fic: like you for always 1/5
Clint’s seen Phil Coulson a thousand ways, learned to read through that mild civility to see the depth behind it, but he’s never seen Phil look as pissed as he does in the Hydra lab.
Clint doesn’t get it at first; Clint’s still scanning the room for possible targets and Clint’s not the one looking up whatever Hydra’s been working on in here. As far as Clint knows, it’s all just one more attempt to grow Red Skull a new face.
But it can’t be, because Phil Coulson is furious, homicidal and fully capable of following through on the threat. Clint wraps up his target search and heads over, touches Phil’s elbow carefully as he moves in to read over Phil’s shoulder.
Then Clint’s raging, too, just as bone-deep furious, just as helpless to take it out on the assholes who deserve it.
Genetic experiments. They’ve been fucking breeding. And if Subject 271 is who Clint thinks it is, he’s only too happy to hold the people responsible still while Phil takes them apart, cell by fucking cell.
“Natasha,” Clint murmurs, so quiet his mouth barely moves.
Phil’s nod is just as soft. “It looks like they had three potentially viable as of two days ago.”
Clint tenses; they haven’t seen any children in the lab so far, haven’t seen any sign this is what Hydra’s been doing. “We’ll find them.”
Phil looks at Clint then with a determination that makes his do-your-paperwork face look both patient and pleasant. “Of course we will. We’re not letting Hydra grow itself Natasha clones.”
“They didn’t know we were coming,” Clint says, already running through what he’s seen of the lab they’ve just taken, the Hydra facility SHIELD invaded, guns blazing. “Think they had time to pack?”
Instead of answering him, Phil gets on his earpiece and starts reorganizing the search priorities.
::
When they find the right lab it’s maybe the worst thing Clint’s ever seen, dead scientists and Hydra minions by the door, equipment in complete disarray, broken canisters leaking fluid across the floor and canister contents Clint can’t let himself acknowledge.
Even master assassins have their fucking limits and this, all of it, is nightmare fuel. Instead, he focuses on the trio of canisters that have caught Phil’s attention, the ones at the far side of the room. Two of them are still in relatively good shape, only one obviously damaged beyond repair, but none of them have emerged completely unscathed.
He touches the top of the one with the blinking red light, finds himself looking at a tiny human curled into the fetal position, suspended in fluid and maybe - fuck, he hopes - sleeping.
She doesn’t look like Natasha. She doesn’t look like anyone Clint knows. Phil’s barking out orders about how he wants the other canister handled, threatening in his quiet, ruthless way anyone who gets this wrong. Figures Phil’s already protective of her; Clint is, too, but for Phil, it’s personal.
People hurting Phil’s agents always is.
“I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to step away,” someone says, probably someone well-intentioned, and Clint ignores it because fuck no, he doesn’t.
“How is she, Barton?” Phil asks, steady and grim.
Clint hears someone say something about it not looking promising, something else about intermittent power, and he knows what that should mean but she…Her foot’s moving.
She is moving. Clearly, fuck intermittent power. Clint’s fingers drift down to the glass. He taps once, two fingers moving as gently as they can; he doesn’t want to scare her or anything, he just wants to let her know she’s not alone anymore.
Phil’s in beside him now, crouching to investigate, touching the thick glass of the canister as though he can’t help himself, either.
She’s so small. Clint has no clue how old she is, whether she’s even at a stage where they can take her out of her canister-uterus without hurting her themselves.
“If I go back with her, can you handle things here?” Phil doesn’t look up when he asks. Clint thinks maybe Phil can’t stop staring, either.
“You got some way to do that without cutting off her power supply?”
Phil laughs, blunt and humorless. “I thought I’d just unplug her and hope for the best.”
Clint thinks about that for a second, bobs his head in reluctant agreement. “If she’s any part Natasha, you’ll get it.”
Phil does look up at him then, an expression Clint’s never really seen before on his face. It looks honest and earnest, not far off how he’d looked explaining how he’d come to work for SHIELD that time they’d gotten drunk in Denver, but without the nostalgia or pride. Clint has no fucking clue what it is or what exactly is running through Phil’s head right now, but he knows and trusts Phil’s resolve.
Then Phil’s on his earpiece confirming new intel, giving Clint implicit orders as he does, and Clint’s heading off to go play senior agent with the Hydra minions they’ve just cornered, and as he gets there, he has to shove everything else aside so he can focus on his mission.
::
The next time Clint sees them, there’s only one viable canister left. Clint’s afraid to ask which one; he didn’t even see the kid in the other canister but he feels…Well. He’s actually seen the one, he’s got a vested interest here.
Phil is not the fuck happy about the situation, though, and Clint gets why he wouldn’t be, so Clint very carefully does not ask.
“So what’s the plan now, chief?” He leans in, presses their shoulders together in solidarity. “Wreak a little vengeance? Kick a little ass? I’m up to date on my paperwork, I think, so if you’re up for a little black bag wet work while Nat’s in California, I’m game.”
Phil blinks, shakes his head. “I need you on your best behavior, Barton.” The breath Phil draws sounds steadying; Clint can’t help wondering why he needs it. “It is critical that I appear both competent and capable for the foreseeable future.”
“Mission critical?” Clint asks automatically but he doesn’t really have to; Phil Coulson is a model of efficient proficiency, ideally suited in both skill sets and temperament to be the field handler for SHIELD’s most notorious agents. There is absolutely no way there’s anyone questioning Phil’s ability to get his job done.
Phil nods and blows out a breath. “I’m taking her home with me when she gets out of that thing. I’m…I’ve already cleared it with Director Fury.”
Oh, to have been a hawk in the vents for that conversation. It’s Clint’s turn to blow out a breath, to feel less steady than he thinks he should.
“Any idea when that’s going to be?” If Phil’s taking any sort of parental leave, or even just rearranging his assignment so he’s in the field less, things are going to change around SHIELD in a pretty big way. It’s not even that Clint’s going to have to break in a new handler now, it’s that Clint and Phil and Natasha make a pretty solid team. So Clint knows Phil’s tensing up, even thinks he knows why, and Clint has to push all that shit aside to deal with the actual issue at hand. “Just, you know, wondering when I should schedule helping you put the kid’s room together.”
“I’m told she’ll be here for a while still. For observation.”
And it takes Clint longer than it should - for reasons he refuses to acknowledge - to actually get out a congratulations, but when he does, he can honestly say he means it.
Probably no one better equipped in the world to raise a little Natasha.
::
It comes up a few times after that, mostly because Phil has pictures in New Mexico and the whole thing’s so fucking classified, Clint’s the only person in the state Phil can show, and for all Clint’s got his reasons not to trust grown men near helpless infants, he figures Phil’s probably going to be the exception to that rule.
Assuming one exists. Clint’s heard about happy childhoods and decent, loving parents but honestly, it’s always seemed like a total fairy tale to him.
If anyone could pull it off, though, it’s probably Phil.
So Clint hears Phil out while he’s debating baby names and Clint lets Phil talk out how he’s going to manage day care once he’s off parental leave and while Clint’s in town once on an I’m-bored-stupid-get-me-off-base run, Clint picks up a goofy looking stuffed animal from one of the stores. Phil’s talking through a point of procedure with a pair of junior agents obviously nursing professional crushes; Clint tosses the stuffed thing at Phil’s chest and heads for his quarters without a word.
Phil tracks him down later, stuffed thing in hand. “Want to explain this?”
Clint shrugs. “For the separation anxiety, Dad.”
Phil’s mouth tugs up in a corner. Clint gets that look a lot. “You couldn’t give it to me privately?”
Clint knows Phil Coulson laughing when he sees it, whether Phil’s laughing out loud or not. “Nah. This way, they’ll think we’re dating again.”
“You’re impossible,” Phil says, but he’s laughing privately, grinning all crooked and adorable, and Clint figures that’s $10 well spent, even if the kid never actually sees the thing.
“Hey, I’m just making sure little Clintonia has something to cuddle while her dad’s off battling acquisition forms.”
And from there, it all turns into the baby names bicker again, and Clint doesn’t mind having that conversation now that he’s learned to say Clintonia with a straight face and shit.
::
Not that Clint needs another reason to want to put an arrow through Loki’s eye socket or anything, but Phil doesn’t even get to bring her home.
Clint finds the stuffed thing in Phil’s apartment, a patch-eyed puppy with really soft ears sitting on Phil’s dresser keeping watch over the shit Phil left behind. It’s so incongruously Phil, ruthless efficiency and rare shows of sentimentality, and for a moment, Clint’s as violently, viciously pissed about the whole thing as he remembers being in that Hydra lab.
Then Director Fury tells him Phil’s left Clint in charge of the kid.
::
“I am actually a really bad choice for this, sir,” Clint says, hands up as though he can ward the news off.
Director Fury looks almost pitying. Or, well, as close as he gets. “You’re who we’ve got.”
“So what’s Plan B?”
“You,” Director Fury says bluntly. “Coulson was Plan A. You don’t want to know Plan C.”
Clint laughs, feels hysterical. “You wouldn’t hurt her, sir.”
Director Fury sighs like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders again. Which, well, maybe he does, but Clint only really cares about this one little aspect right now and he doesn’t think that’s unreasonable of him. “Barton, you’re one of my best agents and I realize these aren’t the easiest of circumstances. For anyone. So let me break it down for you: Agent Coulson was in charge of that little girl’s paper trail, a task he was only partially finished when Loki arrived. As it stands now, the only two people on this planet with any kind of legal claim to the kid are yourself, as per Agent Coulson’s will, or Agent Romanov. Now, I’m willing to make exceptions given the delicacy of this case but I am not running a day care. If you won’t take her, I see no choice but to carry on as we have been until such time as Agent Romanov opts in.”
Clint knows all those words, really he does, but it takes a moment to weed through them for the things Fury’s not saying. “You’re going to leave her in the lab.” Fuck, now Clint feels sick.
“I’m not running a day care,” Director Fury repeats. It says something that he’s willing to do it without annoyance.
“Nat’s not going to take her. Christ, Nat’s going to flip.” As far as Clint knows, Natasha hasn’t been read in yet, doesn’t even know what’s going on. “You ordering me to take her, sir?”
Director Fury watches him for a long moment. “Do I need to?”
Clint’s whole life changes when he shakes his head.
::
He’ll be honest, there’s still a part of him that expects to find Phil hanging out in SHIELD medical, bandaged and healing, hovering by her canister expectantly, ready to launch into the debate over baby names again.
::
Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing Clint would take to the roof, because it’s made for a perch up where no one can see him, up where the world is all very far away. He can’t with this one, though, because she’s alone in the lab if he does, and he knows the SHIELD medical science staff probably mean well but she’s there as an experiment to reverse engineer.
Clint’s all she’s got now, the only person left breathing more concerned about the kid she is now, the person she’ll be, than any of the fancy science shit Hydra used to make her.
Hiding out on his roof would just plain be cowardice. For Phil’s kid - his own now, Christ - Clint can brave the whispers and looks and shit he knows he’ll get for showing his face around the Loki-wounded.
She’s bigger now, nearly the size of her canister and moving constantly, still curled up tight but kicking out, too, turning restlessly.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says as he slumps into the chair her medical staff’s probably set up for Phil’s visits, reaching out to touch her canister glass again. “So I have some bad news and some worse news for you. You care where I start?” He waits a beat, watches her, half-expects some sort of response. Jesus, Clint’s not even sure she can hear yet, let alone process what she’s saying and sort out some form of non-verbal communication for him; Clint needs to read every baby book ever written, like yesterday.
Clint settles in for his visit, leans back in his chair and props an ankle over his knee. “Okay, let’s start with the really shit-dammit. Darn. Sorry. The, uh, the really sucky part, I mean.” Great. Clint’s been here fifteen seconds and he’s already being horrible with children. What the hell had Phil been thinking? Christ. “Look. Some really bad sh-stuff went down a little while ago and your dad was trying to handle it to, like, save the world, I guess, and he got hurt. Really badly…” Clint shuts his eyes, has to brace himself to admit it out loud and everything. This is no time for getting caught up in his own guilt, Phil’s kid needs him, but Clint’s still got so much tangled up in the Loki thing he hasn’t unraveled, so it’s messy.
Clint clears his throat. Forces his eyes open, because the very least he can do is look at her when he tells her. It helps a little that she probably won’t understand, but it only helps a little. “He’s dead, baby. He can’t come see you anymore. I know he’d be here if he could, he was really looking forward to meeting you without your, you know, canister thing, but that’s how it goes around here sometimes, I guess. Bad sh-stuff happens to really good people. So, uh, you’re coming home with me? I know, I don’t know what he was thinking either, but your dad asked me to look out for you so, you know, I will. I just…” He trails off, self-conscious. Lowers his voice to confess somewhere it probably won’t come back to haunt him.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing here, okay? I mean, I’ll try and I’m not completely clueless, I’m usually good with a bit of intel and a little direction, I’m not…” Nope, can’t quite say that, either. “I probably won’t suck as much as my dad, and if I do, you’ve got a ton of people who’ll take me down for it, okay? So you’re, you know, safe. I…I’m not a drinker, I don’t get off on hitting, I know sweet fuck all about little girls or, like, babies in general, but it’s the Age of Google and I know some really, really smart people, so probably I won’t be a total disaster.”
She’s…her foot’s moving again. Not lots or anything, just bobbing a little, but it hits him like it did in the Hydra lab, proof she’s alive and sentient, at least enough for automatic reflexes.
Jesus Christ, there is a kid in that canister. A tiny human. How does something this obvious keep sinking in like this, keep feeling too massive a thought to hold on to?
There is Phil’s kid in that canister and now she’s Clint’s responsibility and when he thinks about it, he probably hasn’t been all that reassuring.
“You want anything?” he asks and feels ridiculous, because what’s he going to do? Bring her a sandwich? Jesus. “You okay in there? You need anything? Is it warm enough? You hungry? I’d be fucking hungry.” Clint has to force himself to chill the fuck out. Can’t help laughing hopelessly at himself, because seriously, this is his first act of parenthood? Useless panic? Excellent, he’s off to a fabulous start.
He forces himself to take another breath, then another, forces himself to be calming the way he thinks Phil would have been.
“So, kiddo, if we’re going to do this thing, we should probably see about getting you a name, huh?” That feels righter, better, but he still sneaks a look around them, checks that they aren’t being observed by anyone the way he always did with Phil. “You have any thoughts on Clintonia?”
::
Clint sticks it out in the bowels of the facility, lurking in her medical science lab, watching the bio-scientists mutter excitedly and try to do things to her canister. There’s no room in this lab for distance, not one that keeps him in growling range, and for all Director Fury’s said the bio-scientists have free range to collect their data - they know way more about the science of her than Clint figures he ever will - Clint is not watching a prisoner or war criminal or anything.
They don’t get to hurt her, he tells himself repeatedly, and the one time he says it aloud, one of the scientists gets all inspired wondering if she has pain receptors yet.
Director Fury sends a memo reminding Clint officially that no, he’s still not allowed to shoot any of the scientists, but Clint can read between the lines. If Fury thought Clint was seriously screwing up, he’d have said so in person.
Clint already knows her middle name is going to be Nicole. That when she’s out of her canister, he’s going to teach her to call Fury Grandpa. Knows from one of those conversations in New Mexico that Phil would approve and frankly, that’s the best template he’s got for figuring out this parenting thing.
Clint reads a lot when the science team isn’t doing anything stupid, just bunkers down with all the information he can find and does what he can to absorb it, sort out some kind of strategy. She’ll be real small and really, really needy for a while, pretty much a regular baby with, like, maybe some medical problems Clint doesn’t even know about yet, and he thinks it’s helpful that so much of the first year stuff gets written as straight-up instructions.
He doesn’t know yet how to change a diaper but, well, he will.
The science team jokes sometimes about getting him a doll to practice on, but he can tell they don’t really expect him to be the one doing it.
But who the hell else is there now?
::
“Legolas!” he hears as he’s grilling a scientist for some sort of usable ETA for when she’s getting out of her canister - hey, apparently he has a life to plan - and Clint flinches, can’t help tensing at the sound of Tony Stark’s voice.
“Robocop,” Clint says back, turning to put himself between Stark and her canister, to block Stark’s view and maybe, maybe herd Stark back out of the lab entirely. Then Clint blinks, because Stark is not alone. “Dr. Banner.”
“This where you’ve been hiding?” Stark asks, totally oblivious to Clint’s attempt to run him off. “Tesseract, take two?”
“Uh, no, not exactly. Look, can we take this to the hall or something? I’m pretty sure you don’t have clearance to be in here.”
The way Stark looks at him says that Tony Stark needs no clearance to be anywhere he wants. Clint figures this is why Natasha pulled that assignment; Stark’s the sort of guy who’d drive Clint to increasingly hostile acts of prankery just to get that smug self-satisfaction off his face.
The medical scientists all fucking flee. Clint wants to call them all back but fuck it, what could they possibly contribute? Hell, they’d probably take advantage of Clint’s split attention to do weird shit to the kid again.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Banner says, soft and actually apologetic. “We were just on our way to lunch and Tony wanted to go exploring.”
Clint nods at Banner, simple acknowledgement, but never really takes his eyes off Stark, who’s gone wandering over to the many-buttoned terminal the medical scientists like to play with while they’re babbling things about optimal tissue oxidation or some shit.
While they’re treating his kid like she’s a damned canister.
Stark’s talking again, mentioning Dr. Selvig and shawarma and how everyone disappeared so quickly afterwards. Clint doesn’t think Stark means anything by it but Banner looks uncomfortable, so very awkward and yet still so very appealing. Somehow, Banner makes socially dysfunctional look good, which makes it a fucking tragedy Clint won’t have more time with the guy to enjoy it. Clint has a thing for the adorably awkward ones and at this rate, Banner’s going to be back out of his life before Clint’s even sure he’s not a wishful thinking ping.
Then Stark’s actually touching the many-buttoned terminal and, well, Clint’s not having that.
“Stand down,” he snaps, moving in on Stark fast to clear his hands away before he does anything like, fuck, Clint doesn’t even know. Just, no one gets to touch that unless they know what they’re doing; Clint is not risking the kid to appease Stark’s curiosity.
Stark looks frankly amused. “I touch a nerve, Robin Hood?” Then, dark and knowing, Stark says, “Is it called Phase Three or just Phase Two-point-Five, the shit-we-lost-the-Tesseract version?”
“What?”
But Stark’s already narrowing his eyes, turning crazy science genius on him, and Stark doesn’t even really glance back at the terminal before he decides - aloud, Christ - that “Fury’s obviously back on weapons.” When Stark says, “Biological ones? Interesting choice,” Clint feels sharp and cold and hostile with panic.
Clint doesn’t panic. Ever. That’s part of his charm, part of why he gets away with as much as he does, because no matter how cowboy he gets on an assignment, he still keeps a cool head about it when he’s in a crunch.
It feels now like all he’s done is panic since Fury called him in for that conversation. It is not a great feeling, but he can’t help himself.
“She is not a weapon,” Clint says, low and grim. That’s a little too close to fucking Hydra, that thought.
He doesn’t realize what he’s given away until Stark’s face lights. “She?”
Clint squares himself off, does his best to stare Stark down, silent and unyielding.
“Should something over there be moving?” Banner asks, more mildly curious than anything else.
“In ten minutes, JARVIS is going to tell me everything I want to know,” Stark points out, but it’s a blind shot, blatant bullshit.
“I think you should go now,” Clint says, in a tone his previous assignments would recognize as unpleasant. Clint tips his head at Banner again, refuses to look away from Stark. “Good seeing you again, Doc. Enjoy your lunch.”
“Leave already?” Stark baits. “But we just got here.” Stark’s put-upon pout sets Clint’s teeth on edge. “What’s over there, Agent Barton? Is it alien?”
Clint can’t tell for sure or anything but he’s pretty sure he blanches. He can take the stares and hostility from SHIELD agents who don’t have the clearance to know what really happened in the whole Loki debacle but it’s different with the other Avengers; they all knew just enough about it to do Clint serious damage.
“I can and will remove you.”
Stark turns his attention back to the terminal, manic as ever, taking in more on the screen that Clint probably ever could. “I’m no DNA expert but it seems to me that’s not a virus.” Tony points at something Clint honestly thought was some kind of on-off chart. “Banner, get your pretty eyes over here, tell me what that looks like to you.”
“No,” Clint says, firm and sharp, and he’s stepping in to physically remove Stark from the lab entirely when Banner says, “Oh my God.”
Clint’s not even sure what they’re looking at but he can tell by their faces that it isn’t going over well. Fabulous. Now he’ll have to explain to Fury why he killed Stark.
“That’s human DNA,” Banner says, watching Clint expectantly.
“With a little something extra,” Stark agrees. “Dr. Banner?”
Banner’s frowning, eyebrows knit unhappily. “If I had to guess? I’d say that looks like the sort of genetic mutation I’d expect to see with the Super Soldier Serum. Not an exact match to Erskine’s original but closer than I ever got with mine.”
“Growing your own agent upgrades, Barton?”
Dammit, where the hell are the medical scientists when Clint needs them. He has no clue how to even approach Stark’s question and Banner’s clearly going to see right through him if Clint lies.
So fuck it, Banner and Stark already know enough to be a pain in the ass and Fury probably won’t let Clint kill either of them; this feels distinctly like a moment Clint needs to control.
So he does. Looks them both over to assess them as security risks to the kid and figures his best chance here is to just give a little.
“This doesn’t leave this room,” he says, solemn as hell. Banner looks baffled but agreeably so, not inclined to be stubborn just for the sake of it, but Stark’s too agreeable when he nods. Clint can’t trust it, not after what he’s seen in Stark’s files. “Recording devices off. I mean it, Stark. I shouldn’t even be telling you this but Fury made it need-to-know and since you both look ready to run off half-cocked - which is fucking dangerous, so I will not take it well - I figure maybe that won’t happen if you know what you’ll be fucking up. Am I wrong?”
He waits for an answer. Banner takes a moment before he nods, nearly lost in thought. Stark, on the other hand, looks restlessly intrigued. Clint’s done enough interrogating in his time - giving and receiving, thanks - to know how useful silence can be.
It takes a long, stubborn moment before Stark nods, too, once vaguely as he gets his phone out and fiddles. He flashes Clint the powered-down screen before he slips it back into his pocket and waves a restless hand.
Clint has no idea how Tony Stark lives with his own perpetual impatience.
“I’m going to preface this by saying this was Agent Coulson’s last assignment before the Clusterfuck, one with considerable personal significance. It was, I’m told, basically his dying wish that I take it over. So when I say I will fucking end you if you so much as think about endangering this mission, well, I will fucking end you. Master assassin,” he says, and he smiles, ruthless and sharp. “You’d be a challenge, doc, but I like my odds.”
Stark looks intensely curious now, almost inhuman in it. Banner just looks…sort of flattered?
Clint sighs and carries on. “We’re not growing anything. Hydra was. We just…couldn’t leave her there to die when we’d raided the lab.”
“Leave who?” Banner asks before Stark can do more than make a reactionary face.
Clint digs his fingernails into his palms, wonders why this feels so alarming and so easy simultaneously, like betting the house on a sure thing and waiting for the draw. “Come on. Let’s meet Phillipa.”
::
“When you say ‘assignment’…” Stark starts, looking from Clint to the kid and back like he can’t figure out where to focus.
“Phil was going to raise her.” Clint forces a small shrug, pushes aside the ache of it again. “Obviously that’s out of the question now, so I’ve been assigned to step in.” He eyes them both as a thought occurs to him. “Don’t suppose either of you can tell me how old she is?”
Stark ignores the question. Banner shakes his head. “Sorry, no. Not without her growth rate. If there’s Super Soldier Serum, she’s probably not following standard development patterns.”
“But she’s healthy?”
Banner rubs his neck, actually apparently considering the question. Clint’s impressed; the medical scientists tend to brush Clint off or outright avoid him. “Hard to say. I don’t exactly know what’s normal for her, especially with the serum in her. Don’t see anything to say she isn’t, though, if that helps?”
“Should her power couplings be this corroded?” Stark asks, poking at her canister, and it’s all Clint can do not to smack Stark’s hands away again.
“Tony, don’t touch that,” Banner scolds gently. “I’m sure Agent Barton doesn’t want us playing with his little girl.”
And that’s just…wow, that’s an unexpected shot to the chest, someone else acknowledging she’s a tiny person and not a fucking science experiment, and it’s coming from Banner, who doesn’t even know Clint and who probably never really knew Phil.
Stark hisses “I won’t hurt her” and Banner shoots him a look so very much like Phil’s, comfortably familiar resignation, fond despite the skepticism. “Seriously, who is maintaining this thing? And do they know this isn’t Radio Shack?”
Then Stark is doing something, Stark is touching and meddling and Clint is over in a shot; the only thing stopping him from throwing a punch is Banner’s hand on his chest. “Tony,” Banner warns, and Clint’s trying to get away, trying to get to her because Stark is fucking with a metal plate and a six-pack of little metal knobs, Stark is poking with some implement he’s pulled out of nowhere, Tony Stark is a dead man.
The sound of metal scraping metal makes Clint’s fillings twinge. “Back away, asshole,” Clint says and he’s growling, trying to throw Banner off, but Banner’s got him in a surprisingly solid grip.
The whole thing doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Stark’s pulling away, satisfied.
Her little red light winks out.
“Banner, let go of me,” is all Clint can say, because he’s not even sure he can promise to let Banner walk.
Stark blinks up at him, takes the scene in with bemusement. The bastard doesn’t even have the sense to look remorseful.
“Relax, Momma Bear. I just cleaned off her conduits. She’ll be fine.”
“Banner, let go.”
This time when Clint shoves, he gets himself free. Banner looks stricken. Stark holds up his hands. Clint doesn’t even want to think about what must be on his face now but her light is off, there are dead men in this room who don’t seem to know it yet.
“Clint, I’m so sorry,” Banner says faintly, sounds just as gutted as Clint thinks he should feel, and Clint is advancing slowly on Stark, debating the merits of a quick, fatal strike or something extensive and painful.
The click and the hum don’t really register but the sharp, upbeat whine definitely does. Clint can’t help but look over at her canister again and what he sees drains him, leaves him weak-kneed with relief.
Her little red blinking light is now a solid green.
“Tony, what-” Banner starts and Clint hears “Routine maintenance” in Stark’s cocky drawl but he can’t process it yet, he needs to know she’s okay.
Clint has had a fuckload of training and more than enough experience with keeping shit off his face, smothering himself and his reactions for the mission. That all goes to shit. He sinks into Phil’s chair - his chair now, fuck, he’s probably got more hours in it by now - and covers his mouth with his hand, reaches out to touch the glass of her canister again so maybe she’ll still know he’s there.
“You okay, baby? You’re good, right?” Come on, sweetheart, move for me, he thinks, but he can’t say it in case she doesn’t. “I’m going to kick Stark’s ass in a minute, promise, but you gotta let me know what I’m kicking it for.”
This time, it’s her fingers curling, flexing like a wave. She turns a little inside her canister, which the medical scientists tell him is just a reflex but fuck them, she’s looking for him, Clint fucking knows she is, and when he laughs, he sounds broken even to himself.
“Jesus Christ. There’s my girl.” Fuck, this kid is going to kill him, he’s going to have a goddamned heart attack before she’s even out of her canister. “Stark, what did I say about endangering this mission?”
Banner’s quiet and worried, silent and keeping his distance but watching both of them like he’s desperate to help somehow. Clint figures he’s still got his assassin on, probably won’t shake it for a while yet. Stark looks…well, stark. Clint actually wants to call it remorseful, maybe even apologetic. Stark looks shaken, anyway, as though it’s only now occurring to him fucking with that canister might not have been a brilliant move.
Then Stark pulls his shit together, sort of, and Clint thinks it’s not much more than a facade. “You want to talk about endangering your mission, Barton, you might want to start with the incompetents who couldn’t even manage routine maintenance to that thing. Unless the plan was to run your baby baker at half-power indefinitely, in which case, congratulations, you had that down without a hitch.”
And maybe it’s how annoyed Stark looks, how very ruffled he seems and how much smoother the canister’s humming now, but something about the whole mess makes Clint reconsider his intel in light of what he’s seen and heard from the medical science team.
“You fixed her, though, right?” Clint is oh so careful with his tone, because Fury’s said he can’t shoot the science team in her lab but that doesn’t mean Clint can’t get creative in her defense.
Stark’s just as careful with his nod.
Clint swears viciously in three different languages. Doesn’t really care which ones as long as he steers clear of English and Russian. It’s cathartic. When he’s chilled the fuck out, he forces himself to breathe deep, looks between them intently. “You two got any other routine maintenance in mind? Because clearly SHIELD’s fucking me over here, they’re all too damned busy trying to study her, running fucking experiments-” He can’t help but spit the word.
He’s come to hate it lately. It gets tossed around as the rationale behind some pretty inhumane shit.
“Experiments why?” Stark asks, but he sounds like he’s got a few computers in his head working options, piecing shit together.
“She’s a clone,” Banner says simply, a statement of fact without judgment. “Of who? If you don’t mind my asking?”
Clint really didn’t mean to ever say it but, well, Banner’s face is soft and warm, the friendliest Clint’s seen in a long time, and the guy just looks understanding. When he’s not the Hulk, he’s a mild-mannered genius according to his file and when he is the Hulk, he does shit like helping bring down the Chitauri. That buys him a lot of leeway right now, even for someone as trust adverse as Clint.
“Natasha.”
The name hangs between the three of them in the silence that follows.
Stark breaks it with a derisive sniff. “That’s going to grow up to be Agent Romanov and they’re pissing her off already? I may have given Fury too much credit.”
Clint snorts back. “It’s not him. This is my op, remember? Not that I have any clue what I’m doing.” He snorts again, tries to laugh at himself and manages a miserable sound. “Master assassin, dead shot, but I’m not a scientist. So you tell me, what else does she need?”
Stark looks at Banner. Banner looks back. There’s a short, complicated conversation there, nothing but looks, raised brows and slightly tilted heads. Then Banner nods encouragingly, looks so hopeful, and Stark just looks resolved.
“I think we can do you one better,” Stark says carefully. “Where are you staying?”
::
Four days later, Clint's officially a resident of New York City's shiniest address. He has no fucking clue how this is his life but hey, at least the kid gets her own lab space on the best R&D floor.
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