Chapter Text
There’s a puppy in his backyard.
Clint would never have noticed if he hadn’t decided to stand at his backdoor and drink his coffee, looking over the icy landscape of way more yard than he ever anticipates needing.
But he had and he is, and the first thing he notices is Lucky bouncing around the uneven, snow-covered ground. Lucky is skittish. He’s a sweet dog, but he was, well, poorly socialized is putting it kindly, and bouncing is not really a thing he does. Laying on the floors and lazily batting a tennis ball at Clint in an approximation of ‘fetch’ is the closest he comes to playful doggy behavior. That, and begging for people food with a wildly wagging tail.
But now he looks ecstatic, leaping around with his head low and his butt high, tail going madly.
So Clint can be forgiven for not noticing the smaller brown fuzzy… thing… that he’s entertaining himself with. There’s also the consideration that Clint hasn’t finished his first cup of coffee yet and it takes at least three for his brain to really get going. Never mind that it’s nearly noon.
He’s watching Lucky with a slight sense of bemusement for several minutes before he even realizes there’s another animal, and it’s another long few moments before he identifies that the other animal appears to be a puppy. Clint lets them have at it until he’s downed a second cup of coffee, and then he whistles out the back door for Lucky. The puppy looks up at the whistle too, as Lucky straightens up and turns back to Clint with his tongue lolling out.
Lucky turns to come trotting in, and Clint can’t hear it, but the puppy must make some kind of sound, because Lucky turns back and noses at him, and then heads for the house, turning back expectantly for the puppy to follow. It takes a couple of hesitant steps, and then it must hear something else Clint can’t hear, because it pauses before turning to the side like it’s gonna bolt.
“Oh, hey,” Clint says, taking a step out onto the porch. It’s freezing, and he hasn’t even got socks on, dammit. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says gently.
But the puppy yips into the distance, darts forward to pounce on Lucky one last time, nearly knocking him over, and then dashes off in the other direction.
“Well,” Clint says, stepping back inside onto slightly-warmer wooden floors. “That was weird.”
Lucky follows him in, shaking slush and snow off his fur, and then goes and collapses in front of the fireplace, asleep in moments.
Clint shakes his head.
***
The puppy is back.
It’s been a couple of days, and Clint thought it was a one-off, because Lucky investigates the yard every morning with a kind of dejected sigh before doing his business and trotting back in, until today.
Lucky’s been out longer than usual and when Clint goes to investigate, he can see the puppy is back. Or he assumes it’s the same puppy. He didn’t really get a good look at it the other day, other than a mass of brown floof and triangular ears.
Today, though, the pup comes trotting right up to the porch with Lucky, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, like Clint’s no threat at all.
“Hey there,” Clint says, and bends down to pet it, but the puppy dances out of reach, letting out a tiny and adorable little yip-bark.
“Okay,” he says, holding his hands up. “No petting. Got it. Are you hungry?”
The pup sits on its haunches and tilts its head, giving Clint a quizzical sort of look, then it barks, just once, high-pitched and sharp. Clint thinks it’s a husky mix, maybe. They seem to be popular, here in this tiny backwoods town he’s moved to, this particular breed of thick-furred large dogs. It seems like half the town has one, sometimes. So it probably belongs to someone. There’s no collar, but it doesn’t look underfed or dirty. Its coat is glossy and shiny, and it looks happy and used to people, if not Clint specifically.
Clint fills up Lucky’s bowl with kibble, and then he pulls down a cereal bowl and puts out a second helping for the pup.
The puppy sniffs at it and then gives Clint a look that can only be described as disdainful.
“Suit yourself,” Clint tells the puppy, and busies himself with his own breakfast, which is a very sad attempt at scrambled eggs and some toast.
He gets ambushed, though, as the puppy gets its teeth in the hem of his jeans and tugs just enough that Clint stumbles and half the eggs slide off his plate and onto the floor.
“Goddammit,” Clint mutters, as the pup scarfs down Clint’s breakfast without remorse.
***
Today’s puppy is black.
It follows Lucky into the house like it belongs there, and then follows Clint around from room to room, sniffing at everything and barking at him every so often, like Clint’s supposed to know what that means. It barks at the door to the laundry closet until Clint finally opens it with an exasperated fine, and the pup happily sniffs at Clint’s pile of dirty socks and the trash bin of lint until it sneezes.
Then it follows Clint to the kitchen and wags happily at him with big green eyes and a pleading look until Clint relents and gives it a piece of bacon.
This backfires immediately, because Clint ends up with wet, dirty paws soaking his pajama pants and a fuzzy head under his elbow while he tries to eat. The puppy doesn’t actively steal the rest of his breakfast, but what’s Clint supposed to do with that? He can eat just as well with his left hand, but the puppy lets him scratch behind its ears when he feeds it bits of toast and eggs and bacon, and who is he to tell the universe he doesn’t want to pet a puppy? Clint’s not sure how much of his breakfast he actually gets to eat, but the plate is empty when the pup’s ears perk up and it wiggles its way out of his lap to the backdoor, howling madly to be let out.
“Food thief,” Clint tells it with amusement as he gets up to open the door. “You just came to eat my breakfast and now you’re running out on me.”
The puppy huffs out an offended-sounding snort and shakes its head, rubs up against the leg of his pants, and then darts out when Clint opens the door.
“You’re a sucker,” Clint tells himself as he shuts the door again. Both puppies are obviously well-fed and well cared-for, with shiny fur and round little bellies, and he is being suckered into feeding them by wagging tails and pleading faces, and this is why Lucky’s old vet had always been so exasperated with him.
Clint knows better than this.
And then he looks at the clock and curses, swearing under his breath as he ducks into his bedroom to change clothes and rush out the door, only half-fed and undercaffeinated.
It’s going to be a long day.
***
Bristol, Indiana is… a very small town.
Very small.
It’s got a real-life Main Street, a half-dozen historical sites, and no night life to speak of.
Everything closes by 8pm, and nothing is open before 9am, and Clint is… adjusting. He grew up in a small town in Iowa, he knows how it goes, but it’s a bit of a culture shock after so many years in Brooklyn, with its 24-hour bodegas and take out and pizza any time he felt like it.
There is exactly one pizza place in Bristol. It’s called Chicago’s Downtown Eatery, which means it’s not the New York style pizza Clint’s grown accustomed to and loves, but it’s pizza, and he fuckin’ loves pizza. And they deliver, so that’s a definite plus. He hasn’t got a car, so he’s walking everywhere. Which is fine, he’s also used to walking, but sometimes you just don’t wanna put pants on. Unfortunately they’re closed today, which means he’s gonna have to figure something else to eat tonight, and he wonders if anywhere else in town delivers to his new address.
His new address, which is weird. He’s bopped between addresses for most of his life, except the last three years he was in New York, where he rented a small apartment to call home.
But that was before everything.
Before the Tracksuit Draculas, and the mafia money, and the dog he rescued-slash-stole. Before he had to call Natasha and convince her to help him, before he had to get the hell out of New York.
So. Clint’s settling into small town life, and so far it’s going… okay.
Now he’s got a house, bought outright in his own, real name, and yeah, maybe it needs some work - the paint could be touched up, for one thing, and he thinks the yard maintenance is gonna be a real bitch come summer - but still. His very own house. Three whole bedrooms! Plus, he's got his dog, his bow, and a job that he’s late for on his very first day but what else is new?
Things could be worse.
Principal Rogers is waiting for him in the front office when Clint gets to the elementary school. It’s only a five minute drive, but Clint hasn’t worked out a car situation yet, so it’s a 16 minute walk, and Clint’s taken it at a light jog. He comes in a little winded and sweaty, an apology on his lips, but the man just beams at him from where he’s leaning on the wall obviously waiting for him.
“Barton!” Steve Rogers says, and Clint wonders if he hadn’t been a gym teacher before becoming principal, because he’s got that deep, booming voice that people who’ve been yelling at kids in a gym for years always seem to have, and the widest set of shoulders Clint’s ever seen, including his own. “Nice to finally meet you in person,” he adds, holding out a hand to shake.
Clint takes it, a little overwhelmed by the exuberance and sheer presence of the man in front of him. He’d interviewed for the job by phone, and then a second round by Skype, and neither had conveyed exactly what it would be like to meet Principal Rogers in person. He carries himself with a casual air of authority, but not like he’s gonna be a dickhead about it. He seems genuinely nice, and had been polite and affable throughout the interview process.
Clint’s got a kinesiology degree, see, and in New York it was relatively worthless. Couldn’t even be a personal trainer, not without a certification, so he bounced between teaching archery gigs and performing at parties, to working at various gyms and coffee shops, and even one very boring stint as a security guard.
But in Bristol, Indiana, the kinesiology degree is good enough to get him hired as a teacher. It’s wild. He’s got to take a few courses as a condition of his employment to get a teaching certification, but the school district is paying for them, and once he’s done he’ll get a raise as well. The pay’s not great, but Clint doesn’t need much because the cost of living is dirt cheap compared to what he’s used to, and anyway the house is paid off in full. Clint just needs to keep the utilities on and himself and Lucky fed.
Besides, he loves kids. He figures as long as he doesn’t traumatize them like the P.E. teacher he’d had in his third or fourth foster home, somewhere in Kansas City, he’ll do alright. Clint firmly believes that P.E. should be fun and there should be dodgeball every Friday, and he’d said as much in the interview. Steve Rogers had grinned at him, wide and a little wolf-ish, when he’d agreed.
The job offer had come in his email that afternoon.
The actual job application had come from Natasha, emailed to him with no context, just a link to apply, and Clint, desperate to get out of the motel in Jersey he’d been hanging out in for three weeks while Natasha did her government job, hush-hush bullshit to get things neatly wrapped up, had taken his desperation out on the online form. It took less than a day to get a call back, and less than a week to get through the interview process, and then a further two weeks and a ten hour drive in a shitty U-Haul for Clint to get his shit and get his ass to Indiana.
So he’s been in town less than a week, and he was supposed to be starting work five minutes ago.
“Sorry I’m late,” Clint says belatedly.
“Oh that’s fine,” Principal Rogers says, clapping Clint on the shoulder, “the district gave us a temp, so you don’t actually have to start today. But we’ve got paperwork to do and I thought I’d give you a tour.”
Inwardly, Clint groans. Paperwork. Outwardly, he offers a smile that feels a little odd. This had all seemed like a good idea when he’d filled out the application while sitting in a shitty hotel on a coarse bedspread, but now that he’s here, he’s panicking a little. What the fuck does he know about teaching kids? Who would trust him with that?
Steve Rogers still looks incredibly pleased to see him, though, so Clint lets his feet follow where the principal leads.
They tour the school. It’s small. The town is small, so it makes sense the school is small. The elementary school serves all the kids in Bristol, which is something like 500 kids according to Principal Rogers, and then they divide them up into a couple of middle schools and high schools over in Elkhart, which is about 15 minutes away.
“Well, we might have you fill in at the middle schools occasionally,” Principal ‘Call Me Steve’ Rogers says, a little apologetic. “But mostly you’ll be here.”
There’s only about 2 classes per grade in the entire school, and each grade has its own P.E. time, so Clint’s busy from about 8:00 to 4:00 every day, except his lunch hour.
It’ll still be less grueling than the coffee shop gig, he figures. And at least it’ll be fun. He thinks. He hopes.
Steve shows him to the gym last, after he’s seen the Art Hall, prominently displaying varying degrees of stick figures, the library, the cafeteria, and the nurse’s office. The gym is like every other school gym Clint’s ever been in - and he’s seen a lot of them - though it’s in surprisingly good condition for such a small area in Clint’s opinion. The floors are shiny with wax and the basketball goals are dated but in good repair. The balls and other equipment are all aired up appropriately and stacked neatly in bins in the equipment room.
“And this is your office,” Steve says with a flourish, flipping through keys on the frankly enormous ring in his pocket before unlocking the door.
Clint has an office. It really is weird times.
Inside the room are a large metal desk, a small metal filing cabinet, a bookshelf with several binders and a few books, and posters that Clint intends to remove as soon as humanly possible. They’re posters of athletes that predate even Clint, an old food pyramid with faded colors, and one about attitude that Clint immediately hates on principle.
Two things you are in control of in your life: Your attitude and your effort.
Yeah, that’s coming down immediately.
Steve gestures, and Clint rounds the desk, dragging his fingertips over the slightly scarred surface and glancing around. Steve is standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching him. Clint’s not sure if he’s being judged or not, but he decides to ignore it as he turns his back to look more closely at the bookshelves.
There’s at least three textbooks on nutrition and healthy eating, which thankfully Clint got the full run of in college, two on body mechanics, and one Anatomy and Physiology text that looks like it last saw the inside of a classroom in the 80s. There are also binders labeled by grade level and two different ones that say ‘State Standards’ in neat, blocky handwriting.
Clint reaches for the second grade binder, just to look, and Steve pipes up behind him.
“That should be Maria’s lesson plans,” he offers. “We’ve had a temp from the district since she went on maternity leave in November, but she gave her notice after Christmas. Wants to stay home with the kids for a few years.” He says the last bit sort of fondly, Clint thinks, like he’s happy to lose a teacher to the joys of motherhood.
“Ah,” Clint says, feeling relieved. At least he’s got somewhere to start. He doesn’t know fuck-all about lesson planning. He wasn’t aware gym teachers had to plan lessons. He’s going to have to do a lot of googling.
“You can change them as much as you like,” Steve adds. “The kids would probably like something new.”
Clint hums something non-committal as he flips through the binder. They’re dropping the square dancing lesson for sure. He doesn’t know if he has to do a dancing module, but if he does it’ll be something different. There’s got to be a better option than the do-si-do. He’s familiar with nearly everything in the book, at least, and he can think of three or four different ways to make it more fun just off the top of his head. Jumping rope in place is boring, but skipping games are fun.
He’ll workshop it.
He slides the binder back into place and resists the urge to reach for the rest.
“So,” Clint says, turning around and plastering a smile on his face. “You mentioned paperwork?”
***
It’s surprisingly little, when everything's said and done. Clint has to fill out banking information and emergency contact information - his bank is still in New York and Natasha is his point person as always - and then there’s a contract to sign, which includes his salary, the education requirements, and things like health insurance, vacation and sick time, which are novelties Clint is unused to. He even gets a retirement fund.
The whole thing is weirdly adult-like.
He’s got a week to settle in as well. The temp is contracted through Friday, which will give Clint time to google as many variations on ‘how to be a gym teacher’ as he can think of, read through the lesson plans and state standards and decide what, if any, changes he wants to make, and he’s been invited to watch the P.E. classes to get a feel for the kids before he gets thrown into the deep end.
All in all it’s a good deal.
Almost too good, really. Clint keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing in his life has ever gone this smoothly no matter what he did.
But so far, so good, so Clint’s gonna let it ride because his whole life has been a roll of the dice anyway.
He spends most of the day going through the binders and sticking post-its he finds in the drawer in places where he thinks he might make changes, occasionally consulting the standards binders - which have helpful examples - and ordering new posters on Amazon.
Fuck Michael Jordan, it’s time for Simone Biles.
While he’s at it, he goes ahead and orders a Katie Ledecky poster, because women who make grown men weep are always winners, and Mete Gazoz just because he thinks the archer who won the Olympic gold medal deserves more respect. He’s still deciding what to replace the now-missing Attitude poster with, but he did find a neat My Plate thing to replace the old food pyramid. He’s not sure if he has to have something like that, but it’s easy enough to tack up where the old one was.
After lunch - and he knows it’s lunch because the gym is right next to the cafeteria and he can hear screaming children for a solid two hours - the gym gets busy and he makes it a point to lean in the doorway and watch how it goes.
The gym is full of second graders at the moment, according to the schedule that’s taped to the filing cabinet, and they’re… basically wild animals.
The temp is trying, Clint can see that. The current module is jump ropes, and about half the kids are dutifully standing in one spot and hopping over the rope one carefully-timed jump at a time, and the other half are…
Well they’re doing everything except jump rope. There’s an impromptu tug-of-war going on across the room between six kids, weirdly imbalanced with two kids on one side and four on the other. The pair is winning. In another spot several children are trying to lasso each other, laughing hysterically. At least one of them is pretending to be an animal, probably a cow, based on the sounds they’re making. Three kids are having a heated argument over a purple jump rope, which Clint can sympathize with, really, he can, but also-
It’s kinda chaotic.
The temp blows her whistle several times, but the kids who are already ignoring her just continue to do so.
Clint can’t leave it alone. He should. He knows he should. It’s his first day, and he doesn’t know a thing about being a teacher. But he remembers a little of what it’s like to be a kid.
So he wades into the fray.
He gets the tug-of-war kids into a group skipping game, carefully explaining how to jump in and out of the rope without getting smacked in the face with it, and he separates the lasso kids enough to get them at least part way back on track. He discovers a couple of them are already really good at jumping rope, so he gives them a bit more of a challenge, demonstrating a skipping jump that takes more concentration than basic hopping. And then it’s purple jump rope time.
There’s a lot of shouting involved. And finger pointing. And ‘but I had it first’ from two of them, so there’s no way to know which kid actually had the jump rope first. So Clint confiscates it, but only enough to show off with it a little. He hasn’t jumped rope in years, but he’s got good hand-eye coordination and a flare for dramatic, so once he’s done it on one foot, and backwards, and one foot while backwards, and criss-cross, he’s distracted them enough that he can safely wrap the jump rope up and tuck it in his pocket and send them back to the bins for other jump ropes.
Apparently there’s only one purple one and it’s coveted.
Clint resolves to lock it in his office.
By the time the bell rings nearly every kid in the class is successfully distracted and utilizing the ropes in a mostly-appropriate way, and when Clint looks up, Steve Rogers is standing at the doorway of the gym giving him an odd sort of look.
Clint gives him an awkward wave, and Steve grins at him, wide enough to be disconcerting, and disappears back down the hallway.
