[MCU: Fiction] "Smarts" [Clint/Coulson, G]
Title: Smarts
Author: Ami Ven
Word Count: 2,385
Rating: G
Fandom: MCU (Avengers)
Pairing(s): Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Summary Clint is smarter than he believes he is, and Phil is going to prove it.
Smarts
Phil Coulson had an impressive collection of poetry on the shelf in his office.
The books themselves weren’t particularly impressive, most of them bought second-hand and read into a further state of disrepair. It was more the range that made them noteworthy, everything from Chaucer and Shakespeare to self-published modern collections. There were a few in Spanish, a few more in Russian and one lone volume in French, all carefully arranged.
Phil had never read a single one of them.
“You know, I think Emily Dickenson really gets me,” said Clint.
He was sprawled on Phil’s office couch, a battered paperback balanced on his upraised knees.
Phil didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Aside from the fact that she died a hundred years before you were born, I understand that she was a troubled young woman who barely left her home.”
“She was being kept down by The Man,” said Clint. “And probably some pretty serious depression. But she understood the soul. The human spirit.”
“And that resonates with you.”
“Yeah,” Clint agreed, and went back to his book.
Phil just looked at him for a long moment.
Clint still didn’t understand how truly amazing he was. When the subject came up, Clint insisted he was just an ex-carney hick with a sixth-grade education, as though he didn’t quote Keats and Whitman during long stakeouts, as though every shot he took didn’t require him to calculate angle and wind speed and the target’s motion in his head.
But Clint still wasn’t used to accepting praise. He’d come to trust Phil enough to believe he wasn’t lying about the things Clint had done well on a mission, but he still always expected to be told he had done things wrong.
If he was ever going to convince Clint that he was as brilliant as Phil knew he was, Phil was going to have to get creative.
*
“Complete this,” said Phi, dropping a folder on the couch next to Clint. “Number two pencils are in the cup on my desk.”
“I know where the pencils are,” Clint grumbled good-naturedly, then opened the folder. “What’s this?”
“Evaluation,” said Phil. He sat at his desk and began working on some reports that were due soon.
“For what?” Clint asked, warily.
Phil thought fast. “A baseline of your general knowledge and mental state. So if you ever suffer a head trauma, they’ll be able to gauge how bad the damage was.”
“I’ve never had anything worse than a concussion,” Clint protested.
“That’s not exactly a ringing defense,” said Phil, then his expression softened. “It’s just a precaution. Even if it does need to be used, no one will see the results except your immediate superior. Which is me.”
“Okay, then,” said Clint, and commandeered a corner of Phil’s desk to begin.
*
“Still no sign of the target, boss,” said Clint’s voice, over Phil’s earwig.
“Copy, Hawkeye,” Phil replied. “Continue to stand by.”
“Copy, boss,” then, “Did you ever notice that the dudes in Shakespeare plays never listen to the women characters unless they’re giving them really bad advice?”
Phil had only ever read the plays assigned in his high school English class, and hadn’t really thought about them since then. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Because Ophelia seems to have a pretty good idea that something bad was going down at Elsinor, but Hamlet just ignores her. I mean, Get thee to a nunnery sounds funny, but in ye old-ee times, that was rude. And nobody else listened to her, either. That’s probably why she went crazy, all these guys telling her she’s just a dumb girl.”
“That’s probably true,” said Phil.
“But then Lady Macbeth wants to be queen, so she’s all Hey, let’s murder the king and her husband’s just like, Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And don’t even get me started on King Leer, he’s just-”
He broke off abruptly and Phil snapped, “Hawkeye, report.”
“Target spotted, sir. It’s definitely him, and I have the shot.”
“Take it.”
From the surveillance van, Phil couldn’t hear the gunshot, but a moment later, Clint said, “Target is down.”
“Good work, Hawkeye. I’ll see you at the rendezvous.”
“Copy that. See you in a few, boss, and I can tell you all about King Leer.”
Phil, alone in the van, didn’t try to hide his smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”
*
“C’mon, sir, how many of these tests are there?” whined Clint, as Phil dropped another manila folder on the couch beside him.
“Several, I believe,” said Phil.
“There were all kinds of tests and crap when I joined SHIELD,” Clint continued. “Don’t they know how my brain works by now?”
“That is likely beyond the realm of human achievement,” drawled Phil.
“I asked Natasha how she was doing on this,” said Clint, flipping through the test booklet. “And she had no idea what I was talking about.”
“Agent Romanov,” said Phil, “was hired after you were, and is on a different evaluation schedule.”
“But she’ll still have to do these, right?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
Clint snorted. “Even if you could, you probably wouldn’t. Just to be mean.”
“Maybe,” said Phil, with a smile.
“Fine,” said Clint, and reached for a pencil.
*
“I still feel dirty,” grumbled Natasha as she came out of the safe house bathroom, still toweling dry her hair.
Phil didn’t look up from the kitchen table where he was cleaning their weapons. “There’s plenty of hot water.”
She sighed. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?” asked Clint. He’d showered, too, and was lounging on the battered sofa. “Because next time I could try seducing the mark.”
“No,” Natasha laughed. “I don’t mind using the fact that most men are distracted by a pretty face to get what I want. I just wish I didn’t have to pretend they were interesting.”
“How so?” Phil frowned at her - as her handler, it’s his job to know these things before they become a problem. “You know you never have to-”
“I know,” she interrupted softly, brushing a hand along his shoulder on her way to join Clint on the couch. “Maybe dirty isn’t the right word. Listening to those idiots, pretending to hang on their every word, having to just smile and nod along…”
“Ah-ha,” said Clint. “You’re sick of playing pretty-but-dumb. Well, we can fix that.”
“Can we?” Natasha settled on the other side of the couch, sliding her bare feet into Clint’s lap.
“Sure,” he said. “What do you want to talk about? Politics? Nuclear Physics? Russian Literature?”
She paused, thoughtful. “Actually, there was an article I read the other day about a new exhibit opening at the Met.”
“Ooh, I saw that article,” said Clint. “The women artists of the Hudson River School. Do you think we’ll have time to go? Their use of light in the depictions of landscapes is- Sorry, you’re supposed to be talking.”
Natasha smiled. “I’d like someone to go with. What do you say, Phil?”
He smiled back. “I’d be happy to,” he said, “But I don’t know anything about it. You’ll have to explain it to me.”
“We’ve got time now,” added Clint.
She nodded, getting more comfortable. “The Hudson River School wasn’t an actual school, it was a style of art that started in the area of the river in the mid-Nineteenth century…”
Phil went back to his weapons cleaning, listening to Natasha’s explanation slowly turn into a discussion of various art styles in increasingly technical terms.
*
“I thought you said that the last one was the last one, sir,” said Clint, eyeing the manila folder in Phil’s hand with suspicion.
Phil didn’t drop the folder onto the couch or continue onto his desk with it. Instead, he stopped in front of Clint, holding it out. “This isn’t another test, this is the results.”
“Am I allowed to see those?” Clint asked. “Won’t that ruin the future brain-damage test?”
“I may have been misleading about the purpose of these tests,” said Phil.
Clint frowned. “May have?”
“Did,” said Phil. “Was. More of a lie, really.”
“Why?”
The question sounded casual, but Phil knew how much Clint valued honesty and how much was riding on his answer.
“Because there’s something I need you to know, and I didn’t think you’d believe me without hard evidence. Will you let me explain?”
Clint nodded, slowly. “I trust you, Phil.”
Phil handed him the folder. “There are two sets of results here. One of them is yours and one is another agent’s.”
Clint frowned at him for a moment, then opened the folder. There was a sheet of paper paperclipped to each side, the identifying information at the top of the pages covered by a sticky note. Phil watched Clint read down the result lists for both - math, analogies, reading comprehension, spatial reasoning. One set of results was solidly average, good not great, but definitely something to be proud of. The other was more into the leading edge of brilliant, the kind of scores that got people’s attention and started them talking about untapped potential.
Phil wasn’t surprised when Clint’s attention settled on the average results, before he looked back up at Phil.
“That’s not too bad, huh?” Clint said, smiling.
Phil smiled back. “You’d say I was a pretty smart guy, right?”
“Of course,” said Clint, clearly wondering what that had to do with anything. “I mean, you’re not like… like Tony Stark, mad scientist smart, but yeah, of course.”
“Okay,” said Phil. “I want you to keep that in mind.”
He leaned over and peeled the sticky notes from the top of each page.
Clint stared.
The name at the top of the average scores was Coulson, Phillip J. At the top of the higher scores, it said, Barton, Clinton F.
“There’s got to be a mistake,” said Clint.
“I checked the results twice,” said Phil.
“But I’m not that smart,” Clint protested.
“You are. That’s what I need you to know.”
“But I… Phil, I’m just an ex-carney with a sixth-grade education.”
“That’s only your formal education. Just because you left school after the sixth grade doesn’t mean you stopped learning. You taught yourself, which is even more impressive.”
“But I…” Clint tried again. “Why?”
“I didn’t pull this test from nowhere,” said Phil. “I just gave it to you in pieces. This is a practice SAT, Clint. And I took it again with you - those are my scores from now. I actually did fifty points better this time around.”
“Really?” said Clint, then frowned. “The SAT? Like, the test to get into college?”
“Yes, exactly. With scores like this, I know you’ll ace the real one. And SHIELD has quite a few tuition-aid programs.”
Clint let out a long breath. “Wow. College.”
“You don’t have to go,” said Phil. “Now or ever. But I wanted you to know that you can.”
“I never even considered it,” the archer admitted. “I never… I’m too old to go to college.”
“There’s no such thing. And you wouldn’t have to go full-time, if you don’t want to stop going on missions. You could go part-time, even just one class a semester. It would take longer, but that wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I…” said Clint, then he looked up, his smile radiant. “Thank you, Phil.”
“For making you take standardized tests?”
“For believing in me. No one else does. Not even me, most of the time.”
Phil smiled back. “We’ll change that.”
*
“Pardon me, Sir,” said JARVIS. “There is a young man in the main lobby who claims to be an acquaintance of Agent Barton.”
“This kid got a name?” asked Tony, not looking up from where he was working on a tablet, sprawled in an armchair.
“I have confirmed his identity as Chester Morrison, though he suggests that Agent Barton would know him as ‘Terry’.”
“Oh, Terry,” said Clint. “Send him up, JARVIS.”
“He will be up shortly, Agent Barton.”
“Hey, wait,” said Tony. “Who is this guy?”
“Terry,” repeated Clint.
“Yes, I heard that, Legolas. Who is he?”
“A guy I know.”
Tony squinted at him. “Are you being annoying on purpose?”
Clint grinned. “Is it working?”
Behind them, the elevator doors opened, admitting a single person into the Avengers’ common area. He looked like the nerd from every college movie - clean, pressed blue jeans and un-scuffed sneakers with an NYU hoodie under a tweed blazer.
“Hey, Terry,” said Clint. “Everything okay?”
“Yes?” the kid said, as much a question as an answer, then whispered, “Am I supposed to be here?”
“Sure,” laughed Clint.
“Excuse you, this is my building,” said Tony. “And I thought you were happily married to Director Agent?”
Clint scowled. “Okay, one, I would never, never cheat on Phil. And, two, I’m not the one with a history of hooking up with random cute co-eds - no offence, Terry.”
“Um. None taken, I think,” said the kid. “I’m a friend of Clint’s, from school. I’m just here to return his book.”
“Oh, hey, thanks,” said Clint, taking the text book from him. “But you didn’t have to come all this way, you could have just hung onto it until next week’s class.”
“You were nice enough to share after I left mine in my dorm,” said Terry. “And the professor assigned some extra reading, after you left. There’s a note in the book.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Wait,” said Tony. “Back up. Class? School?”
“We’re in a class on Middle Eastern architecture,” offered Terry. “It’s really interesting.”
“Yeah,” Clint agreed. “I spent a lot of time in minarets over the years - that’s classified, Terry, don’t go repeating that - and it’s neat to really study them.”
Tony frowned. “You told us you dropped out of school in the sixth grade.”
“I did,” said Clint. “Then, I dropped back in to get my GED, then, you know, kept going.”
“According to his SHIELD file,” put in JARVIS, “Agent Barton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, with a minor in Russian Language; a Master’s degree in English Literature, specializing in poetry; and a PhD in history, specializing in the Medieval period.”
Tony blinked. “Seriously?”
Clint grinned. “C’mon, Terry, I’ll walk you out.”
Tony stood frozen for another moment, then huffed a laugh. “I guess you learn something new every day.”
THE END
Current Mood:
tired
Author: Ami Ven
Word Count: 2,385
Rating: G
Fandom: MCU (Avengers)
Pairing(s): Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Summary Clint is smarter than he believes he is, and Phil is going to prove it.
Smarts
Phil Coulson had an impressive collection of poetry on the shelf in his office.
The books themselves weren’t particularly impressive, most of them bought second-hand and read into a further state of disrepair. It was more the range that made them noteworthy, everything from Chaucer and Shakespeare to self-published modern collections. There were a few in Spanish, a few more in Russian and one lone volume in French, all carefully arranged.
Phil had never read a single one of them.
“You know, I think Emily Dickenson really gets me,” said Clint.
He was sprawled on Phil’s office couch, a battered paperback balanced on his upraised knees.
Phil didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Aside from the fact that she died a hundred years before you were born, I understand that she was a troubled young woman who barely left her home.”
“She was being kept down by The Man,” said Clint. “And probably some pretty serious depression. But she understood the soul. The human spirit.”
“And that resonates with you.”
“Yeah,” Clint agreed, and went back to his book.
Phil just looked at him for a long moment.
Clint still didn’t understand how truly amazing he was. When the subject came up, Clint insisted he was just an ex-carney hick with a sixth-grade education, as though he didn’t quote Keats and Whitman during long stakeouts, as though every shot he took didn’t require him to calculate angle and wind speed and the target’s motion in his head.
But Clint still wasn’t used to accepting praise. He’d come to trust Phil enough to believe he wasn’t lying about the things Clint had done well on a mission, but he still always expected to be told he had done things wrong.
If he was ever going to convince Clint that he was as brilliant as Phil knew he was, Phil was going to have to get creative.
*
“Complete this,” said Phi, dropping a folder on the couch next to Clint. “Number two pencils are in the cup on my desk.”
“I know where the pencils are,” Clint grumbled good-naturedly, then opened the folder. “What’s this?”
“Evaluation,” said Phil. He sat at his desk and began working on some reports that were due soon.
“For what?” Clint asked, warily.
Phil thought fast. “A baseline of your general knowledge and mental state. So if you ever suffer a head trauma, they’ll be able to gauge how bad the damage was.”
“I’ve never had anything worse than a concussion,” Clint protested.
“That’s not exactly a ringing defense,” said Phil, then his expression softened. “It’s just a precaution. Even if it does need to be used, no one will see the results except your immediate superior. Which is me.”
“Okay, then,” said Clint, and commandeered a corner of Phil’s desk to begin.
*
“Still no sign of the target, boss,” said Clint’s voice, over Phil’s earwig.
“Copy, Hawkeye,” Phil replied. “Continue to stand by.”
“Copy, boss,” then, “Did you ever notice that the dudes in Shakespeare plays never listen to the women characters unless they’re giving them really bad advice?”
Phil had only ever read the plays assigned in his high school English class, and hadn’t really thought about them since then. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Because Ophelia seems to have a pretty good idea that something bad was going down at Elsinor, but Hamlet just ignores her. I mean, Get thee to a nunnery sounds funny, but in ye old-ee times, that was rude. And nobody else listened to her, either. That’s probably why she went crazy, all these guys telling her she’s just a dumb girl.”
“That’s probably true,” said Phil.
“But then Lady Macbeth wants to be queen, so she’s all Hey, let’s murder the king and her husband’s just like, Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And don’t even get me started on King Leer, he’s just-”
He broke off abruptly and Phil snapped, “Hawkeye, report.”
“Target spotted, sir. It’s definitely him, and I have the shot.”
“Take it.”
From the surveillance van, Phil couldn’t hear the gunshot, but a moment later, Clint said, “Target is down.”
“Good work, Hawkeye. I’ll see you at the rendezvous.”
“Copy that. See you in a few, boss, and I can tell you all about King Leer.”
Phil, alone in the van, didn’t try to hide his smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”
*
“C’mon, sir, how many of these tests are there?” whined Clint, as Phil dropped another manila folder on the couch beside him.
“Several, I believe,” said Phil.
“There were all kinds of tests and crap when I joined SHIELD,” Clint continued. “Don’t they know how my brain works by now?”
“That is likely beyond the realm of human achievement,” drawled Phil.
“I asked Natasha how she was doing on this,” said Clint, flipping through the test booklet. “And she had no idea what I was talking about.”
“Agent Romanov,” said Phil, “was hired after you were, and is on a different evaluation schedule.”
“But she’ll still have to do these, right?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
Clint snorted. “Even if you could, you probably wouldn’t. Just to be mean.”
“Maybe,” said Phil, with a smile.
“Fine,” said Clint, and reached for a pencil.
*
“I still feel dirty,” grumbled Natasha as she came out of the safe house bathroom, still toweling dry her hair.
Phil didn’t look up from the kitchen table where he was cleaning their weapons. “There’s plenty of hot water.”
She sighed. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?” asked Clint. He’d showered, too, and was lounging on the battered sofa. “Because next time I could try seducing the mark.”
“No,” Natasha laughed. “I don’t mind using the fact that most men are distracted by a pretty face to get what I want. I just wish I didn’t have to pretend they were interesting.”
“How so?” Phil frowned at her - as her handler, it’s his job to know these things before they become a problem. “You know you never have to-”
“I know,” she interrupted softly, brushing a hand along his shoulder on her way to join Clint on the couch. “Maybe dirty isn’t the right word. Listening to those idiots, pretending to hang on their every word, having to just smile and nod along…”
“Ah-ha,” said Clint. “You’re sick of playing pretty-but-dumb. Well, we can fix that.”
“Can we?” Natasha settled on the other side of the couch, sliding her bare feet into Clint’s lap.
“Sure,” he said. “What do you want to talk about? Politics? Nuclear Physics? Russian Literature?”
She paused, thoughtful. “Actually, there was an article I read the other day about a new exhibit opening at the Met.”
“Ooh, I saw that article,” said Clint. “The women artists of the Hudson River School. Do you think we’ll have time to go? Their use of light in the depictions of landscapes is- Sorry, you’re supposed to be talking.”
Natasha smiled. “I’d like someone to go with. What do you say, Phil?”
He smiled back. “I’d be happy to,” he said, “But I don’t know anything about it. You’ll have to explain it to me.”
“We’ve got time now,” added Clint.
She nodded, getting more comfortable. “The Hudson River School wasn’t an actual school, it was a style of art that started in the area of the river in the mid-Nineteenth century…”
Phil went back to his weapons cleaning, listening to Natasha’s explanation slowly turn into a discussion of various art styles in increasingly technical terms.
*
“I thought you said that the last one was the last one, sir,” said Clint, eyeing the manila folder in Phil’s hand with suspicion.
Phil didn’t drop the folder onto the couch or continue onto his desk with it. Instead, he stopped in front of Clint, holding it out. “This isn’t another test, this is the results.”
“Am I allowed to see those?” Clint asked. “Won’t that ruin the future brain-damage test?”
“I may have been misleading about the purpose of these tests,” said Phil.
Clint frowned. “May have?”
“Did,” said Phil. “Was. More of a lie, really.”
“Why?”
The question sounded casual, but Phil knew how much Clint valued honesty and how much was riding on his answer.
“Because there’s something I need you to know, and I didn’t think you’d believe me without hard evidence. Will you let me explain?”
Clint nodded, slowly. “I trust you, Phil.”
Phil handed him the folder. “There are two sets of results here. One of them is yours and one is another agent’s.”
Clint frowned at him for a moment, then opened the folder. There was a sheet of paper paperclipped to each side, the identifying information at the top of the pages covered by a sticky note. Phil watched Clint read down the result lists for both - math, analogies, reading comprehension, spatial reasoning. One set of results was solidly average, good not great, but definitely something to be proud of. The other was more into the leading edge of brilliant, the kind of scores that got people’s attention and started them talking about untapped potential.
Phil wasn’t surprised when Clint’s attention settled on the average results, before he looked back up at Phil.
“That’s not too bad, huh?” Clint said, smiling.
Phil smiled back. “You’d say I was a pretty smart guy, right?”
“Of course,” said Clint, clearly wondering what that had to do with anything. “I mean, you’re not like… like Tony Stark, mad scientist smart, but yeah, of course.”
“Okay,” said Phil. “I want you to keep that in mind.”
He leaned over and peeled the sticky notes from the top of each page.
Clint stared.
The name at the top of the average scores was Coulson, Phillip J. At the top of the higher scores, it said, Barton, Clinton F.
“There’s got to be a mistake,” said Clint.
“I checked the results twice,” said Phil.
“But I’m not that smart,” Clint protested.
“You are. That’s what I need you to know.”
“But I… Phil, I’m just an ex-carney with a sixth-grade education.”
“That’s only your formal education. Just because you left school after the sixth grade doesn’t mean you stopped learning. You taught yourself, which is even more impressive.”
“But I…” Clint tried again. “Why?”
“I didn’t pull this test from nowhere,” said Phil. “I just gave it to you in pieces. This is a practice SAT, Clint. And I took it again with you - those are my scores from now. I actually did fifty points better this time around.”
“Really?” said Clint, then frowned. “The SAT? Like, the test to get into college?”
“Yes, exactly. With scores like this, I know you’ll ace the real one. And SHIELD has quite a few tuition-aid programs.”
Clint let out a long breath. “Wow. College.”
“You don’t have to go,” said Phil. “Now or ever. But I wanted you to know that you can.”
“I never even considered it,” the archer admitted. “I never… I’m too old to go to college.”
“There’s no such thing. And you wouldn’t have to go full-time, if you don’t want to stop going on missions. You could go part-time, even just one class a semester. It would take longer, but that wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I…” said Clint, then he looked up, his smile radiant. “Thank you, Phil.”
“For making you take standardized tests?”
“For believing in me. No one else does. Not even me, most of the time.”
Phil smiled back. “We’ll change that.”
*
“Pardon me, Sir,” said JARVIS. “There is a young man in the main lobby who claims to be an acquaintance of Agent Barton.”
“This kid got a name?” asked Tony, not looking up from where he was working on a tablet, sprawled in an armchair.
“I have confirmed his identity as Chester Morrison, though he suggests that Agent Barton would know him as ‘Terry’.”
“Oh, Terry,” said Clint. “Send him up, JARVIS.”
“He will be up shortly, Agent Barton.”
“Hey, wait,” said Tony. “Who is this guy?”
“Terry,” repeated Clint.
“Yes, I heard that, Legolas. Who is he?”
“A guy I know.”
Tony squinted at him. “Are you being annoying on purpose?”
Clint grinned. “Is it working?”
Behind them, the elevator doors opened, admitting a single person into the Avengers’ common area. He looked like the nerd from every college movie - clean, pressed blue jeans and un-scuffed sneakers with an NYU hoodie under a tweed blazer.
“Hey, Terry,” said Clint. “Everything okay?”
“Yes?” the kid said, as much a question as an answer, then whispered, “Am I supposed to be here?”
“Sure,” laughed Clint.
“Excuse you, this is my building,” said Tony. “And I thought you were happily married to Director Agent?”
Clint scowled. “Okay, one, I would never, never cheat on Phil. And, two, I’m not the one with a history of hooking up with random cute co-eds - no offence, Terry.”
“Um. None taken, I think,” said the kid. “I’m a friend of Clint’s, from school. I’m just here to return his book.”
“Oh, hey, thanks,” said Clint, taking the text book from him. “But you didn’t have to come all this way, you could have just hung onto it until next week’s class.”
“You were nice enough to share after I left mine in my dorm,” said Terry. “And the professor assigned some extra reading, after you left. There’s a note in the book.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Wait,” said Tony. “Back up. Class? School?”
“We’re in a class on Middle Eastern architecture,” offered Terry. “It’s really interesting.”
“Yeah,” Clint agreed. “I spent a lot of time in minarets over the years - that’s classified, Terry, don’t go repeating that - and it’s neat to really study them.”
Tony frowned. “You told us you dropped out of school in the sixth grade.”
“I did,” said Clint. “Then, I dropped back in to get my GED, then, you know, kept going.”
“According to his SHIELD file,” put in JARVIS, “Agent Barton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, with a minor in Russian Language; a Master’s degree in English Literature, specializing in poetry; and a PhD in history, specializing in the Medieval period.”
Tony blinked. “Seriously?”
Clint grinned. “C’mon, Terry, I’ll walk you out.”
Tony stood frozen for another moment, then huffed a laugh. “I guess you learn something new every day.”
THE END
Current Mood:
tired