Now to hear from Clint. Special thanks to Katie MacAlpine, suteko1, and BloodyNib for your lovely reviews!
Being an Avenger, shooting arrows at robots and aliens and targets all day long, okay, that kept him in shape. But farming? Back-breaking work. Seriously. Why did he buy a farm again?
His reason comes out the front door with an arm full of freshly pulled carrots, followed by his three other reasons, one of them barely able to stand on his own two legs without tipping over on that sloped front step.
"Cooper, help your brother!" he calls. His oldest sticks his tongue out at him but does as he's told, steadying the two-year-old and taking his hand.
"He's fine, Dad, he'll learn!" Cooper says back.
Clint wipes his hands on his jeans and approaches his sons. "I'd just prefer he'd learn without faceplanting into the dirt, Coop." He lifts Nathaniel off the porch step with both hands, tucking him against his chest where the toddler wriggles happily at the new high-up vantage point.
"They don't break that easily, you know," Laura teases him gently from where she has begun to wash the carrots off at the spigot just outside the house. "You weren't here for most of the first two at this stage, but if he falls, he'll mostly bounce, at this point." She winks. "Barton babies are tough."
"I'm here now," he says, careful not to squash Nathaniel between them as he kisses her.
"Ew, gross!" he hears from behind them.
"Dad, stoppp…"
Clint grins. "Stop what?" he asks innocently, leaning in for another kiss.
"EWWW," his kids chorus together. "We're going upstairs!" Lila adds, both of them turning and running back towards the front door.
"Great, you just lost me my help with these," Laura says, still smiling as she gestures at the mound of carrots.
"Guess I'll just have to help you instead." He sets Nathaniel down in the low-cut grass and starts helping her scrub the orange vegetables until most of the dirt is off of them. By then, the sun is fully risen in the sky. "At what point should we be worried we haven't heard from the kids in a while?" he asks, standing up straight again and rolling his shoulders from being hunched over so long.
"Knowing them, oh, ten minutes ago," Laura laughs.
"As long as they haven't turned the TV on again…"
Her face darkens. "It's been days since there was any news… It'll resolve itself. I know it."
He lifts his left pant leg, looking down at the thick band of metal strapped around his ankle and the blinking green light. "Well, not much anyone seems to want me to do about it anyways."
"Did you hear back from Nat?"
"Yeah. She said I wouldn't make much difference, whatever that means. And that they were headed to Wakanda."
"Do you wish…?"
His head jerks upward. "No. No! I belong here with you and the kids." He smiles wryly down at the tracking anklet. "Not like this thing could keep me here anyways." Clint looks her in the eyes, needing her of all people to believe him. "What's keeping me here is you, and Coop, and Lila, and Nate. Not the government. And that's just the way I like it."
She sighs. "I know." Laura dries her hands on her pants before beginning to collect her bushel of carrots back into her arms. "I am proud of you. And of them. Even with everything crazy going on in the world, they're still just brave, happy kids."
"Let's let them stay that way as long as possible by making sure that TV stays off," Clint grumbles. "If I see one more fear-mongering Fox News clip about how the Avengers are secretly in cahoots with the alien ring that attacked New York…"
"We should go check on them," Laura says.
The guilty faces when they arrive in the living room are enough to let Clint know that the kids disobeyed him. That, and the fact that the accursed TV is still on, news still playing.
"We just wanted to know what was going on," Lila says in a small voice.
"Yeah, we have a right to know what's happening!" Cooper agrees in a bold tone that shakes a little bit on the end of his sentences. "That's Auntie Nat out there, Dad…"
Clint and Laura exchange a look, and he goes to sit between his kids on the couch. Nate is happy on his lap even without being held, so he stretches his arms out to tuck his two older—but not as old as he thinks, sometimes—children into his sides. "I know you're worried. I'm worried too."
"About Auntie Nat?"
Something clenches in his stomach. "About everyone."
"Are they going to be okay?" Lila asks, burrowing into his side. He turns to hug her, removing his arm from around Cooper to fully hold her body to his, trying his best to reassure her when he doesn't at all feel assured himself.
"Clint?" Laura asks from behind him. There is alarm in her voice. He turns toward the TV, trying to see what she's seeing, and he hates himself for it. Because he doesn't see her when she disappears.
"MOM!" Cooper screams, bolting upward from the couch. Dust hangs in their air in the spot where his wife just stood, filtering the sunlight, before finally fading into nothingness. "Dad, what's happening? Mom?" Lila is just shaking in his arms, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Cooper jumps off the couch and sprints to where Laura last was, shifting into dust before he ever reaches the spot.
Clint sees it this time, and it's almost worse than not seeing it at all. Almost. His son, disintegrating before his eyes… He's seen a lot of things in his life, but none are as horrible as this. There is a physical pain in his chest, tearing him apart, and the only thing keeping him grounded is Lila in his arms and Nate in his lap because
This.
Cannot.
Be.
Happening.
Nate gurgles and fades away on a phantom breeze, and then Lila is all that is left, precious Lila, whom he loves, so, so much, who the cruelest of worlds cannot rip away from him.
"Daddy, please… Daddy, please bring them back," Lila begs into his shirt, entire body trembling. "Daddy, do something, please, I'm scared, Daddy—"
He's holding onto her so tightly his forearms snap to his chest when she leaves him too. Staring down at his daughter's ashes covering his arms, Nathaniel's on his lap, Cooper's and Laura's scattered across the floor, something inside Clint snaps.
Not a Hulk-like snap. Not rage and anger and action. But a sniper's snap, stillness and silence and the sensation of being far, far away from all of this.
When Clint comes back to himself, or whatever bit of self he has left, he fumbles in his pocket for his phone, because of course he should have thought of this before. Natasha, who will know what is going on. Natasha, who can fix what has happened here, because it can't possibly be permanent. Natasha, who he knows—knew?—will do anything in her power to protect his children.
There's nothing there.
She could be dead. He could be the only one alive left in the world, for the only reason of the universe's cruel joke.
But that thought is unconscionable, so he discards it in favor of a different one. That he and his family may not be her first priority anymore. He's felt it coming, looming in the darkness, ever since he retired and she chose to stay on to train the team with Cap. Once they had been partners, inseparable, with codes and places and people known only to them. He'd seen it coming in the secrets—their secrets—that were slowly stripped away, with each of their precious, private safehouses used and burned by various Avengers in need.
He could understand that in the moment, as much as he hated it. He'd left her, first.
But now...
He wasn't needed, she'd said.
No. He wouldn't be useful.
Well, apparently she and the rest of the team weren't much use either.
She'd promised to protect them. She'd convinced him that he wasn't needed to protect them. And so he hadn't. And they'd failed them all.
His phone buzzes in his hands with an incoming text, a foreign feeling on numb fingertips. Sure enough, it's from her.
Clint starts to laugh once he's deciphered it, the kind of laugh that involves no humor except that it's all you have left. Are you there? So simple, requesting an answer so utterly incapable of containing all the pain, all the suffering, the absolute torture he feels within his bones.
He types back. Not anymore.
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought!
