fic: family man (Clint/Coulson), PG, Avengers, 2/2
Title: family man
Fandom: The Avengers (2012)
Pairing: Clint/Coulson, hints of Steve/Tony
Word Count: ~14500
Disclaimers: All characters belong to Marvel and various subsidiaries. This isn't for profit, just for fun.
A/N: AU, kidfic, I just have a lot of feelings, &c. No spoilers for the movie, actually! I play pretty fast and loose with canon on a good day, okay. (Although Phil's totally wearing a wedding ring in the Destroyer scene in Thor, so it's totally canon that they're married, okay. /tinhat)
Endless thanks to leiascully, , , bendingwind, and stripes13 for putting up with all my feelings with this silly story.
This is too long for one LJ entry, so it's in two parts here but it's not really a two-parter. If you'd rather read it all on one page, the story is here on my DW or here on AO3.
The ice cream place around the corner from their apartment is, predictably, chilly inside, and Phil is glad that they managed to salvage most of Ororo's clothes from the wreckage of medical before they left, including the bright blue cabled sweater that she's wearing now-- a gift from Pepper, as he understands it; the flannel shirt underneath is from Jane, and the shoes, which feature a highly sophisticated memory tracking system so that the wearer can never get lost, have Stark Industries written all over them.
It's an interesting outfit, but there's a lot of love in it, and Phil hides a smile behind his hand as he watches Clint entertain Ororo with magic tricks and stories about his time in the circus.
Clint doesn't talk about his pre-SHIELD life very often, and certainly not in this much detail, but Ororo seems to be enjoying his stories, and Phil is enjoying listening to both of them.
He thought that his window of opportunity on having this kind of life had passed him by a long time ago. There was a girl in college in what feels like another lifetime, but he was hell bent on the army and she was equally passionate about moving to a city with a higher population of hippies, and it just hadn't worked out, something he's grateful for every evening when Clint slips into bed beside him. But even with Clint, it's difficult, because their professional lives barely allowed them time to figure out that they were both rather stupidly in love with each other, let alone discuss the possibilities and problems associated with adopting a kid or two.
Yet here they are, empty ice cream cups scattered out on the table in front of them and this sweet little kid sitting between them, laughing as Clint pulls nickels from her ears and tells her about his life as a sideshow, and Phil is suddenly remembering interminable vacations with his own parents, stuck in the back of the Studebaker with only one Captain America comic book, counting the mile markers to their destination and listening to his mother and father politely bickering over the directions to the beach. He hadn't really appreciated it at the time.
He wonders if Ororo would. More to the point, he wonders if Clint would want any of that.
He supposes he'll know soon enough.
+
The team did a good job with his office-- when they walk in, it looks like it's always been Ororo's room, like she's always been a part of their lives, and she's so adorably happy about all of it that Phil isn't even slightly put out over the loss of his private workspace.
Phil suspects, as he looks around the room, that Pepper paid them a visit as well: the SHIELD teams are organized, but they don't usually pay attention to principles of design in setting up a room, nor do they hang priceless works of art in a little girl's bedroom.
The Jackson Pollock is a nice touch, though. It's a nice representation of his Spring period.
Phil fields a few irritated phone calls from the Director while Clint shows Ororo around their place and gets her settled in.
Before they put her to bed, Phil makes sure she knows where they're sleeping, just in case she has a nightmare or she wakes up scared in a strange new place.
"If you need anything at all, just knock and we'll hear you," Phil tells her, crouching down so he's at her eye level.
After Ororo is in bed and asleep, they go through their usual evening routine, Phil sifting through mission reports on the couch while Clint slouches companionably next to him. There's a tension between them that Phil knows they both feel, but they ignore it until later, when they're both getting ready for bed, because neither of them of have rules about going to bed angry.
"You told her about the circus," Phil says, evenly, smoothly, like it's not much of anything, just making conversation.
Clint flops onto the bed and starts unlacing his boots. "Noticed that, did you," he says, tugging off one boot. "So. Are we finally having the conversation where I tell you not to get too attached, Coulson?"
Phil raises an eyebrow in response: last names are office protocol only, and neither one of them slips up very often at home. Usually it isn't a slip, and Phil knows this isn't, but he concentrates on taking off his tie and hanging up his jacket and figures that Clint will say more when he's ready, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, but with Clint it's really fifty-fifty on these things.
"We've gotta talk about this eventually," Clint points out.
"I know, Barton," Phil says, and the significance of his last name isn't lost on Clint, either.
It's difficult, maintaining his typical calm exterior when what he actually wants to do is lose his temper for once in this relationship, because this is important to him for reasons he hopes he doesn't have to explain, and while it's true that he should have brought it up earlier, it's also true that Clint could be a bit more understanding about the whole thing.
He doesn't say anything else, and neither does Clint, which is, apparently, going to be their default position in times of conflict. The stalemate over the Tivo, which they both now consider to be an incredibly stupid thing to have fought over, yet the thing that was still the center of their only actual argument to date, lasted forty-eight hours and ended in a particularly fantastic evening, but the Tivo is hardly as important as an actual person, so Phil really couldn't begin to speculate on the duration of this mutual silent treatment.
He really doesn't have anything to say if Clint doesn't, so he closes the wardrobe and goes to take a shower. Clint's still sitting on the bed when he's done, which he considers to be a good sign-- if Clint's avoiding a conversation, Phil knows he'll be up in the shadows on the roof of the building.
"Sorry," Clint says finally. "That didn't come out right, before."
"It's okay," Phil tells him. "Are you?"
"Not really. There's a lot of old shit floating around up here right now," Clint says, waving his hand next to his head. He sighs and holds his hand out, and Phil sits down next to him. "You gave up your office, Phil."
"Noticed that, did you," Phil says, lips quirking, and Clint bumps him with his shoulder.
"Jackass," he says.
"Never denied it," Phil replies.
"We're gonna have to buy her shit, if she's going to be here for any length of time," Clint points out, and Phil nods along and tries not to get his hopes up, because Clint continues to look unhappy about this situation. "I mean, I know they brought in some things today, but god, Phil, she'll need more clothes, and I don't know anything about that for kids, and she should probably go to school, and what if she wants to do things, like soccer or something, and we have to go save the world? And what do you feed kids, I mean, we eat whatever the hell we want and it works out okay, but I don't think you should feed four-year olds spicy-as-fuck ma po tofu, and oh, Jesus fuck, Phil, we're going to have to stop cursing, goddamn."
"That's really more your problem," Phil says, and he can't help it, he laughs.
"Shit, Phil, this isn't fucking funny," Clint says, but it is, actually, and it's a relief to feel like maybe this conversation is going to resolve whatever strange conflict has been floating around since they found Ororo, so Phil keeps right on laughing. "Seriously."
"Seriously," Phil says, wiping a tear from his eye, "Clint, do you really think we can't figure that out? We save the world for a living. Surely we can handle one kid."
"I know that," Clint says. "But can you just let me freak the fuck out for a second without laughing at me? This is, you know. A big deal. Tell me you're not a little concerned."
"I'm not sweating the details," Phil says, and Clint acknowledges the truth of that with a slight shrug. "I'm not sure about the rest of it. I do know that it's a big responsibility, that isn't lost on me, Clint."
"If you're actually telling me that you're worried, then it's official: I'm not the only adult here who's flipping his shit, am I," Clint says, and Phil stares at his feet for a second before answering.
"No," he admits. He declines to add that he'd be a lot calmer about this whole situation if only Clint didn't seem to be so conflicted about it.
"It's just one night," Clint says, shaking his head and standing up. "That's what we agreed on. It's one night, we don't have to rethink our whole lives for just one night."
"True," Phil says slowly, drawing out the word, waiting for Clint to circle back around to the point, which is, of course, that's Phil would be perfectly content if it weren't just one night and apparently Clint wouldn't, which is the reason they're having this conversation.
Clint's walking the floor in front of the bed now, which would be enough on its own to tell Phil that he's worked up, because Clint Barton doesn't pace. He sits still, he thinks, he plans, and he watches, but he does not pace. Pacing is really more Phil's milieu, not that he lets anyone except Clint know that he's ever stressed enough to do something as human as pace.
Clint gestures to himself as he walks. "It's fine, it's one night, we just did it because we're nice people, or at least you are, and I have a lot of sympathy for the poor kid, because I've been there, but that's gotta be it. You don't, I mean, we can't have a family, look at our lives, and anyway, we've never talked about it like it's an actual possibility. Nobody just comes home with a kid, it's not like we found a puppy, she's a person."
"Never said otherwise," Phil says, resisting the urge to get up and pace right along with Clint. He settles for sitting as straight and still as possible, even holding his breath so he's not moving. It's a strange role reversal, really, and he isn't enjoying it.
"Right. Except you gave up your office and I told her about the circus, so... fuck." Clint sits right back down.
Phil lets go of the breath he's been holding. Perhaps it's time to give up on this particular dream. "Clint, if it really isn't something you want us to do, or if, in your professional opinion, this is something we aren't equipped to do, then..." He pushes his shoulders down away from his ears. "We won't do it."
"What? No, don't even think that, I care about her as much as you do, Phil, even if I've been trying not to, for your sake, hell, maybe mine, too, for both of us."
"I don't understand," Phil says.
"Yeah, well, I'm fucking this conversation up, so that's no shock to me," Clint sighs. "Look, there's a million ways this could go badly. And it's not that I don't want to do this at all, it's not that I don't want to do this with you, okay? I'll pack my shit and we'll find a house in the fucking suburbs, white picket fence and all, if that's what you want, but that doesn't mean I don't think about the ways this could get seriously fucked up, it doesn't mean I don't worry, because dammit, Phil, I don't want you to get hurt."
"You're worried about me," Phil says, blinking rapidly from the shock of it. He doesn't know why he didn't see it before. Maybe he needed another punch in the face.
"Damn right I'm worried. You and this kid, Phil, you were just...instantly close. I've never seen you do this before, this is new," Clint explains. "I love you; I worry. Pretty sure it's in my job description. I put it out of my head when we're on an op, I take off my ring just like you do and I try to be a superhero, but the rest of my day, I just want to know you're okay."
"I'm okay," Phil promises. He reaches for Clint's hand, and Clint reaches back. "You're sure you've never seen me do this before?"
"You know I don't see so well up close," Clint says, shuffling his feet a little.
"Well, just so we're perfectly clear: this is what I look like when I love someone," Phil says.
"Copy that," Clint says quietly, and Phil leans over and kisses him.
They sit for a few minutes, fingers laced together, thinking.
"I guess if we were gonna have a kid, it was probably gonna be something like this, wasn't it? I hope we're not terrible at this," Clint adds.
"Look at it this way: it can't be worse than keeping Stark in line," Phil points out, and Clint chuckles.
"God, yeah, I can't even imagine." Clint stares at their hands for a moment. "You were in with Fury; I wasn't. Are they-- are they gonna take her away from us, Phil? Turn her into some kind of experiment?"
"It's a possibility," Phil admits, because lying won't change that, and he hates admitting it aloud, but it has to be said. Clint's hand pulls away from his, clenching automatically into a fist, and underneath his tshirt Phil can see the taut lines of his muscles tensing.
"They don't have any fucking clue about any of it," Clint swears. "We can't-- Phil, we just can't let them do that. If we're a family, then we're a fucking family, and we're staying together and I don't give a fuck about anything Fury or anybody else wants. We can't let them do that; she's a person, not a lab rat, and she deserves a home, okay, a real one. Every kid does. Please."
It's the barely audible please that really just breaks Phil's heart, there at the end. There are plenty of things that Clint keeps to himself, mostly about his childhood, and out of respect for this person that he loves, Phil doesn't pry. It's not important that he know the details: if he did, he's not certain that he wouldn't make a weekend trip to Iowa or leave a few anonymous tips with Homeland Security, an agency which usually just makes him chuckle, it's so inept. Still, he's sure that there are people from Clint's past who deserve, at minimum, a visit from a cadre of their secret agent dilettantes, and at most, well. At most they deserve a visit from him, personally.
"It's a possibility, but it's never going to happen," Phil says, his voice strange in his own ears. He reaches over again to grip Clint's hand. "That's a promise."
"Is it now," Clint says, studying Phil's face, not that there was any need: close up or far away, Clint usually has him all figured out. If it were anyone but Clint, that closeness would make him uneasy, but as it is he just feels warm all over, not to mention pretty damn lucky, because there aren't many people in the world who can say they married a superhero. It's certainly never something he expected, but that's been his whole relationship with Clint from start to finish: always unexpected, but never more welcome.
He supposes the same thing could be said for the two of them and Ororo, and maybe, if he's feeling particularly generous, the whole team. They're a strange little family, but what family isn't, really?
"So what's the code word, Agent Coulson?" Clint asks, and Phil has to smile, because they're old campaigners and he won't have to explain these details. He doesn't have to tell Clint that he's got spare cash and fake identification for the three of them stashed in a hidden car registered under another name, he doesn't have to tell Clint that there's enough ammo in the trunk of that car to start World War III, and he doesn't have to tell Clint that there is nothing he won't do to keep them together and keep them safe, and if it comes to it, probably nothing the rest of the team won't do to help them.
Phil clears his throat. "Did you program the Tivo? There's a River Monsters marathon on Discovery."
"God, I love you," Clint laughs, and Phil smiles at him. "Although I would have bet money that you were going to ask me for donuts."
Phil shrugs. "That wouldn't work. I might actually need you to get me some donuts."
"That is very true," Clint acknowledges. "You know, we should probably also have some kind of disaster protocol or something. I mean, it isn't every kid who can bring the house down if she has a tantrum."
"House?" Phil asks, looking around the bedroom of their apartment.
"I meant our metaphorical house," Clint says, but his tone is teasing, and Phil takes a shot in the dark.
"This place is in a fairly good school district," Phil says innocently.
"Are you fucking kidding me? We can't send her there," Clint says. "They've got absolutely no arts program."
"I see," Phil says, smirking.
"What? Don't look at me like you caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, 'cause you didn't. I knew this was a thing the second you picked her up, I've just been sitting around here waiting to make sure it wasn't gonna crash and burn."
"I don't think we have to worry about that," Phil assures him. "And apparently you don't either, if you've been looking up school districts. What else have you been up to?"
Clint leans back on the bed, arms behind his head. "I know what I know, and I know how you like plans, baby, that's all. And anybody can use google."
"I see," Phil says.
"I told you, I knew it was a thing. And I thought you knew, too," Clint says, nudging Phil's hip with his knee until Phil slides back and lies down next to him. "I just didn't want it to fall apart. You're not the only protective person in this relationship."
"Fair enough," Phil says.
"Next time we accidentally adopt a kid, maybe we could have this conversation a little sooner," Clint says pointedly.
"Okay," Phil says easily, propping himself up on one elbow. "Clint Barton, will you raise this kid and any future kids we may happen to find with me?"
"Why, Phil Coulson, I thought you'd never ask," Clint grins. "It would be my genuine pleasure, boss."
"Good," Phil says, and he leans down for a quick kiss that lasts quite a bit longer and involves a good deal more groping than he had anticipated, not that he's complaining.
"Shit, we've got a kid now," Clint says, pulling away. "We'll have to be quiet."
"Could be hot," Phil suggests. "We do have precedent for that."
"We really need to revisit that library," Clint laughs. He wiggles his eyebrows at Phil. "What are you doing next weekend?"
"We have a kid now," Phil reminds him.
"Right, right," Clint says. "Whatever, I have plans anyway."
Phil frowns at him, curious. "Plans?"
Clint shifts over and grabs his iPad from the nightstand, sliding his thumb across the panel and handing it over.
"These are houses," Phil says, flipping through the pictures. "They're nice houses. And they're all for sale."
"Noticed that, did you," Clint drawls.
"You really have been busy," Phil murmurs.
"You took a long shower," Clint shrugs.
"So you decided to use that time to look at MLS listings. Before we had this conversation, you were looking at houses, several of which have white picket fences."
"That's about how it went. Like I said, I know what I know. Ain't no shame in my game, Phil," Clint says, grinning, and Phil groans.
"You can't teach Ororo to say things like that," Phil grumbles.
"I'd be way more worried about the shit Uncle Tony will teach her to say," Clint laughs. "And let's not even get started on Aunt Natasha."
"She can never babysit," Phil says immediately.
"God no," Clint agrees, chuckling, but then his expression turns serious. "Phil. Let's say we do want this, we want this kid to be part of our family. What if she doesn't want us? What then? She should get a say, this is her life."
"Then we'll get her what she does want," Phil says.
+
It takes them a week or so, but eventually they settle into a routine: they're both up and at 'em at the usual hour, they give themselves half an hour for morning coffee and conversation, then Phil wakes Ororo while Clint cooks breakfast for the three of them, which they eat together, as a family, before it's a quick scramble to suit up for the day and head out into the world to do what they have to do to keep the Earth safe for another twenty-four hours, which as it turns out, is not a job for which the Avengers have to log many daily hours.
As a kid, Phil always wondered what superheroes like Captain America did with their days off, how they filled the hours between the times they were fighting the bad guys and saving the world. As an adult, he realizes that his childhood daydreams about Steve Rogers rescuing kittens from trees and volunteering to help old ladies cross the road were actually pretty accurate, at least with regards to Steve: being a superhero is kind of a full-time gig. Still, Steve's daily round of good deeds aside, the day-to-day life of a superhero, Phil has learned, is a good deal more boring than he ever contemplated as a child. Clint's days are fairly free now that he's an Avenger, and now instead of spending hours at a stretch sitting somewhere out of sight, thinking and observing, he takes Ororo to the park, the library, even some museums.
Phil meets them sometimes on his lunch break, and occasionally she comes back to his office with him and watches cartoons on Clint's iPad while Phil works and Clint heads out to the range or to spar with Natasha or test some new ridiculous invention of Tony and Banner's.
For the times when they're both busy, Ororo spends her time away from them with a rotating schedule of babysitters that Phil and Clint trust to be responsible adults more often than not, meaning, of course, that Tony never takes a turn, though that doesn't preclude him from dropping in on whoever happens to be looking after her.
Wherever they've been, they all come home at the end of the day, one of them cooks dinner, they eat together, they talk about their days. She folds in easily to their post-dinner downtime, curled up between them on the couch with a picture book or a sketchpad and crayons while Phil reads his nightly round of sitreps and Clint props his feet up on the coffee table. Their arms overlap on the back of the couch behind her.
The day will come, of course, when they have to go off and be heroes, and Phil isn't looking forward to leaving her behind, though certainly she can't come along.
"Darcy could take care of her if we have to saddle up and go be good guys," Clint says one night after Ororo is asleep.
"Possibly," Phil says.
"She tasered a demigod," Clint reminds him. "That's pretty badass. Plus, Ororo loves her."
"Point," Phil says, and promises to give her a call.
They do a trial run, and Darcy comes over while they go out to dinner and try not to check their phones every thirty seconds.
"God, we're bad at this," Clint laughs, after the fourth time they catch each other sneaking a glance at their phones.
"We'll get better," Phil says resolutely, and they do.
Ororo is sound asleep when they get back in.
"We had fun," Darcy reports. "We watched a movie and we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. We may have had a spontaneous dance party in your living room. We're not sorry."
After a month, it's easy, and after two, it's like their lives have always been this way. It's all entirely unremarkable, except that it isn't, and more than once Phil catches Clint surveying some little family tableau with a kind of affectionate awe that he's sure is mirrored on his own face.
Eventually, the three of them have a discussion about trying to make all of this permanent, during which Phil and Clint try and fail not to tear up as Ororo clings happily to their legs, and the next day, for the second time in his career, Phil tries unsuccessfully to resign and Fury lights his resignation letter on fire.
"Coulson, you really have to stop doing this," Fury says, as the last of the letter goes up in smoke.
"This presents a substantial conflict of interest, sir," Phil says. "It seemed like the most appropriate course of action."
"You could have asked to be reassigned," Fury points out.
"I don't really want to be reassigned, sir, at least with regards to the Avengers Initiative. I know you've been considering promoting Ms. Lewis; I thought she might be a more appropriate handler for Ororo at this point."
"I'll take that into consideration," Fury says. "You also know I'm not ever going to accept one of these letters from you, right?"
"I had hoped you wouldn't, sir."
"If the two of you adopt this kid, are you gonna get in Lewis's way?"
"Absolutely," Phil says. There's really no point in lying.
"Dismissed," Fury says.
Later that afternoon, Clint comes into his office, laughing, and reports that Hill stopped Fury in the commissary to victoriously collect her fifty bucks.
+
The day the adoption papers go through, Clint decides they are throwing a party for their daughter, by god, and Phil is only too happy to comply.
Most of the team shows up, even Natasha, who has up until this point been somewhat skeptical of this entire venture.
She kisses Clint on the cheek and hands Phil a bottle of wine. "Congratulations," she says. "I attempted to find a suitable toy for her, but I had to abort that mission."
"You got kicked out of FAO Schwarz, didn't you," Clint says, and Natasha ignores him, but she doesn't deny it. Phil wonders what that story entails.
"So I bought you some wine," Natasha's saying, "and I'll make you a promise: if anyone ever tries to hurt her, I'll hurt them first."
Neither of them seem to know exactly what to say to that, but they're rescued by Hill, who came in just after Natasha. She reaches out and tugs Natasha's arm, pulling her away from the doorway and into the living room, where Pepper and Darcy are having what looks like an unintentionally hilarious conversation with Selvig and Fury. "Romanov. Have you ever even met a kid?"
"You know, it may not seem like much, but Nat doesn't do that for just anybody," Clint says, watching the two of them head for the table of drinks.
"What, hurt them?" Phil jokes. "I feel like that's not uncommon."
Clint nudges him with his elbow. "No. Make them family."
"Seems to be a lot of that going around recently," Phil murmurs, and Clint smiles, but any reply he might have made is interrupted by Thor, who strides into the room carrying an enormous gift-wrapped box.
"Uncle Thor!" Ororo shouts.
Thor beams at her. "Hello, little one! Jane and I have brought you a mighty gift!"
"Don't worry, it isn't dangerous," Jane whispers, and Phil nods his apprecation.
"What do you say?" Clint asks, before Ororo can get too far into unwrapping her present.
"Thank you, Uncle Thor," Ororo says dutifully, and then looks up at Clint. "Can I open my present now?"
"Sure," he says, and she gets to work on opening the box, which turns out to contain a set of flannel pajamas covered in lightning bolts and a miniature replica of Mjolnir.
"Now we match!" she says, and before Clint or Phil can object, Thor hoists her onto his shoulders, declares his need for sustenance, and wanders away to find food, Ororo giggling delightedly all the while.
"Be careful, please," Phil calls, in much the same tone that he uses when he's chasing after all of them in a futile attempt at debriefing.
"She'll be fine," Clint says.
Tony arrives fashionably late, not that anyone is surprised, with an apologetic Steve close behind, and Ororo has Thor put her safely on the ground so she can hug Uncle Tony.
"Hey there, Ororo," Tony says, offering her his palm for a low five. "We didn't get you anything because we didn't know what you wanted. How would you like an entire toy store?"
"Tony," Steve gasps. "You can't just buy other people's kids toy stores."
Tony looks genuinely confused. "Why not?"
"I can't take you anywhere," Steve laments.
"Baby, I think I've made it pretty clear that you can take me anywhere," Tony says, and Clint slaps his hand to his forehead.
"Stark, could you not, maybe, in front of our four year old daughter? I think it's pretty clear that we have no problem with dudes boning, but for fuck's sake, she's four."
Phil closes his eyes and puts his hands over Ororo's ears. "Barton," he sighs.
"Oh, shit," Clint says. "I just said 'boning' and 'fuck,' didn't I?"
"Also shit," Ororo adds helpfully, and everyone laughs.
It's a good party: Thor doesn't intentionally break anything in an attempt to procure another beverage, Tony doesn't say anything terribly untoward, and nobody gets drunk enough to think it's a good idea to leave Banner voicemail messages with Jolly Green Giant puns, an unfortunate incident for which there is, sadly, precedent, though not at any of Phil's parties.
While the others listen to Thor recount some glorious tale of battle, with occasional edits from Jane for four-year-old-appropriate-content-warnings, Tony pulls Phil aside.
"I was joking about not getting her anything," Tony says. He opens his suit jacket and pulls out an envelope. "I was not joking about the toy store, but Steve shot me down. Killjoy. Anyway. I think she'll probably appreciate this more in about fourteen years, so here."
Phil takes the envelope and slits it open. It is, as he suspected, the bank statement for a trust account, but there are quite a few more zeroes on this statement than he had anticipated. "Stark, you realize there's enough here to send at least twelve kids to college."
Tony shrugs. "I adjusted for inflation," he says easily. "Just, you know, do me a favor, Coulson, and let her be a kid. Talented people, they grow up too fast."
"When did you grow up, exactly?"
"You thought I wouldn't notice that you just called me talented," Tony says. "But I did."
Phil just shakes his head, and Tony grins and slaps him on the back.
"She's a lucky kid, seriously," he says.
Phil looks around the room at the rest of them, considering, briefly, whether or not a more unlikely group of people has ever come together in the history of the world. They're still a strange little family, a roomful of second chances if anyone's ever seen one. Most of them shouldn't even be alive, let alone sitting here drinking his beer and bringing his kid presents, but here they are, doing exactly that, each of them making the most of lives they never expected to stumble into.
"Maybe we all are, Stark," Phil says, and goes to join the others.
+
Epilogue
Phil is on the couch, reading, when Ororo comes in, a curious expression on her face and a stack of cards in her hand.
"Why do you have pictures of Uncle Steve?" she asks.
It's a credit to the intensive training programs that he's endured in his lifetime that he doesn't panic when Ororo's slightly sticky fingers offer him his stack of vintage Captain America trading cards. Clint is across the room at the bar, humming to himself while he cleans up the leftovers of their dinner, and even without looking Phil knows that Clint's trying not to laugh.
"They're trading cards," Phil explains, picking her up and gingerly taking the cards back. He fans them out so she can see all of them. "Near mint. Slight foxing around the edges."
Clint, he notices, is mouthing the words right along with him.
"Mint?" Ororo says, peering at the cards. She looks up at him and blinks, then says slowly, carefully, like he's the small child in this situation: "These are not mints, daddy."
At that, Clint does actually crack up. "You are absolutely right, sweetheart," he snickers. "They're not."
"They're not mints, they're in mint condition. Well. Near mint. It means they're almost perfect," Phil explains, and she wrinkles her nose, considering this.
"But why do you have them, though?"
"When I was your age, a long time ago, I used to read stories about Captain America--"
"Are they like Uncle Thor's stories?" she asks, utterly delighted, and Phil frowns. He is given to understand that from Ororo's singular point of view, Uncle Thor tells the best stories, which makes him a little grumpy, really, because he's got some good ones, too, though he's willing to admit that maybe they suffer a bit in his retellings. Clint says it's the fault of too many sitreps, and maybe he has a point: Clint's stories are good, but his sitreps are terrible.
"No," he sighs, and Clint's laughing again, but quietly, this time. "But yes. Because they were about heroes, like Thor's stories, and Captain America was mine."
"Is he still your hero?" she asks, and Phil meets Clint's eyes for a moment.
"Sure," he says, "but every so often, your dad does all right."
"Thanks," Clint chuckles, but there's a softness around the edges of the word. "You gonna adopt Cap as your hero too, huh, kiddo?"
"It'll probably be Uncle Thor," Phil says, and he almost keeps the irritation out of his voice. Almost. "Or Stark."
"No, silly," she says, yawning and resting her head against his shoulder. "You're my hero."
Phil just sits there with absolutely no reply to make, mildly stunned by the magnitude of that simple sentence. He's just a guy doing a job; he's nobody's Captain America. He tries to say so, but the words won't really come, so he stays where he is, silent, listening to Clint's quiet humming, until finally she falls asleep and he can very carefully pick her up and carry her to bed.
"She out?" Clint asks, when he comes back into the living room.
"Like a light," Phil says, dropping down onto the couch next to Clint.
Clint grins at him. "And you carried her to bed, you big hero."
"I admit that I didn't see that one coming."
"Really?" Clint looks over at him, surprised. "I had that one down a long time ago."
"You know what you know, right," Phil says quietly.
"Yeah, well, what can I say, Phil?" He leans over and kisses Phil on the cheek. "Me and Ororo, we've got a lot in common."
Fandom: The Avengers (2012)
Pairing: Clint/Coulson, hints of Steve/Tony
Word Count: ~14500
Disclaimers: All characters belong to Marvel and various subsidiaries. This isn't for profit, just for fun.
A/N: AU, kidfic, I just have a lot of feelings, &c. No spoilers for the movie, actually! I play pretty fast and loose with canon on a good day, okay. (Although Phil's totally wearing a wedding ring in the Destroyer scene in Thor, so it's totally canon that they're married, okay. /tinhat)
Endless thanks to leiascully, , , bendingwind, and stripes13 for putting up with all my feelings with this silly story.
This is too long for one LJ entry, so it's in two parts here but it's not really a two-parter. If you'd rather read it all on one page, the story is here on my DW or here on AO3.
The ice cream place around the corner from their apartment is, predictably, chilly inside, and Phil is glad that they managed to salvage most of Ororo's clothes from the wreckage of medical before they left, including the bright blue cabled sweater that she's wearing now-- a gift from Pepper, as he understands it; the flannel shirt underneath is from Jane, and the shoes, which feature a highly sophisticated memory tracking system so that the wearer can never get lost, have Stark Industries written all over them.
It's an interesting outfit, but there's a lot of love in it, and Phil hides a smile behind his hand as he watches Clint entertain Ororo with magic tricks and stories about his time in the circus.
Clint doesn't talk about his pre-SHIELD life very often, and certainly not in this much detail, but Ororo seems to be enjoying his stories, and Phil is enjoying listening to both of them.
He thought that his window of opportunity on having this kind of life had passed him by a long time ago. There was a girl in college in what feels like another lifetime, but he was hell bent on the army and she was equally passionate about moving to a city with a higher population of hippies, and it just hadn't worked out, something he's grateful for every evening when Clint slips into bed beside him. But even with Clint, it's difficult, because their professional lives barely allowed them time to figure out that they were both rather stupidly in love with each other, let alone discuss the possibilities and problems associated with adopting a kid or two.
Yet here they are, empty ice cream cups scattered out on the table in front of them and this sweet little kid sitting between them, laughing as Clint pulls nickels from her ears and tells her about his life as a sideshow, and Phil is suddenly remembering interminable vacations with his own parents, stuck in the back of the Studebaker with only one Captain America comic book, counting the mile markers to their destination and listening to his mother and father politely bickering over the directions to the beach. He hadn't really appreciated it at the time.
He wonders if Ororo would. More to the point, he wonders if Clint would want any of that.
He supposes he'll know soon enough.
+
The team did a good job with his office-- when they walk in, it looks like it's always been Ororo's room, like she's always been a part of their lives, and she's so adorably happy about all of it that Phil isn't even slightly put out over the loss of his private workspace.
Phil suspects, as he looks around the room, that Pepper paid them a visit as well: the SHIELD teams are organized, but they don't usually pay attention to principles of design in setting up a room, nor do they hang priceless works of art in a little girl's bedroom.
The Jackson Pollock is a nice touch, though. It's a nice representation of his Spring period.
Phil fields a few irritated phone calls from the Director while Clint shows Ororo around their place and gets her settled in.
Before they put her to bed, Phil makes sure she knows where they're sleeping, just in case she has a nightmare or she wakes up scared in a strange new place.
"If you need anything at all, just knock and we'll hear you," Phil tells her, crouching down so he's at her eye level.
After Ororo is in bed and asleep, they go through their usual evening routine, Phil sifting through mission reports on the couch while Clint slouches companionably next to him. There's a tension between them that Phil knows they both feel, but they ignore it until later, when they're both getting ready for bed, because neither of them of have rules about going to bed angry.
"You told her about the circus," Phil says, evenly, smoothly, like it's not much of anything, just making conversation.
Clint flops onto the bed and starts unlacing his boots. "Noticed that, did you," he says, tugging off one boot. "So. Are we finally having the conversation where I tell you not to get too attached, Coulson?"
Phil raises an eyebrow in response: last names are office protocol only, and neither one of them slips up very often at home. Usually it isn't a slip, and Phil knows this isn't, but he concentrates on taking off his tie and hanging up his jacket and figures that Clint will say more when he's ready, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, but with Clint it's really fifty-fifty on these things.
"We've gotta talk about this eventually," Clint points out.
"I know, Barton," Phil says, and the significance of his last name isn't lost on Clint, either.
It's difficult, maintaining his typical calm exterior when what he actually wants to do is lose his temper for once in this relationship, because this is important to him for reasons he hopes he doesn't have to explain, and while it's true that he should have brought it up earlier, it's also true that Clint could be a bit more understanding about the whole thing.
He doesn't say anything else, and neither does Clint, which is, apparently, going to be their default position in times of conflict. The stalemate over the Tivo, which they both now consider to be an incredibly stupid thing to have fought over, yet the thing that was still the center of their only actual argument to date, lasted forty-eight hours and ended in a particularly fantastic evening, but the Tivo is hardly as important as an actual person, so Phil really couldn't begin to speculate on the duration of this mutual silent treatment.
He really doesn't have anything to say if Clint doesn't, so he closes the wardrobe and goes to take a shower. Clint's still sitting on the bed when he's done, which he considers to be a good sign-- if Clint's avoiding a conversation, Phil knows he'll be up in the shadows on the roof of the building.
"Sorry," Clint says finally. "That didn't come out right, before."
"It's okay," Phil tells him. "Are you?"
"Not really. There's a lot of old shit floating around up here right now," Clint says, waving his hand next to his head. He sighs and holds his hand out, and Phil sits down next to him. "You gave up your office, Phil."
"Noticed that, did you," Phil says, lips quirking, and Clint bumps him with his shoulder.
"Jackass," he says.
"Never denied it," Phil replies.
"We're gonna have to buy her shit, if she's going to be here for any length of time," Clint points out, and Phil nods along and tries not to get his hopes up, because Clint continues to look unhappy about this situation. "I mean, I know they brought in some things today, but god, Phil, she'll need more clothes, and I don't know anything about that for kids, and she should probably go to school, and what if she wants to do things, like soccer or something, and we have to go save the world? And what do you feed kids, I mean, we eat whatever the hell we want and it works out okay, but I don't think you should feed four-year olds spicy-as-fuck ma po tofu, and oh, Jesus fuck, Phil, we're going to have to stop cursing, goddamn."
"That's really more your problem," Phil says, and he can't help it, he laughs.
"Shit, Phil, this isn't fucking funny," Clint says, but it is, actually, and it's a relief to feel like maybe this conversation is going to resolve whatever strange conflict has been floating around since they found Ororo, so Phil keeps right on laughing. "Seriously."
"Seriously," Phil says, wiping a tear from his eye, "Clint, do you really think we can't figure that out? We save the world for a living. Surely we can handle one kid."
"I know that," Clint says. "But can you just let me freak the fuck out for a second without laughing at me? This is, you know. A big deal. Tell me you're not a little concerned."
"I'm not sweating the details," Phil says, and Clint acknowledges the truth of that with a slight shrug. "I'm not sure about the rest of it. I do know that it's a big responsibility, that isn't lost on me, Clint."
"If you're actually telling me that you're worried, then it's official: I'm not the only adult here who's flipping his shit, am I," Clint says, and Phil stares at his feet for a second before answering.
"No," he admits. He declines to add that he'd be a lot calmer about this whole situation if only Clint didn't seem to be so conflicted about it.
"It's just one night," Clint says, shaking his head and standing up. "That's what we agreed on. It's one night, we don't have to rethink our whole lives for just one night."
"True," Phil says slowly, drawing out the word, waiting for Clint to circle back around to the point, which is, of course, that's Phil would be perfectly content if it weren't just one night and apparently Clint wouldn't, which is the reason they're having this conversation.
Clint's walking the floor in front of the bed now, which would be enough on its own to tell Phil that he's worked up, because Clint Barton doesn't pace. He sits still, he thinks, he plans, and he watches, but he does not pace. Pacing is really more Phil's milieu, not that he lets anyone except Clint know that he's ever stressed enough to do something as human as pace.
Clint gestures to himself as he walks. "It's fine, it's one night, we just did it because we're nice people, or at least you are, and I have a lot of sympathy for the poor kid, because I've been there, but that's gotta be it. You don't, I mean, we can't have a family, look at our lives, and anyway, we've never talked about it like it's an actual possibility. Nobody just comes home with a kid, it's not like we found a puppy, she's a person."
"Never said otherwise," Phil says, resisting the urge to get up and pace right along with Clint. He settles for sitting as straight and still as possible, even holding his breath so he's not moving. It's a strange role reversal, really, and he isn't enjoying it.
"Right. Except you gave up your office and I told her about the circus, so... fuck." Clint sits right back down.
Phil lets go of the breath he's been holding. Perhaps it's time to give up on this particular dream. "Clint, if it really isn't something you want us to do, or if, in your professional opinion, this is something we aren't equipped to do, then..." He pushes his shoulders down away from his ears. "We won't do it."
"What? No, don't even think that, I care about her as much as you do, Phil, even if I've been trying not to, for your sake, hell, maybe mine, too, for both of us."
"I don't understand," Phil says.
"Yeah, well, I'm fucking this conversation up, so that's no shock to me," Clint sighs. "Look, there's a million ways this could go badly. And it's not that I don't want to do this at all, it's not that I don't want to do this with you, okay? I'll pack my shit and we'll find a house in the fucking suburbs, white picket fence and all, if that's what you want, but that doesn't mean I don't think about the ways this could get seriously fucked up, it doesn't mean I don't worry, because dammit, Phil, I don't want you to get hurt."
"You're worried about me," Phil says, blinking rapidly from the shock of it. He doesn't know why he didn't see it before. Maybe he needed another punch in the face.
"Damn right I'm worried. You and this kid, Phil, you were just...instantly close. I've never seen you do this before, this is new," Clint explains. "I love you; I worry. Pretty sure it's in my job description. I put it out of my head when we're on an op, I take off my ring just like you do and I try to be a superhero, but the rest of my day, I just want to know you're okay."
"I'm okay," Phil promises. He reaches for Clint's hand, and Clint reaches back. "You're sure you've never seen me do this before?"
"You know I don't see so well up close," Clint says, shuffling his feet a little.
"Well, just so we're perfectly clear: this is what I look like when I love someone," Phil says.
"Copy that," Clint says quietly, and Phil leans over and kisses him.
They sit for a few minutes, fingers laced together, thinking.
"I guess if we were gonna have a kid, it was probably gonna be something like this, wasn't it? I hope we're not terrible at this," Clint adds.
"Look at it this way: it can't be worse than keeping Stark in line," Phil points out, and Clint chuckles.
"God, yeah, I can't even imagine." Clint stares at their hands for a moment. "You were in with Fury; I wasn't. Are they-- are they gonna take her away from us, Phil? Turn her into some kind of experiment?"
"It's a possibility," Phil admits, because lying won't change that, and he hates admitting it aloud, but it has to be said. Clint's hand pulls away from his, clenching automatically into a fist, and underneath his tshirt Phil can see the taut lines of his muscles tensing.
"They don't have any fucking clue about any of it," Clint swears. "We can't-- Phil, we just can't let them do that. If we're a family, then we're a fucking family, and we're staying together and I don't give a fuck about anything Fury or anybody else wants. We can't let them do that; she's a person, not a lab rat, and she deserves a home, okay, a real one. Every kid does. Please."
It's the barely audible please that really just breaks Phil's heart, there at the end. There are plenty of things that Clint keeps to himself, mostly about his childhood, and out of respect for this person that he loves, Phil doesn't pry. It's not important that he know the details: if he did, he's not certain that he wouldn't make a weekend trip to Iowa or leave a few anonymous tips with Homeland Security, an agency which usually just makes him chuckle, it's so inept. Still, he's sure that there are people from Clint's past who deserve, at minimum, a visit from a cadre of their secret agent dilettantes, and at most, well. At most they deserve a visit from him, personally.
"It's a possibility, but it's never going to happen," Phil says, his voice strange in his own ears. He reaches over again to grip Clint's hand. "That's a promise."
"Is it now," Clint says, studying Phil's face, not that there was any need: close up or far away, Clint usually has him all figured out. If it were anyone but Clint, that closeness would make him uneasy, but as it is he just feels warm all over, not to mention pretty damn lucky, because there aren't many people in the world who can say they married a superhero. It's certainly never something he expected, but that's been his whole relationship with Clint from start to finish: always unexpected, but never more welcome.
He supposes the same thing could be said for the two of them and Ororo, and maybe, if he's feeling particularly generous, the whole team. They're a strange little family, but what family isn't, really?
"So what's the code word, Agent Coulson?" Clint asks, and Phil has to smile, because they're old campaigners and he won't have to explain these details. He doesn't have to tell Clint that he's got spare cash and fake identification for the three of them stashed in a hidden car registered under another name, he doesn't have to tell Clint that there's enough ammo in the trunk of that car to start World War III, and he doesn't have to tell Clint that there is nothing he won't do to keep them together and keep them safe, and if it comes to it, probably nothing the rest of the team won't do to help them.
Phil clears his throat. "Did you program the Tivo? There's a River Monsters marathon on Discovery."
"God, I love you," Clint laughs, and Phil smiles at him. "Although I would have bet money that you were going to ask me for donuts."
Phil shrugs. "That wouldn't work. I might actually need you to get me some donuts."
"That is very true," Clint acknowledges. "You know, we should probably also have some kind of disaster protocol or something. I mean, it isn't every kid who can bring the house down if she has a tantrum."
"House?" Phil asks, looking around the bedroom of their apartment.
"I meant our metaphorical house," Clint says, but his tone is teasing, and Phil takes a shot in the dark.
"This place is in a fairly good school district," Phil says innocently.
"Are you fucking kidding me? We can't send her there," Clint says. "They've got absolutely no arts program."
"I see," Phil says, smirking.
"What? Don't look at me like you caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, 'cause you didn't. I knew this was a thing the second you picked her up, I've just been sitting around here waiting to make sure it wasn't gonna crash and burn."
"I don't think we have to worry about that," Phil assures him. "And apparently you don't either, if you've been looking up school districts. What else have you been up to?"
Clint leans back on the bed, arms behind his head. "I know what I know, and I know how you like plans, baby, that's all. And anybody can use google."
"I see," Phil says.
"I told you, I knew it was a thing. And I thought you knew, too," Clint says, nudging Phil's hip with his knee until Phil slides back and lies down next to him. "I just didn't want it to fall apart. You're not the only protective person in this relationship."
"Fair enough," Phil says.
"Next time we accidentally adopt a kid, maybe we could have this conversation a little sooner," Clint says pointedly.
"Okay," Phil says easily, propping himself up on one elbow. "Clint Barton, will you raise this kid and any future kids we may happen to find with me?"
"Why, Phil Coulson, I thought you'd never ask," Clint grins. "It would be my genuine pleasure, boss."
"Good," Phil says, and he leans down for a quick kiss that lasts quite a bit longer and involves a good deal more groping than he had anticipated, not that he's complaining.
"Shit, we've got a kid now," Clint says, pulling away. "We'll have to be quiet."
"Could be hot," Phil suggests. "We do have precedent for that."
"We really need to revisit that library," Clint laughs. He wiggles his eyebrows at Phil. "What are you doing next weekend?"
"We have a kid now," Phil reminds him.
"Right, right," Clint says. "Whatever, I have plans anyway."
Phil frowns at him, curious. "Plans?"
Clint shifts over and grabs his iPad from the nightstand, sliding his thumb across the panel and handing it over.
"These are houses," Phil says, flipping through the pictures. "They're nice houses. And they're all for sale."
"Noticed that, did you," Clint drawls.
"You really have been busy," Phil murmurs.
"You took a long shower," Clint shrugs.
"So you decided to use that time to look at MLS listings. Before we had this conversation, you were looking at houses, several of which have white picket fences."
"That's about how it went. Like I said, I know what I know. Ain't no shame in my game, Phil," Clint says, grinning, and Phil groans.
"You can't teach Ororo to say things like that," Phil grumbles.
"I'd be way more worried about the shit Uncle Tony will teach her to say," Clint laughs. "And let's not even get started on Aunt Natasha."
"She can never babysit," Phil says immediately.
"God no," Clint agrees, chuckling, but then his expression turns serious. "Phil. Let's say we do want this, we want this kid to be part of our family. What if she doesn't want us? What then? She should get a say, this is her life."
"Then we'll get her what she does want," Phil says.
+
It takes them a week or so, but eventually they settle into a routine: they're both up and at 'em at the usual hour, they give themselves half an hour for morning coffee and conversation, then Phil wakes Ororo while Clint cooks breakfast for the three of them, which they eat together, as a family, before it's a quick scramble to suit up for the day and head out into the world to do what they have to do to keep the Earth safe for another twenty-four hours, which as it turns out, is not a job for which the Avengers have to log many daily hours.
As a kid, Phil always wondered what superheroes like Captain America did with their days off, how they filled the hours between the times they were fighting the bad guys and saving the world. As an adult, he realizes that his childhood daydreams about Steve Rogers rescuing kittens from trees and volunteering to help old ladies cross the road were actually pretty accurate, at least with regards to Steve: being a superhero is kind of a full-time gig. Still, Steve's daily round of good deeds aside, the day-to-day life of a superhero, Phil has learned, is a good deal more boring than he ever contemplated as a child. Clint's days are fairly free now that he's an Avenger, and now instead of spending hours at a stretch sitting somewhere out of sight, thinking and observing, he takes Ororo to the park, the library, even some museums.
Phil meets them sometimes on his lunch break, and occasionally she comes back to his office with him and watches cartoons on Clint's iPad while Phil works and Clint heads out to the range or to spar with Natasha or test some new ridiculous invention of Tony and Banner's.
For the times when they're both busy, Ororo spends her time away from them with a rotating schedule of babysitters that Phil and Clint trust to be responsible adults more often than not, meaning, of course, that Tony never takes a turn, though that doesn't preclude him from dropping in on whoever happens to be looking after her.
Wherever they've been, they all come home at the end of the day, one of them cooks dinner, they eat together, they talk about their days. She folds in easily to their post-dinner downtime, curled up between them on the couch with a picture book or a sketchpad and crayons while Phil reads his nightly round of sitreps and Clint props his feet up on the coffee table. Their arms overlap on the back of the couch behind her.
The day will come, of course, when they have to go off and be heroes, and Phil isn't looking forward to leaving her behind, though certainly she can't come along.
"Darcy could take care of her if we have to saddle up and go be good guys," Clint says one night after Ororo is asleep.
"Possibly," Phil says.
"She tasered a demigod," Clint reminds him. "That's pretty badass. Plus, Ororo loves her."
"Point," Phil says, and promises to give her a call.
They do a trial run, and Darcy comes over while they go out to dinner and try not to check their phones every thirty seconds.
"God, we're bad at this," Clint laughs, after the fourth time they catch each other sneaking a glance at their phones.
"We'll get better," Phil says resolutely, and they do.
Ororo is sound asleep when they get back in.
"We had fun," Darcy reports. "We watched a movie and we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. We may have had a spontaneous dance party in your living room. We're not sorry."
After a month, it's easy, and after two, it's like their lives have always been this way. It's all entirely unremarkable, except that it isn't, and more than once Phil catches Clint surveying some little family tableau with a kind of affectionate awe that he's sure is mirrored on his own face.
Eventually, the three of them have a discussion about trying to make all of this permanent, during which Phil and Clint try and fail not to tear up as Ororo clings happily to their legs, and the next day, for the second time in his career, Phil tries unsuccessfully to resign and Fury lights his resignation letter on fire.
"Coulson, you really have to stop doing this," Fury says, as the last of the letter goes up in smoke.
"This presents a substantial conflict of interest, sir," Phil says. "It seemed like the most appropriate course of action."
"You could have asked to be reassigned," Fury points out.
"I don't really want to be reassigned, sir, at least with regards to the Avengers Initiative. I know you've been considering promoting Ms. Lewis; I thought she might be a more appropriate handler for Ororo at this point."
"I'll take that into consideration," Fury says. "You also know I'm not ever going to accept one of these letters from you, right?"
"I had hoped you wouldn't, sir."
"If the two of you adopt this kid, are you gonna get in Lewis's way?"
"Absolutely," Phil says. There's really no point in lying.
"Dismissed," Fury says.
Later that afternoon, Clint comes into his office, laughing, and reports that Hill stopped Fury in the commissary to victoriously collect her fifty bucks.
+
The day the adoption papers go through, Clint decides they are throwing a party for their daughter, by god, and Phil is only too happy to comply.
Most of the team shows up, even Natasha, who has up until this point been somewhat skeptical of this entire venture.
She kisses Clint on the cheek and hands Phil a bottle of wine. "Congratulations," she says. "I attempted to find a suitable toy for her, but I had to abort that mission."
"You got kicked out of FAO Schwarz, didn't you," Clint says, and Natasha ignores him, but she doesn't deny it. Phil wonders what that story entails.
"So I bought you some wine," Natasha's saying, "and I'll make you a promise: if anyone ever tries to hurt her, I'll hurt them first."
Neither of them seem to know exactly what to say to that, but they're rescued by Hill, who came in just after Natasha. She reaches out and tugs Natasha's arm, pulling her away from the doorway and into the living room, where Pepper and Darcy are having what looks like an unintentionally hilarious conversation with Selvig and Fury. "Romanov. Have you ever even met a kid?"
"You know, it may not seem like much, but Nat doesn't do that for just anybody," Clint says, watching the two of them head for the table of drinks.
"What, hurt them?" Phil jokes. "I feel like that's not uncommon."
Clint nudges him with his elbow. "No. Make them family."
"Seems to be a lot of that going around recently," Phil murmurs, and Clint smiles, but any reply he might have made is interrupted by Thor, who strides into the room carrying an enormous gift-wrapped box.
"Uncle Thor!" Ororo shouts.
Thor beams at her. "Hello, little one! Jane and I have brought you a mighty gift!"
"Don't worry, it isn't dangerous," Jane whispers, and Phil nods his apprecation.
"What do you say?" Clint asks, before Ororo can get too far into unwrapping her present.
"Thank you, Uncle Thor," Ororo says dutifully, and then looks up at Clint. "Can I open my present now?"
"Sure," he says, and she gets to work on opening the box, which turns out to contain a set of flannel pajamas covered in lightning bolts and a miniature replica of Mjolnir.
"Now we match!" she says, and before Clint or Phil can object, Thor hoists her onto his shoulders, declares his need for sustenance, and wanders away to find food, Ororo giggling delightedly all the while.
"Be careful, please," Phil calls, in much the same tone that he uses when he's chasing after all of them in a futile attempt at debriefing.
"She'll be fine," Clint says.
Tony arrives fashionably late, not that anyone is surprised, with an apologetic Steve close behind, and Ororo has Thor put her safely on the ground so she can hug Uncle Tony.
"Hey there, Ororo," Tony says, offering her his palm for a low five. "We didn't get you anything because we didn't know what you wanted. How would you like an entire toy store?"
"Tony," Steve gasps. "You can't just buy other people's kids toy stores."
Tony looks genuinely confused. "Why not?"
"I can't take you anywhere," Steve laments.
"Baby, I think I've made it pretty clear that you can take me anywhere," Tony says, and Clint slaps his hand to his forehead.
"Stark, could you not, maybe, in front of our four year old daughter? I think it's pretty clear that we have no problem with dudes boning, but for fuck's sake, she's four."
Phil closes his eyes and puts his hands over Ororo's ears. "Barton," he sighs.
"Oh, shit," Clint says. "I just said 'boning' and 'fuck,' didn't I?"
"Also shit," Ororo adds helpfully, and everyone laughs.
It's a good party: Thor doesn't intentionally break anything in an attempt to procure another beverage, Tony doesn't say anything terribly untoward, and nobody gets drunk enough to think it's a good idea to leave Banner voicemail messages with Jolly Green Giant puns, an unfortunate incident for which there is, sadly, precedent, though not at any of Phil's parties.
While the others listen to Thor recount some glorious tale of battle, with occasional edits from Jane for four-year-old-appropriate-content-warnings, Tony pulls Phil aside.
"I was joking about not getting her anything," Tony says. He opens his suit jacket and pulls out an envelope. "I was not joking about the toy store, but Steve shot me down. Killjoy. Anyway. I think she'll probably appreciate this more in about fourteen years, so here."
Phil takes the envelope and slits it open. It is, as he suspected, the bank statement for a trust account, but there are quite a few more zeroes on this statement than he had anticipated. "Stark, you realize there's enough here to send at least twelve kids to college."
Tony shrugs. "I adjusted for inflation," he says easily. "Just, you know, do me a favor, Coulson, and let her be a kid. Talented people, they grow up too fast."
"When did you grow up, exactly?"
"You thought I wouldn't notice that you just called me talented," Tony says. "But I did."
Phil just shakes his head, and Tony grins and slaps him on the back.
"She's a lucky kid, seriously," he says.
Phil looks around the room at the rest of them, considering, briefly, whether or not a more unlikely group of people has ever come together in the history of the world. They're still a strange little family, a roomful of second chances if anyone's ever seen one. Most of them shouldn't even be alive, let alone sitting here drinking his beer and bringing his kid presents, but here they are, doing exactly that, each of them making the most of lives they never expected to stumble into.
"Maybe we all are, Stark," Phil says, and goes to join the others.
+
Epilogue
Phil is on the couch, reading, when Ororo comes in, a curious expression on her face and a stack of cards in her hand.
"Why do you have pictures of Uncle Steve?" she asks.
It's a credit to the intensive training programs that he's endured in his lifetime that he doesn't panic when Ororo's slightly sticky fingers offer him his stack of vintage Captain America trading cards. Clint is across the room at the bar, humming to himself while he cleans up the leftovers of their dinner, and even without looking Phil knows that Clint's trying not to laugh.
"They're trading cards," Phil explains, picking her up and gingerly taking the cards back. He fans them out so she can see all of them. "Near mint. Slight foxing around the edges."
Clint, he notices, is mouthing the words right along with him.
"Mint?" Ororo says, peering at the cards. She looks up at him and blinks, then says slowly, carefully, like he's the small child in this situation: "These are not mints, daddy."
At that, Clint does actually crack up. "You are absolutely right, sweetheart," he snickers. "They're not."
"They're not mints, they're in mint condition. Well. Near mint. It means they're almost perfect," Phil explains, and she wrinkles her nose, considering this.
"But why do you have them, though?"
"When I was your age, a long time ago, I used to read stories about Captain America--"
"Are they like Uncle Thor's stories?" she asks, utterly delighted, and Phil frowns. He is given to understand that from Ororo's singular point of view, Uncle Thor tells the best stories, which makes him a little grumpy, really, because he's got some good ones, too, though he's willing to admit that maybe they suffer a bit in his retellings. Clint says it's the fault of too many sitreps, and maybe he has a point: Clint's stories are good, but his sitreps are terrible.
"No," he sighs, and Clint's laughing again, but quietly, this time. "But yes. Because they were about heroes, like Thor's stories, and Captain America was mine."
"Is he still your hero?" she asks, and Phil meets Clint's eyes for a moment.
"Sure," he says, "but every so often, your dad does all right."
"Thanks," Clint chuckles, but there's a softness around the edges of the word. "You gonna adopt Cap as your hero too, huh, kiddo?"
"It'll probably be Uncle Thor," Phil says, and he almost keeps the irritation out of his voice. Almost. "Or Stark."
"No, silly," she says, yawning and resting her head against his shoulder. "You're my hero."
Phil just sits there with absolutely no reply to make, mildly stunned by the magnitude of that simple sentence. He's just a guy doing a job; he's nobody's Captain America. He tries to say so, but the words won't really come, so he stays where he is, silent, listening to Clint's quiet humming, until finally she falls asleep and he can very carefully pick her up and carry her to bed.
"She out?" Clint asks, when he comes back into the living room.
"Like a light," Phil says, dropping down onto the couch next to Clint.
Clint grins at him. "And you carried her to bed, you big hero."
"I admit that I didn't see that one coming."
"Really?" Clint looks over at him, surprised. "I had that one down a long time ago."
"You know what you know, right," Phil says quietly.
"Yeah, well, what can I say, Phil?" He leans over and kisses Phil on the cheek. "Me and Ororo, we've got a lot in common."