Bartoned

Chapter 11

Things changed for you with training after you started showing. Steve's freak-out meant he wasn't willing for you to do the more strenuous workouts he expected of the agents and new recruits and you ended up with a personal trainer doing things that were much lower impact. You'd then join up with the rest of the recruits after to do the specialized training.

People questioned why you weren't doing the regular circuits until the reason became obvious. Then rumors started to fly around. Most were pretty much on the money. You spent a lot of time with Clint, it was Clint's. Though there was a funny one going around about you being a surrogate for Steve and Bucky. It had sprung up out of the fact that it was technically Steve who hired you and he hadn't fired you when the sword fight happened. Not to mention he was going out of his way to keep you on payroll and he was pretty open to hugging you in front of everyone which Clint never did. There were a couple of rumors that it was just some regular guy or you had a one-night stand and didn't even know.

In the meantime, Clint had been showing you he was up for this and that momentary blip where he'd acted like a complete asshole was really just him being a dumbass about what protecting someone he loved meant. You could see why he might have ghosted you so early on given you didn't know him very well then. You saw how he was with the others. Especially Natasha.

He was devoted to his friends. As strange as it was - Clint was human and kind of a disaster - he was the glue in the Avengers. The one they all got along with. The voice of reason when they were butting heads. He was a dork, that was true. But they often just needed a dork.

You kind of needed a dork too - or at least it seemed that way. You seemed to have forgiven him before you were even aware that you had. He went from asking if it was okay for him to help you with things related to the baby like taking you shopping for baby clothes, coming to your doctor's appointment, or rubbing your back if you complained about it. To asking if you wanted to grab dinner with him or if you could hang out after work. To just being around. It was a good two weeks to notice that you'd just fallen into that comfortable familiarity and you were now even closer friends than you had been before any of this happened.

As it got closer to 20 weeks and the big finding out the gender ultrasound you wondered if just telling people that it was Clint's baby was the right thing to do. They'd end up finding out eventually anyway. Might as well move on from the speculation of whose baby it was and move on to how the whole Avengers gig was all nepotism again if that's what was going to happen.

It would save them whispering at looking over at you like you didn't notice them, the way Iona and Yasin were whispering now.

You were supposed to be working on coding. Tony had intentionally written bugs into a program and you were supposed to be working alone to find them and exploit them. The room should have been silent but they were sitting opposite you whispering to each other.

"I reckon we should start a pool. Take bets," Iona whispered as she somehow remained focused on her computer. You didn't know how she did it. You weren't even participating in the conversation and it was distracting you enough. You had now read the same line of code ten times without absorbing what it did.

"Everyone will just bet it's Barton's," Yasin replied. "It's so clearly Barton's. They're always around each other."

"They seem like friends though," Iona whispered. "They're never being all touchy. She's way more touchy with Cap. Besides, I always assumed Barton and Romanoff had a thing."

"If it's not Barton's, it's some randoms we don't know," he said. "And if that's the case who cares? I bet she doesn't know who we're dating either. Maybe dad will be stay-at-home."