Metal Birds?

14: Dreams

Clint fidgeted nervously with his bowtie. It felt tight around his neck, like it was chocking him. He knew it was just the nerves, but he felt like he was suffocating. He spun around and paced the length of the room, back and forth, for a good five minutes. The door opened and he paused for a moment, looking to see who it was. He saw the red hair and sighed, relaxing.

"I can't do this," he said to her, sitting himself down in the armchair. Natasha looked at him. Clint stood up, suddenly feeling like the walls were closing in. "I can't. I can't do this. I'm going to pass out or throw up or die or maybe all three."

"Shut up," she said flatly, walking over to him and pushing him back into the chair. She knelt down in front of him and grabbed his hand, looking into his eyes. "Clint Barton, you are going to marry that idiot, and you are going to do it today." Clint nodded and looked at her. Then he shook his head.

"I can't. He's too good for me and I won't be able to make this work. I grew up in a circus, Nat. I'll shoot arrows at everything and I'll break a lot of stuff and he'll get mad and I don't have a real job or a steady income and I know he secretly hates me and his sister doesn't like me and I don't want to die alone, Nat, what do I do?" he asked, nearly shouting toward the end.

"Marry him. You're both bad enough for each other and you're a superhero so you don't need a real job. Fury pays us and you can leech off Steve and Tony when they get married because lord knows they're both loaded. You won't break everything and yes, you do shoot arrows, but he's fast enough to catch them and he won't mind because he's in love with you. He doesn't hate you, and neither does Wanda. And you won't die alone because you're going to marry him."

"But I can't!" he said. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Clint, you love him. You're in love with him. You two have been together for about two years now and you're the happiest couple I've ever seen. Marry him."

Clint stood up and paced the room again, rubbing his hands together nervously. He was hopelessly in love, and he was terrified. Natasha gave up talking to him. When the time came, she grabbed his arm and walked with him to the altar. She stood to the side, as she was his best man. When the doors opened again, Clint's breathing hitched as he stared, watching Pietro walk down the aisle with his arm in his sisters and a grin on his face.

He felt like he should be amazingly happy, but to be honest, Clint was absolutely terrified. As Pietro neared, his vision zeroed in and his palms began to sweat excessively. Pietro smiled and Clint could hear Vision droning on - the android was the one marrying them, as he technically possessed the credits and knowledge to preform nearly every job in the world.

As Clint stared at Pietro, he couldn't help but feel like it wasn't real. He saw his lover's lips moving and decided to tune back in.

"I do," Pietro announced proudly, grinning.

"And do you, Clinton Francis Barton, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, in speed and in average motion, in annoyance and in normality, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?" Clint almost laughed. He had told Natasha she could change the "in this and this" so it would better suit them as a couple, and now he was wishing he had been paying attention to what she had changed for Pietro.

"I, uh, yeah, no. I can't. Sorry Piet. I love you," he called as he backed away. Everyone stared at him, but he couldn't recognize any of the faces in the seats. He couldn't recognize the faces of his or Pietro's groomsman and now everything was getting blurry and his head was spinning. He blacked out.

Clint sat up, breathing quickly. It was a dream. It was all a dream. That was, by far, the weirdest dream he had ever had since Ultron. He looked to his side and saw Pietro snuggled up in the blankets, looking quite adorable and calm. Clint looked over at the clock and sighed.

"Fuck my life," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. It was four in the morning. That was at least five hours before he usually woke up, but he knew that there was no way he was going back to sleep now. He also knew that there as no way he could stay in bed next to Pietro. He slipped out of the bed quietly and got dressed, making his way to the kitchen. His plan was to set on a pot of coffee but he saw that one was already made.

"Barton?" a tired voice said from the table.

"Hey Stark," Clint gretted, nodding to the mechanic as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"What woke you up at this hour?" Tony questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Weird dream. You?"

"Kind of the same thing, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. What was yours?"

"Some weird thing with Pietro. How about you? Something about Steve, maybe?" He suggested, smirking as he took a sip of liquid energy.

"Yes, actually. I had this weird dream thing, and I woke up and then he woke up and he was asking me stuff and I got annoyed so I went down to my lab for a while, then I made coffee, and now here we are." Clint nodded.

"Boyfriends, am I right?"

"You're engaged. Don't bring me to your category. Also, me and Steve aren't really anything serious," Tony added quietly. Clint chuckled.

"Why? Are you waiting for him to ask you out?"

"I think it's the other way around, actually, but I'm bad at commitment and all that jazz."

"If you keep saying that bullshit about yourself, you'll never be good at commitment. You're already committed to that stupid kid you watch, so I don't see why Rogers would be that big a deal."

"It's different, you know. Kids and relationships, I mean. With kids, its an instinctual thing. You somehow always know what to do, which freaks me out, but luckily he's old enough that I don't have to keep too close an eye on him. But Steve, well, he's another story. He's a lot nicer than me, and he always knows what he's doing and I feel like I'd just mess up his whole system if I got involved with him. It's complicated."

"I think you should give it a shot anyways," Clint advised. "He likes you and since you're worried about him, I'm assuming you like him too, and I feel like you'd balance each other out. He's organized and traumatized and slightly depressed, and you're also slightly depressed but you're an organized mess and you can handle yourself pretty well. Just think about it, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever. This is, by far, one of the weirdest conversations you and I have ever had at four in the morning," Tony commented. Clint nodded.

"Yeah. Once again; boyfriends, am I right?"

"Yeah, you are right." Tony smiled a bit, and Clint smiled at that before making his way up to the rooftop to watch the sun rise.

As the darkness dissipated, and the golden rays of sun brightened the sky, and the New York morning breeze ruffled Clint's hair and chilled him to the bone, he felt all the stress from his dream disappear, and suddenly he was filled with nothing but calm, cooling confidence toward the subject of the dream. He was going to marry that silver-haired roadrunner, and he was going to do it before the summer ended.