Phil sipped his coffee, setting the cup down to massage his temples. He'd been out of medical nearly six months and still Fury refused to let him do anything more than desk jockey. Provided, of course, that you could call the breakfast bar in the Avenger's kitchen a desk. Fury had forbad him from coming in to SHIELD more than twice a week until he was fully cleared for active duty. He considered Nick a friend, a point Fury had reminded him of when he'd told Phil, as a friend, to "take a goddamned break for once."
He had a desk. He could fault Stark for a lot of things but a lack of foresight wasn't one of them. He'd shown up at the tower his first day back with an armload of paperwork to be greeted by the entire Avenger's team, minus one billionaire philanthropist who was apparently holed up in his lab. Tony had emerged in the middle of the afternoon just long enough to hand Phil a key card and tell him his suite was on sixty-nine. He'd giggled when he'd done it but that was the limit of his inappropriateness.
Phil'd expected a really nice office, considering it was Tony Stark. He hadn't been expecting a fully furnished and stocked apartment that made his loft on the upper east side look like a broom cupboard. He'd had one thing right, though. It had a really nice office.
Phil hated it.
The view was phenomenal, there was no denying it. The furniture was elegant, clean lined and comfortable. The desktop wasn't a desktop as much as it was an integrated three dimensional display that could run rings around most super computers. The sound system was completely flawless.
And there were zero interruptions.
Phil wasn't sociable, he could be honest about himself. He was something of a recluse, truth be told. But years at SHIELD had made him used to the sounds of footsteps in the corridor, the light rap on his door revealing a junior agent with "just one question." Barton shuffling in and collapsing on his sofa after a mission and sleeping half the day away. Natasha settling into her favorite corner with a book and a cup of coffee, always remembering to bring one for him as well.
He'd grown accustomed to the ever distracting presence to humanity in his day and he'd found, when presented with the calm privacy he'd so long wished for it had driven him completely bonkers.
So he'd abandoned his pristine shrine to productivity in favor of the slightly sticky kitchen counters and the squeaky bar stools that probably wouldn't squeak if Tony and Clint didn't insist on having spinning contests in them to see which one would get dizzy first.
The sound of footfalls out in the hall settled the tension in his shoulders and he glanced up as Steve wandered into the kitchen, his fingers caked with chalk dust and a smudge of charcoal on his shirt.
"You've been busy," Phil observed as Steve made a beeline for the sink.
"Thor and I were out exploring the neighborhood last week and found an artist's supply store," Steve admitted, blushing as he scrubbed his hands. "There's a lot more variety now."
"You should have Natasha take you down to SoHo," Phil suggested. "She probably knows a few places down there with an even better selection."
"I didn't know she was an artist," Steve replied, looking surprised as he toweled off his hands.
"She isn't," Phil shook his head, sorting through some of the papers in his folder. "But she seems to have a bit of affinity for the bohemian sort." Phil stared at the form in his hand stifling a groan.
"Problem?" Steve asked hesitantly as he opened the pantry. Phil rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Thor's debriefing reports," he sighed.
"What about them?" Steve asked, knocking over several items on the shelves and then pausing to right them again.
"They're not debrief's as much as they are recounts of glorious battle," Phil answered, holding out one of the reports to him as Steve set down the mayo and mustard.
"I grasped the fell beast by his throat and smote his fearsome form upon the great spire of the Tower of Sears," Steve read, wincing. "Yeah, we're getting nasty letters about that."
"I need to talk to him about this," Phil admitted resignedly. "Do you know where he is?"
"He left for Culver this morning," Steve offered apologetically, turning to rifle though the fridge. Phil tried not to roll his eyes.
"I suppose it's just as well," Coulson shook his head. "Director Fury won't admit it but I think he enjoys them." He hid his smile at Steve's laugh.
"How are you settling in?" Coulson asked, his attention barely straying from his laptop.
"All right, I guess," Steve shrugged as he dumped sandwich fixings on the counter, rummaging though the drawers in search of a knife. "Once Tony and I quit biting each other's heads off things went better." Phil swallowed a laugh.
"He can be abrasive but he means well," Phil assured.
"I'm getting that," Steve admitted. "he redesigned my suit with this new experimental fabric that... well it's a lot more impressive than that kevlar stuff SHIELD gave me."
"Really?" Coulson asked curiously, pausing to pilfer bread and lunchmeat as Steve handed him a plate.
"Yeah it took twice the punishment," Steve nodded. "even passed the severe stress test. The Chitauri blew a hole in my old one during the battle and Tony insisted that was just a sign of sub-standard equipment and designed a replacement. Who even does that?"
"People whose name ends in 'ark'?" Phil replied, Steve nodded in grudging agreement. "What kind of stress tests did you put it though?"
"What?" Steve asked, his ears turning slightly pink, glancing up as Natasha sauntered into the kitchen. She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top and downing a bottle of water. Her hair was tousled lightly and there was a glow to her skin that could only be from strenuous exercise.
"The stress tests on the Kevlar replacement," Phil repeated, noting Steve's discomfort with a twinge of wariness. "what were they exactly?" Steve seemed to waffle a moment as Natasha pulled a gatorade from the fridge.
"We shot it with repulsers and Clint took the quinjet canons to it and then we let the Hulk use it for a slingshot," She stated before pulling the box of strawberries out of the fridge.
"You let the Hulk," Phil's voice trailed off.
"He was kind of resistant to the idea at first," Steve admitted.
"Until we stretched the fabric out between the volley ball net hooks and let him launch Tony across the gym," Natasha nodded.
"Oh that was awesome!" Tony declared stretching as he wandered into the kitchen, turing to look back at Bruce who was trailing in his wake. "That's like the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off. We should install one permanently."
"So that the Other Guy can train to hurl you across the battle field more efficiently?" Bruce asked drolly. Tony only rolled his eyes as Steve slid a plate along the counter, bumping it lightly against Tony's elbow. Tony picked the sandwich up without thinking, taking a bite.
"It could be handy," Stark insisted.
"Do you want a sandwich, Natasha?" Steve offered as Bruce threw one together himself.
"I don't eat compressed meat," she replied with a hint of disdain, pulling herself up on the edge of the kitchen counter and elegantly crossing her legs as she picked strawberries from the container.
"Unless it's the trampled hearts of her enemies," Tony amended.
"And then only if there's pickles," Natasha nodded in agreement. The tablet under Tony's arm beeped and he dropped the sandwich on the plate, activating the screen.
"Son of a bitch!" He swore angrily.
"Failed again?" Bruce asked sympathetically, scooping up Tony's plate as well as his own as Stark crossed the room to collapse at the breakfast table.
"I don't understand this!" Tony whined, looking over his readings as Bruce set his plate in front of him. "These simulations should be working!"
"Eat something," Steve admonished, spreading mustard on his own sandwich.
Three days and every simulation we've run on the new repulser designs has crashed and burned," Tony declared in frustration, taking a bite of his sandwich without thinking.
"Maybe it's the drag coefficient," Bruce suggested helpfully.
"It's not the drag coefficient," Tony insisted.
"Was there a staff meeting I wasn't invited to?" Clint asked with a frown, shuffling into the kitchen with the stiffness of someone who had slept on the frozen ground for three days. Steve was very familiar with exactly how that looked.
"What happened to you?" he asked worriedly. Clint and Phil both pointed at Natasha who curled her fingers at him in a delicate wave. Steve cringed.
"Do you have to break him when you spar?" Steve asked. "We might need him."
"She didn't break me," Clint protested, shambling to the fridge after a beer.
"I just bent him a little," Natasha smiled coyly. "He could use the flexibility."
"Who couldn't use more flexibility?" Tony leered. Phil shot him an exasperated look.
"Make me a sandwich!" Clint demanded, wagging his eyebrows suggestively at Steve who froze, his knife suspended in mid air.
"Natasha told me never to use that phrase, ever."
"She's a little lax in her explanation," Clint informed, flinging an arm around his shoulders. "Since you're not female and I have no intention of hitting on you, it's totally okay if I say it ironically."
"As long as you don't mind being considered an ass," Natasha pointed out.
"When have I ever minded that?" Clint asked seriously. Steve sighed, holding out a plate to him with the sandwich he'd just finished making. Clint grinned delightedly.
"You're the best, honey," Clint declared, taking the plate and giving Steve a light pat on the lower back. Steve simply stared at the counter with a confused expression as Coulson struggled to keep his serious expression in place.
"I don't get this!" Tony scowled, flicking the tablet across the table and watching it spin on its back as he ran his fingers though his hair in frustration. Clint settled in the chair across from him, twisting the top off his beer and taking a long pull. "This should be working, why is it not working?"
"Thirty-seven failed scenario tests can't be wrong," Bruce shook his head as Clint scooped up the tablet.
"Do you have Youtube on here?" Clint asked, taking a bite of his sandwich. Tony gave him a withering look.
"I think my head is going to explode," Tony groaned, rubbing his temples.
"Tony, one failed design is not the end of the world," Bruce soothed. "Take a break and we'll start fresh tomorrow."
"That's not the problem," Tony insisted. "It is not a failed design, it is a good design that should be working. The problem is that I don't know why it's not working."
"You have an incorrectly transposed variable in the third function," Clint stated, turning the tablet toward Tony as he took another bite of his sandwich. Bruce blinked at him in surprise as Tony gaped.
"What?" Stark demanded into the silence.
"See, here," Clint set down his sandwich and pointed at the screen. "it's setting off all of your computations." Bruce took the tablet from him, considering the equations.
"It's no wonder all the projections are collapsing," Bruce shook his head, frowning at Tony. "What have I told you about drinking and deriving?"
"That joke is never going to be funny," Tony declared in disgust before turning back to Clint. "And where the hell did you learn how to do calculus, birdbrain?" Clint stared back at him for a long moment, munching on his sandwich.
"Seriously?" Clint asked finally, his expression growing confused. "you know for a genius you're kind of a moron."
"Just what does that mean?" Tony demanded.
"He can target arrows from angled trajectories over distances in excess of a hundred and fifty feet while airborne and factoring in wind speed and direction," Steve observed, pressing his sandwich flat.
"What did you think that was?" Natasha scoffed, rolling her strawberry in the sugar bowl she'd pilfered from beside the k-cup machine. "really good luck?"
"No no no," Tony protested flapping a hand at Clint. "Because that would mean you'd be doing those equations in your head and that..." Clint only chewed his sandwich with a deadpan expression.
"Shit," Tony declared, gaping.
"JARVIS, could you run these computations with the corrections, please?" Bruce asked.
"Right away, Doctor," JARVIS answered.
"You can't do calculus in your head!" Tony declared stubbornly. "Well you can do calculus in your head but you can't because you'd have to be some kind of super genius and I'd know if you were, because I go to all the meetings!"
"You stopped making sense somewhere in there, Stark," Natasha declared, the corners of her lips curling in only the barest trace of amusement as she bit down on her strawberry.
"He stopped making sense to me ages ago," Steve admitted.
"For once I'm being serious here," Tony protested. "SHIELD had to have tested you. What's your IQ, smart guy?"
"It's classified," Coulson replied automatically.
"One eighty-two," Clint answered at the same moment.
"Barton," Coulson snapped warningly.
"What, he's level seven," Clint shrugged.
"Doctor Banner isn't," Phil pointed out.
"Ooops?" Clint offered, though he didn't look the least bit contrite.
"You can't be One eighty-two," Tony protested with a scowl. "because Bruce is in the One seventies and that would make you smarter than him." Clint only shrugged as if he couldn't care less.
"One seventy-four," Bruce supplied, frowning distractedly at the figures on the tablet. "The first set of scenarios look much better this time."
"Well you couldn't have gone to MIT because I keep tabs on all the alumni," Tony insisted.
"Stark, you need to drop it," Natasha stated warningly.
"I'm not teasing him!" Tony insisted. "I'm genuinely curious here! I'm sitting across from one of the ten smartest people in the world and I don't even know who he is. Is Clint Barton even your real name or did SHIELD pluck you out of Cal-Tech and erase your whole life or something?"
"Stark," Coulson shot him a glare.
"Don't get all defensive, Agent," Tony's expression was slowly shifting from raw confusion to that of a kid with a shiny new toy and he turned back to Clint with an increasingly intrigued gaze, the same one he tended to get when he was contemplating taking something apart to see how it worked. "Where'd you go to college?"
"What makes you think I went to college?" Clint asked curiously.
"Because they don't teach differential calculus in public schools," Tony gaped with a scandalized expression as if he'd only just realized what he'd said. "Son of a bitch, you went to public school! How did you live? How did you not kill anyone? How did you not set fire to the science department and burn down half the campus? Is that why SHIELD had to erase your identity and you didn't get into Harvard? That's totally lame because I set fire to the science labs at three separate schools and they still let me into MIT."
"They don't let people into Harvard with a GED, Stark," Clint pointed out. Tony stared back at him mutely.
"Let it go, Tony," Steve requested, his tone holding the faintest hint of pleading but Clint only seemed amused.
"You dropped out of High School with a One eighty-two IQ?" Tony asked as if it were one of the most tragic things he'd ever heard. Clint let out a snort of amusement, a grin spreading over his face.
"I joined the circus when I was eleven," Clint pointed out. "Who do you think was in my graduating class, the elephants and Chuckles the Clown?" Tony's face fell.
"You never even went to High School?" And Stark's expression just looked sad.
"Tony, shut up," Natasha snapped out.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Clint asked, uncomfortable for the first time. His expression hardened and he met Tony's gaze with a scowl. "Look, I don't need pity, Stark." Tony winced.
"It's not!" Tony protested. "It's... I'm not naive, I know the world is full of assholes, hell I've met them... I kind of am them. But you could have been my roommate at Genius Boarding School and we could have terrorized the entire faculty and the fact that even one kid can fall though the cracks so spectacularly is totally not acceptable."
"Intelligence doesn't guarantee opportunity," Phil stated, his eyes fixed on his computer screen.
"Where did you even learn to do calculus?" Tony asked his curious expression slowly eroding at his frown.
"They're little rectangular objects," Clint suppled. "We call them 'books'."
"Shit," Tony declared, waffling between fascination and anger. Clint swallowed the last bite of his sandwich, wadding up his napkin and chucking it at Tony's forehead. It bounded off his face, rolling across the table to come to a stop between Clint's hands, now lying flat on the table.
"I think I did pretty well for myself," Clint declared, his expression intractable. "If there was something I wanted to learn I stole the books I needed from the local library and I always took them back before we left for the next town. I've been hungry but I've never starved, I've worked my way up from nothing to the top ranks of one of the most elite covert operations units in the world and now I have Captan America making me sandwiches. And I didn't need a trust fund to do any of it, all I needed was a chance." Tony mouthed at him wordlessly for a moment, completely speechless.
"And I'm damn proud too," Clint added, leaning forward slightly. He swept up the balled up napkin, chucking it over his shoulder. It ricocheted off the pendant light at the breakfast bar, hitting Coulson's laptop and rolling down the screen and across the keyboard, bouncing off the mustard jar to land neatly in the waste bin on the other side of the counter. Clint got to his feet in one smooth motion, sauntering out the door.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Steve stated, staring at the waste bin out of the corner of his eye. "But you're kind of an jerk sometimes, Tony."
"I think the word you're looking for is dick," Tony corrected, chagrined.
Clint rolled his shoulders tiredly, slumping in the corner of the elevator. It had been a long day training new SHIELD recruits and his fingers and arms ached from drawing his bow. He smiled to himself as the door slipped shut and the light for the floor to his suite automatically lit.
"Welcome home, Agent Barton," JARVIS declared. "Captain Rogers took the liberty of leaving leftovers in your suite."
"Great, what's for dinner?" Clint smiled.
"Baked chicken with roasted potatoes and sautéd mixed vegetables," JARVIS answered.
"Yum," Clint let out a yawn.
"He mentioned that if you wanted a sandwich, you would have to make your own," JARVIS added drolly. Clint laughed as the doors dinged open and he trudged down the hall.
"I'll make do," he insisted, slumping down the hall. "I don't suppose you could heat it up for me?"
"Already in progress, Agent Barton," JARVIS assured.
"Have they legalized human/computer marriage yet, JARVIS?" Clint asked, feinting seriousness as he pushed his door open. "Because I would totally propose."
"I'm afraid you're not my type, Agent," JARVIS deadpanned. Clint chuckled as the microwave dinged. He pulled out his dinner, picking up the silverware Steve had obviously left out on the counter.
"I could get used to this," Clint muttered, chewing contentedly as he settled at his breakfast bar. He rolled his shoulders, loosening his muscles. I was late and bone deep exhaustion was starting to settle in. He wanted nothing more than to finish his delicious home made re-heated dinner and fall into bed.
He rubbed his eyes, his attention settling on a brochure left in the middle of the counter. He was certain it hadn't ben there when he'd left this morning and he frowned as his eye caught the Maria Stark Foundation logo in the corner. He swore under his breath. It was probably another fund raiser he'd be obliged to put in an appearance for. He swept it up, turning a critical eye on the cover.
The Barton Scholarship Fund
Sponsored by the Maria Stark Foundation
The Barton Fund provides financial support for promising young
applicants whose economic situation might make completion of
secondary education difficult or impossible. The fund provides tuition
and full room and board at a number of prestigious academies
throughout North America so that exceptional students have the
opportunity to fully develop academically.
Clint blinked at the brochure with a slightly dazed expression. He wasn't quite certain he'd read it correctly the first time. Or the second, really. He stared at the brochure in silence, taking in the pictures of children, ten and twelve years old, in crisp prep school uniforms, conducting chemistry experiments, solving fractal equations, writing computer code. In one of the margins, scrawled in a sloppy block print were two words
A chance.
"Ya didn't do too bad for yourself at all, Barton," he muttered to himself, a smile curling the corners of his mouth as he forked one of his potatoes. "Not too damn bad at all."
Author's Note:
This story is part of a series called "Coulson Lives but the Avengers Might be the Death of him." The full list of stories and their chronological order can be found on my profile page