Title: The joys of parenting
Ships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Claura? (Why isn't there a damned official ship name for these cuties on the internet? So what if they are married?)
Sickie: Clint (and also baby Nathaniel, then later practically everyone but that's beside the point)
Setting: Sometime between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War (if you want to be really specific, a few days, maybe a week, before Chap 1 of this fic, May the odds be ever in your favor…), a little bit of mentioning of my Fullmetal meets Marvel story at the beginning if anyone catches that :D
He had retired. He truly had. So seeing him in sweats and an old dingy t-shirt with a burp cloth thrown over his shoulder instead a bow and quiver shouldn't have been a surprise. Despite knowing these facts Laura couldn't help but marvel at the fact that she had had her husband at home for 63 consecutive days (but who's counting), and with only a few, very, very short interruptions in the few months before that.
Except in April and May when he was gone quite a lot on and off, and she only got the explanation that there was a new – and very young – addition to the Avengers, and to not to worry there weren't any real missions, he just enjoyed hanging out with the gang and teasing the new girl to no end. Apparently she was from another world and everything was unfamiliar and surprising to her, which was hilarious to watch and make fun of. But since then she had returned home from what Laura could understand.
Yes, things changed ever since the events in Sokovia. She had nearly lost him there. She had Quicksilver to thank for avoiding the fate of a widowed single parent with three kids. So in honor of him they had named their youngest Nathaniel Pietro Barton. Laura, leaning against the doorframe, smiled at the sight of Clint holding him.
"Shhhh…" – Barton had been trying to get the fussy baby to sleep for like the last hour while Laura handled the needs of their other two children, helping with homework, getting dinner ready and ushering them off to prepare for bed to be exact.
Meanwhile he was running out of ideas on how to soothe Nathaniel. Rocking him, while lightly shifting from foot to foot, humming nondescript lullabies he didn't really know the lyrics to, having him lying on his shoulder, while he rubbed his back… nothing seemed to be helping. Their four-month-old had come down with his first respiratory infection and he was just simply not having it. Hawkeye had even set up a humidifier, but to no avail. Turning around, the archer noticed his wife in the doorway looking at them with a loving expression.
"Go get some dinner, I'll take over." – the brunette offered, holding her hands out for her youngest son.
"You're an angel." – Clint murmured tiredly into her ear as he handed off the baby and escaped to get some food into his system, even though he wasn't very hungry. He felt absolutely drained.
As Hawkeye sat there not really eating his meal, just pushing it around on his plate, spacing out, head resting in his left palm, Laura actually managed to sneak up on him from behind, putting her arms around his neck, kissing the side of his face. Barton hummed in appreciation then glanced up on the clock. Only fifteen minutes had passed.
"How did you manage that? I had been holding him for like an hour." – the archer mused out with a frown.
"Mother's touch." – Laura chuckled as she massaged the tension out of his shoulders a bit. – "But I think I will have another patient soon."
"What? Is Lila getting ill too?" – he looked up at her with worry, leaning his head back against her stomach. Last week Cooper was out of commission, having caught the flu at school, but so far at least his girls were able to avoid the nasty bug.
"No, dummy, I was talking about you." – his wife laughed out, bending down to kiss his forehead too. Yepp, definitely the start of a fever.
Hawkeye didn't deign to answer that accusation, just furrowed his brows. Him? Sick? No way! He was fit, in great shape, well-trained, surely his immune system was up to the task of fighting off whatever virus his kids managed to drag home from their snot-faced schoolmates.
He firmly believed that. That is until his body betrayed him.
"hih… Hep'tSCHOO…" – his head snapped forward suddenly with a loud sneeze, barely having enough time to cover with his hands. But he wasn't done yet, and so as not to wake the baby that they only just managed to put down, he stifled the rest while pinching his nose. – "Hgnxt… he'ksht"
"Told you so." – Laura commented humorlessly, rubbing his back for comfort before rounding their kitchen table to rummage through the medicine cabinet for some fever reducers and decongestants that her husband will surely need. – "Go upstairs and lie down, I'll be up in a sec after I've cleaned up."
"No, I'll help, you are already run ragged with making dinner and packing lunch for Lila and Cooper, not to mention Nate being sick." – Clint hugged Laura from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"Clinton Francis Barton…" – she admonished warmly as she turned around in his arms. – "Up to bed. Now. Don't make me make you."
"Ouch, full name, huh… that bad?" – Hawkeye chuckled at his wife's antics, wanting to lean in and kiss her but thought better of it, not wanting to infect too. Although that was probably a moot point with how things were going.
Now that would be a full on disaster. She was a fighter alright, she would push through it and take care of them despite being unwell, especially considering that one adult was already down in the family, but in the end she would just be ill even longer with the lack of rest. The chuckle and the stopped forward motion of his neck made the air catch a bit in his throat, eliciting the strong urge to clear it, so he let go of Laura and discretely coughed to the side into his fist.
"Just go, okay?" – she sighed with a shake of her head, turning her husband around by the shoulders and playfully swatting his ass – his very nice, well-defined and muscular ass I might add – to give him some momentum.
"Alright, alright. You win." – Clint laughed out again with his hands in the air, and finally making his way towards the stairs.
True to her word, ten minutes later Laura joined him, bringing up some steaming hot lemon-honey tea, water and the medicine too. Clint had managed to take a shower, change and already doze off by the time she got to him, but he stirred the minute he heard their bedroom door open.
"Hey, beautiful…" – he muttered when he noticed her, his voice already starting to sound rougher than just a few minutes earlier.
"Are you sure that isn't the fever talking?" – his wife jabbed mirthfully as she sat down by his side, offering him the pills with some water.
"Dunno, I'm always in a daze when I'm around you." – Hawkeye retorted with a wry smile, stifling a yawn by the end.
"Smooth, Clint, smooth." – Laura giggled lovingly while her husband downed the meds in one gulp. He sipped on the tea some after blowing on it, then situated himself back under the covers, patting the space by his right side to beckon her into joining him in bed, with which she happily obliged.
Unfortunately it seemed rest wasn't in the cards for him just yet. His phone – well one of them, the one that only the Avengers knew the number to – went off around 10 PM. Blearily he pick it up before it could wake the baby up in the nursery next door.
"Barton." – he answered with a gruff sleepy bark, trying to keep quiet to avoid waking Laura.
"Clint? Is that you? Did I wake you? You sound like shit." – a female voice he would have recognized anywhere commented bluntly on the state of his vocal cords. Rough and sore. Based on Cooper's progress with the same malady, he will lose his voice by the end of tomorrow.
"Thanks for that, Nat." – he quipped back sarcastically, getting out of bed to make his way downstairs. – "What happened?" – because something must have, otherwise she wouldn't have called at this hour. Mind you 10 PM was only considered late when he was at home, and even then he usually didn't get to bed until midnight at least.
"I need you to come on some old fashioned stake out with me." – the assassin informed him matter-of-factly. Like what else she would be calling for?
"Can't you take someone else? I'm retired, remember?" – Clint sighed while rubbing his eyes as he sat down on one of the chairs in the kitchen.
"The only one available is Falcon, and I just don't have the patience tonight to listen to him insisting on me directly addressing that flying gadget of his." – Black Widow huffed with disdain. Barton could just imagine the face she was making as she said that.
"Redwing." – Hawkeye gibed with a wide smile on his face, discretely clearing his throat when he heard footsteps on the stairs and a second later seeing that Laura had come down to check on what was going on.
"I know, I was purposefully not naming it." – Natasha pointedly retorted.
"Nat… now is really not a good time…" – Barton quickly began explaining, noticing his wife's unimpressed and worried gaze, and informing her at the same about who he was talking to.
"Come on, for old time's sake. It will be like in Budapest." – the redhead cut in, trying to persuade him. She was… desperate. Sam could be a handful. She and Clint, they already knew each other inside and out, worked well and smoothly together.
"I hope very much that it won't be anything like that at all." – Getting stuck in an abandoned building, behind a barricade of enemies with no back-up or extraction plan for three days and ending up with multiple fractures, contusions and a concussion? No, thank you. Now that he thought about it… he had been sick on that mission too. Albeit that was only a cold. With no fever whatsoever.
"I meant that it will be just the two of us and not the whole… gang." – Nat softened a bit. The Avengers were fun, don't get me wrong, but being among practically gods, people with superpowers or extremely high-tech gears, and with them only having their years of experience and hard-earned skills was… daunting at times.
"Fine, give me an hour and I'll get to Cleveland by that time so you can pick up." – the archer finally relented, not meeting his wife's eyes while he said that.
"Make that twenty minutes, I'm already on the way to your farm on the Quinjet." – Black Widow smirked to herself as Barton sighed at her statement. Typical Natasha.
"Just land in the clearing two miles to the west. Nate is sick and we barely managed to get him to sleep." – Hawkeye instructed her, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off a sneeze until they were in line.
"Copy that." – and with that she hung up.
Right in that instant the itch became unstoppable but he had to be quiet for the kids' sake, so stifling it was. – "H'ksht… hi'ntxght… heh'ksh." – he sneezed harshly, keeping his nose pinched, then looked up at his wife.
"Hodey…" – Clint started, trying to appease her, explain somehow – the congestion in his voice not helping at all with that – but she was already packing some stuff for him. Namely Ibuprofen, cough drops, tissues and anything else that he would need. She didn't want him to leave. Especially not in the state he was in. But she was not going to turn into those nagging wives who only made their husbands' lives harder by only taking what they wanted into account.
"Just try to take it easy, okay?" – with a sad smile Laura offered him a tissue, which he took gratefully and used it at once. When he was finished with blowing his nose, she hugged him around the waist.
"Thank you. I have no idea how possibly I could deserve you." – the agent buried his face into his wife's hair, frowning a bit that he lost all sense of smell with his blocked nose. He would have wanted to commit her scent into his memory until he was away.
"Me neither." – she quipped with a fake pout. – "Now go get ready. Nat doesn't like to be kept waiting." – she stepped up on her tippy toes to reach Clint's lips for a kiss.
"No, I don't want you to get sick." – Barton stopped her midway by her shoulders.
"Do I look like I care?" – Laura raised a brow at her husband playfully and went in for the kiss anyway, but to ease his worries some, it was only a small peck and not a full on make-out session.
Leaving him with a stunned expression his face to his preparations, she sauntered off towards the stairs to check up on their kids and to get back to bed.
"Damn, woman." – Clint chuckled to himself with a smirk at his wife's boldness. He was truly a lucky man to have her.
By the time he got to the clearing, in full gear and equipment, he was already winded. This was going to be a long night.
"How's Nate?" – was the first thing Natasha asked of him when he sat down in the co-pilot seat beside her.
"Fussy." – he curtly replied, still out of breath. Also his throat was killing him, so he didn't want to strain it too much with long speeches.
Black Widow assessed his partner for a second.
"You are sick too, aren't you?" – Nat observed a second later as she lifted the Quinjet off the ground.
"Yepp." – was all Hawkeye offered, shivering a little, despite being dressed head to toe in light armor. He even made sure to put on the long-sleeved one.
"Why didn't you say something?" – the redhead admonished, already anticipating Laura's chiding when she delivered her husband back to her.
"I tried… eh…" – he paused for a second, his breath hitching, but then he lost it. – "To tell you it's not a good time."
"Yeah, maybe next time try to be more specific. With you it's always a bad time when you are home." – she retorted, but her voice betrayed a bit of worry.
"You didn't really give me a chance to elaborate on it on the phone…" – Clint sighed, coughing a little into his fist.
"This really is going to be like Budapest." – Nat mused with a small chuckle as she reached over to check his forehead for fever. It didn't seem too bad, but he definitely took something to mask the symptoms.
"In this department? Worse probably." – Hawkeye replied with an apologetic smile then quickly turned away to sneeze, stifling yet again. – "H'gshxt… Hngtxks…" – He was going to be doing much of this for a while to keep quiet and their hiding place hidden. He could already see the massive headache that was going to follow.
"That can't be good for you." – his partner commented, turning her attention back on the gauges and navigation aids in front of her to pilot the jet.
"Don't really have a choice, do I?" – Clint laughed out. Definitely a long night.
It was well into dawn when they had finally spotted their target, took him out and gathered the necessary intel so that they could go and report back to headquarters. By some miracle Clint managed to not give away their position or miss any of his arrows. Rigorous training to the point that he could probably shoot a mouse through the eye socket even in his sleep had its perks.
Downside: he was running a fever of 103 and was nursing a massive migraine by the time they reached the new Avengers facility in upstate New York and he wasn't sure he could sit through the flight to get back to Ohio.
"Why don't you just stay here until you get better?" – Nat suggested with a quick glance at her fellow agent as they strutted through the hallway. – "You still have your room, you know."
"I might just do that." – Hawkeye managed to croak out, shivering violently. – "Just let me text Laura."
Still alive. Not hurt, just exhausted. Gonna stay at compound until I can move again. Give my love to the kids, Honey. xoxo – C. – he typed on his phone – his personal one – quickly as he made his way to his quarters before crashing in his room, not even changing out of his leather suit.
By the next day Nat had a sore throat… and then slowly everyone at the facility lest Vision and Steve – because they were immune – Banner, Thor and Tony – because they were absent, although in the case of the former two probably the first excuse applied too – came down with the flu.
Yeah… having children? Just marvelous.