Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“And if you’re over eighteen,” the front desk girl looks right at Clint, “you have to sign your own waiver.”

“C’mon,” Kate thumps him on the arm to get his attention as their group goes to crowd the computers to sign the waivers for the trampoline park.

Seriously. Trampoline park.

He’s prepared for it to not be as awesome as it sounds, but still. He hasn’t been on a trampoline since the circus. It’s pretty damn exciting. Well, for him at least.

He digs out change for a locker and Kate and her friends all shove their jackets and shoes in with his combat boots and wallet. He slides on the rubber-footed socks needed for the park, and races everyone to the entrance to the park itself.

It’s a sea of kids.

Literally. No one must be over the age of twelve. And all the parents are sitting on benches and massage chairs as their kids jump and climb over everything in sight.

It’s awesome.

Billy hesitates at the edge of the first trampoline and Clint almost knocks into him before Teddy pulls him along while he bounces. All the teenagers giggle and Clint vaguely wonders when all his friends became rugrats. He’s not bothered by it for long before he decides fuck it and jumps in with them. He’s a giant kid at heart. He’s made peace with this a long time ago.

But he can’t get very good air on the things since they’re designed more with kids in mind than grown ass 200+ pound men. But there’s something called a ‘ninja’ course off to the side and he runs over there with Katie Kate and America. It’s a tame American Ninja Warrior course, and it’s almost laughably easy. But Clint amuses himself with watching the teenagers bicker and try to trip each other up. He’s glad to help, too.

He also, more seriously, helps a little girl ahead of him grab ahold of the tilting monkey bars that are a good six feet off the ground. The course was tailored for kids, and yet the little girl, who must be about five or six, can’t even jump high enough to grab the bars. Clint coaches her through it and cheers when she makes it all the way across. She smiles a big, toothy smile and gives him a high-five when he gets across himself. It’s times like these that make him wonder what his life would’ve been like if he had a different career.

He’s not given into reminiscing for long, and soon finds himself standing in line to try a suspended ‘surfboard’ over a pit of foam cubes. The teenagers are chattering amongst themselves, and Clint bides his time with watching the nearby kids play. He make faces at a group of lame adults huddled together at the entrance with their shoes still very much on their feet and their eyeballs glued to their phones. There’s trampolines and dodgeball and basketball and things to climb and run off of as far as the eye can see, and yet these holier than thou parents are too uptight or whatever to get down and dirty and play with their kids.

Clint is thirty-fucking-six years old hanging out with a group of teenagers nearly a decade younger than him, and he’s having a blast. Some people need to get the sticks out of their asses and unwind.

But, Clint has to amend that thought when he sees a parent very much jumping around on a trampoline with his daughter. And he does a doubletake. The guy is wearing a suit. Well, parts of a suit. The pressed slacks, untucked dress shirt, rolled cuffs, and visible expensive watch give allusions to the suit that once was. He’s holding the little girl’s hands while they jump up and down in sync, a giant smile on both of their faces. It makes Clint smile to see that, and he’s glad to see at least there’s one parent who doesn’t give a flying fuck if he looks silly; he’s just playing with his daughter (and it’s the very same little girl Clint helped climb earlier), and Clint can see just how much she must appreciate her father playing with her if how bright her smile is indicates anything.

Clint immediately decides that that guy is awesome.

Clint is taking a breather after getting tagged out of trampoline dodgeball (what? He’s able to tone down his mad Hawkeye skills to give the kids a fighting chance at dodgeball) and is sitting beside America on a nearby bench when the dad from earlier and his little girl walk up to wait for the next dodgeball match. Clint gives the guy a better onceover now and catalogues the happy crinkles at the corners of his bright blue eyes, the handsome features not at all diminished by the receding hairline, the broad shoulders and long legs hiding a subtle strength, and the equally assessing look he sends Clint’s way.

He’s impressed by the guy’s subtly and self-awareness, and the smirk he shoots Clint is equally thrilling as it is… he’s not sure because America is not-at-all subtly laughing at him. Clint shoves her playfully off the bench and laughs while she ineffectively pulls at his ankle in an attempt to dislodge him from the bench too. It dissolves into a poke-war until the next dodgeball match is announced by the teen in the referee jersey with a foam dodgeball clasped authoritatively in one hand.

The dad faces off against his daughter, and he chooses the trampolines in the middle of the floor, where Clint has unofficially claimed as his spot in the games. This puts Clint and the dad on the same team, sharing the same section of trampoline. The whistle sounds the match, and Clint shoots him a winning smile before he dashes up the inclined trampoline to grasp the dodgeball in their section. He feigns a hit at the little girl, missing her by inches, and he can feel the dad hiding behind him, using him as a human shield as the foam dodgeballs start flying every which way. Clint lets the little girl hit him, and turns to walk out the court with exaggerated slumped shoulders to the delight of the little girl. Clint almost misses it when Kate throws a ball in his direction, missing him and hitting the dad.

Clint does see the guy go down, hands protectively clasped over his crotch and a groan audible in his throat. Clint winces in sympathy. Katie Kate’s hits are fierce, if not as accurate as his own. But maybe she’d intended to hit the dad, because he can’t help but huff a laugh at her cheer of victory and cheesy dance.

America, who’d re-claimed the bench after their poke-war, caught the whole thing on her phone. It’s epic. America texts it to him, and Kate immediately decides that he should show the dad (because it’s so much better on camera), so he can see his epic fail at using Clint as a human shield.

Clint finds the guy standing off to the side of the basketball hoops.

“Hey,” Clint most certainly does not swagger up to him. “My friend recorded the match. Thought you’d wanna see.”

“And relive my misery?” The guy’s lips twitch and a brow raises.

“C’mon, man, it’s epic.” Clint shoves his phone in front of the guy’s face, very much crowding into his personal space, close enough to see the sweat dampening the creases on his white button-down and dark grey slacks. Close enough to even get a whiff of something spicy that must be the guy’s cologne.  

He’s also close enough to see the subtle changes in the guy’s expression while he watches the recording, the minute twitches and flutters signaling his amusement and revisited pain.

“You’re right,” he says mildly, “that was pretty humiliating.”

“Crotch-shots are the best,” Clint agrees easily.

He’s distracted for a second by the guy’s smile, and stubbornly tamps down on his answering smile because the guy’s probably married to the other half of his little girl’s parental unit, and Clint didn’t go to the freaking trampoline park to pick anyone up. But damn if he kinda wants to.

“Can you text me that?” The guy asks with a kind smile. “I think Skye will get a kick out of it.”

“Skye?” Clint blinks. He was a little distracted.

The guy nods at his daughter, and where she’s jumping trying to make a basket. “She loves to see me make a fool out of myself.”

Clint scoffs, “I doubt you do much of that.”

The eyebrow twitches again, “Oh? How do you figure?”

Clint rubs the back of his neck and flicks his eyes down to his cell. He doesn’t have a non-embarrassing reason for it. “Uh, what’s your, um, number?”

“Here,” he holds out his hand. “I’ll add myself to your contacts.”

Clint notices belatedly that the guy holds out his left hand. With no ring on his finger, not even a tan line. Clint doesn’t know if the move was intentional, but he dutifully hands over his phone without thought for why he trusts the guy so easily with a little device holding so much of his personal information. When he gets his phone back, it’s on the text screen for one ‘Phil Coulson’.

“Phil,” he reads aloud and holds out his hand with a wicked smile. The brightness in the guy, Phil’s, eyes takes his breath away. “I’m Clint. Clint Barton.”

“Mister Barton,” Phil says and doesn’t hold back a smirk while he shakes his hand. The handshake is firm, and warm, and Clint chases after the feeling of callouses that are most definitely not made by any pen. “After you text me proof of my latest humiliation,” he looks over towards his daughter and where she’s playing briefly, “do you want to shoot some hoops with an overly energetic six year old and her father?”

Clint laughs, and it’s a happy sound, “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

Chapter Text

It’s Darcy’s idea to go to the trampoline park.

Jane is reluctant to go, Erik looks like he’s thinking too hard about what a trampoline park even is, and Thor absolutely loves the idea.

And it’s official - Thor is Darcy’s favorite.

And the fact that the trampoline park ends up being overrun by a herd of kids dressed in an eye-blinding assortment of bright colors and clashing patterns doesn’t even deter her from the prospect of jumping as much as she wants and making a complete fool out of herself.

She loses her beanie five minutes in, regrets her decision in wearing a sweatshirt layered over a tank and a too-restricting sports bra in the same span of time, and keeps having to adjust the socks sliding off her feet.

She’s still having a blast.

Darcy jumps into a pit of foam cubes and struggles for a good handful of minutes to swim out of the quicksand-imitating cubes. She only gets out with breath still left in her lungs cause Thor lifts her out at the end. It’s a little embarrassing, because eight year olds can get out no problemo, but Darcy is apparently more out of shape than she thought.

She strips out of her sweatshirt, damned if the resulting cleavage is a bit much, but she’s hot and sweaty and they really need industrial-sized fans in the place or more AC or something cause hot damn is it sweltering. She tosses her sweatshirt to Erik, because, since he’s still so confuddled and large groups of loud people make him nervous and not want to wear pants, he’s been voted team mom for the night. She leads him over towards the massage chairs and treats him to a fifteen minute mechanical massage. She secretly hopes it’s one of the chairs that probes you in the ass, because that shit is hilarious when people don’t expect it.

It is.

Darcy giggles all the way over to the raised, carpeted platform that holds the foam pits, and she plops her butt on the edge of one corner while she watches Thor try to instruct Jane into a flip on one of the trampolines. It doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen any time soon, so Darcy sits back and makes herself comfortable while she enjoys the show.

“She’s going to hurt herself like that,” a wry, smoky voice says at Darcy’s back, and she looks over her shoulder to see a redhead in yoga pants and a graphic t-shirt with the words ‘I don’t like mornings; I don’t like people; I don’t like morning people’ printed in stylized black lettering. “Her form is all wrong,” she continues, eyes trained on Jane.

“And you know this because…?” Darcy asks. She’s pretty sure the Asgardian knows what he’s doing. At least, she would think he does.

“I’m a professional,” she smirks, and it’s a pleased, wicked little thing.

Darcy decides she likes her. “You’re a professional trampoline jumper?”

There’s the faintest twitch of a smile at the corner of her red-painted lips, and Darcy calls it a win. The woman doesn’t look like one easy to smile, let alone laugh. Darcy is immensely pleased with herself when she can hear the smile in the woman’s voice, “No,” she says, “I am not.”

“Then what are you then?” Darcy prompts, but the woman easily skirts around the true intent of the question.

“Someone who took their godson to the trampoline park and regretted it,” she admits and gracefully lowers herself on the edge of the platform, near Darcy but just at the edge of her personal space.

Darcy leans into hers, “Why do you regret it? This place is fu-freaking awesome. Even if it’s as hot as H-E-double hocky sticks in here.” There’s little kids all over the place; she can hear her nana in the back of her head warning her to watch her potty-mouth.

“He seems intent on only playing basketball, even though he has a basketball hoop at home.”

Darcy looks over towards the basketball hoops and spies a lone boy at one, bouncing slightly on the trampoline floor and obviously in the zone while he shoots at the basket almost rhythmically. “Hey, at least he looks like he’s having fun…?” Darcy hedges.

The woman tilts her head. “He enjoys the hoop at home just as much; it was a waste coming here.”

“Oh no it wasn’t,” Darcy snarks and wobbly stands on her feet. “C’mon, let’s go have some fun.”

Darcy ropes the boy and his godmother into a game to see who can make the most outrageous jump into the foam pits.

Darcy wins with a jump that, according to Natasha, resembles a dying fish attempting flight.

She wins more than she thought when she gets a date with Natasha.

And Natasha admits, after a handful of (fu-freaking awesome) dates and a budding seed of trust, that going to the trampoline park really wasn’t such a waste.

And Darcy amends her favorite to the Black Widow. Because duh.