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ysabetwordsmithThis story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk," and "kintsukuroi."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Nick Fury
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Minor character death. Bullying. Fighting. Suicide attempt (minor character).
Summary: This is the story of how a little boy named Flip grows up to save the world a lot.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. Accidents. Emotional whump. Disability. Sibling relationship. Nonsexual love. Parentification. Manipulation. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Protection. Caregiving. Competence. Toys and games. Comic books. Fixing things. Martial arts. Gentleness. Trust. Role models. Military. BAMF Phil Coulson.
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, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28. Skip to Part 31, Part 32, Part 33, Part 34.
"Little and Broken, but Still Good" Part 29
The test missions are exciting. Agent Fury sends Phil to sneak into enemy camps and steal intel or sabotage their equipment. Twice Phil gets in and out with never a whisper of suspicion. The third time, a guard spots him, and Agent Fury has to rescue him with a gun that looks like a cigarette lighter.
An old man named Dugan laughs at Phil on the way home. Fury shakes his head at both of them. Phil swears he can do better. Dugan bets him a beer if he can.
A month later, Phil takes out an ammo cache with a bomb made from a bag of flour. Dugan pays up with the best German beer Phil has ever had. Agent Fury finalizes the transfer.
SHIELD turns out to be everything Phil dreamed, and more. It is no more than a shadow, but it shelters everyone beneath it like the shade of a tree on a baking summer day. The base where Phil works has a brisk military air about it. The equipment is bleeding-edge best. He falls in love with the quality of pistols available, and takes to carrying one at his side and a smaller backup in an ankle holster.
There are drawbacks, of course. Phil takes one look at the paperwork and nearly despairs. It is worse than disorganized; it is ill-conceived to begin with, obviously designed by people who had no idea what they really needed to know or how to put it on paper so that it would make sense. Phil takes five of the worst forms and reconfigures them into something that actually works. Then he goes to Agent Fury and says, "Your entire recordkeeping system is a disaster. I need to fix this."
Fury calls Director Carter, talks for a few minutes, and sends off Phil's folder of forms. The next day, Phil gets an assignment to overhaul SHIELD paperwork for improved efficiency. He cracks his knuckles and begins working. At Clearance Level 1, he can't see most of the content, but he can do his job with the blank forms. It takes all day to absorb enough of the information to create a complete outline of a functional system, with coherent categories broken down into a tree of logical subcategories. He spends the next few days figuring out which are the most vital and most common forms, so he can improve those first. Actually updating all of the forms will take months, but at least Phil knows where to start.
The missions that take him away from the base prove as challenging as Agent Fury promised. Once, SHIELD loans Phil to MI5 because they need an agent without a British accent to foil a plot against the Queen. Another time, Phil has to use all his computer skills to keep someone from launching a nuclear missile at Russia. He doesn't like Russia much, but he likes living in a world that does not glow in the dark.
Where do people GET these insane ideas? Phil wonders as he locks down the entire installation and calls for pickup.
* * *
Notes:
Dum Dum Dugan came from the Howling Commandos to SHIELD.
Flour bombs rely on a dust explosion and even in small amounts can be quite spectacular.
Poorly designed paperwork wastes time, money, and energy; plus it means you don't have all the information you need in a readily accessible form. Studies reveal the qualities of bad and good paperwork. Know how to design good forms.
Saving the world is often necessary to prevent lunatics from destroying it. A fundamental rule is, "Don't saw off the branch you're standing on."
[To be continued in Part 30 ... ]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Nick Fury
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Minor character death. Bullying. Fighting. Suicide attempt (minor character).
Summary: This is the story of how a little boy named Flip grows up to save the world a lot.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. Accidents. Emotional whump. Disability. Sibling relationship. Nonsexual love. Parentification. Manipulation. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Protection. Caregiving. Competence. Toys and games. Comic books. Fixing things. Martial arts. Gentleness. Trust. Role models. Military. BAMF Phil Coulson.
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, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28. Skip to Part 31, Part 32, Part 33, Part 34.
"Little and Broken, but Still Good" Part 29
The test missions are exciting. Agent Fury sends Phil to sneak into enemy camps and steal intel or sabotage their equipment. Twice Phil gets in and out with never a whisper of suspicion. The third time, a guard spots him, and Agent Fury has to rescue him with a gun that looks like a cigarette lighter.
An old man named Dugan laughs at Phil on the way home. Fury shakes his head at both of them. Phil swears he can do better. Dugan bets him a beer if he can.
A month later, Phil takes out an ammo cache with a bomb made from a bag of flour. Dugan pays up with the best German beer Phil has ever had. Agent Fury finalizes the transfer.
SHIELD turns out to be everything Phil dreamed, and more. It is no more than a shadow, but it shelters everyone beneath it like the shade of a tree on a baking summer day. The base where Phil works has a brisk military air about it. The equipment is bleeding-edge best. He falls in love with the quality of pistols available, and takes to carrying one at his side and a smaller backup in an ankle holster.
There are drawbacks, of course. Phil takes one look at the paperwork and nearly despairs. It is worse than disorganized; it is ill-conceived to begin with, obviously designed by people who had no idea what they really needed to know or how to put it on paper so that it would make sense. Phil takes five of the worst forms and reconfigures them into something that actually works. Then he goes to Agent Fury and says, "Your entire recordkeeping system is a disaster. I need to fix this."
Fury calls Director Carter, talks for a few minutes, and sends off Phil's folder of forms. The next day, Phil gets an assignment to overhaul SHIELD paperwork for improved efficiency. He cracks his knuckles and begins working. At Clearance Level 1, he can't see most of the content, but he can do his job with the blank forms. It takes all day to absorb enough of the information to create a complete outline of a functional system, with coherent categories broken down into a tree of logical subcategories. He spends the next few days figuring out which are the most vital and most common forms, so he can improve those first. Actually updating all of the forms will take months, but at least Phil knows where to start.
The missions that take him away from the base prove as challenging as Agent Fury promised. Once, SHIELD loans Phil to MI5 because they need an agent without a British accent to foil a plot against the Queen. Another time, Phil has to use all his computer skills to keep someone from launching a nuclear missile at Russia. He doesn't like Russia much, but he likes living in a world that does not glow in the dark.
Where do people GET these insane ideas? Phil wonders as he locks down the entire installation and calls for pickup.
* * *
Notes:
Dum Dum Dugan came from the Howling Commandos to SHIELD.
Flour bombs rely on a dust explosion and even in small amounts can be quite spectacular.
Poorly designed paperwork wastes time, money, and energy; plus it means you don't have all the information you need in a readily accessible form. Studies reveal the qualities of bad and good paperwork. Know how to design good forms.
Saving the world is often necessary to prevent lunatics from destroying it. A fundamental rule is, "Don't saw off the branch you're standing on."
[To be continued in Part 30 ... ]
(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-02 05:15 pm (UTC)...Yeah we don't feel like we have the right to complain and we're scared we said things badly or our tone was all wrong or whatever else. We get this thing where the possibility that someone might disagree with us makes us assume we're wrong and shouldn't speak in the first place because apparently our brain thinks other people are always more right than we are. *glares at it* Bullshit. Disagreement's healthy! Diversity, people, it works! Anyway. Yeah.
But while I'm here, I loved seeing your Phil growing into the person we see in the films and your later stories! This is an excellent piece of writing. As they all are! I just read your Happy Hour and aw man, the feels. Is it just me or am I adorable? *cheeky face* But seriously though, I love you for giving Happy a story of his own. He's amazing and honestly I'm not sure there'd ever have been an Iron Man without him, at least in my own world. I don't think I'd have made it that far. And you're really good at writing us! Your visions of all of us show really great observation, perception, extrapolation and characterization skills in my opinion. And a deep understanding of person and human nature, obviously. I know it's part of your job qualifications as a writer but that doesn't mean it's not awesome. *grins* So yeah. BY the way, you're awesome. :P
-Tony