To Defeat A God

15. Clint Was a Storm Spirit in His Past Life

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NATASHA ROMANOFF'S POV

 Rin stiffened a little, and stole a glance at Percy, who seemed to have a thousand emotions swirling in his head at the minute.

"No...?" I sighed. That answer felt more like a question than an answer to me. They were abused.

"By whom?"

"No one."

"Guys, we've been through this," Steve cut in, since the conversation felt like it was going nowhere.

"You've been abused, you can't deny it. Please, we just want to help you."

"How many times have we told you, we don't need your help!" Argued Rin, but before she could say anything else, Percy stood up to ruffle her hair.

"Well," He said as Rin looked up. "You know, we can't hide everything, can we? It's just impossible. At least we'll have to give them a little bit of information so they won't dig in more," He glared at us, his sea green eyes darkened.

"You could say that we were abused, by our...step father." Percy stated, as he settled down back on the couch.

"The former one," informed Rin, as she went to retrieve yet another taffee. "The current one's great."

"That's right," agreed Percy. "Paul is the best. Anyway, Mom married Gabe when I was seven and Rin was one," He paused a little, like he was trying to think of a way to speak with the least info that it could hold. "To protect us."

"From what?" Tony scooted forward, surely interested in his adopted sister.

"Not your business. He was kind the first few.. seconds? That we saw him. He was down right horrible. Mom was always busy, doing part time jobs, and he'd be lounging on sofas, playing poker with his friends.

Mom was really worried about us. Especially about Rin. I was able to go to school at the time, but since Mom couldn't bring her around to work, she had to stay with Mrs. Lenner, a really nice lady who lived near us at the time.

But, he still got us. When he was drunk, or having a bad day. Mom didn't know, because I didn't tell her. I didn't want her to worry. I got most of the hits when I was trying to protect Rin in her cradle, but I would sometimes come home to see her in bruises after school."

 "Wait, so your mother still doesn't know?" Bruce asked incredulous, as he took out a glass of orange juice.

 "Yup," Percy answered, his face grim. "Anyway, It got worse when Mrs. Lenner moved away."

"I usually had to sneak into the cupboard," Rin cut in, as absolute rage filled the room. "He didn't know that I disappeared. Then it got more intense when Percy went to boarding school, because there was only one sand bag to pounce on."

"Yup," Percy nodded, sadly. "That's a tale behind about 5% of our scars."

Bruce spewed the orange juice that he was gulping in rage. "5%?!" He shrieked.

"Calm down, dude, I'm not into drinking orange juice with my face at the moment." Percy fired, and Bruce walked over to the kitchen to get a box of tissues.

Clint's face was white with anger, and his fist was shaking. Percy took notice of that as well.

"Chill, man. Why are you angry about it anyway? It's nothing, really."

"Nothing!?" He screamed, as most of the people in the room, including me apparently, jumped out of our skins. 

"You call this NOTHING!?" Yup, another storm Barton was making it's descent.