Author'sNote: I know I've been off the grid for a while, haha, but here's a new project! Many, many thanks to wmy wonderful new beta NotMarge. Check her out. I had so much fun writing this, I'll probably return to the 'verse.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers of the Spice Girls.

1. That One Where Natasha Let Him In

Tony was having a really, really long day. Fury's cursed debriefings always take for-ev-er. Fury was badass as hell, he had to admit, but his debriefings... He had to go over every single tiny detail. Some of them have a billion dollar tower and a ton of metal suits to look after. Tony was starting to believe that, despite his protests before he'd... Tony was starting to believe that Agent Coulson actually was a superhero. He'd suffered through Fury's debriefings for years and somehow made it to New York alive. The guy was clearly some kind of superhero/alien thing. He had to be. No human being could suffer through that for years and actually survive.

To go with the hellish debriefing, he had a lot of shit going down the rest of the day. He had to update JARVIS' software and get ready for his hot date with Mr. America in 2 hours. (They were going for pizza.) He had a lot to do because Steve was always exactly on time. He sighed loudly as he dragged his feet up the stairs. He tacked the elevator onto his list of Things to Do. He had to fix the damn elevator, too. He had a lot of shit to do today, and a very short time in which to do it.

When he finally stomped up the last stair, he frowned. There was a trail of Cheeto dust coming from his kitchen, leading into the living room.

"JARVIS?" he said. "Why the hell is there a trail of Cheeto dust through my very nice living space?"

If the AI had a body, he would have shrugged.

"You'll have to find out, Mr. Stark."

Tony sighed loudly. Listening closer, he could hear... Was that 'Dance Moms' playing in the living room?

Following the trail of Cheeto dust, Tony found the culprit. He jumped back with an undignified squeak. Clint Barton was sitting on Tony Stark's couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table, eating his Cheetos, and watching Dance Moms onhis TV.

"What the hell, Clint?" Tony yelled.

The corners of Clint's lips twitched upward slightly as he slowly munched on a Cheeto.

"How did you get in my house?!"

A voice came from an armchair situated beside the couch, the occupant having not been noticed.

"Don't worry," Natasha said. "I let him in."

Tony jumped a foot in the air and let out a squeak that Natasha would never forget about.

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET IN MY HOUSE?"

Natasha smirked.

"Cheeto me, Clint."

The archer obliged, handing over one of the chips, his fingers dusted orange.

"Screw off, Stark," he said conversationally, eyes on the screen. "I just saved the Tri-State area."

Tony frowned slightly, squinting.

"I didn't hear about anything happening in the tri-state area."

Clint sighed before he switched his gaze to Tony, licking Cheeto dust off of his fingers.

"Yeah," Clint replied casually. "That's because I do my damn job."

2. That One Where Agent Coulson Isn't Dead

Tony was having a bad day as he stomped up the stairs of Stark Tower. He'd gone on a mission for SHIELD because he owed Rhodey a favour, and apparently War Machine - American Patriot, whatever – was now Agent War Machine. The mission went to shit about five minutes in, as the 'baddie-of-the-week' had an electromagnet that was super powerful, and half of their squad was wearing metal. They were stripped of their suits, but Tony had something a little more important made of metal that 'baddie-of-the-week' had a lot of fun toying with. Luckily, the squad took him down and Tony got his arc reactor back, but it did suck shit, and his chest still hurt where they had to put it back in.

And to cap it off, Cap was in Peru and he still hadn't fixed the damn elevator. He wasn't expecting to see Clint sitting on his sofa watching crap TV, and he'd just got done with a really shitty mission. So he was a bit jumpy when he entered the living room and found Hawkeye on the sofa again, feet on the coffee table, a bag of Funyuns resting on his thigh as he slowly munched, watching 'Supernanny' this time. This time, at least, Tony half expected, so he didn't freak out as bad. He only had about twenty heart attacks this time.

"Clinton Francis Barton, how the hell did you-"

Clint cut him off, murder in his eyes.

"How did you know my middle name?"

Tony laughed darkly.

"Maybe you're not the only one who has ways to find people's files, Francis."

Clint narrowed his eyes.

"Call me Francis one more time and I will pound you so hard your-"

Tony waved a hand to stop the archer.

"That's not the point, not the point. The point is why the hell are you in my house when you have your own."

Clint rolled his eyes.

"Lay off, Stark," he began. "I just figured out Coulson's not dead."

Maybe Tony Stark did have a heart attack when Clint said that. He grabbed at the arc reactor to make sure it was in place and slapped one of his ears as if clearing water out of them.

"Say that one more time. I don't think I heard you correctly."

Clint looked Tony right in the eye and spoke slow, enunciating his words.

"A-gent Coul-son... Is not... dead."

He accompanied last word with a gesture, drawing his finger across his throat.

"You're telling me," Tony began, "that Agent Agent, who I have always suspected is some sort of alien superhero, has not been dead since New York?"

Clint nodded slowly.

"That's what I just said, Stark. Twice."

Tony stopped.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Hell. Freaking hell. He's been alive for months and we're just figuring this out now? Hell!"

Clint laughed.

"I figured it out week after. My clearance level's high enough."

"And mine isn't?" Tony said, his voice pitched high.

"Nope," Clint said, slowly chewing on a funyun. "Not even close. That's not even what I'm talking about. They sent Coulson into... somewhere like Cabo, I think. Ambush. He was doing something incredibly stupid like protecting some baby agent or something and got himself hit. A couple times. I wasn't there, so I just figured out."

Tony closed his eyes and put his hand over his heart like he'd just heard a scandalous piece of gossip or was still having a heart attack. He opened his eyes a minute later.

"Why are you in my house?"

Clint shrugged. "They caught me in the vents. Nat told me to head over to your place."

Tony let out a loud breath.

"Get the hell off my sofa."

Clint stood up, the bag of chips still in his hand.

"Take me to Coulson, and then bring me to Fury so I can chew him out in front of his agents."

Clint shrugged again.

"Eh. I didn't have anything else to do today. Should be fun."

3. That One Where Clint Happened to Have Been in the ICU

Tony Stark was, as a matter of fact, not having a really shitty day the third time he walked into Clint sitting on his sofa, eating his food, and watching his TV. He'd just finished one awesome - albeit very patriotic - date with one very famous Captain Steven Rogers. He'd signed a sweet-ass deal with Oscorp. (They were going to do a lot of sciency shit together. It was going to be, in a word, awesome.) And, he thought to himself, with the slightest tinge of pride, he'd finally fixed that damn elevator, in which he was riding up in style.

JARVIS' voice filled Tony's ears, the AI having been programed to say 'ding' every time the doors of the elevator opened or shut on this floor. The first thing that Tony saw as he stepped out of the doors was a single goldfish cracker sitting as if precisely placed right in front of the door. Tony sighed deeply as the doors slid shut behind him.

"Barton," he muttered under his breath.

His eyes fluttered upward as he spotted a cracker... and another one, and another one. There was a trail of the kid-friendly snack cracker leading into his living room where - he guessed it - Clint Barton was sitting. This time, his television choice had Tony passionately rolling his eyes. He was watching a nature documentary on the hawk and eating Tony's last bag of extra cheddar goldfish.

"Dammit, Barton," he said. "That was my last bag."

Clint's sigh came loud from the darkened living room where the documentary flickered. Tony could barely make out the bird that Clint flipped him in the darkness.

"- off," he added, just above the calls of a red-tailed hawk.

The engineer squinted and felt around for the light switch, flicking it on. Clint was sitting on the couch, but he definitely did not look 100%. There was a large purple bruise on his cheek, and Tony was pretty damn sure that wasn't the only one. Clint winced and hissed softly.

"Dammit, the light."

Tony obliged and hit the switch again.

"I just got out of ICU, Stark, go easy on your lights."

"Exactly," Tony muttered, turning around and heading for the kitchen. "My lights. My house. And you still won't tell me how you get in..."

Grumbling under his breath. Tony flicked the light in the kitchen on and began rummaging around in the cabinets. He pulled out a crystal clear glass and a mug emblazoned with Grumpy Cat's mugshot from the cabinets, fishing a bottle of scotch from the fridge.

"JARVIS, get the light," he said as he left the kitchen.

It flicked off as he passed through. With a loud exhale, Tony dropped into the armchair Natasha had occupied during the first occurrence.

"Hey. Hotguy. Think fast."

He tossed the Grumpy Cat mug at Clint who was sitting a few feet away. The archer's reaction was delayed, however, and the solid mug thumped against his cheekbone and hit the sofa.

"Ow! Shit, Tony!"

Tony laughed.

"My dear friend Francis," Tony said, leaning forward with the bottle in his hand.

Clint leaned forward, scrambling for the mug and putting it out.

"From personal experience, you do not eat goldfish right after being released from the ICU. You get drunk."

Clint nodded slowly and extended the mug further towards Tony. The engineer filled it slowly and Clint examined it.

"Grumpy cat?" he murmured softly. "Can I keep this? I got a friend who'd like it..."

Tony chuckled.

"Keep it. Pep bought it as a gag gift for something or other."

The pair raised their mugs in solidarity.

"To classified missions in secret places," Tony began.

Egypt, Clint thought.

"For classified reasons," Stark continued.

Weapons smuggling from Libya, the archer thought softly.

"And agents with classified files and secret loves of goldfish and crap television."

Clint's stare would have cut down Tony had he been gifted with that power, but they raised their mugs and clinked them softly against each other. They leaned them back at the same time and downed them.

Clint thought the scotch tasted like friendship.

4. That One Where the Pizza Dog Triumphed

So, Clint had a dog.

Honestly, Tony had already pegged him as a dog person. He wasn't quite sure why, but Clint just sort of looked like the kind of guy who loved dogs. The engineer just wasn't entirely positive that Clint had one until he strolled less-than-merrily up the stairs (the damn elevator had busted again, really, he was going to have to get it checked out because he hadn't intended to use these stairs this much) and a freaking golden retriever tackled him.

Whether or not Iron Man screamed like a little girl remains classified, but both JARVIS and Clint will swear six ways to Sunday, up, down, sideways, and any other direction that he did indeed scream like a 4-year-old upon being attacked by Lucky, no matter how many times Tony denied it.

Tony had just been minding his own business, going into his own living space, when he was attacked by a dog that was not his he did not have a dog JARVIS phone animal control. After having pushing the door open, a flash of golden fur shot through the air and tackled him. The invincible Iron Man hit the ground on his back and screamed like a little girl. It was the cackling laughter coming from his living room that finally brought him back to earth, and also the fact that it was a bright pink tongue that was licking at his face and the massive hulking shape was in fact some sort of dog. Grumbling, his face pink, Tony pushed the dog off and wiped at his face with his shirt. That was dog slobber. It was unsanitary. It wasgross. (Maybe Tony Stark was a germophobe and maybe he was not, but he definitely was.) This had Hawkeye written all over it in bright purple Sharpie.

"Clinton Francis Barton, I swear upon the precious, if you do not-"

His angry retorts did not stifle Clint's laughter in any way. If anything, as the engineer hesitantly made his way into the living room, out of the stairwell, the dog at his heels, the laughter got louder. Tony squinted at the ceiling, nudging the mixed-breed with his foot.

"Barton?" he called, almost hesitant.

It sounded as if Clint were in the walls...

"Lay off my dog, Stark! He just got out of the vet's office from a tooth surgery."

Clint's voice echoed into the living room again.

"Bet his name's Lucky, too," Tony grumbled, shuffling into the actual living room, searching for codename: Hawkeye. "Do you know how unsanitary that is? How many germs are probably in that dog's mouth? Urgh..."

Clint's laugh was definitely louder when Tony was next to vent in the wall... Was he really in there? Natasha said he liked getting in the vents, but he hadn't actually believed that he would fit!

"His mouth is cleaner than yours. I cannot believe you kiss Captain America with that mouth. Lucky! Go find your ball! Bug the hell out of Tony until he plays fetch with you."

The dog trotted down the hall, his tongue lolling out.

"JARVIS?" Tony called.

"Yes, Mr. Stark?"

Tony began to speak but he was cut off when Lucky loped back into the room with a tennis ball in his mouth. He dropped in it Tony's lap - covered in dog slobber. It wasn't a new ball. Aggressively, Tony flung it away.

"Ew!"

Happily, unknowingly, Lucky darted after it as it bounced into the kitchen. Clint cackled again, and that was the only way that Tony could think of to describe it. It echoed, and it was coming from the vents.

"JARVIS, is he really in the vents?"

5. That One Where Clint Takes a Shower and Tony Interrupts

Tony's experiment was going very well, thank you very much. Do not, under any circumstances, listen to Virginia Potts, or Doctor Bruce Banner, or Dum-EE, or JARVIS, or... Or anyone, really. Just listen to him. It was going wonderful. But for some reason (it's the chemicals, you mixed the chemicals wrong, Tony, Bruce said, approximately eighteen times), the whole thing decided to spontaneously combust, i.e burst into flames that began licking at any available surface, including, but not limited to: paperwork he never intended to sign, the end of Bruce's lab coat, Tony's hair, Tony's t-shirt, and a shoe he'd left sitting on the lab table. (Don't ask. Bruce had long ago stopped asking, and he was so much better off for it.)

So the pre-installed fire alarms began wailing loudly, JARVIS' pristine voice echoed over Tony's screeching (a little), and Dum-EE rolled over with a fire extinguisher clenched in his claws. With one fell swoop and press of a button, the lab table, Bruce's coat, and Tony were coated in the white extinguisher. Tony could hear Bruce's sigh when Dum-EE had released the trigger.

"7," his partner began. "14. 21. 28. 35."

It was something he'd realized Bruce did. It was something of a meditation for Doctor Banner, counting by 7s.

He did it a lot around Tony.

Tony slapped a foamy hand and one of Bruce's shoulders.

"Come on, big guy. Let's getcha cleaned up. Bathroom down the hall."

Bruce cast Tony a look.

"42," he said to himself as he began to follow Tony down the hall.

"49."

Accidents like this happened a lot. He was used to them really, but with the Big Guy lurking in the shadows, one could never be too careful, and Tony knew that.

They both stopped in front of the bathroom door, frowning. There was noise coming from behind the closed door: the sound of a shower running. The water thumped against the porcelain, but there was another sound that echoed over it.

"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want. So tell me what you want what you really really want . . ."

Tony raised a finger and tapped the wood.

"Is that... the Spice Girls?" he said slowly to Bruce.

Still frowning, the scientist nodded slowly. The singing voice, ringing out over the shower, accompanied by the thumps or surely some sort of dance, was very familiar.

"What the hell," Tony began, "is Barton doing in my shower at 2 in the morning? He didn't even hear the alarms!"

Slowly, hesitantly, Tony pushed the door open. Good thing his shower doors were a certain kind of glass, or he would have gotten a lot more than he wanted then.

"Barton."

Tony raised his voice louder.

"Barton."

Still, the archer seemingly ignored them as if he didn't even know they were there.

"I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really zigazag ha. . ."

Tony's eyes roamed the bathroom counter and he spotted something that he swooped in to investigate, the little devices in his hands. He examined them slowly.

"They're hearing aids," he muttered in disbelief, half to himself.

Very high tech, too... And the only one they could belong to was... Clint.

"Shit," Tony swore softly.

Clint was deaf, or at least partially. And he hadn't figured that out yet? Suddenly, he felt like a really shitty friend. He gently placed them back where he'd found them, suddenly scared that he'd break them. He approached the shower, quieter now.

"BARTON!"

He thumped the shower door with his fist, and the Spice Girls abruptly cut off as Clint scrambled in the shower, hitting the bottom of the tub and swore loudly. He scrambled around a little bit more, slapping at the dials until the water turned off, pulling a towel down and wrapping it around himself before sticking his (soapy) head out of the crack doors.

"Is somebody dying? I'm kind of showering."

Tony hesitated.

"The fire alarms went off."

Clint squinted as if not hearing him properly, which, Tony reminded himself, he probably wasn't. Clint recoiled slightly into the safety of the shower, studying Tony and Bruce while keeping their view hidden. He cast his gaze down, and Tony suddenly felt sorry for him. He looked like a kicked puppy.

"I, uh..."

Tony briefly smiled.

"It's alright, bud," he said honestly, and if he talked louder than normal, no one mentioned it.

"It's alright."

If Clint smiled in relief after that, no one brought it up.

The archer slammed the shower door shut.

"Now, jeez! Get the hell out so a man can take a shower..."

Tony and Bruce left quickly. After all, there was a bathroom on the other side of the floor, too.

"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want. So tell me what you want what you really really want . . ."

And 1. That One Where Tony Breaks Into Clint's Place For Once and Finds Out

Tony was sorry. (Really, he wasn't. JARVIS was. Pep was.) He had been bored, and he had been out and he happened to recall for some odd reason that one Clinton Francis Barton lived roughly in the neighborhood. He did, actually, come across Barton's file once, even though strictly speaking, he shouldn't have seen it. but when were Starks known to follow rules? Exactly. Never.

So earlier that month, he'd snooped, he'd found Barton's file, and maybe he committed his home address to memory. So when he was traveling through, he decided the drop by and give the archer a quick visit. Secretly, he was hoping that Clint wouldn't be home and he could give that deaf-ass idiot a taste of his own damn medicine.

Honestly, at this point, Tony stopped caring about the break-ins. He'd given Clint a key.

He squinted at the old, shitty building exterior. Really? Was this the place? Did Barton really live here? Slowly, Tony slid through the front doors, barely on their hinges as it was. The front lobby was vacant, and their elevator was busted, too. He trudged up the stairs to apartment 21b, wincing the whole time and not even coming close to the hand rail. Absolutely no way this place was sanitary. This was just the stairwell, too. Did Clint really live here?

Finally, after his awful dirty trip up to the second floor, he appeared at the apartment marked 21b. The door wasn't even locked, for Christ's sake! He reached out to touch the handle but stopped when he heard a loud rambunctious noise of children playing in the next house, screaming and running past him. He flinched but proceeded inside anyway. And damn did his shitty apartment suck as much as the stairwell did. (But perhaps it was a little bit more sanitary, and Tony thanked Clint silently for that.)

He nudged the door closed with his foot. All there was in this tiny little apartment was an old couch that presumably folded out into a bed, a coffee table, a rickety table and to chairs in the kitchen, a fridge, and two dog bowls next to the kitchen table. A dog bed was careful set next to the couch, a handful of tennis balls in it. Half curious, Tony made his way over to the fridge. He pried it open with one hand and frowned at what was inside.

It wasn't food. It was guns. There were guns of every shape and size hung on the walls and sitting in the doors. Pistols, rifles, sniper rifles, hell... There was even a bow-shaped space in the back. So that was why Clint clearly wasn't worried about leaving the door unlocked even if the lock was busted... Suddenly, the engineer's face lit up. He had an idea. And this was a brilliant one. Really. Perhaps even as brilliant as his past ideas. (Not as good as his Iron Man suits, but better, probably, than the walking toaster he'd created that kept spitting pop tarts at everyone.)

Tony had gone to sit on the couch, but part of his mind convinced him not to, and it was definitely the germaphobe part. And he waited and he waited and he waited, until finally, Clint came home, if you could even call this crappy apartment that.

He could hear Clint fumbling with his keys at the door, but that was unnecessary.

"Natasha?" the archer called out uncertainly as he pushed the door open. "Nat?"

Tony laughed.

"Try someone better-looking!" he called back.

Clint appeared at the back of the couch in a flash. He sighed, seeing Tony, and ran a hand through his hair.

"Stark," he began, patiently. "Get the hell out of my-"

Tony grinned, showing his teeth.

"It's not your house anymore."

Clint stopped, frowning.

"What do you mean, not my house?"

Tony's grin grew wider.

"So I stopped by after my shift beating people up, and I noticed some things about this place. It looked like a great investment, really, it did. So I..."

Clint cut him off.

"You did not."

Tony continued.

"So I bought this building, and I may and or may not have - but I totally did - evicted you. I expect you to move into Stark Towers by the end of the day."

He cast a glance at the dog bed.

"You can bring Lucky, too. The rest of the Avengers will be joining us shortly. Thinking of renaming it Avengers Tower. Or, the Avengers Tower of Bachelors and Natasha, huh? How does that sound, Birdman?"

"... Shut up, Tony."

They had him moved in by the end of the day.