1. Rescued 1

Donut came first.

Actually, Phil came first, although only in a round-about and frustratingly unavailable way. Clint tended not to collect people or things, but the man who brought him in to SHIELD had wormed his way into Clint's life in a way that Clint was not inclined to deny. If he loved Agent Phil Coulson from afar like the girl pining for the hero in one of Natasha's bodice rippers that she denied reading, then that was Clint's problem and no one else's.

Which brought up Clint's second acquisition, which was Natasha. Not that she truly belonged to him, or anyone, but she was the only other person Clint would have called a permanent part of his personal life.

So, actually, Donut came third. And she came as a surprise.

Phil had forced Clint into an apartment at some point. It was furnished and paid for by SHIELD, but it was fairly plain and ordinary, on the third floor of an older apartment building that was politely shy of run-down. Phil called it inconspicuous, Clint called it cheap.

Clint's cover was a transparent one: he told people he was a professional bodyguard who worked private security gigs and traveled a lot for them. It kept some of his more annoying neighbors at bay and his nicest neighbor, elderly Mr. Delany, worried on his behalf. He often came home from a mission to find a large plastic container of stew in his refrigerator, because Mr. Delany had a key to the place in order to water Clint's plants while he was gone. It was all absurdly normal, the kind of life that Clint had mostly watched other people live from a distance. Which was probably how he had ended up letting his guard down.

He was coming home from someplace wet and cold in Eastern Europe (he hadn't been the pilot, he had been the guy hanging forty feet down from a rope under the chopper while bleeding on Natasha, who was still bitching about her soiled uniform) when he put the key in the lock of his door.

"Mr. Barton! Mr. Barton!" Mr. Delany hobbled down the hallway, making good time despite the cane. "Please help! Oh, please! Mr. Barton!"

Clint tensed up instinctively. "What's going on, Mr. Delany?"

"Hurry! Hurry! He's going to kill her!" Mr. Delany was close to tears.

Shifting his injured arm out of the sling hurt, but Clint figured he would need mobility more. "Where?"

"Basement! I didn't know what to do! I—" The poor guy broke down sobbing. Clint ran for the stairs, knowing he could skip down faster than the old creaky elevator could go, since it was only four flights to get into the basement. He felt his adrenaline ramping up again, still bitter in his blood from the hard mission. When he slammed the door open to the common laundry room, he found a tall, gangly man holding something underwater in the large utility sink, and it took a very simple move to incapacitate the guy. Clint didn't even use his bad arm to do it. While the guy writhed in pain on the floor, Clint grabbed the bag out of the water and dumped the occupant out, hoping he had been in time to save the baby.

But it was far too small for a baby, and it looked more like a drowned rat. It took Clint a second to realize that it was just a kitten.

A small, beige kitten that lay there, unmoving. Clint stared at it. It still didn't move.

He picked her up and stuck her nose into his mouth, breathing into it, then pulled her out and gave her tiny little chest a small squeeze. She promptly puked out water and started coughing.

"You saved her! You saved her!" Mr. Delany, still crying, stood in the doorway, completely ignoring the whines of pain from the guy on the floor.

The kitten was as big as Clint's palm, tiny and fragile in the way only newborns could be. "What the hell?"

"He breeds them! They are all very purebred, but if they come out deformed he just drowns them down here before throwing them in the garbage. I…I've never been able to stop him before." Mr. Delany not-very-accidentally thwacked the guy with his cane as he walk by. "Oh look at her!"

Clint tilted his head while the kitten sputtered in his palm. "What's wrong with her?"

Mr. Delany poked her gently and tipped her face up. "Deformed hips, looks like. Very odd facial deformity, never seen anything like it. Oh, pretty little girl, Daddy saved you huh?"

Clint blinked. "Daddy?"

Mr. Delany looked at him sternly. "You can't just let her go. She's barely three weeks old. She needs to be taken care of."

"I don't know shit—I mean, I don't know anything about cats. Not housecats, anyway," Clint added, remembering Khan the Tigress and her daughters from his circus days.

"Good thing for you I'm a retired veterinarian. Let's go warm this girl up. I'll have Edward get some kitten solution delivered and I'll show you how to use it." Mr. Delany wrapped the kitten up in a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket, then handed her back over to Clint, who grabbed at her without thinking.

"Wait, no…Edward? What?" Clint stumbled behind in Mr. Delany's wake.

"Edward bought my practice when I retired. I'll give you his number, you'll need to take her in for checkups and inoculations and what not. Good kid, steady hand. Better with dogs than cats but I wouldn't have sold to him if he weren't trustworthy."

"I don't need a cat," Clint said.

"Who does? But I don't think you're letting her go, are you?" Mr. Delany tapped the back of Clint's hand, where he was holding the kitten close to his chest.

Clint looked down at the tiny, frowning creature huddled in his grasp, then back at his damned interfering neighbor. "I guess not."

Which was how Clint ended up with Donut the Cat.

…the dogs came later.