A/N: Finally some action/adventure and Hulk time!
"Hey, there's my girl!"
Allie looked up at Clint cheerfully. "Daddy you back!" She put down her tablet.
"Yes I am," he said, grinning. He picked her up and put her on his hip. "Wanna go to the park, sweet pea?"
She frowned at him. "What 'bout mommy?"
"Mommy's still at work."
Her frown increased. "Cou-son?"
"Uh, also at work."
"Steeb?"
"He's busy."
Allie frowned some more, and wriggled impatiently in his grasp. "Shoes, daddy," she said, accidentally kicking him in the thigh. "Can't go out wifout shoes."
"Oh yeah." He put her down. "Where's your shoes?"
"My room," she replied. "Can I has de green ones?"
"Sure, babycakes. I'll be right back." He left the room, and got in the elevator.
Allie waited a couple seconds, then ran behind the couch. "JARBIS?" she whispered.
"Yes little miss?" JARVIS asked.
"Dat's not daddy," she whispered. "Is someone else."
JARVIS, if he had a face, would have frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, quietly locking down the floor that Clint was on.
"Dat's not daddy," Allie repeated stubbornly. "He not feel safe. Feels, itchy."
"Itchy?"
"Like, skin itchy," she replied. "He not daddy. Daddy know I not have gween shoes. He knows cuz I told him I no like gween shoes. And daddy not call me cake. Dat name's silly."
JARVIS, if he had a body, would have turned white as a sheet and possibly fainted. "I'm alerting the Avengers," he told her quietly, calmly. "I'm sending Dr. Banner to your location and locking down the floor with the intruder. Stay there, Allie." As he scanned the floor, he noticed "Clint's" energy signature change - the same way Allie's changed when she shape-shifted. He catalogued the change and made sure the air vents were firmly closed.
"What 'bout Jane and Dawcy?" Allie whispered, crouching behind the couch.
"They are safe in the lab."
The elevator doors slid open and Bruce skidded out, his eyes searching frantically. "Allie?"
"Bwuce?" She approached him cautiously, and then launched herself into his arms, shaking with relief and suppressed sobs. "You're you, Bwuce, you safe."
"I'm safe," he promised. "You were so brave, Allie, I'm very proud of you for staying calm." He moved the far end of the living room, his back against the wall, and concentrated on taking deep breaths. "ETA for the rest of the team?" he asked.
"Twenty minutes for Agents Barton, Romanoff, and Coulson, ten minutes for Sir, Thor, and Captain Rogers," JARVIS reported.
"Okay," Bruce said, taking a deep breath. "Ten minutes. We can stay calm for ten minutes."
Allie eyed him curiously. "You gonna be Hulk, Bwuce?"
"I hope not," the scientist replied.
"Why not?"
"Because then you might get hurt, baby."
She hugged him. "You not hurt me, Bwuce. I promise."
"All right." He rubbed her back, and tried to change the topic. "Hey, in twenty minutes your parents will be back."
Allie's face lit up. "Dey home for reals?"
"For reals," Bruce said.
"Good. I miss dem so much. I show mommy my shells from de beach, and my new clothes, and daddy my drawings of de beach, and, and mommy too, and give Cou-son his rock, and-"
"I am your daddy," a voice announced, and a figure slid out from the air vent five feet away, transforming into a well-built man in his early thirties.
Allie let out a shriek of fear, and Bruce stiffened up, flashes of green appearing in his peripherals. Calm, he told himself. "Who are you?" he demanded, shifting Allie to a safer hold.
"I am Ryan McCallen," the man said. "I've come for my daughter." His green eyes were resolute.
"She's not yours," Bruce said. "Legally she is Allie Barton. You can't touch her. And if you don't surrender peacefully now, you'll be in trouble."
McCallen's chin lifted. "I'm a shapeshifter. You can't touch me." He took a step closer and locked gazes with Allie. "Is that your name?" he asked. "Allie?"
She gave a hesitant nod.
"That's a beautiful name," McCallen said. "Perfect for my beautiful little daughter."
"No," Allie said stubbornly. "My daddy is Cwint. He's a superhewo. You stwanger. Go way."
"You don't mean that," McCallen said. "They've trained you to say that, honey. If you come with me, I can show you how to turn into all kinds of fun stuff. Wouldn't that be cool?"
"No," Allie said.
"And then we can rescue your mother from prison," McCallen continued, not pausing to let the little girl answer, "and we can be a happy family again. What do you think?"
Allie's eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. "No!" she shrieked. "No old mommy! Bad mommy!" She grabbed Bruce in a tight hold and wailed, "Make him go 'way Bwuce."
"You heard her," Bruce said firmly. "Leave." He was trembling from the strain of controlling the Other Guy. It had been six months without an incident (albeit the incident being saving the planet from the Chitauri), and he didn't want to break that streak.
"Not without her."
Bruce gritted his teeth. "Do you not realize that your wife is in prison for a reason?" he asked. "She neglected Allie, didn't love her, didn't even name her. She's not going back to that woman, ever."
"Liar!" McCallen yelled, and charged.
Bruce's vision went green.
HULK SMASH BAD MAN. He paused long enough to deposit Allie on top of a secured bookshelf, and grabbed at McCallen with big green hands, intent on squeezing the breath out of him.
McCallen turned into a long, slimy thing, and slipped out of his hands, rebounding into a wild boar or something as soon as he hit the floor.
HULK SAVE BABY. That was the big guy's only thought as he grappled with McCallen, throwing him into the other side of the room. He was not expecting McCallen to turn into a hawk and swoop over to the bookshelf, picking up a tiny puppy Allie with his talons, claws digging into her clothes.
She started whining and thrashing desperately.
Hulk snatched her from the hawk, glad that the ceilings on this floor were low enough, and cupped the puppy in one large hand. He simply cupped his hands together and sat down. Nothing in the world could break his hands apart.
For the next five minutes, McCallen shapeshifting himself into a frenzy, trying and failing to pry apart the Hulk's hands to grab Allie. Then he suddenly went limp as a round shield, a repulsor blast, and a bolt of lightning hit him at the same time. He dropped to the ground.
Thor placed his hammer on the man's chest, and the superheroes quickly secured the room. "Where is Allie?" Thor demanded.
TEAM GOOD. BABY SAFE. Hulk carefully lifted his huge green hand, revealing a curled up, whimpering puppy in his palm. "BABY SAFE," he rumbled, letting Cap take the puppy. His eyes rolled backwards, and he shrunk down into Bruce.
A hastily arranged throw blanket preserved his modesty, and while McCallen was dragged away by an irate Thor, Steve and Stark focused on the shivering puppy. "It's okay," Steve soothed, cradling the puppy close. "It's okay. It's safe now, you're safe. We're all okay. The bad man's all gone."
Allie transformed from puppy to girl, and burst into tears. "I want my mommy," she sobbed. "I wan' m'daddyyyy..."
"I know baby, I know," Steve said.
"They'll be here any second," Tony promised. "Everything's going to be okay, sweetheart."
She let out another sob.
Tony gave her a little pat on the back and went to help Bruce to his bedroom to take a nap. Emotion was not his forte.
Steve rocked the little girl in his arms, his heart breaking for her. "It's okay, sweetheart."
The elevator doors opened and the spysassins rushed in. "Allie!" Natasha vaulted over the coffee table and scooped her daughter up in her arms, honest-to-goodness tears in the corners of her eyes. "Are you all right, sweetheart?" She leaned back to inspect her, saw no injuries, and pulled her close again. "Shh, baby, shhh."
Clint went over to Steve, his posture stiff with tension. "What. Happened."
"JARVIS said a shapeshifter with your form got into the tower, fingerprints and everything, and tried to take Allie to the park. She knew it wasn't him and sent him to get her shoes. She told JARVIS to assemble the Avengers and Bruce came to protect her. He hulked out when the stranger tried to get to Allie, and protected her. We subdued him and..." Steve shrugged and waved a helpless hand at the sniffling girl.
Clint's grip on his bow tightened. "Where is he?" he growled.
Steve grabbed his shoulder lightly. "Clint, no. Let us take care of him. You take care of your kid. Family first."
Clint glanced at Allie, and dropped his bow on the table. "All right. Thanks, Cap." He went over to his wife and daughter, and Allie practically jumped into his arms. "Hey, punkin, shhh, it's okay. We're here now." Two weeks was too long for a mission, he decided.
Allie pressed her face into his shoulder. "No more going 'way daddy," she sniffled. "No more leaving me 'lone."
"No more," Clint promised. "We're never going to go away for that long ever again, I promise."
She let out another little whimper. "Why bad guy daddy wan' me?"
Clint held her tighter, pressing a kiss to her hair. "I don't know, baby. We'll find out, and it'll never happen again." He traded a glance with Natasha.
She nodded, took a deep breath, and walked out, Cap on her heels. She made a beeline for a conference room, and put up the security footage. She was silent until McCallen revealed who he was, and then she growled, a dark, primal sound of a mother sensing danger to her child. Once the footage was done, she turned to Cap. "I want to interrogate him."
Steve frowned. "You won't kill him."
"Not much."
Steve took a step back. "Be my guest."
The grin she gave him was pure Black Widow, and she stalked silently out the door.
Steve turned on the feed to the holding cell, and didn't say anything when Coulson and Stark entered the room. "Think we should wake Bruce up for this?' Tony asked, grinning. "Make some popcorn, maybe?"
"I could go for some popcorn," Coulson agreed.
On the video, Natasha entered the room, and the men fell silent.
As soon as McCallen saw the Black Widow, he turned white, then a sickly pale.
She gave him a cool, feral grin. "Why did you target the child?" she asked, in a tone of voice that said if he gave her the wrong answer she'd rip his throat out.
He licked his lips nervously and said, "She's my kid. I've got a right-"
"You have no rights in this room," she retorted sharply.
He turned another shade of pale, and started to babble. "I wasn't going to hurt her, I swear, she's my baby girl, I've been away but I promise I'm gonna take care of her, I just had to work and get enough money to move, and I knew she had my genes, she needs to be trained, we were gonna do stuff together, I didn't mean any harm, honest, and she's not safe here with all the attacks all the time, I was gonna take her and her mom down to my mom's place in Augusta, there's a good school there, and-"
"How did you find her?" Natasha interrupted.
"I went to find my wife and kid but the house was empty and the neighbor told me what had happened, and i saw Allie in a photograph in a magazine and I knew it was her, so I took a cab and- can I see her? Haven't seen her since she was a baby, I want to see her."
"What you want does not matter," Natasha informed him. "You abandoned your child to an uncaring, apathetic woman who is now in jail for child neglect. Allie has been adopted by a couple and she is happy. You will be charged with trespassing, attempted abduction of a minor, assault of an Avenger, and child abandonment. And worst of all, you scared her."
He stared at her, slack-jawed.
She turned away, hesitated, turned back, punched him square in the jaw and watched in satisfaction as he fell over, blood gushing from his nose. She left him there, and exited the room.
"Working, huh," Tony said, accessing the man's financial records. He snorted. "He hasn't had an honest job in the last decade. I'm going to guess his tidy fifty thousand has very shady origins."
Steve looked at Coulson. "Is SHIELD gonna take this guy?"
"Yes. Now that I think about it, he might be the missing piece in several super-powered criminal activities." Coulson gave them both a nod and left.
SHIELD came to take McCallen into custody, and everyone was able to relax. Well, except Tony and JARVIS, and Bruce once he woke up. They were reinforcing the Tower's security measures to spot shapeshifters and be able to detain them. "Just closing the vents didn't stop him," Tony mused. "I wonder how small Allie can go, too."
"She's got a lot of potential," Bruce said, analyzing the cell structure of both McCallen and Allie.
On the Barton-Romanoff floor, Clint and Natasha had managed to calm Allie down, and distracted her by asking all about her two weeks with her uncles. She told them all about the beach, and the games, and the shopping, and gave them their pretty shells. They gifted her with a pretty scarf woven with blue and orange.
Allie refused to let her parents get out of her sight for the rest of the day, and when it was time for bed, she got hysterical at the thought of her parents leaving her alone in her room.
She slept that night sandwiched securely in between her parents, Clint holding her to his chest. Neither he or Natasha slept much that night, silently keeping watch over their baby.