"Hey, come on," Lena placed a gentle, guiding hand on Huey's shoulder. "We're almost there," she said softly. A broken little murmur and a fake smile were his only reply. What started out as a nice, non-espionage family outing for him had deteriorated into waves of assault on the senses, and Lena was the only one who noticed. She had learned the difference between stimming from excitement and stimming out of discomfort. She saw it in every fluttering blink and heard it in every throaty hum. She felt it in his ruffled feathers and the moist, chewed up collar of his red polo shirt.
Even if he tried to hide it.
There was a big, empty pavilion by some stages she saw back around the first expo hall. That's where she was leading him. Hopefully it was still empty, and Huey only needed a breather. If it was really getting to him, though, she could get Ty or Indy to pick them up.
Lena hoped they could get there soon. One of Huey's stims was raking his fingers through the feathers on his arms, simulating the feeling of being preened. He had been doing it almost all day, though, and had been pushing against the feathers when he brought his fingers back up. She couldn't stop him - he was only doing it to feel better, and it could mean the difference between this and a meltdown - but the follicles were probably irritated and if it went on much longer they might start to bleed.
Lena knew Huey was autistic, sure, and she knew enough about autism to realize what overstimulation could do to an autistic person, but, somehow, she never made the connection before now that it could happen to Huey. Only when she saw him rocking hard in place a few minutes ago, poorly hiding his flapping hands, did it truly occur to her.
No one else seemed to notice. Not Donald, or Della, or Webby or even his brothers. She almost thought they just didn't care, but the idea made Lena too mad to even think about it. Besides, it couldn't have been true. Maybe they weren't as good at seeing through the act Huey had been putting on. When she took him aside and asked him what was wrong he couldn't even look at her face, much less in her eyes, when he mumbled out the half-hearted lie that he was fine.
"Huey?" Lena glanced back to see that he stopped a few feet back, hands clasped against his ears and eyes shut tight as he rocked in place. It must have been getting really bad.
She doubled back and, stopping herself from grabbing and startling him, tenderly laid hands on his shoulders.
"Huey…" Lena slid her hands up his arms, trying to gently bring them down so he would hear her say, "Hey? It'll be okay. It's okay. Come with me. Come on."
It felt like Huey relaxed, just a little bit, and he started to let his hands be lowered before stopping halfway for whatever reason, so that it looked as though he were holding an invisible accordion. His eyes were still closed tight, his expression now a little more honest than the quivering smile he had been wearing like a mask. Lena sighed and wove her fingers into his, then slowly pulled him along the home stretch toward the pavilion.
His hollow grunts were taking on a despairing aspect, like little squeals before a cry of pain or fear.
People had set up some sort of food court in the tent, but there were few enough people, all seated near the front, to make it considerably quieter than the midway outside. Lena led Huey by the hand to a table in the corner, furthest away and isolated from anyone else. He had started to sob now, quietly, and his stimming had gotten harsher.
"Alright, uh, just sit down," she encouraged, but the calmness that came naturally mere seconds before was now challenged by the realization that she had no idea of what to do now that she had gotten him here.
"I-... I, d-..." Huey stammered quietly as he sat on the bench, fighting the tears as he started rocking and scraping fingers through his feathers again.
"Shh, just, uh… It's okay," Lena sat next to him, pulling him into a hug with one hand and running the other up and down the arm he was scratching, trying to stop it. "Do you, um…" She didn't know what to say. "Do you want a corn dog?"
Huey shook his head and kept rocking. A few of the middle-aged diners up front had taken notice of Huey stimming and crying, indicated by the sidelong glances some were casting and the full blown staring of others. Lena tried to ignore it and focus on comforting Huey, but it made her mad.
Lena hugged Huey tighter. She didn't know which was worse: his family ignoring the pain he was in, or strangers staring at the fallout.
Huey's hand bumped against Lena's as he reached again to tug on his feathers. She started rubbing his arm harder, trying to simulate the feeling of getting preened, trying to stim for him so he wouldn't hurt himself doing it. It didn't seem to satisfy him, though, because he soon brought his free arm up to his beak to actually preen it, taking feathers with his mouth and cleaning and aligning them. Only Huey's purpose in preening wasn't the preening itself, but receiving the comforting feeling he got from doing it, which, just like raking fingers through the feathers, escalated into pulling on feathers so hard that they were worse off than before, sometimes ripping barbs out.
"Huey, stop," Lena said, trying to be gentle, which didn't come completely naturally to her but it was for Huey's sake.
Huey just kept tearing his beak through his feathers until some were so ragged that parts of the vane were gone. When she saw a feather get plucked out entirely, Lena had seen enough.
"Stop! Huey!" Lena grabbed Huey's arm and leaned over it, maneuvering her shoulder to shield it from his beak. "Look! Just look," Lena started preening his arm herself, delicately taking each group of feathers with her beak and repairing what damage she could. She could taste blood from where the one or two feathers got plucked. That should have made her gag, but it seemed perfectly normal. She didn't know why.
"Does that feel good?" she asked rhetorically - Huey became considerably calmer after she took over - and continued to preen him. His rocking pacified and sobbing quitened, and after Lena finished the first arm she moved on to the other.
They carried on that way for a few minutes, sitting alone at their table in the corner of the tent. Huey rocking and sometimes flapping his free hand while Lena slowly, lovingly preened him, starting at the wrist and working her way up to the elbow, then the shoulder, then the crook of his neck, where she pressed in her beak to tickle. He flinched at the sensation, and smiled for a second. Just a second, but it was enough for her.
She loved that. She loved making Huey smile.
"Here," Lena pulled him into an embrace and maneuvered his head under her chin so she could start preening those feathers, too. She took his cap off and he held it for her, like an altar boy.
Huey couldn't rock anymore, but she was hugging him and the pressure helped, surely. He was so much calmer, now, and had stopped sobbing. To Lena's surprise, she was enjoying it just as much.
That went on. She took her time with it, just holding him, preening him as every sniffle grew further apart from the last one. After a few minutes, the atmosphere had changed entirely.
"I'm sorry, Lena," was the first clear thing Huey had said since sundown.
"It's not your fault," Lena answered almost unconsciously between strokes of her beak through his feathers. "I mean, you don't have anything to be sorry for."
"I just… I never wanted you to see me like… like this," his voice shook slightly, almost fearfully. A subtle tremor ran through him, the same as when he was crying.
Lena felt surprised for reasons she couldn't immediately register. "What?" She pulled back far enough to look at his face. Diffidently, his teary, red eyes rose to meet hers before darting away.
What was that supposed to mean?
The moment dragged on, Lena looking down at Huey, trying to understand what he meant while he buried his face in her sweater, arms wrapped around her torso like his life depended on it.
She hugged him and went on preening. Maybe she had just read too much into it.
Really though? He didn't want her to see him like this? What?
Was it just a macho thing, like he didn't want a girl seeing him cry? Or did he mean stimming? As if she cared that he was autistic? She had noticed him trying to hide it earlier, but she assumed he just tried to hide it from everyone, all the time.
That was so stupid. How could he think-…? Whatever. It didn't matter right now. She could give him that piece of her mind later. Right now, he needed her to go soft.
Lena had almost finished preening the feathers on Huey's head, moving down to the nape of his neck. She reached up the back of his shirt to scratch between his shoulder blades, sending a shiver through him like she knew it would.
"Huey?"
"Yes?"
"We can go back to my house if you want. I'll get Ty to pick us up," Lena didn't know what she wanted Huey to say. "But if you feel good, we can stay."
"They'll miss me if I go," Huey muttered in response, after awhile. No answer on how he felt.
"This is the first time Mom's been to the fair with us, and Uncle Donald couldn't really afford it when we were growing up," Huey explained. "I don't want to ruin it for them."
Lena had a feeling he would take it in this direction. Huey was a giver, even if it wasn't for his own good.
Would it be selfish to ask him to leave anyway?
She wondered.
"'Kay," she hugged him tighter. It was all she could do.
They'd have to stand up in a minute or two and leave the tent. She'd hold his hand and they would walk back out to the midway and find the others - she already felt her phone vibrating - then act like this didn't happen.
"I know what you're thinking, but…" He started again, this time trying to look in her eyes. He couldn't look long, but he tried. "It's not their fault. It's nobody's fault."
Lena pressed her beak against Huey's forehead and quietly, softly kissed him. He froze up completely, and she had to smile. She couldn't laugh, that would send the wrong message, but she just had to smile.
"Come on," she laced her fingers into his and started to stand. "Let's go find everybody."
"A-alright."