I’m missing my
“Medic!” Pepper called desperately. “We need a medic!”
Clint and Rhodey took each of the kid’s sides and carried him through the corridor away from the lab until someone came with a gurney that they were able to place Peter on. They pulled him away and tried to get the three adults away as they rushed down the hall but they followed anyway
“He’s got enhanced healing abilities and a fast metabolism,” Pepper tried to explain to one of the doctors. “Normal medications and Anesthesia won’t work on him.”
“So you know his specific medical history?” A doctor said as they pushed him through a room. “What works for him? What doesn’t?”
“I-“ she glanced hesitantly at Rhodey. “I don’t. Tony kept all information on Spider-Man in a cryptic lock and key. Never let anyone know too much about the kid. Didn’t want information like that in the wrong hands and use him as a lab experiment. I don’t even have access to Spider-Man’s files even with Tony… unavailable.”
“That’s intense,” Clint muttered. “But I’m not surprised.”
“Is there anyone that does know?” The doctor said. He hooked the kid up to monitors to check for his vitals.
“We had a small team of medic’s but most of them were— but I guess they’d be back now— and Happy—“ Pepper shook her head. “I’ll go make some calls.”
“His vitals seem to be in order, so that’s fine.” the doctor said. “I’ll run some tests while I wait for you.”
Pepper stepped out of the room already pulling out her phone. Rhodey and Clint followed at the doctors insistence saying he needed space to work on the kid. The hallways were pristine and modern looking. But the normally striking image was ruined by injured and exhausted warriors strewn on the floors or in waiting chairs. Precedence had obviously been given to those in more critical conditions. Many of them were cleaned off of the grime from the battlefield but still many of them weren’t and must be waiting for directions. Wakandan officials directed people in one direction or another. Someone in some kind of clean white and gray uniform approached them.
“Follow me to your rooms,” the woman said. “The others are waiting in the throne room.”
“Throne room?” Rhodey mouthed to Clint as they were led away.
They found themselves in the extravagant room soon after cleaning off and dressed in borrowed clothing. Apparently Tony wasn’t brought to the Wakanda Medical Center but in Princess Shuri’s own Lab at the palace. Peter was in a medical room nearby but would possibly be transferred to the Medical Center once they heard back from Pepper.
The woman who led them here had been right, the other avengers and returned ally’s were all already waiting for them and most were pacing anxiously. Except for Dr. Strange.
“How is he?” Steve asked.
“What’s going on?” Bruce asked.
The others all spouting off questions of a similar variety except for Scott Lang who scanned the room.
“Where’s the kid? The spider-guy? Is he ok?” Scott asked worriedly and the rest of them quieted down.
That’s when Clint remembered that he was a father too. Of course he had picked up on the youngness of Spider-Man and even if he hadn’t exactly been there for the last five years and hadn’t really known about the kid, Tony had told him about him when Scott had asked why he decided to change his mind about time travel. Of course he would be worried, perhaps he saw his own daughter in Peter the way Clint saw his kids in him too.
“He passed out, but they’re taking care of him,” Clint nodded.
“Pepper’s trying to get in contact with Cho and Happy. See if they can pull up the kid's medical records for them.” Rhodey added. “As for Tony… I don’t know. They’re working on him.”
“I am sure he will be taken care of,” T’challa reassured them. “My sister is the best at what she does.”
“Isn’t she like 16?” Sam asked.
“Hey the kid is like what? 16? and he was the only one who noticed Tony was still alive,” Scott said.
“Yeah not gonna lie,” Bucky said. “But determined teenagers are scary.”
He eyed Steve with a meaningful and judgemental look. Steve looked back at him with an annoyed glare back. But even aside from memories of a teenage Steve Rogers, he had spent a year or two with Shuri after she worked to undo the damage hydra had done on his brain. He knew what she was capable of.
“Dude? You serious?” Sam said. “You’re scared of teenagers after everything?”
“Oh come on!” Bucky said. “Who else has ever dealt with a reckless, motivated teenager?”
Clint (who had a teenage son and daughter), Rhodey (who thought of 15 year old college aged Tony and the stories he’d heard of Peter and their brief encounters together pre- this mess), and T’challa (with a teenage sister) all raised their hands. Scott nodded along next to them even though he hadn’t gotten to know his daughter as a teenager yet, but he was still now a dad of one.
“Alright now that we’ve determined that the Princess is qualified despite her age can we start our debrief now?” Carol asked. “Everyone’s here right?”
“Wait, where is Strange?” Thor asked. “He was the keeper of one of the stones once was he not? Shouldn’t he be here?”
“He is helping our medical staff,” T’challa replied. “He was a neurosurgeon before he became a sorcerer.”
“Right, anyways,” Steve started. “We’ve heard from Fury. It’s been several hours since Bruce first snapped everyone back into existence. Numbers and reports are still coming in across the globe. According to news sites all over the world, everyone that had disappeared, reappeared in the exact spot they had disappeared from.”
“And none of the countries know what is going on,” T’challa said. “Since returning from battle, We have already been contacted by numerous world leaders and the United Nations asking if what was happening in other countries happened here as well. And because they knew of my affiliation to the Avengers and the avengers were the ones to release a formal statement after we lost apparently five years ago, they assumed we, Wakanda, might know.”
“Did you tell them anything?” Rhodey asked.
“I only notified them of my and my people’s return but they are still waiting for an official statement on what happened,” T’challa said.
“Fury and The US were asking for one too,” Carol said.
“We’ll release one,” Steve nodded.
“What are we supposed to say, we invented time travel?” Scott said. “I don’t think that’ll go over well.”
“No we have to leave that out,” Bruce agreed. “The less who know about that the better, we can’t let that information fall into the wrong hands.”
“We could just tell them that we found a way to get everyone back,” Steve said. “We will have to say that we fought his army at the compound though. Apparently the media tried to get to the compound after the battle and found the wreckage.”
“Which the wizards and what’s left of SHIELD are currently cleaning up.” Sam said. Then muttered an afterthought, “never thought I’d say that sentence.”
“They aren’t Wizards,” Bucky argued. “They’re sorcerers.”
“That’s just a Wizard without a hat.” Sam quipped back.
“We can have Pepper help prepare a statement if we want to wait for her to be available, she knows how to handle the press,” Rhodey said. “If anything she could look over what we come up with.”
“We’ll draft something and have her look over it,” Steve said. “She’s already doing a lot between Tony and the kid.”
“Ok well that’s taken care of mostly.” Bruce said. He pulled something out of his pocket and laid the stones on the table. The five that he had anyway. “We need to return these. And the one that the Kid left with Tony for whatever reason.”
“The soul stone,” Clint choked out. “That’s the one me and Nat had to get.”
They all stood quietly for a moment before Clint continued.
“The kid said something about sensing something from the stones, I don’t really understand it and I don’t know anything about his powers,” he admitted. “But we know the stones use a lot of energy and using them all at once could kill or seriously injure you… And I know the soul stone has something to do with life and death. So from what I gather from what the kid seemed to sense is that the soul stone helped keep Tony’s life force or something.”
“My sister has informed me that she has been able to remove it now,” T’challa said. “That sounds to be correct. They were unable to remove it until they were able to connect him with other means of life support. She is keeping it in a secure location within her lab until we can retrieve it from her. But last I heard they are still operating and we cannot go in.”
“You guys really built a time machine,” the woman next to Scott, Hope, said in awe.
“Tony did, but we used Hank’s quantum research and the Pym particles to put it all together.” Scott answered.
“Isn’t the machine broken?” Thor asked.
“Yes, so we'll need to fix it as soon as possible. They can’t stay here for too long.” Nebula said. “We can’t risk what just happened happening again.”
“We can help,” Hope said referring to herself and Scott, “and we can get Hank to help too then.”
“If you need to build it here we can have everything supplied for you.” T’challa said.
They continued to discuss how to get the stones back to their rightful place. The door opened and one of the Dora Milaje came in and T’challa went over to speak to her. He nodded to her and the women left only to return a second later with Pepper at her side.
“I made a few calls,” Pepper called out
into the room. “Clint, there are a few people who’d like to see you.”
She stepped aside and three small people raced into the room. Clint’s jaw dropped in surprise but before he could say anything he had his arms full of three kids. He looked up and saw his wife following them. He let go of his kids when she reached them and put her hands on her face. He was unable to hold back tears at the sight of them.
“How-“ he started to ask.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Laura said. “I mean Pepper explained some things to us on the phone and once we got here but still.”
“I had Wong bring in a couple more people when I had them bring Peter’s medical team.” Pepper said softly. “Your daughter’s here too, Scott. She volunteered to watch mine in our rooms until you were done here.”
“I think that we have done enough for today,” Steve said quietly.
The rest of the avengers filed out of the room leaving Clint in the throne room with his family.
“Miss Potts is Mrs. Stark now!” Lila said as soon as everyone left. “And she’s got a kid now that’s the same age as Nate!”
“Yeah she said that we were gone for 5 years!” Cooper said. “Is this like that show Manifest?”
“If it’s been 5 years shouldn’t Nate be like 9?” Lila asked.
“Yeah he still looks like a 4 year old midget.” Cooper said. “It’s exactly like Manifest isn’t it?”
“Hey! I’m not a midget!” Nathaniel exclaimed.
Clint laughed through his tears and knelt down to kiss the top of Nate’s head. They were back. Relief rushed over him. They were real and in front of him and exactly how he remembered them. He stared at them speechless and he wondered if Tony had got the chance to feel like this when he saw Peter on the Battlefield or if they had been too busy to reunite. He hoped both Tony and the Kid would heal soon so they could feel like this too.