A/N: So, story time. I literally haven't updated this thing for about a year because, truth is, I was busy, and then Age of Ultron came out and completely killed everything I wanted to see from Clint's storyline. I mean, it's cool for people who liked it, but c'mon. For this story? Not so much.

So I had the hardest time, because I'm a huge fan of sticking to canon when I write. Sure, I twist things when the story calls for it, but only if I have to. So I struggled to come back to this story, because it was now delving into serious AU territory without being on-purpose an AU, y'know?

But then I thought, screw canon. If I'm going offroading, I'm bringing in the BIG GUNS. Prepare to have the entire Marvel Universe declared open for exploration!

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to anything Marvel-related, at all. Wish I did, though. Then there would be more Pizza Dog in the movies.

...

Mission Four: Kids These Days With Their Superpowers

Beth from R&D brought him a package of store-bought cupcakes, the chocolate kind with sprinkles on them.

"Thanks," he said as he popped the plastic container opened and took a big bite out of the first one. "What's the occasion?"

"Your birthday," she said, and she sounded surprised.

Clint raised both eyebrows. "Oh," he said mildly. "Has it been a year already?" He took another big bite out of his cupcake.

"People don't just forget their birthdays," Beth said, frowning. "What's up?"

But Clint just laughed and waved his hand. "I'm not people. I do forget my birthday. Never been a big deal, never really celebrated it, except a few years ago when I turned twenty-one—it was nice to have a legit ID at the bar." He reached for another cupcake. These were good.

"So, what about this year? Any special landmarks?"

He shrugged. "Twenty-five. Guess I'm into my late twenties now, or something. Why, do I look younger? I get that sometimes."

"No," Beth said quickly, and her face had turned a funny color. "Um, the opposite, actually."

"Guess I should be flattered, though maybe not—must mean SHIELD's aging me prematurely," he said, unconcerned, as he went to inspect the more official reason Beth had invited him to her lab: the new quiver with rotating tips and twice as many grappling arrows. (She seemed to think he took special pleasure in jumping off of buildings, and while that was actually true, he didn't think it was a good idea to tell her that.)

Beth grabbed a cupcake to eat and jumped onto the nearest table, sitting with her legs over the side so she could face Clint. "Sitwell's transferring me to the Sandbox," she announced casually, but Clint could see even out of the corner of his eye that she was searching his face for a reaction.

He gave her two reactions. One big, triumphant grin at the quiver accompanied by: "Beth, you've really outdone yourself this time." And then a small frown and a muttered, "What, did I scare you off?"

"Thanks," Beth said, "and no, you didn't. If anything, I've stayed here as long as I have because I love making your newest toys."

"You'll get a good replacement who isn't going to make me fill out the insurance claims?" he asked.

Beth laughed. "I'll find someone very, very good, I promise." Then, she leaned forward. "You staying here, then?"

"Me and Coulson have an arrangement," Clint shrugged.

Beth frowned slightly. "That's right. You're one of Coulson's boys."

"One of?" Clint repeated, scrunching up his nose. "I'm Coulson's greatest find, and don't you forget it."

Beth laughed out loud at that one, and whatever expression had been on her face before vanished in a flash. Clint hadn't quite been able to place it, but then, he'd always been bad at girls.

Clint frowned, wondering if maybe he should come up with something else to say, before he decided to screw it and just grab a handful of arrows and test the balance. He was better at that than he was at talking. Beth also seemed to have run out of words, and she went hurriedly back to whatever paperwork she had been filling out before. Probably something related to her transfer.

Suddenly, she burst out with, "You'll stay in touch, though, won't you?"

Thankfully, Clint didn't have to come up with a response to that. His wrist beeped, and when he looked down, he saw the call sign for Maria Hill.

Trying not to awkwardly run into a bench or something else like he usually did around hot girls, he held up his communicator by way of explanation. "Better not keep her waiting," he said before he very nearly ran into the door on his way out.

Smooth, Barton. Real smooth.

Clint had never been so relieved to hear the door close behind him.

He made his way to Hill's office, where Coulson was waiting for him.

"You rang?" he said as he allowed his smirk to settle onto his face. It seemed to bother his superiors when he had that look, so he tried to wear it as often as possible.

Hill stopped talking to Coulson to glare at him, then finished whatever she had been saying. It ended something like, "And make sure you make the call before you finalize."

"You know our mutual friend. I usually don't have to place the call myself, if it's necessary," Coulson said, and Clint was surprised to see that Hill returned his smile.

"Gonna let me in on the secret, or is that not allowed?" Clint asked.

Hill seemed to grudgingly, finally, decide he was worth her attention as she turned toward him. She put on her "business smile" and said, "I'm assigning you to this mission with Coulson," she said, looking more at Coulson than at Clint.

"I told you I don't need any help," Coulson said.

Clint looked back and forth between the two of them. Coulson looked excited, ready to go. Hill looked exasperated. And Clint knew that could only mean one thing.

"Index?"

Both Hill and Coulson turned to look at him, but it was Coulson that broke first and smiled, even letting out a small chuckle. "It's a pretty interesting case," he said, then fixed Hill with a cold stare, "but I'd like to get there before anyone else has time to get there before us."

"Great. I hate long meetings anyway. You can fill me in on the way," Clint said, practically vaulting himself over the edge of his chair.

For a moment, Coulson paused, his gaze flickering to Hill, but then he abandoned his careful pretense and followed Clint.

…

The target was just a kid. File said fifteen, and that made Clint nervous.

It wasn't that kids made him nervous. Just the opposite. Clint liked kids. They said what they were thinking, and they were pretty straightforward and easy to understand.

It was just that kids didn't like SHIELD, and Clint knew that. He knew that guys in suits and government titles were so ridiculously uncool. He knew that they were scary to kids who were already in a bad situation. And he knew that they were like poison to kids who were scared of themselves.

He knew this because he'd been on the other side of that, and he'd been lucky enough to get Coulson, who sort of understood psychology, who could see that Clint was clearly already on the path to going straight and just needed that little nudge to get out from underneath his brother's influence.

Clint grazed through the file again, reading it with pursed lips. Kid had lost his family in an accident. Didn't have anyone that he could trust, and then he'd developed some kind of destructive superpower.

It wasn't that Clint didn't believe in superpowers. He'd seen them before his days in SHIELD, and he'd definitely seen Coulson's notes on the Index when Coulson thought he wasn't looking. (Should have known better than to hide anything from a guy whose nickname was literally praise for his eyesight.) But he'd seen the usual garden variety. This death beam stuff could be . . . dicey.

He glanced up at Coulson, who was kneading his forehead as he read through the files.

"Something's on your mind," Clint said. He'd thought about holding his tongue, but that had never really been his speed, and besides, it was Coulson, and Clint knew he could get away with it.

Coulson looked up, his hand still moving in the kneading motion even though his forehead was no longer there to get abused. "I told Hill that I didn't think you were ready for an Index assignment."

Well, there went the pit of his stomach. It had fallen somewhere by his ankle. But Clint wasn't surprised. He was a disappointment and a circus brat and an ex-con besides, and it wasn't like he'd expected the expectations to be all that high. So yeah, he wasn't surprised, but he was shocked to find that he was disappointed.

"I told her you'd try to take home any stray kid that crossed your path," Coulson continued, and Clint shouldn't have been surprised that they guy had practically read his mind and then swept his concern away like that, because, well, that was what Coulson did. "And a lot of the Index candidates lately have been young."

"Are you saying I'm not objective, sir?" Clint asked. That was something he could work on. He could take that and make it something concrete, a way to improve.

Coulson shook his head, grinning. "I'm saying you're not objective when it comes to kids, Barton."

"Can't help it. I'm, like, five myself."

"Only when you want to be."

Clint tilted his head at Coulson, but the guy's expression was unreadable. And, considering the fact that Clint could usually read people like cheap magazines, that was saying something.

But maybe that was why Clint got along with Coulson so much.

"I think they're getting younger on purpose, sir," Clint said at last with a mouth full of smiles. "Just to spite you."

"If nothing else, that was certainly the case with you," Coulson said, grinning.

Clint had to laugh. It was true—when Coulson found him he couldn't quite be called an adult. He was a growing thorn in SHIELD's side, and Clint had a feeling that Coulson thought he'd been tracking down someone with a little more experience when he found a scrawny little ex-con with a chip on his shoulder.

"Why don't we put down the bow and talk about this?" Coulson asked.

"Why don't we stop acting like we're teaching Kindergarten and talking in plural personal pronouns?" Clint shot back. Oh yeah, plural personal pronouns. Just one of the five things he remembered from being awake in school for twenty seconds.

"You know my men have their orders," Coulson said. He hadn't broken a stride. He was just calmly walking across the pool toward the diving platforms, even though he knew Clint had set himself up there, even though he knew that Clint had the ridiculous high ground in this scenario.

"Yeah, well, that's their problem, isn't it," Clint said. He's mostly mumbled it, actually, but they were in a room with a pool. Everything echoed like they were shouting.

"So why don't you just climb down from there?"

It was probably Clint's imagination, but he was pretty sure Coulson was smirking about that pronoun change.

Clint sighed and moved his gaze away from the window to glance over at Coulson, who also seemed to be lost in thought. Clint wondered for a second if Coulson was also thinking about that pool confrontation. Or the ones before that. It had taken Coulson a while to corner Clint long enough to convince him that he wasn't going to ship him off someplace in a high security prison no one had ever heard of.

Because, it turns out, SHIELD actually did stuff like that, and Clint was totally justified in his fear of suits, okay?

"Penny for 'em," he said at last to Coulson, who turned around with a grin.

"Do you think they're getting younger, or am I just getting older?" Coulson asked at last.

Clint snorted. "Didn't take you for the self-conscious type, sir."

"It seems to be coming on with losing my hair."

"Well, of course it would."

"Shut up, Barton."

…..

Clint woke up a few minutes before they made their landing. He wasn't quite sure when he'd drifted off, but he was glad for the nap. He'd much rather be a bright pair of eyes and on his most alert than a grumbly old coot like Coulson.

Clint grinned over at his handler, who had raised an eyebrow at him. There were seriously days when he thought Coulson was some kind of psychic, the way he was looking at Clint as if he'd been mortally offended.

They hailed a taxi until they were a couple streets down from the school. From there, they planned to walk, timing it so that they would be on the sidewalk about when school let out.

They were depending on Clint's good eyesight to spot the kid in the crowd, but also, they were depending on the crowd to help them keep attention away from their meeting.

The light ahead of them turned red, and Clint leaned up against the street light post, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Coulson going deeper and deeper into "mission mode." He was like a totally different person, all protocols and orders and no smiles.

One day, Clint was pretty sure, he'd get stuck with a partner like Coulson, only possibly more serious. He'd heard the higher ups talking about his attitude being a problem—specifically, the part where he was too nice, like that was some kind of drawback.

Like nice was something you couldn't be when you were a sniper.

That was the nice part about being up there, in the perches, because Clint didn't have to get friendly with anybody. After that, it would have been harder to make his mark, because after that, they were people.

Not that Clint didn't already know for sure that they were bad guys before he let an arrow fly. Not that Clint didn't do his homework so people like the kid he used to be didn't get swept under the rug. But it was still hard, even with the bad guys. He never hesitated, but he didn't like it.

The light flashed green, and they were halfway across the walk when Coulson actually groaned out loud. "We came all this way, and now he shows up," Clint heard him mutter under his breath.

Clint looked across the street to see a few people who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Or … Clint shook his head. It was almost like they'd been there all along, but Clint hadn't really wanted to notice them, like he was too distracted to care.

Which was a little worrying, since they were dealing with metahumans.

There were three of them—two teenage kids and a bald guy in a wheelchair. The boy had a pair of shades that would have made Clint jealous, and the girl had the reddest hair Clint had seen since the hospital fire.

Coulson walked right up to the guy in the wheelchair, his "you have just broken so many rules" face on—the face that he usually reserved for new recruits who thought they were too cool for Coulson. "Charles," he said.

The man grinned. "Phil."

Clint raised both his eyebrows. He didn't know many people who were on a first-name basis with Coulson. In fact, Clint was pretty sure the only person who had ever called him Phil was his mother (who, by the way, Clint had met once, because she was the best cook in the world and there was this weird company picnic Fury had thrown together when he'd been infected with some kind of dust that made him extra nice before everyone figured out what was going on).

"I'm sorry you've come all this way," Charles said. He was leading Coulson, who trailed easily alongside him on the sidewalk. Clint found himself trailing along with the kids, feeling suddenly like a wayward teenager again.

The redhead gave him a tentative smile. "Hi there," she said. "I don't think we've met you before."

Clint grinned despite the weirdness of the situation. "Clint Barton," he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake.

"My name's Jean," she said, still smiling. "And that's Scott."

Scott raised his hand in a sort of half-cocked, two-fingered salute of a greeting.

"You got any idea what's going on here?" Clint asked.

Scott just snorted. "The professor thinks we have a … problem." He said that last word with a smile, like it was a challenge to be overcome and not just another thing dropped on Clint's plate.

Jean, who had tilted her head at Clint like she was studying him, suddenly broke out into a smile. "Don't worry," she said softly. "I think once you hear what the professor has to say, you'll be glad he called you here."

….

Clint was pretty sure he was supposed to be mad at Hill right now.

The whole thing was a setup. Scott was the kid in the files, and he'd been here at this school for years, from what Clint could understand. But Hill had pulled his file out of her back pocket and doctored it up so that she would have a paper trail to explain away where Coulson and Clint had gone.

Coulson hadn't even known, because apparently, he'd never met Scott. He had met Charles Xavier, though, and they were definitely going to be having a conversation about that on the way home. How could Coulson keep something like this secret? An entire school full of kids with superpowers? Clint was pretty sure Coulson had probably died and gone to heaven when he first heard about this place.

But there was some kind of … agreement between Coulson and Xavier. There were certain types of super-people that Xavier got, and Coulson got the rest. Clint was pretty sure it was a crummy arrangement, but he was also pretty sure that Xavier was telepathic.

He was coming up on thinking the redheaded Jean was also telepathic, but he hadn't come around to asking about the kids' powers. He wasn't sure if there were taboos about that sort of thing. There was a whole community under his feet, and he felt just as unsteady in the huge mansion as he'd felt his first day of SHIELD training. Whole new world, and he was the odd man out. Again.

"It took me a little while to get used to this world, too."

Clint looked up. It was the redhead. She looked kind of shy, like she wasn't sure if Clint would let her talk to him, so he patted the seat next to her. He'd much rather have some company while he was waiting like a kid outside the principal's office while Xavier and Coulson discussed … whatever it was they talked about when they were in there.

"I'm really very sure that what I'm thinking and what you had to have experienced are different things," Clint said, staring at his hands. He was probably saying the wrong things, wasn't he?

"It was scary, yeah," Jean said. Her voice was calm and soft, but it wasn't condescending. If anything, it was sympathetic, like a pat on the shoulder. "But it was easier to believe in powers and that sort of thing when I was living it."

"I don't envy you," Clint said, shaking his head. "Gotta be living in hiding, sneaking around all the time?"

Jean's eyes softened. "Well, not everyone sees it like you do."

"Screw everyone else."

Jean laughed. "Yeah, sometimes I think the same thing." She leaned further back into the couch, her gaze somewhere further away, before suddenly, she turned to look at Clint. A mischievous glint twinkled in her eyes, and she reached out with her hand.

With a flick of her wrist, the door to the office Coulson had disappeared into flicked open just the slightest bit.

"Oh, I definitely like you." Clint grinned.

Jean grinned and waved him over, and the two of them crouched beside the door, listening in.

"Maria told us about some of the problems you were having, and she contacted me to see if perhaps it was my kind of problem," Xavier explained as he pulled some filed out from a desk drawer and handed them to Coulson. "Of course, I can see why she might think that. Your little assassin is quite talented."

Clint perked his ears up.

"But she's not one of ours," Xavier continued. "I've checked into it."

Coulson nodded, flipping through the file with the ease of a guy who'd spent way too many days behind a desk doing that exact same file-flipping thing. At last, he looked up, and that's when Clint noticed that Xavier was grinning.

"Why don't you come in and join us, Clint?" he called.

"Barton," Coulson sounded like he couldn't decide if he was supposed to be mad or amused. "Are you just waiting out there like a puppy in the rain?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

Coulson snorted. "You're ridiculous."

"I have to maintain my reputation, sir," Clint said without missing a beat.

"Whatever." But Coulson was grinning, so Clint knew he wouldn't be getting in trouble any time soon. "It's probably for the best, anyway. Take a look at this."

Clint sidestepped so that he could see the file over Coulson's shoulder, and his eyes widened when he saw the picture paperclipped to the edges.

It was her.

Granted, it wasn't a very good photo, and it was blurry, but Clint recognized the stance, the confident, the look.

Xavier raised a single eyebrow at Clint and then leaned forward, his hands folded patiently over his desk. "You've met her before?" He asked it like a question, but Clint was somehow pretty sure that Xavier didn't mean it like a question.

"A couple times." Clint nodded. "She's good." He didn't really have anything more to say.

"She's been after a few of our own before," Xavier said, focusing his attention back to Coulson. His eyes were piercing and direct, and Clint was surprised to find that suddenly there was a gaze that could match Fury's in its ability to see right through everything you thought you were hiding. "If you're going after her, I'd like to help."

Coulson nodded and tucked the file into his jacket. "I appreciate it." When Xavier nodded, a smile finally cracked Coulson's face, and he said, "You know, Charles, you could always just call me. We've got a secure line set up for just this kind of thing."

Xavier smiled. "Hill seemed to think this would be better. And …" He paused and turned his sword-like eyes back to Clint. "She wanted me to check on your new friend."

"She still doesn't trust me?" Clint sniffed. "Figures."

Xavier laughed softly. "No, it's not that," he said, a smile still playing with his eyes. "She just wanted to make sure you weren't one of mine."

Clint shrugged. "Thought Coulson already did the superpowers check."

"Maria wanted to be sure." The smile was still lighting up Xavier's entire face. "She thought maybe you were telepathic. Something about being too good at reading people."

For the first time since he'd been stuck in this stuffy mansion, Clint felt a real laugh bubble up in his throat. When both Coulson and Xavier looked at him in a silent sort of question, Clint just said, "It's just … wait 'til word gets out Hill was actually impressed by little ol' me."

Even Coulson smiled at that one. Then, turning on a dime back into Company Man, he turned to Xavier. "Thank you, Charles. This could really help us track her down."

"I wish you luck," Xavier said, and his eyes were as warm as his tone.

….

"Barton." Hill was eyeing him. Or, more appropriately, she was eyeing the feet that he had placed on her desk. But he was definitely not going to be moving any time soon. He had the high ground here, and he had the face-splitting grin to prove it.

"So," he said, still wearing the grin and still not moving his boots. "I have now met the great Charles Xavier. Who, you'll be happy to know, is still not on any records anyplace. I've looked. How'd you pull that off, anyway?"

"With a lot of work," Hill said shortly. She gave his feet a tired sort of glance and then seemed to decide that it would not be worth the trouble. Instead, she changed the subject. "Coulson tells me he was able to help you."

"That guy is definitely good for intel. It's like he just knows everything," Clint said, nodding.

Hill smiled at that. "I'm very sure that he does." She gently prodded at his feet with the side of her stapler and then.

"But that's not the only reason you sent us out there, is it?" Clint said. He would have leaned forward and wiggled his eyebrows at her, but that would have meant moving his feet, and he just couldn't have that. Not when he still hadn't provoked a reaction.

"Don't read too much into it. I always double-check my agents," Hill said.

"Admit it. You were impressed."

"Barton." Here, Hill paused and raised an eyebrow, leaning forward in exactly the expression Clint had wanted to use only seconds before. "Do you think there's any way I would let you into my office if I hadn't been impressed with you?" She waved her hand as if she was blowing away the compliment before he could see it. "Besides, I wanted to be sure Xavier wasn't going to show up and recruit you if we were going to be stepping up your assignments."

Clint actually took his feet off the desk at that little revelation, his eyes widening. "Careful, Hill," he said with a cocky grin. "It sounds an awful lot like you're starting to trust me."

"That's likely." She snorted and made a grab for her coffee mug. Then, suddenly, her expression turned serious, and Clint frowned. "Fury's sniffing after your assassin, Clint," she said, her tone quiet. "She's caught his attention."

Clint's frown deepened. While it was true that he liked Fury enough to get along with the man, he knew better than to stand in his way when he felt there was something that needed doing.

Hill sighed again. "All I'm saying is you better watch yourself." She took a sip out of her mug. "And I'm sending you on some more assignments."

"Keeping me out of Fury's reach?"

"I like having you all to myself," Hill said with a smile.

"I prefer to think of it as an open relationship."

"You're an idiot, Barton."

"But I'm your idiot, Maria." He completed the look with fluttering eyelashes.

"Get out of my sight, Barton. I'm tired of looking at you." But Hill was grinning, so Clint knew that she didn't mean it.

Still, best to do what she said, so Clint slid out of his chair and tossed her a soft salute over his shoulder, still grinning as the door closed behind him.

He'd heard people talking about Maria Hill before, when he was still just Coulson's kid and not invited to the big kid's table. They said she was ambitious and cold and calculating, and while that was all true, they seemed to miss the point.

Maria Hill was a marshmallow. She just hid it really well.

Still grinning, Clint made his way to the elevator and stepped inside. He'd only made it down a couple floors, though, when the doors opened and a new occupant stepped inside.

It was, for real, Nick Fury.

Guy was just standing there, sizing Clint up with his one eye, and they'd made it down three more floors before, without turning to look, Fury made a fist and jammed the emergency stop button.

"Barton," he said at last.

"Fury," Clint said back. It was a familiar refrain, the way they'd greeted each other the last couple of times they'd met, but now all Clint could think about was what he could possibly have done to get in trouble with Fury this time.

(Last time had left Clint with a lifelong ban from bringing pets of any kind, no matter how adorable said stray dog was.)

"Coulson brought me the professor's file," he said. "And it's only confirmed what I already knew."

Clint tilted his head at the director in an unasked question. He had, after all, learned long ago that there was really no point in asking for more information than what Fury was willing to offer. The guy saved up words like they were going extinct.

"I'm sending you after her, Barton," he said at last.

Clint nodded. "Coulson's already working on tracking—"

"I'm sending you after her tonight."

...

A/N: I've always felt like the SHIELD of the MCU would get along well with Xavier's Institute. They're both highly organized, good at hiding their existence, and run by people who know everything. Seriously, everything. Two worst people in the world to keep secrets from? Fury and Charles Xavier. Doesn't work. Don't try it.

Also, yes, this one's a bit shorter, but that's because I'm finally tackling the Big Story in the next edition of Clint's Adventures. ;) Plus, this one was mostly just setup for the Larger Marvel Universe as well as for the Big Story ;)