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“How the hell can you stand this?” Tony demanded, rounding on Nat. “She’s a kid!”
Nat snorted. “I was barely half her age when I started-”
“Exactly!” Tony cried out.
The conference room fell silent, quiet enough that Steve could swear he heard footsteps on the pavement fifty floors below.
“And what,” Clint asked, “Is that supposed to mean?”
“Why are we arguing about this?” Tony demanded instead of answering. “Isn’t it universally agreed upon that child soldiers are a bad thing? Being one sucks.”
“How the hell would you know?” Clint asked. “You were never a child soldier-”
“No, but I was practically a child CEO, and if that sucked, then I can’t imagine how much worse being a child soldier would be,” Tony said. “So excuse me for not wanting us to turn into her Trickshot or her Red Room.”
Steve blew out a frustrated sigh. “Tony, we’re not-”
“She can say no,” Clint said. “Which is more than can be said for us.”
Tony frowned. “You-”
“That includes you, by the way,” Nat said.
Tony’s frown deepened. “What – I’m not comparing your childhood to m-”
“I am,” Nat said, leaning back in her seat and crossing one knee over the other. “Because that’s what it really comes down to. You were building weapons instead of using them, but you were still constantly manipulated and coerced into doing work you were way too young for and told it was for a greater good that you could never see.”
“I didn’t have it nearly as bad as you,” Tony said.
“You didn’t,” Clint agreed. “But it still sucked.” He smiled grimly. “And we would know, wouldn’t we?”
“A lot of the superhumans today were forcibly experimented on,” Steve chimed in. “Does that mean I shouldn’t be Captain America, even though I chose this experiment?”
Tony swallowed. “I don’t want her to end up like us.”
“So we don’t,” Steve said. “She’s going to do this or something like this no matter what. We might as well make sure she does this as safely and responsibly as possible.”
“Otherwise, she’ll get into the same kind of shit we did,” Clint said. “And end up the same kind of fucked up that we are. The best way to stop that is to help her before she tries to help herself – or the wrong person tries something worse.”