fic: alright is two different words [avengers, clint/coulson, dyslexia!verse, pg-13]
Title: Alright Is Two Different Words
Fandom: Avengers
Series: Dyslexia!Verse
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Word Count: 4,100
Thanks: I had an amazing team of betas who helped me through this fic.
arsenicjade,
alfadorcat,
miriad, and
gnomi made this fic a lot better than it would have otherwise been. A special thanks for arsenicjade for talking me through the worst of my sequel-related issues. Any remaining mistakes are all my fault!
Summary: For most of Clint’s life, being able to read has been like being able to fly. Sure, it would be nice, and sometimes he’ll dream about what it would be like to have words or wings, but at some point he always comes back down to earth.
*
He is waiting for Coulson to change his mind.
*
Two days after Coulson pries Clint open like a corpse in a morgue to examine everything that’s vulnerable and ugly inside of him, he calls Clint into his office and tells him to close the door behind him. Clint appreciates the privacy, but not the implication that what they’re doing is so embarrassing they have to hide it.
“I need to get an idea of where your reading and writing ability levels lie,” Coulson says. Clint shifts his weight from foot to foot. He’s not ready to sit down yet.
“They’re low,” Clint says.
“What grade level did you attain?”
Clint bites his tongue for a second. The sharp pain helps him focus. “Attain?”
Coulson nods, as if confirming this new piece of information about Clint. Doesn’t know any fucking words at all. “What’s the last grade you finished?”
“Fifth.” He’d taken it twice but hadn’t passed it either time. He’s watching Coulson closely enough that he sees the man wince. Clint smiles at that, unsure why he feels so perversely pleased.
“All right. Would you mind if I asked you to read something for me?”
“Sure.” He sits down and acts relaxed. “Let’s get this freak show on the road.”
The only book Coulson’s got with him is the SHIELD handbook. Clint stumbles through reading the first page, demonstrating how absolutely useless it is when he tries to ‘sound out’ words, staying silent when Coulson asks him questions about the content of what he’d just read, writing out sentences that Coulson recites to him on an already half-full legal pad. He doesn’t look at the blocky, uneven letters once they’ve left his pen, just slides the notepad over to Coulson.
“Do you know the alphabet?” Coulson asks, his fingers tapping out an irregular pattern on the paper.
“Of course,” he says, glaring at Coulson. He’s dumb, not dead.
“Recite it for me.”
Clint rattles through the first few letters, but stumbles when he gets to L. H, I, J, K, L…and then, he remembers from the months he spent stuck at this juncture in the sequence when he’d still been in school, it’s something that ends up sounding like ‘element.’ L, M, N, T…Fuck. Three-year-olds can do this. L, M, N, O, P, fucking P, then Q, R, S…T? He closes his eyes. He hadn’t thought it would be this bad.
“T,” Coulson prompts.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “T, U, V.”
“There’s a couple more after that,” Coulson says, after a lengthy pause.
“Yeah, well. Who needs them? They’re the reject letters, anyway.” Like X. Who needs to use X? “I know the alphabet,” he says quietly. “Just not always in order. But I know all the letters.”
“Okay,” Coulson says.
Coulson’s got him multiplying three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers (which he can do, if he can keep from inverting the figures) when Clint realizes that he’s bitten through part of his cheek. His fingers stutter on the page, turning a zero into a lopsided six.
“That’s enough for today,” Coulson says, taking the pen and paper out of Clint’s hands. Clint’s never been so happy to have something taken away from him. “Thank you for giving me this information. Let’s meet again on Friday.”
Two days. He nods. Makes himself say, “Thank you.” Leaves and doesn’t close the door behind him.
*
For most of Clint’s life, being able to read has been like being able to fly. Sure, it would be nice, and sometimes he’ll dream about what it would be like to have words or wings, but at some point he always comes back down to earth.
He has a new blanket that he doesn’t unfold and six paychecks that he doesn’t know how to deposit and one superior agent who will soon realize that Clint’s not worth the effort.
*
“Day two,” Coulson says on Friday, pulling out a form and putting it on the desk in front of Clint.
Clint looks at it. The words on the top of the page are bold and all capital letters; he’s reasonably sure that they stand for something-but the groups of letters seem too long for that, so they might be words. He glances up at Coulson, who nods his head back at the paper. “Take your time,” Coulson says, as if Clint doesn’t know that Coulson’s time is too valuable to be wasting it on Clint.
Right. Okay. He can do this.
The first part’s numbers and letters mixed together, it’s definitely naming the type of form. RANGE ACCESS, it says after that, the letters huge and pushed together. “I already have range access,” he says, trying to pretend that he’s confused about that, and not about the next line of text on the page which starts with…request, and then for, which he knows, and then something long that begins with per…
“Your current level of access only extends to working hours,” Coulson says, interrupting Clint’s train of thought.
“Yeah, but I can-” Clint clears his throat and tries to look innocent. “I can, um. I can get all the practice I need during those hours.”
“You sneak in during the middle of the night.”
“Maybe,” Clint says with a grin, trying to look playful instead of trapped.
“Definitely.”
“How do you know everything?”
“I have many spies,” Coulson says, pushing the form closer to Clint. “Start working. Let me know when you need help.” When Clint needs help, not if, which makes it both easier to speak up when he runs into something incomprehensible, and also harder, because Coulson already knows Clint’s going to fail.
He gets a lot of it fine, and asks Coulson for definitions when he runs into words he can’t decipher. And, come on, who needs to know words like ‘pertaining’ and ‘indemnity?’ besides SHIELD agents?
He’s about halfway down the page when the nausea that he’s been feeling for five days (since the forms disappeared from his room and reappeared in front of Coulson) starts to build again. He feels like he’s whipped his cock out and started masturbating in the middle of Coulson’s office, like he’s doing something private and shameful in front of someone who-someone whose opinion he cares about.
“Is it just writing it out?” Coulson asks softly, looking at the pen clutched in Clint’s hand. Clint relaxes his grip quickly, because he doesn’t want to crack the plastic and get ink all over himself. “Or is reading comprehension the primary concern?”
Clint reminds himself not to use the word retard, because Coulson finds it offensive. “It’s all a-a fucking concern.”
“All right.” Coulson goes back to work on his computer, typing up reports faster than Clint can fire off arrows.
When Clint’s done, he shoves the paper back across the desk and tells himself that he is not allowed to vomit until he leaves, because there’s a limit to the amount of humiliation that he can survive in any given year. Coulson reads it over quickly. Clint’s mouth has gone dry. He wants to stab himself with his pen so that he’ll have an excuse to run out of the room.
“Most of this is just fine,” Coulson says. Clint clenches his teeth and waits. “There are a few errors, though. Would you like me to correct them, or go over them with you?”
“Whatever you want,” Clint says, forcing the words out.
“Clint,” Coulson says, putting the paper down, “this is for you. What do you want?”
Clint keeps his desire to stab himself to himself. “Show me the fucking-the errors,” he growls. Coulson points them out, writes his corrections underneath Clint’s words in blue ink, and Clint nods like there’s any chance he’ll remember any of this.
He takes the form with him when he leaves. He keeps the pen too, and takes the blank copy that Coulson gives him. “I’ll be in at eight tomorrow,” Coulson says, because Coulson doesn’t believe in weekends (or food, or sleep, or possibly breathing, if you ask the junior agents). “If you bring it back then, I can get it approved before the end of the day.”
Clint nods and leaves.
He fills the form out later that night, working as carefully as he can. He checks it over about a dozen times once he’s finished. Finds two places where he’d copied over answers into the wrongs sections and three spelling errors.
He spends most of the next day on the roof, ten floors above the office where Coulson’s working away, waiting for Clint. The forms end up wrinkled, clenched in Clint’s sweaty grip, but he can’t make himself go back inside until the light in Coulson’s office winks out and his car pulls away from the building.
Clint’s not just stupid, he’s a coward. Has been since he was a kid. He slips back into the building and puts the forms on Coulson’s desk. He leaves both of them, so that Coulson can sift through the layers like an archaeologist examining the work of prehistoric man, so that Coulson will realize the enormity of the task he’s facing.
He is still waiting for Coulson to change his mind.
*
Coulson gives him worksheets to do. Some of them are laughably easy, other ones might as well be written in Latin. (Latin, which Coulson knows.)
“We’re going to try a variety of approaches,” Coulson says, the first day that Clint comes in and doesn’t find a worksheet already set out for him. “Most of them probably won’t work, but it’s not your fault if they don’t. We’ll just keep going until we find what fits for you.”
Coulson gives each new tactic about two weeks before evaluating how well it worked. Clint goes into Coulson’s office almost every morning and stays until Coulson’s phone rings or someone knocks on the door. On Sunday mornings, Coulson turns his phone off and doesn’t answer his door until at least ten AM. Clint brings coffee with him on all the weekdays and bagels on Sundays. It’s an apology, but sometimes-when Coulson hums into his coffee mug or brushes Clint’s fingers when he takes his bagel-it feels a bit like flirting. Those first few minutes of every morning are the best part. It goes downhill pretty quickly after that.
The first thing they try is vocal repetition. They start with the alphabet and spelling simple words. Clint’s sick of the sound of his own voice by the time they give up on that one (t, h, e, the, t, h, e, y, they, t, h, e, r, e, Fuck this shit).
After that they try identifying Latin roots. Clint likes that one because it keeps turning into impromptu history lessons about the Roman Empire, but he doesn’t like that it makes words even stranger to him, even more foreign than they already were.
The deep breathing exercises actually do help. It’s weird to be reading and not feel breathless, tense, braced for a blow. It’s not a strategy on its own, but it helps him get through some of the rest.
Clint’s favorite failed attempt by far is when they try to turn words into pictures of what they represent.
They write out Bow and draw the shape of a bow around it, write Arrow and draw the ends of a shaft coming out either end. Clint writes Bullseye on the edge of his page, draws target circles around it, and doodles an army of Arrows coming at it.
It’s his favorite because Coulson is a terrible artist. “Do ‘pirate,’” Clint says, leaning over Coulson’s shoulder. Coulson sighs, writes the word, and puts what is probably supposed to be a pirate hat on top of it. “Why does the pirate have a conehead?” Clint asks.
“Art is subjective,” Coulson says. Coulson writes out another word-sight, which sounds the same as site, and is what Clint does when he looks down the shaft of an arrow-and carefully draws some lines around it.
“…is it being eaten?”
“What? No. It’s an eyeball.”
Clint squints at it. “It looks more like a mouth.”
Coulson sighs and then draws on some fangs. Clint adds a moustache.
When they go back over those words the next morning, and then again the morning after that, Clint’s only barely better with them than he was when they started.
*
His salvation comes, as it has so many times before, from his body. His body, which had instinctively understood the high wire, and which thinks faster than his mind, and gets sweaty palms whenever Coulson smiles at him.
It’s late in the evening because Coulson had been in meetings all day, and they’ve taken their lesson down to the archery range. Clint’s got new arrows with lightweight metal shafts that have spiral patterns down the sides, supposedly to decrease wind resistance. They all seem to veer a bit too far to the right, but he doesn’t know why yet.
“Thought,” Coulson prompts.
Clint takes a deep breath and sights his target. “T, h,” he draws the arrow farther back than necessary and squints at the bullseye. “O, u,” it’s a tricky ending. He takes a deep breath. Releases. “G, h…t.”
He gets through a full quiver of arrows. After he’s collected them, Coulson shows him the worksheet, with blue check marks all over it.
*
The next day Coulson brings in a kid’s book and muffins to go with Clint’s coffee. “We’re celebrating,” he says, setting a muffin on the desk in front of Clint. He’s taking the muffins out from a blue Tupperware container and he’s pulling napkins out of a canvas bag that had held everything. The canvas bag’s got Sierra Club on the side and a picture of a stork.
“Um. Are you possessed?”
“No,” Coulson says, settling in and taking a bite of his own muffin.
“Is it your birthday?” Clint asks. He’s almost positive it’s not his own birthday, because his birthday’s in either June or July (a J month, definitely, and not January; he’ll look it up when he needs to know).
“No. If it were my birthday I would have brought in French vanilla cupcakes, not blueberry muffins.”
“I like blueberries,” Clint says slowly.
“I know,” Coulson says, raising an eyebrow. “Now open that book and eat your congratulatory muffin.”
*
Clint gets crumbs all over the first two pages. When he finishes it two days later (it’s only twenty pages long and is more pictures than text, he doesn’t know why Coulson’s blowing it out of proportion), he gets muffins with almonds in them.
When he fills out a form with only one draft there are lemon bars.
Some of his memories are a bit foggy, but he’s pretty sure that no one’s made food for him-just for him, not cafeteria food or communal meals-since he was eight. His mom had made dinner for them sometimes, for him and Barney and his dad, before the accident. Old Mary in the circus had given him tea when customers were slow. Trick Shot had given him food, but mostly just so he could take it away when Clint failed.
(He very carefully thinks of the baked goods as food and not gifts because his memory of not getting those are much clearer.)
*
Clint still brings bagels on Sundays and Coulson still says Thanks and now sometimes Clint says You’re welcome.
*
He learns to read to the rhythm of draw, sight, release. He takes his bow with him to Coulson’s office, and he holds it in his lap as he bends over the books-books now, not just forms (even if they are only a step above Dick and Jane). Sometimes he catches himself getting frustrated, and when he does he just adjusts his hands and breathes. Other times Coulson says Clint, which startles him enough to rattle some of the tension out of him. He likes it when Coulson says his name.
*
“Dr. Seuss is a fucking asshole.”
“Theodore Giesel was a gift to humanity.”
“What the hell even is a Lorax, Coulson? It’s not in the dictionary. Why would someone write a book about a creature that’s not even real? If he wanted to write about a ridiculous animal, why didn’t he just use a koala? Or a platypus?”
“Because he was a poet.”
“He was a lunatic who wanted to fuck with kids’ heads. If you give me another Seuss book, I’m quitting. Not just lessons, either, I will quit SHIELD, Coulson.”
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t read Horton Hears a Who yet.”
*
Coulson still lets him go on missions. He spends extra time going over the mission briefings with Clint and highlights all the important information with a purple marker before sending him off.
When Clint gets back from a mission in Mexico that takes a week longer than it was supposed to, leaving him exhausted and dehydrated but unharmed, Coulson fills out his forms for him.
“This is a one-time thing,” Coulson warns, “and I’m only doing it because I want you in bed as soon as possible.” Clint really hopes that Coulson doesn’t notice his blush.
When Coulson’s finished completing Clint’s IH-24 and the IH-24B (because even though the mission had been a shitshow, Clint had still managed to achieve the mission objectives) he claps Clint on the shoulder. Clint’s still wearing his uniform, which is sleeveless, so Coulson’s hand touches Clint’s skin. It’s nice. He stares at Coulson’s back as the other man leaves the room and thinks about what it would be like if he touched Coulson.
He’s not tired and his forms are done, so he steals a car from the motor pool and follows Coulson home. He’s not going to do anything, he’s just-curious. Definitely not lonely, because he’s used to solitude by now. He parks a couple of blocks down from Coulson’s house-a tiny little brownstone thing-and watches through the window as Coulson gets out mixing bowls and a muffin tin. He watches as Coulson takes off his tie and rolls back his sleeves before pouring fresh blueberries into the batter. He watches as Coulson leans back against his counter after he puts the muffins in the oven.
Coulson looks tired.
*
The next day Clint digs up as much courage as he’s ever been able to find in himself and asks Coulson if it would be okay if he came over sometime to use his kitchen.
“Do you like to cook?” Coulson asks slowly, looking a bit confused.
“Don’t know,” Clint says shortly, already regretting his question. “Never have.” He’s stolen a lot of food, but acquiring isn’t the same as creating.
“What do you want to make?”
Clint huffs out a frustrated breath and scrubs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Pasta? Noodles?”
“Sure,” Coulson says. “Tomorrow. You can ride home with me.” Clint nods and looks back down at his book. “No need to take a company car this time,” he adds. Clint stares at him. “Spies,” Coulson says. “Everywhere.”
*
Coulson tells him to put salt in the boiling water and explains the science behind it, tells Clint that throwing spaghetti against the fridge to see if it’ll stick is an acceptable way of seeing if it’s done, and doesn’t seem to mind that Clint hadn’t brought any of the food over himself.
The next dinner, Clint brings a loaf of bread from a store. He’s cashed two of his paychecks now.
At their third dinner Coulson takes his shoes off and changes into a t-shirt before they start making chicken parmesan. Clint runs through lists of all the words he knows and then thinks very hard about paint drying and Fury yelling at him, because the sight of Coulson’s forearms, his bare wrists, his fucking toes, is driving everything else out of his head.
*
Of all the things Clint learns-vowel combinations and breathing techniques, spell check and reminder post-it notes-the fact that Coulson likes him takes the longest to sink in.
*
“Are you seriously hungry again already?” Clint asks with a frown, looking at the mission report (first draft) in his hands. Coulson’s taken to writing notes on them that have nothing to do with relevant information. Sometimes he doodles, each element of his tiny pictures labeled because he’s that bad an artist. “I’ll grab you a sandwich from the mess, but you have to bring me cookies next time I do something good. Multiple cookies. Peanut butter ones.”
“No, that’s not-” Coulson takes the form back from him and picks up his blue pen. Clint sighs and slouches. He wonders how many drafts of this form he’s going to have to go through, especially if Coulson keeps writing in the margins. When Coulson hands it back, Would you like to get dinner? is crossed out, and underneath it is written, in Coulson’s perfect, even hand, is Would you like to go out on a date with me?
*
[There used to be more here, but the trajectory of the story changed. It now goes from here right into the next part.]
*
PART II
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comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
Fandom: Avengers
Series: Dyslexia!Verse
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Word Count: 4,100
Thanks: I had an amazing team of betas who helped me through this fic.
arsenicjade,
alfadorcat,
miriad, and
gnomi made this fic a lot better than it would have otherwise been. A special thanks for arsenicjade for talking me through the worst of my sequel-related issues. Any remaining mistakes are all my fault!
Summary: For most of Clint’s life, being able to read has been like being able to fly. Sure, it would be nice, and sometimes he’ll dream about what it would be like to have words or wings, but at some point he always comes back down to earth.
*
He is waiting for Coulson to change his mind.
*
Two days after Coulson pries Clint open like a corpse in a morgue to examine everything that’s vulnerable and ugly inside of him, he calls Clint into his office and tells him to close the door behind him. Clint appreciates the privacy, but not the implication that what they’re doing is so embarrassing they have to hide it.
“I need to get an idea of where your reading and writing ability levels lie,” Coulson says. Clint shifts his weight from foot to foot. He’s not ready to sit down yet.
“They’re low,” Clint says.
“What grade level did you attain?”
Clint bites his tongue for a second. The sharp pain helps him focus. “Attain?”
Coulson nods, as if confirming this new piece of information about Clint. Doesn’t know any fucking words at all. “What’s the last grade you finished?”
“Fifth.” He’d taken it twice but hadn’t passed it either time. He’s watching Coulson closely enough that he sees the man wince. Clint smiles at that, unsure why he feels so perversely pleased.
“All right. Would you mind if I asked you to read something for me?”
“Sure.” He sits down and acts relaxed. “Let’s get this freak show on the road.”
The only book Coulson’s got with him is the SHIELD handbook. Clint stumbles through reading the first page, demonstrating how absolutely useless it is when he tries to ‘sound out’ words, staying silent when Coulson asks him questions about the content of what he’d just read, writing out sentences that Coulson recites to him on an already half-full legal pad. He doesn’t look at the blocky, uneven letters once they’ve left his pen, just slides the notepad over to Coulson.
“Do you know the alphabet?” Coulson asks, his fingers tapping out an irregular pattern on the paper.
“Of course,” he says, glaring at Coulson. He’s dumb, not dead.
“Recite it for me.”
Clint rattles through the first few letters, but stumbles when he gets to L. H, I, J, K, L…and then, he remembers from the months he spent stuck at this juncture in the sequence when he’d still been in school, it’s something that ends up sounding like ‘element.’ L, M, N, T…Fuck. Three-year-olds can do this. L, M, N, O, P, fucking P, then Q, R, S…T? He closes his eyes. He hadn’t thought it would be this bad.
“T,” Coulson prompts.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “T, U, V.”
“There’s a couple more after that,” Coulson says, after a lengthy pause.
“Yeah, well. Who needs them? They’re the reject letters, anyway.” Like X. Who needs to use X? “I know the alphabet,” he says quietly. “Just not always in order. But I know all the letters.”
“Okay,” Coulson says.
Coulson’s got him multiplying three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers (which he can do, if he can keep from inverting the figures) when Clint realizes that he’s bitten through part of his cheek. His fingers stutter on the page, turning a zero into a lopsided six.
“That’s enough for today,” Coulson says, taking the pen and paper out of Clint’s hands. Clint’s never been so happy to have something taken away from him. “Thank you for giving me this information. Let’s meet again on Friday.”
Two days. He nods. Makes himself say, “Thank you.” Leaves and doesn’t close the door behind him.
*
For most of Clint’s life, being able to read has been like being able to fly. Sure, it would be nice, and sometimes he’ll dream about what it would be like to have words or wings, but at some point he always comes back down to earth.
He has a new blanket that he doesn’t unfold and six paychecks that he doesn’t know how to deposit and one superior agent who will soon realize that Clint’s not worth the effort.
*
“Day two,” Coulson says on Friday, pulling out a form and putting it on the desk in front of Clint.
Clint looks at it. The words on the top of the page are bold and all capital letters; he’s reasonably sure that they stand for something-but the groups of letters seem too long for that, so they might be words. He glances up at Coulson, who nods his head back at the paper. “Take your time,” Coulson says, as if Clint doesn’t know that Coulson’s time is too valuable to be wasting it on Clint.
Right. Okay. He can do this.
The first part’s numbers and letters mixed together, it’s definitely naming the type of form. RANGE ACCESS, it says after that, the letters huge and pushed together. “I already have range access,” he says, trying to pretend that he’s confused about that, and not about the next line of text on the page which starts with…request, and then for, which he knows, and then something long that begins with per…
“Your current level of access only extends to working hours,” Coulson says, interrupting Clint’s train of thought.
“Yeah, but I can-” Clint clears his throat and tries to look innocent. “I can, um. I can get all the practice I need during those hours.”
“You sneak in during the middle of the night.”
“Maybe,” Clint says with a grin, trying to look playful instead of trapped.
“Definitely.”
“How do you know everything?”
“I have many spies,” Coulson says, pushing the form closer to Clint. “Start working. Let me know when you need help.” When Clint needs help, not if, which makes it both easier to speak up when he runs into something incomprehensible, and also harder, because Coulson already knows Clint’s going to fail.
He gets a lot of it fine, and asks Coulson for definitions when he runs into words he can’t decipher. And, come on, who needs to know words like ‘pertaining’ and ‘indemnity?’ besides SHIELD agents?
He’s about halfway down the page when the nausea that he’s been feeling for five days (since the forms disappeared from his room and reappeared in front of Coulson) starts to build again. He feels like he’s whipped his cock out and started masturbating in the middle of Coulson’s office, like he’s doing something private and shameful in front of someone who-someone whose opinion he cares about.
“Is it just writing it out?” Coulson asks softly, looking at the pen clutched in Clint’s hand. Clint relaxes his grip quickly, because he doesn’t want to crack the plastic and get ink all over himself. “Or is reading comprehension the primary concern?”
Clint reminds himself not to use the word retard, because Coulson finds it offensive. “It’s all a-a fucking concern.”
“All right.” Coulson goes back to work on his computer, typing up reports faster than Clint can fire off arrows.
When Clint’s done, he shoves the paper back across the desk and tells himself that he is not allowed to vomit until he leaves, because there’s a limit to the amount of humiliation that he can survive in any given year. Coulson reads it over quickly. Clint’s mouth has gone dry. He wants to stab himself with his pen so that he’ll have an excuse to run out of the room.
“Most of this is just fine,” Coulson says. Clint clenches his teeth and waits. “There are a few errors, though. Would you like me to correct them, or go over them with you?”
“Whatever you want,” Clint says, forcing the words out.
“Clint,” Coulson says, putting the paper down, “this is for you. What do you want?”
Clint keeps his desire to stab himself to himself. “Show me the fucking-the errors,” he growls. Coulson points them out, writes his corrections underneath Clint’s words in blue ink, and Clint nods like there’s any chance he’ll remember any of this.
He takes the form with him when he leaves. He keeps the pen too, and takes the blank copy that Coulson gives him. “I’ll be in at eight tomorrow,” Coulson says, because Coulson doesn’t believe in weekends (or food, or sleep, or possibly breathing, if you ask the junior agents). “If you bring it back then, I can get it approved before the end of the day.”
Clint nods and leaves.
He fills the form out later that night, working as carefully as he can. He checks it over about a dozen times once he’s finished. Finds two places where he’d copied over answers into the wrongs sections and three spelling errors.
He spends most of the next day on the roof, ten floors above the office where Coulson’s working away, waiting for Clint. The forms end up wrinkled, clenched in Clint’s sweaty grip, but he can’t make himself go back inside until the light in Coulson’s office winks out and his car pulls away from the building.
Clint’s not just stupid, he’s a coward. Has been since he was a kid. He slips back into the building and puts the forms on Coulson’s desk. He leaves both of them, so that Coulson can sift through the layers like an archaeologist examining the work of prehistoric man, so that Coulson will realize the enormity of the task he’s facing.
He is still waiting for Coulson to change his mind.
*
Coulson gives him worksheets to do. Some of them are laughably easy, other ones might as well be written in Latin. (Latin, which Coulson knows.)
“We’re going to try a variety of approaches,” Coulson says, the first day that Clint comes in and doesn’t find a worksheet already set out for him. “Most of them probably won’t work, but it’s not your fault if they don’t. We’ll just keep going until we find what fits for you.”
Coulson gives each new tactic about two weeks before evaluating how well it worked. Clint goes into Coulson’s office almost every morning and stays until Coulson’s phone rings or someone knocks on the door. On Sunday mornings, Coulson turns his phone off and doesn’t answer his door until at least ten AM. Clint brings coffee with him on all the weekdays and bagels on Sundays. It’s an apology, but sometimes-when Coulson hums into his coffee mug or brushes Clint’s fingers when he takes his bagel-it feels a bit like flirting. Those first few minutes of every morning are the best part. It goes downhill pretty quickly after that.
The first thing they try is vocal repetition. They start with the alphabet and spelling simple words. Clint’s sick of the sound of his own voice by the time they give up on that one (t, h, e, the, t, h, e, y, they, t, h, e, r, e, Fuck this shit).
After that they try identifying Latin roots. Clint likes that one because it keeps turning into impromptu history lessons about the Roman Empire, but he doesn’t like that it makes words even stranger to him, even more foreign than they already were.
The deep breathing exercises actually do help. It’s weird to be reading and not feel breathless, tense, braced for a blow. It’s not a strategy on its own, but it helps him get through some of the rest.
Clint’s favorite failed attempt by far is when they try to turn words into pictures of what they represent.
They write out Bow and draw the shape of a bow around it, write Arrow and draw the ends of a shaft coming out either end. Clint writes Bullseye on the edge of his page, draws target circles around it, and doodles an army of Arrows coming at it.
It’s his favorite because Coulson is a terrible artist. “Do ‘pirate,’” Clint says, leaning over Coulson’s shoulder. Coulson sighs, writes the word, and puts what is probably supposed to be a pirate hat on top of it. “Why does the pirate have a conehead?” Clint asks.
“Art is subjective,” Coulson says. Coulson writes out another word-sight, which sounds the same as site, and is what Clint does when he looks down the shaft of an arrow-and carefully draws some lines around it.
“…is it being eaten?”
“What? No. It’s an eyeball.”
Clint squints at it. “It looks more like a mouth.”
Coulson sighs and then draws on some fangs. Clint adds a moustache.
When they go back over those words the next morning, and then again the morning after that, Clint’s only barely better with them than he was when they started.
*
His salvation comes, as it has so many times before, from his body. His body, which had instinctively understood the high wire, and which thinks faster than his mind, and gets sweaty palms whenever Coulson smiles at him.
It’s late in the evening because Coulson had been in meetings all day, and they’ve taken their lesson down to the archery range. Clint’s got new arrows with lightweight metal shafts that have spiral patterns down the sides, supposedly to decrease wind resistance. They all seem to veer a bit too far to the right, but he doesn’t know why yet.
“Thought,” Coulson prompts.
Clint takes a deep breath and sights his target. “T, h,” he draws the arrow farther back than necessary and squints at the bullseye. “O, u,” it’s a tricky ending. He takes a deep breath. Releases. “G, h…t.”
He gets through a full quiver of arrows. After he’s collected them, Coulson shows him the worksheet, with blue check marks all over it.
*
The next day Coulson brings in a kid’s book and muffins to go with Clint’s coffee. “We’re celebrating,” he says, setting a muffin on the desk in front of Clint. He’s taking the muffins out from a blue Tupperware container and he’s pulling napkins out of a canvas bag that had held everything. The canvas bag’s got Sierra Club on the side and a picture of a stork.
“Um. Are you possessed?”
“No,” Coulson says, settling in and taking a bite of his own muffin.
“Is it your birthday?” Clint asks. He’s almost positive it’s not his own birthday, because his birthday’s in either June or July (a J month, definitely, and not January; he’ll look it up when he needs to know).
“No. If it were my birthday I would have brought in French vanilla cupcakes, not blueberry muffins.”
“I like blueberries,” Clint says slowly.
“I know,” Coulson says, raising an eyebrow. “Now open that book and eat your congratulatory muffin.”
*
Clint gets crumbs all over the first two pages. When he finishes it two days later (it’s only twenty pages long and is more pictures than text, he doesn’t know why Coulson’s blowing it out of proportion), he gets muffins with almonds in them.
When he fills out a form with only one draft there are lemon bars.
Some of his memories are a bit foggy, but he’s pretty sure that no one’s made food for him-just for him, not cafeteria food or communal meals-since he was eight. His mom had made dinner for them sometimes, for him and Barney and his dad, before the accident. Old Mary in the circus had given him tea when customers were slow. Trick Shot had given him food, but mostly just so he could take it away when Clint failed.
(He very carefully thinks of the baked goods as food and not gifts because his memory of not getting those are much clearer.)
*
Clint still brings bagels on Sundays and Coulson still says Thanks and now sometimes Clint says You’re welcome.
*
He learns to read to the rhythm of draw, sight, release. He takes his bow with him to Coulson’s office, and he holds it in his lap as he bends over the books-books now, not just forms (even if they are only a step above Dick and Jane). Sometimes he catches himself getting frustrated, and when he does he just adjusts his hands and breathes. Other times Coulson says Clint, which startles him enough to rattle some of the tension out of him. He likes it when Coulson says his name.
*
“Dr. Seuss is a fucking asshole.”
“Theodore Giesel was a gift to humanity.”
“What the hell even is a Lorax, Coulson? It’s not in the dictionary. Why would someone write a book about a creature that’s not even real? If he wanted to write about a ridiculous animal, why didn’t he just use a koala? Or a platypus?”
“Because he was a poet.”
“He was a lunatic who wanted to fuck with kids’ heads. If you give me another Seuss book, I’m quitting. Not just lessons, either, I will quit SHIELD, Coulson.”
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t read Horton Hears a Who yet.”
*
Coulson still lets him go on missions. He spends extra time going over the mission briefings with Clint and highlights all the important information with a purple marker before sending him off.
When Clint gets back from a mission in Mexico that takes a week longer than it was supposed to, leaving him exhausted and dehydrated but unharmed, Coulson fills out his forms for him.
“This is a one-time thing,” Coulson warns, “and I’m only doing it because I want you in bed as soon as possible.” Clint really hopes that Coulson doesn’t notice his blush.
When Coulson’s finished completing Clint’s IH-24 and the IH-24B (because even though the mission had been a shitshow, Clint had still managed to achieve the mission objectives) he claps Clint on the shoulder. Clint’s still wearing his uniform, which is sleeveless, so Coulson’s hand touches Clint’s skin. It’s nice. He stares at Coulson’s back as the other man leaves the room and thinks about what it would be like if he touched Coulson.
He’s not tired and his forms are done, so he steals a car from the motor pool and follows Coulson home. He’s not going to do anything, he’s just-curious. Definitely not lonely, because he’s used to solitude by now. He parks a couple of blocks down from Coulson’s house-a tiny little brownstone thing-and watches through the window as Coulson gets out mixing bowls and a muffin tin. He watches as Coulson takes off his tie and rolls back his sleeves before pouring fresh blueberries into the batter. He watches as Coulson leans back against his counter after he puts the muffins in the oven.
Coulson looks tired.
*
The next day Clint digs up as much courage as he’s ever been able to find in himself and asks Coulson if it would be okay if he came over sometime to use his kitchen.
“Do you like to cook?” Coulson asks slowly, looking a bit confused.
“Don’t know,” Clint says shortly, already regretting his question. “Never have.” He’s stolen a lot of food, but acquiring isn’t the same as creating.
“What do you want to make?”
Clint huffs out a frustrated breath and scrubs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Pasta? Noodles?”
“Sure,” Coulson says. “Tomorrow. You can ride home with me.” Clint nods and looks back down at his book. “No need to take a company car this time,” he adds. Clint stares at him. “Spies,” Coulson says. “Everywhere.”
*
Coulson tells him to put salt in the boiling water and explains the science behind it, tells Clint that throwing spaghetti against the fridge to see if it’ll stick is an acceptable way of seeing if it’s done, and doesn’t seem to mind that Clint hadn’t brought any of the food over himself.
The next dinner, Clint brings a loaf of bread from a store. He’s cashed two of his paychecks now.
At their third dinner Coulson takes his shoes off and changes into a t-shirt before they start making chicken parmesan. Clint runs through lists of all the words he knows and then thinks very hard about paint drying and Fury yelling at him, because the sight of Coulson’s forearms, his bare wrists, his fucking toes, is driving everything else out of his head.
*
Of all the things Clint learns-vowel combinations and breathing techniques, spell check and reminder post-it notes-the fact that Coulson likes him takes the longest to sink in.
*
“Are you seriously hungry again already?” Clint asks with a frown, looking at the mission report (first draft) in his hands. Coulson’s taken to writing notes on them that have nothing to do with relevant information. Sometimes he doodles, each element of his tiny pictures labeled because he’s that bad an artist. “I’ll grab you a sandwich from the mess, but you have to bring me cookies next time I do something good. Multiple cookies. Peanut butter ones.”
“No, that’s not-” Coulson takes the form back from him and picks up his blue pen. Clint sighs and slouches. He wonders how many drafts of this form he’s going to have to go through, especially if Coulson keeps writing in the margins. When Coulson hands it back, Would you like to get dinner? is crossed out, and underneath it is written, in Coulson’s perfect, even hand, is Would you like to go out on a date with me?
*
[There used to be more here, but the trajectory of the story changed. It now goes from here right into the next part.]
*
PART II
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