The food lasted them for a while. The group had been thankful that Clint and Pietro had managed to get money from the kinder people in the world. The place they had been staying in, however, didn't last as long.

The same people who had harassed Pietro had found out where they were residing. And set it on fire. They lost someone to the fire - Reggie his name had been. They mourned and forced themselves to move on, knowing they couldn't stay long; they were in danger of being killed themselves and they all knew they had no way of paying for any health care.

Stupid America.

Why couldn't it be like Britain? At least they had free health care.

"It is ... my fault," Pietro said slowly.

He had already lost count in how many days he had been with Clint and the others. Sometimes he regarded these times as the best times in his life, and sometimes he regarded them as the worst. It was a Clint Barton paradox, only it was Pietro Maximoff in the situation.

"What? No, it's not!" Clint exclaimed as much as he could from the heavy fatigue that was settling down on his shoulders.

"Da, it is," Pietro said, his eyes beginning to look too bright.

"Those pricks have been trailing us for a while and only attacked us because they wanted to get a jibe at you or some stupid shit. It ain't no way your fault. It's theirs."

"Clint's right," Barbara said, slowing down her pace to walk beside the two men who were both younger than her by decades. "Just because they see us as different - or rather vermin - they think it is right to try and get rid of us in whatever vile ways they can think of," she told him.

"But Reggie -"

"Pietro, darling, in all honesty, Reggie was dying anyway. He knew he only had a few weeks - maybe months - left, but was losing hope faster than you could say 'da' or whatever it is you say. He died long before that fire ever came to play. Now he's at rest. Now we mourn and now we move on and try to make sure those assholes never do any of that shit to any of us ever again. We might wander through, come and go like the day's light, but we sure as shit will look after each other, because in the end, who will? We all have our own troubles, reasons, for being homeless and being at the bottom of the barrel, but we will look after each other because we're somewhat decent, unlike some assholes," Barbara stated, crossing her elderly arms over her chest lightly.

"You are not what I expect, but it is good. You are like -" Pietro cut of, trying to find the right word. "- you are babushka to us, and are determined, yes?" He turned to Clint who nodded, confirming he said the right word. "- it is ... inspiring."

"Why thank you, Pietro. My, you know how to talk to the ladies,"

"Even though I prefer the men," he said with a sly look at Clint, who hadn't noticed. Barbara did and sent the younger man a smirk. She tutted at Clint who gave her a confused look which she either ignored or didn't notice, walking forwards to talk to one of the other elders, muttering a little stereotypically about young whippersnappers.

"She's fuckin' crazy," Clint said after a moment, turning his head to look at Pietro who was smiling - actually smiling.

"I like her. She is funny, no?"

"Of course you'd like her," Clint muttered to himself, jamming his hands into his armpits, trying to warm them up. "Come on, shake a leg, we gotta get some place to sleep before it gets dark."


They did eventually find somewhere to lay low, but it didn't help that Pietro was on edge. He was jumpy and looked close to having either a panic attack or an anxiety attack. Maybe both.

Clint had taken to talking to him the most, the others in their group letting them get on with whatever it was they did. It wasn't like they cared if Clint or Pietro were gay or ended up forming some form of romantic relationship. What mattered was that they would all stay together and get through the cold, the warm and the rain and whatever bullshit life decided to throw at them because that was what friends did.

"My sister," Pietro admitted after the fourth night in their newly taken home. Clint looked over at him from where he was, huddled in a tight ball, the thin blanket not doing well to keep the cold out. "She is still back at home."

"So you left your home?" Clint asked a little too bluntly. Pietro nodded anyway, seeming at ease with telling Clint the reasons for why he was now travelling with the other homeless.

"The conditions - I could not stay there. Wanda - moya sestra - she couldn't leave. Was too terrified to, I think. She told me I could go; try and live a life that was better than that, but I have evidently failed. I sometimes regret not going back to her, but I cannot go back," Pietro said, his voice steadily getting heavier with emotions Clint knew would tip Pietro over and let him become a crying mess.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to," Clint reassured him before deciding to reach out and offer his hand as some form of physical comfort.

He was surprised when Pietro took him up on that offer.

Pietro's hand was warm and shook slightly. His palms were calloused and roughened at the edges.

"I had a wife and kids," Clint offered up. Pietro looked over at him, eyebrow raised. He said nothing, so Clint took that as the opportunity to keep speaking. "Shit happened and then the wife wanted a divorce. Obviously I got shit all and ended up homeless about a week or so later. Haven't heard from her about the kids since. I expect she's moved from the house to somewhere else to raise the kids, but I fuckin' miss 'em," Clint admitted, his throat tightening as he was hit with a wave of something that wasn't quite nostalgia. He breathed in and out slowly and deeply. It felt kind of nice to have gotten that out there, that someone had listened to him bitch about stuff.

"Sounds shit," Pietro mumbled and Clint wanted to reprimand him for his language - but that would make him a hypocrite and the thought of Steve hurt almost as bad as it did when he thought of his children.

"It was," Clint said.

And then Pietro was moving closer to him, shifting his belongings and whatever he had used as a bed until he was right next to Clint, their shoulders touching and their breaths mingling. Clint felt shocked to the bone but didn't object. The idea of feeling someone close like this, but no intimacy was kind of a reassurance and something that relieved him.

"My father, he is a shit,"

"Just a shit?"

"More. But he is bad people. Hurt me and my sestra a lot. I had to get away. Wanda said she would cover for me, say something stupid like I had ran away and joined a circus or something, as long as it would get him off my trail," he said and looked up at Clint with those big, wide, unbelievably blue eyes.

"Sounds like your sister is one tough bitch,"

"She is. Tougher than me. She would have figured a way to get off the streets and find our own house and whatever else would be needed. She was smart like that, always thinking of things,"

"Then why didn't she run away with you?"

"Too scared. She had a deep fear of the man we called our father - much more than the one I have. I tried to get her to run away with me, but she couldn't. Not unless someone came and took him away,"

"Man, that sucks,"

"Da,"

They fell into a silence after that. It was somewhat awkward but also wasn't; both of them were thinking about what the other had said, thinking of how the situations could've been made different if the other had been there to stop or alter it.

"Hey, Pietro?" Clint asked after what had been half an hour of silence. By that time, everyone else around them had hunkered down and gone to sleep.

"Hmm?" Pietro's tired hum entered through the silence.

"When we get our shit together - and I mean actually getting our shit together. Up and off the streets, renting our own house and having a job. Me and you - we're gonna go back to your old house and get your sister. I'll even knock your so called father's teeth out while you get her out," Clint said, which had thankfully gotten a laugh out of Pietro.

"Thank you,"

"You're welcome, kid,"

"Old man,"

"I'm not that older,"

"You're like five years older than me - you're old," Pietro argued.

"That's a stupid way to go about things. Just because I'm like five years older than you," Clint muttered.

"How old are you?" Pietro asked, turning his head to look at Clint.

"Thirty-three,"

"Eight years older," Pietro stated. Clint counted back the numbers.

"You're twenty-five?"

"Yeah,"

"You don't have to answer this - but why were you still living with your piss-poor father at that age?"

"We could not leave. He would not let us. We needed time to try and figure out how to get away from him. After the many times we had tried to escape - each time he caught us - we just gave up trying. Let him do whatever because we knew it was pointless," Pietro said with a shrug. Clint sighed and looked over at him and sighed before he shifted and put at arm under Pietro's back and held him in a sort of hug. "What -?"

"You're cold, need warmth." Clint murmured and bit back the smile as Pietro nodded and huddled up into a ball, his arms around Clint as his face got buried in Clint's neck. He sighed and shut his eyes, thinking hard and fast.

He would protect this kid, make sure he got back on his feet, get a house and get his sister back, away from the asshole that had tried to ruin their lives. He wasn't sure where this was coming from - maybe because he understood what it was like to have a shit father, and want to run away, but regardless, he would take care of Pietro if it was the last thing he did.

And that thought scared the shit out of him.

But he would stand by it, make sure that Pietro wouldn't get hurt by the homophobic pricks, wouldn't get hurt by any stray homeless that would try and manipulate him. He would do whatever it would take to look after this white haired kid. He could see a bit of himself in Pietro. He could see Pietro could be redeemed, have an actual life with his sister; away from the hurt of their father and away from the bite of being on the streets.

Clint Barton was a human catastrophe, a walking human car crash, but when he got his mind set on something, he would see it through to the very end.