Rise of the Champions - Chapter Twenty-Three
Author: Milady Dragon
Clint laughed, cuddling Crystal as he read to her, wondering how this was his life now and feeling damned blessed to have it.
Being around his family made him feel so much better about what had happened yesterday. Seeing Barney had been a shock, and all the old hurt had come roaring back. Anger had mixed in with that hurt, until he hadn't been able to tell one from the other. How dare Barney think Clint would ever forgive him for what he'd done? As far as he was concerned, that was never going to happen. Clint had carried around the emotions concerning that betrayal for far too long for him to ever grant absolution to the one person who should have loved him and who should have stood beside him.
It had been Barney, with his 'us against the world' mentality, that had had a very young Clint leaving the orphanage with his brother and joining the circus. It had led Clint to try and make a place for them beyond the grunt work they'd been assigned when they'd first arrived, had led him to pick up the bow and prove that he was better at it than just about anyone. He'd been the breadwinner then, and Barney had grown jealous of his success.
There had been times when Clint had wished he'd never held that first bow. That his natural skill hadn't been a wedge between them.
Still, that had been a long time ago. Clint no longer regretted his ability, thanks to Natasha who'd done more to help him gain his sense of self than anyone else, until a certain dark Wizard and his best friend had come into their lives. And, if he was being completely honest, that first betrayal had led him to Phil, and to the family he now had. He would never had met the Dark One without that, without being left for dead in a ditch.
That realization had him stuttering a little. Crystal didn't seem to notice, curled up in his lap and listening to him avidly, giggling at the funny bits and asking him to explain a few things she didn't quite understand. Her reactions to the voices he was using for the various characters was making him feel as light as one of the feathers he used to fletch his arrows.
He'd never believed he'd have this, a family that loved him for who he was. Although, he was still waiting for Phil to propose; he'd promised he would, so Clint was positive it would come. Phil was now wearing the ring, which meant more to him than anything. That ring was a vow for their future, to have a child that was a little bit of both of them and, although they hadn't discussed which one of them would carry it, Clint wanted more than anything to be the one to do it. Although, any child of Phil's carried by a Wizard so saturated by Void would be powerful indeed. He had Eirlys, Jack and Ianto's daughter, as proof of that. Ianto had carried her, and she was one of the more powerful Cardinal Wizards in the Guild, even more powerful than Pepper herself. Eirlys could have been a Head of Cardinal Order for the United Kingdom, if she wasn't already Baroness Gateway and far too busy for that sort of thing.
"So," Phil's voice said from the doorway, "this is where the two of you are."
"Dad!" Crystal exclaimed, jumping out of Clint's lap and running over to give him a hug. Clint was just lucky that she wasn't wearing shoes, or else he would have had a nice bruise on his inner thigh.
Clint's heart did its usual flutter and jump at seeing him again, even though it hadn't been that long ago that he'd left for Gateway. The archer hoped that he'd never lose that feeling.
Phil knelt on the floor in order to hug her back. He still looked a little tired from yesterday, but at least he wasn't that horrible pale that he'd been when he'd gotten home. As much as Clint loved taking care of him, seeing Phil that exhausted wasn't something he wanted to experience too often.
And there was still work to be done later today, with Sir James.
Clint got up out of their chair, and Phil was back on his feet by the time he'd made his way over. He wrapped his arms around his Wizard, welcoming him back silently. He sighed, glad for Phil to be home; his lover's familiar scent of paper and magic wrapping around him like a blanket. Before Phil, the Elf had never realized that magic had its own smell: various spell components, depending on what Phil had been working with lately, as well as something unidentifiable, but caused a fizziness in his nose that Clint had figured out was the purest Void clinging to his lover's skin. It was intoxicating, and he would never get tired of it.
"You're home a little later than you'd planned." Clint had figured something had come up in Quorum that had delayed him.
"John Constantine wanted to speak to me," Phil said, pulling away. "I think he's going to accept the nomination."
"That's good." He knew Phil was looking to fill the position of Head of Void Order for the Western Lands as soon as possible. It would be one less thing he would have to worry about.
"Dad," Crystal called, "are you gonna be home now?"
He glanced down at her, love shining from his eyes. It was such a different expression from what he would have seen on the Dark One's face that Clint's heart lurched. He was so very glad to be a witness to this, to see the man that had long been hidden under the angry façade that Phil had shown the world for so very long.
"For a little while," he told her, "but I'm going to have to go back out again soon and your Daddy and Daisy will be going with me."
"Can I go too?" She looked at him pleadingly. Those eyes were deadly. Clint knew he couldn't withstand them.
Phil was obviously torn at whether he should agree or say no. Clint could understand both; after all, he and Daisy would also be going, leaving Crystal at the Keep with Melinda and Andrew. The problem was, no one knew exactly what was going to happen when they started de-cursing Sir James, and it was quite possible that it could be very dangerous. And the three of them would be busy, with Clint acting as guard for the removal, and Daisy would be staying with Sir James, since the former Winter Knight trusted her after she'd stood up for his right to make his own choice and go back into the Zero Cabinet. And, of course, Phil would be neck-deep in the actual removing process.
However, Crystal still sometimes suffered from separation anxiety, a holdover from being turfed out by her biological parents. There were times when she was fine, but others she didn't want to let any of her new family out of her sight. She was usually fine if they were all in the Keep, but when anyone wanted to leave, that anxiety could rear its ugly head, like it was now. And, more often than not, Phil was the focus of that anxiety.
Clint didn't take it personally, because it had been Phil who'd found her and had taken her away from her hiding place – which would have most likely been her grave, sooner rather than later – and had imprinted on him almost immediately. It wasn't that she didn't love him or Daisy any less, it was just that Phil had been her savior. The Elf doubted the little girl even realized what she was doing.
He could see Phil knuckling under to the pressure of childish imploring. But then, Clint would have done it a lot sooner than his lover was.
Crystal saw it, too. She was an intelligent child, and cunning in an innocent way, and she squealed and hugged Phil's legs. "Thank you, Dad. I'll be good, I promise."
Well, that assumption was all it took. Phil wasn't about to disappoint her now. Clint didn't know what Crystal would be doing while they were busy, but figured they'd work it out later.
"Now," Phil said, "if we're going to be on time, I need to do a little work in my study. Why don't you stay here and let your Daddy keep reading to you, and when I'm done I'll come and get you both."
"Okay, Dad." Now that Crystal had gotten what she'd wanted, those eyes were back to being happy. She tugged on Clint's hand. "Come on, Daddy, we need to let Dad work so we can leave."
Clint couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up. "That's me told." He glanced at Phil. "You going to be long?"
"No. I want to write letters to Daisy's friends parents, to get permission to cast a few protections on them all. Until…well, until everything is over and done, I want them as protected as possible." He sighed. "What's going to be difficult is explaining just why it's necessary without telling the complete truth."
Yeah. Clint didn't envy him that job. "You'll figure it out." He had no doubt of that.
Phil rolled his eyes fondly. "You have a lot of faith in me."
"Of course I do." He leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to his lover's lips. "Now, go and write those letters. I'll keep Her Highness occupied."
"What's Her Highness?" Crystal demanded. She looked adorable standing there, her tiny hands on her hips and glaring at him as if she thought he was insulting her…which was farthest from the truth.
"Never you mind." To distract her, Clint swept Crystal up in his arms, swinging her around and making her laugh. "Let's let your Dad get his work done, and I'll finish this chapter so we'll be ready to leave when he is."
Phil was watching them indulgently. Clint felt his heart swell at his regard. Honestly, how had he got so lucky?
As if sensing his name, Lucky's head rose from the hearth, where he and Lockjaw had landed once Clint had started reading; Lola had joined them, it must have been when Phil had come in. The dragon pushed his love for the Elf through their link, then lay back down, sighing in contentment.
He got Crystal settled back into his lap, grabbing the book off the table where he'd put it when Phil had entered the library. He had just opened it back to where he'd left off, when Crystal asked, "Daddy, where are we going?"
He smiled down at her. "You Dad is going to help someone who's been cursed. So, he and our friend Ianto, have been working really hard to figure out how to get the curses removed."
She considered that. "Dad helps lots of people, doesn't he? I know he helped Wanda and Peter, and Daisy, and everyone."
It still cracked him up that she called Pietro, Peter. Clint knew it did Wanda, too. Pietro, who wouldn't have accepted that from anyone else, was fine with Crystal doing it. That was the power of the cuteness that was his daughter's number one form of magic.
"Well, not everyone, sweetheart. But he has helped many people." Even back when he'd been carrying around the weight of being the Dark One, Phil had actually helped innocents. Yes, a lot of his rampages had done a lot of damage, but there'd been Buda-Pest, and other places they'd been where Phil had gone out of the way to wreak revenge on the guilty.
Perhaps that was why Phil had believed that the Void has passed judgement on him: he'd been guilty of a lot of things, most of them not really nice, and figured it had been about time that it had been turned around onto him.
"I want to help people when I get older." It was a declaration that made Clint's heart melt.
He just had to hug her. "I know you will," he encouraged her. There was no way Crystal was going to go the way of the Dark One and the Hawk. Not if he had anything to say about it. "Now, we only have a few pages left, then we can get ready to go."
"Okay, Daddy." She snuggled closer. "You do the voices better than Daisy does. But don't tell her that, I don't want to hurt her feelings."
"Your secret is safe with me." He kissed the top of her head. "Now, where were we…"
"Harry just met Ron in the carriage on the way to Wizard School."
"That's right." Clint had had no idea that there were so many books about kid Wizards out there, but he supposed that made sense, what with magic becoming more and more prevalent anymore. However, the author obviously wasn't a Wizard because she'd got several things wrong so far, especially the part where all the students took a magical carriage to Gateway – he knew for a fact that all Tested students got their own two-way Teleport artifact – but he wasn't going to say anything to Crystal. She'd find that out when it was time for her to start classes. He just hoped she wouldn't be expecting an acceptance letter carried by a dragon to arrive, inviting her to come to the school.
Anyway, the story enchanted Crystal, and that was all that mattered. She'd realize that most of what was written about being a Wizard was just hokum soon enough.
Until then, Clint would continue to read to her whenever she asked, and whatever she wanted. Even if it was completely wrong.