That kiss spelled disaster, and the downwards spiral, and eventual, demise of my career.
My fatal flaw? Affection.
Like a pauper pursues prosperity, I will go to inordinate lengths and concoct convoluted contrivances to obtain love. The sensation of Bobbi's lips on my bruise-inflated cheek was a smidgeon of the abundance of love she had to give. Her nectar-lips; becoming of the gods, not to be trifled with by mortal man. For love, I would sacrifice anything: sanity, salubriousness and solace. And like the pauper, famished of fortune, were it offered, I would hungrily hunt it. And Bobbi was a well of love, parched for so long, I made her the centre of my life: my goals, my purpose, my salvation.
And it led to an untimely self-destruction. Affection is an affliction that morphs your outlook, alters your actions, and angles your aims. It was a distraction: Bobbi was a distraction.
On the running track, circulating the oval like water does in the gutter, no focus was divided to the task at hand. My feet mindlessly kept themselves within the white boundaries between lanes as sprinters shot down either side of me like Sonic the Hedgehog - and I swear to god, the day I get my first pay packet out of this tight-ass organisation, I'm buying myself a SEGA Megadrive - and my attention was diverted to the buxom blonde ahead.
My god, even with sweat-glazed skin, in the grey of the autumn drizzle, hair tangled into a ponytail, she looked divine. Her hair swished rhythmically at her spaced strides and she kept pace like a metronome. Although graced with all of the swooping curves of the female figure, she had all the hard angles of an athletic physique. Gazing, I was the idiot who splashed through the puddles pooling in the potholes of the tarmac to catch up with her, only for my toes to catch, and land me face-first. As water spilled into my clothes, all of my dignity spilled out. Attempting to impress her with my athleticism, I flopped fantastically.
Her walkman covering her ears, it took her a few moments to register my yelps; she soon plodded to a halt. Removing the foam-ended headphones and slinging them around her neck, she stalked trendily over. Dank and dismal rain water dripping down my face; I saw a hand thrust to me: an olive branch, of sorts. And she certainly was a dove.
Bobbi was unjudgemental. She'd never once tried to excavate my secrets, unlike how Coulson and Fury had tried to take a pickaxe to past to uncover what was concealed under years of emotional sediment. And they had cracked and crumbled my facade. I heralded her as a saint for her sheer sympathy and amicability.
My hands grazed from the fall and my knee - then I realised - dripping with blood from the impact where my joggers had been torn open, stained crimson and claret around the ripped fibres, I took her hand. She hauled me to my feet, and with wordless empathy helped me across to one of the sport supervisors.
And it wasn't just her physical form that distracted me - as bewitching as that is - its her talents that truly hypnotise me. The intellect she's amassed could rival Einstein - I'd swear it in court; I'd never heard a question she couldn't answer, or at least stitch together a credible solution to on the spot. Resilience or raw intellect, I was unsure; but the time for contemplating it wasn't whilst bench pressing a hundred kilos, as I soon worked out.
I wasn't sure if it was because she'd sensed me ogling her that she came to my aid as my arms were crushed to my chest and my fingers cramped and mangled, or out of the unadulterated kindness of her heart. She dismissed herself from a duel with Rollins and scrambled to my attention like a sprinter when they hear the gun at the starting line: and I was anything but silent, gargling, gagging and gasping. And no one opted out of a fight with the S.T.R.I.K.E Squad; people had a reputation to maintain at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy! And Bobbi was reputable and renowned for her abilities - top of the class.
After having the weights wrenched from my chest and being admonished for not having a spotter by Bobbi - seriously, you would've thought the woman was my goddamn mom - I spotted Coulson lingering by the door to the gymnasium. With a cursory peruse of the room, he shook his head at me and wandered away.
When did I know I'd really messed up? I can pinpoint it!
The lecture hall was transformed with single-man desks, creaky with carvings of initials surely vandalised by a pair of compasses; the penknife of a student. The room was hushed as if my disability had reacquainted itself, and there was deafening silence but the sound of the clock eerily ticking - taunting me, counting down the seconds to my imminent immense failure - and the clack of Doctor Pym's black leather brogues echoing on the wooden flooring.
"You may begin," were the words that passed his nicotine-stained lips and chipped yellow teeth that commenced my damning destiny. Those words may as well have been my eulogy, I was dead meat.
With a flutter of paper, the room spurred into life, the sound of ball points pressing into pages and the hiss as graphite nibs annotated fervently. As the questions printed in blank ink met my eyes, panic flared in my heart. I was doomed.
But the nail in my coffin was when I had the espionage examination paper slapped on my exam desk with a huff from professor Pym, with a disdainful look magnified through wired spectacles. It was marked with a letter too low in the alphabet for me to even state, supplemented with a note scrawled in the left margin instructing: 'See me. -Fury'.
As prompted after the lesson by my tired professor, I dawdled to his office like a pupil sent to the principle, a thousand worries flittering through my head like moths trapped in a lampshade, and from practically the moment I knocked and was welcomed into his office, the verbal assassination began.
"Take a seat, Clint," he instructed in an ominous voice, fingers steepled and his beady black pupils aimed at me. It was oddly reminiscent of when we first met, and again his eyes had adopted that likeness to the barrel of a gun once more. The bullet, however, didn't escape his eyes, but his mouth.
I'm not a sheepish person, never have been, 'too smart mouthed for your own good' my father, mother and brother had always said. Kate had always rolled her eyes as I mouthed off at teachers in junior high, and even at the circus I had a mind to badmouth Carson and his crew. But Nick? He was the one person with the presence and persona to shut me up; the only other exception being a roll of duct tape.
Like a hostage, I obeyed; my spine straight and my eyes glued to him. "Something the matter, sir?" I adopted that innocent look I always would when my dad was drunk, just to spare me a few more moments without being beat.
"Something the matter?" Fury parroted, his words were cut up by a laugh of disbelief. "The something the matter is the fact that for the past month, your grades have gone nothing but down! In a steep curve! That, and your instructors tell me in training sessions you're being irresponsible with equipment, lagging behind, and leaving early! What in God's name has got into you Clint?"
My vocal chords stuck. A choked noise escaped my throat like the smouldering smoke from a dying fire.
"Haven't you got a damn thing to say for yourself? Because the way I see it, I've brought you in when you should've been shot dead and left on the pavement, and you've thrown away the best opportunity of your life! I could've had Coulson chuck you in a cell and leave you to rot with the rest of the criminals who call themselves vigilantes-"
Words jumped from my mouth when I found them. "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist-"
"Don't go spewing proverbs at me, Clint! Not when I'm talking, and I am not done yet..! I saw potential in you, Clint! Talent! Instead of painting that talent across the pavement with a bullet between your eyes, I put a roof over your head, I put food in your stomach, and I put you in classes to give you the education your parents untimely deaths and your pugilist of a brother stole from you! And you don't have a damn word to say to me... I'd have a good mind to kick you out..."
My heart was working double-time in my chest, and my breathing caught. "No... No, please!"
"You know, your brother is doing exceedingly well in the army. And here's us all placing bets that he would've drunk himself to death by now. Mind you, the Sergeant Major is keeping quiet about his little hinterland with another bunk-mate who insulted his mother, but he's still ascending the ranks. Out of the two of you, my faith was entirely invested in you: master archer, zealous, quick witted. But this?" He slipped me a thin leaf of paper; a graph, a spreadsheet detailing my GPA.
I had no retort. I never would've thought anyone would've stooped as low as mentioning Barney. Or any of my family for that matter.
"I have nothing more to say to you, Clint. Let this be a warning to you. We don't have room for lazy and useless people in this organisation. Let alone kids, I was taking a risk with you. If I don't see an improvement-" He clenched his fist, then put his head in his hands. "Get out, Clint."
So I scarpered, just like the vagabond I was. Just as I had scarpered from the debts back in Iowa, from the orphanage, from the circus. Old memories resurfacing like garbage in a sewer, my father's words not stirred back to life echoed through my head.
'Stupid kid!'
'Just like your dumb whore of a mother'
'He has a habit of being a lie-about when I'm not watchin' 'im'
'talks too much and don't do nothin'
I felt a wedge swell in the back of my throat, clogging it painfully as I fought to restrain the tears, and every sob was stretched around it: I could feel the moisture gathering in my eyes and breaching the border of my eyelids. My breathing harshened, hoarsened, before I could even round the corner at the end of the corridor, I face planted in someone's chest; their person obscured by the tears.
"Clint?" The voice was warm, paternal, and so was the embrace that slowly encompassed me.
I threw the twine arms tangling me in and stepped back, eyes bloodshot and my cheeks tear-stained. "Leave me alone!" I protested, trying to push past him, but he agilely darted before me, blocking the corridor as I choked on sobs.
"Clint, Clint, please..." He spoke softly, trying to soothe my hysterics. And eventually I succumbed to the comfort, standing still and crumpling. "I know Fury called you into his office, and I suspected it wasn't to be good news; that's why I came," Coulson admitted, placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing, to familial a gesture for me to feel comfortable.
I sucked in a shuddering breath, now seething with anger too. "To see me fail?" I smudged the dew of my lament from my eyes and glared at him.
"What? No! I had no idea you'd be so-" Coulson flapped a hand to dismiss his disjointed sentence. "Look, come with me..."
Having no one else to pour my trust into, I ambled after him. Thankful, he avoided the crowded corners of the facility and I was lead into the main concrete courtyard. Coulson gestured to a bench where the plaque read 'Steven Grant Rogers: 1918-1944' where we took a pew.
In the spirit of sitting on a bench bidding a memorial to the man, the myth, the legend, Coulson turned to me and said: "Do you know, before he was a hero, Steve Rogers was an ordinary kid?"
Mentally preparing myself for some parental-style allegorical bullshit. "Not now Coulson..!" I folded my arms over my chest like chains and a padlock over my heart.
"Listen to me, Clint," Coulson snapped. "You might learn something." I glanced in his direction, still surveying the open space. Something about the sympathy in his voice provoked compassion. "Just listen... Steve Rogers was your average kid on the block. Except he wasn't. Diabetic, colourblind, asthmatic, a heart murmur, constantly ill because he had practically no immune system... And he took to beating up bullies on the block. He became a hero because he was fair of heart, and the super soldier serum emulated that good in him physically."
Understanding the implicit nature and drawing the parallels - I'm not one hundred percent stupid, contrary to what Fury thinks - I shrugged. "What's your point?"
"Able bodied, less able, big, small, a hero, or a vigilante - you're a hero." And the contradiction to the director's words so soon was a difficult cognitive dissonance to process. "Nick was a little harsh on you; but he doesn't know what I do: I'm your handler, not him."
I scoffed. "Handler? I'm not some dog?" My heart clinched as I remembered the pup I abandoned and the best friend too. "You don't take me for walkies and pet me when I'm good!"
"That's not what I meant by it; you know that," Coulson fretted. "Case worker then! But that makes me sound like a social worker, and I'm not some foster dad..." He sighed.
Memories resurrected for the second time that day, I spoke. "I've had enough nasty run-ins with dads for a lifetime..."
"I know champ, I'm sorry..." He rested his hand on my thigh and squished. I unfolded my arms in response. "Look, part of the reason the Director was so mad, is that I managed to wangle you your first mission..." His voice livened up, as did his grey blue eyes.
My attention became undivided and I turned to face him. "What? Really?"
"Yes, really. And it took a lot of deliberating and debating and get it for you. The board were rather reluctant to let an ex-vigilante circus-trained teenager into the field, as you might imagine," he laughed, and I laughed along with him. It sounded ridiculous when he put it like that. "It was only Nick, the Commander and I who spoke on your behalf."
My brows raced to meet my hairline. "The commander herself?"
"Let's just say she has a fondness for underdogs. But your GPA, it's not presently in the best of shape, Clint..." Coulson's wrinkles deepened as he winced. "And we know about your little run in with Rumlow and S.T.R.I.K.E." He scratched the sparse greying hairs on the back of his neck.
"I know..." I atoned. "Sorry..." I appeased. "And about my GPA, I just got a little distracted." A smirk crept it's way onto my lips. "Anyway, tell me more about this mission-"
A/N - You's all know where this story going. It's about bloody time too. And yes, this is me, updating on time. Well, sorta. Technically it's midnight in England, so it's Sunday. Time for the Sunday update!
To everyone who sent their condolences, thank you so much, it genuinely does make all the differences when you feel such a staggering body of support. The sympathy has been overwhelming. Though, you'll be pleased to hear that I attended a memorial on Sunday last weekend: lanterns were lit and launched for Ben, and a candle service was held in the local park. 17 tea lights, one for every year he's lived, then another three in holders for 'friends', 'family' and 'loves'. Beautifully symbolic and poetically tragic; candle in the wind, anyone? "Out, our brief candle" - speak of which, Macbeth rehearsals for the Shakespeare Schools Festival is going well!
I've finally figured out the key to keeping on top of the work, it's methodical! And I'm really settling into my new school! I have a routine tea break during my study period every day, and a bunch of friends I've really settled with. Not to mention being asked out by a boy this week; flattered though I was, it wasn't my boy. The intellectual, well-versed in classic poetry, mythology and classical music, political type - we'll call him Charles Xavier for arguments sake - still hasn't been charmed by me. Why can't you be Lorelei when you need to be?
On another front, I'm really getting my teeth into 'Kasabian' lately! For those of you who aren't into niche, British-flavoured indie/alternative rock, electronica and neo-psychedelia, they're a band from Leicester (les-tuh! As we Brits say!) who I have come to adore! With a dash of politics taken straight out of 'Muse's book - and if you don't know Muse, my God, go and listen to them, they're latest album is the soundtrack to this book - and a unique vocalist and catchy electric guitar riffs to rival AC/DC (and I'm a hardcore AC/DC fan), I'm in love. And shipping the lead vocalist with the lead guitarist; this is me neck deep in the trash.
Dedication when I'm not fucking exhausted.