A/N: Finally an update! I survived NaNoWriMo yay, and here's the next chapter! mostly filler, lots of fluff.
An hour later the HYDRA agents were gone and the Avengers were re-assembled in the conference room. Allie was sleeping securely in Clint's arms. "So, what do we do?" Bruce asked, still groggy. "The Tower isn't safe anymore and they know Bucky's not with HYDRA anymore."
"We'll have to go off the grid," Steve determined. He looked at Natasha.
She nodded. "I have a place we can go."
"Off the books?" Coulson asked, glancing at his phone. "We've just been blacklisted by SHIELD."
Tony's jaw dropped. "What?"
Coulson held up the tablet. "We've been declared traitors to American interests."
"Even Cap?" Clint asked.
"Yes, sadly."
Natasha nodded. "I've got a place we can go."
Within an hour, they'd evacuated the tower. Natasha woke Allie up and told her to pick five toys, and her favorite clothes. Allie picked Bucky bear, the stuffed duck, her robot dog, the plush alligator, her game tablet, and the only thing she picked clothing-wise was Clint's hoodie and her green Hulk beanie. Everything else she left to her mom to pack.
Allie twisted around in her car seat to watch the tower as they sped away. "We goin' on vacation?" she asked drowsily.
"Yeah," Clint said, sharing a glance with Natasha.
"Mm. Everybody coming?"
"Yep. Just they're in different cars, so we won't be all squished together," Natasha said, playfully squishing Allie close to her.
Allie giggled sleepily. "Is Sam comin' too?"
"Yep." He'd insisted on coming to take care of Barnes and Rogers.
"And Jane'n'Darcy?"
"Them too." Neither of the civilians had wanted to go, but they had to admit that SHIELD would hold them against their will to smoke out Thor and the Avengers. So, they were coming, too.
Allie smiled. "Good. Me'n'Jane's gonna make const'l'ations." She leaned into her mom's side. "We almost there?"
"Not yet baby. It's a long drive." Natasha kissed her hair. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart."
"Mkay mommy." Allie closed her eyes, humming to herself under her breath.
Clint put on the classical station on the radio, and Allie fell asleep within the next movement of the song.
She slept through three car-switches, two bathroom slash check-and-make-sure-no-one-is-following-us breaks, and when she woke up, she was being lifted from her car seat by Bruce. "Bwuce?" she asked, yawning. "We here?"
"We're here," he said, kissing her hair. "You wanna go back to sleep?"
"Nah." She rested her head on his shoulder and gazed at their surroundings. They were in the forest, going to a pretty cabin. There were three cars in the driveway, and mommy and daddy and Steve and Tony were talking and pointing. Everyone else was taking bags into the house. "Bweakfast?" she asked, spotting a bag of chips Sam was carrying.
"In a minute, sweetheart, we've gotta do some things first."
"Kay."
Allie sat calmly on the sofa with her Bucky Bear, watching the adults bustle back and forth. Darcy came and sat with her, and they played I Spy until the smell of pancakes interrupted them.
"Breakfast," Bruce said cheerfully, nodding to Darcy and Allie.
Allie got to sit on the counter and eat her pancakes, and Darcy and Bruce stood at the counter to eat. Everyone else was still busy. "What are they doing?" Allie asked, watching Tony walk past the window with a load of fiber coil over his shoulder.
"Setting up an alarm system," Bruce said.
"Like JARBIS?"
"Something like that."
"Cool."
By the end of the day, the security systems were up and everyone had retreated to the cabin. Fury was sending updates to Coulson over secure, untraceable lines, and Coulson's worry wrinkles were deepening with every update.
Allie crawled into his lap as a kitten and began to purr loudly and insistently until he started to pet her. She settled in his lap with her head over his heart, and tugged at his collar button with a tiny paw until he relaxed. Then she jumped off his lap, still purring, and went to nap next to the heater vent.
"Thank you, Allie," Coulson said.
She let out a 'meow', and washed her paw delicately.
Steve came to find her a few minutes later. "Hey sweetheart," he said gently. He held out a hand. "Do you want to come hang out with Bucky for a while? I think he needs some hugs."
Allie jumped into his hands and rubbed her face against his shirt pocket in agreement.
"All right. Thanks, doll." He carried her into the back room, where Bucky and Sam were sitting in quiet contemplation of the forest, out the window.
Allie jumped gracefully from Steve's grip and shifted into a puppy as soon as she hit the floor. She trotted over to Bucky's side and tugged at his pant leg with her teeth.
He looked own at her, and smiled. "Hey, Allie."
She jumped onto his lap and put her paws on his chest. "Woof?" she asked, bopping his cheek with her cold nose.
He hugged her gently and fondled a tiny ear. "I'm okay, doll, I promise."
She curled up in his lap and wagged her tail for a while, her big intelligent eyes watching him carefully. After a while she shifted into her human form and wrapped her arms around Bucky's neck. "Tell me a story," she requested.
Bucky shifted uneasily. "I'm not good at stories. Don't you want Sam to tell you a story?"
"Nope."
"How about Steve? Steve's great at stories."
"Nope."
He sighed. "What do you want the story about?"
She gazed out the window. "A squirrel," she decided. "A squirrel and his family. And there has to be an owl in it."
Bucky sighed. "Okay. A squirrel and an owl."
"And the family," Allie prompted.
He ran his fingers through his hair with his metal hand. "Okay. Once upon a time-"
"You don't need that part," Allie interrupted.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Once upon a time," he repeated, making her giggle, "there was a squirrel named... named Crispin."
"Crispin is a good name," Allie said, nodding.
"And his family," Bucky said. "His family was very small, and Crispin only had a brother named..."
"Max," Allie prompted.
"Max." Bucky sighed. "So, one day Crispin and Max were on an adventure in the forest. They were on a mission to look for the greatest acorn in existence. It was the size of a... the size of a skyscraper."
"Whoa," Allie said, eyes widening. "How did it fit in the forest?"
Bucky frowned. "The forest was very tall."
"Oh. Okay." She smiled up at him. "Keep going."
"Okay. So, they were looking for the acorn the size of a skyscraper, and as they ran through the forest on the trees, they encountered, uh, an owl."
"What was the owl's name?"
"Uh... Fred?"
"Nah."
"Oswald."
"No. It has to be a girl owl."
"Oswin?"
"Yeah."
"A girl owl named Oswin," Bucky continued. "She was a very wise owl that knew everything about everything in the forest."
Sam grinned as Bucky and Allie continued to weave their story based on the forest and the squirrels. It was the perfect way to distract Bucky from his melancholia. And judging from the twinkle in Allie's eye, she knew exactly what she was doing. Sam got up and went to the bathroom. He found Natasha hovering outside the door, grinning. "Your kid's going to be a great profiler," he said. "Or a great spy."
Natasha grinned. "That's my baby girl."
A~A~A~A
That first night in the cabin, the only ones that slept were Jane, Darcy, Sam, and Allie. Everyone else was busy hacking into SHIELD. Allie slept with Jane and Darcy in their room, and her and Darcy stayed up late painting their nails bright blue. When they finally passed out, Jane got up to cover them both with blankets and tuck Allie into the bed.
The next day, the entire day was spent playing shapeshifting and tablet games inside with Darcy and Jane while everyone was busy hacking SHIELD and trying to figure out who exactly was HYDRA and who was not. They were also trying to figure out strategies to go up against HYDRA bases without giving away who they were and how many of them there were.
Sleeping arrangements that night were cramped, with everyone actually sleeping. Clint, Natasha, and Allie got the main bedroom, Darcy and Jane moved to the other room, and everyone else sprawled out on the couches and bedrolls Natasha pulled out of a closet.
Allie was snug as a bug in a rug, cuddled between her parents, nice and warm and toasty. "Daddy?" she whispered.
"What baby?" he asked, reaching out to smooth her hair.
"Are we camping?" she asked innocently.
"Kind of."
"Can we leab the cabin?"
"Yes, maybe. Why?"
"Tomowwow can we go fish?"
He smiled slightly. "Yeah, we can go fishing."
"Yay, tank you daddy." She inched closer to him and kissed his cheek. "Now sleep, cuz you tink too loud," she whispered.
He chuckled. "Okay, okay, I'll go to sleep."
This established, Allie was out like a light.
"You hate fishing," Natasha whispered into the dark, smirking.
"I know that," Clint replied, "but Allie wants to go, so."
She grinned and reached over Allie to stroke his face. "Softie."
A~A~A~A
The next morning Allie was up early. She woke up as a kitten and decided to stay like that since it was cold. She ventured out of the room to see who was up.
Coulson was the only one who was awake. He was holding a cup of coffee and looking out the window in the kitchen.
Allie carefully sidestepped all the sleeping superheroes and padded up to Coulson. She placed her paws on the leg of his sweatpants and looked up.
He looked down and smiled. "Hey, good morning," he whispered.
She tugged at his leg.
He bent down to pick her up and while he was opening his sweatshirt to tuck her inside, she managed to get a sip of his coffee. "Hey!" he whispered mock-indignantly.
She licked his fingers consolingly and climbed up to sit on his shoulder. She contemplated the window, the woods, the squirrels, and the birds, and tried to get another sip of coffee.
"You are not becoming a coffee addict until you're at least twenty years old," Coulson scolded, moving the coffee to his other hand.
She gave him a big pair of eyes.
"No way," he said firmly. "How about some juice?"
"Mreow." She jumped from his shoulder and turned into a girl. "Apple juice please?" she asked.
"Okay, here we go. No more trying to drink coffee, okay? It's not good for you."
"Kay Cou-son."
"Speaking of coffee, is there?" Tony stumbled into the kitchen, looking haggard.
"Tony!" Allie hugged his legs. "Morning."
"Morning, sweetheart." He ruffled her hair.
Coulson handed him a cup of coffee and a bagel.
"Thanks, Agent." Tony took his breakfast to the sofa. Allie followed him, and took nibbles off the edge of the bagel while Tony gulped his coffee down. "Hey," Tony said, barely realizing it when the coffee cleared his sleep haze. "Wasn't this a full bagel a minute ago?"
She giggled.
Tony took a bite of his bagel. "Tha's nof coo," he told her, mouth full of bagel.
"Ewwww Tony," she giggled, burying her head in the pillow of the couch.
He pulled her out of the couch and tickled her. "Blaarhgh," he said, chewing loudly.
She shrieked happily and pushed at him ineffectually. "Ewww. Steeb help!"
The others on the floor were woken by this heartening scene, and Steve laughingly pulled Allie to safety, and perched her on his shoulders.
She ruffled his sleep-mussed hair and stayed on his shoulders as everyone prepped for the day and made breakfast, and didn't move until Natasha took her to get dressed and braid her hair.
"We're goooinnng fiiiisshiinng," Allie sang as she skipped back into the front room. She hung on Clint's waist. "When we leaving for fishies daddy?"
Tony snorted. "You're taking her fishing? You don't even like-" He was cut off by a swift elbow in the gut from Bucky. "Cherries?" he finished uncertainly, rubbing his chest. "Ow. Make sure you don't take cherries with you when you go fishing."
"Smooth," Sam muttered.
Clint smirked. "Thanks Tony, I'll keep that in mind."
"Who else is going?" Steve asked, in a Cap sort of tone.
"Whoever wants to come," Clint said, after a glance at Natasha.
It ended up being Clint, Natasha, Allie, Steve, and Bruce. Bruce found a nice shady spot under a tree, and closed his eyes to contemplate bird sounds. Clint got Allie set up with a stick and a line, and as he was trying to get the hook on, Allie tugged on his arm.
"Wait, wait, whatsat for?"
"For the fish, baby."
Her eyes widened. "But that will hurt it!"
Natasha spoke up. "What do you think is fishing, sweetie?"
Allie stuck her feet in the stream and wiggled her toes, and splashed her hand in the water. "Fishing is when you sit and feed the fishies and talk 'bout things and den have lunch. Dat's what de wormies are for, right?"
All four adults shared a glance and a smile. "That's exactly right," Clint said, putting everything away and taking off his shoes.
Steve handed Allie a worm. "Here you go."
They spent a couple of hours looking for fish, and Allie had a staring contest with a small trout before it headed back downstream. She flew back to the cabin as a bluebird, and beat the grownups there. She flew into the open door, and perched nimbly on Bucky's shoulder with a chirp.
Bucky smiled. "Hey, birdie. How was fishing?"
She cheeped happily and fluffed her feathers before flitting away to chirp at Darcy and Sam.
Tony spoke up. "Hey, I think I found something."