A/N: Another little one shot. This is a lovely combination of lots of angst and a little fluff with a happy ending. So, here you go, I guess.
Oh, by the way, I don't own any of these characters or Marvel, in case you hadn't noticed.
Clint shivered slightly when he felt a sudden breeze. It had been six months since the snap. It had been six months since he'd seen his family. He was in Texas at that moment, hunting down a drug lord who had a nationwide cartel. If his wife and three beautiful children had to die, then the scumbags who polluted the Earth just by existing had no right to be there either. That justification worked well enough in the moment, but it didn't keep the soul crushing guilt and vivid nightmares at bay. Deep down he knew it was wrong, that he had become what he swore never to be again, but he couldn't admit it. He couldn't admit that he'd fallen back into a warped version of his teen years where he had nothing and no one to lose. That wasn't exactly true though.
He rarely let himself think about the Avengers. It hurt to think about them almost as much as it hurt to think about his wife and children. He knew they would be disappointed. Natasha was the hardest to think about. She'd been his partner for years. They had each other's backs through everything, but not even she could fix this. He jumped when he felt the breeze again. It was oddly familiar, the sensation. He couldn't place why. He decided to call it a night after that. He'd been waiting on the roof of a building for the target, but suddenly it didn't seem worth it to keep waiting. He climbed down the ladder and then a fire escape and stood in the alley. He whipped around, bow drawn when he caught motion in his peripheral. Suddenly his bow was gone and he stood face to face with someone long dead.
"You didn't see that coming," Pietro said, offering the bow back, a wide smirk on his lips. Clint took the bow, but his eyes never left Pietro's face. His mind flashed back to the last time he'd said those words, just before he dropped dead, his body riddled with bullets.
"You're dead," was all he could say. Pietro's smirk turned to a smile.
"Yeah. I guess I walked it off. Cap should be proud." That startled a laugh from Clint. He still couldn't stop staring. He and Pietro hadn't been close, he'd barely known him, but Pietro had died for him. He'd died so that Clint could go home to his family. Not to mention the fact that he felt like he knew him. Wanda had taken a while to open up, but once she had, she'd been eager to talk about her twin. She told him about their first day of school, how he beat up her first bully, Pietro's first crush, and so much more. She'd also told him about the hard times, about the bombing, about HYDRA, about the experimentation. She came to Clint when she was missing him, and he would listen to her stories. They worked together to keep him alive, at least in memory.
"How?" He shrugged.
"Best Dr. Banner and Stark can figure, I came back because Thanos used the stones. When I got my powers, it forged a link between me and the Mind Stone. When he used them, it called me back. I don't really get it."
"That's insane."
"No, what's insane is what's going on right here. What are you doing?" Clint glanced down at the bow in his hand. He took a deep breath. What was he doing?
"I don't know. I'm drowning, I think. It's all too much, and I'm drowning in it."
"You lost someone," he realized. Clint nodded.
"I lost my wife and three kids."
"You have kids." Clint smiled at the thought of them.
"Yeah. The youngest one's named after you, you know. Nathaniel Pietro Barton." Pietro stared at him like he had lost his mind.
"You named your son after me?" Clint nodded. "After everything I did?"
"After you saved my life at the cost of your own. I couldn't thank you. That seemed like the next best thing." Next thing he knew, Clint had an armful of Pietro. He clung to Clint tightly.
"Thank you," he whispered. Clint's arms wrapped around the boy, his paternal instincts kicking in.
"Thank you, kid. I only made it home because of you." Pietro pulled back and looked Clint in the face.
"Come back. Natasha needs you. The Captain needs you. I need you." The last part was said quietly, and Clint suddenly realized that Pietro was mourning too. Wanda had been lost in the snap alongside the others. His heart ached for her and for her brother, who was missing her.
"She loved you," he said softly. "She never stopped talking about you. Whenever she was missing you too much or your birthday would come around, I'd sit with her, and she'd tell me stories." They stood in silence for a few seconds.
"You are not the only one who lost someone." Pietro's words held no heat, but they felt like a slap in the face as the reality of his actions washed over him. He was being incredibly selfish. Natasha had lost his family too. Laura was one of her best friends, and the kids were her nephews and niece. Tony had lost his surrogate son. Thor had lost his brother. Steve had lost Bucky. The team had lost Sam and Wanda.
"I know." He hadn't lost everyone either. There were people out there missing him, and he was missing them too. He missed Steve's conviction in his beliefs, his offbeat sense of humor, and the way he would sometimes slip up and use 40's slang, or his Brooklyn accent would come through. He missed Bruce's calm, quiet nature and the way his eyes would light up and he'd cover a smile with a look of disapproval when someone did something stupid. He missed Thor and the way he would always pretend to be less intelligent than he actually was, or the way he would intentionally speak Shakespearean long after he had mastered contemporary English. He even missed Tony, even though it had been a while. He missed his sarcasm and the way he could make a joke about anything, and they usually weren't in that poor of taste.
Lord, did he miss Tasha. She had been his rock for so long. For years he had been alone. Then he'd had Coulson, which had been nice, but no one would ever top Tasha. She had fallen into his life at one of his lowest moments when he was questioning why he had joined SHIELD, why he kept fighting. She reminded him. She grounded him. They did that for each other. He knew she'd been looking for him, but he knew her well enough to keep her off his trail. He almost wished he didn't. He knew if she had so much as hinted that she wanted him home he would have gone. He would do anything for her. If there was such a thing as a platonic soulmate, she was his.
The thing was, he didn't know if he could do it. He didn't know if he could look her in the eye knowing what he had been doing. She worked endlessly to right her wrongs, to wipe the red from her ledger, but he had been dumping more into his lately. He shuddered at the thought. He'd been running around playing judge, jury, and executioner while she tried to help people.
"Stark has a plan. There might be a chance," Pietro said. Clint had almost forgotten he was there. At some point it had started to rain.
"A chance at what?" he asked, not daring to believe.
"A chance to fix everything, to bring them back." Clint took a shuddering breath.
"Don't do that," he whispered. "Don't give me hope." Pietro smiled sadly.
"I wish someone could have given it to you sooner." Those words broke something in him. Not in a bad way. It was like the horrible wall he had been constructing to hide himself behind had tumbled to the ground. A tear slipped down his face, then another, and suddenly he was crying in earnest. Pietro pulled him into another hug. "We can fix this together." Clint pulled back and wiped his eyes. He gave a sharp nod. "Come home?"
"Yeah. Home sounds pretty good right about now." Pietro was grinning again.
"Race you there. Keep up, old man!" And he was gone. Smiling for the first time in a long time, Clint raised his bow and aimed it in the direction Pietro had gone.
"Nobody would know. Nobody." He laughed quietly to himself and slung his bow back over his shoulders. He crept silently back up onto the roof. It was time to go home.