Tony Stark is a Certifiable Genius (and Also an Idiot), Avengers Fic, PG-13, Clint/Coulson
Title: Tony Stark is a Certifiable Genius (and Also an Idiot)
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Fandom: Avengers, MCU, Agents of SHIELD
Word Count: 2848
Summary: When Tony met Skye. Featuring BAMF Phil Coulson and clueless Tony.
Warnings: Violence, which is mostly vague, but there is one instance that might upset some. Highlight for details. Click here for slightly spoilery details.
Author's Notes: Just a bit of self-indulgence. Please keep that in mind. The "Laws" Tony and Coulson reference are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
AO3 link here: desert_neon at AO3
“Dummy, hand me the spanner. The fixed pin.” Tony didn’t take his eyes off his project until he felt a nudge at his side, then looked to his bot. “What? No, not the blender, you incompetent bucket of bolts. The spanner. Oh, never mind.” He grabbed the tool himself as Dummy zipped away, only to realize that Dummy was zipping to somewhere. Or, more accurately, to someone.
Cap was striding towards him, in full Avengers gear. “We get a call?” Tony asked.
“Agent Coulson needs our help.”
Tony raised one eyebrow, wiping his hands on a rag. Steve wasn’t ordering him into the suit, which wasn’t how a call to assemble usually went down. “What’s the deal? Why aren’t you rushing to Agent Fanboy’s side?”
Tony could read the exasperation on Steve’s face easily, despite the presence of the cowl. “He’s not a fanboy. He’s hasn’t been like that since . . .”
“Since his resurrection?”
“I was going to say since he moved into the tower.”
Tony waved away the difference. “Semantics. What’s going on?”
“This thing. It’s not an official mission. He made it very clear it would be a favor.”
Tony’s second eyebrow joined his first. “Off the books? Coulson? What the hell has Agent Lazarus gotten himself into?”
“One of his team got herself in a little trouble while on leave. His team’s been ordered to Berlin for an assignment. Apparently SHIELD doesn’t consider her enough of an asset to send agents after her. I get the feeling someone in the hierarchy wouldn’t mind if she disappeared completely.”
“Ah. The uber-hacker then.” Tony could sympathize. He knew exactly how it felt to be on SHIELD’s radar for doing what came naturally to the inherently curious and super smart. “So, what, he wants us to mount a rescue?”
“He asked very politely if we wouldn’t mind. He made it perfectly clear we’re under no obligation, and that it’s not an official SHIELD request. But I . . . I got the feeling this is important to him. I mean, of course I’d help, we should all help. But he wanted everyone to have a choice, considering it could create problems with the agency.”
“We’re going, Stark,” a new voice piped in over the speakers.
“Sir, Agent Barton for you,” Jarvis announced, his voice wry.
“Yeah, I got that, J, thanks. Barton, what are you doing?”
“Powering up the quinjet. Get your suit and let’s fucking go already.”
“Shouldn’t we make a plan or something?” Tony asked, already striding to the wall chamber where the latest model was housed.
“Phil’s meeting us there,” Clint said, his voice tight. “He’ll have the specifics. Cap, wheels up in two minutes, with or without you. Stark, Jarvis has the coordinates. Get in the air.”
There was a deliberate click, signaling the end of the communication, and Tony cocked his head as the suit attached itself around him. “What lit the fire under his ass?”
“Phil sounded . . . concerned,” Steve admitted. “Which, you know.”
Tony gave a brisk nod. If Coulson had allowed emotion to bleed into his voice, it must be significant. And Barton did have some bizarre, twisted friendship with the senior agent, second only to the weirdness he shared with Natasha on a daily basis. Seriously, the only thing more disconcerting than finding Clint and Coulson in the shared kitchen laughing and baking cookies was to walk in on Natasha blowing on Clint’s fingernails to dry them before getting to work on his toes.
Steve nodded back, then jogged out of the workshop, presumably to make Barton’s deadline. Tony attached the faceplate, had Jarvis pull up the flight plan, and sighed. “Well. It’s a nice night to fly to Ohio.”
_________
It was not, in fact, a nice night to fly to Ohio. It was cold, and raining, which at higher altitudes meant sleet. Tony punched it, wanting to get there as quickly as possible, and landed on the roof of a warehouse.
“Stark.”
Tony turned, not at all surprised to see Coulson waiting for him just inside the doorway of the stairwell. “Agent Coulson. Aren’t you supposed to be in Germany?”
“My team can handle it. I’m needed here.”
“Defying orders, Agent? And here I thought robots weren’t capable of it. Law Two.”
“Superseded by Law One,” Coulson argued, and Tony had to huff at that. Coulson’s sense of humor didn’t make itself known often, and Tony never knew what might trigger it. Apparently classic sci-fi made the cut.
“Did you call the others?”
Coulson shook his head. “I can’t extract Agent Romanoff from her current assignment, certainly not for something unofficial. And I don’t think we’ll need the brute force of either Thor or Dr. Banner. They’ve both earned their time off, let them enjoy it.”
Something in Coulson’s voice told Tony that if he could’ve called them in, he would have, but with Bruce at a conference in Australia and Thor in London, neither of them would probably have arrived in time to do any good. “Who needs them anyway, right? You’ve got the best of the bunch right here.”
“Yes, Agent Barton and Captain Rogers should perform admirably.”
“Hey!”
Coulson sent him a rare smirk, but before either of them could say anything more, the whine of the arriving quinjet grabbed their attention. Tony moved, clearing the roof for their landing, and Clint set down with barely a thud.
“Barton, Captain,” Coulson said when they’d joined them, bow and shield gripped in tight fists. “Thank you for coming.”
“Dude,” Barton replied, sounding surprised. “Of course.”
“I know you gave us a choice, sir,” Steve said, his voice solemn, “but it was an easy choice to make.”
Coulson’s lips tilted up just a fraction, and he inclined his head in response. “I appreciate that, Captain.”
“Inside?” Barton asked. “Drier would be better.”
Coulson’s smile was wider this time, even if it only flashed for a moment before he nodded seriously and turned to lead the way down the stairs.
_________
The thing was, Tony always knew Coulson was scarily competent. The man could plan a siege with a MacGyver-ed ballpoint pen and bicycle chain, threaten with a joke about bad TV, and keep any enemy organization at bay with mountains of paperwork. But what Tony hadn’t known? Was that Coulson with a gun and a mission was a stone-cold bad-ass.
He wasn’t content to lead from afar this time, and downright refused to stay ensconced in a safe place with a comm unit and some surveillance equipment. He personally took out four goons before Steve could even throw his shield, shooting two and fending off the other two in straight up hand to hand. The man was taking no prisoners, and he definitely wasn’t taking any shit. When they finally found the man in charge of the compound, the guy looked from Iron Man to Captain America to Hawkeye with a wary eye. It was Coulson calmly checking the clip in his gun and then asking, with steel in his voice, to be taken to their prisoner that finally made the man swallow and sweat.
Tony couldn’t blame him at all. Especially when, at the guy’s reluctance, Coulson chambered a round, aimed, and shot him in the leg. “The girl,” he said, his voice like ice. “Where is she?”
“Fuck. You.”
“That is not an appropriate answer.” The agent stepped forward and knelt down, digging his fingers straight into the wound, causing the guy to scream.
“Jesus, Coulson,” Tony breathed, though he didn’t project it outside the suit.
Steve looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Sir,” he started, but Barton cut him off with a sharp shake of his head.
“Let him.”
“The girl,” Coulson repeated.
“Lower level,” the guy panted out. “East side. Third door.”
“Thank you.” He fastened a pair of restraints around the guy’s wrists and an exposed pipe along the wall, trapping him. “Someone will be along to collect you, eventually.” Then he strode out of the room, Barton immediately on his heels.
Steve shot Tony a look, and Tony shrugged the shoulders of the suit in response, then followed. Once they’d found the appropriate room and had disabled the guards, Tony raised his hand to blast the lock, but Coulson didn’t wait for him. He pulled a small explosive unit from his suit pocket and set it to the doorframe, barely standing out of the blast radius as it discharged. He was the first one through the door, gun at the ready, and Barton took position in the corridor, nodding Steve and Tony inside.
“Skye,” Coulson said, his voice gentle as he knelt beside the prone figure on the floor. His gun was holstered and he carefully ran his hands over the girl’s head, checking for injury. “Skye, you with me?”
“Coulson?” Skye didn’t open her eyes, but her head turned towards her savior, instinctively following his voice. “You . . . Are you real?”
“Very.” Tony had never heard so much emotion packed into one word before, and certainly not from Coulson. “I brought some friends in to help. Injuries?”
“Leg,” she said, finally forcing her eyes open and locking immediately onto Coulson’s gaze. “Broken. And, uh. Head injury? They clocked me pretty hard.”
“Yeah, you’ve got quite the bump. Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t investigate corrupt medical labs without the rest of us.”
“Can we not, with the lecture? Not yet, okay?”
Tony couldn’t believe the look on Coulson’s face. If any of the Avengers had tried that shit and been captured, he’d have been griping about paperwork and threatening them with electrocution and/or a captivity of his own making.
“Coulson,” Barton called out from the corridor, and Tony’s suit picked up the sound of an arrow’s release. “Company!”
Tony stepped forward as Cap dodged out of the room. “I’ll get her,” he said when it looked like the older man was about to attempt to lift her himself. Maybe he could have handled it-though Tony wouldn’t have thought so before this little adventure-but it would be infinitely easier for Iron Man to carry her.
Coulson actually looked like he was going to argue the point, but he wiped his expression blank after just a moment and gave a brisk nod, standing up straight and unholstering his weapon. “Barton, how’s it looking out there?”
“Nothing we can’t handle, sir. But a retreat before more muscle shows up might be wise.”
“Oh, hey,” Skye said, her voice thready. “Iron Man.”
“Iron Man,” Coulson agreed with a soft grin that looked downright foreign on his face.
“No Thor?”
“Don’t know why you’d want him, kid,” Tony argued as he gently lifted her off the ground. “I’m the best one.”
“Arms,” Skye countered, and Tony cradled her close as her eyes closed and her body relaxed against the suit. “Dreamy.”
“A protégée of yours,” he said to Coulson with exaggerated disbelief, “and her favorite isn’t Captain America?”
“She’s young yet. She’ll learn.”
Tony snorted and looked away from Coulson and his fond but determined expression to the now unconscious girl in his arms. Yes, he thought. Very young.
_________
The local hospital didn’t seem to know what to do with three Avengers and a very concerned and severe secret agent. Eventually they put Skye in a private room with an observation window, just to get them all out of the way. Her leg had been set and her brain had been scanned; she would be fine, the break would heal and the concussion would fade, and she would wake up on her own when she was ready.
Coulson had tried to get them to go, had thanked them and dismissed them, but Clint wasn’t having it. He’d outright refused to take off, and since he was the pilot, Steve couldn’t leave either. Tony didn’t really mind; even though he could have gone home on his own, he kind of wanted to stay. He’d learned more about Coulson in the past several hours than in all the years he’d known him, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to learn more.
Besides, watching the man with Skye was fascinating, even if in a perverse, disturbing sort of way.
“It’s a little skeezy, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly. He was pretty sure it was, but his barometer of skeeze wasn’t the same as other people’s, so he thought maybe he should check.
“What?” Clint asked.
Tony gestured to the window, through which they could all see Coulson, who was sitting by Skye’s bed, her hand cradled gently in both of his. “I mean, I get that I’m not one to talk, because, you know, pre-Pepper I was kind of skeezy myself. But I’d like to think that even I, at fifty or whatever, wouldn’t be all love struck over a twenty-four year old girl.”
Clint scowled and crossed his arms, but before he could say anything, Steve sighed. “Tony,” he said, in that voice that Tony always hated, because it meant Steve thought he knew better than Tony about something, which was hardly ever the case.
“Oh my god,” Clint bit out. “You’re an idiot.”
Tony frowned at him. “Come on, Barton. I know it’s weird as shit, but look at him.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” he commanded. “I know you’ve read her file, Stark. Don’t even pretend you didn’t check up on Phil’s team when we found out about them.”
“So?”
With a roll of his eyes, Clint reached out and pushed at Tony’s chest. “You really can’t think of any other reason they might be close? A man in his fifties with no children and a girl in her twenties who’s never had any kind of father figure?”
Tony actually had to run that through his brain for a moment, because, yeah, okay, paternal influences weren’t his strong suit. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Then he muttered, “Fucking idiot.”
“Well, you can’t blame me,” Tony complained, trying to defend himself. “The guy’s ripe for a mid-life crisis. Middle-aged, near death experience, and all self-controlled and repressed and shit. It would make sense if he got himself a hot young-”
Clint actually growled at him, and Tony shut up. “He’s not fucking repressed, you moron. He just doesn’t-”
A doctor showed up then, squeezing past them and into the room, drawing their attention back to the window. Skye was awake, and Coulson was standing, hands by his sides. He stepped back to let the doctor work, clearly asking questions and expecting answers.
After a few minutes the doctor left, and Coulson stepped forward again. Skye reached out, and Coulson-Phil-took her hand with a small smile. They talked for a bit, and then Skye’s gaze drifted to the window, her eyes bright and questioning.
Coulson shook his head, but he let go of her hand and indulgently waved them inside. Tony smiled and went, because he might not have Thor’s arms, but he was sure to be her second favorite, right? In computer genius solidarity?
“Hey, kid,” he started, but Coulson cut him off.
“Skye, I’d like you to meet Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers.”
Skye waved to them, but then her gaze sharpened, focusing over their shoulders, and her grin widened. For a second, Tony wondered if Thor had arrived-better late than never and all that-but then Clint pushed past them, his arm brushing Tony’s. He went to Coulson’s side, his lips set in a shy little smile.
“And this,” Coulson added, his voice sure and proud, “is Agent Barton.”
Tony looked at Steve, because, what? Sure, Clint had nice arms too, if that was her thing, but so did Steve. And shouldn’t Coulson be using that tone for his hero?
And then Skye, beaming, said something that made absolutely no sense.
“Hi. Are you going to be my new step-dad?”
Barton burst out laughing, and Coulson rubbed the bridge of his nose warily. “Skye,” he intoned.
“Kid, I’m not old enough to be anybody’s parent,” Clint argued, and Skye scoffed.
“You can’t make a statement like that and preface it with ‘kid.’ You can’t have it both ways.”
“I can too.”
“Can not.”
“Can too.”
“And that, Skye, is why Clint isn’t any older than you,” Coulson said, his voice laced with affection.
“Aw, sir, you know you love me.”
And then Tony had to sit down, because Coulson didn’t say a word to refute Barton’s statement. He just took Clint’s hand in his and smiled.
He didn’t get the chance to find a chair though, because Steve was suddenly poking him in the side and trying to usher him out the door. “Right, well. Skye, it was nice to meet you. Tony and I will just be out in the hall. Clint, take your time.”
“What the-”
“Tony, hush.”
“No, seriously,” Tony tried again once they were in the corridor and the door was closed between them. “What the hell?”
Steve just started laughing, which wasn’t helpful at all.
“How did we miss that?”
Steve leaned back against the wall, grinning. “Not ‘we,’ Tony. ‘You.’ You missed that.”
“Well, shit.”
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Fandom: Avengers, MCU, Agents of SHIELD
Word Count: 2848
Summary: When Tony met Skye. Featuring BAMF Phil Coulson and clueless Tony.
Warnings: Violence, which is mostly vague, but there is one instance that might upset some. Highlight for details. Click here for slightly spoilery details.
Author's Notes: Just a bit of self-indulgence. Please keep that in mind. The "Laws" Tony and Coulson reference are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
AO3 link here: desert_neon at AO3
“Dummy, hand me the spanner. The fixed pin.” Tony didn’t take his eyes off his project until he felt a nudge at his side, then looked to his bot. “What? No, not the blender, you incompetent bucket of bolts. The spanner. Oh, never mind.” He grabbed the tool himself as Dummy zipped away, only to realize that Dummy was zipping to somewhere. Or, more accurately, to someone.
Cap was striding towards him, in full Avengers gear. “We get a call?” Tony asked.
“Agent Coulson needs our help.”
Tony raised one eyebrow, wiping his hands on a rag. Steve wasn’t ordering him into the suit, which wasn’t how a call to assemble usually went down. “What’s the deal? Why aren’t you rushing to Agent Fanboy’s side?”
Tony could read the exasperation on Steve’s face easily, despite the presence of the cowl. “He’s not a fanboy. He’s hasn’t been like that since . . .”
“Since his resurrection?”
“I was going to say since he moved into the tower.”
Tony waved away the difference. “Semantics. What’s going on?”
“This thing. It’s not an official mission. He made it very clear it would be a favor.”
Tony’s second eyebrow joined his first. “Off the books? Coulson? What the hell has Agent Lazarus gotten himself into?”
“One of his team got herself in a little trouble while on leave. His team’s been ordered to Berlin for an assignment. Apparently SHIELD doesn’t consider her enough of an asset to send agents after her. I get the feeling someone in the hierarchy wouldn’t mind if she disappeared completely.”
“Ah. The uber-hacker then.” Tony could sympathize. He knew exactly how it felt to be on SHIELD’s radar for doing what came naturally to the inherently curious and super smart. “So, what, he wants us to mount a rescue?”
“He asked very politely if we wouldn’t mind. He made it perfectly clear we’re under no obligation, and that it’s not an official SHIELD request. But I . . . I got the feeling this is important to him. I mean, of course I’d help, we should all help. But he wanted everyone to have a choice, considering it could create problems with the agency.”
“We’re going, Stark,” a new voice piped in over the speakers.
“Sir, Agent Barton for you,” Jarvis announced, his voice wry.
“Yeah, I got that, J, thanks. Barton, what are you doing?”
“Powering up the quinjet. Get your suit and let’s fucking go already.”
“Shouldn’t we make a plan or something?” Tony asked, already striding to the wall chamber where the latest model was housed.
“Phil’s meeting us there,” Clint said, his voice tight. “He’ll have the specifics. Cap, wheels up in two minutes, with or without you. Stark, Jarvis has the coordinates. Get in the air.”
There was a deliberate click, signaling the end of the communication, and Tony cocked his head as the suit attached itself around him. “What lit the fire under his ass?”
“Phil sounded . . . concerned,” Steve admitted. “Which, you know.”
Tony gave a brisk nod. If Coulson had allowed emotion to bleed into his voice, it must be significant. And Barton did have some bizarre, twisted friendship with the senior agent, second only to the weirdness he shared with Natasha on a daily basis. Seriously, the only thing more disconcerting than finding Clint and Coulson in the shared kitchen laughing and baking cookies was to walk in on Natasha blowing on Clint’s fingernails to dry them before getting to work on his toes.
Steve nodded back, then jogged out of the workshop, presumably to make Barton’s deadline. Tony attached the faceplate, had Jarvis pull up the flight plan, and sighed. “Well. It’s a nice night to fly to Ohio.”
_________
It was not, in fact, a nice night to fly to Ohio. It was cold, and raining, which at higher altitudes meant sleet. Tony punched it, wanting to get there as quickly as possible, and landed on the roof of a warehouse.
“Stark.”
Tony turned, not at all surprised to see Coulson waiting for him just inside the doorway of the stairwell. “Agent Coulson. Aren’t you supposed to be in Germany?”
“My team can handle it. I’m needed here.”
“Defying orders, Agent? And here I thought robots weren’t capable of it. Law Two.”
“Superseded by Law One,” Coulson argued, and Tony had to huff at that. Coulson’s sense of humor didn’t make itself known often, and Tony never knew what might trigger it. Apparently classic sci-fi made the cut.
“Did you call the others?”
Coulson shook his head. “I can’t extract Agent Romanoff from her current assignment, certainly not for something unofficial. And I don’t think we’ll need the brute force of either Thor or Dr. Banner. They’ve both earned their time off, let them enjoy it.”
Something in Coulson’s voice told Tony that if he could’ve called them in, he would have, but with Bruce at a conference in Australia and Thor in London, neither of them would probably have arrived in time to do any good. “Who needs them anyway, right? You’ve got the best of the bunch right here.”
“Yes, Agent Barton and Captain Rogers should perform admirably.”
“Hey!”
Coulson sent him a rare smirk, but before either of them could say anything more, the whine of the arriving quinjet grabbed their attention. Tony moved, clearing the roof for their landing, and Clint set down with barely a thud.
“Barton, Captain,” Coulson said when they’d joined them, bow and shield gripped in tight fists. “Thank you for coming.”
“Dude,” Barton replied, sounding surprised. “Of course.”
“I know you gave us a choice, sir,” Steve said, his voice solemn, “but it was an easy choice to make.”
Coulson’s lips tilted up just a fraction, and he inclined his head in response. “I appreciate that, Captain.”
“Inside?” Barton asked. “Drier would be better.”
Coulson’s smile was wider this time, even if it only flashed for a moment before he nodded seriously and turned to lead the way down the stairs.
_________
The thing was, Tony always knew Coulson was scarily competent. The man could plan a siege with a MacGyver-ed ballpoint pen and bicycle chain, threaten with a joke about bad TV, and keep any enemy organization at bay with mountains of paperwork. But what Tony hadn’t known? Was that Coulson with a gun and a mission was a stone-cold bad-ass.
He wasn’t content to lead from afar this time, and downright refused to stay ensconced in a safe place with a comm unit and some surveillance equipment. He personally took out four goons before Steve could even throw his shield, shooting two and fending off the other two in straight up hand to hand. The man was taking no prisoners, and he definitely wasn’t taking any shit. When they finally found the man in charge of the compound, the guy looked from Iron Man to Captain America to Hawkeye with a wary eye. It was Coulson calmly checking the clip in his gun and then asking, with steel in his voice, to be taken to their prisoner that finally made the man swallow and sweat.
Tony couldn’t blame him at all. Especially when, at the guy’s reluctance, Coulson chambered a round, aimed, and shot him in the leg. “The girl,” he said, his voice like ice. “Where is she?”
“Fuck. You.”
“That is not an appropriate answer.” The agent stepped forward and knelt down, digging his fingers straight into the wound, causing the guy to scream.
“Jesus, Coulson,” Tony breathed, though he didn’t project it outside the suit.
Steve looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Sir,” he started, but Barton cut him off with a sharp shake of his head.
“Let him.”
“The girl,” Coulson repeated.
“Lower level,” the guy panted out. “East side. Third door.”
“Thank you.” He fastened a pair of restraints around the guy’s wrists and an exposed pipe along the wall, trapping him. “Someone will be along to collect you, eventually.” Then he strode out of the room, Barton immediately on his heels.
Steve shot Tony a look, and Tony shrugged the shoulders of the suit in response, then followed. Once they’d found the appropriate room and had disabled the guards, Tony raised his hand to blast the lock, but Coulson didn’t wait for him. He pulled a small explosive unit from his suit pocket and set it to the doorframe, barely standing out of the blast radius as it discharged. He was the first one through the door, gun at the ready, and Barton took position in the corridor, nodding Steve and Tony inside.
“Skye,” Coulson said, his voice gentle as he knelt beside the prone figure on the floor. His gun was holstered and he carefully ran his hands over the girl’s head, checking for injury. “Skye, you with me?”
“Coulson?” Skye didn’t open her eyes, but her head turned towards her savior, instinctively following his voice. “You . . . Are you real?”
“Very.” Tony had never heard so much emotion packed into one word before, and certainly not from Coulson. “I brought some friends in to help. Injuries?”
“Leg,” she said, finally forcing her eyes open and locking immediately onto Coulson’s gaze. “Broken. And, uh. Head injury? They clocked me pretty hard.”
“Yeah, you’ve got quite the bump. Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t investigate corrupt medical labs without the rest of us.”
“Can we not, with the lecture? Not yet, okay?”
Tony couldn’t believe the look on Coulson’s face. If any of the Avengers had tried that shit and been captured, he’d have been griping about paperwork and threatening them with electrocution and/or a captivity of his own making.
“Coulson,” Barton called out from the corridor, and Tony’s suit picked up the sound of an arrow’s release. “Company!”
Tony stepped forward as Cap dodged out of the room. “I’ll get her,” he said when it looked like the older man was about to attempt to lift her himself. Maybe he could have handled it-though Tony wouldn’t have thought so before this little adventure-but it would be infinitely easier for Iron Man to carry her.
Coulson actually looked like he was going to argue the point, but he wiped his expression blank after just a moment and gave a brisk nod, standing up straight and unholstering his weapon. “Barton, how’s it looking out there?”
“Nothing we can’t handle, sir. But a retreat before more muscle shows up might be wise.”
“Oh, hey,” Skye said, her voice thready. “Iron Man.”
“Iron Man,” Coulson agreed with a soft grin that looked downright foreign on his face.
“No Thor?”
“Don’t know why you’d want him, kid,” Tony argued as he gently lifted her off the ground. “I’m the best one.”
“Arms,” Skye countered, and Tony cradled her close as her eyes closed and her body relaxed against the suit. “Dreamy.”
“A protégée of yours,” he said to Coulson with exaggerated disbelief, “and her favorite isn’t Captain America?”
“She’s young yet. She’ll learn.”
Tony snorted and looked away from Coulson and his fond but determined expression to the now unconscious girl in his arms. Yes, he thought. Very young.
_________
The local hospital didn’t seem to know what to do with three Avengers and a very concerned and severe secret agent. Eventually they put Skye in a private room with an observation window, just to get them all out of the way. Her leg had been set and her brain had been scanned; she would be fine, the break would heal and the concussion would fade, and she would wake up on her own when she was ready.
Coulson had tried to get them to go, had thanked them and dismissed them, but Clint wasn’t having it. He’d outright refused to take off, and since he was the pilot, Steve couldn’t leave either. Tony didn’t really mind; even though he could have gone home on his own, he kind of wanted to stay. He’d learned more about Coulson in the past several hours than in all the years he’d known him, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to learn more.
Besides, watching the man with Skye was fascinating, even if in a perverse, disturbing sort of way.
“It’s a little skeezy, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly. He was pretty sure it was, but his barometer of skeeze wasn’t the same as other people’s, so he thought maybe he should check.
“What?” Clint asked.
Tony gestured to the window, through which they could all see Coulson, who was sitting by Skye’s bed, her hand cradled gently in both of his. “I mean, I get that I’m not one to talk, because, you know, pre-Pepper I was kind of skeezy myself. But I’d like to think that even I, at fifty or whatever, wouldn’t be all love struck over a twenty-four year old girl.”
Clint scowled and crossed his arms, but before he could say anything, Steve sighed. “Tony,” he said, in that voice that Tony always hated, because it meant Steve thought he knew better than Tony about something, which was hardly ever the case.
“Oh my god,” Clint bit out. “You’re an idiot.”
Tony frowned at him. “Come on, Barton. I know it’s weird as shit, but look at him.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” he commanded. “I know you’ve read her file, Stark. Don’t even pretend you didn’t check up on Phil’s team when we found out about them.”
“So?”
With a roll of his eyes, Clint reached out and pushed at Tony’s chest. “You really can’t think of any other reason they might be close? A man in his fifties with no children and a girl in her twenties who’s never had any kind of father figure?”
Tony actually had to run that through his brain for a moment, because, yeah, okay, paternal influences weren’t his strong suit. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Then he muttered, “Fucking idiot.”
“Well, you can’t blame me,” Tony complained, trying to defend himself. “The guy’s ripe for a mid-life crisis. Middle-aged, near death experience, and all self-controlled and repressed and shit. It would make sense if he got himself a hot young-”
Clint actually growled at him, and Tony shut up. “He’s not fucking repressed, you moron. He just doesn’t-”
A doctor showed up then, squeezing past them and into the room, drawing their attention back to the window. Skye was awake, and Coulson was standing, hands by his sides. He stepped back to let the doctor work, clearly asking questions and expecting answers.
After a few minutes the doctor left, and Coulson stepped forward again. Skye reached out, and Coulson-Phil-took her hand with a small smile. They talked for a bit, and then Skye’s gaze drifted to the window, her eyes bright and questioning.
Coulson shook his head, but he let go of her hand and indulgently waved them inside. Tony smiled and went, because he might not have Thor’s arms, but he was sure to be her second favorite, right? In computer genius solidarity?
“Hey, kid,” he started, but Coulson cut him off.
“Skye, I’d like you to meet Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers.”
Skye waved to them, but then her gaze sharpened, focusing over their shoulders, and her grin widened. For a second, Tony wondered if Thor had arrived-better late than never and all that-but then Clint pushed past them, his arm brushing Tony’s. He went to Coulson’s side, his lips set in a shy little smile.
“And this,” Coulson added, his voice sure and proud, “is Agent Barton.”
Tony looked at Steve, because, what? Sure, Clint had nice arms too, if that was her thing, but so did Steve. And shouldn’t Coulson be using that tone for his hero?
And then Skye, beaming, said something that made absolutely no sense.
“Hi. Are you going to be my new step-dad?”
Barton burst out laughing, and Coulson rubbed the bridge of his nose warily. “Skye,” he intoned.
“Kid, I’m not old enough to be anybody’s parent,” Clint argued, and Skye scoffed.
“You can’t make a statement like that and preface it with ‘kid.’ You can’t have it both ways.”
“I can too.”
“Can not.”
“Can too.”
“And that, Skye, is why Clint isn’t any older than you,” Coulson said, his voice laced with affection.
“Aw, sir, you know you love me.”
And then Tony had to sit down, because Coulson didn’t say a word to refute Barton’s statement. He just took Clint’s hand in his and smiled.
He didn’t get the chance to find a chair though, because Steve was suddenly poking him in the side and trying to usher him out the door. “Right, well. Skye, it was nice to meet you. Tony and I will just be out in the hall. Clint, take your time.”
“What the-”
“Tony, hush.”
“No, seriously,” Tony tried again once they were in the corridor and the door was closed between them. “What the hell?”
Steve just started laughing, which wasn’t helpful at all.
“How did we miss that?”
Steve leaned back against the wall, grinning. “Not ‘we,’ Tony. ‘You.’ You missed that.”
“Well, shit.”