We'll Meet Again
He had first met the kid in the forests of Sokovia. A cocky, arrogant resistance fighter who wanted the invading forces out of his country, not caring if those forces were German, Italian or the good old US of A trying to help liberate them.
The kid had been hiding in a tree, crashing down on him as he patrolled the forest, knocking him to the ground with a cheeky grin and a “You didn't see that coming?” before fleeing into the trees once more, leaving him with no wounds bar from a bruised ego.
He'd picked himself up with a grumble and that should have been the end of it. Would have been, had it not been for the quiet humour of Fate intervening.
The local home that he was billeted with in the small village of Kefa, a quiet young woman with dark hair and almost mystical green eyes and her elderly father, was covered in pictures of the quick little bastard who had knocked him down. He'd recognise that hair, wild and untameable, anywhere.
The first time the resistance fighter had sneaked home, looking for food and comfort, he had returned the favour and knocked the kid from his tree with a well-placed shot.
“What? You didn't see that coming?”
He wasn't here for the resistance fighters, it was easy to tell himself that, easy to convince himself not to turn the kid in. The kid's soft curls and sharp green eyes probably made that a bit easier than it should have been, he didn't really like to think about what that meant.
The kid returned home periodically to restock and recuperate. He found himself looking forward to each visit more and more until he couldn't hide the truth from himself any longer. As unnatural as the world told him it was, there was nothing more natural than the feelings for the kid that had taken hold in his chest.
They disagreed on everything except how they felt.
It was the greatest six months of his life.
Of course, all good things must come to an end and war reached the sleepy village of Kefa before long. He remembers gun fire and explosions and screams, all the while he kept thanking the stars that the kid wasn't here to see it, to see his home fall into ruin and rubble. They were losing and it had taken all his effort to get the girl and her father to safety before the end came.
The end was upon him, huddled in the middle of the village square, shielding the small Sokovian child with his body and as the enemy guns turned towards him, his final thoughts were of the kid. Of his hair, his smile, the long lean lines of his body.
The guns roared and he braced himself for the bright pain that didn't come. Opening his eyes, he watched in horror as the kid stood in front of him, riddled with bullets, red bleeding through his ragged uniform as his compatriots ran past him, as the tide of the battle turned in their favour.
“You didn't see this coming.”
*
Almost 70 years later, in a dusty street in a flying city, as the stupid, infuriating, arrogant, cocky, indescribably brave kid lay still and unseeing on the ground, Clint feels like he's been here before, thinks he should have saw this coming.
Fate has a twisted sense of humour.