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“Hey, Clint, have you seen Pietro anywhere?”
Clint shot a glance at Pietro, who was just out of sight of the doorway and saw that he was shaking his head frantically at Clint.
Clint turned back to Steve, placing his hand on the doorframe to block as much of the room as possible. “No, I haven’t seen him since breakfast, actually. Maybe he’s out for a run?” Clint could feel Pietro’s gaze on him as he flat-out lied to Captain America.
Steve sighed. “He wasn’t at training again today. That’s the eighth time this month he’s skipped out on it.”
Clint frowned. Pietro hadn’t told him anything about skipping out on his training, and since Pietro was always at the group trainings they did together, Clint had no way of knowing.
“Has he told you why?” Clint asked.
“No. He comes up with an excuse if I actually get ahold of him, but most days I can’t find him.”
“Well, I’ll keep an eye out and see if I can figure out what’s wrong.”
Judging by Steve’s expression, he was doubtful that there was anything wrong. Clint knew that Steve thought Pietro could be lazy at times, and Clint supposed if you didn’t know the older Maximoff as well as he did, it wouldn’t be hard to get that impression. Pietro could be difficult, but there was usually a good reason for everything he did.
Steve thanked Clint and left, and Pietro let out a relieved sigh. Clint closed his door and turned back to see that Pietro had collapsed on the couch, feet sprawled out in front of him.
Clint walked over to the couch and sat down next to him. “So? You gonna tell me what’s going on, or not?”
Pietro was staring resolutely forward, jaw clenched.
“I’m not saying I’ve never skipped out on training, I just think eight times this month is a lot without a reasonable excuse. I mean, if you don’t like Steve, let somebody else run your training. Gotta stay in shape or you get left behind, is what I always say.” Clint rethought that. “Well, in your case you probably won’t get left behind, but you know what I’m getting at.”
Pietro played with the ends of his sleeves, jaw working. “Maybe I don’t feel like I need the training.”
“Even if that’s the case, I know for a fact you have way too much energy. Training’s the only way you can work it off in a constructive way. You even told me that like five weeks ago.” Clint wondered if it was the new training exercises that Pietro didn’t like. They had been implemented at the beginning of the month and they were supposed to be revolutionary, designed for each Avenger personally.
“Is there something wrong with the new training?”
Clint could tell by the slight stiffening of Pietro’s shoulders that he had been right. “Okay, so what’s so bad about the new training that you’d rather risk Steve’s disappointed face than just tell him that you don’t like it?”
Pietro fidgeted, raking a hand through his hair and sending blond strands askew. “I do not want to seem weak. That is why I didn’t tell Steve.”
“How in the world could you be seen as weak?”
Pietro hung his head and took a deep breath. “The exercises remind me of the tests that Strucker would put me through.”
Horror clawed at Clint’s chest, and he had to look away to reign in his anger. It took him a moment before he was able to speak.
“Pietro, that’s like the excuse. There’s no way you should be having to go through that. Jesus.”
Pietro shook his head. “I need to get over my past. It will not control me.”
“Everyone in this place has baggage, you know. No one is going to blame you for yours. There are parts of my past I don’t dare think about, and they happened years and years ago. Give yourself a break.”
Pietro had slowly started coming out about the evils of his past, and Clint was learning how terrible the twins’ time with Hydra had been. When they were first genetically altered, they had little control over their powers, which meant a concrete jail cell was all they had had for company. Late one night as Clint and Pietro lay curled together, Pietro recalled the pain of being separated from his sister when all he wanted to do was hold her hand. He told of how hard the concrete wall felt against his bare shoulders when he was flung against it by uncontrolled bursts of speed.
Clint knew it would take years before Pietro was comfortable with these memories, would perhaps never be comfortable with these memories, but Clint would do everything he could to make him feel accepted and at ease. The Avengers were a team of outcasts who learned to be comfortable with themselves, together.
“I’ll tell Steve, if you want me to. I can tell him you find the new training stupid and want to go back to the old tests, if you want. Honestly, though, Steve would understand.”
Pietro shifted, leaning his head on Clint’s shoulder and curling his legs up onto the couch. “You are too kind to me.”
Clint turned his head and pressed his nose into soft hair. “I confess, I’m just trying to get into your pants.”
Pietro’s frame shook with gentle laughter, and the heavy air in the room seemed to lighten. “It is definitely working.”
They were silent for a while, basking in each other’s presence.
“I will tell Steve that I do not like the training, but I wouldn’t mind backup.”
Clint smiled. “I would happily be your backup, any day. Anything to make sure you don’t have to relive the horrors of your past.” Clint frowned. “Is Wanda okay with her training?”
“She’s fine. Her's is nothing like anything we’ve seen before. In fact, she was very excited about it last time I checked.”
“She doesn’t know about your training?”
“No. I did not want to worry her more than necessary. We’ve been getting on so well here that it seemed in bad taste.”
Clint brought an arm up around Pietro’s shoulders. “She would rather you tell her that kind of stuff, I’m sure of it. I bet she’d be angry that you’ve kept that from her.”
“You won’t tell her?”
“No. She’d kill me for not figuring it out sooner. I’m like another way for her to keep an eye on you, and she’d see that as me failing at my job.” Clint shook his head. “Your sister is scary. Amazing, but really scary.”
“Yes, I know. She was like that even before we had our powers.”
Clint could believe that. Wanda had most of the Avengers under her thumb, and when she and Natasha teamed up, it was even worse. When they were watching their favorite shows, hogging the television, nobody would dare bothering them about it. Not that Clint didn’t love a little Project Runway every once in a while.
Talking softly to each other, they both somehow managed to fall asleep on the couch, and though Clint would regret the crick in his neck a few hours later, it was nice to spend time pressed against the man he had fallen in love with.
Later, they would talk to Steve, and he would express his embarrassment and apologize for making Pietro uncomfortable. Pietro would shrug it off, but Clint would know how much it meant to him that Steve was so accepting, that all of them were so accepting. They would move past the heartbreak and pain of their past and do so together.
But for now, napping together on the small couch was enough.