Avengers: The Impossible Child

by Black' Victor Cachat

No OC focus. A baby appears after A:AoU, who is somehow the child of Bruce and Natasha! Meanwhile, a mysterious party which has been manipulating events for years, prepares to start the Civil War, even while new nightmares appear. Now both parents must fight to save the world from both heroes and villains! Brutasha.

1. Clint Nearly Has A Heart Attack

For better or worse, I do not own any Marvel franchise

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Many thanks to my wonderful Betas, AutumnFroste and theicemenace. Be sure to check out their stories as well!

The fantastic cover image is courtesy of KaydenceRei. Just perfect!

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I should emphasize that the "Impossible Child" in this story is not going to be receiving a lot of direct focus and personality development. Not only is the kid too young, but my story focuses primarily upon the Marvel Cinematic Universe cast, not an OC. The child still does appear of course, because it is too adorable :-)

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'Babies make everything better.'

-TvTropes

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Chapter 1: Clint nearly has a Heart Attack, same for Tony

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XXX

Barton Farm

A few weeks after "Age of Ultron"

A prodigal son driven mad by pain. A brotherhood overstrained by secrets. Heroes forced to confront their greatest fears and wondering if they had failed. Family lost. Love twisted into betrayal.

The Avengers had been pushed to the brink, but still they lived, although one of their number had chosen to retire to be with his family while he still could passing on the torch to the next generation while enjoying the reward for his services. Clint Barton, formerly Hawkeye.

The Barton farm lay untouched as the dawn broke over it, the place where the heroes had been brought so that the aches, stress, and emotional scars of their violent lives could be melted and re-forged into a stronger steel. Where those hardened warriors had come to be wrapped in warmth and family love, giving a face to all those they fought and sacrificed for.

The tranquility only broken whenever the children got too much sugar into them…

Laura Barton slowly made her way to the front door as part of her daily routine of waiting for the newspaper while enjoying the sunrise. Baby Nathaniel was still asleep, as was Clint who was trying to do the lion's share of looking after their newest son. It was possibly guilt over being away so often, facing off against world shattering threats, but Laura was not one to complain. As it was, she was still getting over her recent childbirth, and enjoyed taking it easy. Opening the door, something caught her attention, and her jaw dropped in disbelief.

Clint Barton was awake even before his wife reached their bedroom, her quick, quiet footsteps ringing silent alarms that had been beaten into him. Already half out of bed, he started to reach for a bow concealed behind a false panel once he saw the expression on her face. A quick shake of her head calmed him down, and Laura gestured him to follow. A moment later, he was staring in disbelief at something that had been moved on top of their kitchen table: a baby.

About six months old, wrapped up in green and red blankets, and adorably sleeping in a little baby carrier. Beside him/her was a small, portable cooler that had apparently been opened, revealing a dozen jars of baby formula. A bag on the ground had an equal number of diapers. Whoever left this must have thought we had whatever else was needed, or has absolutely no idea how to properly care for a baby, Clint numbly concluded. No clothes despite autumn approaching, or any toys, I don't even see a pacifier, bib, shampoo, baby wash, powder, lotion, and if anyone thinks that's enough diapers for even a few days they need a wake-up call. Ergo, while Clint was concerned on many levels, his paternal side was happy the kid was now in the care of a responsible adult.

There was also an open envelope on the table that had not been there last night, with a piece of paper lying at an angle that he could not read it. Worse, the way Laura kept glancing at it was ominous.

"Huh?" was his eloquent response to the scene.

"I woke up, went outside, and just found her there."

"Her?" Alright, one thing at a time. He turned back to his wife, "Anything else you noticed?"

"No," and then she visibly composed herself, "Clint? The note. Read it."

Slowly, the ex-Avenger walked over, and paused to assess the baby. It, she, was sleeping soundly, and when he put on a nearby glove and felt its forehead, the infant was comfortably warm. So she had not been outside long. Still wary of touching this mystery directly after all the weirdness he had experienced in his life, he glanced at the envelope, but saw nothing noteworthy, and leaned over to read the piece of paper.

A major concern was not just that a baby of all things had turned up on their doorstep, but also that it physically should have been impossible. Life as a SHIELD agent had given Clint more than a share of professional paranoia when it came to protecting his home and family. Especially given how much of his former job involved bypassing the security systems of other people to commit unfriendly acts. Consequently, while secrecy was the farm's main defense, there were plenty of passive detectors, carefully placed animal traps, and other things the children were taught to stay well away from, to keep anyone from approaching the house.

Natasha always made a point of checking that everything was secure whenever she visited, and would offer new suggestions every time. When Nick Fury had been hiding here, the man had spent a lot of his time improving this even more.

There should have been more than enough forewarning about anyone approaching the house, with Clint waiting to greet whomever had dropped the baby off. Like the time when the regular newspaper boy had been sick, and Clint had been watching his replacement hidden in the trees with a drawn bow. Also, the baby was still warm, so it had not happened to long ago.

He read the paper once, twice, and on the third attempt his brow was uncharacteristically furrowed, and wondering if this was some sick joke.

"Dad?"

He turned to see his oldest child, Cooper, looking up at him with sleepy eyes, "What's going on Dad?"

Fortunately, Laura had seen their son entering the room beforehand, and was quick to answer while Clint struggled to keep up. "Someone dropped a baby off at our door, and we're trying to figure out what to do."

"I know what to do," Clint corrected grimly. "I need to make a trip, we need to get to the bottom of this, now!" Realizing what his tone must have sounded like, he quickly schooled his features into a light smile, and crouched down to look his son in the eye, "Don't worry, I'll be back home soon. I just have to go pay a trip to Tony Stark, you know, Iron Man. I'm not going off to do anything dangerous. I'll be just an errand boy for all this. Okay?"

While still a little dopey and confused, Cooper nodded in agreement. As for Laura, she conceded that Clint had the right idea, and headed off to get him a meal to eat first, and other stuff he would need for the trip ahead of him.

Pausing, she turned back to Clint, "Give Aunty Nat our love," she said quietly.

XXX

Later that afternoon

Stark Tower

Tony was there to meet Barton and his unexpected charge in a baby carrier, when they arrived at what was once again called the Stark Tower. The phone call the multi-billionaire had received, well away from the man's farm, had been unexpected and confusing. Legolas was claiming he needed emergency transportation to Stark and his labs, to check out a baby that had been found. In fact, he was bringing the baby along with him.

Suffice to say, Tony was intrigued enough to take some time away from his work. After the debacle where his response to facing his worst nightmare was to create one of the greatest threats to humanity ever, he had been trying to reprioritize his life. Safer tasks like working to make to replace Big Oil with his environmentally free arc reactors for providing people with energy. Along with a few dozen other projects here and there.

After a quick handshake in greeting, Tony led his former teammate to an elevator, while his newest AI, FRIDAY, did a security scan of the three of them. During the ride up, he decided to break the ice a bit.

Remembering how secretive Barton had been about his family, Tony opened up with a smirk and a friendly verbal jab at the man, "And you said you didn't have a girlfriend, you sly dog!"

"Nah, not that type of guy. Just found her. But someone was taking care of her beforehand, kid's got to be like six months old, give or take."

So definitely not Barton's third kid born extra early. Still, what would bring him all the way here? Tony wondered. He hid his family to keep them safe, but being seen with a baby makes it, her, vulnerable to the same threats he was worried about. It might even clue in other people to the possibility of his real family. So what shook him up so much to take that kind of risk? Meanwhile, the billionaire automatically continued the conversation without losing a beat, "I'll leave that kind of guess to you. I take my inexperience with unexpected noisy, smelly kids as a matter of pride."

"So," Clint casually led as he changed the subject, "heard anything from Thor?"

"No, he's still off hunting down about those Infinity Stone thingies."

"What about Bruce?"

Tony shot him a knowing glance at that. "No, my Science Bro is still of the radar, and I'm not doing anything about that. Unless you're asking on Romanoff's behalf?"

Something flashed across Clint's face, but he shook his head. "No, she hasn't talked to me about, well, them. And you know she would have broken in herself if she thought you had anything and she wanted it."

"Possibly. Tower's even tighter after all the times Fury and Coulson just walked in however."

"Believe what you want. Is Pepper here?"

"Uhm, no," Tony awkwardly coughed, but did not elaborate at Clint's curious look. Truthfully, seeing the secret Barton family and realizing that the arguably weakest member of the Avengers was also the most emotionally healthy, and why, had also helped Tony reprioritize his life. He was spending even more time with Pepper these days, but right now she was ironically out on a business trip while Tony had remained behind to finalize a time sensitive project that he had let get out of hand.

They continued the light conversation and banter until they reached their destination, with the inventor calmly navigating the lab to hand the archer a swab. Tony was hardly an expert like Bruce Banner or Helen Cho, but he had spent enough nights boning up on bio-chemistry and such, especially when Pepper was suffering from Extremis. This should not take long for someone of his skills or resources. Barton quickly ran the cloth through the baby's mouth, who was both awake and strangely calm to Tony's mind, and then the father of three handed the sample to the scientist. The specimen was then promptly placed into the medical machine to be studied in ways unknown to all but the most advanced biology labs, and Tony waltzed forward to hear the results.

"Alright, FRIDAY," Tony called out, his customary dramatics back into play, "why don't you bedazzle Legolas with what you've got?"

"Yes Boss, working on it," the A.I. responded. Tony blinked in surprise; a simple DNA analysis should have been done already, given the sophistication of the machinery and software. By saying that she was still working at it, FRIDAY was telling him that this problem might be more interesting than he first thought.

"Okay, tell me what you've got so far."

"The child's mother has been identified as Ms. Natasha Romanoff."

Tony froze in place at this bombshell, and turned to look back at Barton and the baby. His instinctive response was to snark that the kid was too young to be Romanoff's, that she had been living at the tower long enough for him to have noticed if she put on a bunch of pounds. True, there were alternatives, but something in Barton's face told him there was a lot more going on. And the man knew her a lot better than Tony did, and he would never have pegged her as the maternal type.

Noting Barton's lack of response to his silent invitation to contribute more to the situation, Tony sat down at the nearest computer, "Show me the other half. Uhhuh, yeah, standard stuff it seems. Just a regular guy. What's the big deal? Can't find a match in any system?"

"Yes and no," the female voice answered back, "here, sir."

Tony just blinked in further confusion at what was on the screen. It was a simulation he remembered glancing at a while back, a hypothetical model that FRIDAY had pulled out of his files. But that was for what the DNA should have looked like before it had been altered, for…

Tony snapped his chair around to stare at the baby, for the first taking her brown hair and familiar green eyes, before looking Barton right in the eyes, "Alright, what aren't you telling me?" he demanded.

"You go first," the man shot back automatically, starring over Tony's shoulder to look at the screen, reading what he could of the file. Then he nodded, and pulled out of his pocket a folded piece of paper. It was a little wrinkly, and could have come from any printer on earth, with only a few words printed on it. A name:

Laura Fury Romanoff-Banner.

XXX

Author Notes:

Special thanks to CloudCuckooLandHasAQueen, for going over my writing beforehand!

Trying to think up baby names is difficult. Trying to figure out what fictional characters would call their kid is just annoying.

I was never really a fan of Hawkeye until Age of Ultron, and now I am. Consequently, he is taking on a bit of a bigger role in this story.

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Recommended Brutasha fics that really helped inspire me:

"A Product of the Red Room," by CloudCuckooLandHasAQueen

"Fever Dreams," by nothinbuttherain

"So what? We just disappear?" byWildjump

"Dear Natasha," by Alisme

"One of Those Nights," by RevolverKiss

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Next Chapter: 'With the Avengers'

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Writing a fic based upon a movie you have only seen once (when I started this), and relying upon the memories of other people and what they have written online, is painful. So please ease it with reviews, and I will get back to you!