Holy crap! I live! I know it has been a long... long... long time since I last posted but I figured I'd try and be nice. So, this story is now completely done at a total of 29 chapters. YAY! So, that means every week I will be posting a new chapter! No more long breaks (unless I forget to post). No more excuses. And best of all, you all know it is done! ^_^
Now, as for baby Clint. He is the most wonderful little boy ever. He is now four and a half months old, already has two teeth, can hold his own bottle, can support his head (which is larger then normal children), can hold himself on his arms, can roll back and forth, and so much more. I love when I'm in the other room working on this fanfiction and then I get up to go check on him and see him a good foot from his little play area filled with all his toys and then I walk away and work some more. A few minutes pass and I go check on him again and see him now two feet away. And it keeps going till I turn around and see him laying in the doorway with a huge smile on his face.
I wish I could post his pictures for all of you but the only account I have that allows me to do that is Facebook and I really don't want to give out my actual name. But, either way. Here is chapter 21!
Clint arrived at Central Park just in time to see Natasha get wacked across the pond. Right away he reached for his bow, clicked the button to extend it out, grabbed an arrow and readied his shot on the droid that hit his partner. After a seconds hesitation to make sure he was properly aligned, he took the shot and the arrow hit just behind the neck joint on the droid. It dropped to the ground, shaking.
"Well, that's good to know," Clint muttered to himself as he readied another arrow to go after another droid.
"Who the hell took out that droid?" Steve's voice statically called through Clint's aids. Clint smirked and reached back to press the small button to activate the comm part of his aids.
"I did," he boldly stated.
"Clint? You aren't supposed to be out here!" Steve answered back. Clint's eyes narrowed as he began to scan around for a good vantage point. Finding on a building close to the edge of the park, Clint took off for there.
"Yeah, well. JARVIS informed Pepper that Tony is down and she informed me. So I came to lend a helping hand," Clint retorted in anger. Steve sighed into the comm but didn't comment back. Sadly, someone else did.
"JARVIS did what now? I ain't down!" Tony cried. Clint stumbled in his run toward his vantage point. He hadn't expected that. Why would JARVIS say that Tony was down if he wasn't? It took a few more minutes before Clint was in position over the battle. Natasha was moving herself closer to Steve and the super solider was doing his best to move closer to her. But it seemed the droids understood that the two needed to be separate. They were a very good fighting force when battling near each other and so the droids wanted to keep them apart.
Tony and Thor were circling around the outskirts of the battle, making sure that the droids stayed in the park and didn't go into the city. Each were on opposite ends, it was a better strategy to keep the droids in check but it also left them vulnerable to being outnumbered. And speaking of being outnumbered. In the middle of the battle was Hulk with so many droids around him that Clint could barely see the green giant. Sighing, Clint prepared to help out the Hulk.
"Clint, I forbid you from fighting!" Steve shouted into the comm. Clint grunted before firing five arrows down toward the Hulk's attackers. As each arrow struck, Hulk looked more and more confused before finally he roared in pleasure and began to attack the rest of the droids around him. Clint smirked, glad that someone was pleased that he was here. "Clint, do you hear me?"
"I hear you fine, Captain," Clint answered, knocking an arrow before glancing over in Steve's direction. The super solider seemed to have cleared most of the enemies around him and was looking in Clint's general direction. But his distraction was going to cost him. Sneaking up behind the Captain was a lone droid. Clint ground his teeth before setting up his sights and shooting the droid, making sure the arrow skimmed by Steve's head close enough for him to feel the breeze. "Your welcome."
Steve said nothing in response. He just simply turned to look at the fallen droid behind him. That was enough of a response for Clint. He smiled and looked around the battle for someone else to help. Nearby to his vantage point a small group of droids were trying to escape into the city. Clint smirked and started raining his arrows down onto them.
"Could use some help over here. These droids are doing something really strange," Tony called into the comms. Clint glanced over to Tony's direction. He too noticed that some of the droids were acting weird. They seemed to be grouping together yet at the same time, Clint kept counting the same number of droids. It took a moment more of watching them before Clint saw it. A droid shifted away just right and Clint saw a huge opening in the ground.
"Shit, they're moving underground! They opened a huge hole!" Clint shouted into his aids. A bunch of different voices began to converse into Clint's ears but he couldn't tell what any of them were really saying. Shaking his head in an effort to ignore them, Clint began shooting at the escaping droids. It wasn't long after that Tony joined him in that. Together the two destroyed almost every droid but who knows how many were underground at the moment.
"Natasha, Thor, follow me down that tunnel. Tony, I want you and Hulk to clean up the rest of the droids here in the park," Steve commanded. Clint frowned when he didn't hear his name. There was a few seconds pause before Steve spoke again. "Clint, I want you to go back to the tower. Now."
"Steve? Are you serious?" Clint cried as he realized what Steve was telling him. Right now Clint was risking everything to be here, to help. But Steve was telling him to leave. Was he really as important as Bruce kept on saying? Will Steve actually be willing to leave him on the team? It honestly doesn't seem like it.
"Clint, go back to the tower. You weren't even supposed to be in this battle," Steve ordered. Clint growled in anger before he felt it. Something was behind him. Spinning around, Clint spotted a woman with blond hair and dark brown eyes. She wore a black leotard, similar to Natasha's and had some small type of bomb in her hands. Winking at Clint, she pressed some type of button before dropping the bomb.
Clint didn't even hear the explosion. He had no chance to get away. It just... Went off. Hell, he had no idea what happened to the woman. She just dropped the bomb, there was a white light, Clint was tossed off the building and he was falling. Thankfully he was fast enough to grab his grappling arrow and fire it before he was too close to the ground. Using the arrow, Clint safely landed on the ground and spun around in time to see a bunch of droids standing there waiting for him.
"Oh, shit," Clint stated, praying that even though he couldn't hear that his comm was still working. "Could use a little help."
Sadly, Clint couldn't hear if there was a response and so he just readied himself for a very uneven fight. He took down three droids with his arrows before he had to start using his bow as a staff. Another two went down before repulser blasts began bombarding the remaining droids. Clint ducked down, curling himself into less of a target and waited until he couldn't see any more flashes. Once he was certain that it was safe, Clint uncurled himself and stood. Tony landed in front of him and stood there for a bit. Clint could only assume he was talking but the genius had left his faceplate down.
"No comm," Clint informed the billionaire. Tony nodded before the faceplate opened. Clint smiled to him.
"Do you realize how dangerous that was? If I didn't happen to look over here," Tony began before getting upset and spinning around. Clint frowned. Without being able to see the billionaire's face, he had no idea what the man was saying. Huffing in frustration at his own lack of hearing and the fact that his aids were malfunctioning, Clint waited for Tony to turn back around. "-trace elements of an EM pulse. Are you okay?"
"Hmm? Sorry, missed most of that," Clint responded, hoping that Tony would just repeat the important information. Tony sighed.
"There are trace elements of an EMP. I know S.H.I.E.L.D has been working on making sure your aids worked during one. But, I guess that didn't work well for them. I guess I'm asking if they shorted out and hurt you," Tony reiterated. Clint rolled his eyes.
"I'm fine. It was just like one second they were working, the next I couldn't hear a damned thing," Clint informed Tony. The genius nodded before sighing.
"I'll take note of that for mine and Bruce's aids," Tony said. Clint nodded, wishing that he didn't have to be reminded of his hearing loss. But he knew that that was going to be the main issue. Groaning, Clint reached back for his aids to see the damage. But as he took them off, Tony turned slightly to the side. "Well their version failed as well."
"What?" Clint called before seeing Bruce come over. The doc had some type of sheet hanging over his lower half. As much as Tony and he had worked on creating stretchy pants that would shrink back to normal after a Hulk transformation, it still took at least thirty minutes after before the pants went back to normal.
"Aids?" Bruce asked, nodding over at Clint. Both Tony and Clint nodded. Bruce sighed before holding out his hand. Clint stepped forward and dropped off the damaged aids. Almost right away, Bruce began looking them over and muttering to himself. Clint ignored the doctor's mutterings and turned his back on the two scientists. Sighing deeply, Clint wandered over to the building he had been using as his vantage point. He began looking for any evidence of the woman who had dropped the EMP bomb.
Clint had to have lost track of time as he searched because he was suddenly attacked by something. Falling into instinct, Clint attacked back until he finally saw a flash of red and paused. But the figure kept on attacking and Clint had to defend himself. It took a few minutes before the figure stopped attacking and Clint could see that it was Natasha and she was beyond furious.
"What the fuck were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous it was for you to be out here in the battle? What would have happened if the comm didn't work? Hell, what if when the EMP went off, your aids shocked you?" Natasha shouted. Clint frowned.
"Everything was fine. I helped," Clint argued. Natasha groaned and tossed her hands into the air.
"You are so stupid! Steve almost got attacked because he was worried about you! Hell, I almost got killed!" Natasha snapped. Clint rolled his eyes slightly. He didn't really understand why it was so bad. Everything worked out fine, so what was wrong? But if Steve and Natasha had really been distracted by him being there, then maybe it wasn't the best idea for him to be in the battle. Course the real issue that bothered him was that if they were distracted by him being in the battle, that meant that they didn't trust him. Or maybe it was that they feared that his deafness was more of a hinderance then he first thought.
"I don't see what the big issue is. I saved Steve and you almost got killed even before I arrived," Clint told her. Natasha growled before spinning on her heel and walked away. As she left, Steve came toward him. His blue eyes were filled with anger and worry. Clint frowned, he so didn't want another person yelling at him for what he thought was right.
"What were you thinking?" Steve snapped at Clint. Clint held up his hand.
"I don't want to hear it," Clint said before walking off. Steve watched him with a sigh and wished he knew what to do. He wished he knew how to convince Clint that he needed to take time away to get more used to being deaf. Even now, the whole group had no real way of communicating with Clint. The archer would wait until the hearing aids were perfected or at least until there was another way to talk to Clint when his aids are out.
The group returned to the tower with very little communication. Which was surprising considering that Tony usually always wants to talk after a good battle like the one that they just had. When they arrived at the tower, Pepper was waiting for them. The second she saw Tony, she rushed over to give him a hug. He stumbled back as she jumped into his arms which made a few of the others to chuckle.
"Whoa, Peps. What's up?" he asked. Pepper looked up at him, tears were pouring out of her eyes.
"JARVIS said he couldn't hear from you! I was so worried!" Pepper told him. Tony frowned.
"I don't even get why JARVIS would have done that. I was in contact with him through the whole battle," Tony responded. Clint snorted and left. Natasha snarled and stalked after him. Pepper frowned, wondering what Tony meant. Steve, Bruce and Thor watched the two with curiosity. Then it hit Steve. JARVIS was trying to get Clint to go to the battle. One of the best ways to do that would have been to say that one of the other Avengers was in trouble and the easiest one to do would be Tony.
"You don't think that JARVIS would have sent Clint into the battle, would he?" Steve questioned. Tony furrowed his brows in concentration. It was possible, but what reason would the AI have for sending Clint into battle?
"I'll have to ask," Tony decided. Steve frowned.
"Will he actually answer?" Steve inquired. Tony smirked and shrugged. He had no idea what JARVIS would do. With that the billionaire wrapped his arm around Pepper's waist and practically dragged her off toward his lab. Bruce stepped closer to Steve as he watched the other two leave. Thor shook his head and turned to go to the living room. He left before hearing Bruce speak again.
"Do you think JARVIS may have done it to keep S.H.I.E.L.D from trying to fire Clint?"
So that was chapter 21! I hope you all liked it. Now to get to work on some of the other stories I have planned. Hopefully I can finish those quickly so that I can post them for your enjoyment! Until next week!