clint whispered sheepishly. "I'm home."

Laura grabbed his arm and dragged him into their bedroom. Once inside, she closed the door and flicked on the light.

Clint looked around. "You got a new bedspread," he noted, looking at the patterned yellow paisley print. Laura saw him glance at his watch.

"What?" she demanded.

He blinked. "What, 'what'?" he asked her back.

She nodded to his wrist. "You're checking time. Why?"

For a man with the world's sharpest vision…sometimes he forgot how much his wife saw too. "I…I might have to go away for a bit," he admitted. "My ride is sort of waiting."

"And you're going…where, exactly?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "Wakanda?" he offered, knowing the destination wasn't really the question.

"For…?" Laura pressed.

He sighed. "What I did was illegal, honey," he reminded her. He'd filled her in on the Accords after the phone call from Auntie Nat. "I broke someone out of custody. I pretty much defied the UN. So uh, I need to go away for a while." He sank down to the bed and put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Laura."

He was hoping she'd sit down next to him, and felt sick to his stomach when that didn't happen. Oh, God. This is it.

"What do you want me to tell the kids, Clint?" Laura demanded of him. "Sorry, kids, Daddy's on a mission in Africa and I don't know when he'll be home?"

"That's as good a lie as any," he said thickly. I shouldn't have gone. Why the hell didn't I just stay home… "Tell them that I love them and that I'll be home as soon as I can."

"The first part's true," Laura said quietly. "The last part…I can't lie to our kids, Clint. I won't."

He stood at a beep in his pocket. That was Sam, telling him they'd stayed too long. That it was time to go. He and Scott and Wanda and Steve were waiting in the jet set in the back forty.

"It'll be a short trip, Laura," he told her, as he threw some stuff into a duffel to take with him. He turned to face her. He'd made her cry. Damn it if he didn't feel his own face getting hot. He kissed her on the forehead, felt her flinch. His breath hitched. He turned at the bedroom doorway, looked back at her.

"Just a short trip," he promised her.

She heard his footsteps eke down the stairs again, heard the front door open and close.

As he jogged onto the open loading ramp of the quinjet, he caught Steve looking at him. "You were trying to help your team, Clint," Steve told him. It was one of the few times he'd ever used Clint's first name. "You said it yourself, you owed a debt." The words felt hollow to him and Clint could tell.

"Yeah, Cap, well, I think it might've cost me my family," Clint said, the sarcasm evident and the voice choked.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, and he sounded it.

The jet lifted off and Clint looked back one more time at the farmstead. All the lights were off. He closed his eyes. "Yeah, Cap. Me too."