#de-aged!coulson

[selori]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Clint Barton & Phil Coulson Characters: Clint Barton, Phil Coulson Additional Tags: Found Family, Age Regression/De-Aging, Kid Phil Coulson, de-aged Phil, Insecure Clint, Kid Fic, dances blithely around canon from Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Thor2 and IronMan3, dad clint, Protective Clint Barton Series: Part 2 of Someone Today Summary:

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance." ~Franklin P. Jones

Clint and Coulson are on the run from SHIELD in an attempt to give de-aged Phil a normal childhood. But if they really had normal lives? Phil would be looking at his 50th birthday and wondering if a red convertible was just a bit... on the nose.

[selori]

Sunday Six

Each Sunday, post six sentences from a writing project — published, submitted, in progress, for your cat — whatever.

Clint looks at the school supply list for 4-year-old Phil and has a... moment.

Clint didn’t remember starting kindergarten, but he would imagine that all his supplies had been the bargain versions. They certainly had been in the orphanage, and in foster care. He remembered getting his new pencils for the school year -- not many, but new, and that was awesome -- and excitedly grinding them to pointy newness in the hand-crank sharpener. Until the point broke. Or the wood splintered. Or the lead broke in the barrel and the lead fell out.

He remembered sharpening his pencils in class, taking forever, because the cheap wood split and fragmented if you weren’t careful and then the lead would break while you were writing and then you had to sharpen your pencil again and all of a sudden you were spending all your time standing at the pencil sharpener and you had missed what the teacher was saying and you were further behind than you’d been and foster homes didn’t want dumb kids, didn’t want kids who couldn’t keep up, who were failing in school.

Sharpen the pencil carefully, so gently, so precisely; one turn too far and the wood splits, the lead falls out; start again. Fit yourself into the family so carefully, so gently, so quietly. One noise, one request too many and the family splits, the foster kid falls out. Start again.

[selori]

Sunday Six

Each Sunday, post six sentences from a writing project — published, submitted, in progress, for your cat — whatever.

More than six sentences this week. Sorry, not sorry.

"Jarvis, I need electronic records, going back at least 6 years," Barton said. "I need a paper trail for three people: husband, wife, and child for that same time period, wife died two months ago, child is now four years old. And Jarvis, you can't tell anyone about this. Put it on a secure server, delete the history of your actions, of my request, of my request for you to delete the request, the whole enchilada."

"Sir, I regret that--"

"No, don't give me that. You can do this, and I'm going to let you explain to yourself why you can."

"And how would I do that, sir?"

"Jarvis, I want you to review every time Agent Phil Coulson has been instrumental in saving Stark. Or Pepper. Or the world." Barton continued, his voice tightening. "And then I want you to review the footage of Coulson now as a 4-year-old in SHIELD custody."

"Sir, I hardly think that--"

"And then, Jarvis," Barton overrode the AI, "then you need to review the outcomes of children raised in former Soviet-bloc orphanages."

Inspired by this art by Rascal Paradyne:

[selori]

Sunday Six

Each Sunday, post six sentences from a writing project — published, submitted, in progress, for your cat — whatever.

"I am not a s'kur-ritty rist!" Phil insisted mulishly, brows drawn down to meet at the top of the frown wrinkles on his unbroken button nose.

Fury squatted down, black coat flaring around his boots, until he could meet the blue eyes of his best friend. "Phil," he said, taking one sleeve -- 34 inches, now ridiculously overlong -- and pushing it up until the soft hand was exposed, "you just told me lunch reminded you of your favorite safe house, the one in Bethesda, because it smelled so nice because of the Vietnamese restaurant downstairs and it had such a nice view of the park." Fury pushed up the other sleeve.

Phil's eyes grew comically large in his smooth young face -- four years old, if Fury was any judge -- and he clasped his now-exposed hands together. "Oh," he said in his piping tenor. "Then what do we do now?"

Inspired by this art by Rascal Paradyne: