Chapter 7
Tuesday came with lots of teasing from both Claire and Esme along with several pointed offers to babysit. Charlotte managed to convince her neighbor and friend that she didn't need a sitter because Lizzy, as she'd started calling the little one, was most of the reason Clint was coming over in the first place. Esme had rolled her eyes hugely and muttered under her breath about the foolishness of the young. When Claire had laughed the elderly Cuban woman turned on her and started peppering the nurse with questions about her own love life.
Lizzy had watched the conversation while she ate her own pizza and occasionally tried to parrot the unfamiliar Spanish back to the adults. Esme made Charlotte promise to let her take the girl to Spanish Mass on Sunday's.
"No se cuanto tiempo voy a tener ella." Charlotte pointed out.
"No importa. Si le tiene yo quiero traer ella a la inglesia." Esme brushed aside the concern. Charlotte easily relented because at the very least she'd have a free night and morning to sleep in every week. She didn't think she'd have Lizzy for much longer anyway. There had to be someone her parents wanted her to be with. The thought caused her chest to tighten and her gut to roll but she pushed the thoughts away. Monday had come and gone without social services calling her. Plus, Clint had texted her saying Tony's program was searching too. It might take a few weeks for the couple to officially be declared legally dead and any will or other documents to be found.
She didn't have to say good bye to the little girl yet.
Tuesday came with Esme insisting on taking Lizzy for a few hours in the afternoon, so Charlotte could make dinner in peace. At promptly seven on the dot her phone chimed with a text from Clint telling her he was downstairs.
She buzzed him in and went across the hall to pick Lizzy up from Esme. The pair managed to make it back to the apartment just as Clint finished climbing the stairs. He cradled a paper bag in his hand with a bow tied expertly on the top.
"I asked Tony for a wine recommendation. This is what he sent to my place. There's a red and a white in there." Clint explained as he held up the bag.
Charlotte took it from him gratefully and set it on the counter. Lizzy walked over to Clint and demanded to be picked up.
"I made chicken and salad so honestly either will be perfect." Charlotte began to rummage through the drawers for the bottle opener. She pulled the bottle of red out of the bag and finally got a good look at the label. It was all she could do to not drop the bottle.
"Holy fuck." she said.
"Fuck!" Lizzy parroted back happily.
"Is it an okay bottle? I don't know much about wine. Natasha does but I never really learned more than I needed to fake on a mission here or there. I'm a beer guy." Clint said. Charlotte turned to look at the archer. He had Lizzy balanced on one hip.
"This is a 10,000-dollar Bordeaux. Holy fucking shit." Charlotte felt her hands tighten on wine bottles neck.
"Huh, that explains a few things." Clint said, his own eyebrows creeping up his forehead.
"What?" Charlotte said. She didn't care if she sounded like an idiot. She was holding a bottle of wine that could pay for a few master’s classes.
"It's Tony. Of course, he'd give me a hugely expensive bottle of wine and not think about it. Guy's company is donating a lot of the work for the repairs. He tosses money around like it never goes away." Clint explained.
Charlotte gingerly set the wine down on the counter and just stared at it. The oven timer went off loudly and snapped her out of her daze. She grabbed the oven mitts and pulled the 9x13 pan with the chicken breasts out of the oven.
"Fuck! Shit!" Lizzy called out again as she wiggled to get down to the floor. Charlotte looked from the chicken to the wine to the toddler before bursting out laughing.
"Whoever her parents have to care for her are going to kill me."
Clint cracked a smile himself before joining in the laughter. Lizzy figured out that the laughing had something to do with her and danced around the kitchen table singing curse words to herself.
"I honestly don't know what to do with that bottle." Charlotte confessed after she had the table set and Lizzy corralled into her seat.
"Drink it?" Clint suggested.
"Ok, yeah I guess. I mean fuck." Charlotte trailed off as she gingerly picked the bottle back up. She handed it along with the bottle opener to Clint.
"Fuck!" Lizzy cried from the table again. She mashed the chicken nuggets Charlotte had made her into a pile before pushing them in the ketchup.
Clint opened the bottle of wine and carefully poured it into the two long stemmed wine glasses sitting on the table. For a moment both of them looked at the glasses before laughing and taking a drink. The pair passed dinner with casual get to know you talk that was often missed in a life-threatening battle with aliens. The conversation occasionally included one-word additions from Lizzy. Luckily most of these tended to be not more swear words.
After dinner Clint offered to do up the dishes while Charlotte put Lizzy to bed. Even though it had only been a few weeks the toddler and Charlotte had figured out a pretty decent routine. They brushed teeth and went potty before grabbing a night time pull up. Charlotte read her a book and gave her cuddles before tucking her into the queen size been with pillows stacked around her, so she couldn't roll out. One of Esme's bible study ladies had given her an old monitor that let Charlotte know if the little one woke up. Charlotte had started just sharing the bed with the little girl and would often wake up with a warm face on hers or a knee digging into her rib.
Bed time took roughly 45 minutes and when Charlotte came out Clint had finished the dishes and poured them both a second glass of the 10,000-dollar Bordeaux. They moved over to the couch and Charlotte curled her feet underneath her as she settled in. She took a sip of her wine before staring at the glass.
"God this doesn't feel real." She said. She looked at Clint to see him raise an eyebrow in question.
"I'm sitting in my crappy Harlem apartment which is one step above the Bronx apartment I had in college. There's a toddler in my bed. I'm drinking a 10,000-dollar bottle of wine with a guy who shoots arrows at aliens. Who also took my stitches out in my kitchen with my sewing scissors and eyebrow tweezers on top of it all. Even when my life was crazy I didn't think it'd get this crazy." Charlotte laughed.
Clint cracked his own smile.
"Hey," he said, "I'm a kid that literally ran away to the circus. My brother is a fuck up and I work for the government in an agency that used to be mostly secret and now is a very not secret. I get it. It's fucking nuts."
"Here's to life, one bitch slap after another." Charlotte said as she raised her glass. Clint raised his to meet hers with a soft clink that echoed through the tiny apartment.
~&~
A few hours later Clint stood in the doorway to the apartment. He wondered if he'd ever figure out how to do this without being an awkward mess. Somehow, he guessed he wouldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried. Natasha was the one who was good at this. He could fake it for a mission but that was a cover, that was a role he played.
"I had a lot of fun." He winced at his words internally. "I mean it was nice, dinner with you and Lizzy and Tony's stupidly expensive wine."
Charlotte smiled at him as she leaned against the door frame. The light of the kitchen seemed to soak in her hair and god damn it looked beautiful.
"I had a lot of fun too." she said.
"Would you like to maybe do it again? At my place next week?" I can cook for you guys. If you want." Fuck Natasha was going to lose her shit when he told her about this later. He sounded like a damn teenager instead of the grown ass man he supposedly was.
"I'd really like that. I'm not sure what'll happen with social services, but I'm sure Lizzy would have lots of fun too."
"Ok, awesome. How's Sunday sound? Or Friday I guess. If you don't have plans."
Yep he could already hear Natasha laughing at him.
"Friday sounds great. Should I bring anything?"
"Just you and the kid. I can come pick you guys up again if that's easier. Six okay?"
"Six sounds great. I'll see you then Clint." Charlotte smiled, and Clint stepped back so she could close the door. He stared at it for several minutes and swallowed his pride before knocking again. The door opened right away which honestly in that small of an apartment didn't mean anything. She could have been on the couch and not waiting by the door.
"So, huh, Friday," he started, "it's a date right. Like a date date." Clint watched closely as Charlotte's face broke out into a huge grin.
"Yeah, it's a date date." She said.
"Okay, cool. Well, good night." Clint nodded.
"Good night Clint."
This time Clint stood in the hallway until his hearing aids picked up the sound of the lock clicking into place. He turned and walked down the three flights of stairs before getting into the car he borrowed from Tony and driving back to the tower. For once when he got back Natasha wasn't waiting in his room. He figured she'd end up there by morning anyway. Since the attacks she'd been either starting or ending the night in his room nine times out of ten. Clint figured it was part making sure he was okay and part making sure SHE was okay.
Either way he knew it'd last until Phil was better and they completely settled into whatever this new normal was. No matter how they tried both of their faces had been plastered everywhere after the attacks. Clint couldn't see a way for them to go back to being Strike Team Delta but honestly Avenger didn't sound to terrible. At the very least he was getting used to sleeping in an apartment and not the dungeons SHIELD called on site housing. If they could get Phil in charge of this circus it might actually work out too.
Tony was too brash to lead the team and Steve was a little shit. The two butted heads like none other- all broken dreams and unlived expectations. There was a story there, but Clint didn't know it and he wasn't asking. They could work together on the field and in a crisis but off the field they needed help sorting their shit out. Bruce couldn't lead as the Hulk. Not yet at least. He was still too much of an unknown and to be honest too shy to step up and be a public face. Most people had no idea Banner and Hulk were the same person and Banner wanted to keep it that way. Neither him or Natasha really knew how to work outside the shadows. He was a sniper and occasional spy. Natasha was a much more up close and personal type of kill but she still slid in like the spider she was named for and slid out just as silently. Thor was an alien. Earth would never accept him as a leader of a super hero force. On top of that he was a prince. His loyalty would always be to Asgard and his people first as it should be.
They could all work together and Clint could see how the pieces would fit together eventually. They just needed someone to fully bind them together. If Phil could do that with a fake death, he could easily do it alive. Tony respected him and so did Steve. Natasha and Clint trusted him. Thor and Banner would fit right in and had already interacted with him.
Clint just prayed to whatever gods there were that he was better by the next time they got called out.
There would be a next time. The world just got a whole lot bigger and something needed to be able to mobilize quickly if needed.
Still that was weeks into the future. Right now, he had his best friend making sure he was okay and a date with a pretty girl on Friday. That's what the country songs he loved when he was a kid in Iowa always talked about. He purposely didn't think about the fact that Charlotte was at least a decade if not even younger than him. Or his fond feelings for both the her and Lizzy. Or the fact he still woke up three nights out of five with a nightmare of his arrows ending up in the chests of SHIELD agents.
For now, he felt good and the mandatory therapist he had to see said that counted for something.
For once he actually bothered to listen to his therapist and he might be starting to see everything Phil had pointed out over the years. Phil was a fan of therapy. Natasha and Clint maintained a more cautious approach to the idea.
When Clint woke up for his morning spar match with Natasha he happily discovered his good mood failed to fade over the night. Natasha stood next to the bed pulling on leggings from the drawer she kept in his room. She raised an eyebrow at Clint over his stupid grin but didn't say anything yet. Clint knew her well enough though. He'd willingly bet a year’s pay she'd bring it up while they sparred to throw him off beat.
He knew himself well enough to know it would work too.
"Get up." Natasha signed. "Steve said he'd spar with us today."
"Really?" Clint asked. The older/younger man constantly hesitated to join them saying he preferred to run in the mornings.
"Yes. Keep your hearing aids out. I told him he needed to learn to fight with you when you couldn't hear." Tasha signed.
"Good. He does." Clint answered.
They grabbed their usual pre-work out breakfast and went down to the gym. Steve already stood in front of a punching bag methodically beating the ever-loving shit out of it. Clint raised an eyebrow at Natasha and she nodded back. The two didn't need to speak or sign to communicate anymore. Something was wrong, and Natasha had a plan to fix it.
Natasha took care of the up close and personal.
Clint kept a bird’s eye view.