First, I want to give a heads up about some disgusting graphic imagery here involving a teenager's disgusting eating habits, although it doesn't need a trigger warning for eating disorders (I don't think, at least). Jasmine is becoming a bit of a germaphobe (she's totally channeling me) and that's really what her problem is. Also, teenagers don't wash their hands like, ever. Second, I want to apologize for how terribly late this is (I said something about early March, didn't I? And now it's mid-June). I was dissatisfied with the end of this chapter and couldn't get it written for the life of me, and in the end decided to just cut it out, which led us to ending yet another chapter as Jasmine goes to bed. The rest of this, I am actually very satisfied with, and I hope you enjoy it. Agent 6 is horrible, but I wanted to portray him properly. Hopefully, if I do it right, we'll have Iron Man in the two chapters (That'll be chapter 7). It would be earlier but I have some more character development planned that is important for later (Civil War later, but I won't get into that) and it deserves its own chapter. As a treat for waiting so long, this is the longest chapter so far, and next chapter is a little shorter so it should be out a little sooner. Lots of love, ~Auna.
Previously:
"The youngest person in my compound, who doesn't even count as an Agent, liberated an alligator and uncovered an animal trafficking ring with nothing more than a broken, plastic telescope from McDonalds." Deadpans Mr. Fury.
"I count!" I protest. Mr. Clint starts laughing, and even Mr. Cou Cou and Agent Hill are pressing their lips together. Mr. Fury wipes a hand over his face.
"Fine. You can count. In any case, Agent Reese is done, we'll pay him his retirement bonus and get him out of here a week early." Mr. Fury turns to Mr. Clint. "The new Agent will be up to your room in an hour, make sure you feed the little helion lunch."
"Yes, sir." Mr. Clint gives me a few of the grocery bags and we make our way back slowly. Every few feet, he shakes his head.
"An alligator?!"
"It was stuck!"
"Do you think you'll be here for my birthday?" I ask Mr. Clint as we eat lunch (sandwiches made with ham and mustard).
"I dunno. Nat and I have pretty sporadic mission assignments, although sometimes we go out together. When is your birthday?"
"Fury has no idea." I take a big bite of my sandwich.
"So?" Mr. Clint raises an eyebrow. I chew my sandwich vigorously and swallow before responding. The big bite hurts my throat for a moment and I swallow again to move it down faster.
"July 31st." I lick some of the mustard dripping down my wrist and decide that ham and mustard sandwiches aren't as bad as I thought they would be. Mr. Clint is already done with his sandwich and he leans back in his chair, hands behind his head.
"Oh, that was good." He says as he sits back up.
"The stretch or the sandwich?" I tilt my head at him.
"Both." He ruffles my hair as he stands up to take his plate to the sink. I glance at the clock and note it's only one thirty. I have plenty of time to investigate whatever it was I stole from Fury before Miss Natalia gets home, but I'm going to have to get some time alone from Mr. Clint. "I'm gonna use the bathroom kiddo, don't do anything I wouldn't do." He gives me a look and walks towards the bathroom door. "You know, don't do anything I would do either- or, you know- whatever." He waves a hand in my direction and then closes the door. I blink.
Well, that was easy. I didn't even have to do any scheming.
I push my plate closer to the middle of the table and reach into my boot for the stolen object. It's black, and round and smooth with a single flat button in one face of it. I press the button, and a metal piece pops out of one end. I try to remove it all the way, but it won't budge. As I inspect it, noting the ridges on one side, I realize what it is: a key. And if I'm right, it's a car key.
A knock on the apartment door breaks me out of my musing before I can decide to go down to the garage and find which car is Fury's (Which is sure to have lots of interesting stuff in it, and could be fun to drive). I drop the key into my boot and scurry over to the door. The peep hole is too tall for me, and the hole in the doorknob is covered by whatever alarm contraption they still have attached to the door, so I stand behind the door as I open it. In theory, it isn't anyone dangerous, but I can never be sure.
A tall, skinny teenager comes in, a grey beanie on his scraggly blond hair and pimples covering his face. Not dangerous, but definitely gross. I forgot Mr. Fury said the new Agent would be coming up, although I'm not entirely sure this thing counts...
"'Sup dudette." He burps. Literally, the words come out as he's burping.
"Excuse me?" I frown, but he pushes past me into the room. I rub my shoulder where he brushed me, trying to remove any residues that might give me a disease. I doubt he washes his hands well, or often.
"Ur 'scused." He walks over to the couch, scratching his butt (His uniform pants are somehow too big and falling down, and his underwear have images of a red and gold man on them) with one hand and pulling a bag of crisps out of his side bag at the same time. He opens the bag with one hand, turns and flops onto the couch, then puts a crisp into his mouth with the same hand he just touched his butt with. He licks the fake powdery cheese off his butt-fingers, and I stare in absolute disgust in front of the open door.
The possible security breach breaks me from my dumbfoundedness approximately ten crisps later, and I push the door shut. He burps again, and I lean backwards, my nose wrinkling as I feel something in my stomach give a twist.
"Coke." He says loudly, reaching into the bag. In an effort to be polite, I try to force the absolutely disgusted look off my face. I'm not sure how successful I am, since he isn't looking at me.
"Pardon?" I push myself into the door and start inching slightly sideways in the direction of the bathroom and Mr. Clint.
"Coke. From the fridge. Bring me one." He closes his eyes and wiggles as though he's getting more comfortable. When he doesn't immediately have his coke, he snaps his fingers but doesn't open his eyes. "Now!"
I jerk, swallow, and move as close to the wall as possible as I make for the kitchen. I refuse to turn my back on the monster thing now occupying the couch, and open the fridge backwards, straining my elbow. I reach blindly into the fridge as he picks up another crisp and drops it into his mouth from two feet above his face. My hand can't find the cokes, and I finally peel my eyes away from the disgusting sight to glance in the fridge-there. The bottom of the door.
I snatch a coke up and then return the way I came. I stop when I'm parallel to the boy in the room and then inch across the floor. When I can smell him, I step back and take a deep breath. Then I dart forward, drop the coke onto his chest, and scurry backwards. When I hit the wall, I gasp for breath.
"Good job little dudette." He says as he pushes his hair and the edge of his hat out of his eyes. Then he burps again.
Mr. Clint comes out of the bathroom as the teenager opens the can and drips some coke on both his face, chest and the couch. He makes a very stupid expression with his tongue as he goes cross-eyed trying to catch the falling soda on his tongue. He just ends up pouring more onto himself.
"Heh, whoops." He gives a little laugh. Mr. Clint freezes, and I fight to keep the look of horror off my face. I am expecting a low success rate there. The boy starts sucking up the spilled soda from the couch, and then wipes his hand on his face, then wipes the hand on the couch. He rolls onto his side, scratches his butt again, farts while doing so, before reaching into the bag with the same hand. He grabs a crisp and brings it up to his mouth, wide open, and I close my eyes and cover my mouth.
Don't gag, don't gag, don't gag! Just don't think about it, don't think about all the germs he's literally putting right into his mouth, don't think- I push my hand to my stomach as if that will help the gag reflex and keep me from throwing up all over the floor.
I can hear the boy licking his fingers, and I have to start singing a song in my head to block out the sound.
"What the hell is going on here?!" Mr. Clint demands. I open my eyes and lower the hand on my mouth, but make sure to angle myself away from the boy so I can't see him.
"I think he might be the new Agent, but he's disgusting."
"Yeah, he is." Mr. Clint steps up next to me so I can't see the boy, and then addresses him. "Kid, you shouldn't, umm, wipe food on the couch. Or lick your fingers. Or like-" He pauses, and I can feel his hand resting gently on my shoulder tense up. "Where did you get that coke?"
"The little dudette got it for me." He says easily, although I can tell his mouth is full of food.
"From the fridge? You're drinking one of Nat's cokes? One of her after mission, anyone who drinks it will be murdered cokes?!" Mr. Clint's voice is very shrill, but I refuse to turn my head to check on him in case I see the boy licking his fingers. Rather, I press it into his side, the soft flannel he put on before lunch blocking out the light, and his hand moves to rest on my hair.
"Sure man. What's up with that though? Ya sure she's not just some uptight chick who needs to get laid?" I wonder what 'get laid' means before adding it to the list of things to ask Mr. Clint when I'm older, like what flashing is.
"I- you get to deal with her, when she gets back." Mr. Clint turns to face me, but he points a menacing finger at the kid. "And no more of Nat's coke."
"Sure dude. Hey, what's ur name, man?"
"Barton." Mr. Clint says shortly as he picks me up. I hide my face between my arms and his neck.
"Chill bruh. I'm Ever Jones. But you can call me E.V.." There's a loud crunch as he chews on another crisp with his mouth open. Mr. Clint moves into my room, and I swallow against the burning nausea in my stomach.
"I won't." Mr. Clint slams the door to my room and tries to lock it. When he finds the lock is gone, courtesy of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents earlier, he sets me on the bed and then drags the chair in front of the door. He flops down into it and closes his eyes, and we spend the next five minutes in silence. "What the hell were they thinking?" He rubs his hands over his face and sits up. "A teenager?! Some sort of Hippie, Californian…" He's muttering to himself angrily.
"Mr. Clint?" I twist the edge of my skirt around my fingers and tug until I can feel the threads biting into my skin before I let go and do it all over again.
"He didn't hurt you, did he J?" Mr. Clint looks over at me, his expression sharp with the threat of anger. I shake my head quickly.
"No, I didn't let him touch me. I even made sure to hold my breath when I went near him in case he had some sort of disease."
"Good girl." He closes his eyes again, satisfied. "When Natasha gets back I'll have her force him into the shower-he won't listen to me but maybe I could get him to listen to a former Soviet Assassin."
"Maybe." I reply quietly. The guy outside my room acting like a growth on our couch doesn't seem much like one to listen to anyone, let alone someone he thinks is an 'uptight chick who needs to get laid,' so I'm skeptical, but we sit in silence. I twist the edge of my skirt around my fingers three more times before succumbing to the urge to ask my question. "Was she really a Russian Assassin?"
Mr. Clint huffs. "Yeah, you'll have to ask her about it. I recommend doing it when she goes in to finally interrogate you about your past: since at least half the stuff in your file is fake she'll definitely want to get the story from you."
"Okay." We hide in the bedroom for three hours. I read a book about dinosaurs and Mr. Clint takes a nap.
He startles awake when the door to the apartment bangs open, and he moves the chair faster than I would have thought possible. I hover behind him in the doorway, and have to force my head between his leg and his hanging arm. Mr. Clint gently pets my hair and I feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Standing in the apartment doorway, Miss Natalia is staring in growing horror at Agent 6, who has fallen asleep on the couch in a weird position. I look away before it burns into my brain. They don't make soap for things like that.
"Hey Nat, how was the mission?" Mr. Clint asks, wayyyy too casually. Miss Natalia snaps out of it, shaking her head slightly and closing the door behind her with a kick.
"A fuuuuuh-" She eyes me and then straightens slightly, "giant, excuse me I had something stuck in my throat. A giant disaster."
"Oh yeah? Well, guess what happened while you were out there dealing with your giant disaster?" Mr. Clint crosses the room to sit casually in one of the kitchen chairs. I stay in the doorway to my room. I can't risk getting too close to Agent 6.
"What?" She asks apprehensively. Mr. Clint looks very, very pleased with himself, and not wary enough of Agent 6. .
"Guess." He leans back and tucks his hands behind his head, a smug smile on his face. Miss Natalia crosses her arms and glares at him.
"Jasmine snuck an alligator into command and it tried to bite Fury's leg off?" I open my mouth to protest that Bessie didn't get anywhere near Fury, but Mr. Clint is already slamming himself forwards in outrage. I cross my arms and frown indignantly.
"How the hell did you know that?!"
"I'm a spy, Clint, it's what I do. But if you really must know, Fury told me during debrief. Wants me to keep an eye on her myself. He thinks she's a spy." Miss Natalia rolls her eyes and marches over to the fridge, swinging the door open. She leans down to get a coke, or so I assume, and then freezes. "What. The hell."
"Umm, yeah the kid helped himself." Mr. Clint looks a little pale.
"I am going to murder that ingrate." Miss Natalia looks like she might be the reason Mr. Clint is pale.
"After you make him shower. He ate chips with a fart hand." The overly casual face is back.
"What?" Miss Natalia snaps, her red hair hitting her in the face as she turns around to glare.
"And we're going to get a new couch." Mr. Clint leans back and closes his eyes again, arms folded behind his head. I face palm.
"Why?!" Miss Natalia sounds slightly more outraged than angry, which I suppose is progress.
"He licked it. Then wiped his chip fart hand on it." Mr. Clint sounds slightly more grossed out than smug, which I suppose is also progress.
"We are getting a new couch." Miss Natalia affirms as she reaches back into the fridge to get a coke.
"I think we should also get a new carpet." I say.
"What could he possibly have done to that?" Miss Natalia asks as she turns one of the kitchen chairs around to sit in it backwards.
"Breathe on it." I mutter under my breath with a frown.
"What was that?" She asks.
"He spilled coke on it." I reply as I edge along the wall to sit next to her. She glares at the sleeping Agent 6, and Mr. Clint peeks one eye open to stare at her. When she turns back around, he shuts it hurriedly.
"He got my coke on my couch and then fell asleep in my apartment?!".
"Uh Huh." I nod, making my eyes as big as possible as I slide into one of the chairs. She looks murderous, and reaches into her left sleeve with her right hand as she turns to him. Mr. Clint snatches whatever she grabbed without looking and tosses it upwards. When it thunks in the ceiling, I see it was a knife. I swallow hard and look down at my hands in my lap. Miss Natalia turns around to, I assume, glare at Mr. Clint, but whatever was going to happen next is interrupted by a knock at the door.
Agent 6's snores give a stutter but otherwise he remains asleep. Miss Natalia heads over to the door while Mr. Clint tries to go after her but catches his pants on the table corner and falls to the floor. I kneel on my chair and lean over the table to stare at him as she pulls the door open.
"Coulson." Mr. Clint, halfway off the floor with one hand on the table, and I turn to look at Miss Natalia's greeting.
"Mr. Cou Cou!" I smile and wave in greeting, sitting up. Mr. Clint pulls the table on top of him now that I'm not counterbalancing it, and they both crash to the floor. Agent 6 jerks to sitting on the couch, swivels his head twice, and then falls back asleep. We all watch Mr. Clint quietly as he struggles to stand.
"Coulson." He flicks his head around to fix his hear and then nods, panting. I look at Mr. Cou Cou.
He purses his lips and nods at Mr. Clint. "Barton."
I swivel to look at Mr. Clint again. "What brings you here?"
I swivel back to Mr. Cou Cou. He holds up a small, square box with a metal handle. "I brought this for Sophie." I swivel back to Mr. Clint, and Miss Natalia interrupts.
"Jasmine, quit doing that, you're making me dizzy." I look at her and furrow my eyebrows.
"I wasn't doing anything though?"
"The head swivel every time they said something. That. Don't do it." I nod and move to sit down in the chair.
"Yes ma'am."
"And don't call me ma'am!" She snaps before walking out and slamming the front door. Agent 6 startles so hard he falls off the couch and starts struggling in the blankets on the floor. The three of us watch him silently for a few moments.
"What happened to her?" Mr. Cou Cou asks without taking his eyes off the struggling Agent 6.
"He stole one of her cokes." Mr. Clint also continues staring at Agent 6.
"Yikes." Mr. Cou Cou gives a sharp inhale. "One of her after mission, anyone who drinks it will be murdered cokes?"
"Yeah." Mr. Clint sounds very sad. The half finished bag of crisps falls off the couch and covers Agent 6 in fake cheese powder. He jerks under the blankets.
"How exactly is he not dead yet?" Mr. Cou Cou raises an eyebrow. I'm not entirely sure if he means in general, or just from Miss Natalia.
"The knife is in the ceiling above the kitchen table."
"Ah." He nods. "There's progress though. She left after the first attempt."
"Definitely."
"Urgh! Let me out! I'll get you, just you wait! I'm a secret government Agent with skills you kidnappers couldn't dream of! When I get out, you're dead, you hear me! All of you, dead!" Agent 6 has started speaking to the blankets he's wrestling his way out of.
"So, umm, what's in the box?" Mr. Clint turns to look at Mr. Cou Cou finally.
"Ah, it's a leash for Sophie." I tilt my head, unsure I heard correctly.
"A leash?" Mr. Clint asks, much the same reaction as me. Mr. Cou Cou doesn't say anything, just nodding as he lifts the table up and places it back down where it was before. He sets the box down and presses a few buttons out of a row of ten on the top by the handle. The box pops open to reveal a bundle of black cords, straps and fabric. I'm surprised liquid nitrogen didn't come pouring out like some super spy movie tech was housed inside.
Mr. Cou Cou pulls the thing out and pushes the box to the side. He grabs one of the cords and pulls it out from the tangle to reveal it's a single long cord with a loop on the end. He then arranges the rest of the fabric and straps to reveal a harness sort of thing with the clips in the back underneath a backpack. I blink and stare at it in horror. The knife falls from the ceiling and lands perfectly in the middle of the mess of stuff, and I slowly turn to look at Mr. Clint.
"There's no way you're making me wear that."
Two hours later, Miss Natalia and Agent 6 are leading me down the hallways strapped into the modern straight jacket with a leash attachment. Mr. Clint follows behind with a disapproving frown.
He was reluctant at first, but not for the reasons I thought. No, he was hesitant because he thought I might contract some sort of disease from such proximity to Agent 6. I was reluctant because I didn't want to be strapped into something like this.
For an hour and a half, Mr. Clint, Mr. Cou Cou and even Agent 6 had chased me around the apartment and even some of the compound. They couldn't catch me, although I think Mr. Clint and M. Cou Cou weren't really trying since they saw what happened to Agent 6 (Who knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. kept their sink faucet hoses sooooo long?). I'm even more positive Mr. Clint wasn't trying to help much when I found a squirt gun behind the couch.
All the fun came to an end when I ran out of the room and almost squirted a returning Miss Natalia (Note to self: do not under any circumstances get her wet, ever; she'll respond like a baptized cat). So I went with a different approach and when Mr. Clint tried to pick me up, I went limp. It took them thirty minutes (although if Miss Natalia had helped them I'm sure it would have been done much faster) to get my lax body into the harness.
Now, I'm being forced to walk down the hallways. I debated collapsing on the floor and allowing myself to be dragged, but it doesn't seem like that's going to get anything productive done, so I allow them to think I'm being compliant. By Miss Natalia's smirk, I think she knows what I'm doing, but she seems more amused than angry so I let it go.
We make our way to Fury's office, and I decide by the time we pass the cafeteria that I'm bored.
I start counting the Agents that we pass, categorizing how many I see passing us versus coming towards us, how many are in uniform versus civilian clothes, how many women there are compared to men, how many of them are blond, and how many of them are wearing shoes (Six people aren't, which is more than I anticipated but less than enough to be suspicious).
We take the stairs instead of the elevator up to Fury's office, and I start breathing so hard it fogs up my glasses and I have to take them off to clean on my dress. When I do, I notice a tear in my tights, probably from my mission to rescue Bessie earlier. I stop and lean down to pick at it, but Agent 6 keeps walking, and I'm jerked so hard I fall over and almost hit my head on the metal edging of the concrete steps.
"Careful!" Mr. Clint hisses at Agent 6. Miss Natalia turns around as he picks me up and brushes my irritated palms with a calloused thumb. She glares at Agent 6, and walks along the leash between Mr. Clint and I, and Agent 6, for the rest of the walk.
Mr. Cou Cou pretends not to notice the incident, or the fact that Mr. Clint carries me like a little baby up the rest of the stairs, barely breaking a sweat.
"Aren't I heavy?" I ask at one point. Mr. Clint rolls his eyes and looks down at me.
"You weigh less than a baby hawk." I pout and cross my arms, and he smirks. Then Mr. Clint trips and almost throws me over the railing. I scream as he catches me and swirls us around, running up the stairs and making airplane noises.
He laughs, and when he tickles me a little I laugh too. "What was that! You almost dropped me!"
"I pretended to drop you." He grins and gives me a hug. "My kids like it." He whispers so Agent 6 can't hear. "I guess I just miss them a little bit." I swallow hard, and fight the tears watering my eyes. "I won't-"
"No, it's okay." I throw my arms around his neck. "I'll be your kid too." His warm hand rubs my back, and I sniffle all the way to Fury's office.
Of course, even Mr. Clint's love for me cannot spare me from the tribulations of Fury's wrath, so Agent 6 and I are stuck outside while the others go in. Agent 6 immediately sits down against the wall and falls asleep. I squirm over to the other side of the door, the extent of the leash, where I find a crack in the seal on the window. I grin to myself when I realize I can hear through it.
"I don't like him, he's nasty and he drank my coke." Miss Natalia is saying. Through the glass I can see her angrily cross her arms.
"Do you like anyone?" Mr. Fury asks. I can't see his face because Miss Natalia and Mr. Clint have both refused to sit down.
"Well-" She starts.
"Barton doesn't count, Romanoff. And neither does your little miniature." Fury sounds very, very done with everything.
"Then no." Miss Natalia is unapologetic, but she does sit down in one of the chairs. Mr. Clint follows, and I can see Fury now. The only downside is that now he can see me, and he does.
"Sophie. Quit eavesdropping. If you want to learn how to be a spy, ask Romanoff and Barton to teach you on their own time." He glares at me, and then presses a button under his desk and a soundproof solid screen slides up to cover the window from the inside. I pout and slide down to the floor against the wall.
The hallway is silent and abandoned because nearly no one else works on the same floor as Fury, and I get bored very quickly. I count my fingers ten times, to make one-hundred, and then try to count my fingers one thousand times but only manage to make it to 867, and by then I'm very, very bored and have nothing else to do. I glance over at the napping Agent 6 and decide he might have the right idea with taking a nap, so I flop over to the other side and lay down on the floor.
And then I realize that the leash shouldn't have let me that far away. I sit up, scared to look behind me and see whether or not Agent 6 is still holding onto it, but eventually I convince myself.
And, low and behold, the lazy teenager himself has let the leash handle fall limp in his hand. I smirk to myself, grab the leash handle in one hand, and make my way happily down the hall, humming a little tune. If I twirl it around as I skip, then nobody is there to know but me and the tune I'm whistling.
I'm not entirely sure what to do now that I've made my brave and dashing escape, so I wander the hallways for a little bit. The path away from Fury's office is a little complicated, and I get lost twice, but the amount of stairs I had to take makes the car key in my boot dig into my ankle, and I suddenly know what my plan is.
Finding the garage is surprisingly easy, since it's just about the only room with signs pointing towards it on the main floor. I briefly remember Mr. Clint saying something yesterday about most of the garages being underground unless they were for personal vehicles, so the garage the signs point to must be the one that has Fury's car in it.
I wonder what kind of car he drives? He's the kind of person that would get a black ferrari. Or not, since that would draw attention. Maybe he would get a mom van, since that would be inconspicuous?
It turns out that Fury probably just has a black SUV, because most of the cars in the garage are black SUV's, unless he drives one of the three absolutely dead looking subarus, or the Volvo in the back corner with a flat tyre. The garage has a separate room walled in with glass, and inside is a middle aged man covered in grease and the same brand of crisps Agent 6 was eating earlier. He's asleep and falling out of his chair, and I only kind of feel bad for him.
I push the button on the key that has an unlocked lock symbol, and one of the black SUV's clicks and its lights flash. I grin and run over to the driver's side door- only to discover that it's the passenger side. I blink heavily and stare through the car at the steering wheel and barely recall my Aunt Petunia mentioning once or twice that Americans were backwards people who drove on the wrong side of the road and called football "Soccer." I suppose it only makes sense that driving on the other side of the road leads to putting the driver's seat on the other side too.
"But why is it on the wrong side?!" I cry out, confused as to why Americans have to do things so backwards."Ugh!" I groan, stomping my foot.
"Sophie." Fury's voice behind me makes me turn around to find him standing at the end of the row between the cars. I glance towards the front and see that the cars are parked too closely to the wall for me to go in front of, and a glance under the car shows Miss Natalia's shoes on the other side. She bends down and raises an eyebrow at me. I huff and close the door, walking over to Mr. Fury and passing him both the key and the leash handle. "Mmhmm." He says, unimpressed. I pout as he nearly drags me past Mr. Clint, who is holding Agent 6, Miss Natalia and Mr. Cou Cou.
"Are you entirely sure that's necessary?" Miss Natalia asks as Fury opens a cabinet I hadn't noticed earlier and pulls out a pair of handcuffs that wouldn't fit around my wrist. He clips one half of it around the leash handle and then turns to walk towards Agent 6. I look at the cabinets on the wall; the one on the left is marked 'Munitions' and the one on the right is marked 'Supplies.' Through the crack of the open door I can see a bottle of spray paint. Fury walking too far away and causing a jerk ont he leash brings my attention back to him.
"Yes, Romanoff. We can't count on her getting confused because she's British to keep her from getting into anything she shouldn't." My eyes widen as he reaches for Agent 6's wrist.
"But I'll contract a disease by proximity!" I dig my heels into the ground and grab the leash, pulling with all my might in the other direction. My feet slide across the floor another two feet.
"Woah, dudette! Cool accent, r u british?" He asks dumbly as Fury handcuffs us together.
"Ugh!" I groan, tugging at my hair from the roots.
"Take her back to the apartment and wait for further instructions, Agent Jones."
I glare at Fury as Agent 6 starts to pull me out of the garage. The further he gets away, the more it looks like he's dragging me. Luckily, he's lazy and we take the elevator instead of the stairs. Doubly lucky, he's extra, extra lazy and takes the closer maintenance elevator, which has extra room and more clean air.
Agent 6 fell asleep again on the couch, and I'm still strapped into my harness, stuck with nothing to do on the floor next to him.
An hour ago, I gave up trying to reach the books on the bookshelf. My arms are five inches too short.
Forty five minutes ago, I got sick from staring at the ceiling fan and counting the revolutions.
Thirty minutes ago, I gave up singing at the top of my lungs in an effort to take a nap too.
Twenty minutes ago, that got boring so I tried to pull Agent 6 off the couch with just the leash. It didn't work.
Ten minutes ago, I had to go to the bathroom. Still do, actually, and it's getting worse. So I started trying to wake Agent 6 up. But nothing worked, so now I'm pouting on the floor.
I bet, if I could get out and use the bathroom, then go back and sit next to the harness until Agent 6 wakes up, they'll see I don't need to be tied down to any Agent and I can be good and just sit quietly. I nod to myself, and then reach my left hand around and behind my back in an effort to get to the buckle. I can tap it, but can't reach the sides to open it. I switch hands, and that still doesn't work.
I try reaching over my shoulders with each hand, then both, and then one hand over and one hand under, and nothing is working. Finally, with my left hand over my shoulder and my right hand pushing the backpack and the straps up, my left hand grabs the big buckle. I pull it up more and hold on tight, then bring both hands over my shoulders and tuck my chin into my chest.
With five or so minutes of struggling, and almost falling on my face twice, I get the buckle undone and slip out of the harness. I set it quietly to the floor and rush to the bathroom.
When I come back out, I notice that the door to the apartment, with the big fancy alarm system so I can't sneak out (meaning it was obsolete to keep me on the harness inside the apartment anyways) has been left cracked just barely. I force myself to walk back over to the couch and sit down right on top of the harness, but it's like it's calling to me. Sweet, sweet freedom. I close my eyes to block out the temptation, but when I open them I'm standing in the hallway. I swear, I didn't mean to. It just happened. I really was just sitting on the floor. No idea how I got out.
Oh well, I might as well use the opportunity now that it's presented itself…
A twenty minute skip through the halls, avoiding Agents and busy areas where the cameras are checked frequently, finds me back in the garage. This has nothing to do with the fact that there's an unlocked cabinet full of spray paint on the wall by the handcuff cabinet. None whatsoever.
Mr. Clint, I had absolutely no intention of getting spray paint at all, I promise, but you know how things just happen sometimes. I tripped and it just landed there, and seemed like such a waste not to try it out.
I skip into the hallway with my prize and a giddy smile. The cap comes off easily and I shake the can before pointing it at the wall. I decide to try to paint Bessie, because I wonder what happened to her, and push down on the top. A misty spray comes out and lands all over the floor. I frown at it, step a few feet down the hall and then much closer to the wall, holding the can two inches from the wall. This time, I hold the can with one hand and push on the top with the other to try and get it to spray for more than one second.
I'm successful, but the paint is too wet on the wall and it's dripping down. I move down the wall again and hold the can about a foot away from the wall, position my hand over the button, and map with my eyes where I'm going to move the paint spray. 3. 2. 1.
Five minutes later, a very rough looking rendition of Bessie graces the wall, and I smile happily at it.
I decide next I'm going to do an octopus. Or maybe a cow. Or a chicken. Or a fish! The possibilities are endless!
Two hours later, I'm disturbed in the middle of painting a snake by voices around the corner.
"Just follow the trail of painted animals, Barton! We need to find her!"
"That's the problem, Coulson, there is no trail, because these halls are a maze and she runs willy nilly."
"Willy nilly?"
"I'm from Iowa, okay, leave me alone about it."
I glance down at the dying can of spray paint in my hand and then decide it wouldn't be worth it to run. Instead, I lie down on the ground, cuddle the can, and pretend I fell asleep against the wall.
"I'll leave you alone about it when you find-"
"There she is!"
"What?! Where?"
"Oh, she tuckered herself out." Mr. Clint says sweetly. I hear them come closer.
"Tuckered?" Mr. Cou Cou grumbles.
"I'll just carry her back." Mr. Clint gently picks me up, cradling my head on his shoulder. I let the can fall to the ground and relax into him.
"She needs to be punished. Behavior like this is unacceptable." Mr. Cou Cou tries to say as Mr. Clint walks away.
"We can address it tomorrow. It's late, and she's tired. Plus, she was stuck to that disgusting teenager inside her own locked room, it's ridiculous for us to expect a seven year old like her to just stay where she was." Mr. Clint whispers.
"Well, we at least need to know how she got past the alarms on the door, for security reasons." Mr. Cou Cou is definitely not whispering.
"Check the tapes. Agent 6 probably just left the door open a bit."
"Not you too."
"Not me too, what?"
"'Agent 6'?"
"Oh, yeah. It's cute. I wonder how many she'll go through before you decide it's a worthless endeavor." I yawn and feel myself start to actually fall asleep. Mr. Clint brushes my forehead with a hand.
"I won't." Mr. Cou Cou sounds suitably grouchy.
"Right, Coulson, because you have endless patience."
"I will out stubborn this seven year old if it's the last thing I do."
"No you won't."
"Yes. I will."
I'm out before I learn who won their little argument.
I wake up lying on Mr. Clint still to Mr. Cou Cou's irate whispers. I force myself to breathe normally and not give away that I'm awake. Aunt Petunia would sometimes leave me alone if she found me sleeping somewhere, although her finding me usually woke me up.
"It's just proof that she needs one with a better lock." We're back in the apartment, I think, because Mr. Clint is sitting down.
"No, it's proof that getting one any more difficult to get her out of isn't going to do anything except teach her how to get out of that too." Mr. Clint's hand brushes my hair off my face and I check that my eyes are looking back into the sockets so he can't tell I'm awake.
"Barton-"
"No offense, Coulson, but which of the two of us actually has little kids?" Mr. Clint's arm tightens around my back and Mr. Cou Cou doesn't say anything for a few seconds.
"Fine. But Agent 6 won't be reassigned yet. He's been doing a good job."
Mr. Clint snorts. "Yeah, you mean you don't have any replacements for him, and teenagers aren't scared of much so you're going to use him until someone else is available." Mr. Cou Cou doesn't say anything to that. I hear him walking away. "Goodnight, Coulson." Mr. Clint sighs as Mr. Cou Cou closes the door to the apartment. "I know you're awake, J." I tense and he brushes my forehead again. I furrow my eyebrows for a moment and then sit up.
"Hi." I chew on my lip and fiddle with the collar of his shirt.
"How'd you escape?" He lets his arms drop so I'm sitting on him and I find a thread coming out of his collar.
"Well, I have to pee really bad, but Agent 6 just fell asleep on the couch and I couldn't get him to wake up or move, so I wiggled around until I could grab the clip and just took the leash off. When I came back from the bathroom, my plan had been to sit next to the unclipped backpack to prove that I could be trusted, but then I saw the door was open. And I swear, one minute I was sitting next to the couch with my eyes closed talking myself down from sneaking out, and the next I opened my eyes to find myself in the hallway! And then I decided..." I pick at the thread and pull it, "that I might as well take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself..." When the threat starts to pull tight around his neck, Mr. Clint grabs my hand and pulls it away from his collar. "And then I was in the garage, and I must have tripped or something because the next thing I know, I've got a bottle of spray paint in my hand and I just had to paint Bessie, you understand?"
"Uh huh." Mr. Clint says. When I glance up at him with my perfectly innocent expression, he's got an eyebrow raised like Miss Natalia does when she's unimpressed.
"And then I painted Bessie, but it didn't turn out very well, so I decided to practice by painting a cow! And then a spider, and then a hawk, and then a pig, and then-" Mr. Clint gently covers my mouth with his hand and I take the cue to shut up.
"I get the idea." He says flatly. I nod emphatically. Before he can say anything else, Miss Natalia comes in laughing and Fury is following her, gesticulating wildly and speaking loudly. I jump.
"-most logical way to do that!" He says. Miss Natalia snickers.
"Woah, woah, woah, hold up." Mr. Clint says, raising his palms at them. "Slow down, what's going on?"
Miss Natalia leans against the couch and holds her arms over her abdomen. She manages to get herself under control enough to explain. "Fury gave the key to Agent 6's handcuffs to a junior agent and made them swallow it, and he forgot which one!" She holds her breath for a moment and then bursts out laughing harder than I've ever seen her and collapses over the arm of the couch. When she lands she kicks her legs wildly.
"If you would just dislocate his thumb for me then we could have this all cleaned up." Fury pouts- pouts! Arms crossed, glaring petulantly at the floor with his lower lip stuck out pouts.
"Why don't you just look at the security cameras to see who it was if you can't remember?" Mr. Clint asks logically. Miss Natalia bursts out laughing again, and I yawn and rub my eyes. Mr. Fury mumbles something.
"What?" Mr. Clint asks, getting slightly annoyed. I think he's tired too. Miss Natalia sits up and flips over the arm of the couch so she's sitting on it.
"D'let it..." Mr. Fury mumbles again, only slightly louder. Miss Natalia has both hands pressed over her mouth and her eyes are bright.
"What?!" Mr. Clint snaps. I try to give him a hug but kind of end up face planting into his neck.
"I deleted it, okay?!" Mr. Fury snaps right back.
Miss Natalia bursts out laughing again and Mr. Clint gives a tired snicker. I blink at them, still slightly confused.
"Alright Mini-Agent, bedtime for you." Mr. Clint says, standing and carrying me towards my room.
"What? But I want to watch her dislocate his thumb!" I grab onto the door frame with one and and the back of his neck with the other, trying to climb over his head, but his hold on me is too firm. Fury is glaring at Miss Natalia now. "Miss Natalia, I want to watch you dislocate his thumb!" Mr. Clint grabs my hand on the door frame and pries it off.
"No can do, sweetling." She says as she sits up, more serious now.
"Noooooooo." I whine, reaching my hand out for my door as it swings closed. Mr. Clint didn't kick it hard enough with his foot, so the latch catches and keeps the door from shutting. He puts me on the bed and I don't fight as he gives me pajamas from the dresser and then helps me put them on. He puts the dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and then tucks me under the covers all snugly. I frown at him when he sits on the side of the bed and smiles softly at me.
"Lila and Cooper like it when I tell them a bedtime story. Do you want a bedtime story to help you fall asleep or would you like to do that all by yourself?" He asks. I assume Lila and Cooper are his kids. When I think back to the stories I would sometimes overhear Aunt Petunia reading to Dudley, I can only remember bits and pieces of one. I pick at my lip with my fingers. Mr. Clint reaches up and takes my fingers out of my mouth, then waits patiently.
"Can you do Cinderella?" I whisper into the dim light.
"I sure can." He smiles, and begins.
Thank you to everyone who has stuck around during these... six months now that I didn't post (Spring time kicked my butt, and I don't like summer much either, but it means more vacations and I am my most productive when I'm stuck on an airplane). For those of you who don't know, dislocating your thumb is the only way to break out of handcuffs without the key and/or picking the lock. While they could have simply broken the cuff, or done something else to remove it, I thought this would be the most entertaining, and it helps in the next scene. I've got all but one of the heavy parts for next chapter typed up, although it is a little bit more of a filler for some character development. We'll be meeting Tony Stark after that, and I'm super excited for what I have in store with the two of them. There's lots of fire, and Pepper is losing her ever loving mind.
Lots of love everyone, I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time!
~Auna