Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.

AN: Written for the October 14th Spooktober prompt: harvest festival.

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Roots by luvsanime02

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Clint knows that he grew up on a farm. Well, for a given definition of growing up. He has just enough memories of the farm and his parents to understand that he had a shitty childhood before joining the circus, and then a wild adolescence as an acrobat and assassin.

He lived in fear of his father and in the shadow of his brother, and Clint didn't really ever feel like his own person until he was freelance killing people for a living, and how fucked-up is that, really?

Point is, Clint is not a farm boy, for all that people love to call him that and other hick names for being from Nowheresville, Ohio. Especially when they find out that Clint's family home, that he still owns but never visits, is an actual farm.

Which is why Clint's not at all surprised to see a message from Tony Stark on his phone about some kind of harvest festival opening next weekend somewhere in Vermont, and how Tony's gathering everyone to go see it. He wants Clint there for his 'expert opinion' on the quality of the goods that will be available.

Clint's never been to a harvest festival. He's not even sure what a harvest festival would contain, and would have to Google to find an answer.

Instead, Clint decides to mess with Tony right back, because that's how you handle Tony Stark. That's how he knows that you care, if you give back as much sass as he dishes out. It's actually something of an artform. Too much sass, and Tony spends the next few weeks convinced that he did something to piss you off, and then he acts annoying and passive-aggressively guilty, and no one wants that. If you ignore his texts, then that means you don't care about him anymore, and Tony goes completely silent until you reestablish communication with him. After which he pretends loudly that nothing had ever happened at all in a really awkward kind of way, and no one wants that, either.

No, you need just the right level of comeback to assure Tony that all is well. Clint messages back that he's too busy bringing in the cows and crops to go take a look at the competition, but that Tony should totally go scope it out for him, as a favor.

He gets silence for thirty seconds, which Clint smirks at. The best way of dealing with Tony is trying to mess with him in a way that almost sounds realistic, so that it takes even Tony's genius brain a few moments to realize that he's being fucked with.

Eventually, Tony replies with a string of shit emojis and comments about how Tony Stark isn't anyone's gopher, and Clint knows that their friendship is good for another few months, at least. In a weird way, Tony can be very low-maintenance, unless you're actually in the same room as him.

Harvest festival. Honestly, it doesn't even sound interesting to Clint. Take-out and Starbucks is Clint's preferred 'harvest'. Some country kid he's turned out to be. Oh, well. He'll leave the fancy upstate festival stuff to Tony.

Clint can't erase his childhood, but he sure as hell can choose not to relive it.