Redshift

Time travel was, in a word, terrifying.

All at once the world around Clint disappeared, and he was hurtling through a kaleidoscope of colors as if he’d been fired out of a cannon. There were several paths before him, and he had no idea which one was the right one.

But evidently, his suit did. As he looked around wildly at all his oncoming options, its HUD blinked green over one of them. There was hardly any sensation of gravity, despite the fact that he could feel the speed at which he was flying, but Clint managed to angle himself into the wormhole and—

With a yell, he exploded into existence, his feet slamming into the ground with enough force to make his knees buckle. All at once, sensory information flooded his brain.

He could smell smoke, gunpowder, and burnt rubber. There was a tremor in the ground, as if he were standing directly above a subway track. Daylight struck at his eyes, much brighter than the inside of the Wakandan palace. The air was thin, harder to breathe but not yet suffocating. The screams of terrified civilians rang in his ears, distant but unmistakable.

Sokovia, 2015. Ultron’s last stand.

His suit disappeared back inside its housing unit, revealing Clint’s black uniform. He’d left behind his sword, instead opting for what was more familiar. 

The nanotech bow, courtesy of Wakanda’s science division, expanded to its full form in seconds. Across his back, his quiver did the same. 

A bellowing roar rang through the air, and Clint looked up just in time to see Ultron—his prime body, actually—sail in an arc across the city. Several sentries took the skies like a flock of frightened birds, scattering in an attempt to flee.

Clint ignored them. If the drones were running, then he didn’t have much time. 

A ruined house lay before him, its front wall completely exposed. Most of the second floor had been destroyed, but the stairs were intact and there was enough floor space left to provide a decent vantage point. He sprinted forward, taking the steps two at a time, and crouched by the shattered window. After taking a moment to inspect his surroundings, he peeked his head over the window’s edge to look beyond.

The church was where Ultron’s device had been fastened into the heart of the city. There were only four Avengers left inside—Wanda, Steve, Natasha, and...himself.

I’m going to need so much therapy, Clint thought as he watched his younger self beckon to Natasha. The pair of them ran off, in the opposite direction of his position. 

Then Steve turned around, and Clint ducked back down to avoid being seen. He counted three breaths, then chanced another look.

Only Wanda was left now, and Christ, he’d forgotten how young she was. The last time he’d seen her, she’d only been a year older than the one he laid eyes on now, but it was clear how much she’d matured in such a short amount of time. This Wanda scanned the battlefield with the nervousness of a new recruit, and she practically jumped out of her skin when her brother sped into the church behind her.

He was too far away to hear what they were saying, but it didn’t matter. He’d found his target.

The sound of crunching glass reached his ears, and he glanced down just in time to see Steve’s blonde head round the corner of the building he was currently squatting in. He was sweeping for survivors.

Shit. He crouched down again, and scrambled away from the window. He couldn’t let anyone see him—there was no way Steve would believe that he was the Clint of 2015. Eight years had made a hell of a difference.

The street in front of his house was in plain view. Quickly notching an arrow, he drew it back and let go. The projectile shot to the other side of the street and hit the window of a parked car, shattering it. A moment later, Steve’s footsteps grew louder and then quieter as he rushed past Clint’s hiding spot to check out the noise.

A quick glance back at the church confirmed that Pietro had gone. Clint didn’t know exactly where he was, but he knew where he’d end up. He just had to get there first.

He fired a cable arrow out the window, attaching it to the church’s wall. Wanda didn’t even notice it—untrained as she was, getting past her would be child’s play. He slipped out the window and quickly shimmied across the cable, then free-climbed up to the roof. From there, he could see the helicarrier and its lifeboats, where the last citizens to be evacuated would all be fleeing to. 

Suddenly an Ultron sentry, drenched in scarlet energy, burst out of the roof in front of him. Clint raised his bow, but before he could shoot the energy ripped the robot apart as if it were made of straw. He glanced down into the newly-made hole, and saw Wanda fighting back a fresh assault from more drones. 

She lacked finesse, but still made quick work of the first two, crushing them into each other, then hurled a red bolt into a third, which promptly exploded.  As Clint watched, a fourth sentry entered the building behind her. Wanda, unaware of the presence, finished her work with the three sentries and let the red energy around her hands fade away.

“Come on, kid,” Clint murmured, as the sentry raised its arm cannon at her exposed back.

He didn’t have to worry, right? She survived this battle. Everything was written in stone already.

But if that were true, he wouldn’t be here at all, would he?

The cannon charged. Too late, Wanda whirled around.

All conscious decision leaving him, Clint drew back an arrow and shot the sentry dead-center in its forehead. He didn’t wait to see what else happened, ducking away from the hole as Wanda looked up for her savior, and continued on.

It was easy to get to where the last lifeboat had docked against the floating city. There were hardly any people around, and Clint had been running rooftops since before he knew how to use a bow. He leapt over a gap between two buildings—

A cold, metal hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him down hard. He seized the edge of the roof, clinging to it like a lifeline, and looked down.

An Ultron sentry, missing a leg and part of its face, dangled below him. With his free foot, Clint kicked at its head, trying to get free. The sentry warbled something unintelligible, then ignited its remaining boot thruster. It shot straight into the air, past Clint, and pulled him with it. The pair of them crashed onto the rooftop in a heap.

He had all his limbs still attached, so the advantage was his. Clint kicked the sentry off him and pulled an arrow from his quiver. With no time to draw it back on his bow, he rushed forward to stab the sentry in the chest. Unfortunately, this seemed to barely slow it down—it grabbed him by the throat, pulling him closer to its distorted face. Then the blue lights behind its eyes turned red.

“Barton, I thought I saw...” Ultron’s voice trailed off as he took in the view of his enemy, and how very different he looked.

That was all the distraction Clint needed. He pulled the arrow out of the sentry’s chest, then jammed it under its jaw. Its eyelights dimmed, and the drone released its hold on him, crumpling to the floor lifelessly.

“Yeah, you didn’t see nothing,” Clint muttered, kicking it for good measure. “Asshole.”

A burst of gunfire caught his attention. The Avengers’ quinjet had just strafed a playground, and continued its barrage directly for the lifeboats. Clint saw Steve and Thor rush for cover, and he followed shots’ trajectory.

The Clint from this time period was holding a little boy—Costel, his name had been—and attempting to shield him from the bullets. It was a futile gesture, but there was no cover to get to and no time to run.

As Clint resumed running toward the scene, he steeled himself. Now came the hard part.

He had to let this happen.

A blue-white blur whirled around Clint and Costel, and where there hadn’t been before, there was now a partially destroyed car.

Pietro had also appeared, next to the present-time Clint and Costel. He collapsed to the ground, riddled with bullets.

Clint skidded to a stop a few buildings away, close enough to make out the scene but not enough to alert them of his presence. His eyes were locked onto Pietro’s body.

He remembered this day for a lot of reasons, but Pietro was one of the biggest. He was a kid, just as much a kid as Wanda. Whatever mistakes he’d made, he didn’t deserve this fate.

What haunted him most about Pietro’s death was that he hadn’t immediately died. There had been a subtle rise and fall of his chest, shaky and weak. Steve had wanted to try to save him, but Clint knew it was a lost cause. Pietro had had minutes at best, and there was no medical facility on Earth that could heal that kind of damage. It was impossible.

Or, it had been, until Clint learned of Wakanda. With all their advancements, they could do it. Steve and Natasha had told him how they healed even the most grievous of wounds overnight.

If there was even a chance…

He watched himself pick up the boy, while Steve stooped down to hoist up Pietro.

This was the moment. He had to change things.

He pulled out an arrow and notched it.

“Sorry about this, Cap.”

Then he released. It was a nonlethal shot, hitting the center of Steve’s chest. The arrow exploded, knocking him off his feet. Clint’s past self immediately booked it for the lifeboat, to get Costel to safety.

Clint shot several more arrows, peppering the ground around Pietro. Steve scrambled to avoid the barrage, looking around wildly for its source. He drew his shield, but Clint shot it, before it could be used to break his cover.

He had to make him leave without Pietro.

But Steve—gallant, loyal, annoyingly stubborn Steve—refused to leave any man behind. He dropped on all fours, army-crawling his way over.

“Oh, for fuck’s safe,” Clint growled.

There was an iron statue nearby, depicting some well-dressed man most likely from Sokovian history. Deciding to make use of it, he hit it with an explosive arrow to detonate at the base of the statue. With a groan, the figure toppled over toward Steve. He rolled to avoid it, and the statue landed just between him and Pietro.

Someone shouted his name, making him look back toward the lifeboats. They were leaving. If he didn’t get out now, there would be no escape.

Since he still wasn’t moving, Clint fired a few more arrows at him. Finally, mercifully, Steve began to reluctantly run back to the lifeboats.

Clint’s bow retracted into itself, and he clipped it to his hip. Now he had to hoof it.

Pietro was two buildings away. He took a running start, leaping over to the first. Then he cleared the second gap, and, without breaking stride, jumped off the roof. Hitting the pavement below, he rolled into his landing and scrambled over to Pietro’s position. 

There was no time to feel for a pulse or check his breathing. He pulled out a little white triangular device Nebula had given him—another quantum suit. As soon as he slapped it on Pietro’s chest, it instantly morphed around him. Hopefully whatever tech Tony had put inside it could help keep him alive a little longer.

Suddenly, a massive whine filled the air, reverberating up from the ground below him.

He was used to being in high places, and had ridden in an elevator before, so Clint knew the feeling of vertigo. And yet, this was still the only time he truly understood what it felt like to have the ground drop out from under you. The earth beneath his feet propelled itself away from him like a repelling magnet, leaving him weightless in the air. Various Ultron sentries, the few that had survived the battle so far, were equally helpless. Some of them grappled onto buildings or signposts, others attempted to fly away from the falling city, only to be fried by a stray lightning bolt, courtesy of Thor.

He seized Pietro’s arm to keep him from floating away, and searched for the trigger mechanism in the suit’s gauntlet. He just had to—

Something slammed into his back, wrapping its arms around him. He tried to yell, flailing helplessly, but the force of the descent had stripped all the air from his lungs, and he couldn’t breathe.

“You’ll never win,” Ultron’s voice whispered in his ear. “You can’t kill me.”

Clint tapped the button on Pietro’s forearm. It turned blue, and he smirked. Wanna bet?

Then he activated both the suits, and they were gone, slipping out of the sentry’s grip and hurtling deep into spacetime. He kept a tight grip on Pietro, trying to steer them both toward the correct wormhole.

Almost, almost…

His feet hit the floor of the time machine, and this time his knees did not buckle. Pietro, however, was dead weight, and Clint nearly fell over trying to keep him upright.

“Help me!” he shouted at his audience, who were simply staring with their mouths agape. Thor reacted first, rushing over to pick up Pietro. Along with Clint, his quantum suit retracted, revealing the mess of blood and bullet wounds littering his body.

“Get a medic!” Rhodey shouted. Bruce was already scrambling off. A heartbeat later, four Wakandans burst into the room, escorting what looked like a giant hoverboard. Belatedly, Clint realized it was a stretcher as they loaded Pietro on it. Without even a backwards glance, the Wakandans rushed back through the doors the way they had come.

Silence fell. Clint heaved out a breath, grateful to be breathing normal air again.

Rhodey clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You alright?”

He nodded, and then, despite himself, started laughing quietly.

Rhodey glanced back at Nebula and Rocket, who had lingered by the time machine’s control station. They both shrugged.

“We did it,” Clint said, composing himself. Still, it was impossible to suppress the relief and joy that he felt—for the first time in five years, he had a reason to keep living.

Against all odds, the Wakandan doctors were able to stabilize Pietro. They confessed that even their science had been pushed to its limit, and he would likely not have survived if not for an accelerated healing factor that came with his abilities.

A few hours after returning from the past, Clint was nursing a persistent headache in one of the upper floors of the palace. He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the sun set over the horizon.

“You know, when you volunteered for a test run, somehow I imagined you bringing back something...smaller.”

He chuckled dryly at Natasha's comment, as she stepped beside him. She had no eyes for the view, though--Clint could feel her gaze firmly fixed on him. He shrugged.

“Yeah, well, go big or go home, right?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lips twitch. “You could have gone anywhere, Clint. Why Sokovia?”

He did not respond right away, instead choosing to study a flock of birds taking flight over the cityscape. 

Pietro wasn’t the first person he’d lost as an Avenger, or during his time with S.H.I.E.L.D. Civilians, fellow agents...sometimes you did everything you possibly could, and even then not everyone got to walk away.

“Well...we’re shorthanded,” he replied slowly. “We couldn’t bring anyone like Sam or Wanda back, right? I mean, the rules of this stuff are a bit beyond me, but that seemed pretty clear. The kid, on the other hand...well, same logic as the Stones, right? Either dead or pulled out of time, he didn’t have a future past Sokovia. And now we’ve got another man on our side.” A pause, then he added, “Plus, I thought his speed would be useful.”

Natasha gave a noncommittal hum. He could tell she knew there was something else.

He sighed, caving under her stoic persistence. “I don’t know, Nat, I guess I just wanted a win. I mean, you and I, we’ve buried so many...and if— when we bring everyone back, it’ll be a nice surprise for Wanda.”

"Careful." There was a playful edge to her voice. "For a minute there you almost sounded optimistic."

He ducked his head, chuckling. The noise broke off into a quiet groan, however, as fresh pain stabbed behind his eyes.

Natasha reached out and pulled his face in her direction, eyeing it critically. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Just a migraine—"As he spoke, his vision blurred, as if everything had just been put in front of a smudged lens.

Then he swayed, stumbled, and blacked out before he even made contact with the floor.

Rhythmic beeping woke him up. He thought, for a moment, it was an alarm, but the sound was too steady and quiet.

He opened his eyes, and immediately recognized the palace's science lab. Across the length of the room, Pietro lay in a cot. His injuries seemed to have mostly healed—how much time has passed?

Several feet adjacent to Pietro's cot, Bruce had his back to Clint, inspecting several holographic displays.

"What the hell," he groaned, thickly, as he sat up. Immediately he was hit by a rush of vertigo. It made him collapse back onto his pillow.

"Hey, hey! Take it easy." Bruce sounded a lot closer now—when the unpleasant sensation finally subsided and cleared his vision, he found the other man standing at the foot of his bed. "You're alright...I think. But you're not going anywhere until I say so. You’ve been out for two days."

He rubbed sleep out of one of his eyes. His head hurt, but not as much as before. "What happened?"

Bruce bit his lip, which Clint thought was very discouraging. "You know I mentioned you could feel discombobulated from the chronoshift?"

"Vaguely. If this is what you meant, you're not using that word right, man."

"No, see—" Bruce sighed. "This is an extreme reaction. You changed something in the past, you had to have. It's the only explanation."

"'Course I did. That's why Speedy over there is with us again."

"No, not that. There was some kind of effect. Our memories. The team's memories. Steve, Natasha, Thor, Tony, Rhodey, they've all got killer headaches. Steve's been having dizzy spells too."

"But not you?"

"I was...not myself that day. Besides, the Hulk was already long gone by the time the battle ended. There's nothing for him to remember to be different. Clint, what did you do?"

His voice had grown steadily more anxious. It made his teeth ache. He waved a hand at Bruce, closing his eyes. "Alright, alright, um…when I went back to Sokovia, I shot a few arrows at Steve. I had to get him to leave Pietro's body behind, so I could grab him."

Oddly enough, as he said this, he could remember the scene from two perspectives. He remembered Pietro collapsing next to him, after he'd made his sacrifice. He remembered Steve picking him up—

Another spike of pain blitzed through his head, and he let out a tiny groan. 

No. That wasn't right. Steve...had tried, but there were explosions preventing him. They hadn't been able to pinpoint the source.

Eight years later, as the memory shifted perspective to his time-displaced self, he realized they had their answer.

"This is weird. It's like there's two different versions of the same thing in my head. Three, if you count me watching everything like a time-traveling fly on the wall."

Bruce nodded, as if Clint were confirming a suspicion of his. "You changed some memories. Not a lot, not enough to cause a paradox or anything—I think we'd know by now if that were the case. But because you changed things your mind and body are trying to compensate. That explains why Steve is having a worse reaction than the others, and why you passed out."

Clint digested that slowly. "How long will the headache last?"

Bruce shrugged. "There's no medical precedent for this, nor a quantum one—Tony isn't sure either. We'll just have to wait and see."

A groan interrupted them. Both men glanced over at Pietro’s cot in time to see him stir. It was the first sign of life Clint head seen from him since he’d been brought back. Bruce immediately beelined over to him, shooting Clint a stern look that said Don’t even think about getting up.

Reluctantly, he laid his head back on his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “How is he?”

“Getting there. His body’s mostly done healing by now.” He couldn’t see Bruce anymore, but knew he was likely checking over Pietro’s vitals, and other medical nonsense that escaped him. “How are we going to tell him...about...”

“I’ll do it.” It only seemed right to him. He was responsible for bringing Pietro forward in time. That made breaking the news about Wanda was his burden.

To his slight surprise, Bruce didn’t protest. “Then you might wanna start preparing yourself. I would be surprised if he doesn’t wake up today.”

He excused himself shortly after that, quietly promising that if Clint needed anything, he was just outside. As much as he wanted to immediately get out of the bed and stretch his legs, fatigue still had an iron grip on him, and within the hour he drifted back into dreamless sleep.

The next time he woke, it wasn’t by choice. Clint’s eyes shot open before his brain had fully processed the disruptive trigger for his waking—a startled yelp and a thump. As he slowly sat up, he peered across the room to find Pietro on the floor, having apparently rolled onto the floor. When they locked eyes, Pietro ceased trying to free himself from the bedsheet.

“Barton?”

“Hi.”

“What...I thought I was dead.”

Clint smirked. “Yeah. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.”

Pietro stared at him for another moment. Then, flatly, he said, “You got old. Old er. Why?”

Ah. “Well—”

“Where’s my sister?” Pietro successfully kicked the sheets away and tried to stand up. However, he only got about halfway off the floor before his legs failed him, and he clutched at the bed for support, hoisting himself into a precarious leaning position. “Wanda? Wanda! Where are you?”

Clint grimaced, and any trace of a good mood in him vanished like a light bulb blowing. It must have shown on his face, too, because Pietro’s eyes narrowed. So much for easing into things.

“There’s a lot to catch you up on, man. I...let’s start after Sokovia.”

It took Clint roughly an hour to recount all of what had transpired, and then another for Pietro to calm down enough to be told about time travel and the plan. Clint glossed over the past five years and his time as Ronin, instead focusing on the three after Sokovia, right up until Thanos snapped his fingers. Bruce gave Clint the green light during that time, but he stayed until he was finished recounting everything. Once he started, he didn’t want to stop.

To say that Pietro didn’t take the news well would be a vast understatement. 

“How is he?” Steve asked, as Clint stepped out of the elevator.

“Well, he broke a lot of equipment.” Okoye, who stood behind Steve, grimaced. “Otherwise...give him time. It’s a lot to process.”

“The sooner the better,” Natasha piped up from a chair in the corner. Despite her words, there was nothing but sympathy on her face. “We need him. Tony’s just finished calibrating everyone’s suits. We’re ready to leave as soon as we’re able.”

“He knows about the plan,” Clint replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “I don’t know how long it will...”

He trailed off and stepped aside as the elevator opened again, behind him. 

Pietro stepped out. Bruce was right behind him, looking mildly displeased that his patient was upright and mobile, but he seemed to have realized that no words would keep him in the science lab any longer.

No one spoke as Pietro appraised the Avengers in the room.

Finally, after several moments of uncomfortable silence, he said, “We have a job to do, right? What are we waiting for?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Natasha smile.