Victim 1: Clint Barton
Victim 1: Clint Barton
Clint growled slightly as he stalked through the hallways of the Avengers Mansion. Coulson had sent him a text message requesting that he, quote, 'Make sure Stark's ass is up and ready for the meeting this morning. That's an order'. Just the memory made him scowl. He wasn't a secretary, hotel clerk, or personal assistant to Tony Stark damnit! The last was Pepper's job!
Growl on the tip of his tongue, Clint stopped in front of Tony's room and banged on the door. Loudly. "Stark! Get your ass up! You have a mee-"
Clint's rather hostile message was cut off suddenly as the door flew open to reveal a very pissed off brunette that made his heart both beat faster and sink. The scowl on her face told him that he was in trouble though, and even without being able to look over her glasses she was intimidating. He couldn't see any sign of her taser but that didn't mean she was unarmed, which was perhaps more frightening than anything else. However, before he could even begin to apologize, she tore into him. Badly.
"Look dickwad, I don't know where the fuck you get off banging on random doors at ass o'clock in the morning but if you ever do that again to any door I'm sleeping behind, you will be wearing your internal organs externally and you will still be alive. Clear?"
The door was slammed in Clint's face before he could respond, but one fact was spinning through his head that made it hard to focus on anything else. The woman he had been looking for, the girl he'd wanted to see again since he slept with her in New Mexico, just came out of Tony Fucking Stark's bedroom. Fuck.
Clint was moping in the kitchen when Tony made an appearance half an hour after the bedroom door incident. Seeing the billionaire genius come into the kitchen just made him mope harder. Tony was oblivious, until he turned to face the scowling archer.
"What crawled up your ass Hawkeye?" asked Tony with a smirk, coffee in hand. "'Tasha not put out last night?"
Hawkeye stood up suddenly, glaring at Stark angrily. "No, you just stuck your dick where it didn't belong, again!"
Tony raised a casual eyebrow, eying Clint. "Uh, run that by me again?"
"You. Slept. With. The. Girl. I. Was. Looking. For." Clint's scowl was more of a pout by the time he was done, but he didn't care. "And don't deny it, she opened your bedroom door this morning."
"You slept with the girl in my room?" asked Tony slowly, voice carefully neutral. "When?"
Clint's scowl returned full force. "New Mexico, after the Thor event. She's young enough to be you're daughter, you know."
"I know," growled Tony. "She's too young for you, too."
"Like you can say anything," muttered Clint just as Pepper walked into the room.
Her eyes darted between both men, noting the glaring contest they seemed to be having before pouring herself a cup of coffee and rinsing out the empty pot. "Should I ask what happened or simply walk away?"
"Tony slept with the girl I've been looking for," growled Clint, leaning on the counter to glare hard at Tony. "She's almost half his age!"
Pepper raised an eyebrow and turned towards Tony. "Tony?"
Tony snorted and took a gulp of his coffee. "He slept with Darcy, Pep."
The shocked look that slid over Pepper's face turned to murder less than a second later, complete with scowl o'death and laser glare. She looked ready to tear into him. For that matter so did Tony. Somehow, Clint felt he was missing something very important. Before he could do anything, however, Darcy came stumbling into the room, muttering something about rude people banging on doors.
"Morning Mom, morning Dad," yawned Darcy as she walked straight for the coffee maker then the cupboard when she realized the former was devoid of caffine-giving substances. "Do we still have any of that coffee I like? The stuff that looks like motor oil but tastes like heaven?"
"Bottom shelf," replied Tony mildly, "it should be next to the filters."
Darcy nodded and fished out exactly what she was looking for, giving Clint a view he would have appreciated if his brain were currently working. It had stopped around the time that Darcy had referred to Pepper and Tony as 'mom' and 'dad'. The pieces were falling together, but the resulting picture was making Clint's brain hurt. Well, shut down really because, seriously, there was no damn way that he heard that correctly. None. Zero. Zip. But then, why would Darcy's preferred coffee be at Tony's house and how would Tony even know what her preferred coffee was unless he interacted with her regularly. And had for a long time. A faint throbbing against Clint's forehead made him groan in pain.
Glancing away from the coffee maker at the noise, and seeming to realize for the first time that there was someone else in the room, Darcy stared at Clint, head cocked to one side in concentration. Her brow furrowed slightly in a way that reminded Clint a bit of Pepper when she was thinking hard and one of her hands came up to run through her hair as Tony tended to do when frustrated. However, less than five seconds later, her eyes lit up and she pointed at him casually, leaning forward so she could stare at him over the kitchen island with a smirk. "I know you."
"Yes, you do," confirmed Clint, a little uneasy with the way Tony and Pepper were glaring at him.
Darcy nodded and stood up to stretch. "Yeah, I slept with you in New Mexico after that whole 'Thor being banished to Earth' thing." Her neck popped and she sighed happily. "That was fun actually. I meant to grab your digits but completely forgot when Mom text-ed me about something stupid Dad had done. If you want to do that again though, give me a heads up."
"Darcy Tonya Potts-Stark-Lewis!" shouted Tony unhappily. "No, you won't!"
"Huh?" asked Darcy as she turned to blink at Tony, confusion written across her face. Hearing Darcy's full name spelled out nearly sent Clint to the floor. His brain just couldn't seem to process what his ears were telling him.
"You won't sleep with him again!" exclaimed Tony.
Darcy blinked at him again, the confusion furrowing her brow. "Why? The man's good in bed and I'm over 18 so its not illegal."
The not-illegal part was a relief to hear for Clint. He'd been a little worried when it didn't seem like she was drinking the night they slept together. Not enough to turn her down of course.
"Darcy, the man is almost twelve years older than you!" snapped Tony, arms crossed and scowl firmly in place.
Darcy's own eyes narrowed at him, a scowl forming on her face as well. "So? What does it matter? You've slept with girls who are almost my age and you're 44! Besides, why do you care who I sleep with? I've always kept my nose out of your bed and I'd hope you'd do the same."
"I've also never slept with someone you work with," pointed out Tony, eyes still narrowed. Pepper had moved around the counter to sit with Clint, apparently opting to stay out of this spat.
"Oh, that's what this is about?" growled Darcy. "That you work with him? News flash Dad, you've slept with some of your own people so don't give me that bull. I don't know what you're problem is, but you don't have any right to poke at my sex life."
"Yeah, I do," snapped back Tony. "I'm your father. Last I checked, that gives me the right to have some say in your life."
"Maybe before I was 18!" exclaimed Darcy angrily. "I'm 20 now, 21 next month, and I'll thank you to treat me like that rather than as the 16 year old I was when I went to college!"
Clint really did fall off his stool at that, but managed to right himself with Pepper's assistance. Her own expression was bland, as if she'd witnessed fights like this before and was merely waiting for the inevitable conclusion.
"Well, if you want to be treated like a 20 year old, act like one!" shouted Tony, apparently finally pissed enough for them to start a yelling match.
"I try to but its kinda hard when my dad still acts like a teenager!" yelled Darcy, arms thrown in the air as she grabbed her coffee and stomped out of the room.
Tony stormed out in the opposite direction, slamming the door behind him as he went. Clint winced when the wooden door struck its frame but Pepper showed no reaction at all. Several seconds passed in silence as the kitchen's remaining occupants listened to Darcy and Tony storming off to where-ever they were going. No one said anything until neither individual could be heard any longer.
"Uh, is that normal?" asked Clint uneasily, turning to face Pepper. He didn't relish the idea of being alone with the frightening CEO, but the fight had been nasty enough that he was afraid there could be irreparable harm.
"I wouldn't say normal," replied Pepper calmly as she stood again. "But it does happen every once in a while. Tony and Darcy are very much alike, so occasionally they'll explode at each other in brilliant form, avoid each other for days, then finally break down and apologize." One of Pepper's hands came to rest on Clint's shoulder. "For the record Agent Barton, that fight wasn't about you. Tony doesn't actually care that you've slept with Darcy, though he may have a talk with you later about what could happen if you choose to take Darcy up on her offer and she gets hurt. Or pregnant."
Clint shuddered a little at the thought of having a talk with Tony of all people about something like that. "Thanks for the warning. So then what was the fight really about?"
Pepper chuckled and shook her head. "Don't worry, Tony isn't allowed to hang people off the edge of the Empire State Building in his suit anymore and I'm relatively certain that Director Fury would murder him if he tried it. Or at least imprison him. As for the fight's origins, I'd guess it has to do with Tony's roll in the Avengers or his admitting to actually being Iron Man. Both have caused some tension between them."
"Darcy doesn't like that Tony's saving the world?" asked Clint, surprised Darcy would have an issue with it. What kid doesn't want their dad to be a super hero after all?
"Not particularly," admitted Pepper with a sigh. "After Tony was kidnapped, Darcy was a mess. She thought she'd lost her father and, even though she still had me, I think the idea of loosing both of her biological parents is frightening for Darcy, even if she claims that blood has nothing to do with family."
Both of Clint's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Loosing both of her biological parents? Aren't you her mother? I thought she called you 'Mom' earlier."
"She did," confirmed Pepper as she picked up her coffee cup and refilled it. "Technically speaking, I'm Darcy's mother but only in writing. I have no biological connection to her."
"Huh," muttered Clint, mind attempting to wrap around this new piece of information. Somehow, knowing that Pepper hadn't given birth to Darcy made the whole situation a little easier to swallow. Not by much though. He was still uneasy about having slept with Tony's daughter, even though it was only because of what Tony might do to him for that.
Pepper smiled and patted him on the back. "Don't worry, you get used to the idea. It took me some time as well, when I first found out."
"When was that?" asked Clint, eyes locking onto the CEO as she turned to leave the room.
"When she was born," replied Pepper with a shrug. "Darcy's workshop is under the east wing of the building in the basement. She's supposed to go to lunch with me in a few hours, but if you seek her out this afternoon she should be in a better mood. And really, don't worry about Tony. He won't kill you for sleeping with her. I won't let him."
"Thanks," sighed Clint as he leaned back, then banged his head on the counter gently. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
