A/N: I thought I was doing a proper fill for Clint this time. Last line I wasn't sure of, but it hints at Clint/Natasha. I went with the line as I remembered it and stuck it in. Can fix that part later if it's wrong.
Only it's all wrong because... Oops, screwed it up again because no Bucky. Sorry, I'd give it another chance at trying to fix it, but I can't write him at all, and I wouldn't want to try because I know it would be bad. I'll put in a request for it tomorrow or later (I doubt there will be many fills tomorrow) instead. :(
People said Clint wasn't a spy. That he couldn't pull off that kind of work. He was a sniper, an assassin, but he wasn't a spy. He wasn't a good enough liar. He smiled too much. Laughed too much.
He would have laughed at that, at least. He didn't know why people thought smiling and laughing was any less of a coping mechanism than the rest of it was. Some people went dark, got silent, got mean. He didn't. He pulled pranks. He joked. He laughed.
He didn't talk about his childhood or how he'd learned to shoot. He didn't talk about the things he'd done before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D.
And he never talked about his brother.
Those things were in the past. They were done and gone. He'd stopped crying when he was a kid.
Except that was a lie.
What he'd done to Barney, however right or justified or necessary it might have been, reduced him to tears after every nightmare, every flashback, every memory. He'd pull out a joke and laugh it off, find a prank to distract everyone, or he'd find some lone perch where no one could see the tears.
It was a coping mechanism, and he was damn good at making it work.
no subject
Only it's all wrong because... Oops, screwed it up again because no Bucky. Sorry, I'd give it another chance at trying to fix it, but I can't write him at all, and I wouldn't want to try because I know it would be bad. I'll put in a request for it tomorrow or later (I doubt there will be many fills tomorrow) instead. :(
People said Clint wasn't a spy. That he couldn't pull off that kind of work. He was a sniper, an assassin, but he wasn't a spy. He wasn't a good enough liar. He smiled too much. Laughed too much.
He would have laughed at that, at least. He didn't know why people thought smiling and laughing was any less of a coping mechanism than the rest of it was. Some people went dark, got silent, got mean. He didn't. He pulled pranks. He joked. He laughed.
He didn't talk about his childhood or how he'd learned to shoot. He didn't talk about the things he'd done before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D.
And he never talked about his brother.
Those things were in the past. They were done and gone. He'd stopped crying when he was a kid.
Except that was a lie.
What he'd done to Barney, however right or justified or necessary it might have been, reduced him to tears after every nightmare, every flashback, every memory. He'd pull out a joke and laugh it off, find a prank to distract everyone, or he'd find some lone perch where no one could see the tears.
It was a coping mechanism, and he was damn good at making it work.
He didn't allow anyone to see him cry.
(Well, anyone other than Natasha.)