Surprisingly, Tony wasn't the one with the nightmares. Sure, he had a few. Most of them were about Clint. Clint getting hurt again and again. Clint being taken away and never returning. Clint being killed.
But it was Pepper who woke up night after night, unsettled and frightened and tearful.
Tony didn't always wake, and she didn't always wake him. Sometimes he just knew from how tired she looked the next day. But this time he had woken from the jolt as she came awake, had heard the silence, and then the first hitching sobs. Tony stretched out under the covers in the darkness, careful not to jar his leg too much, and pulled her closer. She pressed in, her face hidden at the junction of his shoulder and his neck.
"JARVIS," he mumbled hoarsely, "fifteen percent light."
The darkness of the room lifted a fraction, but the shadows remained deep and warm around them. He ran his hand down her back, then up again and through the soft hair at the back of her head. "It's okay. I'm okay, I'm right here."
"I know," she said, her voice trembling wetly.
"And I'm not going anywhere."
"You better not."
It took another couple of seconds before Tony was properly awake. He spent a few mintues playing with her long hair, letting his fingers run through the lengths as she settled down and stopped tearing up again and again. Eventually she took a deep, not quite steady breath and shifted. She curled up on her side, her cheek against his bare chest. Her hand came to rest on the arc reactor.
The bedroom was very quiet, and all Tony heard was her breathing. He glanced down. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red, and in general she was a mess, and he knew he was one of the few people who got to see her like this, without her makeup, without her control, her hair loose and untamed, and this was how he loved her most. He had always appreciated the glitz and glamour, the beautiful things in life, and Pepper fitted right there, god she did, in her high fashion business regalia, in her evening dresses, her high heels. But this, the thought, this was the real Pepper, the person at the deepest foundation of Ms. Potts, the C.E.O of Stark Industries, the always efficient businesswoman, the formidable negotiator, the sharpest business mind he had ever met. This was his Pepper. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and just to counteract the embarrassingly saccharine mood he'd tumbled into he flicked her nose. With a sound that was half laugh, half protest she caught his wrist.
"Jerk," she mumbled.
"That's my middle name. Anthony Jerk Stark."
She gave a tired, low laugh. "I'm pretty sure your middle name is Edward."
"Lies and slander."
They stayed chest to chest, until Tony's leg started protesting the angle and he had to move. "Sorry," he winced.
Pepper sat up. "You okay?"
"Yeah, just a twinge."
"Did you take your painkillers before going to bed?"
"Sure," he lied.
"Tony," she said, disapprovingly.
"I forgot."
She got up. "JARVIS, more light, please." The room brightened. "Where are they?"
Tony looked around. The bottle wasn't standing on the side table as it usually did. He tried to remember when he last had them.
He groaned and slumped back against the pillow.
"What?"
"The lab. They're in the lab."
Pepper sighed and grabbed her robe from the armchair next to the bed. "I'll get them."
"No, leave them. It's fine."
She leaned across the bed and gave him a quick kiss. "I'd rather not have to deal with the sleep-deprived toddler that will show up in the morning if you spend the rest of the night in pain." She gave him a small smile and kissed him again.
Tony rose on his elbow as she headed to the door. "I can get one of the guys to bring them up."
She spun on him. "Don't you dare let one of your guys into the bedroom again."
He raised his hands. "Was just an idea, honey."
"My idea is much better," she told him and headed out the door into the dark hallway that lead from their bedroom. "And much less likely to give me more bloody nightmares," he heard her mutter under her breath.
It didn't take long for Pepper to return, but by then Tony was almost asleep again despite the ache that had started up in his leg. He squinted as JARVIS brought up the lights again, and accepted the glass she handed him. She shook two pills from the bottle and placed them on his open palm. While Tony swallowed them, she let the robe drop onto the floor in a heap and climbed back into bed. She settled against his side again. He felt her fingers on his hand and opened it to allow her to lace her fingers with his.
"I'm sorry I woke you," she whipered. "Try to go back to sleep."
"You too"
"I'll try."
"I'm fine, Pep," he said again.
"I know. But I was so scared," she said, her voice miserable again. "When I watched that video…" She trailed off and squeezed his hand tighter.
"I'm sorry you had to see that."
"I'm sorry you had to live that," she replied.
"Yeah," he mumbled. "But apart from being shot, I had it pretty easy, Pep."
She propped herself up on her elbow, and from the anguished look in her eyes he knew that had been the wrong thing to say. "You could have died, Tony. They could have killed you."
"No, they needed me alive to get what they wanted." He shifted and his leg twinged again. He bit down on a groan. "They had no such qualms about Barton. It was worse for him."
"Don't do that. Don't downplay what they did to you."
"I'm not," he sighed. "They shot me for dramatic purpose, smacked me around a bit. This," he lifted his hand, "this was all me being stupid. All in all, what they did to me wasn't so bad."
"I doubt it," she said darkly. She settled back down again. "Have you seen Clint lately?"
Tony shook his head. "No." He had slept the dreamless sleep of the pharmaceutically blessed at first, only retaining vague memory fragments of waking a few times, of Pepper being there every time, holding a paper mug of water with a straw to his lips as soon as he opened his eyes. He'd been tired and grumpy and in general not fit for human interaction during the next couple of days when the dosages had been lowered and he'd been weaned off the heavy stuff. By the time he even thought to ask, Clint had already been discharged and taken off to parts unknown.
"He visited you, you know," Pepper said. "A few times. Do you remember?"
Tony didn't.
She unlaced her fingers from his and Tony felt them start to run lightly over his knuckles. He was halfway asleep when she shifted and spoke again "Please, don't do that ever again," she whispered.
He pulled her closer without opening his eyes. "What, get kidnapped and shot?"
Watch someone get shot in the head? Watch someone be beaten and violated and not being able to do a thing about it?
"Yes."
He kissed the top of her head. "Gladly."
'* '* '* '*
Tony placed the soldering iron back into its stand and without looking up from his work he pulled the swivel-arm mounted microscope back in front of him. He slid the small prototype board under the glass. The smaller resistor looked good, as did the power FETs he'd replaced. After looking over the rest of the modifications he'd done he pushed the microscope away again and sat up, stretching his back. His leg had started hurting again, it always did in the evening. He rubbed at it and rearranged the pillows that propped it up on the chair next to him. He started when he saw Natasha leaning in the doorway to his lab, arms crossed loosely over her chest.
"Mute," he told JARVIS and the music that was blaring through the speakers died instantly. "Jesus, almost gave me a heart attack there." He waved her in. "When did you get here?"
She uncrossed her arms and stepped inside. "Half an hour or so," she said lightly.
He rolled his eyes. "Bullshit." But a small niggling voice told him it was fully possible that she had snuck up on him and had actually watched him for that long. Creepy. "JARVIS, how long was she standing there?"
"Two minutes and twenty-six seconds, Sir."
"See, what did I tell you. Bullshit."
Natasha just smiled at him.
Tony put the board down and twisted to face her. "So, to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?" A moment later his brain registered the brown deli bag in her hand, and his mouth started to water. He glanced at the clock. Holy shit. He had been down there for seven hours. No wonder he was starving.
Natasha handed the bag over. "Figured you hadn't eaten today, so I thought I'd bring some food over."
"You figured, huh? JARVIS, you unapologetic yenta." Tony opened the bag and pulled out a Rueben sandwich. "You're an adorable, lovable, wonderful woman," he said and unwrapped it before taking a huge bite. "Don't let anyone tell you differently."
"What? What have you heard?" she asked, faux-offended.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Tony licked the side of his hand where a trail of dressing was making a break for freedom. He took another couple of bites and washed them down with a mouthful from the bottle of stale mineral water that had stood opened on his desk for the past three days. "When did you get back?"
She'd been gone for a week. And a few days here and there before that. Tony was almost certain that she had been spending time with Clint somewhere. Judging from her faint tan, that somewhere was a lot sunnier than New York City in November.
"A few hours ago," she said.
"Been anywhere nice?"
"Nice enough."
Tony took another bite of the sandwhich. "Is he okay?"
She didn't ask who he was talking about. "He'll be fine."
"I know. That wasn't the question."
"You're not doing him any favors if you think of him - or treat him - as fragile or broken," she said. "And he's not going to thank you for it."
Tony put the sandwich down. "I don't think he's broken. Jesus, he's not a damn vase." I know you're both hardcore BAMFs—"
The side of her mouth lifted in a smirk. "BAMFs? Really?"
"Don't deflect, Romanoff," he snapped. "You're hardcore professionals, I get that, but he's still human, and that back there—"
"Humiliation and violent power games are nothing he hasn't experienced before," she interrupted. "He was injured in the line of duty, and he's healing. That's all there is. That's all you need to know."
"Nothing he hasn't experienced before?" Tony stared at her, feeling sick. "You're saying that… that this happened to him before?"
"I'm not saying anything, and if you feel the need to pursue this topic further I'm not the person you need to talk to.
Tony grimaced. "Yeah, that's not a conversation that's gonna happen." He sighed and rubbed at his face. His eyes felt dry and gritty.
"So how are you doing?" she asked.
"Still sore. Hate the fucking crutches." He paused, then decided to be honest for once in his goddamn life. "I can't stop thinking about what they did to him when they took him that last time. It must have been something real bad, because he was all 'no, no, we're absolutely waiting for the cavalry, it's too dangerous', but when he came back… He went after them the first chance he got."
Natasha pulled a footstool closer with her foot and sat down. "Listen to me, Stark. I have seen him in much worse shape than that, standing his ground to people meaner and crueler than those amateurs. He can take a lot."
"I know."
"No," she said, "you really don't."
Tony opened his mouth to protest, to remind her about all the times he'd seen Clint hurt and brushing it off, but the absolute absence of inflection in her voice stopped him.
"He can take a lot," she repeated. "And that makes me think the reason for his change of tactics wasn't what they did to him, it was probably what they threatened to do to you."
Tony blinked. He hadn't even considered that.
"He'll be fine," she said. "Don't make the mistake of thinking he's hiding because he's too traumatized to get out of bed or something. He's not here because it's not where he wants to be right now. He's safe and doing well, and he's got a number of very skilled resources available if he feels he needs them."
"Seriously? Barton is like the least likely person to seek out help that I know, and I know me. You trust him to make that call?"
"Yes."
"Then you know him better than I do," he muttered.
"Yes. I do," she said, and there was something more behind those clipped words, something territorial and darkly protective. He knew a warning when he heard it.
But he still had something he needed to know. Something that had eaten at him ever since that day. "I have a question."
She inclined her head.
"Okay, so don't bite my head off, Mama-bear, but…" He hesitated. "Clint took out Whippet. Cortes's main thug," he explained. "We called him Whippet, because he looked— Never mind, that's not important. But he was the ring leader, the instigator to a lot of bad shit, and Barton said…" Tony swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "He sat watching the guy as he died and told him he would find his family and hurt them. He wouldn't— He wouldn't do that, would he?"
He realized with startling clarity that he was genuinely dreading the answer.
Natasha took her sweet time to answer.
"We're the monster under the bed, Stark," she finally said. "In the old days, myth and legend would have turned us into demons, into sharp-teethed horrors that appeared without warning in the dead of night, leaving nothing but death and destruction behind." Her lips twitched with a dark, wry smile. "Can't help thinking everything sounded better back then." She turned serious a moment later. "What we've seen, what we've done, it's not pretty, not easily digested by most people, and I'm not saying SHIELD never made mistakes, because we did, big ones at times, but what we did was never without purpose. Was never indiscriminate. So, no, Clint won't go after his family, no matter what the guy did to him." She canted her head and looked sideways at Tony. "But the he died thinking Clint would, didn't he? And I'm guessing that was goal."
Tony nodded, relief heavy in his gut.
"So, now it's my turn." Natasha picked up one of the calibrated IMU chips Tony had laid out in sequential order and held it between her thumb and index finger.
"Shoot," he told her.
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about the guys found dead back there in that compound?"
"Barton took them out. Before he finished Whippet he took care of Cortes and one other guy in there."
Natasha shook her head. "Not them. I know that was him, it had his signature written all over it. I meant the four we found dead in two different locked rooms."
Tony forced his shoulders to relax. "No," he said. "I have no idea." He leaned over and liberated the IMU from her fingers. He put it down and picked up the circuit board he just finished. He slotted it into the body of the small mechatronic crawler he was trying to improve, heard the distinct 'click' of it locking into place, then flipped the power switch and watched its twig-looking articulated legs start moving. He put it down on its back out of the way and let it lie there and flail. He reached for a screw driver.
"Seems like the old Freon fire suppressant system malfunctioned somehow," she said. "From what I understand it's pretty unusual for people to die from Freon-12 poisoning, but turns out if you fill a small enough space with a high enough concentration of it, it will eventually displace the most of the air and you'll die from suffocation."
He reached for the second crawler and started unscrewing the first of the many tiny screws. "I think I've heard of that. Happened on a Japanese trawler not too long ago."
"But see, the curious thing is that the malfunction only occurred in two out of eight rooms. In different parts of the sub-basement. On different physical delivery circuits."
"That is weird."
"Very." Natasha's tone remained carefully neutral. "Turns out those two rooms were covered by cameras connected to monitors in the control room where you guys camped out before we got to you. Monitors that were disabled somehow. Like someone didn't want someone else to see what was happening in those two rooms."
Tony tried to shrug casually. "It was an old system. Once something starts going, it can cascade in strange ways."
"Tony," she started.
"No matter how or who, they had it coming. Trust me."
"Tony—"
"No," he interrupted her again, his voice sharp. He looked up. "You don't get to pass judgment. You weren't there, you didn't see what they did to him, what—"
Tony," she said again, louder, her voice still even.
He glared at her. "What?!"
She nodded her chin at far side of the desk behind him. "Your toy is on fire."
Suddenly the distinct smell of overheated electronics and melting plastic reached him. He spun around. Sure enough, his mechatronic crawler was sparking and smoking, its little legs twitching in death before coming to a stop.
"Motherfucker!"
A small flame was seen climbing from one of the joints and Tony swept the workbench around the smoking crawler clear of stuff to prevent more things from catching fire. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and the moment he pressed the handle, the fire alarm started wailing at an ear piercing level. Dammit. He knew he should have used a larger heat sink for those power FETs. He had suspected they were too small. He just hadn't expected them to overheat like this. Not this fast. Or this spectacularly.
The small fire was out in seconds. "JARVIS, kill the goddamn alarm," Tony shouted over the claxon.
The lab fell silent around him and he stared glumly at the foam covered heap of smoldering electronics. Dammit. Dammit.
When he twisted, Natasha was gone. He looked around confused. There was no way she could have made it to the elevator and waited for the doors to open and close in the few seconds before he turned.
"Witch woman," he muttered.
From the corner of his eye he saw Dum-E approaching with an extinguisher raised. "You blow my mind, you know. Now you're late." Tony patted the robot's head and sent him back to his charging station. "It's a good thing you're cute," he sighed.
'* '* '* '*
Ten days later Tony saw Clint for the first time since the guy took off while Tony was still loopy from heavy duty painkillers.
"Hey," Clint said.
Tony looked up at the sound of his voice, taking his eyes off the balance bars on both sides of him. He was struggling and cursing and sweating in the rehab room, trying to get back to walking without crutches, because seriously, crutches were the work of the devil, after four weeks he was sure of that.
"Well, well, look what the cat dragged in," he panted. Clint raised his eyebrows at the tone, and Tony saw him exchange a look with the physiotherapist. "Fuck off, I'm a goddamn delight to be around," Tony snapped before either of them had a chance to say something.
"Jesus," he heard Clint say mildly. "Has he been like this all this time?"
"This is a good day," the physiotherapist answered, his hand hovering close to Tony's elbow.
"And that's why I pay you the big bucks," Tony growled.
"That you do, Mr. Stark. That you do."
Tony leaned heavily against both hand bars and lowered his head for a moment, catching his breath. Who knew walking could be so damn exhausting. He waved away the physiotherapist (Theo, he repeated in his head. His name was Theo). "It's okay, you can head out. I'm just gonna finish this, Barton can spot me the last few feet."
Theo looked reluctant, but didn't protest, just packed his things up and left with a polite 'Have a nice afternoon. I'll see you tomorrow.'
Clint stepped up between the balance bars, hands ready to grab Tony should he stumble.
"Get out of the way."
"I'm supposed to be spotting you," Clint pointed out. He was more tanned than Natasha, his hair lighter than it had been before, bleached by the sun on some sandy beach, no doubt. It suddenly pissed Tony off that he'd taken off like that.
"Well, spot me from over there," he growled and motioned to the wall.
Clint just raised his hands in surrender and took two steps back. He didn't move further away than that.
Tony took another step, letting the hand bars on either side of him take some of his weight, but he still had to grit his teeth against the pain. It wasn't as bad as it had been, but it sure as hell wasn't pleasant to put weight on that leg. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded.
Clint shrugged. "Here and there. Needed a bit of vacation, that's all."
"Would it have killed you to let us know where you were, that you were okay?"
"It's not like I dropped off the face of the earth, Nat knew where to find me."
"Yeah, well, her reports are woefully lacking in things like, oh, I don't know, information."
"My mistake," Clint said wryly. "I will send an itemized itinerary next time."
"Make sure you do," Tony muttered. He gave up and took all weight off his leg and used the bars to hop to the end.
"How's it going?"
Tony grimaced. "Slowly." He nodded towards the crutches leaning against the wall. "I'm on those for at least another couple of weeks."
Clint helped him hobble to the bench that was placed along the wall next to the crutches. He handed Tony the folded towel. "I heard they think you'll make a full recovery."
"Yeah." Tony sighed and scrubbed the towel over his face. "Did you also hear that they predict it's gonna take months and months of rehab? I hate rehab. It's too slow."
Clint made a sound of agreement.
Tony spent a few minutes with his eyes closed, trying to recover a little from Theo's brutal session. The walking had been the cool down, the easy part. He could hear Clint move around the room, no doubt inspecting everything. Tony knew he'd had a lot of experience with rehab over the years.
"How about you?" Tony asked and tried to make the question casual. "How's it going? You okay?"
"Yeah, sure. A few weeks of sipping girly drinks on the beach and being tenderly nursed by Natasha, and I'm as good as new."
Tony opened his eyes with a snort of disbelief. "I have seen her bedside manners, so I'm not sure I believe she's capable of 'tender nursing'." He paused. "Is she?"
"Well, I guess that's for me to know, and you to never find out," Clint grinned.
Tony suddenly got the weirdest suspicion that maybe he was telling the truth, as hard as it was to imagine. He had always known the two of them were a tightknit team, and that their connection ran deeper than most people saw. At first he had thought that Clint gained more from it than she did, she never seemed like she needed anything or anyone, but as time went on, he came to realize that the only times she was completely at ease and unguarded were when she was alone with Clint, when she was unaware someone was watching. For the longest time, that fact had convinced him they were together, a couple who kept their relationship on the down, down, down low. It's not like he ever saw them all over each other, but Natasha laughed in a way she didn't around anyone else, moved with just a little less of that classical dancer precision, she seemed more like… He got a mental image of Pepper telling him that 'more like a normal person' was an unkind thing to say, but he couldn't think of another way of putting words to what he saw.
Clint helped him gather his things, but Tony was still too tired to get up and move. He took a sip from the water bottle.
"So, what have you been up to lately?" Clint asked. "Invented something new? Made any revolutionary technical breakthroughs? Blown something up?"
"I removed the lock out function on my money," Tony said.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Tony closed his eyes again. "It was a piss-poor strategy."
"Oh, I don't know, that's a pretty good deterrent. People with half a brain aren't quite as willing to kidnap you for your money knowing that you can't give them any. That strategy has probably spared you a kidnapping or two."
"It's just money, Barton. Money. It's not like I can't afford a ransom or ten. God knows I can. But nooo, I decided long ago to be a selfish asshole and that's not really something new, is it, but you know what, I don't care if it backfires on me, it happens all the time, but this time, this time…" Tony swallowed. "This time it was you who got stuck paying my tab. Jackson too, and I'm—" He slumped against the wall. "And I'm so fucking sorry for that."
Clint sat down on the bench next to him. He didn't speak for a moment. "I doubt it would have made much of a difference," he said. "Jackson was dead before you even told them they wouldn't be getting any money, and Whippet had already found a personal grudge to hold against me. The two guys I took down in the garage when they grabbed us were apparently his cousins."
"We would have gotten out of there faster if I had given them what they wanted."
And you might not have had to go through all that, Tony didn't add. You might have been spared some of it.
"You don't know that," Clint pointed out. "They might not have planned on letting us go at all after they got the money. And if that was the case, withholding the ransom was what kept us alive."
Tony looked down at the finger that was still splinted, remembered Clint's weight against him, the horrible sounds of pain he'd made. He swallowed. "I keep thinking, 'what if it had been Pepper who had to pay?'"
Clint nodded, but didn't answer.
Tony cleared his throat. "A wife," he said, changing the subject slightly, because thinking of Pepper being hurt like that made something inside go cold and brittle.
"Wife?"
"Jackson. He had a wife.
Clint picked up Tony's towel from the floor, balled it up and launched it at the laundry bin. "I know," he said.
Tony blinked. "You do?"
"Yeah." Clint leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. "I looked it up. I wanted to go see her."
"And did you?"
"Yeah."
Tony pulled his sweatshirt jacket on, a flicker of shame deep in his gut. Twice he had gone to the house, but both times he'd been unable to make himself get out of the car. "When?"
"About two weeks ago. She was nice. Two kids."
Tony nodded and lined the two parts of the zipper up. He pulled it all the way up. "I know. Kendra and Cookie." He looked up. "Seriously, they named their kid Cookie."
"I like it. I knew a girl named Cookie once."
"Knew her in the biblical sense?" Tony waggles his eyebrows, but the teasing felt flat and out of place.
"Hardly," Clint snorted. "We were like eight."
"Yeah, well, anyway, I set up a college fund for them."
"That's nice."
The words could so easily have sounded empty, spoken just for the sake of saying something about the gesture that Tony felt was painfully inadequate, but Clint sounded like he meant it. "I set something up for his wife, too. A kind of … extended widower's pension, I guess. I'm having Pepper look over the insurance policies for everyone."
"That's good."
"Do you have anyone?"
"Anyone what?"
"Anyone you want to… you know, make sure they're okay if something happens?"
Clint seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then shook his head. "No."
"Not even Natasha?"
Clint smiled wryly. "She doesn't need anything from me or you to be okay, and she'd kick your ass for suggesting it. But sure, if it makes you feel better, put her as beneficiary on whatever policy you're thinking of setting up for me."
Tony fingered the cuff of the old, comfortable jacket. It was starting to fray in places. "I'm really sorry, Clint."
"Tony—"
"No, I'm gonna say this and you're gonna hear it." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you were there. And I'm sorry they did those things to you. That's on me."
Clint rubbed at his eyes. "Jesus, Tony. Just so you know, I have very little love for martyrs. You asked, I chose to go. It was my decision. If you need to pin the blame somewhere, then it's on me and Jackson for not doing our jobs and making sure the garage was secure before taking you down there."
The sat in silence for a few moments, then Tony rolled his shoulders and sat up straighter. "You let me know if you need anything. If you want anything." He turned and faced Clint straight on. "I mean it."
"I don't need you to get me anything. But if you wanna do something for me…" Clint looked at him.
"Name it."
"You talking to someone?"
Tony's brows rose. "What, like a shrink?"
"Or Pepper." Clint shrugged. "Or, I don't know, your hairdresser?"
"Yeah, sure, 'cause I always chat about horrible torture and death with my hairdresser. I toss it in right between 'can you believe this weather' and 'how about them Yankees'." He shook his head. "I'm not big on the whole therapy thing, I'm really not, but Pepper asked very nicely, hinting at withholding sex indefinitely unless I," Tony made air quotes, "worked through it. So, yeah. I've got someone."
"Pepper's a shrewd woman."
"That she is." Tony frowned at him. "That's it? That's what you want me to do for you? Talk to a shrink?"
"No." Clint shook his head. "I mean, that's a good thing, don't get me wrong, you should definitely do that, but I figured since you've found another, and probably infinitely more qualified talking partner in all this, maybe, uh, maybe we," he made a vague gesture between the two of them, "maybe you and I could stay away from this topic." He dropped his hand. "Like, forever?"
Tony had to admit that the proposal held a bit of allure. "Okay," he said. "Yes, okay. I can actually live with that."
"Yeah?"
"Want me to pinkie swear on it?" He offered his pinkie.
Clint laughed, a tension Tony hadn't even noticed was there melting from his stance. "That's okay." He got to his feet.
"My previous offer still stands, though," Tony said and peered up at Clint. "Anything you want, Barton."
Clint pursed his lips. "What if I want pizza?"
"Ugh. I've had pizza for the past three days." Tony let Clint help him up. "Did you know there actually is such a thing as too much of a good thing? How about burgers? Real ones, with onion rings on the side, from The Zocal—"
"I waaaaaant piiiiizzaaaaa."
Tony almost stumbled at the volume. "Jesus. What are you, five?"
Clint grinned. "They're not one hundred percent sure about the year I was born, so my age is uncertain. But I've heard that number thrown around a few times, so I figure it's thereabouts."
"Fine." Tony took the crutches Clint offered. "Pizza it is."
~ The End ~