As they left the cramped quarters, Coulson's hand lifted from his side, as if without conscious thought, into the perfect position for Clint to grasp it. And really, what was that about? Some sort of muscle memory from forty-five years ago? The only thing odder was how Clint's hand gravitated to Coulson's. Natasha fell into step on Coulson's other side, and they bracketed him between them, clearing a path down the halls to the cafeteria.
Pancakes. The cafeteria had pancakes, and it was more comforting than Clint could have expected to see Coulson request a stack of pancakes to eat along with what looked like an excessive amount of bacon for a child. Tempted as he was, Clint could not bring himself to steal bacon from a child's plate, and so contented himself with sniping bits of Natasha's muffin.
Still, it was difficult to watch Coulson struggle to manipulate the knife to butter the pancakes, or to pour the syrup on target. When he managed to cut the pancakes, the bites were too large for his mouth, and he had to cut them again.
After watching this process twice, Clint offered, "Sir? May I?" and gestured to the fork. "Nothing we haven't done before when someone's hands aren't working like they want."
Coulson's mouth pressed into a flatter line, but after a moment he nodded and pushed the plate closer to Clint.
"But if you try to feed them to me, and so help me if I hear a single airplane or 'choo-choo' noise..." He let the ultimatum hang in the air until Clint nodded.
"Duly noted, sir."
The debrief was a disaster. Seriously, did no one remember that they were preparing for a child to sit in on the meeting? Coulson needed a hand up to even get into one of the chairs without it sliding out from under him. Once he had gotten himself settled, his nose was almost level with the table. Someone had arranged for coffee, but Clint had serious doubts about the wisdom of caffeinating a pint-sized Coulson. He wasn't quite sure how he'd done it, but he must have looked a combination of frustrated, worried, and urgent, because Steve volunteered to get a hot cocoa from the nearest break room.
Coulson listened to the first part of the debrief calmly, occasionally adding an aside about the view from the logistics van, but he kept shifting from sitting on his folded up legs (pins and needles!) to kneeling up so he was waist-high to the table to sitting on his heels again. In his defense, it was one of the dullest debriefings Clint could remember, despite having a result-of-the-battle sitting in the seat next to him. Eventually Clint took pity on him and beckoned him over to his lap. There was a pause while Coulson seemed to consider the relative merits of the shift — comfort versus dignity — and Stark's eyebrows made a bid to climb all the way into his hairline.
Fury broke the silence, dropping his forehead into his palm and saying, "Just go, alright, Coulson? Not sure we can continue this debrief with you popping up like a Jack-in-the-box every two minutes."
There was relative calm and focus for a bit as they finished the recap of the battle and Coulson's transformation. Clint had been right in his assessment of the Avengers yesterday; Coulson getting tagged by the ray gun had been the beginning of the end for the villain du jour. The Avengers team had taken that attack extremely personally.
Coulson shifted once more in Clint's lap, and leaned back to whisper in Clint's ear, "I'm bored." Of course, it was a kid whisper, so it carried the length of the conference table to where Fury sat glowering at the interruption.
Clint pulled out his Starkphone, unlocked it, and opened an app. "Here, Coulson," he said as he slid it into Phil's hand. "Work on some practical application of physics and ballistics for a minute." As a distraction technique for only Coulson, it might have worked. The recap of the intelligence gathered from the bad guy, his minions, and his lair continued for another few minutes until Bruce was interrupted by the sound of sniggering green pigs.
"Gentlemen," Fury began in freezing tones, "if this SHIELD debrief is interfering with your game..."
Clint winced at Fury's glare, which seemed to have passed over Coulson's small head with zero impact, judging by the way he continued to slingshot the colorful birds at the structures. "Sorry, sir," he said, chastened. "But really, what is there left to say? Geriatric Man was unhappy with the nation's treatment of the elderly, and finally snapped when his research funding was pulled? Yeah, like that hasn't happened a dozen times before."
"These grant committees should start screening for psychological issues at least as much as potential real-world and industry applications," Tony grumbled.
"I thought we wanted more people in the sciences?" Bruce said under his breath.
"That would prevent you from ever receiving funding, Stark," Natasha said.
Tony crossed his arms with a smug grin. "Yeah, no, the Tony Stark/Iron Man research team comes complete with its own finances."
Coulson whispered in Clint's ear, much quieter this time. "Director, can we be done?" Clint asked. "I think Coulson has an appointment or two with medical."
There was another pause, broken by Tony when he said, "I can't decide if we're waiting for Barton to be struck by lightning from above, or if we're waiting for Thor to do it."
Thor seemed to understand the implication, because he said, "Truly, friend, I have never seen you rush to the lair to the healers."
"Coulson's got some occupational therapy thingy to get set up today."
Fury sighed and closed the folder in front of him. "Fine. But Barton, you're on protection detail until further notice."
"You bet, sir." Clint slid Coulson down from his lap so he could stand on the floor, then gathered his things and stood as well. He'd had grave doubts about giving Coulson an entire Venti-sized hot cocoa, and he was now being proven right. He needed to hurry Coulson to a men's room, stat.
Shi– shoot, the closest urinal at child height was "nowhere on SHIELD premises." Time for a quick trip back to Coulson's quarters before they hit up medical.
Before they could even leave Coulson's quarters, Clint got a call from Dr. Martinez wanting to confirm that they were available for the occupational therapist. Clint ended the call and sat down cross-legged on Coulson's mattress. "So. Looks like you're getting a visit from a kid-brain therapist. You ready for this?"
"I guess," Phil said. He mimicked Clint's pose, additionally resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands.
"Hey, boss." Clint leaned over and bumped his shoulder into Coulson's. Or attempted to. With the height difference it turned into more of an elbow to the shoulder. Clint said. "It'll be OK, sir. Don't worry."
"I'm not worrying," Coulson said, all injured dignity. "I'm wondering," he distinguished. "What if they want to make me talk about my childhood? Or draw pictures? Or... build sand castles or something?"
"Well, whatever they want, it won't be worse than psych evals, right?"
Yeah, right. What did he know? As if his words had jinxed them, the therapist arrived with a bag over each shoulder and two additional tubs of materials. She introduced herself as Nancy, settled herself on the floor cross-legged under her ankle-length skirt, and began an appointment that went on and on and on and on.
It was fine when she wanted to roll a ball across the floor and have Coulson roll it back, or toss it and have him catch. He couldn't, and wasn't that a kick in the pants for the man who caught projectiles like it was his job? Checking out writing skills? Coulson's beautiful copperplate penmanship (Clint had looked it up, OK?) had degenerated into jagged lines, but at least he knew his letters, numbers, and more math than the therapist seemed equipped to test for.
Then she started testing his senses, and then his "higher executive functions" (and Clint was going to have to do so much research to be of any use with all of this), and then his memory, and then, did she seriously just give him a cracker and ask him to swallow? And then his attention span, and then his emotional control and by then Clint was pretty much done, himself, finding his own attention wandering and his nerves frayed, but he still caught the over-shiny look in Coulson's eyes before the therapist did.
"We're done here, right?" he said, placing a hand on Coulson's shoulder. It wasn't a question so much as an opportunity for the therapist to agree and get the he– heck out of Coulson's room before she made him cry and Clint had to reinforce that that was an unacceptable outcome.
"Yes, definitely," Nancy replied. She flipped her graying braid back over her shoulder and deliberately turned her attention to Coulson. "I'll need to write up the results of the assessment formally, of course, but I am extremely impressed by the amount of information you have retained. My initial impression is that your physical development is typical for a four-year-old; we'll need to calculate the results to get a more precise estimate."
Then she shook her head. "Agent Coulson, this also means that your emotions, attention span, sensitivities, and ability to think logically and reason out consequences are appropriate to your physical age." She looked at him sympathetically and, telegraphing her intention, reached out and took his hand in hers. "You will find it difficult to think in your old patterns and with your old rapidity. This will probably frustrate you, and you will find you have a low tolerance for that frustration. You may cry. You may want to shout and scream and throw things, and you may find yourself doing all this before you've made a conscious decision to do so."
She squeezed his hand. "You may find yourself reaching out for others more than you used to — wanting to be held or touched or hugged. Your adult self may find this embarrassing, but I assure you it is completely healthy, normal, and necessary for your four-year-old self." As if her words had released him, Phil nodded and flung himself from his seated position into her lap. Her arms came around him gently and she rocked him from side to side.
"That has been so weird," he said, his voice muffled by her sweater.
OK, Clint might agree that Coulson had been acting a little like a kid, and maybe a little touchy-feely, but really? Compared to Coulson throwing himself into the arms of a near stranger for comfort? Yeah, not even in the same zip code.
"It's all right. This is normal," she soothed. "The testing is designed to find the edges of your emotional control as much as anything else." She rubbed her hand soothingly up and down his back. "It's going to leave you feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, I'm afraid."
Clint nearly growled at that. "Was that entirely necessary? And couldn't you have warned us?"
She shook her head and looked him in the eye, apologetic but fearless. "Would have invalidated the results." Giving Coulson one last hug, she set him back on the floor in front of her.
"I can leave a few of these things here for you to work with," she said, setting aside a few puzzles, some books, a squishable, bumpy ball, and a bag of sparkly goop. "I would recommend that you also stay close to your team. You've bonded with them, and your child-instincts will be to seek tactile reassurance from them." She gave Phil an intent look. "Don't fight that."
He nodded solemnly, and Clint hoped desperately that the Avengers wouldn't be called out for a while. He reached out and tentatively patted Coulson's shoulder. He was relieved when Phil leaned into the touch, then stunned when he crawled into Clint's lap. But that was nothing to the reflexive kiss Clint dropped on Phil's hair a moment later.
Clint tensed, inadvertently tightening his arms around Coulson, but Phil just snuggled deeper into his lap. After a moment Clint relaxed again, realizing he hadn't overstepped. Nancy smiled at him, blue eyes crinkling at the edges. "You're doing fine, Agent Barton," she assured him. "You have good instincts, too."
Right, like she had any clue that the only parenting he'd seen up-close and personal was, to put it mildly, dysfunctional? He distrusted all of his knee-jerk responses when it came to kids, because he'd so rarely seen first-hand examples of anything other than yelling and mocking and hitting.
"And Agent Coulson, don't fight your new physiology," Nancy continued. "This assessment is grueling, by design. I recommend that you two get some lunch and then a nap." She smiled at both of them. "In fact, I'll have lunch sent up here. I'll work up these results and get back to you within the week."
Clint set the trays from lunch outside Coulson's door and shut it behind him, rolling his shoulders to stretch out the muscles.
"How're you doing, sir?" he asked. "I'm beat."
Coulson looked up from his seat on the mattress and yawned expansively.
"Got it, boss." Clint sat and removed Phil's shoes, and Coulson tipped over onto the mattress. Clint pulled the thin, SHIELD-issue blanket over him and then moved to stand up.
Coulson yawned again. "Aren't you tired, too?" he asked.
And, yes, he definitely was. Whether it was the stress of the last few days or the evaluation (or the hint Nancy had dropped about a nap), or the constant fear that he was just going to snap and channel his father, or just the fact that he was between missions at HQ, Clint could definitely see his way clear to taking a short nap.
"Scoot over, sir," he said, and wrapped himself, yawning, around a half-asleep Coulson.