Chapter Text
Clint took a furtive glance down the hall. The nursing home let him in, they almost always let him in, he was on the list, after all. It felt like cheating, though, so he smuggled his duffle in through the laundry service. Well, and they liked to search him when he visited now. There was a post-Manhattan incident when he forgot he was wearing his quiver. The whole thing was stupid, because it wasn't like there were any arrows in it. Sure, okay, there was the knife in his boot, too, but it wasn't like it was a really big one. They overreacted, basically. At least they still let him in.
Now, he just had to find the laundry room.
Phil Coulson changed his life and offered him a new one, but Peggy Carter made him want that new life, made him believe he could have it. She told him he was a good man, and nobody'd ever told him that before, nobody'd ever seen him as something more than an irritating mouth to feed, or a tool for making money. But Peggy did. She stuck by him through his rocky first couple years in SHIELD, and he knew, absolutely knew, she'd saved his ass from the fire at least once.
Maybe twice. Somebody ordered SHIELD to pull him out of Colombia when that whole thing went tits up. It sure as hell wasn't Fury, who was more angry than Clint had ever experienced, and plenty ready to let him hang. When the sat phone connection died, Clint prepared himself for a bloody battle that would no doubt lead to his gruesome death. But then an extraction team turned up. Like, out of nowhere.
Fury never said one word about it, just came by to stare at him in the hospital one day and tell him he was a goddamned idiot. No argument. Peggy refused to admit it was her, she just lit into him and asked what the bloody hell he thought he was doing. It was probably the most hair-raising dressing down he'd ever gotten in his life, and he kind of adored her all the more for it. Nobody else had ever really cared about him, either.
Then there was the day he brought Natasha to see her for the first time. By then Fury was used to the Clint Barton way of following the spirit of orders if not quite the letter. So, his job was to take out the Black Widow, and he did. She wasn't a threat anymore, was she, sir? All that got him was an eyeroll and a 'she's your problem now, don't fuck it up'; not even a suspension. Then he'd brought Natasha to Peggy. When he introduced them, Natasha hung to one side of the room with her back to a wall, watching every door, while Peggy smiled and offered them coffee. There was a little something smug in that smile, like she'd been waiting for them all along.
And now he knew she had been. Because of Darcy. Because she told Peggy Carter all about her SOs, and though she didn't admit she'd said nice things about him, she must have. Because Peggy waited for him for more than fifty years. Honest to God, that made his eyes water a little bit. All those years he didn't think anybody cared, somebody did.
It was a damned funny thing. He and Natasha trained the woman who saved their lives before either of them were born. They both hoped they did right by Darcy; her training wasn't always what you might call regular. But they tried their best. She wasn't exactly your standard agent, but then neither were they. It seemed to have worked out okay, because she got herself out of some nasty scrapes and he'd claim partial credit for that. And they must have done okay by her, because Peggy Freaking Carter believed in them.
He found the laundry room and lifted his duffle carefully out of the cart. Placing a hand on the bottom of it, trying to keep the cartons inside steady, he ducked his head around the door, then darted back down the hall to Peggy's room. He paused at the door, listening, making sure nobody was with her, then opened the door and slipped in. A quick glance confirmed they were alone, then he looked over at Peggy who was asleep.
Grinning, he set to work. He pulled a tray table over her bed, slid the small bundle of slightly tattered flowers out of the bag and set them in a vase. Then he pulled out the two cartons and the two plates he'd stuffed in there. She woke as he was putting their dinner on the plates.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Peggy," he said softly and scurried off to the other side of the room to grab two plastic glasses off a sideboard.
"Clint? What on earth are you doing?" She struggled to sit more upright and he rushed back to raise the head of her bed.
"I owe you dinner."
She frowned at him, puzzled. "Do you?"
"Yeah. It's been seventeen years." He set the cups down and lifted the bottle of whiskey from his bag. Good stuff. He'd stolen it from Tony.
"Seventeen years," she murmured, watching him as he set their makeshift table.
"Yeah. You know, making a bet with a cocky nineteen-year old dumbass is pretty … what d'you call it? … dirty pool?" He tipped the bottle of whiskey at her and opened the top, pouring them both a finger of the amber liquor.
"Ah," she said after a moment and smiled. "Talk to Darcy did you?"
"I did." Next he pulled over a chair next to her bed and sat down. He was slightly lower than the tray table, but he'd make do. "I owe you filet mignon and whiskey. I'm making good. Even though, again, dirty pool and basically, just kind of cheating."
Peggy laughed lightly and nodded at the meal. "It looks very nice, Clint."
"You need me to cut that up?" he asked, pointing a plastic knife at the steak.
"If you please."
"No prob." He stood back up and started cutting her filet. "You believed in me, you know how much that means to me."
"You've always been worth it," she said.
"Thanks. You believed because Darcy believed. That's crazy, right?"
"No, Clint, it's not. I don't remember everything Darcy said, but she spoke of you more often than anybody. I thought you must have been something special." She reached out a hand and rested it on his. "And you are."
"I don't know about that," he demurred with a shrug. It wasn't always the easiest thing to be the normal guy on a team of not normal people. A billionaire with a weaponized flying suit of armor, a not-so-jolly green giant, Captain F'in America himself, and the actual God of Thunder. Christ. And then, of course, Natasha. What was he? A guy who was good with a bow.
"I do," Peggy said firmly, giving his hand a pat and letting go. He resumed his cutting. "I say this with all modesty, but you know, three quite remarkable women think the world of you. That's not so awful, is it?"
"Not even for a second," he assured her. When he was done with her plate, he handed her a cup and raised his own. "Thanks for waiting for me, Peggy."
Peggy raised her cup with a shaking hand. "You're very welcome, Clint. Thank you for choosing to be the man I always knew you were."
Clint clinked the plastic rims together, and they each took a sip, Peggy licking her lips appreciatively.
"Sharon will murder you if she finds you brought me whiskey."
"I have zero plans to tell her," Clint told her with a dismissive sort of snort, tucking into his dinner.
"This is excellent, however. Worth your demise," Peggy commented, setting her cup down carefully and picking up her fork. "Did you nick it from Tony?"
"I did," Clint admitted with a grin.
"Wonderful. Well done, my boy."