Chapter 12
Clint let his body soak in the deep bathtub in his master bathroom. He could feel his sore muscles being soothed by both the warm water, the gets and the two bags of Epsom salts he'd added to the water. One bag lavender, one bag eucalyptus. Clint had met guys in the service who had made fun of him for smelling like lavender after a particularly hard training course but the aromatherapy worked and made him feel better.
"JARVIS?" he asked, he wondered for a moment if it was weird to talk to the robot while he soaked in the tub but decided if JARVIS didn't care he didn't either.
"Yes Agent Barton?" Clint didn't know if the robot spoke out loud but the words flashed on the wall in front of him.
"Did you get that information on that apartment from yesterday?"
"I did, all of the information has been downloaded to your tablet. It appears that the building has not been officially sold. The deal is pending. The buyer is Ivan Banionis- Mr. Banionis has ties to several criminal organizations, specifically Russian Mafia ties. It appears he is trying to raise the rent and force renters to vacate in order to discourage any other potential buyers."
"I figured it was something like that. How many tennates are in the building?"
"There appears to be around twenty units in the building ranging from five studio style apartments to seven three bedroom units that hold families. There are also six two bedroom units and two one bedroom apartments. The occupants are mixes of single families, multiple generation families, students and a few elderly who live alone. The apartment is rent controlled and has not had any permits submitted in the last ten years."
"So the current landlord is willing to live and let live and doesn't care as long as he gets his sale." Clint thought. He lay his head back on the tub and thought for a bit. "Thanks JARVIS. I'll look at the info on the tablet when I'm done here."
"Of course Agent Barton."
Clint closed his eyes and thought of the two boys who'd just been trying to keep their old neighbor from being threatened. He thought about the track suit bro's who were more than willing to give a couple kids a beat down. Kids didn't deserve that. Fuck it'd taken him almost two decades but he finally figured he hadn't deserved it when he was a kid.
Dr. Geller would be so proud of him.
Actually there was a good chance she would be proud if he told her that if he sat and thought about it for a few minutes. This round of therapy isn't what taught him that though. Phil and eventually Natasha- once she'd become Natasha instead of Natalia- had shown him that in their own way over the years.
Natasha's way tended to come with bruises but it had worked.
Eventually he pulled the plug in the tub and grabbed the towel he'd sat on the toilet. He'd have to ask Tony but he'd swear the bath water stayed warmer a lot longer than it should have and it'd be just like Tony to invent a bathtub that stayed hot. After he pranked Tony to hell and back for helping Tasha hijack his date he was going to hug the man.
"JARVIS- hypothetically speaking, if a person wanted to find one of the Iron Man suits and say cover it with purple glitter mixed with Vaseline would you be obligated to tell him before it happened?"
"As long as the person had no malicious intent to hurt Sir I believe it would be within my discretion to not alert him. However, if one were to hypothetically do this I might wait. Sir has asked me to inform you he has the new hearing aids built for you."
"Thanks, JARVIS. I'll stretch out and head down to the labs."
Clint tossed on a pair of sweats and grabbed the yoga mat from the corner in the living room. Rule one of trick shooting in the circus- you better be flexible. Rule one of working with Natasha- you better be really fucking flexible. Half the reason he could make the shots he made was because of how he could twist his body. He was only five minutes into his daily stretch routine when his apartment door opened. JARVIS flashed the lights as Natasha appeared with her own yoga mat. She laid hers alongside Clint's and they silently started the routine all over again. Forty five minutes later they rolled up the mats.
"New aids. Lab?" Clint signed at Natasha.
"Sure." Tasha signed back. "No vents."
Clint pulled an exaggerated pout across his face before grabbing a shirt and a pair of soft slippers. Natasha slipped on her own shoes as they took the elevator down to the labs. They were in the middle of a vicious argument on which Star Wars movie was the best when they walked into the lab. Clint could feel the sound waves from the music pulsing against him and he wondered for the fifteenth time how Tony wasn't deaf also.
Apparently Natasha had the same thought because after she yelled something the music turned down faded to a beat deep in the background.
"Legolas, Ms. Rushman! Took you long enough to get down here. I got new hearing aids." Tony said, looking up from whatever he was tinkering on.
"Thanks Tony." Clint said, grabbing the small case off the table. He popped in the aids and flicked them on.
"These ones are connected to your phone. You can control the volume separately or both at once. Plus you can automatically link them into our coms. JARVIS is also connected to the aids from your phone. If one of them gets damaged in a fight he'll send an alert to all of us so we can come help."
Clint raised an eyebrow as he slipped the aids into his ear.
"Don't give me that look Katniss- my suit has a similar panic button, Capsical is getting one added to his suit, Spydy the Spider over here has them in her widow bites. The only one of us who doesn't have one yet is Thor because I don't know where to put it and Bruce for the same reason. Take your panic button and be grateful."
"You know Tony, I'm going to tell the tabloids you care and sell all your secrets." Clint said as he opened the app already on his phone (he should have a talk with Tony about boundaries. He wasn't going to but he probably should.)
"I'll deny it and make sure my sex tape reemerges on the internet just to remind people how terrible I am." Tony said.
"What would Pepper say?" Natasha asked.
"She'd retreat to her 12% of the tower and not talk to me for some time." Tony admitted, "JARVIS? How deep can we bury any video evidence of me in the late eighties to early aughts?"
"Sir, I have already done this. The video footage has been scrubbed and uploaded to one of my secure servers. Any search for it will end in an error message." JARVIS's voice went directly into Clint's hearing aid much like the coms on missions did. Without all the background noise Clint could focus on what the future robot overlord was saying.
"You know JARVIS could probably blackmail all of us into compliance?" He said out loud.
"To be blackmailed I would have to have shame. That's the big secret you know." Tony said laughing. "Besides, it's against his programming."
Clint nodded and exchanged a look with Tasha, neither of them were entirely convinced. Clint hated how paranoid they were but he knew they'd have a talk soon, far away from the tower and their tech about what they would do in case JARVIS ever decided to go Skynet on them.
They already had this talk about everyone else on the team. Hopefully they'd never need to use the information they gathered but they still gathered it. They even have a plan for if Pepper crossed over to the dark side.
Sometimes living their lives in the shadows sucked extra hard.
"Thanks Tony." Clint said with genuine gratitude, "these are awesome."
Clint wondered how many people noticed the slight flush that flared around Tony's neck when he was thanked. Or had any of his kind acts noticed. Clint wondered, over the years, how many people had actually seen Tony Stark. He suspected not many. He suspect Tony made sure to give people plenty of reasons not to look.
"Get out of here. I have science to do before Bruce, Jane and more specifically Darcy come down. Apparently explosions should be limited in science according to Boobs McGee. She's not even a scientist! And Pepper lets her tell me how to run my lab!" Tony flapped his hands at them and Clint and Tasha took the hint and headed out.
"Hey let's go to the gym, I want to monkey with these new aids." Clint said in the elevator.
"Of course." Tasha said, "We can see how well I can kick your ass twice in one day."
"Hey I won the first round this morning." Clint protested. Natasha simply raised a single eye brow back at him. He flipped her off in return. They entered the gym again and began going through some quick stretches to warm up. This gym was set up with mats arranged and supported to look like a city block. Clint already had plenty of ideas for how they could use the space for group training- or even just fun light hearted sparring matches like the one he and Natasha were about to do.
"Chalk arrows and bullets?" Clint asked.
"First one to get five hits wins." Natasha agreed. They grabbed the practice weapons and took off to separate sides of the gym.
~&~
Charlotte woke for a second time to a beam of sun falling across her face and a small finger poking her cheek. For a moment she lay still and wondered if the poking would stop.
It didn't.
"Awake?" a small voice asked, "awake?" Each word was accompanied by another poke.
Charlotte forced her eyes open and blinked when the bright sun hit her eyes. She rapidly blinked to adjust her retina's to the light. Once her eyes adjusted she looked at Lizzy. The toddler sat on her knees looking at Charlotte expectantly. When Charlotte didn't answer her question right away the toddler poked her again.
"Awake?" the toddler asked.
"Yes baby girl, I'm awake. What's up?" Charlotte asked. She pushed herself up into a sitting position. She could feel the tackiness of the dried sweat from her nightmare and could smell the fear on the sheets. Laundry and shower. Those would be first on her to do list- although not in that order.
"Ice cream and cookies." Lizzy told her.
"What baby girl?" Charlotte asked, confused for a moment.
"Ice cream and cookies." Lizzy said again as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Oh, yes. We'll get ice cream and cookies today. Well we could make the cookies. But we'll buy the ice cream and make ice cream sandwiches like I promised okay?" Charlotte had to bite back a laugh as the toddler considered her seriously. After several long moments the toddler nodded seriously.
"Okay, good. First though we have to shower and go to the laundromat. You're running out of clean clothes and we might as well wash the sheets too. After that we'll go shopping, have some lunch, make cookies, nap, and have dinner. It's a good plan and now let's see how many ways we can mess it up how's that sound Busy-Lizzy? Bath time?" Charlotte started to tickle Lizzy as she talked.
"Bath time!" Lizzy screamed happily before running off to get her toys. Charlotte took the moment to sit peacefully before Lizzy came back into the bedroom from the bathroom carrying as many toys as her small hands could hold. Charlotte followed the toddler's demands and got out of bed and walked into the bathroom as Lizzy dumped all the toys into the tub. After she helped the little one use the toilet she lifted the shower head from the side of the old tub and onto the hook hanging from the shower curtain. She got the water a comfortable temperature and lifted Lizzy in the tub before stripping and stepping in herself. Half a bottle of shampoo later when Lizzy insisted on returning the favor of having her hair washed Charlotte dried them both off. She tossed the towels, the sheets from the bed and various clothes of both hers and Lizzy's into the hamper she used to go to the laundromat. Luckily it was only just half way down the block.
Esme had found Lizzy a small backpack and Charlotte stuffed it full of books and a few toys hoping to keep the little one amused while they did laundry.
Two hours and twenty dollars in quarters later Charlotte dragged the now clean laundry bag back up the stairs.
"Next time," she told the toddler, "you're staying with Esme. You were very good but wow it's a lot more work with a kid along."
Lizzy clutched her backpack with the fearsome weight of responsibility of being in charge of her own toys and looked up as Charlotte unlocked the door.
"Ice cream and cookies?" she asked.
"Yep, we gotta put the laundry away but then we can go get some ice cream and cookies. It's almost lunch and I know you had pizza last night but we'll stop for a slice. Or a hot dog. Which one do you want?" Charlotte asked. She threw the laundry bag on the unmade bed and began to pull out clothes to fold and put away.
"Hot dog!" Lizzy exclaimed.
"I wish I got that excited about overpriced street food. Alright play with your toys while I finish folding this."
"Help?" Lizzy asked as she climbed on the bed.
"Sure, I wish my high school students were half as eager to help in the classroom. Crap, it's almost August. I have to start getting ready for the school year. Okay- Wednesday we'll go to my class room and get started. Thank god I didn't teach summer classes this year." Charlotte knew a lot about teenagers and their various idiosyncrasies but she had to admit she was a bit lost with anyone younger than thirteen. Still the parenting blogs she'd been reading and the various parenting books she downloaded onto her kindle all said talking to toddlers in full complete sentences whether they understood everything or not was good for language development.
She ignored the part of her that wondered if she'd have to find daycare for Lizzy if she'd be able to keep the little girl that long. She didn't want to admit she wanted to keep the little girl that long. Her parents must have someone they wanted to take care of her.
She just wanted to keep her too.
Folding clothes- or any household chore- took a lot longer when your helper was still learning fine motor skills. Still sooner rather than later the pair was leaving the house again to find hot dogs and groceries.
After a few weeks with a toddler Charlotte understood why she saw so many parents with those backpack leashes. She'd go buy one but she didn't know when the social worker would call. Still Esme would be taking Lizzy tonight so Charlotte could have some time to herself. She planned on spending the evening going over and adjusting her lesson plans for the year. After the attack on New York she suspected her students were going to have a lot of questions and she wouldn't have all the answers but she could give them the tools to look
.
Plus she wanted to work on a few field trip grants. Later that night after Charlotte dropped Lizzy off with Esme across the hall her phone chirped with a text.
I had a lot of fun last night. Thank you for dealing with the crazy.
Charlotte smiled at the message from Clint and went to type out her own reply.
Crazy seems to be the theme of this summer. I can't wait for Tuesday. How was your day?
Charlotte settled on the couch with her laptop and her phone and enjoyed the constant breaks from her grant research every time her phone went off. The rest of the weekend passed by quickly and before she knew it Charlotte was slipping on a black dress and double checking she had everything she needed to drop Lizzy off. Esme sat in the living room and played with the little girl and occasionally tossed out suggestions that ranged in helpfulness toward the bedroom.
"Tia!" Charlotte exclaimed after one particularly racy remark. Esme just laughed at her and Charlotte turned back to the mirror, mascara wand in hand. She'd just finished putting the final touches on her make up when a knock sounded at the door.
"El esta aqui!" Esme called from the living room.
"Ya voy Tia!" Charlotte called back. She gave herself a final once over in the mirror. She'd curled her hair and pinned it over one shoulder. Her light eye make up set off her red lipstick and looked nice against her black dress. She looked fantastic and she knew it. She did not think of the box of condoms she'd bought the other day and tucked in her bedside drawer. Or for the fact that she'd bothered to make the bed for the first time in several days. Luckily Esme hadn't found those or the teasing would never end.
Charlotte walked into the living room to see Esme giving Clint an appraising eye. In his dark dress pants and light blue shirt and dark jacket. Charlotte did not blame the elderly woman for taking a long look.
"El es muy guapo mi'ja. Si no le quieres, le quiero." Esme said with a chuckle.
"And on that note we are leaving. Now." Charlotte said, grabbing her purse and Clint's hand. "Ciao Tia, gracias. Te veo manana!"
As Charlotte pulled a laughing Clint down the stairs he asked, "do I even want to know?"
"No, no you don't." Charlotte said.