I was so excited to get to Merida's turn. I love that it's coming out on Hawkeye's finale.
Year Three: Cadet #178 070 088 105
Seven Years Ago - Central Elementary School
Merida's dad has never told her to keep quiet unless he showed up at her school and saw her sitting in the principal's office across. Happened more often than one would think. This time, her knuckles are as red as her hair, but the kid across from her is slouched in his seat with a bloodied ice pack against his nose. Merida tried to explain herself but there was no redeeming herself since she was already suspended for the next week, even before Clint was called. She had her bag packed and her homework to complete during her suspension.
After Clint apologized to everyone in the office, he and Merida left the school silently. She didn't even see her friends since they were in class.
"Dad…" Merida mutters once they approach the car. "He deserved it."
"Did he?" Clint asks as he unlocks the car and they step inside.
"Yes! He was going around telling people that Apollo's parents don't love each other and Apollo wasn't doing anything because he got all sad about it, so I took matters into my own hands."
"Clearly," Clint says, looking at her slightly bruised knuckles. "At least your mother didn't pick you up but you'll get a mouthful when she gets home. On the bright side, you can sleep in for your orthodontist appointment tomorrow. Getting your braces tightened is a form of karma."
"Haven't you gotten teeth knocked out? I think that's worse."
"Many times, even by your mother, but at least those were sudden. Barely felt it."
"No fair. Why did I have to have crooked teeth? Is that some bullshit-"
"Merida."
Merida grins a little. "Is that some not-bullshit karma?"
Clint pauses, unsure if that counts or not. "Maybe you got that from me. I can't remember."
-o-
Present Day - Academy Counselling Room 4
Merida's psych evaluation takes place in an office painted with colours meant to be soothing. Grey and mauve. Merida's stomach churns, especially with the stuffy stale scent of the room. Everything about it screams old. The dust-free furniture looks like it was pulled out of a Victorian movie that she only knows from when she would flip through channels. She looks out of place in her ripped jeans, heavy boots, and piercings. Even her evaluator looks like she belongs here with her hair tied back in a tight bun that matches her wrinkle-free cardigan and button-up. She looks like a principal and Merida's dressed like she got called to the office for spray-painting the cafeteria (or punching a kid in the face).
"Good afternoon, Cadet Barton," she greets in a typical calming therapist voice.
"Hi," Merida responds. What the fuck was she supposed to say back?
"You've been in this school for three years now so what would you say is your first memory at the Academy?"
Merida stares at the evaluator's pencil tip pressing against the edge of her notebook, ready to write. Merida doesn't see the value in this question nor does she know an answer. She barely knows what she did this morning let alone three years ago.
"I don't understand the question," Merida states, leaning back in her chair and hugging her arms across her torso. Her out-stretched legs nearly touch the desk. "I don't know what you want me to tell you."
No writing. "It's an open-ended question. Tell me anything."
Merida keeps quiet. Can she reschedule this session? She doesn't like this lady.
"Okay, we'll return to the open-ended questions," she scribbles something down and stops. "The Council predicts that Cadet Xavier Rogers will lead your team one day."
Merida scoffs. Was that supposed to be news to her? "As he should."
Her evaluator cocks a brow as she continues writing. "You don't oppose? Don't want it for yourself, to vouch for Cadet Angela Rogers or another person?"
Merida straightens in her seat and crosses her legs. "Hell no. Regarding Angela, no offense to her because she's my girl but I think she'd crumble if things went south. Like, she'll keep it together for as long as she can but then break at some point. Xavier kind of just internalizes things. I wouldn't be able to handle the responsibility that comes with being in charge. If a mission fails, then Xavier would take responsibility and the Council would forgive him, maybe censure him if he really fucked up. The same applies to Angela, I'd say. If I was the team leader and the same failure happened under my watch and I took accountability, I'd get suspended."
Her evaluator nods, pursing her lips together as she writes those words down. "Would that be because of your past full of reckless actions? Your eighth-grade suspension, initiating a car chase with SHIELD when Cadet Angela Rogers broke her arm, breaking into SHIELD files-"
Merida points at her. "See, if Xavier threw the first punch or was behind the wheel, or broke into SHIELD, then I guarantee you he would've gotten the back of his hands smacked if not a handshake."
"Interesting take. You had good intentions for all those situations, don't get me wrong, but you could've handled them better."
Merida narrows her eyes and purposely forgets to bite her tongue. "Interesting take."
Her evaluator doesn't poke at her retort. "Moving on, what was your worst nightmare?"
Merida should've seen this question coming, especially given her backstory. She was raised by someone built to be emotionless … and Clint Barton. Her parents always made their priorities clear: Parents. Agents/Avengers. Spouses. In that order. Sometimes, Merida never saw the distinctions but the overlap. An instance in one affected the other two.
"My parents never came home from a mission," Merida responds.
"And what happened to you in the dream, after the news that they weren't coming back?" Her evaluator asks.
Merida shrugs and her evaluator doesn't write anything down. "I don't know. I woke up."
Merida thought she could just zip through this evaluation and get dismissed right away. Instead, she's opening up on an old couch, holding on to the charm of her necklace. It's an arrow with the head inside the sharp curve of the black widow symbol. She had the arrow as a separate necklace and got the black widow piece as a separate gift from Emily for her birthday. Merida then went to a jeweler to make it into one necklace.
Now she isn't sure if her evaluator asked her a question and she was too preoccupied with her thoughts.
"I grew up surrounded by superheroes who did their job," Merida says. "I lived in a city that romanticizes the Avengers more so than anywhere else. Every time one of my parents left the house, I didn't know for sure if they would come back. Hell, they could've been going to the grocery store. It was scarier when they both would go."
Her evaluator nods. "Okay, now that we've worked up some parental context, tell me about your childhood."
Merida raises a brow. "You mean, like, my life story?"
"If that's what you want."
"Why?"
"I just want to know about your upbringing."
"Why? Because my parents had shitty childhoods, you'd expect me to have one?"
Her evaluator stops writing for a moment. "Why would you assume I'd think that? I'd assume that because they had 'shitty childhoods' that they'd try to make sure you had the opposite."
Merida pauses, this time biting her tongue. That's exactly what she thought.
"Am I wrong?" Her evaluator asks despite knowing the answer.
"I was a Girl Scout," Merida states. "I enjoyed it."
"Anything else about your life?"
"Nope."
She sits back. An obvious lie.
She and her friends were innocent enough to think that their lives were what they thought they were. If all the redacted pieces were put together like a puzzle, then an image that made sense would form and look like the person they thought they were, instead of revealing what they didn't know.
Merida learned that the hard way.
"Cadet Barton," she waves a hand up to get her attention, "may I ask what you were just thinking about?"
Merida shakes her head. "Nothing."
"Nothing? I've seen cadets stare blankly at me and that wasn't a spaced look on your face."
"I was thinking about my mother and things I found out about The Red Room."
"Did she tell you?"
"No. I went snooping. You know that already."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to know."
"Why did you feel as if you needed to know about The Red Room? Or about your mother's past?"
Merida shrugs. "Because her history is mine, passed onto me. Angela and Xavier don't know everything about their dad in the war. Emily doesn't know about Afghanistan other than probably new articles. She's seen her dad's PTSD following New York more so when she was younger, but I don't think she really understood it then. Don't even get me started on Apollo and Britney."
"Why do you think their parents never told them the details?"
"Ignorance is bliss?" Merida hates that phrase.
"Interesting take." She mirrors Merida's grin. "So based on all that, tell me what you're scared of."
Merida scoffs, knowing where this is going. "I won't fixate on my fears."
"That's my job. But tell me what you think."
"You said it was your job." Merida shifts in her seat. "Blood. It keeps you alive until you lose too much and it stains everything it touches."
No reaction. "So, your fear of blood. Any idea where that could've originated?"
Merida smiles a bit. "Actually, yes."
"Want to tell me?"
Merida figures why not. She's this far into this stupid evaluation. "When I was young, around four, my dad was out on a mission. I was at home with my mom. She got a phone call about something happening on my dad's mission so she had to go to SHIELD to check on him while she dropped me off at Daniel's house since he lived close. Long story short, my dad got injured and had to recover. He came home because he wanted to rest there rather than in a hospital. He stayed in their room and my mom said not to go in there since my dad was resting but I walked in when my dad was napping. All I remember is seeing the blood-stained bandages on my dad's chest and screaming…"
Merida's voice trails off because she only remembers staring and screaming but then what? She'll never forget it. She can never get it out of her mind. It'll stick in her head. It won't affect her; it won't twist her but it'll stain her. Is this red in her ledger?
Her evaluator's voice snaps her back into the session.
"You fear things because they're valuable to you, Cadet Barton. People, our lives, consequences. Never wish you were fearless because then it means you never cared. You're dismissed."
-o-
[CLASSIFIED EXCERPT FROM SO: Agent Cynthia Iyu]
"Cadet Barton has a disregard for authority verging on pathological, but she's aware of it. She's opinionated, defensive, and argumentative, especially with authority figures when she doesn't get her way. She's unpredictable, impulsive, reclusive, and reckless but when it comes down to the wire, she's a perfect team player."
So far, Merida's evaluation is my favourite.
Emily's Counterparts:
Necklace - Chapter 143: Happy Birthday, Merida!
Car Chase, Angela's Broken Arm - Chapters 26-29: Bikinis, By Law Parts One to Four
Reading Redacted Files - Chapters 230-233: Redacted Files Parts One to Four
Britney's Counterparts:
Flashback, post-suspension - Chapter 68: (Britney Braun) The Eighth Grade