hoosierbitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hoosierbitch) wrote2012-10-05 11:34 pm
hoosierbitch) wrote2012-10-05 11:34 pm
Fic(ish): Mini-Avengers!
I'm hoping to have some actual Avengers fic posted in the next day or two, but in the meantime, here is some ridiculous min-Avengers! They have been de-aged due to Reasons.
Title: ...Mini-Avengers!
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers
Warning: This has not been beta'd, and it does not have a plot. It does have peanut butter! And references to neglect, child abuse, sexual abuse, and violence. If you need more info than that, PM me, and I'll be happy to help!
Notes: There are frat boys hanging out in the parking lot across the street from my house. They're cutting down tree branches.
Huh.
*
“Fuck my life,” Fury says calmly.
“Bad word!” says Stark. “You said a bad word! Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
“I second the sentiment,” Coulson says to Fury, staring down at the miniature Tony Stark standing in front of them.
“I don’t know what that means,” Tony says. “Where’s my mom?”
“Fuck,” Fury says again, before he leaves Coulson alone with the de-aged Avengers team.
“Everybody quiet!” Coulson yells. The volume in the room drops. “My name is Phil, and I’m here to help you. I know you’re probably scared and confused, but I promise that I am sorting everything out.” He really hopes that his ‘Listen to me, for I am competent and smarter than you’ voice works as well on children as it does on maladjusted adults.
“I want my mom,” Tony says again, stepping up right in front of Coulson and glaring up at him.
Coulson raises an unimpressed eyebrow and looks back out at the room. “Someone will be here soon with clothing for you all to change into.” Most of them are holding up the remnants of their costumes. Stark’s the best off, with the undersuit that he wears in the Iron Man machine tight enough to hang off his form a bit awkwardly. Thor’s wrapped his cloak around himself. Banner’s tugged his t-shirt down to mid-thigh. Steve—who’s unbelievably tiny—had given his t-shirt to Natasha, who still hasn’t said anything. Coulson can’t see Clint, since he’d crept into the corner of the conference room as soon as they were shut in, and hid behind a chair.
“Is anybody hurt?” he asks. Thor raises his hand. “Yes?”
Then Thor says something in…Nordic? Asgardian? that Coulson can’t understand. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” Coulson says apologetically, interrupting the stream of confused chatter coming out of Thor’s mouth. Thor’s face starts to wobble. “Can you understand me?” Thor pulls his cloak tighter and repeats something that sounds like a question, given the rise in his inflection. Coulson understand nothing until Thor says Odin, and, a minute later, Freya.
Coulson holds his hands up helplessly and shakes his head.
“The blond kid’s not speaking English,” Tony says.
“No, he isn’t,” Coulson agrees with a sigh. Rodgers raises his hand. “Yes, Capt—er, Steve?”
“Where are we?”
“You’re in New York,” Phil says. Bruce lets out a startled squeak. “Something—” he has no idea how to translate Von Doom’s scheme into something age-appropriate. “…scientific went wrong, and all of you were—well. De-aged.”
“So we’re in the future?” Tony says. “What year is it? Am I famous? Have I been to the moon? Am I your boss?”
“2012. Now no more questions from you,” Coulson says. He’s unsurprised to learn that Tony, at any age, gives Phil the exact same headache.
Hill comes in just then, carrying a stack of sweatsuits. “They’re the smallest we have,” she says, doing her best not to stare at the tiny team. “But I think they might still be too big. Someone’s out on a supply run.”
Coulson helps distribute the clothes. Banner and Steve take theirs with a quiet Thanks, Tony complains about the size and color and quality of the fabric, and Natasha and Clint refuse to let either Hill or Phil close enough to take the clothes from them. Eventually they just set the clothes on the floor close to the kids and leave them alone. Clint snatches his up quickly before retreating to the corner. Natasha refuses, her hands fisted in the hem of Steve’s white t-shirt, pulling it down.
“We’re doing our best to return you all to your present ages, but until then, we’re going to need you all to stay here. We’re going to get this fixed soon, so we’re not going to alert your families or guardians. It’s a security risk,” he says, raising his voice to talk over Steve and Tony’s protests. “And I cannot compromise on that fact.”
Coulson grabs three agents who have either children or younger siblings to help him supervise the team. Somehow, Coulson ends up on bathroom trip duty. Teaching Thor how to use a modern Midgardian toilet is perhaps the most surreal experience of Coulson’s entire life.
They bring in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which everyone except for Clint and Natasha wolf down, and glasses of milk. Thor drinks his, wipes his milk mustache off his face with the back of his hand, and throws the glass down onto the floor. It shatters. Coulson corrals the kids—the Avengers—on the other side of the room while it’s cleaned up, as none of them have shoes. Natasha stands at the edge of the group and stares at them, completely expressionless.
The glass is almost cleaned up when Clint makes his first break for freedom. He sprints out the open door, slipping past the two agents stationed there. They have to lock down the entire floor to corner him, and when Coulson finds him, he’s half-way through a ventilation shaft opening. Coulson pulls him out by his ankles and gets bitten for his troubles. He ends up pinning Clint to the ground, terrified that he’s going to break Clint’s skinny arm because Clint won’t stop wriggling.
“Barton,” he snaps. Clint freezes. “I am a friend. I swear. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“My brother’s gonna find you,” Clint says. His voice is high. He sounds like a little boy. Somehow, Coulson hadn’t been expecting that. “And he’s going to kick your ass.”
“That sounds fair. Until then, if I let go of you, will you promise not to run away?”
Clint nods, but Coulson knows he’s lying. Clint won’t run again, not now—he’ll wait until Coulson’s not looking. He stands up, releasing Clint but positioning himself between Clint and the exit.
Phil’s focused on escape routes when Clint steps up to him and rubs his hand over Coulson’s dick. “If you’ll let me go, I’ll suck you off,” Clint whispers.
Coulson pushes him away so hard that Clint stumbles, ending up in a crouch on the floor. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.
“How old are you?” he whispers, taking a step back. He can still feel Clint’s small hand, fondling his cock. He’s never been less turned on in his life.
“Old enough,” Clint says. He looks like he might be eight. Maybe seven, nine if he’s just small for his age.
“No,” he says, fighting down the urge to vomit. “You’re really not. You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to.”
“Sure,” Clint says, smirking at him. “You change your mind, just ask, okay? Don’t gotta force me or anything.”
Coulson closes his eyes, just for a second. He’s not sure that Clint won’t drop to his knees or try and run if Coulson takes his attention away for too long.
“We’re going back to the room now,” he says calmly. “You’re going to eat something. You’re not going to offer sexual favors to anyone.”
“Favors,” Clint says, amused by the word. He falls in behind Coulson as they walk back to the room. “Hey—how come Barney isn’t here?” Clint asks. Coulson forces himself not to jump; Clint’s so close behind him.
“He’s…he’s busy somewhere else. Working on a different job. He wants to come back, but he can’t; he’s too busy right now.”
“Barney’s gonna come get me,” Clint says. It sounds like someone else’s words, ritualized and familiar. “He promised.”
Phil drops Clint off in the room, assigns two more agents to the hall, gets the bite on his hand wrapped up, and schedules himself for a tetanus shot in the morning.
*
By the time night falls, they have not changed back. Hill supplies all the Avengers with sleeping bags and pillows, and they have a little camp-out on the conference room floor. They push the table back against the wall to make more space on the floor. Natasha and Clint claim the space underneath it, making a wall of pillows between them, and chairs barricading them from the rest of the room.
Tony talks right up until he falls asleep, Steve hanging on his every word with a pleased little smile. Bruce is a quiet kid, but he’d gone over to Thor when the other boy had started to droop a little. Coulson had given them some paper and pens, and the two of them had collaborated on what started as a tree but has turned into some complex geometrical shape that takes up nine sheets of paper. Coulson’s planning on sticking up on the fridge when everything goes back to normal.
*
They spend the next day in the lab. None of the kids are happy about it. From what Coulson knows of their histories, Tony and Thor are probably the only kids who didn’t make too many unpleasant visits to medical facilities growing up. And Thor barely counts; he’s from another frigging planet.
Steve stays plastered to Tony’s side. Tony’s protective instincts seem to have kicked in, because he harasses every doctor who gets too close to either of them, making sure they explain every single thing they’re about to do to either Steve or Tony. They do manage to get Steve an inhaler quickly. He uses it once before Tony steals it and starts taking it apart with Bruce.
Thor gets quieter and quieter as the day progresses. A few hours after lunch, when they try to draw more blood samples (which requires heavy-duty needles, given his abnormal physiology), Thor goes nuts. Bruce is no longer the Hulk, Steve is pre-serum, and Tony doesn’t have his suit, but apparently Thor’s still got his demigod strength. He destroys an entire examination room before they inject him with a sedative.
Over the course of the day Clint tries to escape two more times. The first time, he gets out of the building, and Coulson knows it’s only his shock over the modern world that stops him long enough for the SHIELD agents to catch up. The second time, Coulson corners him again. Clint doesn’t bite him, which is a nice change, but he does offer to give Coulson a handjob if he’ll let Clint escape.
Coulson keeps Clint at his side after that, but makes sure he doesn’t touch the boy unless absolutely necessary.
None of the tests are helpful.
*
Since they don’t know how long it’s going to be before the team returns to normal, they move the team from SHIELD headquarters to the Tower, where JARVIS can at least keep an eye on them. They’re all given their own bedrooms (guest bedrooms on the same floor, because Coulson doesn’t know how many weapons they’ve each hidden in their own quarters). Coulson had thought that having their own rooms would make them feel more secure, but it has the exact opposite effect. The first few nights, none of them gets much sleep. But then Tony starts impromptu sleepovers, talking JARVIS into keeping all adults out of his quarters during their escapades.
Natasha never goes, and Clint goes for a few hours once and then runs out.
Coulson can see the team dividing the same way it had threatened to when the team first came together. Tony’s commandeered Bruce and Steve as his audience, demanding their time and attention, which the other boys are happy to give. Tony’s used to working for other people’s friendship even at this young age. Bruce and Steve keep careful track of Thor, and are patient with him while they work past the communication barrier.
Clint and Natasha both look worse and worse as time progresses. Neither of them has been sleeping well since the move from SHIELD. Natasha’s still absolutely silent. At this point, Coulson is pretty sure that she understands English and is just being stubborn, but he can’t get her to communicate. Thor at least has learned ‘Food,’ ‘bathroom,’ and ‘give me,’ which gets him through most of his days pretty well. Clint and Natasha avoid making connections with anyone, and when they finally connect with each other, Coulson wishes they hadn’t.
He’s not there, but he sees the tapes.
The kids all have full access to the kitchens, since JARVIS is more than adequate supervision to make sure that no one burns the tower down. Tony singes the ceilings a time or two, but JARVIS, Steve, and Bruce manage to salvage it as best they can, and Thor eats whatever burnt concoctions they come up with no matter how terrible they are.
It’s well after midnight when it starts. Natasha’s in the kitchen, eating a plain slice of bread. She eats food from unopened bags or containers whenever possible, but doesn’t seem to know how to prepare anything. The room’s mostly dark, and Clint’s as quiet as a kid as he is as an adult, so Natasha doesn’t hear or see him until he’s nearly on top of her.
Coulson has to slow down the tape to properly see her in action. She launches herself at Clint, knocking him flat on his back and staying crouched over his chest, a knife held to his throat. No matter what angle he watches the video from, he can’t quite tell where she’d hidden her knife. JARVIS searches his records but can’t pinpoint when she’d stolen the weapon. All sharp implements were removed from the kitchen, but she’d gotten her hands on it at some point. The Red Room got to them young and trained them quickly.
Clint and Natasha stay locked together on the floor for fifteen seconds before Clint opens his hands, stretching them above his head instead of holding her off, and tilts his head up. Natasha’s knife starts shaking and Clint flinches. Eventually, when Natasha doesn’t make a move, Clint says, “I’m sorry.” Then he says, “Please. Don’t.” Clint’s words, with the volume on the recording cranked up, are heartbreakingly sincere.
Natasha scrambles off of him and stays crouched on the floor, her back against the counter, knife in her hand. Clint gets up slowly, not taking his eyes off Natasha. Coulson expects him to leave after that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets peanut butter out of the cupboard, a butter knife from the silverware drawer, and slices of bread from the bag Natasha had opened.
He makes her a sandwich and hands it to her. She calls him stupid—the first thing she’s said since the transformation—and it makes Clint smile. Even as a child Clint can see something in Natasha that no one else can.
She waits to eat the sandwich until Clint has left, but she eats all of it.
*
Every time they return to SHIELD headquarters for further testing—or just to give the kids a field trip to a supervised location—Thor wanders off, and is inevitably found following Fury around. Eventually, they just let him. The amount of covert cell phone pictures snapped of Fury in his trenchcoat being tailed by a small boy in a makeshift red cape are incalculable. Thor hangs out with Fury in his office, and every time Fury yells at someone, his words are echoed in a small incomprehensible Asgardian voice.
“I think it’s the eyepatch,” Coulson says. He’s sitting at Fury’s desk, and they’re both looking at Thor, who’s happily coloring a picture for Bruce, sitting on a chair that Hill had dragged in for him. “You remind him of his father.”
“He’s imprinted on me,” Fury says, sounding not as homicidally enraged about it as Coulson would have thought. “Fix this,” he says, pointing a finger at Coulson. Thor pipes up with his own commentary, also pointing a finger at Coulson.
Coulson sighs.
*
IDEK what this is.
:D
Title: ...Mini-Avengers!
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers
Warning: This has not been beta'd, and it does not have a plot. It does have peanut butter! And references to neglect, child abuse, sexual abuse, and violence. If you need more info than that, PM me, and I'll be happy to help!
Notes: There are frat boys hanging out in the parking lot across the street from my house. They're cutting down tree branches.
Huh.
*
“Fuck my life,” Fury says calmly.
“Bad word!” says Stark. “You said a bad word! Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
“I second the sentiment,” Coulson says to Fury, staring down at the miniature Tony Stark standing in front of them.
“I don’t know what that means,” Tony says. “Where’s my mom?”
“Fuck,” Fury says again, before he leaves Coulson alone with the de-aged Avengers team.
“Everybody quiet!” Coulson yells. The volume in the room drops. “My name is Phil, and I’m here to help you. I know you’re probably scared and confused, but I promise that I am sorting everything out.” He really hopes that his ‘Listen to me, for I am competent and smarter than you’ voice works as well on children as it does on maladjusted adults.
“I want my mom,” Tony says again, stepping up right in front of Coulson and glaring up at him.
Coulson raises an unimpressed eyebrow and looks back out at the room. “Someone will be here soon with clothing for you all to change into.” Most of them are holding up the remnants of their costumes. Stark’s the best off, with the undersuit that he wears in the Iron Man machine tight enough to hang off his form a bit awkwardly. Thor’s wrapped his cloak around himself. Banner’s tugged his t-shirt down to mid-thigh. Steve—who’s unbelievably tiny—had given his t-shirt to Natasha, who still hasn’t said anything. Coulson can’t see Clint, since he’d crept into the corner of the conference room as soon as they were shut in, and hid behind a chair.
“Is anybody hurt?” he asks. Thor raises his hand. “Yes?”
Then Thor says something in…Nordic? Asgardian? that Coulson can’t understand. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” Coulson says apologetically, interrupting the stream of confused chatter coming out of Thor’s mouth. Thor’s face starts to wobble. “Can you understand me?” Thor pulls his cloak tighter and repeats something that sounds like a question, given the rise in his inflection. Coulson understand nothing until Thor says Odin, and, a minute later, Freya.
Coulson holds his hands up helplessly and shakes his head.
“The blond kid’s not speaking English,” Tony says.
“No, he isn’t,” Coulson agrees with a sigh. Rodgers raises his hand. “Yes, Capt—er, Steve?”
“Where are we?”
“You’re in New York,” Phil says. Bruce lets out a startled squeak. “Something—” he has no idea how to translate Von Doom’s scheme into something age-appropriate. “…scientific went wrong, and all of you were—well. De-aged.”
“So we’re in the future?” Tony says. “What year is it? Am I famous? Have I been to the moon? Am I your boss?”
“2012. Now no more questions from you,” Coulson says. He’s unsurprised to learn that Tony, at any age, gives Phil the exact same headache.
Hill comes in just then, carrying a stack of sweatsuits. “They’re the smallest we have,” she says, doing her best not to stare at the tiny team. “But I think they might still be too big. Someone’s out on a supply run.”
Coulson helps distribute the clothes. Banner and Steve take theirs with a quiet Thanks, Tony complains about the size and color and quality of the fabric, and Natasha and Clint refuse to let either Hill or Phil close enough to take the clothes from them. Eventually they just set the clothes on the floor close to the kids and leave them alone. Clint snatches his up quickly before retreating to the corner. Natasha refuses, her hands fisted in the hem of Steve’s white t-shirt, pulling it down.
“We’re doing our best to return you all to your present ages, but until then, we’re going to need you all to stay here. We’re going to get this fixed soon, so we’re not going to alert your families or guardians. It’s a security risk,” he says, raising his voice to talk over Steve and Tony’s protests. “And I cannot compromise on that fact.”
Coulson grabs three agents who have either children or younger siblings to help him supervise the team. Somehow, Coulson ends up on bathroom trip duty. Teaching Thor how to use a modern Midgardian toilet is perhaps the most surreal experience of Coulson’s entire life.
They bring in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which everyone except for Clint and Natasha wolf down, and glasses of milk. Thor drinks his, wipes his milk mustache off his face with the back of his hand, and throws the glass down onto the floor. It shatters. Coulson corrals the kids—the Avengers—on the other side of the room while it’s cleaned up, as none of them have shoes. Natasha stands at the edge of the group and stares at them, completely expressionless.
The glass is almost cleaned up when Clint makes his first break for freedom. He sprints out the open door, slipping past the two agents stationed there. They have to lock down the entire floor to corner him, and when Coulson finds him, he’s half-way through a ventilation shaft opening. Coulson pulls him out by his ankles and gets bitten for his troubles. He ends up pinning Clint to the ground, terrified that he’s going to break Clint’s skinny arm because Clint won’t stop wriggling.
“Barton,” he snaps. Clint freezes. “I am a friend. I swear. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“My brother’s gonna find you,” Clint says. His voice is high. He sounds like a little boy. Somehow, Coulson hadn’t been expecting that. “And he’s going to kick your ass.”
“That sounds fair. Until then, if I let go of you, will you promise not to run away?”
Clint nods, but Coulson knows he’s lying. Clint won’t run again, not now—he’ll wait until Coulson’s not looking. He stands up, releasing Clint but positioning himself between Clint and the exit.
Phil’s focused on escape routes when Clint steps up to him and rubs his hand over Coulson’s dick. “If you’ll let me go, I’ll suck you off,” Clint whispers.
Coulson pushes him away so hard that Clint stumbles, ending up in a crouch on the floor. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.
“How old are you?” he whispers, taking a step back. He can still feel Clint’s small hand, fondling his cock. He’s never been less turned on in his life.
“Old enough,” Clint says. He looks like he might be eight. Maybe seven, nine if he’s just small for his age.
“No,” he says, fighting down the urge to vomit. “You’re really not. You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to.”
“Sure,” Clint says, smirking at him. “You change your mind, just ask, okay? Don’t gotta force me or anything.”
Coulson closes his eyes, just for a second. He’s not sure that Clint won’t drop to his knees or try and run if Coulson takes his attention away for too long.
“We’re going back to the room now,” he says calmly. “You’re going to eat something. You’re not going to offer sexual favors to anyone.”
“Favors,” Clint says, amused by the word. He falls in behind Coulson as they walk back to the room. “Hey—how come Barney isn’t here?” Clint asks. Coulson forces himself not to jump; Clint’s so close behind him.
“He’s…he’s busy somewhere else. Working on a different job. He wants to come back, but he can’t; he’s too busy right now.”
“Barney’s gonna come get me,” Clint says. It sounds like someone else’s words, ritualized and familiar. “He promised.”
Phil drops Clint off in the room, assigns two more agents to the hall, gets the bite on his hand wrapped up, and schedules himself for a tetanus shot in the morning.
*
By the time night falls, they have not changed back. Hill supplies all the Avengers with sleeping bags and pillows, and they have a little camp-out on the conference room floor. They push the table back against the wall to make more space on the floor. Natasha and Clint claim the space underneath it, making a wall of pillows between them, and chairs barricading them from the rest of the room.
Tony talks right up until he falls asleep, Steve hanging on his every word with a pleased little smile. Bruce is a quiet kid, but he’d gone over to Thor when the other boy had started to droop a little. Coulson had given them some paper and pens, and the two of them had collaborated on what started as a tree but has turned into some complex geometrical shape that takes up nine sheets of paper. Coulson’s planning on sticking up on the fridge when everything goes back to normal.
*
They spend the next day in the lab. None of the kids are happy about it. From what Coulson knows of their histories, Tony and Thor are probably the only kids who didn’t make too many unpleasant visits to medical facilities growing up. And Thor barely counts; he’s from another frigging planet.
Steve stays plastered to Tony’s side. Tony’s protective instincts seem to have kicked in, because he harasses every doctor who gets too close to either of them, making sure they explain every single thing they’re about to do to either Steve or Tony. They do manage to get Steve an inhaler quickly. He uses it once before Tony steals it and starts taking it apart with Bruce.
Thor gets quieter and quieter as the day progresses. A few hours after lunch, when they try to draw more blood samples (which requires heavy-duty needles, given his abnormal physiology), Thor goes nuts. Bruce is no longer the Hulk, Steve is pre-serum, and Tony doesn’t have his suit, but apparently Thor’s still got his demigod strength. He destroys an entire examination room before they inject him with a sedative.
Over the course of the day Clint tries to escape two more times. The first time, he gets out of the building, and Coulson knows it’s only his shock over the modern world that stops him long enough for the SHIELD agents to catch up. The second time, Coulson corners him again. Clint doesn’t bite him, which is a nice change, but he does offer to give Coulson a handjob if he’ll let Clint escape.
Coulson keeps Clint at his side after that, but makes sure he doesn’t touch the boy unless absolutely necessary.
None of the tests are helpful.
*
Since they don’t know how long it’s going to be before the team returns to normal, they move the team from SHIELD headquarters to the Tower, where JARVIS can at least keep an eye on them. They’re all given their own bedrooms (guest bedrooms on the same floor, because Coulson doesn’t know how many weapons they’ve each hidden in their own quarters). Coulson had thought that having their own rooms would make them feel more secure, but it has the exact opposite effect. The first few nights, none of them gets much sleep. But then Tony starts impromptu sleepovers, talking JARVIS into keeping all adults out of his quarters during their escapades.
Natasha never goes, and Clint goes for a few hours once and then runs out.
Coulson can see the team dividing the same way it had threatened to when the team first came together. Tony’s commandeered Bruce and Steve as his audience, demanding their time and attention, which the other boys are happy to give. Tony’s used to working for other people’s friendship even at this young age. Bruce and Steve keep careful track of Thor, and are patient with him while they work past the communication barrier.
Clint and Natasha both look worse and worse as time progresses. Neither of them has been sleeping well since the move from SHIELD. Natasha’s still absolutely silent. At this point, Coulson is pretty sure that she understands English and is just being stubborn, but he can’t get her to communicate. Thor at least has learned ‘Food,’ ‘bathroom,’ and ‘give me,’ which gets him through most of his days pretty well. Clint and Natasha avoid making connections with anyone, and when they finally connect with each other, Coulson wishes they hadn’t.
He’s not there, but he sees the tapes.
The kids all have full access to the kitchens, since JARVIS is more than adequate supervision to make sure that no one burns the tower down. Tony singes the ceilings a time or two, but JARVIS, Steve, and Bruce manage to salvage it as best they can, and Thor eats whatever burnt concoctions they come up with no matter how terrible they are.
It’s well after midnight when it starts. Natasha’s in the kitchen, eating a plain slice of bread. She eats food from unopened bags or containers whenever possible, but doesn’t seem to know how to prepare anything. The room’s mostly dark, and Clint’s as quiet as a kid as he is as an adult, so Natasha doesn’t hear or see him until he’s nearly on top of her.
Coulson has to slow down the tape to properly see her in action. She launches herself at Clint, knocking him flat on his back and staying crouched over his chest, a knife held to his throat. No matter what angle he watches the video from, he can’t quite tell where she’d hidden her knife. JARVIS searches his records but can’t pinpoint when she’d stolen the weapon. All sharp implements were removed from the kitchen, but she’d gotten her hands on it at some point. The Red Room got to them young and trained them quickly.
Clint and Natasha stay locked together on the floor for fifteen seconds before Clint opens his hands, stretching them above his head instead of holding her off, and tilts his head up. Natasha’s knife starts shaking and Clint flinches. Eventually, when Natasha doesn’t make a move, Clint says, “I’m sorry.” Then he says, “Please. Don’t.” Clint’s words, with the volume on the recording cranked up, are heartbreakingly sincere.
Natasha scrambles off of him and stays crouched on the floor, her back against the counter, knife in her hand. Clint gets up slowly, not taking his eyes off Natasha. Coulson expects him to leave after that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets peanut butter out of the cupboard, a butter knife from the silverware drawer, and slices of bread from the bag Natasha had opened.
He makes her a sandwich and hands it to her. She calls him stupid—the first thing she’s said since the transformation—and it makes Clint smile. Even as a child Clint can see something in Natasha that no one else can.
She waits to eat the sandwich until Clint has left, but she eats all of it.
*
Every time they return to SHIELD headquarters for further testing—or just to give the kids a field trip to a supervised location—Thor wanders off, and is inevitably found following Fury around. Eventually, they just let him. The amount of covert cell phone pictures snapped of Fury in his trenchcoat being tailed by a small boy in a makeshift red cape are incalculable. Thor hangs out with Fury in his office, and every time Fury yells at someone, his words are echoed in a small incomprehensible Asgardian voice.
“I think it’s the eyepatch,” Coulson says. He’s sitting at Fury’s desk, and they’re both looking at Thor, who’s happily coloring a picture for Bruce, sitting on a chair that Hill had dragged in for him. “You remind him of his father.”
“He’s imprinted on me,” Fury says, sounding not as homicidally enraged about it as Coulson would have thought. “Fix this,” he says, pointing a finger at Coulson. Thor pipes up with his own commentary, also pointing a finger at Coulson.
Coulson sighs.
*
IDEK what this is.
:D
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I love that Coulson saves the picture for the refrigerator, that Thor imitates Fury yelling at people, that Clint sees something in Natasha no one else can.
And I love the description of Coulson's "Listen to me, for I am competent and smarter than you’ voice"
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There might be more--I have no idea. I don't even know how this one happened. But the 'verse is open if anyone else wants to write in it...*hinthint*
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Thank you so much!!!
Also, where does that icon come from??? It is glorious!