A/N: Pheeeew! I thought that this would be a short chapter. But… Nope. (chuckles) We'll see what I came up with… BUT, first…

THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for all your reviews, love and support! It's AWESOME that you've all seen this emotional and downright crazy story through with me. (HUGS)

Awkay, enough with my rambling. Let's go! I REALLY hope that you'll enjoy the ride.

Alive

When someone's been stuck in a nightmare long enough there's a point where the mind adapts to it. Where the person accepts the pain and horror as the new, inescapable reality. And Clint… He didn't really, honestly expect to get out of his mother's trap alive. At least as himself. Especially after the gunshot that was supposed to end his life.

So, when his eyes fluttered open… At his very own command… It was almost too good to be true.

There was a wildly spinning white ceiling above him. And a distant, infuriating beeping seeped through all the fog in his head. It was all far too familiar yet he had no idea what was going on.

This couldn't be real, right?

Yet, when he felt the familiar hand squeezing his… He really, desperately wanted it to be real. He clung to the touch tightly.

"Shh, honey… Calm down…", Laura's voice soothed. Nearly breaking from emotion. "You're safe. We're all safe. It's over."

Of course it wasn't over. His mother… He was certain that he'd feel her in his brain for the rest of his life. How was he supposed to know that this wasn't another one of her cruel tricks, anyway?

A gentle kiss was placed to his cheek. And suddenly all his fears and doubts flew away. "Shh… It's me, and I'm right here. It's okay."

He drifted into something like sleep with an air of comfort guiding him.

A medical team rushed into the room as soon as the machinery monitoring Clint's vitals screamed an alarm. What they found… It was easily the most bizarre thing any of them had ever seen.

On the bed Clint was asleep, his vitals still out of control but calming down slowly. Asleep, knocked down by his injuries and sheer exhaustion. His hands… They were smoldering, and there was fire-damage all over his sheets. Yet a woman sat beside his bed, holding his hand. Her own protected by a purple glow. Tears shimmered on her cheeks while she whispered soothing words to the sleeping man's ear.

"So…" All four medical professionals jumped at the unfamiliar voice. A one-eyed man stood beside them with a rather chilling look on his face. "I trust you to be professional and keep what you see right now to yourselves. Do we have an agreement?"

In another room a pair of eyes also fluttered open. Seeking, wondering, full of confusion. Even with the best of wills Steve couldn't tell which ones of his memories were real and which weren't.

Edith… Shooting Clint… Getting injured by Tony… The train… Bucky…

/ "… sorry, Steve … end of the line …" /

Rationality had nothing to do with what Steve did next. Knowing full well that his body wouldn't be able to handle it he began to scramble to a sitting position, despair chasing him. He needed to move. Had to run. Because… He'd already lost everything and everyone else. If he'd lose Bucky, too…

"Hey!" Sharon Carter's voice made him shiver. As did the gentle hand she used to push him back down. "You're healing really quickly, but… Not that quickly. Lay down."

Seeing her familiar face was only a small hint of comfort. His gaze roamed through the room, seeking. He failed to find he'd been looking for and knew immediately. The dawning realization tore at his chest in a way Tony's attack couldn't possibly have.

Sharon swallowed thickly. He barely heard her. "I… I'm sorry. But… He left, yesterday."

Steve had imagined that he was strong. That he could handle pain. But what overcame him right then… It was like watching Bucky fall from the train all over again. And it was too much. Too cruel. He couldn't take it a second time, especially not when he'd already lost and thrown away everything and everyone else.

Eventually the medical staff had to sedate him. The second Steve saw the first needle flashbacks of Edith's house of horrors filled his mind. He fought, with all his might, until the medicine swept him to blissful oblivion.

Clint nearly set his hospital room on fire. And despite being injured Steve was a Super Soldier, which meant that if he'd… freak out again, the medical staff might not be able to handle him. The two needed a far more suitable place to recover as soon as they were well enough to be transferred.

There was only one place in the world where they could go.

Tony sighed heavily. "I… get that a lot of crap has happened. And we'll deal with it. Hopefully better than we deal with most of the… crappy stuff. But right now, after… everything… We all need a safe place to catch our breaths. And I've got a full medical team standing by at the Tower. I think we're grown-ups enough to handle staying there for a while without… You know."

"Trying to kill each other?" Natasha filled in dryly, the look in her eyes promising that there were several long, uncomfortable talks in their future.

Tony swallowed, feeling sick to his stomach. "Yeah. That."

"Tony's suggestion does sound like the only course of action worth considering." Thor's voice made the rest of them jump. Mainly because he'd been quiet for so long that they'd almost forgotten his brooding presence. The Asgardian operating as their voice of reason was almost more startling than him speaking all of a sudden. "And… I believe none of us wants more fighting."

That, they could definitely agree on. Tony looked around and frowned. "Where are the twins?" Call him paranoid, but having someone who could mess his mind and hated his guts around made him anxious.

As though by magic, the look in Natasha's eyes transformed to something uncharacteristically soft. "Where do you think they are? There are only two people in this building the girl trusts, and the boy goes wherever she does."

Tony frowned. "We… can trust them with him, right?" Again, call him paranoid, but… After Loki and especially Edith it was sort of hard to trust someone who could mess with people's minds.

"Stop worrying." They'd all imagined that Laura, who'd been ushered from Clint's room to get some actual rest, was asleep. She was clearly touched by Tony's… concern. "I had a talk with them, and… It sounds like they saved Clint's life, once. In return he led them away from a life as Hydra's tools. They won't hurt him."

The next time Clint woke up he blinked a couple of times from confusion upon discovering that he had some more visitors. Apparently Pietro was capable of stopping every once in a while, at least partially. The boy's foot tapped restlessly while the speedster slept on one of the spine-killing hospital chairs, snoring loudly and neck twisted to an angle that'd hurt later.

Wanda sat beside his bed. The girl gave him a tiny, uncertain smile upon discovering that he was awake. "Welcome back." She nodded towards something or someone. "I… tried to tell her that you might not feel ready for more visitors yet. But she was insistent."

Curious and perhaps a little alarmed, Clint followed her gaze. Lila had curled up beside him like a cat, carefully avoiding his injury. His heart jumped unhealthily at the sight of his daughter there, alive and well. It all came far too close…

He imagined that Lila was asleep until she shifted slightly and whispered in his ear. "Daddy? Peter's funny." Clearly 'Pietro' didn't quite fit into the child's mouth. "And Wanda is a princess. Can they come home with us?"

The thought of going home… Clint couldn't quite decide how he felt about it, so he focused on other things. He glanced towards the twins. They saved his life. And now, with their ties to Hydra severed… They needed to find their place in the world. They needed a home. "If they want to, and if it's okay with mommy… Yeah, they can." He went on whispering conspiratorially, and for a few stolen seconds felt almost like the man he was before all this. "And guess what? Wanda knows some amazing magic tricks."

The next time Steve woke up he shivered upon recognizing the person sitting beside his bed. He tried to come up with something to say but all words got stuck in his throat. His companion seemed to have similar difficulties. Under different circumstances the two of them gaping at each other like fishes out of water might've been amusing.

In the end Tony looked away and swallowed thickly. "Look… What we've both done…The kind of guys we've turned into… It's pretty messed up. And… I don't have any idea how to deal with any of it. But…" The man's jawline tightened and their eyes met briefly. "I've gotta try, because… Because I'm done with losing people. And… I hope that you wanna try, too. I don't…" Tony gritted his teeth again. "I don't think we can crawl out of this mess alone."

'Mess', huh? That… was one way to call it. Tony accidentally harming him was one thing. The billionaire actually, actively attempting to murder Bucky… That was another. But at least he and Bucky were still alive. "Clint… What I did to him…", he croaked in a voice he couldn't recognize. Even the thought made him want to throw up and he trailed off. He couldn't look at Tony. "I killed a friend. How… How am I supposed to deal with that?"

"What?" Tony's genuine confusion made him face the man just as the billionaire's eyes widened. "Shit…! No one's had the chance to tell you…" The inventor shook his head. "He's alive, Steve. Barely made it, but… Clint's still alive."

Three days later Cooper's condition was something like stable. Seeing the boy in the same bed and tiny room his dad used to occupy… It shattered Bruce's heart.

Cooper himself was scared, sad and tired. And hurt, almost all the time. He wanted his parents back, especially because the weird dream of his dad and that train kept haunting him. It was difficult to sleep properly in the scary, big place he'd never been to before falling ill. So it was no surprise that he was still awake at close to ten in the evening, when Bruce approached him. "Coop?" The scientist offered him a phone. "Someone wants to talk to you."

Cooper frowned. Then felt a nearly overwhelming surge of hope. His hand shook when he brought the phone to his ear. "Dad?"

"Hey, buddy." Hearing his dad's familiar voice made Cooper feel dizzy from joy and relief. "You have no idea how much I've wanted to hear your voice."

If both dad and son were in tears, no one would have to know.

The following day Clint and Steve were both recovered enough to be able to handle the flight to the Tower. Physically. Emotionally? Now that… was a whole another story, one which had the whole team on the edge.

It was impossible to tell how much of the recent events Clint remembered. During his waken moments that archer hadn't been exactly eager to share. Nor had the man been asking much, the knowledge that everyone was still alive seemed to be enough for now. Wanda would've offered to check his mind gently but what Laura and Natasha told her about the man's past convinced her otherwise. Over the past weeks… was it only days Clint's mind had been taken over by his mother, who was supposed to be dead. Then he'd been nearly killed by one of his friends, which was a devastating blow although it hurt Steve at least as much. And then his own brother, who was also supposed to be dead, almost killed him as well. All that would've been far too much for anyone to deal with. The trust issues Clint had always wrestled with made the struggle a million times worse. The team would've been relieved if the archer didn't have to remember everything, at least while he was still so physically unwell.

Steve was marginally more vocal after learning that he hadn't killed his friend, after all. The Captain was the kind of a person who wanted to fix problems by nature. The kind of a person who left no man, especially a friend, behind, even before his army days. And this… This was infinitely worse than your average problem. This was something that traumatized Steve for the rest of the soldier's life. Now Bucky had left and Clint barely got out of the whole mess with his life. It didn't help matters at all that while attempting to kill Bucky Tony nearly ended Steve's life instead. Even for the strongest of people, that was just too many blows.

Steve had made it adamantly clear that he didn't expect anyone to forgive him. But he also needed to see Clint. To fully embrace what he'd done, and to make sure that the archer was actually still alive, that the glimmer of hope wasn't just a cruel trick played on his mind.

The rest of them weren't sure if either man was actually ready to see each other. And while Laura did her best to understand Steve's reasons, the solid fact that her son saw the man supposedly kill his dad on TV couldn't be erased with a snap of fingers. But they also realized that neither man would be able to recover fully if they never got the chance to talk. So, after long negotiations with the ailing Avengers, the meeting was set for that early afternoon.

The tension could've been cut by a knife as the two men were wheeled to the garden outside the hospital, everyone watching over the meeting hoping desperately for the best.

The memories Clint had of what happened since Ross took him from the Tower… They were hazy, and he couldn't help wondering how much his mother had fabricated them. There were a lot of confusing dots he needed to connect to preserve what little sanity he had left. And to do that he needed to talk to Steve.

It was impossible to tell which one of them felt more uncomfortable as two pairs of eyes scanned the other, tried to see every bit of injury. "So…" Clint cleared his throat. "I… had this stupid, weird dream… About a train…"

Steve nodded slowly, cautiously. "Yeah, I know. I… had it, too."

Clint scratched his hair and wondered what a person was supposed say under these circumstances. Were there even right words for a situation like this? "The thing is… We've both had it pretty crappy lately." (Steve couldn't bring himself to lecture when even he wouldn't have used softer language.) The archer's jawline tightened. "I'm not gonna start lying. What you had to do… It stung, a lot. And… I've gotta work with my head a bit. I mean… To process it. But…" The man shrugged. "If I was in your shoes, and it was you and Tasha in the places of Bucky and me…" Clint trailed off but the message was clear. There were the kind of necessary evils they'd never, ever forgive themselves for. The unforgivable kind. And then there were the kind of necessary evils that would kill them to the spot with the forced target.

It wasn't forgiveness. Couldn't be this quickly, with both of them so raw, shaken and broken. But it was understanding.

Steve nodded, because there were no magic words that would've made any difference.

Clint seemed to appreciate his response. The man looked away, towards the sun. They lapsed into a heavy, thoughtful silence. "I… have no idea what to do next", the archer confessed quietly. Eyes squinting against the sunlight and something else. "This, getting out of… that alive… I didn't even consider this ending." The words were chilling in their honesty. The archer gathered himself for a long moment before continuing. "When you shot me… I felt betrayed. But I was also so goddamned relieved. Because… She was going to kill me, anyway. I was a disappointment, a useless toy. You have… You have no idea how good it felt, when I lay there and felt her letting go of my mind. So yeah, I was going to die, and hated it. But… It was hell a lot better than a life as her puppet. It was finally over." Clint shook his head and lowered his gaze, eyes shimmering with moisture. "And then… Then I woke up. Realized that it wasn't over yet. So… I thought to myself 'Okay'. Maybe I was alive so I could stop her. Just a little longer. Then I almost died again, and…" A brief, hysterical laugh crawled up the archer's throat. "Here I am, again. What little there's left of me, at least. I'm supposed to go home, and… I have no idea what to do next. Because… I still feel her, right here." Clint tapped at his own head harshly. "It's… It's a wreck. Screws and pieces missing." The next horribly bitter chuckle came with a sob. "How… How am I supposed to go home, when… when I'm not… the same anymore? I… I dragged all of you guys into this, Steve. My mess, all of it." The archer was agonizingly close to breaking down entirely, but somehow succeeded in keeping the shattered pieces together. "Everyone I care about could've died. My own daughter almost got slaughtered because of me! And… I'm still here. Well, parts of me. It's like I've been forgotten here. And… I can't even be happy about it, because… I have no idea what's still left is enough."

Steve wanted to tell his friend – they were still friends, weren't they? – that none of this was his fault. But how was he supposed to do that when such reassurances didn't do him any good, either? There were no words of wisdom that would've reached Clint properly just yet. And… He had to admit that he was taken aback by the archer's uncharacteristic openness. "Why… are you telling me this?" Why choose him, of all people, to share this with?

The look Clint gave him was a sad one. "Because… I've got a feeling that right now, you're the only one who gets exactly how I'm feeling."

Steve tried to deny it but couldn't. Instead he looked towards the sun. "Well… We're still alive. Better make the most of it." They'd pick up all the pieces there were left of them, stand up and carry on. Just like he did when waking up after decades in ice.

"Yeah." From the corner of his eye he caught Clint wiping his eyes before the man went on. "Good plan, Cap."

A few minutes passed by until Steve broke the ensuing silence. "Clint? Look at your hands."

Confused, Clint did. He was surprised to discover that there was no smoke or spark on them. His powers were perfectly under control.

A couple of hours later Tony approached Natasha, who was overseeing the takeoff preparations with sharp eyes. He cleared his throat, feeling embarrassingly insecure. "Could you… do me a favor, once we've made it to New York?" He went on when the Russian met his gaze. "I need you to try to find Barnes."

The look Natasha aimed at him would've chilled anyone. She was practically growling. "Tony…!"

Tony hurried to defend himself. "I'm not…! I don't want to kill him, or something." Anymore… "And… It's not like I'd want him around, either. Just…" He shifted. "Rogers is gonna drain himself if no one helps. And…" He shook his head and shivered. "What I felt, right before I took that shot at him… Edith didn't even need to trigger it. The person I turned into, right there… I seriously wanna believe that I'm better. I need to believe that I'm better." He needed to prove to himself that he was more than a monster whose bloodlust nearly killed someone who was supposed to be a friend.

Understanding filled Natasha's eyes. It occurred to him that perhaps there'd been a time when she needed to prove something similar to herself. "I'll try. But I don't think he wants to be found."

The letter Bucky left behind came back to Tony's mind. And if he was honest with himself, if he forgot about resenting the Winter Soldier and focused on Bucky Barnes, for a second… The soldier's words sort of chilled him. "I know." For Steve's sake, I just hope that he's still out there to be found…

That evening they all boarded Tony's jet. The twins included, which they claimed was only because they had nowhere else to go. The tension was once again palpable, with far too many hurt feelings and damaged bonds getting crammed into such a small space. There'd be a lot of bitter fights in their future. And things would never, ever be quite the same again.

But they were all alive. It was better than any of them had dared to expect. There was hope.

TBC

A/N: Oh, those poor dears… (sighs) SO. It's going to be a LONG, rocky road. BUT. They're on the way home. And maybe now they'll finally start to get properly better.

Was that any good, at all? Back to the drawing board? PLEASE, do let me know what you think! I LOVE hearing from you. Oooh, and before I forget…

As for the future of this story… We've just about reached the end of this insane flight. But, since there's quite a bit of recovery to do… How would you feel about a three-part epilogue, the seal this properly?

Until next time, folks! I REALLY hope that I'll see you all there.

Take care!

MLAkittenz: Indeed! Thank gosh they're hanging on stubbornly. Now let's hope that they'll keep doing so, and we can have an as-happy-as-possible ending. Those poor, poor dears! This has been a brutal flight.

Massive thank yous for the review! Until next time.

SomeRandomHuman: LOL! And don't worry one bit, you weren't late at all. (hugs)

Poor Avengers! Because you're right, they'll definitely never be exactly the same after THIS. BUT, let's hope that they'll be able to handle the aftermath together. And that they'll all be as okay as they can be! (sighs)

Colossal thank you for the review! Until next time.