Title: the song before the calm before the storm
Characters: Stiles, Sheriff Stilinski, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Scott McCall and his horrible texting abilities.
Summary: "Right, because everyone needs a little more soap opera in their life." Of all the things Stiles was expecting, he could safely say that long-lost relatives were not at the top of the list.

Warnings: Scott's bad texting, random horribly-written angst moments, crack in the form of long-lost-relatives, the usual.
Disclaimer: Blah blah don't own you know this already.
Notes: Takes place directly after season two, and a few months after the Chitauri. Story and chapter titles come from "Lights and Cars" by Enter the Haggis.

i scan the index time to time

They were in the middle of another awkward dinner – awkward was the only way Stilinski dinners had been for the past month or so, but that didn't make it any easier for Stiles to take – when the doorbell rang. His dad shot Stiles a look, but all Stiles could do was shrug. It wasn't like anyone he knew actually used doors these days, much less would stoop to knocking instead of just barging in. His dad sighed, and went to answer the door. Stiles followed him but hung back at the entryway to the kitchen.

Stiles was pretty sure that if he had awesome werewolf superpowers, he'd be able to hear his father's heart skip more than a few beats. Sure, he couldn't see his dad's face, but he was an expert at reading body language, and his dad hadn't been thatlevel of tense and shocked since the whole thing with Matt at the police station.

"Hey Barney," the person on the other side of the door said, which was weird, because Stiles could have sworn his dad's name was actually Charles (not that he could remember the last time anyone had called him that – it might have even been his mother; even Mrs. McCall called him Sheriff).

"Clint," his dad said, sounding broken in a way that made Stiles flinch a little, because he'd sounded like that far too often lately.

"Not going to invite me in?" The voice on the other side of the door – this 'Clint', or whatever – was sharp, and carried a little dark humor. Wordlessly, the Sheriff stepped to one side, door open as a silent invitation.

The man who came in was stocky and fairly buff (he'd say extremely buff, but he'd spent the last semester surrounded by werewolves, his judgment of fitness levels was off), and was dressed like Chris Argent going on a hunt. Stiles counted at least four not very well hidden weapons, and he wasn't even trying. "Uh, Dad, I'm not really one to question life choices here, but is there a reason we're letting a heavily armed commando into the house?"

The newcomer froze in place and stared at Stiles in shock, which was a little unfair, because his injuries weren't really thatbad, Gerard liked to rely on mental torment a lot more than evidence that the Sheriff could trace.

His dad shook his head, smiling a little – Stiles was awesome at distractions. "And who was the one harboring a fugitive in his room?" he asked dryly.

"In my defense, he was both innocent and only a fugitive because I mistakenly accused him of murder, which I would still like to say was Scott's fault." Yeah, that excuse hadn't exactly flown the first time he had used it (in the midst of all his mental anguish the last few days, he may have accidentally let it slip about Derek hiding out in his bedroom that once; it wasn't the reason for the latest awkwardness at the dinner table, but it didn't precisely help).

The father-son banter seemed to snap scary guy out of his fugue state, because he turned to the Sheriff with a completely unreadable look on his face. He said something quietly, but Stiles missed it because his phone chose that moment to buzz in that specific annoying pattern he had picked out for Scott.

wtf dude thrs a frky asasin chik thretin dr deat

In the few seconds it took Stiles to decode Scott's message – he was pretty sure Scott had been dropped on his head as a baby at least a few times, it would explain Mrs. McCall's vaguely guilty look every time they tried to play Scrabble – his phone buzzed with a second message.

DO U THNK DR DEAT IS N DA MAFFIA?

Seriously, Scott. He may have come up with a plan to take down Grandpa Evil (although Stiles is, like, 99% sure Scott just ran to his boss and the good doctor had in fact set up the whole plan; Scott was sweet and loyal and basically a golden retriever, but cunning plans weren't his forte), but he still jumped to the most ridiculous of conclusions. He fired off a quick response before Scott could confront the 'freaky assassin chick' with quotes from the Godfather.

dont think so. theres a scary assassin guy at my house too

WTF?! ru ok?

im fine. my dad knows him

?

While their little exchange took place, a separate, furiously whispered exchange was taking place with the two adults in the room. Stiles shoved his phone back in his pocket to address the situation at hand, because compartmentalizing and prioritizing were pretty much the only ways he had made it through the past few weeks, and that was apparently a trend that would be continuing for the foreseeable future.

"This is great and all, but uh, whoare you?" And because Stiles was Stiles, he added on, "And why are you carrying enough weapons to take down a small Central American government?" When the man just blinked at him, Stiles revised that to, "Possibly medium-sized?"

"Stiles…" his dad said, pausing before giving a small sigh. "Stiles, this is my brother, Clint."

He definitely didn't squeak, no matter what anyone else would say. "Brother? As in, uncle? He would be? To me?" Wait, that wasn't how words were supposed to work. "…I swear I'm usually more fluent in English."

That got him a quick flash of teeth from his uncle (P.S. ohmygod what) that was only marginally less terrifying than the few occasions he'd seen Derek grin. "Yeah, that would make me your uncle, kid."

Were he slightly more stereotypical, there would have bristling and remarks about not being named 'kid', but honestly even putting on that act right now was a little exhausting to think about. "Right, because everyone needs a little more soap opera in their life. On a similar note, you wouldn't happen to have a similarly clad compatriot who's at the vet's office right now, would you?"

Having just met the guy, Stiles couldn't tell you much, but he'd bet almost anything that Clint wasn't someone who usually allowed emotions such as surprise to flit across his face even momentarily. He just gave off the broody brick-face vibes that really, really weren't helping him stop comparing his brand-new uncle to Derek Hale.

His dad was frowning. "Stiles, what are you talking about?"

"Scott texted, said someone was threatening Dr. Deaton," Stiles told his father, gesturing vaguely at the phone in his pocket while keeping his eyes pinned on Uncle Clint, who stiffened up just the tiniest bit. "I figured it could just be Scott being Scott, but you know coincidences."

The implication of a threat to someone in Beacon Hills was enough to send his dad into full-on Sheriffing mode, like Stiles knew it would. Nothing against his uncle, and it was nice to have surprise relatives, but Stiles could really do without him and his gang of hunters showing up just when things were reaching the calm before the storm (Stiles didn't let himself think it was anything more permanent than that; life seemed to be settling in to a nice pattern of letting him just barely get a gasp of air before punching him in the stomach again).

"Clint, what are you doing in my town?" his father demanded, all of the twinges of guilt and the remnants of sheer shock fleeing his face.

So, here's how it happened.

After the whole thing with Loki and half of Manhattan going up in alien-scented smoke, SHIELD had cobbled together (okay, mostly Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and, after some bitching about no one keeping her in the loop when things were actually happening, Jane Foster) an efficient little radar system to pick up any further blips of Tesseract energy or Loki energy. Despite allowing Thor to take the 'war criminal' back to their home planet, no one at SHIELD who knew the slightest bit of Norse mythology expected Loki to stay on Asgard for long, and everyone agreed it would be better all-around if they knew what was happening from the start.

The radar system went up and went on its way, scanning harmlessly and finding all of nothing, until all of a sudden, it didfind something. A tiny blip, barely noticeable, coming out of some equally tiny Californian town called Beacon Hills.

There happened to be a mostly retired SHIELD agent who lived in that exact town, so orders were sent down for him to investigate and report. He'd sent back a few reports, but they were all vague enough to be infuriating, so Fury tasked his two top agents with going in and finding the truth, either from the retired agent or from their own investigations.

Agents Barton and Romanoff had just checked into their hotel room – this mission was entirely above-board, they had legitimate SHIELD badges with their actual names on them for a change – when Clint Barton caught something out of the corner of his eye. One of many ghosts from his past, this one from further back than most of them, and combined with traces of Loki's magic it couldn't mean anything good.

He mumbled some excuses to Natasha that she didn't believe for a second, but gave a sharp look that proclaimed she would find out about everything eventually (and Clint didn't mind, he really didn't, but he'd like time to deal with this himself first) and let him go.

Clint tracked the ghost first to the grocery store, then into a quiet suburban neighborhood where the ghost went into a house and came out in some kind of uniform – Clint was too far away for even his eyes to tell what kind, because caution was his catchphrase for this particular surveillance. At that point, he'd had to leave off his stalking to reconvene with Natasha and finalize the details, but he marked the house in his mental map.

It wasn't every day someone saw their supposedly dead brother walking happily down the street, after all.

"Following up on reports," Clint said, back to being nonchalant. And vague, couldn't forget vague.

Sheriff Stilinski just raised an eyebrow, the same exact eyebrow-raise he had used against "I didn't do it!" and "It came that way, I swear!" whenever Stiles tried those excuses.

Either it wasn't as effective on brothers, or Clint had figured out its Kryptonite, because he didn't cave shame-facedly like Stiles tended to. "It's classified."

The Sheriff's disbelieving snort was met with bristling, and then a quick pulling out of a badge. "I'm an official agent of SHIELD," he said, and that was just classic younger sibling attitude in his voice right there, but wait a minute-

"SHIELD?! As in, Avengers and aliens and destroying New York City, thatSHIELD?" So sue him, before he'd gotten the brilliant idea to drag his best friend into the woods looking for a half a dead body the whole 'alien invasion with real superheroes' thing had kind of been his biggest interest.

Clint looked decidedly shifty, but that didn't matter because Stiles had come to another conclusion. "Dude, wait a minute, that's why you look familiar! You were totally the guy with the bow and arrows in the battle, right? 'Hawkeye'?" Again, there was that just-barely-there flash of something that told Stiles he was completely right (as usual, but no one listened to Stiles, did they?) "Oh man, I have a friend who'd lo-" Except Allison wasn't really his friend any more, was she? Or maybe she was. It was all very headache inducing, and if they couldn't go back to a time before werewolves, Stiles wished they could at least go back to a time before killer lizard people and murderous grandfathers.

Apparently Clint decided to seize the opportunity provided by Stiles's awkward momentary lapse into angst, because he was edging to the door and making very insincere-sounding apologies to the Sheriff, along with promises to talk later. And then he was out the door, hopefully to collect his wayward Mafioso accomplice before Scott broke out in anxiety hives.

"So, uncle, huh?" Stiles said into the air between him and his father that was, for once, not awkward because of him.

His dad sighed, running his hand through his hair tiredly as he led them back to the kitchen. "You know how I took your mother's last name when we married?" Stiles nodded, it had been a favorite family story when he was younger, usually as part of a lesson on how 'different' didn't always mean 'bad'. "I wasn't proud of who I was before I met your mother, and I'm still not. Barney Barton wasn't a nice guy, and I didn't want to be him anymore."

Stiles stared at his father. He had a good, too good many would say, imagination, but there was no way for him to imagine his father as anything less than amazing. It just didn't compute. His dad had always been the picture of a perfect father, the perfect husband, the kind of guy everyone hopes their sons turn out to be. It just- Stiles couldn't understand.

While he tried (and failed) to digest that idea, his father poured himself a glass of bourbon before sitting back down at the table.

"Part of who Barney Barton was, was a horrible older brother." His dad took a sip of his drink, staring down at it like it held some kind of mystical truth. "I betrayed Clint pretty badly, so when I came to my senses I figured it'd be better for both of us he thought I was dead." His dad looked up and pinned Stiles with a slightly desperate look. "That's why I've been so worried about you," he said quietly, "Because I'm worried you're going to turn out like I was."

"Dad," Stiles said, voice uncharacteristically quiet and serious, "I can't tell you everything," Or even anything, he thought cynically, "But I can tell you that everything I've done, everything I've been doing, I'm doing for good reasons, and to help people. At least ninety percent of the time," he had to tack on, because damn it, if he was going to be honest with his dad for once, he was going to be completely honest, as much as he could. And hitting Jackson with the Jeep had little to do with saving him, and a lot to do with needing to let out a little frustration.

His dad searched his face for a moment, before giving another all-too common sigh. "I'm glad, Stiles. But I wish you would tell me what's going on."

"I know," Stiles said miserably, looking down at where his fingers were tracing meaningless patterns on the table.

The Sheriff finished his bourbon before standing and clearing his plate. "Goodnight, son. Don't stay up too late, it's a school night."

"Night, Dad," Stiles said, still quiet and not looking up from the table.