“Baaabe!!” Clint screamed and ran to the table. “Cooper! Nate!”
He looked around, his eyes wide in panic. They were here just mere seconds ago and now? Now they weren’t. Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nate. He couldn’t see them. Just a few flakes of dust where his family should be.
“I want ketchup,” was the last thing little Nate had said and he had just wanted to turn to Lila to make a disgusted face but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. Her bow lay on the ground, the arrows beside it but Lila was gone.
He turned around and Laura was gone, too. And Cooper and Nate.
“Baabe!” he tried again. Maybe they just hid somewhere.
Something happened. Clint stared at his ankle, at the monitor, at his empty house. He knew it was empty, he just knew it.
Nat! Nat would know what happened. Technically he wasn’t allowed to contact her - or anyone else from the Avengers. But Nat had sent him a burner phone and Clint knew how to hide something so the FBI agents couldn’t find it in case they would search his house.
Clint threw his bow away. He didn’t care right now. His kids… his kids were gone. Laura was gone. He ran to the house, ran upstairs into the attic and went to the fake wall he had built, opened it and took out the phone.
It was an old fashioned flip phone and there was only one number saved. And Clint saw that there was a missed call and a voice mail.
’Clint,’ he heard Nat’s voice. ’Something… something happened. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news but Thanos… Thanos was here. He has all the Infinity Stones and he… he erased half of the population, not only on Earth but everywhere in the universe. I… I hope you and your family are okay and… if you can hear this, please call me and let me know you’re okay. Wanda is gone, Clint. Fury and Bucky and Sam. T’Challa, too, and… so many are gone, just gone. No one knows where Tony is and…’ She stopped and sighed and sounded so tired. ’Please, let me know if you’re okay. Please. Please be okay.’
Clint slumped down and stared at the phone. Half of the universe! Half of the universe? That’s billions of beings!
He felt hot tears running over his face and only when he touched his cheeks he realized that he cried. Billions and billions of beings but only four of them mattered to him. Thanos had killed his family. No… no, he had erased them as if they never existed.
Clint had no idea how long he sat in his attic, the old phone in his hand. His eyes fell onto the monitor on his ankle and anger welled up in him. He shouldn’t have agreed to the deal. Maybe he could’ve helped the Avengers to… to defeat Thanos. He shouldn’t have…
With an angry growl he rose and walked down to the kitchen, the phone still in his hand. He threw it onto the table, went to one of the drawers and took out a knife. He cut through the strap that held the monitor in position and threw it onto the table. He knew they would come… well… if they still existed. Maybe someone would come. But he didn’t care. Not anymore.
The FBI had taken away most of his bows but not all of them. And so Clint went to his hidden armory, took out the old collapsible bow, arrows, two guns and ammo and a few knives, threw all of it into a bag, took his leather jacket and his helmet and went to his bike.
He would find Natasha, would see what he could do, would… He stopped when he saw it.
Years ago, only a few months after he joined SHIELD, he broke into Director Carter’s office to read his file. She wrote that she knew Clint was a violent man, that violence was the first language he ever learned with his drunkard of a father but she also wrote that she was sure SHIELD could steer his violence in the right directions. They assigned him to Coulson as his handler and for a while it worked... until he went rogue to kill his brother.
Coulson hunted him down and gave him one last chance. But it wasn’t Coulson who brought him back to earth, who grounded him in a way no one else ever could. It was Laura. And then it was Laura and Cooper. And then Laura, Cooper and Lila.
His family meant the world to him and now they were gone. All of them, even little Nate. He was alone and with them his grounding was gone, too.
When he drove to the town close to his house he saw a pick-up truck in front of Poppa Chuggins drugstore and guys came out with boxes in their hands. Looters!
For a very long moment Clint just sat on his bike and watched the men carry boxes onto their truck and running back into the store to get the next box. These men, these bastards used the chaotic situation to steal medicine and the long-known anger welled up in him again. They stole medicine in a situation like this. People needed medicine and Poppa Chuggins was either gone or worse, they had killed him.
Clint glared at them and growled. He dismounted his bike, took off his helmet and reached for his bow. When the first man came out of the store again and looked left and right carefully Clint shot an arrow right through his left eye. He didn’t even see it coming. One moment he stood in front of the drug store with boxes in his hand and the next one he lay there, bleeding and dying.
Without missing a beat Clint went to the entrance, saw the other two men grabbing boxes out of the shelves and… behind the counter lay the old man with two bullet holes in his chest. They had shot him.
Thanos - the damn bastard - had killed half of the population of the universe and those asshats used the chaotic situation to kill an old man who always had lollies for the children coming into his store. Why didn’t Thanos kill them? Why did he kill his family, his children, innocent little children who had never hurt someone? Who didn’t deserve to die? And they? These men were allowed to live? To walk around and kill old men, to steal medicine? No! They didn’t deserve to live! They didn’t deserve it!
“What…” was the last word one of the guys could say before an arrow hit him and he dropped down dead only a moment later. Clint didn’t wait for the other guys reaction. He shot him, too, and watched him die. He screamed and writhed but Clint just watched him. He deserved to die. He deserved it.
Thanos was a monster, that’s for sure, he allowed the wrong people to live. Clint pressed his lips together and went back to his bike. But he, Clint, would put things straight even if it was the last thing he ever did. He put on his helmet, started his bike and drove into the darkness. The Avengers could take care of Thanos. He had other fish to fry, he had a mission now.