"I need some advice."

"Uh oh," Dad looks up from the hologram he was studying. "What misbegotten stunt are you pulling now?"

I bite my lip, keeping my gaze locked on his. "Seriously."

"Okay, seriously." He rolls his chair over so that he's across my workbench. "What's up?"

"How do you know...how do you when a relationship is serious enough to move in together?"

A knowing look flashes across my dad's face - like he's well aware who this conversation's really about - but he just sighs and leans back in his chair. "All I can say is that you have to be entirely sure about this - this, and all future relationship decisions, really. Moving in together is the first big step - first it's moving in, then the proposal, then marriage, then kids, and-"

I let out a small squeak, and he stops to look at my face before swearing under his breath and running a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a million different directions. "Sorry, kiddo," he says sincerely. "Look at me, it's been over twenty years and I still haven't got the hang of this 'parenting' thing."

I roll my eyes at the old line before becoming serious again. "You were saying..."

"Right, where was I...moving in. You have to understand, Taylor, that sharing a space with someone can make or break your relationship with that person. Like, you love your boyfriend, yes, but do you love the way he leaves his socks all over the floor? Or the way he gets up at the butt-crack of dawn to run ten miles every day? Or can he stand the way you stay up 'til two in the morning working on designs for new armor?"

I nod. "So you're saying it's a way to find out if we can stand each other on a more permanent basis."

"Exactly," he nods, the pauses. "Birdbrain asked you, didn't he? To move in with him."

"Three months ago," I confirm. "...I think I'll say yes."

"Okay," he shrugs. "I can't really stop you at this point. Just know that if he hurts you-"

"You kill him, I know," I sigh, rolling my eyes.

"And you'll always have a place in this Tower - he'll be the one evicted, never you."

I consider this for a while before nodding. "Thanks, I'm gonna use your vents now."

I step into the center of the lab and unlatch the vent cover before he can protest, hoisting myself in and re-latching the cover behind me. "Thank you," I call over my shoulder, ignoring his indignant protests.

"You could've at least said goodbye!" Dad calls, his voice muffled and distorted.

I ignore him as I begin to make my way through the vent network, quickly making my way from floor 10, where Dad and I shared the main mechanical lab, up to floor 30, where Natasha's favorite gym was.

I kick out the vent cover and drop into a small storage room just off the main lab, the lights coming on as soon as Jarvis sensed my movement. I make my way into the main gym, watching as the Black Widow grappled with her ex-partner inside the big MMA ring - it was like watching a mongoose and a snake fight, and it was awesome.

After about ten minutes of this, Clint's ended up belly-down on the mats with Natasha straddling his back and her arms wrapped around his head and neck in a combination headlock-slash-chokehold.

"Please don't break my boyfriend," I call as I approach the ring.

"You take all the fun out of it," Natasha complains as she gets off of Clint, coming over to meet me by the ropes, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. "What are you doing? Just watching or do you want to have a go at it?"

"No thanks, I have things I need to do today," I quip. "But I need to borrow my boyfriend for a minute."

"Okay," she shrugs, waving Clint over. "Just do whatever you do quietly, please."

I roll my eyes at her. "It's not that. I need to talk to him - people do that, you know."

The redhead raises a dry eyebrow, but shrugs again and ambles off, leaving Clint and I alone.

"What's up?" my boyfriend asks, leaning against the ropes of the ring and looking slightly down at me.

"Do you have a minute?" He nods, and I take a step back, motioning for him to follow. I lead him back to the storage room, only detouring slightly to grab his water bottle and a cooling towel.

"Now, will you please tell me what's going on?" he asks as I close the door behind us.

"I've been looking for you all morning," I explain. "I need to talk to you."

"Well that's never good," he teases, sitting down on a spare water cooler. "What's up?"

"I need to tell you something," I begin. "I-"

I'm cut off by Clint's water bottle hitting the floor, and I look over to see his eyes blown wide and his face white as a sheet - I'm also really glad he was already sitting down, because that could've proved disastrous.

"Are you pregnant?!" he blurts out, and I can hear the thinly-veiled panic in his voice.

Hawkeye: master assassin, spy, ex-soldier...panics at the thought of me being pregnant, I muse. Who would've thought?

"No," I say slowly, drawing out the word. "No. That's not it."

"Oh," he sighs, relief evident in his voice. "Oh, okay. It just seemed likely, you know, since it's been three months since your birthday, and-"

"I know."

"And I'm not sure if we used protection-"

"I know."

"And I figured that-"

"Clint!" I cut him off by slapping a hand over his mouth. "I know how long it's been and no, we probably didn't use protection, but trust me, I'm not pregnant. I checked. No little people running around any time soon. Okay?" He nods, and I pull back my hand, wiping it on my jeans.

"So what did you want to tell me then?"

"Right." I take a deep breath. "Do you remember what you told me the day after my birthday?"

"I told you a lot of things the day after your birthday," he smirks. "Most of them in the early morning hours, and some variation of oh, yeah-" He cuts himself off at my glare. "Truth be told, I did tell you a lot of things."

"Okay, do remember what you asked me?" I try again.

Instead of coming up with a snappy comeback, Clint seems to consider this for a moment before looking at me. "I did ask you to move in with me. You said 'not yet' and that you'd think about it."

I give him a half-smile. "Well, I've thought about it. It took me three months, just about, but I've given it a lot of thought."

Clint sucks in a breath, and I watch a reluctant hope - like he doesn't want to get his hopes up - spark in his steel grey eyes. "And?"

"And...I'd love to move in with you."

"Really?!"

"Yes," I laugh. "Really."

He gives me a blinding grin before pulling me into a kiss that makes my toes curl.

"Thank you," he breaths as he pulls back. "I love you, liebe."

"Love you too, amore." I lean forward against his chest, tucking my head under his chin. "When can I start moving my stuff in?"

"As soon as you want," he mumbles into my hair. "Do you need help?"

"You can help if you want," I shrug. "But I don't honestly have a lot of things on Darcy's floor, and I'll be enlisting everyone else's help, so if you had plans today, don't cancel them on my behalf."

"Nope, no plans," he says. "Although, I did promise Natasha one more round..."

"Go on, then," I nudge him towards the door. "Go get the crap beaten out of you."

"Hey!" he protests. "I can beat Natasha."

"Really?" I raise an eyebrow. "You've known Natasha for, what, nine years now? How many times have you won a sparring match?"

"Once."

"Last year in Benghazi doesn't count, given that she was high as a kite and you were stone-cold sober." I hand him his water bottle and give him another nudge out the door. "Take it like a man, Hawkeye."

He steps out of the room with a very un-manly whine, and I roll my eyes before re-entering the vents and making my way to floor 50, the Avengers' communal area.

"Jarvis, assemble the Avengers," I command as I drop onto one of the couches. "Wait, no, don't actually assemble the Avengers, just...get them here."

"I understand, ma'am," Jarvis replies, sounding amused. After a few minutes, the room is filled with slightly tense, twitchy, dangerous people.

Just a normal day in the Tower, really.

"Is something wrong?" Natasha demands. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Tasha," I reassure her, taking a quick look at the people gathered in the room. The only ones who are at ease are Clint and my dad; everyone else is confused, on edge, or a mix of both. "Everyone, stand down. Nothing's wrong."

The tension that had congealed in the room lessens a fair deal. "Okay," Bucky huffs. "Then why are we all here?"

"Why?" I smirk. "Did I tear you away from-" I aim a not-so-subtle glance at Steve. "-anything important?"

"брат," he snarls.

I give him a cheeky grin before turning back to the majority of the group. "But I do need some help."

"With?" Natasha prompts.

"Moving some stuff."

"Oooh, is it a body?" We all look at Darcy, who was bouncing in her seat. "I've always wanted to hide a body. This is so exciting!"

I mentally facepalm as Natasha reaches over to pat her shoulder. "We know people far more skilled in body disposal than you, you demented child."

"In all seriousness, is this some superheroes-only top secret stuff?" Jane asks. "Do we," she motions to herself, Darcy, and Betty, "need to leave?"

"If this was top secret, I wouldn't have had Jarvis call everyone," I point out. "I need help moving my stuff from one floor to another."

Darcy blinks. "What? You're moving out? But where would you - oh."

"Darcy," I groan as realization dawns on her. "Please don't-"

She lets out an ear-piercing shriek that would've shattered the floor-to-ceiling windows, had they not been bulletproof, bombproof, shockproof...you get the idea.

"-squeal," I finish unnecessarily over the sound of Bucky and Steve, who had sensitive hearing, moaning and groaning.

Once we've all recovered from that little catastrophe, I call everyone's attention again. "So...yeah. I'm moving in with Clint. Who wants to help me move?"

Eventually I get a room full of confirmations, so I grab a nearby StarkPad and turn it on, pulling up a 3D map of the floor Darcy and I shared. "Okay, so here's how this is going to go..."

.

Fifteen minute later, everyone's scattered about floor 15, almost everyone in charge of packing or sorting a different item.

I, personally, was handling my clothes, with Natasha packing the various knick-knacks around my room.

"Is this a cuckoo clock?" Natasha asks incredulously, and I poke my head out of my closet to see her holding up a novelty Swiss cuckoo clock that was more than a decade old.

"Yeah," I sigh, folding a coat and putting it into the cardboard box marked 'Clothes - Keep'. "Dad had an associate that was Swedish when I was, like, five. Guy liked me, but I thought he was creepy as hell."

"How so?" she asks, shifting the clock from one hand to the next.

"How was he creepy?" She nods. "Well, he treated me like a favorite grandchild, but I wasn't his grandkid, obviously, but I couldn't quite tell him that without being the rudest five-year-old on the planet."

Natasha snorts, holding up the clock. "So this has no emotional attachment?"

"Not at all."

She tosses the clock into the trash can in the middle of the room, and we both hear it shatter into tiny pieces.

I fold another t-shirt and drop it in the box before closing the box and hefting it up onto my right hip. "Be right back."

I make my way into the elevator, pressing the button for floor 90 and setting the box down, watching the floor numbers increase as the elevator moved upwards.

The layout of the Tower itself was really simple if you thought about it: starting from the bottom, the lobby was on the first floor. Floors one through four were Stark Industries executive offices; the more important you were, the higher up your office was.

Five though fifteen were all labs; R&D, chemical, biological, mechanical, and every other type of lab one could think of.

Sixteen through twenty were all dubbed 'half-floors' and they were literally that: half the floor belonged to a semi-important person like Sam, Rhodey, and Darcy, and the other half was usually generic guest rooms. Betty and Jane also had rooms there, but they had long since moved in with their boyfriends.

Twenty-one through forty-nine were all dedicated to training superheroes: simulation rooms, strategy practice, debriefing rooms, gyms, and both archery and gun ranges.

Fifty was the Avengers' Communal Floor - where we all gathered for movie nights, team dinners, lazy mornings, and just generally hung out as a team.

Fifty-one all the way through ninety-nine were all live-in floors; our own living spaces with theaters, more gyms, and lounges dotted throughout. Thor and Jane were on 60, Bruce and Betty were on 63, the Couple's Retreat was on 67, Steve was on 87, Bucky right above him on 88. Clint - and my new residence - was on 90, nice and high up, with Natasha just above us on 91 and then my dad on 99, in his penthouse suite.

100, the very top floor, was where we all were either just before or just after missions. It featured the second-largest amount of armories (50 had the most), direct access to the jets and helipad on the roof, and a small bar and lounge for de-stressing after battles.

The elevator arrives on Clint's floor, jarring me out of my thoughts. I pick up the box of clothes again, making my way out of the elevator, through the open kitchen/living room, and down the hallway to the master bedroom.

"Hey, I-" I stop in the doorway, looking at the scene before me: Clint was surrounded by various rifles, guns, and bows, looking vaguely indecisive about something.

"What are you doing?"

"Hm?" He looks up at me. "Oh, hi. I'm trying to find out which of my weapons I can transfer to another armory instead of my personal one to make room for yours."

"You don't use your crossbow all that often," I suggest, pointing at the mentioned weapon. "I'd move that."

He considers this for a moment before nodding, grabbing an armful of weapons, and leaving the room.

I skirt around the almost-literal minefield, entering the master bathroom and watch Dummy, You, and Butterfingers dash around with various toiletries before entering the small walk-in closet and beginning to add this newest box of clothes to the ones I had already added to my side of the closet.

"Taylor!" Clint calls from the bedroom. "C'mere!"

I finish hanging up a dress and move back into the bedroom, wiping imaginary dust off my hands. "What's up?"

"Catch," he deadpans. I blink and start to ask my boyfriend what he's talking about, but I cut myself off as a dark object flies towards my head, catching it only inches away from my head.

I scowl as I recognize one of my own Sig Sauer P226 pistols. "Why did my gun just get thrown at my head?"

"Sorry." I look over at Darcy, who doesn't sound all too apologetic. "But we brought your weapons up," she motions towards the three cardboard boxes by her feet and Clint's, "and we need to have a chat about the seventeen guns and various weapons stashed around my apartment."

"Seventeen?" I frown in thought as I crouch in front of one of the boxes. "Could've sworn I had more."

I ignore my ex-roommate, who was now gaping at me in shock, in favor of unpacking one of the cardboard boxes that she and Clint had brought up.

I begin to sort through each and every gun, knife, bow, arrow, and bazooka (what was that even doing in there?), mentally identifying each one and noting which ones I should clean, which ones I should put in the public armory versus the private one Clint and I now shared, and which ones I should really just throw away because they were eight-year-old guns and practically rusted through.

About an hour later, my weapons are all sorted and secure in the small armory across the hall from the master bedroom, behind a special panel of wall that could only be opened with a code and security key.

I re-emerge into the living room, only to find my dad lying on his back, messing with something under the bookcase just to the left of the hallway that led off the living room and kitchen and to the master bedroom, bathroom, and forked left to lead to a small office/storage room.

"What are you doing?" I ask curiously, peering down at his AC/DC t-shirt.

Dad freezes for a moment, as if he got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. "Um…hiding StarkPads randomly around the apartment so you can grab one whenever an idea should occur to you."

"Oh," I hum after a moment, moving to climb the shelves of the bookcase, hopping up onto one of four rafters that stretched the width of the living room. That was another good thing about Clint's floor – literally all the furniture and even the structure itself was reinforced to bear over 300 pounds of weight, and there were multiple sniper nests and other high places in every room. "I'd always wondered how you did that."

"I'll tell you on my deathbed, and not a moment before," Dad announces resolutely, sliding back from the book and looking up at me. "Are you settled in?"

"I think so," I reply, stretching out along the rafter like a cat. "My weapons are sorted, my clothes are nearly packed, and Darcy's not pissed because I kept weapons caches in her apartment. Not pissed anymore, anyways."

"I'm not going to ask," Dad decides after a moment. "Jarvis knows you're here, of course. I can't think of any other database updates, but I'm sure you could find them should they occur."

"Of course."

He nods and stands, dusting his hands off. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a whiny Board member to go deal with and Agent's gonna chop my head off if I'm late."

"No," I deny. "He wouldn't do that."

"Aw, thanks."

"He'd just Taser you," I continue cheerfully, listening to my dad groan under his breath as he heads for the elevator.

"Thanks for that," he calls as the elevator slides shut.

"No problem," I tell the now-empty room, silent save for the low hum of the fridge.

"You know, talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity."

I startle suddenly, almost falling off the rafter as I turn around to face the speaker – Clint. I swear at him for a good ten seconds before finishing with "Well, you would know a lot about insanity."

He just laughs before settling onto the rafter. "So how do you like the place?"

"I helped design the place," I remind him. "But it's really nice. The sniper perches are spectacular. Five stars. Would use again."

"I'm glad," he deadpans. "So, hey, I have a copy of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and some popcorn, are you clear for the afternoon?"

"I can be," I grin. "Perks of being the boss."

"Well then, I'll get the popcorn," he decides, and I nod before we both shimmy our way off the rafter, Clint heading to the kitchen while I set up the movie.

We proceed to spend the next two hours watching good guys fight bad guys and secret agencies square off against one another, all while debating whether or not Willian Brandt looks like Clint (I say he does – spitting image. Clint disagrees, but that could be because William Brandt is really hot and I've said as much.)

Eventually, as the end credits roll, I end up dozing on my boyfriend's shoulder. He just wraps an arm around my waist and presses his cheek into my hair. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," I mumble sleepily into his t-shirt.

"Guess what?" he asks.

"What," I reply slowly, in a I-am-tired-so-this-had-better-be-worth-it tone.

"Welcome home."

Worth it, I mentally remark as I fall asleep with a small smile on my face.

Definitely worth it.