15

[monkiainen]

THIS ROUND IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.

ROUND SIXTEEN WILL OPEN ON TUESDAY THE 25TH.

ROUND FIFTEEN
closing at 5000 comments
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DISCUSSION POST

PROMPT FORMATTING:
Alphabetize pairings. They will be archived that way!
LIST OF REQUIRED WARNINGS: ableism, abuse, bestiality, bullying,

Comments

Re: Fill: Escalation (2a/7)

[anonymous]

He was waiting for the bus in amongst a cluster of kids he was starting to recognise. He hadn't really made that many friends yet, but he'd sat next to Brodie on the bus a handful of times, and they'd talked about an annoying teacher once while they waited for the bus to come, so he guessed that classed him as a friend. Also Brodie was into comics - the fantasy kind, all Batman and Superman, not the commercial propaganda-y Captain America or The Avengers titles which Phil collected like some kind of creep - they were so lame. Anyway, when they were waiting for the bus Brodie was pretty good at letting Peter read them over his shoulder.

Brodie was reading The Losers today - he thought he was pretty good on the computer, and had been caught googling hacking techniques in IT. Peter thought he'd have more respect for his attempts to imitate Jake Jensen if he hadn't done it logged in to his own school account.

The bus was still five minutes away when a bright red something-cool-looking with a Dodge badge pulled up at the stop. It took Peter a good couple of minutes admiring the car to realise it was *Clint* in the driver's seat, leaning across the passenger seat and grinning at him, and to get his brain back in gear.

He folded himself into the sport seat, feeling unreasonably small in the big car as Clint pulled away from the bus stop. He spent a minute taking in the hand controls, leaning around to see how they worked, taking in the blanking plate over the pedals and the spinner knob on the steering wheel. This must have been what Clint was spending his nights working on, while Phil and Peter did their homework together.

Clint looked pleased as punch as Peter finished tracking levers and sat back in his seat, grin on his face the biggest Peter had ever seen. "So what do you think?" he asked, glancing across into the passenger seat, "It's pretty cool, huh?"

Peter watched Clint brake for the corner, accelerate back up to speed as they headed out of town. The engineering was pretty cool, but he waited for Clint to have his eyes back on the road before muttering- "You're so far from cool," at the dash.

Clint glanced back at him, still grinning like a loon. "I am too cool," he objected, and Peter was momentarily stumped. Realisation came a moment later, spotting the matte skin-coloured blobs in Clint's ears, tubing disappearing over the top and the little unit behind his ear more or less hidden between his ear and his hair.

"Hearing aids?" he asked. "What's the occasion?" He'd never seen Clint wear any kind of hearing aid - he'd mostly assumed either he couldn't wear them or they wouldn't help. If they worked, he couldn't help but think, with a spike of frustration, that they would have been useful in dealing with idiotic social workers.

Clint ran his thumb across the one closest to Peter, re-seating it slightly before he had to brake for the next corner.

"I don't like wearing them much," he admitted. "When I stopped working there didn't seem to be much point. I mean... we do alright, don't we?" Clint shot him a glance, and he shrugged neutrally in reply, still stinging at the perceived notion that his social worker meetings had never earned this honour.

"So why today?" Peter asked the side of Clint's face, feeling awkward not having Clint's eyes on his mouth. Clint glanced at him again, his own smile tentative.

"Maybe I just wanted to hear the car?" he said, over-revving as he pulled away from the next corner and making the car roar. He shook his head, grinning back in Peter's direction. "I like hearing about your day, Petey, and this is our time after school before Phil gets home. We've got a drive ahead of us, and lip-reading's harder to do in a car. So... hearing aids."