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Damaged Bodies, Growing Lives, Building Families	By : StarLightMassacre Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 20994 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter, Avengers or the Marvel universe; all rights go to J. K. Rowling, Marvel and Stan Lee. I make no money for this piece of fictional writing and never will.

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
- 20
Last Time
Harry was more than worth it and he hoped that when they came to the end of the awkward, painful past feelings, that Harry would think that he was worth it too. He wanted nothing more than a family now that it had been thrust into his face so abruptly, even in the controversial way that it had come about. He wanted Harry and he wanted their baby and he hoped, that given time and a lot of work at their relationship, that he and Harry could give their first child a sibling or two in the future. He smiled as Harry shifted again on the settee, his baby belly a gorgeous curve protruding outwards. He loved the man sleeping a few feet away from him and he couldn’t wait for Harry to be his Omega truly and he couldn’t wait for their baby to be born. He was willing to do absolutely anything and everything, because he wanted it so very much and he had no intentions of giving up on Harry. He wanted Harry, he wanted their baby and he wanted Harry to want him as well. Now that it was within his grasp, he wanted a proper family of his own.
Chapter Nineteen – Tentative Confessions
Harry walked around his home, Clint close on his heels, following him, just in case. He didn’t know how he would have acted or reacted when he was on his way here. He didn’t know what he was expecting. It looked like his house, it was his house. It was stupid of him to expect bullet holes or blood splatters when he knew it had all been repaired and cleaned up for him.
He went up the stairs and to his bedroom and he looked into the en suite, where everything had happened, and he felt nothing as he looked around. Everything was clean and everything was normal. It was as if that day had never happened and he took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, calmly.
“Are you alright?” Clint asked him softly.
Harry nodded. “I’m fine. I don’t know what I was expecting, but everything is just…normal.”
“Is normal good?” Clint questioned.
Harry nodded. “Normal is brilliant. I like normal.”
Clint smiled and slipped an arm around his waist. “I’m glad that you can still see this house as your home.”
Harry smiled and looked up at Clint. “It is still my home. It helps that they never set foot in my baby’s nursery too. At least they never sullied that one special area. Though they ruined the baby blanket I bought. It was on the back of the settee downstairs. It had a bullet hole through it and blood covering it.”
Clint grimaced as he remembered the S.H.I.E.L.D agent holding out the ruined blanket to Harry. He was glad that Harry was completely unaware of the professional cleaning job that had been taken out in this house. Or the dirty boot prints that they’d found in the nursery. As far as he was concerned, and everyone else was concerned for that matter, Harry didn’t ever need to know about it. It was over and done with now and no one would ever be hurting Harry again. He swore that on his life, he’d had enough of it
“I’ll get you a new one, I promised that I would. You said the baby needs something from me, I’ll get a new blanket that I’ve given a lot of thought to.”
The smile that Harry gave him for saying that made his knees go weak. He held Harry tighter around his waist and flexed his fingers against Harry’s bump, feeling the baby within kick at his palm.
“We need to talk, Clint. There are some things that I need to tell you.” Harry said suddenly and out of the blue. “The kitchen might actually be the best place for this.”
“Are you alright?” Clint asked worriedly. “Have I done something wrong?”
Harry shook his head and smiled to reassure him. “No, you haven’t done anything wrong and yes, I’m alright. You don’t have to look so scared, but there are some things from my past that I want you to know about if we’re seriously going to make this work. There’s a reason that I’m living in America and not Britain anymore. There are reasons that I left, reasons I never wanted anyone to know. I always kept to myself, I didn’t want any friends, I didn’t want anyone coming so close to me. I wanted it that way, but now…well I can’t exactly hide it for any longer if we’re going to try for a real relationship and have a baby together.”
“Do you want the others here as well?” Clint asked.
Harry shook his head. “No. I want to tell just you first, you’re the one I’m trying to have a relationship with after all, you’re the one I’m having a baby with. So you first and then, if you react positively, then everyone else later.”
Clint nodded and he helped Harry back down the stairs and he watched as Harry made tea for the both of them. He sat at the table and was a little dismayed when Harry sat opposite him, not next to him.
“What did you want to say?” He asked. His heart thumping in his chest.
Harry took a sip of tea, took a huge breath and looked him dead in the eye.
“Do you love me?”
Clint swallowed hard and he looked like a deer in the headlights. Of all the things he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. He didn’t know what to do or what to say for the best. The very last thing he wanted was to upset Harry when he was so heavily pregnant and he feared that hearing the truth would do just that.
“It’s okay, that was very unfair of me to just blurt out, you don’t have to answer that. I think I can guess for myself from the look on your face and from your silence.” Harry sighed heavily. “Well, this makes things a little more difficult.”
“No! No, it’s just, I’m not sure what you want to hear or what answer will set you off. I don’t want to upset you and I don’t know what to say to make you happy. I just want you to be happy, Harry.”
“I want the truth. We are here to talk, Clint. We’re here to tell the truth, so I want to hear the truth from you. Do you love me for me or is it just about the baby for you? I’ll understand if it is, just please, tell me now so we can move on accordingly.”
Clint looked down at his lap and took several deep breaths. This was a situation that he’d never expected to find himself in, but he had to tell the truth. He did love Harry. He loved him and he would not lose him because of his fear at admitting it, if Harry got angry afterwards, then he’d deal with it, but if Harry wanted the truth, he was going to get it.
“I do.” He said to the table top before looking up and into those amazing eyes. “I do love you. I have for a while.”
Harry smiled so sweetly at him that it made his heart jump. He had been expecting anger after all.
“I love you too, you know.”
“Bruce said that it was your Omega genes that were making you love me, that once the baby was born then you wouldn’t want anything more to do with me.”
Harry laughed. “Bruce means well, but he’s not an Omega. He doesn’t understand as well as I do what it means to be an Omega. I have researched this to the back teeth, Clint. Omegas who only like Alphas because they are pregnant by them all say the same thing, the only thing they like about the Alpha in question is all to do with the baby, not the Alpha himself. Trust me when I say that I like you for more than just this baby or you wouldn’t even be in my house, let alone sat opposite me as we try to work out our future relationship. I wouldn’t be sat here explaining about my past, of which I was adamant that I wouldn’t even think about again, let alone tell people about, if I only liked you for the baby. I love you for who you are, please believe me when I tell you that. We had a rocky start, I know, but it was a confusing time, I was constantly afraid…being in continuous fear like that, feeling so unstable and always under threat, being in pain and unable to run away because I had a damaged leg, I felt trapped, cornered, so I lashed out like an animal. It made everything worse, so I behaved worse as a consequence. It took the intervention of the enforcers to get me back onto level ground, though the trip to my house for a few hours really, really helped to re-centre me. I do love you, Clint, you saved me, tried to care for me despite me being so difficult and hostile. I just…looking back at it all now, I can’t believe how I was behaving, but at the time, I felt completely justified in my actions. It was easy to make you my target when I was feeling so confused and angry and hurt. It made me feel better and that was totally unacceptable.”
Clint looked much happier at that and it made Harry smile. He’d had no idea that Clint had been worried about him only liking him because of their shared baby. If he had then he would have laid those concerns to rest a long time ago.
He knew himself, he knew his own mind, he would not be trying to sort out a future for himself and Clint if he had any doubts at all that he wouldn’t care for Clint after the baby was born. He had come a long way since first being impregnated, he’d come to realise a lot about himself, about the Avengers and the world that he lived in now and he understood that what had happened to him had been an accident. Clint hadn’t meant to mate him, hadn’t meant to impregnate him, but he had and he had been more than thoroughly punished for doing as such over the last several months. But despite everything, he loved this man for more than just the baby growing inside of him and he knew it, otherwise he wouldn’t even be trying to make their relationship work.
Now that he’d been told straight up that Clint did in fact love him and those budding feelings had all been let out and exposed to the world, it was time to reveal some of his biggest, deepest secrets. Hopefully when he was done, Clint was even still talking to him, but this had to be done. The chances that their baby had magic like he did were incredibly high. He had to tell Clint now and hope for the best, because he would not expose his baby to someone who would be either fearful or hateful towards them because of their magic, he’d had enough of that himself with the Dursleys.
If Clint couldn’t handle this, then he’d try to get him more comfortable with the idea within the next few months, if he failed with that or Clint became in any way hateful or violent, then he’d pack up and he’d leave, quickly. He’d go a lot further than just a few blocks away as well, he wouldn’t use his real name on the deeds of his next house and he’d ward it heavily so that he and his baby would never be found. It would kill him to leave Clint and the others who were rapidly coming to mean so much to him, but he couldn’t put his baby at risk, he wouldn’t expose his baby to anyone who acted like the Dursleys had with him and he would not stay anywhere that he and his baby were in any sort of danger.
“How strange, is strange for you, Clint?” Harry asked.
Clint blinked and pulled a thoughtful face, taking the question as a serious matter, which Harry liked. “I had Loki take over my mind with a glowing sceptre and then I fought in a battle with aliens that wanted to enslave the Earth, Harry. How can things get much stranger than that?”
Harry smiled wryly and he looked down at his hands. A larger pair cupped them, holding them firmly, offering support and comfort. Harry took strength from Clint and he decided to bite the bullet and just say it, though he was going to try to break the news into easy to digest pieces instead of just blurting it out of the blue. The chances were that Clint would not react well to having it shouted out into his face, Harry doubted anyone would react well to that, but if he took the time to explain it as best as he could first, he might have more luck.
“I was born different to most other people, Clint. I’m human!” He assured the man opposite him as Clint’s blue eyes widened comically. “I am human. I’m an Omega human, but I’m a different sort of human.”
“Okay, is this a…genetic difference?” Clint asked seriously.
Harry nodded with a smile, liking that Clint was thinking this through intelligently, like the Agent that he was trained to be.
“Yes, I got this difference from my Mum and Dad, who both also had this genetic difference, but Clint, there is every chance that our baby will take this genetic difference from me, despite you not having it. It’s a very, very strong gene. The chances that our baby will also have this gene is at least ninety percent, hell, maybe even more. There’s no stopping it or getting rid of it. It’s a part of who we are, we’re born this way and there is nothing that we, or anyone else, can do about it.”
“Is it…is it dangerous? Harmful? Is that why you didn’t want anyone to mate or bond to you? So that you wouldn’t pass on this genetic difference to any babies you’d have? Are you going to be okay? What is it?”
“It’s not a dangerous gene, it isn’t harmful, it won’t shorten our lifespan, in fact it’s quite the opposite! It just makes us, well, different to the vast majority of people who live here on Earth and it has nothing to do with why I didn’t want to mate or bond to anyone, that was purely a decision based on my mentality and personal preference, not because of my genetics.”
Clint took a calming breath and he nodded. “Okay. I can deal with this information. What is it that makes you, and possibly our baby, different?”
“I have magic, Clint.” Harry said softly, watching Clint’s reaction and trying to read what the Alpha would say or do next.
“Magic?” Clint finally repeated in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
Harry nodded. “It’s how I managed to escape the explosion in my previous house. I know, and I suspect that everyone else does too, that I wouldn’t have had the time to get out of that house before the C4 bomb was detonated. I used magic to get myself out. It’s how I managed to keep myself and Sean safe in that compound. There’s no way that I could have picked Sean up in this condition. No, I used magic to help me carry him and magic to conceal us so that those who had taken us couldn’t find us.”
“Magic like Loki’s sceptre?”
A hard edge had entered Clint’s voice and Harry tensed his body.
“No. My magic doesn’t come from an object, Clint. I was born this way, as my parents were born with the gene, as our baby could be born with magic too.”
“Loki was born with magic as well.”
Harry breathed out deeply. “I understand that this is difficult for you to absorb, that it brings about painful memories for you that you’d rather not think about, but please stop comparing me to Loki. I am not insane, I am not a cruel person who wants to rule the world. Just because we both have magic, does not mean that we’re the same person or have the same thoughts or ideals. You might as well try and say that we’re the same just because we both have black hair! Our magic doesn’t make us evil people, that was all Loki and his own thoughts and mentality. I’m a different person and I would appreciate it if you actually realised that instead of trying to compare us together. It’s very insulting.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Clint demanded.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble I could get into for telling you now?” Harry asked back calmly, trying to keep control of his awakening anger. If he got angry and started shouting then it would only serve to feed Clint’s anger and then this entire situation would rapidly explode out of control. He had to control himself and hope that by keeping calm that he could calm Clint down and get him thinking rationally about this instead of remembering his painful past experiences with magic. Harry cursed Loki for making an already difficult situation that much worse.
Clint blinked. “You could get into trouble for telling me?”
Harry nodded. “I’m not the only one born with magic and it’s not a gene that’s exclusive to me or my family. There are thousands of magical people living in Britain alone. There aren’t too many of them in America, the Salem witch trials frightened them all away, not everyone knew how to cast the spells to save their lives if by some chance they were caught. There are strict laws to govern us and to keep us safe though, the most serious of which is the Statute of Secrecy. We have a government, hospitals, schools, magical law enforcement and a separate prison to keep everyone with magic in line. I really do not want to have my baby taken from me at birth and thrown into that prison for the rest of my life, Clint.”
“It would be a life sentence?” Clint asked with a frown.
Harry nodded seriously. “To tell anyone without magic themselves about magic, to reveal to them about the magical world or to expose them to magical creatures is a straight up life sentence, Clint and when they say life, they mean life. I’d be there until the day I died. I could get into serious trouble for telling you, but it is acceptable to tell a serious partner about magic and as we are having a baby, this instance might be overlooked if everything goes well. I told you about this because I don’t want to lie to you, I don’t want our relationship to be based on lies. I love you and I want a future with you, the only way I could see that happening was if I told you the truth. If I shared some of the biggest, deepest secrets that I’m hiding from you and from everyone else. Not even S.H.I.E.L.D knows about my magic, Clint. They have no clue that Earth has magical people as well, at the moment they think it’s just an Asgardian thing, but it isn’t.”
“So you aren’t some sort of lost Asgardian who is actually a thousand years old?”
Harry laughed. “No. I’m a human, I was born in a hospital in London and I am twenty-one years old. Though there are myths that our magic came from the gods of old legend, but that would have been millennia ago, even before Thor’s great-grandfather’s time. The legend behind magic is that a handful of Asgardian warriors fell in love with mortal women from Midgard, or rather Earth. They had children and those babies inherited their Fathers’ Asgardian magic. And thus magic was first introduced to Earth and to humans, as those children had their own babies and the magic was passed on another generation and so on and so on. But that’s just legend really, no one has a clue really as to how it happened. But that one theory makes the most sense, though until recently, as in Thor and Loki coming to Earth, people thought that the Asgardians were just myths as well.”
“You hinted that you’d have a longer lifespan? Or at least I think that’s what you were hinting at.”
Harry bobbed his head. “Most magical people live until they’re in their mid one hundreds. Average is about a hundred and sixty. But of course there are always exceptions. Some live until they’re well into their two hundreds, some will die naturally at a hundred and two and we are in no way immortal. We can be hurt, we can be killed. If I was shot through the head or heart, I’d die as easily as anyone else.”
“Why didn’t you get out of the…” Clint shut his mouth and Harry grimaced.
“Why didn’t I use my magic to save myself when I was first abducted?” Harry asked for him and he sighed. “You need to understand that magic can’t do everything and in certain situations, it won’t work at all. I can’t make money, I can’t heal the sick or solve world hunger. I’m just a twenty-one year old man, who lost everyone he’s ever loved or cared for, is currently pregnant, who has a few magic hacks to make life a little easier. You need to understand that magic without a tool to focus it is incredibly difficult to do, Clint. People a hundred years older than I am can’t use magic without a special tool to help them channel their magic. I didn’t have that tool with me when I was abducted, back then I never took it to work with me, it was too risky with the random searches and I wouldn’t be able to explain it away if one of the guards found it. So I always left it at home and besides, being tortured as I was…being in continuous pain, being starved and being that tired even before they abducted me and so messed up mentally to the point where I was seeing things that weren’t there and started talking to people who weren’t there.” Harry shivered as he was taken back to that awful place and he took great comfort from Clint when he took a hold of his hands again and started brushing his thumbs soothingly over the backs of his hands. “I never would have been able to use my magic in that situation, Clint. Magic needs conscious thought and a level of control to manipulate it to the will of the user and I couldn’t even think straight. I was blurring what was reality and what was just in my head, even if I did have the tool I needed to use my magic, there would have been no chance that I could have gotten myself out because I wouldn’t have been able to use it.”
“What tool do you need?” Clint asked and he was back to being tense.
“It’s not a sceptre.” Harry replied mildly. “Magical people here on Earth use wands, small enough to be inconspicuous to a degree and easy to carry on the body without alerting anyone without magic to the fact that we have them. Different people react differently with all sorts of natural woods and cores. The length and pliability of the wand also factors in, just the merest half an inch in the wrong direction can be the difference between being able to cast spells perfectly, or having them go seriously, fatally wrong.”
He stood up and lifted his shirt, pushing his jeans down to show the top of his long, slim thigh holster. He used his thumb to roll the top of the holster out of the way and he pulled out the slender, fragile looking stick of carved, polished wood and he laid it on the table in front of him.
“This is my wand. Supple, holly wood, phoenix tail feather core and its eleven inches. It works perfectly for me and it took me a while to find the right match.” Harry smiled at the memory of his first trip to Ollivanders.
“Can I…can I touch it?” Clint asked, staring at the wand curiously.
“Yes, this wand has been with me through everything, the best of times and the worst, as long as you don’t purposefully try to snap it, it’s very durable.”
Clint picked up the slender piece of wood and touched every ridge and played it over and around in his hands, staring at it, studying it.
“It looks like a carved, polished stick of wood.” Clint said curiously.
Harry smiled. “I’m sure it does to you, you’re not magical so it won’t react to your touch. It feels warm to me. It’s always warm when I touch it, it represents comfort and safety for me. I can protect myself with that polished piece of wood. I haven’t taken it off since I was abducted the first time. It’s why, when I was abducted the second time, I could hide myself a lot more easily. Most wands are quite long, so the holsters can only really fit on the forearm or the thigh, if they’re too long and go over a joint then the wand could easily snap with natural movement, so most people just keep them poking out of a pocket or even on a table close to hand, but with everything I’ve been through, I like keeping my wand on my body. The only place my wand can fit comfortably is down the length of my thigh, my forearm isn’t long enough for the holster to fit. That wand means everything to me and it is one of the only ways that I can protect myself in this condition as I can’t easily fight off an attacker in hand to hand fighting.”
“The attack on the Tower. Those men are still gibbering about red lights, was that…from this?” Clint asked looking at the stick of wood.
Harry nodded. “Stunner spells. It knocks out whoever’s hit with them for a length of time depending on how powerful the spell that’s cast is. It shows itself as a red light and it can knock a person off of their feet and again, depending on the power behind the spell, it can knock them back several feet before rendering them unconscious.”
“So they were actually telling the truth.” Clint smirked. “We’ve been putting them through all sorts of different psychological evaluations.”
Harry smiled a little guiltily. “I had to keep our baby safe. If I hadn’t been pregnant then I would have definitely fought with my body instead of with magic as much as I could.”
“Why?” Clint asked. “You have a weapon that no one else expects you to have, why wouldn’t you use it right from the off?”
Harry looked down and then back up. “Magic holds a deep sadness for me, Clint. A lot of things have happened in the past that have given me a lot of bad memories and nightmares. As I said, there is a reason that I’m here and not still in Britain.”
“I’ve had my own share of nightmares, Harry. I can’t say that I understand about magic, but I understand about running from past memories.”
Clint’s hands tightened comfortingly on his hands and Harry smiled.
“There was a massive magical war that started before I was even born. People went missing, they turned up dead, their bodies untouched, unblemished, no heart problems, nothing wrong with them at all, they just seemingly dropped dead.”
“I’ve heard about that.” Clint nodded. “It’s a medical mystery and affects only a small amount of people. No one could find a trigger for it or what was wrong.”
“They were killed with magic, Clint. There’s one curse, it leaves no mark on the body, inside or out, it just kills you, instantly as it wipes out the life force of the victim with no physical signs. There’s no protection against it, no counter curse, nothing that anyone can do. Those people didn’t just drop dead because of their genes or chromosomes, they were killed with that one curse. The war raged on, people fought on opposite sides. My parents happened to be on one side of this war, fighting against a man who called himself The Dark Lord. He wanted to rule the wizarding world as well as eradicate everyone who didn’t have magic, which is a massive majority of the world’s population. He had a group of followers who wanted the same ‘purified’ world as he did, but other followers were blackmailed into following him or cursed into doing it, much like how Loki controlled you with the sceptre.”
“Is that how your parents were killed?” Clint asked gently.
Harry smiled sadly. “When my Mum fell pregnant with me, she and Dad went into hiding, we have all sorts of wards and spells to hide ourselves. I was fifteen months old when he finally found us. One of my Dad’s oldest friends betrayed him, sold him out to save his own skin, so the Dark Lord knew where to find us.” Harry said, trying to keep control of himself, but still his voice hitched.
Clint moved then and came around the table to sit next to him, holding him close and wrapping his arms around Harry’s shoulders, letting Harry bury his face into his chest.
“He killed them both with that killing curse. My Dad first. He tried to give my Mum a chance to get me out of the house, he hadn’t even picked up his wand. He was unarmed and defenceless and still he went up against Voldemort knowing that he was going to die, just to give Mum more time. It didn’t work. Voldemort killed him and stepped over his body, he came up the stairs and he gave my Mum a choice. Step aside and let him kill me, or she could die like her Husband. She refused to get out of the way, she begged him not to kill me. Her last words to him were ‘Please, not Harry. I’ll do anything, take me instead. Not Harry.’ He killed her right in front of me.” Harry took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around Clint to comfort himself as he tried to suppress the tears he felt burning in his eyes. “She begged him for mercy, but he had none to give. He killed her and then he went to kill me as well, a fifteen month old baby. But because my Mother had willingly sacrificed herself, without any thought for herself or her own life, I was protected by her sacrifice. His curse hit me and rebounded upon him and he was temporarily defeated. I was physically marked forever.”
Clint looked at him at that and Harry pulled a sad face as he lifted his thick fringe to show off the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, cancelling the glamour charm that usually hid it from curious Muggles.
“It was where he aimed his curse. It’s a cursed scar. It…it has been a source of bad memories, torment and even pain and I can’t get rid of it. I can cover it up, but it’s always going to be there.” He said sadly.
Clint bent forward and kissed it softly, surprising Harry, but deeply touching him all the same.
“What happened to that man, Voldemort?” Clint asked.
“I killed him.” Harry answered tonelessly. “When I was eighteen.”
Clint said nothing, but he held Harry tighter. He didn’t understand how someone like Harry, a tiny, delicate looking Omega, could have killed someone at eighteen. Harry had been through a hell of a lot in his life. No one deserved what Harry had been through. No Omega should have been forced to do what Harry had done.
“The war started again in two thousand and four, when Voldemort came back with a magical ritual. I was just fourteen then. The wizarding world was plunged into terror, you couldn’t even trust your own family because you didn’t know if they were cursed or not. Everyone was asking personal questions to one another, just to make sure that they were who they said they were. It…it was a terrible time, Clint, the stress and the pressure was unbelievable.”
“Why were you even involved?” Clint demanded.
“Because some whack job made a prophecy that I was the only one who would be able to defeat Voldemort. Voldemort believed it, which is why he wanted to kill me as a baby. He didn’t want my parents, they were just in the way.” Harry said, one tear finally breaking free and falling down his cheek. “It’s always been about me, he was obsessed with killing me because of that prophecy and he wouldn’t rest until he had killed me. It turned into a kill or be killed situation and so I did what I had been trapped into doing. I killed him in a battle that destroyed the one place that I had called home, all of my friends were killed, I was almost killed myself. I couldn’t deal with the memories or the pain. I had no one left, no family, no friends, they’d all been killed because of one man and a prophecy. I came to America to find a new start. I didn’t want friends, I didn’t want anyone getting close to me, I just wanted to stay inside and wallow.”
“What made you finally join S.H.I.E.L.D?” Clint asked.
“I thought that I needed to get out a bit more. I recognised that it was unhealthy for me to stay inside all day, every day and suffer through the painful memories of the war and everything that I’d lost on my own. I thought getting an easy intern job would do me some good.” He snorted harshly. “Some fucking good it did me too! A year and a half in, I was abused, overworked, not eating enough, mainlining coffee, I still had no contact with anyone because my colleagues hated me just because I was an Omega and to top it off I was kidnapped and tortured because my lazy supervisor gave me all of his work to do!” Harry calmed himself down and turned more to Clint, touching their knees together. “I just wanted someone to talk to.” He admitted softly. “I was so alone. I didn’t have anyone to talk to and no one at work would even look at me and Agent Nasri just shouted at me all the time. Agent Coulson was the first person to speak to me like an actual person in two years. I just wanted someone to talk to, I needed human contact. I felt so lost, so isolated and alone. The war ruined me, Clint. It took absolutely everything from me. I ran from Britain because I couldn’t deal with the emptiness that had become my life.”
“You have me now. You have me and the guys, they all care for you too.” Clint assured him. “Plus we have our baby! We can’t forget our baby, this little one is going to need your undivided attention every single hour of every day for the next several months! You’re not alone anymore, Harry. You may not think you have, but you’ve moved on from the war now.”
“How can I have moved on? It took everything away!” Harry said angrily.
“It may have taken everything away, but you’re rebuilding something from the nothing and that’s a difficult thing to do, but you’re doing it and I think deep down you know that those you lost in the war would approve of you moving on.”
Harry swallowed and his fingers flexed into Clint’s shirt.
“I think we can stop our talk here for today. Thank you for telling me all of this, Harry. I understand a lot more about why you reacted in certain ways and why some of the things I’ve said or done have triggered your upset or anger. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about these painful things.”
Harry smiled and just held Clint closer. There was still a hell of a lot more to talk about, but for now, he’d done as he’d said he would. He’d told Clint about his magic, that their baby would most likely have magic too and he’d told him about the war that had brought him to America in the first place. Clint was likely to have questions once his mind digested what he’d been told, but for now, they were alright. Clint hadn’t gotten seriously angry, he hadn’t gotten violent and he’d listened and Harry had honestly never felt closer to this man. He sniffed hard and brushed his forehead against Clint’s shirt. He really, really loved this man and if Clint could accept all of him, as he was, scars, bad memories and nightmares, magic and temperamental outbursts, then he would seriously consider bonding to Clint. He smiled to himself, he really liked the idea of them becoming a real bonded pair, but only time would tell if it would actually become a reality or not. He had to give Clint time to get over the shock and digest the information first, then he’d see what he’d do from there.
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Harry meticulously made sure that everything was ready for the birth of his baby. He made sure that all of the blankets he had were washed again and folded in the dresser drawer. He’d washed all of the little white clothes he’d bought and all of the nappies and wipes were safely stacked under the changing table. He’d washed and remade the cot several times and it was folded down and ready to receive the new baby.
He kept airing out the room and he tried not to clean it of dust too often. He knew all about the dangers and risks of being overly clean after all from the Dursleys and Petunia’s surgically clean kitchen that always stunk of harsh chemicals.
It was a rare day where he was actually on his own. Since the attack and abduction the other week he’d barely had enough peace to just sit and think, there was always someone there with him and if they weren’t there in person, they were calling him to ask how he was. Even Captain Luke and his enforcer team dropped by on him occasionally when they were off duty or just in the area.
The only one he hadn’t seen recently was Clint. It had been several days since he’d told the man about his magic and so far, he hadn’t heard from him again, but on the other hand, neither did S.H.I.E.L.D or the rest of the Avengers team know about his magic, so Clint had kept his secret to himself for now. Harry calmed himself by reasoning that Clint was just thinking everything through and that everything would turn out fine in the end.
He took a deep breath and made his way down to the kitchen so he could make himself something to eat. He was a little under a week away from being a full eight months pregnant and he was starting to feel down about some of the permanent effects of his pregnancy. The always sore ankles, the unending back pain and the continuous aches. He sighed, it was getting him really down and tired now, especially with all his other injuries too, left over from the war and from his torture and the two abductions.
He’d had enough of being pregnant, he just wanted to have this baby and go back to normal already. Five weeks, that’s all he had left to survive. He’d come through seven months and three weeks of hell, he could survive five more weeks, he was sure, but the effects of being pregnant for so long were now dragging him down.
He ate his sandwich and drank down a pint of water. It was a little boring just staying here all day every day on his own. His home was spotless, Sean had gone out shopping with Joe and he had nothing to do until a little later, when the Avengers were coming for a visit.
Rubbing his belly, Harry frowned as a painful spasm went through to his back. He rubbed at it and cursed his pregnancy, just five weeks, that’s all he had left to survive. He prayed that the baby came on his due date and didn’t go over, that would probably be his worst nightmare.
His phone rang and Harry answered it, happy for the distraction.
“Hello.”
‘Hey, Harry.’
“What’s up, Clint?” He asked as casually as he could manage, even though his heart was thumping in his chest. This was the first time that Clint had contacted him since Harry had told him about his magic. He was naturally very nervous and apprehensive.
‘I just wanted to know if it was alright for me to come over before the others, so we can talk privately.’
“Of course.” Harry answered.
‘Alright, I’ll see you soon.’
He tried to calm himself as Clint seemed a little distant and coming over before the others seemed a little ominous to Harry, but he sucked it up. Whatever Clint decided, he’d have to accept it. He couldn’t force Clint to do anything that he didn’t want to and if this was a deal breaker, then there was nothing that he could do about it. He couldn’t get rid of his magic and he couldn’t get rid of their baby’s magic either. If Clint couldn’t accept it, then there was nothing that he could do to fix it.
He sighed as he put the phone back in the cradle and he nervously fluffed up the cushions as he waited anxiously for Clint to arrive. It wouldn’t take him long.
He swallowed nervously and he steeled himself for the coming few hours. He swore to himself that whatever Clint decided, he would accept it with dignity and he’d allow the man to make up his own mind without guilting him into anything. He was going to listen and he was going to accept what was going to happen in these next few hours.
The door knocked and after a few deep breaths to calm himself, Harry opened the front door and smiled at Clint, who looked as nervous as Harry felt.
“Come on in, do you want a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Harry took a very deep breath and shut the front door. It wasn’t a good sign to begin with. He went into the living room, rubbing his back hard.
He sat next to Clint on the settee and looked at him. He smiled, but it did come out a little strained and more like a grimace.
“You don’t need to look so worried.” Clint told him, scooting closer and wrapping an arm around him. “I’ve been thinking a lot this last week and I feel like I could kick myself for taking so long to think on something that’s not really something that should have taken so long to think about in the first place. Of all the things I’ve gone through and the strangeness that’s come about from being in the Avengers team, magic really isn’t something that I can even complain about. You’re not evil, you’re not remotely insane or even really violent or aggressive. You’re normal, completely normal, you just have magic.”
Harry felt like he could cry from relief as he threw his arms around Clint and hugged him tight.
“I’ve been so worried!” He admitted. “I promised that I’d accept whatever you decided, but I think it would have crushed me if you had decided to have nothing to do with us after finding out about our magic. There’s no way to get rid of it.”
“I wouldn’t want you to get rid of it, Harry. You said that it’s a part of you and you’re only alive because of your magic. I kept thinking about the day your house was blown up, before we knew you’d gotten out alive. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards about you not going up the stairs and finding the C4 wired up there, about you not getting out and being caught up in the resulting explosion. To find out that you wouldn’t have gotten out if you didn’t have magic…it’s all I’ve been able to really think about.”
“I would have died long before I even came to America without my magic, Clint. I…remember a few months ago, Bruce sat me at the table in Tony’s kitchen and gave me that psychiatrist bullshit?”
“Yeah, I remember. You’d seen so many people die, all those close to you had died and you got very upset and ran to your room. I wasn’t happy about Bruce upsetting you enough to make you that distressed.”
Harry sighed and played with Clint’s shirt.
“I told you about the war in our last talk, that was where I saw so many people die…it was carnage, the battle was held in the grounds of a school of all places and so many people, some of them just kids, died in the hours that the battle raged on. I was in the thick of everything, fighting, trying to survive, but I never mentioned to you how many times I would have died if I hadn’t had magic. True, I probably wouldn’t have been caught up in a magical war in the first place, but I only found out about magic when I was eleven.”
“I think you told Bruce that you would have died several times before you were thirteen. They couldn’t all have been between the ages of eleven and thirteen, surely?”
Harry shook his head. “The relatives that kicked me out when I was seventeen and I haven’t seen again since…remember them? They weren’t exactly the most pleasant of people.”
“Are you trying to say that they abused you as a child?” Clint demanded furiously. “Bruce had suspicions, but we couldn’t work out if there was any truth to it or not.”
Harry smiled wryly. “Funny enough they hated me for my magic. They couldn’t accept that I wasn’t as completely normal as they were, so they hated me for it.”
“Now I feel even worse for taking so long to come and talk to you again. I can’t believe someone would hate you at all, let alone because of something you couldn’t control.”
Harry felt so happy and he threw a leg over Clint’s lap and buried his face in his chest. His back spasmed again and he nuzzled his face into Clint to ride it out.
A large hand held the back of his thigh, very close to his bum, but Harry didn’t care. He just rested against Clint more fully as a muscular arm wrapped around his back. They stayed there for a very long while, Harry was far too comfortable to move and Clint was very happy to just sit and hold him. At least until someone hammered hell out of his front door.
“It’s already open, Thor!” He shouted out.
“You almost put the door through!” Harry heard Steve chastised.
“I wished to be sure that our friend Harry heard our arrival!” Thor insisted innocently.
“My neighbours heard your arrival.” Harry laughed as they came into the living room.
“You two look cosy.” Tony grinned.
“We are.” Clint replied.
Harry snuggled in tighter before kissing Clint and pushing himself upright.
“Can I get anyone drinks?”
“Coffee for me.” Tony replied. “Are you sure you can manage to get it?”
Harry glared at him. “I’m perfectly fine to get some coffee.” He said with a frown as he hefted himself up off of the settee and went into the kitchen.
He made several cups of coffee and two cups of herbal tea, for himself and Bruce, and carried them on a tray into the living room. Steve immediately took the tray from him and placed it on the low coffee table. Harry didn’t complain or even scowl, he couldn’t bend down far enough to get the tray onto the table without spilling anything and he knew he couldn’t, so he was happy for the help, at least just this once.
“So, we thought you’d like to know that several of those people from the warehouse spilled their guts about everything that was going on.” Tony said as soon as he got his mug of coffee into his hands.
Steve sighed and Clint rolled his eyes.
“You said you’d wait until everyone was settled!” Steve chastised without any real heat.
“I am settled.” Tony answered, waving the hand that wasn’t holding his coffee to show how relaxed he was.
“Harry isn’t even sitting down.” Steve told him.
“I’m fine.” Harry insisted. “Tell me what they’ve said. Is anyone else going to be coming after me?”
“No, no one else will be going after you. They knew that you knew about the warehouse and that you knew exactly where the S.H.I.E.L.D agents watching them were.” Tony told him. “We found a double agent in the warehouse…one from your own office.”
Harry sunk down next to Clint as his knees threatened to fold in on him and he took a breath.
“The agent saw Nasri bullying me and pushing his work onto me and he knew that I’d seen those reports.”
“Bingo.” Tony said with a point to Harry.
Harry shook his head. “I can’t believe that…it’s too…too…”
“Cheap, under budgeted, criminal movie-esque?” Tony supplied and Harry laughed.
“A bit. Who was it?”
“Agent Sampson.”
Harry’s jaw clenched. “He was one of the ones who was halfway decent to me, but even he groped me when I was on a preheat.”
“We never saw any sexual harassment reports.”
Harry sneered. “I always told Nasri about those instances. It figures that he wouldn’t have filed them properly, if he was even writing them down in the first place and not just doodling. He never looked particularly interested when I came to him to complain that my colleagues were making inappropriate gestures and remarks to me or that it turned into actual harassment when I was on a preheat.”
“I really hate that guy.” Tony said before drinking some more coffee.
“I hated him too. I hope to be moved to a different department when I go back.”
“Wait, you’re going back to S.H.I.E.L.D?” Clint asked.
Harry nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll be going back to work a month after the baby’s born.”
“What are you going to do with the baby while at work?” Bruce asked.
“Fury’s already said that I can take the baby to work with me.” Harry said with a nod. “I’ve got my own office, it’ll be easy to take what I need with me every day and Agent Coulson has promised me that my workload is going to be normal for a junior agent and I’m going to start on half days for the first year after the baby’s born and then normal nine to five shifts after that.”
“That’ll be good. Getting yourself back to normalcy. If you can call having a baby normalcy.” Tony told him.
Harry smiled and placed a hand on his belly. “It’s normal enough.” He insisted. “I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”
“Do you not want me looking after the baby?” Clint asked as mildly as he could manage.
Harry turned and kissed him. “That’s not the issue.” Harry insisted. “The issue is that an emergency could be called at any moment and the last thing you’d need is being forced to stay behind while your team are out risking their lives because you’ve got the baby.”
“That’s all it is?”
“Of course. If you want to do things differently however, I’m open to options. Maybe for the first half of the week you have the baby and if there happens to be an emergency you come and bring the baby to me first and then go tackle the bad guy. I just thought that if the world is being threatened, then that’s more important. If there’s someone threatening the city again, then it’s better for you guys to deal with it before it gets to the point where me and the baby are actually in danger.”
“There is nothing more important to me than you or the baby.” Clint told him seriously. “I want to help look after the baby.”
Harry smiled. “Trust me, you’ll get plenty of opportunity to do that. As I said, I’ll be off work for the first month and on half days for the first year. You’ll see plenty of the baby and you’ll be the first one I thrust the baby onto when I want some time to myself or even just a bath.”
Clint smiled and pulled him back into his position resting against him. Harry shifted into a more comfortable position and he rested his head on Clint’s chest with a yawn.
“Did you miss your afternoon nap?” Tony teased him.
“No. I’m just always tired these days.” Harry replied. “I could sleep for twenty hours a day and the four that I’m awake, I’d still be tired. I’m ready to have this baby now and just have it all over and done with already.”
“Four weeks and four days.” Clint said as his hand rubbed at Harry’s belly.
“Until my due date.” Harry reminded him. “It would be just my luck now to go over my due date.”
“Don’t borrow trouble.” Steve told him with a kind smile.
Harry grinned. “It’s a little difficult not to when my track record is against me, but the pregnancy is getting me down a little. I’m not fond of being limited or unable to do things that I once found so easy. Getting out of bed is a struggle, getting off a chair or out of the bath is very nearly impossible without help of some sort, climbing the stairs, standing up for too long, walking too far. I just really want this over and done with. I’m ready for it to be over and done with.”
“Have you got everything?” Natasha asked.
Harry nodded. He and Natasha had been getting on better since the enforcers had gotten involved and the new S.H.I.E.L.D training which incorporated Omega agents had helped her immensely. Harry was willing to allow sleeping dogs to lie where Natasha was concerned and she was making an effort to understand him, so they weren’t grating on one another through misunderstanding any more.
“I’ve got everything I need and more and it’s all set up and ready too. If I wash those baby clothes or the cot set any more they’ll have holes in them before the baby’s even born.” He sighed. “I’ve got everything cleared away, I know where everything is, the bottles have all been sterilised ready and I’m so prepared that I’m getting antsy about the wait.”
“Maybe you should come to the tower until the birth then.” Tony offered. “I’m not one to get in the way of your hard earned independence, but if you need a distraction before you ruin several thousand dollars’ worth of baby paraphernalia before the baby’s born, my place is always open to you.”
“And ruin your expensive carpets when I go into labour in your living room?” Harry asked with a grin.
“I don’t care about the carpets.” Tony insisted. “I’ll just buy new ones. We’ve all come to like you, Harry and we want you to be safe and happy. With blueberry muffins.”
Harry laughed. “Oh so that’s the real reason you want me back in the tower. You’ve been missing my muffins.”
“My usual coffee house muffins pale so significantly to your own that I haven’t even been able to enjoy them. You’ve ruined me for muffins. I think on that basis you owe me muffins.”
Harry grinned and he relaxed in the company of these several people. He promised to make Tony muffins as he cuddled with Clint and he basked in this happiness. He was going to have to tell the Avengers team about magic, the war and what had happened to him soon, and by extension Fury and Coulson too, but for now, he was very happy and content to stay exactly where he was and luxuriate in the comfort of being with people that he cared about…it was nice having friends again after being so alone for so long.
He would never forget Ron or Hermione. Or Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Luna, Neville, Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys. They would always hold a part of his heart. They would always occupy a dark, sad portion of his mind and the memories that had all been tinged with the sadness of their deaths, but he was finally moving on.
Clint had been right, he’d been whittled down to absolutely nothing, he’d been bare bones, squashed underfoot and mistreated, severely unhappy, lonely and desperate for any affection. He’d been at rock bottom and he had stood up again despite the oppression and he had started to build himself and his life back up from that nothingness and there was nothing wrong with doing so. Just because he alone had survived the war did not mean that he had to spend the rest of his life in misery. He could be happy, he could have fun, he could have a life and a family of his own. It was alright for him to move on and that was what he was doing, with his baby and with Clint and even with the Avengers team. They were his friends, they weren’t going to replace the ones that he had tragically and prematurely lost, but it was absolutely fine for him to make new friends, to carry on with his life, to be happy. He realised that now.
It had taken him being abducted and tortured and being impregnated without his knowledge for the track to be lain down and it had taken these several people, including the absent Pepper, Director Fury and Agent Coulson, to drag him down said track, often against his will. But he had made it down that track and he had come off the other end a stronger, happier person and it was all thanks to the guiding hands of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. He owed them so much and he’d be forever grateful, now if he’d only give birth so that he could finally hold his saving grace in his arms, everything in his life would be absolutely perfect.
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A/N: So this chapter is one of the last ones for this fic…I estimate that there are only going to be two more after this chapter and then we’ll be all done! Ready to post up some new Avengers crossovers, or maybe Supernatural crossovers, who knows, though the Bruce/Harry fic has definitely been ready to post for some months now.
That’s it for now, lovelies. I hope that you’ve all enjoyed this chapter, I’ll be seeing you soon with the next one,
StarLight Massacre. X
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Damaged Bodies, Growing Lives, Building Families