I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
The blinking word "inconclusive" was spread across the holographic screen down in the labs, and Tony felt himself slump a little further into a defeated slouch. Each test he had run had come back with the same result. Tony had come down after Bruce had gone to bed the night before to run more tests, and then came back down when he woke up disgustingly early the following morning.
As it was, the engineer had been down there for close to three hours, and it was now almost nine o'clock in the morning, and he was still no closer to finding a solution to getting Bruce back to normal. The differences between the two blood samples were so miniscule, they may as well have been nonexistent. And even if what had changed in the boy's blood was what had caused the age regression in the first place, the change was so minute that it would take several months, possibly years, for it to disappear completely on its own.
And since he was no closer to figuring any of this out to create an antidote, it looked like this would probably have to resolve itself.
Before another sigh could escape from his disheartened body, Tony sat up straighter and grabbed his mug of cold coffee with fresh vigor and scrutinized the results again. He refused to believe that he had lost his friend, but there was a part of him that already felt like he'd never get Bruce back to his adult self. Whether it was caused by fatigue or hard facts, Tony couldn't say.
One thing he was sure of, though, was that he needed a break.
After scrubbing at his eyes and grimacing at his cold coffee, Tony left the lab to return to the penthouse.
He was fighting off the feelings of defeat when he stepped off the elevator, but they quickly vanished when he heard the clinking of dishware in the kitchen. Tony felt his eyebrows furrow; he knew it couldn't be Pepper, since she was due back tomorrow from her stint in DC.
After walking through the living room, where the windows showed that it was starting to rain outside, Tony stepped around the doorway to the kitchen and immediately paused.
At the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee, was Clint Barton.
"Mornin', Stark," the archer greeted him without turning away from the coffee machine.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Tony replied, still hovering in the doorway. He took in the other man's appearance. There were bandages on the archer's hands and what looked like an Ace bandage wrapped around his right wrist. On his face, there were also a few bindings, but there were also some uncovered scratches and cuts there too. "I thought you were on a mission," he said after doing an inventory on the archer's injuries.
Clint shrugged—Tony saw the stiffness of the movement, meaning that there were probably a number of injuries beneath his clothing—and reached into a cabinet to pull out another mug. "I was," he answered as he poured another cup of coffee before nudging it down the counter in Tony's direction. "The target moved sooner than expected. I'm not due to report back to the 'carrier until tomorrow mid-morning, so I figured I'd come by here, see how everything is going."
"Bruce is doing fine," Tony replied before he stepped into the kitchen to grab the fresh cup of coffee and put sugar in it.
The archer watched his every move. "Is he?" he asked, clearly reading the negative energy wafting off of the engineer in waves.
"Yeah," Tony answered. "If you don't believe me, you can ask him yourself; he's talking now."
Clint smiled. "That's a relief. How did you manage that?" The smile quickly faded when Tony looked directly at him.
They stared at each other for another moment before Tony let his gaze drop to the spoon he was using to stir in the sugar to his coffee. "I think once he realized I wasn't going to beat him for something that was clearly my fault, he started to open up," he answered bluntly and with forced casualness.
When Clint remained silent, Tony glanced back over at him. There was something knowing in the archer's expression that Tony wasn't sure he liked right then, so he kept going. "Since then, though, he's been fine. He gets along great with the bots, and he was cool with letting me take a new blood sample from him for analysis."
"Any luck on that front?" Clint asked. When he saw the engineer's shoulders slump a fraction, he took another sip of his coffee. "Well, I guess you can just ask Arnolds if there is an antidote to his nasty concoction," he commented with a nonchalant shrug.
Tony stared, and then blinked as the words sunk in.
"He woke up last night," the archer explained. "Tasha got in this morning and is leaving on another mission later this evening, but she's going to interrogate him before she goes. You should probably be there for it." He shrugged again. "He may not have an antidote, but he may give away some tidbit of information on how he did what he did so you can make an antidote yourself."
"When is she planning on meeting Arnolds?" Tony asked, setting down his coffee cup. His mind was already running through questions he could ask the man who was responsible for all of this. He started to turn to leave the kitchen and throw on his Iron Man suit and take off, but Clint intercepted him and forced him to take a seat at the table, where he had deposited the morning's newspaper earlier.
"Hold your horses, cowboy," Clint said with a smirk when Tony struggled to get back up. "At least wait until Bruce gets up and everyone eats breakfast." He turned a deathly serious look down at the seated man when he started to get up again. "Don't make me go against doctor's orders and fight to keep you here," he threatened.
Despite himself, Tony smirked. "Why? Would Red be upset with you?"
"Only until I told her you were involved," Clint replied.
Realizing he was beaten, Tony sighed and leaned back in his seat. Clint grinned triumphantly and sat down at the table next to him, after grabbing both of their mugs of coffee. "I'm running out of ideas," Tony admitted reluctantly, watching the steam dance off of the surface of his heated drink.
"You'll get this figured out," Clint replied, clapping a hand on the other man's shoulder in camaraderie. "You're always going on about how much of a genius you are." He ignored Tony's eye-roll and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. "So, aside from him making friends with your machines, how is Bruce doing? What's he like as a toddler? You only sent us that one picture."
Tony smiled a little ruefully. "He's fine, Clint. He's just really skittish and pretty quiet. He's only been talking for two days, so I'm still learning what he's like, myself." He pulled out his phone and brought up the pictures he had taken over the past few days. "Here," he said, passing over the piece of technology.
While Clint was going through the pictures, Tony saw the little boy step softly into the doorway, where he immediately paused when his eyes found the other man at the table. Bruce's arms tightened around the stuffed rhino that he was holding, hugging the toy to his chest, as he peered hesitantly at the archer. He was already dressed for the day.
Tony knew that Clint was aware of the boy's presence, but the archer made no movement to make that obvious. Instead, Tony smiled at the kid and gestured for him to come in and sit down with them. "Good morning, Bruce," he greeted the child.
"Good morning," the boy returned softly.
Clint chose that moment to turn and gaze over at the kid. Tony glanced between the two of them. "Bruce," the engineer began, "you remember Clint, right?"
After the child nodded a little, Clint grinned. "Hiya, Bruce. Are you feeling any better since the last time I saw you?"
Bruce stared straight back at him, but from the way that his eyes were moving fractionally, Tony knew that the boy was looking over the wounds and bandages on the archer's face. "Are you okay?" he asked, concern blatantly clear in his words.
"What, this?" Clint gestured at his face with a wrapped finger, giving the boy the perfect opportunity to scrutinize the bandages along his hand. "This is nothing. I'm fine, feeling better already." He leaned forward on the table a little bit, eyes still watching the child. "How about yourself? Having fun with Tony and Pepper?"
The boy smiled and stepped further into the room. He made an affirmative hum. "It's nice here," he admitted softly. "Pepper's not here right now, though."
Tony swallowed his sip of coffee and smiled down at the kid. "But she'll be back first thing in the morning," he said, which made the smile on Bruce's face widen. He realized something suddenly, and turned to look over at Clint.
His question must have been obvious, for the archer simply offered a nod and made himself more comfortable in the chair. He gestured discretely over at Bruce, prompting him to tell the kid the game plan for the day.
The engineer watched Bruce climb up into the seat on Tony's other side before he spoke. "Bruce, I need to do a few things outside of the tower today," he began, making the child look up from the headline on the newspaper and up to him. "Clint, here, has offered to watch you for me, if that's okay with you."
Bruce's brown eyes lingered on Tony for a moment longer before he looked over at Clint, who was in the middle of taking another sip from his mug. As the archer swallowed and put the mug back down, allowing his eyes to meet casually with the boy's gaze, Bruce hugged his stuffed rhino a little more closely to his chest and looked back at Tony.
Realizing he probably needed to lend a hand in breaking the ice, Tony turned a bored look on Clint. "I can understand if you don't want to hang out with him, though; he's not nearly as cool as me. Bow and arrows simply can't compare with the Iron Man suit."
"Screw you, Stark," Clint replied, but there was no real heat in the words.
The allusion to the team made the kid's eyes widen slightly and he looked back at Clint. "You're an archer?" he asked.
"Sure am," Clint affirmed with a bright grin that seemed to put the boy a little more at ease.
"His superhero name is Hawkeye," Tony disclosed, though he was sure Clint could just as easily explain this to the boy, "and he's rumored to never miss a mark." He paused to look briefly back over at the archer before looking back at Bruce and continuing. "We've been working together for a few months now, and I've gotta say, the rumors are true."
"Oh, stop it," Clint said with a faux-bashful smirk, playfully nudging Tony's shoulder with a fist. The smirk transformed into a genuine smile when he looked back over at Bruce, who was staring at him with something like awe and amusement in his expression. "I'd show you first hand, but, eh…" He gestured vaguely at the Ace bandage around his right wrist. "Maybe next time."
"That'd be neat," Bruce replied, grinning at the promise of a demonstration.
Tony found himself grinning, too. "So, how about it?" he asked Bruce, which brought the child's eyes back to him. "Do you want to hang out with Clint for a bit while I'm gone?"
"Okay," Bruce answered, the response bringing a victorious smile to the archer's face.
"Awesome," Clint replied before he downed the rest of his coffee. "Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably haven't had a home-cooked meal in a while, so I'm going to fix us up some breakfast. What would you like?"
For whatever reason, the question brought a confused look to the boy's face. "You can cook?" he asked.
Clint took a moment to return the child's perplexed gaze with one of his own before he glared at Tony. "Have you been telling this poor kid lies about my cooking abilities?" he demanded.
Tony scoffed. "Believe me, your culinary skills never came up in conversation." He gazed over at Bruce. "Why does that surprise you, little man?" he asked.
The boy had shrunk back in his chair a little and brought the stuffed animal tighter to him. His eyes lifted from the table to glance momentarily over at Clint, and then shifted to Tony before falling back to the table. "Daddy says that cooking is not something boys do," he answered softly. He paused to look hesitantly up at Tony again. "You haven't cooked…" he pointed out in a hushed voice.
"That's because I'm not very good at it," Tony answered easily, but seriously, "nor do I have the time or patience to learn."
Bruce stared at him for a moment before he turned his brown eyes toward Clint. "You don't get in trouble for cooking?" he asked, sounding both genuinely puzzled and relieved at the same time.
Clint snorted a laugh. "The only time I get in trouble for cooking is when I set off the fire alarms too early in the morning," he replied. "But I have never gotten in trouble for cooking because I'm a boy. That belief that cooking is just for women is so yesteryear."
The archer's words brought a smile to the boy's face, and he relaxed. "Good," he said, relieved. "I like helping Momma cook."
"Yeah, I like helping others cook, too," Clint agreed with a grin, and then pushed himself to his feet and stepped around the kitchen island. "Well then, now that we've established that it's okay for dudes to make breakfast, what would you like? We can do eggs, pancakes, French toast…" he trailed off when he saw the boy's brow furrow slightly.
"What's French toast?" Bruce asked.
There was a long moment in which no one said anything and the archer stared at the kid with wide eyes. Before Bruce could shrink in on himself, though, Clint turned his attention to the man still seated at the table. "Tony, he doesn't know what French toast is," he said flatly.
"I heard," Tony replied.
Clint's eyes returned to the kid. "You've never had French toast," he said in the same tone. He immediately moved over to one of the cupboards and pulled out a loaf of bread. "Tony, I don't really care what you want for breakfast anymore; I'm making this poor kid some French toast."
"I'm pretty sure you never cared what I wanted for breakfast," Tony quipped, bringing his mug of coffee to his lips, "but please, French toast is awesome, so by all means, make it."
Bruce, meanwhile, could only look back and forth between the two adults with a look of confused amusement on his face. His eyes focused on Clint, finally, and he nervously ran his fingers along one of the ears of his toy. "Do you… Would you like some help?" he asked quietly, but hopefully.
The archer paused in his raiding of the refrigerator long enough to pull his head out and grin over at the boy. "I would love your help," he replied, which brought a delighted smile to the kid's face, and which made Tony grin to himself. "Get over here and I'll teach you how to make French toast."
The French toast turned out to be a hit among all of them, even if it wasn't as good as the kind that adult-Bruce made for the team on occasion. Clint enjoyed having the assistance of the little boy, who was surprisingly (or maybe not) very helpful.
As they were cooking and eating breakfast, the archer asked Bruce about his trip to the zoo yesterday, which the kid elaborated on enthusiastically. Clint told a few stories of when he had been a part of a traveling circus, years ago, and how he had interacted with a few of the animals the boy told him they saw yesterday.
Honestly, Clint was just relieved to hear the kid talk at all. The limited interaction that he had had with the boy on the helicarrier a few scant hours after his teammate had been turned into a child had left him feeling…he wasn't even sure how to properly articulate what he was feeling. He had been worried for the boy and his well-being. It wasn't that he doubted Tony's abilities—not in this instance, anyway; Stark liked Dr. Banner too much to let anything bad happen to him when he was vulnerable—but he just hadn't been sure how receptive Bruce-as-a-child was going to be to Tony's personality.
He was glad to see that his fears were unfounded.
While Bruce went off to brush his teeth after they had finished eating, Clint collected the dishes and turned a look on Tony. "I'm not sure how long this thing with Arnolds is going to last," he began as he turned on the faucet, "but I'd be more than happy to keep an eye on Bruce if you needed some time down in the lab afterwards."
Tony drank the last few sips of coffee from his second cup before answering. "That actually sounds great," he replied. "I know Bruce wouldn't mind coming down with me to the lab, but I think he's been getting bored down there."
Clint snorted a quiet laugh to himself; the engineer almost sounded disappointed that his lab buddy didn't find the laboratory all that interesting at the tender age of four. 'I'll keep an eye on him. Anything you need to warn me of before you take off?"
The other man took a moment to peer into his empty coffee cup, his expression becoming more serious. "Yeah," he said. "If he starts going green, just stay calm and walk him through a breathing exercise."
Clint immediately paused in the motions of scrubbing the syrup off of a plate and focused intently on Tony. "He still has the Hulk in there?"
Tony nodded. "I don't think you need to worry, though. He's only gone green when he's really frightened, so as long as you do nothing to scare him, you should be fine." He paused to stick his cup under the running water to rinse out the remainder of the coffee. "Also, don't mention anything about him being smart. He's brilliant, don't get me wrong. I just don't think he wants people to know it."
The archer watched the other man dump out the water from the cup before he responded. "That's it?" he asked.
"That's all I can really think off," Tony replied. "He's only been talking for a few days, though, so I'm still learning about his triggers."
Clint's eyes remained on the engineer for a lingering moment. "What exactly scared him so much to cause a transformation?" he asked, lowering his voice just slightly.
Tony's dark eyes shot to the archer's, locking firmly with his gaze. For a moment, he didn't say anything, but then he peeked out of the kitchen, like he was checking on Bruce. When he turned back to Clint, the archer could see anger in his eyes.
"He Hulked-out when he thought I was going to beat him," he answered softly. "He was…he was terrified of me, like he's terrified of his father. I think right now, the Hulk is triggered more by fear than by anger. The other two times he started going green was because of a nightmare and when he feared his dad finding out about the Hulk. Just…just stay away from the topic of his father, and don't make yourself look like a threat, and you should be fine."
Clint nodded and bit back his own anger. He supposed that was why little Bruce hadn't liked Thor all that much when they met on the helicarrier roughly a week ago. The demigod had been saddened by it when he had told the archer what had happened. It made sense that the kid was frightened by the muscle-bound Asgardian, given what Tony had just said; he figured Thor would get his chance to turn the kid around, though.
"Alright," Clint finally said, "I'll keep him calm and stay away from those topics." He turned to glance at the time on one of the kitchen appliances. "It's almost ten. You should probably head out pretty soon, if you want to dodge the heavy rain that's supposed to start soon."
Tony scoffed and grinned smugly. "Heavy rain won't hamper my flying," he said.
"You're going to be flying in the rain?" came a child's voice. Both adults turned to see that Bruce had just appeared in the doorway. The boy was looking up at Tony with just a hint of worry in his expression.
The engineer's grin softened into a smile as he turned to fully face the kid. "I'll be completely safe, little man," he said. "JARVIS will be with me the entire time, just to make sure I navigate safely to the helicarrier."
"Not to worry, young sir," the AI spoke up. "I will let you know when Mr. Stark arrives to his destination, if you wish."
Bruce had glanced up at the ceiling when JARVIS cut in, and when he looked back at Tony, it was clear that he would very much like that, even if he didn't want to say it out loud.
Clint took pity on the poor kid. "Sure, JARVIS, that sounds good," he answered. He turned a sharp grin over at the engineer. "I want to make sure you actually make it there instead of going off to play hooky somewhere."
As Tony rolled his eyes, the AI responded. "As you wish, Agent Barton."
When Bruce turned a grateful look up at the archer, Clint smiled and winked before he returned his focus to doing the dishes.
Over the rush of water, he heard the engineer speaking in low tones to the boy, letting him know that if he needed him for anything, to have JARVIS call him. When he sneaked a peek over at the pair, he saw that Tony had knelt down and the two were hugging. It brought a warm smile to his face, and Clint looked away before he could get caught.
Not a moment later, Tony stood back up. "Alright, I'm off. I'll be back later tonight," he announced to the room before looking back down at Bruce. "Seriously, just ask JARVIS to call me if you need me for anything."
As the boy nodded, Clint turned a narrow-eyed look on the engineer. "You make it sound like I'm going to do something unspeakably bad in your absence."
Tony only grinned widely and gave a wave of farewell as he left the room to go suit up.
Clint shut off the water and peered down at Bruce, who had his stuffed rhino embraced close to his chest again and was looking down the hall where Tony had disappeared. The archer easily picked up on the boy's unease and felt his mouth draw back into a frown.
He glanced out past the doorway between the kitchen and the penthouse living room, where he could see the dim light coming in through the windows. A smile appeared on his face as he looked back down at Bruce. "He usually lifts off from the balcony," he said, breaking the silence and making the boy jump a little. When the kid looked over at him, Clint glanced back through the doorway again. "We can watch, if you'd like."
Bruce smiled.
Before he knew it, they were both standing at the window leading to the expansive balcony. They didn't have to wait long before Tony appeared outside, having changed out of his casual clothes and into something more formal (and more intimidating, Clint was relieved to see).
The engineer happened to look over at the window and saw them. He flashed a grin and a waved his hand as walked toward where JARVIS would begin suiting him up.
Clint didn't need to look to see that the boy next to him had returned the smile and the wave.
They both watched as the plates of armor were attached to Tony's body, and in less than thirty seconds, it was Iron Man standing at the ledge of the balcony and in the rain. Tony turned to give them a quick salute before he blasted off and took to the skies.
They stayed where they were at the window for a few more minutes after Tony had disappeared, simply watching the rain beyond the balcony cover. Finally, Clint looked down at the kid standing next to him. "So, what would you like to do on this dreary Friday morning?" he asked.
Bruce looked away from the window and up at the archer. "Um…" he said, drawing out the word with a hum as he glanced around the living room. His eyes found their way back to the doorway leading to the kitchen. "Do you want to do the puzzles in the newspaper?" he asked quietly, gazing back up at the man.
Clint smiled. "Sure," he responded, and the pair moved back into the kitchen. As Clint grabbed a pen, Bruce flipped to the games section of the paper. "So I take it you like puzzles, then?" he asked as he sat down next to Bruce.
The boy made an affirmative sound that accompanied a nod. "Pepper lets me do them when she has to watch me in her office downstairs," he answered. He looked at the pen in the archer's hand, and something anxious flashed through his eyes.
The man saw the anxiety with ease. "Do you want to fill in the puzzles?" he asked, offering the boy the pen.
Bruce eyed the writing instrument for a moment before his gaze shifted upward to eye the Ace bandage around the archer's wrist. "…will it hurt your wrist if you write?" he asked, voice soft.
"Nah," Clint replied. "I'm left handed."
The boy looked back at the pen, being offered by the man's right hand. "…could you do it?" he requested, voice just barely above a whisper.
Clint stared down at the boy for a moment before he realized what the problem was. Tony had said that Bruce didn't like people to know that he was smart; it would make sense that he wouldn't want to fill in a puzzle with his own handwriting, which would leave behind clear evidence of his intelligence. How he did the puzzles when he was being babysat by Pepper was beyond him, but he supposed that that was in the past.
The archer smiled. "I most certainly can," he responded. As Bruce looked back up at him with relief and abject gratitude in his eyes, Clint uncapped the pen and glanced down at the newspaper laid out before them. "Just so you know, though, I don't have the greatest handwriting."
"That's okay," Bruce said, and Clint could hear the warmth in his words.
They started with the word search, which they completed with ease, and then moved on to the word jumble, which took them a little longer. While they were solving the fourth word, JARVIS informed them that Tony had arrived to the helicarrier.
As they worked on the crossword together, the archer was given his first real taste of how intelligent Bruce really was for a four year old. His vocabulary was already highly developed, and he was getting most of the clues with relative ease. Clint was impressed, but kept it hidden. He was able to get some of the ones that stumped the boy, and then they came upon one clue that stumped them both.
It was a nine-letter word across, and they had three letters so far: an O, an N, and an E. The clue was vague: a stroll through the corso.
They decided to come back to it, but when the rest of the puzzle was completed, they were still at a loss for an answer. They both sat there in silence, looking over the nearly complete puzzle.
When Clint couldn't come up with any idea what the answer was, he sat back. "Hey, JARVIS, know of a nine-letter word that could mean a stroll through the corso?" he asked.
Bruce tore his eyes away from the puzzle to look at him. "Isn't asking JARVIS cheating?" he questioned.
Clint grinned over at the kid. "Not if we don't tell anyone," he said. When Bruce didn't look amused, he sighed. "Alright, how about a hint, then?"
The boy thought about it, and then smiled. "I guess a hint would be okay. Me and Momma have to go to the dictionary sometimes when we do crosswords."
The archer smiled and glanced back at the last unfilled line of the puzzle. "JARVIS?" he prompted.
"The answer you are looking for is also another word for a leisurely walk, or a dance," the AI provided.
Both Bruce and Clint leaned in a little to look more closely at the last part of the puzzle. "Leisurely walk or dance…" the archer mused under his breath, trying to think of some word that would fit the description.
It finally came to him. He mentally filled in the blanks with the word just to be sure, and then grinned triumphantly. "Promenade!" he declared.
"Correct," JARVIS answered.
Once Clint had filled in the final word, Bruce's brow furrowed slightly. "What's a promenade?" he asked, staring at the word Clint had just written.
"Well, the way that I know it is as a kind of dance," the archer explained, leaning back and glancing over at the kid. "It's kind of a country dance movement with two people. I remember back when I was still in the circus, we were traveling through some of the Southern states and had a chance to take a night off—which was really rare. We ended up in this old wooden barn-looking place, and there was a lot of music and dancing."
"So…" Bruce started slowly, obviously trying to picture it, "is it kind of like square dancing?"
Clint tried to think of a better way to describe it, and then smiled. "JARVIS, can you pull up Youtube on a screen for us? Uh—in safe-mode, please."
As a holographic screen appeared above the table, Bruce glanced back up at Clint. "Is there a dangerous mode?" he asked.
"For you? Yes," Clint replied.
"Oooh," Bruce said knowingly, returning his eyes to the screen where the internet window had popped up with the Youtube homepage. "You mean a grown-up mode," he said.
Clint paused in the middle of typing into the search bar to glance down at the kid, who was still staring innocently at the screen, eyes taking in everything. "Uh…yeah," he said, for lack of a better response. "But what we're looking for is rated G for all ages, so we should be cool."
"Okay," Bruce responded distractedly as he started marveling at how the website worked.
Before long, they were watching a grainy video of a country-western promenade, and the sound of twanging banjos and fiddles soon accompanied the patter of rain from the living room beyond the kitchen doorway.