High School is Hell

[wearebothangry]

 Bruce stared at the huge building with a sense of dread. He loved the academic side of school, the order of numbers, the exploration of science and of course the mountains of words found in books. But he loathed the people. Teachers would get too nosy about his bruises and the other students thought he was weird and ignored him. He ducked his head and headed inside praying no one decided he was going to be their target today, being his father's target was bad enough. 

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[nexttarget]

Clint parks his scooter, Phil had said not motorcycle until after graduation and he took the safety classes, but this was okay and better then nothing.

While there where days he missed his mom, he never missed his dad, and he'd gotten lucky after Barney got arrested, with the second home he ended up.

He couldn't call Phil, dad all the time, but the social worker seemed to understand that.

He'd been living with Phil since he was in 6th grade and now it was his jr of Highschool, and Phil had finally been able to fully adopt him.

It was weird, but good weird, the best kind of weird. Yeah there where a lot of rules, and Clint broke them sometimes, but he never got into real trouble any more. Not after Barney got locked up, and he got placed with Phil, the first year with the social worker was the hardest.

But Clint was pretty fucked up when he got handed off to the man.

Now it was the first day of his junior year, Phil was already talking about college applications and SAT's and it sent a line of panic through Clint sometimes, sure he was smart, but not that kind of smart.

He gets to his locker and puts his helmet in and pulls out his books and shoves them into his bag and sees Bruce walking by and smiles at the curly haired boy, who shares his homeroom.

He laughs a little as his foster brother shoulder bumps him a little still getting the hang of his new prosthetic, Bucky is a grade a head of him, but he's pretty cool, he came to live with im a Phil after Clint had been with Phil for two years.

He moves into his home room and sits down behind Bruce, smiling a little and waiting for the schedules to be handed out.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce goes as red as a beet when Clint smiles at him in the hallway. Bruce had had a massive crush on the jock since freshman year but he'd been too shy to say anything. His father had drummed into his head that he was too smart for the dumbass world and not only that he was too skinny and bruised for anyone to notice him. He was starting to open up a bit with the help of his friends Tony, Jane, Leo and Jemma but it was slow going.

He still couldn't look his crush in the face without choking and waiting to bury his head in his arms. He really was hopeless.

[nexttarget]

Clint stares at the back of Bruce's head his fingers itch to play with the guys hair. He's been sitting behind him since freshman year, crushing on him since he was a sophomore.

He'd told himself over the summer that he would make a move this year or try to.

Mr. Jackson moves around the room handing out class sheets. Clint looks his over and licks his lips a little. "Hey Bruce what do you have..." He asks biting his lower lip a little.

"I have English, ASL, and Bio today... tomorrow, US History, Math, and Drama..." He hopes he has a class with Bruce.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce looks at his paper and blushes again speaking with a slight stammer. "We have ASL, Drama and Bio together," he manages, He'd wanted to take ASL because he knew Clint used it some times and he felt maybe he could talk with his hands better than he could with his mouth. Drama was his mother's idea, she wanted him to get to know people and find something he was better at than just science.

[nexttarget]

Clint smiles a little and nods, "Good you can help me in Bio." He laughs softly giving Bruce a slightly awkward smile.

They go over a few things in homeroom at the end, "I'll see you in ASL..." He says picking up his backpack.

English isn't that bad, they're going to be reading Fahrenheit 451 for the first book of the year.

He moves into ASL and sits toward the front of the class like he always does, his hearing aide is great but sometimes.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce sits in the back off to the side so that he can watch Clint's hands. He learns so much more from watching Clint's hands then he does from the teacher. He does his best to mirror the other boy's movements even thought his slim fingers don't seem to want to make the right shapes.

[nexttarget]

The teacher comes in and signs the greeting, and hands out the books.

He goes over a few things with them before telling them to partner up and practice introductions.

Clint moves over to Bruce before anyone can try to grab him as a partner.

'Hi wanna be my partner." He asks both verbally and through sign.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce feels his heartbeat pick up a bit and he nods and clumsy signs "Yes I'd like to be your partners...."

[nexttarget]

Clint smiles and moves his desk next to Bruce grinning a little. He looks at the list of what they are suppose to practice.

'You wanna go first?' He asks smiling a little signing and talking.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce glances at the sheet too and then signs and speaks. "Hello my name is Bruce, nice to eat you." His fingers stumble a bit on finger spelling his name so much so he doesn't notice he signed the wrong word.

[nexttarget]

"You wanna eat me?" Clint signs and speaks, grinning a little at Bruce, but as soon as he says it his cheeks go pink.

"Here..." He reaches out takes Bruce's hand and shows him how to do it, "You don't have to go fast it's okay." He smiles.

"Hi my name is Clint, Nice to meet you Bruce." He signs easily and speaks.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce goes bright red again and ducks his head so his curly hair hides his heated face. "I'm sorry," he speaks and signs, "my fingers don't want to go the right way...they are as stupid as me."

[nexttarget]

"No.. it's okay." Clint says signing and speaking still, "I had trouble when I was first learned... you're not stupid, I was actually going to ask if you could help me in bio this year." He says and then rubs the back of his neck. "I could help you here, far trade... though I'm not as smart as you.' he says looking at the list again.

He works through the rest of list with with Bruce, and smiles a little, "Wanna get lunch together?" He asks when the class bell rings.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce smiles a little, just a slight flash of white. "Okay," he stammers, "I can help you in bio and yes I'll have lunch with you if my friends can come. They worry a little if I change my routine."

[nexttarget]

"Alright..." Clint nods, as they head to the cafeteria, Clint gets a slice of pizza and bottle of water and an apple. They find a table and it's not long before Bucky, Steve and Thor flop down with them and he can see Bruce's friends heading over.

"Practice starts next week." Steve says taking a drag off his inhaler, and Clint grins a little. He likes Steve, even with his asthma he's the best player on the team, he's got scholarship offers and everything.

"Alright, Clint nods taking the sheet of paper from Steve, this is Bruce." Steve and Bucky smile and wave.

[wearebothangry]

A tall thin dark haired boy plops himself down beside Bruce as Bruce mutters a hello. "Hi I'm Tony," he chirps as two girls and a red haired boy join them. "That's Leo,. Jemma and Jane. The science posse. Nice to see Brucie finally manned up and said hello."

[nexttarget]

"Hi." Clint smiles reaching up and adjusting the dial on the purple plastic hearing aide in his right ear, the cafeteria it was sometimes hard to hear.

Everyone he's friends with are pretty chill and it turns out everyone Bruce's friends with are pretty chill to except Tony, but it's not bad energy by any means.

"Well I haven't really said hi to him either..." He says a little color going to his cheeks, and he covers himself by taking a bite of pizza.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce blushes too and buries his face in his food, a salad and a hot dog. "Aw come on you two," Tony says, "It's been painful to watch you two dance around each other for years."

[nexttarget]

"Yeah..." Bucky says laughing a little, "I have to live with it." He snorts.

Clint shoves Bucky and gives him a pleading look shaking his head.

Clint licks his lips and takes a sip of his water, "Well if Bruce wanted to go get coffee or something on Saturday, I would like that." Clint says not looking at Bruce.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce is so red at this point he looks like he is about to bust a blood vessel. He mutters something that Jane leans in to hear. "He said he'd like that," she says excited, "the coffee thing that is."

[nexttarget]

Clint smiles a little and takes a couple of bites out of his pizza, and shakes his head a Bucky and Tony high five.

"At lest our friends like each other?" Clint teases a little trying to get Bruce to relax a little, but his cheeks are very pink right now as well.

The bell rings saying they have 10 minutes to finish up and get to class, "Come on Bruce we gotta get to Bio, gonna make sure I don't fall asleep right?"

Steve and Bucky are Seniors like Tony, but Jane and Thor are in their year and their bio class. "Hey were's Sam?" He asks blinking at Steve as he packs up his stuff taking a bite out of his apple.

"Student Government meeting." He says easily pulling his backpack on. "Started before school, going over Spirit week next next week." Which makes Bucky roll his eyes.

[wearebothangry]

Bruce nods. "Sam tried to get me to chair the float committee but I'm not a good leader. Plus my dad doesn't really like me doing things after school. He needs me to help my mom with chores and things."

[nexttarget]

"That sucks..." Clint says licking his lips as he finishes his pizza, "Was hoping we could do stuff after school sometimes, the helping thing." He shrugs as he tosses his stuff in the trash and the group starts to head to class.

[wearebothangry]

"I'd like to but my dad is not someone you want to get mad," Bruce says ducking his head, "I can skirt around some of his rules but not all of them."

[nexttarget]

"Well, just think about it, maybe ask your mom." Clint smiles, "I guess we can have weekends though right." He grins a little as they head into class with Jane.