Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or any Marvel-related rights. Sadly.
...
Clint hadn't meant to fall asleep while he was hiding, but he was really very tired, and the carpet in the living room was really, really soft.
He'd gotten lost trying to find the hospital again, and then Bruce had chased him around while he was green and a monster, and even though that monster was smaller, he could still break through walls so Clint didn't really want to know what happened if he got hit with one of those big green fists. And so Clint hid from Bruce, and he had meant to come out of hiding and go back to looking for Tony and Steve and Natasha, but he fell asleep.
Clint jerked awake and rubbed his eyes. How long had he been asleep? What was going on? He looked down, and yep, he was still little, still wearing a black tee shirt, but at least he wasn't any smaller.
And then he heard the noise, the reason he was awake. Someone was yelling really loudly, and it didn't sound like English.
Clint peered out from behind the couch but didn't see anybody in the living room, so he headed for the door. "Hello?" he called out timidly, because usually yelling people didn't want to be disturbed.
There was Tony, only he was much smaller now. Maybe just a year older than Clint. And he was standing with his hands crossed over his blue, glowing chest, trying to look important and not scared, while a redheaded little girl screamed at him and kept trying to hit him. Had to be Natasha.
Steve was there, too, and he looked a lot younger than before, but still maybe at least eight, which meant he was big enough to get in between Natasha and Steve. He looked tired and annoyed. "Stop fighting. I mean it!" he said, but Clint knew when kids were trying to sound like grownups.
"Natasha!" Clint shouted, and both Tony and Steve turned around to look at Clint, who crossed his arms over his chest. "You guys found Natasha."
Natasha looked at Clint with wide eyes, but she didn't say anything.
"You know this kid?" Tony asked. He sounded pouty and whiny. Which sorta made sense, cuz he was whiny and annoying and bossy when he was older, too.
"Yeah. Hi, Nat," Clint said, and Natasha seemed to at least respond to that. Her eyes lit up, and she sort of wobbled her way over to Clint.
So the green and gold guy had kept his promise after all. She didn't look much older, but she could walk and apparently talk, but not English. Maybe she was from Canada. That was a different country, right?
Steve sighed heavily and leaned against the back wall. They were in somebody's bedroom. It had lots of decorations sort of like the armor the green and gold guy wore, but more reds and blues and stuff. The bed was really, really big, so the other kids had sort of clustered by the closet. Steve crossed his arms and looked at the other kids. "Thanks," he said to Clint when Natasha stopped screaming and plopped herself down beside Clint.
Clint sat down beside his friend and held out his hand. She didn't look like she wanted to take it, but he kept it there just in case she warmed up to the idea. He didn't really have any other ideas.
"So," Tony said as he tried (and failed) to pull himself up onto the ginormous bed so he could sit higher than everyone else (Steve boosted him up so he could sit down, probably because he looked so ridiculous trying). "Who are you people?"
"Steve," Steve said, waving his fingers shyly.
"I'm Clint. This is Natasha," Clint said, and Natasha looked up at him with a scrunched up nose like he'd said something funny. "Or Nat, I guess," he amended, and Natasha looked pleased.
"Tony," Tony said from his throne.
"Yeah, I know," Clint said without meaning to.
Steve leaned forward, both eyebrows raised. "You know? How?"
"I met you guys," Clint said quickly. "When you were grown up."
Tony laughed. "That doesn't make sense. I'd know if my dad had made something that could—"
"Shut up, Tony. Not everything is about you," Clint said.
The look on Tony's face made Natasha giggle.
"There's a guy in this tower. He's green and gold and has a weird pointy helmet, and he has this magic dust—"
"There's no such thing as magic," Tony cut in.
"Shut up, Tony." This time, Steve said it.
"And if you breathe in the dust, you get smaller and younger." Clint hadn't noticed that Natasha had, in fact, decided to hold his hand until he went to move his hand and hers was in it. So he just motioned to her with his other hand and said, "She's a superhero, and I'm her sidekick. When we're grown up, of course."
Tony made a face like he was going to say something sarcastic, but Steve did something with his eyes that made Tony shut up really fast. Steve smiled like nothing had happened and turned back to Clint. "What about us?"
Clint grinned. "You're definitely a superhero, Steve," he said. "You and Bruce, who I guess you haven't met yet because he's kind of a raging monster right now."
"Betcha I'm the supervillain," Tony said. Clint thought maybe he was serious, too.
"Can you be not a supervillain until we go back to being grownups?" Steve asked. He looked like he was laughing, so maybe Steve didn't believe Tony was evil.
"Maybe," Tony said, narrowing his eyes. "He has to stop telling me to shut up, though," he added, jabbing his finger at Clint.
"I can say meaner things, if you want," Clint said.
"Don't start," Steve said.
Clint frowned, but if he was going to say something, he got distracted because of the loud crash outside and a shouted, "Stop it, you imbecile!" followed closely by a very loud, "HULK SMASH!"
Tony jumped down off of the bed in surprise. "What's going on?"
Clint grinned. "That's Bruce, I bet. He can turn into a monster. It's kinda scary, but mostly he helps. When he's a grownup, he can get the monster to fight bad guys. He saved me and Nat from the green and gold scary guy before."
"Yeah, but if he's a little kid like us now . . . ." Steve shook his head. "Do you think we can trust him?"
There was more crashing, and it sounded like it was coming closer. Natasha jumped and babbled a few words that didn't sound English.
Clint held her hand tighter, because sometimes Barney did that when Clint was scared of lightning storms and stuff, and she looked up at him and smiled and babbled more nonsense at him.
"She likes you," Steve noted.
"We're best friends," Clint said. "Right, Nat?"
Nat giggled.
"See? Best friends."
Tony just laughed. "Well," he said, "I'm going to look for a kitchen. And I'm taking Steve with me in case the monster or the magic guy shows up." But then Tony waved his hands around in the air and made "ooh"ing noises, so Clint didn't think Tony was taking this seriously.
"When you meet him, you'll be sorry," Clint shouted at Tony as he ran out the door.
Steve shot Clint an apologetic glance and said, "I'll look out for him, okay?" before he ran after Tony.
That only sorta made Clint feel better.
Natasha started to toddle after Tony and Steve, but Clint dragged her back into the room. He wanted to wait and see if Tony and Steve came back with snacks, because as much as he hated to admit it, Tony was right, and he was hungry.
Natasha babbled more Canadian at him, but Clint didn't understand her, so she grabbed his shirt and pointed out the door.
"No," he said. "Let's wait for Steve and Tony."
Natasha's lower lip quivered.
Clint sighed. "Fine." He was a pushover, wasn't he? Barney was always telling him that he needed to grow a spine, and he could when it was someone mean, but Clint couldn't deal with big, sad eyes.
Natasha squealed with delight when Clint stood up and then practically dragged him out the door behind him.
"HULK SMASH!"
"Aw, crap," Clint said.
They'd walked right into it. They had stepped outside just in time to see the green and gold guy fall over and then, seconds later, watched as the green Bruce monster jumped on top of him.
Natasha took in the scene and turned to Clint, her eyes wide.
Clint honestly didn't know if he'd have been able to get through this whole thing without Natasha. It was nice knowing someone needed him, and that at least was a good enough reason to pretend he was brave, even if it was just until they could find someone more grownup to help them.
Clint gritted his teeth. Well, Natasha was too little to be the superhero this time, so maybe he'd be the hero and she could be his sidekick—just this once.
"Stay here," he said, letting go of Natasha's hand and motioning for her to stay put. He crept over to where the green and gold guy was still struggling to keep the green Bruce monster away from his face and other sensitive places.
He was pretty good at this. The not being seen thing. He knew lots of kids played hide and seek because it was fun, but he and Barney were good at it because it kept them safe, even though Clint kept being stupid and getting into fights with Dad anyway. So he was much, much better at hide and seek than any other kid on the planet, he was pretty sure, and he didn't think the green and gold guy saw him as he carefully tiptoed around to the other side of the fight.
He was looking for a blue vial, the one he'd seen the green and gold guy pull out before, when he promised to help Natasha. Clint was pretty good at stealing things. Not as good as Barney, but one day, he promised himself, he'd be better than anybody. Except maybe if he was a superhero he shouldn't steal. But that wasn't important.
He took a deep breath and waited until the green and gold guy was sitting up to dive in behind him and try to feel the linings of his jacket.
Clint saw the backhand coming but wasn't fast enough to duck—and wasn't that the story of his life—so he went flying backwards.
That's when he heard Natasha screaming in Canadian, and a little ball of red and black fury pounced on the green and gold guy.
With Natasha and the green Bruce monster to deal with, the green and gold guy was distracted, so Clint thought he'd give it one more try to get the blue vial.
He took a step forward—and hit an invisible wall. He rubbed his nose, frustrated and confused, before he heard a soft, feminine, but scary voice say in an almost whisper, "How far you have fallen, Loki, to be bested by these Midgardians once more—and in such pitiably small and fragile states!"
As the new person spoke, Clint looked up. The new lady was very pretty, but in the kind of way that was mean and spiteful, like she knew she was pretty and used it on everybody. She looked down at him and smiled at him—a smile that made him think of a snake—before she knelt down beside him and held out her arms like she wanted to pick him up.
Clint ran and hid behind the door to the red and yellow bedroom with the really tall bed.
"In this form, they are slightly more difficult to manage," the green and gold guy said, "but much less dangerous. An annoyance, perhaps, but nothing like a threat." He managed to detach a biting Natasha from his arm, and she skidded across the ground. Clint broke cover to run out and grab her and drag her back behind his door, but then the green and gold guy threw the green Bruce monster off, too, and Clint was in the way of Bruce and the wall.