„No one would ever know it. The other one? Last time I saw him Ultron was on him… I couldn't do anything to help him. Oh yes, he'll be missed… surely."
Every night he wakes up with the foul taste of his own words in his mouth. No matter how often he goes through that moment, he can't convince himself he was joking.
"If you stay here, that's alright. You'll be safe. I'll tell your brother to get you. But if you go out there, if you carry on fighting, you're an Avenger."
He doesn't regret making that offer to Wanda – she is as talented as she is brave, and loyal if not to SHIELD, then to herself and what she holds dear, her brother's memory, and that is nothing but love and the will to protect – after all, when Natasha first invited him to the party, he'd done a lot worse than both of the twins could do together.
What he regrets is that he never even considered making Pietro one of them. Sure, they were fighting together but for Clint it's always been rather against a common enemy than for a common cause.
He hasn't thought, even for a moment, about Sokovia being Pietro and Wanda's home. The place they'd lived happily with their parents, before Stark's ambition destroyed it – some things never change. The place they'd feared for their lives, Wanda has told him about the endless hours of counting every breath, taking it to be your last until you realize you have to breathe again.
Her voice cracks when she talks about those days, even after all those years, and Clint waits patiently for her to get herself back under control. It is part of the debt he owes Wanda's brother – listening to her, being there for her. It is not much, and it will never be enough to heal the Scarlet Witch, but Clint has promised himself to do it the best he can. It is his job, after all.
He follows her to the nightmares she can't free herself of, memories too painful to bear, too painful to forget. He knows the feeling but her story is different to his: debris and iron in the air, cramping legs, the stink of having peed yourself, unable to move. Shadows in the tapestry, moving like ghosts. Screaming from down below that took hours to stop. Wanda has not said it aloud – she avoids her brother's name now that he'll never react to her call anymore – but Clint knows she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him.
For that arrogant, egotistical, ever-so-smugly smiling idiot that threw him into the snow.
That saved his life, and died for it.
"You didn't see that coming."
No, he didn't. But he remembers.
He remembers when he comes home to Laura, the relief on her face so bright it makes him feel guilty – for scaring her so much, and because he knows that Wanda will never smile like that again.
He remembers when he closes his eyes at night, and when he wakes up. The first time he suspects the Scarlet Witch of taking revenge by playing with his mind, but deep inside he knows it's not true. Not even Wanda sees a crime in the fact that Clint is still breathing, living and laughing while her brother's body gets torn apart by worms in a cold grave in the parks of SHIELD. She feels a loss so terrible Clint doesn't want to start thinking about it, but she also knows Pietro would want her to move on, and so she does. She lives her new life for both of them – it is her way of making sure her beloved brother will neither be forgotten nor his life and death be made worthless.
His death that allows Clint to live. No, he didn't see it coming, not in a thousand years.
But he remembers.
And as he holds his son for the first time, losing himself in those deep blue eyes – blue like a flash – he knows what to do.
Laura protests, reminding him of Natasha's joy when hearing they'll have a child named after her, but this time Clint doesn't give in. After all, Nat wants a girl, and now they have a boy.
"Natasha's gonna wait for the next one" he says, and after seeing the exhaustion in Laura's eyes, quickly adds, "if there'll be one. If not, let's just name a horse after her. Or a cat. Nat's a cat person. We'll give him another hero's name. Another avenger's name."
He can only hope Natasha'll understand.
"Alright." Laura leans back in the cushions, too tired and too clever to argue any longer as Clint places the baby back into her arms and kisses her head. "So what are going to call him?"
It is not much, and it will never be enough, but somehow Clint feels it is the right thing to do.
"Pietro."