Author's note: Okay, I know this wasn't exactly what everyone expected. And it probably disappoints some of you. But I had been reading a lot of Clint Barton stories, and the thing I noticed was every author talked about him being a top agent, but most of the stories were about how he overcame his vicious injuries to come out on top. I mean, he gets shot or stabbed or electrocuted or gosh knows what else. (BTW, where are the amnesia stories? Surely someone has written a Clint-has-amnesia story?) Don't get me wrong, I am an avid reader of Clint whump stories, but I thought it might be nice for a change to show that he can actually succeed brilliantly without getting shredded. Yeah, at the end he had to fight, but he really succeeded, don't you think? I mean, come on, he blew the place up, stole all their intel, and got the diamonds. Anyway, I want to thank you all for taking the time to read this story, with special thanks to those who clicked on the follow or favorite link, and huge hugs and thanks to those of you who wrote reviews. It means the world to me to know my stories are appreciated!

Bruce Banner carried his cup of coffee out to the balcony of Stark Tower. He pulled one of the chairs out from a table, and moved it into the sun. It was a rare sunny day in early spring in New York, and the scientist intended to enjoy it. He drew in a breath of the cool spring air, and just let the distant sounds of the city wash over him.

He pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose willing the nascent headache away. Bruce knew the headache was his own fault, a combination of too little sleep and too much caffeine. But the lead in his research had proved just too interesting to walk away from. For the moment, he was just thankful for the peace and quiet of the morning.

Of course, as soon as he had that thought, the quiet was interrupted by Steve Rogers striding out onto the balcony. "Mind if I join you?"

Bruce looked up at the tall soldier and saw the tension in the man's face. Belatedly, he remembered this was the day they were to find out the fate of the team of SHIELD agents who had been responsible for sending the Avengers on a wild goose hunt the previous month.

"No, not at all. How did it go?"

"They're sweeping it under the rug."

"Really? Wow. What did Clint have to say about it?"

"He wasn't there. Neither was Natasha. Fury said the further he could keep those two away from the World Council, the better it would be. But I don't know how this could be better. The Council decided there was no proof that the error was intentional. Like an entire Hydra base wasn't proof."

Bruce agreed that the existence of the enemy base was proof enough, but he had a suspicion that being exonerated by the Council was not the same thing as getting off scot-free. "Um, where are they, anyway. Hawkeye and Black Widow?"

Steve turned a worried eye to his friend. "Fury didn't say. You think they went after Haseleu? With Fury's blessing?"

Bruce shrugged. "It's at least possible. Maybe not Hawkeye on his own, but Natasha? She gets a very scary look in her eye every time Haseleu's name is mentioned."

Steve shook his head. "I hope not. Avengers can't be seen doing stuff like that."

"Like what? Avenging?" Natasha came up behind the two men.

"No, murdering people who've been declared innocent." Steve looked her in the eye. "Where's Hawkeye?"

"I'm his partner, not his keeper."

"So, do you think he went after Haseleu?" Bruce asked, his tone worried.

"No." Tasha tossed her hair back. "Fury transferred Haseleu and his entire team to Mongolia to 'keep them out of trouble.' He told Barton that if they are harmed, and he gets even a whiff of camel dung from Clint, he'll be permanently based in Yemen. Clint hates sand."

"What about you, Tasha? Will you leave them alone?" Steve asked.

The redhead arched her eyebrow. "As long as they stay in Mongolia, they have nothing to fear from me." She smiled sweetly. "We'll just have to hope they stay there. For the rest of their useless lying lives."

Steve's eyebrows rose, then he smiled. "Fair enough."

Bruce leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. "Why do I get this picture of them finally thinking the coast is clear after fifty years and finding you at the airport waiting for them?"

"Whatever it takes."

Both men chuckled, and all three relaxed in the spring sunshine. It was a mark of their growing camaraderie that no one felt the need to fill the silence with talk. They sat there for a while comfortable in each others presence. Of course, it didn't last.

Bruce sighed when Tony showed up. As usual, the genius was a bundle of energy, bursting out onto the balcony, visibly annoyed not to find Bruce alone. For a moment, it looked as if he would walk away from his team members, but instead he looked out over the city.

"I don't know why I try. What good does it ever do to try?"

With a barely hidden sigh, Steve took the plunge. "What do you mean, Tony? What did you try?"

"I tried to be nice. That's what I did. I tried to be nice. And what happened? I got kicked in the teeth!"

Steve glanced at Bruce, who shrugged, and hunched his shoulders. Steve's glance at Black Widow garnered him a look of bored indifference. Shaking his head, he stood and stepped over to where Tony was holding onto the the balcony railing. "Okay, tell us what happened. Maybe we can fix it somehow."

"Fix it? Fix HIM? Ha! Agent Barton is beyond any 'fixing'."

"Clint? What did he do now?"

"He's an asshole."

"Yes, but why?"

"Okay, I'll tell you. He fell out of a plane at 40,000 feet and..."

"He didn't fall, he was pushed," Tasha commented.

"Tasha," Steve said, sternly. "Okay, Tony go ahead."

"The point is, I decided, out of the goodness of my heart..."

Bruce couldn't help it, he snorted at the same time as Natasha. He was pretty sure it was only the super soldier serum that kept Steve from snorting with them. As it was, he turned his Captain America gaze on his team mates, saying, "Enough."

Steve turned back to Tony, a look of polite attention on his face. Tony shot Bruce and Tasha a dark glare before continuing. "As I was saying, I wanted to build something for Agent Barton to protect him if he ever fell again."

"Build something? Like what? A parachute?"

"No. Nothing that plebeian. I built him a hover board"

Bruce grinned as a tickle of delight climbed up his spine. "You did it? You actually designed one?"

"You doubted I would? I said I was going to."

"Wait, wait... What exactly is a hover board?" Steve asked, a confused frown on his face.

"It's like a skateboard without wheels. I'll show you the movie later," Tasha said. "You built Clint a hover board? You gave it to him?"

Bruce thought he could detect a slight note of alarm in Tasha's voice, but apparently it went right over Tony's head. "Yes. I finished it last week. I designed it so if he fell out of a plane, it would drop him down gently to the ground, but he wouldn't take it. Said if all it could do is go down, it could drop him into an ocean, or into enemy hands."

Tony's eyes flitted back and forth as he remembered the conversation. "So, I worked on it so that it could go forward and backward, too. Then he says it needed to have lift, or it was useless."

"It works like a skateboard? He can control it shifting his weight?" Tasha asked.

"Yes, exactly. It works just like the one in Back To The Future, only better. It can lift a thousand pounds, although why he would need to lift a thousand pounds is beyond me. It has a top speed of a hundred and forty miles an hour, with built in boot grabs to keep him from being thrown off. It's virtually silent. It folds up into a package that fits in one of the pockets of his pants. It has everything he insisted on."

"I'm still unclear on what this thing is, Stark." Steve's frown was turning fierce.

"It's a board, about two feet long by six inches wide. It has power. You stand on it and it takes you places." Tony said slowly, as if talking to a toddler.

Steve did a remarkable job of keeping his temper. "Okay, so you made him a hover board, so none of us have to worry about him being pushed out of jets again. So what is the problem?"

Tony threw up his hands as if it were obvious. "I worked for weeks to get the basic design done. Then I worked this last week tweaking it to make him happy. All day and all night. I worked my fingers to the bone. And I finally had the perfect piece of equipment for him. I even painted black with purple highlights. Do you think he cared? Hell no. He looked at it, nodded his head, and walked out of the lab with it, without a stinking word. Like it was just a... a... a doughnut or something."

"So, you're upset because he didn't grovel his thanks at you?" Tasha asked.

"Is it even in his vocabulary? I mean, seriously, did he thank any of us for rescuing his butt in Alaska?"

Bruce shook his head. "I seem to recall he didn't need much rescuing there, Tony."

Steve nodded. "Barton is pretty damn good at what he does."

"So, what? I was wasting my time? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, of course not. This hover board sounds wonderful, and if Barton doesn't appreciate it, I can tell you that I do. So thank you for working to keep our team mate safe."

Bruce had to work to keep a straight face given the nonplussed look on Tony's face. He nodded, saying, "Yes. Thank you, Tony. I don't ever want to go through another week like that week in Alaska."

Tony looked mollified. He was still for a moment, then he turned to Natasha. "Are you going to thank me too, or are the words surgically removed from your brain when you sign up with SHIELD?"

Tasha stared at him. "Stark, the last time SHIELD let him test a piece of technology unrelated to archery, he disappeared for two months. Claimed he needed the time to do a thorough test. You've given him a new toy, Stark. He'll be gone for a year. Why would I thank you for that?"

To Bruce's surprise, Tony looked stricken. "A year? He'll be gone for a year?"

Tasha backed down a bit. "Well, maybe not a year. But I can guarantee you, he's not going to sit around at your beck and call, not if it's a great as you making it out to be. And I want mine in black with red highlights."

Tasha crossed her arms and gave Tony a challenging look. Steve started, and asked tentatively, "Do I get one too?"

Tony frowned, looking for escape, but he was backed up against the balcony rail by Steve and Tasha. Bruce was reminded of when Clint was backed up at the cliff's edge in Alaska. He couldn't help a smirk at the difference in threat level between the two Avengers. Without the Ironman suit, Tony just wasn't that intimidating.

Unlike Tasha and Steve, Bruce didn't feel any need to have his own hover board. It sounded like a good way to get hurt. Of course, that was childhood experience talking. When his school friend loaned him his skateboard, it was only a matter of minutes before Bruce had fallen and torn up his knee. No, he'd leave the hover board to his more agile friends.

Everyone was surprised when a voice floated down from above. "Hey, Stark."

Looking up, Bruce saw Hawkeye a few feet above and out from the balcony. His eyebrows rose as he saw the look of childish happiness on the assassin's face. Clint stood on the hover board as if he was born to it, the board rock steady in the air.

When he saw he had Tony's attention, Clint reached over his shoulder into a backpack and pulled out some sort of bottle, which he tossed to the bemused genius. "Thanks!" the archer called before jetting up into the sky, a whoop trailing behind him.

Tony was looking at the bottle in shock. Bruce stood and moved next to him. "What's that?"

"This is one of the rarest brandies on the planet. How that hell did he get a hold of this?"

Tasha, who had been staring up into the sky, looking for any sign of her wayward partner, glanced at the bottle. "That was given to him in appreciation for a service he rendered."

Steve smiled, "Well I guess SHIELD didn't surgically remove the word thanks from his head after all."

Tony fought it for a moment, then said, "Well, he looked pretty cool floating there. Not as cool as Ironman, but pretty cool."

Bruce watched as Tony looked up in the air, then sighed. "Okay, Romanoff, I believe you called dips for the second one. Come on, I've got an idea for an upgrade. You'll love it."

Natasha didn't even put up a token protest. She simply followed Tony back into the Tower. Steve watched them go and glanced back up into the sky. "Do you think she's right? Do you think Clint will take off?"

"No clue. I will say, I've never seen him look that happy. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him really smile. But he looked happy there."

"Yeah. It looked like fun, actually. Do you think Tony will build me one?"

"In Alaska, he said he wanted us all to have one. He wants to keep us safe, Steve. Even you."

Steve thought about it for awhile, then with a small smile, nodded. "I feel safer already."

Bruce laughed as Steve took his leave, disappearing back into the Tower. Bruce stayed for a bit, mulling over this latest interaction with his team. It was good to see bonds forming between them all.

He looked up into the sky, and smiled. For now his normally dour team mate was happy. And the rest of the team would probably be just as happy when Tony gave them their own hover boards.

There were probably more bad guys out there just waiting their turn to take on "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," but for now, it was a good day.

The End.