**Request for tessalucy where Aunt May dies and Peter is adopted by the Bartons. Enter some really sweet and open conversations with Peter's newest siblings. Enjoy!**

"-And this is your room," Clint said, throwing open the door at the end of the hall. It had been Laura's room before this - they'd already repainted it and took all the knitting stuff out of the corner - and now it was a soft blue. Like Peter's old room at the apartment.

"Thanks," Peter said quietly. "I like it."

The teen threw his backpack up onto the bed and flopped down next to it. In the end, it had been decided that Peter would do best at the Barton farm. They had space, and other kids for him to hang out with, and Clint and Laura were parents. They knew how this whole thing was supposed to go.

"I'll let you get settled, okay?"

Clint shut the door behind him as he left, taking just a moment to breath deeply and relax. He loved Peter and all his craziness, but this whole situation had him frustrated. Peter wasn't the bubbly teen he knew. He was being moody and mean and he'd snapped at Laura in the car.

That was just grief, right?

But it had been months since May's death. It'd been 3 weeks since Clint and Laura were approved to adopt Peter, and 2 since he'd been officially in their care.

And nothing was getting better. Peter was still closed off and if Clint didn't know any better, he'd say the teen was bordering into angry. Was he unhappy? Would he rather he went into some fostering program, or a year-long court fight for Tony to get custody? Couldn't he see that this was the best option right now, and the whole team was just trying to make this difficult time a little easier for Peter?

Apparently not. Clint straightened up and headed back downstairs to help Laura with dinner.

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Clint called upstairs for Peter to join them for dinner. There was no response, and Clint sighed. He grabbed his phone and texted the teen.

Dinner is ready, come down to eat with us.

The tell-tale bubbles of Peter typing a response popped up, but after a couple minutes, they disappeared and no new messages came in. Clint could feel that pit of anger well up in his stomach. He was trying to do the right thing, but he was done being nice to the kid. If he was going to stay here, he was going to be grateful. Clint stomped up the stairs, ignoring Laura's shouts for him to leave the situation alone.

"Peter?" Clint yelled, none too quietly, when he got to the door. "You open this door right now and come down stairs."

"I'm not hungry!" Peter shouted back.

Clint threw open the door. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not hungry!" Peter said again, turning to look at Clint in the doorway. "Get out of my room."

"Your room?" Clint shouted back. "This was Laura's room before you showed, kid, so don't get cocky about it now!"

"I didn't ask to come here," Peter shouted. "I didn't ask for May to get sick, okay?"

"Yeah, neither did we! We didn't ask for that, or for you, or for any of this attitude!"

Peter's body jerked backwards, and before Clint could say anything else, Peter had dove out the window. "Well, fuck," the archer sighed. "That's on me, then."

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Clint and Laura sat at an empty table, not saying anything, just robotically moving food from their plate to their mouths.

"You shouted at him." Laura finally broke the silence, looking over her fork at Clint's bowed head.

Clint took his time to swallow his bite before he took a drink of water, wiped his mouth, and looked up at his wife. She was the perfect image of a calm fury, her whole body relaxed, but her eyes hard and fiery. "I did. It was a mistake, I was feeling a little upset before this all happened."

Laura hummed. "The kids went out to look for him, you know. I didn't send them away."

Clint didn't know that, and he didn't know what to say, so he stayed quiet.

"Well, great, I'm so glad we took in Peter so you could be an ass to him. You go find that boy, and make this right, or I swear to the Gods above, I will fight for Tony to take custody. I will fight against you, babe, because right now you are being a real dick."

Clint nodded, then got up. "I'll go look, okay?"

"You do that," Laura said. "Don't come back until you fixed this."

The farm was huge, but Clint knew Peter well enough to know he'd go to the tree line just beyond the yard. Peter loved climbing trees - he once told the team about a time when he got in trouble in Central Park for climbing a tree and the police had to drag him home, but May wasn't home yet, so they had let him go with a warning.

There was a jolt of realization that Peter might have found the treehouse Clint built for the kids.

That was the first place he'd look, then. As soon as he got there, he noticed the rope ladder was pulled up, meaning at least one of the kids was holed up in there. Clint made quick work of scaling the tree, carefully shifting his weight so he wouldn't make too much noise. He peeked his head over the edge of the small, uneven window, and-

Lila and Cooper were laying next to Peter, who was holding them with his arms, and Nate was asleep in his lap. The teen was talking in low tones, and Clint strained to hear what he was saying.

"-but she didn't work on my birthday. It was the one day she always took off, even if she couldn't make it work for Christmas," Peter was saying, emotion choking his voice. "But she was always there for my birthday. I think I just miss her, ya know? I miss her voice. I have this voicemail I kept on my phone of her voice, but I keep forgetting what it sounded like and that's really scary."

Lila moved a small hand to brush Peter's cheek. "Do you hate it here with Daddy?"

"No," Peter said after a moment. "I really like your Daddy, Lils, I just... I feel guilty. Like I'm forgetting May's voice and starting this new life when- when I don't- uh, when I don't deserve it."

Lila shook her head again. "But you do deserve it because you're sad and you do a lot for everyone else, right? So now that you're here, you can be happy again."

Peter let out a sad laugh, but it was almost like a whine. "Maybe. I feel bad for yelling at your Daddy."

Before either one of the kids could say anything about that, Clint scrambled through the window and was kneeling in front of Peter. "Hey, Peter."

"Hi, Clint." Peter looked down at his shoes and opened his mouth, no doubt to apologize, but Clint cut him off.

"I'm sorry, Peter. I let my emotions get the best of me earlier, and I said things I'm not proud of. I said things that weren't- aren't even true." Clint sighed. "Laura and I want you here so badly, Peter. Laura, she loves you. She just threatened to take you away from here if I didn't come find you."

Peter laughed. "I'm really sorry, Clint, I wasn't trying to-"

"Hey, no, no, I'm sorry Peter. I love you, and I love having you here, but I am so worried and scared that I'm not helping you. That you are just feeling worse and worse and I want you to feel better. I want you to be happy."

Peter nodded a little. "Lila and Cooper do, too."

"See?" Clint said. "Just because you were adopted, or think that somehow you don't deserve this, or whatever, doesn't mean you're aren't still family. You're family, Pete."

And that's where Laura found them all an hour later, Peter curled into Clint's side, while Lila put short braids in his curly hair and Cooper snuggled into Clint's other side, and Nate still knocked out on the floor of the treehouse. And Peter was smiling for the first time since coming to the farm, and that was good enough for Laura.

"Guess I won't be seeing you in court after all, Barton."