And seriously, thank you all for the myriad of reviews. they mean the world to me! THANK YOU TO:::

All my anonymous guests, discordchick, SA Jedi DC of Marvel, Leena7, Ms. Hawkeye, Amy. .9, Aini NuFire, khaitosfren, Niom Lamboise, penguincrazy, Liliththestormgoddess, Chinagirl18, ThePenguinApocalypse, Alex C, Wonderwomanbatmanfan, ShadowPhoenix22, IWriteSinsOrTragedies, Pinkypop22

WestonFollower (Holy cow, we got another one. I hope you enjoy the insane Hawkeye journey you are about to travel on! Enjoy all the stories i've labored over from beginning to end. I don't think you'll be disappointed:) I do really love how Laura is developing in this. I mean, she's married to Hawkeye for crying out loud, she cannot be normal.)

Guest who said: Is it weird I kinda just want to see Clint like snap, just go full on Hawkeye on someone's #$ . Love the story! (ummmm, can you read minds?)

LeanneDaseyLover (omg, massive, long reviews, i literally love them so much:)

ZeDancingHobbit (Aw, thank you!)

Casey Storm (it is a fun little mystery isn't it? love how this is shaping up!)

kage-ryu14 (aw, thank you too! I really appreciate it!)

Daughter of the North(once you mentioned wanting more Steve I was like, yup, you are gonna love this one. Placed something in a little later for that too)

AvengerOfFiction (ook at you being a little investigator! Good Job! And I do love the input on eye color! May not manipulate that in this book, but it WILL change my writing from here out, so thank you for that!)

.ROX (sorry! whenever i copy the reviews here the " " part gets dropped!)

5mairer (oh, I have fast-forwarded like 12 years into the future before, so that isn't out of the cards for me:)

8839 (sorry, whenever i copy all the reviews here it always cuts off the julia-rose part! I loved everything about your review. I just can't even. the smiles are so big:)

Qweb (LOL, so very astute! I claim a writer's poetic license on that one:)

BookLuv (BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I LOVED your review, i about died!)

Avenge Me

Chapter 5

"Clint, take a deep breath."

"I'm killing him. I'm going to kill him. He's going to die."

"Your daughter is literally right outside. I don't think she wants - "

"How DARE he bring this down on MY house? With MY wife and MY kids? What the HELL was he thinking coming here?!"

"I can see you're upset, but Clint, I really don't think that threatening to murder people is the right way to handle your emotions."

"You know what, Stark? Why don't you just shut the - "

"Ok, everyone, cool it." Steve stepped between the two and tried to keep them separated.

Clint had the sort of anger in him that might cause him to strike out unexpectedly. It was dangerous to egg him on, and while Tony might assume he was actually being helpful, he wasn't. Clint turned away from the both of them and tried to pace around his guest bedroom, though there was little space left to do just that. He fumed beneath his breath. The minute they found Nick Fury, the guy was sure to get a fist in his only good eye. If he was lucky, Clint might not force him to have reconstructive surgery afterwards.

Barton put his hands behind his head and laced his fingers together. He tried to breathe through his rage. Banner's headphone music therapy would be a welcome distraction right about now.

"All right, so Fury's note says that he showed up, like we all suspected, and that he'd been followed. Fine. He said Hydra wanted something called "The Toolbox". Clint, does that ring any bells for you?" Steve asked, reading the message on the back of the mirror.

Clint stopped pacing and nodded. "Yeah, it's the superhero index. All powered people, and Fury's private network, in one gene-encrypted location."

"That sounds like a terrible idea," Steve muttered to himself. He moved past it. "Do you know where The Toolbox is? Did he keep it here?"

"God, no. Never. I wouldn't let that thing in the house. He asked me once, and I turned it down. He gave it to another agent."

Tony asked, "Who has it? They might know what's going on here that we don't."

"I can guarantee he has no idea. We would know long before this," Clint replied.

That sounded peculiar to Tony, and when things sounded off, he prodded. "How is it we would know? I've never even heard of this little thing of Shaft's until three minutes ago."

Tony and Steve could both see the beacon of alarm cross Clint's face. Despite the reserve it surely brought, he spoke anyway. "Um, the new Director of Shield has it. And that person just happens to be an undead Phil Coulson. And he just so happens to be Hill's hard contact on the Find-Loki's-Scepter case. Since she just spoke to him this morning, and he's currently looking into this Sokovia location, I feel like he wouldn't just glaze over the fact that Hydra was making moves after The Toolbox."

Two jaws slowly opened. It took a solid minute for Steve to come around only a hair, before Tony did.

"Um . . . OK. So . . ." Steve put a hand up to his forehead and rubbed his eyebrow. "OK. Phil Coulson is not only alive, he is the Director of SHIELD, which is still operating underground, and he has a device with enhanced individuals' information on it. Along with all of Fury's secret files, contingency plans, and everything else he ever cooked up. Hydra thinks Fury has it, and they followed him here to get it. He took out the first wave, stashed their bodies in the shed, and decided to take a stand here where," He pointed up the hall to Clint's bedroom, "Your wife sniped them from the second story window, and Fury gunned them down from this room. They got buried, and converged in the bedroom. Hydra got in close, Laura shoots one in the head, and then hides, we're guessing, in the closet."

"That's where the bloody footprints lead," Clint confirmed.

"Laura and Fury are both taken into Hydra custody, and probably dragged outside before they tossed the house looking for The Toolbox. What we don't know, are how your kids and Stacy factor into this. And why no one called us."

Tony looked over at Clint. "I'm just going to let this Coulson thing slide until we get your family back. Them I'm going to throw a fit. Let's go talk to Lila."

Clint nodded, accepting the terms of the agreement.

:(:):(:):

"There was once a dwarf by the name of D'iore in a realm far from this. He held a visage like none other before him. A tall, sturdy sort of dwarf who could see a head above his companions. Given the greatness of his height, and due at least in part to his scraggly red beard, which reached way down to his very toes, he was awarded kingship over the clan of dwarves. But D'iore had an unfortunate sort of problem. Do you know what that was?"

The starry-eyed child held tightly to the neck of her stuffed dog in one arm. Her Thor-helmet was on, and her little Mjolnir rested in her lap as she listened to Thor's story. At his proposed question, her pig tails jiggled back and forth in a "no".

"D'iore was a coward. He was terrified of fighting, and sword play, and all those things that a king must do. He thought, perhaps, to hide his cowardice. After all, there was peace in all of his realm. But it did not stay that way. One day, the very stout, dumpy, dwarf by the name of Drufl, came knocking on his castle gate." Thor rapt his knuckles against Mjolnir, creating a bone-chilling sound. "And D'iore was afraid. He didn't know what he might do to stop Drufl. Do you know what he did?"

"No, what?" Lila asked.

"D'iore remembered that Asgardians are sworn to protect all the Nine Realms. And, as he was one of those kings in the Nine Realms, he knew he could reach out and find help in me."

Lilia's eyes grew as large as two Caribbean oceans. "Did you stop the mean dwarf?!"

Thor lifted his hammer. "The moment D'iore called, I came riding to his rescue. I became his champion. Someone who swears to fight for the honor of another. I fought the evil dwarf Drufl for D'iore, and saved his realm! Yet, there was something more dangerous in D'iore than an evil dwarf. You see, it is quite a normal thing to be scared. D'iore was terrified of Drufl, and rightly so. But one must also face their fears and overcome them. Otherwise, a time may come when they reappear, and you have none but yourself to rely on. Battling on despite your fear, that is called courage. I spent a long time showing D'iore what it meant to be a courageous dwarf."

The large Asgardian sat on the grassy hill by the exit ramp for the Aven-jet, with Clint's child sitting cross-legged in front of him. After discovering the bodies stacked in the hidden bunker in Clint's barn, he thought it may be best to take the little girl away from the immediate area, should some other evils present themselves. She'd been traumatized quite enough for one day, in his opinion. The minute the little girl reached out to him in the house, he swore to guard her as if she were his own. According to Barton, Lila would mount no opposition to Thor's plan. In fact, it may just make her the happiest child in the world.

"You think I can be a courag — a courageous person? Like the dwarf king?"

Thor smiled. He could see across the field, Steve, Clint, and Tony all meeting up with Natasha outside the home. Their attention focused on him over by the jet and, soon, they began making their way toward Lila and him.

"I believe that you may be more courageous than the dwarf king. And you must never forget, you may still call on me when you wish, and I will be your champion too. If there is anyone that might frighten you, I will defend you. Do you believe I will do it?"

The girl's mouth opened in a gap-toothed agreement. "Uh huh," she said.

"You must be brave for what is to come. We have a great quest ahead of us. We must find the evil who dared take your family. I pledge my hammer to it. But like the dwarf king, you must also try and help, despite the fear."

Lila tucked her chin in slightly, and played with the long ears on her dog. "I miss my momma."

"Lila?"

The girl turned and held up her arms for Clint to pick her up. He squeezed the girl against his chest, and, for a time, merely stood there holding her tightly. She pulled away from him with her Bun Bun set firmly between them.

"I'm going to be a dwarf king, daddy," she boldly declared.

Clint gave her a strange look, and turned to Thor for an explanation.

The Asgardian shrugged. "It is merely a story we often tell to inspire courage. I hope you do not object."

Clint shook his head, "No, no, never. And thank you, again, for being so good with her. You don't know how much it means to her." Clint turned back to her daughter. "Lila, I need you to be daddy's brave girl now. Can you do that? Can you tell me if you saw Uncle Nick today?"

Lila's expression changed a little. "Uh huh. I got to . . . I got to go to show and tell today. And Jordan said that I had peas in my head. I started to cry, then he said I was a cry baby. I don't like Jordan, daddy, he's a meanie."

With the added weight of her on his near-broken knee, Clint felt as if he might collapse. Taking a little initiative, he headed for the back of the Aven-jet, talking to Lila as he went. She was still so young. Often, he needed to hear a life story before he got to the heart of what he wanted. Her mom was the same way, he mused, with both a happy and disheartened pang in his chest.

"Is this the same Jordan that stomped on your doll house?" he asked.

"He said my dolly was stupid," she complained.

"Well, I think I'll have something to say to his mom about all that." Clint found one of the empty jump seats, and carefully lowered Lila into it. Kicking his knee out to one side, he slowly knelt in front of her.

"Then Miss Stacy picked me up, but she got Coop already cause he was sitting in my seat, and I had to sit in the middle cause I'm the smallest. Daddy, do I always have to sit in the middle?"

"For now, you do," Clint told her. He tried to ignore the cluster of other Avengers waiting for the heart of the questions to come out. They stood around him in the back of the Aven-jet, listening to Lila's every trouble.

"And then Miss Stacy drove Kevin to his soccer practice. I don't like soccer. Then she drove us home, and Uncle Nick was in the window."

Now this was something. Clint prodded a little harder. "Uncle Nick was in which window?"

"In the kitchen."

"Ok, Uncle Nick was in the kitchen when you got home from school. Where was mommy?"

"She didn't want me to play downstairs, so Uncle Nick took me to my room with Coop. I wanted to watch My Little Pony, but the TV wasn't working. Momma said the lights wouldn't turn on, and she wanted to call you, daddy, but she couldn't. She asked Miss Stacy to take us away, but she wouldn't. She was scared. Uncle Nick, he said we were playing hide-and-go seek, and he was gonna seek and I was gonna hide, but I wanted to play Thor." She punctuated her excitement with a wide grin up to the large Avenger. Thor returned it.

Clint placed his hands over hers, and drew her attention again. "Uncle Nick doesn't play very often, does he? You must have been so excited. Where did Cooper hide?"

The girl's shoulders went up and down. She didn't know.

"So after you went to hide, what happened then? Did someone else come to the house?"

Her eyes glossed slightly as she thought of that troubling time. It took a little inspiration from her father, and a gentle encouragement from her favorite Avenger, but soon she opened up to what she'd seen, or rather heard, beneath the bed in her room.

The Avenger's initial estimate, that the house had been ransacked by a group of militant men, was accurate. She heard and few bangs, gunshots, all mainly from upstairs, leading them to believe the militants most likely had silencers while Fury and Laura did not. With Clint's help, the blood sample on the floor had been ruled out as belonging to Laura Barton, and Tony's scanners continued to work in finding a match.

After an exchange of gunfire, things became quiet. Lila wanted to come out of her hiding place and see what was the matter, but her mother screamed. It scared the child back into hiding. Her brother cried out and someone came crashing into her room.

"I don't know! I don't know!" Cooper screamed, his high top sneakers stumbling over the objects in Lila's room.

Lila pushed the plastic Asgardian helmet back off her eyes to see better. Four pairs of boots tromped around with Cooper between them.

"A cube! A box! Where is it, or else I'm going to leave your body here for the flies!"

"No! I don't know! I don't know who you are or what that is! Let me go, you big squid face!"

Lila sucked tighter beneath the bed against the wall. She grabbed her stuffed rabbit in one hand, her hammer in the other, and wanted desperately for her father to come bursting through the window and save her.

Slam!

Cooper hit the floor on his face, releasing tears as he held a hand up to his reddening cheek. As he sobbed against the floor, his eyes looked beneath the bed, and up into the face of his sister. His hand moved away from his cheek, extending a single finger up to push against his lips.

"Shhh." He whispered to her. His eyes conveyed it all. Hide, Lila. Stay under the bed, be safe, find dad. After that, Cooper decided to make a spectacle of himself. He hurled to his feet and threw his shoulder into the nearest man, then launched out of the room. Someone, who had been trying to lift the end of Lila's bed, dropped it, and rushed through the door after the boy. Lila listened as Cooper screamed, kicked, and apparently resorted to biting before another sickening pop silenced him.

Terrified, Lila continued to hide, waited, and refused to come out.

As Lila spoke about the series of events, Steve leaned down beside Clint, and closed his hand over his teammate's shoulder. He worked the muscles there, trying to keep Clint from completely losing his mind. His family, his son, had been attacked. Cooper had the same sort of bravery in him that Clint had when the boy decided to sacrifice himself in order to save his only sister. When Lila was finished, her father moved into the seat beside her and let the girl climb into his lap again. He circled her body in his arms, and looked up at the others.

Someone had taken them, but not just any someone. Hydra had taken them. Not only that, the goons put their hands on his wife. They struck his son. They yanked his family out of their home and defiled it before they left. The anguish in Clint's eyes was palpable as he looked up at his team. He was so furious, so disgusted, he shook nearly as much as his daughter.

"We've got to find them," he whispered. Some part of him meant his family. Another part, a darker part, meant the people that dared to do this to him.

"We will," Steve said with a hearty assurance.

"EMP."

All eyes shifted to Tony sitting behind the pilot's seat. He turned the chair around to face them. "It's what's messing with my sensors. They dropped an EMP, or something like it, on the place, and that's what cut out the electronics. Explains why they couldn't call, the television not working, everything. Must have happened after the woman dropped the kids off at home. That way, she was still able to call the Tower after she left."

"Is there some way Fury will use to contact you? Laura?" Steve asked, looking between both Natasha and Clint.

"Possibly," Natasha said. "We'd need the scanners at the Tower, some equipment, there are a few things we could try from there."

"We should go as soon as we can," Tony said.

Steve shifted to Clint. "That OK with you? Leaving here?"

"I'm not going to find my family here, we have to go. I should get some things together for them though, grab some clothes for Lila and Coop," Clint replied.

Steve seemed surprised. He hadn't exactly thought of that, though it made sense. This wasn't just about recovering a missing person, Clint had two kids he had to care for. Lila's interests came first. Though he wasn't sure exactly what to do with a kid, he still offered. "If there are things you want to get - you know, from the house - I can watch her if you want."

Thor stepped forward a little. "I believe, as her favorite hero, I might enjoy our continued discussion of the dwarf king."

Natasha bypassed the two of them, and picked Lila up from behind. "Get in line, boys, I was Aunty Nat before you were even Avengers." She headed off to the front of the jet to show off all the complicated switches to Barton's daughter.

The overhead radio flipped on, and Bruce's voice filled the cabin. "Hey, guys, I found the missing car. You might want to get over here."

and, natasha takes center stage:P awe, cooper you little Avenger-to-be! For all those new readers, new reviewers, new fans to my writing: HELLO! My Name is Ezra (but not really) I'm on facebook (if you want to join me). I've written a nearly 23 book long Hawkeye-centric EPIC starting with book 1 (Moments in Mexico) all the way to the current story (I Can Hear the Drums). So, like my writing? Need more Hawkeye in your life? Skip on over there, but hold onto your pants. You might start out in Mexico, but you will swiftly find yourself in the midst of a Frost Giant war on Asgard, riding on the backs of dire wolves, skipping the the Alfheimr woods, and getting blow up in a white house. Oh, and tears will happen. fair warning. ask any of my long-time readers.

sorry the author notes in the beginning are so long.

poll: would you prefer them at the end? let me know:)

Coming up: The fate of Stacy, what Hill thinks about it all, and the pain Clint's hiding from everyone, even himself.

Please keep reviewing!