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Clint breathed in the fresh air of his farm. It filled his lungs in a way that the stale air of the Raft never could.
Laura was sitting on the porch, watching their two oldest kids do their chores as Nate slept in her lap.
Clint felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease. He hadn’t know how long it would be before he saw them again when he agreed to come out of retirement for Cap. He was thankful that it hadn’t been too long.
Cooper and Lila spotted him first. Lila let out a childish shriek and ran to meet him. Cooper grabbed her abandoned broom and pretended to ride over to him.
“Hey, munchkins,” Clint said while scooping up Lila. Cooper dropped his broom and glomped onto Clint’s leg. “Keep it down. Nate is sleeping.”
“He is fine.” Cooper tried to climb up Clint’s leg, even though he ended up just dragging Clint’s pants down. “He is a rock after lunch.”
Clint tried to puzzle out what his young son meant.
“He sleeps like a rock after lunch,” Clint corrected.
Lila snorted.
“Rocks can’t sleep, dad.” Lila patted him on the cheek before she began wiggling. He set her down, righted his pants, and pulled Cooper into his arms.
Lila ran off and Clint began walking to Laura and his youngest son.
“How’s Natasha?” Laura asked softly, rearranging Nate so that she could stand and hug Clint.
Clint kissed the top of Nate’s head before sandwiching him in a hug.
He was home.
“She’s fine.” Laura nodded.
“When the kids are asleep we are going to have a serious talk, Clint.” Her voice held no room to argument. He held in a wince and nodded in agreement. “The stalls need to be mucked out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said playfully, but only got a raised eyebrow in return. He set his gear by her chair, knowing Laura would unpack it for him.
It was nearly five by the time he took care of their new cows and the horses they were lodging.
After he retired he and Laura had expanded their farm. In about two years they hoped to open up a horse riding tour. There was a lot of history in the land they lived on and the only way to get to it was by horse. Till then they were going to use the new barn space to house horses for a nice fee.
He could hear Lila and Cooper up in their treehouse. The rope ladder was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh munchkins, oh munchkins, let down your ladder,” he sang out. He heard giggling and whispers.
“No,” Cooper said while sticking his head out the window. Clint paused in thought. They had never denied him before. One of the rules was they had to let Laura and him up. They’d agreed to it before Laura built the treehouse.
“Cooper,” he used his dad voice, “let me up.”
“Why?” Lila’s head popped out of the treehouse beside Cooper’s.
“Because I’m your father and I need to make sure none of the planks became loose.” A plank had never been loose in the two years they had owned it. Laura was an ace carpenter and builder. He really just wanted to spend time with them.
“They’re fine.” Lila disappeared into the treehouse again and he could hear her giggling.
“Cooper Francis Barton, Lila Diane Barton you best let that rope ladder done this instant.” Cooper’s expression became pinched as he went back into the treehouse. Clint let out a sigh of relief— until loud music started playing.
Clint stared up at the hatch, waiting for it to open and for the ladder to unfurl.
Minutes passed with no change.
He felt a slight anger, but easily pushed it away.
He could easily climb the tree and get into the treehouse, but he didn’t want to set a bad example. Cooper loved climbing and wouldn’t hesitate to use the ‘Why can’t I do it? You did it.’ card.
Clint went to talk to Laura so they could discuss their punishment.
Laura was bottle feeding Nate. Clint loved the little noises of happiness that Nate made while drinking. Clint made a hand motion and Laura passed Nate off with a smile.
His son was perfectly pudgy and had Clint’s hair.
“Munchkin One and Munchkin A aren’t letting me into the treehouse,” Clint said.
“No dinner tonight and no going into the treehouse for five days,” Laura decided.
“Sounds good.”
Clint had to shout over the sound of their music to get their attention. He and Laura already had dinner. Laura was packing it away.
The hatch opened and the pair went scurrying down the ladder, ignoring the ‘one at a time’ rule. He was too tired to call them on it.
Lila and Cooper zipped past him and to the house.
Clint heard them complaining as he entered the house.
“But we are hungry,” Cooper said, dragging out the word.
“What rule did you two break today?” Laura asked, not budging an inch.
Lila grumbled and Cooper hid behind her smaller form.
“Speak up.”
“It’s a stupid rule.” Lila crossed her arms, her chin jutting out.
“Excuse me?” Clint said while stepping beside Laura, putting up a unified front.
“Fort Awesome is mine an’ Coop’s. The rule is stupid.”
“You’re cruising for a bruising, young lady.” He and Laura were fine with giving their kids spankings, but they were never rough enough to actually leave bruises.
Lila shrunk back.
“Sorry, mom. Can we brush our teeth?” It was her usual maneuver, trying to distract them by asking to do something she hated.
Laura and Clint stared at them, letting them fidget.
“Go ahead and I better not hear that word from either of you.”
Laura and Clint exchanged a look.
Clint tucked in the kids. He wanted to read them a book to procrastinate talking to Laura, but Lila had lost that privilege when she used a bad word. He couldn’t read to Cooper either since his bed was across from hers.
He meandered into his bedroom after getting a glass of water.
Laura was sitting in bed, doing a crossword. That was a bad sign. She only filled those out when she was irritated.
She looked up from the newspaper and set it aside.
“Clint. Let’s go to the kitchen to talk.” An even worse sign.
He followed behind her, trying to figure out exactly what she wanted to talk about. It wasn’t hard to guess.
“You told me that it was an emergency,” Laura said, cutting to the chase. “You implied that the world was in the balance, that it was life and death.” She tilted her head to the side, waiting for his response.
Clint let out a breath and sat across for her at the table.
“It was an emergency.” He kept his voice even, picking out his words carefully. “The Sokovia Accords would have made it so that the Avengers can’t act when the world will be in the balance, where every second lost could mean hundreds of people die.”
“I see.” Shit, he could tell she thought his answer was lacking. “Did you forget you were retired?”
“You said to go!”
“Yes, but that was because I actually remembered what you said when you decided to retire. You said you’d leave matters to the Avengers and only step in if they absolutely needed you.”
“They did need me! I was trying to prevent my friends being drowned in paperwork. Everything the Avengers stand for would have been destroyed!”
“Keep your voice down. The kids are asleep.” Clint breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What do you mean when you said it would destroy the Avengers?”
“We— They are supposed to be the first line of defense, take care of things before they get out of hand. They can’t do that if we have to get approval for every little thing they do.”
“Things got out of hand with the Ultron crisis.”
“That’s because Tony and Bruce unleashed a murder ‘bot on the world.”
“Really, they did that on their own?” Laura’s voice took on a condescending tone. “If only they had some oversight, some approval for a group of elected officials to do that.”
“That’s different. Cap is a soldier and knows how to lead a group and make the tough calls.”
“Are you saying that he knows better than the UN?”
“Laura I’m not saying that— They would take too long! There was no emergency. Tony had plenty of time to discuss a ‘peacekeeping robot’ with the rest of the team, but he didn’t.”
“He was on a timeline though. Natasha told me Thor was going to take the gem away soon.” Clint had forgotten that Thor had been eager to take it back. “Maybe if he had gotten the advice of someone who knew more about it than him instead of working alone and using his best judgement then Ultron wouldn’t have happened.”
“You’re not getting it. Tony and Steve are completely different. Steve is the team leader because he makes the right calls in a pinch. Tony is used to political bullshit slowing him down. He knows how to pander to them to get what he wants, but we’re not always going to have time for that. We live in the real world, Laura. Shit happens and we need to be able to react to said shit before it can get worse.”
“Who gave him the right to decide, Clint? He’s just a man.”
“I already said he is a soldier.” Clint pinched the ridge of his nose, trying not to lose his temper.
“So are countless others and you don’t see them disregarding their commanders and going AWOL. He’s just one man. He may be trying to protect the world, but the world might not want his protection.
“He’s Captain America— Captain America, not Captain World. The US is already seen as the world’s police and as sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong by many countries. He’s going around looking like the US flag vomited on him into sovereign nations.
“If I started shooting bad guys, even if they were wanted by the UN, sure as shit I’d be arrested in the US and anywhere else in the world. He is not above the law and you aren’t either.”
“The law is not always right. Jim Crow Laws—”
“You did not just compare racist laws to laws that allow a small group to conduct military actions legally on foreign soil.” Clint cringed, feeling her one year of law school coming out.
“Bad example,” Clint admitted. “I’m sorry for not telling you exactly why I was going to help Cap, but I stand by my decision to help him.”
“You stand by your decision, yet didn’t accept the consequences. You broke the law. When you were arrested you broke out of jail. Do you expect me to be fine with that? What kind of example do you think you’re setting for the kids?”
“I’m teaching them to do what’s right even in the face of people telling them they’re wrong. MLK did the same thing.”
“Hell no he didn’t!” Laura stood up, clearly enraged. “How dare you compare— Martin Luther King Jr. practiced civil disobedience. That’s where someone breaks a law because they think they’re right, which is what you did, but then he accepted the punishment for breaking the law. He was nonviolent, unlike that shit show you put on at the airport.”
“Another bad example.”
“The facts of the matter are that you believed yours and Steve’s judgement is above the UN’s, you disregard how oversight can actually prevent emergencies, and you broke the law and refused to pay for what you did.” A sniffling caught their attention. Lila and Cooper were at the top of the stairs. Cooper was crying and Lila was clutching onto his shirt. “We’ll continue discussing this tomorrow. You’re in the doghouse.” Laura tilted her chin towards the couch before turning to their kids. “We were talking about an important matter, but we still love each other very much. There’s no need to worry. You two have school tomorrow. Off to bed.”
Clint could sleep through a lot of things, gunfire, haphazard driving, yelling, but he could not sleep through the sound of the front door opening and closing.
He sat up as quick as a bolt, eyes flicking around. He moved to the kitchen on silent feet before recognizing the sound of the short steps of his kids.
He looked at the clock. It was four in the morning.
Clint ran after them, but only caught a glimpse of Cooper’s foot before the ladder was pulled up and the hatch was closed.
Clint swore under his breath.
“What are you two doing?” he asked, trying to stay quite enough not to wake Nate or Laura.
Cooper stuck his head out the window.
“Eating dinner,” he said with his mouth full. Crumbs rained down.
“Really, because I could have sworn that you two aren’t allowed in the treehouse and that you weren’t supposed to get dinner for breaking the rules.”
“That rule is stupid,” Lila called from inside. There was the crinkling of food being opened. “’Sides, the news said you broke some stuff. You did not get in trouble. We did not break anything.”
“Fuck,” Clint whispered. He and Laura tried to keep them away from the news when it was about him. It sounded like they had heard more of his discussion with Laura last night than he thought.
“That’s different.”
“How?” Cooper bit into another cookie.
“I was trying to keep my friends safe, the same way I was trying to keep you two safe by checking for loose floorboards.”
“I told you we don’t have any loose boards. See? The rule is stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. I’m your dad. It’s my job to keep you safe and it’s your job to listen to me.”
“We used our judgement.” Cooper stuck out his tongue. When had he even learned that word. “And me and Lila are above you so our judgement is better.”
“That’s not what she meant by being above,” he grumbled. “I’m going to give you the count of five to get on the ladder—”
“Why?” Lila leaned out the window and popped open a bag of chips. The orange triangles fell everywhere. “Oops.”
“Because I’m your father, you’re not allowed up there or to eat dinner, you have school in a few hours, and it’s nearly pitch black out here. If you’re not careful on the ladder you’re going to break your neck. Most of all because you both have five spanks apiece and the longer I wait the more spanks you’re going to get.”
A few minutes later they were back in bed, rears red with five spanks apiece.
Clint dropped the kids off at school. Laura was at work so he was stuck watching over Nate and doing the barn chores.
He felt some of his frustration from last night burn away as he fell back into his routine.
He hadn’t discussed what Lila and Cooper did with Laura yet. She was always in a hurry in the morning.
Clint wasn’t really sure what had gotten into the pair.
He pulled up his van to the school and Lila skipped over to him.
“Where’s Cooper?” Clint asked, looking over the milling children.
“He went to Jesse’s house.”
“Did your mother give him permission?” She usually called when there was a change of plans.
“That woulda took too long. Jesse asked right before his bus came. If Coop went back into the school to ask to use the phone then ask mom then he would have missed the bus.” Lila shrugged once she was in her booster seat. Clint’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“Do you understand how dangerous it is to go somewhere without asking permission first?”
“It is just Jesse’s house. He goes there all the time, like a bajillion times. You know his mom and dad.”
“That’s not the point. I need to know where you two are—”
“You do know where we are! ‘Sides there is nothing to do at home without Fort Awesome.”
“You need to ask permission before going.”
“Why?” He thought they were over the why stage last year.
“Because I’m your dad and I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know where you are.”
“But you do know—”
“Enough. We’re going to Jesse’s house to pick up Cooper.”
“The kids are driving me crazy,” Clint said when Laura got back from work that night.
“They take after you.” Laura kissed him on the cheek.
“Apparently.” Clint flopped down in a chair, one ear listening for the water to start boiling. “We had a situation this morning and again this afternoon.”
Laura frowned and Clint began explaining what had happened. By the end of it Laura’s nostrils were flared up and her frown had turned into a scowl.
“You need to take care of this. They’re following your example and I frankly don’t know what to do about it.”
Clint let out a frustrated sigh and went to put the noodles in the hot water.
“Why did you let them watch the news?”
“Don’t try to push this on me. They’re allowed to watch it. They don’t normally, but I’m not going to shoo them out of the room when you’re obviously on TV. If I had known you were going to be setting a bad example I would have recorded it and watched it when they were in bed.”
“Laura, what if they’d seen me get hurt?”
“The broadcasters said that you all were trying to catch Sergeant Barnes, not that you were going to fight each other. I thought it would be the Avengers against one man.” She clicked her nails on the table. “I should have told them to go upstairs when the fighting started, but they would have found out what happened when you got home. Stop trying to turn this on me.”
“I’m not try to— Honey, I just want you to help me to explain to Lila and Cooper why what they did was wrong, but I don’t know how to.”
He sat back across from her and they fell silent.
“I don’t know what to do. You really put me and the kids in a bad position when you left,” Laura said after a few minutes. Clint was startled to see tears in her eyes. “You were gone for four weeks. You left me with the three kids and a whole farm to look after. I have a job, one that I love. There’s no sitters around here. I only had a week’s vacation saved up and the rest I had to lie to get out of and say Nate was sick. They’re considering firing me, Clint. And then what was I going to do? We took out a loan to build those stalls and buy those cows. We barely have any savings and I would have had to travel hours away just to go to an interview. It’s not like I could sell the house either! You were gone, locked away because you got involved in something that had nothing to do with you and I was all the kids had. There was no SHIELD to fall back on and I haven’t heard from Natasha since this whole thing began.”
Clint felt his heart sink as she described the situation in a different light.
“I didn’t know if you were ever coming home.”
Laura broke down crying and Clint could only hold her and say sorry.