Clint was not a fan of waiting until the other shoe had dropped to make plans. It was why he had started to collude with JARVIS the same day Coulson was transformed into a four-year-old. He had set some plans in motion that day, but some details would, OK, maybe not "require" but certainly "be the better for" Coulson's input.
Contingency planning was really Coulson's strong suit, but Clint had a lot of experience with worst case scenarios becoming realities. So when Coulson was incarcerated "for his own good, really, just trust us" at SHIELD HQ, Clint's brain went into survive / escape mode. Despite all SHIELD's assurances that Coulson was a valued and respected high-ranking member of the agency and, really, what was the worst that could happen?
"Thirty-eight," Coulson said encouragingly into Clint's ear.
Well, OK, to be fair, human experimentation hadn't happened, and Coulson hadn't been kidnapped by one of SHIELD's enemies to be tortured for information.
"Thanks, sir," Clint panted as he came back to a neutral position. He paused there a moment, arms extended straight up to where he gripped the towels hanging from the pull-up bar. "What about-" He clenched the towels tight in each hand as he raised himself to a full pull-up, forehead even with the bar. "-William, sir?" he asked on the exhale.
However, the other things that hadn't happened? Uh, basic human rights and freedoms? Hello? Any of this ringing a bell? Clint was pretty sure it was Not OK to confine a four-year-old to a few rooms inside a bureaucratic office building and not let him see the sun, much less grass, trees, or even dirt, for weeks on end.
"Thirty-nine." Coulson squeezed his legs tighter where they wrapped around Clint's waist, ankles barely reaching far enough to lock together. "No," he said firmly.
Clint adjusted his hold on the towels. The extra 40 pounds of four-year-old Coulson attached to his belly was definitely a game changer. "Peter?"
Coulson had slumped slightly, but Clint noted with approval that the top of his head was still blocking the security camera's view of Clint's mouth. Having their discussions in the gym was the best way he'd found to circumvent SHIELD's omnipresent monitoring system. "Forty," Coulson said. "And no."
What he noted without approval, though, was that Coulson was getting pasty living inside the SHIELD building. The freckles that had dotted his round baby cheeks when he was first transformed had faded away. The fluorescent lighting did no one's complexion any favors, but the bluish shadows under Coulson's eyes were new and stood out on his increasingly pale face. It wasn't lack of sleep. Clint could attest to that first hand because he was there for most of Coulson's sleep cycles.
As Clint began another towel pull-up, and before he could suggest another name for Coulson's cover identity, Coulson preempted him. "Before you ask, no 'Richard', either."
"Aw, but sir," Clint huffed, grinning, "just think: this could be your only chance to be Dick Johnson."
"Forty-one," Coulson said sternly. "And you're not nearly as funny as you think you are." His light tenor voice was serious, but Clint thought he saw a glint in his eyes that would have been suppressed humor in his older self.
"Sure I am, sir," he said.
"Forty-two," Coulson said. "You think I want to be stuck with a joke name for the foreseeable future? Fine. How about 'Francis', then? You're not using it."
"Low blow, sir," he said and released one towel so he could quickly tickle Phil's side.
Phil giggled for a moment, then released his hold around Clint and dropped to the floor. He fixed Clint with as stern a look as he could muster. Despite the fact that when Clint hung from the towel Coulson's head came up to Clint's knees, it was still pretty fierce.
"Just for that, Agent, finish the set one-handed."
Clint contemplated his grip on the remaining towel and the fatigue in his muscles, even though he was suddenly carrying 40 pounds less. "Yes, sir."
In the end, Clint asked JARVIS to create an identity for James Martin, Sr., recently widowed, and James Martin, Jr., age four. The cover JARVIS made was so thorough, so complete, and so seamless that Clint promised himself that he would never go back to the streets for IDs again. Of course, his next thought had him worrying about what would happen if JARVIS ever went all SkyNet on them, but that was a concern for another day.
The bright and shiny new identity in his hands let Clint contact Coulson's potential school as soon as JARVIS finished the background search on the local schools' principals. And the administrators. And the teachers. And nurses. And the kindergarten parents, for the love of Pete. Really, JARVIS' thoroughness was making Clint wonder if he had ever been paranoid enough in his years with a solo career. His vetting of the schools themselves - their history, academic record, complaints against them, financial standing, and so forth - was a thing of beauty.
"JARVIS, my man, if you're ever bored with Stark, you should come work for the research department at SHIELD. We'd keep you in all the electrons and bandwidth you could handle."
"That is very kind, Agent Barton," the AI replied, "but I assure you that there is more than enough to keep me occupied at Stark Industries."
"Whatever, just so you know." Clint looked at the reports JARVIS had pulled together for him. "So, you like this one, huh, JARVIS?" He tapped the school at the top of the list with a callused forefinger.
"Hope Lutheran School had the best academic record and the best results from the background checks, sir," the AI replied. "And the best overall long-term results for its students, judging by their lives and careers for the past 58 years."
"Not gonna lie," Clint said, "I was kinda hopin' for St. Sebastian's to come out on top here. Patron saint of archers, and all. Seemed like it might've been meant to be or something."
"It would indeed have seemed serendipitous, sir, but if I may..." JARVIS inserted one of those pauses that marked him as A Really Very Intelligent System, and then continued gently. "Neither you nor Agent Coulson have identified as Catholic, and that difference might set you apart from the other students and parents. You have expressed your desire to 'fly under the radar'. Anything that makes you stand out would work against that goal."
Clint sighed. "Good points, as always, J. Shoot me the contact numbers for Hope Lutheran, OK?"
Clint liked Karen Williams, Coulson's prospective school's principal. At least, he liked what JARVIS had found out about her on his background check. He liked her enough that it gave him a pang to gaslight her, but it was for Coulson's security. His initial phone call to Hope Lutheran School had a dual purpose: it established a timeline that would conflict with his and Coulson's eventual escape from SHIELD, and it put the principal on an awkward footing, letting him benefit the most from her discomfort.
"Mrs. Williams? Thank you for taking my call, though I admit I had expected to hear from you sooner."
"I'm sorry, Mr.," she paused as if consulting a note, "Mr. Martin? I don't think I had a request to call you?" Her rising tone made the statement an invitation to provide her with more information.
"But I- Hmm," Clint said in a baffled voice. "That's really strange. I sent you the email almost two weeks ago." It was a lie, but it was a good one. He'd sent the email - OK, well, JARVIS had - a few minutes ago, but through JARVIS' eldritch powers, the message from James Martin, Sr., dated two weeks previous, was not only present in Karen Williams' email inbox, it was also flagged as "read." Clint was never, ever ticking JARVIS off. "It would be from JamesMartinWrites, all one word?"
"I'm sorry, I-" She stopped for a moment. "Oh. Oh, dear. My goodness. Mr. Martin, I don't know what to say, I have your email right here. It must have gotten lost in the shuffle somehow. I apologize." She took a breath. "How can I help you today?"
"Well, I'm looking to enroll my son in kindergarten in a few weeks..."
After initially assigning him to be Coulson's bodyguard and caretaker 24-7, SHIELD suddenly decided that Hawkeye was needed for a variety of missions elsewhere. He was just thankful they hadn't sent him to Kuala Lumpur or on a long-term undercover mission. Instead, he drew a variety of short assignments within a short plane ride of "home." It did, however, give him an excuse to spend more than a few hours outside of SHIELD HQ and off of their radar.
Clint first visited Hope Lutheran School in Lewisville, PA, two weeks after his Gaslight email and phone call combination to the principal. Between JARVIS' incredibly thorough background checks and his relentless collation of the data available on the local area schools, they might have made the most informed school choice ever. Still, Clint was nervous when he actually came to visit.
He had spoken to Karen Williams on the phone several times by then, and the two of them were clear that "Mr. Martin", widowed so recently that he was still wearing his ring, was teetering on the brink of enrolling "James Martin, Jr." in kindergarten. But it was one thing to read the intel on paper (or on StarkPad, as it usually happened) and quite another to get first-hand observation. It was the difference between technical analysis and a first-hand account from an asset in the field.
On the whole, Clint approved of the school. The halls didn't reek of aged, institutional spaghetti sauce, a sense memory he'd been unaware he had until the cafeteria didn't meet that expectation. The school secretary, though obviously fulfilling the role of gatekeeper and (undoubtedly) power behind the throne, was not a wizened, bitter battle axe, but rather an older mom of two current students. The school nurse was a young-ish grandpa who had retired and now volunteered most of his time.
His sense of approval didn't prevent him from placing bugs in the areas he toured, however. He figured a couple of weeks of audio monitoring of the foyer, cafeteria, and classroom before Coulson was actually enrolled could only be to the good. It was one thing to view the behavior shown when a prospective parent was being shepherded around on a tour. It was quite another to see the employees' day-to-day habits when no one was watching, as far as they knew.
Before he returned to New York, he checked up on his safe house and added a few items that would make their stay there more convenient, should it ever come to that, including step stools and a toddler bed that Coulson could sit on without his feet dangling some distance from the floor. He still hoped that SHIELD would get its act together and do right by Coulson, but that hope was fading fast. As he made his circuitous way back to headquarters, he predicted that he would only be able to watch four-year-old Coulson confined inside a building for another week, two at most, and then he would have to take action.
As it happened, it was worse than he thought. When he checked in with Coulson at SHIELD, he found that he was actually more restricted than he had been previously.
"So, sir," he said with a smile that was 100% for the surveillance cameras, "since you're no longer able to hang out with the kids in the SHIELD day care, maybe you can talk Fury into letting you out for a few hours to get some pizza?"
Coulson nodded slowly, his enormous blue eyes somber in his round face. "You're right," he said, acknowledging their code phrase. "Some Chicago-style deep dish is definitely in order."
Two weeks later Agents Coulson and Barton proved again why they should never be underestimated as they outwitted Coulson's watchers and escaped from SHIELD's custody, leaving nothing but a series of false trails behind.