Swords and Arrows by Maddyson Ruby

Characters: Clint/OC

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit. All recognisable characters belong to Marvel.

Well, here is another chapter so soon after you got the last one, aren't you all lucky?

Chapter 11

She ran tirelessly through a maze of corridors, knowing exactly were to go and what to do, slashing through men in black as they came at her. She never broke her stride as she worked her way to her destination that place that she just had to reach. She didn't know why, she just knew she had to, felt it in every fibre of her being. The scene changed suddenly and she found herself looking down at a cold metal table with a woman chained down, her face contorted in pain. A scream left her lips and Rayne found herself in her bed, alone.

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Rayne breathed in harshly as she sat up in her bed, her back ramrod straight. A few stray tears fell from her eyes as her breathing and heart rate slowed their frantic paces. She climbed out of bed and left the room after any attempts at sleeping after her nightmare proved to be futile.

The hallways of the Avengers Tower seemed almost eerie in the absence of the dysfunctional team. The silence lingered hauntingly around her as she walked into Stark's top of the line kitchen.

The sound of movement froze her in place. It was two in the morning, nobody should have been up. She shouldn't have even been awake.

She reached over to the ornamental plant pot beside her frozen body and withdrew a katana and a handgun. She stowed the gun in the back of her pyjama pants and gripped the sword tighter in her palms, relishing its power and uniqueness. She slipped into the room; a male figure was illuminated by the large window that gave a view of the lights of the New York cityscape. She took a breath, silently rolling into the cover of the island unit, her every thought and feeling focussed on taking out whoever was in the kitchen at such an hour.

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Clint stilled just before sinking his teeth into the sandwich in his hand. He could hear an almost inaudible pair of footsteps behind him. The owner creeping forwards towards his unguarded and exposed back. Instincts took over as he calmly opened a draw in front of him, withdrawing a knife from within before listening carefully to the near silent person behind him. Their silence was a measure of their lethalness and experience. The more silent an assassin or mercenary, the more deadly they were.

Clint felt a slight movement in the air behind him and katana met knife with a metallic screech that resounding around the room. Brown eyes met stormy grey and both Avengers flew back in shock.

"Clint-"

"Rayne-"

"I'm so sorry!" they cried.

Rayne took another deep breath and smiled up at Clint reassuringly, "It's okay. I nearly took your head off."

He scoffed jokingly, "Are you sure about that? I would have stabbed you before you could."

"Really?" she asked with a laugh.

"Really." He wrapped his arms around her after a moment of hesitation as the 'What if's' ran through his mind. Rayne sunk into Clint's embrace and grinned up at him supportively, watching as he closed the gap between their faces, his lips meeting hers in a soft kiss. He pulled away slightly, leaving no more than an inch between them, watching her wide grey eyes, "I really am sorry, Rayne."

She sighed in exasperation, "It's okay, Clint. We're both still alive. No blood, no foul."

"Fine," Clint growled out, his instincts warring, telling him that he had only been defending himself but also simultaneously saying that he could have seriously hurt Rayne. They stood in silence for a minute before Clint spoke again, "Sorry for snapping, I'm a bit wound up still."

She looked up at him with her wide smoky grey eyes, "Why? What's wrong?"

"Loki," Clint muttered, running his hand through his short brown hair.

Rayne nodded knowingly, "Nightmares. Of the Tesseract?"

He just nodded to her in silent agreement, not wanting to admit his fears out loud as that always made them much more real and much more unbearable. He hated weakness.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she offered, watching the conflict in his eyes.

He looked at her carefully, considering his options before deciding, "No." He smiled mockingly, "How about you? Do you want to talk about it?"

Rayne smirked up at the archer, "Of course." She took his hand and led him into the television room before pushing him down onto the couch and sitting beside him with a small smile.

"You really want to talk about Loki?" he asked her with just a hint of vulnerability.

"No, I don't," Rayne whispered just loud enough for him to hear. "I don't want to re-visit the past and bring up bad memories. Loki is in my past and that is where he is going to stay. There's no need to go over what happened, I understand. And yes, I hated it and at times regret not killing him when I could but the bottom line is, and will always be, that I lived to tell the tale. I got through and didn't break into a million pieces."

Clint nodded, silently taking in her whispered words of wisdom before he asked, "Can I hold you?"

She didn't say a word, just silently sunk into his arms, her ear pressed over his heart, listening to the cool thud of its rhythm.

Clint smiled, pressing his face into her curly black hair, inhaling the smell of her shampoo. A murmur escaped Rayne and Clint pulled back enough to see her tanned face. He felt a smile creep into life on his own face as he realised that she had fallen asleep in his arms.

With a smile, he snuggled up with her, pulling her body onto his lap to make it more comfortable before joining her in sleep with a grin on his face.

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"Sir," Jarvis called, stopping the Avengers mid-laugh as their eyes all turned to the ceiling at the possible location for the artificial intelligence known as Jarvis, "Director Fury is calling, he says it is most urgent-"

"Tell One-Eye to cool it and leave. He is not to be let up here Jarvis. I don't want 'ode de Fury' stinking up the loft again."

Rayne chuckled, smothering her laughter behind her hand as Tony proceeded to roll his eyes at the AI's insistence that Fury very much wanted to speak with him.

"Jarvis!" Tony called, "I made you, and I can just as easily unmake you!"

The artificial intelligence sighed, sounding weary to all who could hear, "Very well, Sir."

Tony smirked in satisfaction before continuing to nurse his cup of black coffee with a tenderness and love usually reserved for Pepper only. He looked up feeling the eyes of the Avengers and Pepper on him, "What?"

"You know, Tony," Rayne told him sternly.

"You didn't have to be so mean to Jarvis," Steve agreed.

Tony growled a sigh, wincing at the hangover headache it caused, "Look Cap, I made Jarvis. I am his master. He isn't real and he sure doesn't have any feelings either."

The Captain screwed up his face before digging into his third plate of pancakes with a focus Tony usually reserved for alcohol or Pepper.

"We all know Jarvis isn't real, Tony," Bruce told him, "What Steve and Rayne were trying to say is that even though he isn't real in the sense of you and I, he is still somewhat alive and deserves to be treated as such."

"That's all well and good but-" Tony was cut off by the elevator doors sliding open to reveal a very angry Director Fury and a new lackey that, as far as the Avengers were concerned, didn't measure up to Phil Coulson.

"Mr Stark," the Director of SHIELD greeted them coolly, his eyes sliding to the others in the kitchen, "Avengers, Miss Potts."

"Hey, baby girl," Wade said as he walked into the room nonchalantly, pressing a kiss to Rayne's sleep ruffled curls. "Sleep well?"

"Uh… Dad?" she asked unsurely, trying to direct her father's attention to the big, angry problem in the room.

Wade Wilson turned, leaning against the counter with a floral teacup in his hands, his eyes locked on Nick Fury and he could supress the smirk, "Hey, Nicky."

Nicolas Fury growled lowly, "Wade Wilson."

Said man just smirked at the fuming Director, "Good to see you, too. How's Jenny doing?"

A vein began to throb in the centre of Nick Fury's forehead as he ground his teeth together; glaring at the indifferent man in front of him, looking just the same as the day he'd met him. "I wouldn't know," the Director replied harshly, "I haven't seen her since the day you two walked out the door."

Wade scoffed, "Rubbish, Fury. Stop spouting lies! She came back to you the day after my little rain cloud was born, saying about how I was never around, I couldn't commit, yada, yada, yada… So, stop with the lies, Nicky."

"I am being serious, Wilson," Fury bellowed in aggravation, the Avengers all but forgotten as he stared down Deadpool. "I haven't seen or heard from her since she walked out the door, with you, all those years ago. My best efforts to find her have turned up nothing."

A look of worry slid onto Wade's face unauthorised before he shoved it away harshly, pulling up a cool façade of triviality, "Clearly you haven't been trying that hard then."

The Director of SHIELD gritted his teeth against the urge to pummel the mercenary but had very little success, his hand itching to pop a bullet between his eyes and be done with it but the thought of Rayne in the room seemed to nullify the urge somewhat. "It's a bit difficult to search when I have the Council breathing down the back of my neck all the time." The Director sighed sounding weary to everyone in the room. Most of them were shocked at the Director showing any form of weakness, others dismissed it as some kind of ploy or underhanded tactic to get what he wanted. Rayne assumed that was her father behind bars or in a maximum security detention cell somewhere.

"Look," Wade said, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room to himself, "I apologise for the way things ended but she left me and Rayne of her own free will."

Rayne stood up slowly from the table, "Who are you talking about? Dad? Fury?"

Wade sighed, "We're talking about your mother, Ray."

Rayne's breathing sped up slightly as she looked between the two men with wide, innocent grey eyes, eyes so different to her father's, "What are you talking about? What about my mother? Who is she, even?"

Fury looked to Wade sharply, "You haven't told her? I mean, I suspected you hadn't but even still..."

Wade fixed fury with a glare before fixing his almost childish eyes on his adult daughter who looked more and more like her mother every day, a blessing and a curse for him. "Your mother was a mutant seer named Jasmine."

"What?" Tony asked, piping up for the first time in about ten minutes, his coffee forgotten, "Like as in seeing the future? With tarot cards and a crystal ball and all that crap?"

"Stark!" Rayne, Wade and Nick barked in sync, their penetrating glares fixed on the now defensive billionaire.

"What? I was just asking," he defended.

Wade sighed turning back to face his only daughter, Rayne, "Your mother was named Jasmine Fury." When Rayne just looked at him with wide, confused eyes, he spoke again, "Rayne, your mother was the daughter of Director Nicolas Fury of SHIELD. You are Director Fury's granddaughter."

Done! Another chapter within less than a week of the other one! How awesome am I? Keep reading and reviewing people! Your feedback keeps me going. Also, what did you think of Fury? Wade? Rayne and Clint? Tell me, your feedback means everything to me! Until the next chapter, this is Agent Maddyson signing out!