Author's Note: Well, folks, this is it: the last installment of After. I wanted to thank everyone who has been reading, reviewing and following this story from the beginning to the end. I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with you. Please read and review.

After watching Civil War (OMG the Russo brothers are my new heroes), I have another story plot bunny in my mind that is something of an opposite AU of this one. It's in the very beginning stages, so I'll have to hurry it along, I suppose.

Again, thanks for reading and reviewing. It does this heart good.

After

Epilogue

She didn't know how this was going to end.

The long-familiar quiver felt very dense against her back. She tightened her grip around her bow, the leather of her bracers creaking. She stood in the tactical room of the Avengers facility, staring into the focused gray eyes of her father.

After his death fourteen years ago, the Avengers had reserved a corner of one of the quieter gathering places to her father's memory. His bow remained here, preserved on a small stand, surrounded by an encased selection of his specialized arrows. His purple and black tactical vest and coat were also there, surrounded by three or four pictures of Hawkeye being Hawkeye: back flipping off an exploding building, dashing across a dead power line ten stories up, or grinning while nailing Thor precisely in the center of the back of his golden-locked head.

Lila loved looking at the these pictures of her father. They did not have many photos of him from when he was alive; SHIELD spies needed anonymity after all. The picture she looked at now, however, was her favorite. He was in uniform and the black fletching of half of dozen arrows were visible over his shoulder visible despite the close angle on his face. His keen eyes were focused intently on some target off camera, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. His mouth was quirked up in a self-satisfied smirk. It was a look that Lila didn't remember ever seeing on his face: simultaneously intense and mischievious. Other than the memories Wanda gave her, Lila didn't have much specific recollection of her father, only vague impressions of trees, targets, her father's smile, and of warmth, love, and longing. Lila looked down, sighing. She didn't know if she had thanked Wanda enough for the memories she did have of her dad.

After Nate had been born, Lila had spent more and more time at the Avengers facility, trying to know her father through her superhero family. She had grown up training hand-to-hand with Natasha, learning tactics from Steve, planning tactical - and, let's face it, overly flashy - arrowheads with Tony, and learning how to shoot distances from Bucky. She had inherited her father's acumen for a stick and string from the paleolithic area. It had left her body strong, her mind sharp, and her vision, well, like a hawk's.

Four years ago, after Steve had been shot and killed on the courthouse steps, she had followed Cooper, the analyst, into making the Avengers facility her home. She was barely 16 at the time. Her mother had protested, but it had simply felt right. Standing in the Avengers facility, her brown eyes flicked to the other shrine of sorts, Steve's shield prominently displayed ten feet away.

She missed them both.

"Hey, Hawkeye," a deep male voice drifted over to her from the door. She turned, her older brother leaning casually against the door frame.

Lila smirked. "Don't call me that, Coop," she smiled, looking at her older brother. Her brothers were a study in opposites. Cooper took after their mom. Dark hair currently tied back into a loose pony tail, his khakis and polo shirt would have fit in at any business-casual luncheon. He had followed in his mother's footsteps professionally as well and now used his higher degrees in cognitive science and psychology to analyze how targets and potential targets - human, alien and machine - would act and react in a given situation. It was enormously integral to everyone on the Team coming back alive.

Cooper's large, dark eyes looked at his sister with a combination of pride and worry, gesturing over his shoulder. "They're finishing up with loading the Quinjet. You going to that party or not?"

Lila smiled, gesturing down to her tactical uniform. "What do you think?" she smirked, her eyebrow arching under her dark pixie cut.

In homage, she wore a vest much like her father's, black with an arrow-shaped splash of purple across the chest. That's where the similarities ended, though. Large armored bracers covered her forearms, capable of providing an extra shock to her hand-to-hand skills. Her upper arms were covered a thin black metallic micro-armor that was nearly as impact resistant as kevlar and several thousand times more flexible. The right side of her vest tapered to a point to just below her right knee in a mottled purple and storm gray. Side arms were strapped securely to each thigh, in easy reach should she need them. The micro armor pants faded from black at her belt to a medium gray at her boots. She had knives and additional ammunition hidden under tactical vest at her athletic waist. On her back was her quiver with purple and gray fletchings.

Cooper smiled at the sight of his sister in her brand-new tactical gear. "You look badass." He said, finally.

Lila smiled and raised an eyebrow. "That's because I am badass."

Cooper laughed. "Whatever, Lila. I can still kick your butt like when we were kids."

"No, you can't Coop."

"Sure I can."

Lila raised her eyebrows increduously. She pointed to herself. "Personally trained by the Black Widow. " She pointed to Cooper. "Plays on computers all day."

Cooper smiled and shrugged his shoulders, putting on an air of mock sheepishness. "Yeah, okay," he said. "It does hurt my ego that my little sister can beat me up, though."

"Your Avenger little sister," Lila corrected as Cooper joined her by their father's shrine.

"Ah, c'mon," Cooper protested, "you guys wouldn't even know what direction to head in without me and my team. You'd just be sitting here with your thumbs up your asses without me to tell you where to go and what to do."

Lila considered his statement, moving her head from shoulder to shoulder. "Okay, maybe," she conceded.

The brother and sister leaned up against one another and looked at the pictures of their father. "God, I sometimes forget how much Nate looks like him," Cooper breathed. "The sandy hair, the steel eyes, the ..."

"Horrible sense of humor," Lila finished. Her older brother leaned over to give her a kiss on the temple.

"Dad'd be proud of you, y'know," Cooper said, throwing an arm over her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, avoiding getting fletching in his face out of long practice.

"He'd be proud of us, Coop."

Cooper pulled away, looking into his sister's keen eyes. "You think? How do you know?"

She smiled and shrugged, placing a gauntleted hand against his cheek. The fabric was heavy against Cooper's skin. "Because he was Dad," she said.

Lila's hand suddenly went to her ear, her eyes shifting to focus on the floor. Her playful smirk disappearing behind a sudden mask of professionalism. "It's Natasha over the comms," Lila stated, wincing slightly. "She gave the call to Assemble and I'm not there."

Cooper cocked an eyebrow and laughed. "Pissing off your C.O. is not the way to start your first mission in the field."

Lila winced again. "I know. I have to run." She collapsed her bow and slipped it into the locking mechanism on her quiver and turned to go. She halted and turned back to her brother. "Dad would have been horrified with Nate, though. What's that kid want to be?"

Cooper laughed. "A lawyer." Lila groaned. "But he's only fourteen. Give the kid some time. We can still save him from that fate."

"Yeah, whatever. He's got ..."

Friday's voice interrupted them, echoing throughout the facility, dry with ... was that amusement in her artificial voice? "The Black Widow would like to remind 'Young Miss Hawkeye' that she has, and I quote, 'Damn big shoes to fill' and that if she wants 'to shoot at something other than the firing range for the next six months' she better get to the Quinjet immediately."

Lila gave Cooper a panicked look as he laughed. She sprinted out of the room. "Come back in one piece, Lila!" he called as she vaulted over the railing of the balcony overlooking the Quinjet hanger. She had no problem handling the 16-foot drop to the floor, rolling as she landed and springing to her feet smoothly. She called back to Cooper.

"I'll do my damndest, Coop!"

Cooper watched Lila sprint across the hanger. Natasha stood by the lowered ramp of the Quinjet, impatient and completely still. Wanda stood nearby, smiling broadly as Pietro doubled over laughing as Lila ran up the ramp, pushing past a serene but amused Vision. Scott made some comment that Cooper could not hear from his vantage point, and Lila shot Ant-Man an intense look.

Cooper heard footsteps behind him as he leaned against the railing of the balcony, watching the Quinjet ramp close and take-off procedures initiate. He gave the approaching Tony a welcoming nod. Tony had aged dramatically in the past fourteen years, the deaths of his friends hitting him hard. His black hair was now gray at the temples and salt-and-pepper throughout.

"She'll be okay," Tony said, leaning over the railing to watch the Quinjet depart.

Cooper chuckled darkly, but the smile on his face disappeared. "You don't know that, Tony."

Tony nodded, pursing his lips. "You're right. But she's watching the backs of the best there are. They'll take care of her." Cooper nodded but stayed silent.

Companionable silence stretched between them as they watched the Quinjet take off and disappear into the afternoon sky. "You ever regret retiring, Tony?" Cooper asked, straightening up. "Ever want to get back in the game?"

Tony looked away. "It was different when I was on my own, or it was just the six originals. But now ... now we have mutants and enhanced and inhumans. After your dad and Steve died ..." he trailed off. Tony shook his head slowly, eyes snapping to Cooper's. "No. I don't." He cleared his throat suddenly. "You want a drink, Coop? I sure as hell could use a drink."

Cooper smiled, looking back to where the Quinjet had disappeared on a point on the horizon. "Yeah. That sounds good." Tony clapped his hand on Cooper's shoulder.

As they turned past the room, Tony's eyes fell on the displayed bow and he stopped suddenly. "Your father was a good man. And a good friend," he said thickly. "All this time later, and I still ..." His voice trailed off.

Cooper looked at the bow, the matte black gleaming dully in the lighting. "I miss him," Cooper said.

Tony nodded. "Yeah," he breathed.

"I wish I had known him better."

Tony nodded. "So did he, Coop. So did he."

Laura Barton sat at her kitchen table, knee bouncing restlessly. She spun a glass of red wine slowly, agitatedly watching the light from her bay windows shine through the purplish liquid. Her eyes darted to the photos set up on the island between the kitchen and the dining room. They could never take many family pictures while Clint was alive, so Laura then over compensated and covered her house in them. The pictures were of her kids, of their aunts and uncles, of her adopted brothers and sisters. Nat's bright hair stood out in many photos and another had a teenaged Lila's head ducked in deep conversation with Steve.

Another one had Cooper, nearly 20 years old at the time, laughing as Pietro as a blue blur willfully clipped Tony, causing Tony to lose his balance. It was a favorite past time of Pietro's and it never failed to get a laugh out of Cooper no matter what he and Tony had been working on immediately prior to the interruption.

There was a photo of Thor balancing all three Barton kids on his shoulders and arms. Nate had been five and his self-satisfied smirk as he hung from Thor's left bicep stopped Laura's breath. He had Clint's smile. Bruce even appeared in a picture or two. His presence with the team had been sporadic at best, often appearing and reappearing suddenly. When he was around, he spent little time at the farmhouse.

"Laura," Friday's voice echoed from hidden speakers in the ceiling. "Sam and Nate would like me to inform you that they are back from their run."

Laura smiled. "Thank you, Friday," Laura said indulgently.

Within seconds, the proximity notification on the front porch chimed softly. They were one of the many upgrades Tony, Steve and Rhodey had made to the farm. "For safety" Rhodey had said seriously.

"And for fun," Tony had chimed in.

"Hey, Mom!" she heard Nate call from the porch steps, his feet echoing along with Sam's. "I beat my best time! I beat Sam!" he said, walking into the living room, red-faced with his sandy hair plastered against his head. He was streaming sweat and breathing deeply.

"He sure did," Sam said, bending over and making a show of catching his breath. "And even if I hadn't gotten that cramp in my hamstring, I still wouldn't have won!"

Laura stood and kissed her son, gawky and already taller than she was. "I'm proud of you, Nate. Why don't you head upstairs and get a shower? You stink!" Nate beamed, his gray eyes wide and happy.

"Sure!" he said, patting Sam's shoulder. "Rematch sometime soon, old man!" he laughed, walking up the stairs, still huffing and puffing.

Once out of ear shot, Sam straightened up. Laura raised an eyebrow. "You let him win, didn't you?"

Sam smiled, suddenly no longer out of breath. "Of course I did. That kid's got a competitive streak a mile wide. He wasn't going to make the distance if he didn't leave something in reserves." Laura smiled. Her and Sam's shared training in psychology had often led to late-night discussions about theory and human behavior. It had also led to a brief romance between the two of them when Nate was younger, but it had not lasted by mutual decision. Nevertheless, they had remained friends. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

Sam's voice grew serious and he nodded towards the cell phone sitting on the table. "Hear anything yet?" he asked.

Laura shook her head, resuming her vigil at the kitchen table. Sam grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and then joined her at the table. "It bugs me that I wasn't on this one, but they didn't need much air support. I would have liked to keep an eye on her."

Laura smiled. "You would know more than me. I hate waiting by the phone and I always have. This one's pretty bad, though. It's Lila's first op."

Sam smiled. "Coop said the same thing. I know she'll be fine."

"You don't know that, Sam," she said, giving him a meaningful look.

The phone on the table vibrated and Laura's hand snapped out to grab it. "Nat?"

Natasha's voice filled her ear. Her voice had always been authoritative, but now it contained layers that it hadn't before Clint's death. Bucky's return had given some of her life back, but she had also spent the last 14 years missing her partner and the toll showed, even on her. "Everyone's fine, Laura," Natasha said, a smile creeping into her voice. "We all came back without a scratch on us." Laura met eyes with Sam to her right and nodded. Sam smiled, put a hand on her shoulder, kissed her temple and went up stairs to take a shower.

"How did Lila do?" she asked.

Natasha's voice echoed with sarcastic merriment. "Laura, I can't give out mission details."

"She's my kid, Nat."

"She's an Avenger, Laura," Natasha chuckled, and then her voice softened. She sighed into Laura's patient silence. "She did well, Laura. Very well. Served her role perfectly."

Laura let out a breath, the tension easing in her chest. "Good," she said. "Good. We just recognized the 14th anniversary of Clint's death. I was hoping her first mission wasn't going to become ... I don't know, symbolic?"

Natasha chuckled. "Thankfully, no. But you and Nate should come down to the facility this weekend, though. We're having a thing for Wanda and Pietro's birthday."

"We'll be there. Cooper already mentioned it."

"Great. Looking forward to seeing you, hon."

"You, too, Nat." Laura hung up and put the phone on the table. She again gazed over to the lines of pictures on the island. A large picture near the center, a gift from Tony, had Clint smirking out at her. Her husband's gray eyes stared back at her, the eyes crinkled in sardonic amusement. Next to that was a picture of the Bartons sitting around the kitchen table just a few years ago. She was at the head, gray streaking her hair. She was in an in-depth conversation with Cooper, who had grown from a shy, gentle boy to a strapping, confident man. Lila sat to her left, her still-long sandy hair tied back into a pony tail, her quiver still on her back from target practice in the apple grove. In the picture, Lila was smiling around a bit of food, looking at the youngest who had clearly just said something smart to Sam behind the camera. Nate looked serious and focused into the camera lens, his sandy hair spiked and unkempt, his gray-blue eyes flashing with concealed mirth. He looked so much like Clint.

Laura's gaze filtered to the empty chair on the other end of the oblong table at which she sat, a small plush hawk sitting in front of it on the table. It was macabre, Laura knew, to keep an empty seat for a dead man, but she did it as much for her kids as she did for the team. She wanted everyone to remember the hero who sat there and why he wasn't there anymore.

Sam had added the stuffed animal as a lighthearted tribute a couple of years before. He had simply smiled and dropped the gray and black plush creature, citing "birds of a feather" as his only explanation. And so the hawk had stayed.

Laura shifted her gaze outside the bay windows again, looking at the oak tree in the front and the stone underneath it as she wrapped her hands around her wine glass. She suppressed the long-present feeling of anxiety when it came to the welfare of her team and sighed.

She didn't know how this whole thing would end for her, for her kids, or for their team, but she did know it would be one hell of a journey.

The End.