So, yeah, I'm not sure where this came from. Really not sure. But it's here none the less. Kinda takes place really early in the same universe as 'Of Asthma Attacks and Archer Plots'. Just a brief little exchange between a 5 year old Darcy and Phil. If I missed any mistakes, I'm going to blame my headache.

Hopefully everyone enjoys it.

Illusinia

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, people! Otherwise, the movies would be a lot more insane.

Phil stood nervously outside of the school waiting for his daughter to emerge. She was only in Kindergarten, but she had insisted she was capable of meeting him in the turnaround for the parking lot after school rather than having him come get her from the front of the classroom. Normally, he wouldn't even fathom such an idea, but Clint had convinced him that letting her have some freedom would allow her to grow and in no way did it make Phil a bad father. And Clint knew something about bad fathers.

Still, it was taking a lot of Phil's willpower not to go stand in front of the classroom like he always did. He'd promised Darcy he would wait for her here though, and a promise was a promise. Well, unless super spies or aliens attacked. At that point, all promises were considered forfeit.

His patience held out as the bell rang and students began to enter the parking area, following the lead of their teachers. It only took a moment for Phil to spot Darcy's teacher, Miss Calverson. She was distinctively younger than the rest of the teachers, but had a solid handle on her kids none the less. And the other parents had said she wouldn't be able to control her class.

Waving from where he was leaning against his car, Phil caught her attention easily. She offered him a smile, though it was far more uncertain usual, and allowed Darcy to go to her father. The little girl blinked up at the teacher when she realized someone was talking to her, then looked at her father before starting towards him. Phil immediately wanted to stiffen, but managed to remain relaxed visually.

There was a slight furrow to Darcy's brow, as if she were thinking through a complicated problem. He'd seen that look on her face before whenever Clint gave her a riddle or used a slang term she wasn't familiar with. Originally it had been curse words, but he'd gotten a significantly better handle on his cussing after Darcy, while learning to talk, regaled them one evening with a multitude of 'damn's following Clint's use of the word. That killed Clint's cursing habit quicker than anything else had, including threats from Natasha.

She reached the car in less than a minute and slid her backpack off her shoulder to give him a hug like she always did, brow still furrowed. Phil returned the hug a little tighter than normal, always happy to have his daughter home safe. Some might call him overprotective, but he couldn't help worry about Darcy when she wasn't in his line of sight.

"Hey sweetheart, how was school?" asked Phil curiously as he released his daughter and opened the car door for her while picking up her backpack.

She climbed into the front seat where her booster seat was strapped into place, allowing her father to set her backpack in her lap before responding. "It was alright."

Phil felt his own brow furrow, holding up his hand in the customary 'one minute' pose before shutting her door and moving around to the diver's side of the car. Waving to the teacher, he slid inside and started the vehicle. "Why only alright?"

Darcy focused on buckling her seat belt (she'd learned when she was 4 and had been proud of the fact ever since) rather than looking at her father. "We got homework today."

Phil's brow furrowed further. Darcy was usually excited when she got homework. She loved learning new things. Especially when Clint was teaching her, even though that may have been due to the man's pyromaniac streak. Phil was still attempting to get the burn marks off the ceiling from their last experiment.

"Is homework bad?" asked Phil cautiously. If something had upset Darcy, he wanted to know (Heaven help the unfortunate soul who upsets his daughter). Still, sometimes Darcy displayed the marked tendency to clam up when pushed too hard to explain something. And that was the last thing Phil wanted.

The little girl's shoulders shrugged, upsetting her braid from where it had been pulled over her shoulder. Clint had braided it for her that morning amid jokes from Natasha that he was becoming a mother hen. "No, homework's good. It's just..." Her little voice trailed off, eyes growing distant as her mind began to process whatever it was she had been thinking about earlier again.

"It's just what, sweetheart?" pressed Phil gently, drawing her attention back to their conversation. "You know you can tell me anything."

Darcy blinked, attention refocusing on her father. Sighing she began to explain as she played with the end of her braid. "Well..."

"Alright class, gather around. I have homework for you tonight!" called Miss Calverson as she attempted to capture her student's attention. They'd been working on art projects for the most part, drawing self portraits for the end of their unit on themselves. Everyone stopped what they were doing and scrambled to put their things away, joining the circle that had formed around Miss Calverson when they finished. When the last student sat down in the circle, the teacher turned towards the board and wrote the word 'family'.

"So, our next unit will be on family," informed Miss Calverson. "But before we begin, I want each of you to learn something about your own family. So, tonight, I want everyone to go home and ask your mom's and dad's where they work and what they do there. Questions?" Darcy's hand shot up immediately, waving slightly in the air. "Yes, Darcy?"

"What if you don't have a mommy?" asked Darcy curiously, head tilting slightly to the side.

Miss Calverson looked slightly startled by the question. "Do you mean, what if your mommy doesn't live with you?"

"No, I mean what if you don't have a mommy at all," explained Darcy. Then, to avoid further questions, she added, "She died."

"Oh, um, well, then I suppose you should just ask your dad what he does," replied Miss Calverson uneasily before looking around the class. "Any other questions?"

Again, Darcy's hand shot up. Miss Calverson's brow furrowed. "Yes, Darcy?"

"Which dad should I ask?" questioned Darcy, tilting her head slightly to the side.

Miss Calverson may have choked a little. "What do you mean? How many dads do you have?"

"Two," replied Darcy, holding up two fingers with a grin. "Which one do I ask?"

"Um, both, I guess," replied Miss Calverson nervously. Her cheeks were a little red."Just ask both of your parents what they do, Darcy." Darcy nodded, brow furrowing slightly as she took in her teachers reaction. "Now, are there any other questions?"

"Miss Calverson didn't look happy and I don't get why," explained Darcy as she finished her story.

Phil sighed slightly. He'd known this would come up eventually. He'd never wanted Darcy to feel like her family was incomplete or in any way abnormal. Now though, he didn't have much of a choice.

"She didn't know you had two fathers, sweetheart. It caught her by surprise." He was never going to tell her that Miss Calverson had been flirting with him mildly since she met him and that part of her reaction probably came from embarrassment. "Most people don't have two fathers."

"I know that," replied Darcy with a roll of her eyes. "Most people have a mommy and a daddy. Dada taught me that. Aunt Nat brought a book over for me in Russian and she was teaching me how to talk about my family when Dada came in and he came over to join us. When I asked about why there was a family with a mommy and a daddy but not one with two daddies, he told me most families only had one of each but it doesn't matter if there is a mommy and a daddy or two daddies or two mommies in a family so long as everyone loves each other."

Phil couldn't help the tear that crept into the corner of his eye. The fact that Clint had taught Darcy something like that and focused so much on how everyone in a family had to love each other to be a family spoke of the man's own hardships in that department. It also told Phil exactly how much Clint loved both he and Darcy, and that he considered them family. Though he already knew most of that, it was still a comfort to know that Clint had made it clear to Darcy that he loved her. Plus, knowing that Clint had admitted out loud that he considered them a family put the last of Phil's own fears to rest.

"Daddy?" called Darcy as she leaned forward a little and waved at him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Darcy," replied Phil as he subtly brushed away the tear and checked Darcy's seat belt before buckling his own and pulling out of the parking lot. "Now, lets go home and figure out how to doctor your homework to meet S.H.I.E.L.D. secrecy code."