Author Note: If You are a new reader, WELCOME! This is my Amazing Avengers Arc! Introducing BOOK 18 in the story arc: Spider Hawk (title may be in the works!) If you want to catch up on the story line thus far, just cruise over to my Author Profile and catch up via the SHIELD MISSION BRIEF: Hawkeye background. all the information you need is tucked right in there. All returning customers, thank you so very much for the loyalty. this one is for you:)

Disclaimer: despite the many assumptions that I wrote Thor: The Dark World and most of the Agents of SHIELD episodes and the ending to Captain America 2, these are unfounded. I am simply an amazingly good guesser and these works are the products of my own imagination with all rights reserved by Marvel.

Don't Give Up on Me

Prologue

He knew she would track him down eventually. Pepper Potts had as many resources, to find a missing person, as all of SHIELD, AIM, Stark Industries, and Centipede combined. Beyond all those, she had friends in high places, a worldwide defense network at her fingertips, women's intuition, and perhaps the deadliest of all: favors. Clint Barton knew full well, when he left the Avengers and SHIELD behind, that Pepper would come looking for him.

Thanksgiving morning found Clint sleeping under a park bench on the north end of the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. As the sun poked its glaring head into the sky, disturbing his heavy slumber, the former Avenger rolled onto his side to avoid the light. Arrow slept on his back beside him. Both of their coats worked to melt the dust of early season snow the coming winter dumped on them. Neither had bathed in at least ten days, and Clint had been wearing the same clothes for longer than that. They were dirty, cold, wet, and virtually homeless.

"Why did you leave?"

Clint heard the voice questioning him, but ignored the speaker. A few men had approached him, over the last two weeks, about why a man like him would ever pick a fight with Iron Man himself, let alone willingly quit the Avengers to live a life of utter drunken poverty. He didn't want to answer again, not this early in the morning.

"Clint? Come on, can't I just take you home?"

A woman's voice proved new. He wondered if it was one of the Atlantic City civil service people come to invite him into their shelter for a bath and hot meal. His stomach growled at the prospect. Maybe he should wake up.

"Don't just lay there!"

Barton rolled slightly to throw a look over his shoulder. Seeing Pepper Potts woke him up faster than gunshots could. He shot forward, bashing his head on the underside of the bench. At his instinctive recoil, he managed to elbow Arrow. The wolf snorted, and shuffled awake. The moment he saw Pepper, he shot to his feet in unbridled excitement.

"Pepper!" Clint exclaimed.

Arrow thumped around on the boardwalk with four bounding paws. He crashed his body against Pepper's pinstriped pencil skirt and white blouse. If Clint didn't know any better, he'd assume she just happened to be in the neighborhood for a business meeting and dropped by his bench to greet him.

"Yeah, Pepper, you big old jerk!" She shot at him. "You don't call, you don't write, you don't even send me a text! You just take off and don't say a thing and, Clint, you grew a beard... and you smell!"

Clint extracted himself from beneath his bench as she ranted at him. He noticed, at once, she was not alone. Happy came, no doubt to keep an eye on her in the often shifty city. Beyond his enforcement, three suits Clint didn't recognize stood around as well. Whether Pepper knew it or not, four others, most likely SHIELD agents, hid along the casino fronts up and down the wooden boardwalk. This was not a good situation.

"Pepper, stop yelling." The archer warned.

"And Tony doesn't even tell me what started it all. He doesn't say anything at all. And everyone's acting like it never happened and – "

The three agents with Happy were armed. At least one of them, Clint decided, he did not trust. Perhaps it was the way the guy glanced around and knew about the others. Barton had to get out of there before the men converged on him, or worse, used Pepper against him.

"I'm not talking about this." Clint said harshly. He knew it sounded mean to her. She couldn't understand his reasons for leaving, and he did not plan to go into the details in the present company.

"Oh, yes, you are! It took me all this time to find you, Clint, and now that I'm here, you are not just going to brush me off. Talk to me! Tony hurt you, the team let you down, just help me understand what we can do to make a difference. Please, I thought – "

Clint's expression must have changed. Pepper, or women in general, were a kryptonite for him. Natasha wooed him with her intensity. His old flame, Bobbi Morse, had an intensity he couldn't explain, and the attitude of a firecracker. When it came to Pepper, he saw her as a sister. She was, now at least, the fiancé of his best friend, and it took Clint getting nearly tortured to death to bring Tony and her closer than ever. When he left, Clint had just finished working out seating arrangements with her for the reception.

"Talk to me." She pleaded. The dam began to break. She knew how much she meant to him, and held no reservations about holding that reverence to her advantage.

As Clint's mind began to change, as some part of him burst to tell her everything and hold nothing back, something new moved into his perfect peripheral vision. No longer were there only four extraneous SHIELD agents hiding in the wings. He could see another three, one of which shouldered a sniper rifle, on the marquee of Caesar's Palace. How could he know which of them to trust? If Clint caved now, if anyone saw the soft spot he held for Tony's girl, then they may have no trouble taking her here and now. He had to leave before he got in too deep, and before Pepper ended up dead because of him.

"No." Clint said, taking his eyes off the sniper. He returned them with intensity to the red head. This was going to hurt.

"Why not?! I'm standing right here. I'm sorry. For everyone I'm – "

"No." Clint added with emphasis.

"Please – "

"Why didn't they come?" Clint's mind began firing with excitement. The rifle was now trained on them. He had to get as much distance between himself and her as possible.

"Tony just – "

"Just didn't show. He didn't show now, like he didn't show then. You know why? Because he didn't care. I told them I would check in. When I don't, they know to be concerned. Five days! I was tortured for five days, and they never even knew it, Pepper!"

She took half a step away from him, her face turning pale. She didn't expect the ferocity he hit her with. Even Happy, surprised by his hostility, came forward to stand beside her.

"But, Clint, I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't, because you aren't a part of my life. I don't know what you think we have, Pepper, but imagining that you can just come down here, and uproot me just to drag me back there is crazy. We aren't family. We aren't even friends. We tolerate each other because we have to. And guess what!" He held up his hands and let them fall at his sides. "I decided that I don't have too."

Her face went impossibly paler. Beside her, Happy approached him.

"Hey, look, Hawk. I know it's not my business, but I've been around all of you long enough to know you do care. I don't know what kind of act this is, but you are hurting your friends. Your good friends."

Happy. Clint didn't plan on such candor from the head of security. It touched him, but at the same time infuriated him. Here, the ex-agent was trying everything he could to save their hides by getting rid of them, and Happy guilt trips him like this? All of Clint's frustrations turned into a single, proverbial, piercing arrow directed right at the man.

"Don't try that with me! Don't think that guilting me will change a thing! I gave my life to that team, and to SHIELD, and you know what I want? I want my own life back, and I don't need to ask anyone to let me do that. So stop tailing me. Stop trying to fix me. Stop thinking that I'm someone you can just talk down and save. I'm done wasting my life on people."

"But, Clint!" Pepper cried.

"I spent my life trying to save people who never deserved it. First my parents, then my own brother, even my mentor Trick Shot. I found a new life with Phil and what does SHIELD do? Fake his death, and then took him away from me. And even Coulson didn't go against it! I'm over it. The only person who never lets me down is me and my dog. So do me a big favor, and get out of my life."

Clint turned away from them. He could see, from the stunned looks on their faces, that this time he said enough. To save Pepper and Happy, he had to destroy every good image they held of him. With a signal to Arrow, Clint started off down the boardwalk. He passed the waiting SHIELD agents, and the hidden ones as well. No one tried to stop him. Not anymore. Clint Barton was alone at last.

Oh the feels! I'm not quite finished writing this story, but i at least wanted to give you guys a taste of what I've been up to.

Please review! and how about alternate Title ideas?