Well here she is! Apologies for the wait!

Thank you To::

WestonFollower: thank you!

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Aini NuFire: There is only ONE MORE chapter!

TortoisetheStoryteller: LOL, tried to imagine myself in that situation and being like...no.

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8839 : so sad it's almost over!

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Niom Lamboise: i'm excited for what's coming here and what you will think:)

amy. .9 :I almost died when i wrote that line. My ma says it all the time.

Alex C : thank you!

brandibuckeye: i just love little moments of normalcy

Wonderwomanbatmanfan: wait no more! I really hope you like it!

discordchick I THINK i address your question in this chapter...

BookLuv : uh oh...someone caught on to me...

Avenge Me

Chapter 14

Clint Barton made his way into the main room before his wife finished getting into her new clothes. He scrubbed a hand through his still-wet hair and tried to force his eyes open. Few things kept him walking. A desire to hold his children again, a want to feel normal and return to the life he had before, all of it fueled his limping walk into the living room, surprised to find that the movie he'd considered watching was already in full swing.

Apparently Pepper had gone out at some point and returned with four stacks of pizza boxes. Hill came through the doorway next carrying a bags full of drinks, from lemonade to Gatorade and soda. He walked up beside her and attempted to grab a handful of the parcels out of her grasp, but Hill danced away from him.

"Oh, no you don't! No heavy lifting for you!" she boldly declared.

Cooper noticed the movement and bounded away from the excitement of pizza to intercept his dad. "Look!" he declared in transit, displaying the rebuilt gyrocopter. "Look what Mr. Stark let me make! I'm going to fix up the remote and get it flying dad, but it's already done! Isn't it cool?"

Reeling to catch up, Clint stopped I front of him and took the offering to inspect it. He vaguely recognized what the machine had once been, mainly because what he'd seen Thor do to it. A smile crossed his lips and Clint threaded his hand through Cooper's hair. It was strange to him how tall Cooper had gotten. The child grew like the Hulk. Soon enough he'd be as tall as his father. Cooper actually wanted to be taller, and Clint wasn't sure how'd he feel about that.

"Hey, check it out! You did a great job cleaning that up!" Clint applauded. He hooked his arm over Cooper's shoulders and they went into the common room together. He found a place on the couch and plopped down. Out of nowhere a bee-lining little girl in braided pig tails came flying forward and flung herself at him. Clint exhaled with an "oof" at the collision.

"Dad! I've been having a bunch of fun, and me and Thor were running and I ran, and he was chasing me. And I colored my nails!" She held up her ten little fingers, all in varying states of highlighter heaven. "And I was drawing with Uncle Steve."

Clint nodded at all over her declarations. His eyes directed toward the Captain who stood twisting a cap off the carton of lemonade. "Really? You guys did all of that, Uncle Steve?"

Rogers shrugged one shoulder a little sheepishly. "Sounds strange being called Mr. Rogers, you know. She sort of came up with it."

"Uncle Thor, I rather admire this title," Thor stated. He turned with a plate laden in three pizza varieties stacked on his plate. Clint nearly exploded in laughter at the sight of him. Sharpie freckles, a nose glazed in red, and little rising suns, their rays extending in straight lines from his eyebrows to his hairline, all decorated his face like a child's painting.

Clint narrowed his eyes in his daughter's direction. "Lila Aliana Smith-Barton. What have I told you about drawing on faces?"

The child paled. She'd been caught. Clint rarely used her full name and only in the most dire circumstances. Cooper sent her a glance, clearly reading "I told you so".

Steve instantly crumbled before the apology could ever muster from her lips. "Uh, don't blame her as much, Clint. I saw it and I . . ." he glanced at Thor, and Hill, and Pepper who had taken a sudden interest in his every word. "I helped."

Hill snorted. She may have intended to laugh, but the sound which came out of her was most certainly a short, gurgling snort. The former agent folded over a little, grabbing for a handful of napkins to hide the rum and coke now escaping her nostrils. Directly beside her, Pepper's hand flew up to her mouth where she could chew on the first two knuckles and restrain all the pent-up joviality desperate to burst through.

Clint was not about to let it go that easy. "You helped."

Red-faced, Steve nodded.

"You helped my girl draw on Thor's face, and braid his hair, and colored with her?"

Steve's Adam's apple bobbed. Well, if it was out, it was all coming out. "Yeah. I did."

Clint shook his head a little in disbelief and stacked his bare feet on the coffee table. "Uncle Steve it is."

The day dragged into night with the Avengers ringed around the widescreen television. It took half an hour of pizza eating, soda drinking merriment to finally decide on something proper to watch as a pseudofamily gathering. Tony had the biggest say in the matter but it was no surprise when Big Hero 6 won out. Cooper and Stark's creative halves were set on fire. Thor was overly pleased with the marshmallow shaped robot, and the normal viewers enjoyed watching the excitement of the others. Half way through, Lila and Cooper's bed times came around. No one ordered them away. This was family times and here the realms of cultural norms were suspended.

Clint fell asleep within the first five minutes. He sat where he had when it all started, with Cooper under one arm and Lila under the other. They happily munched away at a slice of pizza each, downed glasses of lemonade, and a short time later the communal bowls of popcorn emerged for everyone to partake. Neither wanted to disturb the exhausted father. Not even his wife.

By the time the ending credits rolled, the two children had joined his father in dream land. Hill had driven back home for the evening, Tony headed to bed with Pepper, and both Thor and Steve departed to clean up. Laura still sat up beside Bruce, watching the trio sleep.

"Want a hand moving them?" Bruce asked.

"Move them? No. They look comfortable enough," Laura replied. Clint had fallen over when she decided to sit on the couch opposite of them. Lila was curled up, like a stuffed bear, against his chest and Cooper's head rested against his, the rest of him stretched out in the opposite direction. "Clint's going to be sore in the morning."

"Everything worked out, at least."

"Yes, thank God," she whispered. "I was so worried about him. I mean, I knew we'd be all right. Cooper and I. I'm not sure how I knew. Clint worried me the most. He can be so focused." He eyes closed, as if reliving something she didn't want Bruce to see in her eyes. Her head turned downward a little away from him. "We're all ok, though."

Bruce, a master at hiding his own secrets, sensed at once the pain within her. "He never said how he ended up shot. A few times, now that I think about it. It was in front of you, wasn't it?"

She turned sharply to him again.

"I'm sorry. It's just a thing I do. Observation is sort of my forte here. You came back to the plane with blood on your face. It was fresh. Not from you. And the reaction you just had," he shrugged as if it was the only thing that made sense to him.

"Clint wasn't lying. You're good."

Bruce could see the comment served to deflect the conversation. He decided not to push the topic. "I never knew he talked about us."

She lit up in smiles. "He tries not to take his work home with him. It doesn't always work, and sometimes it's because I pressure him. He likes you, can't understand half the things that you say, but he likes how laid back you are."

This amounted a surprise for Bruce. Clint was silent in his ways, often excluding himself from the group and keeping to himself. Bruce always thought that maybe due to his past. After SHIELD fell, Clint firmly renounced his trust in any organizations from that day out. In a small way that included the Avengers too. He'd trusted the group home he'd been placed in as a child, and the first bad foster family shattered that in him. He trusted in the circus that made him into Hawkeye only to discover they were liars and thieves. He'd trusted the army, before they left him to die on a mission, putting him on SHIELD's radar.

"I didn't think he had much by way of opinions on us as people. I guess I just never really saw him like that. Not that this," Bruce gestured to the trio of sleeping bodies, "was anything I ever envisioned."

"A lot of people see him like that," Laura said, sadness dropping her voice a little. "I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the front he puts on to deal with it all. Not many people get to see who he is. What he is. How important he is, until it's too late and he's gone."

The conversation had taken another jarring turn, and Bruce found himself struggling to catch up. Gone? Did Laura possibly allude to Clint leaving the team? Sure the guy had a wife, almost three kids, a house recently ransacked that still needed to be set to right . . . the more Bruce thought of it, the more confused he became. Hawkeye not being on the Avengers somehow struck him as just plain wrong. Bruce didn't mind his wit, the sharp comments after missions or the occasional show-off piloting he did, regardless that Bruce did complain about it. Constantly. Clint couldn't have taken that seriously. Bruce never remembered the missions where he went green, but he did know Clint was usually a key part of them. He saw things before the others could, called out strategy, spied his way into places, and never said he couldn't do something. He'd just figure something out.

"I think I threw off your groove," Laura said, drawing Bruce away from his private thoughts.

He tried to right himself and escape the fears filling him. "Sorry, I guess I just never really thought of him not being here. It just hit me all at once."

"I support him. I love what he does here. Natasha looks out for him, but some of the things he comes home with, I just—" her voice trailed off and she drew in a deepsigh. "The team needs him. It scares me how much they do, you do, but I know Clint. He'd push himself off a cliff, throw himself in front of a train if just to save one kid." She laughed a little. "He'd probably do it to save someone he didn't like too."

"You support him, and you don't want to lose him," Bruce interjected.

She looked back at him. "Something like that."

"Life's hard as a single mother. Three kids, I couldn't imagine that on anyone."

"I could, and have. That's what scares me. I love him, but I have to share him. It's not easy." Laura slowly got to her feet, and Bruce stood up beside her. "I'm going to go and enjoy a nice, long sleep in a comfy bed, in a giant mound of pillows and God help whoever wakes me before noon."

"Sounds like a fine plan, Mrs. Barton," Bruce said.

"Oh, Laura, please. People call me misses and it makes me feel old."

Bruce repeated himself with the correction and watched as Clint's wife made her way for the hallway. He looked back at the kids and Hawkeye. Before he left, Thor had gone off and grabbed the spare blankets from his room to arrange over the sleeping trio. One of them made it to the floor already after Cooper had kicked it off. Bruce reached down, retrieved it, and tucked the boy back in.

Earlier Tony went crashing into the lab, his mind in a reeling tizzy over the discovery that Clint Barton's son was dyslexic. Bruce merely shrugged it off. He had been surprised, but not overly affected. Dyslexia was a common, well documented disorder in this day and age. There were entire departments in universities devoted to it, students often weren't restricted from receiving just as efficient an education as any other. Attempting to express this same notion to Tony did not go over very well. Tony compared Bruce to Steve, never a good sign, and threw himself into fabricating a mobile stealth protocol. Bruce considered assisting him, despite having no notion what he worked on, though Tony thought his contribution was better made by figuring out a way for his JARVIS mainframe to exist on a sole, portable drive instillation that might work handheld with a cell phone. Bruce pointed out that Tony already had such a device, i.e. his cell phone, to which Stark replied he wanted a different one. A better, user-friendly version that worked on a stealth grid completely separate from Avengers' Tower.

"I want a "My Girl Friday" to my butler JARVIS," Stark said, but never explained why. He could be like that.

It took Bruce about an hour to create the program and, by morning, the prototype would be ready to use. Tony thought it should have taken longer. He forgot to take into account Bruce's keen abilities.

Bruce double checked the three, taking a step back to better look down on them all. Clint's face was buried beneath the back of Lila's head. The girl's knees were pulled up into a tight ball and her mouth hung wide open. Cooper twitched, settled, twitched again. Despite all they had been through, they slept like the dead.

Not wanting to risk rousing them, Bruce moved away toward his room. Eventually Thor and Steve would make their way back upstairs despite the fact that neither of them slept more than a few hours a night. Clint might be awake by then and decide to move the kids. Right now, Laura had the best plan. It was better off to let the sleeping kids stay put.

:(:):(:):

Tony Stark heard the knock against the wall first. Something hit the drywall hard enough to rouse him from his sleep. He groaned, rolling over a little . Pepper shifted beside him and pulled her head off his arm. He sat up and listened for a little while. Hearing nothing further, he refolded the pillow under his head and dragged his blanket over his shoulder again.

A muffled cry brought him back to consciousness a second time. Beside him, Pepper stretched out her arm and laid her hand on his bicep.

"Tony?" she whispered.

He moaned.

"Tony, you hear—"

"Mmhm," Tony replied, "Yup. Heard him. Got it."

"You want me to check on him?"

"Nope." Tony sat up again and let the blanket fall down. He stuck his legs out on the other side of the bed and let his feet hit the floor. Another knock radiated through the wall adjoining Clint's room and theirs. Over time they'd gotten used to the sound. Nightmares. All the Avengers had them at one time or another. After the Chitauri attack, and more so after the fall of SHIELD and the Avengers closed ranks, they began to notice Clint's nightmares more. He used to stay at an apartment until Tony convinced him to move in. The archer shared the room adjacent to theirs out of convenience. He liked being closest to the exits. Occasionally Clint woke himself up and the nightmares would cease. Other times he didn't and Tony had gotten into the habit of going to check on him. Pepper patted him as he went by and slipped out of the front door.

Tony padded quietly in the hall and approached Clint's door sleepily. The palm of his right hand rubbed through his eyes, attempting to force some clarity into them. He yawned, and opened the door.

There was another thump of the headboard making contact as the bed's occupant shifted. Apparently Clint didn't plan to wake himself up.

"Hawk?" Tony said, approaching with caution. Clint didn't often sleep without some sort of weapon within reach of his hands. Sticking near the end of the bed, he reached out and grabbed Clint's ankle and shook it carefully through the bed covers. "Hawk, wake up for me. You're dreaming. Everything's fine."

The person stirred, lifted up and stared bleary eyed at him. "Mr. Stark?"

The voice didn't belong to Clint. In fact for a little while he had no idea who it was. The brown hair cascaded around her shoulders and she blinked at him.

"Oh my God, Mrs. Barton!" Tony exclaimed, flabbergasted. He backed away from the bed, waiting for at any moment for Clint to arrive from beneath the covers and roar about how he and his wife had been enjoying a solitary moment alone had Tony not interrupted them. But Clint did not appear. In fact, Laura seemed quite alone.

Laura tightened the bed sheet around her waist and sat staring at him. Her body betrayed her, shaking like a fluttering leaf as she hugged her knees.

Tony tried to see her face a little more clearly through the dark. "Mrs. Barton, are you all right?"

She didn't reply.

Tony searched around the wall for the light switch to Clint's desk lamp. The light set the place ablaze. She closed her eyes against it, but still moved little. Tony could see her face was rose red, swollen beneath her lids and long trails creased down her cheeks. She'd been crying in her sleep, most likely. Clint didn't tend to do that but all the other telltale signs were there.

"Hang on, let me go get—"

"He's sleeping," Laura piped up instantly to stop Tony from leaving. "On the couch still with the kids."

Tony made a noncommittal grunt to that and concerned himself with what he should do next. In his mind, one Barton might as well be like another. He should try the simple route first and treat her exactly the same.

He crossed the room and entered the bathroom. Laura watched as the light flicked on, the water began to run, and in short order Tony returned, turning the light out behind him. He approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it on her right. A glass of water found its way into her hand. He fished around in the side table and produced an alka seltzer. He had just about added it to the water but stopped.

"Pregnant," he said to himself and put the tablet back into the drawer. A box of tissues rested beside the tablets and he took it out to sit it next to her hand.

"You seem practiced," she told him.

"Yeah, well," he said nothing more.

A handful of tissues pulled free and she dabbed her eyes. Laura drank a mouthful of water, lathering in its refreshment through her fevered body. After a time of silence, she asked, "How did you know?"

Tony thought about his answer, but eventually sighed. "Headboard. Clint knocks it around too when he's stuck in his nightmares. I got used to hearing it. Sometimes it wakes me up and I'll listen for a while to see if he needs any help. Usually he doesn't."

The entire time they spoke Tony sat with his back facing her and his legs hanging over the side of the bed. He rubbed his feet on the floor and picked the dirt from beneath his nails. Anyone might tell he was uncomfortable sitting there with her.

"That's very sweet of you."

"He's happy about it I think. He never tells me to stop, so I just kept on." For the first time he looked over. "I know what kind of monsters keeps him up at night. Worries over what we do. Who we are. Things that could, and have, happened to him. The Hulk getting loose in the Tower one night. So, what is it that keeps you awake?"

For a long while Laura continued to stare at the man as if there was something about him that simply wasn't real. Perhaps at any moment this visage of Tony Stark might flitter away and just turn into any other ghost in the darkness. But he did not go, and his image didn't change.

"My kids being taken away from me. Losing our baby. The monsters in New York taking my husband away from me. Or that fool Loki stealing his mind, turning him against us." Laura settled back against the headboard, taking care not to rock it the way Stark had pointed out it could. "The least of these belonging to Nick. I watched those men torture him for four days if only to get my name out of him. They threatened me once. One man even put his hands on me. The minute he did Nick shot ten men, killed two more with his bare hands and broke someone's jaw. They stayed focusing on him after that if only to save their ranks. He told them more times than I know where to find that toolbox of his. I knew it was a threat as much as they surely did. Let them go after it, he would say. Let them go and see—" she stopped then, flicking her eyes toward him.

"Coulson. I know, Clint came out and told us after he revealed you existed. I told him i planned to freak out about that. I haven't exactly had the chance yet."

"Nick wanted them to see him. Find Coulson. Get what was coming to them. He bided his time, knowing Clint would eventually call home and realize something was wrong. He stole the parts for the transmitter Cooper made, helped him piece them together when he could before they separated us. I knew Clint would come eventually."

"They didn't touch you? Your son?" Tony asked.

"Nothing of concern, no. Our wounds are mental. I believe I might look up a friend of mine when we go back home. She was a roommate at the University and went into psychology."

"Helped Pepper," Tony said, "When she was taken from me. I'm sure if you need to talk with someone who's been there, she would understand better. You worry about Clint, I'm sure he worries about you but doesn't say it. Didn't admit to it."

Laura took the last drink of her water and Tony retrieved the glass from her. "I never knew Clint had such good confidence in you. He never told me."

"Confidence, hmm," he said. He pushed himself off the bed and left the room to refill it. When he came back, he set it down on the side table. "I don't know about all that. I start hollering in my sleep, he knows to come and look in. I just do the same. We're a team and he has my back probably more than I have his and that's my problem. He's got more to lose than us, and now that I know it, I'm planning to be more mindful."

Tony nodded a little, as if to put a stamp on the statement and not forget it. Then he walked toward the door and hovered his hand beside the light switch. "On? Off?" he asked.

"Off is all right. I'm ok. Thank you very much, Mr. Stark."

"Tony," he whispered, heading through the door and letting it close behind him.

Laura sat in the silence that fell when he left. Her hand trailed up to touch the small bit of wall separating the two rooms. She thought then that Tony, perhaps not for the first time, was wrong about something and for that matter so was she. Tony didn't care for Clint any less than the other way around. Clint had friends here. A second family of friends beside Natasha all striving to look out for him. To be his eyes and confidence should he ever fall.

Laura sank down into the comforts of her husband's bed, feeling the warmth of those friends he lived with every day surrounding her like the sheets and blankets. She worried. She always would, but that small act by Tony adjusted her perspective.

The door creaked open and she looked over to see whether Tony had forgotten something. She was surprised to see Clint standing there instead.

"Are you ok?" Clint asked.

"Oh, Tony didn't wake you, did he?"

Clint snorted, pulling back the covers to crawl in beside her. His feet were cold, and she squirmed slightly away from them.

"Tony told me to say that he didn't wake me up, and neither did he help me move the kids into one of the spare bedrooms Hill made up for them. He further states he did not walk in here by himself nor did he have a conversation with you alone." Clint slipped his arms around her body and pulled her against his chest. She breathed against him.

"Tony did an awful lot of not saying anything."

Clint hummed into her hair.

"What are we going to do now?" she whispered into the dark.

"Now, we're going to sleep," he whispered back. "Tomorrow, Tony's going to start solving this. If he hasn't already done it."

sorry it took a little while! I've been so busy lately with school. The next chapter will be the last!

375 review? Holy crap y'all are amazing! Will we break 400?

Next time: Going home, the Epilogue