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“You found me.”
Peter Parker does not turn when his ex-teammate appears behind him on the roof.
“That I did. Hard man to track, considering your costume choices. And that you seem to only stay situated in one city.”
“There a reason you’re here?” The question is not cold, but hard nonetheless. It’s also slightly unnecessary, seeing as the both of them very clearly know why the Avengers have gone through the effort of locating him.
Clint’s eyes scan over him. He’s injured, most likely some cracked ribs by the way his arm is cradled subconsciously across his side. He caught a glimpse of him in the surveillance footage he scoured to try to find him, so he knows what he looks like now- but it’s still a shock seeing just how different he looks from the boy he knew all those years ago. His face was once a permanent smile, but now it looks like it would be incapable of figuring out how to produce one.
“Normally you would have been quipping your ass off right about now. Thought that was your whole deal, Spidey.”
“Maybe you missed the memo,” he drawls. “I’m not much of a comedian anymore.”
A beat passes. “Peter…” Clint takes a breath. Might as well get started with business.
“We can bring them back.”
Peter doesn’t even give a chuckle, humourless or otherwise. “Hey, you know what? That was funnier than any joke I ever told.”
“We need your help.”
Weary eyes lock. Peter breaks the contact first.
“Kinda got my own stuff going on here, man. Whole city needs me.” He lowers himself until he’s sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over. Never off-duty, he maintains a watchful eye over the skyline. Always watching, ready to leap and swing at any moment.
“Still looking out for the little guy?”
“After what happened… We’re all little guys. Everybody needs saving.” He turns around briefly to look at the man, ever so slightly favouring his right side. “Limited hours in a day and millions of people to look out for, so… Not saying my time is precious, but I don’t keep much time in my schedule for catching up with old acquaintances.”
His bluntness doesn’t faze him. After all, it was only a few days ago that he was in Peter’s shoes, and Natasha in his.
“There’s a lead. Best one since 0259-S. Team’s coming back together-“
“You’re talking about time travel, right?” Peter cuts through.
Barton gives a minute nod, question in his eyes.
“Heard about Scott Lang. Interesting proposal, no doubt… But I’m no Tony. Or Hank Pym, for that matter. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Tony always said you were a gifted engineer. Said you would rival him one day.”
Peter seems to elect not to respond to that. Clint recognises the brief ghost of unhealed pain pass across his face. Though gone in an instant, it’s an expression Clint knows all too well. After a beat, he scoffs. “Time travel. Do you even hear yourself?”
“You were on an alien planet and fought a Titan, and time manipulation is where you draw the line?”
“You vastly overestimate my abilities. I make suits. Gadgets. That’s pretty much where my expertise ends.”
“A gadget’s what we need. A way to navigate. We’ve already got the tunnel.”
“My gadgets are of the web-slinging variety. Not the TARDIS variety. I know jack shit about quantum theory.”
“You can research. Hank Pym’s lab is-“
“No, I can’t. Clint, I’m sorry but- I can’t.” a brief outburst, over as quick as it started. Tight fingertips gripping onto the ledge. A shaky sigh escapes his lips.
For a brief moment, Clint wants to lash out back. He wants to guilt-trip him, pull out the weathered photo of his family from inside the lip of his archer’s quiver. He wants to force him to really consider what he was letting stay lost. But he knows better. Because he lost too.
He needs to tread carefully here, playing the hunter’s game. He needs to act with patience, or Peter will get spooked and run. He steels himself with a grounding breath to try to take a different approach, but Peter gets there first.
“Hope and me haven’t been getting on too well these past few years, Clint.” he pauses, but Clint knows there’s more coming so he stays quiet, joining him on the edge.
“The more I hope I can undo what happened, and the more I fail in doing so- the more I feel like their deaths are on my hands. I think of Tony, and May, Ned and MJ, and I feel like I’m… like it’s my fault they’re gone. Like I just haven’t tried hard enough to save them. And that shit’s… killing me.
“I can’t hope anymore. What you’re asking of me is impossible. And if I fail at this, then…” he doesn’t finish, but Clint knows what he’s trying to say. If he fails to find the solution to the best lead anyone has had in five years- it’s not only going to crush him, but everyone else who had been foolish enough to hope as well. They would never admit it- but people would blame him. Wished he had just worked himself into the ground just a little bit more to find the answer. Wished he was someone like Tony Stark. And Clint tries to swallow the unfair thought, but deep down- he’s thinking that already. It’s his desperation speaking- the desperation of a father who has nothing left. He wants to reel it in, lock it up because he knows he doesn’t deserve this, but in truth- it’s already started to unravel.
“Those people down there,” he mutters, gesturing at the skyline below his feet, “I can help them. I can protect them. That I know. So I’m going to stick with it.”
He wants to leave him alone. He wants to give him a pat on the back and possibly the contact information of some incredible therapist and just leave and let him live his life in whatever way causes him the least pain, because God knows he deserves it. But he can’t. Because he deserves that life too- and the only way he can see that happening is if he gets his family back. Like the man next to him, he has also spent his five years of solitude blocking out hope, but he’s gotten himself too caught up in it this time and he can’t just let it go, he doesn’t care if it’s selfish- the photo in his quiver burns into his heart and some darker side of him aches for the return of four people even at the expense of the wellbeing of one.
“Peter.” He grimaces, trying to control the emotions that have been buried five years too long. His anger is not aimed at Peter and he knows that. This kid now carries on his shoulders more responsibility than anyone has ever had to carry before and he should really turn around and leave but goddamnit this is the closest he’s ever been to seeing his family again and he’s the only thing standing in the way- and before rational thought can override his instincts, he has the photo in his hand and venom on his breath.
“My wife and children are dead.” His voice is gravelly and he grips the photo so tight that it begins to crease at the pressure. “You are the only person on this earth who is qualified enough to at least try to bring them back, and you’re swinging around a city giving directions to the elderly and bringing back purses. You don’t think they’re worth the price of your emotional burden?”
Peter’s eyes flash wildly with devastation and his throat constricts. He has to force his words out, strangling on sentences that choke him as he leaps to his feet.
“Clint, I’m telling you I can’t. You don’t think I’ve given more of myself than I have to give trying to bring everyone back? You think I’ve just been sitting on my ass? That I just sat back and called it a day? I lost everyone too. I fought, Clint. For years. And it wrecked me. There’s no way they’re coming back, and you need to accept that now or it’ll run you down and chase you until you’re dead too.”
Clint's moment of anger dissolves in the blink of an eye, but the damage had already been done. He’d told the man who already blames himself for that which is completely out of his control that it was all his fault. And he knew there was no taking that back.
“Peter-“ Clint begins, but he already knows he’s leaving.
“I need to go.” Peter turns his back to him, entire body shaking. As he raises his arm to click his web-shooters, he looks back briefly, not making eye contact. “For what it’s worth- I’m sorry, Barton. I really am.”
Clint watches his last hope slip through his fingers, into the landscape of the city.