Chapter Text
Knock.
Clint taps the door with his knuckles.
At first, there’s no reply. He knocks again. Maybe he’s asleep.
Suddenly, the black door is thrown open, revealing a small Peter. The kid looks at Clint confusedly, with his bottom lip protruding out.
Clint quickly puts on a warm and big smile, trying to make the boy feel calm. “Hey, Peter. What’cha you doing?”
Peter blinks at him, looking a bit nervous. “Um, I’m just playing.” The kid fidgets with his pants, looking away.
“Cool. I was just, uh, wondering if you could help me with something, kid.” Clint squatted a bit, so he was eye-level with the six-year-old. Peter looked up at him, curious. “I got all these pictures and super cool colouring pencils yesterday, but I can’t finish them all. So I talked to Steve, and he told me you were crazy good at colouring. Is that true?”
The boy gasped quietly, his eyes becoming wide and excited. “Yeah. I’m the best colourer ever. I can help you.” He threw the door open more, motioning for Hawkeye to come in.
“Great, bud. See, I would ask Natasha, but, honestly,” Barton pretended to look around nervously, and lowered his voice. “She’s not the best colourer. I think you’re way better.”
That made Peter laugh loudly. “Don’t tell her that! She’s scary.”
“Natasha?” Clint raised his eyebrows in a silent question. “Nah. She’s not scary once you talk to her. Nat really likes you.”
Peter made a funny face in response, while walking to the middle of the floor and sitting down, clearly eager to start drawing. “Me?”
Sensing the boy’s excitement, Clint followed him down to the floor, sitting on the ground cross-cross, laying the numerous pieces of paper and pencils in front of them. “Yeah. She thinks you’re real cute.”
“What! I’m not cute, I’m scary. I got tons of powers.” Peter frowned, grabbing one of the papers. “She doesn’t have powers.” He stopped. “Does she?”
Barton laughed loudly. “No, she doesn’t. At least, not that I’m aware of. You never really know with her, though. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Clint trailed off. “So, what colours do you want?”
The spider boy bit his lip. “Um. Red. And blue. And green. I wanna do the butterfly.”
“Alright, why don’t I just give you all the colours, and we can share?” Peter nodded immediately, grabbing the red pencil from the floor and starting to shade the butterfly.
Clint found a black and white picture of a bow and arrow, and began colouring it in with great focus. He didn’t know what animals or level of detail Peter would like, so Barton had printed just a whole pile of different images with Tony’s help. For once, they managed to truly work together in a way which was productive! It was a great feat which they notified Bruce of, who assured the two he was quite proud of them for working together. Peter could choose from pictures of trucks, fairies, mermaids, flowers, buildings, entire city skylines, some of the Avengers themselves: anything he wanted.
The pencils were of the best quality, as well. Barton had bought some normal grocery-store ones a couple days ago, but when he showed Tony, the man gave him the most brutal side-eye known to man. He went into a cupboard in his lab, and pulled some fancier ones, about 50 different shades.
Clint didn’t think Peter would even notice the quality, let alone care, but giving the pencils to Peter seemed to make Tony happy.
“So, Peter.” Barton started after a couple minutes of silent colouring. “How are you liking the Stark Tower? Is it nice?”
“Um, it’s okay. I miss my old house.” The boy looked sad, but continued colouring.
Fuck, why did I ask that?
“Yeah. I get that, bud.” Clint sympathised, colouring the arrow in the picture a nice shade of brown.
“I miss my friends at preschool, too.”
“Oh. Well, we can always organise a play-date for you guys. Would you like that?”
Peter snapped up with a cheeky grin. “Yes! Please, Mr. Hawkeye.”
“Mr. Hawkeye?” Clint echoed with a light laugh. “My name’s Clint, Pete. Not Hawkeye. I’m only Hawkeye when I’m fighting.”
The spider boy had gone back to colouring, but looked up and nodded. “Okay, Mr. Clint.”
The boys went back to shading their respective photos for a couple minutes.
“You know, I lost my parents young, too.” Clint started with a sigh, not truly wanting to rehash his past, but doing so anyway. “I never knew my dad, and my mom wasn’t…” Hawkeye wondered how to say poor. “Very rich. We didn’t have a lot of money. Then, when I was a bit older than you, I joined a circus. Without my mom. I was alone for a while after that.”
The room suddenly got much heavier. “Like me?” A small voice asked.
But Barton shook his head. “You’re not alone, Peter. Your aunt and uncle may not, uh, be here, but we are. I am. I had no support, and it took me a long time to find my family. Now, I’m married with two amazing kids. And, I have the team. Nat, Bruce, Tony, Steve, Thor, and I — we’re a family. Maybe not by blood, and probably not forever, but we’re family. And you are, too. We’ll take care of you.”
Peter frowned, still looking down to his paper and colouring, avoiding eye contact. He looked like he may cry. “But you just met me. How can we be a family?”
Internally, Clint sighed. “Because we want you to be, Peter.” Barton put his red coloured pencil down. “Peter. Look at me.”
Peter looked up.
“We’re here for you. For a long time. Okay?”
The boy nodded while his eyes sparkled. Clint hoped it wasn’t with tears.
“Good on you.” Hawkeye ruffled Peter’s hair.
Clint lost track of how long they sat in silence, colouring. Sometimes, Peter would offer something about preschool. He’d mention one of his friends or his favourite activity, and Barton would nod him on, asking questions.
Other times, Barton would tell Peter about his own kids. About Lila and Cooper, and Laura.
He didn’t often bring them up around the team. Ever, actually. Fury knew, of course, but no one else — save for Nat, had any clue. Clint made Peter promise not to tell anyone, and Peter made Clint promise to take him one day, so Copper and Peter could have a play-date.
In the end, they coloured thirteen and a half pages.
___________________________
“Fuck!”
Bruce’s yell echoed in the glass halls of the Stark Tower.
Banner’s lap was expansive. It connected to Tony’s only through a long hallway which winded around both of them, and a thick glass wall between the two rooms, reinforced so when one of their experiments exploded, the other would remain safe.
His lab was, truly, his happy place. Opposite the glass wall connecting to Tony’s room were rows of microscopes. They’d been a fortune to get, something bruce thanked Tony for every day, but, God, did he use them. At any given time, each microscope was testing something. Blood samples, Hulk tissue, unidentified elements scraped off Chitauri weapons – the room was full. Several desks littered the room, each with piles of old, worn notebooks and data Bruce had been accumulating for years.
In the background played classical music. Specifically, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Tony teased him a lot for it, even ensuring the wall between his and Tony’s lab could become sound-proofed, when requested, but the music was helpful. It relaxed Banner, and, when stressed, calmed the Big Green Guy.
Currently, Bruce was trying to decipher the atomic structure of a certain element a Chitauri cannon had been made of. The Battle in New York happened over a year ago, but Bruce and his team of award-winning biochemists – courtesy of Stark – were still analysing the weapons of the Chitauri. They’d identified a total of twenty-four new elements, but the work seemed never-ending. Now, Bruce was tasked with figuring out the structure of a very angry, very frustrating element which seemed to only have been used in the cannonballs.
Every time he put a sample under the microscope, or experimented with it, tried to get it to react, anything, there was a different outcome. Every single time. Bruce was a pacifist, at heart. He didn’t like cuss words or anger or anything of the sort, but God, he wanted to murder whoever gave him this task.
I’ve done this seventeen times. Seventeen goddamn times, and the structure if always different. How am I expected to—
He stops himself. He takes a step back. He breathes in, he breathes out.
The music gets louder.
“JARVIS, would you mind getting Tony in here, please? I need some help.” Banner muttered out, hands gripping the edge of the table, with his head hanging downwards, frustrated.
“Of course, Dr. Banner.” JARVIS replied.
Listen to the music, Bruce. Just listen to the music.
He listened to the music.
Thankfully, soon after, Tony waltzed in.
“So, Shrek. What’s up? Need some help?” Stark’s voice got louder. As Tony walked over, Banner stood up straight, looking at his friend with exasperation. Tony patted his back. “There, there. Dad’s here to save the day, bud.”
“God, Tony— really?” Stark walked over to Bruce’s microscope, as Banner followed after him, like a puppy. “You don’t need to be so patronising.”
The billionaire laughed. “It’s all fun and games, Bruce. Is the Chitauri Cannon still giving you problems?” He squinted into the micrscope lens. “Looks weird.” He noted.
Banner nodded. “Every time I do anything, it switches up on me. I tried finding its melting point yesterday, and apparently it was at negative twenty-four degrees celcius. Then, I try today, and it’s at thirteen-point-five degrees celcius.” The scientist sighed. “I think I need a break.”
As Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead, Tony turned around and combed the frizz of his friend’s hair. “I think so. Tea break?”
___________________________
“Cheers, Banner.” Stark lifted the china teacup up, keeping his pinkie out, and tapped the edge of Bruce’s teacup.
The two friends sat together in the kitchenette close to their labs. A couple months ago was Bruce’s birthday, and Stark had gifted him an incredibly expensive tea set, one of the few remaining in the world.
The Queen of England has the only other one. Tony was extraordinarily proud of himself when he gifted Bruce the set. They both tended to work late into the night, and every now and then, the two would take a break together. Drink tea and discuss their work, or some of the other Avengers.
It was a nice break, and made Stark actually feel… wanted. As if he had friends.
He just wanted to show Bruce his appreciation of their friendship! So, he bought one of the best tea sets in the world, and gave it to Banner for his birthday.
And yes, Tony may have fibbed a bit when telling Bruce how rare the set was. But if he knew the truth, Banner would keep it locked up in a vault somewhere, never to be used.
It’s better this way, Tony thought, hiding a cheeky grin on his face with his tea cup.
“You know, Bruce. I was wondering something.” Stark took a long sip and placed his cup down. Bruce raised his soft eyebrows, silently urging Tony to continue.
“The kid. Uh, Peter. He has powers, right?” Bruce nodded skeptically. “And he was treated pretty brutally by those rouge scientists. So, I was thinking, maybe we should do a bit of a check-up on him. Make sure he doesn’t have any injuries, or test some of his powers, or, uh, something.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we should, actually. I did some preliminary checks on him when he first got here to make sure he hadn’t been beat or anything, but I didn’t test much of his powers.” He took another sip. “Yes. Yeah, you’re very right. He just got his powers when I did the tests, so by now, he’s probably been exposed far more.” Bruce looked up. “I’ll finish up my work with the Chitauri elements, first – do you want to go get him?”
Uh…
“Me? Me, go get— Peter?” Stark pointed to himself, extremely confused. “You want me to do the tests?”
“Well, you brought it up. I’m busy right now, anyway. I’ll join you both later, once I’m finished.” Banner gave Iron Man a weird look. “Do you… not want to?”
Tony’s eyes went wide. “No! No, it’s fine. No, I just, didn’t expect that. I’ll go,” He pushed out of his chair. “I’ll go get him.”
The elevator ride up to the main apartment was long.
It was only one level, yes, but this was one of the first times Tony would interact with the kid who’s been living in his house.
Of course, there’d been a couple times during dinner. But that was different. It wasn’t planned. It was just asking if the kid wanted dinner or not.
My leg is bouncing.
My leg is bouncing.
My leg doesn’t bounce.
Leg, stop bouncing.
Talking to kids was hard for Tony. Truthfully, talking to anyone was hard. Picking up women? Easy. Insulting his friends? Piece of cake.
Actually talking to a six-year-old, though? For longer than a minute? When Tony himself had initiated it?
That was freaking hard.
His personal therapist – which Fury had individually mandated after Tony had ruined his date – would probably say it was because Kid Tony had very little friends. He was traumatised, and didn’t know how to talk to kids his own age. He was too smart, too weird, too mean, and too rough. So when he was tasked with talking to a kid as a grown adult, of course, it was difficult.
He’s a kid, I’m an adult. I’m fucking Iron Man. Snap out of this, Tony.
Stark walked up to Peter’s door, and gave it a knock. “Kid, you in there?”
There was a muffled yell. “Yeah!”
“Alright, I’m coming in.” Tony replied, pushing the door open.
Inside was a small Peter, sitting on his bed, holding up two toy trucks. He gave Tony a small smile.
“Hey, uh, Peter. What are you doing?” The man poked his head in, observing the little boy’s room.
It didn’t look like a little boy’s room. It was masculine and modern, with essentially no decorations. Some clothes were thrown about, and toys littered the floor everywhere, most of it around the top right corner, where a big suitcase full of kid’s clothes sat.
“I’m playing with my trucks.” Peter answered, moving to sit up.
Nodding, Tony replied. “As one does. So, look. Bruce and I want to do a little check-up on you, make sure you’re not injured or anything. Maybe even do some super, uh, super cool, superhero tests on your spider skills. That seem cool with you?”
The boy quickly nodded, sliding off his bed – which was probably a bit too big for him – and throwing his trucks to the ground. “Yeah! Let’s go.”