𝚃𝚘𝚗𝚢 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝙳𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚂𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚍

*2

ᴄʟᴇᴀʀ-ʜᴇᴀᴅᴇᴅ

Clint blinked awake in a dark room with the mother of all headaches.

He groaned. "How much did I drink?" he mumbled.

A tired chuckle prompted him to turn his head the smallest amount to find Tony sitting in a chair next to his bed.

Med bay.

He was in the med bay.

Clint frowned in confusion before the memories of the last few days crashed down on him. He lurched upright but immediately regretted it and lay back down, groaning again.

"Take it easy Legolas. Your brain went through the blender."

"What happened?" he asked. He remembered noticing some odd things in the team and coming to some horrifying conclusions about Maximoff. Then his head started hurting something fierce and the rest was pretty blurry.

"Maximoff's magic doesn't like it when you fight it," Tony told him softly. "It fights back."

Clint grimaced, lifting a hand to his head and encountering bandages.

"You were trying to do some cognitive recalibration but the magic was too deep to be knocked loose like that."

Clint dropped his hand, feeling numb. "She's been in my head since Ultron," he realised.

Tony grimaced. "That's what the signs are pointing to. We don't know when it happened since we don't have any footage of her getting you. Loki's theory is that the Mind Stone left a hole in your mental defenses when he used the sceptre on you. Agent is talking to Laura and trying to find out if your behaviour was different at home."

Clint clenched his hands into fists.

"Where is she? Where is that damn witch?"

"She's been arrested, currently in a magic proof cell in Kamar Taj. What she did was against the rules set out in her pardon even though it happened before she signed it. There'll be a trial and then she'll get her magic stripped."

Clint stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment. "How did no one notice?" he asked in a whisper. "I get you not seeing it. You left right after Ultron and fuck, I don't even blame you. We were assholes. Why the fuck would they believe that monster was your fault? Did she get to them too?"

Tony shook his head. "It looks like you're the only one she was influencing like that. The others... they just fell for the pretty doe eyes."

Clint squeezed his eyes shut and gave a rough laugh. "So Natasha didn't even notice she was influencing me. Or she did and she didn't care enough to stop it." He suddenly remembered something Laura said and without the red haze in his mind it jumped to the forefront.

"The data dump," he choked out and Tony looked confused. "Laura said that Nat dumped the information on my family with everything else."

Realisation flashed across his face. "Yeah. She dumped everything," he answered. "I thought you knew?"

Clint shook his head, feeling the horror filling his chest. "No... she said she took out anything important when I asked."

Tony was quiet for a moment. "No. She and Rogers dumped everything that was in SHIELD's servers. Mission details, agent information, all the designs I'd made for them. Everything on the Avengers too."

Clint looked back at Tony, taking in how haunted he looked as he remembered those days.

"I tried to save as many as I could. But I couldn't get them all. It's why I missed the stuff about your family, I was focused on the undercover missions and then afterwards I just didn't have time." He gave a bitter smile. "It's how I missed that video of the Winter Soldier as well since Romanoff dropped that on the internet too. It's probably how Zemo found it in the first place..."

Clint blinked in confusion. "What video?"

Tony stared at him. "Fuck, Rogers really didn't tell you guys." He rubbed his face. "Some small part of me hoped that he'd learned his lesson but..." The inventor trailed off, looking pained. "It was a video of the Winter Soldier killing my parents. Rogers and Romanoff knew since DC."

Clint inhaled sharply, things clicking into place in his head. "And you saw it in Siberia. And threw a punch," he realised softly.

Tony nodded. "I punched Rogers and Barnes got involved. The rest is history. The super soldiers skipped off into the sunset with a King's help. And I spent fifteen hours in the snow wondering why I'd ever thought Rogers was my friend."

Silence fell over them and Clint closed his eyes briefly. "He told us that you attacked for no reason," he whispered. "He told us you were fine."

Tony gave him a pained smile. "He's developed a habit of lying I've noticed."

His hand rose up to his chest and he tapped at it anxiously. Clint followed the movement with sharp eyes. Maximoff's magic really had turned him blind.

"You had to get the arc reactor put back in."

Tony dropped his hand but didn't deny it. Clint looked back at the ceiling.

"What now?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked.

"What happens now?" He flashbacked to the RAFT and swallowed hard. "Fuck Tony, I said some shitty things. Why are you even here?"

Tony was quiet for a moment.

"I know what it's like to have her in your head," he whispered.

Clint closed his eyes again. "I don't deserve this Tony. I fucked up."

"Well, at least you can admit it. So you're about a hundred steps ahead of the others. And you weren't to blame. Maximoff was twisting your head up."

"I still did that Tony." His voice was hollow. "I still said all that crap to you. I blamed you for Ultron and treated you like shit. I left my family for a Hydra witch. I said that shitty line about Rhodes. It all happened and you remember it."

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "But I'm not really all that willing to let Maximoff win."

Clint looked back at the inventor, recognising that determined expression. He choked out a laugh.

"Forgiving me out of spite?" he asked incredulously.

"Something like that," Tony agreed. "Maybe it's better to say you earned your second chance. You never used it up after all."

Unlike Romanoff, who was already on her second chance when Tony joined the team. Or Rogers who used up his first insulting a man he'd only just met.

Unlike Wilson who had never tried to get to know Tony, instead believing every word out of Rogers' mouth.

Unlike Lang who hated a man he never really met.

"There's no third chances," Clint murmured.

"No. There aren't," Tony admitted.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Boss? Your assistance is required," Friday interrupted them.

"What now?" Tony asked tiredly.

"Mrs. Barton is here. She has a gun and is demanding to see Maximoff." She fell quiet for a moment as the two men stared at each other in bewilderment. "She has shot Mr. Rogers. And Miss. Carter is cheering her on. I believe your intervention is required."

"Shit!" Tony scrambled to his feet and raced out of the med bay.

Clint leaned his head back and tried to imagine that picture. A livid Laura pointing her rifle at Rogers and demanding to see Maximoff so she could put a few rounds into the bitch's head.

People forgot that Laura was a SHIELD agent before she retired to the farm.

Pissing her off never ended well.

He let a small smile curl his lips. His wife was amazing and he was going to do whatever it took, groveling or begging if need be, to not lose her.

The second chance was the last chance after all.