42 || family meetings

"There's a lot of explaining to do."

Barton Farm, Thanksgiving Day 2016-

"Uncle?" Christa screeched, her eyes darting between Alison and Clint. Her sight eventually landed on the arrow still grasped in Alison's hand, the flustered girl watching her potential cousin carefully set the weapon down.

"Don't blame me." Alison shrugged, her look of nonchalance making Christa even more flustered. "I just found out myself. Maybe three hours ago?" She offered, shrugging again.

"B-b-But How?" The adopted Barton chokes out, unable to find the words to say anything else. "H-how are you his niece when Clint's explicitly told us that-"

"Christa." Clint looked at his adopted daughter, sending her a warning with his stare. His bow had been carelessly thrown on the sofa, left there with his quiver after the man had realized that Alison wasn't a threat. "Why don't you get ready for dinner? Laura's family is coming over, and the kids need help with not looking like a circus when they do."

Christa nodded, silently gulping as she stood up from her seat at the table, waving goodbye to Alison, mouthing a "good luck" to the girl. She trudged past her adopted father, who patted her back as she began to walk up the stairs. The girl was out of sight within seconds, already yelling at the rest of the Barton siblings to get ready.

Making sure that his daughter was upstairs, Clint shook his head, shuffling over to the kitchen. He swiped his purple coffee mug off the dry rack, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the coffee pot that was still warm on the stove. "So," The man took a sip of his coffee, looking straight at Alison. "You have some explaining to do."

Alison stared straight back at Clint, keeping her nerves calm and her stare one of steel. "I think you have a lot more to explain than I do, Uncle." The girl retorted, her words laced with a hint of venom. She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

The Avenger's face fell with her last words, trying to mask his expression by wiping his face to get rid of the coffee mustache on his face. "And I thought one teenager was enough for me." He muttered, shaking his head as he looked at Alison once again. "Take a seat on the sofa." Clint gestured over to the sofa where his bow still laid. "Seat's open."

Alison looked at Clint with a strange expression, trying to process what he was going to do before her eyes landed on the sofa, seeing the bow still there. "You sure you're not going to shoot me again?"

Clint answered her question with another stare, taking a gradual sip of his coffee as his stare told Alison exactly what she needed to know. "Sit down." He said, holding his cup of coffee with a light touch. "You're not getting out of this."

Giving one last look of annoyance at Clint, Alison stood up from her seat at the dining room table, walking carefully over to the sofa. Alison sat down on the left side of the sofa, tucking her dress underneath her as she sat, her eyes watching Clint to see when he would walk over.

The man paused a moment, glancing at Alison for a second before taking another sip of his coffee. Shaking his head, Clint walked over towards the sofa, moving his bow off the sofa. He settled beside the girl, placing his coffee cup on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Clasping his hands together, Clint placed his arms on his knees, dropping his head between his arms. Raising his head, Clint finally spoke again.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"What?" Alison questioned, her slouched position on the sofa straightening out to let her back rest off the cushions. Her face was one of confusion, her eyes looking at the back of Clint's head.

"You finding out. I meant, it wasn't supposed to be like this. None of it was supposed to be like this. Germany, today, everything....." Clint trailed off, his eyes falling on a picture of Kira and himself on the dresser.

Alison's eyes followed Clint's, her gaze softening when she saw what he was looking at. It was her mother, Clint's sister, donned in a S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee outfit, Clint dressed in the same outfit as her.

"Cap was the first one to see that picture when we made a pit stop here when Ultron attacked. He knew something was up. That man always does. I'm surprised he didn't figure it out when I brought you with us to Germany." Clint admitted, chuckling lightly as he shook his head. "But I never told him. Said it was an old friend, lost in the line of duty."

"You didn't want anyone to know that you were siblings with my mom?" Alison asked, her gaze one of confusion. Her eyes were still locked on the picture of her mother, looking at the picture, recalling Kira's soft gaze and gentle smile. Breaking her gaze from the picture, Alison turned to Clint once again. "Why?"

"It's like why I kept my family off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. As soon as your mother retired from field work after finding out she was pregnant with Charles, and I started to take over more of the missions your mom used to do with Natasha, we knew it wasn't safe for anyone to know we were related. Especially when I started having kids as well." Clint explained, his eyes staring at his hands, too scared to look at his niece. "Kira and I were worried for your safety."

Alison laughed for a second, her chuckle echoing through the empty bottom floor of the house. "I'd be more worried about my safety nowadays than my safety when I was a kid." She muttered, her hands starting to fidget and get clammy as she spoke.

It was Clint's turn to look at Alison, confusion laced in his eyes. "I thought you were doing okay. Washington D.C. field trips, nightly superhero escapades, having fun sneaking out of hotel rooms, the like."

Ali shook her head, her face falling into a dee frown. "Nope." Alison popped her p in the statement, sighing as she did so. "D.C. was where it all went to hell. I've just been falling deeper and deeper into trouble since then."

"You've gotten into worse trouble?" Clint questioned, his tone one of a father about to lecture his daughter. Pinching his pointer finger and thumb at the bridge of his nose, Clint let out another sigh. "Clearly you've gotten into more trouble than I've thought."

Alison just stared at her uncle, expecting a lecture out of the man. It was the norm with adults when they found out what she had gotten into (even Scott had when they called) but the lecture never came. It was just silence.

Clint looked up after a minute of contemplation, looking straight at Alison. "Alright, before we go any further, and before I start to go into Dad Mode, you're going to tell me everything. From when you got back home from Germany, up to this point. Everything."

Alison's lips pressed into a frown, disagreeing with the man. The story would take a lifetime, and the girl didn't want to spend that amount of time explaining it. "What about we trade questions? I'm sure you have a lot to ask, and you sure as hell have a lot to answer as well."

Clint looked at Alison for one second, her proposal running through his brain. His eyes stared into hers, scanning her eyes for some lie. "Fine." He exhaled, shifting his position on the couch. "But I ask first."

"Okay, sure." Alison replied, nodding in agreement with the man. "Shoot. Metaphorically, not physically, I mean." The girl added, trying to get out of any way of being shot at with another one of his arrows.

"Yeah. I know." The Avenger grumbled, picking up his mug of coffee, taking another sip. "You need to first offer an explanation of D.C., and what happened there. I thought you were just going to the pool with friends."

"Yeah well going into the pool turned into reconnaissance on Spider-Man. That little red and blue suited spandex boy from Germany?" Alison offered up, seeing Clint's confused face when she said Spider-Man.

"Didn't fight against him then, but he seems like a nuisance." Clint recalled, seeing the starked- our costume the boy was wearing during the battle. "A really big nuisance."

"Yeah. Well, I mean he was until I found out who he was. Then things changed a little." Alison winced, recalling the night in the DODC vault, and the events after. "Which included me falling 555 feet, 5 inches, and ⅛ of an inch."

"Wait. Wait. You fell 555-"

"Nope." Alison interrupted Clint's question, wagging her finger in a mocking way. "My then first. Why was my mom like? You know, when she was a trainee in S.H.I.E.L.D. and when she was on missions with you?"

Clint exhaled, taking in a deep breath before he started. "Well, your mom, she was one of the most quick-witted and strategic thinkers that I knew. Plus she was one of the best band to hand combat fighters and sharp shooters with pistols I knew. Well, until Nat." The man paused, rubbing his hands together nervously before continuing.

" Believe it or not, she was the one who kept me out of most fights and put herself in them at the Academy and on missions." The man smiled at the memory of his sister beating up a kid twice her size for him when he had swiped the kid's weapons during training.

"Mom always one to put herself in danger for others." Alison murmured, recalling the time that her mother had helped a neighbor in Boston that was being robbed around the time when Alison was eight. When she saw her mother come back beat up and bruised that night, the girl had naturally been worried for her mother.

But her mother had just kissed her daughter on her head, giving Alison's hair a russle. "Momma just had to help someone in need, Ali-Cat." Lira has explained when Alison had asked her where she had gone. "We always help others in their time of need."

"Yeah." Clint agreed, shaking Alison out of the memory of her mother. "She didn't even hesitate when she was on a mission. Always calm and collected, and ready to do the right thing no matter what."

The man paused for a moment, seemingly recalling back a moment with his sister. "Anyways, my turn again. You fell 555 feet doing what, exactly?"

"Uh technically, I fell 555 feet, 5 inches, and ⅛ of an inch, and it was a school trip. I wasn't even being a superhero at the time, if that was your next question." Alison answered Clint's question that was obviously forming at the edge of the man's lips.

"The how did you even get hurt? Hell, how are you even walking?" Clint asked more follow up questions, trying to get more than a vague answer out of the teenager.

"I'm getting there!" Alison exclaimed, sighing exasperatedly at her uncle. "Well, we were visiting the Washington Monument after our Academic Decathlon team won the Nationals competition, and this Chitauri artifact-"

"Chitauri? But they're gone! We got rid of them in-"

"The Battle Of New York. Yes, yes, I know." Alison rolled her eyes, already knowing what happened during the battle. "But when you guys left, the mess left a ton of artifacts open to steal and be used as weapons. Anyways, the artifact became a bomb, and the elevator's systems failed. Spider-Man was able to rescue everyone-"

"Except you." Clint finished, the loose ends to the D.C. story tying up. "Okay. Now to the bit about how you're even standing, or not dead today please."

"Okay, Okay." Alison grumbled, shifting her position on the sofa, the dress rather uncomfortable. "So I fell, shattered my spine, and then found out that being a superhero that can run super fast has some additional bonuses."

"So you heal fast." Clint guesses, shaking his head when he got the confirmation from Alison. "God, when Kira got into the accident in Milan, we expected something, but not-"

"Milan? Accident? Okay, now you've got to tell me about that." Alison decided, intrigued by the mentioning of a mission Clint and her mother went on together. "Spare no details too, cause your last question had at least seven mini questions in it."

Clint took his cup of coffee again, taking another sip before letting it balance in the palm of his left hand, his right still gripping the cup. "Milan was a mission to stop a group of people called Night Shadows, a group that was experimenting on humans for research to find out how to create a new superhero."

"At the time, your mother was pregnant with you. Now, she didn't know that, as it was only April, and she was only about a month or so into her pregnancy. But, your mom was captured during the mission and held for ransom by the group. I wanted to get your mother out of there as fast as possible, but Hill, who was our SO, our senior officer, for the mission, told me not to. It was a considerable amount of money, but Hill (and Fury) believed that your mom would find a way out of it."

"And did she?" Alison asked, a frown forming on her face as Clint continued the story. If her mother had done such reckless things, and charged in alone, was she really the perfect figure that Clint was making her to be? Was she still the perfect mother figure she remembered?

"Pffh. Naw. Not in time for them to stop them from making a second video with her in it. They injected her with some sort of serum that they were testing to make a new superhero. It was a nasty sight, seeing your mother bound and gagged while they put a syringe with a yellow serum inside of her."

"She escaped a few days later, more beat up and exhausted than how she looked in the second video. Hill wanted to run a few tests on her, but Kira refused. She said she was fine, and that nothing had changed. But I guess that nothing had changed for her, but rather for the kid that was growing inside of her."

"So that's how I came to have powers. That's how this mess truly came to be. Because of these crazy terrorist people messing around with superpower serums and hurting my mo-" Alison spoke, her talking cut off by someone else talking over her.

"Clint?" A woman's voice called from upstairs, interrupting the two's conversation. Both of their heads turned towards the stairs, Clint's more relaxed than Alison's. "I saw Christa run up the stairs mumbling a string of curses again. You sure she's okay?"

"She's fine Laura!" Clint hollered back, trying to console his wife about their adopted daughter. "It's just Christa exercising her ability to be a teenager again. She's helping the kids get dressed for your parents, I wouldn't worry about it."

"Clint Barton, something's up." Laura declared, beginning to walk down the stairs. Her footsteps made a soft noise as she padded down the stairs, Clint and Alison exchanging a worried look as she walked down. "Because you never say that I shouldn't-"

As Clint's wife made it to the bottom of the stairs, her breath hitched in her throat. Seeing Clint and Alison sitting there together caught the woman off guard, making her hesitate as she finished her sentence. "Worry."

As Alison's eyes drifted away from Clint's and to Laura's, her expression faltered. Seeing the shocked expression on her aunt's face meant nothing good. "Um...." The girl trailed off, unsure of what else to say.

"You have Kira's eyes." Laura noticed, her gaze turning into a pressed frown. "And the same crinkle in your forehead when you're caught off guard about something. Or worried." When her words finally were processed through her mind, Laura's face fell into one of shock.

"Dear god, you're her kid. You're Kira's." She stuttered, her eyes still trained on Alison, not even looking at Clint. "H-How are you-"

"Hey honey." Clint interrupted, standing up from his seat on the sofa with a reassuring smile. Brushing off his plaid shirt that was tied around his waist, he gave Alison an anxious glance before turning back to his wife. "I was going to tell you that we had a visitor, but-"

"Mm-Mm." Laura's lips pressed together in an irritated look, her finger pointed straight at Clint. "We'll- we'll talk about this later. For now, I'm-" She paused for a moment, sticking her thumb towards the stairs again. "I'm going to help Christa get the kids ready." Giving one glance at Alison and Clint, Laura shook her head, walking back up the stairs to where her children were.

Alison turned back to Clint, a worried expression still crinkled on her face. "That was..... unexpected." She finished, trying to describe the awkward situation that had just unfolded in front of her.

"Yeah." Clint agreed, his eyes watching the stairs to make sure that his wife had gotten up safely. "I was kinda hoping that she wouldn't see you here. Laura took your mom's death pretty hard, actually, cause the two were really close."

Alison didn't know what to say to Clint, instead just nodding, the girl still in shock. Her aunt had compared her to her mother, something that Alison had never thought possible. "Um...." The girl trailed off, her eyes falling back on the stairs. "Back to the questions?" She offered, trying to distract herself from the conversation that had just occurred.

"Yeah. Yeah." Clint agreed, letting his eyes fall back on Alison, who wasn't looking at him anymore. "Questions sound good." Settling back into the cushions, the man exhaled deeply, letting out a breath he had been holding in.

"Whose turn was it last? Yours?" Alison questioned, her eyes refusing to look at Clint's. She was haunted by the idea that she was like her mother in any way, and she didn't want any more confirmation that the fact was true.

"Think it was." Clint agreed, his hands falling back into a clasped position, letting his arms rest on his knees. "Okay, back to the D.C. questions. What happened after you fell down the elevator? Short version, please."

"Well, I was stuck in a wheelchair for three weeks, risked my health during that time twice, once to split a ferry, once to try and clean up a mess in our apartment after someone attacked us. Oh! And let's not forget the woman who has attacked me on more than three occasions and crashing a plane down on Coney Island with no powers. That was fun." Alison summarized, counting each event on her fingers.

"That's the short version?" Clint gave Alison a perplexed look, pausing for a moment before standing up again. "Because that didn't seem like the short version." The man wanted lunch, as Alison had crashed into the Barton household right when Clint was coming down for lunch, so he headed for the fridge.

"Yup." Alison tore her eyes away from her fingers, which she was still messing around her dress with, watching Clint stand up and head towards the kitchen. "What are you doing?"

"Not dying of starvation." Clint declared, opening his fridge to see the multiple things Laura had prepared for Thanksgiving dinner that night. "You want anything?"

Alison, gearing her stomach growl at the mention of food, nodded eagerly. "You got any margarita pizza in there? Or orange Fanta, for that matter?"

"Strange combination." Clint laughed, pulling two Tupperware containers out of the fridge. "I like it." Inspecting the food inside of the containers, Clint placed them on the table, approving of the contents. "We have chicken tenders and potato salad, and....." The man scoured the drinks container for the soda Alison wanted. "Fanta."

"Sounds good to me." Alison stretched in her seat, watching Clint balance the tupperwares and the sodas as he walked over to the sofa once again. "While you're settling back into the seat, you mind telling me why you kept the secret of me being your niece from me?"

"Well there were a lot of reasons. One being that I promised your mom that we wouldn't share our relations to each other until our kids were at an age that they could handle it. Another one was that I didn't know how to tell you. You thought that Jackie was your only family left to actually care about you, and I didn't know how you would react."

The man handed Alison her Tupperware and Fanta, placing his own two containers on the coffee table as he handed Alison a fork from his flannel pocket. "That's why I kept it a secret. That's why when you crashed the car in April to try and see your mom, I thought that you would find out somehow. So I just brought you with us, hoping that you wouldn't be entirely useless. And you weren't."

"Thanks." Alison scoffed sarcastically, popping open the top of her Fanta. "That makes me feel so much better. Giving a totally straight answer to my really easy question."

Clint opened his Tupperware, twirling his fork in his free hand as he did so. "You didn't ask for the simple version, so you got the longer and more confusing version." He shrugged, taking a bite of his potato salad. "My then again. You were attacked by a woman? Three times?"

"Technically, more than three. And she's also not a woman, she's an Asgardian. Like Thor, I think." Alison added, the comment about Asgardian reminding the girl that she still had to contact Doctor Strange when she needed a portal back home. "She can't ever seem to get enough of me."

"Why?"

"Well, I don't really know why at the moment. Except for what she told me, but I don't trust her, so the only explanation I've got is that Absinthe- that's this Asgardian's name - said something about her father wanting me dead." Alison sighed, taking a sip of her soda.

"Absinthe. That's a weird name." Clint remarked , taking another bite of his potato salad, speaking with his mouth full. "Are you sure she's not just some psycho who's gone crazy and picked a random target?"

"I'm sure." Alison answered Clint, her mind flashing back to when Strange had told her all the information about Absinthe. "Her real name is actually Arnora, Goddess of Nightmares or something. Her adopted father gave her the name Absinthe. Or something."

"How do you even know all of this?" Clint questioned, his brain trying to process everything that the girl was telling him. If she was being targeted by someone, than was it his fault?

"Um, I kinda got help from someone. His name's Stephen Strange. He's some sort of wizard or something?" Alison questioned, confused to what the man was. "But yeah, he was the one who teleported me here. And he's the one I have to contact when I need to leave. Which I should probably do soon."

"Well- I mean-" Clint stuttered, unsure of how to ask the girl the question he wanted to ask her. "Maybe you could stay for dinner? I think that Laura's parents would like to get to know you now that you're older and wiser, cause they haven't seen you in a while."

"Um......" Alison checked her phone, opening up the wallet that she had tucked away into the folds of her skirt. The time was about 2 PM, the date still Thanksgiving Day. "As long as I'm home by Black Friday, I think I'll be fine. I have a study group that I can't miss."

"Sure. Sure." Clint agreed, looking at the girl, who was staring straight at him. "In the meantime, let's keep talking. I'm sure that there's a lot more that we both need answered."

<~•~>

wow ash is back with a big ass exposition dump and her FIFTY FIRST CHAPTER! wow.

sorry this took forever I got grounded for like a week so yeet

other books will be updated gradually I promise

thank you guys so much for 30 and 31 K

I dunno where I'd be without you guys, I dunno what else to say

anyways I hoped y'all enjoyed this 4100 word chapter although it was kind of a ton of scenes merged into one

meh I'll fix it later

anyways guys

I'll see you in the next one

ten chapters left!

bye

:))