Chapter 12: Pep Talks and Apologies

Clint almost dropped Wanda. "Will! he yelled. His brother was airborne over the gap...and then just as suddenly, he disappeared. "No!" Clint sprinted as close to the edge as he dared get and looked over the edge. His boots skidded on the broken pavement as he looked down-wait, down?

They were rising. Sokovia was rising. And Will….where the hell was he? Clint peered over the side, searching. No. No, no. no.

Something grabbed his foot and he almost put an arrow in it. He yelped and looked down to see Will with an iron grip on his boot. Clint reached down and pulled Will onto the walkway, heaving him over with both hands, muscles straining. The two of them collapsed on the ground. Will was breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his forehead. "What the fuck Will?" Clint demanded. "You could've gotten yourself killed. What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass," Will breathed. Clint looked at him and snorted in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me right now? You're saving my ass" he asked him. "What are you doing here, really?"

"Ethan and Benji and I were finishing an op," Will gasped. "Next thing I knew, I had this sudden urge to get out of the city."

"That was me," Wanda Maximoff spoke up shyly from behind them.

Will raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Thanks for that," he told her. She nodded and swallowed. "Anyway, now that I'm here…and uh, not going anywhere but up," he added, "how can I help?"

"I'm sorry." The words left Clint's mouth before he could think about it. "For everything."

Then, a voice. Amplified through the thousands of Ultron bots floating around the city. "Do you see? The beauty in it? The inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You…Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword. And the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh away from me…"

Clint fired an arrow at the bot above their heads, from whom the voice seemed to be emanating. It dropped, but another took its' place. He couldn't drown out the voice. Wanda had her hands over her ears.

"When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world, will be metal." Ultron's voice was deadly.

"Screw you, Ultron!" Will yelled as Clint dropped another Ultron bot to the pavement. "Apologize later," he snapped at his brother. "We need to move."

Clint stared at Will. A pair of stubborn matching eyes glared back at him. "Fine," Clint said shortly. "We've gotta drop these bots."

"You do that," Will said. "I'll help clear the street, give you guys clean shots." He took off at a run, grabbing a young woman by the arm and pulling her with him. Clint drew his bow and fired ahead of Will, dropping an Ultron bot just behind him. He turned and took out another. Wanda was crouched next to an old German beater car, an Ultron bot inbound. Wanda threw up her shield, and the bot bounced off the top of it and careened into a building. Clint ran over the top of the car, flipped midair, and shot the bot in the eye, knocking it out of commission.

He looked up. There were five more inbound. They all aimed at the two of them. Oh, come on! Clint reached down and grabbed Wanda's hand. "Go, go!" he yelled, and shoved her ahead of him. The two of them jumped through a window, landing hard. Wanda was crying, hysterical. Clint rolled off of her. "Are you okay?" he demanded, glancing back behind them at the open window. Apparently, the bots had found a new target, as they weren't shooting through the windows, and he prayed his brother was out of their way.

"It's all our fault." Wanda was sobbing.

Clint shook his head. Seriously, I know she's just a kid but we don't have time for this. His brother was off playing superhero (pot, meet kettle), and he was hiding in a building in a flying city with a twenty-something kid with magical powers. He bent down so he was at her eye level. "Hey, look at me. It's your fault, it's our fault, it's everybody's fault. Who cares? Are you up for this?" When she didn't answer, he gave her a little shake. "Are you? Look, I just need to know because the city…it's flying. Okay? The city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots...and I have a bow and arrow. And none of this makes sense." He pointed a guarded hand out the broken window. "But I'm going back out there because it's my job. And I can't do that and babysit."

He tipped her chin so she was looking right at him. It was a move he did with Lila and Cooper sometimes when he wanted to drive a point home. Usually about cleaning their rooms. Or when they worried that he'd never come back. "No matter what you did or what you were, if you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill. Okay? If you stay in here, that's fine. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you're an Avenger."

She was silent.

Clint rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. "Okay. Good chat." He rubbed his eyes with his hand and stood up. Then, he took a breath and made his way toward the door of the small shop they'd landed in. Here we go. He burst out the broken doorframe and into the street, drew two arrows and nocked them both, sticking a guarded finger between them. He fired, and the two arrows went spiraling off, nailing two of the bots in the chest. Then, he whipped around and fired at another one. One tried to knock him off his feet, but Clint took the arrow from his bow, spun it, and jabbed it into the bot from behind.

He heard movement on the pavement, and whipped around. A hand grabbed his wrist and cranked it sideways. "Jesus, big brother, don't freakin' shoot!" Will barked at him.

"Welcome back!" Clint yelled at him. Then, both brothers were knocked off their feet, landing on top of each other against a broken street lamp. "You okay?" Clint asked from his position on top of Will.

"Get the hell off me," Will groaned, shoving his brother to the side. "Where's Wanda?"

As if to answer his question, the door on the building across the street flew open-on its' own- and Wanda Maximoff stepped into the street. Her eyes were blood red, and she turned her gaze to a bot in the air above her. Her hands made a ripping motion and the bot split in half. She flung the pieces separate ways, and fired a blast of energy at another.

She turned her gaze to the two brothers. "That was a hell of a pep talk," Clint whispered as he stood, offering Will a hand. "We're clear!" Clint yelled into the comms.

"We're not clear!" Steve yelled from somewhere else in the city. "We are so not clear!"

"Okay, we're coming to you!" Clint said, turning to Wanda and Will. Or rather, just Will. Wanda disappeared in a blur.

"Keep up, old man!" an accented voice yelled, echoing off the buildings.

Will looked at his brother. Clint looked pissed. He had an arrow aimed in the general direction that Pietro Maximoff must have taken his sister. "Nobody would know," he groused.

"I would," Will pointed out. "Let's go." He grinned as they started jogging. "You're starting to like those two, aren't you?"

"Hell no," Clint replied. "It'd have been so easy to tell Cap, 'Last I saw Pietro, an Ultron was sitting on him. Guy'll be missed. I miss him already, that quick little bastard.'"

"Yeah, I'm convinced," Will rolled his eyes. "Come on." He clapped his brother on the back and the two of them made their way toward the sounds of combat. "By the way," he said as they jogged. "I'm sorry too," he said. "I guess I can understand why you kept Laura and the kids a secret from us."

"It wasn't you I was trying to keep the secret from," Clint argued. "It was everything else."

"Yeah, I know. I guess it's kinda like Croatia," Will continued, and Clint raised an eyebrow. This was the first time Will had voluntarily mentioned that mission since the first time he'd explained it, years ago. "I mean, Ethan didn't tell anybody his wife was alive. Even the people he trusted."

"Still," Clint countered. "We don't keep secrets. Ever. I'm so sorry, Will, I never meant for this to go on this long. I thought maybe I'd get to retire and then it wouldn't be such a threat anymore." They turned a corner. "I am, you know. Retiring."

"What?" Will skidded to a stop, looked at his brother. "You're what?"

"Retiring," he said. He waved a hand. "This is it. This is my last mission. I'm done after this."

"You think you can just quit being an Avenger? Just like that?"

"I'm going to," Clint said. "No more after this. Laura and the kids-all three of them-need me at home. And frankly, I'm tired of all this crap," he said. "They can handle it without me."

Will shook his head. "You know, I think you'd be surprised," he said.

"Surprised by what?" Clint asked him as they came to a stop.

Will looked him in the eye. "How much they need you on this team," he said. "But man, if you think you can give it all up for your family…then I'm glad for you." He scuffed the dirt. "At least you've got something to go home to."

"You do too," Clint pointed out.

Will sniffed. "Yeah," he said, "the six pack of Equis in my fridge."

"No," Clint countered. "Your niece and nephews."

"Seriously?" Will asked.

"Yeah," Clint said. "I think it's high time Cooper found out where his middle name came from anyway."

The two brothers hugged, right there in the middle of the street. On a flying city. Will would remember later he didn't know what was stranger about the day-the flying city, or the fact that the normally-stoic Clint was the one who initiated the hug.

Then, there was a voice in Clint's ear. "Are you guys done with the Notebook moment?" Tony demanded. "Cavalry's here!"

The two brothers broke apart and Clint looked up. "Cavalry?" he repeated. But then, he smiled as a shadow fell over them and he pointed skyward-which was getting closer the whole time. Will followed his gaze. A SHIELD helicarrier was floating in the sky next to them.

"Fury, you son of a bitch!" Steve gasped.

"Whoo, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Fury countered.

Clint doubled over laughing. Will, not being able to hear the conversation, was thoroughly confused. But then he was laughing too. It felt good. He looked at his brother. Clint was still shaking silently, but must have been listening for instructions, because the next thing Will knew, Clint was taking off at a run, and Will was following him.