Chapter 1
Barton Farm
Iowa
June, 2016
"Come on buddy. It's super easy. Just one syllable." William Brandt bounced his nephew up and down on his leg. Nathaniel watched him with his father's eyes…and bopped his Uncle Will on the head with a stuffed dinosaur.
Will blinked as Nathaniel giggled, babbling nonsense as he swung the stuffed green reptile around. The two of them sat at the picnic table watching Nathaniel's older siblings, Lila and Cooper, and his father, Clint, tossing a set of lawn darts back and forth. It was father against kids, and Will could tell that the World's Greatest Marksman was trying to take it easy on his kids as he lobbed the weighted lawn toys toward their target.
Will offered Nathaniel an animal cracker in the shape of Captain America's shield, and tried again. "Can you say, 'Will'?"
Nathaniel accepted the bribe, gummed it for a few seconds, and then tossed it into the grass.
Will sighed.
"I see you're getting about as far as Clint is trying to get him to say 'Dada' first," Laura Barton noted as she dropped a bottle of ketchup and the salt and pepper shakers onto the tabletop. She plucked Nathaniel from his uncle's hands and hefted him onto her hip. "It's gonna be 'Mama', isn't it, baby boy?" she cooed. "Yeah? Your first word's gonna be Mama?"
"Clint's first word was 'cookie'," Will offered, snagging a handful of chips from the bag. "Dad lost that bet by a mile."
"Even then, he had his priorities right," Laura grinned. "And what about you? What was Uncle Will's first word?"
"'Classified'," Will joked, popping a chip into his mouth. He laughed. "Ah, no, actually, according to Mom, my first word was 'Nana.'"
"Aw, like your grandmother?" Laura offered Nathaniel another cookie. He threw Iron Man's helmet into the chip bag.
Will grinned. "Your daddy would be so proud of you. Ah, no. Nana, as in 'banana,'" he clarified. "Apparently I was a big fan."
"Well if I'd have known that, we'd have added some of those to our picnic today," Laura teased him.
Will laughed, returning his attention to the lawn darts game. It was strange, he thought. A year ago, Will hadn't even known he'd had a sister in law, a nephew, and a niece, with another nephew on the way. Look at how much time changes everything. He was working a desk for the Impossible Missions Force, a now-branch of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He looked out across the yard. The game was just finishing up. Eleven-year-old Cooper looked over, saw his uncle sitting at the table, and broke out into a run. "Uncle Will!"
Uncle. Damn, but that sounded good. Will swung a long leg over the bench and folded Coop into a bear hug. "Hey, kiddo!" he greeted him. "You gotta quit growing. The rule is that if you get taller than Uncle Will, we feed you to the Hulk."
Cooper's eyes widened. "He doesn't eat people, does he?"
"Only ornery kids that beat their dad in lawn darts," Clint joked as he and Lila came up to join the rest of the family. He held out a hand to his brother. "How long you been here?"
Will shook it and pulled his brother in for a hug. "Caught a flight this morning, drove in. Not long enough to get Nate to say 'Uncle Will' for his first words."
Clint grinned at the toddler. "Good call, buddy." He looked at his brother. "It's good to see you."
"You too," Will replied, and meant it. It seemed as though the rift that had gone through them was almost patched. They were almost back to where they had been.
Before Ultron. Before Sokovia. Before Will had found out that Clint had been hiding an entire family off the radar for almost ten years, and hadn't bothered to tell his twin brother or his parents. For a pair of brothers who didn't keep secrets from each other…that one was pretty big. Will had felt understandably blindsided.
"Did you bring us a present? Remember, 'cause that's what uncles do?" Lila asked him, her braided pigtails bouncing.
That being said…Will was settling into the role of favorite uncle easily.
"Lila!" Clint admonished. "Try that again, please?"
Lila looked up at her uncle through her long eyelashes—definitely a trait from her mother. "Hi, Uncle Will," she said somberly. Then, "Did you bring us anything?"
Clint palmed his forehead. But Will grinned. "Hey, I'm learning," he told his big brother by all of twelve minutes. He reached down under the table, and handed Lila a small gift bag. His niece tore into it, eyes lighting up as she pulled out a snow globe with the White House inside. "Cool!" she pronounced, shaking it, and watching the snow swirl.
Will looked over at Coop. He could tell his oldest nephew was trying to play it cool, but was also hoping for something. Will smiled, and produced another bag from under the table. This one contained a balsa wood model of the 1903 Wright Flyer, and Coop's smile told his uncle just how much he liked it.
"What about me?" Clint teased him, accepting the stack of paper plates from Laura and setting them on the table. "Did I get anything? Also, what do you two tell you Uncle Will?" he prompted his children.
"Thank you!" the two of them chorused, showing each other their presents. An argument immediately broke out over whose was the better gift, and Laura was quick to jump in before it got nasty.
Will set his beer on top of his plate to keep it from blowing away in the breeze. "My sparkling personality," he replied, in answer to his brother's question. "And this." He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a postcard, handing it to his brother.
Clint looked at the artwork. A gold-domed mosque set against a blue sky.
He glanced at Will with a questioning look. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. He clapped his hands together. "All right, guys, let's eat!"
Later that evening, Will and Clint sat outside on the steps, beers in hand. The kids were watching a movie in the living room while Laura worked on getting Nathaniel down. The two of them listened to the crickets chirping and the owls for a few moments before Clint reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out the postcard from earlier. "So. Nigeria?"
"Nigeria," Will confirmed. "Sorry, that this wasn't only a social call."
Clint shook his head. "Nah. Whatever. Just feels weird…that you know more than I do."
"Well, it's a nice change," Will admitted. "CIA's been tracking an operative known as Crossbones-" He paused as Clint's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "That a name you know?"
Clint nodded. "That's Brock Rumlow's code name," he explained. "Rumlow used to work out of the Triskelion in DC. Dunno if you remember, Rumlow was the guy tasked to bring Cap in before I got the assignment."
Will nodded. "feel like I saw him shooting at us at one point. Anyway, last I heard…intel was saying they'd spotted some of the Avengers over there. Guessing they're after Rumlow for the whole Triskelion/INSIGHT thing."
Clint looked down at his sneakers. "That means Cap and Natasha for sure."
"Yeah, and Sam. Wanda, too."
Clint looked up. "Really?" His voice was a mixture of surprised and proud. He swirled his beer and gave half a smile. "So she's an Avenger, huh."
"Someone told her once that she was, or so I hear," Will replied. He shook his head. "Wow, when you retired, you really retired, huh? You're pretty out of the loop."
"Well, they've been busy," Clint said. "And so have I."
"Noticed," Will nodded. He waved a hand back toward the house. "Place looks different than the last time I was here."
"Surprised you noticed," Clint replied. "You, ah, didn't exactly stick around too long, I didn't have time to give you the tour."
Will sighed. "Let's not start this again, Clint," he said warningly.
"No, you're right, let's not," Clint agreed quickly. The two of them were silent for a moment. "The kids couldn't stop talking about their presents," he told Will. "You're not half bad at this whole uncle thing."
Will tipped his bottle back. "Yeah, well. Making up for lost time," he replied. "I missed a lot of years of spoiling them," he pointed out. "Mom and Dad, too."
Clint sighed. "I'm pretty sure I apologized for this, a couple thousand times, Will. How many more times do you want to be passive aggressive about this, exactly?"
Will stood up, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets and stepping down into the driveway. "I don't know, man," he admitted. "Just when I think I'm good with it, and I get it…" He waved a hand toward the living room window. "I think about those kids in there, about Laura, and how much time we missed with them as a family. And then, I get to thinking about how we always said we'd never lie to each other, and…" He ran a hand through his hair. "Just because I get it, and I understand it, it's still….it's still pretty fresh, man."
Clint nodded. "Will, you don't know how many times I wanted to say something. Every holiday, every birthday…my anniversary, hell." He shook his head. "If Ultron had gotten his hands on my kids…" He broke off, pausing a moment to collect himself. "I don't know what I would've done, Will."
His brother nodded. "I get it, Clint. Really. I swear. I just…" He threw his hands in the air. "I'm just gonna need some more time to deal with it."
"We got all the time in the world, Will," Clint said. "SHIELD isn't calling me anymore. You're more or a less a desk jockey. Now's the perfect time." He downed the last of his beer. "I don't ever think I told you thank you for keeping tabs on my team for me, now that I'm out of the game."
Will shrugged. "Not a problem. It's not like it's hard. They tend to make a splash wherever they go."
Clint coughed out a laugh. "No kidding. Even when we wanted the element of surprise…never seemed to work that way."
Will eyed his brother. "You miss it?" he asked him.
"Hell no," Clint said quickly. Too quickly, in Will's opinion.