Disclaimer: Still not mine.
CHAPTER 7: Anywhere But Here
Will looked around, listening to the birds chirping and the sound of the wind in the trees. They followed a gravel service road around the corner and Will gaped at the three-story white farmhouse staring back at him. A red barn sat south of house, with a beat up Chevy pickup parked halfway between the two with Iowa plates. The shutters on the house were painted green. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Clint led the way into the house, with the others following him. "What is this place?" Thor asked as they came to the steps. Under other circumstances, Clint would've laughed hysterically at the sight of the big god, caked in mud, walking down a dirt road with cornfields in the background. But nobody felt like laughing at all.
"Safe house?" Tony offered, clearly not having a clue but trying to sound like he did. He looked at Will. "Family home?"
"We grew up in Baltimore," Will replied as he helped Natasha up the stairs. "I got nothing," he muttered, wracking his brain to think if his family had ever said anything about farm property anywhere in the US. As far as he knew, Donald and Laura Brandt didn't know anything about Iowa; in fact, Mom usually pushed Dad to take her to upstate New York to the mountains if they ever went anywhere. Iowa seemed very….unBrandtlike. He stepped onto the wraparound porch as Clint knocked quietly on the door, then pushed it open.
"Honey? I'm home!" Clint called into the open house as the others filed through the door.
"Honey?" Will whispered, thoroughly confused. Natasha slid her arm off his shoulder and stood next to him as a woman came into the living room from the hall, in a paisley-print top and blue jeans. She had brown hair that fell past her shoulders…and brown eyes that lit up when they locked on Clint.
"Company," Clint bit his lip as she stepped up to him. "Sorry I didn't call ahead." He gave her a hug that lingered a little bit.
Tony looked at Will. "Do you have a sister?" he asked.
"Not that I know of," Will trailed off as Clint wrapped his arm around the woman. Clint pressed a kiss to her forehead, and he heard Steve whisper, "Awfully friendly for a sister."
"This is clearly an agent of some kind," Tony decided.
Clint's eyes drifted to his little brother. "Gentlemen," he said cautiously. "This is Laura."
She smiled, looking at all of them. "I know all your names," she said shyly. "I'm glad to finally meet you. Especially you." She smiled at Will.
Will glanced at her left hand. A simple diamond sparkled back at him. His eyes widened, and he looked at Clint in shock. Married. Clint's married? There was a couch near him, and he sank onto the arm. He stared at his brother and his wife…
Footsteps echoed on the stairs, and Clint blinked. "Oh…incoming," he said awkwardly, as two small figures burst into the room and threw themselves into his arms. A little girl, with brown braids and a flower print dress, and a boy in flannel and jeans.
Clint is married. With kids. Will's mind was reeling. He was glad to have the couch under him…because it was the only thing keeping him from falling off the planet.
This was insane. This was crazy. Will was an uncle. He was a brother-in-law. And this was the first he'd heard of it.
"Daddy!" the little girl said, burying her face in Clint's shoulder.
"Hi, sweetheart. Hey, buddy," Clint said happily, using his free hand to wrap the boy in a hug. He kissed the top of the boy's head. He held them for a long time too. "You guys got taller. Definitely bigger since the last time I was home. I thought I told you to stop growing?" The little girl laughed and Clint ruffled the hair of the boy. The pride in his face was evident.
"And, these are…smaller agents," Tony said, sounding less convinced. "The hell's going on?" he asked Will out of the side of his mouth.
Will looked at him, and Tony could see the anger in his eyes. "You know as much as I do, Tony," Will said darkly.
Clint's daughter-for that's who this child had to be, she had Clint's nose and Laura's hair, looked at Clint. "Did you bring Auntie Nat?" she asked.
Natasha said, "Why don't you hug her and find out?" The little girl squealed, dropped from Clint's arms and ran straight to Natasha's, to the surprise of everyone in the room. It was a sight to behold-Natasha, still in her Kevlar uniform, hugging the stuffing out of a little girl.
Will caught his brother looking at him from over the top of the boy's head, and didn't bother to hide the anger and confusion in his eyes. Natasha knows. Natasha knows but not me.
There was a moment of awkward silence as everyone in the room considered everyone else in the room. Then, finally, Steve, ever the gentleman said, "Sorry to barge in on you like this."
"Yeah, we were too busy not knowing you existed," Tony shrugged.
"Fury set this up for me when I joined, kept it quiet," Clint said, his eyes watching his brother. Will was pissed and he knew it….knew he would be. "Would appreciate it if you'd keep it that way," he said. He looked at Laura, but before he could say anything, Laura said smoothly, "Let's get you guys settled. Natasha knows her way around."
Natasha set the little girl down and smiled at Laura. "How's little Natasha?" she asked, nodding to her midsection, and the men in the room noticed that Laura's belly made the bottom of her print shirt flare out a bit.
Laura grimaced. "Actually…" she frowned. "It's Nathaniel."
Natasha raised an eyebrow, then bent down so her face was even with Laura's belly. "Traitor," she whispered to it, but smiled at Laura so she knew she was joking.
Will watched the exchange. She's pregnant. Clint is married. I'm an uncle. She's expecting. I'm-
The floor fell out from under Will Brandt. Without a word to anyone, Will jumped off the arm of the couch and burst out the farmhouse door, letting it slam shut in his wake. Through the open living room window Clint could hear gravel crunching as his brother stalked off down the road. He was headed in the general direction of the barn.
Laura turned to her husband. "Clint, is it okay if-"
"Cap might fit, Bruce will for sure, Tony too, not sure about Thor," Clint said, knowing what she was asking. He turned to look at them. "Hope you guys don't mind flannel." He looked at Laura hesitantly. "I need to-"
She nodded understandingly. "Go."
"Can we come?" the kids asked, tugging on Clint's hands.
Clint bent down with a grin. "Daddy needs to go talk to Uncle Will," he told them. He looked at his son. "Cooper, can you go up to my room and find two of Dad's shirts for Tony and Steve?"
"You mean Captain America and Iron Man?" Cooper said. "Sure!" He grinned and raced up the stairs.
At Steve's look, Clint said apologetically, "We've been working on it."
"Uh no," Steve said. "It's um, not a problem." His tone still suggested he was lost.
"Lila, why don't you take Auntie Nat upstairs," Laura suggested. "She could probably use a shower and some alone time from all these boys."
Lila brightened. "Okay, Mommy!" she said, tugging on Natasha's hand and pulling her toward the stairs. As she went, she began rattling off a story to Natasha, something that had happened since the last time she'd visited. Her words faded as they disappeared into the master bedroom.
Clint mouthed Thank You to his wife, and Laura smiled back. Then, Clint went outside and followed the dirt path down to the barn. The door was pulled back a crack, and Clint stuck his head inside. Will was sitting on the ground against the wheel of Clint's John Deere, staring out the open door.
"I guess we need to talk," Clint said by way of opening, leaning in the barn door.
Will snorted. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we do." But before Clint could say anything, Will plunged ahead. "When were you gonna tell me that you had a wife? And kids? And a farmhouse in Iowa? When were you going to mention to me that I'm an uncle?"
"Will-"
"Do Mom and Dad know? Do they know they've got a daughter in law? That they're grandparents?"
"No!" Clint cut in. "Nobody knew anything about Laura and the kids except Nick Fury and Natasha."
"So, it was okay for SHIELD to know but not your family?" Will stood up and paced around the tractor, slamming his hands on top of the hood. "Jesus Christ, Clint, how the hell could you keep this a secret?" He glared at his brother. "Whatever happened to 'declassifying? Remember, that promise we made that we could tell each other anything?" he asked. He thought of something else. "Does she know that she's named after our mother?"
"I'm pretty sure Mom was born first," Clint said, but the joke rolled flat. "And actually…yeah." He rubbed the back of his head. "Laura knows all about you. Us." He pointed back at the house. "Them."
Will rolled his eyes. "Of course she does," he said, walking around the tractor. He took a breath. "So. When did-"
"I met Laura in a bar on my way back to DC to sign up for SHIELD," Clint said. He came into the barn, ran a hand over a workbench. "You know I was only in the Corps for BASIC. Phil Coulson-you met him-" He took a breath, remembering his handler. "Phil was there, looking for potential. He saw me, gave me the SHIELD spiel, and then told me to come to DC. I told him I wanted time to think about it. Anyway…I was on my bike, falling asleep at the wheel, and I pulled over in this little podunk town at the next exit. Middle of nowhere, lots of cornfields. Pulled up at the only bar in town, she was the bartender…"
"Your wife is a one night stand from a bar?" Will shook his head. "Maybe it's a good thing Mom doesn't know."
Clint glared at him. "You're an asshole. I didn't one night stand her. Let me finish. I stayed around for a week or so. Laura was amazing, Will, she…" He closed his eyes. "I can't explain it. It was like, from the second I saw her, I knew she was the one. A week after I met her, I told her I loved her and I wanted to be with her, but that there was this job…" He opened his eyes and glanced back at the house. "She said she didn't care, as long as I came back to her. We got married in a courthouse ceremony, and then the next day I left for SHIELD."
"And SHIELD didn't care that you had a wife?"
"Hell yes," Clint recalled. "Fury was pissed that Phil had brought in a family man-although, now that I think back, pretty sure Phil had a girlfriend...anyway...I flat told them I wasn't working for them without some kind of assurance my family-both of them-" he added with a look at Will- "would be safe. So he set this up. And it's worked. Nobody knew about them. But when SHIELD fell…" Clint shivered. "I was lucky there was no record of a family in my file. And if Ultron would've gotten that information…"
"Protecting us again?" Will asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Yeah, Will, I was!" Clint replied seriously. "I wanted to tell you, believe me." Will rolled his eyes and Clint stepped toward him. "I swear. Cooper and Lila-they've wanted to meet their grandparents and their Uncle Will since they were old enough to ask who you were in the pictures."
"And what'd you tell them, Clint, huh? 'Someday, kids,'" he mimicked his brother. "'Except that when they meet you, just remember if they looked really confused it's because they didn't know you existed?'" He looked up at the rafters. "What about Natasha?"
"Just friends," Clint replied. "Partners. She agreed to help me keep up the façade. We're both pretty good at playing our roles."
"How'd she find out about..them?"
"They have names," Clint growled. "Laura, Cooper and Lila. I couldn't keep secrets from my partner. She needed to know if there was ever anything she needed to know that would break me if I got caught. I told her about them. You guys too. She met Laura and the kids-well, Lila was just a baby-and you guys the same weekend. Do you remember the weekend I brought Tasha to Baltimore?"
"Yeah," Will said. "Mom thought you liked her. A lot."
"I guess our act is pretty good then," Clint replied.
"So you could tell Tasha about them, but not us?" Will sounded completely betrayed. "I don't understand that one."
"You keep secrets in your line of work too, Will!" Clint pointed out, exasperated.
"Yeah," Will agreed. He stepped up so he was in Clint's face. "But never from you." Clint saw tears in his eyes. He'd never seen his brother so upset. "How could you not tell me, Clint?"he demanded. "How could you keep this from me? From Mom and Dad? I mean, Jesus, Clint, we're not the enemy. I've been trained to keep things confidential. Hell, I've done protection details, it's not like I don't know how to keep people safe!"
"And how did that work out for you in Croatia, Will?" Clint exploded. The instant he said it, he regretted it. He watched the color pale in his brother's face, watched his eyes go flat.
Clint hadn't meant to say it. He was frustrated and upset. It just came out. A Brandt family trait-you just said what was on your mind. "Will-"
"You son of a bitch," Will hissed at him. He stepped back from Clint. "Go back to your family, Clint." He pushed past his brother and walked out the door. "I hope you have an extra brother out there somewhere too," he said over his shoulder. "'Cause you don't have one here."
Clint watched his brother walk out of his life. Then, he turned and slammed his boot into the tire on the tractor.
Will stalked down the road, his mind reeling. Steve was the first to catch his eye. "You okay, Will?" Steve asked him. Cap and Thor were standing out in the yard. Thor had Mjolnir in hand.
"Not really, Steve." Will's voice was bitter. "Not really." He looked around. "I'm gonna go," he said. "So far the only thing I've managed to do anyway is get knocked around. I need to get out of here." I need…I don't know what I need.
"We could use the extra manpower," Steve said carefully. He imagined Will must have felt similar to when Steve had woken up in that SHIELD facility in Manhattan. People lying to him, telling him the world was still the same when it was in fact, very different. "But I understand," he added after a minute. "Are you planning on telling…um, Laura, that you're leaving?"
Will glanced up toward the house. "No," he said quietly. "They've waited this long to meet Uncle Will-" here he spit the word 'uncle' out like it tasted bad- "they can wait a little longer." He nodded to Thor. "See you guys around."
Then, he was walking up the gravel road. It had to connect to a main artery somewhere. Iowa wasn't a complete hick state. And from there…Will Brandt didn't know where he was going, but he knew it needed to be anywhere but here.
Author's Note: Yes, Clint is married to Laura in my world too (thanks, Joss, for making me retcon in a family). I wanted to see how the dynamic would play out between the two brothers-these are guys who are so close they can tell each other anything about their crazy lives..I mean, they share bunkbeds when they're both home and they're adult men. So how does Clint's ten year old secret affect their relationship going forward? Well, stay tuned.
