Thank you To::

PilotDante, brandibuckeye, m klindt, penguincrazy, 8839, TortoisetheStoryteller, amy. .9 , lizarddbreath, ShadowPhoenix22, khaitosfren, CandyGirl999, ZeDancingHobbit,

Aini NuFire, Niom Lamboise, DatNatCatThoe, Wonderwomanbatmanfan, Liliththestormgoddess, ThePenguinApocalypse, I-OfTheHawk, WestonFollower

FangirlOfHawkeye: Thank you!

AvengerOfFicion: all of this made me laugh so hard:)

ELOSHAZZY: I raise your OML with an OMT and an OMO

natashgriz: bahahahahahahaha!

tlyxor1: you only hurt the ones you love:) oh, and your enemies...and people who cheat on you...and...

5mairer: this comment made my day. TOO funny!

BookLuv: you haven't cried yet? Obviously, i must try harder. Or, you haven't read Where the Worlds Burn. (sinister evil smile inserted here)

Daughter of the North: A sacrifice to follow me. Yup, that pretty much sums me up.

Death is inevitable: I'm really not sure what is going to happen after this story. We will see!

discordchick: mind. reader.

JRBarton : Hanger...hahahaha...I miss you:)

IWriteSinsOrTragedies: ohhh yes you did:)

Avenge Me

Chapter 11

It resembled watching the hysteria which follows a flash flood. At first, there is calm, joviality, and the sense of a mission accomplished. Thor arrived first, letting go of his payload in the back of the Aven-Jet, while Natasha kept the engines running hot for Stark to take over when he arrived. Then, when he did appear, and the streak of gold and red settled down for the newly acquainted Mrs. Barton to scramble free of him, the mood changed drastically.

"You have to go back!" She cried, swiping her hand against the flecks of drying blood over her face. From his spot in the corner, Banner began to stand. She'd been worked over, that was obvious. Her eye was black and swollen. Dried blood collected beside a rim of inflammation above her lip. From his side, Bruce could see four perfect imprints. A man's hand had, at one time, circled her neck and squeezed hard enough to leave a brand behind.

"Go back?!" Stark exclaimed. He slid the visor of his helmet up. "There's not exactly anything left to go back to. We got everyone out. I even untied Commander Fury-pants from his - " He looked around. "Wait...aren't we missing someone?"

"Fury slipped out the minute you left. Didn't want to stay for the free ride," Bruce said, stepping around Tony. "Mrs. Barton, my name is - "

She held her palms out, stopping his approach before he could even start it. "I know who you are, and I'm telling you, you made a mistake! Someone has to go back and get him, he isn't well! He was - "

The radio above them switched on. The captain checked in, dropping the news that Laura herself so desperately hoped to convey before it was too late. Clint was in bad shape.

Tony's helmet slammed closed again, and he was gone like a shot. Bruce swept his hand toward the seats along the side of the jet, inviting Laura to get off her feet. Cooper was already sitting. Thor grabbed a handhold on the rigging along the ceiling a few feet from Clint's son. Natasha was already working to get the jet brought around closer to Steve's position.

"Make sure you are secure. Until your father comes, you are my responsibility, and I shall not be the one to tell him you tumbled out of the jet," Thor said.

Cooper closed his mouth with a snap and searched around for two matching buckles. Beside him, his mother found a set and helped tighten them. She accepted her own pair from Bruce, who hovered close by.

"Did he tell you we have Lila?" Bruce asked. In the front cabin, Natasha made a few curt maneuvers with the controls, sending the jet into a near ninety degree turn. Bruce scrunched his nose, trying to keep his stomach more level than the plane.

"Tony did, and thank you. Is she all right? Where is she?"

"Back at the Tower making your next down payment with her lemonade business." Bruce smiled, trying to keep the mood light. "She's really something."

"She's Clint's little girl," Laura admitted.

"He says that a lot to her, but if you ask him about it, he says it's all your doing." Bruce's conversation with Laura ended the moment Tony burst back into the jet, carrying Clint and Steve both. The captain dropped down off Stark's back, and helped arrange a mobile table into the center of the room. He brushed a few maps onto the floor, and moved back long enough for Tony to lay Clint down.

"Watch it! Thor, drag that table over! Easy! Natasha, level this jet out! Lay him down, lay him down. All right, everyone take a few steps back and let me work for a second. Where's the trauma kit?"

"Dad?!" Cooper exclaimed, pulling at his restraints to get up. Thor sank into the chair beside him, and held the boy back. It was better to let them stabilize Clint first, then to get underfoot, he tried to explain.

Laura was not so easily convinced. She unhooked herself at once, and pressed in beside Tony and Steve. The Iron Man stepped back to give them ample access to him. After all, besides Barton, he was the best pilot. He could get them back home, and Barton, to treatment, faster than Natasha could.

He double-blinked into the corner of his HUD, and the suit peeled open. He strode out and jogged to the front of the jet where he tapped Natasha on the shoulder. Wordlessly, she relinquished the controls to him. Within a few moments of settling in, they were off, rocketing toward home.

"You, start an IV. Do you know how to do that?" Laura asked, instantly taking command where once Steve might have.

Taken a little aback, the captain only nodded.

"Good, I want a shock bolus of this," she rifled through their kit as if her eight month-pregnant body owned it, and slapped a crystalloid down by Clint's arm. "Get the line in and open it up. Use an eighteen or bigger if you got it."

"Laura!"

Clint's wife turned, and Natasha handed her a pre-loaded syringe pen. She checked the contents, a pain cocktail, and held it for a moment. "Stethoscope in that bag?"

Bruce picked up the trauma kit from the opposite side of the table, and emptied the contents out. He picked up the mass of tubing and handed it over. He wasn't about to be the one to suggest she sit down and let the men take over.

"Cut this shirt off. Leave the jacket, I don't want to move him too much. Dr. Banner, see those styptic packs? Pull that snow out and press those on." Laura fed the earpieces in and leaned over her husband's chest. Steve ignored the scissors Natasha tried to hand him, and tore Clint's shirtfront down with his bare hands. All the commotion seemed to bring Clint around. At one time, he was staring aimlessly upward, now his eyes focused in on his wife's face over him. She glanced down.

"You big dummy," she said.

"Hey . . . is - isn't this how - "

She pulled the earpieces out, double checked the syringe contents, and emptied it into the side of his neck. He winced, shifting away as, at the same time, Bruce began applying the bandages.

"Line's in," Steve announced, hooking up the fluids and holding them over his head. He double checked for any bubbles along its length.

Clint looked around at the four of them. Laura, Natasha, Steve, and Bruce, all clustered in beside him. He wanted to say something witty, but another spike hit him like a red hot ramrod. He bit deeply against his bottom lip, forming fists with his hands.

"Isn't this how, what?" Laura asked Clint. She leaned over and double checked Steve's work, giving him a small nod of approval that the captain felt slightly ashamed for needing. He'd put more than a hundred lines into battlefield patients before. Why was it this time he felt like a newbie under her astute glare?

"Is - " he panted, wanting to make Banner stop but not finding the strength to make him. "Isn't this how . . . how I proposed?"

Laura smiled a little. "I told you, that didn't count. I said, 'Do you know how many of you - '"

"'Government stooges come in here . . . come in and ask to marry me?'" Clint finished the old quote. He closed his eyes, feeling the slight warmth of the pain drugs start to edge their way in.

"And you told me?"

"That I was . . . I was the first one that . . . I said it sober."

Her hand caressed along his cheek, inspiring the eyes out from beneath their lids once more. "You aren't leaving me with a pretty folded flag, a hero's send off, and three kids, Clinton Francis Barton. So you better pull yourself together and fight. You understand me?"

Slowly, his hand reached up for her. She met him halfway, letting him direct them both to his lips. He held her there as the exhaustion of the long week and his sapped energy simply crashed down all at once. "Yes, boss ma'am," he whispered.

At first, she thought he might have slipped unconscious, but after a few moments, Clint stirred again. He tried to sit up, but a gentle hand was all it took to keep him resting again.

"Coop? Cooper?" He called.

Cooper looked up at Thor, who nodded a little acquiescence. The boy sprung free from his restraints and ran across the cabin. Clint opened his arm up, letting the boy fall against his good side. He squeezed the child onto him.

"My brave kid. My smart son. Smarter than me. I love you, you know that? Don't cry, it's OK. Dad's gonna be fine. These guys take care of me. Don't worry, dad's fine."

The Avengers gave them a little space to reconnect. Laura had more than enough confidence to monitor Clint's care herself, and they didn't want to risk intruding on Clint's hardwon reunion. Up front, Stark continued to pilot them at his breakneck speed ever closer to the waiting medical team he'd called in from an old friend, Dr. Cho. Clint himself could care less. With his wife's hand in his and Cooper in his arms again, the rest of the world simply didn't matter anymore.

:(:):(:):

Tony Stark very rarely felt uncomfortable in his own home, and usually it was after doing something he knew would displease his one and only, Pepper Potts. Poised over the smoothie blender, he held the container in one hand and a cup in the other. Laura Barton stood, arms folded, only inches behind him.

"So, it's your fault," she muttered, as if coming to a great Sherlockian conclusion.

Tony finished pouring Clint's green smoothie into a cup, replaced the remnants onto its base, and turned. "I have no idea what you mean, and your current proximity is sort of freaking me out. To be perfectly honest."

"Smoothie Guy, the I-Need-A-Green-Colored-Something Guy. I could never get Clint to drink those until he started staying here. He says I don't make them right. What do you add? Wheat grass? Carrot juice?" Intrigued beyond restraint, she moved up beside him and perused his cocktail bar, turning various labels toward her. Finding one in particular, she held it up. "Kiwi? You add kiwi?"

Tony shrugged. "It's green."

She shook her head, looking over the ingredients. "The one thing I don't try. It's a little genius in a way. Should have just gone simple and save myself the heartache of two and a half years of getting it wrong. To be fair, though, I never got to taste yours, so I was working off of Clint's taste buds and, well..." Laura spun away from the counter to look at him gently, "He once tried to eat a black-bottomed pizza crust with jelly. We were out of bread."

Tony's previous discomfort vanished. He passed the drink to her, plopped the straw, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, that sounds like something he would do. He has zero appreciation for sashimi."

"Have you ever tried to feed him avocado?" Laura directed the straw between her lips and tasted the green drink.

"That, I haven't."

"It's like watching a puppy with a lime." She pulled the smoothie away from her with a grimace. "OK, so I tried to make something that actually tasted edible. I shouldn't have tried so hard."

"That actually hurts a little to hear you say that."

"Case in point, Clint has no taste buds."

Bruce interrupted their conversation by entering the lab across from them. He smiled in their direction and headed over, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his hands.

"How's the Hawk doing?" he asked, crossing his chest. He nodded at Tony. "You turn this place on frigid? Jeez, I feel like my nose has frost on it."

"Clint's fine, but he has the same mouth on him," Tony replied.

"Oh, that's terrible."

"I think Lila was playing with a remote control. If it powers your A/C, then I'm afraid she's to blame." Laura tipped the drink up in the direction of the upper lab by way of explanation, and moved toward the stairs. Bruce and Stark fell into step beside her.

Dr. Cho had been waiting, as Tony requested, the minute the Avengers hit the landing platform. Pepper thought it might be best to take Lila downstairs until they had a better idea of how Clint was going to pull through. Assured of his survival, the child was back to running the Avenger's floor with Thor hot on her trail.

Cooper hadn't taken much time away from his father's side, beside the bath his mother ordered him into. When the boy emerged from the grime of nearly a week in the Hydra dungeons, his black eye became more evident than ever. For now, he stayed just out of Clint's sight, though still in the upper lab with him. He didn't want to get his father too riled up over the damage someone had inflicted on him.

Bruce took a few steps ahead of the others, and pushed the glass doorway open. He swept his hand, inviting Laura ahead of him, and brought up the rear with Tony. Dr. Cho stood over her tissue replicator. She monitored the device as if she might be incubating a baby chick. Her face displayed none of the concern for its successful outcome that Banner typically experienced when his own experimental babies were tried out on the world. Then again, she had twice the success in half the attempts that he had on any of his experiments. She smiled, seeing them.

"Oh good, conversation that doesn't involve critique of my work."

"I wasn't critiquing. I was judging," Clint replied with a playful smirk. The look softened when Laura stepped between Bruce and Cho to hold out his smoothie.

"Decidedly gross, created by Mr. Stark," she reported. Her lithe fingers pointed the straw in his direction, but held the cup.

Clint's head rested on his arm, allowing Dr. Cho better access to the crater in his side. He claimed the tissue construction going on wasn't painful, but she could still see the lines of discontent furrowing his brow. Anger, embarrassment, maybe even a little emasculation kept those creases there. He might have saved his family, yet that didn't mean they weren't lost to begin with. He had nothing to do with their abduction himself. Keeping Fury away from them would have prevented it ever happening. He originally discounted the message entirely, considered throwing it away forever. If he had, he wouldn't have know they were gone for hours, maybe a day, until he called home again.

Laura could see that jumble of emotion rolling across his face, like wind might bow the backs of a grain field. He felt bent, he might have even felt a little broken too. Her job was simple, compared to the things he had to do. He had to save the entire world. She just had to save him.

"Stop that," she said, fine and firm as a granite gavel slamming onto a table top. "You're my hero, and you always will be. We can talk later about those things that'll try and keep you up at night, or the moat you probably want to dig around the house, but right now you're going to just lay there and feel better." She pushed the straw a little closer. "Now, drink this thing like I said to, and then maybe when you're done, I'll run to the store and grab some popcorn and a movie."

Clint lifted his free hand, to the disgruntled look from Dr. Cho who chastised him for fidgeting, and picked up the smoothie from her. "You are eight months pregnant, and some guy just held a gun to your head. No, you are not going to the store. You don't even have a car, and I am not giving you the keys to mine. Stark's got like a billion movies. We'll just find one here."

"Clint has a point. I think it's wise to stay a little local for right now." From behind her, Bruce appeared with one of the lab stools. He wheeled it beside Clint's head for Laura to sit beside him.

Laura thanked him and sat. "Do I have to remind you that you did not take out all those people by yourself?"

"No, you don't, and I don't care. I just got you back, I don't want you going out." Clint set the drink down on the table beneath him, and reached over to wrap his fingers around the mound of her belly. He could imagine the heartbeat there, pulsing under his fingers. The healthy little boy they created, still fighting and kicking his way before entering the world. Fury warned him against having three kids. The parents hit a home run with two amazing children, asking for a third was a sure-fire way of getting a little demon spawn of Clint Barton himself. He could still be right, but Clint didn't care. He'd been bit by the "daddy" bug. Those miniature ten toes, impossibly cute, stubby fingers, and the smell of new life were like an addiction. He would have a whole baseball team if Laura let him. She knew it too.

She placed a hand over his, and Clint's eyes traveled up to meet her. "I'm right here," she whispered. "You haven't scared me off, Clinton Francis Barton. I know what you are, and what you have to do sometimes to live and to save us. I love you the same today, as I did when you rolled into my ER on that gurney."

"You called me an idiot that day," he reminded her.

"You're my idiot." She leaned forward and kissed his forehead like she might kiss Lila or Cooper. Wives often complained about having an extra child, their husband, and Laura supposed she was no different. It was a role, though, that she rather enjoyed. Clint never had much of a mother in life. He was naïve, blind even, to a few things that most humans might pick up. They didn't have a one-sided relationship. He gave her more than she could think of all at once. Happiness, adventure, intrigue, all that fodder in spy novels became her life the minute she took him at the altar and said "I do". Excitement, passion, freedom, he gave her all those things and more on a daily basis.

He smiled. "You're scrunching your nose again. You're going to get those funny little wrinkles like your mother, if you keep it up."

She threw her head to the side and laughed, landing a hand down on his arm. "Don't say that!"

"I'm just telling you the truth, sweet cheeks." He picked up the green protein shake, and finally decided to drink some of it down. He leaned up a little to watch Dr. Cho work, but the sight of it threatened to bring the smoothie back around again.

"Doc says, after this, you might have impenetrable skin. Can't say I would disapprove," Tony joked, leaning on the wall opposite of Laura.

"Hey, least the coat worked."

Bruce, who had been leaning over the machine readouts, glasses perched on the very end of his nose, straightened. He pulled his glasses off. "What do you mean? It's not designed for their advanced mechanics, and obviously," he indicated Clint's injury. "your armor didn't stand up against it."

"Well, no, really? I didn't notice. I mean my back. I got cornered when the lights went out. Took out a whole nest alone. A couple shots came pretty close. Wouldn't be walking if they made it through."

Tony pushed off his wall to stand by Bruce's side. The two of them hovered over Clint's face with critical expressions.

"So you field-tested it? Someone shot you other than the thing we're fixing right now?" Tony demanded.

"Yeah, twice. The one hit me right in the spine. Other, went a little west and caught the top of my kidney I think. Felt like someone shot me point blank with a rubber bullet."

"And you were still walking? Clint, that shot could have chipped your spine!"

"Clint Barton?"

The archer looked down at Dr. Cho.

"You're wife's right. You are an idiot."

"You got about as much bedside manner as she did whenever I showed up in the ER," Clint told her. His attention turned around the room, spying out something but not finding it. "Wasn't Coop here?"

Laura leaned back and folded her arms. It was cold in the room. She'd have to have a conversation with Lila about touching buttons. "Cooper hasn't moved from the end of your bed since I said he could come in."

Clint made a face, and his eyes traveled down past his feet to find the boy. "Coop? You hiding down there? It's OK, you can come out. Dr. Cho wont bite. I'm going to be fine."

A dark haired boy appeared across from him, glancing up the length of his father's body, past the man's naked chest. He hid the right side of his face behind the bottom of a boot. Clint's lifted head smiled, encouraging him closer. Laura held out her arms to him, and Cooper made the choice to get up. Crawling out from under the medical table, he sauntered over to them. He let his mother circle her arms around him and lean her chin on his shoulder. Cooper, ashamed, kept his face turned down at his dirty shoes.

"Coop, what's wrong?" Clint asked. He shifted a little, receiving a piercing look from Dr. Cho, and an electric jolt from the machine attempting to build him a new layer of skin. He set his drink to the side again. Tony leaned forward and picked it up before the cup took a tumble to the floor. Clint put his free hand beneath Cooper's chin, and lifted.

The dusty, dirt-caked hair parted on either side of Cooper's face. His fists were tight as he let his father look at the shotgun butt-shaped purple outline around his right eye socket. There was a half-moon cut on the rise of his cheek. It had healed in a thin, tight line rimmed in red and old blood. Most of him looked like someone had taken the Barton son, and dragged him through a mud pie before depositing the child in the dungeon. His shirt was frayed and shredded at the arms. His jeans' knees had deep holes. One was scraped up and filthy, like the time Cooper had been learning how to ride a bike and Clint let go of the seat too quickly.

The horror of what Clint saw on his son settled like a dark spirit over his face. His voice came out surprisingly calm. His entire body went rigid. "Cooper, are you all right? Did someone put their hands on you?"

Cooper took his chin out of Clint's hand with a sharp little turn. He tucked it back down against the torn collar of his shirt. "I didn't want them to find Lila. She was scared, and I didn't want them to find her. I told her to hide."

Clint remembered what Lila told him. About Cooper raising hell, making a run for it, and her hearing him cry out shortly after. Some Hydra killer put their hands on a child, his boy, and busted his face. He could have gone blind. Could have broken a bone, gotten a concussion, died. He knew what a shotgun butt injury looked like from personal experience. The internal turmoil raging through his mind finally started to seep into his words. It pitched in emotion.

"That wasn't your fault, son. This isn't your fault. You know how proud I am of you? I am. You took care of your sister and your mother. You're my man of the house, you know that? Are you feeling OK? Does your head hurt? Can you see OK?"

As his concern piqued, he tried to sit up and see Cooper's injuries a little better. Tony pitched forward and pressed a hand into Clint's shoulder to keep him down. Dr. Cho helped.

"Whoa, Hawk, stop jostling around!" Tony ordered.

Clint ignored him, but didn't try to move again. "Cooper, are you having any headaches? Are you dizzy? Bruce?"

The scientist moved over a little to be in Clint's line of sight without Clint having to move too much to see him. "What can I do?" he asked.

"Bruce, can you look at his head? You know, that scan thing? I want to make sure he's OK. Maybe we should bring him to the hospital. I can - "

Tony pushed down again, used both hands, and held firm. "No, you can't. You are staying put."

Bruce waved his hand in the air, as if scattering Clint's concern like lightning bugs in the air. "Hey, don't worry. I got an idea."

Laura moved her hands up to Cooper's shoulders, directed the boy to the door, and sent him off. "Go on. Dad and I will be right here. Dr. Banner's very sweet, you just let him do what he has to."

"Can't I stay here?" Cooper asked.

"It would make me feel a lot better to know that you are fine," Clint told him. His eyes turned to Laura and he whispered, "Maybe you should go with him. I don't want him to be scared."

It was a ridiculous request. The only one feeling any sort of tension in the room, was Clint Barton. After all the family had been through, she wanted to appease him at least a little. He needed to settle down, let the healing take place, and stop fidgeting so much. If she had to saunter off to let that happen, then she would.

"Ah, come on. We'll have fun. I'll show you JARVIS too. And maybe we'll get crazy and rearrange all the stuff on Tony's desk," Bruce said, setting off after the boy. He brought his forefinger and thumb together in a circle, with his other three fingers splayed in an "OK" sign in Clint's direction. It might have given them a little comfort. As for Tony, though, he considered rushing off after them.

When they'd gone, Clint let his head roll back along his arm. Through the glass wall, he watched Bruce fire up a brain scan protocol. It was a newfangled technology Tony appeared with one day, no explanation. Tony shifted a little to the left to give Clint a better view of his family.

"Can you do something for me, Tony?" Clint asked.

"I'll start searching Hydra's records to see if anything showed up about your house."

Clint's expression shifted from confusion to understanding. "Oh, that, yeah. Please, but that's not what I mean. Do you have some kind of building thing around here? Something that won't blow up or something? I'm worried about Coop. If something bothers him at school or something, he likes to tinker with his building things. I didn't bring any of them from home. I should've, but I didn't even think about it at the time."

The request surprised him. "I can find something, I guess."

"I think he'd like that."

so let's sum things up: Clint is such an adorable worry wort, Laura is so capable of managing her kids (Clint included), and poor cooper! What a great kid.

Coming up: Your 1940s is showing, and the not-so-perfect family

Please keep reviewing!