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***
When they were pardoned, Clint wasn’t hoping for the best. He knew what that meant, knew the conditions, knew that they would never return to what they had before it all happened. When he thought about his wife and the kids, he wasn’t naive, expecting from Tony to eagerly fight for his rights. They were on other sides of barricades, after all. And it’s not like Clint showed Tony much respect even before that. For him the billionaire was just another annoying nepo baby, who was born and immediately given every opportunity others fought so much for. And the way he carried himself, the easiness, the I-don’t-give-a-fuck look that everyone could read in his eyes. That was infuriating.
But when the documents were delivered to them and Clint gazed throughout everything, stopping on one point almost at the end of the document, that strictly was about the kids of the “Rogues’” and the visitings, Clint couldn’t hide his shock and his appreciation. The same emotions, along with some hint of confusion, were radiating from Sam, that was sitting next to him.
After all, the life at the Compound wasn’t that bad. They got their floor, where they had everything from the TV with thousands of shows to choose from to the tons of stockings of ice cream, protein bars and eggs; they got their training floor back, where they could spare whenever they wanted. The only thing that wasn’t confusing but rather bits of frustrating was: they weren’t allowed to see Tony Stark. Under any circumstances. That was a taboo, that Fury announced, though with gritted teeth.
When the announcement arised, none of them could say they weren’t expecting it, but did they like it? Absolutely no. They wanted to discuss Accords again, wanted for the team to finally reunite once again, wanted to try and to make it all better. But they couldn’t and they knew it.
They tried to reason with Fury, who was supposed to be on their side, but he just sighed, (for the last weeks he sighed, like a lot), but stayed unyielding, much to their surprised. (These days they were shocked a lot.)
Although, much to their relief, Fury added that it only applied for a month and once it came to end, Tony would be forced to talk about Accords, about team reunion and yadda yadda yadda.
At least Fury didn’t fully lost his mind, they thought with relief.
But the UN and Accords couldn’t wait for Tony Stark to get over some “drama” like they lovingly called it . And Avengers too, desperately needing to communicate with Tony.
They tried to go on his floor but were stopped or rather strictly blocked by the AI from the ceiling, that was advising them against it.
They didn’t have a choice but to comply. Eventually, Tony would come out, Clint tried to reason.
But the thoughts hadn’t stopped whirling in his head: Stark never blocked his floor for them. Clint understood that that was before everything happened but even then Stark never backed up from the challenge. Something must have happened, something else, something above the Avengers.
And Clint intended to find out what it was.
***
It was their second week of imprisonment and isolation at the Compound. They couldn’t complain: they had everything and more but the feeling of a golden cage tha was nice but still not a freedom, grew bigger and bigger with each day. The tension was almost palpable. The only thing that kept Clint stable was the visitations. He was allowed to see his wife and his kids every three weeks for three days. He could make it work, he thought, too excited for his own good. First days being there he wanted to break Tony, to make him sit with them, no matter how uncomfortable they all felt. But now, after thinking for too long, he realised he couldn’t allow himself that recklessness. Clint knew that Tony could take away his visitations even before he blinked.
With these ruminations, Clint was laying on the couch, his legs were thrown on Nat’s, while the last one slowly scrolled through Netflix, choosing the next show to binge. These days they binged a lot of shows. Steve was making his protein milkshake, that tasted like garbage, while Sam was reading some romance book he sweared “was like really good, you just don’t get it”.
This exact moment Fury chose to appear on the floor with the papers up his hand. It was like he smelled happiness and was like“yeah, that’s my moment to shine”.
Clint just nodded towards the man in acknowledgment.
“What do we owe your presence?” Nat asked casually, finally stopped scrolling and choosing some wearily show named “You”. She already loved the description.
“We need to give this document,” Fury raised his right hand with the bunch of papers in it, “ to Stark.”
Hearing this name, they were all on their legs. Metaphorically.
“Then why did you came here?” asked Rogers the question they all silently were asking.
“Because,” said Fury in the annoying tone, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was like he was speaking with some stupid kids,” I don’t have the access to the Stark’s floor.”
That seemed to confuse Avengers even more.
“But why are you here?” Slowly asked Steve, seemingly the first one to finally find his way out of the shock, “we don’t have the access to his floor”.
“One of you has,” simply stated Fury.
“Nick, trust us if one of us had access to the floor, we..”
“Clint has.”
Silence.
“Only Clint can go on his floor.”
What? Did he just hear that right?
“And I am the only one?” Clint asked cautiously, not knowing what to think.
What the hell?
“Out of all of us? Yes.”
Clint looked at everyone. They all seemed the same amount degree amazed as he was. Clint looked at his best friend. Nat was hard to read but after years and years he was sable to master this art and what he saw was the same emotion everyone had in this room.
“Stop being so shocked, I need you to go up there and deliver this file ASAP. We need his signature like yesterday.”
His legs wouldn't obey him, but somehow his body automatically got up, walked over to Fury, and took the documents that were handed to him without further words.
Fury looked at him with unreadable expression.
“Dont screw this up. If you lose the little amount of trust Stark has in you, we’re all screwed.”
Well, that was motivational. Almost like a TED Talk. Clint wanted to act offended but Nick must have known their attempts at contacting Stark and how lame it went.
So he just simply nodded and got to the elevator, having no freaking idea what would wait for him above.
***
When the doors opened, the first thing he noticed just how alive the room has felt. And no, the furniture didn’t change one bit, the lights were the same. At the same time everything felt familiar and not.
He stepped like through a portal to another reality.
There was a hoodie with some unknown cartoon characters, carelessly thrown over the back of the sofa.
Dozens of lego figures were scattered on the floor, along the big box with the Lego and a picture on it.
High pitched voices were coming from of the TV and it reminded Clint times where he was watching SpongeBob with Cooper on repeat.
Clint was a bit of at loss. He started searching for Stark with his eyes but was met with only two figures on the sofa.
One was small, no older than 15, sitting and puffing at what he realised was Pepper, who was sitting behind the boy. She was wearing a cozy pijama, the pastel pink made her look even gentler, unlike the serious Pepper Potts, that everyone else was seeing: the cold, la femme fatale CEO, that was glooming over the most influential magazines. She put her hands through the kid’s hair and then she promptly proceeded to curl one string of the boy’s hair on her finger.
Along her were dozens of hair products. Clint narrowed his eyes and noticed the small text “styling for curly hair”.
Ah, so that was what she was doing.
He looked at the TV where animated animals were running through the woods and almost laughed. It felt so damn domestic.
“Oh, hey, Clint,” Pepper finally acknowledged his presence. She was smiling at him, but her smile was partially fake. He recognised this smile. It was one that you quickly gave through your shoulder when you meet someone from the past who you would rather not meet. Clint couldn’t blame her.
Immediately, kid’s head snapped in his direction, eyes widening and he tried to stand out but was stopped by demanding Pepper and her hand in his hair.
“Peter, sit down or we will be on the sofa for another hour!”
“But it’s the Hawkeye !” whined kid, taking his gaze away from Clint to look at his..mom? who was Pepper to the boy? They were definitely behaving like Laura and Cooper, so he thought it was safe to assume she was his mom.
“Hawkeye can wait! In an hour Tony will drive you to Ned’s and you don’t wanna be late to your buddy’s birthday, am I right?”
Peter just pouted but finally stopped arguing and started leaning to the woman’s touch. She chuckled and continued her routine.
Just as Clint started to get uncomfortable by interrupting the moment, he saw the glimpse of Tony.
The man was silently approaching him from the corner, not even a fake smile on his face.
“Barton,” his voice wasn’t cold like Clint expected it to be. It was a voice of a tired, exhausted man. But even through the fog of exhaustion he saw the warning in his eyes. This warning he saw too often in his own eyes, when someone was talking about his family. It said: “Touch them and I’ll fucking blast you.”
“Stark,” first when he came here, he wanted to call him, Tony but he realised he lost this privilege long time ago.
Tony's eyes shifted to the folder in his arms, he silently showed it to the table behind him.
Right. No touch policy.
Clint just nodded and without any jokes regarding Stark’s love for hygiene, slowly walked to it, putting the folder there.
Tony stood and waited expectantly for Clint to get into the elevator, his posture was still tight.
But Clint alsmost desperately needed to say something.
“Stark, I wanted to thank you,” in the man’s eyes was clear bewilderment,” thank you for fighting for me to see my children. I know it probably wasn’t easy. So thank you.”
Tony exhaled as his posture became more relaxed and he just waved with his hand like “don’t thank me, it was easy peasy” But they both knew it wasn’t.
“I know how hard it is to be away from your family,” Tony’s eyes lingered to the couch and he looked fondly at two people sitting there and animatedly speaking.
“Thank you for it,” he said for the last time and then entered the elevator.
Before the door closed and the man disappeared from view, Clint noticed the hint of a small smile in the corners of Tony’s mouth.
Maybe..maybe some day the could be friends again. Not family but..friends. Yeah, that would be nice.
In seconds he was on the Avengers floor.
Before he could get out of the elevator, he was almost cornered by curious slash demanding Avengers.
“Did you see him?” Steve asked expectedly.
“Did he say anything about when we can go out?” nervously asked Sam, standing behind Cap.
“When can we talk with him about Accords?” Wanda pressed him almost to the wall, the aggravation in her voice was felt in the air.
“Jeez, let a guy breathe a bit,” asked Clint, already almost out of breath from all these questions.
He ignored all the demanding looks and comfortably plopped around on the couch near Nat, who was the only one who didn’t interrogate him. She was watching ”You”, professionally throwing popcorn in her mouth. But Clint could feel she was interested. He reached out for a popcorn.
She could fool anyone but not him. Not even sparing him a glance, she slapped him on the arm. With a loud “ouch” he looked at her with dramatic pain in his eyes but she stared innocently at the TV and shushed him.
?!
“How the meeting with the Stark went?”
Clint just shrugged.
“Good.”
Nat just nodded, not continuing the conversation.
He knew that they wouldn’t let it slide that easily and would interrogate him further. But luckily he was a spy, and a damn good one. Interrogation was his every day bread so he wasn’t rookie and understood that it would get worse before it would get better. He calmed his nerves.
He knew that Stark trusted him with something important. He trusted him with his family.
Clint was hiding his family for years. He knew what it’s like to try so fiercely protect people you love the most. If someone, he didn’t fully trust, would compromise their place, he would without any hesitation, murder them. And Clint had a feeling, Stark would do the same.
And most importantly, he didn’t want to ruin the fragile trust that Tony gave to him. So Steve, Sam, Wanda and even Nat can go fuck themselves (respectfully, of course) and wait a little bit.
Maybe in the future Tony will eventually open up and introduce them. Maybe not. But he wouldn’t be the one to tell them about Peter. He remembered kid’s eyes and lit up. A thought flashed through his mind: he was the first Avenger Peter had seen. (Except for Rhodey, Clint suspected).
He remembered how Peter looked at him in awe.
Oh, he’s definitely kid’s favourite Avenger.