Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day everything changed started out simple enough. Thor was on Tony duty. It was a rotating duty that every Avenger (and all associated and affiliated personnel) found themselves assigned every so often. It basically entailed making sure that Tony saw the light of day at least once a week and had at least three coherent conversations with someone other than Bruce (because that was just science babble) and his robots. Battles against the villains of the week did not count. Though Tony argued that they should count, the rest of them countered that aside from Loki most of their bad guys were incapable of stringing together coherent sentences due to the rampant crazy that made them think that taking on the Avengers was a good idea in the first place. So they were not acceptable socialization partners. And Loki was also not acceptable because he had a tendency to lie and make Clint go crazy. Thus the duty was created and on that particular day, Thor was on Tony duty which meant that it was his responsibility to drag the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist out of his lab and into civilization. The fact that Thor was a little bit gleeful with his duty had little to do with the fact that he was bored. It was because he was concerned about his friend… and yes, it was mostly because he was bored. But hindsight taught that maybe it was necessary for Thor to be bored at that particular moment on that particular day because if not then this story would not be told.

As it stands, Thor was very, horribly bored. Television was growing tiresome. Snooki was no longer entertaining since she left the house on the shores of Jersey. And he wasn't quite sure why there were so many underage Midgardian mothers but that seemed like something someone should be concerned about. Either way, it wasn't very engaging. With most of the other Avengers out of the Tower for the day, there was little in the way of other distractions. So without much prompting, he barged into Tony's lab using the new override code of the week and bodily hauled his spitting mad friend away from his latest experiment. Thor held him up by the collar of his t-shirt until they were a few blocks away from Tony's favorite coffee shop. Thor didn't often have Tony duty but he knew there were a few things required when reintroducing their genius with the rest of the world: patience and a ton of coffee. Thankfully Thor had patience to spare and coffee was readily available.

The Stand was a relatively small place not too far from the Tower. It was one of the few buildings in the area that somehow managed to remain mostly intact from the usual craziness that seemed to happen only around the Avengers (i.e. explosions, aliens and the Science Bros). The owner of the shop was a lovely older woman named Delilah Tiers. She was a widow with no children of her own. She took one look at the collective team of orphans and decided that to adopt them as her grandchildren. When they were having low days, it wasn't odd to find one or more of them being fussed over while being force-fed pastries and hot beverages. Though she loved them all and lavished them with affection and attention, Delilah was notorious for playing favorites and made it very clear early on that Clint was her favorite. It helped that the archer reverted to every inch of his Midwestern upbringing when he was around the older woman. The archer's smart mouth seemed to vanish when he was around the older woman. Tony swore he heard Clint say 'aw, shucks' once. None of the Avengers minded that he was blatantly the favorite because they all enjoyed the sight of their normally cocky friend blushing and using words like 'ma'am' and 'y'all'.

That's why neither Tony nor Thor blinked an eye when they walked into the shop and found Delilah fussing over a very stressed and embarrassed looking Clint. At first they were both confused as Clint was meant to be with Steve and Bruce at SHIELD HQ. But they didn't give it any further thought because... it was Clint. Short of drugging him, it was very difficult to keep the agent contained in one place, especially when that place was SHIELD HQ. And even drugging him wasn't a guarantee. So it figured that he escaped. Although….

"Barton, if you were coming here, you could've called," Tony sassed as he breezed past the sputtering and red-faced Clint to press a kiss against Delilah's cheek. Once Thor was lifting the woman into one of his less violently exuberant embraces, Tony turned to eyeball their friend, who was apparently trying to inch away towards the door. Hindsight showed that this was the part where Tony should've realized something wasn't quite right with this picture. But hindsight is rarely helpful and he didn't realize something was wrong. He was too busy being amused by the surprised flush that remained on Clint's face and the outfit he was wearing.

Clint Barton, the perpetual teenager, was wearing a suit. It needed a double take because really? A suit? An actual tailor made suit with a shirt and a tie. That was amazing. They could barely make the man dress in anything other than hoodies and jeans. But someone managed to get him in a suit. Tony raised an eyebrow. He definitely wore it well. Huh, there might be hope of taking the archer out in civilized society yet.

"So you're all dressed up. What's the occasion? You finally getting around to putting a ring on Spider Chick?"

Clint's brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"We really need to broaden your social awareness. Do you need to sign up for Pop Culture 101 with Steve and Thor?"

The younger man looked hopelessly confused by this point. "I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about. Do I know you?"

Now it was Tony's turn to frown. He looked into the familiar set of bluish gray eyes and found no sign of levity there. His gaze was flickering between Tony and Thor, who was happily engaged in Mrs. Tiers' recap of her soap operas. There was not a hint of recognition there. Not to mention, there was another man very clearly listening into their conversation. He was medium height with cropped close blond hair. Clint's gaze drifted towards him for a brief moment before focusing on Tony again.

"Oh," Tony murmured, understanding settling on him. He leaned forward prompting Clint to do the same, though his face displayed his confusion clearly. "Barton, you asshat, you should've just said something."

"Said something about what?"

Tony rolled his eyes. Of all the days for Clint to suddenly pull the dumb blonde act, he picked the one when Tony was the least cognitively aware. A week with little social contact outside of Bruce and occasionally the man in front of him would have that effect on anyone. But at any rate, Tony was not having a particularly genius day himself. That's why it took him so long to catch on.

"You're on a mission, right?" Tony whispered, letting his eyes slide pointedly to the blonde that was still visibly listening in. "That's why you're acting weird."

"Uh, yes?" Clint replied. "That's exactly why."

"You should've just said something," Tony chided. "I didn't mean to break your cover or anything."

"It's okay?"

"Why are you answering everything with a question?"

Clint's eyes narrowed. "I'm not?"

Tony started to reply but the words died on his lips. The other man was still listening to their conversation. Clearly Clint was in the middle of some work thing. Why he chose the coffee shop most likely to be inhabited by an Avenger, Tony would never understand. It was difficult to understand the mind of Clint Barton. He was pretty sure the only one fluent in Barton was Natasha and that whole relationship was a confusing mess that even Tony wouldn't touch.

"Whatever. Have fun on your mission. I'm sure it's a one day thing since you know Steve is insisting on family dinner tonight. He's even got Fury, Phil and the Wicked Stepmother coming. So it's a big deal. You better not bail. Or you better find a way to take me with you."

"Uh, okay," Clint said, the confusion still lingering in his eyes. "I'll remember that."

Tony patted him on the shoulder. "You do that, Cupid." He turned towards Thor, who was still chatting with Delilah. "Yo, Point Break, let's roll. I still have to finish the schematics on Natasha's new suit."

Thor nodded, saying goodbye to their self appointed grandmother and receiving extra pastries to go along with their order. Once everything was packed up the god made his way back to where Tony, Clint and Clint's new nameless, lurking friend were standing. He could read the confusion on Thor's face as Clint didn't move to join them, instead moving closer to the man that was watching them before.

"What…."

"It's cool, big guy," Tony leaned in closer, keeping his voice purposely low. "Barton is on a mission. Can't talk."

"Oh, I understand," Thor nodded. He cleared his throat before looking at Clint. "Farewell, strange man that I have never had any types of brotherly interactions with. I hope that your journey is successful and fruitful!"

Tony groaned even as Clint seemed to collapse in on himself. He simply shook his head, grabbed Thor with one hand and tossed a jaunty wave at Clint with the other. As he steered the god towards the Tower, Tony heard Clint let out an audible sigh of relief as the door closed behind them. He stopped their trip home only long enough to send a text to Natasha reminding her that there was a rule about them being let in on the two spies' missions for a reason.

"Did you notice something odd about our friend?" Thor mused aloud around a bear claw donut. Tony shrugged, sipping his coffee and savoring the mind awakening powers it held in its dark, delicious, sugar filled depths.

"There's a lot that's odd about Barton, buddy" Tony replied. "It's Clint. He makes it a habit to test just how many different limits he can push before a person breaks. I feel bad for the poor sap trailing him today. I have no idea what the mission is but it's mostly likely going to involve that poor dude wanting to run for the hills before the day is over."
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Benji Dunn was not a super ninja like Ethan, capable of scaling the world's tallest buildings without calculating the risks involved or mentally updating his will. He was not super observant like Will, who could remember every single variation of his team's coffee pattern and always seemed to pop up with a fresh cup when one of them was reaching their breaking point. He was also not badass like Jane, who more than held her own when sparring with Will and Ethan. No, Benji was not like the rest of his team but he also was not an idiot. He would've needed to be blind in order to miss that there was something terribly wrong with William Brandt.

The newest agent to their team was not exactly the most extroverted but lately he seemed even more stuck in his own head than normal. It was… worrisome. The whole thing was made even more worrisome by the fact that Ethan seemed to know exactly what was going on. After a successfully completed mission, Benji expected that they would return to their individual corners of the world until they were called into duty once again. Instead, they received orders to convene in New York City for observation duty. Benji took one look at the mission and realized it was a milk run. Jane saw the same thing and opened her mouth to protest but one look from Ethan had them both quieting. The fact that Will made no complaint was the sign that Benji needed. This mission was for Will. To give him time to come back to them. Two days into the mission and Benji had some serious doubts.

That is until Ethan sent them to get coffee. The hotel concierge recommended the place, saying that it had the best coffee in the city. With such high praise, Benji was willing to make the ten block trek from their hotel to The Stand. He dragged a strangely compliant Will along with him. He never thought he would miss the days when Will questioned every move they made but he did. He would take that version of his best friend (when the hell did that happen exactly) over this quiet, sad shell of a man that merely followed where they led. Exactly two weeks and five days passed since the last time Benji saw Will express genuine human emotion. And he was starting to think he would never see it again. That is until the minute they crossed the threshold of the coffee shop and the slightly younger man was accosted by an elderly woman.

After assessing that the woman was not an actual threat (this was New York City after all), Benji was content to watch as his friend grew even more flustered by the woman's grandmotherly attention. It was clearly a case of mistaken identity but Benji was too amused by Will's flushed face to bother correcting the mistake. He ignored the pleading looks from Will in favor of simply watching his friend be human again. A few minutes after their arrival at the mostly empty shop, the bell over the door rang signaling more customers. This time two men entered. Neither of them seemed confused by the woman who was alternately pinching Will's cheeks and commenting on his weight (a concept Benji whole heartedly agreed on by the way). On the contrary, the shorter of the men greeted the woman with a friendly kiss to the cheek while the larger blonde grabbed her in a fierce yet friendly embrace. Benji stayed silent on the sidelines as the brunette addressed Will with the same name the older woman had thrown out a few times.

"I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about. Do I know you?"

Benji suppressed the urge to snicker at Will who seemed so lost at the moment. He glanced from his friend back to the stranger, who was starting to look more familiar as time passed. As the other man pulled his friend into a not at all quiet conversation involving the words mission and spy, Benji realized why he recognized the man. He held his tongue until the two strangers were out of the shop and Will's elderly admirer moved onto other customers.

"That was weird," Will commented, taking a sip of coffee that the owner pressed into his hand prior to his escape from the woman. Benji watched as an expression akin to awe graced his features. He raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry. "This is exactly how I like my coffee."

"Oh, so she got your complicated mess you call coffee correct? That is weird."

"No," Will murmured, still staring at the cup and pointedly ignoring Benji's barb about his coffee preferences. "I never even placed my order. She just gave this to me. How did she even know I liked cinnamon and nutmeg?" he paused. "I don't think I paid for this either."

Benji snapped his fingers in Will's face once he realized he was losing the former analyst. "None of that is important, Brandt. Do you know who that man was? That was Tony Stark. You know the Tony Stark."

"Genius playboy billionaire Iron Man Tony Stark?" Will replied, looking confused. "Are you sure?"

"Trust me. The man is considered a god in the technological field. I'd recognize him anywhere. The question is who he thought you were."

Will continued to stare at his coffee cup. "This is going to lead to something I'm going to regret later today, isn't it?"

"Let's just follow him for a bit. Aren't you even a little curious?"

"Not really," Will said. "I just kinda want to go back to the hotel and…."

"And what? Mope some more in the corner?"

"I'm not moping!"

"You're definitely moping."

Will huffed. "I'm not moping, Benji. We're on a mission. And I don't think that we should be taking time away from that to chase after a superhero."

Benji rolled his eyes. "We're on a milk run. Jane has clearly been playing Angry Birds on her iPad for the past two days and Ethan is likely plotting how to best way to climb the Empire State Building and not get arrested. Actually, never mind, he probably hasn't even factored in the arrest part of that plan. The point is, even Ethan isn't concerned with the so called mission. The only reason he sent us to get the coffee is because he, like the rest of us, thought you needed to see the sun at least once on this trip."

Will's mouth opened in a protest but Benji cut him off. "We're just going to try and catch up with them. See if we can't figure out who they think you are. Then we get you back to the hotel to your regularly scheduled brooding."

"Ben…." Will trailed off with a deep, world weary sigh. "Fine. At least if I'm with you, when this all blows up in your face, you'll already have backup."

"That's the spirit!" Benji grinned, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "They won't even know we're following them!"

Will glared at him even as he allowed Benji to drag him out the store. "This will only end in misery," he muttered, still sipping at his convoluted too sweet mess he called coffee. "Misery and pain."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're rather depressing?"

"Pretty much every IMF appointed psychiatrist since Croatia."

"Hmm, remind me to crash all their computers."

"That's strangely sweet, Benji."

"I try."

Chapter Text

Contrary to Benji's early assertion, Tony did in fact know that they were being followed. He actually picked up on their tail about a minute before receiving Natasha's text stating the same thing. He didn't even question how or why Natasha knew they were being followed. He also didn't bother trying to find the woman because he knew he would never see her. But their tail on the other hand, he knew exactly where (and for that matter who) they were. For some reason, Clint and his new blonde friend were following them. True, they were being pretty stealth, slinking amongst the crowd at the street fair Thor dragged Tony into but he was more than familiar with Clint's ways. And the younger man was definitely acting out of character. For starters, he was actually seen. Tony didn't refer to Clint as a ninja for fun. The man was the master at stealth. They once went an entire day without realizing that Clint was in the same room. But today he was almost sloppy. Tony attributed that to the other man.

"Why is Clint following us? Why does he not join us?" Thor asked, dragging Tony's attention away from his phone. He blinked at the thunder god and the ridiculously large floppy pink dog tucked under his arm. Combined with the oversized red shades and the straw hat, he made an interesting sight. But the fact remained that Thor had a very large hammer, godlike strength (cause he's a frigging god) and the temper to match. Tony wasn't stupid enough to mock him (to his face).

"Clint is feeling pretty special today, it seems," Tony sighed, once the urge to laugh had passed. He glanced down at the new message from Natasha. She didn't know about Clint receiving any missions and according to Bruce, their resident archer was still at HQ torturing new agents and Agent Hill. So either Clint figured but how to be in two places at the same time or there was something really weird happening. With nothing better to do other than utilize those self-preservation skills Pepper kept drilling into him and refraining from mocking Thor, Tony decided that it was his civic duty to further investigate the situation.

Like the mind reader he secretly suspected her to be, Natasha sent a message suggesting that Thor and Tony lead the pair into an alley a block away from their current location. It spoke volumes of the progress Tony made as an individual during the past year as a team that he didn't question Natasha's logic. He simply guided the utterly absurd looking Thor into the alley. He noticed their tail following them as expected. Clint was getting really sloppy. The two Avengers moved into a darker part of the alley and waited for their clueless stalkers to come closer.

"See, we lost them," Clint said, his voice sounding exasperated in ways Tony never heard before. He was now looking forward to pushing the archer to see how much it would take to get him to that point again. "Can't we just go back to the hotel? I'm sure even Ethan has noticed we've been gone a lot longer than it takes to buy coffee. He's going to come looking for us, Benji. Let's just go back and finish the mission."

Tony raised an eyebrow, glancing at the other man. "Look, they have to be in here somewhere. It's a dead end. They can't have gotten that far."

"Of course, if logic says 'go home', Benji says, 'let's continue into the dark, creepy alleyway after a couple of superheroes!'. Ethan has nothing on your level of crazy!"

"Aw, thanks, Will."

"Yeah, thanks, Will," Tony drawled, stepping out the shadows to face the bickering men.

Both jumped in surprise, resulting in Clint pulling out a gun with the almost supernatural quickness he frequently displayed. His partner in this excursion away from sanity also pulled out his weapon. Tony blinked, first at the fact that Clint just pulled a gun on him and then also the fact that Clint just pulled a gun. He didn't think the man even carried one of those outside of when Nick or Phil forced him to in battle. Tony heard a growl from a very protective god of thunder and then too familiar sounds of Mjoliner being summoned. Now things were getting interesting.

"Oh, this is bad. This is very bad. Look, Mr. God of Thunder, sir, we're very sorry that we followed you and if you'll just put the hammer down that would be… it would be..." Clint trailed off, watching Thor's hammer warily.

"Okay, no! Thor, you know better! Do not put the hammer down! Phil will manage to find a way to straight up murder you if you destroy yet another building. And I'm definitely not paying for any property damage to cover for you anymore either. Not after you and the Hulk killed the only decent Wendy's in the city because they ran out of Avengers toys in the kid's meal." Thor sighed with all the put upon grace a god his age wearing a stupid straw hat and carrying a large, pink, dog could muster and Mjoliner returned to whatever subspace it existed in when he wasn't using it.

Tony then turned his attention to the strange and terribly out of character Clint. His eyes were wide and there wasn't a hint of recognition in the grayish blue orbs. There was also a familiarity between him and the other man that seemed a little too comfortable for just one day. Especially given the fact that it took even the unavoidably loveable and genial Thor a week to crack through the virtual Fort Knox surrounding Clint's emotions and trust. No, something was definitely not right here. But he knew how to get answers. He leaned back against a wall in the alley with his arms crossed against his chest.

"Spider Chick, what's going on with your boyfriend? He's acting even weirder than usual. And that's saying something because he's usually kind of a freak."

He was the only person in the alley that didn't flinch as Natasha dropped soundlessly from the fire escape she was previously observing them from. She glared briefly in Tony's direction before looking at the two other men in the alley. Her eyes widened minutely as she took in Clint's appearance. She cocked her head to the side staring at the man, assessing every line and plane of his face. A slight frown formed on her lips as she continued to stare. Her subject remained still during this inspection. Finally, she moved a hand to the back of his neck. Tony couldn't tell what she was looking for but apparently it wasn't there as she pulled her hand away with confusion written across her face.

"I do not understand," Natasha murmured, looking between Tony and the source of their confusion. "He looks like him but that's not Clint. The scar from Budapest isn't there." She shook her head as the frown grew deeper. "Not to mention, he feels… different."

"Feels different, huh?"

"Must your mind always be in the gutter? Even you have to see that despite the nearly identical looks, he doesn't feel like Clint. Thor knows, don't you?"

"Aye," Thor agreed, solemnly.

"Thor is wearing comically over-sized shades and carrying a pink dog," Tony pointed out. "What Thor thinks has been rendered moot by that point."

Despite his retort, Tony was considering what Natasha said. The man in front of him did feel somewhat different than the Clint he was used to. He did look, and sound, a lot like his annoying pain in the rear semi-adopted (damn laws) younger brother but there were subtle differences. He carried himself differently. He was more reserved, evident by the fact that he was actually hesitating about following them into the alley. Even undercover, Clint would be hard pressed to not go charging blindly into a possibly fatal situation. Then there were the eyes. Whereas Clint's sparkled with some mischief he either just carried out or was saving for a rainy day, the man before them had sad eyes. They looked almost like Clint's in the few months after the Manhattan invasion. He felt slightly uncomfortable looking at that past reminder of just how close they came to losing the archer.

"Right," Tony said, finally. "If he's not Clint, then who the hell is he?"

"Ok, seriously? I'm right here! Who the hell is Clint? Why do you people keep calling me that? And what the hell happened in Budapest that could leave a scar there?!"

Natasha didn't answer. She merely pulled her phone from…somewhere in her skintight pocket less SHIELD uniform and brought up a picture. Tony glanced at it before she held the phone out for Clint's clone to see. It was of the two agents sitting on the beach somewhere. They were both smiling. It was a normal picture of an innocent looking Natasha and Clint. Clint had his arms wrapped around Natasha and they both looked happy and… most importantly in love. Nothing about them screamed master assassin or ninja badass with a bow. They looked almost….

"One word, Tony, and I will crash JARVIS for a week!"

"Hey! What did JARVIS ever do to you?"

"Is this a joke?" Not!Clint exclaimed looking at the picture. "That's me! I mean kind of obviously it's not because I think I would remember something like this. Not that I would only remember because you're hot but also because I remember everything…. And this is not helping."

"Not at all," the thus far silent blonde beside him chimed in with a smirk.

"This is your fault, Benji," the Clint clone sighed heavily, glaring halfheartedly at his friend. "What I mean is that's not me but he looks like me. Who is he?"

Natasha hesitated for a moment before reaching some sort of internal conclusion. "His name is Clint Barton. He's my… partner. You are?"

"William Brandt," the man said, running a hand through his hair. His other hand still held the camera with the picture. "This doesn't make any sense…. This is crazy!"

"We pretty much deal exclusively with crazy, Willy," Tony replied, flippantly.

"It's actually just Will," Will corrected. "So this guy, this Clint… is he an Avenger too?"

Tony exchanged glances with Natasha. "I guess we can answer that if you tell us a few things about yourself, Mr. Brandt."

Will nodded, ignoring Benji protesting in the background. "Sure. What do you want to know?"

"What's your birthday? Where were you born?"

"January 17, 1983 in Waverly, Iowa."

"Uh, does that not sound familiar to anyone else?"

"That would be the day and place of birth of our friend Clint," Thor pointed out, as usual missing the sarcasm in that comment. Tony was convinced he was doing it on purpose at this point. Because there was no way that Thor wasn't picking up sarcasm by this point. It was pretty much the only way Tony, Bruce and Clint knew how to communicate.

"So he's got the same birth date, face and place of birth as Clint. There is only one answer to this problem."

"Oh, really?" Natasha asked, her tone showing her disbelief.

"Either he's been brainwashed again or he's a clone," Tony shrugged. Seemed pretty simple to him.

Natasha sighed heavily. "I wish someone would brainwash me to forget half of the stuff you say. For a genius, you really are a moron sometimes." She ran a hand through her hair. "Look, we'll get to the bottom of this but for now I think it's best if maybe you came with us."

"Uh, we're kinda in the middle of a work thing," Benji stammered. Natasha glared. "Right, so we'll just call our boss and tell him to meet us wherever it is that you're taking us…. Where exactly are you taking us?"

"Home," Natasha replied, simply.
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For all that he looked and sounded like Clint, William Brandt was an entirely different kettle of fish. For one thing, he was capable of sitting still for more than three minutes without demolishing something and then putting it back together as a weapon of mass destruction. She still really hadn't gotten over her hair dryer that he somehow managed to turn into some sort of miniature arrow grenade. The man was bizarrely creative. And while Will may be just as bordering on genius as Clint, he seemed capable of not taking everything around him apart. The timer was still going at thirty minutes. But despite his lack of motion, Natasha could tell that he was assessing everything. His eyes were sharp and calculating. Another thing he shared with Clint. Whatever was going on was definitely strange. She then let her gaze drift to the newcomers to the scene. Ten minutes after they arrived at the Tower, a frantic and confused man and woman arrived. Will introduced them as Ethan Hunt and Jane Carter, his teammates. There was a brief round of discussion over their mutual statuses as agents at top secret organizations before the current tense silence fell over the room.

Natasha glanced at the clock once again. When she last spoke to him, Bruce wasn't able to find Clint but swore that the man was still in the building. Apparently at some point shortly before she called, Steve was shot in the stomach with a paint tipped arrow while working out in the gym with Bruce nearby. Based off where the arrow came from, it could only be Clint. He was the only one crazy enough to shoot arrows from the rafters at frigging Captain America while Bruce 'the Hulk" Banner was in the same room. Not to mention he was the only SHIELD agent that actually used a bow and was adored by a crazy tech god that commissioned stupid things like paint tipped arrows. So it was a safe bet that he was still in building. She didn't bother trying to explain that Clint was either in two places at once, cloned or had a long lost twin brother. She merely asked Bruce to find Clint and drag him back to the Tower as soon as possible. That was thirty minutes ago. And the silence stretched on.

Natasha returned her attention to the silent IMF team. Based off the little that she did know about the IMF, their agents were almost as crazy as SHIELD agents. What she did know about the agency centered on an agent that she would've thought was too crazy to be real if she didn't live with Clint Barton and Tony Stark. Ethan Hunt might be functionally insane but he didn't hold a candle to some of the bordering on suicidal stunts those two idiots pulled on a semi daily basis. She didn't know much about the other two members of Will's team but she could tell that they cared about him. Benji was as close to his friend as possible on the sofa. Their shoulders pressed against one another as Benji pretended to read a magazine. Jane, on the other hand, didn't bother with pretense. She was blatantly watching Tony, Thor and Natasha. Her right hand resting on Will's thigh with his hand covering hers as he continued to take everything in around them. Neither agent seemed uncomfortable with the contact, almost as if it were second nature by now. Natasha smirked at the possessive yet protective gleam in the other woman's eyes. So yet another thing that Will and Clint had in common.

The chime from the elevator shattered the silence and announced the arrival of the rest of the Avengers and the normal associated and affiliated personnel. As usual, Natasha heard Darcy before she actually saw the woman.

"So what's the emergency? Don't tell me Loki is back… again. I keep telling you guys not to feed him. He's like a stray cat. He just keeps coming for more scraps of affection."

The Black Widow raised an eyebrow as only Darcy, Bruce, Steve and Phil stepped off the elevator. "Where's Clint?"

Bruce rolled his eyes with the fond exasperation that only Clint could elicit before pointing to the window. "He took the weird way in as usual. Also why is there a guy that looks like Clint sitting on the sofa with three strangers?"

"How'd you know he wasn't Clint?" Tony asked with a frown.

"First off, we just watched Clint scale the side of the building like the crazy hawk-monkey hybrid I secretly think he is," Bruce retorted. "Also he's wearing his SHIELD gear today and definitely not a suit. According to him, suits are really uncomfortable when doing his crazy ninja thing. He also has the mentality of a thirteen year old. So you know, suits are scary. Finally, I doubt even Clint is suicidal enough to sit that close to another woman right in front of Natasha. He doesn't even let Darcy get that close. So again, why is there a guy that looks like Clint sitting on the sofa with three strangers?"

Jane's eyes widened as she put a miniscule amount of distance between her and Will. Natasha smirked before letting her gaze drift over to Phil's assistant. Darcy's head tilted to the side as if she were studying Will's features for signs of Clint. Her eyes widened immediately. "Whoa. He really does look like him. Tony, did you clone him for my birthday?"

"No, but at least now I know what to get you this year."

"There will be no cloning," Phil cut in before either Tony or Darcy could get attached to the idea. He stepped further into the room, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head slightly. Natasha was familiar with their handler. She knew that he was also appraising Will. She knew he saw the same things she saw when she watched Will. She wasn't surprised when he met her gaze across the room. She nodded. Phil frowned.

The silent exchange went largely ignored due to Clint choosing that very moment to make his grand entrance. There was a loud clanging as he managed to kick through the grate sealed shut specifically to prevent him from bursting into the room like this. He landed in a graceful crouch on the coffee table closest to the only people in the room that would be alarmed by a person dropping out of the ceiling. Natasha cursed silently as both Ethan and Jane pulled out their guns, shifting slightly so that they were protecting their two teammates. Natasha might have understood the logic behind the movement but that was her partner, in every sense of the word, they were aiming at. Her hand strayed towards her own weapon. She didn't want to add to the charged situation but she wasn't going to allow anyone to hurt her partner, whether they are a clone or possible twin. No one hurt him on her watch.

Clint seemed unfazed by the two guns pointing at him. Instead his eyes were locked on Will's. A matching set of gray blue eyes stared back at him. Clint cocked his head to the side.

"This is different. So… does someone wanna explain why there's a guy that looks like me sitting on the sofa?" he tensed. "You're not replacing me with a Life Model Decoy are you?"

"I never even thought about that," Tony murmured. Clint's eyes widened.

Phil visibly gave into the urge to roll his eyes. Apparently that was all the assurance Clint needed as he relaxed into a more comfortable position in front of his doppelganger. Will did not appear to be put off or worried about Clint's reaction. He was studying the archer in front of him with the same interest. Clint was sitting with his arms resting on his folded legs. He squinted at Will before nodding to some unheard dialogue.

"Hey," he greeted. "I'm Clint."

Will looked faintly amused. "Hi, I'm Will."

Clint smirked. "Cool."

"I guess."

And just when Natasha thought her life couldn't get any weirder than it was living with an alien god that inspired Norse mythology, a time displaced super soldier, a couple of mad scientists and a suicidally impulsive archer, she now realized the err of her ways. Because it was definitely getting weirder. Because the world somehow made more than one Clint Barton. She didn't know how this happened but she did know that the world was not ready for two of them. She didn't know if even the combined forces of the IMF team and the Avengers were ready for that.

"On second thought," Darcy mused, looking between the two men. "Maybe it would've been better if it was Loki."

Chapter Text

Clint Barton learned from an early age that sometimes you just needed to roll with whatever life threw at you. Sometimes it ended okay and other times… not so much. When his parents died, leaving him and Barney at the mercy of the foster care system, he barely batted an eye. He smiled when needed and tried his best to stay out of the way. When Barney told him they were leaving their latest home and joining the circus, he nodded and followed his brother without complaint. When Barney left him broken and bleeding by the hands of Duquesne, Clint refused to break down and instead built a wall to protect himself from ever trusting someone that much again. Of course that's when life threw Phil, Nick, Natasha and the Avengers his way. That was one time when it worked out for him. Of course there were still the bad times. Like when, he found himself mind raped, abducted and used as a tool to take over the Earth, he let it slide and made jokes about shooting Loki in the eye. One morning about a year after the Invasion, Clint went downstairs for breakfast only to find the trickster god looking like the whole world was crashing down around him. He was sitting at their kitchen table with such a hangdog expression that Clint didn't even bother reaching for the collapsible bow he kept on him at all times. Instead, he only shrugged and asked if Loki preferred waffles or pancakes.

The point was that Clint made it habit to not let things get to him. If he did, if he stopped for just one second, he felt like he would suffocate under the weight of all that life threw and continued to throw at him. So he smiled and played like none of it mattered. This was the only way he could sit in front of this man who looked so much like him. He cocked his head to the side, watching as Will did the same. Eyes he normally faced in the mirror every day looked back at him. This was freaky. They had the same grayish blue eyes with the weird color thing that made them look green sometimes. Will's brow did the same furrowed movement his did when he was thinking about something too hard. For all intents and purposes, they were identical. This was freaking strange. But he was an Avenger. He was used to strange. So he operated as he normally did.

"So…."

"So," Will murmured. He tore his gaze away from Clint to glance around the room. It wasn't hard to guess what caught his attention as they were surrounded by pure chaos and noise. The entire room was divided into a variety of conversations after Darcy's totally, Clint felt, inappropriate comment. And on that note, Clint was so going to get the assistant back for that one! To say that he was a crazed god with severe daddy issues, Loki was surprisingly complacent when asked to play tricks on the team. Besides Loki kinda owed Clint like a few dozen favors (and that was only for introducing the wonder of waffles to the god. He would be paying Clint back for the whole brainwashing and almost killing his mentor thing for life). "Huh, so that's what it looks like."

"What?" Clint blinked looking back at his… uh, person that looked like him.

"Jane told me that I get this smug look on my face when I'm plotting something. Usually revenge against Benji for doing whatever," Will replied. "Never really thought she was right but now…. that's interesting." He looked around again. "You think they're going to stop fighting anytime soon?"

Clint snorted. "They're just getting started. I think our team leaders are trying to out alpha each other." He glanced over his shoulder at Ethan and Steve who, though silent, were staring intensely at one another. Either Steve wanted to fondue with Ethan or Captain America himself was silently judging someone. Given the tiny smirk forming on the captain's lips, Clint was going with the latter. Though the first option would've made for some interesting stories.

"I guess this is going to take awhile," Will agreed, also watching Ethan and Steve. He raised an eyebrow before looking back to Clint. "This was definitely not how I expected my day to go. How about you?"

"I always anticipate that the day will take a detour into a new level of crazy never experienced before, usually around noon. That way when things like this happen, I'm not thrown."

Will's eyes widened. "Has anyone ever told you that you may be a little off?"

"Pretty much every SHIELD appointed psychiatrist since I was recruited," Clint grinned. Will nodded thoughtfully.

"Huh. That really makes me want to hurt people."

"Don't bother," Clint shrugged. "Tony's already fired like six of them and then had them blacklisted in the psychiatric community. The others have mysteriously disappeared. They were last seen leaving headquarters with a redhead and then never seen again."

"How odd," Will said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Clint decided that no matter if the man sitting opposite him was a clone, a doppelganger or even a LMD, he liked him. He wondered if Phil and Fury would let him keep him when this was all over and done with. "Stop looking at me like you want to put me in a box or something."

"Is this another one of those faces you make?"

"Somehow I get that feeling that one is all you."

Clint smiled a little brighter. "So how long you been with IMF?"

Will squirmed a little in his seat before exhaling. "About six years. They got me right after I finished grad school. You?"

"Uh, let's see its 2014… So uh, officially about fourteen years. But I've known them since I was fifteen."

"Fourteen years?! That means that you were recruited when you were seventeen?"

Clint blinked. "Yeah?"

"What about high school? What about college?"

"Never went to either of those," Clint shifted slightly. "I lived in the circus until I was like fifteen. Then some things happened and I moved on. Then some more things happened and Phil brought my sorry ass into SHIELD. Been here ever since."

He suddenly felt uncomfortable. The amusement and novelty of the identical faced man was quickly wearing off. He didn't know the other man but for some reason he didn't want him thinking that he was stupid. He had no idea why Will's opinion even mattered but it did. And he suddenly felt like he was lacking.

His self deprecating thoughts were interrupted by Will letting out a tiny gasp of pain. Clint watched as Bruce pulled back with a syringe full of the other man's blood. He raised an eyebrow at his older friend.

"Bruce, what did you and Fury talk about? You're supposed to get consent before you start taking blood to perform your mad scientist experiments with."

Bruce gave him a look that was three steps above rolling his eyes. He could work with that. Every day, he pushed the man that much closer to actually rolling his eyes. There were rumors floating around headquarters that Clint and Tony had a bet going to see which one of them could annoy the unflappable doctor. Clint really wanted to know who started that rumor because well… they knew too much.

"Don't need consent when you're under orders from Nick Fury himself," Bruce smirked, handling the syringe carefully. He handed Will a Band-aid. Clint leaned forward to get a better look at the plastic strip. Looks like it was Scooby this week. He approved. Most importantly, Will seemed to approve as well. The IMF agent's lips tilted somewhat as he placed the bandage over the tiny mark on his arm.

"Wait, why is Fury telling you to take blood samples?" Clint said, shaking his head. "How does Fury even know about this?"

"You're kidding, right?" Bruce asked, giving his patent pending 'I'm surrounded by idiots' look. "Clint, there is a man that looks like you. Not only looks like you, has the same birth date and birth place as you. Now I know I'm not the rocket scientist that Tony is but that just sends up all sorts of red flags."

"Red flags?" Clint protested. "I didn't see anyone red flagging that detective we met last year. Everyone was real content to let him go about his business. I didn't see you all doing any DNA tests on him."

"Number one," Bruce held up a finger. "He was older than you by nearly a decade. Number two, just because you don't see me or Tony working, doesn't mean that we're not doing something. So in conclusion, I tested him and Tony ran a background check. Jason Walsh is not genetically related to you in any way shape or form."

Clint cocked his head to the side. He was not disappointed about that one at all. Truth be told, the good detective was a little on the unusual side. For starters, he couldn't cook. Clint learned early that if you don't cook, you don't eat. To be fair, it wasn't that the other man didn't cook, it just that he sucked. Then there was the fact that the dude was totally banging another woman while giving googly eyes to his partner. He paused, glancing away from Will to Jane and then finally to Natasha. Maybe there was something about this identical face thing after all.

"Hey, don't you need blood from me too?" Clint asked, once he noticed Bruce walking away. The scientist gave him a look.

"You do know that you pretty much leave a DNA trail the minute you walk out the door, right? If you're not getting blown up, flung off something, shot or stabbed then you're being poisoned or tortured. I'm more than familiar with what your blood looks like by now."

Will's eyes widened but Clint was familiar enough with those eyes to recognize the faint look of approval that flashed through them. "You don't have the best track record, huh?"

Clint shrugged, grin playing at the edges of his lips again. "I may be a little accident prone."

"A little, he says," Bruce muttered. He put of his hands on Clint's head, ruffling the dirty blonde locks. Clint scowled. "You keep believing that one, Cupid. I'm going to go test this against one of the thousands of blood samples you have in the lab. I'll be back when I find something."

"It's like you really think you're going to find something," Clint called after him. He was predictably ignored. Sometimes it really sucked to be the so called little brother of the team. He offered Will a tight smile and went back to studying the other man. There had to be something different. He tilted his head to the side. "How do you feel about arrows?"

"Is that a trick question?" Will asked, worriedly. "Like the one with cavemen and the astronauts?"

"What one with the cavemen and astronauts?"

Will sighed, seeming to come to some internal conclusion. "Benji and Ethan once spent an hour arguing over who would win in a fight between cavemen and astronauts?"

Clint nodded slowly. "Do the astronauts have weapons?"

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Tony settled down in Bruce's lab with a packet of blueberries in one hand and the seemingly never absent tablet in the other. He remembered their first meeting almost three years ago. He liked to say that Tony changed a lot since then but he'd be lying. Tony was pretty much same but the other's ability to tolerate and deal with his eccentrics and ego had drastically improved. Bruce watched him out the corner of his eye. Fury's orders were to poke around in Will's file and find out as much about the man while Bruce examined the pair's blood samples. Bruce didn't know what they were expecting to find but Fury's tense voice over the phone told him that he expected to find something.

"What do you think this all means?" Tony finally cracked the silence hanging over the two genius friends. Bruce was surprised it took so long. "I mean the guy looks just like him. He even sounds the same. You don't think…."

"Think what?" Bruce asked, mildly, still bent over his computer. The great thing about Stark tech was that something as complicated as a DNA test could be completed in a minutes. It was the processing and the wondering how to break the news to a certain archer that took the most time.

"You don't think that Fury had him cloned, do you?" Tony continued either unaware or just ignoring Bruce's distraction. "I mean after the thing with Loki. He's always been a bit of a manipulative bastard and he's always talking about how much of an asset Clint is. What if he took it one step further? What if he actually had him cloned?"

Bruce thought about it for a minute before discarding the theory. While it made sense on one level, Bruce heard the concern in Fury's orders. He knew that the director was worried about the connection between Will and Clint. He wanted them to look into this for Clint's sake, not because he was hiding something. Fury was as in the dark about this as they all were and if it was one thing that Nick Fury did not enjoy, it was not being in the know.

"I think…." Bruce started. "I think that there is something really simple going on that none of us wants to talk about. We're throwing around theories like cloned and brainwashed and LMDs. But what if it's something simpler than that. We're so used to looking at the big stuff that we tend to forget the simple more obvious answers."

"Like what?" Bruce sat back, gesturing towards the screen in front of him. Tony raised a silent eyebrow but slowly rose to join him. He read over Bruce's shoulder and frowned when he didn't see what was so obvious to Bruce. "What exactly am I looking at here?"

"DNA samples from Clint and Will. As you can see, they're identical. That means he's not a clone. He's got organic tissue and actual human organs, so he's not a LMD. He's too genetically identical to Clint to be a doppelganger. So that leaves only one answer. Occam's razor says that the simplest answer is often correct."

"Then you're saying that…" Tony trailed off as his tablet beeped from where he left it on the table. He reached for it, looking over the data before flicking it to the larger screen in the lab. "JARVIS scanned every hospital in Iowa for that date and came up with two hits. There are birth certificates for two boys born on that date at the same hospital. Clinton Francis Barton born to John and Mary Barton at 1:40 PM. Wait, really? His middle name is Francis?" Tony paused with glee. "JARVIS, remind me later to mock Legolas for that one."

"Of course, sir. Wouldn't want to forget something like that in the midst of Agent Barton's impending familial crisis."

Tony narrowed his eyes while Bruce covered a laugh. "You were saying, Tony. You found Will's birth certificate?"

"Yeah, I did. William Michael Brandt born to Dr. James and Emily Brandt at 1:30 PM. They have two different sets of parents but identical DNA that proves they're biologically related. How is that possible?"

"Sir, it appears that the birth records supplied by the hospital that afternoon have been forged."

Now it was Bruce's turn to frown. "The birth certificates were forged?"

"That seems to be the case," JARVIS reported.

"So we have two identical looking men with matching DNA, secret organization ties and falsified birth records," Tony summarized. "No, nothing seems suspicious here at all."

"We have an even bigger problem than that," Bruce pointed. "Who exactly is supposed to be the one that breaks this one to Clint?"

Tony's mouth opened for a second before snapping shut. Before Bruce could even process that the mighty Tony Stark was speechless, Tony was speaking again. "JARVIS, call Agent Coulson down here."

"Of course, sir."

Bruce gave Tony a look. He shrugged. "Clint is his pet assassin. Let him risk getting skewered by an arrow."

"This coming from the guy that threw a hissy fit when his lawyer told him that it was legally impossible to adopt a nearly thirty year old man as his brother and then still needed Pepper to stop him from trying to change Clint's last name to Stark. And I'm pretty sure you haven't given up the fight almost two years after the fact."

Tony sniffed. "All I'm saying is what good is it being a billionaire thing if I can't use that money to cater to my every whim? And my whim is to adopt the thirty one year old ex carnie. What's wrong with that?!"

"You know how they say there's a fine line between genius and madness?"

"Yeah?"

"You killed the line."

"That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Growing up, Will always wanted a brother. At first, he was willing to accept a sister but as he got older and girls started looking good, he realized that if he had a sister, he'd be in jail. He knew how he looked at girls and couldn't stand the idea of someone looking at his imaginary sister that way. So he changed to wishing for a brother.

His parents were older when they had him. So they weren't always able to keep up with the small child. When it became clear that his memory was a little sharper than others, his parents were confused as to what to do with him. His father tried to nurture his memory. He gave him books and shared his own knowledge with his son. His mother, on the other hand, was distant. The way she looked at him when she didn't know he could see her was not of love or devotion. It was of carefully concealed fear. She was scared of his ability to remember things. Of the way that he analyzed everything in a room within seconds. He never understood it but he always made sure to avoid her when his father was away.

Dr. James Brandt was a neurosurgeon and apparently one of the best in the country. He was always traveling to some state to speak about his vast array of knowledge or to perform some risky surgery. It was James who gave a name to what Will always thought was a nifty memory trick: eidetic memory. He nurtured his son's talent. He encouraged him to use it. But Will soon found that his mother wasn't the only one who thought it was an odd gift. Other children thought he was weird. Even teachers began to dislike the child that remembered everything he read from a textbook and corrected them when they were wrong in the classroom. The only ally he had was his father… and then on Will's fourteenth birthday, he was gone.

Will wanted a brother to share the burden of being different. If he had the eidetic memory, surely his sibling would too. They could be freaks together. He wouldn't have to bear the brunt of their mother's emotional distance alone. He could have a friend and a partner in crime. He could share his knowledge with his brother just like his father had. He wouldn't have to be alone. But a brother never came and Will learned to adjust. He learned to be quiet and keep his observations to himself. He didn't have friends so much as acquaintances and found he was okay with that. He learned to enjoy his own company though he still secretly longed for a little brother to share his genetic burden with.

When he was twenty five, he finished grad school with a Masters in Criminal Justice and about a dozen government agencies interested in recruiting him. The offers were all lucrative but there was one, SHIELD, that held some promise. That is until he was approached by the man that would eventually become the Secretary of IMF. He was recruited into the agency and immediately put behind a desk where his brain could work for the benefit of the agency. But that wasn't why he wanted to be an agent. He wanted to be out in the field. And so he was... for about two years. And then Croatia happened and he retreated back to his desk with no intention of ever emerging again. And then Ethan and the Ghost Protocol happened and he found himself back in the field. He loved it but Croatia left its scars. Every decision he made now was shadowed with self doubt. He loved his team but always wondered when he was going to make a mistake that would cost one of them their lives. With the anniversary of Croatia rolling around, Will was left wondering if IMF was really the place for him.

He knew the mission they were currently on was for him. It was to give him time to either pull it together or pull out. He knew it but it didn't make anything easier for him. He was still lost in his own head. It was times like this that he wished he had someone like him to help him figure out all the thoughts floating through his head. Benji tried but he would never understand what it was like to remember everything and have no way of filtering out what was real or what wasn't sometimes. His brother would. His imaginary ideal brother that he longed for his whole life. His brother would know what to say to help him out. The brother that he always imagined was his perfect counter part.

But reality always had a way of creeping in and bashing him over the head. Because twenty six years after he first admitted to himself that he wanted a brother, he got one. And he was a little concerned about exactly what the universe was trying to say.

"Let me get this straight," Clint said, breaking the silence that settled over the room following Agent Coulson's report of Dr. Banner and Stark's findings. "We're two biologically related, perfectly identical looking men with falsified birth records and secret organization ties." He shook his head. "Nothing shady about that at all."

"That's what I said," Tony mumbled, from where he sat behind Phil He elbowed Bruce beside him. "I told you he was like my long lost little brother."

"Yeah, well he actually is Will's long lost little brother," Phil corrected, cutting off whatever retort Bruce was about to deliver. Will was mildly disappointed. He had only been around these people for the better part of three hours and he could already tell that fight between those two would be hilarious. Maybe he was more like Clint than he thought. "How about we deal with that before we deal with another one of your crazy plots to adopt Clint?"

"Is that why I keep getting mail addressed to Clint Stark?" Clint asked, scrunching up his nose. "I thought that was weird."

"It's only because it's new," Tony replied, slipping an arm around Clint's shoulders. "Once you give it time, you'll learn to adjust. And then everything will be fine."

"Said every psychotic kidnapper in the history of ever," Natasha murmured, shaking her head.

"Can we possibly focus for just a minute here?" Steve asked, his voice reflecting that he did this a lot. It might have a lot to do with the fact that he was frigging Captain America. All eyes fell on him and silence settled over the sidebar conversations. "You're saying that Clint and Agent Brandt are actually twins?"

"Identical," Bruce clarified. "The DNA test proved that much."

"JARVIS is still trying to crack through the encryption on the birth records to find out who forged them," Tony added. "Once we figure who did it, maybe we can get an answer as to why they did it."

Will simply blinked. When he said he wanted a brother, he didn't think it would be quite like this. Because it was beyond obvious to everyone in the room that while Will didn't mind the reveal, Clint wasn't exactly happy. Will was familiar enough with his own emotional tells to see that his newfound twin wasn't jumping for joy at having a brother. It seemed the only thing keeping Clint in the room at the moment was Phil's steady and unwavering gaze. Will knew he had a tendency to get lost in his own head and really didn't make for the best company all the time but this was a bit of an extreme reaction. Wasn't it?

"Jane, would you care to spar with me?" Natasha asked, suddenly. "Clint's occupied and he's the only one here who presents even a slight challenge." Jane's eyes darted between the two brothers and Natasha before settling on Will. He nodded his head.

"Sure. I can cross sparring with the Black Widow off my bucket list."

"She's just kidding about that, right?" Benji asked, watching the two women disappear. Will wasn't sure Jane knew how to joke about things like that. The woman was deadly and she enjoyed every minute of it. She might've just met her soul sister in Natasha. "I think I'm going to go watch."

Predictably most of the others agreed. Will knew it had less to do with watching two very attractive women fight and more with trying to give Clint and Will alone time. For a bunch of superheroes and spies, they were remarkably unsubtle. Especially when Thor claimed that he had no interest in watching the two women spar and was forcibly dragged from the room by Bruce and Steve. Phil left shortly after claiming that he needed to report in with Fury despite the fact that he sent Darcy to do that very same thing not too long ago. This left the two brothers alone for the first time since the big news was revealed twenty minutes before.

The silence that hung over them was beyond awkward. Will found himself longing for the bordering on insane babbling from earlier. He studied the identical face across from him. Clint was worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Will could already see a bit of blood from where he bit too hard but he didn't say a word. He got the feeling that Clint needed to make the first move and so he waited. He didn't need to wait long.

"I had a brother," Clint blurted out. Will raised an eyebrow. "Well, I still have him. I guess. I don't think he's dead. He might be. I haven't seen him in like sixteen years. We didn't exactly part on the best of terms. But anyway, I had a brother once."

"Uh, that's… good?" he trailed off, unsure what he was supposed to think about that. "I was an only child. Grew up with just my parents."

"My parents died when I was seven," Clint replied, his shoulders hunching down. "Before that my dad used to beat us. Don't worry. It was only when he was drunk. Then again, he was almost always drunk." Clint laughed bitterly. "I always thought I didn't look anything like them. Barney is the spitting image of our dad with our mom's eyes. I don't look like any of them. Guess I know why now."

"What happened to him?" Will asked, despite himself. "What happened to Barney? Why'd you guys stop talking?"

Clint raked a hand over his face before laughing a little hysterically. "I guess it was a mutual thing stemming from the fact that he stood by while my mentor tried to murder me. He felt that I had it coming since I ratted Duquesne out in the first place. He didn't say a word when he beat the hell out of me. He just left me there to die." He looked up suddenly. Blue met blue and Will found himself breaking eye contact. "You know what the screwed up part is?"

"Was the whole thing not screwed up? I'm confused."

"If he was to come waltzing through that door right now and said that he wanted forgiveness, I would've given it to him. Because he was my brother. But… he's not. I… I don't know… what am I supposed to do with that?"

Will opened his mouth but closed it just as quick. He didn't know what Clint was supposed to do. He had his own doubts and confusion. But all he had was distant mother. It seemed that Clint had another series of problems in itself. Although….

"What about your mother? What was she like?"

"Mom," Clint whispered. His lips quirked in a smile. "She was… the best. She used to be a nurse at a big hospital or something like that. But she quit when I was born. She said she needed to be a full time mom since I was a special needs kid."

Will's brow raised as he took in his brother. Nothing about the SHIELD agent screamed special needs but he didn't think that the man would make something like that up either. Clint caught his look and snorted. He reached up to his ear and pulled out a tiny, almost microscopic device. He held it closer for his brother to see.

"It's a hearing aid. I was born with almost sixty percent hearing loss in both ears. A mission a few years after I joined SHIELD took out another twenty." He held up his free hand while depositing the tiny device with the other. "It's cool. I've adjusted to it. It doesn't even faze me anymore. Might be deaf but I've got kick ass eyesight to more than make up for it."

Will nodded. "My roommate in college was deaf. He was the only person that could really stand to talk to me."

Now it was Clint's turn to blink. "Your life is more than a little depressing."

"So I've been told."

He met Clint's gaze again and wasn't surprised to see the humor shining in the depths of his eyes. Will knew without really understanding how that the look was reflected on his own face. He felt his lips twitch upward. Maybe this twin thing wasn't so bad after all.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark was quiet. Phil felt secure enough in his manhood and rapidly depleting sanity to admit that this scared the hell out of him. Tony Stark was never quiet. Even when he was slaving over a project for days at a time, he was running his mouth. But now he was eerily still. Phil found the eccentric genius sprawled across one of the sofas in the Tower's common area. His tablet was resting beside his hand. For all intents and purposes, Tony looked like he was asleep. But Phil knew better. He knew this newest twist in their lives was irking him more than he let on. Tony didn't take well to change and finding the long lost twin of the man he considered a brother with both bearing forged birth records was a huge change. Tony wasn't going to rest until they figured out what they were dealing with. So that begged the question of…

"What are you doing?" Tony's lips curved downwards into a frown though his eyes remained closed. Phil already knew that Tony knew he was standing there. He was just trying to figure out what angle the genius was playing at this time. "Tony?"

"If you must know, I'm meditating."

"You? Meditating? Okay, I'll bite. Why are you meditating?"

"I'm trying to figure out what I've done to make you hate me so," Tony replied, dramatically. He opened his eyes and Phil had to shake his head at the all too familiar twinkle he found in the other man's eyes. He really was a pain in the rear.

"What now? Still having trouble cracking who forged the records? I would've thought that a couple of forged birth certificates would be no match for the great Tony Stark."

"Your sarcasm, while surprisingly witty, is very much not appreciated. I'll have you know that this is beyond classified," Tony replied, sitting up and retrieving his neglected tablet. "Whoever forged these records must've been really high up in the cloak and dagger department. This is extremely classified. Beyond Fury classified and I'm pretty sure that Fury knows stuff that only God knows. So this is more than a little terrifying."

Phil frowned at this bit of information. At first it was just confusing that Clint and Will both had forged birth records but the more they dug into this, the more he realized that this was bigger than he originally thought it was. That just figured. Clint couldn't just have a long lost twin brother. No he had to have fake birth records and some government conspiracy behind it. The kid never did anything in half measures.

"Do whatever you need to do to crack this, Stark. I'll cover you if you run into any trouble."

"I'm touched, Phil. You really do care!" Tony smirked. "But as awesome as it is that you're willing to help me commit all sorts of criminal felonies, it's really unnecessary. I already cracked it about ten minutes ago. The great Tony Stark wins again."

"Why am I not surprised? So I guess that was just all your very special way of seeking attention, huh?"

"What can I say? I felt that this story was all about Clint. I needed to get my moment to shine."

"Oh, you shine alright, Stark," Phil retorted, laughing despite himself. "Drop the dramatics and just tell me who our mystery forger is."

"Right," Tony tapped the screen, reading the results. "The forgeries were completed at a genetics research facility called Cadmus Pharmaceuticals. It seems they were done by one of the employees…. Dr. James Brandt."

"Wait, as in Will's father?" Phil stopped short as another thought occurred to him. "Did you say Cadmus Pharmaceuticals? That place was shut down almost thirty years ago by SHIELD. They had ties with HYDRA."

"And Will's dad worked there?" Tony's frown grew more genuine as he started tapping more furiously. "This is a list of all of the employees that worked at Cadmus during the time that Dr. Brandt was employed there." Tony flicked the information off the tablet onto one of the many screens littering the room. Both Phil and Tony sighed when another name stood out to them. "Mary Barton was employed as a nurse during the same time that Dr. Brandt worked there."

"Cadmus was shut down in 1988 when SHIELD was finally able to get enough proof that they were affiliated with HYDRA. There was an anonymous tip received from somewhere within in Cadmus but we were never able to identify who made the call. SHIELD raided their headquarters and managed to track down all the projects but one. It was called, get this, Project Rebirth."

"Genetic research facility with a name ripped straight out of a comic book, HYDRA and a yet another Project Rebirth. Yeah, none of that sounds at all terrifying or creepy."

Phil snorted. "The project was considered dead in the water. It was deemed a failure by Cadmus and all records of it were expunged. The only thing we knew about it was that it existed. And that they were experimenting with the super soldier serum again."

"Because that always ends well. And besides what made them think they were suddenly going to get it right that time? Naming it Project Rebirth was inspired."

"Yes, it was. So naturally SHIELD was very interested in any findings they had but there was nothing. The mission briefings indicated that the key staff working on the project disappeared shortly before the raid. The only thing any of the staff members that were taken into custody would or could say about the project was that they learned from the Red Skull incident and weren't working with adult subjects. They were testing alternative methods of building a super soldier. We know that there was some genetic testing down on female subjects but like I said all records from Project Rebirth 2.0 were wiped. We don't know what happened past those initial tests."

Tony tensed. "Alternative methods with genetics? They were doing testing with female test subjects? What if they weren't trying to turn a regular man into a super soldier anymore. What if they were building one through genetic testing. What if they did actually succeed, say with little adorable blonde genetically altered babies that grow into equally adorable blonde men with crazy agnility and almost insanely good eyesight and memory?"

Phil almost let his jaw drop because holy hell. Why had they not thought about that angle before? "Oh, that's not good."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, for the record, I'm so not going to be the one to tell Clint this one."

"Tell Clint what?"

Both Tony and Phil jumped, startled at the sudden voice behind them. They whirled around to see matching faces of confusion and amusement staring back. "What are you doing down here?"

Clint's brow furrowed as he looked between Tony and Phil. "I live here, remember? We got bored with the brotherly bonding, so I figured I'd show Will around. So what are you supposed to be hiding from me this time?" he tilted his head to the side. "If this is about Santa, don't worry. Thor already told me that he is real."

"Wait, Santa Claus is real?" Will asked, almost despite himself. Clint turned to his twin with a solemn expression on his face and nodded. The older of the two men looked even more concerned. He bit his lip before hesitantly asking another question. "And the Easter Bunny?"

"Oh, that one I already knew. I met him once. He's ornery bastard. Big too," Clint confirmed. "And he sounds Australian."

Will frowned. "Well, it's official. My entire childhood is a lie."

"There's two of them," Phil murmured, shaking his head. "Before we shatter anymore of your childhood delusions, we do have some information that we need to share with you. We know who forged your records."

"Really? Who?" Will asked.

"It was your father," Phil replied, calmly. He saw the confusion on Will's face and even though this was not Clint, Phil felt as protective about him. Phil felt just as uneasy seeing the look of sadness and betrayal on Will's face as he did with Clint.

He motioned for the twins to have a seat and then explained what he and Tony learned. Ten minutes later, they were both sitting side by side on the sofa trying to absorb the latest twist. Phil had a feeling that there would be plenty more coming at the rate they were going. He studied the matched set in front of him. Will was chewing on his lip. His eyes were staring intently at a spot on his crisp suit pants. Beside him Clint was absently tugging on the bottom of his ear. Phil had enough experience with the archer to know that was a habit born from sheer anxiety and only manifested when he felt truly overwhelmed. Phil noticed the nervous tic a lot when Clint was first brought into SHIELD. But he was older now and able to cope a lot better (sometimes). A few quiet moments passed and finally he dropped his hand to his lap and let out a shaky breath.

"So basically…. we're test tube babies?" Clint ran a hand through his hair while Will gaped at him. "Well, I owe an apology to every kid I ever hit for calling me that when I was in the group home. Turns out they were right!"

"Clint!" Phil admonished but the effect was ruined by Will bursting into slightly hysterical laugher. Judging from the smug sense of satisfaction on his brother's face, that was Clint's intention from the beginning. Phil shook his own head in wonder. Barely six hours since they knew the other one even existed and they were already acting like brothers.

"So where do we go from here?" Will asked, once he managed to get his laughter under control. "I mean are we going to keep looking into this?"

"Of course," Phil answered. "We're only speculating about your origins. We need to know more information about your ties to Cadmus before we can really say that you two are a byproduct of any of the projects that were run there."

"You know what this means, right?" Tony asked, suddenly. Phil raised an eyebrow at the cat that ate the canary grin on his face and shook his head.

"No, Tony. This does not mean that you can adopt them both!"

"Why the hell not? They were grown in a lab! That makes them free market goods!"

"On that note, I'm going to go check in with Benji, Jane and Ethan," Will mumbled. Clint's head snapped in the IMF agent's direction. He raised an eyebrow. An identical eyebrow rose in response. "I'm okay. I just… I think I'm going to be here for awhile. No sense in them sticking around."

Phil watched as they continued to carry on another whole conversation with only eye movements. He was both impressed and disturbed by familiarity between them. It took Clint months (okay, honestly years) to trust people. But he clearly trusted Will. He could tell that this was rare for Will as well. To say that they were separated at birth, they truly were comfortable with one another in a way that Phil had never seen from Clint before. It was almost like they were falling back into a pattern as opposed to learning a new one. Phil sat down on the arm of the chair in thought.

"Just because I was made in a test tube, doesn't mean I'm not real! Everything that makes Steve all super and awesome was made in a test tube. He's real!"

"Steve is like 67% real! Basically everything about you is chemical. You're like 12% real boy. So therefore those laws about adoption don't apply to you."

"Did it ever occur to you that if the laws don't apply to me, that means you can't actually adopt me?!"

"Dammit."

Now there was a pattern that was never going to change. Despite how much Phil wished it would.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Will was lost. He had no idea how he managed to get lost in a building that admittedly was over fifty stories high but the basic layout of the building didn't seem that strange. That is until he started trying to find his way back to the others. By now his memory usually would've kicked in and he would've seen something familiar but his mind just wasn't working today. In the span of six hours everything he knew about his life was turned on its head. His parents weren't his parents. He had a brother – an identical twin at that. Then there was the not insignificant fact that he might have been made in a test tube. Honestly, it wasn't like he didn't like Clint. His little brother was quite possibly insane but he had a good heart. He really was looking forward to learning how his brain worked (or as much as he probably could). It was just…. this couldn't have come at worse time. His dedication to IMF was questionable at best right now. He didn't know what all this was going to lead to but he was almost positive it wouldn't end with IMF.

The thought depressed him more than it should. He wouldn't miss the agency. They'd burned him one too many times. No, he'd miss his team. For the first time he had people that knew what he was capable of that didn't that look at him like he was some kind of freak. They accepted him. They treated him like he was family. That would be the part he'd miss the most: his team. He'd miss Benji and Ethan and… Jane. He would really miss Jane. He didn't know what they had but it would be over if he tried to leave.

"You're making that face again."

Will jumped at the voice of the very woman he'd been ruminating on. She was wearing her regular clothes again but her face was flushed from a workout. She looked beautiful. Especially with the soft smile curving her lips.

"Oh, and exactly what face is that?"

"William Brandt Face #1: Thinking Too Much," she replied, smile growing wider. "So what are you thinking about so hard?"

"Just….." he sighed. "I have a brother, Jane."

Her eyes softened. "Yeah, you do. Are you okay?"

"No, I guess, yes. I don't know. It's all just kind of confusing right now."

Jane took his hand in hers and squeezed lightly. "I know but you know I'm here when you're ready to talk. I know that you need to sort it all out in that brain of yours."

Will laughed faintly, looking into her eyes. "Thanks."

"Anytime," she replied, her voice barely a whisper. The thoughts that were previously pounding at his brain to get his attention ceased. It seemed like time itself stopped as he stared into the dark, endless brown of her eyes. So of course, the quiet moment was shattered a mere seconds later as Natasha, Steve, Ethan and Benji rounded the corner. The two agents smiled at one another before separating just as Benji approached them, hands already in motion.

"There you are!"

"Here I am," Will replied, raising an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. We were just looking for you before we headed out."

Will swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat. They were leaving? He wasn't sure why that bothered, especially since he was the one that was coming out here to tell them that they could leave. So why did it seem like the world just broke apart at the seams?

"Will?"

"Huh?" he swallowed, realizing that Benji was still speaking and apparently waiting for a response to some unheard question. "What'd you say?"

"I was asking if there was anything in particular you wanted from the equipment," Benji repeated, rolling his eyes. "I figured we'd just leave it for the next team. Personally, I kind of have my eye on that new mask machine. Maybe we could convince Tony to take a look at it. Make it better so it doesn't malfunction when it's actually needed. I could ask him when we get back."

"Wait, you're coming back?"

Benji's jaw dropped slightly as he and Jane stared at Will with confusion in their eyes. "You thought we were leaving you?"

Will flushed, trying desperately to ignore the sympathetic and understanding looks from the two Avengers. Apparently they were all too used to this with Clint. Good to know that their abandonment issues ran on a genetic level. Jane stepped forward, once again taking his hand.

"Will, we're going back to the hotel to get our clothes and personal stuff. Tony and the other Avengers offered us a few rooms to use as long as we needed. I told you that I was going be here for you. That would be a little difficult if I wasn't actually here."

He nodded shakily, not really trusting his voice in the moment. Jane understood however and gave him another smile before pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I'll grab the long range weapons," she whispered in his ear. He smiled. "We'll be back. Call me if you need anything while we're out." He nodded again.

She let him go, following after the other men. As they descended in the elevator, Will could make out Benji complaining about his constant feelings of worthlessness and "unnecessary martyr complex". Again, it was something he shared with Clint as both Natasha and Steve were agreeing with him. Will shook his head and made a mental note to kick the tech when they returned. And with that thought a goofy smile spread across his face. They were coming back. His team was willing to stay with him. They weren't leaving him to face what he hoped would be the most life altering event he would ever have to experience. They really did care.

Will shook off his somewhat saccharine thoughts as he realized he was not alone. He looked around the corridor but couldn't see anyone. But he couldn't shake the too familiar feeling of being watched. He smiled softly as he remembered his first encounter with his brother. Almost unconsciously his eyes drifted up to meet a matching set in the vent above his head. Through the grate cover he could just make out Clint's head and shoulders and the smug smirk on his face.

"You know that's kind of creepy."

"So I've been told."

Will grinned. "So what happened? You get bored negotiating our status as real human beings or something?"

"That ended when Tony started acting weirder than usual. He kept doing the zoning out while still carrying on a functional conversation thing he does when he's reaching some major conclusion about one of his thousands of experiments. Then he started looking at his tablet. Suddenly he needed to show Phil some upgrades to his suit."

Will frowned, still looking up at his twin. "Upgrades to his suit?"

Clint snorted. "Yeah, that's Tony code for 'I need to tell you something that I don't want to say in front of the wrong person.' We've been a team for like two years now. You'd think he would understand by now that I know what that means."

"So that's why you're up there?"

"Nah. I figure he'll end up telling me before the night is over. Tony can't keep something a secret to save his life. He was Iron Man for like a day before he held a press conference announcing it to the world. So yeah, he'll blab. I'm up here because I got bored sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen. For some reason, I felt like I had to go this way."

Will felt the same goofy smile he had when Jane and Benji promised to come back for him forming on his lips again. Even though they barely knew each other, Clint still felt compelled to come this way. His twin narrowed his eyes. Will felt his smile growing wider at the growing suspicion in his younger brother's gaze.

"What are you smiling about?"

"Nothing."

"Don't tell me it's nothing. It's so something."

Will laughed. "Nope, it's nothing."

"Come on, tell me!"

"Come down here and make me."

Clint's lip curled up as he looked down at his brother. "Why don't you come up here?"

"Yeah, no. You're the one that wants to know. And I…. really don't care for heights."

Clint was silent for a moment before he twisted his body around and jumped down from the vent. He landed neatly beside his brother. Will was struck by how much the younger man acted like a cat. All grace and ease and attitude. Clint's brow was furrowed even as eyes studied his brother with alien interest.

"You don't like heights?"

"No."

"How the hell are we related?"

Will rolled his eyes, noting the smile on Clint's lips that took the sting out of the words. "I find myself wondering that one too."

"Hey, since Tony is hiding stuff from me yet again, you want to help me shoot some of his really pricey art collection on the roof?"

"Sure."
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Bruce looked up from his experiment when the door to his lab opened. He half expected to see Clint and his twin but instead was met with a frantic Tony and a bemused Phil. The bemusement was largely due to the fact the younger man was dragging him by his sleeve. Once they were in the lab, Tony made a big show of checking every vent and air duct in the room before taking a deep breath and facing his expectant audience.

"What exactly did you want to tell me that you didn't want Clint hearing now?"

Tony blinked in surprise. "How'd you know I wanted to tell you something?"

"Oh, did he pull the 'I'm going to show you suit upgrades' line?" Bruce asked, smiling at Tony's confusion. "You know that's pretty transparent, right?"

"Really?" Tony murmured to himself. "Well that sucks. Anyway, I did need to tell you something and I'm not really sure how or even if we should tell Clint or Will."

"What could possibly be worse than telling them that they were probably created in a test tube?" Bruce's brow furrowed. He clearly missed something here. Phil nodded in his direction. "We'll fill you in later."

"There's another one," Tony answered, ignoring their aside.

"Another what?"

"Another brother," he snapped, impatiently.

Bruce was satisfied when Phil looked as surprised as he felt. "They're triplets?"

"When I was initially searching the birth records I found another boy born that day, Kenneth Kitsom. He was born twelve minutes before Will. But I didn't give any more thought because we were only looking for Clint and Will. I almost forgot about it until we were looking at the list of the Cadmus employees. The project coordinator was named Katherine Kitsom. I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. But it kept bugging me. So I Googled the guy and this is what I found."

Tony flicked the picture from his tablet to Bruce's computer screen. The man was wearing army fatigues and was smiling brightly but the face staring back at them was one they saw every day.

"Oh my god," Phil muttered, sitting down heavily. "There's another one."

"There was," Tony clarified. "Kenneth James Kitsom was declared dead after a road side bomb destroyed the transport he was riding in Afghanistan." Bruce noticed the distant look in Tony's eyes but he moved past the moment quicker than he had in the past. "He's legally dead. I've had JARVIS look to see if there was any other way he lived but Kenneth is dead and has been for the past five years."

Bruce exhaled slowly. "Yeah, I can see why you might hesitate to tell them about that." It was bad enough that they were dealing with finding one another for the first time in thirty five years but to throw a dead brother in the mix would probably overwhelm them both. No, they probably didn't need to know that right now.

Phil rose to his feet with his eyes locked on the picture of Kenneth. "This stays between us for right now. We will need to tell them eventually but for now, this information doesn't leave this room. It stays between us." He smoothed his tie and picked at a piece of imaginary lint on his shirt. "In the meantime, I want you two to do whatever it takes to find everything you can about Cadmus and Project Rebirth 2.0. If they're really a product of it, I want to know exactly what they were hoping to achieve and what they did achieve."

"Where are you going?" Tony asked, even as he pulled the picture down.

"It's time to bring the director up to speed on this," Phil replied. His voice was neutral as always but Bruce could see that this recent turn had shaken him. That made Bruce even more concerned than he was before. Phil was never shaken. He looked up to meet Tony's equally worried gaze. "Remember, this stays between us. You know Clint. He will try and go off on his own. And so far all personnel associated with this project except for Clint and Will is dead. Let's make sure that they stay alive."

With that said, Phil was out the lab, presumably on his way back to HQ. A tense silence settled in his wake as both Tony and Bruce were left to think about that last part. Bruce only had half the information but even he was able to make the connections here. They were totally and completely screwed and clueless.

"You know," Tony started, absently twirling a pen in his hand. "This is all your fault."

"How high did you have to jump to reach that conclusion?"

"If you never suggested the whole Tony Duty thing then I would've been happily sitting in the lab working on upgrading Natasha's suit to make it less prone to taking bullets. But no! You made up Tony Duty and Thor takes anything with the words 'duty' and 'honor' seriously. So this is your fault!"

Bruce nodded calmly. "You feel better?"

"No," Tony replied, petulantly. He paused as a loud crash sounded above their heads. Tony closed his eyes. "JARVIS, please tell me that crazy bird is not on the roof shooting my priceless art collection."

"Agent Barton is not shooting your priceless art collection on the roof." There was a pause. "Agents Barton and Brandt are shooting your priceless art collection on the roof. It would appear they're competing. On a surprising note, Agent Brandt is only two statues below Agent Barton."

Tony growled. "I don't think Phil needs to worry about keeping it from them because I'm going to kill them myself."

Bruce patted his friend on the shoulder before closing his previous experiment and taking Tony's tablet out of his hand. He had a feeling that Phil was right. Whatever was going on was a lot bigger than a set of long lost twins. Everyone involved with this was dead except for them. He resolved to find out everything he could about Cadmus before Clint ended up another victim in this case. He felt the Hulk rumbling in the back of his mind. But his other half knew that his form of protection wouldn't be necessary at the moment. That Bruce needed his mind clear to do some research so that they had a target for the Hulk to smash. And he damn well was going to smash anything that threatened Clint's existence.

"Oh, Agent Brandt appears to be tied with Agent Barton. Though that may be due to the fact that Agent Barton is blindfolded."

"He's shooting with his eyes covered?!" Tony squeaked. "I'm going to slaughter both of them!"

Bruce looked up briefly before snorting in amusement. The Hulk distantly echoed the sentiment. Maybe he wouldn't smash everything that threatened Clint. Because sometimes Cupid did bring it on himself.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Phil followed the directions on his phone carefully. The second he was in the building his phone chimed with a text message from his always cryptic superior. From what he could tell, Fury was in a section of the building that didn't exist… at least on paper. Phil had the second highest clearance in the building and he was certain that there were still sections of this building that he knew nothing about. But he was about to find out about one of those right now.

He turned down a corridor that again shouldn't exist and found Fury standing in front of a window. Though his back was facing Phil, the agent was under no delusions that Fury didn't know he was there. Instead of questioning the cloak and dagger routine, he stepped beside the man. He found that what he previously thought was a window was instead the glass wall for one of what appeared to be an interrogation room. Inside the room sat an older woman. Phil estimated she was in her mid-sixties. Her dark brown hair was streaked with silver. Her eyes were darting around the room nervously.

"Sir?" Phil finally question when it appeared that Fury wasn't going to comment on why he had a seemingly harmless looking woman sitting in an interrogation room that shouldn't exist. "Who is she?"

"She's the person that is going to give us a little insight into our mystery," Fury replied, never tearing his eye away from the fidgeting woman inside the room.

"Who is she?"

"Emily Brandt."

Chapter Text

Everyone makes mistakes. They're only human. It's to be expected. No one is perfect. As far as Nick Fury was concerned, those were all just tired and lame excuses. No, he was very far from perfect and definitely very human but he really should've known better. He screwed up big time and now sixteen years later it was here to bite him in the ass. As the director of SHIELD, his mistakes were serious and had lasting consequences. In 1998, he made the biggest mistake of his career and it was Clint that was going to pay the price. That just didn't seem fair.

Clint Barton had the dubious honor of being the youngest SHIELD agent in history. And after pretty much raising the kid from the age of seventeen, Fury was fairly certain that he would be the only agent with that title. He knew Clint wouldn't mind. He held onto his title with some obscene amount of pride. He enjoyed telling everyone how Phil brought his sorry ass into SHIELD. To be fair, it was a mostly true story. Phil was the one to ultimately bring Clint in and he did actually become an agent in training at the age of seventeen. But the part of the story that was always left out was that he crossed paths with the two senior agents almost two years before... in a HYDRA compound.

In 1988, Nick headed the team that raided and brought down Cadmus Pharmaceuticals. He took professional pride in that raid as it was what earned him his promotion to director. But the fact that they had information on all the projects save one bothered him personally. Especially given the subject of the project. It wasn't enough that the scientists were using the same name as the original super soldier experiment but they seemed to have made some breakthrough that none of the seemingly hundreds of people who have emulated the study after Erskine could. If there was anything that they did differently… if there was even a slight chance that they created anything, whether a success or a failure, than it was in the best interest of everyone that SHIELD knew about it. But ten years after the fact, there was nothing.

When his analysts received Intel about a previously abandoned HYDRA compound linked to the defunct Cadmus suddenly going back online, Nick jumped on the information. As far as he was concerned this was his opportunity to finally close the mystery that surrounded Project Rebirth 2.0. Instead he got a compound full of dead HYDRA agents, a snarky blood soaked teen aged circus refugee and the sinking realization that he was probably never going to get the answers he was looking for. It was also the advent of his sixteen year mistake.

At the age of thirty one, Clint looked every bit like the formidable opponent he was but his easy going nature and random view of the world tended to mask just how dangerous he really was. There were many who underestimated the man because he didn't give off the tough assassin vibe that Natasha did simply by breathing. Those people soon learned that Clint might be even more deadly than his partner. At the age of fifteen, however, Clint gave off the appearance of a puppy that needed a hug and a good meal. And definitely a bath. When Nick first met the teen that would become Hawkeye of the Avengers, he was huddled in a corner of one of the labs in the HYDRA compound. He was also drenched in blood. Phil was quick to ascertain that only some of it was his. Most of it belonged to the bodies that littered the compound. The very dead agents had kidnapped the teen almost a week before he met Phil and Nick after stalking him for over two months for some reason that even Clint didn't understand. Clint was still vague on the details of exactly what happened but it was safe to say that there was a degree of underestimating and as a result there were thirty dead HYDRA agents and a scared, yet determined teenager with a crudely fashioned bow and arrows to boot. Nick remembered being simultaneously terrified and impressed by the small yet mouthy kid.

He was also annoyed because not two hours after they met him, they lost him. They got the details of his capture and the testing that they subjected to him during his captivity but they were all at a loss for why HYDRA wanted him in the first place. Nick remembered turning to order one of his hovering agents to investigate something. By the time he turned back around, the kid was gone. They searched the entire compound twice over but there was no sign of him. Clint Barton had vanished. Nick honestly thought that would be the last time they saw him, until one day nearly two years later when Phil received a phone call from an unknown number in Canada. He oddly enough seemed to be expecting the call.

Apparently news of his violent retribution against his captors spread throughout the espionage world and the kid was hunted down by various types. There were the government types that wanted to use him. The criminal types that wanted to use him. The up and coming criminal types that wanted to make a name for themselves by taking him out. And then there were the Deadpool types. Nick had no idea what Deadpool wanted with the kid but the assassin was sticking to Clint like white on rice. According to Clint's melodramatic recapping of the situation after the fact, Wade wouldn't stop talking… or referring to Clint as one third of the Triad of Awesome. He also had a habit of watching over the teen while he slept. Nick didn't exactly disagree with Clint for being disturbed by that. Who would want a man that was actually classified as clinically insane and in the habit of carrying multiple blades on his body watching them when they slept? Clint told them that no matter where he went or how hard he worked to shake the man off his tail, Wade popped up. The longest he was away from him was a day and a half and he once left him clear on the other side of the country.

Once he realized he wasn't going to shake his tail, Clint gave up. He dug out the card that Phil slipped him before he pulled his vanishing act and begged for help. Phil told him that he would personally retrieve him the next morning. After he hung up, Phil placed another phone call thanking someone on the other line. To this day, Nick liked to pretend that Phil Coulson was not sneaky and manipulative enough to hire Wade of all people to harass a person into joining SHIELD. He liked to pretend… but he knew better.

Looking back on it all, Nick realized that he missed the pieces. He was initially caught up in the surprise that a frigging teenager with more mouth than muscle could take out thirty well trained mercenaries that he missed the fact that HYDRA had been looking for him for months. When they were finally reunited, Nick was caught up in the logistics of being both a boss and essentially a part time co-parent to an unruly, bordering on suicidal and pretty much insane teenager. Nick never bothered to follow up on why they wanted the kid in the first place. If he had just stuck with it, if he had just questioned it more, he would've realized that he got the answer to his eleven year question. It was just wrapped up in said unruly, bordering on suicidal and pretty much insane teenager. Fourteen years later, he was really regretting not getting the memo sooner. He might not be a big fan of the 'everyone makes mistakes' theory but he was a huge subscriber to the 'better late than never' school of thought. That's why he had no remorse about bringing in William Brandt's mother… despite what Phil might think.

"I can't believe you kidnapped an old woman," Phil grumbled beside him. Nick shrugged. Phil continued to stare at him in disbelief. "She's wearing gardening gloves and her clothes are dirty. What did you wait until she was busy with the petunias before knocking her over the head and dragging her into your black van?"

Nick snorted. "Of course not. She was working on the tulips. I used chloroform and the Hummer. It's faster and the woman has some very nosey neighbors."

"Unbelievable," Phil muttered. "And yet you wonder why Clint is the way that he is."

"Pretty sure the kid came to us damaged. Any question to his psyche or random moments of insanity can be attributed to his forced association with Wade. That would be because of you, by the way."

Now it was Phil's turn to shrug. Nick had a feeling that man would never feel an ounce of remorse about sticking the mentally unstable and downright annoying Wade with Clint. Although, the two seemed to have a more amicable relationship these days. Clint seemed to tolerate Wade's off the wall comments (and even sometimes understood them) while Wade seemed a little more stable (or at least containable) when Clint was around. Nick made sure that anytime SHIELD had need of Wade's skills on a mission he was usually paired with Clint. So maybe Phil wasn't entirely wrong.

"You know anything about a Kenneth Kitsom?"

Nick narrowed his eye and frowned. "No, should I?"

"Yeah," Phil replied, sighing a little. "He's their older brother. There were three."

"Were?"

"He's supposedly dead."

"Supposedly?"

"This whole thing is either one big twisted conspiracy or a huge helping of fate. All of them just happened to be involved with the government in some capacity. All three have a parent that worked at Cadmus on Project Rebirth, which happened to be a cover for HYDRA. All of those parents are now dead. We also just happened to find Clint in a HYDRA cell with affiliations with Cadmus. This is all just too cloak and dagger for me."

"I know," Nick assured him, hearing the latent distress and concern for their archer in his tone. "That's why I bought Mrs. Brandt in. She's the only one alive that knows anything about any of them."

Phil nodded slowly, letting out a slow breath. "Boss, before we go in there. I just need to know one thing."

"No," Nick replied firmly. He met Phil's waiting gaze patiently. "I had no idea that Clint had brothers or that he was ever involved with Cadmus. I recruited him because he singlehandedly took out a HYDRA cell at sixteen. Not because I was part of the loop. I'm as in the dark about all this as you are. Besides if I actually knew the truth, do you think that I would honestly stop with just one?"

"You make them sound like Pokémon or something."

"I thought you got Clint to stop playing that stupid game."

"It was a struggle but I did. His revenge was to get Thor addicted to the cartoon," Phil groused. "Then he and Tony somehow managed to convince Thor that it was real. They were just about to convince him to embark on an epic quest to catch them all when Steve finally intervened. Mostly because he was concerned that Bruce was going to start experimenting with strays or something to create Pokémon for Thor to catch. I think he may have had a point."

Nick repressed the laugh the image of an overly excited Thor trying to catch a Pokémon. For a god, Thor could be shockingly innocent and oblivious. And for a bunch of humans that called themselves his friend, Tony, Bruce and Clint could be surprisingly manipulative. They were also in the habit of taping their triumphs. Nick idly wondered if JARVIS managed to keep any of the footage. But that could wait until later. Right now they had to question an old lady….. Huh. He could kind of see why that sounded bad now.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

"So," Clint drawled from where he lay sprawled on the ground beside his brother. Will glanced down, still marveling at the identical face staring back at him. Clint was lying loose limbed and completely relaxed on the roof of the Avengers Tower. But Will knew better than to assume that Clint was actually relaxing. He was able to count at least two weapons on Clint. He knew there were probably many more that he couldn't see. No, Clint was sprawling but only an idiot would try and mess with him in this position.

"So," Will finally replied. "We now know that you're a better shot than me. Tony has way more ugly statutes than should exist. And you've managed to charm an AI into betraying his creator by lying about the number of ugly statues that we've shot. What's next on the brotherly bonding routine?"

"Worst," Clint said, though his voice was barely a whisper. He sat up so that he was now side by side with Will. His gaze was focused on a building in the distance. Knowing his brother's eyesight Will wouldn't be surprised if Clint was actually seeing everything that was going on in that building even though it was clearly blocks away.

"Why the worst?"

"It's just that we know all the good stuff about each other. But… maybe we should talk abut the bad…. the reasons why you might not be so happy you went for coffee this morning."

Will heard the certainty in Clint's voice. It hurt a little. It also made him angry that there were people in this world that his brother trusted that betrayed that trust. He also doubted that there was anything in Clint's past that could make him not want the younger man as a brother. Clint was even better than the ideal brother that he imagined… because he was real. He nudged Clint with his shoulder.

"Worst what? Memories, dates… missions?"

Clint shifted and tilted his head in Will's direction, still not meeting his gaze. "Worst missions are good, I guess. Want me to go first?"

"No," Will shook his head. He took a deep breath. "Because you're really not the one that should be scared I want to walk away from this. I'm not exactly perfect you know. I screwed up a very important mission about four years after I was recruited."

"You? How?"

"I was assigned to watch an agent and his wife. The higher ups were vague on the details of what exactly the mission was about but at the time I trusted IMF and I didn't care what it was about. I was assigned a team and we were told to watch the couple on shadow duty. We were basically told to follow them around 24/7. They didn't know we were there. They weren't supposed to know. Anyway, a few days into the assignment I got word that there were hostiles after the agent. I wanted to warn them… but… but they wouldn't let me."

Will swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. The whole thing happened years ago and it still bothered him. He was sinking into the dark, depressive silence that had settled over him in the past few weeks when he felt Clint's bare arm brush against his. His brother was wearing his sleeveless SHIELD uniform and the skin to skin contact was enough to jolt him out of his dark reverie. It was grounding in a way that Will always struggled to find.

"So I take it something bad happened?" Clint's voice was equal parts concerned and comforting.

"Understatement," Will agreed. "One morning the husband went for a jog, like he always did. I followed him and left the rest of the team with the wife. When he got back from his jog, an hour later, the room was wrecked. My team was unconscious and the wife was… gone. A few days later I received a report that they found the wife's remains. All they found were… pieces."

"Shit."

"Yeah," Will laughed bitterly. "After that the husband went rogue. He went after the Serbians who killed his wife and was ultimately disavowed. He was rotting in a Russian jail until Benji and Jane sprung him two years ago."

Clint's eyes widened. "No way… was the husband… Ethan?"

"Yeah," Will laughed again. "Want to know the best part? The part that even Benji and Jane don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "After that first mission together, Ethan brought us all together a few months later and asked us to be a team. I told him I couldn't do it. That he wouldn't want me on his team. I was getting to ready to tell him everything. That I was the guy that let his wife get killed. He cut me off before I could even start and told me that he knew exactly who I was."

"And he still wanted you on his team?" Will could tell that Clint wasn't questioning his right to be on team. He was more questioning the logic behind Ethan's decision.

"Croatia…that mission was the biggest screw up of my career. Every decision I've made since then has been affected by that mission. I couldn't sleep for a month afterwards. I gave up being a field agent to sit behind a desk because I never wanted to make a mistake like that again. I don't trust myself or my judgment because of that stupid mission… and it was all a lie."

"What?"

"It was a set up," Will muttered. "I don't know the whole deal but Ethan's wife wasn't dead. I think she might be living in Seattle because while we were talking he was staring at someone on the pier. But that's beside the point. She didn't die. Ethan being locked up was the setup for an undercover mission. His wife is living happy and safe. Ethan succeeded with both his missions and everyone lives happily ever after except for Will."

"So you went through all that for nothing?! That's such bullshit!" Clint spat angrily. "Wait, so that's why your team keeps looking at you like they're waiting for you to break."

Will raised an eyebrow. Clint tapped a finger against the corner of his eye. "Hawkeye, bro. It's my thing to notice things. Besides I have a little familiarity with the concerned looks, soft tones and full on paranoia when you take more than five steps out of their view. The way that they go out of their way to check on you. It's the spy version of suicide watch. Yeah, that's all old hat for me."

He was about to ask about that, he really was. But as he opened his mouth for more clarification on what seemed to be a very low point in Clint's life, two things happened simultaneously: a figure materialized on the roof a few feet away from them while an alarm sounded. Clint groaned and rolled his eyes. Whether the gesture was directed at the alarm or their visitor was beyond Will. They both seemed to irritate him.

"Really JARVIS?" Clint asked, pushing himself to his feet. "Is all that really necessary? It's just him. I thought the alarms were for valid threats."

"I apologize, Agent Barton. I thought that individual partially responsible for an alien invasion and the hostile takeover of Stark Tower counted as a valid threat."

Will found himself blinking in the direction of the newcomer. Loki Odinson or Laufeyson, depending apparently on the day you asked. Thor's adopted brother and the individual (apparently partially) responsible for the Chituari invasion of Manhattan three years ago. Last Will heard he was rotting in an Asgardian jail. He really thought that Clint and Darcy were joking when they mentioned Loki…. But apparently not because he was here, rolling his eyes and looking for far too comfortable for someone that claimed that humans were meant to be ruled before trying to do just that.

"Uh, Clint?"

"Yeah?"

"Who is that? Because that can't be who I think it is."

Clint snickered, offering Will a hand up. "Meet my Croatia. Loki whoever's son, this is my long lost brother, Will apparently no one's son. Will, the guy that once led an army that decimated NYC."

Loki's gaze slid between the brothers with more than a little interest and confusion. What surprised Will was that there was a hint of concern in the green orbs before they finally settled on the more familiar twin.

"Tell me, Agent Barton, what exactly did this world do to deserve two of you?"

"You mean besides being awesomely lucky?" Clint quipped. "What do you want anyway? I'm kind of in the middle of dealing with some heavy family stuff. I promise that we can play Avenger and psycho anti-hero on a redemption kick next story, okay?"

Loki rolled his eyes again, though Will didn't miss the slight upturn of the god's lips. Even Loki seemed charmed by his brother!

"Shockingly enough, I'm not here for your particularly off brand of humor. I need to speak with my brother."

Clint's eyes widened as he pressed a hand against his chest dramatically. "Will, you and of course JARVIS, are my witness. Loki just admitted that Thor was his brother without being threatened, compelled or kidnapped and poisoned by giant frogs from an alternate dimension."

"Should I even ask?"

"Probably not. It was too weird for even me," Clint grinned. "So what's the occasion?"

Loki tilted his head downwards, clearly silently questioning why he was even continuing the conversation with Clint. But he also wasn't leaving. This was clearly not his first visit to the Tower as the alarms didn't bring an influx of people to the roof. So Will would bet that Loki was free to walk away from Clint anytime he wanted… but he didn't. Interesting. Loki finally looked back up and was about to respond when the doors to the roof opened and the Avenger's assistant bounced out, words already spilling out a mile a minute.

"So I would be a little bit worried about going downstairs if I were you, bird boy. Tony knows you've been playing William Tell with those fugly statutes he tried to keep locked up because they're just begging to be shot. Hey, ever notice how with art, the pricier it is, the fuglier it is. Oh, what is Loki doing here again? This is the second time this week, buddy!"

Clint was the only one of the three men that understood even a fraction of the word vomit. That did not speak well of either of their mental states.

"Relax, Darce. He's here for Thor… in a good way. Apparently, he's feeling the need to stoke the fires of brotherhood or whatever."

Darcy stared at Clint for a moment before nodding. "Well then, let's get to that. Loki, you come with me. Thor is glued to the television. Bruce made the mistake of leaving out the Glee DVDs and Thor's been sucked in. I swear if he starts trying to sing his way through every pressing social issue, I'm quitting. Although if you two choose to sing through your brotherly angst and aggression, I wouldn't be opposed to watching the footage later. Hint, hint, JARVIS. And as for you, Hotness Squared, continue your manly bonding. If you get bored, and it's Clint, so you will, might I suggest the painting collection on the 40th floor if you need more targets? They're particularly expensive."

With that said, Darcy was ushering a very confused Loki off the roof and presumably to wherever Thor had set up camp in the Tower. Will didn't miss the pointed of look of concern Darcy threw Clint's way before she pushed Loki into the waiting elevator. Almost as abruptly as they were interrupted, the two brothers were alone again. But it was different. Clint was too quiet now. Will glanced at his twin and wasn't surprised to find him staring into space again.

"Clint?"

It took a moment longer than he expected but Clint snapped out of his stupor with a wide grin. He clapped his hands together and shrugged.

"Sorry. Got lost in thought for a moment. Contrary to popular belief around here, I do think. Sometimes too much. But it's all good. What do you want to do next? Because I'm all for taking on those pictures. I think I've seen them and they haunted my nightmares for a week."

Will raised an eyebrow. "How many people does that act actually fool?"

Clint gave a brief motion of token protest before giving in. He sank back down to the floor, pulling his legs up to his chest. "There have only been three people that can see right through that," Clint replied, resting his chin on his knees. "Well four now, I guess. But you're cheating. You're using twin senses."

"Wonder Twin powers activate?" Clint snickered as Will settled down beside him again. "For the record, this will be the only time in our lives where I will actually admit to wanting to be the girl. The guy was so lame. What kind of power is form of water?"

Clint lifted his head to give Will a look. "You know may be just as off as me."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Will joked, shifting closer to Clint. Their arms were pressed together and he could tell the gesture worked as well at giving Clint comfort as it did for him. Another note in his mental Rolodex. But first…. "What happened?"

"Loki," Clint muttered. "It's… its stupid."

"If you're upset, then it's not stupid. I thought you guys were like frenemies or something."

"We are," Clint smiled faintly. "It's just sometimes I remember… like I said before we were interrupted, I'm used to the looks and the soft voices. I know you've read the SHIELD reports about the NY invasion. I know your analyst brain probably couldn't resist."

Will grinned. "Yeah, I read it. I wasn't the only one intrigued. IMF sees some crazy stuff but superheroes and alien gods was a bit much. It was a standard report. It didn't even reveal the alternate identities of most of the team. Although it did detail the billions of dollars in collateral damages caused by the Hulk alone."

"Bruce has gotten better. He lets the Other Guy out more so he's not as destructive. But that's not what I was trying to tell you. The thing is that report was edited. It was changed to protect certain people. People… like me."

Will mentally reviewed the report, trying to see where anything could've been edited. The report was surprisingly standard given the nature of issue being reported on. There was brief mention of several agents and a physicist becoming entranced by Loki but none of them was ever mentioned again. Will never really gave them any further thought but now…

"You were one of those agents, weren't you?"

"When Loki first made contact, I was there. I was stuck watching the stupid glowing cube that started all this crap. Fury was there because the cube was starting to react. Turns out it was just Loki making his drama queen entrance. He took out most of the guards and was almost going to take me out too. But he said… he said I had heart. He took me instead. He… he screwed up my brain. Made me work for him. Made me know what I was doing the whole time. What's worst is that he made me like it. The connection he built between us and everyone he tapped gave him access to our thoughts. He twisted them. He took out everything that made me who I am and filled it with something dark. He used me to hurt people… my friends… SHIELD."

Will swallowed heavily. "If that's the case then why are you even friendly with him? I don't think even Thor would blame you for hating him."

"Because someone did it to him first," Clint replied absently. His left hand was pulling at the bottom of his ear again. "After the invasion, Thor bought him back to Asgard and the truth came out. He wasn't himself after he fell from the Bifrost. But his people wouldn't help. So Thor came back to Earth and asked SHIELD for help in freeing Loki's mind. They did and he's been mostly good for the past year or so."

"Mostly?"

"He is the god of lies. He enjoys screwing with people. We have yet to convince him that April Fools Day is not a national free pass to harass the world. But for the most part, he's actually pretty okay. I mean he's not like actively taking over the world anymore. So yay!"

"Then why do you get lost in your head when he shows up?"

"I don't know. It happens sometimes. I know that he didn't mean it… well, most of it anyway. And he's apologized. And he even leaves me out of his pranks. But sometimes…."

"Sometimes, you just can't forget."

"Yeah," Clint said, softly. He met Will's gaze and smiled. "I think we might be a little messed up, bro."

Will ruffled his brother's hair, smacking his hand away from his ear. "True, but at least we're in good company."

Clint's smile grew wider as he bumped his shoulder against Will's. "Yeah, I guess we are."
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Phil was the first person to admit that his moral compass was decidedly damaged since getting involved with SHIELD. It got a little more broken every day that he spent around the Avengers. He was used to dealing with the grey areas when it came to his team of emotionally damaged superheroes and their super egos. He was attached to them all and there really wasn't anything he wouldn't do for any of them. But somehow interrogating an old woman never seemed like something he would ever have to do. Oh, the mixed bag of fun he dealt with since joining SHIELD.

Phil followed Nick into the room cautiously. He wasn't sure what information Fury thought the woman was going to have. She probably didn't know anything. She seemed like a sweet old lady….

"It's about time you got in here, you son of a bitch!"

Phil blinked while Fury merely arched an eyebrow, unfazed by the woman's outburst. "Mrs. Brandt, I know you may be confused as to why I've bought you're here."

"You're damn right. I was minding my business when your goons grabbed me!" she glared at both men. "I wasn't even read my rights so you can't be arresting me."

"Did you do something to be arrested for?" Phil asked, almost despite himself. He couldn't help it. Even with only a few hours of exposure, Phil knew that Will and his adopted mother were almost comically opposites in terms of personality. The woman's eyes narrowed for a moment before settling into a more neutral expression.

"Well, if you're not the police then who are you?"

"My name is Nick Fury, director of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, or SHIELD. This is Agent Phil Coulson. We bought you here because we have some questions about your husband and his work. Specifically his work with Cadmus Pharmaceuticals."

There was a hint of something in her eyes. In that moment Phil realized that she definitely knew something major and that Nick was going to be unbearable with his silent gloating looks. Bastard.

"Honestly, Director Fury, I can't imagine what you would need from me about my husband's work. He's been dead for twenty years. Cadmus has been gone longer than that. What information could I possibly have that SHIELD would need."

"Actually," Nick smiled darkly, taking a seat opposite the woman. Phil took a seat beside him, but kept his gaze locked on the woman. "We really want to know more about a specific project. It was called Project Rebirth. Ring any bells? It should. Your husband was the lead scientist on the project."

Phil repressed a smile as Nick continued, clearly enjoying the woman's discomfort. Phil admitted that he was similarly amused. Nick in interrogation mode was a sight to behold. Withholding access to Nick's interrogations was his common grounding for Clint when he was still at age where punishment actually worked… so basically right around the time he became an Avenger and Tony helped him around any such penalizing.

"You see, Mrs. Brandt. I think you know all about that project. Not just because you were married to the lead scientist on the project but because it's linked to your son."

"My son…." Emily protested. "What does William have to do with any of this?"

"We know about the forged birth certificates that were created by your husband. We know that William was only one of three children that were given these false certificates. And one of the parents listed on each of those certificates were involved with this project. What we don't know is exactly happened with the project and why."

Nick nodded as Phil finished. "And you are going to tell us. Everything."

Emily stared at the table top for several long moments before something inside her shifted. Phil watched as the previous hesitance and confusion faded. Her eyes cleared and she straightened up in her chair, facing the two men with an expectant glare.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"Start with just what the hell your husband was doing with those children."

Emily laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound. "James always had these delusions of grandeur. As a child he was obsessed with Captain America. Not the actual hero part of the story. No, he was obsessed with the science behind it. He wanted to create the next Captain America. And Cadmus gave him the opportunity."

Phil idly wondered if Nick felt as disgusted as he did at the moment. He could actually feel the bile rising as the woman continued, bitterness and venom dripping from each word.

"After several unfortunate failures with the project, it was James who came up with the idea to genetically alter eggs. The idea was that once these children were born, they would have the answers in their DNA to perfect the super soldier formula. It was too unstable without the original research but they thought they could use the children to get it right."

"So then your son…"

"Yes, William is the product of Project Rebirth. They genetically modified six eggs and then implanted them in a surrogate mother. Of those six eggs, only two survived. And then one split into two. William and his identical twin with an extra one to boot."

"So then what happened? The project was deemed a failure but it sounds like they got what they wanted."

"No, they wanted three perfect future super soldiers. What they got was a retard, a deaf selective mute and William. William was the most normal of the three. But Cadmus didn't want normal. They wanted extraordinary. They wanted Captain America. They weren't happy with the progress, especially since it seemed that William was attached to his deaf twin. But my husband was attached to them. He refused to let that happen."

"So he saved them," Phil concluded.

"If you want to call it that," Emily retorted. "He, that silly twit Mary and Katherine, one of the other project leads, took the boys in. James thought it was best to raise them separately. But he always had a grand dream that one day Cadmus wouldn't be a threat anymore and the boys could grow up together. James was always too much of a dreamer for his own good."

"He was the one that tipped off SHIELD," Nick whispered. "He wanted to shut them down so that they could be together again."

"And we see how well that worked out. Didn't really matter because everyone was wrong. Cadmus was wrong about the boys. When Will was ten, he started remembering everything he read. Then he started with the agility. He's fast… almost too fast to be normal sometimes. Of course, James thought it was simply amazing. He tried to reach out to Mary to ask if the one she took in was showing any symptoms but he found out that she was dead. Had been for two years. Her sons were placed in an orphanage but they disappeared just before James called. He never found them. I'm kind of happy to be honest."

"Why?" Phil was impressed by how even his voice sounded, even as his blood pounded in his ears.

"Do you know what it's like to adopt a child that knows everything? He used to correct the teachers in class while they thought. The other children didn't want anything to do with him either. After James…. Well after that, he clung to me. And every time, I looked at him I just saw how my whole life went up in flames because of him." Emily shook her head. "Before he came along I had a good life. Then my husband makes a baby in a test tube and I'm suddenly mother to a freak. I definitely didn't want to take on another one. Especially the one that couldn't, or rather wouldn't, talk."

"How do you know if they couldn't talk? I thought they were separated at birth."

Emily laughed again. "No wonder you needed to ask about the project. You clearly know nothing. The boys weren't separated at birth. They were five years old when Cadmus ordered to them to be eliminated."

"Five? But wouldn't they remember that?"

"William does, partially. Mostly when he's sleeping or he'll see something that will trigger a flashback. James was the best at dealing with those. He encouraged Will to forget, especially after we found out about the Barton's. He figured it would be easier if Will didn't remember. But he never stopped going on about wanting his little brother back. James had him convinced that he dreamed of an imaginary little brother. Will never thought it was simply that he wanted his actual little brother back. The Barton kid and William were the closest. Will was the only one that could get him to talk."

Nick shifted in his seat. It was hardly a noticeable move but Phil was well versed in Nick's non verbal communication. He knew his superior was not pleased with this reveal. But privately, he knew they were both thinking about some of the habits that they've noticed in Clint. Some of his behaviors that could be explained by growing up in a lab and then being ripped away from the one that made you feel safe. It also explained the easy connection between the pair. Clint was notorious for his trust issues but he blindly placed his trust in Will mere minutes after meeting him. And now Phil understood why. But what he didn't understand was…

"If they were so attached, why would you want to separate them?"

"For their protection," Emily replied, rolling her eyes. "James wanted to give it time for the heat from Cadmus being raided to die down. Mary's husband refused to move from Iowa and so they stayed. Katherine went to Reno. James and I moved to Virginia. The plan was to meet in three years. A year after SHIELD raided Cadmus, Katherine was murdered. Then the Barton's and then James."

Nick sent a quizzical look in Phil's direction. He shook his head. "Mary Barton and her husband died in a car accident due to Mr. Barton's intoxicated state. Katherine Kitsom died of ovarian cancer. James Brandt died in a plane crash. All of that seems to be a tragic set of coincidences."

Emily arched an eyebrow. "You work for an intelligence agency, gentlemen. You mean to tell me that you don't know of at least ten ways to kill someone and make it look like a tragic accident? I'm not ignorant. I know that Cadmus was a front for something much, much worse. James wanted to protect the boys but he failed. They all did and now Will and I are the only left alive in this whole mess." She tilted her head to the side. "Or are we?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"How did you know about William? I know him. He doesn't have a clue about Project Rebirth or Cadmus. He doesn't have a clue what he is. So he didn't start this. And he doesn't work for you. So… you found another one of them, didn't you?"

"How can you talk about him like he's less than human?" Phil asked, ignoring her claims. "He's your son!"

"He's a science project," Emily spat. "They never should've been born. So many lives ruined because of their existence. After James died, I lived in fear of when I would be next. I lived with it until the day I couldn't anymore."

"What did you do?"

"I made a deal. I helped convince William to join IMF and got the target taken off my back. William is happy there and I get to walk around freely without wondering when someone is going to jump out the bushes to take me out. Well, except for today of course."

"I didn't jump out the bushes, I walked up the driveway," Nick corrected. "And what do you mean you convinced him to go to IMF in exchange for freedom? What does IMF have to do with Cadmus?"

Emily laughed again. Phil was really starting to hate that sound... and the woman. "You really don't know anything, do you? Not everyone involved with Project Rebirth was rounded up in the raid. There was one involved who stood a lot to lose if the project ever saw the light of day. Especially if anyone ever found one of the children. So he had us all hunted down until he got rid of us one way to another."

Phil could tell Nick was running through the personnel file for the project mentally. Phil was doing the same and aside from the three names belonging to the triplets' adopted families, nothing stood out. He met Emily's gloating smile and scowled.

"He wasn't a Cadmus employee, so he wasn't directly involved with the project other than to donate some money… and genetic materials."

"So their father?"

"I guess he would be called that. He wasn't part of Cadmus but he was the principal financier of the project. He donated his sperm. So naturally he was the least happy when the boys didn't produce the results they wanted. After the raid, he continued his career away from Cadmus. But he kept tabs on all of us. When William turned twenty five and was contemplating joining an intelligence agency, he stepped in to personally recruit him. He knew that his memory would make him an excellent analyst."

"So I guess he was interested now that Will could be of use to him," Phil retorted. "And you helped push your son in that direction because it would save your ass."

"Yes," Emily replied, without a hint of remorse. "My life was ruined by William and his brothers. They owe me."

Phil could barely hold back the intense hatred he felt for this woman. She raised Will from the age of five and yet she likely spoke of strangers (at least non SHIELD affiliated strangers) with more kindness than her adopted son. Phil had only known Clint since the age of sixteen and he felt both protective and proud of the archer. Even knowing how he came to be didn't change how Phil felt about Clint. He glanced at Nick, sending him a signal that it was time to wrap this up. It wasn't often that Phil lost his cool but he could tell it was pending.

"Mrs. Brandt, all we need from you is the name of their father and then we'll release you."

"Won't do you any good."

"Oh, why is that?"

"He's dead," she replied calmly. "Their father was the former secretary of IMF."

Phil was glad that was well practiced in hiding his emotions because… what the hell? Nick's only visible sign of surprise was the quick blink of his eye.

"You're sure about that?"

"Positive. When the project was first initiated, he was at our house for dinner and drinks. He's their father and he's also very dead. He was killed in Moscow, shortly after the Kremlin was bombed."

"Thank you for your assistance, Mrs. Brandt. It's been… well, it's been," Nick said, before pulling a previously unnoticed gun from his jacket pocket. Phil felt only slightly relieved that it was the tranquilizer gun that most SHIELD personnel kept on hand when Bruce (or really any of the more problematic Avengers) was in the building. They learned that a tranquillizer dart to the chest could save much in the property damage. It was also useful for knocking out very cranky (and slightly evil) mothers.

Nick tapped the ever present Bluetooth in his ear. "Sitwell, please gather the rest of your goons and escort Mrs. Brandt to the nearest hotel. She needs to sleep off the tranquilizer dart because I seem to have forgotten to switch out the one we use on the Hulk. I'm certain that she can find her own way back to Virginia."

Phil looked from the unconscious woman to his boss. Now that their guest was out of commission, Nick was letting his emotions slip through. Phil read the disgust, concern and rage in the older man's body language. He knew it was reflected in his own tense movements. They had answers and even more questions. But at least they knew where to look now. He tapped his fingers on the table before coming to a decision.

"Tony?" he spoke aloud. There was no response. "Tony, I know that you have JARVIS hacking the feed in this room."

"For the record, it was all Bruce's idea," Tony's voice came across as clear as if he were in the room. "I can say that because Bruce is currently trying to calm down. Not too sure that introducing IMF to the Other Guy when he's in the middle of a rage fit is a good idea."

Phil snorted. "Yeah, I would have to agree. And since you're up to date on the latest plot development, do me a favor and pull everything you can about the former secretary of IMF."

"What are you looking for exactly?"

"I don't know but just pull everything. And Tony?"

"Yes, Agent?"

"Whatever you do, don't tell Clint or Will anything we just heard."

There was a moment of silence before Tony sighed. "Right, got you. Don't tell the Wonder Twins about their dead brother, dead father or Will's really mean mother. Got it."

Phil internally sighed. He knew Tony would only manage to keep that a secret for the next five or so minutes. The fact that Clint wasn't breaking down the doors of SHIELD and demanding answers already was a testament to the calming influence Bruce played when it came to Tony's total lack of impulse control. But judging from the growls they heard in the background, Bruce wasn't so calm anymore. That meant that the likelihood of Clint finding out increased with every passing moment. He just hoped that the search for information on the secretary would keep Stark busy enough to give Phil time to get to the Tower.

He also hoped it would give him time to figure out what he was supposed to do with this information. The secretary of IMF had a long and illustrious career. A career that seemed to particularly shine in his later years when a certain analyst joined the agency. But did finding out that the man donated his DNA to create three genetically altered children change all the good that he accomplished through his years? Did the fact that he may have had something to do with the deaths of the families of those children, and possibly with the death of the oldest and the attempted murder of the youngest, change that he led several successful missions that may have saved the world?

Well, that was the million dollar question and Phil really didn't have an answer.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Clint was hiding again. They didn't like it when he did that. The men in the coats always got angry and yelled a lot when his little brother hid away from them. But, Will thought as he made his way through the lab, that was probably the point. Clint didn't like those men. He didn't like anyone but Will or Kenny. That was fair because Will really only liked Clint and Kenny. The nice nurse that sometimes read them stories at night once told Will that Clint was his responsibility. That he had to take care of him because he was the older twin. And even though Kenny was older than both of them, they both had to watch out for him… because he was sick. Will didn't care because he loved them both. So he looked out for them the best he could.

He found Kenny in the "playroom". Will didn't really know what a playroom was supposed to look like but he didn't think it was supposed to have a climbing wall. Then again, maybe they did. He didn't know. He decided to stop thinking about it and instead focus on Kenny. The oldest of the triplets was stacking blocks in an intricate pattern that really only made sense to him. Will shrugged and settled in by his hip.

"Clint's in the safe space," Kenny explained without really knowing the question. He met Will's gaze and then turned his eyes to the top of the climbing wall. It was over seven feet tall and took up most of the room but he would've been hard-pressed to miss the balled up figure huddled at the top of the wall.

Will sat beside Kenny for a moment longer, watching as he continued to stack block after block. "It's nice," he finally said after Kenny finished.

"Thanks. He had a bad day. He's sad."

Will nodded, knowing that was his cue to get him down. He was starting to wonder if Clint was really part monkey. Or maybe he was a bird. Because he always liked to be high up. Will did not like heights. But he knew that heights meant safe to Clint, so he adjusted. Didn't mean he had to like it.

He was halfway up, following the path Clint used to get up, when his hand slipped. He struggled to regain his balance but his hand missed the foothold he was using to pull himself up. He let out a squeak of surprise. Kenny dropped the block he was currently stacking while Clint stared wide eyed and pale from the top. After a moment, Clint stretched forward, tiny arms stretching to grab Will's flailing arm. Kenny stood underneath them, trying to push Will up enough to latch onto Clint. In the end, all that happened was that all three boys ended up on the ground in a tangled heap of limbs.

"Ouch," Kenny moaned, sitting up. Clint let out a small gasp and started signing rapidly. Though Clint was born with hearing loss, he really only used sign language when he was too upset to remember that they could hear him speak. It didn't take long to figure out what was distressing him. Kenny put a hand to the sluggishly bleeding cut on his forehead. He frowned at the blood on his fingers before focusing on his little brother. "It's okay, Clint."

Will saw Clint was getting more upset and seemed totally oblivious to the cut on his own face. He was more upset by Kenny being hurt. Will slipped his hand into his brother's. He didn't even mind that Clint was squeezing tighter than was probably necessary. The signing stopped but Will felt Clint's anxiety and sadness.

"Now, what do we have here?" Dr. Brandt said as he walked into the room. He knelt in front of the boys, taking them in with the usual kindness in his eyes. Will didn't feel one ounce of remorse pushing Clint forward first. He was fine except for the cut on his forehead and a case of guilt. Will had a gash on his elbow from when he hit the table on the way down. Dr. Brandt assured them that though they all would likely have lasting scars but sometimes scars could be fun. He called them lasting memories.

"Will?"

He blinked as the sudden vivid images faded away. Clint was staring at him, concern visible on his face. But that wasn't what caught Will's attention. It was the barely noticeable scar just above the archer's right eyebrow. Will traced the scar's path with a shaky hand.

"Will, what's wrong?"

"Where did you get this? Do you remember?"

"Uh, I don't really remember. I know I was pretty young. Why? What's going on? You just blanked out on me."

Will licked his lips. It had to be some kind of hallucination. It didn't make any sense otherwise. But still… he pushed his shirt sleeve up and was surprised to see a dark patch on the edge of his elbow. He studied the mark with wide eyes and almost missed Clint's gasp of surprise. He noticed when he felt Clint's hand on his arm.

"Dude… what the hell? I remember that," Clint whispered, turning his arm over. "You fell from up high because you were trying to get me."

"Yeah, because you were always a freaky little weirdo that liked getting up high."

"I'm not weird. It's just that it feels…"

"Safe," they both said at the same time.

"No, this isn't right. We shouldn't be remembering stuff that didn't happen! We didn't grow up together!"

"When did you say Cadmus was shut down?"

"1988. We were five."

"I've never seen pictures of me before I was five and we moved to Virginia. Mom said there was a fire and it destroyed our picture albums. But… what if? What if we weren't separated at birth? What if Cadmus being raided and our separation were related?"

Clint tugged at his ear absently. "There was another one, wasn't there? I remember that we all fell. I got this and he got a matching one on his left side. There were three of us."

Will raked a hand through his hair roughly. This was crazy. Completely and totally crazy but it was real and made too much sense. Now that the flood gates were opened, Will could remember numerous occasions when he would start to recall his brother, sorry brothers, and the lab they grew up in for five years but his father would play them off. He made him believe that it was all in his head. He let him believe that he was just a lonely boy that created this idea of a brother to share his dreams with. The reality was that he clearly had two brothers.

"So I think I might know what Tony is hiding from us?" Will said, dryly.

"That jerk," Clint muttered, pacing slowly. "I knew he was hiding something from me."

"But why? I mean we already know about each other and about Cadmus. Why keep this from us?"

"Most likely because it's bad. And protecting my fragile emotional state is like their thing," Clint practically spat the words out. "And Tony takes that crap seriously. I don't know if you've noticed but he kinda thinks he's my big brother."

"Wait, he's serious about that? Like he's actually trying to adopt you?"

"Yeah, he's pretty set on that. And say what you will about Tony but he's a persistent bastard. Not to mention richer than should be allowed. He'll probably succeed one day."

Will blinked again. "That's actually kind of scary."

"Should be. He's going to adopt you too," Clint snickered. "I guess then we really would be brothers. William and Clinton Stark."

Will laughed, feeling the earlier tension rolling off his shoulder as he settled into the strangely familiar banter with his twin.

"So the same faces and DNA thing wasn't good enough for you? You need last names too?"

"Would be nice."

"So basically you're okay with us being adopted by the crazy billionaire genius?"

Clint nodded, eyes sparkling with mirth. "Think of how much we stand to gain when he inevitably blows himself up. It's pretty much guaranteed to happen. And then all the Stark fortune will go to us… and Pepper… and Bruce... and science."

Will shook his head, equally amused and disturbed but not surprised. "Anyway, psycho, what are we going to do about Tony hiding stuff?"

Clint smirked and Will was suddenly reminded of several times when he saw that look flash across a much smaller face. He couldn't remember it ending well then either.

"I'm going to do what I do best," he grinned wider, slapping his hands together. "Time to practice stealth 101. To the vents!"

"Climbing through the ventilation system is not stealth! It's you being creepy!"

Clint shrugged. "Same thing in my book."

"Seriously, how are we related?"

Chapter Text

Bruce sighed heavily for what had to be the third time in the past ten minutes. Ordinarily, that would be enough to irritate the irrational genius he reluctantly called his best friend but today Tony was uncharacteristically oblivious. The younger man was seated at one of the workstations in the lab they sometimes shared, flicking through articles and data on his tablet quickly. Bruce had no doubt that he was retaining all the information despite the speed. He might not have Clint's nearly photographic memory (or Will's actual photographic memory) but Tony had an amazing capacity for remembering information and translating into his usual genius. Ordinarily, Bruce would be content to sit back and bask in the fact that he had a friend that was on his level (if not higher) but that was before Tony threw him into the Hulk proof chamber in the far corner of the lab with no intent of letting him out in the foreseeable future.

"Tony, is this really necessary?"

"Uh, yes," Tony replied, over his shoulder. "If you're good, I'll slide one of the monitors to face you. But you're not getting out of there."

"Come on, I can help more outside than in here!"

"Until you come across something else that pisses you off, then you'll Hulk out and scare poor Dummy. Again."

Bruce glanced out the corner of his eye to see the robot in question standing just outside the chamber with the ever present fire extinguisher pointed in his direction. Bruce flashed what he hoped was a comforting smile. He knew it failed when Dummy moved the extinguisher up a little more. He scowled.

"You act like you're not upset about all this."

"Oh, I am. But I don't get mad, I get even." Tony turned around in his seat with a smirk. "I just sent a generous donation to the National Foundation for the Hearing Impaired from the bank account of Emily Brandt."

Bruce had to admit that it was a fitting punishment. It also didn't end with Tony stuck in an escape proof chamber. So maybe he had a point. Even the other guy seemed to acknowledge the logic in that statement. Bruce sighed and sank to the floor, silently accepting that he was in this for the long haul. Tony tilted his head to the side studying his sitting friend before sighing heavily and pushing one of the buttons on his tablet. The chamber door opened with a deep hiss. Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"It stands to reason that by the end of this whole mess, Clint is going to be seriously pissed at me for keeping secrets. I don't really want to deal with both of you mad at me. Who's going to listen to me then?" Tony replied, flippantly. "Besides, we can get through this information quicker together than separately."

Bruce nodded, climbing to his feet and taking a seat next to Tony. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a packet of blueberries. Tony took the silent olive branch with an amused snort.

"So where are we?"

"We are going through the complete life history of Michael Sterling, also known as the former Secretary of IMF. He's got a hell of a career. There were a couple of hidden spots on his record that JARVIS had no trouble cracking. And once the most amazing AI ever cracked those spots, we found a definitive connection between him and Cadmus."

"So she was right."

"Looks like it," Tony replied, drumming his fingers on the desk. "So it seems that Michael Sterling continued his association with Cadmus, or HYDRA, after Project Rebirth 2.0 was deemed a bust. Whether it was Sterling or someone associated with HYDRA, it's obvious that the triplets weren't as under the radar as James Brandt assumed they were. Someone kept an eye on them. They went after the Barton's and the Kitsom's first because as far as HYDRA was concerned, they were the least useful of the trio."

"Kenneth ended up in a residential home following his adoptive mother's death. Clint and Barney Barton end up in an orphanage after their adoptive parents died. They then go AWOL the same year that Will begins to demonstrate extraordinary abilities," Bruce picked up where Tony left off. "Because of that Will is allowed to live normally. Kenneth is in a facility where they're able to keep track of his every move. Clint is in a traveling circus where he pretty much falls off the radar. So it's harder to monitor him."

"That is until that dirty bastard mentor of his damn near killed him when he was fifteen," Tony said, practically hissing the last few words. "Fury faxed over the parts of Clint's file that were redacted. That's why I could never find anything on him before the age of eighteen. It's because Fury had it removed from the system. The only evidence of is in hard copy." He held up the pages but refused to hand it over. "It's a heavy read and as much as I love the big guy, I'm not really in the mood for another visit from the Hulk today."

Bruce nodded. "So what's it say? Cliff's Notes."

"Basically, Clint met Fury and Coulson when he was almost sixteen. Really, it was just a few weeks after he escaped the hospital following Duquesne's attack. He was kidnapped by a HYDRA cell with Cadmus ties. They had him for close to a week before he finally managed to get loose. Needless to say, he killed everyone in that facility before SHIELD showed up."

"HYDRA kidnapped him and was testing him? For what?"

"They probably wanted to know if it was just Will or if the others got a little more special with age," Tony answered. "We already know that Clint is like part spider monkey and hawk. I had JARVIS search for anything related to Kenneth. After his mother died, Kenneth was placed in a state home… Berwin. It's a residential facility for special needs children. He was there until he turned twenty and he enlisted with the army."

"How? If he was considered special needs, then the army never would've let him in."

"Never underestimate the power of a man trying to get over on the system. Lionel Simmons was the army recruiter that met with Kenneth. He was fired six years later after they found that he was basically fudging his recruits' IQs and ages in order to meet his quota. Kenneth was one of those unlucky souls. By the time the scandal blew up, he was already dead."

Bruce started to say something when he thought he heard a squeaking sound above his head. He tilted his head to the side but didn't hear anything further. He shrugged and resumed his conversation with Tony.

"With Kenneth in the army and Clint being protected by SHIELD, that only left Will. Once they realized they were never going to get a chance at Clint and Kenneth was… gone, they must've made the decision to recruit Will."

"The million dollar question here is whether or not IMF has ties with Cadmus or HYDRA. We know that their father did."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. It's only been like a few hours and everything has changed. This morning Clint was the son of the Barton's, brother of the wholly undeserving Barney and surrogate child of Fury and Coulson. And now he's got brothers, plural, and different parents."

"I wonder who their mother is. We know that their father donated his genetic materials but I wonder who they chose as the mother. Probably someone in the spy game too."

Bruce arched an eyebrow. "Why do you think that?"

"Think about it. All but one of them ended up in the spy business. Even if their father didn't totally cheat, Will was going to up in an intelligence agency. And even Kenneth ended up in the army. They chose the government in some capacity without knowledge for each other or who they were."

"You think it's some kind of genetic thing?"

"Maybe," Tony shrugged. "One thing I know. They definitely didn't get their looks from their father. The former secretary was not a head turner."

Bruce's brow furrowed as he thought about how to respond to that one. He didn't have to worry though as a loud series of bangs sounded about their heads. Both men looked up.

"Dude, calm down!"

"No! I'm going to kill him!"

"Isn't he already dead?"

"Not him! Ethan!"

"Oh… wait! That was not your cue to go! Will? Will! William… uh whatever the hell is your middle name Brandt, get back here! Do we not remember that I'm the emotionally volatile assassin out of the two of us?! Crap!"

And then there was silence. Tony and Bruce exchanged glances even as Will's noisy crawling clambered away followed no doubt by the far more stealthy Clint.

"So," Tony drawled.

"Yeah," Bruce nodded. "You knew they were up there too, huh?"

"Yeah," Tony replied, drawing the word out. "Kinda knew from when I let you out the cage. If he's going to start pulling the whole ceiling act, Will is really going to need work on that whole stealth thing. I figured they'd come snooping after while. Thought they'd be here sooner, really."

"Guess your ugly statues occupied them more than you thought they would."

"I hate you," Tony grumbled. But his expression cleared right away. "Well, there is a bright side here. They know and we technically didn't break our promise to Phil by telling them. We're totally blame free!"

"Right because Phil is going to believe that we just randomly decided to have happy exposition time in a room with the easiest vent access from the roof. He's going to murder us."

"Correction, he's going to murder you. Both Fury and Phil are aware that I'm impulsive and barely capable of considering the consequences of my actions. They expect this kind of stuff from me. They expect you to be the one to keep me in check."

"When exactly did I sign on to be your keeper?"

"The day you told us your secret and punched a giant alien metal snake in the face," Tony retorted with a wide smirk. "Face it, Brucey, you're screwed."

"Try not to sound proud of that."

"I'd try but that sounds like it would require effort."

Bruce sighed. "Speaking of effort, should we be concerned about that whole Will killing Ethan thing?"

Tony pursed his lips thoughtfully. "JARVIS, where is Agent Hunt?"

"He's currently touring the building with Captain Rogers."

"See! Steve is there. He can totally handle it."

Bruce nodded slowly. "Ethan is dead, isn't he?"

"Pretty much."

"Shame. He seemed like a nice enough guy."

"Yup."
_________________________________________________________________________________________

During his time with IMF, Ethan was exposed to a lot of things he previously thought were impossible. He thought that he well and truly had seen it all. But as he followed the famous Captain America down the hall belonging to the equally famous Avengers, Ethan realized that he was way out of his depth. He definitely did not expect any of this when he woke up this morning. After accepting the easy recon mission, Ethan was pretty much prepared to sit back, relax and hope that Will was able to shake off his funk. He was not prepared to deal with Will having a twin brother. A twin brother who was also a freaking Avenger!

"For now, we can set you all up on the guest floors," Steve said, dragging Ethan out of his thoughts.

"You have guest floors?"

"As you probably know, the Avengers Initiative has grown since the initial invasion. There are many more on the team than just the six of us. But it's just the six of us that live here full time. Tony offered but the other members like to keep their outside lives for various reasons (mostly related to wanting to avoid prolonged exposure to Tony). Still sometimes they need to crash here, so we have floors specifically set up for the other Avengers. That's where you'll be staying until we get a better idea of how long you're going to be around. I believe Natasha has already taken Agents Dunn and Carter down there."

"What floor are we on now?"

"This is the common floor," Steve replied, pointing to a helpful wall plaque announcing that they were on the 60th floor. "As I said before, we all have our own floors. This floor is where we all go when we're feeling social. So you'll most likely always find Thor or me here. Sometimes Bruce and Natasha will be down here. And on rare occasions, or when Natasha or I have Tony duty, you'll find Stark on this floor."

"What about Agent Barton?"

Steve grinned. "Oh, Clint's almost always there too. But you'll very rarely find him. He makes it a habit to be as invisible as possible at all times. And he's damn good at it too. I used to think that it was a neat trick but Bruce kept getting this look on his face like it was actually a bad thing that he's always hiding. So we encourage him to sit on sofas now. Of course that's only if we actually find him."

Ethan blinked at the odd scenario presented to him and found he wondering about the enigma that was Will's identical twin. Though Ethan had little experience and interaction with Clint since they arrived at the Tower, he could already tell that the two brothers were total opposites. Ethan read about the agent he now knew was the infamous Hawkeye. The man was a renowned assassin and was usually called in to perform hits that even the most skilled agent wasn't able to accomplish. He was also apparently the only agent in any intelligence agency that could work with the assassin known as Deadpool. It was hard to reconcile that reputation with the very odd man-child that apparently preferred to enter rooms via the ceiling that he met earlier in the afternoon. It was even harder to see how the stoic, calm and easygoing Will could be related to either aspects of Barton's personality. It was definitely… something.

He continued to trail after Steve, idly taking in their surroundings. That is until a heated argument caught his attention. One of the voices, he recognized as Thor but the other was just as familiar. Though he had nothing to do with the New York invasion, Ethan scoured for every piece of information he could find about the event. He read every report, watched every news reel and could probably recite the events as if he were actually there. The voice of the crazed alien god was imprinted in his mind. But what Ethan couldn't understand was how Loki managed to sneak into the Tower (though he did distantly remember an alarm going off that was pretty much ignored by both Steve and Natasha). He also didn't know why Steve didn't seem too concerned about that.

"You lack insight, brother!"

"No, I believe it is you that is blind in this situation, Thor. You're so painfully naïve to the way that the universe truly operates."

"Because I believe in viewing the beauty of the love between two mortals? If that makes me naïve, then aye, I will accept that mantle proudly."

"Shall you also accept the mantle of fool as 'proudly'? For only a fool would tout such misguided and ignorant beliefs when the truth is so painfully clear to anyone with eyes!"

Ethan's eyebrows rose as he witnessed the two Asgardians arguing. The television was on in the background but went forgotten as they continued to yell at one another. Ethan was well aware that the rivalry and bad blood between the two brothers was the precipitating event that led to the New York Invasion. But still Steve continued to look unaffected by their yelling. He almost seemed… amused to be honest.

"Still having this debate?" Steve asked, interrupting their argument.

Loki turned away from his scathing assessment of Thor's intelligence to regard Steve. His gaze flickered to Ethan before going to back to Steve.

"You've added another stray, then? At least it's not another teenager. Allfather knows you've got one too many of those lying about."

"Funny," Steve rolled his eyes. "I'll be sure to mention that to Peter when he comes over tonight. Anyway, Loki this is Ethan Hunt. He's a, uh, friend. The situation is a little complicated."

"Oh, he's with the twin of Agent Barton, then."

"So you met Will?"

"Yes, that was an interesting experience. They truly are identical. Right down to the scars on their auras. They've both lost and been hurt deeply through their short years. Both are slowly healing."

Thor placed a hand on his adopted brother's shoulder. "They're not the only ones," the blonde pointed out. Ethan had no idea what that meant but it was apparently a good thing, judging from the soft smile on Loki's lips before he shrugged Thor's hand off. Ethan didn't miss the same smile on Thor.

"Do not think I've forgotten our argument. You will not persuade me with your platitudes and sappy displays of affection."

"I seriously cannot believe that you two are still arguing about this. It's been a month already. At what point do you just agree to disagree?"

Thor and Loki both glared in Steve's direction. "War planet. Our arguments do not end until one of us is dead, Captain Rogers."

Steve rolled his eyes again. "You didn't kill one another while Loki was trying to take over the world. I doubt you'll do it over Glee."

"Wait," Ethan blurted. "You're arguing over Glee?!"

Loki huffed. "Yes, my idiot brother is under the misguided belief that Rachel and Finn belong together. It is beyond obvious that Puck is a much more compatible mate."

"But he has a history of criminal behaviors," Thor said, crossing his arms over his chest. "He impregnated his best friend's girlfriend while they were still teenagers. Though the music television channel tries to convince me otherwise, I do not believe that to be a good thing."

"He has redeemed himself for his past transgressions, even going so far as to apologize to his former victims. Meanwhile, your noble and beloved Finn only skates by on his purported sense of morals and very annoying sense of hypocrisy.'

Ethan blinked, turning confused imploring eyes in Steve's direction. But the captain was just as engrossed in the conversation as the two arguing siblings. Again when did this become his life?

"You know," Steve started. Ethan's hopes that this was going to be a productive conversation, or at best an end to the insanity, were dashed in the next breath. "I've been watching some of the later seasons with Natasha and I kind of like the new guy, Brody." Both Loki and Thor narrowed their eyes in Steve's direction. The captain looked wholly unaffected by the gods' glares. Ethan once again found himself wondering how they all managed to function when they were clearly insane.

After Steve's selection was dismissed by the brothers, Ethan found himself trailing after Steve again. This time they ended up in what Steve referred to as the gym. It was actually a state of the art training ground. There was a shooting range on one side as well as several pieces of gymnastics equipment. If this was a gym then Ethan definitely wanted in on that. Even IMF didn't have equipment like this. Then again, IMF didn't have Tony Stark. Though whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be seen.

"So that's pretty much it," Steve concluded, leaning against a chin up bar. "The rest of the building is devoted to Stark Industries. That way Tony is never really that far away from his business. Not that he is exactly invested in running it. That's what he has Pepper for."

"How do you deal? I mean from one leader to another. You live with these guys. You save the world with them on a semi daily basis. How do you deal with them?"

Steve blinked, looking confused. "I don't follow you."

"It's just that I know I would go insane if I had to live with Benji, Will and Jane. That whole dating but not dating thing that Jane and Will are doing is bad enough. I don't know if I could actually live with that and Benji's techno babble."

Steve chuckled. "Well when you put it that way, I guess I understand. But it's simple really. As far as the rest of the Avengers are concerned, we're a team. But Clint, Nat, Tony, Bruce and Thor are more than that for me. They're my family. We went through some pretty dark times together and the one thing that kept any of us sane was knowing that we had each other at the end of the day just down the hall."

"You mean for the invasion?"

"I wish," Steve murmured, his expression darkening. "For awhile after the invasion, things weren't so good. We split up and did our own things. And even after we came back together, it still wasn't right. Some of us weren't right. But we are Earth's Mightiest Heroes. We pushed and pushed and somehow made it through. A lot of people don't really understand us or the things that we do. But we get each other. That's how I deal with them. Because at the end of the day I understand them all."

"But how? I mean, no offense, you seem pretty rational. You have to have to realize that your team seems pretty… crazy."

"That's the surface, Agent Hunt. A lot of people only look at the surface when it comes to the most of the Avengers. But I've learned to look past that and see who they really are. Did you know that I was never appointed as leader of the team? They willingly chose to follow my lead that day."

"I actually didn't know that. I just assumed that Director Fury placed you in charge."

"Nope," Steve grinned. "Five of the most gifted people I've ever met and they chose, and still continue to choose, to follow me. Thor is a prince on his world. He will be a king one day. Natasha is… the Black Widow. Bruce is probably the most dangerous person I've ever met and that's not even taking the Hulk into consideration. Tony is multi-billionaire with more brains that money. He could take over the world and then some if he ever wanted. And Clint… well, I think he might only be slightly less dangerous than Tony but only because his heart is really too good to be completely evil. Pretty sure that if he hadn't met Phil and Nick when he did, he would be one more deep betrayal from becoming a super villain. And we would all be screwed."

Ethan couldn't help it. He scoffed. He met the team. He was willing to believe Steve about Romanov and Thor. But every agency knew that Bruce Banner was only a threat with the Hulk out. As for Stark, well he was a genius but Ethan thought that maybe Steve was exaggerating a bit. He was definitely exaggerating a bit about Clint. Ethan met his agent's twin. The youngest of the brothers was all smiles and random asides. While he wasn't as self-possessed as Will, Ethan struggled to believe there was anything deadly about the perpetual teenager.

"That's your problem, Agent Hunt. You're only seeing the surface. It's easy to get hung up on what you see. I made that mistake with Tony when we first met, but never again. Living with your teammates gives you a lot of room to see beneath what everyone else sees. I've seen Bruce engage in some truly scary forms of revenge when he felt that anyone on the team was wronged. As for Tony, well remember, he built the first suit out of scraps in a cave and managed to wipe a good chunk of a terrorist cell on his own."

Ethan had to admit that Steve had a point. But still….

"I read Agent Brandt's file," Steven continued. "He was on your team for a few days before you realized that he wasn't just an analyst. You only saw what you wanted to see. Maybe it's because I know his twin so well but I can see that there is much more to Agent Brandt than what meets the eye. He's a force to be reckoned with. He's deadly."

Ethan opened his mouth to respond to that because no. He knew Will. While Ethan would willingly admit to being fooled by the analyst bit in the beginning, Ethan was confident that he knew Will now. Will was a capable agent but it was a bit of a stretch to say he was deadly. He constantly second guessed every decision he made. No, Will was a skilled field agent, that much was true but he was far from the biggest threat on their team. He was about to tell Steve that much when he suddenly found himself slammed into the wall behind him with an arm pressed against his throat and the furious eyes of William Brandt staring back at him.

And okay, so Ethan was willing to admit that at times he could be wrong.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

One minute Steve was talking to Ethan and in the next Hunt was pinned against the wall by a seething Will. His sudden appearance threw Steve off guard. Especially since the former's analyst body was wound tighter than a cobra about to strike. Anger and rage radiated off his body and Steve was more than a little concerned for Ethan's well-being.

"Will? What the hell?" Ethan choked out, struggling in vain to push the pissed off agent away. "What's gotten into you?"

"Agent Brandt, I don't exactly know what the problem is but I think that we can work it out if we could just talk."

"Pretty sure we're all talked out from last chapter. I mean everybody talked… a lot!" Clint's voice chimed in the midst of the chaos in the room. Steve noticed that Will's grip lessened at the sound of his brother's voice. Interesting. He glanced up to where he assumed Clint was hiding.

"Clint, you have to get Will to calm down and let Ethan go."

Clint dropped down in a crouch beside Steve. His eyes slid between his twin and Steve before he rose to his feet, shrugging. "No can do, Cap. It's a twin thing. Besides it's only half of what Ethan owes him for Croatia."

"Oh, come on, Will!" Ethan protested. "I thought we settled this already. I didn't even know you then! And it was…."

"For your wife," Will hissed, finishing Ethan's statement. "Yeah, I know."

Steve felt a chill race down his spine at the tone. He heard that tone before in the identical voice of the man's twin. It took a Hulk strength tranquilizer dart along with Thor and Iron Man to pull Clint away from the poor unfortunate soul that chose to take an almost fatal potshot at Natasha within striking distance of the archer. Steve knew that tone rarely preceded anything good.

"Its funny but I've heard it all before," Will continued, his voice never rising above a normal talking tone and yet sounding all the more ominous for it. "Surprise! Knowing the truth doesn't help me sleep at night. But who cares about that, right? Because your wife is safe and you get to stalk her from a distance when you want. So everyone is happy, except Will!"

"What?" Steve started to asked but Clint shook his head, stopping the question before it was even formed. He nodded.

"But forget all that, Ethan, because you're going to tell me everything you know about the former secretary and me."

Ethan's brow furrowed. "I don't know what you mean."

"Why did he pick me for the assignment? And don't lie to me, Hunt. I know the secretary thought of you as a friend. I know he told you about the agents he was picking. So tell me why he picked me."

The older agent sighed. "I never really gave it much thought until that night in Seattle but before Croatia, Michael was always telling me about this amazing field agent that he had that he felt would be better off the field as an analyst. He said that the guy had off the chart scores on just about every exam he's taken and would be better in an office position. But I swear I never even knew your name. He never told me who the guy was. He also never told me anything about who he was putting on the protection detail."

Will's jaw clenched. "Keep going."

"The protection detail was real, I swear to you it was. Julia really was kidnapped by Serbians. Michael approached me with a plan to get her back and keep her out of harm's way permanently. I agreed to fake her death and go undercover for IMF. In return, Julia got to be safe. I promise you, Will, I never knew anything about you being involved until after Dubai. I asked about the protection detail agents and Michael assured me that you were all alive and back on active duty. I never knew the truth."

Will took a step back. Steve could make out the small tremors in his body even as the former analyst shook his head in slow disbelief. "It was all set up," he whispered. "Everything. It was a set up from the beginning. He wanted me behind a desk the whole time. He set me up."

Clint moved from beside Steve to just behind the muttering IMF agent. The archer tilted his head to the side for a brief moment before shrugging and taking Will's hand in his. Will's mumbling came to an abrupt halt as he met Clint's waiting gaze. Steve was glad he was still watching as he was witness to an honest smile forming on Clint's face. He was struck by how young the archer looked in that moment.

"I figured if it worked for me when we were five, it would probably work on you," Clint grinned at Will's surprise. "We are identical, you know?"

"Wait, five?" Steve asked, once he caught what the brothers were talking about.

Clint nodded. "Yeah, Cliff's Notes version is this. There were three of us but the other one is dead. We were born and raised in a lab, smuggled out and integrated into the families of some of the former staff. For the most part, they're all dead. The former IMF secretary is our sperm donor. But he's also dead. So everyone is super dead but we're still here… barely. Will here had a moment where he forgot that I'm the one that does the dangerous impulsive crap. And that's about it."

Ethan pushed himself off the wall, rubbing his neck absently. "Will, I get that you're under a lot of stress but that's not really an excuse to attack your friends."

"I didn't attack Jane or Benji," Will pointed out, darkly. "I attacked you. We're not friends, Ethan. We're a team. You're not really that different from the secretary. You both wanted me for what's up here," his free hand tapped his temple. His other was still holding tightly onto his brother. "You don't give a damn about anything other than that. You don't give a damn about me."

"Will, that's not true…" Ethan started but Will shook his head.

"If it is or isn't. I don't really care anymore. Because I'm done."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I quit IMF. I'm going to get some answers and if I come back, it's not going to be to the agency that has caused me nothing but grief and problems since apparently before I was even born. I'm out."

"Me too," Clint chimed in.

Steve's jaw dropped. "Why are you quitting?"

"Oh, no," Clint paused, obviously thinking over the end of that statement. "I'm not quitting. I'm just going to get answers. I'll definitely be back when I'm done. 'Sides we both Nat and Tony wouldn't let me go. Don't even get me started on Phil and Fury or Bruce or Thor… yeah. I'm coming back."

Steve let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He could try to fight this but Steve knew that they both needed to do this. They wanted answers and they weren't likely to get straight answers from the people looking into the issue. It was widely accepted that Clint was the baby brother of the team. That meant that a lot of information was broken down before it got to him. Steve was usually on board with that school of thought. Clint suffered enough in his life. He deserved to have overprotective family looking out for him. But right now, Clint and Will were actively suffering. They weren't going to get the closure they both needed with anyone handling them with kid gloves. That's the reason why Steve felt no remorse about nodding his head.

"Be careful."

Clint raised an eyebrow but smiled in relieved understanding. "Damn, I was going to take excessively stupid risks but since you asked so nicely I guess I'll only take slightly stupid risks."

Steve snickered. "That's all I ask."

Clint nodded in his direction before steering the still silent Will out of the room. Steve glanced at the clock on the wall. He knew Clint. He knew that he had about five minutes to stop them if he truly wanted to. He knew he probably should stop them but he wouldn't. Instead he sat down on one of the weight benches and watched as the minutes ticked by.

"You were right," Ethan's voice broke the heavy silence that settled over the room in the brothers' absence. "I messed up with Will."

Steve shrugged. "It happens. You'll do better in the future."

"In case you missed the whole conversation we just had, Will quit. There isn't going to be a future."

"Like I said, we went through some pretty rough times when we first got together as a team. It wasn't a week if one of us didn't threaten to quit or actually quit. Tony currently holds the record with five threats and three actual resignations."

"It was four resignations, Captain Awesome."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Pretty sure the fourth doesn't count. You didn't even finish your usual melodramatic speech before you were suiting up and flying off with the rest of the team."

There was a pause. "Yeah, well that was only because Clint went that day. And it was so soon after… yeah. So I went because I didn't really trust you all to keep him alive. I didn't trust him to keep himself alive."

Steve repressed the urge to shudder. He knew Ethan was confused but the older agent was smart enough not to ask what they were alluding too. At least he learned. Steve was silently cursing himself for bringing it up in the first place. Even thinking back to those days hurt. They had come way too close to losing Clint back then.

"Hey, no pouting, Capsicle. It's safe to say we've done a good job with the keeping him alive thing since then though," Tony continued. "Too bad that's not going to stop Phil from totally murdering us for letting his pet assassin and his grossly underestimated in terms of badassness twin loose in the city."

Steve pursed his lips together contemplating Tony's words. He let out a slow breath. "Is it too late to cancel family dinner?"
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Though he tried to limit the amount of time he spent around the founding members of the Avengers to mission debriefs and occasional dysfunctional family nights, Nick was more than a little familiar with their habits and behaviors. He knew something was wrong even before he and Phil stepped off the elevator. For starters, Tony and Bruce were in the same room and nothing was exploded or on fire. Steve was sitting in one of the plush armchairs with a sketchpad on his lap. That wasn't out of the ordinary. But Natasha sitting on the arm of the chair, occasionally looking in the captain's direction while simultaneously playing with a particularly big knife that Nick knew for a fact belonged to Clint, was a little odd. To the casual observer, there was nothing wrong. But Nick wasn't a casual observer.

"What happened?" Phil asked before Nick could. Steve's blue eyes widened while Tony let out a strangled giggle. Bruce elbowed him in the side. "So which of you let them leave?"

Steve groaned as they all pointed to him. "In my defense, sir, you always said it was best to get out of Clint's way when he's in assassin mode. And I whole-heartedly agree with that. But may I say that Agent Brandt has a scarier assassin mode? I think it's because he's so quiet."

Nick and Phil exchanged worried glances. "So where are the rest of the IMF agents?"

"Out looking for them," Tony replied. His tone reflected his belief on their success of the pursuit. Nick was of a similar mindset. Still, it wouldn't do to have them running around the city unsupervised. Nick took out of his phone, dialing a number by memory.

"Sitwell, its Fury. Put an APB out on Barton and anyone that looks like him," Nick reported before listening to the agent on the other end of the line. "You're right. Make sure to exclude Detective Walsh from that. He's like a more annoying Barton. We don't need him lingering around HQ. Especially not with Darcy still haunting the halls."

"You know that's not going to work, right?" Tony asked once Nick hung up. "Barton's the best at evading those things."

"Well at least I'm doing something," Fury retorted. "Also, Phil, is Deadpool in the country? We might need his help tracking down the Wonder Twins."

Phil snorted. "Before we get Wade involved, maybe we should ask what the team is holding up their sleeves."

"How does he always know?!"

"Magic."

"Magic isn't real."

"Really? See Exhibit Loki?"

"Focus," Phil ordered. "What's the plan?"

Tony turned his tablet to face the two men. Nick could see that it was a map. There was a steadily moving dot on the screen. Nick squinted and saw that the dot was actually in the shape of a small white bird. He grinned.

"We give him a few hours to spread his wings. And let Will calm down. Then we go drag them back," Natasha shrugged. "Then I'm handcuffing them both to the nearest available surface so they don't go running off on the first crazy idea that pops into their heads."

"Yeah, like that's going to work," Bruce muttered. "He was in the circus."

Any response Natasha might have made was silence by the elevator doors opening once again. This time the very worried IMF team following by a gun wielding Maria Hill filed off the elevator. Jane's eyes were narrowed as she glared over her shoulder at Maria. Nick was familiar enough with Natasha to know it wouldn't end well for his deputy director so it was best to squash this now.

"Stand down, Agent Hill."

"Do you know who this is, Director Fury?!"

"Yes, Agent Hunt. I know…"

"Who cares about him?" Maria interrupted. "I work with Stark and Barton. Nothing Hunt does can compare to that. But no this guy is Benji Dunn. He came dangerously close to hacking SHIELD in 2006!"

All eyes flickered to the quiet British technician. Nick noted, with a heavy sigh, that Tony's gaze was more than a little appreciative. Fury made a mental note to squash that little bromance before Dunn became another Science Bro. The two they already had along with their honorary little brother were bad enough. NYC couldn't handle a fourth (or a fifth depending on Will).

"Excellent, Son of Coul, you have returned!" Thor's booming voice announced him before he actually arrived in the room. Nick wasn't surprised to see Loki trailing after him. Really the trickster was starting to spend more time in the Tower than the other Avengers. He shifted his attention back to Thor once he realized that the oldest of the gods was wearing his determined face. This rarely ended well for anyone's sanity. Thank god, it was directed at Phil.

"Yes, Thor. How can I help you?"

"I need your searching abilities. I have an urgent missive that I must send to Ryan Murphy."

"Who is…?" Jane started.

"Creator of Glee and American Horror Story with an ego that matches mine," Tony replied before Thor could launch into his no doubt lengthy description. "But what could you possibly need to write him about urgently?"

"I demand an explanation for the blatant lack of consistent character development and coherent plot lies." The gathered humans blinked as Loki nodded, silently adding his agreement to this insanity.

"Is he for real right now?" Maria asked, her brows furrowed together.

"It's Thor," was the chorused response from those that were all too familiar with Thor and his "quests". "Of course, he's serious about this."

Phil ran a hand over his face before schooling his features into his carefully crafted "I will remain calm… and sane" mask. "Thor, I will be very willing to help you track down Mr. Murphy, but first we need to get Clint and Will back."

"Who is Will?" Maria asked, her tone a mix of confusion and exasperation.

"Clint's twin and former Chief Analyst turned field agent for IMF."

Maria's jaw dropped. "There are two of them?"

"Yeah, I know exactly how you feel," Nick sympathized. "Long story short, they're the byproduct of yet another foray into the world of super soldiers. There were three. Now it's just two. They found what Tony was supposed to be keeping secret and now they're apparently loose in the world trying to find answers. And there are people that actively want to kill to cover up their existence and have killed four out of their five collective parents."

"So Clint's missing and in danger," Loki summarized before shrugging. "Must be Tuesday."

"Bruce! Did he just quote Buffy? Why do the alien gods know about Buffy?!"

Bruce shrugged, completely unaffected by Tony's yelling. "One weekend while you were being you, Thor, Clint and Loki had a Buffy marathon."

"And Firefly," Loki added with a smirk.

Tony's face darkened. "When I find that bird brained bastard, I'm going to kill him. How dare they pull a Whedon marathon without me?!"

"Yeah," Natasha drawled. "That's the important thing right now."

"Glad you know."

"Let it never be said that Tony doesn't have his priorities in the completely wrong place like all of the time," Steve commented, shaking his head and returning to his sketch pad.

"He's refreshingly consistent with that," Phil agreed, patting Stark on the arm.

Nick rolled his eyes at the usual banter and flopped down on the sofa beside Tony. He picked up the forgotten tablet to find that there was a window with the hacked files on all four IMF agents. Since they were clearly going to wait to see where Will and Clint were, he decided he might as well get comfortable and do a little reading. It would help to learn more about the IMF agents. Judging from the way Phil was observing their interactions with the rest of the team, Nick had a feeling that they would probably be sticking around awhile longer.

Chapter Text

Clint let his gaze slide briefly from the road to the far too silent man beside him. Since his totally awesome and completely justified explosion back at the Tower, Will was withdrawn. Clint was fairly certain that Will was probably always on the quiet side but this? This was just wrong. Clint even tried holding Will's hand again but it had no effect. Will didn't even blink.

"There's gotta be something!" he muttered, gripping the steering wheel tighter. It was strange but the moment he met Will's matching gaze, Clint suddenly became aware of a part of him that he didn't even know existed. It was the part of him that was linked to Will. If he didn't know about psychics and magic, he almost wouldn't believe that a bond between identical twins could exist. But it did. And he knew that somehow he and Will were linked. He could feel Will retreating via their bond. It hurt.

But Will was the comforting one. Clint really didn't know how to do the comfort thing. His idea of soothing hurt feelings was to shoot things until the bad thoughts and feelings went away. It didn't help that everyone around him (minus Steve and Phil because they were totally just a vagina away from being mothers) were emotionally retarded. Bruce only offered painful and often physically disfiguring methods of revenge to those that wronged him (or his family). Tony drank away the pain. Natasha killed it. Thor offered to wage war against those that dared to wrong him, even going so far to threaten their descendants. He was a god. He was in a good position to make that happen. But really, given those around him, was it any surprise that he didn't know how to comfort… be he did know Will.

On a subconscious level, he knew his brother. That's why he started singing before he even registered what was coming out of his mouth.

"Started singing bye bye Ms. American Pie/ Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry/Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye/Singing this will be the day that I die/This'll be the day that I die."

Almost before he finished the last line, he could feel the shift in the atmosphere. He felt Will stronger in his mind. He heard the warm chuckle and knew without looking that there would be an affectionate yet amused smile on Will's lips. It would match his own.

"That was always your favorite song," Will's smile still evident in his voice. "Nurse Barton always sang that to us when we had trouble sleeping. I swear you slept with the hearing aids in because you knew she would sing it to us every night."

"She never stopped," Clint answered. "She would sing it to me every night before I went to sleep. She was a good mom."

"I bet," Will mused. "It's funny. You got the good mom and I got the good dad. I wish…" Will let the sentence trail off. Clint was glad. He knew what Will wished…. he did too.

His twin wished their parents would've stuck together. Maybe if they had they would still be alive. Maybe if they had Kenneth would still be alive. Maybe Clint wouldn't have to dig deep within his memories to even remember the other boy who shared his face.

"So where are we headed anyway?" Clint asked, hoping to clear the awkward silence.

"We've been driving for the past twenty minutes. I thought you knew."

"Nah, I just picked a direction and drove," Clint shrugged. "I figured you'd snap out of your emo brooding fit eventually and tell me where to go."

"How have you managed to make it this far in life without me?"

"Sheer dumb luck, rugged good looks, and Phil."

"That was meant to be rhetorical," Will retorted, though Clint knew he was still smiling. "Well we need answers and I think I know someone who might have them."

"Who? I thought everyone was dead."

"Not my mom, oh, Mrs. Brandt… I don't know who the hell she is anymore."

Clint patted Will on the arm quickly before moving back to the steering wheel. "Well then, call her up."

"I can't. I left my phone back at the hotel. It was only supposed to be a quick trip to the coffee shop this morning. Jane was going to give it back but… yeah. So do you have yours?"

"Nope. Trashed it. Before we got in the car."

"What? Why?!"

"You do realize that Steve is going to squeal about me leaving. Also Tony was probably pulling his Big Brother thing and saw the whole thing go down. They'll be tracking me down pretty soon. They'll try the phone first, credit cards next and then bank activity. So I trashed it."

"Please tell me you didn't learn this through experience." Clint remained silent. "Well?"

"You told me not to tell you!"

"What are you twelve? Also what kind of genius tries to run away from a group of spies and superheroes?"

"A messed up in the head spy/superhero with genius affiliations," Clint retorted without any real heat. He could see the look on Will's face out the corner of his eye. Yeah, he definitely liked this twin thing.

"Anyway, what about the car? I would think that the great Tony Stark would have a tracking system in his car."

Clint flicked his right hand towards the dashboard. There stood a bizarre mashed up combination of an Iron Man and Captain America figurine. It was the result of a bored Clint and Thor, too much mead, a shipment of Avengers merchandise, Bruce's old CD Walkman and a blowtorch. He could tell Will was about to ask about that when his eyes caught what Clint was really gesturing towards. In the legs of the statue was a small electronic device.

"Is that…"

"A signal jammer. Trust me. They're definitely not tracing this car."

"Who made this?"

"I kinda did," Clint said, hesitantly. "I call him Stony."

"That's both impressive and scary. But overall awesome," Will commented. Clint smiled faintly. "So how are we supposed to make calls?"

"Use the car phone. Stony should block then from tracking that too."

"Very awesome, little brother."

Clint trampled the urge to beam like a lunatic at his brother's praise and instead motioned towards the panel where the phone was located. Will pushed the button.

Voice Activation Required.

"Oh, that's such bull. I really picked the one car without JARVIS?!"

Voice Authorization Granted. Good Evening, Agent Barton-Stark.

"What the actual hell?" Will's voice trailed off. "Is he serious?"

Clint blinked for a minute before shrugging. "Yeah, this is what he does. I find my life goes so much smoother if I just ignore moments like this."

"You have Stockholm Syndrome."

"That is a very real and frightening possibility. Yes."

"Doesn't bother you at all, huh?"

"Nope."

"This is going to take some getting used to, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

Clint smiled as Will snickered. He didn't know if Will was really serious about quitting IMF but he did know that they were in this for the long haul. It didn't matter that he didn't remember missing Will before today. All that mattered now was that he knew. He knew he missed his brother. He knew that he would miss his brother if they were to part ways today. He didn't care how long this quest for answers took (or even what answers they would find). He was going to see this through to the end. And then he was going to find a way to keep Will with him for good.

"Mom?" He glanced at his brother and saw the confused look on the older twin's face. "Are you okay?"

"Will?"

"Yeah, it's me," he sighed. "Please tell me you haven't been hitting up the vodka before gardening again. I know I work for an intelligence agency but there are only so many times that I can use that pull to erase your public intoxication charges in town."

"I'm not drunk!" the woman on the other end of the line slurred. Clint raised an eyebrow. Didn't sound that way to him. Then again he was hearing impaired… so maybe Will's adoptive mother wasn't a drunk. Still, he lived with Tony. He knew all too well what drunk sounded like.

"What else is new?" Will murmured under his breath. "Look, I just wanted you to know that I'm on my way back home. I'm bringing a guest, so do me a favor and leave the vodka and gardening alone for a bit, okay? Maybe drink some water."

"I'm not at home, so I don't think I'll have a problem there."

"It's like a seven hour drive, mom," Will glanced at Clint out the corner of his eyes. "Probably less since someone doesn't obey traffic laws."

"Eh, some laws are stupid. Like for instance did you know that it is illegal in New York to congregate in public with two or more people while each is wearing a mask or any face covering which disguises your identity? So basically I break laws every time I save the world."

"It worries me that you know that," Will commented. He turned his attention back to his mother. "So take your time getting home, mom. I'll see you in a few hours."

"William, what I was trying to tell you before your very odd friend cut me off is that I'm not in Virginia. I'm in New York."

Clint pulled the car off the road in time to exchange incredulous looks with Will. "What the hell are you doing in New York?"

"Well if you must know I was kidnapped!"

"By who?"

"I don't really remember their names but they worked for SHIELD. It was a black man with an eye patch. He interrogated me with another man… Phil something. A rather unremarkable little man."

Clint snorted. He should've guessed that Nick was going to be one step ahead of them in this. Now that he knew that Phil and Nick were involved, Clint realized that she wasn't drunk, she was drugged. And to be feeling the effects after the fact, she must've pissed Nick or Phil off pretty well. He smirked.

"My dads are awesome."

Will gave him an amused look. "You're a total weirdo, know that?"

"Duh."

"William, who is that?"

"That would be my guest. So where are you now? I mean besides in New York?"

"I think I'm in the Bronx. Or at least the name of the motel they dumped me in seems to imply that."

Will rolled his eyes and looked to Clint. "Where to?"

"There's a diner near the motel. It's called the Riverdale Diner. We'll meet you there in an hour."

"How am I…?"

Will pushed the panel once again, cutting off her question. Clint gave him a questioning look. The oldest of the pair shrugged with a look of mock innocence on his face. "Oops?"

Clint grinned and steered the car back on the road. This twin thing was pretty awesome.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Will groaned as he walked into the Riverdale Diner less than an hour later (because yes, Clint, yellow light means slow down and, no, there is no such thing as a useless stop sign) and caught sight of the woman that raised him. He had long ago ceased to think of her as his mother. And that was long before he knew the truth. Emily Brandt was never meant to be a mother and Will couldn't help but wonder how different things would've been for everyone if James Brandt hadn't forced her to be a mother. She might've been happier and maybe just a little less dependent on alcohol to get her through the day. But the reality was that she was forced into it and she was a functioning alcohol who hated her existence and that of her reluctant child.

He wasn't surprised that his mother was already seated in a booth as far away from the front door of the diner as possible. He also wasn't surprised to see her sipping at a glass of what he guessed was probably brandy. He wasn't surprised but he couldn't help the childish sense of disappointment that hit him in that very moment.

"Awesome, they've got pie!" Clint blurted out from somewhere behind him. Will turned around to see that his brother hadn't made it past the brightly lit dessert case by the front counter. He was plastered against the glass, eyeballing the admittedly delicious looking pastries. "Dude, they got apple!"

"Really, Clint?"

"It's pie! You cannot deny the pie!"

"Fine, fatty. You can have some pie," Will rolled his eyes, smiling. "You're such a weirdo."

"And you're such a normal."

"What does that even mean?"

"Hell if I know. You think I actually stop to think about this stuff before I say it. It's part of my charm."

"Oh, is that what you call that?"

The bantering was new dynamic in their relationship but somehow oddly familiar. It helped to soothe his frayed nerves and get him moving towards where Emily was sitting. The conversation didn't distract him from watching her reaction to their approach. She didn't seem surprised that there was another man that looked exactly like her son. Instead she seemed more shocked that they were together. Well, there went the small hope he had that she had nothing to do with this. He took a deep breath, bumped his shoulder against Clint's and slide into the booth opposite his mother.

"Now isn't this a familiar childhood scene," Will commented, waving at her almost empty brandy glass. "So good to see you, mommy dearest."

"William," she looked pointedly at Clint, who was sitting beside him. She was ignored.

"Right. So now that the pleasantries and small talk are out the way, let's get down to business. Tell me everything you know about Cadmus and Project Rebirth."

"Where are your manners? You're not going to introduce me to your friend?"

"Mom, you know what I do for a living. I know you're more aware than anyone of how much I can remember about every single one of your tells and facial reactions. And right now, I can almost smell the bullshit rolling off of you. You know exactly who this is because you didn't so much as blink at the fact that there is another person that looks like me. So no, you don't get an introduction. You get to cut the crap and tell me what the hell is going on. Now!"

Emily's jaw dropped even as Clint gave a little murmur of approval. "Well, well, look at you, letting your inner badass shine through." Will smirked and elbowed him in the side."

"Well how much do you already know?"

Will exchanged looks with Clint. He nodded. He was content to let Will take the lead on this one. He took another deep breath.

"We know the basics. We were born in Cadmus. Then Dad smuggled us out and split us up. The Barton's were killed. Dr. Kitsom was killed. Dad was killed. To the best of your knowledge, I was the only one left but obviously, I'm not. Now what else do I need to know?"

Emily chewed on her lip before picking up one of her heavy gardening gloves. Will could only watch in confusion as she pulled out a small notebook. She pushed it in front of Will.

"That was James' journal. He wrote everything about you boys in there. Everything. I always keep it with me. I kind of figured that one day it would come to this."

Will swallowed, pulling the book closer. He opened to the front page and had to fight against the sudden stinging in his eyes as he looked at his father's familiar neat cursive writing. He felt Clint pat him on the arm before turning his attention to getting his pie. Will tuned him out as he scanned through the notes. Silence reigned heavily on the table for a few minutes as Will read and Clint practically inhaled an entire slice of pie.

"Huh, it says here that Michael Sterling was considered an 'optimal' candidate for the project because he was descended from a man named Hansel Adler," Will murmured, still reading through the very through notes. "That mean anything to you?" Clint paused with the fork hovering midway to his mouth. Will took advantage of his distraction to steal the bite of pie. It was pretty good.

Clint mocked glared at him before his brow furrowed in thought. "Hansel… oh, yeah. He was a witch hunter back in the day. Pretty well known. He and his sister were responsible for wiping out a large part of the evil witches that were plaguing Europe in the early nineteenth century. According to all the legends, Hansel was pretty badass. Might be because he was descended from witches."

"So Cadmus thought that magic would be the missing element with the super soldier formula?" Will mused. "Wait, you said he traveled with his sister? Don't tell me. Her name was Gretel?"

"This surprises you how? You do remember that I live with the Norse god of thunder and have regular breakfast/pity parties with the inspiration for almost every trickster myth in existence. All myths and stories have some basis in reality. The Grimm brothers just missed half the story." Clint frowned. "Only bad part of is this is that I now owe Darcy. She always said I looked like Hansel. Guess there was a reason for that."

"You know my life was normal until I met you again," Will pointed out.

"First, you're welcome. Normal is so overrated. And second, see Exhibit Ethan. I don't know the man but I've heard of him. I'm pretty sure crashing a parked car in a garage in Dubai is not the definition of normal."

"Shut up and eat your pie!"

"Just sayin."

Will shook his head as he continued to read through the notes. Another few minutes, and another slice of pie, passed before the silence was broken again. This time by Emily.

"So which one are you? The dumb one or the deaf one?"

"I guess that depends on who you ask."

Will elbowed him in the side before glaring up at his mother. "This is Clint Barton, my twin. And that was the last time you ever speak to or about either Kenny or Clint that way. Understand?"

"Uh, excuse me." They all looked up to see the young hostess from the front desk standing at their table. Her face was a mix of confusion and apprehension. "Do any of you go by the name Clint Stark?"

Clint scoffed and nodded. "Apparently I do today. Why? What's wrong?"

She held a cordless phone out to him. "The phone is for you."

"What the hell?" he took the offered phone. "Hello?" Will watched as a collage of emotions passed over his brother's face. "Nat? How did you…. what do you mean they know where I am? How? They're tracking me? How the hell are they doing that? I disabled the tracking system in the car. What do you mean the tracker isn't in the car?"

The hostess left them as the door to the diner opened once again. But she didn't need to bother as they already had a table in mind. Clint growled, cursing in some language Will didn't have the mental energy to place as Phil Coulson, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Ethan Hunt came strolling through the door.

"I think we may need a bigger table," Will commented absently.

"Traitor," Clint hissed into the phone. He frowned at whatever Natasha said on the other end. "Fine, I'll hear them out. See you later."

"You're so whipped, bird boy," Tony drawled as he dropped down into the booth beside Clint. "So you thought you could run."

"Screw you, Tony. You put a tracker on me?!"

Tony shrugged. "You do realize that you tend to go missing like all of the time, right? I swear you have a built in timer that reminds you that you haven't gone missing in a few months. Think of this as an investment in the peace of mind of not only the entirety of the Avengers but also of SHIELD."

Will watched as the protest died on Clint's lips. Clearly that was something he couldn't argue with. Will made a mental note to work with Clint on self preservation and the merits of not being kidnapped on a bimonthly basis.

"So what were you kids talking about?" Tony asked once he realized Clint wasn't going to ask anymore questions about the tracker. He was instead occupied with searching for the tracker. Will couldn't help but notice the faded scars that his haphazard search revealed. He made another mental note to hunt down Duquesne.

"Alright, where is it? You didn't put them in my hearing aids, did you?"

"No, that's the first place anyone who knows you're hearing impaired would look."

"Right, so where did you put it?"

"It's better you don't know," Bruce assured him. "It's less awkward that way."

Clint's eyes narrowed. "I swear to… it better not be in my ass. It's in my ass, isn't it? Damn it, Phil. I told you to stop letting them put things in my ass while I'm unconscious!"

Phil only rolled his eyes in response as the various conversations in the diner died down and several curious glances were thrown at their table. Clint remained unrepentant while Tony merely nodded.

"Then again, this is Clint we're talking about," Bruce mused with a grin on his face. "You're a walking talking awkward moment."

"Right then," Phil muttered. "Clint, finish your pie. We're leaving." Clint opened his mouth to say something. "Yes, I'll get you a slice to go." Clint beamed and Will was slightly impressed. And a little jealous. "And I'll get you one too, Will."

"How did he…?"

Clint shrugged. "It's his thing." Will nodded even as Clint's attention shifted away from the pie that was now being split between Tony and Bruce to Ethan who was on the other side of the booth next to his forgotten mother. Will tilted his head to the side looking at his former team leader. "So Agent Hunt, what brings you around?"

Ethan tensed but managed a smile in Clint's direction. "I'm here as a friend, I promise. I just came to say that I'm sorry." He then turned to Will. "And I also came to tell you that you're wrong."

"Really?"

"Really. You're wrong. We are friends. I'm sorry for Croatia and the mess that it's made of your life. I guess I never really gave it too much thought. I should have and I'm sorry. But I don't regret us being a team. It took getting bashed into a wall for me to realize it but we are friends. Honestly, you're the closest thing I have to a best friend. I'm sorry for not telling you that sooner."

Will chewed on his lip, contemplating Ethan's words. He knew what it cost the man to apologize to him. He wasn't really big on saying sorry. It meant that he had to stick around long enough after the damage was done to be able to apologize. So this was a huge thing. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Ethan had a point. They were more than a team. This whole New York mission was for Will in the first place. So clearly there was some level of concern and care about his well being. But still….

He turned to Clint with the indecision clear on his face. His twin stared for a moment before shrugging. "I still don't like him."

"Fair enough," Will laughed. He nodded at Ethan. "Sorry for pushing you into a wall, friend."

"Apology accepted, friend," Ethan shook his head with a smile of his own. He glanced at Emily and then to Will. "I'll go see if Agent Coulson needs any help with the check."

"Yeah, we'll go with you," Bruce agreed, pulling at the reluctant Tony.

"Does it seriously take five people to settle a bill for booze and pie?" Tony grumbled even as Bruce and Clint carried him the short distance away from the booth. Will couldn't help but laugh at their less than subtle diversion tactics. He also couldn't help but be faintly amused at Ethan's real olive branch. He wondered how much food they were currently charging to his mother's recently liberated credit card. He also wondered why he didn't feel bad about that at all.

"Mom," Will started, sighing a little. "I'm sorry for everything that happened to your life because of me and my brothers. I'm sorry that you lost your husband. But I'm also sorry that at the end of it all, you're still going to be alone because you're selfish. I got my brother and my friends. I'm moving on. You won't be seeing me again after this. Not for awkward holiday moments. Not at all. I'm out."

"William, I know I haven't been the best mother, but are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into? Michael was there for you. He protected you. Do you think that these people will give you the same protection?"

Will turned his head instinctively to the side to see Clint. He couldn't hear the hushed conversation going on between his brother and his handler but he could read what he needed to. He saw the smiles on the faces of both men. He could read the obvious care between them as Phil handed Clint a box containing an entire pie, while covertly looking him over for any injuries.

"Yeah, I think I'll be good," Will finally commented to his mother. "Good luck with the rest of your life. Because I've got something so much better now."

He slipped out the booth without a backwards glance. Clint raised an eyebrow. Will nodded. This appeared to appease his brother as he returned to his conversation with Phil and Tony without so much as a twitch. Will smiled following the small congregation as they left the diner. He fell in step with Ethan.

"So did you find the answers you were looking for?" Ethan asked.

"No," Will admitted reluctantly. Truthfully, he knew when he took off that they weren't going to get anything useful. They had his father's journal and that would shed a lot of insight into the how behind their existence but it didn't answer why they were the way around. It didn't change the fact that Clint had a horrible childhood with a brother that didn't deserve him while Will grew up comfortable but longing for the same brother that needed him. It didn't change the fact that Kenny was dead. He was gone. Having the journal didn't change any of that. Nothing really would. So no, he didn't get the answers he was looking for. But…

"I swear as soon as we get back to the Tower, you're like doing a scan. If that tracker is anywhere near my ass, you're dead, Stark!"

"I think I got something better," Will replied, shaking his head at his brother's antics.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
It wasn't as if Nick didn't believe everyone when they said that Will and Clint were identical. He watched the footage from earlier. He saw the way they interacted with one another. He saw that they were identical. But it was one thing to see it on a screen and hear about it from your highly insane team. It was quite the other to see them standing in front of you in living, breathing, identical color. Almost an hour after they returned and attempted to salvage the family dinner (mostly for Peter's sake), Nick was still in shock at hearing Clint's voice coming out of the far more reserved Will's mouth.

One thing that both brothers had in common, he noticed, was that they were both wrapped around the little fingers of their female partners. Maybe it was because Clint lacked a filter and tact that he was able to successfully cross the line with Natasha. Or maybe it was because of Natasha, Nick didn't know. But he did know that someone was going to have to do something about Will and Jane soon because they were almost pathetic with how bad they wanted each other.

"So where do we go from here, Double Trouble?" Tony asked, as they all settled around the living room.

Clint shrugged, looking down from his perch on the back of the sofa to his brother sitting on the chair. The older of the twins cleared his throat before looking at the IMF agents seated close to the twin's sofa.

"I just wanted to start off by saying thanks for everything. You don't know how much you guys have helped me in the past two years. But… I don't think I'm going back to IMF. They've lied too many times. And I can't take it anymore. I'm sorry but I'm out."

Nick watched as a grin spread across Clint's face. He had seen that smile only two times in the sixteen years he knew the archer. The first was when Nick and Phil promised that he could stay with SHIELD with no strings attached. The second was when they agreed to bring Natasha on as an agent. Nick both loved and hated that smile. He loved it because it meant the kid was genuinely happy. But he hated it because he knew he was going to end up going along with whatever came out of Clint's mouth after that smile appeared because of the above reason. Thankfully, it seemed that they were both on the same page… this time.

"So this means you're a free agent, huh?"

Will leaned his head back to stare at his brother. "I guess it does."

"Phil, can we keep him? Please?"

Beside Nick, Phil let out an amused snuffling sound but never bothered to look up from some paperwork that he was reviewing. "Yeah, I guess that could work."

"No," Benji blurted out, standing up abruptly. Jane was on her feet as well. "No, okay, look this is insane. You are not leaving us, Will. Especially not to go off fighting aliens and gods and save the bloody world every day."

"We're not going to sit on the sidelines while you're off being a big damn hero and just wait to make sure that you're okay," Jane added, her eyes soft. "I can't be there for you, if you're not there too."

Will chewed on his lip. "So you're going to stop me from leaving?"

Benji and Jane exchanged exasperated looks. "Of course not. We're coming with you. There is no way you're leaving us behind. Not for something this awesome! Right, Ethan?"

Ethan looked conflicted. "But IMF…."

"Has burned all of us more times than I can count," Jane pointed out. "Also exactly how many times have you been disavowed, Ethan? Why would you even want to keep going back to them? IMF is not important here. This team… us, we're what's important. Sticking together is important. And if Will can't be in IMF, then we can't either."

Ethan sighed, looking between his team and then to the watching Avengers. Clint narrowed his eyes but ultimately gave a tiny flicker of approval.

"Well, then I guess we're all free agents. Know of anyone that's hiring?"

Before Nick could even open his mouth, Phil was handing each of the four IMF spies a folder. "In here, you'll find your request to transfer paperwork, some basic demographic information for SHIELD's files, as well as a hire letter." He produced four pens as well. "Welcome to SHIELD."

Nick chuckled. And Phil thought Nick was the one spoiling Clint all these years. And while he was already thinking about offering the IMF team a place within SHIELD, it was Phil who breached the topic first. So Nick really hoped that Phil thought this one through carefully. Because now there were two. He regretted that they never really got a chance to know Kenneth but he couldn't help but be slightly grateful that their brother wasn't around. He didn't know if SHIELD would survive three. He wasn't sure it was going to survive two. God help them all, there were two of them now.

Maybe now was a good time to put in for a vacation. Manila was looking pretty good this time of year.

Chapter Text

Technology was an amazing thing. It saved lives. It gave man the ability to reach the stars and beyond. It also allowed Phil Coulson to see every annoyed facial feature on the face of one Jasper Sitwell despite the fact that the younger man was currently in Manila. Phil was able to see his protégé suffer from the air conditioned comfort of his own office at Stark Tower. Technology was pretty awesome.

"How the mission going?"

Jasper's right eye twitched minutely but he gave no further indication that he was annoyed. He didn't need to. Phil knew he was but he also knew that Jasper brought this upon himself. So his sympathy was a little a low at the moment.

"The warehouse remains active but thus far there have been no signs of suspicious activities," Jasper reported. He fidgeted with the collar of his shirt. Phil could see little beads of sweat pooling on his skin in crystal clear high definition. Jasper noticed his attention and glared. "Are you sure Stark's information is accurate?"

"It's Stark. He might be functionally insane and permanently stuck in his teenage years but I don't doubt his research. Especially not when it comes to something like this."

This was the subject of Jasper's mission. A month ago, information was leaked about a project funded by the CIA. It was a huge mess with almost every intelligence agency in the game up in arms. When the information first reached SHIELD, Nick (and pretty much everyone) immediately thought of the ever present pain in the rear super soldier experiments. Needless to say that particular subject always tended to bring out the crazy in most SHIELD personnel and that was before the discovery that one of their own was born because of a failed experiment with the super soldier serum. Now everyone was chomping at the bit to get to the bottom of Operation Treadstone. Especially the Avengers as there wasn't a single one of the founding members (aside from Thor) whose origin didn't have some connection to that cursed formula. Phil was still waiting for the next plot twist that would reveal some previously unknown, unimaginable, and implausible connection between Thor and the super soldier experiment.

Or rather Phil sincerely hoped it was Thor's turn next because he really didn't think that Clint could handle anymore curveballs at this point. He was holding up relatively well given the sudden brother overload (not just Stark's continuing efforts at adopting them both). But Phil worried what one more blow would do to the archer's psyche. And what affected Clint also impacted Will. They really were two halves of the same coin. How they functioned thirty years without each other was a mystery to everyone as they hadn't spent more than a few days away from each in the six months they'd been reunited.

"You've got that look in your eye again. You must be thinking about a certain bird brained archer and his much better half. So how are the Doublemint Twins anyway?"

A lesser man than Phil would've been fooled by the flippant tone. But Phil didn't become known as Fury's good eye without being excellent at seeing between the lines.

"They miss you too, you know?"

"I definitely don't miss the brat or his devious twin. You know the only reason I even agreed to this mission was because it got me as far away from them as possible without having to quit SHIELD. But just so we're both clear, if Fury hadn't come through with the Manila mission, that would've been an option for discussion."

"I think you may be exaggerating the situation a bit. They're not that bad."

"Separately, no. Well, actually that's just Will. Clint is pretty much terrible on his own too. But together…. they're menaces. Last month, Will stood there and helped Clint climb the Statue of Liberty…. From the outside! With a blindfold! Will is the one that put the blindfold on the idiot!"

Phil smirked. That was one of Clint's lesser intelligent moments though Ethan did share some of the blame in that one. All of the IMF agents were told in the very beginning that under no circumstances was Thor, Clint or Tony to ever be dared to do anything. Ever. None of them had an ounce of common sense between them. No matter how impossible or deadly it might seem to a normal person, they would see it as a challenge. Impulse control was not one of their strengths. But to someone familiar with the Avengers, it was just another thing. The man on the screen opposite him was more than familiar with that truth.

"Okay, so he's a little eccentric."

"And he lives to annoy any SHIELD employee that isn't named Phil Coulson or Nick Fury. And Will isn't much better. He just goes a long with whatever insane thought pops into Clint's head. So no, I've earned my break from the kid. I'll catch up with him in a month. I'm sure he'll be fine until then. And you'd let me know if something changed, right?"

Phil laughed. "Careful, Jasper. Your caring is starting to show."

Jasper opened his mouth to retort but a voice off-screen commanded his attention. He held up a finger to Phil indicating that he would only take a minute. He took three and when he came back his face was even more flushed than before. The subtle tick in his right eye that was definitely Barton induced was even more pronounced.

"Is there something you wanted to tell me, Phil? How could you neglect to tell me that one of your twins is running loose in Manila?! Its Clint isn't it? That's why you didn't tell me. I know he's your favorite and what not but I thought you would at least have the decency to give me a heads up."

"Jasper, what are you talking about? Clint is right…."

The door to his office slammed open at that moment revealing an incredibly pissed off twin. Judging from the tie hanging loosely around his neck, Phil was going on record by saying it was Will. Especially since the other was currently in the vent just above his head.

"Come out now or I swear I will drag you out by that stupid fat head of yours!" Will hissed, glaring up at said vent. There was a muffled noise that somehow Will interpreted as a response. "I don't care if we're identical. Clearly we don't have identical brains. Mine tells me to stay in bed when I have a concussion. Yours tells you to go crawling through the vents! Now get down!" Another muffled sound. "Fine then. I'm coming up there!"

Phil could only watch in silent amusement as Will nosily dragged a chair from across the room until it was under the vent he was yelling at. True to his word, he climbed onto the chair and stretched up to reach the very loose vent cover. There was a less muffled response this time as a head of dark blonde hair appeared in Will's hands.

"Ouch! That hurts!"

"Well then next time listen to me!" Will hissed. It didn't escape Phil's attention, however, that Will was a lot gentler as Clint slid out of the vent. He stepped off the chair and helped his brother to sit down. Once Clint was settled, Will squeezed his shoulder. "You need to stop escaping from Medical."

"It's boring. And that nurse Tony hired is a Nazi. Like seriously, I think she might actually have been a Nazi. She's old enough."

"So not the point," Will murmured. He pointed at Phil. "And you. You know you're only enabling his delinquency."

"Worrisome bitch," Clint muttered loud enough for Will to hear.

"Reckless asshole," Will said in the same annoyed, yet affectionate tone.

"Uh," Jasper started, pulling all attention to the forgotten screen. "If they're both there then we have a problem."

"What now?" Clint groused, rubbing his no doubt aching head. Will smacked his hand away as it strayed towards the bloodstained white bandage on his forehead. Clint frowned before redirecting his glare in Jasper's direction. "What's got your panties in a bunch this time?"

Jasper's right eye twitched again even as he held up a piece of paper with two pictures printed on it. It was an APB for a man and a woman. The woman was a pretty brunette that Phil was certain he'd seen before and recently. But it was the male that caught his attention. All too familiar bluish eyes stared out from the paper Jasper held up. The same dirty blond hair. The same exact nose.

"Not again!" Clint and Will groused in unison. Phil could only agree. Didn't they go through this same thing only six months ago? Things were only now starting to settle down. He could only hope this was another doppelganger (although the world did not need another Jason Walsh, despite what Clint thought). Although with the way that Phil's luck ran, this was going to end up being by the byproduct of some genetic experiment to replicate Project Rebirth. Again.

"Stark, Banner, get in here."

A few minutes passed before the door opened once again. This time a worried and frazzled looking Bruce followed by a calmer Tony and Benji. Oh, perfect. Phil made a mental note to check for any burned or exploded objects in the Tower. Bruce growled as he caught sight of the twins.

"Nurse Turner is going crazy looking for you," he pointed out as he stalked over to a not at all guilty looking Clint. "If you don't stop escaping, I'm going to follow through on previous suggestions to sedate you. I don't care if you slip into a coma. It might be an improvement on your current lack of self preservation."

"I meant to ask what you did to yourself this time," Jasper commented. Clint rolled his eyes and then winced as he was reminded as to why that was a bad idea.

"Latest alien menace," Will replied, rubbing circles on Clint's back. "Everything was going good until Steve's shield sliced off one of the thing's tentacles. It landed on Clint and knocked him off a building."

Jasper snickered, earning a dark glare from all parties assembled. He scoffed. "That one goes in the book, birdie."

"Right next to heat stroke on a BS mission in the Philippines," Clint retorted, glaring at the screen. "Have fun staring at a factory!" With that said he reached over and turned off the computer screen. "So, who's up for another fun filled adventure in genetics?"
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Half an hour later, Will was seated on the very comfortable sofa in Phil's office with Clint beside him. A copy of the APB was resting on his thigh. Across the room, the others were doing the same. There was a heavy silence in the room as they all contemplated the pictures. Will had a feeling that something was going to happen. Things had been relatively calm in the six months since the IMF agents met the Avengers. Or as a calm as it can be living with a bunch of superheroes and Ethan.

But Will had a feeling that calm was over. Something told him that everything was about to change but he couldn't get a sense of whether this was a good or bad thing. Either way, it made him feel itchy. It also made him even more hypersensitive about his twin's wellbeing. He always on edge when Clint got hurt during a mission (which seemed to be just about every time) but between this new look alike and the feeling of wrongness, Will felt even more aware of Clint.

Almost as if on cue, Will felt Clint list further into his side. He didn't complain. He simply shifted his weight on the chair to help the archer settle into a more comfortable position. He eyed the bandage on Clint's head which Bruce changed. The bleeding seemed to have stopped at least. But the fact that he was so restless meant that the pain hadn't.

"How's the head?" he already anticipated the flippant response. Clint had a tendency to brush everything off as being fine or okay. Will was convinced that one day something was going to come along and rip his brother's arm and the idiot was only going to brush it off as a scratch. So he already knew it was pointless asking Clint how his head felt. He was just going to lie. But this time Will was wrong.

"Hurts," Clint murmured, shifting his head against Will's shoulder. Will raised an eyebrow. Clint just admitted pain. That never happened. The concern skyrocketed. "It's too hot, Will."

Will peered down at the thin t-shirt his twin was wearing, frowning at what he saw. He could see the sweat forming on Clint's skin. Could he be sick too? He brushed the back of his palm against Clint's forehead. He felt warmer than usual. The frown deepened. Clint wasn't showing any signs of a fever when he was initially checked into Medical earlier that afternoon. This was sudden. That feeling of wrong grew until it was suffocating him. He opened his mouth to call Bruce but Phil spoke up first.

"Now I remember where I've seen her," Phil said. "She was on the news. She was the only survivor in that laboratory shooting a few days ago. Seems strange that she lived through that and now she's on the CIA's hit list in Manila."

"Wait, a second I know this woman too," Bruce announced. "Her name is Marta Shearing. Actually she's Dr. Marta Shearing. We almost worked together on a project about seven years ago."

"Almost?" Tony questioned. "How do you almost work on a project? Especially you. It's science. That's pretty much your weakness. There isn't anything you wouldn't do for science."

"Except genetic experimentation on actual human subjects," Bruce clarified. "I won't do that. I was interested in working on that project because as you all know Erskine and his formula was a particularly interesting subject for me. This project was promising to capitalize on his work and improve it. I was involved in the early planning stages of the project but I left when they started talking about using human test subjects. Dr. Shearing was young. From what I remembered, she had just finished her doctorates. She was still easily influenced. She couldn't be persuaded to leave. So I left her there. And then I went to work on another project with the super solider serum. We all know how that turned out."

"Yeah, big and green," Tony acknowledged. "So what was the name of this project anyway? Not the gamma radiation FUBAR but the one that Shearing worked on."

"Uh, it was….." Bruce trailed off as he thought about it. Will felt Clint's snort of amusement and was relieved that his brother's sudden temperature was decreasing. He felt cooler. "Oh, I remember. It was called Outcome. Operation Outcome."

Will's eyes narrowed even as Tony let out an audible gasp. Still it was Benji that voiced their thoughts. "Wasn't Outcome one of the names you came across when you were researching Treadstone?"

"Yeah, that's actually the folder where I found the information about the lab in Manila." Tony ran a hand across his face. "So there is another guy that looks like Clint and Will running around with a geneticist that worked on a secret government project that was experimenting with creating super soldiers? Anyone else feeling a serious case of déjà vu right now?"

"I'm just amazed that there is a seemingly never ending supply of men that actually look like the Wonder Twins over here," Benji commented, shaking his head. "And it seems like they have the same penchant for finding trouble too. What are the odds?"

"Better than you think," Clint spoke up, sitting upright a little more. "There's the creepy bomb expert in Afghanistan. There's also Walsh, who's not that bad as long as you don't eat his food. There's also that dude that thinks he's a vampire. Oh, and that guy that used to be SWAT and freed the French terrorist dude. Although now that I think about it that Hondo guy reminds me of Fury. Tony, did Hondo remind you of Fury?"

"Yeah, now that I think about it. Big, scary and kinda mean," Tony nodded. "Yeah, he's Fury's clone. Or his Life Model Decoy." He turned to Phil with wide eyes.

"That's still not an actual thing, Stark," Phil said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Will sympathized. Or rather he would've if he hadn't enabled Clint's medical phobia and let him hide in the vents.

"And there's also…." Clint trailed off as Will placed a finger against his lips.

"Shh, Benji meant that rhetorically."

Clint's eyes widened slightly even as he slowly nodded. "Oh, sorry."

"S'okay," Will assured him, patting him on the leg. He knew that between the concussion and the new look-alike, Clint was feeling more than a little out of it, hence the uncharacteristic rambling. Will wondered if his brother was also picking up on his own feelings of uneasiness. Either way, he didn't want Clint overloading his already overtaxed brain. He watched as Clint settled back on the sofa, closing his eyes.

Will picked up the paper that set off this latest bout of turmoil and craziness. The man really did look like them. Will never really spent a large amount of time studying his face in the mirror prior to reuniting with his twin. But ever since then, his own face was the most familiar sight in the world to him. The face on the paper was similar but there were slight differences. His face was a little rounder and the eyes were a little harder. There were also a few scars on his face that would indicate some serious trauma. But the one that caught his attention was the faint, silvery line right about the man's left eyebrow.

"Mirror images," Will murmured. He looked at Clint beside him, specifically to the same sliver of a scar above his right eyebrow. He glanced down at the picture. The same exact eyes stared back at him. They were the same eyes. There was darkness in them but they were the same eyes he looked at every single day. "Oh, no."

Clint cracked an eye open. "What?"

Will shook his head even as memories flooded his mind. Of a smaller version of the man beside him giggling that he had something in common with their beloved older brother. While Will and Clint were identical in looks and voice, Clint and Kenneth would both sport the same scar on opposite sides of their face. They were mirror images of one another. Will's shaky hand traced the scar on the picture. Clint grabbed a hold of his hand, stilling the nervous movements.

"Will, you're starting to freak me out a little here. What's wrong?"

"Uh, I think…. I think that this might be Kenny."

Clint's hand fell to the side even as he stared at the side of Will's face. "Maybe it's the concussion speaking but that's not funny."

"Wasn't trying to be," Will replied, resuming his idle tracing of the faint line on the man's face. He then lifted the same hand and traced the matching scar on Clint's eyebrow. "Mirror images."

Clint paled even as his fingers took over for Will's, touching both scars. "Oh my god."

"Hold up, you're saying that you think that this guy is your brother, who last time I checked is dead."

"I know it sounds crazy and impossible but… yes. I think that this is Kenny," Will replied, firmly. "He's not just some random guy. It's him, Clint. I know it."

Clint didn't say anything. He just kept staring at the picture with wide eyes. But Clint and Will had a connection that went beyond words. He knew what his brother was saying without hearing the words. It's because he was also thinking it. There was always a latent connection between the brothers. Once they were reunited, that connection simply became more obvious. There was always a part of Will that thought something was missing. Once he was back with Clint, that piece was quieted… but it was still there. That was the same part of him that was feeling uneasy since the minute he laid eyes on the picture.

"It's him," Clint whispered, rubbing his forearm absently. Will was familiar with his brother's gestures. The archer had an almost amusing avoidance of needles. Whenever he was forced to get a shot, he would walk around rubbing his arm in the exact same way, whining to anyone that would listen about how it hurt. But Will knew that Clint hadn't had any injections recently. So why was he rubbing his arm? This was getting weird.

"Are you both certain?" Phil asked. He had wheeled his chair over to the sofa and was studying both of them carefully. Clint and Will exchanged glances before Will nodded for them both. Phil sighed, sitting back in his seat. He looked to the others gathered in the room. "Well, you heard them. Pack your bags. Looks like Jasper is about to have some company in Manila. We've got a triplet to find."