Not That Lucky

#36: Five Bullets

A/N: This is it! This chapter and then one little epilogue and we'll be moving onto the next chapter in Aj's adventure and story! If you're interested there is a playlist on Spotify I created. The soundtrack of this book, if you will. Just look up 'Not That Lucky' and you'll see it! It has the same cover as the image above! Thanks!

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"Right now, she's just living her best life. She's focused on herself. She's falling in love with who she is. She's excited about where she's headed, and she's excited about what's next. She has so many goals, so many dreams, so much ambition, and she's constantly finding new passions. She's learning to be spontaneous. She's learning to take risks. And she's constantly stepping outside of her comfort zone. You see—right now, she's just chasing the things that make her happy. She's chasing the things that feed her soul. And to be honest with you—she could care less about what anybody else thinks. Because right now, her life is filled with so much peace. So much light. So much growth. So much faith. And so much hope. And right now, she's just living her best life—and there's absolutely nothing, or no one, that can get in the way of that." –R.S.

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When it came to awkward tension, on a scale of one to ten, the room Clint was standing in was, without a doubt, a 74. It was a 'saying good-bye to someone only to find out that they were going in the same direction as you' kind of moment. A 'I was stalking my crush on Instagram and accidentally liked a photo of theirs from three years ago at 2 in the morning and they saw it' kind of moment. A 'oh god, the movie I'm watching with my parents just started playing a sex scene' kind of moment. Essentially, nobody was having a good time.

Except him.

Clint was pretty cool with these awkward moments.

It came with the territory of being an absolute disaster.

Also, his adopted child wasn't dying anymore so honestly, he was over the moon.

"What gift says, 'I'm so glad your exploded spleen didn't kill you'? Flowers or a card?" Clint asked Natasha quietly.

She shot him a glare, "Can you focus on the task at hand?"

"They seem to have a handle on it." Clint motioned to the others. All eyes shot to him at his words. Vision stood to his left, mildly confused, while Natasha and Sam stood on his right in various stages of on edge and irritated. Across from him, Steve stood, arms crossed tightly, and on guard. He was probably so stiff because his homicidal best friend was sitting about twelve feet away on their living room couch, eyes glued to the hands he had clasped in front of him, "Also, why did we step away from Barnes? He has super hearing too, doesn't he? Us whispering on the other side of the room can't be very secretive."

Sam scoffed, "How are you in such a good mood?"

"How? Look, Aj is alive. She's been out of surgery for 6 hours now and is resting comfortably in a medically induced coma to heal." Those words alone seemed to settle the room to a degree. "Eugene fucking Morgan is dead and gone, fuck that guy again in case someone didn't hear me the first 17 times I said it. And—" Clint held one hand up and behind it he very obviously motioned toward the quiet man on the couch, "Bucky Barnes hasn't snapped and murdered us yet, so... we are winning, guys."

"Clint." Steve sighed, probably not particularly liking his last bullet point. Another beat of awkward silence passed between them, and Clint could understand why. Bucky Barnes was a danger and risk. He was a wanted man. If the government ever found out the Avengers were housing him the government would lose their collective minds and they'd be in a world of trouble, and blah, blah, blah. Again though, his main points still stood strong.