Author's Note: Age of Ultron left us with so many possibilities when it came to some of our favorite characters, that I felt compelled to write at least one of the plot bunnies jumping around in my head. Although I am a consummate Clintasha shipper, this is AoU compliant, so Laura and the kids exist and play an important role. Look carefully and squint, and you'll see some Clintasha.

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After

Prologue

He saw it in slow motion.

He saw most things in slow motion, usually as an indistinct blur as he ran.

But this time, it was sharp. Powerful. Vibrant in its enormity.

Pietro saw the spinning turret of the weapon. Saw the high-caliber bullets impact the ground just in front of him, out pacing him. He saw the archer with the child bundled protectively in his arms.

Pietro could tell that the archer saw the bullets, too, and the older man's face fell and hardened into painful resignation, acceptance, and mourning. He saw as the archer crouched, pinned down, placing his own body between the bullets and the boy.

Pietro ran, a strange panic for this near-stranger filling him. He was fast. He could get to them. He could get there and save them. It was what he did.

He stretched out, arms pumping and legs a blur even to him. He gained ground on the bullet trail and the archer and the child grew closer. He reached out, needing to push, to connect, to block. His arms reached for the pair.

Something hot seared through his left tricep, punching through his bicep. It knocked him off balance as his eyes snapped shut in pain and tumbled into the archer and the child, the three falling gracelessly to the ground. He tucked into a roll, sliding painfully across the gravel, and suddenly, it was silent. The gun was gone. The jet was gone.

But a child was screaming.

The wailing was close. Pietro stood shakily, clutching his left arm as blood streamed from the wound. In the corner of his vision, a red, white and blue form sprinted towards him. In front of him, trapped in the arms of the archer and laying in a spreading pool of red, the child wailed. The archer moved, spastically, as he tried to get up. His muscular legs found no coordination or purchase on the fine rubble. The scrape of the archer's boots was quiet against the child's wails.

His blurred vision focused painfully and sharply, and Pietro saw open, red wounds on the archer's back and legs. He saw the steady trails of blood trailing down his chest and abdomen, adding to the spreading red on the ground. The side of his face was crimson. A new sound came from the archer: a gasping choke of lungs filling with something other than air. Pietro was frozen as he watched and listened.

"Barton!" a sharp voice snapped Pietro's eyes up. The Captain knelt next to the archer, rolling him off the panicked child who had been pinned beneath him. Quicksilver gathered the child into his arms. He propped the archer against the tire of a nearby upturned car. "Clint!" he repeated, "C'mon, Clint, look at me!" The Captain pressed field dressings against the wounds on his torso, grabbing the archer's jaw and directing his face towards his own. Blood bubbled from the archer's open mouth, his glazed eyes struggling to focus as he wheezed. "Barton's down," the Captain reported into his comm and Pietro heard him in stereo.

"How bad?" Pietro heard at once, the male voice heavy with concern and underlying exertion. Was that Stark?

"Bad," the Captain answered, clear and distinct but trying hard to maintain it. "Real bad. Nat, get over here. Get over here now."

Pietro shook his head to clear it. The child was still screaming.

"Cap ..." the archer gasped around bloody froth.

"Clint, don't talk," the Captain commanded, but his voice cracked anyway. "Nat, where are you?"

"What the hell's going on?" It was Stark's voice, angry and panicked and demanding information. "Barton? Clint, answer me!"

Pietro clutched the child to his chest as his vision blurred again, things moving in slow motion. There was an inhuman roar nearby and then suddenly a flash of red and black came around the corner as Natasha slid knees to her knees and put her fingers to the archer's neck. "Clint, listen to me. You're going to be okay." Pietro looked at her and could tell she knew she was lying.

"Nat ..." the archer sputtered. "They're so young, Nat." Natasha froze in her ministrations, her hand hovering over his prone and bleeding body. Pietro watched the archer's lips form the words, but he didn't fully understand.

Cap sighed, closing his eyes painfully. "You're going to be fine, Clint," Cap repeated, but the archer wheezed through his words.

" ... didn't get to meet Nathan, Nat," the archer said, his eyes shifting in and out of focus on Natasha. The Captain dropped his head, breath hitching in his chest.

"Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on!" Stark screamed over the comms, his rage palpable over the sound of his repulsers firing.

"Barton? Barton, are you hale?" a regal voice asked, grunting as he did battle elsewhere.

Once again, the child screamed.

"Get the kid on a transport!" the Captain barked at Pietro, shocking him out of his stupor. The Captain took a breath, visibly collecting himself. "Get him on a transport and get that arm looked at," he said in a quieter voice, then returned his attention to the archer.

Pietro stood, gathering the blood-streaked child in his own arms and started towards the transport. In slow motion, he saw Natasha grab the archer's hand as he sped away. " ... so young, Nat," the archer wheezed through the comms, breath gurgling.

"They'll remember, Clint," Nat promised, her voice dropping. "They'll be okay."

The archer nodded, and opened his mouth to speak but he gurgled instead. "Laura ..."

"She knows, Clint. She always knew."

"Yeah. Nat?" Pietro heard, quiet and rasping, over the comms.

"I'm right here, Clint," her voice heavy. "I'm right here."

"Nat? Tasha ... ?"

Pietro stepped onto the transport, placing the child into the arms of his sister, ignoring her entreaties. A paramedic approached him, but he waived them away.

There was a silence on the comms, then a soft, strained, "Clint?". Then louder, "CLINT!"

There was a couple seconds where Pietro didn't breathe. Then he heard the Captain's soft, "Barton's down," echo over the otherwise silent comms. "He's gone."

There were screams over the comms, of rage, of disbelief, of grief. Pietro ripped the comm out of his ear and crushed it under his shoe, stomping into dust in a blur. He looked down at the pieces on the floor.

All was quiet. The child had stopped screaming.