Disclaimer and AN: I don't own anything related to Marvel….but Emma is mine! I had wanted this chapter to be longer, but sadly with my summer coming to end tonight, it had to be shorter…have no fear! This week is just getting read for the kiddos to return! So I don't have to really do lesson plans yet! So I can sorta stay up late. Have no fear! More chapters will come soon! Leave me some loving please!

Chapter 14:

Clint couldn't help but smile as he leaned back in the Quinjet seat and relaxed. The bag-n-grab was an cinch and now he was on his way back to NYC. Within no time, he would be home with Emma. Ever since she had told him that she was pregnant, he hadn't wanted to away from her for more than a few hours for something like training. He knew that he would have to go away on missions for time to time, but maybe if he were lucky, there wouldn't be many over the next couple of months. He knew that that probably wasn't going to be likely, but he could always hope.

He thought back over the last few weeks and just how much his world had changed. He was going to be a father! He couldn't believe it. Eventually, he had known that he wanted to have a family with Emma, but if this was when it was when it was meant to happen then who was he to argue with fate. Now came the question – should he ask her to marry him? He already knew the answer to that question and it was yes. But then Emma might only think that he was asking her to marry him because she was pregnant with his child and not because he honestly loved her, which was the furthest thing from the truth – he loved her more than life itself. So he was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place – he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

Screw it. In his eyes, they were a family. They didn't need a piece of paper telling them what they were. There would be a time and place for all of that. Right now he wanted to focus on what was the most important thing and that was getting Emma through this pregnancy in one piece. Every since finding out that she was pregnant, he had been reading anything that he could get his hands on about pregnant woman and frankly some of it was scary!

Mood swings.

Odd cravings.

Weight gain.

But some of it was insightful. At least he had a little bit of an idea as to what was going on inside of Emma's body. He had done all of this in secret because he hadn't wanted Emma to know just how much he was really worried about her. He knew how stressed and worried she could get about little things. And being pregnant was not a little thing.

He would just have to keep her calm and unstressed as much as he could. Even if that meant doing twice as much as he normally did – such as doing double duty at S.H.E.I.L.D. and working at the bookshop. Loosing sleep would be worth it in the end for a healthy baby and a happy Emma.

"Sitwell and I have a bet," Coulson said nudging Clint as he sat down next to him.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I have a bet that your kid is going to be a girl and he bets that it is going to be a boy."

"And what's the pot?"

"The loser has to do the other's reports for a month. Nothing big."

Clint smiled as his cell phone vibrated in his bag. He reached down for it and looked at the picture message from an unknown number.

He didn't say a word as he handed the cell phone to Coulson, who looked at the image on the screen.

It was of Emma. She was tied to a chair and gagged with her feet and hands bound in something- looked to be either rope or tape.

"This isn't good," Coulson said as he calmly stood up and went to radio the helicarrier to let Fury know what was going on, while Clint stood up and began pacing the floor of the Quinjet. Who could have managed to kidnap Emma?

But before Coulson could do anything, Clint got another message on his phone. Coulson read it aloud. "All it says is 'Finders Keepers', " he said looking at Clint who had stopped pacing. Clint's jaw had locked tight as he turned and sent his fist into the bulkhead.

"I take it that you know who has Emma?" Coulson asked.

Clint nodded as he rubbed his hand from where he had hit the bulkhead. "Yeah I do. Can you get me a location from the text message and picture message?"

"Sure, but if whoever has Emma is smart, I doubt that they will be in that same location by the time that you get there. We're still 30 minutes out of the city."

"Oh he'll wait. Besides he doesn't want to kill her," Clint said, checking his quiver of arrows. "He wants to kill me."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Oh I just know…"

"Finders keepers, Losers weepers!"

"No fair Barney!" Clint said running through the circus that they now call home. Barney had just found a golden ring that someone lost from a performance that night before underneath the stands. Clint had crawled underneath and got it for him, while he had snatched it from his little brother's fingers and ran through the circus away from his little brother.

Clint never got anything from his brother. That was until he got a chance from the Swordsman to develop his skills at fighting but even that had its costs. Clint ended up with two broken legs for letting the Swordsman leave the circus after embezzling money. When Barney found out he was furious and he walked out on his little brother – leaving him on his own. Needless to say, Clint didn't follow a very good path for a while, got in with a wrong crowd for a few more years – all while trying to fit in, wanting to make others happy. He had been so blinded by actually being accepted by a group of people, even if they weren't the best of people that he was working with.

Sadly, after realizing what he had been "trained" for by his mentor was to help rob people, Clint left his adopted family and found another circus to join and it was there that Nick Fury had found him…but that wasn't that last time that he had crossed paths with his brother…

"…during one of the assassinations last year in Moscow, we were taking out a drug cartel. Emma took out most of the men in hand to hand combat, while I took out the others, but one of the last ones that I took out was Barney." Clint said as he stood in front of Fury and Coulson aboard the Helicarrier.

"Did you kill him?" Fury asked.

"No."

"Why not?" Coulson asked.

"Because he saved Emma. She was about to get shot from behind and he took out the guy, but I still had to make it look like I shot everyone. So I shot him in the shoulder."

"Doesn't look like he wants to save Emma now." Fury said. "But it looks like he has her out on Coney Island. We can send a team in and have her out in minutes."

"No." Clint said. "This is between me and him. Let me handle it, sir. If I'm not out in 30 minutes then send in a team."

Fury looked at Coulson, who shrugged. "Fine. You've got 30 minutes Barton. But I'm not loosing my best two agents. If you are not out in 30 minutes I'm sending in the whole damn cavalry."

"Yes sir."

Emma's head felt like it was about to explode. Whoever had attacked her was strong, she had to give them that much. She blinked a few times and allowed the room she was sitting in to come into focus. He hands and feet were both bound with rope and her mouth was gagged with some kind of cloth. Inhaling through her nose, she gave herself a few more minutes to let her brain unfog from the chloroform that had been used to knock her out. Once she had done that, she focused on her hands. Slowly the ropes began to sizzle and finally fell away. Quickly, Emma untied her feet and tossed the mouth gag to the side. She listened to tell if her captor was anywhere nearby.

Nope.

She stood up and made her way towards a nearby door and slowly opened it. But as she opened it, an arrow impaled itself into the panel and she gasped in shock. Glancing over her shoulder she saw a large figure looming over her.

"Barney Barton?" she asked as she realized who it was.

Her realization was met with a backhand across the face. Emma shook it off and then looked at him with a smile on her face before swinging upwards. She nailed him with a right hook that sent him flying backwards. He grabbed his face where it was burning and starred and Emma who was now standing up with her fist that was glowing red and yellow.

"What that fuck are you, you freak?" he asked aloud.

Emma didn't say anything as she approached him and went back to hit him again but he grabbed her and twisted her arm back. All Emma heard was a snap as her shoulder broke. She screamed out in pain.

"Gotta have something for my brother to find." Barney said standing all the way up as he dropped her to the ground. "Try to escape again and I will send an arrow through you without hesitation."