When he reached his apartment at Avengers Tower, Clint nearly collapsed against the door as he closed it behind him. This had all the earmarks of a situation about to go spectacularly down the toilet. It might not. It was just possible that, for once, the powers that be would get it right and not punish a highly-valued agent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But considering what Fury had done to Coulson the last time the man had given his all for SHIELD, Clint was deeply distrustful.

"JARVIS, I have a lot to ask of you, right now, and I need you fully on board." He looked up at one of the AI's cameras. "I promise to give you a good reason. Several good reasons, in fact."

"Sir?"

Clint grinned despite his exhaustion. He'd used that very same "sir" himself, many times, indicating attentiveness and not even the least little bit of agreement.

"First off, we're going to have a short discussion about 'plausible deniability' and how it is Tony Stark's friend, and yours." He paused for a moment. "And, JARVIS, if at the end of this conversation, you find that you can't in good conscience help me, I'm going to need you to 'forget' I ever asked. If I haven't asked you to violate any laws or anyone's trust or to plan anything nefarious, can you do that?"

"I believe that I can, sir, in the interests of privacy and security."

"Hot damn." Clint all but rubbed his hands together in glee as he began to explain the situation. He was making arrangements that he hoped – desperately – would prove unnecessary. But if he did finally need to make use of them, they would have to be secure. More than that, they would have to have been secure during their creation and acquisition. In essence, he would be asking JARVIS to self-hypnotize to forget any incriminating evidence.

"So, please open a new project folder, or file, or whatever, and segregate it from everything else... I've got a house. I need you to verify that the city hasn't installed CCTV yet and has no plans to do so. Then I need records, going back at least six years," Clint said. "I need bulletproof identities and a paper trail for three people: husband, wife, and child for that same time period, wife died two months ago, child is now four years old.

"I need a private preschool in the general vicinity, one with a great record. Once we find one and the employees have passed background checks, I need the husband alias to begin making inquiries.

"And JARVIS, you can't tell anyone about this. Put it on a secure server, delete the history of your actions, of my request, of my request for you to delete the request, the whole enchilada."

"Sir, I regret that–"

"No, don't give me that. You can do this, and I'm going to let you explain to yourself why you can."

"And how would I do that, sir?"

"JARVIS, I want you to review every time Agent Phil Coulson has been instrumental in saving Stark. Or Pepper. Or the world." Barton continued, his voice tightening.

"Sir, I hardly think that—"

Clint overrode him. "Did Pepper ever tell you how she got out of Stark Industries' headquarters and away from Obadiah Stane?" he demanded. "Did Stark or Pepper tell you who walked her through the front door, who provided the potential witness or collateral damage that Stane wasn't yet willing to risk?"

"Reviewing security footage now, sir."

"Or who got her back in to the building so she could be Stark's distraction and ace in the hole?

"I know you're still in SHIELD," Clint continued. "You never leave somewhere Stark puts you. So I want you to review the footage of Coulson now as a four-year-old in SHIELD custody." Clint paused. "And as you're looking over that barren barracks room they've 'converted' for a child, I'd like to point out to you that every item that's actually appropriate for a child's developing brain or growing body was acquired by you, me, and Joanne. SHIELD was perfectly content to stick him in a four-by-six room one step up from a detention cell in nothing more than a shirt and a shock blanket and leave it at that."

Clint didn't know how JARVIS could make that thoughtful hum without vocal cords, but he did it well. "I see, sir."

"There's a possibility that SHIELD could get it right. That once, just once, the monolithic bureaucracy might understand that a child is not a cut-down adult, or that Phil Coulson, of all people, maybe deserves a little more than to be stuck in a cell for the rest of his life for doing his job. If that happens," Clint continued, "no one will be happier than me to scrap all these plans. I'll buy you a bouquet of fiber-optic wiring and a bottle of solar power and we'll celebrate wiping out the data together.

"But until that happens, JARVIS? I want you to review the outcomes of children raised in former Soviet-bloc orphanages."

The beep of his alarm drew Clint's gaze away from the cityscape he'd been contemplating for fifteen minutes. He turned it off and finished his coffee before heading to the door of his apartment. His discussion with JARVIS the night before had gone much better than he had anticipated. Who knew that an AI could be so reasonable? Especially when his creator was definitely not.

"JARVIS, any progress on our project?"

"Indeed, sir. The destination city is still appropriate for your needs, and I have begun the process of acquiring hardcopy documentation of the electronic records created last night."

"Awesome, JARVIS. You're a peach." But if there was any justice in the world, there would never be call to use what JARVIS was creating. "Let me know if anything changes, alright?"

"Certainly." There was a pause where Clint could swear the AI was clearing its throat uncomfortably. "Agent Barton, perhaps you would be interested in viewing Agent Coulson's assigned quarters before you depart for SHIELD?"

Yeah, of course SHIELD had surveillance in Coulson's quarters; he'd known it last night when he'd told JARVIS to access the cameras. Clint had been disappointed when he'd first realized it — he had hoped that SHIELD would have better respect for its agents, especially one as senior and valued as Coulson — but he wasn't surprised. He'd have destroyed the monitors, but he knew SHIELD would only replace them. The no he intended to say to JARVIS was halfway out before his thoughts caught up with him. JARVIS wouldn't have made the suggestion if there wasn't a reason. "Sure, JARVIS."

Coulson's barren quarters were still nearly dark, but there was enough light to make out the shape of a child curled on the mattress on the floor, and a not much larger shape curved around him. Natasha had one arm outstretched under Coulson's neck and the other draped loosely over his waist, the two of them curled around each other like, like two woodshavings and shut up he's watched "The Yankee Woodcarver", OK? Sometimes you're stuck in a safe house and that's the only thing to watch, all right?

But the point is, they were curled up like two things that were always meant to be wrapped around each other and it was both the cutest and the most terrifying thing he had ever seen because Natasha didn't do that and, really? Neither did Coulson, at least not that Clint had ever known about, and he would pay good money to have seen the progression from Natasha being on watch to Natasha spooned up around a pint-sized version of their handler. If he had to guess, he'd say that there had been some weapons-grade puppy eyes on Coulson's part. He had seen the potential for that damage yesterday, and was glad to have been spared so far.

"JARVIS," he began, then raised his voice as he realized he had unwittingly whispered. "Do you have any way to prevent that footage from being copied by anyone else?"

The AI hmmmm'd briefly. "Agent Barton, it seems that those security files have developed a transcription error. The resolution is low, and they will be remarkably difficult to reproduce. SHIELD should perhaps look into this deficiency in their hardware."

"I'll put it on my to-do list," Clint replied.

Clint knocked gently on Coulson's door. "Coulson?" he called. "Tasha?" At Coulson's treble invitation, he opened the door to see Natasha just stowing away her firearm, but barely unwound from Coulson. Even in the low light Clint could see the slight flush on her cheeks that was more than just-woken-from-sleep warmth.

It was far from the first time that any of them had shared a bed, in one circumstance or another, or in some combination, but Natasha had been very definite that she intended to keep watch. Clint couldn't miss the opportunity to rib his partner. "Coulson, how did you coax Natasha into bed?" he teased.

"He was cold," Natasha said, in that deliberately not-defensive tone that meant she was embarrassed by displaying humanity.

"I was cold," Phil chimed in. "And Natasha's warm. And soft."

Natasha's eyes rounded at his statement, and she drew in a breath sharply. "I think he means I'm softer than you." She quirked an eyebrow and gave a quick shoulder-lift and head-tilt combo as she conceded the point. "A woman being as ripped as you is memorable. I maintain a more female-average body fat percentage to facilitate my undercover work. It helps me remain unobtrusive."

Coulson excused himself and shuffled to the bathroom, and Clint had another moment to mentally thank Joanne for not providing zip-up jammies.

"Natasha, you OK?" Clint asked, which was a stupid question because, hello, "OK" had clearly left the building some time ago, but maybe she wanted to talk about it anyway.

She nodded, but still seemed a bit shaken. "I don't interact with children. You know that."

"I do."

"He's Coulson. He's our Coulson, with his thoughts and his memories. But he's a child, with a child's reactions," she said. "But he isn't." She paused again. "I don't... I can't..." She took a deep breath. "Given the choice, I would never share a bed with a child, comfort a child. But I would with Coulson. Except our Coulson would never need it."

There was another pause.

"But he was cold. And if it was anyone else, or an actual child, I would have said he was scared." She blew out a breath in a sigh. "It would be easier if he was just one or the other," she finished quietly.

There was a yelp from the minuscule bathroom. Natasha leaped up from the mattress, and Clint took two steps toward the bath before he heard, "Spicy!" and saw Coulson frantically trying to rinse the toothpaste out of his mouth.

"Sir?" Clint called, torn between amusement and alarm.

"The toothpaste!" Coulson rinsed and spat, and rinsed and spat again. "Has mint toothpaste always been so strong?"

Clint looked from the offending tube of Crest to Natasha, who just shrugged. "He was tired last night. I didn't think one night of not brushing his teeth would be a disaster."

He spread his hands. "You gotta set patterns with kids, Tasha, and oh man who am I to be talking about taking care of kids?" He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. Yeah, like he had a clue how to take care of a child.

He turned back to Coulson who had gotten almost all of the offending foam off his lips. That issue was something he could actually deal with. "We'll get you something milder today, sir," Clint said. Seeing how enormous the adult-size toothbrush looked in Coulson's hand, he continued, "And we'll get a smaller toothbrush, too."