AN:
Hi guys!
A lot has happened in the world over the last few months and we're living in such strange times at the moment. I truly hope you're all staying safe and healthy, and finding a way to keep yourself busy.
Below is a bit of a filler chapter - I sort of lost the flow of the story and been trying to get back into it. If you've followed from the start thank you for sticking with it and your patience given the lengthy waits between the last few chapters (and all the talking that seems to be happening in them). If you're new to this story, thank you for committing your time to reading it and I hope you're enjoying.
"Who left this pile of goop in the middle of the floor?" Clint yelled after stepping through the back door into the kitchen, holding his foot aloft and inspecting the mess all over his trainers. The meaty smell was an unwelcome visitor to his nose.
"It's cat food," Lila said, cocking an eyebrow in a way that so reminded him of the days before the Snap, she was sat at the table with Steve, who wasn't paying much attention, "and it wasn't in the middle of the floor, it was on a plate out of harm's way until you came along."
"What's going on?" Laura followed in behind him, looking from daughter to husband, afraid that another outburst was on the horizon.
"Apparently I'm just clearing the way of booby-traps for you. Oh, hello," Liho slinked into the room. Still wary of almost everyone there she skirted round the edge, before giving in to her curiosity and inched forward, sniffing out her breakfast decorating Clint's shoe. He, Laura, Lila and Steve all watched on as the black cat tentatively picked bits off and ate.
It was the only interaction he'd really had with the animal since it turned up, so Clint just stayed as still as he could, balanced on one foot. His years of training and field experience finally having a domestic use.
"Umm, guys, care to help?"
Everyone pretended not to hear and found other things that needed their urgent attention in other rooms. All except Steve who was probably the only one who actually hadn't. He was staring at the cat, a shadow of a smile playing on his lips but a storm in his eyes. It was then Clint remembered seeing him in Nat's room the night before, sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed.
He was struck by how close the two of them had grown. He used to tease Nat about it. Of all the people in all the world to guide Captain America through the twenty-first century there was something particularly tickling about it being her.
Yet, he couldn't deny that particular friendship was good for her. It brought her out of her shell in ways he was never able to. But that was the magic of Steve Rogers, he inspired the best in people. No matter who they were.
"Hey Cap, wanna help a colleague out?"
Steve looked at Clint, a hint of confusion fading from his eyes as he took in the scene before him. "I don't think so, Barton. If she's staying here then the two of you need to get better acquainted."
"And is this how you usually make friends with cats? Let them eat from your shoe?"
"That might be how you do it, but definitely not anyone else."
A flicker of amusement lit up his face for a moment. Only a moment, but it was nice to see. The good captain wasn't out of reach. He was still willing to cling on.
Liho continued to pick her meal from around Clint's shoelaces, taking her sweet time. Almost as if she knew the inconvenience of it all.
"C'mon cat, you can eat faster than that."
She gave him a look and yawned, showing all those pointy teeth.
"You pain in the a-"
Lila yelled something from her room and Nate bolted in. The cat gave the barest of flinches before deciding she'd had her fill and disappeared with an ease Clint was jealous of. He barely had enough time to put his foot on the ground before Nate wrapped his arms around his legs.
"Hey Nate," he picked his youngest up before he could add knocked-to-the-floor-by-a-toddler to his list of morning disasters, it wasn't even eight, "what did you do?"
"Lila angry," the boy said, a hint of a smile hidden beneath the furrowed brow and wrinkled nose.
"Lila's always angry," Clint stage-whispered, close enough he could smell the shampoo still lingering on Nate's hair from the night before, "kinda like a guy I used to know. But you didn't answer my question, little man. What did you do?"
"Got my solider back," he played innocent well, but a spy he was not and a questioning eyebrow from his father was all it took for him to break, "yesterday, she wasn't looking and stepped on him. She said bad words and hid him in her room."
"Okay, but what did you do," Clint prodded him gently in the chest.
"Umm, her music box fell. I just wanted my soldier and she hid it and scared me when she came in and it-it just fell."
"Ah. Well, If I know your sister, and I think I do, you should hide until you're thirty," Clint looked around and caught the faraway look creeping back onto Steve's face. He needed a trusty pair of hands and you couldn't get any trustier than Captain America, right?
"Here, can you look after this little guy for a while," he said to the moping man and handing his son over, glad to see he'd brought him back to reality but tried not to fixate too much on the widened eyes and the poorly concealed panic shimmering within. The guy had jumped on grenades and leapt from tall buildings, but this is what worried him?
The stairs creaked beneath his feet and once he reached the landing he was slightly surprised to see Lila's door open. He knocked on the frame, watching her knelt on the floor besides the pieces of her music box and the scattered bits of jewellery she'd kept safe within, that bloody cat nuzzling against her leg. There was something in her eyes when she looked up, but she willed it away when she saw him.
"How you doing, Hawkeye?" He kept his voice soft.
"I hate him," she said, just about managing to keep her voice even, though her fingers were digging into the cream carpet.
"No you don't."
"Yes I do, dad. He's always where he isn't supposed to be."
Lila glanced back down at the broken box before jumping to her feet, Liho in hand, and almost throwing herself onto her bed. Not quite sure if he was allowed in, Clint snuck over the threshold, picked up the pieces and went to sit beside her. Treading softly all the way.
"I'm sure I can fix it," he fit a couple of pieces together, "shouldn't be too hard."
"It's just a stupid box. You should probably spend your time fixing other things."
"What do you mean?"
"I dunno."
"Lila-"
"Whatever dad, just get out."
"Sweetheart?"
Clint reached out, wanting to pull her into a hug. The way he used to. But she moved away, message clear enough. On his way out he picked up one of the pieces he missed, then made his way back down to the kitchen.
Steve was still there, though Nate was long gone.
"Laura took him," he explained as Clint placed the broken box on the table, "is that Cyrillic?"
In the lid of the box was a short inscription, cut beautifully into the wood. While Clint could speak a little Russian, he couldn't read it.
"Yeah. Nat picked it up for Lila on her little jaunt to Russia after your fun in Washington. Not sure what it says, Lila does, though."
"She can speak Russian?"
"Of course. Can read it too," he smiled at Steve's incredulity, "she grew up on stories of Russia. The culture there, the history. There was no way she wasn't going to learn the language. You know, she's a bit of a history buff. But don't tell her friends that. It's geeky, apparently. Though, I bet she'd get some cool points if it was Captain America who let it slip."
"Can you fix it?"
"Think so, though she might throw it out just because I touched it."
"She'll come round, Clint. You are her dad."
"Exactly, I should know how to get through to her. She's just so mad," he sighed and slumped into the dining chair opposite Steve. "Speaking of, how come you're not all annoyed with me like yesterday?"
"Not gonna pretend I understand what was going on in your head," the soldier said, standing up with a sigh on his lips, "but she never wavered in her loyalty to you. You pushed her away. Frustrated the heck out of her. Did your best to hide. And she never gave up. She stood with you no matter what you did."
"When you put it like that, I sound like a real ass," Clint quipped.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, Nat found a way to forgive you even though it hurt her the most. So I figure I can forgive you too."
Clint found it difficult to swallow, a lump sprung up in his throat at Steve's words. It was helped by the all too familiar prickling in his eyes. His friend had the decency to switch his gaze to the cat slinking her way back into the room and jumping up on the counter to sit in the window.
"I'm glad she had you," Clint said once he was sure he'd composed himself.
As childish as it sounded, Clint was a little jealous Nat had another best friend. For so long he'd been the only person she'd really opened up to, showed her true self to. And then Steve waltzed into their life just as Clint started to take a back seat. Brought on sooner than either expected by the Loki-mind-invasion.
But if he had to lose her to anyone, he couldn't ask for someone better than Captain America. Except perhaps Steve Rogers.
"Did she though?" Steve went to lean against the counter top, absentmindedly fussing Liho who'd come to sniff his elbow, "I wasn't there."
"You were there a hell of a lot more than me."
Another sigh as he covered his eyes. There was something in them. Shame, maybe?
"I thought she was coping. She convinced me she was coping. I always thought I could read her but-"
"Only when she lets you," Clint said, knowing too well the difficulties of figuring out what she was thinking.
"I left. In the end I left. I was the last one there with her and I did it anyway."
Clint stepped over to the bigger guy and clasped his shoulder, doing his best to swallow down the inadequacies that swam up to the surface when he remembered the man in front of him was technically over a century old and still in perfect health.
"You and I both know she would have spoken up if she wanted to. She was never backward about coming forward. You needed to get out of there, Steve, and she knew that too. That building was full of ghosts, only the truly twisted would stay there."
"Nat stayed there," Steve said, bringing his hand back down to rest on the top.
"Case in point," Clint watched as the soldier's lips twitched. He was about to ask why Steve was in her room when Wanda traipsed in. Red swirled in her eyes and there was an edgy set to her frame. She stopped short at the sight of the two men and Clint noticed her close her eyes in an effort to re-centre herself.
"Morning," Steve said before Clint could comment, busying himself making coffee for the young woman, "not like you to sleep so late."
"Some of us are loud dreamers," she said, a hint of her Sokovian accent slipping through. Her eyes slid to the archer, though she couldn't quite meet his eyes.
"Oh," he said, mind flicking back to the nightmare, the one that haunted him most, "sorry."
There was a gasp and Steve overegged his strength, breaking the cup in his hand and splashing hot coffee over himself. "Son of a-" he muttered as he hurried to clean the mess and pour a new drink for Wanda. When he turned his eyes jumped between them, caught halfway between despair and curiosity. Wanda winced as she picked up on whatever was going on, before Steve straightened and a calmness spread across his face as he handed her the cup. Clint suspected it was his way of keeping his thoughts and feelings private.
The red was gone from the girl's eyes. Instead there was just sadness. For all of them. And for herself. It occurred to Clint that for most of the time he'd known her, this was often how he found her. Barely keeping it together, desperate for a friend and a way out of the darkness. For a flash of a moment Clint wished he had Wanda's powers so he could gauge the pain she was in. Her list of lost loved ones was piling up and she was still so young. If he could understand how she was feeling then maybe he could help.
He just hoped someone would find a way to help her before she lost control completely.
"Have you been dreaming about Vor - the Time Heist?" Steve asked, struggling to even give voice to the name.
Clint was glad. He hated the name. It filled him full of a poisonous rage, similar to how he felt when he realised his family was gone and not just playing a trick on him. And it looked like the last thing Wanda needed was to feel that.
He nodded. Not trusting his words. And Wanda took Steve's former chair, examining the broken box, for a second the pain of the world lifted from her shoulders, making room for a fond smile.
"What?"
"Nothing, just this quote, it's so Natasha." She sipped on her coffee and silence ruled the kitchen for the first time since Clint stepped in cat food.
"Will you be carrying on through her journals?" Wanda said, breaking the quiet with her gentle question, a small strand of hope in her otherwise steady voice.
Clint nodded.
"That's, uh, that's good," the young woman wrung her hands together, "is it okay if I stay? You know, until you reach the end? Please."
"Of course, Wanda. You're all welcome to stay."
Errant strands of red twisted around and through her fingers, flickering with every breath. He thought she might feel better having asked her question. Apparently not.
"Maybe I should stay on the jet," her voice was small, there were times when he was reminded of the kid who fell in with the wrong robotic crowd. Who just needed a push to stand on her own two feet. But he saw what she did to Thanos, how scared he was of her. It was difficult reconciling them as the same people.
"That's hardly fair, I can stop sleeping, you know. Probably only a matter of time anyway."
"Clint", she smiled, "you forget I lived on the run for two years. Not even all that long ago for me. I think I'll be fine."
She sipped her coffee again and household noises surrounded them. Liho leapt from the counter and sniffed out any stray bits of food that she missed on her first outing.
"I'm sorry about yesterday, Wanda, and the dream."
"You can't help it Clint, most people can't. There's no need to apologise. It's just more difficult, it always is when you're with people grieving someone you know," she paused for a second, twiddling her thumbs and looking at her feet. "Think I might go for a run, might wake me up a bit."
"Since when do you run?"
"Ummm, since you talked me into joining the Avengers."
"Willingly?"
"Yes, it's not a crime. Nat liked going for runs," Steve pointed out
"Yes, but we already established she was twisted."
"Routine is good. Clear's your mind. You should know."
Clint's knee decided to throb as a little reminder that not too long ago he was doing exactly what he was mocking them for. Well, that's fine, he never claimed not to be a hypocrite.
"Don't start without us," Wanda called over her shoulder as they headed out the door.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered, slumping back against the seat, feet crossed at the ankles. He let his eyes slide close for just a second and enjoyed the blankness he saw there. The sounds of other people had blurred into a tolerable mumble and he thought that, maybe, he could catch up on a few of those ZZZs he missed out on earlier.
If only there wasn't that tang of cat food in the air.
Stupid cat.
Something sharp dug into his thigh on its way to the table. Clint cracked an eye open to risk a glance and saw the cat sitting beside him, tail wrapped around its body as it stared at him with those calculating eyes. Almost as if it was saying 'Yeah, I used my claws. What're you going to do about it?'
He sighed. Why couldn't Nat have been a dog person?
He leaned forward, keeping eye contact with the little fuzz ball, ready and willing to answer.
"Look here, what's your face, I don't like you much with your food everywhere, using your claws when you know you don't need to. But you managed to worm your way into Nat's life somehow, you were important to her. And now you're important to my daughter. So I'll put up with you. But no more eating off my shoe, got it?"
Liho kept her gaze on Clint, looking for all intents and purposes as if she was going to ignore him. Then she blinked, lowered her head slightly and lazily raised a paw to lick.
"Good. I'm glad we have an agreement."