WHO Clint & Nate Barton WHERE Nate's room WHEN Directly following this convo WHAT Clint checks in on Nate following Francis' heads up. WARNINGS Depiction of anxiety attack, language, teenage angst STATUS Complete
Hearing that Nate had apparently dumped James was a bit of a surprise. Although Clint couldn't say he knew everything that was going on with the pair, it wasn't like they just rushed into things either. Francis asking him to check up on Nate was a bigger surprise, but with Nat and Francis taking care of looking for James to be sure he was fine, Clint figured he could take care of Nathan.
It was a little uncharted, given that the kids were so much older than they had been, Nathan had only been five during the snap, and while Clint was pretty sure he'd been doing okay with teenagers and adult children, there was still a fair amount of stuff he wasn't prepared for -their heartbreak being one of them. He'd expected this wouldn't come for a long time, long enough that he (and Laura) could prepare themselves for it all. But improvising was something they were getting good at, and Clint was damn lucky his kids weren't overly complicated.
Arriving at the room, Clint sighed at the half taken down blanket and pillow fort in the living room. It wasn't exactly an issue, having it up this long, few of them were in the suite that often and Nate sat in it to play his games so, it wasn't bothering anyone. But the fact that he'd stopped half way through had Clint turning quickly towards Nate's room. "Nathan, kiddo," they were definitely going to need a lot of ice cream.
Usually, Nate could busy himself to keep his mind focused. He'd been told it was a good way to offset the spiralling thoughts that usually led to his over-worrying and building anxiousness, so busy it was. He'd cleaned the kitchen, not a single complaint, since it was his chore, since they were all his chores it seemed, then took out the trash and then...
The fort.
It hadn't been a surprise that Dad and Nat let him leave it up, that neither of them complained about it in the living room taking up space. Dad never really complained about things and Nat just ruffled his head and fixed a blanket that had fallen off. They'd made it bigger, enough that it took up most of the living room, it was a stupid size for one person and... Well there was no point in it now. Francis hadn't been staying with them, James was finding somewhere else, why bother with a giant fort that no one used. He was just being an idiot.
The first few blankets were easy, putting them into piles to put back in his siblings rooms, the large one from Dad and Nat's room being folded over and over until it was basically just rolled up.
Francis only stayed at their place a few times, because James was there, and then James wasn't there so Francis wasn't there. They didn't even come to dinner, successful cooking team up of the kitchen disasters and it wasn't like Francis had to come and hang out with them all the time, Nathan wasn't expecting another brother, maybe just a friend that knew they were messed up. Although a brother would've been cool too. But of course Francis was James' friend, not theirs, even if he sort of hung out with them. James was the reason he did that, like when James stopped Francis stopped. It wasn't like they should've expect---
The tight clench in his chest was getting painful. The headache hadn't stopped. Shit.
Nate went to Lila's room first, he already knew that Dad and Nat weren't home, but maybe Lila had just been hiding out to avoid his over dramatic freak out bullshit about his boyfriend -ex boyfriend- and would be... No. No Lila, no Dad, no Cooper. Shit. There was no way he'd get up to Morgan's room before it started and he was not being the weirdo in the elevator crying because he was stupid. The best place was his room, against the wall and under the window, before he started shaking like a fucking loon.
He had no idea how much time had passed, he was sitting in the corner, shaking and he was sure the sobbing had started at some point. He barely raised his head when he heard Dad, just shaking and wrapping his arms around himself tighter.
Shit.
This was pretty much what he'd expected, seeing half the fort pulled down and no sign of Nate. It didn't make dealing with a mid-way attack any better. They were far easier for Nate to come through when someone was around from the start of it. "Hey, okay, where are we at?" But the best thing to do if it wasn't settling was work through it with him. "C'mere." Lila was definitely better at this, given they'd already grown up together, but Clint was aware that Nate just needed someone there through this.
It took a little shuffling, Clint getting his back to the wall and Nate against his chest, helping him sit upright rather than hunching in on himself. "Let's get your breathing regular before we worry about anything else, okay?" He could feel the tremors, his hand over Nate's heart confirming the racing heartbeat too, which was probably what triggered the crying and shaking. He'd been privy to one of these out of the blue, in the kitchen not long after Cooper went from old man to late twenties and Nate had a mild to moderate attack. They'd managed to get that under control before the sobbing started.
Until that happened here, all Clint could really do was talk in Nate's ear to let him calm enough for them to work through his breathing. How any of this got so messed up, Clint wasn't exactly sure. He figured kids would be kids, but these weren't average kids. The shit they'd all been through in the space of just seventeen years was intense, enough that they all had some kind of baggage to deal with, even if it wasn't the same, and apparently no one had been dealing with their baggage at all.
The moment he'd felt Dad move him, Nate had almost curled into the solid chest, there'd been a hiccup of a sob before he just tried focusing on the voice, letting it shut up the mantra going through his head. He'd managed with the meditation stuff before, and if he could calm his breathing and focus on something or someone else before the attack really got its claws in, he could cut it off at just the headache, nausea and chest pain. Sometimes, it didn't work though.
He was kind of glad it was his dad this time, as much as Lila was good at letting him sob on her until the shakes stopped, dad's constant stream of words tended to pull a little bit of Nate's focus to curb some of it. He always felt like a wreck, no matter who was with him, but at least he could pretend to not be a total freak around his sister if she didn't see as many. Maybe then she wouldn't find out she was the cause of some.
Nate could feel dad talking almost as much as he could hear him, a steady drone, soft rumbles against his chest, and steadily, the shaking started to subside, the sobs were only when he stopped breathing for a second or two, and the exhaustion hit like bricks dropping on his head. "Did you just say I could get a pet?"
The learning curve for this was steep, and Clint understood that it had to be. Going from a five year old who just wanted to play outside, colour his books and help dad with the renovations to a seventeen year old with severe anxiety and mild abandonment issues was something Clint just needed to deal with overnight, there was no adjustment period and he couldn't just wait it out, see if it stopped. Nate needed more than that. Clint and Nat had their share of shit, from the chaos their lives were before SHIELD to the shit they ended up with during SHIELD to the chaos that followed in the wake of the Avengers. But the system of support around them helped with that, beyond just SHIELD medics making sure none of them fucking snapped, they had friends that went through that shit too and just as much could help deal with it.
Clint didn't really have a basis for 'snapped out of existence and brought back' to go with, and maybe he should ask if Wanda could talk to Nate about some stuff, just because she'd snapped too and Nate adored her.
When Nate started to settle, Clint paused enough to make sure it wasn't because he'd stopped breathing entirely and decided to pass out, "I did." Among other things, but if Nate wanted a pet, they'd get him a pet.
"How's your head?"
Relatively speaking, there wasn't a lot worse than coming down from an anxiety attack. His mind still spewed out a bunch of shitty suggestions and thoughts, although at least it had stopped telling him his family were all going to die. And even if he was seventeen and far too old to be cuddling with his parents, Nate just shuffling a little to lean into his dad, head pillowing on his shoulder. "'m okay." The headache wasn't as bad as it had been in the past, although he figured it might be worse in the morning, the shakes left him tired and out of it and while his heartbeat wasn't completely normal yet, it was slowing down. "Feel sick and gross though." All the fun side effects of being pathetic.
At least it was private, he was privately pathetic. Winning.
"What if I want a snake though? Or a parrot? Would that be allowed?" He didn't really want a snake, or a parrot. If anything, Nate missed all the animals they had on the farm, running around like loons. He missed chasing chickens back into the coop or running away from goats that had decided he wasn't allowed to clean out their pen, or rustling up the umpteen dogs that Dad just constantly found places and brought home like he was some kind of pied piper for dogs.
"I'm all gross and sweaty." Which he hated, but it wasn't exactly enough to get him off the floor or away from his dad.
Resting his chin atop Nate's head, Clint just settled in, arm around Nate's shoulders and rubbing down his arm. "You want a snake you can have one, you just need to explain by there's live rodents in the apartment to Nat." Snakes weren't that big a deal, when you knew how to dismember a man, having some mice in the apartment wasn't that big a deal. "The parrot might be a bigger battle." But he was pretty sure that if Nate really wanted a parrot then Nate would get a parrot.
"Yeah, you are," his hair was damp and his face was streaked with tears, but it didn't seem like Nathan was getting ready to move or pull away, so Clint had no problem rolling with it. "Tingles or numb? How's your chest?" If they could work through the aftershocks without triggering another attack then they'd be doing good. But it did mean that they needed to broach just what Nate was dealing with.
"You wanna talk about it?" He totally knew that Morgan and Lila were the go to people for Nathan to talk about these things with, but in the absence of either, they would at least need to try.
He'd think about it later, talk about a pet if he was really serious later when he wasn't a stupid gibbering idiot of anxiety. Maybe not a snake or a parrot or something dumb, something that might actually help him stay focused and current and doing something useful. "No, my stomach hurts but I think it's just a cramp." Nothing felt terribly wrong, like he might have another episode, so if they could just focus on not doing that, it'd be good. Except that did mean talking about things.
But he'd told Torunn, so he might as well tell his dad.
"I broke up with James. I'm still not sure if I did the right thing or if I'm just letting myself get all caught up in my head," he sort of knew that James only mentioned Francis because Nate mentioned Francis, but until James mentioned that he hadn't seen much of Francis, Nate hadn't really considered that he hadn't. And then his brain went into super power and went right into all the ways that James and Francis were closer than close and Nate was basically just screwing things up. "I'm just... I feel like I'm screwing it all up. And I'll just get in the way anyway, so it's better, probably. I mean it's shitty of me to expect James to deal with more stuff, and his friends and family from home are showing up, it's not like I should--"
The rambling was starting.
"Hey, hey. Stop, stop." Slowing down Nate's brain was half the battle. The kid was smart, even when he didn't think he was, but his brain made all these leaps it was hard to track why Nate had the thoughts he did, or how he got to them. Six degrees of separation were usually part of the explanation, and when they aren't about his mind fucking him over, it could be fun to listen to Nate get to the conclusions he could based on those leaps. "Forget about right or wrong, it's okay. Whatever happened, it's okay." There was probably something behind it, and Clint didn't really want to insert himself into James or Nate's relationship if he didn't need to. They were old enough to not need a hovering parent, and responsible enough to not be stupid.
Although both Clint and Nat were concerned about this outcome and how it might've affected them both in the first place.
"You do not get in the way, what makes you think that you get in the way?" If they had to talk through every single one of Nate's logic leaps they would, if only to get him to acknowledge that it wouldn't be the way his brain was saying it would.
On the whole, Nate never really wanted to be one of the super hero types. He didn't want to learn how to fight, didn't need to learn archery or shooting or anything like that. He was fine not being one of the awesome superhero people. Part of it was to stay home with dad and mom, part of it was because he was a bundle of nerves at the best of times, and another was because he was sure he'd freak out at the slightest of things and that was not what a superhero needed to be.
And it was less of a problem at home, he didn't see it all the time, he was at home. The most he got of it was when Lila was gone or when Cooper called to pre-warn people that there might be something on the news but don't panic, it was a small explosion. "I just... You guys can go do stuff, and I know that James stayed behind last time because I was being weird and stupid. I don't wanna be the reason someone doesn't go help their friends, and then something bad happens and--"
He cut himself off before Dad needed to, taking a slow, steadying breath and gripping to his dad's wrist, finding a grounding point to just stop and breath and not think.
Clint shifted his hand from Nate's shoulder to the back of his neck, squeezing softly and making a point in keeping their breathing matched. "You worried about being left behind again?"
It wasn't unreasonable, as much as this place really seemed to be somewhat stable and calm, there were those moments when things went a little crazy. Nathan experiencing one of the worst one of those when the dark came down and all the bad things attacked, that was probably the least beneficial to him. Since all of the people he lived with went out to fight at some point, Clint understood that he'd be worried about causing someone to not go out to fight. But he also knew that Nate wasn't exactly equipped to go out and fight.
"You know, Tony would probably make you something. Not a suit or anything, but, Pepper's gonna need someone to look out for her and the baby." It wasn't going out, it wasn't even really having weapons, because Jesus the kid was dangerous with a knife sometimes, but it was something. "If you're worried about that."
The grip helped, his and Dad's, holding to something that was there and in the moment.
"Yeah?" Okay, so Morgan had offered a time or two before, if he wanted a suit, she'd make something. Not a full suit, she'd been working on her own at home, kept sending him colour ideas. He'd never felt the urge to ask her for one, not once. Only suggested she put in airbags. But Dad raised a decent enough point. Almost all of Nathan's friends were capable of doing something, his family, his friends, they were all the hero types, going out there to save the day. But there were some people would couldn't. "Do you think, do you think you could ask him?"
A small part of Nate was worried that him and James not being together was going to cause problems. Like Nat would be in a bad spot between him and her other-reality kid, like maybe Steve would be upset or pick a side. Tony was the closest James had to a parent in his world, and Nate didn't want to make things more complicated than they were.
"Of course I will." If it helped Nate in some way, then Clint would see what could be done, he really doubted Tony would mind at all.
"Do you wanna move from the floor yet?" There wasn't really a rush, but the sooner they could get Nate feeling like normal the less likely he'd slip back into his thoughts. "C'mon, we'll get you something to drink, you wanna go for a shower, Nat should be home soon and we can watch a movie?" Lila might show up at some point, but she was off living her life, which Clint felt was something she didn't get much chance to do at home either. He and Nat could keep Nathan from having some kind of break down in the middle of the night, hopefully keep him focused or get him talking.
"Shower would be good."
He was mostly just feeling tired, and a little stupid, with a headache to end all headaches. A shower would help, heat and some time to just shut off. And if Dad and Nat were going to stick around he could very selfishly enjoy the time to himself with his parents, since Nat was quickly moving into more than just an aunt. And he could just soak up the attention and feel bad about it tomorrow and not worry so much. It might mean he didn't think too much about the missing fort too.
"Can we have omelettes?" A weird comfort food, but one all the same.
"Sure," Omelettes and some quality time, he'd check in with Nat about how James was doing while Nate was in the shower and they'd figure out how to work through this mess. "C'mon, let's get you up." Clint gave Nate's neck a last squeeze, pressing a kiss to his forehead before shuffling them to get up, keeping the kid close to make sure he was steady on his feet at first. Once they were both up and Nate didn't look like he was going to fall over straight away, Clint led them out of the bedroom, hands on Nate's shoulders. "On you go, I'll start omelettes and see when Nat'll be home."
He made a point in steering Nate past the blankets on the sofa, he'd deal with that before Nate came out, and if he was feeling up to it later, they could see if he wanted to talk about what exactly triggered things. "Gimme a shout in you need me, okay?"
Nate wasn't about to point out that he'd need to be about to brain himself on the shower wall in the middle of a stroke to call his dad into the shower. He was pathetic but he hadn't lost all of his dignity just yet. But there was a chance that the shower would be held off while Dad explained how normal that was or something, and then the floor would need to open up under him or something. But the promise of omelettes and a movie and not being on his own for the night was good and Nate opted to just give Dad a quick hug before slipping into the bathroom.