I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are always welcome :)
After half an hour of silence, Clint stood up. He was not sure how long Wanda would have held up her silence, and he didn't want to hurt her by forcing her to break down again. Besides, he could not help her finding the answer to the last question.
All he could do was fight for her to make the decision herself, without Fury pushing her. And as he saw Steve and Tony approaching Clint swore to himself he would win that fight.
Steve read Wanda's reaction from the look on Clint's face. "She won't be a part of SHIELD."
"She doesn't see a reason for it."
"Because there's nowhere else for her to go", Tony prompted, and shrugged at Steve's glare. "I don't like it either, but that doesn't say it's not true." He looked past Clint towards the small silhouette at the wall. "And I guess she knows it as well."
"What, that she has nothing left to fight for? Yes." Clint rubbed his face. He was tired, and not only because of Wanda. There was a broken washing machine, three broken cars (one of them a toy, actually) and a broken roof tile waiting for him.
And a baby. Automatically, Clint smiled at the thought of his little son, of Laura holding him, of Cooper and Lila adoring him.
Steve looked at him, then nodded. "She needs something to fight for."
Clint sighed, pulling back from his thoughts. "There is no one else."
"Well, she's still got us." This time, both men glared at Tony, and once again, he shrugged it off. "Come on, since when am I the sensitive guy? She lost her family. Let's give her a new one."
Clint frowned. "Here? At SHIELD? You really have a nice concept of family, Stark. This is a training area. Even we barely work as a team, there is no way we could ever become a family!"
"Now you hurt my feelings." The millionaire pouted, then became serious again – quicker than usual. "You may be right and I have no idea of what a family should be, but I know that telling her to fight will help neither us nor Wanda. If we want her, we must give her a place. Safety. Acceptance. Maybe even happiness, you know."
Steve grimaced in wonder. "What the hell did you put in your last drink?"
"Language", Clint muttered out of reflex.
Tony didn't seem to have heard. "I won't apologize for my intentions" he said, quietly but distinctively. "I never wanted to control the world more than I felt necessary to protect it. I just want the people I love to be safe. Pietro did, too, and he died for it. Because… of me." He shook his head, his eyes cast to the floor in something neither Steve nor Clint had ever seen on Tony Stark: shame. Guilt.
"Maybe you should talk to her", Steve suggested, something he would not have said even in a joke two hours before.
Clint found himself nodding. "Do that." It was strange enough to say that without irony, but even crazier was the fact that Tony nodded as well. "Alright. I'll try. But maybe you should stay close."
"He's changed a lot, don't you think? Stark, I mean." Steve shook his head in wonder as the avenger stood next to Wanda. "He has really changed."
"Threatening the world and yourself with your own weapon might do that" Clint offered. Then he closed his eyes. "Maybe seeing the kid die for his sister made him realize how lonely he is."
"Kid?" Steve smiled shortly. "Wait, Barton, tell me you don't feel responsible for that? It was his own decision! He did what…"
"I know." Clint held up his hands in surrender. "I know he did. And I'm trying really hard not to ask myself why he did it. But anyway… he took twelve bullets for me. Twelve fucking bullets for…"
"For a comrade" Steve said with a conviction that had lasted through seventy years of ice. "For a man who would have done the same for him."
Would he? Clint closed his eyes. This was the worst of all unanswerable questions, the one that wouldn't leave him even in his children's embrace.
Would he have died for Pietro, as he had done for him?