When Sam turned back to the rest of the room, Stark was gone. He looked to Natasha, who nodded her head in the direction of the elevator.

"You really going to go give him a talking to too?" she asked as he began to walk toward it.

"Too?" he asked.

"Chang gave him quite the what-for while you were talking to Steve," she said.

Sam turned to look at Chang. "Really?"

"I told you that I was here to support Maxwell," he said, meeting Sam's eyes squarely. "You assured us that Stark wanted Maxwell. Instead, he used Maxwell's actions like a weapon against him. I merely called out his hypocrisy."

Call him crazy, but Sam was pretty sure that Chang Wufei didn't merely do anything. "Yeah, well, after spending considerable effort convincing Duo that this wasn't going to be a train wreck, I have some words for Stark myself," he said, continuing to the elevator. At the last minute, he redirected down the stairs, not wanting to argue with FRIDAY in case Stark had set up protections.

Before he hit the door, Natasha said, "Sam?"

He paused to look at her and said, "Don't worry. I'm not going to be mean. I'm pretty sure Chang already covered that base."

"Wait," Clint said, getting up from beside Natasha. She stared at him, visibly startled. "Let me talk to him," he said.

It was twice in as many minutes that someone had told Sam to let them handle it, and he was even more uneasy about this time than he had been about letting Steve talk to Duo. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. Clint and Stark had been… better lately, but that didn't mean they were on good terms.

Then again, he let Steve go talk to Duo, and they weren't exactly on good terms either.

Clint trotted over to him. "I'm probably not going to get any father-of-the-year awards myself, but I think what he needs is to talk to another parent."

Sam made himself take a deep breath and considered it. He and Stark weren't close, which had its advantages because while they weren't close, they weren't really antagonistic either, not like Clint and Stark had been. But the sheer fact Clint was offering was important. It meant something.

"Okay," he said reluctantly. The impulse to tell him not to fuck this up was strong, but Clint wasn't a child, and Sam's at least 90% sure that he wouldn't offer if he was just going to wind Stark up or throw gas on the fire.

Clint nodded and slipped under his arm, trotting downstairs.

"Hey, FRIDAY?" Sam asked.

"Yes, Staff Sergeant Wilson?"

"Sam's fine," he said, and he was almost certain he'd asked before. "Any chance we can see what's going on with that talk?" he asked.

"I'm sorry. Boss has prohibited me from allowing others to use my monitoring to spy within the Tower," she replied.

"Of course he did," Sam grumbled.

Natasha gave him a small smile. "You didn't really expect that to work, did you?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "Would have been nice though." He laced his fingers and put them behind his head for a minute before resigning himself to waiting. He walked back over to the breakfast bar and said, "I don't suppose I can get a drink?"

"That sounds fantastic," Bucky said, going over to the proper bar. He started grabbing several bottles, then looked at Chang. "Want anything?"

"I will refrain," Chang replied.

"Make mine a double," Sam said.

Bruce patted his shoulder. "No good deed goes unpunished," he said with a small, wry smile.

"Let's all hope you're wrong," Sam replied. Something told him that if either Steve or Clint fucked this up, it was going to be bad for them all.

Clint went down the stairs to Stark's lab, not surprised to find him there, but a little surprised that he only had a single monitor up. On it was a video of Maxwell from China.

Taking a calming breath, Clint knocked at the glass door before trying it. He was a little surprised it let him in, even more surprised the workshop was silent. Stark paused the video on an image of Maxwell grinning, fierce and alive and almost frightening.

"You going to yell at me too? Tell me what a hypocrite I am?" Stark asked, tone resigned, not bothering to look at Sam.

"I'm not going to pretend that I don't have some choice words I'd like to share," Clint said, and Stark must not have been expecting him because he startled and turned to stare. "But it seems to me that you're doing a pretty good job of beating yourself up as it is, and Chang already did a pretty thorough job with the verbal flaying."

Turning back around to face the screen, Stark sighed. "Generous of you to think he stopped with mere verbal flaying." He hit play again, and Maxwell began to move. Fast, almost sinuous, but somehow elegant. Clint hadn't had the chance to see Maxwell in action, but he moved like someone enhanced, like he had more than normal strength. "So you wanted to add your own salt to the wounds?"

Clint could think of a lot of things to berate Stark for, but given Stark's apparent remorse, it was probably better to simply let him stew himself. People often underestimated just how effective letting someone ruminate on their own poor decisions could be. Continuing to beat on the dead horse would just eventually make Stark defensive, get his guard up, make him react instead of think. That wasn't what Clint wanted.

"No," he said, and Stark was surprised enough to turn and look at him again.

"No?"

Shaking his head, Clint confirmed, "No. I'm not going to yell at you. I'm not going to berate you. I don't need to make you feel bad. It's clear you already do."

He watched the defenses begin to go up in Stark's eyes, but he stayed relaxed, keeping his body language open. "If you're not here to tell me how many kinds of stupid I've been, then why are you here?"

Rather than making Stark turn awkwardly to watch him, Clint walked forward until he was closer to the screen. Without the sounds of explosions and gunfire and yelling, someone could be forgiven for thinking Maxwell was just running some sort of obstacle course. He looked like he was having fun. Assuming it was from China, he could see why Stark found it so unsettling.

"Steve's up there right now trying to convince Maxwell not to leave," Clint said, keeping his eyes on the screen, no matter how much he wanted to look at Stark. "I just wanted to make sure you actually want him to stay."

He could feel Stark staring at him. "Of course I do," he said, sounding almost offended.

Clint looked away from the screen to look at Stark again. He looked tired, stressed, lines of unhappiness creasing his forehead and bags under his eyes.

"No judgment here," he said in his least offensive voice, trying to be as open and sincere as possible. "You looked for this kid for over a year. You wanted to do your best to do right by him. You didn't sign up for…" He waved his hand at the screen. "This. Maxwell's an adult. You don't have to be responsible for him. Adults cut ties to blood family all the time."

"And shitty parents kick their kids to the curb all the time," Stark replied with disgust, looking back at the video, which looked like it had restarted. The first image was Maxwell's back as he jumped out of the Quinjet with no hesitation. Watching it, even knowing that Maxwell was perfectly safe—physically at least—upstairs, it still made Clint's heart jump into his throat for a moment. It didn't look like Maxwell had enough equipment to keep him safe. Even experienced operatives often had a heartbeat of hesitation before they jumped, a moment of convincing themselves that they were going to do to this, or had to take a jump at it. Maxwell just walked to the edge and leapt as if he could fly under his own power.

Or as if he didn't care if he fell.

Clint sighed. "You're not a shitty parent," he said. Stark snorted in contempt, refocusing on the screen. "No, really. Were you shitty to Maxwell just now? Yeah. But you already know that. But you're not a shitty parent, because you're not a parent yet."

"I have a blood test that says otherwise," Stark retorted.

"You have a test that tells you that Maxwell is biologically half yours. Being a parent's about more than that, and I think you know that. You're not a parent yet, not because you haven't had a chance, but because Maxwell won't let you be one." Stark turned back to him, as if confused. "Look, when an infant is suddenly dropped in your lap, you're a parent right away because you're that kid's whole world from that moment on. You're their source of food and shelter and safety and love… But it's not that way with older kids. When a single mom gets married, the new guy isn't automatically 'dad.' He's gotta want that, and he's got to earn it. You've got the biology there, yeah, but… if you want to be Duo's parent, you're going to have to earn it, and he's gonna make you work really fucking hard for it."

"Understatement," Stark said, but he looked slightly hopeful.

"But before you start doing that work, I think you need to decide if you really want to be—not just a parent, but his parent."

"I didn't think I got a choice in this," Stark said, almost a challenge. Clint would be irritated by it if he wasn't so sure that it was mostly their own rocky relationship driving the snark. That and Stark's own insecurity.

"Like I said, with an infant, you mostly don't. But Maxwell's not an infant. He's a grown-ass adult, and he's hardly falling over himself to get in your good graces—"

"He shouldn't have to," Stark interrupted. "He's my son."

"Well, he sure threw down an ultimatum with you. Kids do that all the time, and usually they don't mean it, but I don't think Maxwell's exactly like most kids, and Chang looks like he's ready to haul Maxwell to the nearest hotel if he so much as looks at anyone wrong."

Stark ran his hand over his face, every one of his years heavy on his frame. "I really screwed the pooch this time, didn't I?"

Clint shrugged. "I mean, Steve is the one trying to talk him down, so…"

"Cap?" Anxiety practically radiated from Stark. "Why is Cap—"

"Chill," Clint said, raising his hands to keep Stark from storming up and making things worse. "I'm pretty sure he's trying to talk your kid down, not make things worse."

"Because Cap's our go-to when we need a situation de-escalated—"

"Not that you'd be much better," Clint can't resist.

It does make Stark at least appear to reconsider, sinking back down onto his chair. "Going right for the jugular there."

"You don't exactly listen to anything less," Clint replied.

Stark winced but didn't protest, which Clint took as a point in his column. "So, I've fucked this one up pretty royally. Now what?"

"Decide," Clint said, shrugging again. "This isn't something you can be wishy-washy about. Are you going to be Maxwell's father or not? Are you going to be his father if you find out something worse? Because, I gotta tell you, with your kid? I'd bet dimes to dollars that there's worse you don't know about yet. He's still got secrets, and you may not like them. If you're gonna do this, you have to be prepared to do it even if it gets worse. Even if there are worse secrets hiding. If you're not prepared to do that… let the kid go."

The struggle with the question was plain on Stark's face. Clint thought he probably knew Stark well enough to know that his hyperlogical brain was staring at the evidence that his son was a murderer and battling with the extremely illogical instincts that said He's mine. That's my child. And he's my responsibility. And I will let the world burn before I let harm come to him.

Powerful instincts, those.

"I have a question for you," Stark said after a long moment. "If I can ask?"

Raising an eyebrow, Clint said, "I came down here, didn't I? Do you really think I thought I was getting out of this without you asking questions?"

Stark gave him a halfhearted glare, said, "I'll take that as a yes." The glare faded, replaced with an openness that Clint found unnatural and unnerving on Stark. "Could your kids do anything, anything at all, that would make you give up on them?"

It was a heavy question, and it deserved an honest answer. "We… we see a lot of terrible shit. We see a lot of people who lose the sense God gave a flea and dive headfirst into hateful groups and do objectively abhorrent things. I'd like to think between Laura and I, we've taught our kids better than to fall for those traps. If they did, would there be anything in the world I wouldn't do to try to help them get out?" He shook his head firmly. "I'd do everything. And if it failed, and they somehow turned it around later, I'm sure I'd forgive them. I don't think I could give up on them. That said… someday they're going to grow up, and they're going to make decisions that I maybe don't agree with. They're going to do things I disagree with. At some point… I don't get a say anymore. But disagreeing with them doesn't mean giving up on them or that I wouldn't still love them."

Stark sighed like Clint had given him the cliché answer, and he knew what Stark was looking for, but it just wasn't that simple.

"Look," Clint said. "If one of my kids did something terrible—truly terrible—I'd hold them accountable for it. They'd have to pay for it, make amends, if they could. Loving people doesn't mean overlooking their fuckups, you know."

"If one of your kids became an assassin? What would you do then?"

Clint tried to hide a wince because with the example he had set, that wasn't an impossibility and he really, really hoped for better for his kids. "I don't know," he admitted. "I've thought about it, but the truth is… I just don't know what I'd do until I had that situation in front me. Some things… you just can't prepare for."

"Like your adult son being a mass murderer?" Stark asked, turning his attention back to the screen where Maxwell was still fighting his way with shocking ease through opponents.

He tried to imagine one of his kids moving through people like that, pretended that they were cutting down people with such ease, so little effort. He tried to be as horrified as Stark, but if one of his kids were to go down that path… he was pretty sure he'd be relieved to see them that proficient.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Stark prompted when he didn't say anything.

Clint looked at him and bit back a sigh. "Honestly," he said, "I'd be more than a bit of a hypocrite if I got mad about my kids doing something like that. He's joined Preventers. Even if he's got real bloodlust"—and watching him cut through people with that grin, Clint didn't doubt it—"he's working to control it. He's doing his best to harness that need. I think that says a lot about the type of person he is. We deal with a lot of people who just… embrace the madness."

"You think I should just…"

"I can't tell you what to do," Clint said quickly. He was not taking blame for whatever choice Stark made; he just wanted to ask the important question. "I'm just giving my opinion that… he's really as dangerous as I thought, and I still don't think he's a bad kid. He's doing his best."

Before the silence could get uncomfortable, Stark said, "I don't want to give him up."

"Then I think you have some work to do," Clint said. "Assuming that Steve doesn't send him running." He was pretty sure Steve wouldn't, but Maxwell wasn't the most predictable person Clint had ever met. "And Stark?" Stark met his eyes. "You can't keep harping on this. If he goes over the edge and really does go villain, it's probably smart to be prepared for that, but you can't just expect that's going to happen. You can't treat him like you're waiting for that to happen."

"I get it," Stark said. "I do—it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and all that jazz. If I treat him like he's going to break all the time, I'm just going to push him further toward that line."

"Chang was right about one thing: we all kill while acting as Avengers. All of us. Sometimes we're fighting for our lives and we just can't spare the goons and mooks we're dealing with. Sometimes… we're just going to hit someone wrong or put too much force into it or they're going to land wrong, and they're not going to get up. If your kid needs the kill… he's in the right business."

Stark ran both of his hands over his face, dragging them down and groaning. "It would have been too much to ask for a normal child, wouldn't it?" he asked after a moment.

It startled a laugh out Clint, but the tension eased from his chest. He knew the look on Stark's face. That was the look he wore when he'd made a decision and intended to stand by it, come hell or high water. That look had been missing for a long time, and Clint found himself surprisingly relieved to see it again. "You thought any kid of yours could possibly be normal?" he teased.

"Right," Stark said. "Really, I should be relieved that he didn't immediately become a villain bent on revenge for me being absent his whole life."

"And on that legitimately horrifying note, I'm going to go make sure that Steve didn't send your kid fleeing before you could fix this."

He started toward the door when Stark said, "Clint?" Clint raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Thank you. Really. You… didn't have to talk me through this."

"Might be nice to have another parent in the Tower," he said flippantly, then added, "He's your kid. If you're not a parent, I don't know that you can really get it."

Stark's eyes narrowed at him thoughtfully. "You wanted me to decide to keep him. To not just give up, I mean. Obviously he's a full-grown adult and I can't just… keep him like a pet or something, but you know what I mean."

"I've got no dog in this fight. It really doesn't matter to me if you decided to say the kid wasn't worth it or if you decided to make yourself crazy trying to win him over. Just to be clear—it is going to make you kind of crazy. Maxwell's not going to be easily convinced that having you in his life makes it better."

A small, almost wistful smile crossed Stark's lips. "Yeah, well, I hear that anything worth having is worth working for."

"I thought the best things in life were free?" Clint teased.

"Yeah, that's not the case when you're me," Stark replied, the arrogance part real, part playful. It had been a long time since Clint had seen him like that. "And there's plenty that money can't buy. Doesn't mean it's actually free." He grew a little more serious. "You think I still got a chance?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "You're Tony Stark. I swear, your middle fucking name should be Second Chances. If the kid's still here, you still got a shot. Just… don't put conditions on your love. You start saying, 'I want to be your dad if and only if,' you're wasting both of your times. He won't ever accept that, and frankly, neither should he."

"I want to be here. I want to have him in my life. Even knowing what he's done. Even knowing that he… might not be… might not be like most people. I just…" He laughed, a soft, helpless, almost relieved laugh that made Clint smile in response. "He's my son. He's mine, and I'm going to fight to be in his life."

"Good," Clint said. "I'm glad."

Stark shakes his head. "You really did want me to make that decision."

Rather than denying it again, Clint shrugged. "I didn't think you were the kind of man who could just walk away from his kid, that's all. I'm glad to know I was right." He pushes the door open and leaves before any more of Stark's sap could rub off on him.