Might Make a Leader Yet
Steve was nervous; feeling like his body was a suit of clothes too large for him. It was a familiar feeling, one that had been almost constant since the day he stepped into Erskine’s machine and had come out into a legend. He shuffled the papers that he had laid out on the conference room table and tried some of the calming techniques Sam had shared with him. They helped a little. He glanced at the clock and saw that he had another 5 minutes before Director Falls was due to join him to discuss what to do with Clint.
After the Delaware hot wash incident, Steve had gone back and reviewed footage from missions for the last 6 months. Then he had asked Sam to do the same. They had met together to discuss their findings in the small living room that was attached to Steve’s bedroom – a perk of being team leader and a constant reminder of how everything had changed. When Tony had originally designed the Compound, all of the members had suites with small kitchens. But under the Accords, only a few people lived fulltime at the Compound so the suites had been redesigned into single rooms. And Steve could understand the efficiency of the redesign, but it was also a strong signal that Tony Stark now looked at the Avengers as merely teammates who got accommodations, not friends, not family to whom he gave homes.
Steve jerked himself out of the reverie and back to the matter at hand. Sam had definitely agreed about Clint’s recklessness and the communication aspect. Then Steve had done what he realized he should have done to begin with and asked Natasha for her opinion. He winced at the memory of having to apologize to her about not consulting her earlier; she was officially the second on the team. She had been surprisingly gracious about that and gave her evaluation of Clint. But she had let him know that he needed to pick up his game, “I know that hot wash turned into an event. However, the team didn’t say anything different on the jet then they’ve been saying for months, Steve. I have urged Clint to think but it’s a lost cause if you don’t say anything either.”
Steve yanked his mind back to the papers in front of him that showed the results of his investigation into Clint’s behavior, as well as Natasha and Sam’s observations. Clint had become more reckless and it was affecting the entire team. The problem with Falcon was obvious; Sam had been pulled out of position to rescue Clint in 76% of their last 30 missions as opposed to less than 25% of the time before that. Lang was the least affected (then again, Steve considered, he wasn’t affected by much). Wanda, according to Natasha (who was irritated by this) was highly distracted by Clint and divided her attention between tracking him and the mission, which, Natasha pointed out tartly, contributed to success in neither. She had also said that she had, on several missions, covered for Clint’s recklessness. He could even trace changes in his own behavior; he had been (he was ashamed to admit) less likely to call Clint on his mistakes. The excuses he had given for this were all about how difficult Clint’s situation was with the precarious relations with his wife and family. But none of that negated, Steve knew, his clear duty as the leader of the team to deal with a problematic team member.
He had discussed the situation with Dr. Bortich who had reminded him of the conversation between Steve and Sam over a year ago about leadership and responsibility and their follow up discussion. The therapist had pointed out that one of the responsibilities of being the leader is making decisions that prioritize the team over a single member. If Clint was threatening the team’s safety and success, then, as leader, Steve needed to deal with the problem. Although as a friend, Steve might avoid the issue, as a leader he couldn’t. It was a difficult session; it had started with Steve having to admit that he refused to reprimand Clint for his recklessness and then descended from there. Dr. Bortich (who had an excellent memory) reminded Steve that he had no problem castigating Ironman for being reckless. Steve had agreed with that and, under gentle prodding, admitted that Ironman had never endangered the team, just himself. Steve then had to answer the question of why it was so easy for him to tell Tony he was careless, but so hard for him to see that Clint was endangering the team. Once again, the answer seemed to be how he saw the two men. He saw Clint, first and foremost, in a sympathetic light that made him it hard to see how Clint was behaving badly and doing it consciously. After a great deal more prodding, he agreed that he saw Tony as challenging his leadership decisions by taking independent action which made it easier to see his risk taking as a bad thing and easier to attack him on it.
Then Dr. Bortich had asked Steve if he thought that ignoring Clint’s issues helped Clint. Steve had said that more pressure could hardly be good for someone who was already under so much. The therapist countered by pointing out that requiring Clint to be in life and death situations was by any definition an insane amount of pressure. He went further, asking Steve to really think through the implications of allowing Clint to act so destructively. What would be the consequences? Steve agreed that someone could get hurt or killed and that might be Clint. Dr. Bortich then pointed out that the guilt from such a situation would be far worse for Clint (assuming that he wasn’t killed) then being benched and undergoing counseling. He had then told Steve, in a kindly way, that part of being a leader was understanding that you dealt with bad situations even when they would make people you liked angry at you. Steve had come out of the discussion with the understanding that ignoring Clint’s very real problems had not helped anyone, especially Clint. And, more painfully, an even fuller understanding of how bad his previous relationship with Tony had been.
At this point in his musings, Director Falls came in. It said something, he thought to himself with morbid humor, that the Director coming to talk to him about a problem with his team was an improvement over his own thoughts. The Director settled himself and greeted Steve with his usual gravity. “I want to start by saying how pleased I am that you wanted my advice in this matter. It speaks to your character that you are willing to admit that there is a problem and to ask for assistance in resolving it. Now, I thought we might start with you articulating the problems that you see and how you are thinking of approaching them.”
Steve made himself not shuffle his papers and started, “I think there are two different problems and they need to be approached differently. The first one is the problem with communication and professionalism in the team; the other one is with an individual member of the team – Hawkeye. So, I was thinking I would deal with the team problem first…”
Falls interrupted him, “I wouldn’t advise that, Steve. Whatever you decide to do about Hawkeye, it is going to disrupt your team dynamics. If you first chastise the team and then single out one of the team for action, you will just have to call everyone together again to explain what is going on. I would recommend dealing with the individual and far more serious problem first.”
Steve nodded at Falls’ point, “OK, I’m actually not sure how to handle Hawkeye. I don’t want him off the team permanently. I would think counseling, but he has been through counseling before and it hasn’t worked very well.”
“Was that general therapy or anger management?”
“General, I think. It was at SHIELD after New York. I wasn’t in charge of him then so I wasn’t consulted. It was actually T – Ironman who told me. So, I’m worried that the Avengers will lose him and he is valuable to the team and the Avengers.” Steve got most of this out in a rush since he was worried about how Falls would take the news, but he and Dr. Bortich had gamed it out and they had agreed that honesty was best at this point.
Dr. Falls paused for a moment to make sure that Steve had nothing to add and then spoke, “Sometimes, people find therapy easier when they have a specific goal. He has to accept therapy and work to reduce his recklessness or he is a threat to everyone on the team.” He continued with more seriousness, “You have been letting this problem fester without saying anything, so when you come down on him, he will be shocked. Normally, I would prefer to give people a warning and allow them an opportunity to improve on their own. But I am afraid that Hawkeye will get himself or someone else injured or killed so I think you have to pull him from the team and place him in therapy until he is on a more even keel. It is unfair to everyone on your team or working with them to allow him to be in the field. And that is what you need to tell him.”
“I know, but I’m afraid that he is so angry that he won’t listen and then we lose him.”
“That would be his choice and you have to respect that. Maybe have the Black Widow with you when you talk to him? They have a long relationship and mutual respect that may work. In fact, I would definitely get her advice on how to approach Hawkeye.” Steve mentally winced, reading a censure into that comment that Falls might not have intended.
They then turned to a discussion of the team-wide behaviors. Steve presented his findings and his conversations with Sam and Natasha, neither of which had gone the way Steve expected. Sam had agreed about the communications but both he and Natasha were resistant to the idea that the team’s discussions were unprofessional. Sam, in particular, surprised Steve by being much more upset over the fact that the hot wash had been recorded and that the pilot had reported them. He had complained about being held responsible for speech in the wake of a difficult mission when, as he put it, emotions were being fueled by adrenaline. Natasha had disliked the lack of privacy implied by the recording. He assumed it was the holdover from a lifetime of working for agencies with no accountability.
Falls listened to all of this and then commented, “I think you would have better luck addressing the team-wide challenges as a general lack of professionalism. Rather than bringing in the example of Ironman, which I think would derail the discussion; I would start from the fact that a stranger to your team, the pilot, found your discussions so unprofessional, he reported you. That way, you’re presenting this as a disinterested outsider’s view. That can make it less personal to them and more of a group thing.”
Steve considered this and then nodded, “That could work.” He was happy to have found a way out of the mess. “Although, talking to Clint won’t be easy. Having Nat there will definitely help though.”
There was a pause and then Falls said, “I hope you don’t mind my saying this. I know that you have been in a leadership position for small teams for a while now. But you weren’t ever given any training, were you? On the managing people side. If you had gone through officer’s training, you would have been given a lot of tools to deal with these types of issues. You might want to consider getting some of that training now. I could certainly arrange for you to attend some classes at the War College.”
Steve thought about the offer. Falls was right about the lack of training. Now that he had watched Rhodes and Danvers manage teams around the Compound, he could see that they were rarely caught off guard, seeming to always have an answer for the personnel issues they faced, or at least an idea of what to do. He had always been the leader in less formal situations and the new Accords structure was showing him the gaps in his knowledge. Dr. Bortich, he thought wryly, would tell him to consider it as a ‘new’ experience. “That…might be a good idea. Frankly,” he said with a disarming grin, “even if I had been trained, everything would be different now.”
They finished up soon after that with Steve leaving first to go tell Natasha the new plan. Falls stayed seated for a moment after the Captain left with a meditative air. The conversation had gone far better than either he or Rhodes had thought. Now, if this new attitude of Rogers remained while they separated him from his ‘adoring’ team and got him some real training, they might make a leader of him yet.