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ysabetwordsmithThis story was written for the Asexy Valentines Fest, partly inspired by aceofannwn. It also fills the "game night" square on my card for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trope_bingo fest. This fest features fundamental motifs that will be familiar to most readers. It encourages writers to analyze storylines and characters, then reinterpret them in new ways.
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Nick Fury, JARVIS
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: No standard warnings apply.
Summary: Phil Coulson is SHIELD's best handler for a reason: he can deal with the broken people that nobody else can manage but desperately need anyway. So he comes up with an unusual teambuilding idea to shore up the Avengers.
Notes: Asexual character. Aromantic character. Asexual relationship. Flangst. Dysfunctional dynamics. Mention of past abuse. Incidental self-injury. Non-sexual ageplay. Games. Cuteness. Teambuilding. Personal growth. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Hurt/comfort. Trust issues. Making up for lost time. Odin's A+ parenting. Teamwork. Family of choice.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2. Skip to Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14.
"Love Is for Children" Part 3
"Yes! That's great, you're great, really, I'd love to play. Thanks. Why are you all in pajamas?" Tony said all in one breath as he dashed into the room.
And that was Tony, all right, going from frame-by-frame to fast-forward all in an instant. Phil chuckled a little. "We really are playing a game, Tony. It's a kind of role-playing, a teambuilding exercise. We're pretending to be a family on a lazy Saturday, so we can relax. And we're playing checkers with cookies, or we were, until Clint got tired."
"I'm not tired," Clint insisted. He hadn't returned to the couch.
This did not make Phil happy. "Well, sit back down anyway, Clint. There's no need to stand at attention," he said. That, of course, made Clint slouch in place lest he be mistaken for anything approaching respectful. Maybe he'd go back to the couch eventually, when he felt like it.
"But why pajamas?" Tony insisted. He flitted around Natasha and Clint. "I mean, look, Natasha has lace on the cuffs of hers, she looks like a little girl, how wrong is that?"
Phil carefully hid his wince. This was the difficult part of the explanation; he'd hoped it could wait a little while, but then Tony never waited for anything. "That's part of the game. I'm Uncle Phil ... and I'm babysitting my sister's kids for the day." He'd chosen uncle, partly because it was on the list of suggestions in the exercise, but also because it sidestepped the issues most of his team had with parents. He didn't have anyone who'd been abused by an actual uncle, as far as he knew.
"Ohhh ..." Tony said, a long falling note of enlightenment. Then he grinned. "Then we should all have footie pajamas!"
"Do people even make footie pajamas in our sizes?" Clint said. He drifted back to the couch and his blanket. Natasha joined him there. Clint tucked his bare feet under her legs.
"They will if I pay them enough," Tony said.
"No," Phil said firmly. He had to lay out the ground rules very quickly before this all got out of hand.
"Really, people will do anything if you wave enough money at them," Tony insisted. "I should know! Genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist."
"Not right now, Tony," Phil said. "Children don't buy things. Grownups do. Providing supplies for this exercise is my job, not yours. So if you want footie pajamas, you can have them, but I will take care of that for you." He finally managed to catch Tony's gaze for a moment and added, "I will take care of you."
"But I got my first bank account when I was five," Tony whined.
"Then you can be four," Phil said without missing a beat. He waited for Tony's next argument.
"... 'kay," Tony said in a small voice.
"Okay," Phil agreed.
Clint said, as if meeting someone for the first time, "Hi. I'm Clint Barton. I'm eight."
"Natka Barton, and I'm seven," came the follow up.
Phil was startled by that. She'd signed the return message that way when she agreed to the exercise, so he knew about the name, how much she wished to be Clint's sister. She'd never spoken it before, though. She'd scarcely spoken.
Tony got a gleam in his eyes, and Phil had a split second to think trouble and build a horrible suspicion where this was going --
"Hi, I'm Tony Carter, and I'm four."
Well. That was still painfully revelatory about Tony's childhood fantasies, but at least it wasn't the team-wrecking disaster that Tony Rogers could have been. Nice save, indeed.
"Let's be friends," Clint said.
Tony shrugged a little, and bounced on his toes the way Clint did, and smiled maybe just a bit too much, as if Tony couldn't decide whether to be pleased or wary at the offer.
"Would you like to learn how to play checkers? You're pretty bright; you should pick it up in no time," Phil said, trying for a more appealing distraction.
"Oreos give me a tummyache," Tony said.
Only Phil's years in espionage kept his mouth from falling open in shock. Tony Stark never admitted to weakness if he could avoid it. That allergy was nowhere in Tony's files, and it certainly hadn't stopped him from eating oreos before. Yet Phil did not doubt it was true. Apparently if Natasha had gotten into the spirit of things by acting, Tony had decided to do it by not acting.
"Thank you for telling me that, Tony," Phil said. If Tony Carter was prone to telling useful truths without prompting, Phil wanted to encourage that as much as possible. "Are vanilla cookies okay?" Tony nodded. Phil handed him one to sample. "Then I'll play white and eat the oreos," Phil continued. "You get more of the vanilla when you capture a piece. Now, here are the rules ..."
Phil set up the board again as he explained the basics of checkers just as he would to a precocious four-year-old. Tony listened raptly, leaning forward with the very tip of his pink tongue poking out of his mouth. It was almost as if nobody had ever explained the game to him before. Yet Phil had seen Tony playing checkers against JARVIS once. Then again ... maybe nobody had explained the rules. Maybe this was just another of the million things that Tony had taught himself.
Briefly Phil wished for a time machine so he could go back and strangle Howard Stark, the genius who evidently couldn't figure out how to teach his own son to play checkers. But no. That would doubtless make Steve cry, and Phil couldn't stand the thought of doing that even in his own fantasy. Possibly it would make Tony cry, too. Not the fierce Mr. Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, no. But this tentative and vulnerable little-Tony who was looking at Phil like Phil had won a Nobel Prize, just for taking the time to pretend to teach him something? Oh yes. This, somehow, was a Tony with a very different set of associations with a father-figure.
Suddenly this seemed much less like a teambuilding exercise and more like something a great deal heavier and truer than that. Phil took a deep breath and made his first move. "Okay, now it's your turn," he said.
On the couch, Clint began to snore, Natka curled like a cat beside him.
[To be continued in Part 4 ...]
aceofannwn. It also fills the "game night" square on my card for the trope_bingo fest. This fest features fundamental motifs that will be familiar to most readers. It encourages writers to analyze storylines and characters, then reinterpret them in new ways. Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Nick Fury, JARVIS
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: No standard warnings apply.
Summary: Phil Coulson is SHIELD's best handler for a reason: he can deal with the broken people that nobody else can manage but desperately need anyway. So he comes up with an unusual teambuilding idea to shore up the Avengers.
Notes: Asexual character. Aromantic character. Asexual relationship. Flangst. Dysfunctional dynamics. Mention of past abuse. Incidental self-injury. Non-sexual ageplay. Games. Cuteness. Teambuilding. Personal growth. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Hurt/comfort. Trust issues. Making up for lost time. Odin's A+ parenting. Teamwork. Family of choice.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2. Skip to Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14.
"Love Is for Children" Part 3
"Yes! That's great, you're great, really, I'd love to play. Thanks. Why are you all in pajamas?" Tony said all in one breath as he dashed into the room.
And that was Tony, all right, going from frame-by-frame to fast-forward all in an instant. Phil chuckled a little. "We really are playing a game, Tony. It's a kind of role-playing, a teambuilding exercise. We're pretending to be a family on a lazy Saturday, so we can relax. And we're playing checkers with cookies, or we were, until Clint got tired."
"I'm not tired," Clint insisted. He hadn't returned to the couch.
This did not make Phil happy. "Well, sit back down anyway, Clint. There's no need to stand at attention," he said. That, of course, made Clint slouch in place lest he be mistaken for anything approaching respectful. Maybe he'd go back to the couch eventually, when he felt like it.
"But why pajamas?" Tony insisted. He flitted around Natasha and Clint. "I mean, look, Natasha has lace on the cuffs of hers, she looks like a little girl, how wrong is that?"
Phil carefully hid his wince. This was the difficult part of the explanation; he'd hoped it could wait a little while, but then Tony never waited for anything. "That's part of the game. I'm Uncle Phil ... and I'm babysitting my sister's kids for the day." He'd chosen uncle, partly because it was on the list of suggestions in the exercise, but also because it sidestepped the issues most of his team had with parents. He didn't have anyone who'd been abused by an actual uncle, as far as he knew.
"Ohhh ..." Tony said, a long falling note of enlightenment. Then he grinned. "Then we should all have footie pajamas!"
"Do people even make footie pajamas in our sizes?" Clint said. He drifted back to the couch and his blanket. Natasha joined him there. Clint tucked his bare feet under her legs.
"They will if I pay them enough," Tony said.
"No," Phil said firmly. He had to lay out the ground rules very quickly before this all got out of hand.
"Really, people will do anything if you wave enough money at them," Tony insisted. "I should know! Genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist."
"Not right now, Tony," Phil said. "Children don't buy things. Grownups do. Providing supplies for this exercise is my job, not yours. So if you want footie pajamas, you can have them, but I will take care of that for you." He finally managed to catch Tony's gaze for a moment and added, "I will take care of you."
"But I got my first bank account when I was five," Tony whined.
"Then you can be four," Phil said without missing a beat. He waited for Tony's next argument.
"... 'kay," Tony said in a small voice.
"Okay," Phil agreed.
Clint said, as if meeting someone for the first time, "Hi. I'm Clint Barton. I'm eight."
"Natka Barton, and I'm seven," came the follow up.
Phil was startled by that. She'd signed the return message that way when she agreed to the exercise, so he knew about the name, how much she wished to be Clint's sister. She'd never spoken it before, though. She'd scarcely spoken.
Tony got a gleam in his eyes, and Phil had a split second to think trouble and build a horrible suspicion where this was going --
"Hi, I'm Tony Carter, and I'm four."
Well. That was still painfully revelatory about Tony's childhood fantasies, but at least it wasn't the team-wrecking disaster that Tony Rogers could have been. Nice save, indeed.
"Let's be friends," Clint said.
Tony shrugged a little, and bounced on his toes the way Clint did, and smiled maybe just a bit too much, as if Tony couldn't decide whether to be pleased or wary at the offer.
"Would you like to learn how to play checkers? You're pretty bright; you should pick it up in no time," Phil said, trying for a more appealing distraction.
"Oreos give me a tummyache," Tony said.
Only Phil's years in espionage kept his mouth from falling open in shock. Tony Stark never admitted to weakness if he could avoid it. That allergy was nowhere in Tony's files, and it certainly hadn't stopped him from eating oreos before. Yet Phil did not doubt it was true. Apparently if Natasha had gotten into the spirit of things by acting, Tony had decided to do it by not acting.
"Thank you for telling me that, Tony," Phil said. If Tony Carter was prone to telling useful truths without prompting, Phil wanted to encourage that as much as possible. "Are vanilla cookies okay?" Tony nodded. Phil handed him one to sample. "Then I'll play white and eat the oreos," Phil continued. "You get more of the vanilla when you capture a piece. Now, here are the rules ..."
Phil set up the board again as he explained the basics of checkers just as he would to a precocious four-year-old. Tony listened raptly, leaning forward with the very tip of his pink tongue poking out of his mouth. It was almost as if nobody had ever explained the game to him before. Yet Phil had seen Tony playing checkers against JARVIS once. Then again ... maybe nobody had explained the rules. Maybe this was just another of the million things that Tony had taught himself.
Briefly Phil wished for a time machine so he could go back and strangle Howard Stark, the genius who evidently couldn't figure out how to teach his own son to play checkers. But no. That would doubtless make Steve cry, and Phil couldn't stand the thought of doing that even in his own fantasy. Possibly it would make Tony cry, too. Not the fierce Mr. Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, no. But this tentative and vulnerable little-Tony who was looking at Phil like Phil had won a Nobel Prize, just for taking the time to pretend to teach him something? Oh yes. This, somehow, was a Tony with a very different set of associations with a father-figure.
Suddenly this seemed much less like a teambuilding exercise and more like something a great deal heavier and truer than that. Phil took a deep breath and made his first move. "Okay, now it's your turn," he said.
On the couch, Clint began to snore, Natka curled like a cat beside him.
[To be continued in Part 4 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-16 09:46 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2013-02-16 10:18 pm (UTC)I'm happy to hear that!
>> I'm very glad, though not surprised, that Phil has realized just how big this exercise has become. <<
The whole story is a blend of things that Phil anticipates and things that he is surprised by. He's very astute, but the Avengers are cagey and keep throwing him curveballs.
>>It has gone from team building to family building and healing role-play, which will do these guys much more good in the long run.<<
Exactly. One interesting thing about the Avengers canon is that it hints at the kind of damage people pick up from going through traumatic experiences. Like Tony saying, "I don't like to be handed things." So either they have to cover that up when they're working, or they find ways to repair it behind the scenes. I like the stories that deal with cleaning up the mess.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2013-02-16 10:19 pm (UTC)Me too! Those are some of my favorite stories to read.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2013-02-16 10:27 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you!
Date: 2013-02-16 10:28 pm (UTC)YnoHCrhNPDUswzLGm
Date: 2013-12-19 11:20 pm (UTC)Re: YnoHCrhNPDUswzLGm
Date: 2013-12-29 03:46 am (UTC)Re: being handed things
Date: 2014-06-15 08:50 pm (UTC)I'm rather like this as well. I want things a certain way sometimes, and trying to hand them to me in the wrong order doesn't work very well. But sometimes they come in that order anyway, and it's a disturbance inside until I can reorder them properly. I wouldn't call it OCD, as it primarily happens with things I'm supposed to make or do on my own, but it's there. It really hurts to not be able to order my own life, even now after I've resigned to having my life ordered for me.
Re: being handed things
Date: 2014-06-15 10:49 pm (UTC)I think it's because he's touch-dominant, constantly scolding for touching things, feels that people are hypocrites when they shove things at him, and a lot of things handed to him have hurt him either intentionally or accidentally. There are a lot of things in canon that point that way. Particularly when you consider that certain close friends are allowed to hand him things.
>> Maybe because things were shoved in his face all the time, and what is easily given is also easily taken away. He has a very light relationship with things that aren't his. And how does he make things his? By building them without help. <<
Tony trusts things he built himself to perform as intended, once they've been tested and polished to perfection. Stuff other made? Hammer, 20 years.
>> I'm rather like this as well. I want things a certain way sometimes, and trying to hand them to me in the wrong order doesn't work very well. <<
That makes sense, especially if you have put things in the order you're going to use them, which I do for complicated projects.
>> But sometimes they come in that order anyway, and it's a disturbance inside until I can reorder them properly. <<
Yes! I suspect that contributes to the amount of time Tony spends in his workshop. It's like having your hairs rubbed the wrong way, you want to brush them back in the right direction to make the nerves stop signalling that something is wrong.
>> I wouldn't call it OCD, as it primarily happens with things I'm supposed to make or do on my own, but it's there. It really hurts to not be able to order my own life, even now after I've resigned to having my life ordered for me. <<
Lack of agency is a problem. People have manipulated Tony so much, it's no wonder he gravitates to places where he is the one in control. But he also leans on Uncle Phil as someone who can control Tony when he can't control himself, and do that without hurting him.
(no subject)
Thank you!
Date: 2014-03-11 04:07 am (UTC)I'm happy to hear that.
>> I love Tony, and find the idea of his sudden truthfulness really cute. <<
Sooth. It's convenient and awkward at the same time.
>> I liked the way Clint got up and was all tense for a bit when Tony came in. It highlighted nicely how fragile the situation is. Without that, it really looks a bit too easy. <<
Game night has its ups and downs. This first story is mostly fluff. Part of that is because it's new, and the characters need something sweet after all they've gone through. Later on, as they start to feel more secure, other stuff comes up.
Tony Stark
Date: 2014-08-22 08:48 am (UTC)Yep too eager seeming people would take advantage wait once he got it they'd take it back.
Yeah the not telling truths seemed a learned thing to me.
So so much more.
Re: Tony Stark
Date: 2014-08-24 11:36 pm (UTC)Yeah the not telling truths seemed a learned thing to me. <<
It seemed that way to me in the movies, so I set it up like this. Look at how badly people react when Tony tells them things. He's not stupid; he has learned to hide and to lie in order to protect himself.
>> Suddenly this seemed much less like a teambuilding exercise and more like something a great deal heavier and truer than that.
So so much more. <<
Yeah, it just took a little while for people to start realizing this.