Even though I was already thinking of ideas for this chapter, it was purpleorchid25 that spurred me into writing it.
Lance ran his palms across his thighs, wiping the cold droplets of sweat onto the fabric of his jeans and exhaling slowly through his mouth. The fact that his mother was sitting across from him gave him butterflies in his stomach, and knowing that they were waiting for Coulson to join them at the table for a serious conversation only made him even more nervous.
"Leo's sleeping at last," Coulson said to his wife as he took a seat next to her.
The boy sighed and asked, "Can you just box my ears and –" Under his parents' confused look, he rephrased, "Can you just smack me or something and call it a night?"
"Absolutely not," May said, "We need to have this conversation with you."
He leaned back against his chair and exhaled. "Ugh, if we really have to."
Coulson began, "So, first of all we'd like to know how you got a black eye."
"It was an accident," he explained weakly.
"Let me guess, you tripped and smashed your face on the ground," May retorted.
Lance nodded his head emphatically, "Yes! That's exactly what happened. Glad we solved this," he got up and started to leave. "Good night every-"
"Sit. Down," Mary ordered. Lance turned and flopped back down on the chair, "Who did you pick up a fight with?"
"No one," Lance claimed and then fell quiet for a while. With his head lowered and his eyes focused on the table, he confessed, "Someone picked up a fight with me."
"Explain," she insisted.
"Barney, Clint's brother. He punched me because I took Clint's hearing aids," Lance rushed to continue his explanation as his parents seemed ready to reprimand him, "It was a joke. I wasn't going to break them, and I gave them to him right away. He was being an idiot, but I wasn't going to do anything stupid."
"What's her name?" Coulson asked with a knowing smirk.
Lance's face reddened in a second and he stammered, "Uh, wha-what? N-no, there's no girl. No one. No. One."
"You see," the man began boastfully, casting a glance at his wife, "when men are in love, they don't think."
"Do men usually think?" May teased with an expressionless face.
Lance groaned and covered his red face with his hands, "Oh, dog's bollocks," he mumbled sarcastically, "our Highness Queen Lizzy, save me from this," he sighed with frustration.
And so the longest hour of Lance's life began as he was lectured by his parents.
Mr. Mayer was by far the most boring teacher any student could have the misfortune of meeting. To make it worse, he lectured American History and it seemed that he had given up on being a good teacher ages ago.
"Class," Mr. Mayer's monotone voice echoed in the silent classroom, "we have a new student." At that everyone raised their heads.
A tall, blonde girl stood by the teacher's desk, her eyes shyly scanning across all the new faces. Lance found himself taking a deep sigh and smiling foolishly. The new girl was absolutely stunning and he was certain his young heart was in love. But he wasn't the only one. Clint Barton, sitting on his right, was just as enchanted as Lance. The boys smiled, both looking at how the girl's hair cascaded down her shoulders, how her blue eyes skimmed across the whole class, how bright her smile was.
"Introduce yourself," Mr. Mayer ordered.
The girl nodded slightly and spoke, "Hi, I'm Barbara Morse, you can call me Bobbi. I'm ten-years-old and I just moved from San Diego with my parents."
Lance mouthed her name quietly, liking how it rolled off his tongue, "Barbara. Bobbi. Barbara Morse."
"Take a seat wherever," the teacher said, walking to the blackboard.
Bobbi strode across the classroom and sat in an unoccupied desk, the one on the farthest left, right next to the window. Lance and Clint were both staring stupidly at her, smiles gracing their faces.
Mr. Mayer gave the class instruction before sitting down at his table to play with his phone, "Class, read chapter 3 from the book. Once you're done, you'll do this quiz," he pointed to the stack of papers on top of his desk, "and once you're finished, you'll swap with your neighbors and correct each other's test. Then you'll silently read chapter 4 and write a summary of it for your homework. Questions? No?" those were rhetorical questions - he wasn't expecting a response, "Good."
From that day on, Lance and Clint fought to be the best at getting Barbara's attention. Everything one did, the other had to do better. Bobbi kept on rolling her eyes and sighing. The boys thought her reaction was because they weren't trying hard enough. The truth was that she was tired of having two fools trying to please her when she clearly said she didn't need or want a boyfriend. Barbara Morse was no princess waiting to be rescued, but Lance and Clint thought she was very girly despite the fact she could wipe the floor with their faces without breaking a sweat.
The day came when Lance found himself without any more arguments to convince Bobbi that he really liked her. Clint, on the other hand, seized the moment to get closer to her. One day, Clint sat next to Bobbi during lunch - that was the end of Clint and Lance's almost-nonexistent-friendship. Lance put down his tray and then walked with fast strides towards Clint. The Iowan boy stood up, ready to throw a punch at Lance if it was needed, but quickly he realized that Lance was not going to beat him. He was going in for a much lower blow: Lance swiftly removed Clint's hearing aids.
The boy became paralyzed, hearing a buzzing noise in his ears and nothing else. His breathing quickened as he looked around frantically. A world with no sounds was a terrifying place for a ten-year-old. He had a love-hate relationship with his hearing aids: they were uncomfortable and he was made fun of because of them, but he couldn't live life without them.
"I'm sorry," Lance mumbled an apology, utterly embarrassed, staring at the tiled floor. Just then he forgot Clint couldn't hear him at all. "I'm sorry," he repeated after giving him the hearing aids back.
"You damn idiot, I-I…" Clint put them back in his ears with shaky hands. He couldn't control his breathing just yet, his panic mixing with anger.
"I'm really sorry."
It didn't matter how many times Lance apologized; Clint was very touchy about it. Getting his hearing aids taken away by some kid from school was almost like a routine for Clint, but it didn't mean he was used to the humiliation. The next day, Clint showed up in school with a bruise on his upper arm shaped clearly like fist. His brother, Barney, had smacked him and told him to stop being so vulnerable and weak towards bullies.
On the way home from school, Clint flinched and tried to rush to the school bus. His brother Barney, the tall, red-haired teenager by the school's gates, was waiting for him. Barney caught up with his brother quickly before he entered the bus. He signaled the driver that he was going to take his brother home. He firmly placed his hand on Clint's shoulder, squeezing it strongly, and guided him towards the school's entrance. The young boy was squirming in pain but complying with his brother's order.
"Which one is Lance?" Barney asked.
"It's alright now, we're cool."
Barney clawed his fingers deep into Clint's shoulder, "Only one way this is gonna end, baby brother: you tell me which one is Lance or I'll ask around." The boy didn't answer, "Well, I'll be asking-"
"No, wait," Clint pulled his brother's wrist off his shoulder, "I'll tell you." He shyly raised his finger and pointed, "That's him, the one in the white T-shirt."
"Lance Hunter?" Barney straightforwardly asked as he walked to Lance.
The British boy nodded his head, "Yeah? Do I know you?"
Barney threw a punch at Lance, "Now you do." While Lance silently concealed his pain, pressing his flat palm against his new injury, the teenager grasped the collar of his T-shirt, "Only I get to mess with my baby brother. Understood?"
Lance nodded his head. The fear that was spreading across his face changed into concern once he noticed Grant standing next to him, clenching his fist and gritting his teeth.
"Grant," Lance began calmly, "you don't ha-"
Grant moved quickly: one punch to Barney's face, one to the stomach and a kick to the side of his ribs. Barney collapsed on the floor and Grant stooped over him, grimly whispering, "Only I get to mess with my brother. Understood?"
Mr. Quinn, the janitor, saw the fight and put down the leaf blower so he could rush to the scene. "What in God's name is going on here?"
Barney got up on his feet, short of breath, and wiped the blood that dripped from the side of his mouth onto the sleeves of his shirt. He let out a grunt and glared intensely at Grant and Lance before walking away.
"Are you two alright?" Mr. Quinn asked, placing one hand over each of the boys' shoulders.
Grant brushed off the janitor's hand and tugged Lance's wrist, pulling him away. The school bus had already departed and they had a long way to walk home. And not to mention that they'd have to give full report of what happened to Trip, and then beg him not to tell Mom and Dad.
As soon as Lance was cleared to go to bed, he moved like a zombie, dragging his tired body and bored mind all the way upstairs. Of course that was all an act, because what he really wanted was to distract his parents and go to Grant. Lance opened Leo's and Grant's bedroom door quietly (May and Coulson sacrificed part of the office room and expanded the remaining spare room into a bedroom for Lance and Trip; it wasn't easy for the four boys to share a room anymore) and noticed two things: one – Leo was nothing but a lump under the bedsheets and the comforter – and two – Grant was awake, but was pretending to be asleep.
"You damn snitch!" Lance accused in the loudest tone he could muster at the moment – which was very quiet – because he couldn't wake anyone. "You told Mom and Dad about the fight."
Grant sluggishly rolled over in bed and looked up at his brother with sleepy eyes, "They asked me, I told them."
"Yeah, and couldn't you lie, genius? I just got a one-hour lecture because of you."
"Because of me?" The younger one grumbled, sitting up in bed, "You're the one sporting a black eye. They'd know about the fight anyway. If anything, this is your fault."
"What? This is –"
"– Go away!" Leo mumbled, throwing his pillow at Lance's head.
"Fine," Lance gave up and tossed the pillow back at Leo, "I'm going, but you're gonna pay for this, Grant."
"Yeah, look how scared I am," Grant snorted, lying down in bed again.
"You better be," the British one threatened before walking to the door.
Grant snickered, "What's the best you can do? The same you did to Clint's brother – freeze, clamp your hand over your eye and hope someone doesn't kick your ass? How can Bobbi like you if –"
"– Ugh, shut up!" Lance mumbled, infuriated, climbing over Grant's bed to smack him in the head, "I don't like her!"
The two began fighting, with Grant subduing his older brother (not that surprising since he was taking in everything he was learning at boxing classes).
"Mom! Dad!" Leo shouted at the top of his lungs.
Coulson walked hurriedly into the bedroom, his hair mussed, his tie sloppily loosened, the top two buttons of his shirt missing – not unbuttoned, missing – and a red mark on the side of his neck that ended right under his ear. Luckily the boys were too young to know what, better yet why, their mother had done that to their father. Coulson managed to break Grant and Lance apart and drag the older one to his bedroom. The boy was visibly upset, sitting at the edge of his bed while taking a deep breath and sporting a sulky expression on his face.
"Listen to me, Lance," Coulson said, stooping to be at his eye level, "there's no reason to be upset. It's only natural to have your first crush at this age, and your mother and I promise we won't tease you about it."
"Did you have one too when you were my age?" he asked, looking down at his lap as he played with his fingers, "A crush?"
The man smiled slightly, "I did. Her name was Jennifer, beautiful as could be."
"What happened?"
"She didn't like boys with braces," Coulson chuckled quietly, "She grew up to not like boys at all, actually. Well, she's the one who's losing; there're so many handsome men like us and she chose to play for the other team. But that's a talk for another day."
"She's a lesbian," the boy naturally acknowledged, "no need to have more talks with me about anything else."
"No more talks about anything else?" Coulson lifted the bed sheets so that Lance could slip into bed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes," Lance pulled the bed sheet up to his chin and shifted in bed, turning his back on his father, "Not even the sex talk."
Coulson left the bedroom without saying anything else. He was shocked with Lance's answer. When he walked in his bedroom, May sat up in bed and walked to him, tugging on his tie to pull him closer.
"Took you a long time," she said in a low voice.
"I think Lance might get a girl pregnant before he's sixteen," he replied, still utterly stunned.
In a swift move, May ran her hand down Coulson's shirt and unbuttoned his entire row of buttons. "That's something I would rather worry about some other time."
"I won't survive today," he muttered before May pressed her lips on his.
Clearly Lance's going to get a girl pregnant before he's 13... xP
Next chapter: Natasha's chapter. Finally...