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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, Part 29. Skip to Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35.
Warning: This chapter contains some references to job-related Phil!whump.
"Little and Broken, but Still Good" Part 30
The first time Phil gets captured and tortured, they are pathetic amateurs. He remembers getting worse from the more creative bullies at school. Phil knows how to handle pain, but more importantly, he knows how to handle people. These are no challenge at all.
When he laughs in their faces, his captors hit him harder, but Phil doesn't care. He uses one of the tricks that Nick taught him to slip out of the ropes. He escapes before the bad guys can even break any bones. Then Phil frees the captive Senator, steals a boat, and returns to friendly territory.
Phil gets a commendation and a promotion to Level 2. Sadly he discovers a new batch of shabby paperwork in need of improvement, and how is it that SHIELD doesn't even have a form for analyzing the skill level of enemy interrogators? So he has to design that one from scratch, which is actually easier.
The second time Phil gets captured and tortured, they are terrifying experts. They beat him nearly to death, very carefully. He loses count of how many bones they break, somewhere between his left hand and his ribs.
Phil never tells them anything. No enemy has a chance of cracking his mental filing system. Who's going to find state secrets when they're filed under spinach casserole? he thinks.
They curse at him in German, but Phil doesn't care. Their questions are irrelevant to his words. He is still reciting recipe ingredients to the apoplectic interrogator when Agent Fury blasts open the door and shoots them all dead.
The last thing Phil hears before he passes out is Fury's frantic voice saying, "Cheese? Stay with me, you crazy motherfucker, don't you dare clock out on me!"
Phil wakes up in SHIELD medical with a body that aches distantly under a fuzzy layer of very nice drugs. His whole left arm is in a cast. Fury sits in a chair beside the bed, hidden by a rustling newspaper. "Did'n tell," Phil assures him.
"Cheese?" Fury says. "Oh, thank Christ. If you died on me, your momma woulda run me through her blender, twice."
Phil chuckles. It hurts and feels good at the same time. "Yeah."
"You dumbass, those old Nazi sympathizers could have killed you!" Fury scolds. "You could have just answered the questions. You're Level Two, it's not like you know anything valuable."
"Did'n wanna," Phil says. "Bad habit."
"Water under the bridge, I suppose," Fury says. "The bad news is, you're out of commission for at least four months. The doctors won't even consider desk work for two. So I'm sending you home for a while."
"No," Phil says. As far as SHIELD knows -- part of his bargain with Fury prior to entry -- Phil is a loner. He doesn't want to put his family at risk by leaving any noticeable connections.
"Fine, be that way. I have some leave available. I'm taking you home," Fury says.
Phil wants to argue, but even this much talking has exhausted him. He falls asleep while trying to muster a crushing counterargument.
* * *
Notes:
(The following references on torture are unpleasantly graphic in places.)
Torture involves scaring or hurting people to extract information. People debate the facts and effectiveness. In my observation, experts with a detailed knowledge of human anatomy and psychology can extract usable data from unwilling subjects. But such experts are few and far between, whereas most torture is done by amateurs with far less useful results. The main reasons are typically sadism and intimidation. Beating and breaking bones are two popular methods. Resistance to interrogation includes many different tactics. Phil is using a very sophisticated one, substitution, which really is hard to break through. Aftercare is important too, and Nick is on the right track putting Phil into a familiar refuge.
Escapology is a basic spy skill. It helps that few people know how to tie someone securely, so the result is usually easy to escape. Watch a video for an example. Read some tips on rope escape. For expert resources on this topic, see your local stage magic shop; there are whole books on the topic.
Blunt trauma and broken bones take varying amounts of time to heal. Severe bruising and small bones take 6-8 weeks. Internal injuries or larger bones may take several months. In Phil's case, it's not just the individual injuries, but the overall metabolic burden of mass trauma that takes a lot of time and energy to heal. So now you know what Fury was really thinking on the Helicarrier: "Oh shit Mrs. Coulson is going to kill me."
[To be continued in Part 31 ...]
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, Part 29. Skip to Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35.
Warning: This chapter contains some references to job-related Phil!whump.
"Little and Broken, but Still Good" Part 30
The first time Phil gets captured and tortured, they are pathetic amateurs. He remembers getting worse from the more creative bullies at school. Phil knows how to handle pain, but more importantly, he knows how to handle people. These are no challenge at all.
When he laughs in their faces, his captors hit him harder, but Phil doesn't care. He uses one of the tricks that Nick taught him to slip out of the ropes. He escapes before the bad guys can even break any bones. Then Phil frees the captive Senator, steals a boat, and returns to friendly territory.
Phil gets a commendation and a promotion to Level 2. Sadly he discovers a new batch of shabby paperwork in need of improvement, and how is it that SHIELD doesn't even have a form for analyzing the skill level of enemy interrogators? So he has to design that one from scratch, which is actually easier.
The second time Phil gets captured and tortured, they are terrifying experts. They beat him nearly to death, very carefully. He loses count of how many bones they break, somewhere between his left hand and his ribs.
Phil never tells them anything. No enemy has a chance of cracking his mental filing system. Who's going to find state secrets when they're filed under spinach casserole? he thinks.
They curse at him in German, but Phil doesn't care. Their questions are irrelevant to his words. He is still reciting recipe ingredients to the apoplectic interrogator when Agent Fury blasts open the door and shoots them all dead.
The last thing Phil hears before he passes out is Fury's frantic voice saying, "Cheese? Stay with me, you crazy motherfucker, don't you dare clock out on me!"
Phil wakes up in SHIELD medical with a body that aches distantly under a fuzzy layer of very nice drugs. His whole left arm is in a cast. Fury sits in a chair beside the bed, hidden by a rustling newspaper. "Did'n tell," Phil assures him.
"Cheese?" Fury says. "Oh, thank Christ. If you died on me, your momma woulda run me through her blender, twice."
Phil chuckles. It hurts and feels good at the same time. "Yeah."
"You dumbass, those old Nazi sympathizers could have killed you!" Fury scolds. "You could have just answered the questions. You're Level Two, it's not like you know anything valuable."
"Did'n wanna," Phil says. "Bad habit."
"Water under the bridge, I suppose," Fury says. "The bad news is, you're out of commission for at least four months. The doctors won't even consider desk work for two. So I'm sending you home for a while."
"No," Phil says. As far as SHIELD knows -- part of his bargain with Fury prior to entry -- Phil is a loner. He doesn't want to put his family at risk by leaving any noticeable connections.
"Fine, be that way. I have some leave available. I'm taking you home," Fury says.
Phil wants to argue, but even this much talking has exhausted him. He falls asleep while trying to muster a crushing counterargument.
* * *
Notes:
(The following references on torture are unpleasantly graphic in places.)
Torture involves scaring or hurting people to extract information. People debate the facts and effectiveness. In my observation, experts with a detailed knowledge of human anatomy and psychology can extract usable data from unwilling subjects. But such experts are few and far between, whereas most torture is done by amateurs with far less useful results. The main reasons are typically sadism and intimidation. Beating and breaking bones are two popular methods. Resistance to interrogation includes many different tactics. Phil is using a very sophisticated one, substitution, which really is hard to break through. Aftercare is important too, and Nick is on the right track putting Phil into a familiar refuge.
Escapology is a basic spy skill. It helps that few people know how to tie someone securely, so the result is usually easy to escape. Watch a video for an example. Read some tips on rope escape. For expert resources on this topic, see your local stage magic shop; there are whole books on the topic.
Blunt trauma and broken bones take varying amounts of time to heal. Severe bruising and small bones take 6-8 weeks. Internal injuries or larger bones may take several months. In Phil's case, it's not just the individual injuries, but the overall metabolic burden of mass trauma that takes a lot of time and energy to heal. So now you know what Fury was really thinking on the Helicarrier: "Oh shit Mrs. Coulson is going to kill me."
[To be continued in Part 31 ...]
Thoughts
Date: 2014-08-25 06:16 am (UTC)*chuckle* But she is the best suited to take care of Phil when he's this far flattened.
>> What year is this, anyway? I'm temporally disoriented... <<
Sorry, I'm not sure exactly; the precision breaks down after a while.