Disclaimer: I don't own marvel.
It had been a month since the events of Lagos, and as Clint had suspected would happen, things had only gotten worse. Talking about the Avengers, whether they were heroes, vigilantes, or just plan out dangerous, had seemed to be the news' new favorite pastime, and the general public's as well. Multiple people had died in the incident, including eleven Wakandans. It was becoming a political mess. The king of Wakanda had spoken out about it many times, stating 'Our people's blood was spilled on foreign soil, not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all.'
Things had quickly become even more stressful for Clint, he was trying to balance his usual work, his own private life, and the recent events. It didn't help that the most information he could get from the rest of the team was over the phone, because at the moment everybody was at the compound, Clint had managed to get together with Natasha and talk over the current state of things, but unfortunately that had been quickly interrupted by the general public apparently having zero respect for privacy.
It wasn't until a Sunday night when surprisingly Rhodey had called him, that everything came out. Peter was listening to 'next to normal' (a musical of some sorts) on full blast at the kitchen counter while he tried to do his homework, while Clint was trying (and failing) to make dinner.
"Well, kid, I sincerely hope you're okay with pizza again because I just burned these noodles so badly that The Human Torch from those comic books we found would be jealous," Clint said as he dumped the remains of the crispy and burnt looking noodles into the trash can with a sigh.
"Oh my god," Peter laughed, looking at the scene in front of him. "I should honestly sign you up for a cooking class or something."
"Oh, you are just as bad as I am," Clint playfully quipped back.
"Whatever," Peter grumbled, though the smile on his face gave him away. "I'll call the pizza place and ask for our usual."
"There is no way that they know our usual.'
"Okay, maybe not… but I honestly wouldn't surprised if they did."
Clint only rolled his eyes, though he was smiling a little to himself, it was nice to hear the kid laugh, the jokes that would have the kid into hysterical laughs (either from the fact that it was hilarious, or that it was so depressingly bad that's all you could do), only received small snorts of amusement, and a smile that lied for the sad look in his eyes.
Clint was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard the phone ringing, which obviously wasn't the weirdest thing in the world, but a bit surprising since they didn't usually get many calls, he looked over at Peter who had a slightly surprised look on his face and appeared to have just pulled out his own cell phone, most likely to call the pizza place.
"Huh," Peter muttered, as the kid proceeded to set down his own phone, pausing the music that was playing from it, and picked up the home one instead and answered. "Hello?"
"Jesus Christ, Barton! I've been trying to call you on your cell for the last hour, what the hell, man?" Clint could hear the voice from the other side of the phone shout.
"Umm… this is Peter, I'll hand you over to Clint though," Peter responded with a slightly dazed look on his face as he went to hand Clint the phone. "I guess it's for you."
Clint only cringed as he grudgingly took the phone from Peter, this should be good. "Yes?" He asked into the phone.
"Why the hell haven't you been answering your phone?! I've called you almost eight times in the last hour!" The voice of Rhodey yelled.
"Yeah, sorry Rhodey, my cell is, um, kinda broken at the moment," Clint explained as he ran his hand through his hair, the memory of his phone accidentally getting thrown over the side of a building when he and Peter had been late night (the only time of day were they could get training in and not look suspicious as hell, and/or crazy) sparring flashing through his mind.
He heard Rhodey grumble something about 'irresponsible' and 'completely ridiculous' and 'sweet Jesus, just kill me now."
"Okay, if you're done complaining about my broken phone, will you please explain to me why you've supposedly called me eight times," Clint said, slightly annoyed.
"Have you heard of senator Ross?" Rhodey asked with a sigh.
"Yeah, I've heard of him. Supposedly the dudes a bit of a di-" Clint stopped upright, glancing at the (semi) innocent fourteen year old watching him at the moment, "dude's a bit of a jerk…"
Clint could practically see Rhodey rolling his eyes on the other side of the phone.
"Anyways, what about him?" Clint asked, trying to avoid getting chided for insulting a senator.
Clint could only stare blankly as Rhodey explained what had happened today.
"So basically, you're saying that we ether have to sign this accord thing, or we 'retire'?" Clint confirmed.
"Yeah, Tony, Vision, Natasha, and I agree with it," Rhodey told him. "Steve and Sam not so much, and Wanda is undecided. We can't just ignore this, 117 countries want to sign this."
"How long do we have until we have to make a decision?"
"About three days."
"Send it to me."
"Will do," Rhodey agreed. "I gotta go now, I just saw Vision float into the kitchen and I rather not have to deal with a blown up kitchen on top of everything else."
"Okay. Thanks for letting me know what's up," Clint said, running a hand down his face.
"You're welcome, also, don't be surprised if Nat calls you later, and most of the team for that matter," and with that Rhodey hung up on him.
"Great," Clint muttered sarcastically. Just what he wanted to do with his evening, read a basically god knows how long essay on why they all suck and should be under the government's control, and receive several angry phone calls from his teammates who seem not to have any sense of volume, and would most likely ether be mad at him, or bitching about the accords, granted he could always answer then turn down his hearing aids, but that would most likely end in a few solid kicks to the gut.
"What was that about?" Peter's slightly shocked voice broke through his musing.
"That's a good question, let me get back to you on that."
Lalalala-line break ThIs iS fiNe-lalalala
It had been five hours since Rhodey had called him, it was now eleven o'clock at night, and he was still reading the damn accords. He officially wanted to die. Peter had gone out and done his usual patrol, but came back an hour earlier, claiming that it was a quiet night, and had quickly sat down next to Clint in front of the computer and was reading it with him, Clint had been hesitant to let him read it because of how much there seemed to be basically saying enhanced people didn't deserve to be normal human beings, but he figured if Peter didn't read it with him he would just look it up online and that seemed even worse.
Along with reading, he had, as Rhodey had warned him, gotten phone calls from the following: Wanda, Sam, and Tony, but he had yet to hear from Nat. Wanda, had called to both check up, and discuss her opinion. Sam had called and mostly raged about it (rightfully so). And Tony had called and asked what he was going to do, Clint had told him he was still reading through it, which was for the most part true, but if he was honest, he did not like what he was seeing. At all.
It was too restricting in his opinion, he liked being in control of his decisions, even when he was with Shield he was known for bending the rules, and disobeying orders in favor of his own opinions. He also didn't approve of the lack of privacy, one of his biggest dislikes was it opened up that chance.
His opinions came tumbling out when Natasha finally called him.
"So basically you're saying that you're going to retire?" She said after Clint had finished his miniature rant to her.
"I'm almost positive. I think the thing's absolute BS, if it had just been the Avengers then I wouldn't have as big of deal with it, but it includes every enhanced person," Clint said, sighing.
"Okay," was all Natasha said. "What do you think you're going to do if not this?"
"I don't know, I haven't really gotten that far yet," Clint responded, it was true, he didn't really have an idea, he would say it would probably be something along the lines of police or potentially FBI, but with the accords that wouldn't be an option."I just know that it won't be what I have been, I don't agree with the terms, and I mean, I am getting older, it might be time for me to start settling down a little," an image of Peter flashing into his mind.
"Do want me to tell the rest of the team?"
"No," Clint responded, he knew that his decision would be evening 'the sides' some and it was only going to make the arguing worse, especially since Wanda for the most part seemed against it. "I'll tell them either tomorrow or the day after that, I'm probably going to get a ear full from a few of them."
"Okay," she responded. "Listen, I should probably get going, I have somethings to take care, and I'm sure you have things to do and think about. Just call me tomorrow or something."
"Will do, bye."
"Bye." And with that they both hung up.
Clint leaned back in his seat, letting the sofa submerge him completely. He couldn't believe that he was going to 'retire', he had always thought that if he was going to stop being a 'superhero' that it would be because he died or something, not because somebody said he had to or basically become a weapon. It felt odd, part of him wanted to keep fighting, wanted to keep fighting and protecting people until he died, but he couldn't bring himself to agree with the damn thing, especially because signing was agreeing they were dangerous, and be agreeing to it meant agreeing that Peter was dangerous.
He twisted his head to the side and looked over at Peter, who had fallen asleep over half an hour ago (from either exhaustion or boredom), and was curled up in a blanket.
Clint smiled a little, running a hand through the kid's unruly hair, watching as the kid gave a little twitch like a puppy who just got petted while sleeping and shifted his head onto Clint's shoulder.
He wasn't going to sign the accords.