What An Excellent Fort
-or-
That Time Tony
Bought Clint 403 Pillow Pets
Tony Stark watched Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanoff, and Steve Rogers leave the tower. Pepper was taking Steve with her to the grocery store, if only to get him out of the tower and into the twenty-first century. Natasha was... Well Tony didn't know why she was going, but he was pretty sure Clint did. Where was Barton anyway?
"Jarvis?" He called.
"Yes sir?" Came Jarvis's composed british accent.
"Where's Agent Barton?"
"Agent Barton is currently on the roof, sir."
"Thanks J." Tony strode to the lift and hit the button for the top level. When the lift doors dinged open he climbed the stairs and found himself at the very top of Avengers Tower. He saw Clint sitting on the edge with his legs dangling over the side. If it were anyone else Stark would have been worried, but he knew that Clint's balance was much too good to let him fall. "Hey Birdbrain." He greeted.
"Hey tin can." Clint acknowledged.
"So why's The Black Widow going on a grocery trip?" Asked Tony.
"I fletch my own arrows, so she's getting me some extra supplies." Clint answered.
"Why can't you just go yourself?" Tony remembered the answer even as he asked the question. "Oh yeah, that thing with SHIELD..."
"Yeah." Clint had been confined to the tower by SHIELD until he could pass their psyche exams. After all, it had only been a few months since Loki had tried to conquer the world, and The Council was worried that Clint would start randomly killing people. Ugh. Originally they had wanted to confine him to the helicarrier, but Tony had pulled few strings so now he was confined to the tower instead.
"Well you could've just ordered them off the internet."
Clint looked at him skeptically. "The kind I use can't be ordered off the internet."
"Seriously? I thought you could order anything off the internet. Have you tried Amazon? Ebay? Etsy?" Tony pulled out his phone. Clint sighed almost imperceptibly and stared back out at the horizon.
"You know what I've got?" Said Tony as he observed Clint's dismal behavior. He got no reply. "An idea, that's what." He said, and with that he turned and walked away.
~•••••O•••••~
"Agent Barton?" Jarvis intoned as said agent perched precariously in the same position as when Tony had graced the roof with his presence a few minutes before.
"Yeah Jarvis?" Said Clint emotionlessly.
"Sir would like me to inform you that he has need of your presence in the common room immediately."
"So that was just a complicated way of saying 'Tony needs you.'" Said Clint distractedly as he stared across the Manhattan skyline.
"Indeed." Replied Jarvis cooly.
Clint huffed a laugh, "Why does he want me?"
"Sir did not inform me of his intentions."
"Alright, tell him I'll be down there in a minute." Clint hopped down from his perch and headed for the stairs. When he reached the common room he was confronted by the sight of Tony grinning maniacally at him from amidst a pile of cardboard shipping boxes.
"Tony... What is this?" Clint asked doubtfully as he surveyed the box filled room.
"Well you seemed kind of down in the dumps so I decided to... Uh..." He trailed off, not wanting to admit that he'd tried to do something kind. After all, he had a reputation to uphold.
"What's in the boxes?" Asked Clint warily.
"Just open them!" Tony said impatiently. Clint produced a knife from who knows where and slit the packing tape on the box nearest him. What he pulled out was soft, multi-colored, and squishy.
"What is this?" He asked Tony.
"It's a Pillow Pet Rainbow Unicorn. I thought it was appropriate, you know, because you're so cute and cuddly." Said Tony, his face completely serious.
"Huh." Said Clint eloquently. "Exactly, how many are there?"
"Four hundred three." Tony replied matter-of-factly. "I was thinking we might want to build a fort out of them or something." He said dismissively as he strode toward the kitchen to find something to open boxes with. Clint stared after him with a mixture of baffled curiosity and wonder at the true insanity of what had just occurred. After a few seconds of contemplation he gave in to the craziness and decided that this was better than sitting on the roof all day. When Tony came in holding a pair of kitchen scissors, Clint had opened about five of the boxes with his knife, spilling about twenty five of the plushy, rainbow colored unicorns onto the floor.
"Wow, these things are a lot bigger than I thought they'd be." Said Tony as he picked up one of the fluffy things. It was about eighteen inches.
"Yeah." Was all Clint said as he continued to slice open the boxes.
"I mean seriously, you could make one of those huge straw hats old women used to wear out of one of these. I bet ol' Capsicle would know exactly how big those things were." Tony looked around for another box to slit open. "Wow. That's a whole lot of unicorns." All of the stuffed animals had been unboxed, and there were so many that when Clint and Tony stood up, they were knee deep in soft, plushy, multi-colored goodness. And if anyone tried to walk into the kitchen they would be bombarded with boxes, since that was where they had piled all of the shipping boxes.
"What are we going to do with them?" Asked Clint.
"I thought I told you," Said Tony, "We're gonna build a fort." He started nudging the Pillow Pets towards the center of the room with his feet. "So how about we make a big pile here and then hollow out the inside so that we can hide and wait for Cap and the girls to get back, and then jump out and surprise them!" Tony looked at Clint expectantly, waiting for him to join in. "Well? Got any tactical insights?" Clint looked around the room.
"If we stationed our fort over there," he pointed a door in the corner of the room, "Then we would have a better avenue of escape in case Tasha gets mad about the four hundred three unicorns. Also, there's a vent right above it." He started to push the plush unicorns to where he had pointed. They continued with their planning and plotting for about five more minutes, and then they started building. Tony stacked the unicorns on top of each other, but they fell down the moment he let go.
"Hmm, we're gonna need some kind of mortar." Tony said as he stared down at the pile of stuffed animals.
"Agreed." Clint nodded.
"Something that isn't too sticky, but will still hold them together. Uh... I know! Glitter glue!"
"Glitter glue? Seriously?" Clint said, eyebrows raised. Tony rushed to the lift and pressed the button for his lab, where he knew there was a large vat of glitter glue he had been going to use to prank Steve. As he left the lift, Bruce stepped into it.
"What's got you in such a hurry?" Asked Bruce.
"Glitter glue." Tony said as he rushed passed.
"Okay." Bruce pressed the button for the common room, which was where Tony and Clint had been working. But Bruce didn't know that. When the lift doors opened, six or seven plushy rainbow unicorns fell inside. Bruce saw Clint standing in the middle of a sea of multi-colored unicorn Pillow Pets.
"Clint... What are you doing?" Asked Bruce. Clint smiled sheepishly at him.
"Tony and I are building a fort. Out of Pillow pets."
Bruce opened his mouth to ask why, but then closed it, deciding he didn't really want to know. He had been coming up from his lab for a bite to eat, but he abandoned the idea. (A wise decision. I certainly wouldn't want to have a mountain of boxes fall on top of me.) Bruce went back down to his lab, and a few minutes later Tony entered the room rolling a large, circular, tub thing.
"Let's get this party started." He said, using a scoop shovel to plop some sparkly, sticky goop onto one of the Pillow Pets. He tossed Clint a shovel and they set to work.
A couple hours later the fort had progressed to being a floor to ceiling column of rainbow fluff and and sparkly slop, inside of which Tony and Clint crouched, waiting. The lift dinged open, revealing Pepper, Natasha, and Steve. As Pillow Pets tumbled into the lift, Clint and Tony sat quietly inside of their fort, waiting for everyone's reactions.
"Tony!" Called Pepper, "Where are you?"
Tony and Clint burst out of the fort, reducing it to a pile of fuzz and goop.
"Surprise!" Tony and Clint yelled simultaneously. Then, they took one look at The Black Widow's face, and ran. Tony bolted through the door that they had built their fort by while Clint scurried through the air vent above. Natasha walked slowly through the stuffed unicorns while Steve and Pepper gaped at the state of the room. When Natasha reached the mound that used to be a column of glorious accomplishment she stopped and said,
"What an excellent fort."
~•••••O•••••~
It's said that the Pillow Pets never really disappeared from Avengers Tower. Occasionally you'd find one in a closet or under the bed. Eventually everyone accepted them as a part of their lives.
So yeah, that happened. I wrote this to try to eliminate some writers block, but I don't think it worked. Oh well. Anyway, this is my first Avengers fanfic so I'd really appreciate it if you guys could tell me if I got everyone in character. By the way, the review button wanted me to give you a message, so here it is: Please press me! Just one little click! Pretty please! Even if you just leave, like, a smiley face or something (Although something longer would be appreciated.)
So yeah, that was the message. I totally agree. =D