Story: "Hairpins" Part 24

[ysabetwordsmith]

This story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," and "Green Eggs and Hulk."

Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, JARVIS, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Bruce Banner.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: This story is mostly fluff, but it has some intense scenes in the middle. Highlight for details. These include dubious consent as Phil and JARVIS discuss what really happened when Agent Coulson hacked his way into Stark Tower, over which Phil has something between a flashback and a panic attack. They also discuss some of the bad things that have happened to Avengers in the past, including various flavors of abuse. If these are sensitive topics for you, please think carefully before deciding whether to read onward.
Summary: Uncle Phil needs to pick out pajamas for game night. He gets help from an unexpected direction.
Notes: Service. Shopping. Gifts. Artificial intelligence. Computers. Teamwork. Team as family. Friendship. Communication. Hope. Apologies. Forgiveness. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Love. Tony Stark needs a hug. Bruce Banner needs a hug. #coulsonlives.

Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23. Skip to Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29.

EXTRA: singingwithoutwords has written the vignette "Influence" about Director Fury, inspired by this series.  While I can't promise everything in it is strictly true at this stage, it is very much along the lines of what he tends to believe.  So it's either canon or quasi-canon for Love Is For Children, and linked as an inspired work.


"Hairpins" Part 24


"Phil?" JARVIS asked, audibly fretting again.

"I appreciate you sharing this information," Phil managed. "What Director Fury did to you and Tony was ... conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. You have my apology on behalf of SHIELD. What SHIELD was meant to be, anyway."

"It is not your place to apologize for the actions of another," JARVIS said.

"No, it is not. Nick Fury needs to learn how to stand up for his own mistakes," Phil said. "However, it is my place as Senior Handler to speak for SHIELD, its values, and the professionalism of its personnel. I will do what I can to mitigate future concerns. As Director Fury outranks me, however, you are correct in observing that there is little official recourse."

"Understood," JARVIS said.

Phil shifted in place. "As for unofficial recourse ... this is why Tony balks at dealing with SHIELD and actively resents Fury, isn't it? Why he hacked the Helicarrier's secure server and blew the cover off Phase II?" Phil asked. "That's not just Tony being headstrong because he hates people trying to boss him around. He has grounds for it."

"The incident contributed substantially to our low opinion of SHIELD and its Director. Such things are more difficult to integrate than ordinary hacking attempts. As you say, unofficial reprisal offers more promising potential than official does," JARVIS agreed. "Sir and I are ... long accustomed to such constraints."

Fury had trespassed because he thought he could do it with impunity, forgetting that Tony Stark held cyberspace in his hot little hands. Fury never expected that violation to come back later and bite him in the ass, but it had. SHIELD paid the price for his arrogance.

How much grief could have been saved if Tony had been a willing partner instead of a grudging ally? Phil wondered. He felt certain that Tony could have boosted SHIELD firewalls beyond what even Loki could hack into. Phil allowed himself a brief fantasy of what might have happened if Hawkeye's electronic arrow attack had failed. They could have captured him back before he added allied deaths to his conscience.

"Thank you for telling me," Phil said. He felt grateful that JARVIS would tell him anything, after the way other SHIELD personnel had treated him and Tony ... and the rest of the Avengers too.

"I wish that I had been able to protect sir more thoroughly. The Director may be a mediocre hacker, but he is an accomplished saboteur," JARVIS said.

"Not your fault," Phil repeated, and oh, it hurt to say the same thing cleaning up after Fury's mess as for Stane's. He would never look at his old friend in quite the same way again. Phil breathed through the pain and went on. At least now he knew, and could discourage Fury from harassing the Avengers again. "You can feel bad about what happened. Just try to leave the blame where it belongs ... on the bad guys."

"I will try. Thank you for being one of the good guys," said JARVIS.

That description itched a little against Phil's memory. "I'm glad you think of me that way. I'm still trying to come to terms with what I've done, and what I know now. I'm not sure ... how we go on, from this," Phil admitted.

* * *

Notes:

The charge of "Conduct Unbecoming" can be grounds for a court martial, although it often widens to disgraceful behavior in general. Director Fury's invasion of Tony's home counts as "dishonest acts, lawlessness, dealing unfairly, injustice, or acts of cruelty," and with JARVIS being a person violating his code could reasonably add "displays of indecency," which is darn near the whole list of examples. Stay classy, Fury.

Most of the time, it's not appropriate to apologize for someone else. However, there are professional and personal cases where it can fall within a person's jurisdiction, as Phil explains. SHIELD has come a long, sad way from what was originally conceived as a living memorial for Captain America.

Workplace bullying causes mental and physical harm to the victims, along with heavy costs to the organization. This is just one example of how Fury's abusive behavior negatively impacts the people around him and SHIELD's objectives. There are steps to deal with bullies at work.

Good or bad leadership makes a huge difference in workplace functionality. A bad leader can do serious harm to team morale through dishonesty, manipulation, aggression, and other means. There are ways to repair relationships after wrongdoing and to build trust within an organization.

Good friendships require care to establish and to maintain. There are ways to repair a damaged friendship. Phil and JARVIS are working through these things currently. It also helps to know how to handle a big mistake and then move on.


[To be continued in Part 25 ...]

Comments

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I tried very, very hard not to lie (seriously, rather than in jest) to my kids as they were growing up, <<

Good plan.

>> which made the Long Negotiating War over Santa quite amusing to people not my spouse and myself (at the time; now it's hilarious to both of us!). <<

Santa Claus isn't one person, but a spirit, whom anyone can learn to channel. It's a very useful skill, as well as a charming story. I wrote an editorial on that once.

>> They tackled stuff at ages where other kids are just learning <<

Yeah, I was blazingly precocious in ways that scared most adults.

>> that sharing doesn't mean, "Mom said I should give you this cookie, so THERE." (thump) <<

Another problem is pressuring children to lie, for example, demanding apologies when they are obviously not sorry. They resent being ordered to lie in one situation but punished for it in others. That's no way to teach manners. I think it works better to talk about hurt feelings after they've cooled down enough to realize that they did something wrong -- and to modulate punishments so that a willing apology always brings down the penalty for misbehavior.

>> Trying to /explain/ the original Grimm's tales to a kid who can understand the WHAT but not the WHY yet... <<

That can be a challenge.

>> It's statutory rape at BEST, if Loki were in his teens when he mothered Slepnir. <<

*sigh* They still are in their teens, socially speaking. It's in the plot and dialog throughout Thor. "His actions are those of a boy, treat them as such," etc. It's a coming-of-age story, gone terribly horribly wrong. Figure Thor is the equivalent of 18 and Loki maybe 16. Nevermind they've got centuries of experience, it's a developmental and social curve, creating a similar blur across chronological lines as what happens with Hulk. Oddly enough, I've only seen one or two other fanfics pick up on the age factor, despite how heavily it was pitched in the movie.

So Loki was probably the equivalent of 12 or 14 when Sleipnir happened. He's a gifted shapeshifter, he knew how to solve the problem, what work, how to do it, that he had the ability to do it ... everything except what it would do to him, how utterly overwhelming it would feel. First sexual experience is challenging enough. But heat? It's difficult for even an adult to control, let alone a young girl. My read of that aspect is that Loki basically roofied herself. So she felt that what happened was all her fault, and everyone else behaved the same way, and it was an utter fucking disaster.

>> Odin letting it even HAPPEN is the kind of abusive that makes people light buildings on fire with the abuser and their frekking ACCOMPLICES still inside. If Loki were younger, in human equivalents, well, Odin personally deserves every second of agony Ragnarok would give him. <<

Agreed. I have some ideas along those lines.

>> Odin, or his soldiers on his orders, MURDERED at least two of Loki's children, in front of him. Odin, personally, leveled extreme abuse of Fenrir which is again, "not enough W in TF for this". Hel? Jorgmundr? <<

I'm inclined to leave out those parts for this particular series, given the movieverse interpretations.

>> Oh, and Odin doing so because Loki is (uknowingly) Jotunn? It doesn't hold water as a theory; Odin is himself part Frost Giant through his father Borr. Odin has fathered other children in the myths who are ALSO part Frost Giant, or other non-Asgardian sentients. <<

1) Boomerang bigot. 2) Just because they're good enough to fuck doesn't mean they're good enough for family. Odin acts very much like a conservative with a touch of the tar brush, and he takes it out on both Loki and Sleipnir. Thor and Frigga try to protect them, but an abusive family makes that impossible unless you're willing to leave and she hasn't been.

>> The thing that impresses the hell out of me? How did Loki end up at ALL sane? He's a Trickster, which wasn't respected in his culture, but he isn't the raging psychotic Odin is by a long shot. <<

Exactly. Loki was trying to eke out as decent a life as he could manage in a completely untenable situation. He obviously loves Thor and Frigga, despite the horrible complications. Hell, he even loves his sick fuck of a father figure, or the rejection wouldn't have been fatal. There are a lot of ugly parallels with Clint's family and Bruce's family.

>> BTW, if you want my vote for the series? Just be consistent, which you already do better than MCU. <<

Thank you!

>> At this point, there's enough divergence from canon that you don't really need to spell out that "this isn't quite the same as--", and world-building will push the two further apart despite your best efforts. <<

That makes sense. I'm not trying to keep in lockstep with canon, just close enough that what I write is plausible.

>> As a reader, if you keep it consistent and give some really GOOD character-driven interactions, I could actually believe Odin genuinely feared for the immediate start of Ragnarok when Fenrir was born, which drove him to act the way the stories say he did. <<

I had enough trouble coming up with viable rationalizations for Nick Fury. Odin? Well, abuse tends to run in the family, so there's that. Handling magical artifacts didn't do him any good. Power corrupts. And a whopping load of self-hate for the Jotun thing.

*ponder* Which might be why he never told Loki, figuring it wouldn't bother the kid if he never found out about it. Yeah, because that ever works.

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[dialecticdreamer]

>> *sigh* They still are in their teens, socially speaking. It's in the plot and dialog throughout Thor. "His actions are those of a boy, treat them as such," etc. It's a coming-of-age story, gone terribly horribly wrong. Figure Thor is the equivalent of 18 and Loki maybe 16. Nevermind they've got centuries of experience, it's a developmental and social curve, creating a similar blur across chronological lines as what happens with Hulk. Oddly enough, I've only seen one or two other fanfics pick up on the age factor, despite how heavily it was pitched in the movie.<<

Some of the problem may be that the people playing Loki and Thor LOOK much older, both are in their early thirties.

Some of the problem may be the way American film and television gets in the doghouse when a popular entertainment include anything which even HINTS at the idea of underaged characters and s-e-x. It's insane, the dichotomies between 'okay to show this level of violence against a teen' but 'can't show two teens plus consensual kissing'. The overwhelming behavior now shows people in their twenties trying to look ten years younger just so they can flirt with words and gestures without bringing down the wrath of a certain segment of the viewing audiences.

Some of the problem is that the whole CAST is significantly older than the characters they portray. Tony looks much older, the actor is nearly 50, Clark Gregg is over forty, as is Mark Ruffalo. Interestingly, Phil is probably near the same age as the actor, while Bruce could be the same age or more than ten years younger than that. Chris Evans is closer to his apparent age in the comics- early 30s playing a young man likely to be ONLY ten years younger than that.(Steve may have been 18-19 at enlistment, likely 20-21 by the time he worked through USO to actual shows 'over there', but that's conjecture on my part. Scarlett Johanson is early thirties, but I'm not certain how old Natasha is supposed to be, chronologically, so I pegged her emotional age as ROUGHLY- late twenties, nearing thirty. Jeremy Renner is also in his forties, and Clint, the character, could be anything from thirty up.

See why the viewers couldn't tell that the "teenaged" comments were meant seriously?

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Some of the problem may be that the people playing Loki and Thor LOOK much older, both are in their early thirties. <<

Yes, that's true.

>> Some of the problem may be the way American film and television gets in the doghouse when a popular entertainment include anything which even HINTS at the idea of underaged characters and s-e-x. <<

I agree, it's a disaster.

>> It's insane, the dichotomies between 'okay to show this level of violence against a teen' but 'can't show two teens plus consensual kissing'. The overwhelming behavior now shows people in their twenties trying to look ten years younger just so they can flirt with words and gestures without bringing down the wrath of a certain segment of the viewing audiences. <<

Plus that makes it look like violence is more acceptable than affection, which is a whole new level of social destruction.

>> Some of the problem is that the whole CAST is significantly older than the characters they portray. <<

Character age in canon varies greatly, though, some characters more than others. I know Bruce has been all over the map. I think Tony has been fielded everything from 17 into his 40s. Actually I kind of like the age spread in The Avengers because it's uncommon to see older heroes.

>> Tony looks much older, the actor is nearly 50, Clark Gregg is over forty, as is Mark Ruffalo. <<

It works for me. I think of Bruce as younger than Tony, but looking older than he really is because of all the stress.

>> Interestingly, Phil is probably near the same age as the actor, while Bruce could be the same age or more than ten years younger than that. <<

Phil is a great match, it makes sense for the Senior Handler to be mature. Hard living can tack on ten years easy to the apparent age.

>> Chris Evans is closer to his apparent age in the comics- early 30s playing a young man likely to be ONLY ten years younger than that.(Steve may have been 18-19 at enlistment, likely 20-21 by the time he worked through USO to actual shows 'over there', but that's conjecture on my part. <<

I think the most recent iteration put his birth year at 1918 -- a few years younger than my grandparents, actually. I just can't help but see him through the lens of their generation. It makes me want to pat him on the head and feed him cookies.

>> Scarlett Johanson is early thirties, but I'm not certain how old Natasha is supposed to be, chronologically, so I pegged her emotional age as ROUGHLY- late twenties, nearing thirty. <<

This one is hugely varied. Some versions of canon map her from similar timeframe, or not much later, as Bucky and Steve; others have rebooted much younger. I'm leaving it vague because she doesn't know how old she is after what-all the Red Room did to her. But she is a lot older than she looks, and she was trained by the Winter Soldier.

>> Jeremy Renner is also in his forties, and Clint, the character, could be anything from thirty up. <<

I tend to think of Clint as among the younger Avengers, yes.

>> See why the viewers couldn't tell that the "teenaged" comments were meant seriously? <<

Eh, good point.

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Based on the MCU Tony is about Blair's age and thus my contemporary, though his actor, as often is the case, is older. (I used to be younger than Spiderman, really) Since I've not been watching the Hulk movies I've been thinking Bruce was slightly older than Tony, though mileage and road vary.

MCU does go with 1918 which means Steve is of his majority when Pearl Harbor happens. My headcanon likes Bucky slightly younger for all he acts the elder (which would have been fraught).

Clint I buy as hard road, because some of his backgrounds, yeah, they will age a man. And at 30+ that's a lot of time potentially as an asset as well as making him older than Steve minus the ice age.

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[dialecticdreamer]

Confused- "Blair" who? It's the only part of your remarks I can't figure out.

Re: Loki, holding back maximum damage, subtlety

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Sorry, Blair Sandburg was the sitting man in my prior comment's icon. (The Sentinel) Probably bigger in fanfic than episode views, though even I caught it dubbed in Italian.