Authors Note: Hugs to all you wonderful people, I had an awful day at work so this helps...ALOT!
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The car ride to Nick's house was over much quicker than Clint expected. Unbuckling his seat belt the teen slid out of the car and turned to the director with a raised eyebrow. They were parked in front of a nice sized bungalow, with a surprisingly well maintained garden. Barton couldn't imagine the older man as a gardener so either Fury had a secret obsession that no one knew about or someone had been paid to keep the garden in excellent condition. He could see a patio set nestled snugly in the bright green foliage in the back garden. Turning to the taller man with an incredulous expression plastered across his young face, this had to be a joke. There was no way this is where the Director of SHIELD lived. This was, well, normal.
Nick laughed at the expression on the boy's face, knowing the kid wouldn't believe he stayed in a nice normal, neighbourhood. "Not what you expected?" he asked, gesturing toward the house. The director noticed the teen being awfully quiet since leaving the base. He understood Barton's worry, the heartache of losing the person closest to you was something Nick himself had lived through. It was no wonder the teen was desperate to rebuild a solid fortress around his emotions; the fear that something might happen to Phil was the kid's worst nightmare. It didn't take someone trained in the art of reading people to know that Clint's inability to sit still, or the way he would shove his hands deep inside his pockets, gripping the small silver hawk Fury was certain the young archer never went without, was the only thing keeping the boy from falling apart at the seams. Barton never let himself relax until the agent returned safe and sound; home.
Clint shook his head, a dumbfounded expression on his face as he followed Fury to the front door. He was still waiting for the older man to laugh and tell him he was joking. Barton had often wondered what kind of house the director of SHIELD would live in, for some reason he always pictured Bruce Wayne's mansion, with a bat cave hidden underneath. How wrong was he?
Pushing open the door and stepping inside the nicely decorated home, Clint wandered around aimlessly looking at the various pictures hanging on the walls. There were some with a very young looking Nick Fury and some army buddies, another one where he was accepting an award. He continued his exploration, running his hand across the 'L' shaped couch, while taking in the large television, small coffee table and a couple of large book cases in the corner of the room. Maybe there was a secret room behind them?
"Make yourself comfortable Clint." The one eyed man nodded to the boy before walking through to his bedroom to change, closing the door behind him.
Barton's eyes widened when something caught his eye in the next room. It looked like an old sniper rifle, and Clint wondered if it was the one Nick used when he was in the army. He'd been told many stories from Coulson about Nick being a sniper, one of the best. The weapon was displayed on the wall for all to see, and the teenager felt his hands itching to hold it.
"It's a Barrett M98 sniper rifle. Saved a lot of people with that weapon, took a lot of lives with it too." There was a hint of sadness in the director's tone as he spoke, something that Clint rarely heard from the older man. Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, the teen squeezed Nick's arm in a gesture of comfort.
"Do you have any other weapons?" the teenager asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
Fury nodded, heading down the hall to a door at the end. What immediately struck Barton was the sophisticated key pad on the wall outside the door; he found it amusing that Nick never even attempted to hide the code he typed in. It made Clint feel happy that he was trusted by the older man. Once the light flashed green, the door unlocked and the director pushed the door open. "Watch your step," Nick told him. They walked down the staircase which took them into a large room, as soon as they reached the bottom step all the lights flickered on and Clint stood frozen at the bottom, his jaw hanging open in awe. The room was massive, probably the size of the house above them. There were computer screens set up against the left wall, which reminded the teen of the control room at SHIELD; just on a smaller scale. The wall in front of them had various antique looking weapons; some Clint didn't recognise, nevertheless he followed the director over to it. Watching as Fury typed into another keypad, there was a clicking sound and the wall swung open revealing a small armoury of weapons, ones that Barton was very familiar with.
"Awesome!" exclaimed the teen. He lifted a few of the guns, feeling the difference in weight, how terrifyingly comfortable it felt to hold the deadly weapons. Phil would have a fit if he saw him, the agent was trying to let his boy just be a teenager for a little while yet, secretly hoping that Clint wouldn't want or need to use a gun for a few years at least. The teen's use of his bow was different, Barton had been doing that since he was nine, and Phil wouldn't dream of taking that away from him.
"You want to fire at the targets?" Nick asked, pointing to the small target at the end of the room. Fury had many conversations with Phil about the father's reluctance to let the kid handle weapons, he shouldn't be encouraging the kid; Coulson would have his head if he found out.
Clint frowned, feeling conflicted. On one hand he understood why Phil wouldn't be happy about it, and he never wanted to disappoint the older man. On the other, he was dying to try it out. His excitement was building up inside him until he was sure he was going to burst. "Phil doesn't want me using guns just yet. Says he'd rather I wait a couple of years." He shrugged trying to show he wasn't bothered, yet his eyes showed his internal conflict.
Nick gave him a sly smirk. "Well, Phil isn't here. It's just you and me, Clint. Show me what you got kid."
Barton stared at him for a long moment, his eyes searching the director's for any sign of deception. Finding none, his grip closed around the handle of the gun, giving Nick a nod of thanks when he passed him a clip of ammo. He loaded the clip easily, having seen it done numerous times by Phil and other agents. Then he walked to stand in front of the target. Bringing the gun up, he took aim, exhaled and fired. The bullet hit outside the bull's eye. Nick was impressed but seeing the steely expression on the kid's face made him realise where most people would have been happy to hit the target, Barton certainly wasn't. He was used to hitting the target perfectly, anything less was considered a failure.
Fury stood back with his arms folded across his chest, watching carefully as the teen repositioned his stance, aimed at the target and fired again. This time the teen hit the red circle, though not the centre. Clint fired another three times, satisfied that after the second shot he'd managed to hit the centre. Then he had absolutely no trouble hitting the target consistently, time and time again. The director watched with a grin, his assumptions about the boy's proficiency with any weapon had now been confirmed. Taking two steps to Clint's side, he rested his hand on the kid's shoulder and squeezed.
"Good job, kid." Nick commented.
"Thanks." Clint was practically beaming with pride. Placing the gun back in the armoury, he stepped back as Fury closed the hidden door. They were heading back to the stairs when Clint stared at the large square mat in the centre of the floor. There was space in the middle for what he assumed was a punch bag, a bracket also hung from the ceiling. Barton's lips curved upward at Nick when he though back to his first few training sessions at SHIELD, Agent Sumners telling him he could probably fight against the director one day.
The one eyed man could see the wheels turning in the teen's head. He chuckled to himself, somehow knowing exactly what the kid was thinking. "You want to fight me Clint?"
Barton's eyes widened in shock, how the hell did the man know what he was thinking? He straightened, smirking playfully. "I need some food first. Can't fight on an empty stomach."
Nick laughed, throwing his arm around the teen, before heading upstairs to do just that.
Pulling open the large double sided fridge, Fury's eye narrowed at the lack of contents and tried to come up with something edible for the two of them to eat. It wasn't like he was planning to have a kid staying over or he might have planned ahead and gotten some food. Closing the fridge door he turned to the teen.
"You want a pizza?" he asked, already knowing it was Clint's favourite food.
"Uh, yeah." Clint answered like that was the stupidest thing he could have asked him.
Nick chuckled, grabbing his cell and called his favourite pizza place. He ordered two pizzas, his favourite, a spicy chicken supreme, and the teen's favourite, which was a concoction of different meats, chicken, ham, spicy beef, mushroom and green pepper with extra cheese. When he hung up Fury noticed Clint had ventured back into the living room and was looking at another picture, his gaze locked on to a particular shot of Nick Fury standing with his arm around a very young, familiar looking man with kind brown eyes. Glancing over his shoulder at the director, the teen arched an eyebrow in question.
"Is that...?" he trailed off, still disbelieving the proof right in front of him.
Nick nodded. "Yeah that's Phil. He'd recently joined SHIELD, was just a few months away from becoming a full field agent."
Clint couldn't believe how young Phil looked in the picture. He couldn't have been any older than twenty; his skinny frame, no suit and bright grin was a strange sight to see. "How old was he there?"
"About to turn twenty one." Fury smirked to himself when he thought back on that day. Coulson was one hell of a shot, and Nick had just made himself a rich man after challenging some of the recruits to beat his new sniper's accuracy on the firing range. None of them had. The other recruits' jaws dropped at the skills the younger agent had shown. SHIELD had a standard recruiting age of twenty one, so Phil was technically younger than all of them. Nick was sure that Barton would be able to put some of Phil's high scores to shame, and that was saying something.
"Really?" Barton asked surprised. Carefully lifting the picture down, he stared at his guardian with a frown. Phil looked so happy, a mischievous smirk plastered on his face, he'd obviously just done something he shouldn't have. It was the same look he saw from the older man on a daily basis, especially when they were goofing around and pranking one another, which happened quite frequently. Phil could be a sneaky old man when he wanted to be. Clint felt a surge of happiness flow through him when he thought about the older man, his dad.
"Come on then. You've still to show me what you're made of," he challenged the youngster, pleased to see a determined expression take over the youth's features.
"Just you wait till I've had my pizza Nick. Then you're going down." Clint smirked playfully, knowing he'd have to pull out all the stops to get one up on the director of SHIELD. He wasn't going to go down easy, although Barton would have fun trying.
They were interrupted with a knock at the door. Dinner was finally here.