4
It was dark. Rain poured from the sky like a proclamation of horror that was going down not too far from where you stood with Pietro. Tucked in a corner, you peered around at the men and women scrambling away from the danger for the warm embrace of safety or toward it with the cold, useless metal of blades and bullets at their aid.
Pietro kept trying to rush away, to try and fix the situation, but you continued to stop him. These people were bad, they were criminals, criminals that have been slowly disappearing over the course of the last few years through the morally gray acts and less than moral acts of the Ronin. But the slaughter that was beginning to pile up higher and higher like pollution at a waste plant was becoming something people like you were appearing on your radar to deal with.
You held Pietro's arm tight and your umbrella tighter, looking up at him with worried eyes as you beckoned him not to move. As the thundering, pulsing sound of the bullets came to a stop and were soon replaced with metal clinking and scratching against metal, your eyes found Natasha across the street from you in your own corner. Her face was very dimly lit with the red and blue neon lights that crackled above her and bled through the dark tint of the umbrella held over her head.
Her eyes found yours and then Pietro's as a conversation in a language you had not learned arose between the two men—a big bad boss and a mercenary—along with more scraping of metal blades that sliced the air apart.
Natasha came from around the corner, signaling for the two of you to stay hidden. She had only let you come along in the first place because you insisted so strongly. She kept trying to get you to stay back, but you could not sit back when you learned that she was going to finally go and attempt to bring Clint Barton back to the team again.
You nodded to her and tucked further into the corner with Pietro, staying silent as you peered over the corner once or twice to listen in to the conversation that rose between them.
"You shouldn't be here," Clint's voice spoke up, his back still turned to Natasha as the heavy rain drenched his body and his dark suit.
Natasha's voice, despite her clear worry, was clear and steady. "Neither should you."
Finally, the man turned to face her, taking her in for just a moment before looking away again. "I've got a job to do," he said as he stared at the ground.
"Is that what you're calling this?" There was a short pause as she watched her old friend, "Killing all these people isn't gonna bring your family back." There was no reply, so Natasha filled the silence again. "And what about the family you gave to those kids in Sokovia? You doing this for them, too?"
He turned his head and examined her, his eyes looking over her face before he slowly hung his head. "They're here, aren't they?" He did not look up, just shook his head and sheathed his sword, "You brought 'em with you."
You nodded to Pietro and stepped around the corner, revealing yourself to him with a fallen face as you walked with him. You both stopped at Natasha's side and Pietro spoke up first, "Yeah, old man, we're here."
Pietro had a hard time letting go of grudges—you could not blame him, you did too. When he had not shown up once during the duration of the half decade you both spent grieving your siblings and soulmates, raising a child with half the family he once had, Pietro became a little bitter of Clint. You tried to remain neutral, as neutral as you could for both their sakes, but as you saw him now, you found it harder to contain your own frustration and anger at the man who called you family and did not look back when you needed him.
Clint stayed still, breathing heavy as water dripped from his hair and his nose. Pietro tilted his head to the side, "Did you forget about us? Hm?"
"Pietro," you spoke lightly. You both had agreed that you would not lay all of your issues with him straight on him the first chance you got. But Pietro was a hothead. He did what he could, but sometimes, his frustration was too hard to control.
"You know what—it's alright," Pietro looked down at you, but his next words were directed toward Clint, driving the knife further where it hurt the most. "We aren't your real family, anyway."
You clenched your jaw and looked down at the puddled ground. Natasha did not say anything, she did not interrupt. She knew Pietro right now, she knew it would be worse to cut him off to let it out later. Too much would spill, too many words unmeant, too much blood unintended. You looked back up to Clint, whose eyes were watching the both of you now. They were dark, full of vengeance and anger, but also regret and sorrow.
You spoke quietly, trying to hold back the venom that threatened to seep into his wound and sting where the knife was twisted. "We got a kid," you murmured. He could hear you perfectly clear, despite the pounding of the rain hitting the ground. "Me and Wanda adopted, we wanted you to meet him, especially after...but you weren't around."
His face fell even more, that tension that came with his frustration being replaced with a mix of that and more sorrow. "He's better off without me in his life," he said simply, his eyes looking back down to the ground.
"Just like we were? You gonna decide that for him like you did with us?" you asked, brows furrowing in a tensed expression. "Pietro's right, I guess we aren't your real family." You were glad it was raining, glad some of the rain still fell on your face despite the umbrella over your heads. It meant he could not see your tears, even if the slight waver in your voice at the end of your words might have been a giveaway.
You took a step back as silence fell. Pietro's arm wrapped around your side and he rubbed your arm, which you could not help but to shake off of you. Natasha began walking forward, her boots letting a low tap fill the space accompanied with dead bodies and sorrowful tension. "We found something," she said, causing Clint's head to rise again to lay his eyes on her. Her voice was more desperate than it was before as she watched her friend struggle to stay as together as he could with everything going on all at once. "A chance, maybe."
He sighed and watched her with pleading eyes, a waver creeping into his voice—despite his best efforts. "Don't."
Her eyes searched his, "Don't what?"
"Don't give me hope."
There was a pause, a tremble in her voice, "I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you sooner." He looked down again and she slowly reached out her hand to grab his. You stood there with Pietro, wiping a hand down your face and letting out a breath.
Natasha pulled Clint under the umbrella gently and his eyes looked up to find yours again. He mouthed two words to you, two words that almost made you break, two words that you had been needing to hear from him since the first day he never showed his face...two words that would not yet be enough for Pietro.
"I'm sorry."
Pietro turned around and began walking away, headed for the Quinjet parked somewhere a ways from there. You watched him leave, watched the rain soak him before he flitted his hand carelessly. The water rolled off of his body until he was left completely dry, endless droplets from the sky sliding off like he was waterproof.
You sighed and looked down at the ground before walking after him, soon being followed by Clint and Natasha. You walked in silence as you caught up with Pietro, grabbing his hand and tucking back into his side with the umbrella over his head. He just sighed and kissed the side of your forehead.
As you walked, you spoke up in a quiet voice that only Pietro would be able to hear. "You could have gone a little easier on him," you whispered. "He's broken enough as it is."
He glanced down at you and sighed, his eyes scanning the neon lights lining the walls. "As if we aren't," he muttered.
You looked at him, "You know that's not what I mean."
"What happened to 'Pietro's right'?" he questioned.
You clenched your jaw and blew out a breath as you turned away from him, never breaking pace. "I may agree with you, but that doesn't mean blowing up on him was the best thing to do..."
Again, he sighed. This sigh was a little lighter, but no less fueled by frustration. "I would not have been so hard on him if he had been here in the first place."
"You know what he's been through," you shook your head. "We got to keep Ethan, we got to keep each other, but he didn't. He had his soulmate ripped from him, same as us, but his kids are gone, too."
"But we were still here," he stopped the both of you, his face hard and almost desperate. There was silence between the two of you as you watched each other's faces. Spending so much time together meant you did not need to speak to know that there was a part of him hurting that was not just because Clint was not there. It ran much deeper, so much deeper than Pietro was able to express. He had never been a person who was able to convey any feeling deeper than the surface of his emotions—you and Wanda (and later Irina) were always there to help convey them for him.
He was upset because he had felt forgotten, tossed to the side of the road by a person who had lifted him from that same road years before as a person who truly wanted to help. He was betrayed and hurt, you knew he was.
"We were still here," he repeated, his voice softer. You took his hand and urged him to walk with you again.
"I know," you whispered. Silence fell once again, it was uncomfortable, filled with an unsettling, almost foreboding feeling as you moved. "But..." you began, "...just don't be mad for too long. If something happens and you're still too upset to fix things before then...you'll regret it in the end. Pietro, I don't want you to regret more than you already do."
His eyes fell on you before he turned away again.