Author's note: Thanks to all my readers and especially my reviewers, including SJS300 (that was one of the nicest compliments I've ever gotten - and please thank your co-worker for her interest too!), Lattelady, Hidden Circumstance, GuiltyPleasure82, NimbusLlewelyn, crazymarvelgirl (see below for the answer to your question), recondite17, Elora Donovan, Blue Puffin-22, girlymom, frostwolf374, bensolomon99, icrawler, Nzie, SpanishGirl, LdyPhantom, codedriver, theodora 9 and the various Guest reviewers (including the one who suggested several songs to go with the last chapter, which seemed pretty apropos to me!).

In answer to crazymarvelgirl's question, here are the names of the celebrities I chose to play the spouses of Steve and Peggy's grandchildren:

In Sarah and Dave's family: Brandy as Aliyah (Bram's wife), Cillian Murphy as Henry (Maggie's husband), Débora Nascimento as Beatrisa (Steven's wife), Nathan Fillion as Rob (Amanda's husband) and Dakota Fanning as Holly (Joe's wife).

In Mike and Tien's family: Duong Don as Quyen (Natty's husband), Amy Adams as Christina (Harrison's wife), David Krumholtz as Saul (Sammy's husband) and Christina Perri as Karma (Clint's wife).

All your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I even like getting corrections for continuity errors because it gives me a chance to fix them! Thanks for your interest, everyone!

January 13, 2012

"You know, I used to be cool," Clint Carter remarked to no one in particular, his breath coming out in white puffs in the frosty Chicago air.

Technically, he was talking to T.O., but the kid was so fixated on scrambling up the steps to go down Ward Park's slide for the millionth time that he wasn't exactly paying attention to his dad.

"It's true," Clint added, watching as this time T.O. opted to go down on his belly feet-first, grinning with delight as he came to a stop at the bottom of the slide, his coat and shirt hiked up to show a wide strip of his bare back and the top of his diaper poking out from his pants.

"I used to go to cool places with cool people and do cool things," Clint continued. "And now look!" He snatched T.O. before he could run past again, and tugged his clothing back into place before letting the squirming kid go to dash over to the swing set this time.

"I blame you!" Clint called out after him.

An older lady walked slowly by the playground on the Riverside Walk, bundled up to the max against the chill, and Clint thought he detected a distinct air of disapproval as her eye landed on T.O., who was now gripping a swing seat with all his strength as he ran around and around in a tiny circle, laughing with delight at the way the chain was winding up tighter and tighter. She probably thought Clint hadn't put enough layers on his kid for one of the city's infamous polar vortexes, with ice now encroaching on both sides of Chicago River as it lazily flowed past. To be fair, he had zipped up the kid's coat as they'd left home, but T.O. had continually pulled at the front with an expression of annoyance and finally Clint had given in and let him run around with his coat flapping open the way he so clearly wanted to.

The old lady couldn't know it, but the kids in the Carter family didn't exactly feel the cold the way other kids did. Even Maggie, who was such a conscientious mother that she regularly triggered discreet eye rolls between Clint and Karma as she fussed over her kids, let hers run around in the snow only lightly dressed.

T.O. let go of the swing and shrieked with glee as the chain rapidly unwound, even though the seat whacked his legs repeatedly as it spun. The old lady shook her head with disapproval once more as she finally passed them by.

The swing stopped spinning. T.O. ran over to Clint and held his arms up expectantly.

"Fwy!" he said.

"Oh, no no no no no, kid," Clint said quickly. "Not here. Not now."

"Fwy!" he demanded, bouncing up and down anxiously, arms still up.

"This isn't the place for flying. There's people here. Look, there's the slide. Don't you wanna go down the slide?"

T.O. pointedly ignored the slide. "Want fwy!"

Clint sighed. "Oh, I get a whole sentence now? You know, you're making me regret teaching you how to talk."

The kid danced from foot to foot vehemently with his arms still up, making that impatient noise in the back of his throat that always drove Clint crazy: "Eh eh eh eh eh eh..."

"Don't do that!" Clint said with annoyance. "Jeez, kid, it's like negotiating with the Mafia, talking to you! You never fight fair."

T.O. couldn't have understood any of that, but he suddenly poked his little bottom lip out and said in a smaller, pleading tone: "Fwy! Fwy, Dada!"

"That face only works on your mother." But the corners of T.O.'s mouth were pulling downward and already Clint could feel himself buckling. He looked around carefully in all directions. The disapproving old lady was out of sight and no one else walking around the park seemed to be looking in their direction. Maybe he could get away with it. Just a little fly. Other dads did this with their toddlers, didn't they? No problem.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, lifting the kid up in his arms. "Just a little one. Ready?"

T.O. already had a huge grin of anticipation on his face.

Clint tossed the kid up in the air and then easily caught him as he came back down. Then he did it again, and then a third time. T.O.'s inky black hair flapped up and down with the wind of the motions, but his smile had faded slightly.

"Fwy up!" he demanded, slapping at Clint's forearms impatiently.

"I can't throw you any higher than that."

That wasn't true, and T.O. knew it. A scowl creased his little face, and he swung his feet vigorously, still dangling from Clint's strong grip under his arms. "Fwy up! Fwy up! Fwy up!" he chanted.

"Oh, come on! You're gonna get the cops called on me!" Clint hissed through his teeth, but he looked around once more to make sure no one was watching, and seeing that they weren't, he tossed the kid up, much higher this time.

T.O.'s face lit up with ecstasy as he went soaring up into the air, slowing at the peak and then whooshing back down with beautiful speed. Clint caught him easily, softening the deceleration with practiced ease, and then tossed him up again. T.O. spread his sturdy arms and legs like an eagle's as he came down, a breathless smile plastered across his face, his hair blowing back from his forehead. He didn't shriek with joy. He never did when he got a fly like this. It was one of the few times he wasn't making a racket, in fact.

Clint tossed him up again, so high he almost came level with the branches of the tall tree stretching over the playground. T.O.'s face was pure bliss as he came down. At 18 months, he didn't know a lot of words yet, but sometimes his face did all the talking. He clearly lived for this, to be free from the earth, to feel the wind in his hair. It was why it was so hard for Clint to tell him no, even when Karma was around to cringe visibly at the height of the tosses. She knew Clint would never drop him, but she cringed anyway.

He almost tossed the kid up a fourth time, but a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he hesitated. Another family was entering the playground, a mom with two little kids in tow, and Clint quickly shifted T.O. to hold him securely in both arms.

"Fwy!" T.O. pouted, pushing against Clint's chest, but Clint nodded toward the other family and whispered in the most serious tone he could muster: "Shhhhh. Flying's our little secret. No one else gets to see. Right?"

The kid looked unconvinced, but before he could make any more demands, Clint shhhhhh'd again, and T.O. put his finger against Clint's lips and giggled at the feel of his whooshing breath.

"Sssssssss," T.O. said, putting a finger against his own lips.

"Shhhhhhh," Clint said more loudly.

"Sssssssss!"

"Shhhhhhh!"

They were doing it as loud as they could now, and T.O. burst out into a belly laugh at the hissing sounds they were making, successfully distracted from flying. The mom on the playground looked at them a little strangely before helping her own toddler up the steps to the slide.

Clint pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. "Oh hey," he said to T.O., who enthusiastically sssssss'd again. "We gotta go. Time for me to get ready for work. Mom's probably home by now." He swooped the kid over to stand him on a park bench and then knelt down. T.O. readily climbed into the carrier strapped on his back. He was slow and clumsy but he knew where to put his feet and arms. Clint reached back and pulled the straps tight before standing up straight.

"Wun?" T.O. said hopefully, grabbing onto the collar of his shirt firmly with both hands.

"Yeah," Clint said tolerantly. "Run."

He ran the whole way back to the apartment. Not as fast as T.O. wanted him to, but they got back in plenty of time for Clint to get ready for work. But when they came through the door, Karma was not kicking off her shoes for a well-deserved rest after a long day of driving buses, as expected, but rushing around the apartment in a fluster looking for her hairbrush.

"It's in the kid's room," Clint said, puzzled. "He was brushing his monster. Going somewhere?"

"New York," Karma said breathlessly. "Your mom just called. Captain Rogers is heading to the bookstore right now and it isn't Sharon's day to spy on him. I'm up."

"What?" For some reason Clint was startled, although they'd both known this mission could happen any day now. "Karma, I have to go to work. Like, right now!"

"Relax. Your mom said she could take Thor." Only Karma ever called T.O. that. It made Clint nervous when she did; it was an unusual name and bound to draw attention. Karma loved to point out that there were Thors all over the place in Scandinavia. As if that made a difference here in Chicago. But it was the name she had insisted on for the kid, and she had felt so strongly about it that Clint had given in without too much of a fight. At the end of the day, if Karma was happy, he was. Even if a part of him was gloomily certain that one day T.O. would feel as inadequate in comparison to his namesake as Clint himself did.

Clint took T.O. out of the carrier and plunked him down in his high chair with some crackers and a sippy cup to buy them a few minutes of peace and quiet. By then Karma was standing in the bathroom freshening up her makeup.

"So is my mom bringing your disguise when she comes?" he asked her, leaning against the door frame.

Karma paused in the middle of applying her lipstick and frowned at Clint in the mirror. "Disguise? What for?"

"Well, you can't go on your mission like that."

Karma looked herself up and down in confusion before meeting his eyes again. "Why not?"

Clint gestured wordlessly at her. "This is my grandpa we're talking about."

She looked down at herself again, frowning. "Why, what's wrong? He's not going to recognize me like this."

That was true enough. Not only had the younger Steve Rogers never seen Karma before, but Grandpa had admitted to the family that unlike with Beatrisa, on the day Clint had first introduced Karma to the family Grandpa hadn't even recognized her as anyone he had apparently encountered earlier in his life. And now it was pretty clear why. A few weeks ago, Karma had spontaneously decided, as she frequently did, to drastically change her hair. So she'd buzzed it on one side, with a chin-length swoop on the other side, and her hair, once black waves with purple streaks, was now stick straight and bleached platinum blonde. Then she'd realized that she needed to change her makeup to match her new coloring, so that was noticeably different now too. Clint was still doing double-takes whenever she walked through the door after work, although he really should be used to it by now. In the time he'd known Karma, already she'd been through half a dozen distinct looks. It was one of the things he loved about her: the spontaneity, the creativity, the total unconcern with what other people might think about her fashion choices. If she thought it would be fun to do, she just did it. No further thought required.

But he knew not everyone saw her the way he did.

"Recognition isn't the issue," Clint said.

"Well, what is?"

"Look-" Clint searched for the words to say it tactfully, opened his mouth to start, thought better of it, and tried to come up with a better approach. Karma stared at him in the mirror for a long moment, and slowly a smile spread across her face as she watched Clint struggle for the words.

"You think Captain Rogers isn't gonna like me like this," she said with open amusement.

"It's not that," Clint said quickly. "It's just that- Look, Grandpa is a very, uh, conservative person. And he literally just stepped out of the 1940s, okay? I guarantee he's never seen a woman with this many tattoos. And all your earrings, and the hair and everything..."

"And my clothes," Karma quipped. "You forgot to mention my clothes."

"Well, you get the idea, okay?" Clint realized he had forgotten to put in the requisite disclaimer, and he hurried to add: "You know I love the way you look." He put his hands on her arms and looked her in the eye. "You are the most beautiful woman on the planet. I love you exactly the way you are, and I always will."

"-but you don't think Captain Rogers will," she said, and she pressed her lips tight in a futile attempt to suppress a mischievous grin.

Clint felt a pulse of frustration. How could she be taking this so lightly? Didn't she know what she had gotten herself into, volunteering for a mission? He still couldn't believe she had done it.

"Karma, you volunteered to do spy stuff for my spy family," he said, trying to keep his tone light. "You're kinda... playing a part. Like an actress. And Grandpa's not gonna take you seriously if... if..." He gestured meaningfully.

Karma was unconcerned. "He takes me seriously now, doesn't he?"

"That's different!"

"How?" she demanded with a short laugh.

"Well, you're family. He's not gonna shun a family member. And besides, he's had a chance to get used to this kinda thing by now. But today you're a stranger to him, and he's really... young. Younger than us, even. I can only imagine what he's gonna think when..." He trailed off again.

Karma shrugged and turned back toward the mirror, picking up her lipstick again. "If someone doesn't like me, that's their problem, not mine."

It was practically Clint's motto, but it made him feel uneasy whenever Karma said it. Because sometimes he had the horrible suspicion that she actually managed to mean it more than he did.

He watched her finish up with her makeup and then finally asked:

"Karma, why are you doing this?" He hesitated for a moment. "You know how I feel about all this Prevenger stuff. I kinda thought... you were with me on that."

She shot him a look that was both sympathetic... and knowing. "Clint, this isn't something that I'm doing to you. You know that, right?"

"Well, why are you doing it?"

She studied him for a long moment, and for the first time her face grew serious. "I'll tell you when I get back."

"Why not now?"

She picked up her purse and took a minute to arrange the strap on her shoulder in just the right way before answering quietly: "Because Captain Rogers deserves to hear it from me first."

Clint could see the fear in her eyes, though. Despite the determination in her voice, she was scared to take this mission, for whatever reason. And instantly all his protective instincts flared up, and he couldn't stop himself from saying firmly: "You don't have to do this. Seriously. It's not too late to change your mind. They can't make you do this."

Karma nodded, biting her lip until she realized she was doing it and quickly stopped. "I know. But no one's making me do this, Clint. Your family never even expected me to volunteer. I wanted to do it. I kinda... felt a duty."

Clint scowled. "Duty's just a word for doing something you don't want to because someone guilted you into it."

"Don't do that," Karma said, gazing at him steadily.

"Do what?"

"Project," she said simply. "I'm not you."

He didn't know how to answer that, so he said nothing.

Karma stared at Clint in silence for a long moment. "You don't think I can do it, do you?" she asked softly. But before he could deny it, she lifted her chin and said in a stronger voice: "Okay, fine. I'll take that bet. If I can do a Prevengers mission without it ending in disaster, then you have to, too."

"Karma, I know you can do this," he said quickly. "It isn't you I doubt. It's just..."

He stopped, realizing he didn't know how to finish.

Karma sighed, then reached out and put both her hands on his biceps. "Clint? Yesterday you went to Winchester and you took care of your 92-year-old grandmother with dementia, by yourself, for four hours. You cooked for her and you did crossword puzzles with her and you gave your aunt and your grandpa a break from caregiving that they really needed."

His brow creased. "Well, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you have any idea how many people our age would do something like that?" She answered her own question. "Not many. They'd leave it for the older family members to deal with. Because they'd be intimidated. They wouldn't think they could handle something like that."

"Grandma isn't that bad yet," Clint pointed out. "And even once she is, she can't possibly be as hard to handle as I was those years she took care of teenage me."

"Don't downplay what you do," Karma said coolly. "You're missing the point. The point is, you are capable of taking on important responsibilities without messing things up. And the reason you can do it is because you decided for yourself that you could. And that you should."

Clint looked down and scratched the back of his neck.

"I'm starting to think that the only people who still doubt us," Karma said slowly, "are us. I mean, look at us. We had a kid before we were ready and we thought it'd be the end of the world, and it wasn't. Okay, so maybe we sometimes leave the house without remembering to bring any diapers, and maybe we kinda hate that we can't go out without a babysitter anymore, but you know what? He's fed, he's clothed, he's happy. He knows we love him. That's more than a lot of kids get." She took a quick breath. "It's more than I ever got."

"It's not like we could just sit back and make him pay for our mistakes," Clint said.

"Exactly," Karma said firmly. "We did our duty... and it didn't suck as much as we thought it would." She laughed a little in wonderment, and then shook her head. "You know what? I take back the bet. That's a dumb idea. But I'm gonna do this mission. And if I don't mess it up, then we'll know that maybe we've been worrying more than we needed to all this time."

The hissing sound of an opening portal came from the next room over, and they both heard T.O. shriek "Nana!" gleefully as his feet kicked against the high chair the way he did when he wanted out.

"Hi, sweetie!" they heard Tien coo at him. "Are you going to come play with me and Grandpa while your mama takes a little trip?"

"Up! Up!" T.O. demanded, and they heard the sound of the high chair being unbuckled, followed by Tien groaning with surprise: "Oh my goodness, kiddo, you are getting heavy."

"I've gotta go," Karma said, lifting her chin despite the visible nervousness in her eyes. "And you better head off to work."

Clint leaned down and kissed her firmly. "You'll do great," he said.

One corner of her mouth turned up wryly. "Here's hoping."

When Karma entered the Manhattan bookstore, she found that it was unusually crowded for a weekday; the line to check out stretched halfway down the main aisle of the store. She looked around curiously and realized there was a book-signing going on at a table in the back, and everyone who walked away with a signed copy was then funneling into the line to pay. She felt a pulse of nervousness. Would she even be able to find Captain Rogers in this crowd?

After a little thought, Karma took a gamble and assumed he wouldn't be among those getting an autograph; the book being advertised was a Hollywood tell-all and she had more than half an idea it wasn't the kind of thing he'd be interested in. Moving quickly, she began to methodically search the bookstore, aisle by aisle, trying to spot Captain Rogers amid the moving throng.

Her guess paid off; she finally found him in the quieter part of the bookstore - the history section - scanning titles in a row of books with his brow furrowed in concentration. Quickly she shrank back behind the end display, picking up a book at random and pretending to flip through it as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

She didn't have to wait long. Pretty soon he pulled a book off the shelf, glanced at it only long enough to read the title, and then strode toward the registers without a backwards glance. Startled by the speed of his decision, Karma darted over to the books he had just been looking at and scanned them frantically until she managed to find the one he had just picked out, identifying it by the black-and-white photo of a helicopter on the back. Grabbing a copy of her own, she hurried over to the line, recklessly weaving through the milling crowd. What if there were already people standing behind him in line and she couldn't get close enough to talk to him?

But Captain Rogers' politeness saved the day. She spotted him stepping back to let a group of people move past him around a tight corner, and she hurried forward and managed to get into the line to pay just before he did.

Relieved, Karma took a moment to collect herself. She looked down at the book she - or rather, he - had picked out, and read the title for the first time: "Costly Mistakes: A Definitive History of the Vietnam War." Oh, great. She had been hoping it would be a subject she knew something about. Something to kickstart their conversation. This was something Clint's dad was far more qualified to talk about.

But Mike wasn't here. It was all up to her.

They shuffled forward slowly with the line. Karma turned the book over and over in her hands, heart pounding with anticipation, before she finally decided to just get it over with it already, and plastered on a friendly smile and turned to face Captain Rogers.

"Oh, hey, look," she said, pretending to only just now notice. "We're getting the same book."

He turned toward her in surprise, jarred out of his private thoughts... and then went very still when his eyes focused on her. His blue eyes went slightly wide, and then they slid down, and then up, and his brow creased slightly.

She was used to that kind of response to her appearance - at least, from certain types of people - and she waited patiently for a few seconds until she thought he had a handle on it before continuing: "So why'd you pick that one?"

He blinked a little, and seemed to realize he was being rude. "I, uh-" He cleared his throat roughly. "I read it already. I checked it out from the library."

"Oh. Liked it enough to get your own copy, huh?"

"I..." His eyes rested briefly on the tattoos on her arms, and she could practically see him trying to figure out just what was so important to her that she had to have it inked permanently on her skin. Then he pulled his gaze up again with an effort and pointedly looked her in the eyes. "I think it's an important book."

Karma had to suppress a smile. Always so careful to tell the truth... and so tactful to avoid the question when he thought the whole truth would not be welcome.

"So you didn't like it," she said matter of factly. "You just thought it was important."

Captain Rogers got a deer in the headlights kind of look. Busted. He clearly wasn't used to people paying that close of attention to his words.

"It was helpful," he said at last. "I learned a lot." He hesitated, and then added reluctantly: "Some of it was hard to get through."

"What parts?" she asked curiously.

"The chapter about, uh..." He swallowed. "About the flag burnings."

He had a sick expression on his face, and Karma felt her heart sink right along with his. No wonder he hadn't liked it.

He'd died for that flag. Or at least tried to.

"Hard to understand why someone would do that?" she asked, and he nodded without speaking.

Karma licked her lips and chose her next words carefully. "You know, my parents were pretty much hippies back in the '60s," she said at last. "I don't think they burned any flags, but they did protest the war. My mother raised me to feel the same way she did about it. To hate all the killing and the dying."

If anything, her words made Captain Rogers more upset, not less. "Everyone hates the killing and the dying," he said, a severity underlining his carefully polite tone. "It isn't that simple. Sometimes the alternative is worse."

Karma nodded, but inside she squirmed with sudden discomfort. She hadn't expected the conversation to go this way, and suddenly she got the horrible feeling she was in over her head, just like Clint had obviously feared. How was she supposed to explain this to him? He knew so much more about the nature of war than she did. She hadn't gone to college, could barely remember anymore what she'd been taught about the Vietnam War in high school history. And it wasn't like she had lived through the '60s. She'd only heard about it second-hand.

But she was here now, and Captain Rogers was looking at her with expectation in his eyes. She'd just have to give it her best shot.

"Well, I think-" she said slowly, "-that people weren't just upset about the war, you know? The civil rights stuff got kinda ugly. I think a lot of people were mad because America wasn't living up to its promises. To them, the flag was kinda... a symbol of failure. They hated the government for the things it did... or didn't do. I think they didn't know how else to say it, except to just... burn it down."

There was a kind of horror growing in his eyes. "The flag doesn't stand for the government of the United States," he said with a sudden intensity, and his breath quickened so that his shoulders moved up and down visibly.

Karma frowned. Didn't it? Wasn't that what they had said in school? Fifty stars for 50 states and all of that? "Well, what does it stand for?" she asked in confusion.

He paused for a long moment, sinking deep into thought. "You know," he said slowly, "when I was a kid, I grew up in a tenement in Brooklyn. There was a old man who lived two doors down from me and my mother, a Cherokee man named Junaluska. I was real little and I couldn't say his name right, so he told me to call him Jun. He used to give me a pemmican stick whenever he saw me. And the woman who lived across the hall from him was Mrs. Duxbury. She had an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. She still had an iron cooking pot he brought on the journey, more than 300 years old, and she'd show it to anyone who asked. They were real good friends, her and Jun. He used to fix her radiator whenever it broke down, and then she'd make him dinner."

Karma couldn't help but smile, although she wasn't sure where this was going.

"Next door to us on the other side was Mr. Wasserstein," he continued. "He came from Poland and he was the biggest Dodgers fan I ever met. He took me to my first game and made me fall in love with the game. Sometimes Mr. Brown went with us, too. He'd fought in the 369th regiment and I always wanted to hear his war stories because it made me think of my dad. And there was a woman who ran the fruit stand on the corner, Miss Wu. She would let my mom buy things on credit if her paycheck ran out too fast."

"That was kind of her," Karma said softly.

"I got real sick that year," Captain Rogers said. "I was in bed for more than a month. I was too sick to get up on my birthday to see the Fourth of July parade. Me and my mom tried to watch it out the window, but we couldn't see much. And when it was over, they all came to our door: Jun and Mrs. Duxbury, and Mr. Brown and Mr. Wasserstein, and Miss Wu. They all told me happy birthday and gave me the little flags they got to wave at the parade." The beginnings of a smile touched his lips. "I kept those cheap little flags until they fell apart. And ever since then, whenever I see a flag..."

He shook his head slightly. "I don't think of the president, or a Congressman, or some judge holding a gavel," he continued with a quiet passion. "I think of them. My neighbors. And the people like them living all over the country. Some are good, some are bad, most are a little of both. But the lives of those people? And the ideals that make it possible for us to live free... even if we can't always live up to those ideals perfectly? Those are worth fighting for. Those are worth dying for." An expression of anguish washed over his face, and he asked her with more than a hint of pleading: "Don't people know that anymore?"

Karma opened her mouth, and then closed it, not sure what to say.

"Ma'am?" an irritated voice called out, and Karma turned to see the bookstore's cashier waving at her with visible impatience. The line had moved on without them while they had talked. "Ma'am, you're holding up the show!"

"Oh, uh-" Karma shot an apologetic glance at Captain Rogers and then hurried up to pay for her book. Then she hung around waiting for him to pay for his, because there was something she needed to tell him. She was terrified to tell him, but she ached to. It was why she had come.

Captain Rogers finished paying for his book, and then seemed surprised to find her waiting for him by the doors.

"Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" she asked him.

His eyes flicked down to her tattoos once more, but after only a moment's hesitation he said with perfect politeness: "Thanks. That's nice of you."

They stepped into the bookstore's coffee shop, got their drinks and sat down at the table in the corner. Karma stirred her coffee and tried to collect her thoughts.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know what the flag's supposed to stand for," she admitted to him at last. "I guess it's different for every person you ask. But I can tell you what it means to me."

He waited expectantly.

Karma took a deep breath. "When I was kid, I had a cousin who was a lot older than me. He was always wearing camouflage. Carrying around big knives to show off. All that fake macho stuff, you know? Playing like he was a big tough soldier. Not that he ever actually served. And he..." She had to take another breath to get the next words out, but she managed to do it. "He... hurt me." She paused to wait for the old familiar anger and pain to wash over her. She could see the jolt of surprise in Captain Rogers' eyes, and then the sternness that gradually tightened his jaw. She pressed on as best as she could.

"And after that, every time I saw a uniform, I felt this... helpless kind of rage," she whispered. "And I hated men. I mean, I really hated them. Yeah, I slept with them, but I didn't ever trust them."

She swallowed. "And then one day I met a man who was... built like a soldier, actually. He was really strong. But he never did that dumb macho routine. He was really gentle. Even loving." This part of the story was much easier to get through, and her voice strengthened. "You know, my dad wasn't around when I grew up. I just had some of my mom's boyfriends around sometimes, and I'd never had a man treat me like that before. Figured he was some kind of fluke. And then I met the other men in his family, and I couldn't believe it: they were like that too. I got really confused, because his dad was a Vietnam vet and his grandparents fought in World War II and his cousin was in Afghanistan. They were soldiers through and through - the whole family, really - and I had a hard time reconciling all the people they must have hurt with the fact that they had made my boyfriend the man he was. So finally, I just came right out one day and asked his grandpa how he could possibly feel good about wearing that flag on his chest, considering everything it stood for."

"And?" Captain Rogers' expression was expectant.

Karma lifted her hands expressively. "He said that it wasn't about hurting people, it was about protecting them. And the more I got to know him and the rest of the family, the more I realized-"

Tears sprang to her eyes. "If any one of them had been in my family, growing up... they would have protected me. All the things my cousin did to me would never have happened. They wouldn't have let it happen."

Her shaking hands went to the top of her shirt and unbuttoned a couple of buttons, pulling the fabric apart to show him one of her favorite tattoos, one that she'd had inked right over her heart not long after she and Clint were married: a brightly colored American flag, rippling in the breeze.

"After that," she told him quietly, "I felt differently about the flag."

He looked at it for a long moment, and then met her eyes once more.

"It's nice," he said with a quiet sincerity.

"Thank you." She buttoned her shirt back up, feeling drained but somehow lighter. Why hadn't she ever been able to tell him this before? Why had it been easier to talk to him as a stranger than as a family member?

She should have told him before.

He handed her a handkerchief from his pocket. Not a tissue, but a real cloth one, folded into quarters, with his initials sewn into the corner. She wiped her eyes gratefully and handed it back to him.

"Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome."

Captain Rogers was taking this all so calmly. He seemed less weirded out by her sudden confession, and her tears, than he had been by her tattoos. How often did this happen to him? Karma wondered. How often did strangers spill their guts to him like this?

Maybe not all that often. Suddenly she remembered the piece of advice Clint's cousin Steven had given her before she'd met their grandpa for the very first time. "Get past the small talk as fast as you can," he'd said. "He'd rather talk about important things than waste time on the weather. He'll always be polite and talk about whatever you talk about, but he likes it better when people cut straight to the chase. Because it gives him permission to do the same."

"I used to be a soldier," Captain Rogers said quietly.

She looked up at him curiously. "Used to be?" The Chitauri were due to attack soon. Not that he knew that, of course. But whether or not he thought he was done with war, war wasn't done with him yet. Not by a long shot.

"Kinda hit a rough patch," he admitted. "I'm supposed to go back. I'm..." He cleared his throat. "I'm workin' on it."

It was all she could do not to suck in a breath at the sudden and striking resemblance between his expression and Clint's as she had left home just a short time ago. She had never seen Clint's grandfather show the slightest sign of uncertainty over anything... until now. He actually wasn't sure if he could fight again.

She had the benefit of knowing that he could. That he would.

But he didn't.

"What happens if you get called up before you're ready?" she asked before she could stop herself, and held her breath for his answer.

He shook his head slightly. "Doesn't matter. If it's somethin' you believe in, you make yourself ready."

Clint was quiet for a long time after Karma finished telling him the story.

"Well," he said at last, his tone light, "sounds like it wasn't an unmitigated disaster."

"I didn't screw it up too badly," Karma agreed wryly.

He turned partly away from her and shoved a fist into his pocket. "I think we had a bet," he said after a beat.

"I took it back, Clint," Karma said quickly. "Look, if you're not ready-"

"No, no, no," he interrupted with a short laugh. "We agreed. You do a mission, I do a mission. It's decided."

"Yeah, but-"

"What, are you gonna talk me out of it now?" he demanded, turning back toward her with an expression of disbelief.

Karma rolled her eyes. "Don't go all dramatic on me. I just don't want you to get pressured into something."

Clint shrugged, although she could tell he was only feigning casualness. "Well, maybe if I do one, everyone will stop pressuring me. And besides-" The faint beginnings of a sly smile tugged at one corner of his lips. "-I'm gonna kinda cheat."

TO BE CONTINUED

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