Clint should have known as soon as he stepped foot in the town of Midgard, New York that he was in way over his head.
The whole place had that shiny new feel to it, like everyone there was classy and rich and modern. It was everything Clint wasn't. Having spent the better part of his life in the Midwest with a traveling circus, Clint was definitely not the type of person that Midgard's big houses and perfectly mowed green lawns hosted.
Though the wealth of the town was obvious, Clint had been a bit preoccupied with being located by social services and snatched away from his life at Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders to really notice. He'd spent the last month moving from house to house while they tried to find a permanent foster home that would take a sixteen year old carnie.
They'd finally placed him in Midgard with the principal of the local high school, and Clint had been so overwhelmed by the sheer inertia of his life (not to mention his new large and very intimidating one-eyed foster father) that he hadn't taken the time to get his bearings and figure out exactly what kind of place he was in.
Clint hadn't realized how much he stuck out until he walked through the front doors of Shield Academy on his first day (in-step with the principal no less) and realized that all of the other students reeked of money. It was obvious in the way that it could only be to someone who didn't belong.
The girls all sported fleece North Face jackets and Ugg boots that probably cost more than all the clothes Clint owned put together, along with sparkly studded earrings that were probably real diamonds. The guys had expensive name-brand tennis shoes and polo shirts and those big Beats headphones that cost more than any pair of headphones should ever cost. Everyone was wearing name brands and designers and fancy jeans that were made to look like they were old and torn but were obviously new and pricey.
In his purple t-shirt (3 for $10 at Walmart!) and old jeans with grass and dirt stains from days spent striking the Big Top and taking care of the animals, Clint was very aware that he looked like exactly what he was: poor white trash. He was suddenly extremely aware of the hole in the side of his left shoe where the upper canvas part was breaking away from the sole, and he hated himself for caring.
"Come on, your class schedule and locker number should be in my office." Nick's eye was narrowed as he looked at Clint, like he could see exactly what thoughts were rushing through his brain. Strangely, Clint felt chastised by that look, and he fisted his fingers in the too-long sleeves of the ratty leather jacket that he'd stolen from a Salvation Army in Nebraska and straightened his shoulders.
If they wanted to judge him, they could go ahead. Clint was the World's Greatest Marksman, and he'd lived a harder life than any of them would ever experience. He didn't need their approval. Despite his determination to not care though, Clint couldn't help but wish that he'd worn his other pair of jeans, the ones without the hole by the back pocket.
The school was huge and fancy, all tile and big windows. The front lobby was absolutely huge. There was a huge and impressive looking grand staircase on one side of it that lead up to the second floor, which was encased by large frosted windows. Clint had never actually been to high school before, but he was pretty sure that most of them weren't this fancy-looking.
Nick led him across the huge lobby, past an abundance of comfy-looking couches in the center and towards the office set up in the corner. It was another example proving that the architect really liked windows, because the whole front wall was made of glass, including the doors.
Nick pushed through them and past the reception desk like he owned the place, which Clint guessed he kind of did, being the principal and all. He received a chorus of good mornings, but only waved hello in response, ushering Clint back towards his office, which had a hard-wood door with a shiny plaque on it that read "Nicholas Fury: Principal". There was a matching door right next to it with another plaque that said "Maria Hill: Vice Principal". That door was propped open and Clint could see a beautiful dark-haired woman sitting at the desk with a file folder propped in front of her.
"Stop making eyes at Ms Hill, she's too old for you," Nick said, and Clint jumped like he'd been zapped. He made a face, hoping that it indicated just how much he had not been making eyes, thank you, and followed Nick into his office. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. It looked pretty typical, as far as Clint knew what offices were supposed to look like. There was a big desk with a computer on it and two chairs sitting in front of it. One corner held a mini fridge with a potted cactus on top of it, and the other held three filing cabinets. There weren't any personal touches in the office as far as Clint could tell, but he figured that was Nick's business. Obviously he didn't have any kids, because Clint had been staying in his house for a week and had found no evidence that anyone else lived there at all. If he'd ever been married, there was no hint of that either, and Clint didn't think it was his place to ask.
Nick picked up a few of the papers from his desk and handed them over to Clint. One was a class schedule, lined up neatly in columns of A through D rather than by the days of the week. The other was a map of the school, which was much bigger than Clint had originally thought. He didn't have a homeroom, but his first period class was Spanish 1.
Nick had confessed that they hadn't really known what to do with him due to his lack of formal education, but the tests he'd taken at Nick's kitchen table had revealed that, despite the fact that he hadn't been to school since he was twelve, he wasn't stupid. He was average in English and history and pretty bad at math, but apparently everyone was pretty bad in math, because they'd decided to just stick him in with his own age group and hope for the best.
"Why aren't there any days on this?" Clint asked, looking at the schedule dubiously. He was pleased to see that there was a study hall for his last period and a gym class right before lunch.
"We use a block system here, but it's only applicable to some classes. There's a big sign out in the lobby that will have the letter for the day up in it, and that's how your schedule goes," Nick explained. He took the paper from Clint and pointed to one of the boxes in the 'A' column. "See? On A and C days, you have Drawing and Painting second period, but on B and D days, you have choir."
"Right," Clint continued to stare at the paper. "And why am I signed up for Drawing and Painting and choir when I know nothing about those things?"
"The school board wants students to be well-rounded, so you have to take one art credit and one music credit," Nick looked at him and raised an eyebrow, like he was expecting Clint to challenge him. When he said nothing, Nick continued. "You also have to take health and gym so those are on there too. I thought you'd prefer singing to learning an instrument."
"Yeah," Clint said quickly. "Yeah, definitely."
"Okay, good." Nick settled into his big comfy-looking chair and started writing in a spiral bound day planner. "I'm writing you a pass for your teacher. You're late, but for today it will be okay. I'd go with you, but I'm sure that's not the impression you want to make with your peers."
Clint thought about Nick, the principal, leading him into the classroom like a clingy mom on her kid's first day of kindergarten and shook his head.
"Yeah, no, I got it. Thanks."
"You're welcome. And I loaded some credit on your account, so you'll be able to get lunch. Just let me know when you run out and I'll load some more."
"Okay, thanks!" Clint said, and retreated out of the room quickly, his schedule and passbook in hand. The idea of going to his new class was making him anxious, but he'd never been one to back down from a challenge. If he was nervous, it was better to just get it over with.
It took him almost five minutes to figure out where his class was and then walk there, and by the time he got there, the teacher was writing something on the blackboard. He took a deep breath and tugged at the straps of the new backpack Nick had bought (it was purple, and Clint kind of loved it).
As soon as he pushed open the door, every head in the room swiveled over to look at him. Clint swallowed harshly and walked inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. He held out the spiral-bound book that Nick had given him, open to the 'pass' page, and said, "I'm new."
"Ah, sí, bienvenido! Como te llama?" the teacher, a tall dark-haired woman, said, and Clint stared at her blankly, hoping he didn't look as panicked as he felt. Was he supposed to already know how to speak Spanish?
"Ah, you've never taken Spanish before, have you? Who can tell our new friend what I just said?" the teacher directed the question towards the class, and Clint tried not to visibly wince at the phrase "our new friend".
Someone dutifully answered the question, and Clint found out that he'd been welcomed and asked for his name. The teacher interrupted him before he could even start to tell her.
"Actually, why don't you stand up here and tell the class about yourself?" she said, looking at him expectantly. Clint really wished he could just take a seat and put his head down on the desk forever, but she didn't look like she was going to budge.
"What should I say?" he asked uncertainly.
"Tell us your name, your age, where you're from!" she prompted, smiling sunnily at him.
Clint dutifully moved to stand in front of the class, clenching and unclenching his fingers against the straps of his bag. He knew how to put on a show and work a crowd, but it was different here than it had been at the circus, and he found that he didn't like being the center of attention when he didn't have an act to perform.
"Um, I'm Clint Barton. I'm sixteen. I'm from Iowa." He listed off those facts like he was reading them from a list, hoping that it would be enough to get the teacher to let him sit down.
"Oooh, Iowa, that's interesting!" the teacher lied. "Did you take a language at your school there?"
"Uh, no," Clint said. "I didn't actually go to school there? I was part of a traveling circus." He hoped that revealing his unorthodox childhood would get her to stop asking him questions, and it seemed to work.
"Oh!" she blinked at him a few times, like she was trying to tell if he was joking, and then clasped her hands together in front of her. "Well that's...well that is unusual. Why don't you take a seat, Clint? I'm Señora Johnson, welcome to Shield."
"Thanks," Clint muttered, and he made a break for his seat. All the students were whispering to each other, no doubt very interested in discussing the circus freak that had been dropped right into the middle of their undoubtedly boring lives. Clint could feel them staring at him, but he found the first empty seat he could and stared determinedly at the desktop for the rest of the period.
He'd been one of the first people out the door when the bell rang, determined to dodge any more questions from the teacher, but he was still late to his second period art class. As it turned out, the school was even bigger than he'd originally given it credit for, and he couldn't find the art room's number on the map that Nick had given him. Eventually one of the security guards had stopped him and asked to see a pass, and he'd had to admit that he was new and extremely lost. The guard took pity on him and guided him to a hallway, and then into a smaller hallway behind the cafeteria, and then through a door where an even smaller hallway was hiding, wrapped around an outdoor courtyard. He'd never seen anything quite so unnecessary before, and he felt much better about having gotten lost. It was ridiculous to expect anyone to be able to find the right hall unless they'd been there before.
The teacher was showing them how to draw something or other on the board when he walked in, and she hardly spared him a glance other than to confirm that he was Clint Barton and then wave at him to take a seat. There was only one seat open, next to a huge blonde guy who gave off a very wholesome vibe. Clint sat and prepared himself for another forty minutes of brain-numbing boredom. Thankfully, the teacher stopped talking after another ten minutes and left them to work on their own art projects.
"Steve, would mind helping our new student?" she asked. "I've got to grade the tests for the next class." Her question wasn't really a question, but Clint's desk mate, Steve, just sent her a dazzling smile and nodded.
"Of course, Mrs. P. No problem." She rushed off to her desk without thanking him and popped in some earbuds to drown out the sounds of the class.
"Wow," Clint said. "She seems involved."
"Oh yeah," Steve answered, rolling his eyes good naturedly. "She's a little weird, but she's a great artist. I've learned a lot from her. I'm Steve, by the way."
Clint responded with his own name, shaking the hand that Steve offered, even though he was sure that most high school students didn't shake hands like businessmen. Still, Steve seemed earnest and completely unironic about it, so it was a little less weird than he had expected. Steve seemed like he might be one of those genuinely nice people that Clint had only ever read about in books.
He was also a really good looking guy, in a very classic sense. He was big and broad and muscled in all the right places with hair the color of straw and big blue eyes. If Clint had been in to that All-American paragon of virtue look, he might have already started flirting, but something about Steve kind of gave him the impression of an extremely loyal and happy labrador, and he knew there was no way Clint and all his baggage would ever fit properly with him, so he didn't bother.
"So. We're drawing animals?" Clint asked, looking at the drawings of dogs and birds and a school of fish that had been drawn on the board during the teacher's explanation.
"Not exactly," Steve huffed a laugh. "The point is to draw a self portrait, but to imbue your image with that of an animal that represents you. For example…" Steve trailed off as he quickly began scratching his pencil in the margin of his notebook. After a minute or two, there was a rough sketch of a man with several beady black spider eyes and pincers around his mouth. Despite the creepy arachnid looks to him, though, he still had a human, shaped head and nose, as well as a distinctive goatee stretched around his scary spider mouth. Steve was quickly adding hair that spiked up in the front to his sketch.
"So...I'm just supposed to choose an animal that I think represents me and draw me looking like that animal? Because I have never drawn a thing in my life," Clint said, doodling a stick figure next to Steve's amazing looking sketch as if to prove a point.
"Hmm, yeah," Steve said, sounding concerned. "Well, it's the final project, so you've still got two months to figure out what you're going to do and how to do it. I guess you wouldn't have any of the fundamentals since you missed the first half of the class. But I can tutor you, if you want!"
"Oh, um...yeah, that would be cool." Clint was almost startled into agreeing to it. He'd never expected Steve to offer up his free time to help him out. But Steve seemed like a good guy, and way nicer than his fancy prissy school would suggest. Maybe he could actually make a friend.
"Awesome," Steve said. "It'll have to be a free period, though, because I've got basketball practice after school every day." He made a face to express what he thought of that, but he went right back to grinning afterwards, so Clint figured he actually enjoyed playing basketball.
"I've got a free period ninth," Clint suggested, studying the slightly crumpled schedule he'd dug out of his pocket.
"I've got on every other day ninth," Steve told him brightly.
"I mean," Clint said quickly, smoothing his paper on the desktop a bit nervously. "I'm probably going to need a ton of tutoring in other classes too, so we'll have to work around that. But I am clearly going to need all the help I can get with this." He added a stick figure cat with pointy ears and a curvy tail next to his stick figure man to emphasize his point.
"Well, no worries. Drawing isn't easy, but if you practice enough you can get really good at it. And for an art credit, all you need is to be kind of okay at it. We'll get you there!"
"Thanks," Clint said, suddenly feeling less overwhelmed. He'd still need to catch up in all his other classes and get used to being in school again after five years of circus life, but there was one area where he didn't have to do it by himself, and that felt like a blessing.
"Hey, no problem," Steve said, waving his words away with a sweep of his hand. "I remember when I was new here. It was pretty overwhelming for me, because my family doesn't make six figures like everyone else's parents in this district. I mean, they're mostly nice people, but it was intimidating, especially because I grew up in Brooklyn. I wasn't used to the small town feel that Midgard has, you know?"
"Yeah, kind of," Clint admitted. "I definitely know about the intimidation. I'm, uh, being fostered with Principal Fury." He waited for a look of pity in Steve's eyes, but all he got was a flash of a sad frown and a shrug of shoulders.
"Yeah, my parents are gone, too," Steve offered. "I live with my grandma. And Principal Fury is a good guy. A little intimidating sometimes. But good."
"Yeah," Clint agreed. "I've noticed. I mean, he gave me lunch money and bought me school stuff from his own bank account. Who does that?"
"Parents, I guess," Steve said, giving Clint an odd look, and Clint knew that he didn't really get it.
Steve might not be living with his parents anymore, whether they were dead or just deadbeats, but he was still with family. Clint, however, knew how the orphanage/foster experience worked. Fosterers took in kids and got a stipend for it, and then they spent as little of it as possible on the kids and kept the rest for themselves. Nick, apparently, hadn't gotten the memo.
"Yeah, I guess," he responded skeptically. He fell quiet, watching as Steve started working on a rough sketch for his own portrait. Apparently he'd decided on wolf elements, as he'd pulled up a google image search of wolves on his phone and kept scrolling through the results and drawing body parts with animalistic aspects.
They were pretty quiet for the rest of the class, Steve focusing on his work and Clint watching because he had nothing better to do. Right before the bell rang, though, Steve spoke up suddenly.
"Hey, when's your lunch?" Clint had to look it up, but discovered that his lunch was during fifth period, the same as Steve's.
"Listen," Steve said as he put away his notebook. "Why don't you have lunch with me, you can meet my friends."
"Yeah, okay," Clint said, feeling suddenly nervous again. He wasn't great with people.
"Awesome. Just get lunch and then come to the platform at the end of the cafeteria, we'll be up there. I'll save you a seat!" That last bit was called over his shoulder, because the bell had rung and he was rushing off to whatever his next class was. Clint watched him go, regretting that he hadn't asked for directions to his own next class and worrying about what Steve's friends would think of him.
Third period was American history, which was kind of interesting because it was pretty much just the teacher telling stories. Fourth period, Clint had gym, and it was excellent. For one, everyone was wearing gym clothes, and Clint's were brand new, so he felt a bit less conspicuous. More importantly, there were options. Shield had two gyms, one of which was so large that it was divided in two by a heavy curtain during classes, as well as a weight room, an indoor swimming pool, and ten gym coaches in all. During gym periods, whichever coaches had a class would give announce what activites they had planned for the day, and the students from those classes could decide what activity to do, or they could choose to walk around the track that was suspended above the big gym.
Clint had never been particularly big on water, and he didn't have a swimsuit anyway, so he gave the pool a miss. He considered playing a game of basketball, but by the time he'd made his decision he could see that ten guys had already wandered over to that coach and he didn't want to throw off the team balance. His remaining options were pickleball in the small gym, walking the track, or a tumbling unit.
Walking in circles by himself was sure to be boring, and he didn't even know what pickleball was, so he wandered over to the six girls that were laying out squishy blue mats on the gym floor. He'd long since passed simple tumbling, but he thought it would feel good to have that stretch in his muscles again after a few weeks of going without. He grabbed a stack of two from the corner and brought them over, trying to ignore the strange looks he was receiving from some of the girls.
"Where should I put these?" he asked, realizing a bit late that he sounded gruff and sullen.
"Um...just lay them out the long way by those ones, I guess," the closest girl to him, a curly-haired brunette, said. He arranged the mats as instructed, wondering why they would need a runway for a tumbling unit.
"I'm sorry, are you planning on staying here?" the girl asked. Clint tried not to let her see his shoulders stiffen.
"I was, yeah. Is that a problem?" he asked.
"Darcy!" one of the other girls admonished. "You're being super rude."
Darcy's mouth dropped open suddenly, and then she was waving her hands in the air wildly front of her. "Oh jeez, no, I didn't mean to be all 'grr mean girl'! It's just that everyone knows the 'tumbling unit' is Coach Hand's excuse to let the cheerleaders practice during gym class so I was kind of confused? Jeez, I'm such a tool, you're totally welcome to stay!"
"Oh," Clint said, scuffing the toe of his brand new Nike against the sleek gym floor. "Sorry, I'm new, I didn't know. But uh, I'm gonna stay. If that's cool."
"Yeah, totally cool!" the blonde piped up, and he could see the way her eyes lingered on his biceps. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Nick for supplying him with gym clothes that included a sleeveless tank.
"I'm Bobbi, by the way," the blonde said, offering him a pretty smile. He smiled back awkwardly.
"Uh, Clint. Barton."
"Oh!" Darcy said suddenly. "You're the circus guy!" Apparently gossip spread fast, even in a school as big as Shield.
"Yeah, that's me," Clint said, wincing slightly.
He wasn't ashamed of having been in the circus. Carson had been good to him, and he'd earned his keep. All the same, he wasn't sure 'circus guy' was what he wanted to be known as. Although maybe he should be happy that he wasn't being called 'circus freak'.
"That's so cool," one of the other girls spoke up from her place stretching out on the mats. She pressed the bottom of her feet together in a butterfly stretch and then leaned forward until her forehead touched the floor. "Did you like, live with tigers and elephants and stuff?"
"Well, we didn't have an elephant," Clint said, thinking of how excited he had been at the idea of riding an elephant and feeding it peanuts when Barney had been trying to convince him to run away from the orphanage. "Too big and expensive. But we did have two lions and a tiger."
"Wow, did you ever touch them?" Skye pulled up from her stretch to look him in the face. She looked fascinated, and Clint was pretty sure she wasn't just making fun of him.
"Well, yeah, all the time. I mean, Priya, the tiger, she was getting pretty old and didn't do shows anymore, but we kept her around because we were all pretty attached and just couldn't put her down even though she wasn't pulling her weight. But she was just like a big housecat, really.
"Simba and Mufasa could get a little rough sometimes, even though they were well-trained, because they were younger. But I mean, I used to sneak into their cages on really cold nights and sleep with them because they put off a lot of heat."
"Wow," the girl breathed. "Weren't you scared?"
To be honest, he had been worried, sometimes, about one of the cats deciding he would make a decent meal, or about them rolling over and squashing him while they slept, but some nights he'd been more cold than afraid.
"Nah," he told her with a grin and a wink. "Those boys were my babies, they loved me. I'm the one who fed them and mucked their cages, after all."
"That is the coolest thing I've ever heard," she breathed. "I've never even been to a circus. My mom says they're full of…" she trailed off suddenly and coughed awkwardly, her face going pink, and Clint bet that her mom didn't have a lot of good to say about circus folk.
"It's okay," he said, shrugging. "I've heard it all before."
She scrunched up her face apologetically, but took the out he gave her. "I'm Skye, by the way."
"Good to meet you."
He plopped down on the mat next to her so that he could stretch out as well. He spent about ten minutes stretching just because it felt good on the muscles he'd been neglecting since the social worker had first taken him from Carson's. He hadn't really realized how much tension had built up in him until he was stretching it all away and his muscles started to feel limber again.
He sighed happily and watched Bobbi do a few back handsprings down the runway. She was good at it, and her final snap down stuck beautifully. He suspected she'd taken some gymnastics in her life, though it had probably not been on hard-packed dirt or in uneven grassy fields taught by a tiny Ukrainian woman and her hulking husband in preparation for learning to perform on the high wire.
But hey, they couldn't all have unusual childhoods.
He kept to more basic tricks, a few back handsprings and standing back tucks, mostly because he didn't want to really work up a sweat and spend the rest of the day smelling like BO. He did tumbles and a few easy flips and told stories about life in the circus until they were dismissed to go change. While he'd enjoyed the period, he was happy that it was over, because that meant lunch was next, and his stomach had started growling half an hour ago.
He should have known the cafeteria would be as huge and overwhelming as everything else, but that didn't mean he wasn't surprised when he actually saw it. The cafeteria was actually two cafeterias separated by a wall and two large double doors. There were seven different food lines, and TVs tuned to different sports stations at various places in the room, though it was so loud none of the commentary could be heard.
He stopped and stared at the lines, which were rapidly getting longer, not sure where even to start. He was saved from making a decision by Bobbi, who apparently had lunch that period as well.
"It's kind of overwhelming, isn't it?" she said, grinning. "Don't worry, it's really easy. The three lines on the left are always the pizza lines, but the pizza is pretty gross unless it's french bread pizza and they only have that every other Friday. The line all the way to the right is always chicken sandwiches, spicy or regular, and those can always be counted on to taste good. And then the other three lines change every day, but what they're serving is listed on the blackboards." Clint followed her closely, aware that he probably looked like a particularly pathetic puppy dog, but not caring enough to deny her help.
"Oooh, it's taco day! Or chicken and dumplings or spaghetti." Bobbi said happily, reading the blackboards. She turned to him rather suddenly, her face serious. "Okay, first thing you need to know. Never get the spaghetti. It's disgusting. Secondly, the chicken and dumplings looks like cat vomit, but it's actually amazing. But taco day and turkey dinner are the best things you will ever find in this school. So always get those if they're available."
She guided him into the quickly filling taco line, pulling him behind her as she went through the motions of picking a carton of milk out of the cooler (she got 2%, he got chocolate) and then towards the lunch ladies.
"Can I have a soft shell please?" she requested, smiling sweetly at the lunch lady. "Ooh, and a peach fruit cup, please? Clint get the peach fruit cup, it's really yummy."
Clint followed her lead, getting his tacos and a peach fruit cup before sliding on down the line towards a condiments bar, where they added lettuce, tomato and cheese to their tacos. The very end of the line was a cooler full of ice cream bars, which they both ignored, and a cash register. Bobbi said a number, the lunch lady punched it in, and Clint felt his stomach drop. Nick had said he'd loaded credit for lunch, but he hadn't said anything about a number.
"Number?" the woman at the register prompted, looking annoyed at the stop in flow of the line.
"Oh, I uh. I didn't know I needed one? I'm new." He clutched the edges of his tray nervously, worried that the lunch lady might take it away from him. He'd gone without meals before, but he'd never been in a situation where it would be quite so humiliating.
"Name?" she said instead, pulling out a thick binder filled with pages of names and numbers.
"Um...Clint Barton?" he offered, hoping that his name was somewhere in there. Apparently it was, because after a minute she punched something into the register and said, "8734. Memorize it. Next!"
Feeling inexplicably like he'd dodged a bullet, Clint followed Bobbi away from the line and towards the far end of the cafeteria. When he saw the raised platform at the end, he remembered that he was supposed to meet Steve, and wondered if there was a polite way to blow off the girl who'd just helped him navigate strange territory.
"Oh, I uh…" Clint started awkwardly. "Well, I kind of told Steve, this guy in my art class, that I'd sit with him and his friends at lunch?"
"Steve Rogers?" Bobbi asked, seemingly not at all bothered by this new information. "Big, blonde, seems like he should have a wagging tail?"
"That would be the one," Clint confirmed.
"Well good, I have lunch at the same table." She grinned at him, like she was letting him in on some great secret, and beckoned at him to keep walking with a tilt of her head.
Clint decided that he liked Bobbi. She seemed like she had a grasp on everything. He wished he could be like that. Most of the time he was floundering, and just kind of made it all up as he went along.
As soon as they were on the steps of the platform, Steve stood and waved at them.
"Clint, hey! I see you met Bobbi!"
"Yeah, we have gym together," Clint offered awkwardly, suddenly aware that everyone at the long table was staring at him. He got a rapid flurry of introductions, but by the time they'd gone through everyone's name, the only person he was absolutely sure of was Bucky and that was because Bucky had a sleek, silver, clearly expensive prosthetic arm and was therefore rather distinctive.
He took a seat between Steve and a guy with the same weird goatee that Steve had drawn on the spider picture earlier, and he promptly dug into his lunch. The way he was tucking in seemed to defer questions, and so the rest of the group just chatted amongst themselves for a while.
"Hey, where's Phil?" Bobbi asked suddenly as Clint was starting on his second taco.
"He grabbed a sandwich and headed right up to the library. He's got a paper due seventh period that he hasn't finished," the beautiful redheaded girl, Nat-something maybe?, answered.
"Oh, damn," Bobbi said, frowning down into her fruit cup. "I wanted to copy his bio homework. I forgot to do it last night. Do you have Mr. Jameson for bio, Natasha?"
"No, I don't. And why didn't you ask him after gym?" Natasha asked, taking a dainty sip from her bottle of water.
"Well, I thought he'd be here at lunch," Bobbi responded, letting out a disappointed huff. "I guess I'll just have to try and do it now."
"You know you'll get kicked off the squad if you don't keep your grades up, right?" Natasha raised an eyebrow and bit a carrot stick in half. Clint could feel the judgment radiating from her from across the table.
"I know, Nat. It's just one piece of homework I forgot. If you'll remember, el capitan, it's you that kept us late last night running that cheer over and over again."
"You'll thank me when we win at Nationals," Natasha said breezily. "Besides, you're still not sticking the landing on that double layout."
"Yeah, yeah," Bobbi grumbled. Clint assumed this was a conversation they had often.
"I could help you with that." He spoke up before he even really knew that he was doing it, and he kind of wished he hadn't when Natasha and Bobbi both turned to stare at him.
"You can do a double layout?" Clint was vaguely offended by her tone of voice, so he set his shoulders and glared at her.
"Yeah, I can. And I can do a lot more than that, too."
"Where did you train in gymnastics?" Natasha demanded.
"I have eight years of training under the Zelinskis at Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders," Clint ground out, daring her to laugh.
"Clint was in the circus," Bobbi explained, grinning widely. While she seemed thrilled with the idea of Clint's childhood, Natasha looked unimpressed.
"And you were properly trained?" she demanded.
"Well, damn, I don't know," Clint snapped. "I mean, they considered me good enough to pull tricks on the high wire, but I probably don't match up to a bunch of cheerleaders."
He was very defensive of the Zelinskis. Alyosha had taught him a lot about what it meant to be a man and a good person, and Olena had taught him how to cook and how to sew and how to speak Ukrainian and Russian. They were the closest thing he'd ever had to parents, even though they weren't all that much older than him.
Natasha, rather than snap back, just smiled and tapped her fingernails against the table top.
"Good! You should come to practice tonight and try out. We can always use more guys."
"Yeah, well...wait, what?" Clint felt his anger and annoyance rush out of him, and all he could do was stare. "You want me to try out for the cheerleading squad?"
"Yes. Unless you're too high above us, that is." Natasha was smirking like she'd just won some amazing victory, and Clint wasn't entirely sure that she hadn't. Still, confused as he was, he found himself agreeing to try out.
"Great!" Natasha said. Right after school in the big gym then. We'll see if you can hack it." With that, she stood up and flounced off without an explanation. She probably didn't even have a destination in mind. She probably just wanted to get the last word. He wondered if she was always that irritating.
"I feel like I was set up," Clint said suspiciously, pulling the lid off his fruit cup.
"I feel like that with her all the time," Bucky sighed forlornly. Clint nodded at him in solidarity, and then focused his attention back on his peaches. He was already starting to regret agreeing to try out.
It had been pretty awkward explaining to Nick that he was going to stay after school to try out for cheerleading, if only because Nick looked oddly pleased by the news. Clint wasn't really sure if it was because he thought it meant that Clint was adjusting well, or that he was making friends, or just that he really liked cheerleading, but he wasn't going to question it. He'd been concerned that Nick might be one of those manly-men who would give him trouble about doing something so girly.
Instead, he had nodded and told Clint that he would be staying late to do some work anyway, and that he could come back for a ride home afterward. It was weird, to think of Nick's house as home. Home was the Big Top and the smell of lion fur and an arrow striking a target, exactly where and how Clint wanted it to. Still, he had nodded and headed off toward the locker room to change back into his gym clothes.
When he entered the big gym he saw what he assumed was the basketball team, judging by the rack of basketballs at the edge of the court, running suicides while their coach yelled at them to move faster and be lighter on their feet and all sorts of other commands. It looked like torture, and Clint was glad that he wasn't trying out for basketball. He glanced around in search of the cheerleaders, and after a few seconds of standing there awkwardly, he realized that they were up on the suspended track stretching.
Clint took the stairs up two at a time, and when he came out on top Natasha was waiting for him. He near about jumped out of his skin, and Natasha smiled like she was extremely satisfied with that. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her.
"So, are you ready to show me what you've got, circus boy?" she asked.
"Well, I'd like to stretch first." Clint cocked an eyebrow at her, deciding the best way to converse with Natasha would be to act as sardonic as she did.
"Well, quickly then. We haven't got all day. Only until 3:30, actually." Clint nodded to show he understood and went to stretch while Natasha addressed her squad.
There were twenty people gathered there, including three guys, and they were all in incredible shape. Natasha had mentioned nationals at lunch earlier, so they must have been pretty good at what they did. He was suddenly nervous.
Olena and Alyosha had trained him well, and he knew how to put on a great show, but this was different. This was being judged by people he would have to see every day. This was them getting to decide if he was good enough, and despite his skill, Clint wasn't sure that he was.
He did his best to push the feelings of inadequacy down, and focus on the aspect of putting on a show. He was Hawkeye, a headliner of Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders, and they were just another audience.
Or at least, that was what he was trying to tell himself.
He stretched more than he needed to, buying time to talk himself up, but eventually it would become obvious that he was stalling, so he clasped his hands awkwardly in front of him and looked to Natasha.
"You've never been a cheerleader before, correct?" she asked him, and Clint shook his head. "Well, that's no matter. If you can pull the stunts you can easily be taught the rest. It's a lot of phony smiling and thrusting your arms around, really. So go ahead and show us what you've got."
"Oh," Clint said, surprised. He'd been expecting her to ask him to throw specific tricks. "Um. What do you want to see?" Natasha looked pleased by the question, as if she had been testing him.
"Just show me some tricks. Whatever you want," she said, and presented with even that small instruction, Clint's brain immediately started thinking.
He started off with a triple back handspring tuck, something that was a little more advanced but probably something most of them were capable of, if they were as good as Natasha seemed to think. He let his tricks get slowly more difficult as he went, and after a few minutes he forgot he was being judged. He just lost himself in the movement of his body, falling back into the patterns he'd spent years training his muscles to follow.
He ended with a double back and triple twisting layout, which he knew required a lot of skill and strength to manage on the floor without any sort of trampoline to assist the jump for the twist. He didn't feel bad for showing off, because that's what he was there to do, but when he stuck the landing and saw the look on Natasha's face, he couldn't help but grin.
The squad burst into applause and cheers, and Clint's grinned widened. He bowed to them a few times and blew a few kisses, and then wiped the sweat from his face with the hem of his t-shirt. Darcy wolf-whistled at him, and he winked at her playfully.
"So?" he asked Natasha. "What's the verdict?"
He came across as nonchalant, thankfully, but inside his guts were roiling. He'd managed to forget he was trying out while he was actually performing, but now that he wasn't, all the nerves came back with crushing force. He felt vaguely ill, like he needed to drink some cold water or get some fresh air. Natasha looked thoughtful.
"Are you kidding?" Bobbi exclaimed. "That was amazing! I can't even believe what you just did! Not only the tricks but the stage presence, it was all A-plus!"
"What does everyone else think?" Natasha asked. "Yea or nay?" There was a loud uproar of "yea!" from the rest of the squad, and Clint's grin burst forward again. "I think we have reached a consensus. Welcome to the team, Clint."
There was another cheer and then everyone rushed towards him to shake his hand, pat him on the back, and introduce themselves. It was another flurry of names that Clint didn't really remember, but he supposed he'd have time to later. The celebration only lasted a few minutes before Natasha barked at everyone to work on the personal problem areas that they had discussed while she 'dealt with the newbie.'
She led him around to the other side of the track and they leaned up against the railing. The basketball team had moved on to playing a scrimmage below them, and they looked pretty good, from what Clint could tell.
"There's a bunch of boring paperwork stuff you'll have to have filled out," Natasha told him, handing him a manilla folder filled with papers.
His name was scrawled on the tab, like Natasha had had absolutely no doubts that he would be joining the team, and he found that he liked that idea. Natasha might be rough around the edges, but apparently she believed that he had something valuable to offer them. He liked feeling valuable.
"There's a parental consent form and some stuff you have to fill out in order to receive a uniform. There's also a permission slip for the trip to Nationals in May. They're being held at Disney World this year." Clint felt a bit of a thrill at that. Like every other American child, he'd dreamed of going to Disney World one day. He'd never imagined that he might actually get to go, though. Natasha continued, oblivious to his internal celebration.
"Practices are every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday after school," she said. "And they're almost always in the Big Gym, unless I tell you otherwise. I'll need to get your cell number, by the way. Just put it on your form and I'll hunt it down later. That's all I can think of right now, but I'll let you know if I come up with anything else. Any questions?"
"No," Clint said, shrugging. "All sounds pretty simple to me."
They watched the basketball players for a few seconds. Steve was there, looking big and impressive next to the rest, but Clint found his eye getting caught by someone else. He was average height with mousy brown hair, and he was really cute. He obviously worked hard at his sport, and his body was defined to show it. He wasn't completely jacked or anything, but he was obviously strong and healthy.
He played the game like he was liquid, slipping around people gracefully and quickly, sliding into places and making a basket before the defense had even noticed he was there. He looked competent, powerful, and when he leaned forward with his hands on his knees, his shorts revealed an ass that wouldn't quit. Clint needed to know his name.
"Who is that?" he asked Natasha. "The point guard. Number 16." Natasha smirked at him knowingly, and Clint flushed. How did she seem to know everything?
"That's Phil Coulson," she said, and then let out a loud whoop when Phil made a pretty spectacular three-pointer. "Yeah, go Phil!"
Phil grinned up at her, and Clint felt his heart stop for a second. That grin was beautiful. He felt like he was in one of those fairy tales, where two peoples' eyes met from across the room and there was music and magic everywhere.
Except then Phil's eyes actually met his, and he tripped over his teammate's foot and hit the floor hard, cussing loudly. His teammates burst into raucous laughter, and Phil just laughed it off and got back up, but he didn't look back up at them again.
"Well, that was a great first impression," Natasha said dryly. "He's usually pretty graceful. But, fair warning, he's never given any indication that he's interested in guys."
Clint made a disappointed noise before he could stop himself, and Natasha's laughter was deep and clear. "None? Are you sure?" he asked.
"Pretty sure." She shrugged elegantly. "Sorry."
"Yeah, me too," Clint sighed.
"Well, we should probably get back over to the rest of the squad," she said. "There's a lot of work to do in the next four months. Which, by the way, I know you're coming in here kind of late, but I'll still need the money for the trip and your uniform by the end of next week."
Clint felt his good mood die in his chest, but he tried not to let it show when he said, "Money?"
"Yeah," Natasha nodded. "Just that I can't order your uniform or your tickets without it, and that all needs to get squared away as soon as possible. There's all the pricing in there, but the nationals trip will be about a thousand bucks, which will include your room for the four nights, the five day park-hopper, the tournament admission fee and the plane tickets. You'll need extra for food and souvenirs, of course. The uniform will be about $170, because we have to custom order it. And then it's an extra thirty dollars for the team jacket and you'll need to buy a pair of plain white tennis shoes that you are only allowed to wear for cheering. I know it's really soon, but I really do need all that by next Friday, okay?"
"Um. Yeah, sure," Clint said, fighting the feeling of nausea that was building up in his stomach. He couldn't even afford a cheerleading uniform, let alone the trip to nationals. He felt pretty stupid for thinking it would come free. Nothing was ever free, and he'd let all the splendor around him make him forget that.
"I think I'm going to wrap up practice early," Natasha said, looking across to where the rest of the cheerleaders were mostly standing around giggling with each other. "I just don't think today will be very productive. But we'll be here same time on Wednesday, okay? Don't be late."
"You got it," Clint said numbly, even though he knew that he wouldn't be joining the cheerleading squad after all.
"Good. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, bye."
Clint rushed from the gym like the devil was behind him, desperate to get in and out of the locker room before he had to talk to any of his would-have-been teammates. He got changed in two minutes flat, and he was exiting the locker room before the rest of the squad had even left the gym. Nick was typing something on his computer when Clint entered his office and sat in the chair placed in front of his desk.
"Hey, how did it go?" he asked after he finished typing a sentence. He looked at Clint expectantly, and Clint felt his gut twist.
"I didn't make it," he lied.
"Oh. Well, that's too bad," Nick said, frowning. "But there are plenty of other clubs you can join, or sports you can play, if you'd like to. Don't give up just yet."
"Yeah," Clint agreed quietly, and settled in to wait until Nick was done with whatever he was doing so they could leave. It was another half hour of Clint staring at his hands and overthinking everything before Nick powered down his computer and they headed back to his house. When they got there, Clint went straight up to the bedroom he was staying in, threw himself down on the bed, and tried to forget about how unfair life was.
Clint's second day at Shield Academy sucked. Apparently his teachers had gotten together in some sort of horrible conspiracy and decided to test him on his general knowledge, even though he'd already taken tests for general knowledge the week before.
Apparently, these ones were "concentrated specifically" for the classes he was taking. He'd ended up disappointing pretty much everyone, and had been promised tutors for Spanish, math, english, and biology to "catch him up". Clint knew that was code for "teach the stupid carnie all the things he should have known when he was ten".
He had also been given extra homework for history class, which was basically to read a specially provided text book and write a page summary for each chapter, which really sucked considering that he had to do the same thing for the regular class textbook. Clint was a slow reader, and between that, school, his teacher-assigned tutoring, and his tutoring with Steve, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to have time for anything like getting a job or sleeping.
He hadn't even had gym class to take his mind off everything, and instead had to sit through a mind-numbing lecture on how abstinence was the only possible life choice unless he wanted his cock to fall off (he did not) or to get a girl pregnant (not super likely). He would have never believed that someone could make talking about sex so boring, but boring it absolutely was.
Lunch had been a damn blessing, even though Phil Coulson, for some reason, adamantly avoided looking at him and he felt guilty every time he looked at Natasha or Bobbi. Besides that, though, lunch was okay. He talked to the others at the table some more and found that they were a loud and rambunctious, though very funny and welcoming, group.
Clint had tried to talk to Phil Coulson a bit, sending the smiles and flirtatious glances that had always dragged in the townie girls his way, but Phil was having none of it. He'd nodded when Steve had introduced them, but then had focused all of his attention on the guy with the goatee, Tony. Even when Clint had tried talking to him a few times, he'd gotten one word answers.
He didn't know why, but Phil Coulson very obviously did not like him. It made it even more awkward when he found out that Phil was in his sixth period biology class and, because of some cruel force of the universe, the teacher had rearranged the seating chart to fit Clint in somewhere, and he had ended up fitted in right next to Phil, with Bobbi, the only other person in the class he knew, all the way across the room.
He'd ended up taking that test in another room anyway, but until the teacher decided to change the seating chart again, he was stuck with the cute guy who apparently hated him. Clint hated that he was kind of hurt by it. He'd had people dislike him before, but usually they had a reason.
Needless to say, by the time Clint got off the school bus on the corner of Nick's street, he was completely and totally done with the whole day. He had a ton of homework that he was supposed to do, but he just couldn't bring himself to start on it. Instead, he helped himself to a sandwich from Nick's kitchen, grabbed his archery kit, and set up in the backyard.
The yard wasn't really long enough to be a challenge to him, but just the rhythmic system of nock, draw, release and the satisfaction of making a perfect shot every time help to soothe his frustration. He shot until it got too dark to see, and as he was coming in the back door, Nick came through the front with a box of KFC chicken under one arm.
They ate in relative silence, punctuated by random spouts of awkward conversation about school and archery. Nick made Clint promise that he would be very careful, because arrows were dangerous weapons, and Clint scoffed that he wouldn't hit anyone unless he meant to. He didn't miss. He could tell that Nick was trying to connect with him, in the same way that the social worker who had ripped him away from his life at Carson's had tried to connect with him.
He understood, on a sensible level, that they were just trying to do what they thought was best for him. But the unreasonable and angry kid inside of him was just mad that he'd been ripped away from the home that he'd made for himself with people he loved and cared about.
Life at Carson's hadn't been easy, but it had been something he'd made for himself and worked hard at, something that was entirely his. He and Barney had run away from foster care when they were kids for a reason, and Clint had spent half his life mucking animal cages and striking the Big Top, freezing in the winter and fighting his way forward in the food line so he could get enough to eat.
It wasn't glamorous, but it was home, and Clint missed it. He felt so out of place in Midgard with the perfectly manicured lawns and the big fancy high school and cheerleading squads that required fees of thousands of dollars. He didn't belong, and no matter how hard Nick tried he knew that he never would.
He didn't even know how long he would be in Midgard. He'd been through six foster homes in two years before he and Barney had run, and he knew how unstable placements could be. That wasn't even to mention that Nick didn't have any other foster kids, which could mean that he was a very temporary placement until they could find somewhere "more suitable" for Clint to go.
The idea of being switched from place to place, always moving and never wanted, made Clint feel sick. It was part of the reason that he'd agreed to run away with Barney in the first place. The other part being, of course, that Barney would have left him behind otherwise and he just hadn't known how to cope with that.
In the end Barney had left him behind anyway, but Clint had had the Zelinskis and Carson and everyone else at the circus, and it hadn't been so bad. But now, Clint couldn't go back to Carson's. He'd caused them enough trouble with the state as it was, and if he ran away again, that was the first place they would look.
"You okay, Clint?" Nick asked as they were finishing up. "You seem...down."
"Yeah, I'm fine." Clint picked off a thin strip of meat that was still clinging to the bone with his fingers and stuck it in his mouth.
"I know that this is a hard adjustment for you," Nick started, and Clint wondered if he thought they were going to suddenly have some sort of heart to heart. "I appreciate the fact that you're trying to get involved, even though you're obviously having a bit of trouble with the transition. I just want you to know that you can feel at home here, without worrying about your placement, okay? As far as I'm concerned, you can stay here as long as you want to, and if you need anything from me you shouldn't be afraid to ask. I'll do what I can to make your life here a good one, okay?"
Clint frowned down at his hands, focusing on picking at a hangnail on his thumb, but he nodded to show he understood. He didn't trust that Nick would treat him like family, because this arrangement wasn't familial. It was Nick getting paid to keep a some kid in his house until he was old enough to go be stupid on his own.
He seemed nice enough, which was great and all, but they weren't family. They had nothing tying them together like that, and Clint knew how relationships worked. He had to have something to offer, and he had nothing. At the circus he had his aim and his showmanship, and the long list of chores he helped with every day.
Here, Nick had a housekeeper that came in once a week, and all Clint was expected to do was go to school. Clint had nothing of worth to offer Nick to make him care, but that was okay. He didn't need Nick to care about him. He just needed him to let Clint stay in his house until he turned eighteen.
He didn't say any of that to Nick, though. Nick was clearly new to the foster care operation, and he obviously thought he was being sincere, even if Clint knew better. There was no reason for him to be a dick.
"Thank you," he said instead. "I'm gonna go upstairs. I've got homework."
He could see that Nick wasn't completely satisfied with that answer, but he just nodded and let Clint go. It was a relief to be alone in his room, even if it wasn't really his. He settled into bed with one of his history books, and he was asleep before he even got halfway through the first chapter.
Clint got disappointed looks from his Spanish teacher when he failed to hand in the word translation worksheet she'd given him, but she didn't say anything other than holding him after to class to introduce him to his tutor, a dark haired freshman named Kate who he vaguely recognized but couldn't quite place. Art with Steve was okay, even though Clint still had no clue on how to draw anything more substantial than a hangman setup.
History went about as well as Spanish had, and gym class had been awkward because all Bobbi and Darcy had wanted to do was talk about how exciting it was that he was on the team with them, and Clint didn't know how to tell them that he wasn't. The good thing about gym class was that he realized that Phil Coulson was in it, and even though he still avoided looking at Clint like he was horribly disfigured or something, it was nice to watch him run around in shorts that showed off strong-looking calves and his cute ass.
Only once did Phil look at him, and Clint had grinned and winked in his direction. He couldn't even begin to describe the expression that had crossed Phil's face, but then he'd firmly turned his back on Clint and sought out one of his friends.
That had hurt a bit, and for the first time Clint wondered if maybe Phil avoided looking at him because he knew that Clint thought he was cute and it grossed him out. Maybe he was a homophobic jerk and Clint didn't want anything to do with him anyway. Except that he was really cute and Clint totally wanted to do some things with him. He'd spent the rest of the class (and their shared lunch period) talking to Bobbi and trying to keep from staring at Phil. Clint had absolutely no desire to get his ass kicked, thank you.
Biology was a bit harder. They sat right next to each other, and the lab table was small enough that Clint could feel the heat from Phil's skin coming off of him. He tried catching Phil's eye when he first sat down, but Phil was staring down into his notebook and scribbling in the margins. That lasted only until the teacher approached their desk and smiled pleasantly at them.
"Good, I'm glad you're both here today. Phil, if you would be so kind, I'd like you to tutor Mr. Barton for this class. Since you're going to be lab partners, it only makes sense."
Phil stiffened and shot a sideways glance at Clint, who smiled weakly. He wanted to be able to talk to Phil, yeah, but that didn't mean he wanted Phil to know how dumb he was.
"I don't know, Mr. Jameson," Phil said doubtfully, and Clint realized it was the first time he'd actually heard Phil say more than word at a time. "I'm really busy with basketball and stuff…"
"Oh, it won't be hard," Mr Jameson said, waving away Phil's protests. "It's all very basic stuff, it's really easy." Clint felt his ears get hot. Why did he have to go say that out loud where everyone could hear? He stole another glance at Phil, who looked supremely uncomfortable with it all, but Mr. Jameson wasn't really giving him an option.
"Okay, fine," Phil sighed. "But I want extra credit for this."
"Fair enough. Five extra points added to your final grade?"
"Deal." They shook on it, and Clint didn't think he'd ever felt so embarrassed before. He knew that he and Coulson weren't friends, but it would have been nice if they hadn't haggled over who got saddled with the dumbass in front of everyone.
"Mondays during lunch good?" Phil asked abruptly.
"Oh, uh, sure," Clint said, wishing that he'd managed to sound more suave. "I mean, yeah, that's completely fine. Hey, listen, I wanted to…"
"Quiet down, please, class is starting," Mr. Jameson called, and if Clint could have killed someone with a glare he would have done it then. Phil returned his attention to his notebook and Clint tried to make himself a follow the lecture instead of pathetically watching Phil chew on his lower lip.
"Hey," Clint said when the bell rang, catching Phil's arm as he stood up. Phil jerked away from him like he'd been burned.
"Sorry," he said quickly. "I've got to go to my next class." He was gone before Clint could apologize for grabbing him, or even say anything at all.
"Wow," Bobbi said as Clint caught up to her. "Where did Phil rush off to so fast?"
"Class," Clint shrugged, still feeling stung by the way that Phil had jerked away from his touch like he had the plague or something. "I don't think he likes me very much."
"Who, Phil?" She said it like it was the craziest and most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Phil likes everyone. He's literally the nicest person I've ever met."
"Well, he doesn't like me," Clint sighed, unable to hide his disappointment. "I guess it doesn't matter anyway."
Once Natasha found out he was bailing on the cheerleaders, she wouldn't want him around anymore, so he'd have to find somewhere else to sit for lunch, and he could probably find someone else to teach him the really basic science that he had no clue about. Bobbi might do it, if she didn't disown him like Natasha was sure to.
"I can't imagine why Phil wouldn't like you," Bobbi mused, tucking some of her long blonde hair behind her ear. "I think maybe it's just in your head."
"Pay attention the next time we're together," Clint told her. "He won't look at me or acknowledge me unless he has to, and even then he does it for the shortest amount of time he can get away with.
"It doesn't seem very likely, Clint," Bobbi sighed. "But I'll watch for it. I've got to go, I'm going to be late. See you at practice!"
"Yeah, see ya," Clint muttered as she rushed off down the hall. He didn't need Phil Coulson to like him. Even if he did have pretty blue eyes and a really cute smile and a nice butt. He didn't need anyone to like him. He would be fine on his own.
The bell rang overhead and Clint cussed before rushing off to the nearest set of stairs and towards his math class. The day just kept getting worse.
Clint didn't truly know the definition of worse until, at 4:00 that afternoon, he opened the front door and found Natasha Romanov standing on his porch glaring at him like he'd hit her mother. She didn't wait for him to invite her in. In fact, she pushed him back into the house, stalked inside, and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Where the hell were you?" she demanded, crossing her arms testily.
"I…"
"You know what, I don't care. Whatever it was, it was obviously more important than attending your very first practice and making a good impression with your team. If you're not going to take this seriously…"
"What's going on?" Clint stiffened as Nick came down the stairs. He looked at them both, Natasha with fury in her eyes and Clint trying to look innocent. He raised an eyebrow slowly at Clint, but Natasha spoke instead.
"Clint decided to be completely irresponsible and bail on practice today without any sort of warning even though he has teammates who are depending on him," she said, and her eyes narrowed at Clint like she was daring him to protest.
"What team?" Nick asked, looking confused, and Clint remembered he had lied about making the cheerleading team so he could avoid the embarrassment of not being able to afford something that his rich classmates didn't even think about.
"The cheerleading team," Natasha explained impatiently, like Nick should know all this.
"I thought you said you didn't make it?" Nick said, looking back and forth between the two of them, his eyes narrowing.
"I lied," Clint muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and feeling supremely stupid and embarrassed once again. He was getting that feeling a lot lately.
"Why?" Nick asked, while Natasha demanded,
"Why did you even bother trying out? Just to prove that you're such a special circus performer and you're better than us?"
"No!" Clint told Natasha, really not wanting to be any more on her bad side than he already was. "I did want to join, but then you started talking about all the money I had to give! I can't even afford the jacket let alone the uniform, and what's the point in even joining the team if I can't help you guys at Nationals because I can't afford to go? And I know everyone in this stupid town is filthy rich and I don't have any money and I was embarrassed, okay?"
The front hall rang with silence, and Clint wanted nothing more than to run. But he had nowhere else to go, so he stood there in the hall with them both staring at him in the silence. Finally he just shrugged.
"I'm sorry I let you down."
"Well...I understand," Natasha said stiffly. "But next time, just tell me. I'm sorry if it embarrasses you, but I need to know these things."
"I will," Clint mumbled, though he wasn't sure if he was being entirely truthful.
"And next time, tell me," Nick spoke up, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at Clint sternly. "If you want to do cheerleading, I'll pay for it."
"It's a lot of money," Clint said quickly. "Like at least a thousand dollars. I couldn't pay you back."
"Clint, you don't need to pay me back," Nick said, rolling his eye. "While you're living with me, you're under my care, I'm gonna treat you like family. I've got plenty of money lying around, I can handle paying for something that will make you happy here."
Clint didn't get it, but he really wanted it, so he just nodded. Maybe he would pay for it later, because nothing was free, but he was going to take it anyway. It wasn't even like he had a good enough excuse to deny the gift, even if he'd wanted to.
"Um. Thank you," he said, clenching his fingers tightly in his pockets.
"You're welcome. Now go get the permission slip so I can sign it, and we'll sort out the money issue, okay?"
Clint didn't know what to say, so he just slipped past Nick up the stairs to go grab the folder Natasha had given him. None of it made any sense at all, but Clint wasn't going to argue with good fortune. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad here after all.