Messy Little Family

Clint Barton, or Clinton get-your-ass-here-now Barton; when his adoptive dad is done dealing with his shit, is your common teenager who would never, in his wildest dream, expect to spend his weekend in a bright pink tutu playing tea party with his soon to be younger sister.

He'd seen Natasha; his full-time best friend and part-time pretend girlfriend, in pretty ruffly skirts like this occasionally on her ballet recitals, and he had honestly thought it looked adorable on her. But he swears he is not taking a single look at the mirror with that thing still attached to him.

Of course, until Daisy asks him if they can do a beauty pageant because apparently, they have drunk too much tea from an empty teapot for the last 2 hours.

"Clint that is not how you do a princess pose, here let me show you how."

Daisy giggles as she looks at his exaggerated bow at their makeshift catwalk, which is in front of the biggest mirror they can find in the house, which happens to be at the end of the hallway near the front entrance in Melinda's house.

Melinda May is Daisy's mother, not biologically but Daisy is lucky to never experience the dreadful foster system because her parents at least have such a good friend like Melinda to readily take her in after they both decide to screw up and serve a life sentence together in two separate lockups. Aside from being a wonderful mother, she is also possibly the best girlfriend Phil has dated so far. Clint totally supports their relationship after he learned that Melinda despises coffee but she never threw away those lattes Phil bought her during their first few meetings.

"It was called coffee dates Clint, who'd assume that people would drink tea on a coffee date?" Phil jokingly defended himself when they all had a small gathering dinner at Phil's, which is becoming more and more often as the week comes and goes.

Following Daisy's instruction, he does a 'graceful' bow and lightly pulls the ends of his tutu up,

"How is that now Daisy-chain?"

"Mhm, that's a perfectly splendid bow!"

Unlike Daisy, he is aware of how serious the two are getting. He used to refrain from getting involved in foster parents' relationships because he thought he had no rights anyway, but Phil always try to include him in decisions; big or small, so naturally he started to give his opinion here and there whenever the man asked for it.
When the questions start to skirt around the idea of living together and their meet-ups become more regular, Clint is willing to bet that Phil already has a ring clumsily stashed somewhere in his room. Honestly, he has no objection at all, after all he likes them both and he would love to have a cute little sister to spoil and later on, recruited to his prank team.

He heard a shutter clicks before Phil's figure appeared in the reflection on the mirror. Fortunately, after looking at the mirror with his pink tutu on for the past 30 minutes or so, he decided that he looks quite good in one and perhaps, he would let Phil keep the picture, as long as Nat doesn't get her hands on it.

"Now now, bet my two beautiful princess are hungry, come get some royally yummy snacks in the kitchen."

"Royally yummy snack ?? Is it a unicorn cookie ?? Or or chocolate princess waffle ?"

"Hmm, am not quite sure let's go ask your mom what is it called."

Phil scooped Daisy up in his arms, walking towards the kitchen as he answers the little five years old endless questions in the same excited manner. Clint followed suit, strutting after them in too-small princess shoes, and a too-small pink tutu with a too-small princess tiara hanging lopsided on his head.

Melinda snorted when she saw him coming into the kitchen, and he counted that as a win in his 'making-the-usually-straight-faced-Melinda-May-laugh' agenda.

"mā ma! Phil said there is royally yummy snack! I want some."

"shì de xiǎo gōng zhǔ, you can have all if you want to."

"But there is no unicorn cookie or choco waffle or rainbow sprinkles!"

Daisy's little pout and incredulous tone successfully draw up some chuckles, the plate of snacks definitely is not as 'royally' as Phil has said, with a variety of fruits cut up neatly in rows and some goldfish crackers in a corner. There is no surprise because the sun has to rise up from the west for Melinda May to feed her hyperactive five years old sweets this close to dinner time.

Food is still food and playing with children turns out to be more exhausting than his archery warm-ups, plus it is a luxury that he will never get tired of, being in the system long enough has taught him to appreciate fresh foods. Moreover, as a teenager, Clint has double the metabolism rate of any other human being. So he gratefully inhales everything, unintentionally encouraging Daisy to enjoy the food as much as he did because he makes it look so 'royally yummy' with the speed of him chomping down the food.

Clint Barton is itchy and sweating a lot in a neat buttoned-up tuxedo, with his little sister dressed up as the most lovable flower girl in a dark blue 'princess' dress sitting beside him. He is way too old to carry rings on a pillow across the aisle, so while Daisy gets to have all the fun making a mess with flower petals like traditional flower girls, he gladly sits at the front row with Phil and Melinda's wedding rings sitting safely inside his front pocket and dutifully hand them over when he was asked to. Yet Natasha still calls him 'ring boy' throughout the day; she comes to the ceremony with her aunt Maria, who is a dear friend to Phil despite their earth-to-sky differences.

"You know I purposefully choose the seat right next to the aisle so I can accidentally trip you up, ring boy."

"Now I have another reason to be glad for not giving in to Daisy's puppy eyes when she asked me to walk with her."

"Yeah, I still can't believe you get to have the cutest little sister on earth, while I'm stuck with one like Yelena. I swear that brat gets on my nerves even when she is rarely around. Let's exchange siblings."

Clint laughed at that, his eyes crinkled in mirth as he replies, "Don't say that Nat I know you love her a lot, and Daisy can be a handful too just wait until she invites you to her tea party and won't let you lift your butt before everyone finish at least 10 cups of tea."

His laughter slowly stops when he realizes that Natasha is not laughing along, then he turns his head toward her to find this serene fond look on her face that she rarely puts on for anyone that is not close to her. Her fingers moved quickly in succession as she signed to him,

'I'm glad you are happy, Clint'

'Thank you, Nat'

"Clint they have sooo many chocolate waffles and strawberry with chocolate!"

The brief but meaningful silence is broken as Daisy runs toward him with hands full of chocolate-coated food and lips smearing of chocolates; proof that she has eaten quite a bit before coming to find him, explaining the seemingly higher level of sugar-rush induced energy of the thrilled toddler that just bumped into the front of his trousers.

"Wow, they sure look yummy, mind if I have one?"

"Natty!" She immediately turned over to hug the crouching teenage girl and happily share her newfound chocolate treasures.

"I thought you were bringing those for me, Daisy-chain."

"Sorry Clint but I already share it with Natty, I can show you where to get them?"

"Lead the way little squirrel!" The three of them start mingling with the guests and make their way as quickly as possible to the dessert table.

Daisy loves Natasha ever since they met on one of the first Coulson-May dinner, it wasn't planned but Natasha is used to coming over to Phil's whenever she gets too lonely to eat in her house; which is quite often considering that her sister is now in boarding school and her parents have always been too busy to be around. Natasha Romanoff was surprised when a little girl opened the door when she rang the bell and almost declined their dinner invitation out of politeness before Phil's firm insistence that she should join them and help to finish up the result of his cooking excitement made her stay.

Looking back Clint Barton doesn't have that many people who are dear to him, but today he is surrounded by all in celebration of the matrimony between the man who had essentially saved his life from the system and the woman who is just perfect for both him and his adoptive dad, the little flower that comes along just make everything more picture-perfect. He would never imagine a family like the one he has now, kids in the system learned early on that perfect families are just fairytales in storybooks. He knows that all of them would have much to learn as they are all different pieces that society brought up together, in hope that they can fit. But if Clint dared to hope, it would be for this 'messy little family' to work.