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“Joshua Coulson?” The nurse called, holding open the doorway that led into the interior hallway. She scanned the room, filled with mothers and children, a chaotic scene at 11:15 in the morning. Three preschoolers were fighting over the Thomas the Tank Engine train table, two newborns in carriers were crying to get free of their restraints, an elementary aged boy was punching the cushions of his older brother’s chair with a steady thump, thump, thump, and a teenage girl with a Frappuccino from Starbucks was texting on her iPhone, music leaking from her ear buds.
Clint felt completely out-of-place in the primary colored room with Disney posters and Nick Jr on the televisions. This world was alien, unknown; give him a back alley in New Orleans, a slum in Calcutta, or even one of Tony’s high society galas and Clint could blend in, do his job, and get out. But this? Kids and vaccinations and alphabet songs and pre-school waiting lists? So not his thing.
Gathering up Josh from where he was banging some wooden blocks together on the floor and slinging the big diaper bag over his shoulder, Clint held the squirming boy who didn’t want to leave the toys behind. The nurse, a blonde Nordic type, whipcord slim and in her mid-fifties, eyed him up and down, from the scuffed toes of his ancient Doc Marten’s to the sunglasses perched on his head, the ones Josh was trying to pull off, his little fingers wrapped around Clint’s ear, yanking at his hair.
“Mr. Coulson?” Her name was Ingrid according to her name tag; she shut the door behind them and led into a room with cabinets, a fridge and a small scale, the kind Clint had seen at the deli where he bought his favorite reuben sandwich.
“Barton,” he corrected. Josh twisted at the waist and reached for a jar of q-tips, getting his hand close enough to knock it over and spill them across the countertop. “I’m sorry, he’s into everything lately.”
“No problem.” She took a zwieback cookie from another jar and handed it to Josh. It went immediately into his mouth and he chewed on it happily. “He’s teething. Everything goes right in their mouth at this age. Can you sit him on the scale for me?”
Josh screamed the minute his butt hit the plastic; the platform was wider, more stable than the ones Clint had seen, but Josh wanted off and he was having none of this. Arms held out, his sticky little fingers opened and closed, his sign language to be picked up.
“Papapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapa,” Josh cried, the sound like a series of pops. Wet crumbs fell all over the counter.
“It’s okay, big guy. Just got to get your …” Clint jumped as Josh tumbled out of the scale, onto the small counter and rolling towards the edge in less than a second. Catching him mid fall, Clint pulled Josh in close to his chest, hugging him tight. “Jesus, kid, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“That was …” Ingrid’s eyes were wide and she stared at Clint. “Wow.”
“He’s fast.” Clint caught a glob of cookie with his fingers and wiped it on his own shirt.
“Um, I need to get his temp, if you can hold him still?” Ingrid asked.
Fortunately, she had one of those thermometers that swiped across the forehead and gave an instant reading because Josh was bouncing in Clint’s hold, shouting “Gin!!!!”
“No, we’re not doing that again,” Clint told him. Josh’s face fell, his nose crinkled, and a little tear appeared at the corner of his eye. “That’s not going to work, buddy, so crank those tears back in.”
Josh wailed anyway, pushing against the soft cotton of Clint’s t-shirt to get free. Clint moved the boy more securely onto his hip, ignoring the loud sound.
“This way.” Ingrid took them to an exam room with teddy bear wallpaper and a basket full books and toys. “The doctor will be with you shortly,” she said as she left them to wait.
“Okay, okay.” Clint put Josh on the floor; the kid was like an octopus sometimes, all arms and legs that pushed and shoved and rolled right over Clint. “See what there is to take apart.”
Josh went right for the multi-sized colorful rings before Clint could grab a paper towel from the holder and wipe his mouth and hands. Little fingerprints appeared on the floor and Clint swiped them up too. Kids were mess making machines; Clint had seen less damage done after a firefight than Josh and Bella could produce in fifteen minutes. Dropping cross legged on the floor, Clint found the post that went with the rings, putting them on one at a time, biggest at the bottom first, and then reversing the order. Josh was more interested in trying to shove one ring through another than stacking them; Clint shifted through the books and found the Hungry Caterpillar. Soon as Josh saw the leaf on the cover, he clambered into Clint’s lap and demanded “Ead!”
Ninety two minutes later, Clint was ready to put the caterpillar on hook and go fishing if he had to read the thing one more time. He kept checking his phone for the time; Phil had texted three times on his progress getting there and Clint’s replies were getting increasingly terse. He’d talked to Margaret, the nanny, for an update on Bella – she had a runny nose and little cough, but was doing well. Natasha had offered to come hurry things along, and Clint was thinking about taking her up on the offer when the doctor finally came in the room. A short man with a balding head and little round metal glasses, his nose buried in the manila folder, flipping through the pages of paperwork, he didn’t look up before he began talking.
“21% percentile in weight is low for this age. We’ll need blood sugar, full thyroid panel, pretty much the whole smear, motor skills … I’ll recommend a good PT person to work with his development issues. A regimen of supplements and testing for allergies. That’s always an issue with these children …” For the first time, the doctor looked up and he stopped mid-sentence, staring. “Oh. Sorry. I was … Mr. Coulson?”
“Barton.” Clint tamped down on his anger and offered his hand; this guy was supposed to be the top doctor in all of New York City to deal with drug-related developmental issues. “And this is Joshua.”
The doctor looked between Clint and Josh, back again then down at his folder, flipping through a few pages. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I mean, most of our parents are adoptive, of course. It’s just not clear in the file …” He floundered for a bit, at a loss for what to say, resorting to the pages before him. “The testing you’ve had done … what doctor were you seeing? I don’t recognize the names here.”
“It’s a private lab, part of Stark Industries,” Clint said, nerves already frayed and not happy with this turn of events. They’d waited three months to get this appointment, even with Tony’s pull, and they’d hoped to get a firm diagnosis and plan. “We’re worried about how Josh responds to stimuli …”
“Yes, yes, I see that. Clothes, certain detergents, preference for soft voices and dim lights … that’s Sensory Processing Disorder, very common in crack babies. We can put him on a low level dosage of Focalin and that will help with his ADHD as well. I’ll recommend an occupational therapist who’ll help you regiment your day …” The doctor rambled on, but Clint stopped listening, the import of the words sinking in.
“ADHD? Drugs? Wait. What?” How could this guy, who hadn’t even looked at Josh much less examined him, diagnose him so fast? Since the day after these two beautiful children had come into their lives, Clint had been reading everything he could find about children born to drug addicted mothers, and with Tony’s resources that was quite a bit to study. And Clint wasn’t alone; everyone had stepped in to help, from Bruce doing the herculean share of the testing to Tony creating an advanced white noise machine that used a mixture of the circadian cycle and classical music to help both kids sleep through the night. This guy slapping a name on it and handing them some pills? Yeah, no. Clint wasn’t ready for this.
“Best to get him started now; he’ll need to take the drugs the rest of his life and it’s easier if that’s all he’s ever known. Kids often struggle with the change in behavior and personality, refusing to take their meds for a variety of reasons. If it’s all he’s ever known, he’ll have an easier time of it. Plus, he’ll have a higher chance of functioning at a normal level if he’s on them.”
The door swung open and Phil came in, tugging down the sleeves of his suit coat, a move that let Clint know Phil had been hurrying to get here. One look at Clint’s face was all Phil needed. He turned on the doctor.
“I’m Phil Coulson. What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
“DADADADADADADADADADA!!!” Josh shouted at top volume, squirming even more as he reached for Phil. Without a thought about his pristine suit, Phil caught the little boy up and settled him on his hip. Josh’s wet and messy hand grabbed Phil’s silk tie and pulled.
“Mr. Coulson.” The doctor seemed relieved as if Phil was what he’d been expecting all along, not the muscular, younger Clint. “As I was explaining to your … Mr. Barton … I’ll be prescribing Josh a series of medications to help manage his disorders and referring you to counselors. As part of the course of action, we’ll need to do extensive testing to determine the level of disruption his Sensory Processing and Attention Deficit, Hyperactivity will have on his ability to engage in normal activities. Usually, in cases like these, I prefer to make appointments without the child present so we can chart the goals for his treatment.”
Clint put a hand on Phil’s shoulder, stepping closer. He wasn’t sure he could keep his emotions under control right now – he wanted to slug this guy and scream at the top of his lungs that he didn’t even know Josh so how did he know what was right for him – and Clint needed Phil’s strength to stop himself. But he could feel Phil tense beneath his hand, the coil of muscles right before Phil launched into action.
“Phil,” Clint managed to say, but Phil talked right over Clint.
“We’re done here, Clint. Let’s go.” That was Phil’s field order voice; Clint grabbed the diaper bag, ready to follow him out.
“I’m sorry. What?” The doctor asked, confused.
“We’ll be seeking another opinion Doctor Faust,” Phil said in a clipped tone. “One from someone who actually takes the time to examine Josh and not make his judgments based upon expectations. I hope that race and gender didn’t factor into the assumptions you made; I’d hate to think that Josh’s ethnicity or his fathers’ sexual preference matter.”
“Of course not!” Faust seemed affronted. “I’ve just seen a lot of causes of black children adopted by white parents who, no offense, mean well but don’t understand the reality of what crack and heroin do to a child. You’re not the first couple to get in over your heads.”
“If you’d read the file,” Phil said, “You’d know it was neither of those drugs. Secondly, we are far from the stereotypical gay couple picking out a designer baby … and to suggest that to anyone is rude and ignorant. But mostly you’re one-size-fits-all strategy of dealing with individual children is outdated and unacceptable. Clint?” Phil opened the door and paused. In his arms, Josh had gone completely quiet, eyes wide as he stared at his fathers and the doctor.
“And, by the way, an hour and a half wait for you to sail in and drop a prescription on us? Yeah, no thanks.” Clint nodded to Phil and they left the office, blowing down the hallway and out into the waiting room. It was only a fifteen minute walk to the Tower and they were silent the whole way; Margaret took one look at their faces when they came in, snagged a fussy Josh from Phil and went to make him a snack.
“Well, that was some high drama,” Clint tried to joke, but the sounds got stuck in the back of his throat, hanging up on a half sob. “ADHD, Phil. Sensory Disorder. The medications are almost as bad as the disease. And so many kids misdiagnosed just because they’ve got extra energy. That’s Josh’s problem; he’s just a baby with too much energy, right?”
Strong arms went around him, pulling him tight against Phil’s chest; Clint could smell the cookie Josh had been eating, the scent of baby powder that had become so familiar. Tucking his head into Phil’s neck, he let the warmth of his husband’s body chase away the icy doubt that had snuck in at the doctor’s words.
“The man’s a fool,” Phil said, dropping a kiss on Clint’s forehead. “We’ll find someone else – I have a line on a therapist who helps families with behavioral issues, says that it’s all in establishing routines and consistency. Both Josh and Bella have been doing much better since we instituted the bedtime ritual of bath, book, bed, and Brahms.”
“Bruce has been talking about that woman at Cleveland Clinic, the one who is studying gluten and dairy and the effect on hypersensitive kids. We could talk to her.” Clint was feeling steadier by the minute. “Josh is only two-years-old. We’ve got plenty of time. And if that stupid preschool Tony is pushing doesn’t want him, well, the hell with them. Better for them to stay here in the Tower where they know the people, right?”
“Agreed.” With a squeeze, Phil stepped back and looked at Clint. “Let’s go see the little mess makers, shall we? You know Bella will be on pins and needles since she didn’t get to go with you.”
“No way I could handle both of them,” Clint admitted.
“Hey, I managed you and Natasha for years,” Phil nudged him and they headed for the kitchen.
“Natasha’s got nothing on Bella, I’m telling you. Although, Tasha could probably sneak into Faust’s office and …”
“No,” Phil said. “Don’t give her any ideas. She doesn’t need encouragement.”
“Fine,” Clint replied. “But I get to tell Tony his choice of a doctor was a putz.”
“Done.” Phil slipped his suit coat off and dropped it on the back of a chair just as Bella launched herself across the room and into his arms. Clint watched him twirl the little red-headed girl around, tossing her up in the air and catching her in a big hug.
“Me too! “Josh shouted and waved his cup full of juice.
Clint felt better already.