Summary: Clint's remembers the final battle against Thanos. Bruce discovers something disturbing about Tony's condition.

The 3000 Era
PenPatronus
Chapter 3
Obstacles

Clint Barton, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt under a flannel shirt, didn't even bother to wash his grease-stained hands when he got Steve's text: HE'S AWAKE. He gave Laura a kiss, hugged each of his children for the fifth time that day, and jumped into his pickup truck. He drove all afternoon. He drove all evening. He drove all night and reached the Stark lake house around dawn. FRIDAY scanned him and immediately opened the front door. Clint tiptoed up the stairs past Steve, who was passed out on the living room couch. He tiptoed past the first bedroom, Morgan's bedroom, where the child and her mother slept soundly. Clint pried open the door to the master bedroom and, in the dim light, saw Bruce Banner keeping vigil in a rocking chair. Banner looked up and yawned while he gestured for Clint to come inside. Clint shut the door behind him without a sound, but his feet on the hardwood floor startled Tony Stark out of a light doze. Stark stretched stiff arms and legs under a quilt. He turned his head back and forth and then examined the Vibranium in his arm before noticing his friends. Bruce rose from his chair and, ignoring the scowl on Stark's face, took his wrist and checked his pulse. He then held the back of his palm against Tony's cheek, then his forehead. Banner frowned. Tony rolled his eyes and greeted Clint with a smile.

"There he is." Clint approached, grinning, and shook Tony's hand. "How's the family?" Stark asked.

Clint's smile widened. "Alive. Alive and… Perfect." Clint placed a hand on Tony's shoulder and the other on Bruce's. "Thanks to the two of you." Bruce, who was in his human form, blushed and shrugged. "Arm's all better, huh?"

Bruce made a fist with his left hand. "A dozen sessions in Helen Cho's regeneration cradle did it," he stated.

"You both look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you…"

3 Months Ago

When Thanos' mothership fired down on the entire battlefield, Clint ended up on his stomach wedged between a puddle of muddy, bloody, shin-high water and some sort of dead alien troll. Trapped in darkness, in a purgatory between drowning and being squished to death, all Clint could think about was how Bruce had restored his family, but he wouldn't get to see them again. Then, half a moment before he lost his strength, the troll suddenly exploded into confetti. Clint rolled over and lay face up in the water, reminding him of how he woke up half-submerged with the soul stone in his hand. Ashes hovered in the hot air. Rays of sunlight emerged through black clouds.

A splash in the water behind him. "Clint!" A limping, bleeding Wanda Maximoff waded over and fell to her knees beside Barton. The friends embraced.

"What's happening?" Wanda gasped, helping the wheezing Clint to his feet. "What's going on?"

Clint wiped blood and mud off the side of his face. "Someone used the Infinity Stones," he panted, coughing. Suddenly he froze, staring. "You're alive," he realized out loud. Clint pulled Wanda back into an even fiercer hug. "God, I've missed you."

"I…" Wanda gulped. "I think I was dead. Was I dead?"

"Five years. Wanda, it's been five years. We got the Infinity Stones and Bruce… Bruce…" Clint held her at arm's length, and she looked at him with a face scrunched in concern. "Oh, God, I hope…"

Wanda gripped his shoulder. "What is it? You hope… What?"

Clint shook his head. "Bruce could use the stones. Danvers probably could. Thor, maybe… God, I hope it was one of them who used them."

"And if it wasn't?"

Clint couldn't hold back the shallow tears in his eyes. It had been a long day. "Then somebody's dead."

"Barton!" Both Clint and Wanda pivoted and spotted a human Bruce Banner limping across the battlefield towards them. Clint and Wanda climbed out of the water and met Banner between two piles of debris. Neither Banner nor Barton gave a damn about shallow masculinity in that moment and they embraced. After the initial hug they pulled Wanda between them and she dropped a few tears on Clint's chest. When they parted, Clint and Bruce simultaneously asked each other, "Did you see who it was?"

Bruce shook his head. "Thor was near Thanos, I think. T'Challa and that spider kid were taking on some Chitauri less than twenty yards away. Cap and Tony weren't far. It… It could be any of them. Or it could be somebody else. I—I don't know!" Bruce's bottom lip trembled. "Clint, what if they're dead?"

Clint gulped. He wobbled on suddenly weak knees. A crowd was forming around something in the distance. The battlefield went mute. "We gotta go," he whispered. "Banner, we have to see."

Thor intercepted them on the edge of the crowd. His beard was dirty, his face sweaty, his eyes shining. "It's too late," he said. "Brothers, it's too late."

The crowd parted. Every pair of eyes avoided their gazes. Clint knew what he was going to see—actually, he knew he was about to see one of two scenarios: Steve Rogers on the ground, or Tony Stark. It had to be one of them, judging by the absolute grief on Thor's face. The last of the crowd stepped aside and revealed…

Clint gasped. More than one tear fell down his cheeks.

Steve was on his feet. Pepper was on her knees.

Tony Stark was dead.

Bruce drew three vials of Tony Stark's blood. "Vampire," Tony growled at him. His heartrate went up, down again and then up once more. Clint watched the numbers bouncing on the monitor.

"Don't be such a baby," Bruce said with a soft smile. He pocketed the vials and turned to Barton. "Can you stay with him?"

"I don't need a babysitter!"

"I'll stay with him." Clint sat on the side of the bed. He watched Tony's eyes watch Bruce leave the room and shut the door behind him. "What?"

Tony sighed. He leaned back into his pillows and shut his eyes. "Nothing."

Clint almost let it slide. "Tony."

Tony opened his eyes. He pursed his lips together, then shrugged. "There's something he's not telling me."

"What makes you say that?"

"He took blood from me the minute he got here. Then a few hours later. Now he needs more."

"What's he testing for?"

"That, Legolas, is the question." Tony stared at the door. "Do me a favor?"

Clint snorted. He rolled up his sleeves and relaxed into the mattress. "Tony, you saved the universe. There's nothing any of us wouldn't do for you."

"Kiss me."

"What?"

Tony threw his head back and let loose a loud belly laugh. "Your face!"

"Tony," Clint chuckled, "Come on, man, what do you really need?"

Stark enjoyed the laugh for another half a minute. He smacked his fist against the quilt on top of him. Eventually, he went still. "Listen… If there is something wrong, don't tell Pepper and Morgan. They've been through a lot."

Barton hesitated, considered the request, and fell back on his normal MO: he'd make a promise, but take it back later if the situation called for it. "Sure, Tony."

"I mean it. Pepper almost fainted when she saw that I was awake, and Morgan climbed into bed with me and didn't let go until about an hour ago." Tony rotated his head so that his cheek was against the pillow and he could look straight up at Clint's face. "Tell me something. You and Laura. How do you do it?"

Clint shifted on the quilt. "How do we do what?"

"For years, years and years, you've had to leave your family for missions."

"I always came back."

"You always came back. I almost didn't."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Tony, I can't begin to count how many times I almost didn't come back."

"My point. Yes. How do you and Laura deal with that?"

Clint wrapped one finger around a loose string in the quilt. "It's not complicated, Stark. Lots of I love you. Lots of I'll be back soon. Lots more of I love you. I never leave the house without telling my family I love them."

"Look at you, Mr. Sensitive," Tony teased.

Barton didn't rise to the bait. "You know who I didn't say I love you to enough?"

Stark stiffened. "Please don't say her name," he begged. The pair nodded at each other. "I miss her, too."

Clint sidestepped the subject by circling back around. "Tony, you've been through more than I can imagine. If you want to never go on a mission again, if you want to retire from the Avengers, none of us would blame you."

"Me?" Tony stretched his neck up. "I'm not talking about me. I'm not talking about me having to leave my family behind."

"Then, who—?

"Pepper! Have you not met that woman? When she latches on to something, she latches on hard and doesn't give it up. You saw her at the battle against Thanos. Damn, that girl kicked ass."

Clint grinned. "She sure did."

"She's got the bug. I can tell. You know how it is. You get a taste of the hero life and you're addicted. I can't—" Out of the blue, Tony's eyes shone with tears. "I can't bear the thought of her going into battle. Especially without me."

"Tony…" Clint gripped his friend's wrist. "We'll look after her. You know we will."

"Swear it."

"I swear."

"Swear it on Nathaniel's life."

"I swear."

When Bruce didn't emerge from the basement lab for breakfast or lunch, Steve put a sandwich together and headed downstairs. He found Bruce sitting at a desk looking through a microscope. He set the sandwich down and started to speak but before he could get out a word, Banner asked, "Did you know that Barnes was dying?"

"What?"

Bruce sighed and pushed back his chair. "Probably had a year. Maybe one and a half."

Steve pulled a chair over and sat in front of Bruce. "What are you talking about?"

"Decades—for decades Hydra pumped him full of chemicals, most of which I can't begin to decipher. The super soldier serum protected him from any dangerous effects—well, beyond what they were intended for—but it could only do that for so long. Barnes was dying. Poisoned."

Steve dropped his face into both palms. "I know what you're going to tell me next and I don't want to hear it."

"Would you rather I lie?"

"I'd rather not lose my friend. Again." Steve dug his knuckles into both eyes. "What do we do?"

Bruce shook his head. "I don't know," he said, quietly.

"Bruce, what the hell do we do?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" The veins in Bruce's neck briefly flashed green. He gathered himself, suppressed his emotions, and took a deep breath and exhaled a longer one. "We need to find out more about those chemicals. I can't create an antidote if I don't know what I'm dealing with."

"Then that's what we'll do." Steve shoved his chair back and stood up with his chin held high. "HYDRA hasn't been the same since the first Snap. It's still unorganized. It shouldn't be too hard to track down their scientists. We'll assemble and get those bastards." Steve expected to see a smile on Banner's face, but his expression remained hopeless. "Bruce…"

Banner shook his head.

"Bruce!"

"Barnes was poisoned slowly over the years. One dose at a time. Tony got every chemical in one go."

"What are you saying?"

"We have weeks. Maybe two. If we can't find an antidote, Tony's dead."

To Be Continued

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