Why me?

The File

I could manage Clint.

"He appears to be in the common room." I followed JARVIS's directions and went into the common room. Clint was exactly where I expected him to be. He was alone too – even better. He looked up when I sat on the couch next to him.

"What's up?"

"I just spoke to my therapist. He wanted me to be around someone until he gets here, and you were unoccupied in my time of need."

"Fair enough. Wanna talk about it?" He put his phone away in his pocket, giving me his undivided attention. I nodded. "Go ahead, I'm all ears."

"I feel like relapsing again, y'know-" I made a gesture of drawing lines on my forearm. Clint was a little smarter than Bucky and put the pieces together pretty quickly.

"You're not doing great, are you?" He asked sombrely. I shook my head. "How long did he say he was gonna be?"

"A couple hours. He's upstate, but on his way."

"Ok, let's occupy ourselves shall we. Mario Kart?" We sat for almost an hour playing round after round of Mario Kart. It was a good way to distract me – quick thinking on Clint's part – but that nagging itch to hurt something was still there. Clint noticed me getting more and more agitated as we played, unable to stay still properly. He paused the game and pulled the controller out of my hands. "OK, Jess. Something isn't right here. You're never this uncomfortable in your skin." The downside of living with three master assassins; then always knew when something was off.

"Your skin. Look, Clint. I'm sorry, but I really don't wanna talk about it." He gave me a look that gave me no choice but to talk, however. "Ugh, fine. Sam said he was gonna call Steve and tell him to talk to me, and Sam never breaks his word, but Steve didn't come. Bucky promised me whenever I needed to talk he would be there, but when I finally plucked up the courage to talk to him, he brushed me away until it was too late. It's getting back around to the point where I feel like nobody cares."

"Sam, as in, our Sam?" I nodded. "Oh, Ok. Well, what did he say to do exactly?"

"Exactly." I repeated, and Clint straightened up. He'd definitely noticed by now. "He said to go and find someone, anyone who's free, and talk to them. He said he was going to tell Steve to come and find me, but he never did. He also said he wants to get her and find me unharmed and alive, and that was non-negotiable." I reeled off.

"Jess, I'm gonna ask you something, and forgive me if it sounds bad, but are you Autistic?" No, no, no, no, no people weren't supposed to find out. For the very first time since I moved in, I felt myself very quickly falling into a meltdown. I curled in on myself, tucking my knees up under my chin and rocked back and forth a little, the bionics scraping my chin. "Jess, it's OK if you are. You wanna know something? I am too, why did you think everyone knew what they were looking for?" That stopped me in my tracks.

"Wait? You're on the spectrum too?" he nodded.

"I think we might be very similar. Your tells are very close to mine. You repeat the end of sentences if something is overwhelming you, you don't like people touching you without asking, and loud noises bother you, correct?" It was my turn to nod in reply now. "That's why I love archery so much, it's my special interest, or one of them at least. Do you have any?" Clint had really set the ball rolling now, snapping me from my looming meltdown and distracting me from my current woes entirely. I sat forward eagerly, finally being able to let my autism manifest in the way it wanted to. "Yeah, what are yours?" He coaxed gently, shuffling to face me more.

"My biggest one is music, specifically a band called Twenty One Pilots. I love them and I've made it my life goal to learn all I can about them. Maybe I'll get to see them one day, that would be amazing!" I explained excitedly. The small glow in Clint's eye told me he had a plan now. 

"Do you want to tell me about them?" I shied back from him a little, now nervous. I didn't want to overwhelm him. "C'mon. Infodump whatever you can; See if you can talk about them until Sam gets here, he can't be that long now."

Challenge Accepted. I talked to Clint about where the band came from, who was in it, the albums, the songs and anything else that mixed into the words as I spoke, and he seemed genuinely interested. I felt like I hadn't been talking for that long, but there was a knock on the door, and we both flinched a little "That will be Sam." I said, "Thanks, Clint. For distracting me. Oh, and if you want to tell everyone then you can, it think they have a right to know." I told him.

"Ok, now go get the door, he'll think your not interested." I jumped up and opened the door.

"Sam!" I half screeched, it had been so long since I'd seen him. I stepped back a little so he could come in, internally restraining myself so I didn't end up hugging him.

"Hey, kid!" He replied with a fond smile. "How's it goin'?" His expression changed slightly, but barely noticeable.

"So far so good, thank Clint for that."

"I will do. OK, where are we going?" He asked. I hadn't thought of that. Where could Sam and I go to talk, that we didn't risk someone walking in or overhearing?

"If I may interrupt, if I initiate a certain protocol, you can use any room in the tower, and it will be soundproof and locked down to anyone but yourselves," JARVIS said.

"Thanks, J. Can you put it in my room?"

"Of course."

I turned back to Sam. "Ok, follow me."

In my room, we ended up sitting on the floor. I didn't have any chairs in my room apart from my desk chair – I made a mental note to ask Tony if I could get a couch for my room. "Right then, Kid. Where are we starting this time? You said a hell of a lot had happened?" Sam inquired, pulling a file from his bag. My file.

"You kept that?" I asked incredulously. I hadn't spoken to Sam for nearly four years now, and he still had my file. All I got was a nod, then he opened his notebook and poised himself to make notes. "Do you want me to start from the beginning of everything?"

"Wherever you want to start from."

"Start from." Now I was with someone who knew my autism inside out, I stopped masking and let myself go, stimming when I needed to and not making any eye contact. "Ok, Let's go with the beginning. I'm not sure how much will make sense without that. Steve became a teacher at my high school to pick his intern and ended up choosing me after something happened. I finished school then ended up living here. Since then, my grandma, you remember Annie, died, and I became paralysed from the waist down. Tony made me the bionics, I've had them for a few days now.

"That's the main background information but loads happened just today. I nearly relapsed 'cause Bucky ignored me and - and Clint found out I was autistic and – and -" I lost all methods of communication and broke down.

"Jess, I need you to slow down for me, you're hyperventilating, kid." Sam coaxed. He reached out and hovered a hand above my arm, asking permission before he did anything. I nodded and he lightly grasped my wrist and placed my hand on his chest. "Just like we practised, kid. Breathe to my heartbeat. Just like we practised, only this time it's real. Can you try it for me?" 

I hadn't used this technique in forever, not since I last spoke to Sam, but something clicked in my brain, and I was doing it, controlling my breathing and timing it as well as I could to Sam's slow and steady heartbeat. Something else soon snapped into play, however, and I became hyper-aware of Sam's had on me and I snatched it back, now stimming like crazy.

"Jess, listen to me. I've seen you like this before, you know I have, so you don't need to get worked up about that part. What's going on? Talk to me."

"Too much. Too much. Can't." I curled up small and clamped my hands over my ears.

Sam immediately knew what was wrong and jumped up to close the blinds and shut the lights off before pulling the weighted blanket off my bed and grabbing my headphones. he spoke quietly when he eventually did. "You know the drill, Jess. Lay down for me kid." He crouched in front of me and put my headphones in my hand. I took them and put them in, settling a little at the loss of noise, then lay back.

Ever so slowly, Sam layed the weighted blanket over me and everything started to settle down. He gently lifted me onto my bed then broke all contact. "Get some sleep kiddo. You're always drained after sensory overloads." I nodded a little and repositioned to get comfortable as he left my room.