'Cause I don't think it's an accident
That tears are shaped like seeds
So I'll bury all my fears and trust they're turning into trees
Oh, I'm fighting to believe
This is not the end of the story.'

"Tragedy is Not the End" ~ Joel Ansett

~OL~

"Still say it's not my fault for once."

Clint grunted. "Still digging into my shin, Stark."

Tony tried for the umpteenth time to shift to the left and for the umpteenth time failed spectacularly. Fireworks included, since they could hear muted 'pop, pop, ker-pop' sounds through the rubble over their heads. Nat's guns at work.

"Miami."

Clint made an 'ugh' noise. "Not this again."

"I'm trying not to panic under fifteen feet of what used to be a convention centre." Tony's breaths wheezed. "Humour me."

"Story of my life, wouldn't you say?"

"Is this about the baby mobile I gave you? Because that thing is a hit with the kids."

"How would you know?" Clint squirmed against a piece of lateral rebar cushioning his spine. "You don't have any."

"Yet."

Clint paused. "You want kids?"

"Someday. Maybe. Probably. So long as it doesn't drool like the baby Pepper made me hold during a PR visit to the hospital after New York, during a call for more adoptions."

"All kids drool."

"Drat. Another con added to the list."

"Nathaniel loves the mobile," Clint admitted, since it kind of sounded like Stark might be trying to cough up one of his kidneys. Dust painted what little Clint saw of his face in chalky miasmas. "Though I can't figure out how to turn the dang thing off."

"It doesn't turn off. It's indefinite."

"What? What about when he's older? I don't want that thing to outlive me!"

Tony smiled, teeth bloody and sapphire by the light of the arc reactor under his T-shirt and blazer. Without his suit—for once, they'd all been at a freaking charity event as themselves—the arc reactor glowed brighter. It eased Clint's fears about his heart stopping. They'd all gotten that advanced first aid lecture from Pepper, what to do if the device malfunctioned in the field.

While Tony didn't need the reactor anymore since his surgery, it was still tied to his bio-signs, clipped on via…well, Clint didn't understand how it was attached on top of his chest, to be honest.

If Tony flickered out, so did the arc reactor. That's all Clint needed to know.

"There's a secret power source you can disable. Consider it a fun challenge to find. Better than an Easter egg hunt."

Clint let his head rest back against a piece of concrete. "Bastard."

"Love you too. So. Miami or Sacramento?"

"For the last time, Stark—I don't need you to build me a retirement villa."

"Everyone needs a retirement villa. By the sea."

"I have a perfectly good farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, that doesn't show up on any satellites, and that's enough for me."

"Oh yeah." Tony's wry tone echoed oddly in the cramped bubble. He and Clint had maybe five inches between their chests. "I've fixed your 'perfectly good' wiring up close."

"That was one outlet."

"Three."

"Three?"

Tony wheezed another laugh, a breeze over Clint's hair since the mechanic lay half on a piece of concrete higher up. "Laura forbade me from telling you how bad it was. One extension cord away from a fire, Legolas."

Clint swore.

After that they fell silent for a while, both doing the math on how much oxygen they had left for the cubic feet of their prison. Natasha must have seen the building go down after the bomb explosion, while buying a drink at the pub across the street with Thor and Steve. Clanks already sounded to their right, the signature electrical crackle of Thor's hammer doing its job trying to get them out.

Clint was forever grateful they hadn't brought Bruce along for this one.

"Your hearing aid okay? Didn't blow?"

Clint smiled. "Peachy. Thanks again for making it."

Tony tried to adjust his trapped ankle and his heel dug into Clint's shin again. He kneed Tony's other hip in response. Mostly an accident.

In a rare gesture of grace, Tony didn't point it out. "After all you've done for people, least I could do."

"That's…" Clint blinked. "Strangely nice of you. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Though I'm never going out in public without the Iron Man bracelet again. I should know better after Ultron. Could have had us out of here an hour ago."

"No arguments there. You thinking mercenaries?"

"Probably." Tony's hand shook against Clint's ribs, since there wasn't enough room to move in either direction. "Security was pretty good but there wasn't a metal detector."

"Maybe some of those Serbian gangs on our radar."

"Yeah." Tony got a faraway look, the same one he often wore in the months after sending a nuke up through a wormhole. Clint scrambled for a lighter topic to bring him back.

Then Tony stifled a sneeze and said, "Speaking of kids, I've been digging up info on this Spider person."

"Spider?"

"You don't watch the news in hokeyville, do you?"

Clint rolled his eyes. With a subtle twist, he freed his hand from under his tux jacket and slipped it into Tony's. The tremors calmed. "Not enough to hear about one spider."

"Vigilante kid. Climbs buildings and stuff stopping crime."

Clint snickered. "Sounds like a nutcase."

"He's young."

"How young?" Clint frowned. "Isn't looking up stuff on minors illegal?"

"Yes."

"Tony—"

"He's like…an infant. What's a pimply-faced infant stopping runaway buses for, Clint?"

The intense use of his first name tightened Clint's fingers around Tony. The man hadn't said his name like that in a long time.

"You worried about the kid?"

"You heartless? Yeah, I'm worried. Though he'd be bloody useful on the team, you have to admit."

Clint shook his head. "The Accords will be fine, Tony. They'll figure it out. You can stop trying to fix everybody's fears."

Tony went silent. Utterly silent, hardly breathing.

Clint peeked up, checking that sky-before-a-sunrise blue glow. Still strong. Tony wasn't having a heart attack.

"Sometimes…" Tony sighed. "Sometimes I feel like that's what I was made for, what this Iron Man journey is all for. Paving the road for the person who comes after me. The next generation needs to be better than us, deserves better than we got."

"Sounds like a beautiful dream, a good goal to work towards."

"Not alone, though."

"Tony…"

"We'll do it as a team, Clint."

"Clint?"

Clint blinked in the sudden, golden light. Had Thor dug them out already? The arc reactor burned steady by his eyes, reassuring Clint that everything was okay. Tony hadn't tapped out.

He looked to the right and Laura's face swam into view. What was Laura doing here? Maybe Natasha called her after the building went down, or she saw it on the news.

"Clint, honey? You with me?"

Oh. Monday. It was Monday.

A metal wire pain cranked through Clint's neck when he lifted it off the mattress, butt numb on the floor. Reality invaded in volcanic ash flakes, toxic and muffled over Clint's mind.

Tony…

Clint's fingers flexed, not around Tony's hand but the arc reactor keychain. A hollow spot where Nat and Tony's friendship had lived gonged, ringing long after a fresh wave of grief passed.

"Hey," said Laura. She palmed his cheek with a tired smile. "Sorry to wake you, but it's almost two pm."

The mother of all alarms blared through Clint's thoughts. The morning rushed back, Pete on his lap, the frozen yogurt, hearing his name from that young voice for the inaugural time.

But this wasn't what zapped him from muddled dream to awake.

Clint's heart raced and he leapt to his feet. "Pete—"

"Is downstairs. Clint, he's fine."

It wasn't enough. The tether yanked and yanked and yankedandyankedandyanked—

It felt like countless times Tony wanted Clint's attention when he didn't have his hearing aid in. The endless poking to his ribs or a hand waved in front of his face. If Clint closed his eyes, it was almost like Tony stood with them right now, whapping at his shoulder, kneeing his tingly shin.

"Where is he?" Clint panted.

"On the porch…"

Clint bolted down the stairs, half running into the corner wall on the landing, and jumped the last three steps. He flung open the front door.

And there was Pete, dead to the world.

Clint's urgency-based athleticism gave out, emotion winning when he wobbled down to one knee beside the porch swing. Pete, alive and asleep. Clint marvelled at the clean and freshly snipped curls, how they hardly went past his ears now in caramel helixes.

Something tickled in Clint's mind and he struggled to remember the dream-memory, how it ended, what Tony had said before Thor bodily lifted them both out of the concrete maze. Most startling of all, Clint wasn't surprised by what Pete looked like under all that grime.

He looks more like the way he's supposed to. He looks like Pete.

"You're here." Clint touched the boy's baby face, the smooth slope where his jaw connected to his neck. "You feel like a miracle, Pete, and I don't even know why."

Pete's lashes twitched. "Cl'nt?"

Clint fell forward, face in Pete's hair to hide his teary eyes. "Yeah, bud. It's me. Loving the new cut."

Pete nosed into Clint's broad chest like a newborn dog, a move Clint was one thousand percent certain the boy never would have initiated fully awake. "Sleep?"

"I sure did. Thanks to you. I think this would be better off with you for now." Clint tucked the keychain under the blanket, by Pete's chin. Tony's steady blue glow lit up Pete's lashes. "You okay if I grab the rest of your stuff from the clearing?"

A hefty question disguised as an innocent one.

Pete blinked, barely seeing him. He had yet to pull back from the drunken, sleepy cuddle. "Hammock?"

"I can put it up in the tree house, in case you ever want to go back. The other stuff I'll leave on the porch."

"Okay."

Clint held the kid close to his heart. "Yeah? You want to sleep at the house from now on?" He had to be sure, had to have explicit permission and consent to do this.

Pete nodded.

Clint found himself mentally thanking Tony and figured he was still confused from the forgotten memory all those years back. He stroked through Pete's shiny waves. "This has gone from the saddest day of the year for me to one of the happiest, you know that? All thanks to you, bubba."

Pete blinked some more, from the one eye Clint could see if he bent his head down by Pete's face.

"Be proud of you."

"Who would?"

"Nat 'n…and…him." Pete closed his eyes. "Kept going."

Clint kissed his hair, hard. "I haven't given up—and neither have you."

Pete shook his head. "Wrong."

"No, I'm not. You might have tried to give up before but you're not now. We'll make a pact to hold each other to it. How's that sound?"

Pete nodded one last time before he drifted off again for good. Loathe for the moment to end, Clint huddled on his knees for a while, Pete's head warming the previously achy spot between Clint's ribs. He really was a miracle.

Laura stood at the window in the kitchen, watching Pete sleep, when Clint finally eased away and walked back inside. She didn't look away even when he wrapped his arms around her from the side.

Laura mock sighed. "I hate that he says your name now and not mine."

Clint laughed for real, on a day he never thought he would. "Baby steps, Lo. Baby steps. And hey, he let you cut his hair."

"He handled it really well." Laura turned in Clint's arms and put her hands on his chest. "I found out he's been homeless for at least five months."

Clint nodded, sobered but not taken aback. "I figured. He told me a story about his birthday in December and…yeah. There were…rashes on his skin at one point. A type of bacteria that takes a while to build up. You don't get that from a week or two living outdoors; it takes months."

"Also found out he had an adult female presence in his life at one point."

Clint eyed her pooling gaze. "You remind him of her. His mom, maybe."

"Would make sense, if his parents are dead now." Laura's head fell forward onto his breastbone, right where Pete's had been. "My turn to fall apart."

"You got it, ma'am. I'll pick up the kids too, figure out some supper."

"Mondays are my day for food," Laura protested.

"Today's Switzerland—I'll bring home souvlaki takeout. That neutral enough for you?"

"With this headache, absolutely. You good to mediate for a bit? You need any more time?"

Clint did, and putting one foot in front of the other sounded unfair to his nauseous stomach, but the hours of sleep and dream helped, in a roundabout way he couldn't quite pin down. He had more energy.

"I'm good for a few hours. Leave it to me."

Laura disappeared upstairs and he heard the tub running for a bubble bath. Her favourite place and state of being in which to cry when she needed to process something.

Their kids missed Auntie Nat…but not the way Clint and Laura did. They'd only seen Natasha on holidays or odd visits, unlike Clint who worked with her day in and day out for decades straight or Laura, who called Nat every week for a 'girl's chat' and helped each other through tough times of their own. Their kids had never been trapped under a building with Tony or flown with him through the air or helped him rehearse how he'd propose to Pepper.

For Clint's kids, today was a reminder that they'd made it back, together as a family. Clint vowed to celebrate that with them, at least a little bit. He'd missed out last year.

Picking up Pete's stuff from the woods was woefully easy, since he pretty much had everything with him in the backpack. Just some books and Trike were left.

Clint hung up the hammock between two support beams in the roof-less, incomplete tree house, and set everything else within eyesight of Pete for when he woke up. The trash bags he threw away without an ounce of remorse.

Good riddance.

Trike was lovingly maneuvered into Pete's arms. He didn't wake this time, just curled around the toy dinosaur with a content hum. Clint snapped his first photo of the boy. Maybe it was creepy of he and Laura, but Clint too enjoyed watching Pete sleep, the way he didn't have the survival stress lines or high cortisol levels when he got lost in dream land like this. It was hard to picture what he dreamt about when it wasn't a nightmare.

Thank you for trusting us, Pete. I promise we won't hurt you, that this is the best place for you right now.

Just having him here made Clint's ears ring. At the house. Sleeping under the porch roof.

The novelty hadn't worn off and probably wouldn't for a long time. He sat right there listening to the boy breathe until the last possible minute, heading out to pick up Nate first.

"Dad?" Lila greeted Clint when he pulled up to the bus stop an hour later, her eyes huge. "You…you're not…I thought Mom was coming today."

Clint held up the souvlaki bag. "Neither of us felt like cooking."

Cooper claimed shotgun and knuckled Clint's shoulder. "Glad you came out of your room today."

"Still feeling heavy," said Clint. He put on his blinker and slung the wheel back out into traffic. "Still missing them. But this is an important day for you guys too. Gotta meet in the middle, right?"

"Right!" Nate chirped from the back seat beside Lila, despite not understanding the significance of today or Clint's grief very well.

The other three smiled. Clint pumped his fist internally, a victory he never thought he'd have. It had taken a long time to learn that performing for his kids wasn't what they needed, nor were the harsh facts—they needed his sensitive honesty. Doing that was another matter entirely, but Clint vowed right then and there to try harder. Admitting he was struggling gave them permission to do the same.

Cooper regaled them with a re-enactment of a tiny fire in the school lab that afternoon and Lila bragged about how she won her PE class's sprint challenge. Nate was still lost in his beloved Power Rangers action figures, which Clint took to mean he'd had a good day with Mason.

"Just a head's up." Clint pulled into their driveway and eased up on the gas. He leaned back to look at all three of his kids. "Pete's sleeping, so we're going to be really quiet and not crowd him."

"Wait, he's here?" Lila spluttered. "At the house?"

"Yup. Conked out on the porch swing. This is a huge step for him and we need to honour that. No pestering, alright?"

Not actually a question.

"Sounds good," said Cooper. He popped his earbuds in and started bopping his head.

Lila chewed the inside of her lip. She looked up through her lashes at Clint and nodded. "Meet in the middle, huh?"

"Best way to do things, I'm learning."

"Okay. I'll leave him alone."

"That's my girl."

As Nate had missed this bulletin entirely, Clint didn't disturb him in his play. He parked and Cooper just shrugged at Pete's sleeping form with a curious look before bounding inside.

"Dad." Nate pointed to the bottom porch step. "Dere's a hole."

Clint grinned at the lisp. "Huh. So there is. Not very safe, buddy, is it?"

"No."

"I'll fix it soon, once I've got some other renos done."

Nate accepted Clint's outstretched hand and jumped up over the first stair and its six-inch hole with Clint's help. Nate simply waved at Pete upon spotting the teen, action figures under his arm. "Is Trike helping?"

"I think so. Pete hasn't had any bad dreams that I know of."

"Yay!" Nate hippity hopped on his light up shoes and Clint winced at the volume, checking on Pete. But the boy slept on without so much as a furrowed brow. "Hi, Mom!"

Laura appeared at the door and scooped him up. "Hey, Nate-man. How was Mason's today?"

"The best! We got to have double chocolate cookies for dessert and Mason showed me his new race car track!"

He chattered her ear off and Laura met Clint's eyes, her own red but clear. Her wet hair had been braided down her neck, a shorter version of Lila's.

Lila…

Clint turned, seeing Lila seated on the porch railing where she watched Pete sleep in a mirror of his own actions.

Clint didn't scold her for breaking his one rule about this, for she technically hadn't made a sound so far and left a good six feet between herself and Pete. Clint bent to read the conflict in his daughter's eyes.

"Lila?"

She matched his low tone. "He's really skinny."

Clint folded his arms and exhaled a long breath. "Yeah, he is. I think his organs were at risk of shutting down when I found him. He didn't sweat very much and he had trouble digesting food, couldn't regulate his own body temperature very well."

"I've never seen someone this skinny outside of history pictures." Lila shifted, uncomfortable. "Even when my friend Amy dealt with bulimia for a year, she didn't look like this."

Clint ran a hand down his mouth. "He's getting there, though. Believe it or not, this is way better than he looked before."

Perhaps not the most comforting thing to say, but the honesty levelled Lila's pinched mouth. "Pete got you out of your room, didn't he?"

"What is this, true confessions?"

"Dad."

"Yes, he did." Clint spotted a blue tint underneath the blanket. The night light hadn't gone out, unlike Tony's reactor that day on the battlefield. "God help me, but he did. He just…he's been through something similar, I think. It helped clear up things in my head."

A beat. Lila stood, taller and more confident than she'd been in days.

"Does that bother you?" asked Clint. "Him helping me?"

Lila softened and a hint of respect entered her eyes where they rested on Pete. "Actually, that's why I know he's safe to stay."

~OL~

Pete slept all the way through after school snack, all the way through supper, and all the way through a movie (Mondays were Cooper's pick—which meant yet another viewing of Jurassic Park. They covered Nate's eyes for most of it until he inevitably fell asleep on someone's lap.)

Clint checked on Pete before he and Nate finished with the chickens, Nate on his hip, but Pete was still down for the count. Clint decided Pete needed sleep more than another meal right now.

Maybe it's a good sign, that he feels safe enough here to let his guard down. Clint could only hope so.

"Night, Petey." Nate tapped his dad's cheek with sticky fingers. "Can I give him a goodnight kiss?"

Clint positively melted, then waffled. The last thing they needed was Pete panicking from someone close to his face, if he woke up suddenly.

Clint glanced from his son to the curled-up teen. "I don't know…"

Nate actually looked concerned. "We always get goodnight kisses. That's the rule."

"Alright. But be reeeeally quiet."

Clint kept a firm arm around Nate while he stooped so the boy could lever forward and peck the mound of curls. "There," he whispered. "Think Pete'd tell me another space story?"

Clint smirked and stood, backing away a few paces. "I'm sure he'd love that. He just needs some time to feel better first. He hasn't slept well in his hammock so far, out in the rain and such."

Nate studied Pete by the porch's warm light. "Why doesn't he sleep in our spare bed, like Auntie Nat used to?"

Clint bounced his knees to hopefully get Nate sleepy again. "He's a little scared of being inside, near lots of people. He's also used to cricket sounds and Randy the raccoon scuttling around and wind in the leaves. There's none of that inside."

Nate didn't comprehend this, evidently, but he nodded anyway.

For the first time in twenty years, Clint didn't lock the front door before bed. Even when one of the Avengers needed a place to crash in the middle of the night, they used to lockpick or sneak their way inside like it was nothing, so Clint hadn't bothered about it.

But with Pete on their porch, Clint refused to take any chances in case he got hungry or changed his mind about coming inside. He never wanted Pete to feel pushed out, either literally or figuratively.

Clint hardly slept again that night, giddy at having everyone, all six of them, in one place. He got up at four am when he couldn't stand it anymore, just to peek in at all his kids one by one, ending with Pete out on the porch.

Other than the fact he'd rolled over to face the back of the swing, he was exactly as Clint left him.

"Thanks, Tony," Clint whispered again, out loud this time. He blamed the inane impulse on exhaustion.

The next morning, actual morning, Clint tallied Pete's slumber and made the executive decision that eighteen hours was more than enough sleep to bump it down the triage list—right underneath food.

Before the kids woke for the day, Clint knelt beside Pete's head. He was pleased to see the arc reactor keychain battery hadn't died in the night and removed it from Pete's hand, flicking it off. "Hey, son. Time to rise and shine. Tuesdays are my day to cook so that means waffles and bacon. Okay, the bacon's not normal, but sue me if I want to make your first morning here special."

The soft rambling worked and those curlicue eyelashes whisked up to reveal unfocused brown eyes. Clint smiled. "There's Mr. Aloha."

"S'hammg…"

"I don't speak teenage mumble."

"'S th' rent overdue again?"

Clint pushed back the curly cloud to kiss the boy's hairline. He shuddered to think what landlord had woken Pete in any kind of violent way, a teenager lying to pass as an adult. "Naw, Pete. You're at Casa de Barton, free of charge for as long as you want."

Pete woke all the way, enough to take in his out-of-the-norm sleeping arrangement. His eyes widened. "Clint?"

Clint grasped the boy's wrist to ground him, but he kept his tone light. "Still me, last I checked."

"How long…"

"Hours, kid. It's six thirty in the morning."

Pete sat up and swished the gunk out of his eyes. "Still tired."

Clint chuckled. Definitely a teenager.

"Petey!" Nate bounded out onto the porch. "You're awake!"

"Whoa, hey." Clint caught his son around the chest. "Let's take it nice and slow—Pete just woke up."

Nate clasped his father's cheeks. "But I want him to help me gather eggs."

Clint glanced at Pete as he blinked his way to full awareness, eyes now sheened with intrigue. Like he'd never heard of such a thing, which was ridiculous if he'd gone to as special a school as he claimed.

"You need more time, Pete? You can just sit here for a bit."

Pete picked at the blanket, eyes dodgy.

'Pleeeease!' Nate signed it first at Clint, then Pete. "Whaddaya say, Pete? Please? Collect eggs wiv us?"

After another beat of deliberation, Pete nodded. He slipped on the shoes Laura had left out for him last night.

"Alrightio." Clint watched the teen like a…well, that comparison was too on the nose. But he didn't take his eyes off Pete while he stood, just in case the hours of sleep left him lightheaded. Pete did indeed have to hold onto the top of the swing for a moment, though he recovered quick enough to sign an 'OK' at Clint. "Chicken duty for three it is."

Clint stood as well and took Nate's hand. Nate latched onto Pete with his left, in such a seamless move that Clint caught a glimpse of how it must have been that night in the woods, and off they went out back.

"…We cleaned Tina's feathers with a wet cloth and made sure she had lots of extra hay that night. Pippa was even nicer but sometimes she gets sawdust shavings in the feeding tray when she walks on it or they stick to her talons. Oh! And I had the idea to put in drawings of other chickens so they didn't get lonely if one of their friends is asleep…"

Nate hardly took a breath the whole walk. At times he'd lift his feet off the ground, forcing Pete and Clint to brace him with their arms. Clint was pleased the exertion didn't weary Pete too much. He hadn't even broken a sweat at having a five-year-old hang off him by the time they got to the gate.

He went clammy and mum, however, when they stepped inside and the chickens came over to investigate this new person.

Pete backed up into Clint's chest. Clint braced him by his shoulders and smothered a laugh. "Not much of a country boy, are you? Everyone around here has chickens."

Emphatic, Pete shook his head. "Queens."

"Queens as in New York?" Clint gawked. "You grew up in the boroughs?"

At Pete's nod, Clint re-evaluated his internal, hypothetical map of Pete's travels before coming here. "You're several states and a long way from home, kid."

Pete shrugged like he didn't care one way or the other, but a hint of resignation dulled his gaze.

Don't have one anymore, it seemed to say.

Clint tried not to feel a hundred years old over that. He distracted himself helping Nate with the heavy pellet feed bag, and Pete held open the tray lid so Nate could pour it in himself. Next Nate used the little wicker basket, lined with an old towel, to gather eggs from each nest.

The chickens brooded over Pete's shoes all the while, nuzzling his ankles.

"They like you," said Clint.

Pete raised his hand with a questioning look.

"You can pet them, no problem. They love it."

Watching Pete oh so tenderly stroke the hens' head crest feathers with a kid's-first-time-at-the-zoo grin, delighted, gave Clint back a few decades, landed him back inside his body. The hope from yesterday sparked up again.

"Thanks, Pete!" Nate swung their arms once Pete stood from petting the chickens, every single one of them in a procession, no hen left behind. "I got five eggs today!"

'Wow!' Pete signed.

Nate immediately let go of Pete to sign one-handed, his other around the basket. 'Breakfast?'

Clint laughed for real this time. "Someone has their priorities straight. Come on, squirts. Off we go for waffles."

"Waffles?" Nate jumped up and down.

"You got it. Mama might make the best pancakes but I'm the waffle master in this house."

Clint only had to remind Nate another three times to keep still lest he break the eggs on their way inside. Impressive restraint from Nate the human car battery. Finally, he gave up and relieved the boy of his eggs to let him dash on ahead.

Clint fell back next to Pete. "Thanks for helping and humouring my son. Nate's the extrovert of this family, loves meeting new people."

Pete smiled. "He's a good kid."

"A livewire, but yeah, he is."

Once on the welcome mat, Pete hesitated. Clint mentally smacked himself for not giving the tour sooner.

"Bathroom's down the hall, on your left after the staircase. Don't mind the mess—it's our laundry room too with the washer and dryer."

Nervous, halting, Pete made it through the door a second time, took off his shoes, and crept in a near soundless feat all the way to the bathroom. Clint shook his head, pushing sad thoughts away.

With their new plug-in grill (thank you, Uncle Rhodey) the waffles were almost finished by the time Lila jogged in, hair elastic between her teeth.

'Hi, Dad,' she signed, mouth out of commission.

"Morning, darlin'. These are almost ready."

Cooper and Laura dragged themselves down ten minutes later with much less energy or finesse. Laura wore a flowery shirt to celebrate the first week in May, spring her favourite season. She kissed Clint on her way to the coffee pot.

"These smell good."

Clint flipped some bacon into the heated pan. "They'd better—they're Grandma's old recipe."

"Sweet," said Cooper into his arms, a pillow for him to snooze at the table. "Hers were the best."

"Calc test today?"

"And a Spanish quiz."

"Ah."

"I'm no good at Spanish." Lila poured them all mugs of mango orange juice. "You're lucky to get high grades."

"Not luck. I study," said Cooper.

"I study too!"

Cooper glanced up. "Also try talking to people who speak it, like the baker at that café downtown. That's the key."

"What am I, chopped liver? I speak fluent Spanish!" Clint protested. "Among seven other languages!"

Cooper ignored him. "I can go over it with you again tonight if you want."

Lila clinked her mug against his. "Really?"

"Not much else going on. Teachers aren't assigning much with only a month left of school."

Clint noted that and vowed to make more progress on the tree house. The chatter at the table died away for a beat. The hush before a penalty kick at a soccer game or when the bullied kid punches an aggressor.

Thankfully the culprit was neither of these—Clint turned, seeing Pete in a fidget at the doorway.

Laura ruffled his hair on her way by. "Morning, Pete. Breakfast is just about ready here."

Clint proved that by dishing out the first three waffles and a piece of bacon for his wife. Then he loaded up a plate, complete with a beloved banana, and passed it to Pete. "Wanna sit and eat? There'll probably be seconds with this much batter if you…"

The five Bartons stared after Pete, how fast he disappeared from the doorway with the plate. Poof. Gone. For a moment no one said anything at all.

Clint glanced around Laura and spotted Pete back out on the porch swing, plate in his lap.

Nate kicked his legs. "He's not gonna eat with us?"

Clint filled up four more plates and sat next to Cooper after distributing them. "Remember how we talked about Pete being scared of certain things? Yeah? Well this is one of them."

Nate lowered his eyes in serious, academic thought. "He's scared of waffles?"

"He's scared of eating the waffles in front of new people." Clint handed Nate a set of plastic cutlery. "He's got some issues with food and doesn't want to intrude on our morning routine. So we'll just do our own thing for now. No biggie."

To demonstrate and role model said no biggie, Clint took a gulp of orange juice, thumbing through messages on his phone.

Cooper chomped off a large bite and helped Nate pour syrup over his plate. Real maple syrup, tapped from their trees. Laura chatted with Cooper about an end of year dance coming up at their school.

Lila stared at her waffles, then the window, back down to her waffles.

"Li?" Clint clued in around his fifth bite that she hadn't so much as touched hers. "We gotta leave for school in a bit, so you should eat."

Lila stood up, plate in hand, and nodded, mind made up about something. She marched straight out of the kitchen and slipped on her shoes.

"Lila?" Laura called. She and Clint shared a baffled look. "Where are you…"

Oh. Clint stood too and went to the window, only to see Lila plop herself down on the porch swing a foot away from Pete. He looked just as startled by this turn of events as the rest of them. With the window open a crack, Clint could hear a bit of their voices.

Well, Lila's voice.

"I'm Lila." She began to cut up her waffles. "But you probably already know that. For being a former spy, Dad's terrible about sharing stories about us with, like, literally every person he meets."

Pete remained freeze dried for another two minutes before he deemed this teenage girl unlikely to eat him or maul his face off. He too cut up his waffles in precise bites. Lila wasn't a chatterbox like her younger brother or even Laura, when she got going. Lila simply told him about her room and the ultimate frisbee team she and her friends were starting once school ended.

They ate off their laps, Lila careful not to get any on her new black skirt, and chewed in content quiet once she ran out of words. The two teens were almost exactly the same height, same leg length, so between the two of them they got the swing into a gentle rock.

Clint didn't realize his eyes had fogged up until Laura slid an arm around his waist.

"We raised a sweet girl, moon pie."

"Yeah." Clint propped his head on Laura's. "We did."

"You play any sports, Pete?" asked Lila.

Pete shook his head.

Lila mock groaned, toeing his calf with her sneaker. "Figures. We finally get another teen around here and you're a nerd like Cooper. Dad and I are outnumbered as the jocks of this family."

Pete opened his mouth, closed it. He set down his fork and signed something, too fast at first.

Lila squinted. "Say again?"

Pete signed it slower, fingerspelling the word that tripped her up in the first place.

Lila cackled, head back. "You're so right! Dad's secretly a huge nerd too. Did you know he has a circus memorabilia wall in the basement?"

Clint's expression soured. "Mostly sweet."

Laura laughed all the way back to the table.