Notes: Seriously. Clint wants them together but he also doesn't want them together. What's a boy to do? Especially when Logan ain't gonna wait around to make his move ;)

Chapter 17: I Don't Want to Go to the Doctor

At first, Clint thought that he was just feeling rotten because he didn't like how much time his mom was spending with Logan. He liked Logan okay, sure, but the two of them were together a lot more often, and Clint still didn't know how to react to it.

He gave Logan a little more space, not quite sure what to do with the guy who was spending nights with his mom, but after a few more days, it was becoming clear that he was feeling rotten because he'd also come down with a summer cold.

"Okay, your fever isn't backing off," K said at last when Clint simply didn't have the energy anymore to pretend he wasn't so sick he could hardly find a way out of his bed. "I think … it's time to go see the doc."

"I don't wanna go to the doctor," Clint whined, though he was fairly well wrapped up in blankets and feeling miserable enough that he knew it was an eventuality.

"Even if it's Hank?" K asked, crossing her arms.

"He's gonna give me a shot or something. Or — or something will be real wrong with me and—"

"If he gives you a shot, I'll slap him around," K promised. "And I just want to get you some better medicine so you can go shooting this weekend."

Clint frowned up at her from underneath his blankets. He had to admit that it was a good argument … and it would be nice to be able to hear better, because his ears were stuffed up along with his head and he was even worse at hearing than usual… which was, of course, exactly why he didn't want to go to the doctor.

But on the other hand, he didn't want his mom to think he was scared….

"Fine," he muttered at last.

"If you can unwrap just a little bit and drop that fever, then we can bring up a bunch of movies and barricade ourselves up here," she pointed out as she waited for him to meet her at the door.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds real good," Clint admitted. He slowly pushed the covers back, making a face at how sticky and sweaty he was.

"So … how bad can it be?" K asked.

"I could be dying," Clint said seriously. "You never know, Mom. I could have… I could have ma-malaria or whatever."

"That's curable," she said, waving it off.

"Or — or I could have, um…" He scrunched his nose up as he tried to think of other stuff he'd seen in movies. "I could have the plague."

"Have you been cavorting with rats and fleas while you've been out inquisitioning?"

"I … I don't know what a lot of that even means," Clint said, giggling to himself.

"Well, Sicem doesn't have fleas, so the answer is 'no' anyhow," she said as she put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

Clint shrugged at that. "Then I probably just got the flu like Kitty said yesterday at lunch."

"Probably, but we'll leave that to Hank to figure out for sure," she said as they stepped into the elevator. "Unless you've become a medical doctor since the last time we spoke?"

"Umm, no. I still gotta go to college before I do stuff like that, remember? And I'm gonna be an archeologist!'

"I know, I know … but you sound so very sure of yourself and your self diagnoses of influenza."

"No, Mom, I said I got the flu," Clint said, rolling his eyes.

"I'm well aware," she said, shaking her head. "Flu is short for Influenza."

"Oh." Clint nodded thoughtfully. "Well, okay. That's what I got."

"Good thing it's not too bad this year," she said as they reached their floor and she steered him out of the elevator. "Now … go ahead and tell the nice Cookie Monster what's bothering you."

Hank looked up with a smile from what he was doing when he saw them making their way into his lab. "What brings the two of you here when it's such a fine day outside?"

"My whole head is heavy enough to be a bowling ball, so I ain't playing outside," Clint said, making a face.

"He thinks he knows what's wrong … I just need to see if you have anything to help him through it while we vegetate and watch action movies and comedies," K told him.

"I may just," Hank said, gesturing for Clint to take a seat so he could look him over. "And what malady do you believe you have been afflicted with?"

"I got the flu," Clint said with a shrug.

"But his second and third choices were malaria and the plague," K replied, arms crossed and smirking. "So it could be anything, really. Distemper …parvo ..."

Hank chuckled at that. "Well, I'm sure we can rule out the most dramatic options," he teased. "Unless you truly believe you're glimpsing the other side, in which case…"

"I was just being silly," Clint grumbled.

Hank smirked at that. "Yes, of course," he said. He took Clint through a basic examination, looking in his ears and throat and nodding to himself. "I wouldn't be surprised if you had a simple sinus infection, but I'd like to do a couple more tests, if that's alright with you."

"Your call, kiddo; I'm just the muscle," K said as she rested her hand on Clint's head.

Clint was wearing out by that time, his stuffy head tipped back. "I don't really care," he muttered. "I just wanna be done being sick."

"Of course," Hank said, patting Clint's arm. "Now… for one of these tests, I will need to prick your finger," he warned him.

"Whatever," Clint muttered, leaning tiredly back into the examination table.

Hank nodded at that and quickly got the small sample from Clint — sure to give him a purple bandage for his trouble, since it was common knowledge at that point what Clint's favorite color was. And it took next to no time before Hank had returned with some medicine to hand to K. "Give this to him every six hours; he should be able to breathe better by this afternoon," he said.

"You're wonderful, thanks," K said with a grateful smile as she reached for Clint's hand. "Ready to barricade?"

Clint nodded, still not feeling well and getting too tired to play anymore as he simply wrapped his arms around K's neck and let her pick him up off the table so they could head out.

It was just their luck that Jean was headed down to see Hank about that time as well — she and Scott were going to get a checkup on the little one. And the little noise that Jean let out seeing K and her tired little boy didn't sound like something that was completely conscious.

"Don't get too close," K advised as they passed. "We'll just isolate for the duration."

"I'm dying," Clint said in as dramatic a tone as he could manage.

"Nasty case of distemper," K said, nodding seriously.

Jean shook her head at both of them, though she couldn't stop the smile anyway. "Feel better, Clint," she said warmly.

"Have fun seeing your baby," Clint said tiredly.

"Yeah, congrats again, guys," K said before they headed off. They didn't even pick or tease in the elevator on the way up, and once they were back in the room, K gave him the first dose of the medicine and settled him out in front of the television. "I'm going to go get you some stuff to drink, and then if you want, I'll snuggle up and pet your duck fluff."

"Yes on the snuggling, but I don't really wanna be pet," Clint said.

"It's an endearment thing," K said, smiling at him. "I like it."

Clint nodded tiredly and curled himself into the blankets, smiling a little when Sicem came to sit at his feet — though before K could even get him anything to drink, he was out like a light, completely worn out.

When she got back with a few drinks, she let out a little sigh on seeing him still curled up tightly and sleeping hard. She called Sicem off to lie on the floor and then slipped in between Clint and the corner of the couch. He automatically adjusted to more or less wrap around her middle when she settled in, and she did spend quite a bit of time just running her hand over his head, waiting for the fever to drop down a little bit.

When his fever finally broke, he seemed to be breathing a little easier — and sleeping deeper, which was what K was waiting for to settle in a little deeper into the couch. And with that, she leaned her head back and fell asleep herself.

Down in the lab, Hank had just finished confirming for Jean and Scott that everything looked just fine with the little one and was in an excellent mood — excited for his friends — as he sat down to look at the other tests that he had drawn up for Clint.

He had known, of course, that it was likely Clint had a sinus infection when he came in, simply by looking at his symptoms. But this was more a matter of curiosity than anything else. He had seen how quick Clint was to take up anything having to do with aim — darts, arrows, knives, even pool. And it had him honestly curious to see if there wasn't something else in play.

And of course, with his thoughts so preoccupied, he shouldn't have been surprised at all when Jean let out a delighted noise and clapped her hands together when she overheard his train of thought.

"Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful?" she asked. "Then we could start training him and teaching him all sorts of things… he would look amazing on the team…"

"I believe that you may be familiar with the term 'don't put the cart before the horse'," Hank said with a little chuckle.

Jean waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, come on. You'd love it too, and you know it."

"Oh, absolutely," Hank agreed. "But I'm simply running a few tests before picking out a uniform for him."

"Slightly more restraint than Jean has right now," Scott had to tease, just to get Jean to roll her eyes and smack him lightly in the shoulder.

Hank laughed. "I believe that can wait a moment, though, while we address your concerns and get your tests running."

"Oh, can't we run his first — and then we can have ours running while we go over the results?" Jean offered.

Hank couldn't help but smile at her, his eyes twinkling with laughter. "Who am I to argue that kind of sound logic?"

"Solid use of time," Scott said, not bothering to hold back his smirk, especially when Jean just laughed at him.

Hank quickly but carefully set up Clint's test to run while Jean got comfortable — and pulled out the tubes that Hank told her they'd need for her blood tests and a kit. "This won't take but a few moments to get going."

Jean nodded, clearly excited for both of the tests that Hank had going as she leaned against Scott. "Oh good. I'm not particularly patient today."

Just today? Scott teased, smirking even harder when Hank followed it up with the same sentiment.

"Yes, today as opposed to all the years I've known you," Hank said dryly.

Jean rolled her eyes and flicked both of them back a step just to let them know they'd annoyed her, but it didn't change the smirks both men were wearing. "Then you know I'm dying waiting for those tests, Hank," she pointed out.

"Oh yes, certainly seems terminal," Hank said as he had his eye to the microscope. "You'll just have to suffer through it while I perform a blood draw on you, Mrs. Summers." He looked up at her with a little smile as he set the machine to get computing and made his way over to Jean — taking the longest route possible and openly lollygagging on his way.

Why do you insist on doing this to me, Jean projected to him, giving him a look that was both exasperated and laughing at the same time.

Why, because I love you too, Mrs. Summers, Hank projected back. And patience is a virtue that you'd do well to learn more about.

Maybe later, she teased.

Ah yes. Why do today what you can put off to do next week?

Or next year? She laughed out loud. "Come on, please?" she said, giving him her best pleading look. "For me?"

He finally bounded over to her in two leaps, smiling her way. "Dirty pool, my dear." With that, Hank started up on her blood draw, informing her carefully about what each test he would run on her was for — and what it would tell him. "I'm afraid you're too early to give you a decent ultrasound, judging by your measure."

"Next time, then," Scott said, squeezing Jean's hand in his.

"Most definitely," Hank agreed. The three of them chatted for a while — and Hank answered all the questions that he was able to for Jean as she hit him in rapid fire. Until, of course, the machine across the lab dinged — signaling that the quick test that Hank had set up to check Clint for the X-Gene was finished.

Jean paused what she was doing and simply beamed at Hank. "Well?"

"Well … I should say something about doctor-patient confidentiality, but then you'd simply get impatient and pluck it from my mind," Hank teased as he made his way over to check the test. He was still smirking to himself when he looked it over, though it was clear by the expression on his face what the answer was.

Jean let out a breath of obvious disappointment. "Well ... that's alright," she said, straightening up slightly.

"Just means Remy will have to get used to losing to a kid with no powers he can blame it on," Scott pointed out, which got her to chuckle, at least.

"His ego will likely never recover," Hank agreed.

"Besides," Scott said as he offered Jean a hand up, "this doesn't change much anyway. Isn't the professor always saying the team's about protecting humanity and mutants?"

"Of course," Hank replied. "But we'll simply have to wait and see if they stick around. The boy might already prefer the Avengers … or that's at least the way it sounded when they first got here …"

"Right," Scott said dryly. "You mean when he was attacking everyone and convinced we were bad guys. Not hard to prefer anyone over that option."

"Honestly, I'm surprised that Logan hasn't taken him to the tower yet," Hank said, clearly baiting Scott.

"First good decision he's made all year," Scott grumbled.

"Biased," Hank laughed.

"Oh, come on, Hank — he would look amazing in gold, don't you think?" Jean cajoled him.

"Yet, he prefers purple," Hank pointed out.

Jean waved her hand. "We'll figure something out," she said before she made it a point to kiss Hank's cheek. "Thanks again."

"Anytime," he promised, still smiling to himself as the two Summerses slipped out of his lab once more.