"The news is loving you guys," Maria Hill's voice spoke from the the front of the jet, "nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air."

"Stark Relief Foundation?" Tony asked.

"Already on the scene," Maria replied, "how's the team?"

"Everyone's..." Tony paused before continuing. "we took a hit. We'll shake it off."

"Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode," She advised, "and stay away from here."

"So, run and hide?" Tony questioned.

"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer," Maria answered.

"Neither do we," he said before switching off the monitor, "hey, you wanna switch out?" He asked Clint, who was flying the jet.

"No, I'm good," he replied, "if you wanna get some kip, now's a good time, cause we're still a few hours out."

"A few hours from where?" Tony asked.

Clint shrugged, "a safe house."

A couple of hours passed before Clint announced that we were landing. I stood once we landed and followed everyone else out. I only realised where we were after I spotted the farmhouse in the distance. A small smile fell on my lips right when I saw it.

"What is this place?" Thor asked.

"A safe house?"Tony repeated what Clint had told him.

"Let's hope," Clint mumbled under his breath as he opened the door and entered the house, "honey, I'm home," he called out.

Laura Barton walked out of the kitchen, a look of surprise on her face.

"Hi. Company," he said gesturing to us, "sorry I didn't call ahead."

"Hey," Laura said leaning over to kiss Clint.

"This is an agent of some kind," Tony whispered to Thor.

Clint turned to us and gestured to his wife, "gentleman, this is Laura."

"I know all your names," Laura said in an excited tone.

Everyone except for Natasha and I looked at her awkwardly, some of them mumbling a 'hi'. I heard the footsteps of Clint's two children as they ran down the hallway towards where we were.

"Ooh, incoming," Clint said excitedly when he heard them.

"Dad!" Little Lila Barton shouted as she jumped up into her father's arms. He kissed the top of Cooper, his son's head, "Hey, buddy! How you guys doing?"

"These are...smaller agents," Tony mumbled to the team as they all watched in surprise.

"Did you bring Auntie Nat and Auntie Clarke?" Lila asked.

"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Natasha asked stepping forward with a big smile on her face. Lila rushed towards Natasha who picked her up in her arms.

"Auntie Clarke needs a hug too," I said pouting. Lila jumped down from Natasha's arms and rushed towards me. I picked the little girl up into my arms and gave her a kiss on the forehead, "did you miss me?"

"Yes!" Lila said nodding her head enthusiastically.

Cooper ran over next and I pretended to be surprised when I saw him, "is it just me or are you taller?"

"Sorry for barging in on you," Steve interrupted.

"Yeah, we would have called ahead," Tony added, "but we were busy having no idea that you existed."

"Yeah, well Fury helped me set this up when I joined," Clint explained, "he kept it off SHIELD's files, I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low."

Natasha walked over to Laura and touched her stomach gently and I followed after Lila ran over to her father. "How's little Natasha, huh?" She asked.

Laura had a guilty look on her face as she looked at Natasha, "she's Nathaniel," she said.

Natasha bent towards Laura's stomach, "traitor," she said with a playful frown on her face.

When she stood I raised an eyebrow at her a huge smile on my face, "I win!" I said.

I touched Laura's stomach asking her where the baby was, but our little reunion was interrupted by Thor as he stepped out of the house. He was obviously bothered by something. Steve followed him out the door, calling his name.

***

About an hour later, I was sitting on the bed in one of the guest rooms. It was the room I stayed in whenever I came to visit. It was nice to see someplace familiar and one with happy memories.

Seeing Clint's family had driven the dark thoughts and memories from my mind only temporarily. Soon enough I started to feel them creeping back in. Even after a warm shower, I was feeling slightly edgy. I was afraid to close my eyes because of what I might see when I opened them.

Every now and then, when I blinked, the room would change into the dark one I had occupied when I was younger. I would blink again and it would vanish.

Feeling queasy, I put my face in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't open them until I heard the bedroom door open. I peeked up to see Clint standing at the doorway, a worried look on his face.

"I thought you could use some company," he said softly. He closed the door behind him and sat down on the bed next to me. Then he gently put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to his chest, patting my back softly.

I already felt safe. There was something about Clint that always made me feel safe. He was like a father to me. I could tell him anything and he would listen without complaint. Whenever I felt upset, he would be there to comfort me. Maybe it was because he was already a father.

But one thing was for sure. No one else would ever be able to make me feel safe the way Clint did.

***

When night fell, I was sitting in the dining room with Lila. The rest of the team were also seated around the kitchen. Even Nick Fury had shown up at some point. Tony had said something about hm hiding behind a bunch of cupboards in the shed to make a 'dramatic entrance'.

Cooper was sitting with Clint and Lila was very busily drawing with her crayons as I looked over her shoulder.

Fury stood at the head of the table, discussing Ultron and what we were going to do about him, "Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time," he said as we all listened, "my contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked.

"Ah. He's easy to track," Fury said, "he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though."

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony asked.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway," Fury answered.

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," Tony said, unable to believe something like Ultron hadn't been able to get the nuclear codes yet.

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that," Fury saud.

"NEXUS?" Steve asked, confused.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth," Bruce explained.

"So what'd they say?" Clint asked.

"He's fixated on the missiles," Fury answered, "but the codes are constantly being changed."

"By whom?" Tony asked, a frown on his face.

"Parties unknown," Fury said.

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked.

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing," Fury said, "still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown'." Tony said.

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha said.

"I do," Fury said, "I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard."

I smirked, "careful,"

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Natasha finished my sentence.

"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve said in an annoyed tone.

I chuckled and Natasha smiled mischievously at him.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked, getting back on topic.

"To become better," Steve answered, "better than us. He keeps building bodies."

"Person bodies," Tony explained further, "the human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race," Natasha said, looking at Tony and Bruce, "you amazingly failed."

"He didn't say protect," I said, a frown forming on my face, "he said evolve."

"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve," Bruce mumbled, thinking along the same lines as I was, "Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Fury asked.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" Bruce asked.

***

Hey! Before I write anything else, I need to thank all of you for getting 1k reads for this book! So, thank you all so much! You have no idea how happy i am right now!

Thank you to every single one of you who read, voted and commented on this book. Honestly, I want to tag all of you, but at the time, Wattpad won't let me tag any of you. Believe me, I have tried! So for now, I'm just going to have to stick with this.

Thank you, Jacki67365, quicksilversass, IndiraAmaya, zxXKitKatXx, precioustar808, dcmarvelu, RosaOkayMorales, Ashbash9876 and anyone else I have not mentioned here!

(Have I got your usernames right?)

So, about this chapter, the last part was pretty much dialogue and didn't have much Clarke in it, so I apologise for that.

There is one question I really need you guys to answer. I want to know your opinion on the relationship between Clarke and Clint. I'm going to explain in a little. It's like a father daughter relationship. When she joined SHIELD, she was very young (maybe 13?). She had to train and learn to fight and I set the story in a way that she spent more time with Clint and Natasha. So she has a better relationship with them. But the one with Clint is special. Clint is her father figure.

This authors note is turning into a huge essay so I'm going to end it. Half of you probably didn't even read this so...

Please do leave your opinion on the topic above.

And...

Please consider giving a vote or leaving a comment to let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading.

(Wow! 1779 words...)