*CLINT'S POV AND FLASHBACK*

I was teaching Lila and Cooper how to shoot arrows. They were doing surprisingly well. Like- Cooper was really close to getting a bullseye. Though, Lila was doing amazing. She was basically as good as I am at it. She could pull off being the next Hawkeye one day.

I'm retired from being a superhero anyway so she could do that. But... I would be stressed a lot about loosing her... I get injured all the time and if she's any more like me, I'm going to guess she's as clumsy as I am. From what I see though, she's not. That's definitely reassuring.

I wasn't letting Nathaniel shoot the arrows because he was too young. He would be more prone to getting hurt. He was with Laura making lunch. "Great job kids!" I exclaimed. I bent down to Lila's height and whispered, "...ya know... You could probably pull off being Hawkeye 2.0." "Really!?  Awesome!" I chuckled at her enthusiasm.

'I used to be like that. Young and ready to face the world. Heh.' She gazed up at me with the emotions I love seeing in my kids. Excitement, curiosity, wonder, determined...

"Clint! Kids!" Laura called out. "Yeah?" "What sandwich do you-" She was cut off. ...Huh... "Sorry sweetie! What did you say?" There was no answer. "Laura?" I looked over from the  board. She wasn't there. Neither was Nathaniel. "Nathaniel? Bud? Where are you?" They didn't go inside. They were just here. They can't just walk inside that fast and I would've noticed.

"Laura? Nate?" No answer again. "Kids stay here for a second." They nodded. They seemed as concerned as I was. I walked around and had no luck of finding them. 'What's going on???' I thought desperately. There was just dust on the ground. 'Why dust?' It just made no sense.

I sprinted back to the spot where we were shooting arrows and Lila and Cooper were gone too. "Cooper? Lila? Not you too! Where are you guys?" I started to panic. My whole family was no where to be seen. I looked all through the house too. No luck!

I never stopped looking. I tried to find them for hours. "Kids! Laura! This isn't funny anymore!!!" My voice cracked as a tear rolled down my cheek. "Please. Come out. this really isn't funny. What's going on?" There was just dust where they were.

I didn't understand. A few more tears escaped my eyes. I was half expecting the kids to run out and hug me, apologising that they got me upset and Laura coming out to kiss me. Nothing happened though. That dust that came out of nowhere just blew away in the wind. I don't know where it came from and I don't know where my family went.

I decided I would call Nat. Maybe she knows what's going on. She's always been my best friend that I would be able to talk to when I needed. I picked up My phone and clicked the contact 'Best friend >:). ' It rang about twice before she picked up.

"Clint?! Thank god you're alive! I thought-" "Nat. ple-please." "What wrong?" she sounded concerned. "My-My family. They're not here- Oh god Nat. What do I do? I can't find anyone!" "Clint. Explain slower. What happened." She tried to calm me down. How would that help though? The the most important part of my life was gone. My family is everything. Where could they be?

"I-they- Laura... the kids and I were in the yard and-and I was teaching them how to shoot a bow and arrow while Laura and Nate made lunch. She started to ask us what sandwich's we wanted and it w-was like... her sentence was cut off." I took a shaky breath.

"...What happened next..." she sounded wary. "The-then when I looked over, she was gone. So was Nate. I told the kids to stay where they were for a second so I could look for them and when I came back with no luck of finding them, the rest of my family was gone too. There was only dust everywhere. Why was there dust?! Oh god- what if they were kidnapped- what if I don't see them again! I don't know what's going on Nat!" I yelled through the phone.

"...Oh no..." she breathed out. My heart sank. "What!? What is it!?!?" I exclaimed. "Am I- am I not going to see them again?! Nat! Answer me please!" I tearfully begged. I heard a sigh. "Clint. We will be at the avengers headquarters in about an hour. We'll meet you there. Ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah ok. Where are you guys?" "that's...not important. We'll explain when we see you." 'She's being weird...' I thought. "Uh...ok. Bye..." "Bye." She hung up. I jumped in my car to get to Avengers headquarters.

TIME SKIP BROUGHT TO YOU BY ~~~~~~~~WRITERS BLOCK~~~~~~~~

As I sped through roads and highways faster than I ever have, I realized something. they were all empty. The highways normally filled with traffic had almost no one. There were two other cars. '... what's going on?'

Also the flashback is over :)

As soon as the tower caught my eye, I practically jumped out of the car and started running towards it. Just as I got closer, I saw something landing. A ship. It landed perfectly too. 'Wow...' I thought. 'What'd I miss?'

I went to say something when Steve, Nat and a younger girl walked out of the ship but reality of my family gone caught up to me and the only thing that came out of my mouth was a choked out "Nat..." There was no doubt that evidence of tears were still on my face.

Her eyes were full of pity. I hated it. "Nat." I repeated, keeping my voice steady this time. "Don't...Don't give me that look." She nodded but still walked over and hugged me. "What the hell's going on?" I said with a dry laugh. "I'm a grown man, crying."

"Clint. Shut up. You've lost a lot..." I hum in response. "Let's get back to the original reason I came here, what is going on? What happened to my family? You seem to know." She sighed deeply.

"Let's go inside. We'll explain when everyone's more calmed down and...comfortable." "What do you-" The mess of a Tony Stark caught my eye. He looked like he was in so much pain. More mental than physical. That look looked familiar. Too familiar... 'Pepper isn't dead is she? Nope I see her walking out of the ship supporting him. If Pepper's not dead then who caused him that kind of pain? He doesn't have any other family...'

"What's wrong with Tony?" "He...Lost someone close to him. Close enough to be family." "Who? Not to be rude but... other than us and Pepper, he doesn't really have friends." Then I realized something. Sam. Vision. Wanda..."Pepper's not dead and he didn't really show that he liked us... where are Sam, Wanda, and Vision???"

Nat gave a small scoff at the 'not liking us' part. "Clint you're such an idiot sometimes." I stayed silent to get her to continue what she meant. "Besides Pepper and Rhodey, I've known Tony the longest. Something I've noticed about him is that he doesn't show his feelings towards others except for Pepper. Even Rhodey thought he didn't care about him for a while but Rhodey is his best friend." She paused.

"Until the fight at the airport, he didn't realize how much Tony cared about him. Rhodey saw how torn apart Tony was when he was close to death. Of course he cares about us. He just doesn't know how to tell us. It's kind of a silent thing. I know for a fact he would give his life for us."

"You're right..." I said. "So for you to answer my question... Where are Sam, Wanda, and Vision? And who's Tony grieving for? He looks like... me... That look he has says he lost family Nat... I don't like seeing him in the pain I'm in..." "I'm sorry to say this Clint, but he just might have a little bit more pain in him..." I gave her questioning eyes. "He went one-on-one with Thanos- Who I'll explain the whole story later and it has to do with Sam, Wanda and Vision." She added when I opened my mouth to say 'Who's that?'

"Anyway, He went one-on-one with him and Thanos got the upper hand, which resulted in him... impaling Tony with the sword from his ironman suit..." "Oh my god..." I breathed out. My heart felt like it stopped at the word 'impaled.'

"Yeah... Uhm... let everyone come inside and we'll talk about what happened." She said as everyone started to walk through the doors. Pepper helped Tony in the Avengers Tower and the soon- to- be- married couple sat down on the couch, followed by everyone else- "waitwaitwait... is that a raccoon talking to Thor?" "Space is weird Clint." "Huh... no kidding..."

"So... We definitely have something to talk about..." Steve started. Rhodey's pitiful eyes traveled to Tony, who looked down trying to blink away the tears in his eyes. Pepper's eyes were watery as well but there wasn't nearly as much pain in her eyes. 'Who'd he loose?' I thought. I internally scolded myself for being so curious. He's obviously having a hard time.

His eyes say that he lost family. Someone close to him. By the looks of some of my friends gone and no one will tell me what's going on... It's not giving me much hope. It's telling me that there's something more than just a silly prank that I'm over reacting to.

"Ain't that the truth." Rhodey said sadly. Bruce and Thor had stayed quiet the whole time, looking at the floor. That was somewhat normal for Bruce but not Thor. He was normally yelling throughout the tower. There was grief, anger, regret and... self-blaming in their eyes. I can tell because I have a good eye. I can basically read people like a book.

Some are easy like Steve or Rhodey, some aren't like Nat and Vision. Then again, he's an AI and doesn't really show much emotion. I ended up explaining what happened when I was at my home with my wife and kids. Her making lunch, everyone disappearing and me looking for hours. "What happened to you guys? Will that explain something?" I asked.

"It should explain a lot...So Clint... here's the story..." They'd continued to tell me the whole story. Thanos sending the attack on New York- being Tony's anxiety but no one brought that up- Thanos taking over planets. killing thousands...millions of different species throughout the Universe. He'd wanted to 'Help' us. Take away half of all, thinking we would thank him. The avengers-well...most of the Avengers tried to stop him.

"Thanos won and snapped half the universe and our friends are gone. They turned to dust..." My heart dropped. "B-....But my family... there was dust everywhere..." Any hope I had inside was lost. I looked at the ground, shocked. "Do you know if it hurt?" I asked, my voice cracking. I needed to at least know my wife and kids weren't hurt in the process.

"I-" Steve started but was cut off by Tony. "Not for all of them." He rasped. "What do you mean all?" Panic was pulsing through my veins. My head started to pound from worry. "Tony?! What do you mean all!?" I raised my voice when he didn't answer quick enough.

"The kid-he seemed like-" He blinked back tears, looking away a bit, seeming extremely embarrassed at the change in his personality. He goes from a "greedy asshole" to this broken man ready to collapse any second. He cleared his throat.

"His...His name was Peter Parker...he had a lot of potential...he was Spider-Man. 15 years old too..." There was tense, silent, shock throughout the room. "I know, I know... I'm a dumbass. Taking a kid out to space. If I were to blame him, I would say 'well he got on the ship himself' Which he did but... I should've sent him back. I could've figured out a way to get him home."

"Did he have any other family?" Bruce asked. "Just his aunt. She's probably worried sick. She and Peter were all they had. Pete's parents died when he was little. In space, he almost got the gauntlet off of Thanos. In fact, he got it off but that dumbass... Quill... calls himself Starlord. Mantis put Thanos under so we could get the gauntlet. Apparently, He killed Quill's girlfriend. He hit Thanos with his gun and woke him up. I went to stop Quill from doing anymore and Pete got the gauntlet off but Thanos got it back and the rest went on..." It was so tense in the room. 'A kid... he fought Thanos.'

"No one else showed any reaction to the dusting except for him." Tony closed his eyes as if memories were flooding his mind-which they probably were. "He collapsed into my arms. Crying and pleading saying he 'didn't want to go.' both of our knees gave out and we-we fell to the ground. The thing is... I've only seen Peter upset like...once when I took away his suit and there I was... I'd held him in my arms as he cried... was he in pain because of his enhanced senses? I don't know but it damn sure seemed like it."

"Well... You can ask him when we get everyone back." "If we do..." Thor said bitterly. "We can at least try!" "Oh grow up Steve! We lost! We're not getting our friends back! A-and I'm not getting my brother back!" Thor stomped off. Once again, there was silence for a few minutes. "I'm going to go get some water..." Tony said. He winced when he got up and Pepper went to help him.

When he was out of the room, I looked over at Nat. She gave a sad smile and nodded. "Peter was like his kid. He at least somewhat knows how you feel...loosing someone as close as family..." "Yeah... I could talk to him. Maybe think of a plan to get everyone back." "That'd be great Clint." Nat got up from the couch and hugged me.

"Huh... you're going soft Nat." I teased. She punched my shoulder and laughed. "I'm only being so called 'Soft' for you 'cause you're my best friend. Only you get this luxury." I chucked. "Lucky me." I walked towards the kitchen. A sad sigh escaped my lips.

"Lucky me indeed..."

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Words- 2486

Edited