Hide & Seek

Part III

"It's going to be okay," Cooper breathes, instinctively drawing his sister closer. "Daddy's going to get us soon. But we still have to stay quiet for now, okay?"

Lila sniffles, and Cooper can see the tears welling up in her eyes. To keep her from crying, he puts a finger to his lips and gives her a quick squeeze. "Daddy said it's going to be okay so it's going to be okay," he whispers. "Okay? He'll get us soon."

Cooper's not sure if he believes that anymore. He doesn't know how long it's been since they reached the orchard and hid underneath the old wheelbarrow Dad must have left out there by accident. It feels like it's been forever, and Cooper is starting to grow impatient. He wants to do something, anything really, and he hates having to sit here and do nothing. Earlier, he had almost ignored what Dad had told them when he heard a gunshot, followed closely by a bloodcurdling scream. But Lila had started sobbing almost immediately, and it had taken whispering her a story Mom had told them once to get her to calm down.

Now, everything is quiet; too quiet even, Cooper thinks, before shaking his head vigorously because, no, it can't be. It's been like that for awhile, ever since they heard the roar of an engine in the distance. Cooper wants to leave their hiding spot, but he doesn't want to disappoint Dad. He told us to stay as far away from him as possible, and he told me to be brave, Cooper reasons. But what if he's hurt and needs help, and we're just…

Cooper's glad that he stayed hidden when he hears the roar of engine nearby. He can just make out Lila's eyes widen at the sound, and he whispers "it'll be okay" for what feels like the billionth time. He doesn't want to believe that their attacker is back, but he knows better than to take any chances and check it out. Years ago, he overheard Dad and Mom arguing late at night. At one point, Mom told Dad, "You know the quote, 'the line between bravery and stupidity is so thin that you don't know you've crossed it until you're dead,' right? That's going to be you if you keep this up. So could you please stop being stupid and treating everything like it's a game?"

Cooper doesn't know why he took that quote to heart. Maybe it's because Dad clearly did. He may have been young, but he noticed that, after that, Dad spent less time in bed and more time tackling home improvement projects and playing with him whenever he was home. So Cooper isn't going to be stupid—he's going to stay here and keep his sister quiet until Dad comes to find them because that's what Dad wants and that's what the brave thing to do is.

He hears voices, but he can't make out what they're saying. They don't sound angry, though, just surprised, and maybe even a little scared. Cooper racks his brain, trying to determine why they also sound so familiar, but no good reason immediately comes to mind. So he continues to wait.

Only a handful of minutes pass, though they feel like hours to Cooper, before there's the sound of boots crunching on newly fallen leaves and one of the voices calls, "Cooper! Lila! It's okay! You can come out now! Cooper! Lila!"

Cooper freezes, and he's seized by this creeping sensation that he's never felt before. It's almost like he can't breathe, and he realizes with a start that his hands are shaking. No, he tells himself, trying unsuccessfully to calm down. Dad said I have to be brave…And he'll be here soon. He'll take care of this. He'll make sure we're safe.

"Cooper? Lila? Are you out here?" the voice continues, more insistent than before, and Cooper curls tighter around Lila even though he knows that doing so will do nothing to protect her if they're found. "It's Uncle Steve! Please come out! It's okay now!"

"Uncle Steve?" Lila breathes in response, and Cooper can hear the hope in her voice. She tugs on his hand, and he yanks it back in silent warning. They can't go out there. For all they know, this is a trap. Besides, what would the one and only Captain America be doing here? Most nights, Cooper begged Dad to tell him stories about his time with the Avengers or updates about what they were doing now. And, according to those stories, Captain America was off in the upstate New York woods, training the next generation of Avengers, when he and the team weren't called off to save the world, of course. So Captain America can't be here, not unless he's supposed to believe that he just sensed there was something wrong and flew into save the day or…

The voice provides the alternative: "Cooper! Lila! Your dad…your dad called." For a second, everything is silent again, and then the voice adds softly, almost pleadingly, "It's okay, I promise. Please come out if you can hear me…"

Cooper doesn't know what to do. When would dad have called? he wonders, almost aloud to Lila, but he catches himself because he can sense that the person claiming to be Uncle Steve is close. That doesn't make any sense because…

Cooper doesn't get to finish that thought because, all of a sudden, the wheel barrel they're hiding under is lifted up and dropped to the side. His scream dies in his throat when he sees the one and only Captain America standing before them. Yes, it's definitely him, though he's not in his usual gaudy—Cooper thought that was the word Dad used to describe it a few times—red, white and blue suit, instead wearing the black that Dad always favored on missions.

"Uncle Steve!" Lila exclaims, and suddenly Captain America is only Uncle Steve; he drops to his knees and wraps Lila in a hug when she runs to him, finally crying all the tears she held back while they were hiding. Cooper watches the scene in mutely, not even trying to make out what Uncle Steve is saying to Lila. His mind is reeling, but it keeps going back to the same thing over and over again.

"Where's Dad?" Cooper demands, and he can tell that he caught Uncle Steve off guard because he takes a second to turn to face him. When he does, he forces a smile, but there's a pained expression on his face, one that Cooper has seen on Mom's face every time Dad ended up in the hospital. Because it doesn't look like he's going to answer, Cooper repeats, jutting out his chin in a poor attempt at channeling some of Dad's menace, "Where's Dad?"

"Cooper…" Uncle Steve begins, but his voice, which was faltering from the start, trails off. He starts over quickly, his voice is only a tad more confident than before, "Sam is taking care of your dad right now. Don't worry; we'll do everything in our power to help him." He pauses again and then adds, "It's going to be okay, son."

Cooper isn't satisfied with that answer, just as he wasn't satisfied with Dad's explanation that they were just playing hide and seek when he crammed them into that tiny room. He doesn't say that, though; instead, he asks, "How'd you even know we were in trouble?"

As he lifts Lila into his arms, Uncle Steve replies, his voice a little too calm, "Your dad called and said he needed backup so Sam and I flew out and got here…as soon as we could."

Cooper doesn't like how Uncle Steve hesitated. It confirms what he already suspected: he's hiding something. Dad acts the same way when he's hiding something; he'll pause mid-sentence, and its end is far more positive than its beginning. Mom always calls him out, and he always just smiles weakly and says, "Later." Cooper had figured what that really meant as soon as he hit third grade: When the kids aren't around. Once, Cooper had tried to hide outside the door of Mom and Dad's room when Dad was talking about a mission—there was something about a mad scientist—but Dad had spied him through the crack in the door and sent him back to bed, but not before they snuck downstairs together for late-night cookies and milk.

He didn't even notice that Uncle Steve has taken him by the hand. As soon as he does, he tugs his hand away, and Uncle Steve lets him go. He smiles—and it's a decidedly sad smile, similar to the one Mom gets when Dad's been out of touch for longer than a week—and says, "Cooper, I know I'm not your dad, but you have to trust me. When I found out he had a family, I promised your dad I would always be there to support you if called upon. That's why I'm here. And, now, I have to get you and Lila back to base so I know you're safe."

"What about Dad?" Cooper asks; he can feel the tears threatening to build up in his eyes, but he doesn't let them. Dad never cried. "He…He got hurt. W-we jumped out a window. He needs you more than m-…"

Uncle Steve responds only by taking him by the hand again. This time, Cooper doesn't resist. He lets Uncle Steve lead him back towards the house, which isn't visible through the black smoke hanging in the air. Part of Cooper expects Dad to emerge from the smoke with a smile on his face and an amused glitter in his eyes. He figures that he'll quip something silly like guess they weren't thinking an old man would put up that big of a fight or welp, now we'll have plenty of projects to work on 'round the house. Or, maybe, he won't say anything at all; he'll just scoop them into his arms, and everything will go back to the way it was before. But, the next thing Cooper knows, he's being led up the ramp of a small, black plane—a quinjet, the name finally comes to him—and being sat down in a seat just outside of the cockpit next to Lila. "Take care of her, alright?" Uncle Steve says, clapping him on the shoulder. "Sam and I will be right back."

But they're not right back. Cooper starts to fidget in his chair, his nerves finally starting to get the better of him. Part of him knows that he should stay where he is, and take care of his sister like Uncle Steve asked him to, but he gets up and makes his way to the nearest window. What he sees will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Uncle Steve and a man he doesn't recognize who must be Sam are carrying Dad between them. And something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. Dad's favorite gray and black flannel shirt—the one Mom teases him will "get up and walk away one day" because he wears it so much—is stained dark red. Cooper waits for Dad to move, mutter something to Uncle Steve, open his eyes, take a breath, but he doesn't. He's so still, hanging so limply between Uncle Steve and Sam, he reminds Cooper of one of Lila's discarded dolls.

Cooper can't look anymore. He returns to his seat and buries his head in his hands, not even looking over at Lila when she asks, "Cooper, what's wrong?" He can't face her. He can't be the one to tell her that Dad is…

Time speeds up after his realization. Cooper expected the opposite to happen, but it doesn't. The next thing he knows, they're in the air, and he only looks out the window because he wants to see the vast Iowa plains one last time. He already knows that he'll never be able to go back there again. When Uncle Steve, who had come out to sit with them after takeoff, returns to the cockpit, Cooper quietly gets up and makes his way over to the curtained-off area where Uncle Steve and Sam had taken Dad.

He does his best not to look at the body, covered by a simple white sheet. He doesn't want to remember Dad this way—no, he wants to remember Dad sharing skillets of chili cheese fries with him at Steak 'N Shake, Dad patiently teaching him how to shoot in the barn, Dad taking him trick or treating, dressed as Captain America because Cooper had begged him to. And that's when he notices an old photo of him, Lila and Mom, a folded piece of frayed, yellowing notebook paper, a shattered phone and a leather wallet with the Iowa Hawkeyes logo on it lying abandoned on the counter.

Cooper doesn't know why, but he grabs the piece of notebook paper. Then, he slips out from behind the curtain and returns to his seat. He sits there for a few minutes—waiting for his heart to stop hammering, his hands to stop shaking—before he opens the piece of paper. And he can't believe what he's seeing.

At the end of first grade, Ms. Benson assigned an in-class essay on heroes. Naturally, Cooper wrote about Dad, and he wrote about him as Hawkeye, not as the always-on-the-road farm equipment salesman that he pretended to be around town. Dad was away when it happened so Mom got called in for an "emergency" parent-teacher conference. Luckily for Cooper, she had managed to convince Ms. Benson that the story was a product of his "overactive imagination," but she had grounded him for a full week over it.

As soon as Dad got home, Mom made him sit Cooper down and explain why he couldn't tell anybody that he saved the world for a living. And he had; without ever raising his voice, without ever saying anything about compromising him or putting the family in danger, Dad told him that he couldn't tell anybody that he was a hero because "to me, running around telling people you're a hero kind of defeats the point, if that makes any sense. You're a hero because of your actions, not because people say you're a hero."

Cooper can feel the tears building up in his eyes again, and he smoothes out the paper gently, not wanting to tear it any worse than it already is. He can't believe it; he had no clue that, all these years, Dad had been carrying his essay. He wonders why until he reads it for the first time since he wrote it all those years ago.

MY HERO

by Cooper Barton

My Dad is my hero. Hes a avenger. He doesnt have super powers like the other avengers but hes a big part of the team. He has a bow and arrow and he looks out for the avengers from rooftops and stuff. the lady on the news says he cant miss and thats why hes 'hawkeye'. Dad says thats a exagaraton but Mom says he just says that because hes humble.

My Dad is also my hero because when hes home he takes me out for milk shakes and hambergers at stake and shake. For my birth day, we went to a hawkeyes game and he got me a hat. And he got me a bow and arrow too!

I want to be like my Dad one day. Not only because hes a real hero but because hes the best Dad in the hole world.

Cooper doesn't realize that he's crying until Uncle Steve sits down next to him and throws an arm around his shaking shoulders. He can't bring himself to look up at Uncle Steve, not when he's crying like he's in first grade all over again, so he just stares at the ground. Uncle Steve doesn't say anything at first, but when he does, Cooper can hear the pain in his voice, "I know nothing I say will make this any easier. I know you already know this, but your dad, he loved you so much. And, if I know your dad, he'll always be watching over you."

How can he now? Cooper wants to shout, but he doesn't. Deep down inside, he knows that Uncle Steve is right. But that doesn't matter right now, not at all. He just wants his daddy, and he cries even though he knows he told him to be brave.

Thanks for reading! Hide & Seek may have one more part, depending on how this chapter is received. It was challenging writing as Cooper, but I think I pulled it off! I tried to make him like a mini-Clint while making it clear that he's his own person (see, for example, how fidgety he gets compared to Clint in the flashback sequence that stared Part II). Also, this chapter was meant to be a bit of a tear-jerker so forgive me if I made you sad. Anyway, I really appreciate hearing from readers so please review! ~Moore12

P.S. Shameless plug: I've written two other stories on Clint—"Distance" and "Unexpected Absolution"— and would appreciate you checking them out. Thanks!