Chapter 1: Meeting the Hawk

Tony sat in Fury's bureau and in Fury's chair while working with a keyboard that only he could see thanks to a pair of sunglasses he had built that projected the keyboard and the screen. The positive thing about that was that no one else could see what he was working on.

Why he was sitting in Fury's chair? Just because he could and to piss Fury off since that guy still hadn't allowed him outside of the SHIELD HQ – after two years not once! And Tony felt more and more like a prisoner even with Phil and Jarvis to talk to and plenty of material to invent things. He didn't want to build thing for SHIELD anymore and so he delayed the completion of one of Fury's requests and worked instead on some personal projects – thus the special sunglasses.

"Sir, Agent Coulson is on his way here and he has someone with him. I think it would be wise to leave now." Chimed the AI from the earpiece that Tony had (obviously) in his ear.

"But Jarvis I hadn't even had the chance to annoy Fury with my presence and that was the whole point of coming here!"

"Even though sir you have to consider that Agent Coulson could get problems for you hacking the security codes of the door – again."

"Alright, alright. I'm leaving." Tony moved to the door and was just about to step into the hall when Coulson was standing right in front of him. "Tony, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, uhm, hi Phil. I just waited for Director Eye Patch to arrive since I wanted to annoy him but Jarvis said that would be a bad idea since you could get into trouble for me hacking the security codes… again." Tony had learned over the last two years that it would be the best to always tell Phil Coulson the truth.

Coulson sighed and said: "One of these days Tony I WILL use my Taser on you so that you can't do anything stupid… Go. Go to your room before I change my mind and really use my Taser."

Tony slowly backed away from the agent and simultaneously eyed the person that was standing behind Phil. It was a young man in violet outfit and bow on his back. He looked to be around Tony's age maybe one or two years older but not more.

Before he walked away from the two he stopped and turned back to Coulson. "Meeting still stands?"

Coulson nodded and at the same time Jarvis' voice chimed in his earpiece: "Sir, Fury is five minutes away from your position. I would hurry up if I were you."

"Thank you Jarvis." murmured Tony. (No one except Tony and Phil knew of Jarvis and it was better if no one else learned of him so long they hadn't proved themselves to Tony.)

The young agent – or whatever he was – looked curiously at him even if he hide it well but when you spend two years with Coulson you could read faces pretty well even if they seemed avoid of any emotion to others. Tony started walking to his room and shouted over his shoulder back to Coulson. "You can bring him to our meeting if you want to Phil."

And gone he was. The archer turned to his superior. "Sir can I ask what this was about?"

"You may but only after you meet the Director."

The conversation ended with that and after being officially welcomed to SHIELD the young agent followed the senior agent since he had been told to follow Agent Coulson for the first few days to get to know everything.

The two agents walked down the corridor and stopped in front of a door in the living area. From the other side of the door cursing and arguing could be heard. The younger agent stiffened since he didn't know what was on the other side of the door and when Coulson opened the door uninvited he relaxed slightly. On the other side was the dark haired young man they had met earlier and he was talking to what seemed to be a robot.

The younger agent stepped into the room and suddenly a voice said from out of nowhere: "Sir, you have guests."

The dark haired young man waved dismissively into the air and responded to the voice: "Thanks Jarvis but I already new that. Oh and Jarvis hadn't we said that you do not talk when somebody except me and Phil are in the room?"

"Yes we did but since you invited him into your room I thought that it was logical that you would trust him enough already."

"Whatever…" grumbled the young man and swirled suddenly around in his chair. "Hi Phil!"

Agent Coulson turned to the other agent and started introducing him: "Tony, this is Agent"

"Agent Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, eighteen years old. Hi, my name is Tony. I'm seventeen years old."

The archer, Clint Barton, said with suspicion clearly in his voice: "How do you know that and who exactly are you? Tony who?"

Tony had that carefree smile on his face when he said: "Just Tony. I have no last name or more precisely Fury took it from me." Coulson gave him a warning glance that promised he would bring out his Taser if Tony revealed more about this taboo topic. "Relax Phil I wasn't going to say more! To answer your other question Barton, I know your name without Phil's help here because I did a little research before you came."

At that Coulson groaned lightly and pinched his nose in annoyance but you could make out a small smile when he said: "You hacked into the computers again, didn't you?"

Tony didn't reply verbally and put instead a who-me-?-face on and then turned back to Barton.

"I just remembered I didn't welcome you properly. So: Welcome to this prison that consists of absolutely crazy members only."

"Tony!" said Coulson in warning and Tony just shrugged it of while Hawkeye analysed Tony's words.

"Why would you think of SHIELD as a prison?" asked Barton curiously after a few seconds.

"Because it is for me." A shrug again "You will understand soon enough while hanging around with me and Phil." He turned to Coulson "So what about our training session, still standing?"

"Of course can't have you slacking, can I."

Tony smirked at that dry response and stood up from his chair. "Okay then lets go."

When they reached the training area Coulson and Tony stepped into a boxing ring and started right away.

Clint was to be honest a bit impressed by Tony's performance. Tony was almost as good as Coulson and the new agent wouldn't have thought Tony being capable of keeping up with a SHIELD agent since he had seemed like the guy that build stuff instead of the fighting typ.

"Come on Barton! Don't just stand there, come up here and train with us."

Hawkeye shrugged but still went into the ring – he wanted to test the strength of this 'Tony' himself. Besides, he wanted to learn as much as possible about the other boy.

A few weeks passed and Tony and Clint grew to be best friends. In their free time they would sometimes play video games or stroll through the HQ, but most of the times they switched between Clint teaching about using a bow and other various weapons - that Coulson hadn't taught Tony yet – and Tony inventing stuff in his room while talking to Clint and Phil too of course if he was with them.

Tony was walking down one of the seemingly countless halls of SHIELD's HQ without a real destination. He was bored out of his mind! Stupid Eye Patch had sent Phil a 4 weeks and two days ago on some stupid undercover mission with no real time limit (not until enough usable information had been gathered) and yesterday he had sent Clint on a mission to eliminate a few targets that threatened the safety of the country, which left Tony alone - or as alone as you could get at a top secret facility where you were almost constantly surrounded with people doing one thing or another.

Even Jarvis' company hadn't helped to distract him and so he had made the decision to wander aimlessly around... Okay! He missed them, especially Phil who – since they had met – had never left Tony's side for more than three weeks! And Clint Barton, the Hawkeye had grown too on him. He sometimes even snuck something from the outside into the HQ to try to make him feel less like a prisoner in this (mostly) underground building. He had finally decided to return to his room when suddenly a familiar voice came from a few feet behind him: "Hey Tony, Wait up!"

The young genius spun around to the source of the voice and his eyes landed on the figure of his second favourite person, sprinting towards him. "Clint! You're back!"

"Ah and here you show again what a genius you really are: by stating the obvious." Clint said teasingly as he stopped in front of the younger teenager and grinned at him who returned his grin as well as the teasing remark with one of his own. "Oh shut up, bird brain!"

The two of them started walking back to Tony's room during which the archer told the young inventor about his mission and what he had seen outside like it had become tradition between Tony, Clint and Phil when Clint or Phil had taken part in a mission. That was Tony's only way of learning of what was going on outside SHIELD's HQ if one didn't count news and the Internet.

The other Agents they crossed paths with wisely choose to ignore their animated chatter since they were already used to it by now and some of them silently prayed that Barton's return didn't result in another prank of the two (that could strangely never be traced back to them) as it was common to happen after one of his easier missions.

But those who prayed would get disappointed today because once they had reached Tony's room, Hawkeye turned to his best friend and asked him: "Ready for another round in the ventilation shafts to scare some of the newer recruits?"

"I was beginning to think you would never ask! After you." Tony gestured at the ceiling and Clint jumped up, took off the lattice and lifted himself into the cramped space. Once inside Tony followed his lead and together they started their quest of terrifying the new recruits…

Note: Just for the record, I know that Hawkeye is younger in the Movie and in the Comics but here he is not for the sake of the plot!

Note: I plan to let the poll go on till 1st February, 2013. After that I will see what the the chapters during the Avengers will look like.