1point5kidsandaruger | I seem to be what I'm not, you see. I'm wearing my heart like a crown.

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I seem to be what I'm not, you see. I'm wearing my heart like a crown.

[The lab at the NTS gives Steve the crawls, no matter how many times he ends up there. Maybe it's the wasteland backing the place, the radiation warning signs or the huge pits where gamma-based explosive have ripped chunks out of the earth. Maybe it's the way the self-contained facility circulates purified air until the entire place tastes stale. Regardless, when Howard says there's 'something interesting' there and that General Phillips has requested Captain America's presence at the base ASAP, Steve doesn't exactly have a choice but to go.

The surroundings are still unsettling. The air still tastes stale. But there's a wildness to the place that Steve's never seen before. Scientists rushing back and forth, holding conversations that are at once hushed and excited. He almost has to pry one away from her clipboard in order to find out where Phillips and Stark are waiting. "Requested SSR personnel are supposed to go to observation room three," she says, and by the time he manages to get directions there he's already looking forward to stepping back out into the Nevada heat.

What he doesn't expect when he gets to Observation Room Three is to see Peggy and a half-dozen higher ups whose names and faces he knows but whom he's never personally met. What he doesn't expect is to see a man restrained in the otherwise empty cleanroom on the other side of the glass. Steve's escort stays on the other side of the door when it gets shut. He drifts to Peggy's side, saluting the Phillips at the same time.]

General. Is... What is this?

[Phillips raises his eyebrows at Steve in a look the Captain knows too well by now.]

Funny.[Phillips gestures at the glass.]I was hoping you could tell me. Stark got Skull's toy box open - ripped a nice shiny hole in the wall of his lab and spiked radiation levels in the entire facility. And also gave us him.

[Steve moves to the glass, resisting the urge to press a hand against it and peer closer, like the prisoner is a new exhibit at the zoo.] I'm not sure I follow, sir.

Came through the hole, took out two scientists and five guards - and then things got interesting.

[Steve frowns, still watching the prisoner.] ...Sir?

He took one look at the uniforms and started demanding to see you.

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[Peggy frowns, slightly, at Steve's maneuver and finds herself edging closer. But her eyes train on the other man, watching and ready should he try anything, though she suspects he won't. She can feel Phillips's eyes glaring into her back, warning her to get him back up and standing, but she ignores it.]

[She trusts in Steve. And she trusts in her gun. So she's willing to see what comes out of this exchange, and she doesn't add anything else to what information he offers. It's nothing worrying.]

_{( He's keenly aware of how vulnerable he is, in a position like this: they'd taken his weapons, even the knife he usually kept tucked away, and without use of his arms he was entirely helpless. He hated that, and it put an edge on his temper. In response to Steve's question, he let out a short, barking laugh. He answers, then, his eyes still roving from one of them to the other.

After all, what harm was there in telling the man something he should already know? )}

Clint Barton. Codename Hawkeye. Special Agent for the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. Member of the Avengers.

Not a prisoner for some defunct branch of the military from World War II.

[Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. SHIELD.

The named Howard proposed as a joke at Steve's... 'welcome back' party, for lack of a better word. "We'd have to come up with something for the letters to stand for," he'd said. The Commandos had been all for it. With so many organizations being turned over to R&D with the tesseract or intel and response against the Russians and their satellites, the joke had become a serious consideration - and Steve had been working with Peggy and Phillips for the past six months on organizing an offshoot of the SSR under the title.

Steve stands, his fingertips brushing against Peggy's. It's the only sign that he's unsettled.

Quietly:] Agent Barton. [He doesn't avoid the title and isn't sarcastic about using it - but he falters, very slightly.]

[Parade rest again. There are several questions he could ask. That he will. But he's less and less certain about wanting to ask them here.] What is the Avengers?

[He glances back at the two extra men in the room, giving Clint a signal to wait, taking for granted that the man will listen and not even noticing the assumption. He opens the door to the observation area and points.] Gentlemen.

[Hesitation. Steve waits. They leave, and he shuts and locks the door behind them.]

[Phillips' voice blares over the intercom instantly.]

Rogers, what the hell are you doing?

[Deep breath.] Finding out what we need to know, sir.

[Steve presses the button by the door to mute the intercom and keeps pressing until the casing folds and the button jams in the 'off' position.]

We'll have about a minute before they start getting antsy. [Steve puts his back firmly to their audience, letting his uncertainty show at last.] Agent, what year do you think it is?

Edited 2012-06-24 03:24 (UTC)

[Peggy picks up on Steve's plan the moment he initiates it and does nothing to hinder it. She picks up on how unsettled he is, the smallest of touches always communicating wordlessly, and if she's honest, she's feeling a bit unsettled herself. Her eyes narrow, and her fingers itch to be holding her gun, but it's not necessary]

[Already beginning her defense for the lecture Phillips will give her later, she doesn't leave with the other guards. Unlike Steve, however, she continues to keep her uncertainty unknown, keeps her face neutral as she looks back over at the newly named Agent Barton.]

[She wants to know how the man knows about the potential for SHIELD, why he considers himself an agent of it, but Steve's question jars her out of it, and for a moment, she scolds herself for not thinking to ask it first. She glances at her husband for a moment, then looks back at Barton, steadily]

_{( He's sharp enough to pick up on what Steve's doing, but he still doesn't quite know why he's doing it. Part of him had hoped this was all some elaborate ruse, some psychotic training exercise set up by Fury to test if he was still loyal, still useful. He didn't think Rogers would go along with a plan like that, but maybe... SHIELD was the organization that had tried to trick Captain America into believing he was still in the forties. There was a lot they were capable of.

But there's one person who couldn't be in on a plan like that, and Clint's looking straight at her. He's heard the stories, read the files, seen the pictures the captain had painted of her. That's Peggy Carter, beautiful and in her prime. That can't be faked.

So when he does respond, even though he's trying to bark out the answer defiantly, he deflates a bit. )}

20... 12.

[Steve exhales quietly. 2012. Fifty-six years in the future. As improbable as it is, they still don't know how the Tesseract functions - and Steve saw for himself the way the universe seemed to open up inside the Valkyrie when Skull touched the Tesseract itself. He's beyond predicting what that thing can do.]

[He presses two fingers against his lips, trying to think.] I'm afraid it's 1956.

[There's no gentle way to deliver that kind of news.] Agent Carter... How strongly would you object to moving Agent Barton to a secure location? [He glances at Peggy, not realizing there's a plea on his face. With subtle emphasis on the article:] The safehouse.

Edited 2012-06-24 18:52 (UTC)

[2012. Outside, she's still, but her mind is running in a thousand different directions. Possibilities? Reasons? She's not sure, but suddenly she's a little glad the intercom isn't on. She only hopes Phillips and the others on the outside don't notice anything.]

[When Steve asks, she frowns for a moment, gives him a look. Then she steals a glance at Barton, restrained and clearly knowing Steve, and she thinks that maybe she doesn't want him stuck here in labs and secret headquarters.]

[A sigh.] It seems the best course of action at the moment.

_{( 1956. It feels like someone just pushed him off a building--it's a not a fun sensation. He wasn't even born in 1956. Hell, if he walks out of here and looks them up, will he find his parents alive, not yet married, happy?

He tosses those thoughts away and glances at Steve. Not quite the man he knows, and that means he doesn't get what the other Steve has--trust, respect. Not yet, at least.

Peggy's way of keeping calm, the way she sighs at that moment, almost makes Clint smile. He likes her, he decides. )}

You know that would require actually letting me move, right?

Get ready to move, then, Agents. [Steve shoots Peggy a tiny smile, trying not to look too pleased with either her agreement or the challenge of getting Clint out of here with half an army standing between them and open air.

He steps behind Clint's chair, takes the restraints in both hands, and nods once.] Peggy, if you can get the doors.

[And then he snaps the restraints and the men on the other side of the glass are all on their feet at once - except Phillips, who looks like he wants to put his head through a wall.]

Edited 2012-06-24 19:36 (UTC)

[She shares a quick glance with Phillips as she makes for the door, opening it quickly and standing forcefully enough in the threshold that no agent dares try to pass her.]

Captain Rogers and I will be taking charge of the man for now. He'll be in our custody. I suggest allowing us to leave without issue.

[When she comes back to work, she's bound to get a million questions thrown her way. But she'll work on the answers once she gets more of her own.]

Edited 2012-06-24 19:42 (UTC)

_{( Clint rubs his wrists as he follows the two of them, taking in the facility with a critical eye. For 1956, it's pretty well-equipped. As they brush past Phillips, Clint grabs his bow and quiver from where they'd been placed against a wall--it's a moment when he steps away from his two protectors, and he glowers at the rest of the men in the room. It's one final "screw you all" gesture.

He pulls the strap of the quiver over his chest and breathes a bit easier, rejoining Carter and Rogers. Now that he's armed, slightly more in control, he's content to simply follow them. )}

Steve holds a brief, quiet conversation with Phillips, says something about 'matters of national security' to the rest in an authoritarian tone, and exits before anyone has wits enough to stop them.

In the hall, between checkpoints, he mutters, "I'd prefer we keep conversation to a minimum until we're out of the car and at the safehouse. It's the only place I'm one-hundred-percent sure we won't be listened to."

Their retreat from the lab goes smoothly - people who might try and stop or question Captain America press themselves out of the way of Agent Thirteen.

The drive to the little puddlejumper that got Steve to Nevada, and then the trip from the air force base where it lands and back to the actual safehouse, Steve says almost nothing. He's tense, going over and over in his mind what he and Peggy are risking right now beyond their reputations and careers.

He can only pray that Agent Barton isn't a very good actor.

After a few detours to check for tails, they pull in to a tidy cookie-cutter neighborhood, and finally up to a blue house with three white girls in the yard (two with blue eyes and brown hair, the youngest a hazel-eyed blonde) playing with a young German Shepherd. A handsome black man in his mid-thirties watches from the front steps.

Peggy circles the block once before pulling into the drive, and Steve swings out of the passenger side to preempt the stampede.

There's a mixed bag of cries from the yard - "Ba!" "Daddy!" and "Papa!" respectively - before the girls, between the ages of two and six, come charging into the driveway. Gabriel Jones follows at a slight distance, his eyes on the street instead of the reunion.

Steve sweeps the children all up at once, planting kisses until they're all pushing him away and squeaking.

The eldest, Sarah, is the first to notice Peggy and their guest. She sobers at once.

"Mama," she says, to Steve's still-open door, a greeting and a question. The other two squirm out of Steve's arms and race to the other side of the car, both trying to get Peggy's door open before the agent can do it herself.

Peggy puts her hand on the door handle, keeping it shut tight as the girls come around, and she turns, eyes narrowing in directly at Barton's. It's not that she thinks him particularly villainous, but she doesn't know or trust him. So the warning comes out, her voice low. "If you give any sign of harming any of them, you will find yourself with a bullet in your skull."

Then she lets the girls open the door, sliding out, and Rosalie, the middle child, throws her arms around Peggy's legs while the youngest, Josephine, grabs at her skirt and tries to crawl up. Peggy laughs, gently nudging them away from the car and into the yard. Sarah finally starts towards them and follows suit of her sisters, wrapping her arms around Peggy's legs and hiding her face against her mother.

Before she directly addresses any of the girls, Peggy shares a brief look with Gabe, giving him a fraction of a nod and conveying to continue keeping close watch, on everything, just in case.

"You're home early!" Rosalie giggles happily, as Peggy squats down eye level, pulling all three of them close and kissing each on the forehead.

"I am, aren't I? Surprise, my loves," she says gently, smiling fondly as she hugs them.

"Papa said you wouldn't be home until tomorrow," Sarah adds, stealing a glance at the mystery man and then another at her father. Excited as she might be, the eldest is never deterred.

He's used to long and awkward car rides, plane trips. He keeps his lips pursed and his jaw clenched the entire time, taking in the world around him. It only serves to hammer home the point: Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore. But for him Kansas is the twenty-first century, and Glinda the Good Witch is Captain-freaking-America.

It's only when he spots the house that he genuinely begins to panic. He doesn't know what he was expecting, really. A government issues, entirely sanitized set of quarters? A large and comfortable apartment in Brooklyn that was big enough for two but still obviously a bachelor's pad? These make up Clint's frame of reference, when he thinks of Steve and himself. But Peggy is the variable here.

He spots the children--of course he spots them, who couldn't spot them and know exactly who they were--and his blood goes cold. When Peggy turns to deliver her threat, he meets her gaze with as frank and honest a stare as he can muster.

Hawk's eyes. They see better from a distance. When Peggy and Steve step out of the car to greet their daughters, Clint realizes he is getting far too close.

He steps out of the car all the same, quiver still on his back and the bow, collapsed down to its smallest form, tucked under his arm. He doesn't say anything, just swallows noisily.

When Clint emerges, all three girls fix on him with the fascination of children who don't see many people outside of their family members and neighborhood friends. Steve rests a hand on Sarah head, giving her hair the tiniest ruffle.

"Things changed a little. We'll talk about it inside."

It's a family code, and the reaction from the two older girls is instant. Their focus on Clint redoubles, two pairs of Steve-blue eyes eying the man with all of Peggy's cold calculation.

Josephine has more important things on her mind than who the stranger could be or why he's at her house. She wobbles in his direction with singular focus, pointing at Clint's shoulder. "Feddur," she declares, and spouts a stream of nonsense syllables, ending with a firm, "Mine."

"No, little miss, they are not yours." Steve scoops her up and dangles her upside-down until she shrieks in amusement, before righting the tiny girl to drape her over his shoulder.

Steve clasps Gabriel's hand briefly. "Who's spotting?"

"Falsworth. Dugan and Morita have the night shift."

"Any news from Dernier?" Josephine nearly capsizes over the back of Steve's shoulder, but he draws her into his hands and gives her a little toss into the air. She screams again. Rosalie comes to wrap one arm around Steve's leg, still watching Clint.

"Not since he got to Algiers." Gabriel raises one eyebrow, but Steve just shakes his head.

The German Shepherd trots over to sit next to Gabriel's leg, glaring at Clint.

"Come on, girls." Steve takes Rosalie's hand while Josephine hangs from his other arm. "Agent Barton."

Steve gives him a look that's almost reluctant. Do you understand what we've put on the line for you? "If you wouldn't mind going first."

Sarah slides her hand into Peggy's, standing at proper attention and still watching Clint carefully. Peggy herself follows the exchange between Steve and Gabe quietly, doesn't look to where she knows Falsworth is to avoiding revealing it. It's a quick enough sitrep; she'll ask more later. She's anxious to get inside, for a multitude of reasons.

At Josephine's actions, she almost laughs, and she watches Steve pick her up and flail her around with the tiniest of smiles.

After it's all over, her grip tightens on Sarah's hand, nodding in agreement for Clint to go first. She shares another look with Gabe, communicating wordlessly -- she's good at doing so with most people, really, even if it works best with Steve. She's on guard, and Gabe's on guard, and she's confident nothing will happen by letting Agent Barton into her house.

But she's still mentally prepared for the worst anyway.

A brief break in the action here, folks, because there are some things to note. One, in a tactical sense, Barton never goes first. Up on a rooftop, watching other people walk into certain danger—that’s his favorite place to be. Second, he’s not exactly bad with children. He likes them, can actually be pretty good with them. But these are Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter’s children, and that’s a whole different ball game. And finally, it’s 19-fucking-56. Every frame of reference he has, every protocol and every contingency plan, has been tossed out a window. Lesser agents would be panicking more than Clint is.

But what does Hawkeye do? He gets cocky.

He winks at Josephine, reaching behind him to pluck the fletching off one of his arrows. They’re all polycarbonate, so the feathers are aerodynamically designed. They also pull apart into pieces rather conveniently, in case he’s ever in need on a battlefield and needs to scavenge to reuse them. So when he begins tossing it into the air, making the fletching do more and more complicated spins with slight flicks of his wrist. And he doesn’t stop as he waltzes past Steve, Peggy, Gabriel and the girls. When he’s at the door, he catches it and turns back to them.

“Y’know, everything my mother taught me is screaming something about ‘ladies first,’ in this situation.”

To say Josephine is charmed would be like saying seventy years is a long time to nap. She clings to Steve's arm, watching Clint's every move, tracing the feather in the air - and as soon as Clint stops moving, she drops to the ground and bolts for him.

"Jo!"

There's a frozen moment where Steve calculates all the different ways he could get to Clint first and take the agent out, or stop Josephine from getting to Clint, period. Gabriel's hand goes to the shoulder holster under his coat - Steve's positive that Peggy's probably doing the same thing.

Josephine slams into Clint's leg with all the uncoordinated enthusiasm of the very young and starts talking non-stop in words that make complete and total sense to her and no one else in the vicinity.

'Feddur' does make several appearances, though.

Edited 2012-06-26 02:32 (UTC)

"Josephine!" But her warning goes unnoticed, the toddler focused on one thing and one thing only.

While one hand tightens around Sarah's, making sure her daughter stays beside her, the other is indeed reaching for the gun tucked away at her side. She doesn't quite take it out, but she knows she could do so and shoot fast enough to take him out before anything happened, and with Josephine so close to him, she doesn't want to spark something by pulling it out preemptively. She doesn't want to alarm her other daughters either, even as she feels Sarah's eyes anxiously boring into her.

But Peggy's eyes are glaring a dangerous warning, and she hopes Clint is smart enough to realize just how many people are prepared to strike.

To say that Clint was unprepared for that would be an understatement. But he recovers well, first patting Josephine lightly on the head and then holding up his hands, trying to placate her parents. But he's gone halfway, now, and he wouldn't be himself if he just rolled over and tried to appease them. So instead he picks Josephine up by the waist and puts her on his shoulder. She busies herself pulling at his arrows while he smiles apologetically at the rest of them.

"Guess this lady wanted to go first."

Steve relaxes in increments, Rosalie calming beside him as well. He gives her a little one-armed hug and moves forward, signaling the all-clear to Gabriel and opening the front door. He meets Clint's eyes, just for a moment, and nods. He might not be sure what's going on, but Clint's reaction has at least put to bed some lingering doubts.

Josephine reaches forward and grabs a handful of Steve's hair, ruining whatever gravity the exchange might have had.

Steve extricates her fingers from his scalp and taps her on the nose. "That isn't yours either."

The interior of the house bears some resemblance to the apartment of the Captain Clint knows - drawings and paintings everywhere, books everywhere, tidy and simple. It's clear neither of the home's owners believe in excess unless it has to do with practical education or the arts.

Steve makes his way to the living room, which has more books stacked everywhere and television that looks like it gets used maybe once a month.

"Sarah, Rosalie, what do we do when we have guests?"

The two girls look at each other, apparently coordinating their answer in silence. In any case, they both turn to Clint and intone politely, "Would you like something to drink?"

Edited 2012-06-26 03:45 (UTC)

Peggy doesn't quite relax in tune with Steve, not even as they enter the house and she enters a familiar layout, because hidden among the books are, of course, guns -- though kept mostly out of reach of the girls. She leans over and kisses Sarah on the head and finally lets go of her hand just before she and Rosalie ask Clint their question.

He knows how to handle children, at least, and that much sets her nerves a little at ease. But she won't quite be satisfied until one thing.

She takes the few steps closer to him and slides her hands around Josephine, lifting and taking her from Clint without a word. The toddler lets out a shriek, half in amusement and half annoyed, one of the arrows coming with as her tiny hand grips it. She's pleased with her prize, and she begins to ramble about it expectantly to her mother. 'Feddur!' continues to be slipped in, each time louder and more exuberant than the last.

With Josephine in her arms, Peggy finally reaches an actual level of relaxed, even as the two-year-old flails about with bonus gesticulation to her story. "That's amazing, darling," she says softly, and Josephine lets out a shrill happy noise and claps her hands, dropping the arrow on the floor.

The domesticity of the scene is at odds with the tension rolling off of everyone in the room, no matter how well they hide it. Clint wants to laugh at the girls' question, not in a harsh way. No, what he really wants to reply with is "do you have any hard whiskey?" But of course that's not the thing to say to children, and definitely not these children. So instead he just shrugs.

"I'm fine, girls. Thanks." He's not at ease with formality, not even this cookie-cutter, childish brand. And it shows in his face and tone.

When Josephine grabs one of his arrows--he watches Peggy that entire time, knew she wouldn't be content until her child wasn't in his arms, it only made sense--he made sure he knew exactly which one she was grabbing. The map of his quiver is implanted on his brain better than his own name. (Standard, standard, grappling hook, explosive, bolo, etc, etc.) The one she grabbed was the EMP. He knew she couldn't detonate it even if she tried.

Still, that didn't stop him from reaching over and removing the head as it fell to the ground, tucking it into his pocket. There wasn't much to be electrically shorted-out, here, but you never knew when these things could come in handy.

Steve studies Clint, reading the man with the ease of twenty-four years of life-based experience and almost twelve years of training.

"I'd like some tea," he says, resting a hand on Sarah's head. She looks up at him with Peggy's pinched expression, the look that says I know you're thinking something you aren't telling me.

"Could you get a little of the top-shelf for Agent Barton? The one with the black label that Uncle Dugan likes." Steve raises an eyebrow in question at Clint. Sarah takes her sister's hand and heads for the kitchen.

Once they're out of immediate earshot, Steve settles on to the couch, rubbing his knees with both hands. "Make yourself comfortable. I get the feeling we'll be here a while."

He has a million questions, but he won't start until Peggy's signalled she's ready.

Peggy sits on the couch herself, gesturing for Barton to take the chair. She adjusts Josephine accordingly and comfortably before handing the child a book, which she appropriately opens and starts reading (and occasionally singing) out loud. "Boppy!"

Gabriel shifts to stand in the doorway, ready to pull back and distract the girls should they finish their task early, but in a spot where he can clearly listen in the meantime.

With all her daughters sufficiently distracted, Peggy finally lets her attention come back fully to the situation at hand. A situation that apparently involves a man from 2012 who claims to know Captain America -- and not just the name, but the man behind it.

Mouth in a thin line, she's entirely business even as she occasionally rocks the toddler in her lap. "Let's start with how you seem to know Steve, and know him quite well, especially for someone apparently from 2012."

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switching to prose because dialogue :|

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