Despite the enormous amount of doubt the Avengers seemed to have towards her – Bruce and Thor excluded, as the former had long taken a liking to her and the latter had no precise clue about who Theresa what and what kind of abilities she possessed – they were all alright with her mending to the hurt Barton.

Though during the entire procedure she made sure to stay as far from the scepter as she could while mending to the agent.

After all, the scepter was not connected to good memories.

Theresa stood beside Barton, eyes closed, inhaling a deep breath as she then laid her hand on either side of his wound – forcing the blood that had soaked the bandage to return to where it's come from.

She knew how the others were watching her, she didn't need to look up to find out. Just the sounds of their hearts were enough.

Bruce - calm.

Thor - confused.

Natasha - suspicious.

Steve - conflicted.

Anthony - hoping what he'd done was the right choice.

And Barton - fighting against the pain and hoping he'd survive.

Theresa let out a long breath, inhaling and holding.

This was the one thing she hated.

On herself it was no problem, but stitching up other people was always something new. 

On herself she knew what to watch for, but on others she was never one hundred percent sure if she was going too fast or not.

Sure, she could control blood, but even while trying to use it as a healing factor, she still had the ability to kill if she wasn't careful enough.

And having people behind her ready to kill her should Clint show just a glimpse of agony was not helping her concentrate.

"Natasha, if you would please move your suspicions and murderous intentions somewhere else than me, that would be greatly appreciated. Your distaste toward me is bothering me, I can't concentrate on healing him if you continue to plot my death."

"Well what a shame I can't just leave this jet, isn't it?"

"You know I'm trying to be helpful here. I'm doing my hardest to start and redeem myself, so don't try throwing bricks in my way, because those definitely will not help Clint so long he lays beneath my hands. So, I am repeating myself only once. Take your murderous intentions away for as long as I am taking care of Clint, if you want him to survive."

Theresa could hear Natasha stand to abruptly approach her and she could also hear someone moving in her way to stop her, most likely Steve, since Anthony was flying the jet and Thor was still trying to figure out what it was that Theresa was capable of.

A ridiculous sequence of steps, first pushing his blood back in and then taking the bandage off to pull the blood back out of his body.

The sight, of course, enraged Natasha, but Theresa decided she had enough.

"Sleep."

She did not need to turn to find out that Natasha fainted right into the arms of Steve, who's eyes were wide in shock.

Thor was already about to approach the female Stark, but her words were quicker.

"If anyone else has something to say about this, say it calmly and stay away from me. If you don't see yourself capable of doing that, you can go ahead and join Natasha. But let me warn you, the headache afterwards is no joke."

Thor halted in his steps, watching with an incredulous gaze as the Stark continued her work without any bothers in the world, Barton's blood floating freely in the air as one hand seemed to hold it there and the other pulled on it.

Theresa could bother with explaining, only that she didn't want to.

Theresa watched Barton's blood as it was floating before her, pulling every pinch of bacteria from it that she could sense so it would, hopefully, not infect. Wouldn't want him to have a case of internal bleeding later on and have Natasha out for her head.

"What are you doing?"

Steve's voice was soft, as if to not disturb the woman doing her work. He had come to stand on Barton's other side across from Theresa, looking at the woman and trying hard to not stare at the blood, as it was quite distracting as well as nauseating.

"I'm cleaning his blood."

Theresa could see him from the corner of her eye, as most of her gaze was still fixed on the blood before her.

Once she found herself satisfied with her work of having cleaned his blood as good as she could, she gently returned it to where it came from.

Steve watched with fascination as the blood moved back into Clint's body, the movements of Theresa's hands smooth, as if this was something she's done millions of times. And Steve couldn't help the small shudder at the thought that, indeed, she had done this hundreds of times.

"I disgust you."

Her voice was soft, as if to keep this matter of fact a secret discussion between the two, despite the fact that the jet was silent – looking past the sound of the engines.

Steve shot her an incredulous look, brows furrowed.

"No, you don't."

Theresa smiled softly, Clint's blood now back where it belonged. She gently placed her hands on either side of the wound once more, forcing the blood to flow a little faster so the skin could return quicker. 

"Are you sure I don't?"

"I would not say disgusted...rather fascinated..."

Theresa finally moved her gaze up to meet Steve's and she could see the pity in his eyes.

"I'm sorry for everything that happened to you, Tess."

The old nickname sparked something in the woman and she couldn't help it as her smile grew just a bit, her eyes glimmering slightly beneath the lighting of the room.

"No need to be. I am at fault."

"That doesn't mean I can't still feel sorry for you. I wish for you to have lived a normal life. I wish that for all of us."

He didn't need to explain any further for her to know who else was part of the 'us'.

If Theresa could, she would have reached over and have taken his hand to give it a soft squeeze, but her hands were currently occupied with Clint, so she couldn't quite do that.

"I took good care of him."

"I know you did."

Theresa returned her gaze to Clint, inspecting the wound beneath her fingers.

The new layer looked alright. The Stark ran the back of her fingers across the new patch of skin, to test its thickness.

"...s weird."

Theresa's head shot up to look at Steve, having barely caught his words.

"What do you mean?"

Steve didn't meet her gaze, his eyes focussed on what her hands were doing.

"All of this is weird... last I know I hear of your death back in 1943, then Bucky not long after and not even a year ago I find out both of you survived..."

Theresa nodded slowly, understanding where he was coming from.

"You know, Bucky was so devastated back then... after we found out you didn't make it out of that base..."

"I can imagine."

"I'm sorry, for everything. All of this seems so surreal to me."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Steve. What happened to James and I is all my fault."

Theresa shot a glance towards Anthony, who was still focussed on flying the jet back to New York. Even when he was so serious, he resembled his father so much that it hurt Theresa to think about it.

"If I hadn't gone to Britain with the 107th, then HYDRA wouldn't have seen this as an opportunity. A genius brain within their reach? Thanks to my public status they knew just where exactly they needed to attack. And I hate that it worked. If I would have just let it slide, none of this might have happened. I could have survived to live a normal life, or I could have died. I wouldn't care which one it was."

"You know what?"

The Stark glanced up at the Rogers, who shot her a slight sympathetic smile.

"Back then, after Bucky's fall, I mourned. But it got better when I thought to myself that 'Hey, at least they have each other.' And now knowing that, despite what happened, you were by his side the entire time... this might sound ridiculous but it makes me feel a bit better. Knowing he didn't go through all of this alone."

Theresa smiled sadly and finally reached over, laying her hand over Steve's and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"We'll find him. I promise."

Steve nodded slowly and shot a smile in return.

"Now go rest, I'll finish up here."

The soldier nodded and muttered a quiet "Thank you," before he retreated from her small workspace.

The woman glanced back down at the wound now turned as good as back to normal.

"I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear you two talk about something low-key private."

She huffed a small laugh at Clint's weak words.

"I see you're awake again."

"Yeah. That felt weird, whatever you did."

"When we return to New York, you'll need a new blood transfusion. I suggest we have another doctor look over this. I rarely patch people up anymore, so I don't know if I went too fast or missed something vital."

Clint's face scrunches up at her words.

"Don't say it like that, it sounds weird when you say it like that."

Theresa chuckled softly and shook her head slightly.

"Alright, I won't say it like that again. Though I can't stop your next doctor from wording it that way."

"Aw man."

"You should rest some more now, though. I could only return the blood still on you and not the blood you lost elsewhere."

Clint looked a little pale around the nose and Theresa grinned slightly as she realized she had said something he didn't really want to hear.

"I'll leave you be now. Don't be afraid to yell for me should you feel any sort of discomfort in that area or in general."

The Stark turned to retreat to some corner after her words, when a hand wrapped around her wrist held her back. She glanced down to see it was the agent's hand holding her back.

"Thank you. For saving me."

"No problem. It's my job."

Or, at least, it used to be.

still not over endgame and especially not over spiderman far from home