same as it ever was (mission starters)

[seenitall]

WHO: Alex Rider, Clint Barton, Bobbi Morse, possibly others
WHEN: the first day in suburban bliss, tbd
WHERE: the Morse-Barton household
WHAT: hi mom and dad
NOTES\WARNINGS: tbd



So. Attempting to convince the companion bot that attached itself to his side that he's all right on his own, really, he doesn't need an assigned family has not been going well. It's been going so not well, actually, that he's pretty sure it threatened him with finding a teenage boy-sized basket to deliver him to his new family in if he didn't cooperate, which is how he finds himself walking uncomfortably alongside it to his assigned housing to meet his assigned parents.

It is helpfully holding his hand with a robotic arm-like appendage. So he doesn't get lost. (So he doesn't run off. Which isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility right now, so he guesses he can't blame it for coming to correct conclusions.) There's two adults already standing in the driveway, and the bot leads him right up to them and nudges at him to give them the note crumpled in his fist.

Hello! Give me a name and raise me, please!

It's ridiculous and embarrassing, but he does hand it off to the woman. As he does so, he gets a proper look at both of his new parents and realizes he does know one of them - sort of, anyway. It's the Cheese Wire bloke he'd met back in the early days here. At least that means one of his parents has some potentially useful skills if it comes down to it, even if he's not sure how helpful that might be. "I won't answer to Jimmy," he says, clearly addressing Clint.

Just to get that over with now.

Comments

[westcoasts]

Not for the first time, Clint has HAD QUESTIONS about whoever really, truly decides all of this for all of them. Someone, he thinks, must find it really funny to keep throwing him and Bobbi together. A "family", like they hadn't tried that before, like it hadn't ended disastrously, like they don't keep going round in circles — agreeing and arguing, agreeing and arguing. In theory, it could be worse, and—

—Worse it is.

A child. A teenager! It's better than a baby, probably, but that doesn't make it good, and as he stands in awkward silence next to Bobbi in the driveway of their house (quote-unquote), as he watches the blonde (that's... how genetics works, isn't it? Although there's a chance any actual kid of his would end up with hair closer in colour to Barney's—) kid walk up, hand in hand (for all intents and purposes) with one of the robots.

One moment, then two, and the kid hands a crumpled not to Bobbi and Clint thinks he recognises the kid, is certain of it as soon as he speaks and that voice slips out.

(God—.)

"Did I ever actually ask your name?" Is his immediate response, uncertainty evident in his features.

[seenitall]

"It's Alex."

Meaning: no, Clint didn't ask his name, but he's not going to hold it against him. Alex never found out Clint's name, either, to be fair. He might've been thinking of the man as Cheese Wire when in need of a designation for him. So 'James Bond' was probably a more dignified name than Alex gave him, to be fair.

Still. "I don't really need parents, but the robot disagreed."

[mockingbirdy]

Bobbi takes the note and glances it it before crumpling it up. This is dumb, it's all dumb and she looks from Clint to Alex and just thinks how exhausting all of this is going to be.

"Let's just hope this doesn't last forever, and that you both know how to pick up your dirty socks. I am not doing the laundry for everyone."

[westcoasts]

When Alex says he doesn't need parents, Clint's expression says he doesn't disagree. Clearly, evidently, Alex — and the rest of the kids here — have been getting along without parental supervision, mostly just fine, and Alex is old enough to (mostly) (probably) just need a check-in now and then. If this was home, maybe a reminder to go to school or something, but it's not, so.

"Yeah, well, our opinion's meaning nothing isn't exactly new," he says, half-grumbled, before immediately adding, "Clint." A breath of a pause, and a jerk of his head. "Bobbi." His gaze lingers on her, somewhere between watchful and challenging and amused.

"Think we both know what happens to dirty laundry." But now that they've all met, now that their quote-unquote child is here, Clint decides he's done with standing in the driveway. He turns on the spot to head back inside, takes two steps and then, over his shoulder, adds—.

"C'mon, it'll be like old times."

[seenitall]

"I can do my own laundry."

Admittedly, Jack usually does it at home, but Alex might not've lived to his current age if he left dirty laundry around everywhere. As she has pointed out, she wasn't the Riders' maid. (And now she's more of his big sister/guardian than anything else, and thinking of that right now isn't really making him feel any better about this situation.)

"Which old times?"

WAIT SORRY I FORGOT IT WASN'T MY TURN

[westcoasts]

"The old old times", Clint answers quickly and unhelpfully. "West Coast Avengers." His gaze slides towards Bobbi, as if trying to gauge her reaction. "We used to be on a team together, lived out with some friends in LA." That's the simple way of putting it, at least. The one that doesn't quite cover 'and we were married and then our marriage very publicly disintegrated in front of said friends-slash-colleagues'.

"Bobbi and I know how to share a living space, is what I'm saying."