Gift Fic: Overtime (Marvel Movie-verse, PG)
Author’s Note: This is a 2011 Holiday Fic Exchange gift fic for the ever-dazzling dazzledfirestar. This is a new universe and set of characters for me. I hope I’ve done them justice. Merry Christmas, Daz!
This is the prompt she gave me:
Fandom: Marvel Movie-verse (MSV or canon)
Pairing/trio/group: Hawkeye, Black Widow, Agent Coulson
Prompt: "Someone has to keep an eye on the world, even over Christmas."
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own the recognizable characters or the universe they live in. I am just borrowing them for the purpose of entertainment. I make no money from this work. I believe this fic is self contained enough that it could be considered either strictly canon or to be set in the MSV continuity. I would rate this fic as PG.
Overtime
“But it’s Christmas.” Clint protested, almost indignant. He stopped lounging in his chair and leaned forward. Wasn’t working for the government supposed to come with all those paid federal holidays that every working stiff in America was supposed to covet?
“Christmas Eve, technically.” Agent Coulson gave them that cool smile of his across the desk. On the center of that desk lay a manila folder. An observant eye might catch a hint of color at its edges. There was a hint of red and green amongst the paler colors. “Someone has to keep an eye on the world, even over Christmas.”
“I can’t recall the last time there was anything worthy of S.H.I.E.L.D’s attention that occurred during the holidays.” Natasha sounded skeptical, but she drew closer to rest one hip on the edge of Coulson’s desk.
“There’s always a first time.” Coulson’s smile didn’t waver. “We’ve just received some intel from what we consider credible sources.”
“We’ll get extra pay for this, right? Seeing as it’s a holiday?” Clint reached for the folder, but Natasha beat him to it. His fingertips barely brushed the edge before she whisked it out of his reach. Clint watched her face as she opened it and began to skim. The Black Widow had a pretty damned good poker face when she needed it. But…
“You can’t be serious.” She dropped the folder back on the desk, letting it fall open so that glossy photos and several large red and green cards embossed with gold lettering spilled across the desk. “This isn’t a job for Hawkeye and the Black Widow. This is…”
“A job for Mary Poppins.” Clint stood and began to flip through the stack, pausing to read the cards. “This is a Christmas party, Coulson. A Christmas party for children. This has got to be the wrong file.”
“I assure you it is not the wrong file.” Coulson’s smile widened slightly as he nudged the pile back into a more orderly arrangement. “These are some rather well-connected children and this is a highly sensitive assignment.”
“If it isn’t a joke, it must be a bet. It is a bet, isn’t it?” Clint was almost pleading. “If you need somebody or something shot, I’m your man. But kids…”
“I really don’t see why this merits our involvement, Agent Coulson.” Natasha frowned at one photo. The little girl did seem vaguely familiar.
“Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. A very highly respected member of the Senate is holding a party for several dozen politicians, diplomats, and even a few heads of state from other countries. They have been encouraged to bring their families and there will be entertainment provided for the children while the adults mingle. Essentially two separate parties. One for the adults and one for the children.”
“So?” Clint was frowning.
“So. Our intel indicates that someone, possibly a Hydra team, possibly another, competing terrorist organization, intends to abduct one or more of these children. To be used as leverage against their loved ones, we assume.”
“So we aren’t sure of who the bad guy is? Or even which child or children are to be targeted?” Natasha summed it up succinctly.
“Exactly. And it is because of the vagueness of the intel that the Secret Service has all but discounted it. They will be concentrating their efforts on protecting the adult attendees.”
“So we get to play babysitter instead?” Clint didn’t try to hide his disgust.
“This will be a delicate mission. The children must be kept safe. But we want to keep it low profile.”
“We don’t want to tip our hand and scare off the mark?” Clint shuffled the photos into a stack and began to seriously study the little faces.
“Or traumatize the children unnecessarily.” Coulson added. “And for that reason, you’ll be going in disguised as someone innocuous.”
“Innocuous?” Natasha raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Someone non-threatening.” Agent Coulson elaborated.
“How non-threatening?” Clint asked, his tone suspicious.
“Very.”
~*~
How do I get myself into these things? Clint rubbed the padding beneath the plush red velvet where his stomach would never, god willing, ever be. The damned suit was hot and itchy. And then there were the kids.
“I’m next!”
“No, I’m next!”
“No way! I got here first.”
“Well, my dad’s a Prime Minister. You’re dad’s just an Undersecretary.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Clint boomed with false cheer, hoping to drown out the bickering. “You there, little boy. Come sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what you want for Christmas.” He gave the redheaded elf a meaningful look as she herded the boy onto the low dais. Natasha rolled her eyes at him before scanning the room over the chubby tyke’s blonde head. Clint grunted as he lifted the child onto his lap.
“What’s your name little boy?” He listened with only half an ear to the boy’s prattle. He had joined Natasha in the constant scanning of the room. Coulson was lost somewhere among the other random adults that hovered around the edges of the large banquet hall. Some of them were servants, some private security, and some were simply the boot-licking hangers on that politicians everywhere tended to collect like this damned Santa costume collected lint.
Child after child trooped up the line and onto the dais. Each one seemed to weigh more than the last. By the time the line wound down, Santa was more than ready for his ‘milk and cookies’ break. So far, the only action he and Natasha had seen was breaking up a fight between a Senator’s daughter and an ambassador’s son. The girl had managed to land an elbow in his gut that was hard enough that he actually felt it through the padding. And he’d almost lost his beard when the boy had grabbed it in the scuffle. He’d had to stop to straighten out his costume before returning to his duties. But Natasha had come through without a single curl or pointed ear out of place.
His break was nearly over when Coulson’s cool voice came through the earpiece hidden beneath the long white wig he wore. “Heads up, people. We have a problem.”
“What’s up?” Clint spoke quietly, trusting the hidden microphone to pick it up. He spared a thought for whoever it was who would have to listen through the recording later. It wouldn’t be him. He’d already listened to it all once, damned if he’d do it twice.
“Our latest head count has come up short.” It was Natasha’s voice in his ear. She’d just appeared out of nowhere. Like magic. “One of the girls didn’t come back out of the bathroom.”
“You checked?”
“She’s gone.” Natasha answered, the cold expression on her face completely at odds with the perky little elf she’d been playing most of the evening. “Anna Lingham, the ambassador’s daughter.”
“Damn it. How?” They were already moving, eyes scanning the crowd, searching for an unguarded exit.
“You haven’t been anywhere near the girl’s bathroom, have you?” Natasha asked quietly.
“No.” Clint shot his partner a look. “Santa hanging around a girl’s bathroom would just be too creepy.”
“Exactly. We should have spotted him sooner.” Coulson’s voice in his ear again. Clint didn’t bother to look for him.
“Where?”
“Has to be the stairwell.” Natasha was pulling ahead of him. Her costume was much better suited to chasing down suspects than his was. No extra padding or itchy fake fur for her. Totally unfair if he stopped to think about it. He didn’t.
“Ladies first.” He held the stairwell door open for her, careful not to present more of a target than he had to. Natasha slipped past him like a liquid red and green shadow, a gun simply appearing in her hand as if from thin air. Clint’s draw wasn’t quite as smooth seeing that his holster was beneath the false belly. But it did the job. He kept the piece down low as he slipped into the stairwell behind her. No need to give some rich kid nightmares about a pistol-packing Santa Claus.
Speaking of pistol-packing Santas - he was just in time to catch a glimpse of another man in a red and white suit turn a corner about three flights below. There was a large heavy sack slung over the other man’s shoulder. Maybe large enough to hold an eight year old girl?
“Confirming stairwell. Bad Santa is on his way down with the package.” He spoke quietly, trusting the mike to catch his voice.
“Floor?” Coulson asked.
“Between fifteen and fourteen, heading down.” Clint added.
“On twelve. We’ll sandwich him.”
Below them, the other Santa cursed in a decidedly unjolly fashion as the stairwell door below him flew open. Coulson eased through the opening just as Natasha vaulted over the railing one flight below Clint to land behind the suspect. A shot rang out, echoing through the stairwell. The shot went wide, carving a chip out of the concrete wall just to the left of the doorway Coulson had just stepped through.
Clint crouched down behind the railing, weapon already raised and trained. The other Santa shrugged, dropping his burden. The sack fell heavily and Natasha aborted the sideswiping kick that would have taken his feet out from under him, changing it into a dive to catch the sack before it could connect with the concrete stairs or roll right beneath the guard rail and into open space. Tasha went down with the sack, cushioning it with her body.
The suspect turned, throwing his back to the wall, shifting his aim toward Natasha. He never completed the motion. Clint’s finger twitched and a small dot of red blossomed between the other Santa’s bushy brown eyebrows. Apparently his costume department hadn’t bothered with the little details. Before the body could even begin to slide down the wall, Clint was moving, pounding down the steps to reach Natasha’s side just as Coulson joined them. Coulson bent over the body to check its pulse. “Dead.”
“I never miss.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“How’s the kid?” Clint asked. Natasha was already dragging the heavy canvas from around the little girl. She was groggy, her limbs slack and her eyes unfocused.
“Santa? Are we still going to the North Pole?”
“Not tonight sweetheart. Blitzen ate too many cookies and he’s got a tummy ache. Maybe next year.”
“Barton.” Natasha gave him a dirty look.
“She probably won’t remember any of this, anyway. So what does it matter?”
“What matters is that Santa’s milk and cookie break was over five minutes ago.” Coulson gestured back up the stairs.
“You’re kidding right? We got the bad Santa, saved the kid. Time to go, right?” Clint stared at him in disbelief.
“He might not have been working alone.” Natasha handed the sleepy girl over to Coulson. “We’d better get back in there.”
“And I thought the big guy had it easy, working just one night a year.” Clint sighed heavily and adjusted his padded belly before holstering his pistol. “I guess a Santa’s work is never done.”
This is the prompt she gave me:
Fandom: Marvel Movie-verse (MSV or canon)
Pairing/trio/group: Hawkeye, Black Widow, Agent Coulson
Prompt: "Someone has to keep an eye on the world, even over Christmas."
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own the recognizable characters or the universe they live in. I am just borrowing them for the purpose of entertainment. I make no money from this work. I believe this fic is self contained enough that it could be considered either strictly canon or to be set in the MSV continuity. I would rate this fic as PG.
Overtime
“But it’s Christmas.” Clint protested, almost indignant. He stopped lounging in his chair and leaned forward. Wasn’t working for the government supposed to come with all those paid federal holidays that every working stiff in America was supposed to covet?
“Christmas Eve, technically.” Agent Coulson gave them that cool smile of his across the desk. On the center of that desk lay a manila folder. An observant eye might catch a hint of color at its edges. There was a hint of red and green amongst the paler colors. “Someone has to keep an eye on the world, even over Christmas.”
“I can’t recall the last time there was anything worthy of S.H.I.E.L.D’s attention that occurred during the holidays.” Natasha sounded skeptical, but she drew closer to rest one hip on the edge of Coulson’s desk.
“There’s always a first time.” Coulson’s smile didn’t waver. “We’ve just received some intel from what we consider credible sources.”
“We’ll get extra pay for this, right? Seeing as it’s a holiday?” Clint reached for the folder, but Natasha beat him to it. His fingertips barely brushed the edge before she whisked it out of his reach. Clint watched her face as she opened it and began to skim. The Black Widow had a pretty damned good poker face when she needed it. But…
“You can’t be serious.” She dropped the folder back on the desk, letting it fall open so that glossy photos and several large red and green cards embossed with gold lettering spilled across the desk. “This isn’t a job for Hawkeye and the Black Widow. This is…”
“A job for Mary Poppins.” Clint stood and began to flip through the stack, pausing to read the cards. “This is a Christmas party, Coulson. A Christmas party for children. This has got to be the wrong file.”
“I assure you it is not the wrong file.” Coulson’s smile widened slightly as he nudged the pile back into a more orderly arrangement. “These are some rather well-connected children and this is a highly sensitive assignment.”
“If it isn’t a joke, it must be a bet. It is a bet, isn’t it?” Clint was almost pleading. “If you need somebody or something shot, I’m your man. But kids…”
“I really don’t see why this merits our involvement, Agent Coulson.” Natasha frowned at one photo. The little girl did seem vaguely familiar.
“Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. A very highly respected member of the Senate is holding a party for several dozen politicians, diplomats, and even a few heads of state from other countries. They have been encouraged to bring their families and there will be entertainment provided for the children while the adults mingle. Essentially two separate parties. One for the adults and one for the children.”
“So?” Clint was frowning.
“So. Our intel indicates that someone, possibly a Hydra team, possibly another, competing terrorist organization, intends to abduct one or more of these children. To be used as leverage against their loved ones, we assume.”
“So we aren’t sure of who the bad guy is? Or even which child or children are to be targeted?” Natasha summed it up succinctly.
“Exactly. And it is because of the vagueness of the intel that the Secret Service has all but discounted it. They will be concentrating their efforts on protecting the adult attendees.”
“So we get to play babysitter instead?” Clint didn’t try to hide his disgust.
“This will be a delicate mission. The children must be kept safe. But we want to keep it low profile.”
“We don’t want to tip our hand and scare off the mark?” Clint shuffled the photos into a stack and began to seriously study the little faces.
“Or traumatize the children unnecessarily.” Coulson added. “And for that reason, you’ll be going in disguised as someone innocuous.”
“Innocuous?” Natasha raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Someone non-threatening.” Agent Coulson elaborated.
“How non-threatening?” Clint asked, his tone suspicious.
“Very.”
~*~
How do I get myself into these things? Clint rubbed the padding beneath the plush red velvet where his stomach would never, god willing, ever be. The damned suit was hot and itchy. And then there were the kids.
“I’m next!”
“No, I’m next!”
“No way! I got here first.”
“Well, my dad’s a Prime Minister. You’re dad’s just an Undersecretary.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Clint boomed with false cheer, hoping to drown out the bickering. “You there, little boy. Come sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what you want for Christmas.” He gave the redheaded elf a meaningful look as she herded the boy onto the low dais. Natasha rolled her eyes at him before scanning the room over the chubby tyke’s blonde head. Clint grunted as he lifted the child onto his lap.
“What’s your name little boy?” He listened with only half an ear to the boy’s prattle. He had joined Natasha in the constant scanning of the room. Coulson was lost somewhere among the other random adults that hovered around the edges of the large banquet hall. Some of them were servants, some private security, and some were simply the boot-licking hangers on that politicians everywhere tended to collect like this damned Santa costume collected lint.
Child after child trooped up the line and onto the dais. Each one seemed to weigh more than the last. By the time the line wound down, Santa was more than ready for his ‘milk and cookies’ break. So far, the only action he and Natasha had seen was breaking up a fight between a Senator’s daughter and an ambassador’s son. The girl had managed to land an elbow in his gut that was hard enough that he actually felt it through the padding. And he’d almost lost his beard when the boy had grabbed it in the scuffle. He’d had to stop to straighten out his costume before returning to his duties. But Natasha had come through without a single curl or pointed ear out of place.
His break was nearly over when Coulson’s cool voice came through the earpiece hidden beneath the long white wig he wore. “Heads up, people. We have a problem.”
“What’s up?” Clint spoke quietly, trusting the hidden microphone to pick it up. He spared a thought for whoever it was who would have to listen through the recording later. It wouldn’t be him. He’d already listened to it all once, damned if he’d do it twice.
“Our latest head count has come up short.” It was Natasha’s voice in his ear. She’d just appeared out of nowhere. Like magic. “One of the girls didn’t come back out of the bathroom.”
“You checked?”
“She’s gone.” Natasha answered, the cold expression on her face completely at odds with the perky little elf she’d been playing most of the evening. “Anna Lingham, the ambassador’s daughter.”
“Damn it. How?” They were already moving, eyes scanning the crowd, searching for an unguarded exit.
“You haven’t been anywhere near the girl’s bathroom, have you?” Natasha asked quietly.
“No.” Clint shot his partner a look. “Santa hanging around a girl’s bathroom would just be too creepy.”
“Exactly. We should have spotted him sooner.” Coulson’s voice in his ear again. Clint didn’t bother to look for him.
“Where?”
“Has to be the stairwell.” Natasha was pulling ahead of him. Her costume was much better suited to chasing down suspects than his was. No extra padding or itchy fake fur for her. Totally unfair if he stopped to think about it. He didn’t.
“Ladies first.” He held the stairwell door open for her, careful not to present more of a target than he had to. Natasha slipped past him like a liquid red and green shadow, a gun simply appearing in her hand as if from thin air. Clint’s draw wasn’t quite as smooth seeing that his holster was beneath the false belly. But it did the job. He kept the piece down low as he slipped into the stairwell behind her. No need to give some rich kid nightmares about a pistol-packing Santa Claus.
Speaking of pistol-packing Santas - he was just in time to catch a glimpse of another man in a red and white suit turn a corner about three flights below. There was a large heavy sack slung over the other man’s shoulder. Maybe large enough to hold an eight year old girl?
“Confirming stairwell. Bad Santa is on his way down with the package.” He spoke quietly, trusting the mike to catch his voice.
“Floor?” Coulson asked.
“Between fifteen and fourteen, heading down.” Clint added.
“On twelve. We’ll sandwich him.”
Below them, the other Santa cursed in a decidedly unjolly fashion as the stairwell door below him flew open. Coulson eased through the opening just as Natasha vaulted over the railing one flight below Clint to land behind the suspect. A shot rang out, echoing through the stairwell. The shot went wide, carving a chip out of the concrete wall just to the left of the doorway Coulson had just stepped through.
Clint crouched down behind the railing, weapon already raised and trained. The other Santa shrugged, dropping his burden. The sack fell heavily and Natasha aborted the sideswiping kick that would have taken his feet out from under him, changing it into a dive to catch the sack before it could connect with the concrete stairs or roll right beneath the guard rail and into open space. Tasha went down with the sack, cushioning it with her body.
The suspect turned, throwing his back to the wall, shifting his aim toward Natasha. He never completed the motion. Clint’s finger twitched and a small dot of red blossomed between the other Santa’s bushy brown eyebrows. Apparently his costume department hadn’t bothered with the little details. Before the body could even begin to slide down the wall, Clint was moving, pounding down the steps to reach Natasha’s side just as Coulson joined them. Coulson bent over the body to check its pulse. “Dead.”
“I never miss.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“How’s the kid?” Clint asked. Natasha was already dragging the heavy canvas from around the little girl. She was groggy, her limbs slack and her eyes unfocused.
“Santa? Are we still going to the North Pole?”
“Not tonight sweetheart. Blitzen ate too many cookies and he’s got a tummy ache. Maybe next year.”
“Barton.” Natasha gave him a dirty look.
“She probably won’t remember any of this, anyway. So what does it matter?”
“What matters is that Santa’s milk and cookie break was over five minutes ago.” Coulson gestured back up the stairs.
“You’re kidding right? We got the bad Santa, saved the kid. Time to go, right?” Clint stared at him in disbelief.
“He might not have been working alone.” Natasha handed the sleepy girl over to Coulson. “We’d better get back in there.”
“And I thought the big guy had it easy, working just one night a year.” Clint sighed heavily and adjusted his padded belly before holstering his pistol. “I guess a Santa’s work is never done.”