A/N: Hallo everyone! Thanks again for your patience! Some of y'all requested some backstory regarding how Clint became a swordsman, so here it is, at least a little. Thanks for your support and reviews and thanks to Zarannya for beta-ing!
DarylDixon'sLover: Thanks so much! If Bucky gets his mind healed in this story, it will probably be at the very end. Wanda's a little busy right now, but eventually she'll think of it ;D She'll probably be pretty embarrassed she never thought of it before, haha.
StrangeInterests32: That is actually a really good idea! I would love to bring in Aunt May somewhere in the middle of Tony and Laura and the gang's travels. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm so glad you liked all the bro bonding moments!
LadyLucina28: Your reply actually made me think about that a bit more with 2 Quicksilvers...I have an awesome plan for that now, heheheh! Petey is so cute, isn't he? Thanks for your review!
Bree Colbern: Thank you so much! Hahaha yes, well-except half the time I think Tony only pretends to be annoyed, lol.
Liliththestormgoddess: ME TOO! Clint's children are the best, lol. Poor Tones.
Black' Victor Cachat: Unfortunately, Clint doesn't exactly stand a chance :p except that he IS a master strategist. So maybe. Maybe...not 1 on 1, though, that would be bad. Besides, Clint's been injured so many times I'm pretty sure he has a decent amount of metal in him lol. YASS! I'm so excited you noticed the Ant Man Wasp thing! I love them so much...Hahaha yes we shall see what happens to Tony. Thanks again for your wonderful reviews!
Karli1252: I'm so glad you liked it! Hahaha that ending was totally the idea of my wonderful beta. Not mine ;D Hope you like this Wanda/Clint stuff we're getting back to! Thank you for reviewing; you really make my day!
Time of the Flame Heart: HA! ;D So glad it made you laugh. Poor Tony, lol. Thanks so much for reviewing!
gandalf537: Woohooo! I'm glad you're so excited; I am too! Tony is in for it, fo real. Oh, I'm so glad you like the part with Sam's momma! It's going to be super cute, I guarantee :D
James Williamson: You pretty much hit the nail on the head :D I've been trying to add more imagery, so hopefully it comes out, but part of me just wants to get the story done and in one piece, with minimal plot holes! Sharon and Dr. Pym are both fantastic ideas! I'll see if there's a place for them...I'd especially like to bring in Sharon alongside Martin Freeman's character whatever-his-name-was. They both didn't get enough screentime. I agree that Tony and Pym would be AWESOME. Natasha is in the story, currently with Laura and Tony and the kids. It might be a role that downplays her abilities a bit, but I like to think that Nat's loyalty to Clint kept her close to the family while he was in prison. Thanks as always for the amazing review! Your thoughts are SO helpful!
...
Frenchmen in Spain
"Spanish food not liking you?" Clint's blue eyes twinkled at Wanda over their table in a small restaurant off the Atlantic coast.
Wanda wrinkled her nose as she stared at the menu. "I'm not really a fan of blood sausage and cold soup."
"There's like, twenty other things on this menu that aren't blood sausage," Clint chuckled, surveying his own menu. "I've been to this place three times before. It all tastes good."
Clint eventually ordered Menu del Dia, while Wanda stuck with the children's spaghetti and meatballs.
He made a face at her when she ordered, and she glared in response while talking to the waiter in broken, halting Spanish.
"We're in Spain, and you order Italian. Really?" he asked pointedly as the other left.
"Occasionally, I like not to be adventurous," she replied. "It's been three weeks since we started traveling, and we've been to a grand total of nine countries in that time. I'm taking a break." She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder nonchalantly.
Clint had an unhappy look on his face, but Wanda merely thought he was pouting and changed the subject.
When their food arrived, Clint gave her another disgusted look. "That smells awful," he glared at the offending dish.
As if to spite him, Wanda picked up her fork and took a huge mouthful. "Mmm. Best stuff I've ever had," she sighed with her mouth full, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes. "That's delicious. You should try some."
Clint winced. "Nope, I'm good."
Wanda finished chewing and swallowing before she grinned. "You're weird, Old Man. Who doesn't like spaghetti?"
"Me."
"Everyone on the entire Earth likes spaghetti."
"You know what's waaaaay better than spaghetti? Blood sausage," Clint held up a bite of his on a fork and grinned, a little too forcefully.
She shook her head in annoyance and finished the remainder her food. As they waited for the check, a stranger walked past and dropped a single scrap of paper on the table.
Wanda's eyes widened as she looked toward Clint.
His gaze had zeroed in on the back of the woman's head, fixing on her for a long moment before she disappeared into the crowd. He turned back to Wanda and slowly shook his head. Cautiously, he reached for the paper. "Could be poisoned," he warned, raising his eyebrows across the table at her.
"You wouldn't touch it if you thought it was," Wanda pointed out. She craned her neck to read the words as he held the paper out for them both to see.
There were only two.
"Zambele's Wonders," the paper read.
"Do you know what it means?"
Clint merely grunted in reply.
"I could find out what it means if I read her mind back there. I could still find a trace of her."
"True, but she won't know what it means anyway."
"Why?"
Clint stared at the paper a long while, before a strange, slightly pained smile edged at the corner of his mouth. "I saw her hands. She's not the type."
… … … …
"Okay, what type?" Wanda huffed in exasperation as the two of them ran through the city minutes later.
Clint was zigzagging in seemingly pointless directions, scanning the wharfs for something he wouldn't tell her about.
"Circus type," he acknowledged finally. "We need to get out of here before they decide we're too valuable."
"A circus?" Wanda stopped in her tracks, holding her side and breathing hard. "You've got to be kidding me."
Just then, Clint appeared to spot something and ran up ahead.
Wanda sighed loudly. "We're on the run from nearly every government in the world, and he's afraid of a circus."
"Shut up, Wanda," Clint replied tightly, continuing to jog as she caught up to him.
Wanda's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"
He stopped abruptly and held out a hand to slow her down. "This is serious!" his eyes darkened as he looked toward her face.
"Okay, explain it to me, then!" she exclaimed hotly.
"I can't—" Clint started, then frowned, irritably. "They're tracking us. If we don't go where they said to go—well, then they'll turn us in. We'll never get aboard a ship to the U.S. without them finding out which one and reporting it to the U.N."
"Who is tracking us?"
"Like I said," the archer bit out, "the circus." He pointed to the paper they'd received. "Sounds fun, right? Well, it isn't!"
Wanda was taken aback by his strange attitude, but she stared at him evenly for a second before shrugging. "And—?" she prompted.
"And nothing," Clint grumbled. "Just watch your back. I'd rather they knew us by our alternate identities, but it's already too late for that if they're planning to turn us in."
He strode away without another word, his posture stiff and his arms held tense at his sides.
Wanda snorted inwardly before following a few steps behind. "How do you know they're planning to turn us in? They literally gave us two words," she grumbled to herself.
…
Hol Naquest leaned back easily in his wooden chair, his performance sword held comfortably in his lap as he sharpened it. Each stroke was made without effort or attention, the ease of each movement born from a near lifetime of practice. "Zambele?" he called out gruffly, pausing to itch his short, dark beard. "Any progress?"
"Hawkeye isn't stupid," the elderly, wizened Frenchman replied with a roll of his eyes. He held up his phone, a string of texts from their contacts throughout the city lined up before Naquest's eyes. "He will come just as we asked him to."
"No, he isn't stupid - he's three times as intelligent as any of us!" Naquest practically exploded off his chair. He swung his sword, not intending to harm, but to let off some steam. Zambele stepped backward anyway, glaring at him. "This is the problem," the performer explained to his boss. "Hawkeye will come here, yes. But he's been working for the Army, for special operations, for spy agencies, for the Avengers! This man has no interest in helping us! He will massacre us before anything else!"
Zambele turned away, unaffected, taking up several of Naquest's other weapons, which were lying on the table, and examining them with a calloused finger.
"He broke out of a United Nations prison!" the younger man continued. "If we make a deal with him—even if we get to make a deal with him—it is us who will be in the most trouble for harboring him as a fugitive!"
"Or we can pull off the biggest heists we've managed yet, turn him in, retire, change our names, raise our children off our fortunes in Switzerland, and no one is the wiser," the circus owner replied dryly.
"You think I'm stupid." Naquest pointed an accusing finger at his boss before slumping back into his chair, tipping it so far back it made the older man cringe for thinking it would tip over. "Give me," he held out a hand for his weapons, and Zambele rolled his eyes and handed them to him.
Naquest began stroking his sword with an absent, possessive expression. His lips twisted slightly.
"I wonder if the information we received is correct regarding him," he questioned the air, "and he really was raised in a one-ring circus founded by an American trailer park. I wonder how good he is with a sword," his lips curled upward as he examined his blade.
"Probably not as good as with his bow," Zambele replied with a grunt at his employee's strange fantasies. "Good thing, too; maybe he'll shoot you from a mile away while you're waving that thing in the air and I won't have to put up with your mouth anymore."
Naquest started up, angry. "My fears are real and truly founded," he growled, sticking the point of his sword in the ground and twisting. "If you don't call this off, you'll be thanking ME for cutting his head off." He retreated back into the chair so quickly it seemed to hang in midair for a second before tipping forward just enough to keep it from falling. "That is MY part of the plan."
"It's a risk, I know," Zambele raised an eyebrow as he turned to leave. "But I am old. And I have kids. You'll thank me one day."
"I'll thank you in hell," Naquest grumbled, keeping the chair tipped as he settled his booted feet on the tabletop. He lifted the sword into his lap and ran it over the sharpening stone once more. "Hawkeye will never see THIS coming."
…
"At what point do we stop purposefully walking into this trap and I get to mind-control all of the acrobats into not following us?" Wanda pulled her hooded sweatshirt up over her face so it was no longer visible. She gave a wistful glance toward her backpack. She'd become a bit fond of her Raven costume, but these carnies already knew her true identity. Better they didn't know her alternate one, too.
Darkness had begun to fall over the Spanish docks as Clint and Wanda finally located the open grounds where Zambele's circus tents were pitched.
"Right," Clint stuck his hands in his pockets, eyes narrowing at the pink-and-yellow stripes under flying banners at the very tops of the tents. "This is bigger than I thought."
"What? You've never been to a circus before?" Wanda asked in surprise. "I used to go all the time. When Pietro and I were little… we used to sneak into the tents sometimes for free after our parents left us. It was fun," a small smile flirted at her lips.
Clint's frowned deepened, if that were possible. He didn't answer her question as he turned up his own hoodie, looking like a regular vigilante with his sword across his back and three pairs of knives stashed along his pant legs. The beard he'd grown during their travels didn't help him look any more like a harmless teddy bear, either. His appearance was as menacing as Wanda had ever seen him.
"Well, don't just go replying to everything I say," the girl huffed, starting to get REALLY annoyed with how secretive he was being. "Clint, I know you're trying to be dark and mysterious, but can you at least tell me what the plan is?"
Clint heaved a sigh through his nose, relaxing slightly, to her relief. "Yeah. Best guess is, they're gonna try to make a deal with us. Probably one involving us stealing a whole lotta money for them."
"Which…we're not going to. Right?" At this point, Wanda felt like she had to clarify everything.
"Right!" he answered quickly, "Right, right, right. But they're smart. They'll see your powers coming from a mile away."
Wanda folded her arms across her chest. "If this is referring the time you electrocuted me…"
Clint almost, ALMOST grinned at that. He gestured to the tent. "Imagine a whole roomful of me's," he joked.
"It's not like they can overpower me," she rolled her eyes.
"They can trick you," Clint looked her directly in the eye, serious. "I mean it, Wanda. If we don't step lightly, they'll turn us in and we'll never get to see the other side of this ocean. Except maybe from another underwater holding cell," his voice turned hard and bitter.
Wanda felt the bile rising up in her own throat at the memory of the isolation and the shock collar treatment she'd been given. "Clint?" she asked, in a lower, more resignated tone, "How do you know so much about circus people?"
Clint's eyes dropped and his expression softened a bit before he spoke. "Let's just say," he replied in a husky tone, "Not everything about me is a thing you want to know, kid."
…
"Hawkeye!" an aging man with long, curly, shoulder-length silver hair greeted them at the entrance to the tent.
Wanda did her best to look at ease, but something about the man's posture didn't seem right even to her. Clint, for his part, wasn't even trying to look relaxed. He carried himself stiff as a board and his expression was downright murderous.
"We are so glad you could come," the man continued. "Please step inside."
"We're not going in there," Clint replied flatly. "If you're going to threaten me, we'll settle this in the open. Thanks."
The other man, who must have been Zambele (unless the circus' name was only for promotional purposes), flinched but stood his ground. "I will consider that your counter move, since we contacted you first," he agreed after a long moment.
Wanda looked from Clint to Zambele. Both were trying to establish dominance, not letting the other gain an inch of ground. She just hoped this man had NO idea how much of a power imbalance actually existed between the two sides. He hadn't even so much as nodded in her direction—how rude of him.
"Let me ask you a question, Hawkeye," Zambele leaned against a tent post, looking for all the world the most calm and relaxed of the three of them. "Why so defensive?"
"Defensive?" Clint replied in a mocking tone. "Tell me you don't have thirteen or more highly trained fighters behind that tent flap, trick weapons prepped to kill if I don't kiss your ass every time you open your trap—?"
"Will you not come inside?" Zambele pleaded, redirecting the conversation. "Out here, the authorities will hear us, and whether or not they arrest me, they will most certainly arrest you and your girlfriend first—"
"You're not afraid of the authorities," Clint loudly called his bluff.
"Why do you not trust me enough to let me speak?!" the circus owner demanded, also raising his voice.
"Oh, I wonder," Clint's eyes lit up with a dark fire. "In my experiences with carnies—and I've had a few with Frenchmen traveling in a foreign country—you're nothing more than backstabbing thieves. You're going to tell me exactly what you want us to do, and precisely what you're going to NOT do to us, and validation enough that I don't kill you all right here and now. Because—do I need to say this again? I DON'T TRUST CARNIES."
Wanda felt her breath catch in her throat as he ended his speech.
Zambele stared for a moment. "Very well," he answered, in a much lower tone. "And if I allow you to TRY to kill us, will you concede at least to an audience?"
"How much are they paying?" Clint's voice was dangerous.
Wanda was desperately trying to send little messages to him telepathically, but he was rejecting everything she tried to say. "This is a bad idea!" she was exclaiming, but he didn't even hear it. "Hush, please! Talk to me for a second! Don't KILL people, Clint; what are you thinking?!"
"Fifty seats, to the highest bidders," Zambele's white eyebrows settled low over his dull brown eyes.
"Deal," Clint replied. "You won't survive the night."
"CLINT!" Wanda practically screamed in his head. He actually winced a little, breaking focus for the briefest of seconds, but his composure soon returned. He was ignoring her. AGAIN. Wanda felt close to tears—if they weren't in such a high-sensitivity situation, she would be cracking. What had come over him? What was she supposed to do when Hawkeye started acting like a maniac? What was anyone supposed to do?
A red light snaked across the dried-up grass and clouded Zambele's eyes before she even realized what she was doing.
"Run."
"What?" Clint started, aware of his surroundings again.
"Run," the circus director repeated in a haunting voice, his body stiffening up in contrast with his former ease. "Run! Get away from here. Just run!"
Clint's eyes widened and he whirled on Wanda. "What are you doing?" he yelled.
Wanda gasped and dropped the man. "You were going to kill them!" she accused.
"I had a plan!"
"What plan? The plan I asked you to tell me and you refused to?" she shouted back.
Zambele fell to the side, dazed, but just as Clint had predicted, at least a dozen other circus performers came running out of the tent, armed to the teeth.
The archer whirled around, knives already in hand. "Take out the ones in front," he hissed, catching two performers coming up behind them by surprise. He hurled his projectiles at them, landing three effective shots that would incapacitate them before they had a chance to realize they'd lost the element of surprise.
Three more, however, one of whom held a handful of deadly-looking colorful darts, were on him before he could stop them. Clint wrestled one to the ground, smacked the other so hard in the face with his fist that he went down in a single blow, nose bleeding everywhere, and turned to grab the other one by the shoulders as he lunged toward Wanda with the darts in his hand.
Clint called her name desperately, but it was too late. She had been hit with two of them, and was already staggering on her feet as Clint knocked the last of their attackers to the ground.
"WANDA!"
...
OH! What? It's a CLIFFIE! Stay tuned for the next part :D and as always, thanks so much for reading!
~Marina