Thicker Than Blood

Avengers and X-Men Assemble

Logan and K were still curled up asleep together when Clint woke up with a pretty stuffy nose. He was coming down with a solid summer cold, but sometimes, it helped him to walk around until his nose stopped trying to fall off his face.

So that's what he was doing when the Avengers came in from what had clearly been a pretty serious battle, judging by the fact that Thor and Steve had Tony propped up between them and Jan had a solid bruise on her arm.

Clint's eyes were wide as he rushed over to the group of Avengers. "Are you guys okay?"

It was obvious the Avengers hadn't expected the youngest tower resident to be awake to see the aftermath of a mission, and they shared a quick, wordless look between them before Thor took Tony off and Steve sat down with Clint, one hand on his shoulder to turn him away from the injured heroes. "You should see the other guys," Steve said with a quiet smirk.

Clint couldn't help but return the smirk — in spades. "You totally kicked their butts, huh? Who were you fighting?"

"Hydra."

"Didja fight the Red Skull?"

Steve frowned a bit but then shook his head. "Not this time."

"Oh, okay." Clint shrugged. "Well, I just figured I don't see you guys get hurt real bad too often, so..."

Steve smirked. "Well, that was mostly Tony's fault. Hydra knocked his suit out with some kind of new tech, but when Jan got hit, he was pretty insistent on going in to get her while we dealt with the bad guys."

Clint's eyes widened at that, though he was already nodding. "Oh, yeah. Because he likes her."

Steve didn't even bother to hide his smirk at that. "It's pretty obvious, huh?"

"Uh-huh." Clint tipped his head to the side. "I think he's kind of stupid sometimes, but I saw how he was real good with Jan after Hank hit her, so I think that's okay. I like Jan a lot."

"Me too," Steve said, his smirk widening. "I'm sure they'll be glad to hear you approve."

Clint shrugged easily. He didn't really care about the romances at the tower, if he was honest. He was more interested in the heroics of the team. "So, how come you were fighting Hydra? Were they doing something to take over the world again or something?"

"Pretty much."

Clint nodded. "That's what I thought. You guys're always dealing with, like, the end of the whole world and stuff." He looked over both shoulders before he leaned forward. "That's why I think maybe I'm gonna be an X-Man first, 'cause they save people, not like, whole worlds."

Steve raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

"Yeah, Kitty was telling me how they sometimes have to go stop a buncha people from beating up just one person and I think maybe that's why you guys don't do that kind of thing because maybe... maybe you don't got time for saving everybody when you got the whole world to look out for."

Steve's smirk fell entirely, and he turned to face Clint properly. "What are you talking about?"

Clint frowned, obviously picking up on the fact that he'd hit a nerve. But when Steve looked genuinely bothered and seemed to expect an answer, he let out his breath. "Well, it's just... Kitty and Jubes tell me about how the X-Men go get kids who get kicked out and stuff or, like, people who get beat up 'cause they're mutants. But I don't think you guys do that. You don't talk about it, so I figured it's because maybe ... maybe you're real busy." He shrugged again, looking down at the ground and feeling his cheeks flush. "It's okay. There's lots of people who're real busy and they don't, y'know, help."