Chapter 11: "Don't You Forget About Me"

"You making smores or did I miss the good stuff?" Tony asked as he came up to the clearing. He'd landed silently — or near enough to it — not far off before walking up to the little campfire, somehow not at all surprised to see that Clint and Bruce looked so… comfortable while everyone else was worried out of their minds about the two of them.

Clint picked his head up and grinned, waving Tony over. "Hey, did the team get my telepathic distress call?"

"I can't say … not wired in to that particular circuit," Tony said. "But we got a whole bunch of distressing signals all at the same time. Seemed like it had your name on it."

"Sounds right," Bruce said as he got to his feet. "Clint's been filling me in. Seems like the Big Guy's been dealing with a telepath too."

"Sounds like a recurring theme," Tony said. "Cap and Cyclops had a little Intro to Telepathy class, sounds like."

"Um, Scott doesn't need an intro class," Clint said, scrunching up his nose.

"No, he was teaching Steve, who is apparently remedial in psychic defense."

"Yeah, um, if you guys're gonna help with X-Men baddies, you need that stuff," Clint said.

"Not gonna lie, glad I wasn't there for that part."

"Yeah, trust me on this one: getting taken over is not fun," Clint agreed, pulling a face. "It's worse when you can remember everything you did, too."

"I'll bet," Tony said, settling in. "Your brother's safe and sound, by the way. Thought you'd want to know."

Clint let his shoulders drop. "Oh, good. I got to see him for a minute, but they said they were gonna kill him if-" He cut himself off, looked toward Bruce, and shook his head. "Well, he's alive, so we're okay."

"Yep, looks like the good guys got a few points," Tony said, though he hedged before deciding to tell Clint the rest of what he knew. "Go easy with your mom, though. Not sure where she's at as far as memory and manipulation goes."

Clint frowned. "She was okay last time I saw her…"

"She apparently didn't recognize Logan," Tony said. "Unless that's her way of saying she's reneging on the whole … married to Wolverine thing …"

"Um, no," Clint said flatly, though before Tony could respond, his onboard system picked up several intruders.

"Uh-oh," Tony said as he got his focus back to where it needed to be. "We've got company."

"Oh, great," Clint said, settling into a fighting stance — not that it was going to do much when an actual tank came their way ready to deal with the Hulk.

Tony's reaction was exactly what it should have been once the attack was imminent. He didn't even get off the ground before he'd deployed the proper firepower to get the tank gone, not feeling the least bit badly about blowing it up, since they'd gone after a kid with a tank.

While he was dealing with that, however, another wave came up from a different direction, with their weaponry aimed at the three of them in the clearing.

Tony's armor was bulletproof, and one could not simply shoot the Hulk, even when Banner was in control. But Clint didn't have armor or super resilient skin wrapped around a near-indestructible rage monster.

It happened when Hulk wasn't looking Clint's way — one second, Clint was doing alright sticking behind the big green guy, and the next, someone had managed to shoot him four times, all of them grouped in his chest, so that he was down and out before either of the heroes realized it had happened.

Tony turned toward the soldiers, already firing back as he moved, responding to the attack in kind and not at all concerned that those men might not make it. Especially since they'd come after a kid with a tank then opened fire on him without so much as a warning to comply.

Jarvis was scanning Clint before he'd hit the ground, and a second later, Tony was at his side, putting pressure on his wounds before the AI could even reach out for backup. But when Jarvis reported that Clint didn't have a pulse… Tony went into a pure panic. (Hulk, meanwhile, went into a full rage, but Tony could deal with that in a minute. Why these guys thought it was smart to shoot the kid just then, Tony couldn't fathom.)

With the Hulk fully occupying the military's attention and Clint not breathing, Tony switched gears to get out of his suit — and get Clint in it. The kid could get stabilized in there.

Just as the armor had encased Clint, Tony got a report in his ear from Jarvis that the kid had a heartbeat again, and he swore in pure relief. "Get him back to the tower. Now."

The suit rocketed off… which left Tony standing in the desert watching the Hulk finish off the soldiers who had come after him. "Well, at least the Big Guy's having fun," he muttered, settling in to wait for the others to show up.

Something was wrong with K, and Barney didn't like it.

He hadn't thought that he would miss her teasing him or messing with his hair or any of the other things he had always complained about, but now… now that she wasn't doing any of that, he desperately wanted her to do it again.

Instead, she was watching all of them warily, keeping her distance and her guard up. And he hadn't expected it to hurt this much to see her so unlike herself, to feel like she'd been taken from him after all she had done for him and his brother.

Everyone was giving her space, so he figured that was the right thing to do, even though, after everything that had happened, he just wanted to hug her. And he could almost hear, in the back of his mind, her delighted laugh at being attacked with a hug.

And he still didn't know what had happened to Clint, either, so he was having a hard time hiding his nerves. He tried biting his lip, bouncing his foot… but he just couldn't shake the feeling that his family was never not going to be on the brink of falling apart, at this rate.

"You okay?" Kitty asked — and at any other time, he would have been blushing, thrilled that she was coming to sit down next to him, that she was showing an interest in his well-being.

But instead, he just shook his head and couldn't even come up with the right words to explain, well… everything that was going on.

"Yeah, I get that," Kitty said. She glanced toward Logan, who was frowning at K but didn't look devastated or anything — so that was something, anyway. "She'll get it back."

"Maybe."

"No 'maybe's about it," Kitty insisted. But when Barney just kept frowning, she sighed, saddled up to him, and bumped shoulders with him. "Hey, you really think Jean is going to let this stand? If all else fails, you think she won't ask the Phoenix to just fix it?"

"I'm not actually sure that's all that comforting?" he pointed out.

"Yeah, I realized it as soon as I said it," she agreed. She bit her lip. "You know Logan's gone through this kind of thing before too, right?"

"Yeah, but he doesn't remember all of it."

"Right, but my point was… I mean, they didn't have her long enough to do anything that bad. And we have the most powerful telepaths on the planet here, so—"

"Kitty, I really appreciate you trying to cheer me up, and any other day, I'd be happy to sit with you and talk, but I just…" Barney let out a breath. "If it's okay with you, I'd just like to sit here and be worried, okay?"

Kitty nodded. "Okay," she said — and stayed next to him for the flight over.

Carol had been off-world for a SWORD consult until that morning, so she had missed all of the excitement. And considering her comms had gotten fried when the consult turned into a skirmish with some rogue Skrull faction, she wasn't aware of anything other than the need to take a nap. She saw that the team was gone except for Wanda and her boys — who were watching a kids' show in the living room while Wanda herself napped — but it wasn't unusual for the Avengers to be called out for something or other.

What was unusual, though, was Tony's armor rocketing into the tower, straight past Carol and Wanda — startling Wanda awake.

The two women shared a look, and Wanda put a hand on her boys' arms. "Stay here," she told them. "I'm going to go make sure Tony's okay."

"Can we come?" Tommy asked excitedly.

"Not right now, baby," Wanda replied. "I need you to be on the lookout in case anyone else needs help." She tapped his nose and then Billy's. "That's very important, okay? If you see anybody who needs help, you just shout for me, okay?"

The twins shared a look before they nodded in unison. "Okay."

Wanda nodded to herself and then followed Carol down the path Tony had made — which led straight down to the team's med lab. Which already wasn't a great sign. But then, when Carol and Wanda arrived at the lab, the armor opened up to let out not Tony but Clint, who was still unconscious.

"Damn," Carol whispered when she saw immediately what the problem was, considering the holes in Clint's tee shirt. She rushed to check him over, relieved that he was at least breathing, but she wasn't sure what to do from there. He'd said he'd been shot before, and he'd healed from that — but four to the chest?

Wanda already had her comm out. "Hey, Tony, we just got your armored delivery. What happened?"

Tony didn't answer at first, and when he did, Wanda could hear gunfire in the background, as well as the Hulk's roars. "Is he okay?" was the first thing Tony asked.

"He's breathing," Carol said over Wanda's shoulder. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

"Oh, hey, Carol," Tony said in a breezy tone. "Uh, Hulk's teaching some soldiers not to shoot kids in front of him. Pretty sure everybody else is inbound. Apparently, Steve and Scott just about tried to do each other in."

"What?" Wanda shook her head. "That doesn't sound like them."

"Mind control," Tony explained.

Carol and Wanda frowned at each other, then decided to go ahead and prep for injuries, switching to signal Kurt so he could give them an overview. It sounded like most of the people on the team had been hurt — Steve and Scott worst of all, but Warren and Bobby had done a number on each other, and just about everyone else had at least three wounds needing disinfectant. Not to mention Barney, who was still in shock, and K — who still didn't remember everyone.

Everyone arrived on the blackbird rather than the Quinjet — which Jan had taken to go pick up Tony and Bruce — and Carol shook her head when she saw Steve trying to apologize to Scott, who was hearing exactly none of it and kept cutting him off before he could get started.

"Come on," Carol said, hoisting Steve up while Wanda cheated with a small spell to get Scott into the lab.

"Clint."

Carol spun on her heel when she heard Barney, then winced in sympathy with Steve when the sharp movement was a little too much for his bad concussion.

"He's okay," Wanda said — though she wasn't entirely sure of that either. "Still breathing and everything. Tony sent him our way."

Barney frowned, but he sat down close to his brother anyway, still obviously put off by his mom and his unconscious brother and … all of it. And he was so obviously in shock that he didn't even have a quip at the ready.

Thankfully, Clint was starting to come around, so Barney could breathe a little better when he saw that much. Not-so-thankfully, though, as soon as he started coming back into consciousness, Clint was making small whimpering sounds, and he was squirming as he woke up.

And then he started crying.

"Woah, woah." Barney glanced over both shoulders, but everyone was focusing on unloading the blackbird. "Umm…" He climbed up onto the bed where Clint was and grabbed his brother up — which was about when Clint was awake enough to genuinely fall apart crying.

"You guys okay?" Kitty asked, frowning as she made her way over to the two brothers, and Barney looked wide-eyed as he shook his head.

"I don't know what's wrong," he admitted as Clint just kept right on crying and clinging onto him.

Kitty winced and looked around as well before she hopped up onto the end of the bed and reached out to put a hand on Clint's arm. "Hey, you're okay," she said with an encouraging smile. "Everyone's home and safe, okay?"

Clint finally looked up at that, then narrowed his eyes when he saw Kitty. She could practically see the wheels in his head turning. "Hey," he whispered. He wasn't sobbing, but he was still crying, even if he was trying to wipe his face.

"Hey yourself," Kitty said, making her smile a little brighter for him. "You okay?"

"Not… really," he said. Now that he was looking around, he seemed to be getting a better handle on things, but he was jittery, and he kept rubbing his hands on his knees, his arms, his face.

"Yeah, looks like you got a little bit shot there," Kitty said.

Clint looked down and picked up his shirt to see the holes in it. "Oh. Yeah, that's right," he said, then let out a frustrated sound and pulled away from Barney, dragging both of his hands down his face. "Everything is fuzzy, but cranked way up," he grumbled.

"That… uh… doesn't sound normal," Barney said, glancing toward Logan. And when Logan looked away from K to meet Barney's gaze, Barney mouthed "help?"

"Just gotta focus on something else, kiddo," Logan told him. "Distract yourself."

"Yeah, it's just — it's never been this bad before," Clint said, trying to shake out his legs over the edge of the bed. "It's not stopping."

"You never been hurt like this before. It'll pass. Just pick something strong to focus on."

"Yeah." Clint dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I, um, can think about um…" He took a few shallow breaths. "How's, um, how's Mom?"

"Not herself yet," Logan admitted, glancing toward her where she and Tony were flirting back and forth at a quick pace.

"But she will be?" Clint asked quietly. "Because… because I can't…"

"I hope so," Logan replied, not wanting to lie to him in case it went south. "Not sure what they did to her, so I don't know what needs to be done to reverse it."

"Okay, well, there was, like, a telepath tryna control the Hulk, so… maybe Jean can help?" Clint offered, rubbing his forehead as he tried to focus on the conversation.

"The only trouble with that is that the problems telepaths have in controllin' the Hulk have more to do with how smart he is," Logan said. "Trouble with dealin' with your mom is that she's almost as hard-headed as I am. Have to be one helluva telepath to even make a dent."

"Well, he was bugging the Hulk, and he took over my whole brain, like I wasn't in charge anymore, you know?" Clint said, making a face.

"That's most telepaths," Scott added, trying — and failing — to get Carol to let him up, even though she had him pinned down with one hand while the scans came back.

"Yeah, I know." Clint sighed, then let out a frustrated sound again. "Gah. Dad, does it tingle this bad every time? Because wow."

"You've been shot before, though, right?" Barney put in.

"From what Tony told us, he stopped breathing," Wanda put in, floating over their way to look over Barney. "So Logan's right; this is a little different."

"Explains why you woke up so upset," Barney said, glancing over at Clint, who grimaced and looked down at his chest.

"Yeah. Well." Clint cleared his throat. "I was, um…" He gestured vaguely. "Anyway… Can I talk to Mom?"

"She doesn't remember… much," Barney tried to warn him.

"Yeah, but I need to get moving or I'll go crazy," Clint said. "I'll be careful, okay?" When Barney simply frowned, Clint shrugged him off and hopped over to where K was. "You okay?" he asked her, still rubbing his hands over his arm.

She turned his way with a smile caught on her features. "Hi there. I'm fine, thanks for asking." She frowned as she watched him. "Are … you okay?"

He bit his lip and then went for honesty as he shook his head. "I'm… new to healing," he admitted, though his voice caught as he tried to explain it. His mom didn't recognize him at all, and it left him nearly breathless.

For a moment, she just stared at him, not wanting to admit or deny anything about healing. "Maybe … you should drink some water and sleep it off?"

"Maybe," Clint agreed, surprised when his eyes were wet again.

"I'm sorry, I don't … really know what you need."

"Yeah, I know. I just…" Clint took a deep, steadying breath. "The, um, the people who had you locked up had me locked up too, so I kinda just… wanted to check on you. I saw you. I dunno if you remember me…"

She looked off-guard at that. "No, but … thank you? For the concern?"

"She doesn't remember being locked up," Tony said around her to Clint.

"Oh." Clint took a deep breath and let it out, trying and failing to keep his sniffle from being too loud. "Yeah. Okay."

"Hey," K said, dipping her head to catch Clint's attention. "You look like you could use a hug. Can I?"

"Uh-huh," Clint said, then practically buried himself in her shoulder, clutching on tight. He hadn't told anyone, but he'd come back into the world remembering — no, reliving — the day his first mom died. He was dangerously close to losing it if he lost this one too.

And though K wasn't prepared for that kind of a response from him, she settled in and let him take his time. "Do you want to stay with me for a little while?" she asked after a long while.

Clint nodded, wiping his eyes. "Yeah. I think… I think that would be good."

"Then we can do that," she said, putting on a half smile for him.

No one wanted to break up the moment the two of them were sharing, especially since it was so clear Clint needed it, but Scott had stopped trying to fight Carol on attending to his ribs to instead focus solely on reaching out to Jean: Jean, K's lost a good chunk of memories, and I need you or the professor or both of you to get here right now. Sam can watch the kids. They like him anyway.

We were planning on letting them rest before an assessment, Jean replied.

She doesn't remember any of the kids, Scott said. And you know those boys need her. Especially since they were grabbed too. They rely on her.

I can come down, but honestly, Scott, it might not be an easy fix if she's missing that much.

They didn't have her for long, and you're the best telepath in the world, Jeannie.

Mr. Summers, I'm trying to be realistic, but I'm on my way, and you know I'll do everything I can.

Thanks. See you soon, Mrs. Summers.