Chapter Text
They’d gathered at the Avenger’s Compound. The cities, the world, the universe, they were silent. Silent and shocked. No one knew what was happening. What had happened. So there in the compound, in equal silence, Natasha, Steve, Bruce, Thor and Clint sat around frozen. Quiet and still. Like the world.
The team tried to collect any and all information on whatever superheroes they’d lost contact with. There were too many.
Clint was lost. The whole time, he spent it clutching his wedding ring and staring out at the sky with a hopeful and devastated gleam in his cyan eyes. His sister was gone. His niece and nephews too. The boys that Tony and he had all but adopted were gone, one in the snap the other murdered. His husband was out in space with their other son-figure and he didn’t know about their fates. Were they murdered? Were they caught in the Titan’s snap? Or were they just taking the long way home? Only time would tell.
Then she came in her red, blue and gold glory. Natasha had found where Fury was when the snap occurred and had picked up the strange advanced-looking pager that bared the same symbol her attire did.
“Where’s Fury?” And so they explained through tears and choked gasps the situation at hand as she introduced herself as Captain Marvel, but they could call her Carol.
“You can fly through space right?” Clint asked, speaking for the first time since he’d met with the others following the Decimation,
“I can,” Carol said with a nod,
“My husband he’s…please, I…I don’t…” Rhodes took the man aside when he kept choking up, the two had spent a lot of time together just sitting in silence as they waited optimistically for their favourite genius to return home. Bruce explained to Carol what was going on with Tony and who the missing man was.
She left with a promise.
“I will find him, Clint. You have my word, I will return your husband and your son.”
Clint held onto those words almost as tightly as he did with his wedding ring.
——LINE BREAK——
He and Nebula had bonded over the three weeks onboard the Benatar. Telling stories of their lives and their daddy issues.
“You know, I’ve adopted you as my own, right?” Nebula cracked a smile, “No. Seriously. Blue Meanie, you’re like one of my own now! Honestly, I wonder how surprised Clint’ll be when I come home and tell him I’ve brought another kid home. I mean it’s happened about three times already.” He joked before freezing as the realisation hit him. His husband might not even be there when -if- he gets home. Pietro may be gone. Vision…he was undoubtedly…dead. Peter…Tony could still hear the boys pleads echoing through his head.
A gentle hand brought him from his mind and he looked up to find Nebula staring at him in concern. He just brushed it away with a small smile.
——LINE BREAK——
Day nineteen. Tony and Nebula were quiet that day. They barely moved from where they sat watching the spots of darkness and colour clashing together as the ship drifted powerlessly through space.
They knew their time, their journey was reaching its end. Food and water had run out, there hadn’t been much, to begin with. They’d had to ration it and well, they’d used up their last rations.
On their 22nd day in space. Tony could barely move. He was exhausted, starving and dehydrated. He used his helmet to record a message.
“Hey, Clint…” He croaked, “if you get this message and god I hope you do, don’t post it online. I’ll come back and haunt you…” He spoke about Nebula briefly and rambled about the situation with the ship, “Oxygen…will run out tomorrow morning. Food and water ran out…two -no three days ago. Clint…the kid…he didn’t…he died in my arms, Clint. I…” He coughed, “When I drift off, I’ll dream about you. I…I love you until death do us part, right? Guess I should change that…I love you…” He turned the recording off and curled up beside the helmet. Sleep came quickly and as he lost himself in the darkness of his mind, he had a feeling he wouldn’t wake again. Maybe just once more.
He opened his eyes as something burned brightly before him. In his stupor state, he thought he was staring at a glowing angel as she smiled down at him from the other side of the window, her blonde locks radiating like a halo.
They were saved.
——LINE BREAK——
Tony ignored Steve as Nebula helped him out of the ship and into Clint’s open arms, the super-soldier loitering as Tony whispered pained words of failure and loss.
“He’s gone. I lost the kid. Clint. Clint. God.” Seconds later, Tony was being taken to the compound’s med-bay as his consciousness quickly slipped away.
The archer was frozen from when Tony had fallen into his arms. He sunk to his knees as his mind went wild. His husband was alive. Tony was alive. But…Peter…he wasn’t. Clint had no clue how he was going to tell his partner that none of their surrogate children had survived the Mad Titan.
“Clint,” There was a delicate yet deadly hand on his shoulder and he looked up to find Natasha staring down at him with soft emerald eyes, “come on. This is Tony Stark, he’ll be fine. Why don’t you go get some rest or maybe just sneak into his room and lay by him?” He nodded,
“Thank you, Nat.” The archer turned to Carol, who had been standing there with a small smile as she’d been talking to Rhodey, “and thank you,” He whispered taking one of the blonde’s hands in his, “thank you so much.”
“I’m glad you’ve got him back.” Is all she said and Clint turned to walk away, the others following behind.
——LINE BREAK——
It was a good couple of hours before Tony would wake-up. The two husbands lay in Tony’s hospital bed, the genius’ arm was hooked up to numerous wires, so the archer had to be careful as he held his husband.
“You got a new hairdo. Mohawkeye now.” Clint cracked a smile at Tony’s slurred joke,
“Tony…I need to tell you something…” That woke the genius up properly, his cinnamon eyes latching onto Clint’s as fear swam through them,
“Clint…where’s Pietro and Vis…he, he must be hurt from Thanos. God, why am I cooped up in here? I need to go to the lab and help Vision out. Fix any damages.” Tony made to move but strong arms held him from doing so,
“Tony. They’re gone.” The man in Clint’s arms froze, “Pietro in the…the Snap and Vision…there was nothing we could do. Thanos ripped the stone from his head…we’ve…we’ve collected his body but…Tones, they’re both gone.”
“No. No, no, no, no. You’re lying. They can’t all be gone. No. Clint. Please, no.” Tony started to struggle in Clint’s grasp but the spy held on tightly as he cried into Tony’s hair and the genius sobbed in his arms. “No. Please. No. Not all of them. I can’t…no.”
“Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nate…they’re gone too.” Clint choked out and Tony’s crying intensified,
“Harley.” He gasped moments later turning his head to look at the archer, “What about him? He…he’s got to be alive. We can’t have lost them all.” Harley had come into their lives once again since the Civil War and like the others, he’d been all but adopted into their makeshift family.
“I…Tones, I’ve called him a dozen times and…” Clint sighed, “I…he’s never answered.” The sound that tore from Tony’s throat broke Clint’s heart. It was the sound of a wounded animal, one that had lost its' family.
“Please leave."
“Tony?”
“Please leave, Clint. I need to be alone for a bit. Please just go.” Tony’s voice cracked and Clint nodded, pressing a kiss to his husband’s forehead as he shuffled off the bed,
“Okay, I love you.”
“And I love you,” Tony whispered as he curled up under his cover.
——LINE BREAK——
“I’m sorry.” Tony murmured when Clint came back into his room an hour later, the two instantly curling up together on the bed, “I shouldn’t have sent you away when you’re grieving too. That was selfish of me.”
“It’s okay, Tony. I’ve had a couple of days to come to some form of terms with the situation.” Clint replied into Tony’s greying hair,
“I can’t believe it. Thanos…he said it’d be half of life…so why…” Tony sniffled, “why did we lose everyone, Clint?”
“We’ve got each other still,” Clint whispered unsure of what else to say to his husband.
“If the world is to end, do I fight or go quietly as long as I am in your arms and by your side,” Tony whispered into the dead of the night, not expecting a response from his husband who had passed out a while ago after crying himself to sleep, yet Tony could not sleep and chose to lay in bed staring at the ceiling and stealing the comfort and heat from the body beside him.
“If the world is to end, I would fight to be by your side and have you in my arms. I would shield you from the crumbling world as it burned beside us.” Clint whispered back completing their vowed words, Tony sniffled and smiled,
“I love you. Until death do us part, after all.”
“Sweet cheeks, you’ll still love me when we’re dead and haunting the shit out of people together.” Clint murmured back making them both chuckle before falling quiet, leaning over his injured husband, Clint pressed a gentle but passionate kiss to Tony’s lips before staring into his eyes and whispering against his lips, “And I love you.”
——LINE BREAK——
Later that day, Tony found himself sitting at the table in a wheelchair surrounded by the remaining Avengers and attached to an IV. Clint’s hand was resting on Tony’s shoulders as the still-recovering and weak man watched as faces of the dusted popped up on the screen. Natasha was talking and Tony was peering at the screen from over his glasses.
He had to look away as Pietro and Peter’s faces showed up in front of him. His heart clenched painfully at the reminder of the son’s they lost.
Tony had told them something bigger and badder was out there and now look at them. He was right. Dear God, he was right and for once, he hated that he was. He told them that he knew this would happen, he could hear Clint whispering behind him to sit down, to be careful, to not start something, but Tony couldn’t care less. Steve was there expecting him to help, to give coordinates, to give them something. Well, he gave his all on that planet and all those years ago. He gave everything and it wasn’t enough. Now, now when Steve needed something, he just expected Tony to hand it over without hassle, without restraint. Well, not today and not tomorrow.
“You know what I need?” Tony muttered standing up, his hands knocking over the bowl with purpose, anger and force, “I need a shave.” He mumbled on as he ripped the IV from his wrist, struggling in his weakened state even as Rhodey and Clint repeated his name in an attempt to snap him out of it. Clint stood behind his husband, hands inches away from the man in preparation to catch him and also because the sandy-haired blond knew Tony wouldn’t react well to being held.
Clint allowed Rhodey to step in and try to get Tony to sit down, he knew it wouldn’t work and Rhodes did too, but it didn’t stop him from trying. Tony just struggled out of his grasp as he tore Steve a new one. The blond just stood there with a resigned and sorrowful gaze as he took his well deserved verbal beating. Clint shuffled closer as Tony’s stance grew unsteady.
A silent gasp tore from Clint’s throat as his husband tore the housing unit for the nanoparticles from his chest and slapped it into Steve’s hand. The gesture itself was big and it would appear that no one else had realised that Tony had, more or less, ripped his heart out and given it to the blond.
“Here take this. You find him, you put that on and you hide.” Tony gasped as his weakened state began to take ahold of him. He fell to his knees and Clint rushed over, the genius pushed him away insisting that he was fine. Then he collapsed into Clint’s open arms. The archer hoisted the man up and let Bruce lead the way to the med bay once again so the man could be sedated in the hopes that he’ll actually heal.